Smart Grid Insecurity

I have an article up at ECN wondering how can the Smart Grid be secure?

And in case you missed it they had a very nice bit up for Veterans Day.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Very Simple Motor

Electricity. Ain't it wonderful.

Note: you may have to wiggle your cursor on the page to see how the motor is built and how it operates.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Doing Well In Business

If you want to do well in business have a friend in government. Evidently Exxon-Mobil is short of friends.

Unfortunately, Exxon has discovered firsthand what it’s like to deal with what Investors Business Daily calls “regulatory pirates” in the Gulf of Mexico:

ExxonMobil, and its Norwegian partner Statoil made the biggest discovery of all — a field worth a billion barrels of oil — 7,000 feet below sea level in its “Julia” field in 2007.

Exxon tried to keep its discovery secret to keep marauders away. Sadly, the pirates in this instance are U.S. regulators — and their aim is to stop them.

That’s right: Instead of marvel at the continuing treasures of the New World, or hail the human ingenuity that made retrieval of so much oil possible, or simply quantify how this discovery will boost U.S. energy security, Interior Department bureaucrats moved instead to snatch Exxon’s permits and shut the whole thing down.

They may not have paid enough to the right party.

Here is a group that paid plenty and is unhappy with their ROI (yes it is a pun using a foreign language - the nominal meaning is Return On Investment)

Let’s see. Obama has lost Wall Street, the progressive grassroots, and even a few unions. Now it looks like another funding source for his re-election bid might fade as well — high-tech Silicon Valley. Politico reports that the innovation center once celebrated the fact that they had backed a President who uses a Blackberry, but now think he’s just another middle-aged man with some ubiquitous personal technology...

Let us not forget that he is a middle-aged BLACK man. That still counts for something. Not as much as it used to. In any case if you make efforts to strangle the electrical supply - which the boys in the valley totally depend on to make their products and make them useful - people interested generally take notice. Making oil more expensive isn't helping either.

Go to the "paid plenty" article for a multitude of links.

Reserve Margin

You may have heard that the EPA is planning to shut down roughly 20% of coal generated electrical capacity by 2015.

Francois Broquin, a co-author of reports on coal by Bernstein Research, said the combined rules could push as much as 20 percent of U.S. coal-fired electric generation capacity to retire by 2015. "Obviously that will have an impact," he said.

What kind of impact? Let us get technical (not too) and see.

Electrical power grids must be able to supply the power demanded or else they will not supply any power at all. But. You know in the real world the SCHTF. Things like electrical storms and high winds can break power lines. A bad bearing can trip a generator off line. A tsunami can flood a plant. S*** Happens. So you have reserve margin. Generators either in hot idle or cold idle that can be brought on line for peak demand or to make up for failures in part of the system. So how much margin is enough? Around 10% is sorta adequate and 20% is too much (it costs money to carry the idle equipment on the books).

We are running at the low end of that range and possibly below. But for this case knowing roughly is good enough. Let me add another roughly: coal supplies 40% of the electrical power in America. It may be more. Never mind. So what is 40% of 20%? (coal generation times % shut down) . That would be about 8% of grid capacity. Or almost all of the margin that makes the electrical supply reliable.

Nationwide blackouts and certainly local black outs are in our future if this is not stopped or scaled way back.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Powered Up

Last night around 9:30 PM (local time) we had a heck of a windstorm in Rockford. A large branch of a tree is sitting on our front lawn. Since the tree is on city property I get to haul it out to the street and wait for the city to pick it up. The best part was that the power went out at my place at about ten minutes into the storm while we were in the basement waiting the storm out. There was a mad scramble to get flashlights and candles. Luckily we have lived here long enough to find our way about in the dark. The power didn't come on until 2 PM (local time) this afternoon. As usual, in every dark cloud there is a silver lining. Let me just repeat what my first mate told me, "The power was off and my husband was on." Yes. Indeed. Let me add that the first mate was powered up as well. A very lovely young lady.

This is not the first power outage we have had recently. There was a two hour long outage on July 11th. For no reason I could figure.

