Supplemental Plan To The Pickens Plan - It's time to power up this movement!

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Comment by neil cox on October 17, 2008 at 11:43pm

Domestic Renewable Energy Plan ~For 2018~ ~My coments are enclosed with a~
Supplemented by:
12% Natural Gas ~desirable, but will produce opposition from the powerful natural gas industry. Near term I suggest we think 22%. The NG industry is likely capable of 25% though 2018 without imports~
29% Oil

Electrical ------------------------------ 176.5%
Large Wind farms ------------------------ 18.0%
Single Large Wind Turbines -------------- 1.5%
Remote small/med Wind ------------------- 0.5%
>>>>>Wind Subtotal ---------------------- 20.0%
Large PV projects, remote --------------- 1.0%
Distributed PV, grid tied, no storage --- 2.5%
Dist. PV, off grid ---------------------- 0.4%
Dist. PV,grid tied w/storage ------------ 0.1%
>>>>PV Subtotal ------------------------- 4.0%
Large CSP Solar plants ------------------ 12.0% ~That would require the manufacture of about one million times one million square meters of heliostats. I don't think we have built the first million square meters 1960 though 2008, world wide. Hopefully most of the 999,000,000,000 square meters of heliostats = steerable mirrors would be built in the USA by 2025 perhaps?~
Large CSP solar w/storage --------------- 4.0% ~which storage method are you thinking?~
Dist. Comm scale CHCP w/storage --------- 15.0% ~similar to the problem with CSP, more than 1000 times scale up of production is needed in the USA. Perhaps by 2025~
Dist Solar Thermal, DHW & solar cooling - 13.0%
Dist. Solar Thermal, CHCP w/storage ----- 20.0% ~ I don't think there are presently enough favorable solar locations. We should not destroy billions of trees to remove shade from roof tops. Many roofs, not presently shaded by trees, will be heavily shaded by 2018) New construction in our deserts could add 3% by 2025~
>>>>Solar Thermal subtotal -------------- 64.0%
Hydro (current) ------------------------- 9.0%
Biomass --------------------------------- 3.0%
Natural Gas Backup ---------------------- 5.0% ~we will get opposition from the profitable gas turbine industry if we cut back that much~
Vehicle-2-Grid Storage contribution ---- 5.0% ~ how do we compensate the vehicle owner for the possibility that his vehicle will only be half charged, if he wants to use it on short notice? My guess is 1% is more realistic.~
Geothermal, large scale ----------------- 3.0%
Ocean, OTEC ----------------------------- 1.0%
Ocean, Tidal ---------------------------- 2.0%
Nuclear --------------------------------- 20.0% ~that is just replacement. I agree we should only build enough nukes so we don't forget how to build them.~
Natural Gas (for grid stability) -------- 10.0% ~How is this different from the 5% about ten lines above?
>>>>>Other subtotal --------------------- 58.0%
Conservation ---------------------------- 7.0%
Electrical efficiency (appliance based) - 2.5%
Electrical conceptual efficiencies ------ 11.0% ~ dc at several voltages may be practical for new homes, but not retrofit. What else do you have in mind?~
Gains from grid conservation ------------ 10.0%
>>>>Electrical Reductions subtotal ------ 24.0% ~ I'll guess 10% is more realistic by 2018~

Vehicular Transportation ---------------- 127.1%
BEV (light duty) ------------------------ 12.0%
HEV (light duty) ------------------------ 2.6%
PHEV (light duty) ----------------------- 6.9%
V2G (light duty) ------------------------ 9.2% ~ how is this different from the 5% about 24 lines above?~
>>>>Vehicle Subtotal ------------------------ 30.7%
Rapid Transit (rail, large) ------------- 6.0% ~ the systems built in USA since 1990 have been too costly per passenger mile, with rare exceptions, perhaps due to massive corruption. Big is usually bad.~
Rapid Transit (Maglev, personal) -------- 18.0% ~I'll guess 3% by 2018, almost none have been built to date, and customer acceptance has been poor so far, with rare exceptions. Even the free people mover at Magic Kingdom, Orlando rarely has a waiting time, admittedly not rapid.~
>>>>Mass Transit subtotal ------------------- 24.0%
Algae based Diesel (heavy) -------------- 10.0%
Algae based Gasoline (mixed) ------------ 6.7%
Ethanol, existing ----------------------- 5.0% ~that is 5% of the vehicle fuel, not 5% of the USA energy budget, I think~
Ethanol, cellulosic --------------------- 12.0%
Biodiesel, WVO -------------------------- 0.5%
Biodiesel, Experimental ----------------- 0.2% ~that could reach 5% by 2018
>>>>>Bio Subtotal ---------------------------- 34.4%
CNG, including conversions -------------- 18.0%
Legacy vehicles on oil ------------------ 20.0%

Air Transportation ---------------------- 100.0%
Transferred from Excess Automotive ------ 9.1%
Algae based LL100 (Private aviation) ---- 10.0%
Algae based Jet-A (Private aviation) ---- 0.5%
Algae based Jet-A (Commercial) ---------- 13.0%
Legacy planes on oil -------------------- 67.4%

Rail Transportation --------------------- 100.0%
Transferred from Excess Automotive ------ 18.0% ~18% is more than 75% of our present automobile miles, by 2025 perhaps~
Reduction from conservation ------------- 11.0%
Reduction in coal/oil transport --------- 51.0% ~How did we reduce the energy used to transport coal by more than a few percent?~
Legacy rail on oil ---------------------- 20.0%

Remember, there's more information in the actual spreadsheet like how it puts over 2 million people to work or how using 80% of the Waste Vegetable Oil only contributes 0.5% to the mix. Also, my assumptions were that an external expense gets charged to that which benefits the most.

