{^_^}

davod on August 6, 2008 at 4:07 PM

I recently had an interesting conversation with one of the current vp’s of the company I retired from. The discussion was centered around new construction for generating plants and fuel sources. We were talking about the vast coal reserves in the West and Midwest and I mentioned that a lot of that coal was high sulfur. He told me that technology has advanced so far and so fast in that area that this was no longer an issue and that emissions and pollution control in general wasn’t a problem any longer. It appears that someone will find a way to paint any advancement as an ecological disaster waiting to happen.

This, in a country which has vast reserves of brown coal.

Romeo13 on August 6, 2008 at 3:39 PM

Career politicians have to pander to the mob to keep their jobs. It takes something like $4 a gallon gas to get the mob grumbling then they’ll listen. Most people think electricity just magically appears at their wall sockets they have no idea what actually goes into getting it to their homes. Same with gasoline, it just appears in those gas stations. You said we used more energy driving than we use as electricity, I’m not sure about that, didn’t check your numbers. Sounds plausible though given the transportation needs of our society. The important thing is that they are both very big numbers no matter what units you put after them. The answer is drill for more oil, start mining coal, and start building nukes. Oil is used for almost everything in our lives. I don’t think many people realize just how pervasive it is. Gasoline is only one product out of many. We either have to find more oil or we have to come up with a totally new method of manufacturing stuff. Perhaps we could come up with those spiffy mass/energy converters they use on Star Trek I think they were called replicators.

Oldnuke on August 6, 2008 at 3:21 PM

Yep… gotta come from somewhere, which is why I started to wonder about the transportation numbers in the first place…

I really don’t think ANY of these politicians have had any of this explained to them. They rely on people who really don’t seem to have any clue about the problem…

We currently use MORE energy per day driving than we use ELECTRICITY nationwide… now just how in the HECK are they going to replace the energy we get from oil?

Thats the fly in the ointment, as it were… and the BIG question NONE of them are willing to answer.

MarkTheGreat on August 6, 2008 at 2:26 PM

First I never called you an idiot. I said your were in error on one particular point using rather coarse language, for which I later apologized. I don’t even think you’re an idiot. I think you’re passionate about what you believe in. I actually agree with most of your positions. You were still wrong on that one issue.

I have no idea where you got your data in any of the above posts and the only ones I’d care to comment on would be the things I actually know something about. Efficiency of boilers (as opposed to the entire power plnat cycle) is done by calculating the amount of BTU in the fuel per unit time compared to the BTU released in combustion. It usually runs in the 98% range. Plant efficiency is calculated by using BTU input at the heat source compared to BTU out of the generator. For a nuke plant (PWR) that’s in the neighborhood of 32% Fossil plants are a little more efficient but don’t approach 50% I’d be surprised if they were over 35%. The last time I ran an efficiency on a fossil plant was around 1976 and I really don’t remember what the numbers were. The rest of your efficiency numbers I have no idea about some of them seem Ok some a little high but I don’t really know. I don’t really have any idea about how you’d figure the efficiency of an automobile. How would you factor in idling time, wind resistance etc. I guess you could pick an optimum cruising speed and plug the numbers in for that environment. In any case the point is that energy is energy and it’s gotta come from somewhere. Just changing the source doesn’t reduce consumption it just has to come from soemwhere else.

I won’t even go into The China Syndrome suffice it to say that any operator could have safely shut the plant down from outside the control room in a very short time.

0.17 to 0.37 kW·h/mi

From Wiki… don’t know how reliable… so lets go backwards… .27Kw.h/mi would be average…. today…. soo…

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/08maytvt/08maytvt.xls

says we drive about 2,966,431 million miles a year…

divide by 365 is 8,127 Million miles per day…

times .27 KwHr/mile is 2,194 MILLION Kw Hrs… but thats for existing cars like the Tesla… which I sure can’t fit 6 passengers and a dog in… let alone a Mac truck…

Sorry, I’m working from a data sheet that I put together 15 years ago back when I was participating in several newsgroups on the subject.

I may have been giving the EC heads the benefit of the doubt and just assuming the motor would be operating at cruising speed most of the time, which should be designed to be close to it’s most efficient speed.

MarkTheGreat on August 6, 2008 at 2:20 PM

Could you give me a source for Electric motor efficiency? I can’t seem to find one… but…

I seem to remember back from my Navy days that electric motors are only really efficient if they are designed for a static load and RPM… the further you get from that, the lower the efficiency is… ranging from a very low of 30%, up to 90%…

Problem is that we are talking cars here, who will have both a variable load, and different RPMs depending on speed…

But the real point is, just where is this doubling or more of the electric grid going to come from?

Thats what you need to ask the Dems… and throw NUMBERS at them, because their platitudes are STUPID in the face of the numbers.