Which brings me to my main point. Getting through a power outage. Flashlights, batteries and candles for sure. But what else? A battery backup for your computer is essential. I say this as someone who has run computers for decades without such backup. You can't believe how nice it is to do an orderly shut down when the power goes off. So what do I use? This:

Cyberpower CP600LCD UPS - 600VA/340W LCD Display 8-Outlet RJ11/ Compact Design EMI/RFI

It gets good ratings and reviews. The price is right (currently about $62, I paid $65) and it works well. It has excellent surge protection ( I already had lots of that on the line) and a really neat gadget for your desktop that shows available battery run time and the power your computer is drawing in real time. I love watching the meter go up and down with CPU and disk drive usage. It is totally geeky cool. My computer (a Gateway DX4831-01e), my monitor (A Samsung SyncMaster 710n - donated by a reader), the cable modem and my Cisco router (Linksys WRT54GS V5.0), all together use about 91 watts minimum and about 132 watts maximum. The backup system is rated for 340 watts. So I'm not stressing it much. Which is a good thing for emergency gear.

One thing I changed after the first outage was the items plugged in to the backup supply. I added the cable modem and the wireless router to the backup system. It was so cool having the mate's and the third son's laptops working with all the power out. There is only enough battery to keep the router and modem running for about an hour or two (if you shut the computer and monitor down as soon as you lose power). But that is enough time to find out what is going on.

Which brings me to another item. A second source of information. Radio. I have a Sony ICF-SW7600GR AM/FM Shortwave World Band Receiver with Single Side Band Reception which is a little pricey ($140 with shipping) but is good for TEOTWAWKI because it can get amatueur radio (SSB) and regular short wave (it actually goes from 150 KHz - to 29.999 MHz and also covers an extended FM range). But if you are going to run it without power you are going to need batteries. So why not some good rechageables? The radio takes four AA cells so I went looking. What I found was the Sony Cycle Energy Power Charger with 4 2500 mAh AA Batteries. When I bought them the price was $13. I wanted a second set of batteries so I could be using one set while charging the other set. I found out a second set of batteries was $12. No brainer. I bought a second set of batteries plus a charger for $1 more.

Any way. Think about what you might do to protect yourself and your stuff from power disturbances. Besides regular backups of your hard drive.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

C

Wishful Thinking

Scotland is in danger of going dark.

THE "lights could go out" over Scotland unless new power stations are built in the next two years to ward off a looming electricity crisis, the head of one of Scotland's most successful companies has warned Alex Salmond.

Rupert Soames, chief executive of power supply firm Aggreko, told the First Minister that the National Grid will lose a third of its capacity by 2018 as a string of nuclear, gas and oil-fired power stations across the UK are retired - including several in Scotland.

Mr Soames claimed that no other industrialised country in the world is at risk of losing so much of its energy supply at the same time - and without a realistic back-up plan.

He urged both the Scottish and UK governments to postpone green energy targets by a decade. Unless "the concrete is poured" on a new fleet of power stations within the next two years, Mr Soames warned, "we will be in serious danger of the lights going out".

As usual the geniuses in charge of government are behind the move.

Mr Soames, the boss of the FTSE 100 firm - which has supplied energy for events including the World Cup and the Beijing Olympics, accused Scottish ministers of "wishful thinking" on renewable energy targets, which are among the most ambitious in the world.

You know guys if you want a reliable electrical supply it might be a good idea to put engineers in charge rather than lawyers and politicians.

Less Power More Control

The EPA under rules developed during a Republican administration has a plan that will shut down up to 20% of the coal fired electrical plants in the nation.

In March 2005 the federal EPA issued two new rulings that mandate significant reductions in air pollution and mercury pollution. These federal regulatory requirements will have significant impact on utilities in the US. The timeframe for these emission reductions will take place in two phases with the first phase occurring during the next five years and the second phase being completed within the next twelve years.

And the rules for the first phase will do what exactly?

Some plants could have a hard time meeting the proposed cap, which could push domestic cement production into countries with even less stringent environmental standards, said Andy O’Hare, vice president of regulatory affairs with the Portland Cement Association.

The proposal comes at a down time for the cement industry. Three plants in the Great Lakes region shuttered in December 2008 and January 2009, according to Portland Cement Association records. The Alpena plant announced in March a 45-day kiln shutdown.

Ah. So it is just another plan to ship jobs to China.

But wait. It is not just coal fired cement plants. It is also coal fired power plants.

[The rules] would force utilities to invest tens of millions of dollars on technologies to remove the substances. Many of those plants are about 50 years old and are already inefficient. "Those investments are just not going to be justifiable," said Dan Bakal, director of electric power programs at Ceres, a group of environmentalists and institutional investors.

Francois Broquin, a co-author of reports on coal by Bernstein Research, said the combined rules could push as much as 20 percent of U.S. coal-fired electric generation capacity to retire by 2015. "Obviously that will have an impact," he said.

So where are the shut downs going to be concentrated?

