S.3335 Renewable Energy Tax Credit bill

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 10, 2008 at 8:02am

Why do Pubs hate this bill so much? Why is there a competing Pub bill that no Dem will support? Why can't some middle ground folks take out the solar/conservation parts and co-sponsor a bill that the polarized right and left can support?

Enlighten me. Both the existing bills are piled on with objectionable fluff.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 10, 2008 at 11:58am

David asked: Don't be obtuse, what do you think is the objectionable fluff in the American Energy Act?

Answer:
We do not need more holes drilled offshore, in ANWAR, or much anyplace else. Even Pick does not see more than 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent from new drilling in US waters or on land. Tell the oil boys to use the leases they have first. Half of the available leases are still undeveloped. Pick sees the gas. I don't. The shale technology is not yet commercially proven, however promising, but it does not need federal help. Gas utilities are doing quite well, thank you very much. Separate all the oil, gas, and coal stuff from the renewables. Vote on them up or down separately. If you want coal plants, coal mines, and nukes, you plant our renewable bodies in a deeper hole. The nuke boys are not renewable technology advocates. There's plenty of nuke fuel in the 10,000 nuke warheads that sit around scaring people. Use them first in the 100 GWe of power plants we are still subsidizing.

The AEA is not a middle ground bill. It's a giveaway to those who don't need it. The Dem's bill is probably too non-energy to rate an energy bill's name. It, too, should be separated.

I'm not a fan of Omnibus bills. These both reek.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 10, 2008 at 1:27pm

David:
We (the solar/conservation engineers and scientists) were victimized by this bunch back in '81 and '82. I don't want a repeat. I simply don't agree with you. The AEA is a bad bill.

You asked:
"We do not need more holes drilled." Prove it with math!
-- I simply state what Pick said: "There's only 10 billion barrels there," which at 22 million barrels a day here at home will last about how long? Just over a decade? Who cares?
"Pick sees the gas. I don't". Again where don't you see it. Show me the citations!
--Look them up. Shale gas is promising, just not commercially (TCF/month yields?) Also, there are no large gas pipelines in the Northeast. It will take over a decade to provide them any gas.
"Gas utilities are doing quite well." What are you talking about?
--These are guaranteed profit, wealthy utilities. Billions. Let them pay for shale gas development. Why should the government?
There's plenty of nuke fuel in the 10,000 nuke warheads. How long will the warheads last as fuel at current rates of consumption in 104GW of existing nuke plants? Show it with math.
Ten thousand warheads with 15 kg of 90% enriched uranium and plutonium fuel can be cut 30:1 to make 4.5 million kg of enriched fuel. A typical reactor burns 10 MT per year, about 10,000 kg. That's 450 reactor-years. That's a nice subsidy: four and a half years of free fuel. Add it to the billions a year they get now. Enough already!

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 11, 2008 at 7:22am

David:
I want a bill that is strictly designed for alternative energy from renewables. I do not support any bill that is designed to keep the US on the wrong path.
I consider the middle ground as that which both parties accept. They both want lip service to solar and wind, then ACCEPT IT!

We have enough trouble already. Every penny wasted on bailouts of corporations that build SUVs, bankers who no longer bank but gamble on hedge funds and "mortgage securities" and who are predatory lenders, and an oil industry that we relied upon back in the '70s to save us from OPEC (and who have now left us 70% dependent on them), is an abomination.
As far as oil goes, US Energy Policy is and has been clear for the last forty years:

DRAIN ARABIA FIRST!

Screw 'em. They have all the money already. Let them take the risk of their failures.

Pick at least wants a cleaner solution that will break some of the oil habit. Gore's proposal would need all of the available capital that this country can glean from the rest of the world to implement. Both are worthy of discussion and merit something more than lip service. The sell out proposed in the AEA to our fossilized brethren does not merit any sane person's support.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 12, 2008 at 6:41am

David,
While I feel that a little emotion goes a long way to make a point, the point should be able to stand on its own merits.

Today's editorial in the Washington Post reflects my sentiments about separating the renewable energy tax credits from the other stuff and passing that bill immediately. Dems and Pubs cannot agree on the fossil fuel portions and have not seen eye to eye in recent memory on anything important that wasn't based upon fear and revenge.

Here is that text:

Washington Post

Out of Gas
Partisan sniping keeps Congress from getting anything done on energy.

