Reinventing Energy in the 21st Century

Dr. William J. Makofske

Professor Emeritus, Ramapo College

FDU University, ISE/CHRMS

November 21, 2008

Why Do We Have to Reinvent Energy?

Why Renewable Energy?• Huge amount of energy available

• A 5 billion year lifetime

• Drastically cleaner than non-renewables

• Widely distributed around the planet

• Many technologies available and affordable

• R&D providing even more options

• Decentralized technology-more jobs and security

• Non-renewable energy is rapidly depleting, and is destroying the planet.

Renewable Energy Solves the Problems Created by Non-Renewable Energy

• Balance of trade deficit from oil• Cost of military to provide oil security• Relative security of decentralized energy systems• Escalating price and competition for non-

renewable energy sources• Pollution health impacts and costs substantially

reduced• Global warming threatens trillion dollar losses to

the US economy• Creates efficient infrastructure, manufacturing and

many millions of jobs

What are some renewable energy options?

• Solar – passive, active, photovoltaic, solar hot water, concentrating thermal

• Wind – small scale, large scale (wind farms)

• Hydro – small scale, large scale

• Biomass – wood, waste, crops

• Ocean – OTEC, tidal, wave, current

• Geothermal – power plants, district and GH heating, heat pumps

Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation

• Efficiency refers to technological measures that improve the efficiency of conversion. They are typically done once.

• Conservation refers to lifestyle actions that reduce energy use. They typically must be repeated.

What are some efficiency and conservation options?

• EFFICIENCY• CHP – combined heat and

power (cogeneration)• Lighting (fluorescent, CF)• Electric motors• Appliance efficiency• Automotive efficiency• Airplane efficiency• Building envelope

• LIFESTYLE

• Carpooling

• Temperature reduction (winter)

• Temperature increases (summer)

• Trip consolidation

• Shorter showers

• Recycling materials

Interdisciplinary View Critical

EvaluateScience and Technology

Economics

Environmental Impacts

Social/Political/Global Impacts

We must realize we need to take a systems approach to our analysis.

So What’s the Problem Today?

• We are not changing our inefficient infrastructure fast enough!

• We are not integrating renewable energy options and efficiency to effectively reinforce each other!

• Most of all, we are not changing our thinking fast enough!

Cross Section of Solar Cell

Recent Breakthroughs• Net metering

• Mass production

• PV Roof/Building integrated technologies

• New PV technologies

- multi-junction, concentrators, thin films,

- plastics, nano-technology

• Higher efficiencies

• Incentive programs

• New inverter technology

Net Metering can be done with or without a battery backup

PV Price and Quantity Manufactured Relationship

Solar Roofing Shingles

Roof Integrated Photovoltaics in Misawi, Japan

Roof Integrated PV in Japan

PV Installation in Planned Community in Germany

Solar CarportNavy Installation – San Diego, California

BP Installation on their Gas Station

FALA Factory Roof InstallationFarmingdale, LI, NY

Note the number of other roofs

Solar Cells Installed in Building Facade

PV Potential

• Existing roofs could provide all the energy that we currently use in the US. Decentralized use eliminates vast expenditures for transmission lines and provides security.

• Less than 100 square miles could provide all the electricity use in the US

Windpower• Fastest growing energy source in the world

• Wind farm prices compete with fossil fuels

• Small or large scale applications

• Grid or not grid connected

• Few environmental impacts

• Site specific resource but plentiful

• Few aesthetic, noise, bird/bat concerns

Bergey WindpowerNorman, OK

BWC Excel10 kW

1 kW

On-Grid Home with Wind System

• Charlotte, VT, net metering for utility bill reduction

• Bergey Excel wind turbine, 23 ft rotor, 10 kW

• GridTek inverter240 VACsingle-phase

• 1.4 kW PV array

• Installed in 1999

Small Wind Economics in New Jersey60% Buy-Down and Net Metering

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Electric Rate, ¢/kWh

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9.0 mph (Class 1)

10.7 mph (Class 2)

Residential Electric Rates

for New Jersey

IOUs

US Wind Resource Map

Wind Farm in Vermont

Wind Farm in California

Wind Farm - Hawaii

Hydropower

• In the U.S, hydropower provides 8-10% of the total electricity, but 81% of the renewable electricity generated.

• The U.S. has 75,400 MW of installed hydro capacity, (half of its total hydro potential), and about 21,000 MW of pumped hydro storage for peaking.

Hydro Facility at St. Anthony’s, Mississippi

Water Turbine Technology

Hydro Potential

• Small-scale hydro (< 30 MW) may be able to contribute considerable energy to the grid since many existing dams may be retrofitted to produce electricity. There would be little additional environmental impact.

• Only 860 out of 6,356 large dams, and only 2744 out of 75,200 dams in the US, produce electricity.

