Global Warming: We have been benefiting from it
for millenia!
Global Warming A Solution.
Global Warming: We have been benefiting from it for
millenia!
How it Works and why it is crucial to life
on earth.
Planet Earth enjoys 30OKelvin
( 30 Celsius or 86 Farenheit ) global
warming naturally from the current heat retaining properties of the atmospheres'
gasses. All gasses retain heat when heated and all gasses release
that heat when the heat source disappears. All matter, whether liquid,
solid or gas will absorb heat when thus exposed and release it when the
heat source is removed. Our atmosphere loses heat overnight only to be
recharged on its next exposure to sunlight the next day. If earth did not
have an atmosphere its daytime temperature would be the same as the moons':
390OKelvin
( 117 Celsius or 242 Farenheit, water boils at
100 Celsius or 212 Farenheit ) and its night
time temperature would be:
100OKelvin
( -173 Celsius -280 Farenheit, water freezes at
0 Celsius or 32 Farenheit ); With the current mix of atmospheric
gasses we have an average temperature of :
288OKelvin
( ~15 Celsius or 59 Farenheit ) :
By adding 'greenhouse gasses: namely Carbon Dioxide
and others to the atmosphere we increase the capacity of the atmosphere
to retain heat from day to night and back to day again. We are burning
millions of years of stored carbon deposits in the space of a couple of
centuries. The loading of the atmosphere with such an enormous heat sponge
may eventually lead to a runaway greenhouse effect as afflicts Venus. If
we reach the tipping point then there is no amount of funding that will
ever reverse the damage. The biosphere is in a delicate balance
and has been so for millenia. Greenhouse gasses force heat retention and
force its accumulation; incrementally at first but cumulatively and relentlessly.
The purpose of any renewable system is to match
and excel all other current carbon and nuclear based energy systems.
Carbon systems are going to be very hard to beat in
terms of their capacity to deliver energy in a condensed package and their
portability in both liquid and gas forms.
I did think that natural gas would be an excellent
alternative to all forms of coal and petroleum fuels but it is a carbon
based fuel. Along with global warming there is one much larger danger:
The acidification of the oceans. Already many mollusks and other ocean
life forms that require a calcium carbonate shell are having difficulty
forming those shells due to the increasing acidity of the oceans. With
more Carbon Dioxide emitted into the atmosphere these life forms will die.
If we kill these life forms then we turn the oceans into a hot sewer. All
sea life will die either from the effects of acidification, loss of food
chain and warming.
While we are still locked into the carbon fuel cycle,
we need to commence installing renewables on a huge scale. Wind and
Solar work on utilising huge areas for energy collection. These are easily
installed and connected to the grid.
Installation of renewables needs to go at a cracking
pace! Current global energy production, from all sources is 15TerraWatts.
Daily we receive over 174,000 TerraWatts from the sun, of which up to 86,000
Terrawats is available for renewable energy production. Ignoring this huge
energy source is foolish.
Utilisation of renewables will provide more energy
well into the future reliably and with certainty and with minimal harm
to our precious biosphere.
In Short the new energy economy will require two main
threads:
Distributed Energy production
and
Distributed Energy storage.
Revision of the Motor Car.
Both easily achievable. Both must be started now.
Politics.
The power of vested interests makes a mockery of all
democracies. Lobbyists and influence peddlers using bribery, in all its
guises, and verbal denial to grasp onto their funding source requires brave
and courageous leadership to oppose. It appears politicians are easily
bought, but the damage to the biosphere, that their corruption and sycophancy
to vested interest, is irreversible if allowed to continue; There is no
way to repair a planetary biosphere once we cross the tipping point; There
is no amount of money that will fix it once we have crossed the 'Rubicon'.
No fines or incarceration of the corrupt will reverse the damage.
We cannot afford the luxury of 'denial'.
Workforce.
Renewables create a huge amount of work.
They are labour intensive in their installation and
maintenance, but low maintenance in their operation.
More work will emanate from generating and storing
energy from renewables than from Carbon based fuels.
It's just that the profits will be more broadly spread
within communities than in the hands of a small group of super wealthy
Carbon supply companies: Oil companies, coal supply companies and nations.
The time to act is now!
A process for the cessation of the utilisation
of carbon based fuels for energy and transport needs to be adopted.
A methodology for this is proposed:
A tax on all carbon fuels based on $US0.0.2cents per
MegaJoule ( MJ ) of fuel value.
Proceeds from this tax to be spent in the following
manner:
Distributed Electrical
Energy Generation.
Distributed Electrical
Energy Storage.
Augmentation of Carbon fuel
sources with non greenhouse gas fuels.
Nuclear.
Magic Solution.
Transport
Clean Coal
A system of Distributed electrical storage is essential
for augmenting the peaks and troughs of renewable energy generation systems.
Sufficient capacity needs to installed to ensure a stable and reliable
supply. The following are some options:
Batteries:
Site
for current Battery technology click here
There are several batteries currently operational that
can be used for energy storage.