Friday, September 12, 2008; A14

CONGRESS expended a lot of energy debating how to solve the energy crisis before running off for summer recess for five weeks. It ended up accomplishing nothing. Now Congress is back and seemingly ready for more of the same. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will present an energy bill next week that would expand offshore drilling. But Republicans rejected the legislation on the basis of the outlines Ms. Pelosi released Tuesday. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) will hold hearings today with an eye to bringing energy bills to a vote sometime next week. But don't expect anything to happen.

Blame partisanship -- that is, the inability to take yes for an answer for fear it would hand your opponents a victory. The presidential campaign will only make this problem worse as Democrats and Republicans posture for voters back home in a vain attempt to look as if they're doing something about the pain at the pump.

That's not to say there aren't members of Congress working hard on these issues.

Since June, for instance, the bipartisan "Gang of 20" in the Senate has tried to bridge the differences between Democrats and Republicans to reach a compromise on broad energy legislation. It is sorely needed. The energy crisis facing the United States and the questions about how to address it without exacerbating global warming require a comprehensive approach that will include expanded offshore drilling, nuclear power and increased reliance on wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy. Until Congress can find the political courage to make tough decisions, such legislation will never become a reality.

That kind of courage is in short supply on Capitol Hill. But there is something Congress can do before it adjourns around the end of this month: extend the production tax credit, which expires at the end of the year. The credit is critical for such nascent renewable-energy industries as wind and solar power. An extension would offer investors a measure of predictability and help make these enterprises commercially viable. Approval of an extension would also be for Congress an accomplishment that would give its talk about the need for energy independence the ring of truth."

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 13, 2008 at 6:59am

My postings on the Ridgecrest Project are a case for solar as part of the solution. If you read the design features of that system, you will see the secret to a successful application in Balance with Nature at every corner.

The Ridgecrest Project

This project provides 10,000 green jobs, food processing to feed 3 million people, enough power for a population of a half-million, and fresh drinking water for the community.
Not bad for an old Army fossil, huh?

The MITRE work is a landmark study, but it is protected by copyright. I cannot post it on the Web. It must be purchased through NTIS and/or MITRE.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 13, 2008 at 10:19am

David,
Big picture: We need to renovate or replace 90 GWe of nukes over the next ten years -- over 90% of the 96 GWe left, since they are all now reaching old age. They were built between 1969 and 1979. Nothing new was built here since then, and they have a 40-yr design life. Cost: over a trillion dollars. Is it worth it? You do the math.

Big picture: Wind has a poor geographic distribution and a lousy load factor. Wind blows when it blows. We need to find a flywheel (storage of some kind) to iron out the output. Until then, wind is whistling in the wind and cannot be relied upon as baseload or peaking for the utilities.

Nearly 5 million fossil fuel workers will be displaced as oil production and gas distribution is weaned from fossil to renewable sources. Most of these folks will be happy to know that solar, wind, and ocean power will be needing all of them, their children, and their children's children in the endeavor for many decades.

Power towers are only likely to be fully economical in the six states of the SW US. These are California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Colorado is possible, too.

Plant siting depends upon a host of factors. The most important are: water availability, solid ground strata, seismic stability, air quality, flat ground at the site, transportation accessibility, labor force availability, and amenability of the neighbors. There's a bunch more, but I can't address all the factors of an environmental impact assessment here.

The SW Utilities are burning a great deal of oil and gas right now. Their nukes are getting old. Coal is not easy to site, especially in CA. Solar Thermal Repowering using the Ridgecrest design is a very adaptable substitute for their problems and their utility mix. It fits their power consumption, too. Peak demand comes on sunny days in the afternoon and early evening. That's when the power towers really put out. Co-locating with existing fossil plants, where possible, allows their busbar equipment and transmission lines to be shared.

The best answer for cars is to switch to hybrids. I'm pushing for ammonia fueled turbodiesels to go with plug-in hybrids, and trucks to switch to ammonia diesels. Ammonia is about a dollar a gallon, equal to $2.50 a dallon for diesel fuel (it has 40% of energy by volume of gas/diesel). We don't have to power the interstates.

High voltage transmission lines now link the Pacific Northwest to California and points east. Texas still closes its utility grid to the rest of America. This practice has to be stopped. The lines need to be opened to the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast. Line losses are about 10% per thousand miles. If you have nothing left, like the Northeast, going with a 30% loss may be acceptable. Solar insolation there is half or less what it is in CA. 5MW windmills may not provide more than 20% of the power they need in that region and hardly ever when they need it. They sorely need transportation and heating fuels.

