Tesla and selling its all electric sedan....
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-29-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just a bit over 3 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: Tesla and selling its all electric sedan....
Tesla’s stock fell recently now that early investors and the like can sell the stock and some will do so.
Since it may have been over-valued, that may be a good thing.
But the analysts also said that they thought Tesla would be outdone by the wave of plug-in hybrids and cheaper electric cars.
That could happen. But I don’t expect it to happen.
Tesla does need to do some pretesting and quality control to help ensure the model S will have trouble free and bug free operation right away or within just a couple or three months of its initial release.
But if they do that, they have three markets that I think they can sell to or even dominate.
1. Because of the recession, people forget there are still people who can afford and want upscale cars and will pay for them. The Model S design is quite stylish and it has good acceleration for an upscale sedan. It appeals to buyers of BMW, Mercedes, Acura, etc. The cheaper electric cars are not really in the niche the Tesla Model S fits. Tesla already has some of these buyers and is known by them due to its Roadster which has upscale buyers around the world. The Tesla Model S can easily be competitive with BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes.
2. Many people who work in technology jobs are early adapters and like buying the latest technology. And, these people have incomes that are well above average. They will be a strong market for the Model S and all over the country or even the world, NOT just in the Silicon Valley.
3. Within 2 years or less after the Model is scheduled to be available, in 2014, the Kuwaiti’s have predicted peak oil. Plug in hybrids and cars still burning gasoline will have much higher fuel prices and maybe less availability of supply. With new renewable energy sources for electricity coming online and more efficient use of electricity, all electric cars may sell at a premium since they still will be able to get power and for less money. Plug in hybrids will be more competition than cars burning gasoline. But they too are not yet here. And, by the time they are, they may also have these fuel problems.
What if gas lines come back? What if gasoline goes to over $6 a gallon? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a car where you don’t have to worry about that? Tesla Model S owners will escape all that. And, it does look like these two things are on their way here!
So, my take is that working the bugs out of the Model S and selling it well to these three markets, will make it very competitive indeed.
In short, if Tesla does these things well, the analysts will be so wrong as to look a bit foolish.
We’ll see how Tesla does!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Real LED light bulbs are now available....
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-22-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just a bit over 3 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: Real LED light bulbs are now available
It’s nice to have some good news to report.
There are literally huge numbers of homes where lighting fixtures and various kinds of lamps are already there in these homes and designed to take incandescent light bulbs.
1. Incandescent light bulbs are still in a majority of those lighting fixtures and lamps.
2. More recently, compact fluorescent bulbs have become available. But with them, there is good news and bad news and some very bad news.
The good news is that they produce the same light as incandescent bulbs but use only a quarter of the watts of electricity to do so. That means that what was a 60 watt bulb or a 57 watt bulb can be replaced by an incandescent bulb of 14 or 15 watts but will deliver the same amount of light.
The bad news is that they cost about 14 times as much but although they do last longer, it’s only about four or five times longer with the bulbs I’ve had. And they burn slightly hotter and are slightly bigger than incandescent light bulbs. So you can’t put them in all the fixtures and lamps.
The very bad news is that they are a hazardous materials risk to have in your home and even more so when they wind up in the landfill along with regular trash. They contain mercury and release it into the air and nearby surfaces when they break.
Even worse, many if not most people who have installed compact fluorescent bulbs have no clue this is so and wind up with exposure to mercury when one breaks.
So, while compact fluorescent bulbs have been justified to some degree because they save so much energy, compact fluorescent bulbs get a very mixed review.
3. LED light bulbs have the by far the superior technology. They are almost twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs. And, they last as much as 20 times longer than compact fluorescent bulbs which is 80 to over 100 times as much as incandescent bulbs.
For some time now, LED lights have been going into stop lights and overhead street lights and commercial Christmas light displays for both their energy savings and dramatic savings on the labor to install new bulbs that LED light bulbs eliminate.
But LED light bulbs have not been available that would work in most lighting fixtures and lamps in homes.
Not any more! Real LED light bulbs are now available.
Their distributor, so far as I know now, only sells to building contractors and lighting stores and other commercial accounts. And, they don’t disclose the company that manufactures the bulbs they sell.
I recently asked at a local lighting products store if they as yet had any LED light bulbs that would fit our lamps and fixtures.
They then showed me the two sizes they had. One produced the same light as a 75 watt incandescent bulb but only used 9 watts! That’s also about half the watts it would take to run a compact fluorescent bulb that produced that much light.
The LED light bulbs I bought turned out to be just a bit too long to fit all our lamps and fixtures. But it was close even there. Better, unlike compact fluorescents, it looks more like an incandescent bulb.
The downside is I didn’t have enough money to buy all the LED bulbs that would fit.
They were $57 for one and $107 for two. We need about 12 to 14. But I was able to afford the first two. They work great!