Glossary of Terms
BEV---------Battery Electric Vehicle
CHCP-------Combined Heat, Cooling and Power
CNG---------Compressed Natural Gas
Comm------Commercial
CSP---------Concentrated Solar Power (Electricity from solar thermal)
DHW--------Domestic Hot Water
Dist.---------Distributed
HEV---------Hybrid Electric Vehicle
Hydro-------Hydroelectric Generation (dams, run of river)
JET-A-------Aviation jet fuel
LL100-------Light aviation fuel
Maglev------Magnetic Levitation (frictionless support system)
OTEC-------Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
PHEV-------Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicle
PV------------Photovoltaic Cell Panels
V2G----------Vehicle To Grid (PHEV used as short term grid storage)
WVO--------Waste Vegetable Oil (commercial) ~Maybe 1% if we can get meals at home to put the fat and oil in someones' fuel tank. The animal fat would have to be rendered = not likely Neil~

Comment by Todd McKissick on October 17, 2008 at 7:54am

Great comment, Neil. Thanks. I've hopefully corrected that now by adding the Glossary of Terms.

Since "Dist" is distributed, the answer to your question is that it referrs to a single site, residence or business.

LOL = Laugh Out Loud, as in I got a kick out of you adding ASAP and IMHO. ;)

Comment by neil cox on October 17, 2008 at 5:55am

You should not assume people know what the initials mean. PV = photo voltaic solar cells
Dist. PV = district? photo voltaic. Is a district a million electric customers, one large state , several small states. Perhaps a few blocks is a district.
CPS ? CHCP ? DHW ? Backup natural gas = Peak demand gas turbines which also serve as back up and sometimes baseline.
Vehicle-2-grid storage contribution? OTEC = Ocean thermal energy C? = Very large water vapor turbines that use 80 plus degrees F surface water to make the vapor. and 40 degrees f ocean bottom water to condense the vapor at the output of the turbine.
BEV = battery electric vehicle HEV = gasoline electric vehicle PHEV = propane hybrid electric vehicle V2G = duel fuel vehicle? WVO ? CNG = compressed natural gas
Legacy vehicles on oil = any mono fuel vehicle that uses fossil oil or gasoline, not including propane, butane, LPG = liquid petroleum gas, etc? ASAP = as soon as possible, NG = natural gas IMHO = in my humble opinion.
I thought over 100% was reasonable as we will need more energy for some purposes in the future. Neil

Comment by Lou De Frog on October 10, 2008 at 7:59pm

Without financing you can do nothing. If Governments loaned interest free money to communities to build energy producing systems, the Government would not be going into debt and the communities would sell their energy to repay the loan. Because financing is interest free the communities could undercut the price of conventional energy and the transition to alternate energy would happen real fast.

More weired ideas on my blog thingy.

Comment by Todd McKissick on August 18, 2008 at 5:36am

Hi Larry,

Unfortunately, the trains are already electric and being charged from onboard diesels, running on stored fuel. In terms of miles per gallon for each ton carried, they get over 400 mpg now! That means that the only way to get them much more efficient is to remove the fuel load (the weight of the diesel fuel - of which batteries are heavier) and to generate the electricity from more efficient means. The diesels are dirty and only get about 35% efficiency, but surely for the time being, the grid electricity isn't much better. The storing and using of power from batteries would also incur a small loss. On top of that, reconfiguring track elevations is extremely expensive due to the quality and compaction required. So overall, it's not quite going to be better.... yet. Does it have merit? Absolutely. It just needs other infrastructure in place first.

Another idea I like is to break up the 'loads' into small pieces and send them directly door-to-door. This new lighter load can then be sent along a single rail hanging suspended from poles like we already use for utilities. This eliminates all the ground work like roads, rail, safety zones, interchanges, accidents and delaying crossings. A great proposal for this is at http://www.unimodal.net/index.php that shows how it can replace significant portions of commuter traffic. Other cars can be built that hold a single pallet for transport. It's then easy to extend the coverage to the next town and you've got the most efficient and cleanest means to transfer both cargo and people. Unfortunately, since it's labeled a form of mass transit, most people won't dig into the details to find all the benefits.

I placed a small one of these in the proposal above, but I don't expect it to truly benefit us until multiple cities are connected. I can only hope to see that in my lifetime.