If you calculate the available high grade solar energy in California's desert regions alone, it is five times that of all of the energy needs of the US. The six state areas have enormous potential.

Ocean power may provide a superior solution for all the corners of America if the plants are placed in the Gulf and moored near the existing underwater piping network under the offshore platform sites (but in deep water). They need a thousand meter depth for their cooling water. The potential there is sufficient to replace the entire lost baseload from the aging nukes.

Geothermal applications are economic where they make sense -- where you get steam from the earth. Some of what is seen here and called geothermal is really solar. Heat pumps that use local groundwater merely improve their performance, but require a great deal of electricity.

The nuke legacy is one of bankrupcy and despair. The Faustian Bargain (see other posts) is just part of the story. They have become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

See if the NTIS at DOC (Commerce) has the MITRE documents. Search under P.A. Curto, Frank Eldridge, Kathy Rebibo, Grant Miller, Norman Lord, Harvey Abelson, Gerald Bennington, Richard Manley, and others I am sorry to say I have forgotten after 30 years. I gave you the main titles.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 13, 2008 at 12:53pm

I'll look over the docs, but they make an incredible number of questionable assumptions. Give me some time.
One, that nukes only need $30 per kW for upgrades, goes beyond ludicrous. They cost over 3 times that just for O&M today.
Solar thermal in Missouri would have to be troughs because of the high atmospheric dust and humidity loads, frequent violent storms with hail and high winds, and frequent partly cloud cover conditions. Power towers would be tough. 30% efficiencies are not possible with solar thermal of either genre. It's a law of thermodynamics impossibility. PV can do it, in the lab. Nobody has done it on any scale outside the lab. It's a materials science and packaging issue that has not been solved.
Troughs can go at 10% in the real world. Main reason: single axis tracking. You can do better with dishes (2 axis), but the piping and power conversion costs are much higher. That means costs per kW capacity would be in the $6000 range in MO. O&M costs for solar troughs are mostly for cleaning and piping repairs. The electromechanical equipment is about the same as O&M for gas and steam turbines. This should be about 1% of the capital cost each year for the solar thermal options.
PV would be much less for O&M, since all the equipment is solid state and all the maintenance is just cleaning and occasional repairs due to wind damage. I would guess that 0.3% would be a reasonable guess.

My major criticism of the piece: Naive assumptions but interesting approach. Plug in new numbers.

The Kyoto Protocol is going to place a real crowbar in the works for your analysis.
Global scope: Coal, methane, gasoline, and oil may be banned in every country, in our lifetime, in the interest of global security.

I know that no one wants to hear this, especially here. We may not have too many options.

Wind, solar, and ocean may be the only options, barring some miracle.

I'll keep on looking at this, in the interest and spirit of a peer reviewer for a colleague. I meant no disrespect on the nuke issue. It's just that there's a reason that no nukes were built since 1979. They are not economic, not at all.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 13, 2008 at 6:00pm

I think that your method is deceptively simple and linear, while rational.

I remember that at MITRE we actually used cost performance models and engineering analysis at a remarkable depth, scientific analysis of atmosphere, ocean topography, temperature, and salinity, thorough analysis of all known materials for design and construction of all energy systems (the nukes were the toughest by far, demanding the world's best consultants, like Greeley, Barbier, and Teller). We considered nuclear fuel cycle analysis, net energy analysis, consumer prices, oil, gas, coal, and uranium price projections, utility financing schemes, cyclical economic condition scenarios, and the most advanced market penetration models ever conceived. It was an amalgam of political, social, economic, military, technological, psychological, and scientific factors in a massive Fortran simulation on the most powerful computers of the day.

I had 35 PhDs working under me just to do the engineering and science. What you will see in the reports is just the results of the analyses, not what lay beneath. It was beyond mere sophistication. It was elegant and prescient.

We never considered that Man was so self-destructive that wars would be fought over diminishing fossil fuels. Such stupidity was inconceivable. Who knew?

David, the world of Man is non-linear, discontinuous, and chaotic in behavior. Nature is also nonstationary as well as nonlinear. There are no equations which accurately map so many independent variables in this type of Hilbert Space.

You have just as much chance predicting the future as you would employing random variables with Monte Carlo Theory or Chaos Theory. It's a WAG.

The one thing it ain't is rational.

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