And, even though I hope the cost drops by at least 5 to one soon, on a lifetime basis they aren’t that bad. Each LED bulb will replace about 80 to 100 incandescent bulbs -- which would otherwise cost at least $60 to $75 per light over that time. That’s actually a bit better than the compact fluorescents we’ve had as well.
So, to help cut our electricity use without cutting back on your light at home, please consider doing two things.:
A. Buy as many LED bulbs as you can afford now.
B. And, write the person who is the main executive or director for your State’s Utilities commission and urge them to give permission and to have all the utility companies in your state buy all the LED lights that each home needs and then allow the homeowner or renter to pay back the cost over 20 years or even 10 years.
For example, the 7 pairs of LED light bulbs we initially needed would be $399 or a bit less. If we paid back the utility $480 over 10 years that would be $4 a month and our cost for the electricity saved would likely be that much or more! Plus even if someone lost all the LED light bulbs to a house fire, virtually everyone can afford $4 a month.
The utility would be spared the cost of building a new generating plant or two by doing this, so it would be a win for them too!
It’s early yet. But this is very promising news indeed now. And, it will get better soon!
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-22-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just a bit over 3 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: Real LED light bulbs are now available
It’s nice to have some good news to report.
There are literally huge numbers of homes where lighting fixtures and various kinds of lamps are already there in these homes and designed to take incandescent light bulbs.
1. Incandescent light bulbs are still in a majority of those lighting fixtures and lamps.
2. More recently, compact fluorescent bulbs have become available. But with them, there is good news and bad news and some very bad news.
The good news is that they produce the same light as incandescent bulbs but use only a quarter of the watts of electricity to do so. That means that what was a 60 watt bulb or a 57 watt bulb can be replaced by an incandescent bulb of 14 or 15 watts but will deliver the same amount of light.
The bad news is that they cost about 14 times as much but although they do last longer, it’s only about four or five times longer with the bulbs I’ve had. And they burn slightly hotter and are slightly bigger than incandescent light bulbs. So you can’t put them in all the fixtures and lamps.
The very bad news is that they are a hazardous materials risk to have in your home and even more so when they wind up in the landfill along with regular trash. They contain mercury and release it into the air and nearby surfaces when they break.
Even worse, many if not most people who have installed compact fluorescent bulbs have no clue this is so and wind up with exposure to mercury when one breaks.
So, while compact fluorescent bulbs have been justified to some degree because they save so much energy, compact fluorescent bulbs get a very mixed review.
3. LED light bulbs have the by far the superior technology. They are almost twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs. And, they last as much as 20 times longer than compact fluorescent bulbs which is 80 to over 100 times as much as incandescent bulbs.
For some time now, LED lights have been going into stop lights and overhead street lights and commercial Christmas light displays for both their energy savings and dramatic savings on the labor to install new bulbs that LED light bulbs eliminate.
But LED light bulbs have not been available that would work in most lighting fixtures and lamps in homes.
Not any more! Real LED light bulbs are now available.
Their distributor, so far as I know now, only sells to building contractors and lighting stores and other commercial accounts. And, they don’t disclose the company that manufactures the bulbs they sell.
I recently asked at a local lighting products store if they as yet had any LED light bulbs that would fit our lamps and fixtures.
They then showed me the two sizes they had. One produced the same light as a 75 watt incandescent bulb but only used 9 watts! That’s also about half the watts it would take to run a compact fluorescent bulb that produced that much light.
The LED light bulbs I bought turned out to be just a bit too long to fit all our lamps and fixtures. But it was close even there. Better, unlike compact fluorescents, it looks more like an incandescent bulb.
The downside is I didn’t have enough money to buy all the LED bulbs that would fit.
They were $57 for one and $107 for two. We need about 12 to 14. But I was able to afford the first two. They work great!
And, even though I hope the cost drops by at least 5 to one soon, on a lifetime basis they aren’t that bad. Each LED bulb will replace about 80 to 100 incandescent bulbs -- which would otherwise cost at least $60 to $75 per light over that time. That’s actually a bit better than the compact fluorescents we’ve had as well.
So, to help cut our electricity use without cutting back on your light at home, please consider doing two things.:
A. Buy as many LED bulbs as you can afford now.
B. And, write the person who is the main executive or director for your State’s Utilities commission and urge them to give permission and to have all the utility companies in your state buy all the LED lights that each home needs and then allow the homeowner or renter to pay back the cost over 20 years or even 10 years.
For example, the 7 pairs of LED light bulbs we initially needed would be $399 or a bit less. If we paid back the utility $480 over 10 years that would be $4 a month and our cost for the electricity saved would likely be that much or more! Plus even if someone lost all the LED light bulbs to a house fire, virtually everyone can afford $4 a month.
The utility would be spared the cost of building a new generating plant or two by doing this, so it would be a win for them too!
It’s early yet. But this is very promising news indeed now. And, it will get better soon!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
China seems to be winning on clean energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-15-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just a bit over 3 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: China seems to be winning on clean energy
In last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, December 12, 2010), the Bottom Line column by Andrew S. Ross was titled:
“China has national plan for getting greener.”