Hydro Pumped StorageOffers possibilities to store renewably-generated electricity from intermittent sources like solarand wind. Why not use any existing dam for renewable energy storage?

Tidal and Ocean Power

Current Power

Tidal Turbines in NY

Wave Power

Geothermal EnergyTHREE MAJOR TYPES

• Power from large facilities that produce electricity. (Red)

• Large-scale geothermal heating from areas that have warmer water close to the surface.(Orange)

• Geothermal heating and cooling for buildings.(White)

Geothermal Power Plant

Geo-Thermally Heated Greenhouse

Geothermal District Heating

Geothermal Heat Pump

Geothermal Heat Pump Configurations

Geothermal Heat Pumps Are Not a Panacea

• Most cost effective if used for heating and cooling• Installed household cost may be $30,000 or more.• Most easily done with new construction. • Electricity still needed to run the pumps. A COP

of 3 and a power plant efficiency of 30% provides little savings of fossil fuels. Emissions now come from coal electricity plants. Electrical cost to run pumps may be high.

• Not all sites are easily fitted with ground or well-based heat transfer coils

Biomass

• Currently supplies 3% of all energy in US, but 47% of all renewable energy(wood, hydro major source)

• Globally, biomass provides 14% of all energy consumption.

• Biomass consists of wastes (agricultural and forestry waste, waste vegetable oils, and municipal solid wastes) and field and forestry crops (such as trees, grasses, corn, wheat, soybeans)

• Claims made for producing potentially 30% of total energy in the US.

Examples of Worldwide Use of Biomass

• Ethanol from sugar in Brazil

• Wood for cooking in many LDC’s

• Dung for cooking in India

• Manures used for biogas production

• Forestry wastes in Sweden

• Biodiesel in Europe

• Charcoal production from forests

Some Biomass Examples in US

• Corn to ethanol

• Soybeans to biodiesel

• Trees to wood pellets or direct combustion

• Manure to methane or biogas

• Vegetable oil waste to biodiesel

• Municipal solid waste to methane

• Municipal solid waste to electricity

Biomass Gasification Plant

Biomass Limitations

• 20% of US area is cropland; 30% woodland• Collection of diffuse sources of biomass• Fossil fuel inputs into production of

biomass• Competition with other uses of biomass• Environmental consequences – overuse of

soils, pesticide contamination, fertilizer runoff, water use, biodiversity loss

Biomass Policy

• Local wastes to be used for local consumption• Minimize fossil fuel inputs• Maximize net energy• Minimize air pollution• Minimize greenhouse gases• Provide economic benefit• Minimize systemic impacts – food, exports and

health

Where Do We Start?• Efficiency is almost always cheaper than supply

• Reduce demand through lifestyle changes with energy conservation

• New renewable supply? Which ones and how much, how quickly?

• Little time to turn around GHG emissions

• Systemic impacts are very important.

• Motivation – Will we recognize the urgency of the problem in time? Will we act in time?

History – Previous Failures Government programs for new energy

technologies don’t have a very good record!

• Nuclear power(1950’s) – too cheap to meter

• Fusion power (1940’s) – still 50 years away

• Synthetic fuels (1970’s) – provide cheap oil

• Alternately Fueled Vehicles (1980’s) - how many?

• The Diesel Hybrid (1990’s) – where is it?

• Are we about to add ethanol, new nuclear power and hydrogen to the list?

Ethanol

• Produced from corn• 1.4 billion gallons (1998) to 8 billion

gallons (projected 2008). Bush goal to 35 billion gallons by 2017 (10 fold over current production)

• By 2017, it could replace 13-15% of gasoline but will require 30% of all cropland.

Corn for Transportation

Achieve Petroleum Independence?

• If we were to go beyond the 2017 goal to produce 50 billion gallons of ethanol per year, we would need half of all farmland, and would displace about 1.6 mbd (million barrels per day of oil). We would reduce our our dependence by 1.6/21 or 7.6%. Our projected increase in consumption by then would exceed this.

Good for the Economy and Consumers?

• Ethanol is so heavily subsidized that it will wind up costing well over $10 per gallon.

• $5 billion subsidy to grow corn

• $11.8 billion subsidy to produce ethanol

• $3 billion local, state, tariff subidies

• $14 billion food cost increase

• $2.5 billion blending tax credit

So What is the Cost of Ethanol?• Over a year, we will expend at least 36.5

billion dollars to produce about 5 billion gallons of ethanol.

• $36.5 billion/5 billion gallons = $7.30 per gallon. Plus you will still spend $2.50 or $3 per gallon to buy it.

• The ethanol is a great boon to corn farmers, to the ethanol manufacturers, and to the car manufacturers.

Good for the Environment?