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed a new federal plan to reduce the pollution from electric power plants that wafts hundreds of miles across state lines.

The new rule would require pollution reductions in 31 states and the District of Columbia — most of the Eastern half of the U.S., from Texas and Minnesota to the coast.

To make the cuts, power plants would be required to install new equipment or use lower-sulfur fuels.

The plan is one of the most significant steps the EPA has taken toward cleaning the air for millions of Americans who live in areas where the quality of the air doesn't meet national standards.

It comes after many months of planning since a federal court ordered the EPA to revise its 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule . Coincidentally, it was announced in the middle of an Eastern heat wave, when smoggy air was at unhealthy levels from North Carolina to New York state.

So the East Coaster will have no choice. Cleaner air so important to a few (and very important for them) but no air conditioning in the summer for tens of millions. Who ever worked out the political calculations didn't do their homework. Let me add that the East Coast electrical grid infrastructure is not in the best of shape and if the shut downs are concentrated in that area the loss for the area could be much more than 20%. Let me add that with the current grid power does not ship well over distances longer than about 300 or so miles. And if the grid is already congested with power flows from inside the area? Dark energy will be a proven reality.

So how about nuclear power to replace the power that will be lost? Well enviros hate nuke plants. Especially East Coast nukes. They stopped the Shoreham nuke plant. And Vermont Yankee and Indian Point are being targeted.

I wonder what the marginal price of electricity will have to be to make supply and demand come into balance on a hot day on the East Coast? And how are the residents going to feel about it? You would think the California experience would be a cautionary tale for the political classes. You would be wrong.

And in case you hadn't guessed about the title: You get less power. They get more control. All this enviro wackiness is a bubble. And the bubble is going to burst. When it does things are going to get ugly. Attacks on power plants will not go over well.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Raising The Roof Over Raising The Rates

Alternative Energy seems to be raising electric rates in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to conduct a review of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed package of electric rate hikes, and took the mayor to task for suggesting that defeat of the plan would plunge the city into bankruptcy.

On a 15-0 vote, the council asserted jurisdiction over the Department of Water and Power board's decision to approve the first of four increases over the next year to help pay for renewable energy and other expenditures.

Several council members said they were especially disturbed by Villaraigosa's warning, sent to them in writing the night before the vote, that a failure to let the rate hikes stand would cause the DWP to renege on its plan to provide $73 million to the city's strained general fund, which pays for basic services such as public safety and parks.

Public Utilities owned by government were supposed to be about preventing gouging by private corporations. It looks like gouging by government was not contemplated.

As we used to say back in the heady days of my communist youth. "What is mine is mine. What is yours belongs to the people." That should probably be amended to add "and the alternative energy companies."

Natural Gas Fuel Cell

I just came across an Australian Company, Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd., that makes a solid oxide natural gas fuel cell, BlueGen™, that can produce electricity and heat.

BlueGen™ is a the latest breakthrough in small scale electricity generation - a modular style fuel cell generator that can be configured to suit a range of different markets and installations. For markets that require an alternative product approach to fully-integrated 'European style' systems, such as Japan, Northern America and Australia - BlueGen™ bridges that gap.

Utilising the Gennex™ fuel cell module; BlueGen™ is a grid-parallel SOFC system that operates on natural gas producing highly efficiency electricity.

* Output: up to 2 kW power export
* Efficiency: up to 60% electrical efficiency (net AC export)
* Modular installation; can be configured as:
mono-generation (power only)

or

co-generation (power+heat)

BlueGen™ is fitted with an integrated heat exchanger to recover the heat from the fuel cell module. A separate water tank (not supplied) can be connected to the unit to increase the total system efficiency.

I do see a few problems. It takes 20 hours to get the system up to operational temperature. So far it is only available in 50 Hz models. The USA uses 60 Hz. You have to burn gas to keep the system hot even if you are not using the heat or electricity.

One very good thing: It will self power if you lose mains power - if it is hot enough.

With all the new natural gas being discovered a system like this might make a lot of sense. If the price is right.

For those interested: there is no North American Distributor. It looks like an opportunity to me.

H/T Seeking Alpha article and comments on the coming glut in natural gas supplies.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Long Lines

Technology Review reports on progress in Making Carbon Nanotubes into Long Fibers

A new method for assembling carbon nanotubes has been used to create fibers hundreds of meters long. Individual carbon nanotubes are strong, lightweight, and electrically conductive, and could be valuable as, among other things, electrical transmission wires. But aligning masses of the nanotubes into well-ordered materials such as fibers has proven challenging at a scale suitable for manufacturing. By processing carbon nanotubes in a solution called a superacid, researchers at Rice University have made long fibers that might be used as lightweight, efficient wires for the electrical grid or as the basis of structural materials and conductive textiles.