In the movie, the earthquake that everyone feared hit. The cooling lines break. Then the plants safeties kick in, and safely shut the plant down. As they were designed to do.

No meltdown.
No huge disaster.

Are you friggin nuts?

The only sane policy is to let each form of energy sink or swim on it’s own. If it’s not cost effective, let it die. Don’t demand someone else’s money to keep your favorite alternative alive.

One thing I didn’t include in the above figures was the efficiency of the boilers used in electric plants.
Working from memory and old data, these boilers tend to be 40 to 50% efficient.

So adding that into the figures from the previous post.

Internal combustion engines (IC’s) are around 30% efficient.
Electric cars (EC’s) around 20 to 25% efficient.

Assuming the same mix of power generation that we have today, electric cars will result in more CO2 being put into the atmosphere than IC cars.

(Of course since hydro-electric is pretty much tapped out in the US, and until they start letting us build more nukes, in reality, any new power plants are going to be coal.)

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_wpsup_k_w.htm

Kilowatt hour to oil barrel conversion?

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/cvisco/page75.htm

Electricity generation?

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/RecentTotalElectricGeneration.xls

Scary, very scary. Just have to be careful as Electricity Gen is total per year… while oil is talked about in barrels per day.

You forgot to include diesel, and perhaps natural gas in with the gasoline.

Additionally, you only included the chemical potential of gasoline and the power produced at the plant for electricity.

Last time I checked, IC engines only got about 30% of the energy available in the fuel to the road. Newer cars do better, but I don’t know how much better.

Let’s just assume that 550kW of the oils potential actually gets realized.

On the electricity side (these numbers are a little out of date, so if oldnuke wants to provide newer numbers rather than just declaring I’m an idiot, please provide)

Transportation of electricity from plant to wall socket 80 to 90% efficient.
Converting electricity from AC to DC and from wall voltage to charging voltage. around 90% efficient.
Charging battery. around 90% efficient.
Discharging batter. around 90% efficient.
Converting DC to AC, (every system that I’ve seen uses AC motors, not DC) 90%
Motor efficiency – 90%

Let’s say that on average 45-50% of the electricity produced by the power plant makes it the wheels of an electric car.

This is better than the 30% that I quoted for automobiles.

So just counting gasoline, we would need to more than double our total capacity in order to go all electric.

(BTW, because the batteries are so heavy, EC’s are a lot heavier than IC’s)

Someone please check my numbers… I knew that transportation was inherently not efficient… but… if the numbers are this bad we have no CHOICE but to keep drilling.

Romeo13 on August 6, 2008 at 1:20 PM

Where did you get your numbers from????

GHowever if BHO energy plan and smart electric monitoring takes hold I see massive movement “off grid” as people flee the government imposed thermostat settings.

Price will not be an issue. electricity generation free of government involement will make people pay mor efor their electricity just to have the freedom to set their A/C’s whatever they want to.

Democrat plan:
Jump blindly into the abyss, hope we invent a parachute before the “Splat!”

Rodent on August 6, 2008 at 12:14 PM

Plan, mission, motto and sole strategy. They discontinue the reasoning process after their hot buttons are pushed.

Will Americans wake up in time to prevent this from happening here?

At this stage, the evidence forces us to the conclusion: almost certainly, no.

Given that not one American in a thousand understands that nuclear power — even in the hobbled fashion it is currently delivered — is safe, economic, and environmentally benign, the odds are slim.

Just ask, for example, the people of Nevada, who still fear opening Yucca mountain.

Fortunately, attitudes can change in very unexpected ways, very suddenly.

1 Barrel of oil = 1640.8 kilowatt hours

US used 9,468,000 barrels per day 7/25/08 for motor gasoline.

Or 15,535,094,400 Kilowatt hours equivalent in gasoline for transportation, PER DAY, or 15.5 Billion Kilowatt hours per day.

Total electricity generated by US in 2006, 4059 BILLION Kilowatt hours,

Or 11.12 Billion Kilowatt hours per day.

So, we would have to increase electricity generation by a factor of about 140% to meet our transportation requirements by going to all electric.

Someone please check my numbers… I knew that transportation was inherently not efficient… but… if the numbers are this bad we have no CHOICE but to keep drilling.

[T]hey want to undo the mandate that will leave their economy in a shambles or will force them to use high-polluting generation to make up the gap. Will Americans wake up in time to prevent this from happening here?

It already has. We’ve been phasing out nuclear energy since Three Mile Island. Ditto for hydro.

NoDonkey on August 6, 2008 at 12:02 PM
Dusty on August 6, 2008 at 12:16
PMBrat on August 6, 2008 at 12:22 PM

History channel has a “megadisasters” episode called “glow train” about a waste train blowing up on the way to Yucca Mtn.
Pitiful, pathetic, propaganda. I saw it maybe a month ago, last thing I’ve watched on History channel.