At the top of the list is the Vanadium Redox Battery
and similar "flow batteries".
These already work in tandem with windmills on King
Island Tasmania and in many other locations delivering a supply reliability
>80%.
This is better than any other supply reliability from
any other energy source anywhere.
Installation of VRB and similar, extensively adjunct
to wind, solar and wave farms; extensively throughout all suburban neighbourhoods
and industrial estates would see renewables deliver a reliable base load
better than any other system of electricity production.
Sodium Sulphur batteries are beginning to be used in
20MW installations in Japan and elsewhere as a load leveling storage and
supply system.
Lithium
Sulphur batteries also approach high energy densities but only limited
use in high current load leveling use to date.
Lead Acid batteries: Still the best source of electrical
supply to diesel electric submarines and easily adapted to neighbourhood
and industrial sites for load leveling and storage.
ZincAir and AluminiumAir batteries are still in the
research mode and still not here! We need to work with what works.
Lithium for larger systems.
Nickel Metal Hydride require too pollution in
their manufacture and should be phased out or the production process cleaned
up.
House Battery.
Each Dwelling to have its own storage battery: up
to 100Kw is not unreasonable and would occupy space similar to a refrigerator.
Mechanical systems:
Where supply exceeds demand into the grid
excess energy is diverted to one of three mechanical systems:
Compressed Air: Underground caverns ( old mines in
non pervious rocks ) are already being used for compressed air storage,
though inefficient they are ideal when an electrical storage system is
unable to cope with a surge in excess power input into its grid and rather
than divert the excess power to resistor banks or ground, it can be diverted
to any one of three mechanical systems of which the compressed air and
reverse hydro is ideal. Both react immediately to excess flow, compressed
air does not require as high an overload as reverse hydro, and both can
be tapped when input into the grid drops, or requires further augmentation.
Reverse Hydro requires a cascade of hydro installations
whereas compressed air can be located anywhere.
Flywheels: These are excellent load levelers and used
extensively in Paris by local telecom companies to maintain constant voltage
and power supply within their telephone network ( though these are smaller
than envisaged here ). Augmenting these into a neighbourhood system complementary
to the VRB or other Battery Boxes assists these to supply reliable and
safe supply both voltage and stabilised supply frequency.
Augmentation systems comprise fuels that can
be included in the combustion fuel supply that assist efficient burning
of carbon based fuels with minimal or negative contribution to CO2 emissions.
Principally: Biomass waste or Hydroxy gas.
Biomass waste, pulverised, can be included in fuel
augmentation for fluidised bed combustion chambers of coal fired power
stations and are essentially carbon neutral.
Hydroxy gas is the best possible augmentation to any
combustion process.
Utilised
on trucks the hydroxy gas augmentation can improve mileage with fuel reductions
between 15% to as high as 38% ( some claim more ).
Augmentation fuel in a carbon combustion process with
Hydroxy gas utilises several advantages:
Coal fired power stations, instead of utilising resistor
banks for load shedding can direct surplus supply to hydroxy gas generation
and this injected along with the powdered coal into the fluidised combustion
chamber enables less coal to be used, delivers a cleaner flue gas emission
with less particulates and less carbon dioxide.
Hydroxy gas works by electrolysing water in a potassium
of sodium hydroxide bath; the Hydrogen and Oxygen come off together and
the gas is then injected into the air intake where it assists the carbon
fuel to burn more efficiently. It does this by having a very high flame
speed ( in excess of 3000 ft/min ) and the resulting high temperature steam
acts as huge membrane over which the carbon fuel coalesces, expanding its
surface area, and hence burning more efficiently. There is no magic
here! its just plain chemistry.
Diamonds in the exhaust.
Installing magnetrons ( as used in a microwave oven
) to envelope a motor vehicles exhaust system delivers the cleanest exhaust
of all systems to reduce pollution. It also converts most of the hydro-carbon
exhaust gasses to diamond dust! Consequently one tank of petrol will produce
diamond dust residue with a value greater than the vehicle's value. Why
this is not extensively used can only be put down to vested interest in
the diamond trade. The diamond dust would be excellent for use in many
consumer goods and industrial processes; it would be useless as a jewel
except for purposes of adding glitter!
This
process is used extensively in highend audio where a diamond membrane is
emplaced over a titanium dome for high end tweeters.
Nuclear.
Fission
Fission reactors have been the mainstay of nuclear
power; However if all the worlds electrical power was derived from Uranium
alone, there would only be enough for 9 years at the most; and then a huge
disposal problem with the waste.
Pebble bed reactors seem the safest way forward if
Nuclear is to become more extensively used and in particular designs that
utilise Thorium in a slow
breeder
process.
Fusion.
Despite its promise of unlimited energy for all time
the technology and science of achieving ignition is still to be achieved.
Iter
and other projects may achieve this but it is still a long way away. Some
say 15 years others Never!