Yep. It could be a very good replacement for copper or aluminum wires. And the base material is rather abundant. Coal mines are full of it. On the other hand petroleum or natural gas might be easier to process.

But we are not quite there yet.

So far, the group has made fibers that are highly conductive but not as strong as other carbon materials. Pasquali says the strength of the fibers could probably be improved tenfold by using longer carbon nanotubes. "We're now working on a project for making electrical transmission lines," says Pasquali. "Metallic nanotubes conduct electricity better than copper, they're lighter, and they fail less often."

One important hurdle for large-scale manufacturing of carbon nanotubes remains: Today, there aren't any good methods for making the nanotubes themselves in large, pure batches. In order to make nanotube transmission lines, for example, the Rice group would need to start with a large batch of nanotubes containing all metallic nanotubes and no semiconducting ones. Last month, chemists at the Honda Research Institute published a paper in Science describing a method for making large amounts of metallic nanotubes that Pasquali says is promising. "For transmission lines you need to make tons, and there are no methods now to do that," he says. "We are one miracle away."

And that miracle may have already happened.

What remains to be done after the breakthrough: making enough Carbon Nanotube (CNT) wire to build a test section into the grid. Developing methods for joining the wire to other non CNT segments of the grid. Developing methods for joining CNT segments. Testing it against weather and lightning strikes. And at least 10,000 other details (hand tools among them) will need to be worked out including crew training. Miracles take time to unfold.

And power lines might not be the prime candidate. Lowering the weight of wiring harnesses in automobiles might be a more favorable initial application since weight reduction is worth real money.

H/T GPecchia at Talk Polywell

Big Battery

Texas is slated to get a really big battery to improve grid reliability.

Electric Transmission Texas LLC (ETT) has completed a contract with NGK-Locke, Inc. for a state-of-the-art, sodium-sulfur 4-megawatt NAS battery system, which will be installed in Presidio, Texas. ETT is a joint venture between American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) and MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company (MidAmerican).

The NAS battery will be the first in Texas and the largest in the United States and represents part of a $67 million overall commitment by ETT to improve transmission reliability in Presidio and surrounding areas.

And what are the capabilities of this battery?

The NAS® battery system uses sodium-sulfur battery technology. This technology proposed by ETT for Presidio will provide the following benefits:

Due to its quick response, the battery will address voltage fluctuations and momentary outages.

In the event of an outage on the radial transmission line providing power to Presidio, the battery can supply 4 MW of uninterrupted power for up to 8 hours.

The battery will allow Presidio’s electrical load to receive uninterrupted power from Comisiün Federal de Electricidad (CFE) during emergency situations.

The battery will allow for maintenance on the new transmission line being built to from Marfa to Presidio without loss of electric service.

One of the many things you can do with a battery like this is peak leveling. That means the transmission lines do not have to be designed for peak power use but only have to deliver the average power required at the load. It also means a smaller generator can be used to supply the load if the generator can supply the average load. Savings all around if the battery and its associated conversion equipment are cheap enough.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Out Go The Lights

Britain may soon have an electricity problem according to The Economist.

In the frigid opening days of 2009, Britain’s electricity demand peaked at 59 gigawatts (GW). Just over 45% of that came from power plants fuelled by gas from the North Sea. A further 35% or so came from coal, less than 15% from nuclear power and the rest from a hotch-potch of other sources. By 2015, assuming that modest economic growth resumes, a reasonable guess is that Britain will need around 64GW to cope with similar conditions. Where will that come from?

North Sea gas has served Britain well, but supply peaked in 1999. Since then the flow has fallen by half; by 2015 it will have dropped by two-thirds. By 2015 four of Britain’s ten nuclear stations will have shut and no new ones could be ready for years after that. As for coal, it is fiendishly dirty: Britain will be breaking just about every green promise it has ever made if it is using anything like as much as it does today. Renewable energy sources will help, but even if the wind and waves can be harnessed (and Britain has plenty of both), these on-off forces cannot easily replace more predictable gas, nuclear and coal power. There will be a shortfall—perhaps of as much as 20GW—which, if nothing radical is done, will have to be met from imported gas. A large chunk of it may come from Vladimir Putin’s deeply unreliable and corrupt Russia.