Comment by Larry Smith on August 18, 2008 at 3:57am

Hey Todd,

Not sure I understood where your spreadsheet is going, so I am going to comment on one aspect. I would probably persue what I am about to suggest, however I don't have the reserves. I am working on a few other things where I should be able to accomplish on my limited income. Once again I give away a hugely potential business :::chuckle::: Maybe this can work as a provential pat.?

Lets look at trains. More and more, cities are going to electric trains for mass transportation in cities. Not a bad idea on the surface, however it does take from the grid, which is more than likely fed by coal or natural gas. So I took a look at freight trains and amtrak. How can we make these less of fuel hogs. In a nut shell, they should be electric.

If all the wheels on train cars was to be converted, could even afford to add a couple wheels to each car and retro fit them with something like these http://www.e-traction.com/TheWheel.htm, hell a train could even have 1 car dedicated to nothing but batteries if needed. Now, the way I see it, every one of those wheels could get the monsters moving, then once speed is achieved, most of them would then become a power provider to charge batteries and run engine car/s to keep at speed. Would it work in the mountain ranges? Not sure, I am not an electrical engineer, up would be problem, down, even the engine would be producing electricity to the batteries.

What would it cost train yard to modify yard so when a train comes to a stop in it's yard, would be on a slight slope to help with getting them moving a bit more effiecently as well. Wonder what that would save just with these big diesel monsters.

Knowledge is good, however for me, to much information confuses cause I want to solve all at once lol

Larry

Comment by Todd McKissick on August 16, 2008 at 7:26am

Ty, That's a common sentiment that does have lots of merit. I used to think that way also, but when I got deeper into it, I found that T. Boone was correct when he said that we can do that part now. What he meant was that the Big 3 already make those vehicles right now so we can start buying them in say a matter of 2-3 months. There's no way we can get that many electric cars built that soon. So, while you're absolutely correct that it's a temp solution, it has another benefit.

If you consider that $700 Billion that Mr. Pickens keep mentioning in light of that money being a cost to us, anything that cuts that cost today will help us finance anything else we want to do. Try this one out. Save $100 Billion THIS YEAR to make electric vehicles by selling a bunch of "Phills" and buying cars that other countries already use. Does that sound different? It's really the same thing said with different emphasis.

Comment by Todd McKissick on August 16, 2008 at 7:14am

Fair enough, Burgess. By displaying "over 100%", I'm showing that the various forms of electrical generation will total up to 176% of what we now generate. In other words, we will need to create 76% more electricity than we do now and that will be generated by the sources listed. Those individual sources will each play a role equal to the percentage beside them.

The first two groups in the automobile section are all vehicles that require electricity to power them. This is where that electricity will go. From this, you could make the statement that we need 76% more electricity, from all the renewable sources listed above, to remove 54.7% of our vehicles off of oil. (That's the total of those two automotive groups.)

If you notice that the automotive section is over 100% also, that's because it is giving its excess to the airline and rail industries. They each have a line that shows receipt from automotive excess that totals 27.1% which is what automotive had to give them. The main example of this is that biodiesel can be used in both planes and trains.

I could give you an English version translation for each of these, but it would be roughly the same for each one. We need to increase all of our renewables (of which I listed the top ones only) to end up reducing our oil use by 71%. Since we can supply all of that oil domestically and still have 1% to spare, we won't need to import anymore. This is all in concert with the Pickens Plan to shift the natural gas from electricity to vehicles.

I believe that only with a major push to do this could we accomplish it in 10 years, but 15 really gives us enough time to make it doable.

Comment by Ty on August 16, 2008 at 6:56am

I do not understand the reasoning behind Natural Gas as a fleet vehicle fuel. It may be readily available now, but as with oil, it's a finite resource. We should truely consider going to electric vehicles ASAP. We could generate electricity from various renewable sources enabling our personnel vehicles to be recharged at a fair cost. Natural Gas, once again is only a temp solution. We will be right back to this spot again if we go to lean heavily upon it. The question I know some will ask is: How much NG do we have and how long will it last?
There will be varying numbers on this but the idea is not really solving the transportation issue, it is just putting it off or delaying it as you will. Oh, I know some will say it buys us time. We have the time right now, lets do this right this time and not leave it to our childrens children to deal with the same mess as we have now IMHO.

Comment by BurgessKJ on August 15, 2008 at 11:09pm

OK, lots of numbers. Anything over %100 of anything is suspect. There can be an increase over previous amounts, but 'Per-cent' usually is interpreted as "PORTIONS OR FRACTIONS OF ONE HUNDRED PARTS".

That said, you have a lot of numbers there. Can you translate that into english
EXAMPLE:
"With an increase of overall Photovoltaic Solar energy, we will be able to reduce Natural Gas commercial power generation, and therefore make this percentage available for vehicular fleets. That in turn will reduce the need for imported oil products by an equal percentage."

The Pickens Plan explains this in laymans terms for %22 of the total national electrical demand to be converted to Wind generated power replacing an equivalent of %22 Natural Gas requirements eslewhere, which in turn reduce the total oil byproducts required for vehicular fuel amounting to the entire $700 billion annual American import imbalance.

I am not knocking your statistics above, merely asking for an explanation anyone here can take to the consumer public.

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