He reported in part on the conference "Scaling Green Finance in China and the U.S.," put on by the Asia Society at PG&E's headquarters in San Francisco the previous Wednesday.
Main points:
China’s government has a national plan to increase clean energy in several ways. But the government of the United States does not yet have such a clear and focused plan.
One speaker said that China is beginning to outdo the United States on renewables, in harnessing wind and solar , particularly in solar panel production.
Ross reports the idea from this conference that unless the United States begins carbon pricing, with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade (which California is about to try), it will keep falling farther behind on clean energy.
The good news is that many US CEO’s are willing to compete and will likely do more when carbon pricing does show up.
For more clean energy China already has a 5 year plan to generate 15% of China's electricity come from renewable sources by 2020 and will directly invest $1.5 trillion in making this happen. They also plan to build more third- and fourth-generation nuclear power plants.
And, as of last month, China has an "Energy Efficiency Resource Standard" which will go into effect nationwide in January.
It will require China's electricity industry to both reduce energy and set up programs for factories, other businesses and homes to become more energy efficient.
Energy efficiency saves money and reduces emissions. It also allows economic growth with far less need for new electricity generation. It’s also potentially far faster to put into place than building more renewable energy sources of electricity and other energy.
As Elton Sherwin explains in his superb but mistitled book, Addicted to Energy, this can be done with massive and positive effects throughout the US economy. Further this can be done using already available and developed technology. His book literally lists dozens of ways policies by the US government and state governments can cause these ways to increase efficiency to be put into use.
For three reasons, I think his work will be used soon.
1. Since we need to increase economic growth while using less fossil fuels, particularly oil, and removing CO2 and air pollution where fossil fuels are still used, electricity from burning carbon based fossil fuels will inevitably get more expensive even without new government charges on carbon use. And, those are likely too at some point.
2. If China does do an effective job of this, far more pressure will be brought on governments at all levels in the United States to keep up.
3. His work will be used because energy efficiency literally saves money for the end user and because that market will drive new businesses and old businesses to produce more and more products that work and which are much more energy efficient.
The bad news for China is that it depends far too heavily on coal and oil and has the most polluted cities in the world as they have not yet begun to adequately capture air pollutants where these are burned to generate electricity.
Their planned and expected economic growth will make changing this on such a large scale quite challenging.
This heavy and massive use of fossil fuels also is beginning to generate the most CO2 released in the world, let alone if they add more yet.
The good news, as we posted last week about Skyonic, is that there is now a way to remove most of the pollutants and CO2 from burning fossil fuels in one step.
But whether or not China, which has been doing things on the cheap to gain market share with lower production prices will do this pollution and CO2 removal on their own or respond well to world wide pressure and do so is not yet clear.
The United States and China are world’s two biggest energy users and greenhouse gas releasers in the world
So it’s at least possible that if the United States uses this technology and others to stop releasing most of their air pollution and CO2 from fossil fuel use and begins to use less fossil fuels, that example and the products and services developed by companies that do this in the United States may cause China to do the same.
Based on their hard work to minimize the air pollution for the last Olympics, China showed that they are not that happy with having their cities covered with bad air pollution either. So I’m moderately optimistic they will do this eventually.
The ideal would be:
For the United States to do as well or better than China on building more much renewable electricity generation and to use far less oil and somewhat less coal plus doing as well or better than China at increasing our energy efficiency in every part of our economy;
&
For China to begin to do dramatically more to remove air pollutants and CO 2 from plants that burn oil or coal throughout China.
This certainly will not happen as fast as we need for it to. But I do think it has a good shot at happening eventually.
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-15-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just a bit over 3 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: China seems to be winning on clean energy
In last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, December 12, 2010), the Bottom Line column by Andrew S. Ross was titled:
“China has national plan for getting greener.”
He reported in part on the conference "Scaling Green Finance in China and the U.S.," put on by the Asia Society at PG&E's headquarters in San Francisco the previous Wednesday.
Main points:
China’s government has a national plan to increase clean energy in several ways. But the government of the United States does not yet have such a clear and focused plan.
One speaker said that China is beginning to outdo the United States on renewables, in harnessing wind and solar , particularly in solar panel production.
Ross reports the idea from this conference that unless the United States begins carbon pricing, with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade (which California is about to try), it will keep falling farther behind on clean energy.
The good news is that many US CEO’s are willing to compete and will likely do more when carbon pricing does show up.
For more clean energy China already has a 5 year plan to generate 15% of China's electricity come from renewable sources by 2020 and will directly invest $1.5 trillion in making this happen. They also plan to build more third- and fourth-generation nuclear power plants.
And, as of last month, China has an "Energy Efficiency Resource Standard" which will go into effect nationwide in January.
It will require China's electricity industry to both reduce energy and set up programs for factories, other businesses and homes to become more energy efficient.