Many of Britain’s neighbours may find this rather amusing. Britain, the only big west European country that could have joined the oil producers’ club OPEC, the country that used to lecture the world about energy liberalisation, is heading towards South African-style power cuts, with homes and factories plunged intermittently into third-world darkness.

American Greens have a similar plan for this country if we let them get away with it.

The Economist thinks energy taxes are the way to go.

...carbon must be taxed if firms are to invest in long-term, expensive, technology-heavy projects such as nuclear plants, cleaning up coal and taming renewable sources of power. Carbon is already assigned a price through the European cap-and-trade mechanism, but the system is focused on the short term, vulnerable to gaming and plagued by hugely fluctuating prices. A tax on carbon is hardly going to stop the lights going out in a few years, but it would provide a floor price for power, giving investors a clearer sense of likely profits. In the meantime you know who to blame.

A political solution subject to gaming? I'm shocked. And then there is the carbon tax idea. That may sell to the Brits but in America I recall we had a Tea Party about some relatively modest British Tea taxes. And to this day we are not fond of paying taxes to any government.

If Brits are going to stay warm at night I think that soon they are going to have to find extras to sleep with. Maybe some one like Louisa Lockhart who is rumored to sleep well with others.

On another note: I typed in "Green Electricity Swindle" into Amazon and this is what came up:

Chill: A Reassessment of Global Warming Theory, Does Climate Change Mean the World Is Cooling, and If So What Should We Do About It?

Further: You can listen (while you still have electricity) to more Pat Travers on this CD:

Live! Go for What You Know

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Follow The Moon

Google has some ideas on how to lower its electricity bill.

“The ability to seamlessly shift workloads between data centers also creates intriguing long-term energy management possibilities, including a “follow the moon” strategy which takes advantage of lower costs for power and cooling during overnight hours. In this scenario, virtualized workloads are shifted across data centers in different time zones to capture savings from off-peak utility rates.”

A geographically diverse company like Google could shift its computing loads around to follow low night-time power costs. But it also seems likely that utilities could also bid to fill Google’s computing power needs. States would want to have Google crunch its servers using their utilities power so that they would get the extra utilities tax. And utilities would want to bid to get the extra Google business. (Actually, this probably wouldn’t happen in California, where utilities are incentivized to sell less power, not more.)

Well the evidence is in about California. There are some terminally stupid people running that state. Fortunately there are some smart people running Google. As suggested in the article they will probably just bypass California and use Washington State or Oregon State to supply California with bits.

Yesterday Was Nikola Tesla's Birthday

Well not actually. It was the 153 Anniversary of his birthday. So I'm a day late. No matter. Tesla is always interesting.

If you would like to read some Tesla in his own words (plus some other really whacked out sh*t) I really like this book:

The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla (The Lost Science Series)

It also shows the limits of Tesla's understanding of what he was doing. For those of you into electricity/electronics the deal is that he did not understand Q multiplication and circulating currents in resonant circuits. It doesn't matter. His invention of three phase generators and motors (still in use for power distribution to this day) would be enough of a contribution to civilization for any man.

And what would a (late) celebration of Tesla's Birthday be without a Tesla coil?

Enjoy:

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Electric Car - High Price - Short Range

Mitsubishi Motors is bringing out an electric car that will only cost $47,000 and only get 100 miles on a charge. That means at most a 40 mile round trip per day plus a reserve for mistakes and battery degradation over time.

Tokyo (AP) – Mitsubishi Motors Corp.'s electric vehicle is twice as expensive as popular hybrid cars by rivals Toyota and Honda, but Japan's No. 4 automaker said Friday the i-MiEV will help it survive increasingly intense global competition.

"With the electric vehicle, we will challenge global players," said Mitsubishi Motors President Osamu Masuko at a news conference where the company rolled out the new model.

The i-MiEV is powered solely by electricity, and can be recharged from a regular home socket. The four-seater vehicle can run up to 160 kilometers (100 miles) after charging seven hours at 200 volts.

"It is a zero-emission vehicle. It does not rely on oil, which is different from hybrid cars," Masuko said. A hybrid car switches between a gas engine and electric motor to boost mileage.

The price tag is also different. Mitsubishi's i-MiEV costs 4.59 million yen ($47,560), more than twice as much as Toyota Motor Corp.'s new Prius hybrid vehicle, which is just over 2 million yen, or Honda Motor Co.'s Insight, which starts at 1.89 million yen, the cheapest hybrid on the market.

