KC Jones
10-14-2004, 10:48 AM
Some interesting ideas in producing more energy more efficiently in a "greener" process. Surprisingly enough they bail on traditional "green" energy sources like wind power.
Big green energy machines
How are we going to generate more power and decrease its impact on the environment?
...
The ZEPP
The ZEPP is a supercompact, superfast, superpowerful turbine putting out electricity and carbon dioxide (CO2) that can be sequestered. Investments by energy producers will make methane (natural gas) overtake coal globally as the lead fuel for making electricity over the next two to three decades. Methane tops the hydrocarbon fuels in heat value, measured in joules per kilogram, and thus lends itself to scaling up. Free of sulfur, mercury, and other contaminants of coals and oils, methane is the best hydrocarbon feedstock.
...
Conclusion
Small is beautiful when small also means powerful and inexpensive, like the machinery of the Internet. The energy system requires economical green ideas big in power yet small in impact.
Solar and the so-called renewables are not green when considered on the large scales required. A single 1,000- MWe nuclear plant equates to prime farmland of more than 2,500 km2 producing biomass, a wind farm occupying 750 km2, or a photovoltaic plant of about 150 km2 together with land for storage and retrieval. Although a present natural- gas combined-cycle plant uses about 3 metric tons of steel and 27 m3 of concrete per average megawatt electric, a typical wind-energy system uses 460 metric tons of steel and 870 m3 of concrete. Solar and renewables in every form require masses of machinery to produce many megawatts. They lack efficiencies and economies of scale. Like low-yield farming, to produce more calories, solar and renewables multiply in extent, linearly. Unlike the Internet, solar and renewables cannot become much smaller as they become much larger. Thus, they will grow little.
Fortunately, hot new technologies like ceramics, as well as cool ones like superconductors, make possible big, truly green energy machines. ZEPPs and SuperGrids can multiply the power of the system 5–10 times while shrinking it in a revolutionary way.
source: http://www.tipmagazine.com/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-5/p20.html
Big green energy machines
How are we going to generate more power and decrease its impact on the environment?
...
The ZEPP
The ZEPP is a supercompact, superfast, superpowerful turbine putting out electricity and carbon dioxide (CO2) that can be sequestered. Investments by energy producers will make methane (natural gas) overtake coal globally as the lead fuel for making electricity over the next two to three decades. Methane tops the hydrocarbon fuels in heat value, measured in joules per kilogram, and thus lends itself to scaling up. Free of sulfur, mercury, and other contaminants of coals and oils, methane is the best hydrocarbon feedstock.
...
Conclusion
Small is beautiful when small also means powerful and inexpensive, like the machinery of the Internet. The energy system requires economical green ideas big in power yet small in impact.
Solar and the so-called renewables are not green when considered on the large scales required. A single 1,000- MWe nuclear plant equates to prime farmland of more than 2,500 km2 producing biomass, a wind farm occupying 750 km2, or a photovoltaic plant of about 150 km2 together with land for storage and retrieval. Although a present natural- gas combined-cycle plant uses about 3 metric tons of steel and 27 m3 of concrete per average megawatt electric, a typical wind-energy system uses 460 metric tons of steel and 870 m3 of concrete. Solar and renewables in every form require masses of machinery to produce many megawatts. They lack efficiencies and economies of scale. Like low-yield farming, to produce more calories, solar and renewables multiply in extent, linearly. Unlike the Internet, solar and renewables cannot become much smaller as they become much larger. Thus, they will grow little.
Fortunately, hot new technologies like ceramics, as well as cool ones like superconductors, make possible big, truly green energy machines. ZEPPs and SuperGrids can multiply the power of the system 5–10 times while shrinking it in a revolutionary way.
source: http://www.tipmagazine.com/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-5/p20.html