Energy efficiency saves money and reduces emissions. It also allows economic growth with far less need for new electricity generation. It’s also potentially far faster to put into place than building more renewable energy sources of electricity and other energy.
As Elton Sherwin explains in his superb but mistitled book, Addicted to Energy, this can be done with massive and positive effects throughout the US economy. Further this can be done using already available and developed technology. His book literally lists dozens of ways policies by the US government and state governments can cause these ways to increase efficiency to be put into use.
For three reasons, I think his work will be used soon.
1. Since we need to increase economic growth while using less fossil fuels, particularly oil, and removing CO2 and air pollution where fossil fuels are still used, electricity from burning carbon based fossil fuels will inevitably get more expensive even without new government charges on carbon use. And, those are likely too at some point.
2. If China does do an effective job of this, far more pressure will be brought on governments at all levels in the United States to keep up.
3. His work will be used because energy efficiency literally saves money for the end user and because that market will drive new businesses and old businesses to produce more and more products that work and which are much more energy efficient.
The bad news for China is that it depends far too heavily on coal and oil and has the most polluted cities in the world as they have not yet begun to adequately capture air pollutants where these are burned to generate electricity.
Their planned and expected economic growth will make changing this on such a large scale quite challenging.
This heavy and massive use of fossil fuels also is beginning to generate the most CO2 released in the world, let alone if they add more yet.
The good news, as we posted last week about Skyonic, is that there is now a way to remove most of the pollutants and CO2 from burning fossil fuels in one step.
But whether or not China, which has been doing things on the cheap to gain market share with lower production prices will do this pollution and CO2 removal on their own or respond well to world wide pressure and do so is not yet clear.
The United States and China are world’s two biggest energy users and greenhouse gas releasers in the world
So it’s at least possible that if the United States uses this technology and others to stop releasing most of their air pollution and CO2 from fossil fuel use and begins to use less fossil fuels, that example and the products and services developed by companies that do this in the United States may cause China to do the same.
Based on their hard work to minimize the air pollution for the last Olympics, China showed that they are not that happy with having their cities covered with bad air pollution either. So I’m moderately optimistic they will do this eventually.
The ideal would be:
For the United States to do as well or better than China on building more much renewable electricity generation and to use far less oil and somewhat less coal plus doing as well or better than China at increasing our energy efficiency in every part of our economy;
&
For China to begin to do dramatically more to remove air pollutants and CO 2 from plants that burn oil or coal throughout China.
This certainly will not happen as fast as we need for it to. But I do think it has a good shot at happening eventually.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Possible solution to the coal problem....
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-8-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: Possible solution to the coal problem
For several reasons major players in the world’s economy now rely on coal to generate electricity. With cars beginning to switch to electricity for power and the current prediction for peak oil now only a bit over 3 years away, this may even get worse before it gets better.
But the way we use coal now pollutes the air and, on this scale, is a massive contributor to CO2 release and the related global warming.
We’re in a challenging situation to put it mildly.
We actually need the electricity we can get from coal more and that trend will increase as cars begin to run on electricity and oil becomes to expensive to use; but we need just as badly to stop dumping pollutants and CO2 into the air.
I’ve known these things. But even I had no idea of the massive scope and size of this problem. Nor had I known of anything more than somewhat better methods to use coal.
Since last week, I found both things.
I found an article detailing the massive current size of the problem and why a solution to keep using coal is imperative at this point. (Excerpts from the article are below.)
>>> The much better news is that I found that there actually may be a doable solution!
That information is in this post also!
Here’s the article: “December 2010 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE
….two ideas that are taken with complete seriousness by businesses, scientists, and government officials in China and America, and are the basis of the most extensive cooperation now under way between the countries on climate issues.
One is that coal can be used in less damaging, more sustainable ways than it is now.
The other is that it must be used in those ways, because there is no plausible other way to meet what will be, absent an economic or social cataclysm, the world’s unavoidable energy demands.
….the role that coal now plays around the world, and especially for the two biggest energy consumers, America and China.
Overall, coal-burning power plants provide nearly half (about 46 percent this year) of the electricity consumed in the United States. For the record: natural gas supplies another 23 percent, nuclear power about 20 percent, hydroelectric power about 7 percent, and everything else the remaining 4 or 5 percent. The small size of the “everything else” total is worth noting; even if it doubles or triples, the solutions we often hear the most about won’t come close to meeting total demand.
In China, coal-fired plants supply an even larger share of much faster-growing total electric demand: at least 70 percent, with the Three Gorges Dam and similar hydroelectric projects providing about 20 percent, and (in order) natural gas, nuclear power, wind, and solar energy making up the small remainder.
For the world as a whole, coal-fired plants provide about half the total electric supply.
On average, every American uses the electricity produced by 7,500 pounds of coal each year.
Coal will be with us because it is abundant: any projected “peak coal” stage would come many decades after the world reaches “peak oil.”