Masuko acknowledged the high price is a major hurdle to encouraging people to buy the i-MiEV, which stands for Mitsubishi innovative electric vehicle. (The initial "i" doesn't have any particular meaning, the company says.)

"This is not the price that ordinary people can easily buy. But as we increase our production, we aim to cut the price below 2 million yen," he said without elaborating further.

Masuko noted i-MiEV buyers can receive hefty subsidies and pay no tax under a government program promoting the use of ecological vehicles. With the help of government subsidies, the i-MiEV costs 3.209 million yen, down 43 percent from the original price. The vehicle is also tax-free for three years.

Ah yes. The ever present subsidy. But they do have a business plan. They are selling the first 1,200 vehicles to the Japanese government. Customer of last resort? Well at least until they get the price down. And the range up.

And making fun of hybrids? At least with hybrids you can put gas in the tank and get home if your battery is low on charge.

A New Hope

There is new hope for incandescent light bulbs. Shooting them with lasers can raise their efficiency dramatically.

An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can.

The laser process creates a unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament—the tiny wire inside a light bulb—and theses structures make the tungsten become far more effective at radiating light.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

"We've been experimenting with the way ultra-fast lasers change metals, and we wondered what would happen if we trained the laser on a filament," says Chunlei Guo, associate professor of optics at the University of Rochester. "We fired the laser beam right through the glass of the bulb and altered a small area on the filament. When we lit the bulb, we could actually see this one patch was clearly brighter than the rest of the filament, but there was no change in the bulb's energy usage."

Now that is promising. But wait. There is more.

In addition to increasing the brightness of a bulb, Guo's process can be used to tune the color of the light as well. In 2008, his team used a similar process to change the color of nearly any metal to blue, golden, and gray, in addition to the black he'd already accomplished. Guo and Vorobyev used that knowledge of how to control the size and shape of the nanostructures—and thus what colors of light those structures absorb and radiate—to change the amount of each wavelength of light the tungsten filament radiates. Though Guo cannot yet make a simple bulb shine pure blue, for instance, he can change the overall radiated spectrum so that the tungsten, which normally radiates a yellowish light, could radiate a more purely white light.

Guo's team has even been able to make a filament radiate partially polarized light, which until now has been impossible to do without special filters that reduce the bulb's efficiency. By creating nanostructures in tight, parallel rows, some light that emits from the filament becomes polarized.

The team is now working to discover what other aspects of a common light bulb they might be able to control. Fortunately, despite the incredible intensity involved, the femtosecond laser can be powered by a simple wall outlet, meaning that when the process is refined, implementing it to augment regular light bulbs should be relatively simple.

Guo is also announcing this month in Applied Physics Letters a technique using a similar femtosecond laser process to make a piece of metal automatically move liquid around its surface, even lifting a liquid up against gravity.

Let a guy loose with a laser and some spare time and you never know what might happen.

And to think it all started with Edison. Did you know that you can buy a replica 1890 Edison 40 Watt Light Bulb? Me either. You can read some history on how we got where we are today in terms of light and electricity in: Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. Did you know that Tesla started us on the path to fluorescent bulb technology? And the wonders are still coming.

H/T jgarry at Talk Polywell

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Power Shorts

I'm not talking about some new alpha male summer wear. I'm talking about the future of our electrical grid. And given the insanity of our new administration it is not looking good. Kevin C. (at the linked site) has this to say:

I've been in the utility business for well over twenty years. I was working on company load projections before Obama went to law school. I've seen afternoons when the power was so short that we were within a hair of rolling blackouts - and I helped draw up those plans, too. I've stood in the door of mobile generators the size of tractor trailers, one of many connected to the grid to stretch out power. And I remember a time about years ago when some of us sat in the company break room, wondering if we should install whole house generators because the power supply looked mighty tight that year.

I'm considering a whole house generator again, preferably one with a hospital grade muffler package. It's a toss up between diesel and propane. Maybe you should invest in one, too.

Based on what Obama said on the campaign trail, I wasn't optimistic about his energy policies. It reminded me of some of those feel-good bull sessions by people who know diddly squat about the power industry, by people who don't know a KW from a KVar, who've never heard of line losses, and who've never spent a tense afternoon wondering if there'd be enough power to go around. But ignorance is correctable - if you hire the right people.

Obama hasn't.