• Ethanol use will lead to an increase of perhaps 7% in NOx and VOC’s (air pollution – ground level ozone and increase in GHG’s)

• Net energy is small because of the large fossil fuel inputs into agriculture and ethanol production

• Environmental impacts will be large

What Is the Hydrogen Economy?

• An oxymoron?• Hydrogen is not an energy source• Hydrogen is locked up chemically in water,

biomass, natural gas and petroleum. It takes as much energy to release the hydrogen as you could possibly get back (First Law of Thermodynamics). Because of energy losses, you will not get back as much energy as you put in.

What Is an Energy Carrier?• A form of energy that is an intermediary in an

energy transformation• Electricity is the most used energy carrier today.

Gasoline, methanol, ethanol are carriers too. Hydrogen is a energy carrier.

• Desirable characteristics - easily transported, can be made from many sources of energy, easily transformed to useful end use forms of energy, easily stored

Hydrogen Economy

• A society where hydrogen is used extensively, being produced from energy sources, stored, distributed and then converted to other useful forms of energy (like electricity, mechanical kinetic energy, and thermal energy). In a hydrogen economy, hydrogen is an important intermediate form of energy in the energy conversion system.

The Hydrogen Energy System

• The hydrogen “system” must consist of at least 4 parts. It is a major infrastructure change.

• Source of Hydrogen

• Storage of Hydrogen

• Distribution of Hydrogen

• Conversion of Hydrogen

The Source of Hydrogen?

• Initially, demand for H will be small so large centralized systems could not be built. But we could have

• merchant H gas (from reforming)• Decentralized reforming of natural gas• Decentralized electrolysis of water• Ultimately, more centralized systems might

be cheaper once demand is high

Possible Storage Technologies

• Compressed H gas cylinders

• Liquefaction of H

• Metal hydrides

• While these methods have been used with test vehicles, many doubt that these will be suitable for consumers.

• Carbon container storage?? A possibility

Transporting Hydrogen

Indirectly:Transport natural gas and reform to HUse electricity and electrolyze H Directly:Truck H in pressurized containers or as a

cryogenic fluidTransport by hydrogen pipeline (best with

centralized production schemes)

Fuel Cell Properties

• electrochemical• compact (1MW=14 m3)• high electrical efficiency• no pollution• converts H to water, heat

and electricity• DC voltage production• scalable to any size

Fuel Cell Module

• Ballard Fuel Cell

2006 Fuel Cell Vehicles

• City 62 mi/kg• Hwy 51 mi/kg• Range 190 miles• 80 KW DC Motor• PEM Fuel Cell• Ultra Capacitor 9.2

farad energy storage• Lease Only - 50 states

Fuel Cell Bus

Barriers to Hydrogen Economy

• Technical - development of technology at a scale consistent with the scale of the energy system (small-scale decentralized, large- scale centralized, or some combination)

• Economic - mass production costs, existing and historical energy subsidies

• Social/Political - obstacles to change and new infrastructure, vested interests

• Alternatives – EV, hybrid EV

Nuclear Power – The Solution?

Nuclear Power - Fission

• 103 nuclear plants currently produce about 18% of U.S. electricity

• No new nuclear plants have been ordered in the U.S. for the last 30 years

• Because nuclear plants do not directly put out CO2, nuclear expansion is sometimes claimed to be a clean, emissions-free climate solution

• Substantial Federal subsidies are now being offered to build new nuclear plants

Long-Standing Obstacles to NuclearPower Expansion

• Cost – the most expensive way to generate electricity

• Radioactive waste – disposal issues unresolved• Accident potential – reactor accidents could

release significant radioactivity• Nuclear Proliferation – nuclear power and nuclear

weapons development interconnected• Economic risk – inability to finance reactors• Uranium fuel cycle – numerous impacts from

mining, pollution• Uranium resource – limited supplies unless

breeder reactors are used generating plutonium

Nuclear Power Growth

Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Corrected U Fuel Cycle

Fuel Assembly Plants

Uranium Enrichment Facility

Depleted Uranium Waste

Centrifuge Enrichment Plant

Reprocessing Facility- Sellafeld, UK

Spent Fuel Storage Pond

Low Level Radioactive Waste

High Level Radioactive Waste

Is Nuclear Power a Solution to the Global Warming Issue?

• Expensive - Money invested in nuclear could provide much greater CO2 reductions invested elsewhere

• Bypasses the free market system so need massive public investment

• Highly risky since any of the long standing problems could derail its development

• Nuclear power is not clean or climate-friendly if you look at the entire uranium fuel cycle

2.4 KW System under Installation in New Hampshire

Pole Mounted PV

59 KW Installation of 5600 ft2 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

The Greenpoint, NY Building

Micro-Siting Example:Obstruction of the Wind by a Building or a

Tree

Prevailing wind

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2H 20H

2HRegionof highlydisturbed

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