It will be with us because of where it’s located: the top four coal-reserve countries are the United States, Russia, China, and India, which together have about 40 percent of the world’s population and more than 60 percent of its coal.”
Possible solutions:
A. You can use coal to make methane by adding hydrogen to the carbon.
That has three advantages.
1. The gas can be shipped by pipeline -- which might be extremely useful for China.
2. The process removes some of the worst pollutants like metals BEFORE the gas is used to make electricity.
3. The gas can be used to make electricity in fuel cells that are more efficient and generate still less air pollution. Bloom Energy in the Silicon Valley is already selling these fuel cells for larger scale electricity generation. Pollutants are removed when the gas is made and only gas enters the fuel cells. Heat is generated; but only CO2 and water leave as exhaust. Particulates, metals, acidic chemicals, and oxides of nitrogen are NOT.
That would solve much of the problems except for CO2 release for new coal generated electricity plants.
B. For both existing plants and plants that burn coal gas or run it through a fuel cell, a company Skyonic, has a technology that both prevents CO2 from being released and also does a far superior job of removing pollutants from the exhaust of existing coal fired plants.
You can feed some of the CO2 to algae which can then be harvested for biofuel as a replacement for oil; but that just delays the CO2 release into the air.
With a few exceptions, "sequestration" of CO2 is both close to undoable on a large scale and if done in most places even if it were possible would add unbelievably to the costs. It's a nonstarter, in other words.
Skyonic's process will be expensive too. But it looks like a real solution unlike sequestration. And, the fact that it can be used to remove other pollutants and is usable on existing coal fired plants looks very promising.
Skyonic Corporation has this web address: http://skyonic.com/ .
They lead with this:
“At Skyonic, we believe that clean air and economic growth are not mutually exclusive. We believe that mineralizing CO2 emissions is the best-available method for reversing global warming.”
The technology even has some economically practical and doable aspects.
“THE SKYMINE PROCESS:
Skyonic’s SkyMine® technology removes CO2 from industrial waste streams through co-generation of saleable carbonate and/or bicarbonate materials. In addition to capturing and mineralizing CO2, the SkyMine® process cleans SOx and NO2 from the flue gas, and removes heavy metals such as mercury. Existing power plants and industrial plants can be retrofitted with SkyMine®. Successful implementation of the SkyMine® technology establishes pathways for mitigating CO2 in areas where geologic storage, the predominant competing CO2 sequestration technology, is not an optimal solution.
A SkyMine® plant can be retrofitted to stationary emitters to economically remove CO2 from the exhaust stream and transform it into solids instead of a gas. Solid carbonates and bicarbonates can be profitably sold to market and are ideal for long-term, safe storage such as minefill or landfill. Solid storage of CO2 means that there is no need for pipeline transport, injection, or concern about CO2 re-release, as with other CO2 capture and sequestration technologies.
Another key advantage of the SkyMine® process is its scalability, as it allows an industrial or power plant owner to configure the degree of CO2 removal anywhere from 10% to 99%. This is important because industrial plants and power plants around the world have unique designs requiring different CO2 removal configurations.
The SkyMine® technology can be operated at a profit, due to the sale of byproducts. The solid carbonates and bicarbonates are saleable for use in bio-algae applications. SkyMine® also produces green chemicals, such as hydrochloric acid, bleach, chlorine, and hydrogen, which are also profitable and can replace less environmentally-friendly products in market.
The fact that the SkyMine® process removes virtually all SOX, NO2, and mercury and other heavy metals that would otherwise be emitted by the plant means it can replace existing scrubber technologies and eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in capital expense and tens of millions of dollars in ongoing expenses.“
They have $25 million in starter funding from a DOE Grant, apparently announced on July 29, 2010.
The only bad news is that the company is still in the very early stages.
1. But just as soon as their pilot projects and company building allow, it would make sense to contact the Governors of the “four corners” western states and the US Department of Energy to set up their process on several of the coal fired plants that are ruining the clean air in these Rocky Mountain states.
Many of these plants are now located near the “four corners” where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico come together. So those states which depend on the electricity from the plants but also benefit from tourism would be affected if those plants or some of the worst ones were cleaned up.
2. The air in the whole Eastern half of the United States has enough air pollution from coal to increase death rates and medical care costs according to a map I found.
So, similarly, just as soon as their pilot projects and company building allow, it would make sense to begin to retrofit their technology to the three or four most polluting coal fired plants in this area.
3. It would also make sense to involve the key coal mining states in beginning to retrofit this technology to existing coal fired plants.
Just 8 states mine 84.3 % of the coal mined in the United States according to an online source I just saw: (Here are those states and their percentages.)
“Montana 25.4
Illinois 16.5
Wyoming 14.4
West Virginia 8.0
Kentucky 6.3
Pennsylvania 6.1
Ohio 4.0
Colorado 3.6”
The other 19 states where coal is mined produce the other 15.7 %.