In particular is the asinine assumption of Jon Wellinghoff that we may never need new nuclear or coal plants. Jon Wellinghoff, as some may know, is the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. Why? Because he's operating on the delusion that wind and solar can provide all our needs. While such starry-eyed ignorance is endearing in children, it's horrifying in a man who's the head of FERC. It shows an ignorance of the electric power industry and of the main draw-back with solar and wind: We don't have an efficient way to store electricity. Nor is wind power viable everywhere (Google a wind power map from the DOE and see for yourself - it's probably more than the Obama administration's done), and people seem to be taking a NIMBY stance about solar (see the issue of solar panels in the Mohave). Plus there's the annoying problem of getting that power from where the wind does blow to where it's needed. And the laws of physics remain the same regardless of who's in office.

You'd expect someone in the energy sector to know this. You'd expect someone in the energy department to grasp daily load fluctuations, increasing load from growth greater than energy reduction from conservation, and why we need to build more baseline plants right now. Obama's team doesn't.

You would think that some one from a government run by the Smartest President Ever™ would know these things. However, it is also possible that this is all being ruined by the Most Corrupt President Ever™. And surprisingly they are the same guy. Go figure.

In any case I think that regular blackouts will eventually fix the problem. But it will not be cheap. I guess that is where the Most Corrupt President Ever™ comes in. Want power? Buy a politician. If you can't afford that buying a backup generator might be a good alternative investment. Until we start running into fuel shortages.

China And Russia Hooking Up

Yes. It is true. They are hooking up their electrical grids.

AREVA‘s Transmission and Distribution (T&D) division has signed a multi-million Euro contract to supply H400 High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) thyristor valves to interconnect the Chinese and Russian power grids.

The contract, the first of its kind awarded to AREVA T&D in China, is signed with the Xuji Group Corporation and China Electric Power Research Institute for the end customer, State Grid of China Corporation.

The valves will be installed in the Sino-Russian converter station located in China’s Heilongjiang province. To overcome the countries’ grid incompatibility, the station will convert alternate current into direct current and inversely.

AREVA T&D was awarded the contract thanks to its new high profile generation H400 Valve technology developed in collaboration with the China Electric Power Research Institute and the Xuji Group Corporation. The company’s ability to meet both China’s localization policy requirements and a tight installation schedule were also key factors in this success. The installation of the valves will begin in 2008.

HVDC technology is used to connect power networks and to transmit large amounts of electricity over long distances with minimal losses. With plans to transmit more than 130 GW of electricity over the next five to ten years, China’s needs in HVDC are booming. This success will strengthen AREVA T&D’s position on the domestic HVDC market and demonstrates the company’s ability to meet the country’s needs.

I know. It sounds like a press release for the H400 valve. In fact it is a press release for the H400 valve.

It does reinforce my point about new long distance transmission of power in the US. DC is the way to go.

Here is another bit from the company making that same point:

Ultra High Voltage Direct Current (UHVDC) transmission, with voltages of up to 800 kV, is the choice being made by many energy managers around the world for the future network developments.

With generation sites becoming farther and farther away from load centers, HVDC is particularly economical for transmission distances greater than 700 km.

HVDC can transmit three times as much power per tower compared with conventional AC. This means a substantial reduction in land costs and often no new right-of-way (ROW) access permits, particularly difficult in densely populated regions.

UHVDC transmission maintains all the technical advantages associated with HVDC transmission: back-to-back or point-to-point connections for synchronized or asynchronous networks, regardless of voltage or frequency. Fully controllable, all HVDC systems prevent faults from propagating and reduce overall associated transmission losses.

So why isn't DC being pushed in the USA? My guess is that there are no HVDC equipment companies in the US who own enough politicians.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

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The Wind Power Express

Since there is so much Green Money coming out of Washington it looks like a lot of people want in on the act. There is a lot of wind in the upper Mid-West but not many power lines. So a company is proposing that the government get behind building some new power lines.

ITC Holdings Corp., over the past year, has worked to develop the "Green Power Express," a network of transmission lines that would facilitate the movement of 12,000 MW of power from the wind-abundant areas in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa to Midwest load centers, such as Chicago, southeastern Wisconsin, Minneapolis and other states that demand clean, renewable energy. This new project addresses the recognized lack of electric transmission infrastructure needed to integrate renewable wind energy.

"We are proud to announce the Green Power Express after almost a year of studies, stakeholder discussions and development," said Joseph L. Welch, chairman, president and CEO of ITC. "The Green Power Express will create the much-needed link between the renewable energy-rich regions of the Midwest and high-demand population centers. The plan is consistent with efforts supported by organizations such as the Upper Midwest Transmission Development Initiative and promotes a national energy vision. ITC looks forward to continuing to work with them and other stakeholders in the region to move forward with this long-term solution to our national energy challenges."