Montana, Wyoming, and West Virginia all have smaller economies which greatly magnifies the importance to their economies of continuing to mine coal. So they should be included in this effort. Kentucky also fits in this group to some degree.
Colorado is also one of the four “four corners” states and is often a progressive state. So it should be included for all three reasons.
And, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio should be included since they have larger and stronger economies and can best afford to help fund the initial installations.
It seems to me that Skyonic and the Department of Energy would do well to launch these three projects as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, I’d like to see the stronger clean energy venture funds work together to get Skyonic something like $500 million in venture money to expand and perhaps an initial $50 million to do these three projects.
There are dozens of such funds but some of the bigger and better known are:
Kleiner Perkins; Kholsa Ventures; GE, Braemar Ventures; Nth Power; and Vantage Point Venture Partners.
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-8-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: Possible solution to the coal problem
For several reasons major players in the world’s economy now rely on coal to generate electricity. With cars beginning to switch to electricity for power and the current prediction for peak oil now only a bit over 3 years away, this may even get worse before it gets better.
But the way we use coal now pollutes the air and, on this scale, is a massive contributor to CO2 release and the related global warming.
We’re in a challenging situation to put it mildly.
We actually need the electricity we can get from coal more and that trend will increase as cars begin to run on electricity and oil becomes to expensive to use; but we need just as badly to stop dumping pollutants and CO2 into the air.
I’ve known these things. But even I had no idea of the massive scope and size of this problem. Nor had I known of anything more than somewhat better methods to use coal.
Since last week, I found both things.
I found an article detailing the massive current size of the problem and why a solution to keep using coal is imperative at this point. (Excerpts from the article are below.)
>>> The much better news is that I found that there actually may be a doable solution!
That information is in this post also!
Here’s the article: “December 2010 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE
….two ideas that are taken with complete seriousness by businesses, scientists, and government officials in China and America, and are the basis of the most extensive cooperation now under way between the countries on climate issues.
One is that coal can be used in less damaging, more sustainable ways than it is now.
The other is that it must be used in those ways, because there is no plausible other way to meet what will be, absent an economic or social cataclysm, the world’s unavoidable energy demands.
….the role that coal now plays around the world, and especially for the two biggest energy consumers, America and China.
Overall, coal-burning power plants provide nearly half (about 46 percent this year) of the electricity consumed in the United States. For the record: natural gas supplies another 23 percent, nuclear power about 20 percent, hydroelectric power about 7 percent, and everything else the remaining 4 or 5 percent. The small size of the “everything else” total is worth noting; even if it doubles or triples, the solutions we often hear the most about won’t come close to meeting total demand.
In China, coal-fired plants supply an even larger share of much faster-growing total electric demand: at least 70 percent, with the Three Gorges Dam and similar hydroelectric projects providing about 20 percent, and (in order) natural gas, nuclear power, wind, and solar energy making up the small remainder.
For the world as a whole, coal-fired plants provide about half the total electric supply.
On average, every American uses the electricity produced by 7,500 pounds of coal each year.
Coal will be with us because it is abundant: any projected “peak coal” stage would come many decades after the world reaches “peak oil.”
It will be with us because of where it’s located: the top four coal-reserve countries are the United States, Russia, China, and India, which together have about 40 percent of the world’s population and more than 60 percent of its coal.”
Possible solutions:
A. You can use coal to make methane by adding hydrogen to the carbon.
That has three advantages.
1. The gas can be shipped by pipeline -- which might be extremely useful for China.
2. The process removes some of the worst pollutants like metals BEFORE the gas is used to make electricity.
3. The gas can be used to make electricity in fuel cells that are more efficient and generate still less air pollution. Bloom Energy in the Silicon Valley is already selling these fuel cells for larger scale electricity generation. Pollutants are removed when the gas is made and only gas enters the fuel cells. Heat is generated; but only CO2 and water leave as exhaust. Particulates, metals, acidic chemicals, and oxides of nitrogen are NOT.
That would solve much of the problems except for CO2 release for new coal generated electricity plants.
B. For both existing plants and plants that burn coal gas or run it through a fuel cell, a company Skyonic, has a technology that both prevents CO2 from being released and also does a far superior job of removing pollutants from the exhaust of existing coal fired plants.
You can feed some of the CO2 to algae which can then be harvested for biofuel as a replacement for oil; but that just delays the CO2 release into the air.
With a few exceptions, "sequestration" of CO2 is both close to undoable on a large scale and if done in most places even if it were possible would add unbelievably to the costs. It's a nonstarter, in other words.
Skyonic's process will be expensive too. But it looks like a real solution unlike sequestration. And, the fact that it can be used to remove other pollutants and is usable on existing coal fired plants looks very promising.
Skyonic Corporation has this web address: http://skyonic.com/ .
They lead with this:
“At Skyonic, we believe that clean air and economic growth are not mutually exclusive. We believe that mineralizing CO2 emissions is the best-available method for reversing global warming.”
The technology even has some economically practical and doable aspects.
“THE SKYMINE PROCESS:
Skyonic’s SkyMine® technology removes CO2 from industrial waste streams through co-generation of saleable carbonate and/or bicarbonate materials. In addition to capturing and mineralizing CO2, the SkyMine® process cleans SOx and NO2 from the flue gas, and removes heavy metals such as mercury. Existing power plants and industrial plants can be retrofitted with SkyMine®. Successful implementation of the SkyMine® technology establishes pathways for mitigating CO2 in areas where geologic storage, the predominant competing CO2 sequestration technology, is not an optimal solution.
A SkyMine® plant can be retrofitted to stationary emitters to economically remove CO2 from the exhaust stream and transform it into solids instead of a gas. Solid carbonates and bicarbonates can be profitably sold to market and are ideal for long-term, safe storage such as minefill or landfill. Solid storage of CO2 means that there is no need for pipeline transport, injection, or concern about CO2 re-release, as with other CO2 capture and sequestration technologies.
Another key advantage of the SkyMine® process is its scalability, as it allows an industrial or power plant owner to configure the degree of CO2 removal anywhere from 10% to 99%. This is important because industrial plants and power plants around the world have unique designs requiring different CO2 removal configurations.
The SkyMine® technology can be operated at a profit, due to the sale of byproducts. The solid carbonates and bicarbonates are saleable for use in bio-algae applications. SkyMine® also produces green chemicals, such as hydrochloric acid, bleach, chlorine, and hydrogen, which are also profitable and can replace less environmentally-friendly products in market.
The fact that the SkyMine® process removes virtually all SOX, NO2, and mercury and other heavy metals that would otherwise be emitted by the plant means it can replace existing scrubber technologies and eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in capital expense and tens of millions of dollars in ongoing expenses.“
They have $25 million in starter funding from a DOE Grant, apparently announced on July 29, 2010.
The only bad news is that the company is still in the very early stages.
1. But just as soon as their pilot projects and company building allow, it would make sense to contact the Governors of the “four corners” western states and the US Department of Energy to set up their process on several of the coal fired plants that are ruining the clean air in these Rocky Mountain states.
Many of these plants are now located near the “four corners” where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico come together. So those states which depend on the electricity from the plants but also benefit from tourism would be affected if those plants or some of the worst ones were cleaned up.
2. The air in the whole Eastern half of the United States has enough air pollution from coal to increase death rates and medical care costs according to a map I found.
So, similarly, just as soon as their pilot projects and company building allow, it would make sense to begin to retrofit their technology to the three or four most polluting coal fired plants in this area.
3. It would also make sense to involve the key coal mining states in beginning to retrofit this technology to existing coal fired plants.
Just 8 states mine 84.3 % of the coal mined in the United States according to an online source I just saw: (Here are those states and their percentages.)
“Montana 25.4
Illinois 16.5
Wyoming 14.4
West Virginia 8.0
Kentucky 6.3
Pennsylvania 6.1
Ohio 4.0
Colorado 3.6”
The other 19 states where coal is mined produce the other 15.7 %.
Montana, Wyoming, and West Virginia all have smaller economies which greatly magnifies the importance to their economies of continuing to mine coal. So they should be included in this effort. Kentucky also fits in this group to some degree.
Colorado is also one of the four “four corners” states and is often a progressive state. So it should be included for all three reasons.
And, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio should be included since they have larger and stronger economies and can best afford to help fund the initial installations.
It seems to me that Skyonic and the Department of Energy would do well to launch these three projects as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, I’d like to see the stronger clean energy venture funds work together to get Skyonic something like $500 million in venture money to expand and perhaps an initial $50 million to do these three projects.
There are dozens of such funds but some of the bigger and better known are:
Kleiner Perkins; Kholsa Ventures; GE, Braemar Ventures; Nth Power; and Vantage Point Venture Partners.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Mixed news on sudden increases in global warming....
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-1-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: Mixed news on sudden increases in global warming
Last week we wrote about how the thawing of the permafrost could soon release up to 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, now locked into the tundra & permafrost, into the atmosphere – as methane. This could lead to dangerously rapid climate change or having this extra warming develop its own momentum and become unstoppable by us.
This week the other shoe dropped. It seems the tundra and the permafrost are just part of the earth’s surface that will release more methane as warming continues! Ouch !
The good news is that if we can at least sharply slow the increases in CO2 release soon, this will become a gradual and potentially reversible process instead of creating sudden flooding of coastal cities and developing its own momentum and become unstoppable by us.
The recession has temporarily slowed the increase in CO2 release and will not improve quickly, so if we can become more energy efficient in hundreds of ways and add thousands more sources of clean energy as the recession gradually ends, we may be able to catch this extra carbon release in time to be able to survive it and reverse it. This might actually be doable!