The Green Power Express is just one step in ITC's broader efforts to modernize the overburdened, aging electricity grid. This project will be an integral component to ITC's efforts to create a high-voltage backbone that can meet America's renewable energy goals and eliminate costly inefficiencies in the grid.

Lots of wonderful goodness there. Until you get to the fine print.

The Green Power Express transmission project will traverse portions of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana and will ultimately include approximately 3,000 miles of extra high-voltage (765 kV) transmission. The entire project is currently estimated to cost approximately $10 to 12 billion. Portions of the Green Power Express fall within the service territory of ITC Midwest, an ITC subsidiary. ITC has been working with many of the Upper Midwest wind developers over the last year in assembling a realistic accounting of their wind development plans and sites, which resulted in the design of the Green Power Express.

That transmission is going to be done with AC which is not the most efficient over long distances for a number of technical reasons. DC also gives you something for wind generators - it can accept variable frequency AC easily (because it is converted to DC. In addition the power quality of the AC does not need to be very good. So what does that mean? Cheaper (and possibly lighter) generators for all those wind turbines. The savings in wind turbine costs might very well pay for a significant part of the line costs. Unfortunately we have separated generation from transmission (it does have its good points in diversifying sources of supply) so that the system costs are not properly accounted for.

I suppose that political pressure could be brought to bear to get the transmission companies to do the right thing.

Contact Government:

House of Representatives
The Senate
The President

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Biodiesel Stalls Bus

Cold weather is the bane of alternative energy. Wind turbine blades ice up, solar panels get covered with snow, and biodiesel congeals.

In January 2007, a bus stalled in the middle of the night on Interstate 70 in the Colorado mountains. The culprit was a 20 percent biodiesel blend that congealed in the freezing weather, according to John Jones, the transit director for the bus line, Summit Stage. (Biodiesel is a diesel substitute, typically made from vegetable oil, that is used to displace some fossil fuels.)

The passengers got out of that situation intact, but Summit Stage, which serves ski resorts, now avoids biodiesel from November to March, and uses only a 5 percent blend in the summertime, when it can still get cold in the mountains. “We can’t have people sitting on buses freezing to death while we get out there trying to get them restarted,” Mr. Jones said.

Winter may pose even bigger safety hazards in the vicinity of wind turbines. Some observers say the machines can hurl chunks of ice as they rotate.

“It’s like you throw a plate out there and that plate breaks,” said Ralph Brokaw, a cattle rancher in southeast Wyoming who has 69 wind turbines on his property. When his turbines ice up, he stays out of the way.

The wind industry admits that turbines can drop ice, like a lamppost or any tall structure. To ameliorate the hazard, some turbines are painted black to absorb sunlight and melt the ice faster. But Ron Stimmel, an expert on small wind turbines at the American Wind Energy Association, denies that the whirling blades tend to hurl icy javelins.

Which would tend to indicate that at this stage of alternative energy development that cold weather is a hazard to energy production. Not to mention life and limb.

This could be a difficult problem especially for wind which produces its highest output in winter when the winds are the strongest.

...as renewable energy becomes a bigger part of the nation’s power mix, the seasonable variability could become more of a problem. Already, power developers are learning that they must make careful plans to avoid the worst impacts of ice and snow.

Trey Taylor, the president of Verdant Power, which has put small turbines in the tidal East River in New York City and plans more for the St. Lawrence River in Canada, said that ice chunks could slide over one another “like a deck of cards,” pushing ice below and harming turbines. That may rule out parts of otherwise promising sites like the Yukon River in Alaska, he said.

Kevin Devlin, the vice president for operations of Iberdrola Renewables, a wind developer, said that winter was probably the hardest time of year to maintain turbines, because workers must go out in snow and ice. Occasionally, he said, the turbines will shut down or set off alarms if it is too cold, and workers must brave the elements to fix them.

For homeowners, the upkeep of their power sources can also be a bother.

Mr. Stankevitz keeps his panels tilted 40 degrees or higher, but they still become covered with snow — and experts say that if even one cell in a panel is covered, the panel will not produce power.

With alternative energy only at about 1% of grid power the variability of the sources with the weather is not a big consideration. However, as the proportion rises the difficulties in maintaining the flow of electricity in all weather conditions will get more serious.

No doubt solutions will be found over time. However, forcing the introductions of these technologies before the problems are solved is a waste of resources. And you know what wasting resources does, don't you? It causes pollution.

H/T My Climate Buzz