Here’s the story I found today on Livescience.com . They released a story today by their, writer, Jeremy Hsu.
It seems Earth's biggest store of carbon dioxide is locked within the decaying vegetation found in peatlands, from tropical peat swamps to Arctic permafrost – which is just a part of this problem. British researchers have calculated that a too fast-warming world would cause all these peatlands to dump huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
A global warming rate of about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) per decade might well be enough to destabilize these peatlands compost, according to Sebastian Wieczorek, one of these mathematicians at the University of Exeter in England.
“Peat soils contain from 400 billion to a trillion metric tons of carbon, "which is about the same as the carbon content in the atmosphere," Wieczorek said. "A release of the soil carbon from peatlands into the atmosphere would therefore have an enormous impact on the climate system."
Peatlands cover just 3 percent of the world's land area, but they store almost 30 percent of all global soil carbon - about as much carbon as found in the atmosphere or in the total of terrestrial biomass (plants and animals). “
The article goes on to say, however, that slowing this rate of increase would allow the peatlands to release less carbon more slowly as the peatlands evolved relatively more stable ways to adapt to the warming.
This would allow people to take more like 30 years to dike off or abandon coastal areas before they are flooded and move people and businesses in an orderly way that will need to be moved.
If this process reaches a runaway stage because we failed to do this, we would have more like a year or two at most to do this. This would be quite catastrophic as it simply would cause much of the world’s population to become homeless and destroy much of the world’s economy that’s now located in these coastal cities in that year or two.
And, almost as bad, the process of global warming would get worse and become unstoppable even if we stopped adding CO2 to the air totally.
The only good news in this is that we may have enough of a start on implementing solutions to catch this in time.
At the very least, each of us can help contribute something to making our economy more energy efficient and adding more sources of clean energy. This can range from adding just one LED light bulb that saves a few watts of electricity each month or improving the ceiling insulation in your house to helping launch several billion dollar solar farms to generate renewably sourced electricity.
If everyone who can, does something productive, we have a shot.
What can you do?
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-1-2010
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Today’s post: Mixed news on sudden increases in global warming
Last week we wrote about how the thawing of the permafrost could soon release up to 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, now locked into the tundra & permafrost, into the atmosphere – as methane. This could lead to dangerously rapid climate change or having this extra warming develop its own momentum and become unstoppable by us.
This week the other shoe dropped. It seems the tundra and the permafrost are just part of the earth’s surface that will release more methane as warming continues! Ouch !
The good news is that if we can at least sharply slow the increases in CO2 release soon, this will become a gradual and potentially reversible process instead of creating sudden flooding of coastal cities and developing its own momentum and become unstoppable by us.
The recession has temporarily slowed the increase in CO2 release and will not improve quickly, so if we can become more energy efficient in hundreds of ways and add thousands more sources of clean energy as the recession gradually ends, we may be able to catch this extra carbon release in time to be able to survive it and reverse it. This might actually be doable!
Here’s the story I found today on Livescience.com . They released a story today by their, writer, Jeremy Hsu.
It seems Earth's biggest store of carbon dioxide is locked within the decaying vegetation found in peatlands, from tropical peat swamps to Arctic permafrost – which is just a part of this problem. British researchers have calculated that a too fast-warming world would cause all these peatlands to dump huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
A global warming rate of about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) per decade might well be enough to destabilize these peatlands compost, according to Sebastian Wieczorek, one of these mathematicians at the University of Exeter in England.
“Peat soils contain from 400 billion to a trillion metric tons of carbon, "which is about the same as the carbon content in the atmosphere," Wieczorek said. "A release of the soil carbon from peatlands into the atmosphere would therefore have an enormous impact on the climate system."
Peatlands cover just 3 percent of the world's land area, but they store almost 30 percent of all global soil carbon - about as much carbon as found in the atmosphere or in the total of terrestrial biomass (plants and animals). “
The article goes on to say, however, that slowing this rate of increase would allow the peatlands to release less carbon more slowly as the peatlands evolved relatively more stable ways to adapt to the warming.
This would allow people to take more like 30 years to dike off or abandon coastal areas before they are flooded and move people and businesses in an orderly way that will need to be moved.
If this process reaches a runaway stage because we failed to do this, we would have more like a year or two at most to do this. This would be quite catastrophic as it simply would cause much of the world’s population to become homeless and destroy much of the world’s economy that’s now located in these coastal cities in that year or two.
And, almost as bad, the process of global warming would get worse and become unstoppable even if we stopped adding CO2 to the air totally.
The only good news in this is that we may have enough of a start on implementing solutions to catch this in time.
At the very least, each of us can help contribute something to making our economy more energy efficient and adding more sources of clean energy. This can range from adding just one LED light bulb that saves a few watts of electricity each month or improving the ceiling insulation in your house to helping launch several billion dollar solar farms to generate renewably sourced electricity.
If everyone who can, does something productive, we have a shot.
What can you do?
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