Posted on 03/26/2003 6:58:12 AM PST by newgeezer
Ain't that the truth! With the People's Republic of Minnesota replacing Wellstone with a Republican, and about to pass a shall-issue concealed carry bill, something's not right with the world.
Meanwhile, we have a second-term Democrat governor challenging the Dungheap for the title of Iowa's Biggest Embarassment.
Very true. So when the wind comes up, the utility has to make a decision whether to dispach the windmills or not. Coal-fired plants, especially large ones, aren't all that throttleable (?) to accomodate the vagaries of the wind.
In short, wind power is mostly a pain in the butt, still it generates SOME power, just don't expect it to deliver the rated output 24/7.
By LEE BOWMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
March 24, 2003
- Alcohol is delivering a different sort of jolt for chemists at St. Louis University.
They've developed a new type of biofuel cell - a battery that can be recharged instantly by adding a few milliliters of alcohol.
They've charged cells able to run everything from cell phones to laptops with vodka, gin, white wine and flat beer so far.
The power is actually produced by enzymes, molecules found in all living things that carry out various chemical processes essential to life.
"The only items consumed in a biofuel cell are the fuel and oxygen from the air," said Shelley Minteer, an assistant professor of chemistry who presented the research Monday during a national meeting of the American Chemical Society, in New Orleans. "We think our work moves this from a purely academic endeavor to a more practical technology.
"Given the proper environment, an enzyme should last for long periods of time. It is creating this environment in a fuel cell that researchers have struggled with for years."
Even slight departures from ideal temperature and acidic conditions can inactivate the enzymes, and earlier attempts to buffer them by attaching them to electrodes inside the cells were not as successful.
Minteer and her colleagues coated the electrodes with a special polymer that has pores that offer an ideal environment for enzymes. "The enzyme has everything it needs to function for a very long period of time," Minteer said.
While other experimental cells have had lifetimes of a few days, "our technique allows for enzyme activity over several weeks with no significant power decay. With proper optimization, the cells could last up to a month without recharging," Minteer said.
Most other biofuel cells have used methanol for fuel, but the St. Louis researchers choose ethanol because it supports more enzyme activity, and is abundant and cheap to make.
The new fuel cells so far are small - no bigger than five square centimeters, or about the size of a postage stamp.
"We've tested between 30 and 50 of the ethanol cells using all sorts of alcohol," Minteer said. The only problem with the fuel has been that the beer had to be flat, "because the cell didn't like the carbonation," the scientist said.
On the Net: www.acs.org
www.slu.edu
Less than 5% on electricity in the US is generated with oil, and that is mostly crappy "bunker oil" that has no other use. The irony is to replace that 5% with wind energy, we would have to carpet Iowa with wind farms.
You saw the figures in the article. Even though they advertise this as a 310MW project (very small by utility standards), it's effective capacity is only 93MW and at a cost of over $324 Million! That $324 million could build a 1000 MW gas fired combined cycle plant that could run 24 x 7 x 365.
Follow the tax breaks!
Fund this project? Use excess Social Security funds to loan to indusry for these windmills. Then the utilities would pay off the bonds and a real cash flow would finance the Social Security fund. Imagine real dollars instead to Tax Bonds, (the way the Feds "borrow" the current SSI surplus for General Fund programs like PBS and all those other wasteful, unprofitable Govt programs), funding the Social security of our country. Every time you paid you electircal bill you would be improving your retirement since all Social Security recipients would be investing in their retirement.
Other wind usage. Desalinate Gulf Water to ship to water hungry Plains States.For every cubic mile of water desalinated there's plenty of dissolved minerals which can be feed stocks to industry. Bromine, chlorine and in every cubic mile of seawater there's a TON OF GOLD!
Yes there's need of oil for aircraft propulsion but everything can be electrical powered. It's a solution and America's ingenuity can change the world. The windmills will revive our aerospace industry, (those millions of blade set) and steel industry, (those towers) and high tech skilled jobs to manufacture the turbines themselves. and we'll export this technology around the world as growing economies in China, India and Africa look for cheap energy. Heck will even put a turbine on the Eiffel Tower to show the frogs how it's done!!!
Why Iowa only? Each state has it's own wind resource. N Dakota could produce 20 times what it needs.
You saw the figures in the article. Even though they advertise this as a 310MW project (very small by utility standards), it's effective capacity is only 93MW and at a cost of over $324 Million! That $324 million could build a 1000 MW gas fired combined cycle plant that could run 24 x 7 x 365.
So. 93 MW of clean energy is good and the wind plants pay for themselves even without the subsidy. Nuke plants don't even have to insure themselves incase of an accident. You don't call that a subsidy? And where do you get your nuke plant pricing?
Hydrogen is just a storage medium. Making H2 requires energy input. Electrolysis, for example. You'd need a nuclear generator--for example--to convert water into LH2 and oxygen. The electrolyzer will be ~70% efficient.
Hydrogen cannot be a primary source of energy; it can only be a fancy storage battery.
Liquid hydrogen is a deep cryogen at about -420F. Its density is 11 times LESS than gasoline. Although it releases about 3.5x more energy per pound than gasoline, it releases 11/3.5 = 3.14 times LESS per gallon. A hydrogen-fuelled car would need a "gas tank" 3 times larger than a gasoline-fuelled one--assuming liquid hydrogen, which is probably not feasible [boil off, insulation, infrastructure]. Using hydrogen gas--even at 10,000 psia--is much worse on a volumetric basis.
--Boris
Yes it could--if you could get rid of the 'intervenors', lawsuits, and multiple cycles of environmental impact statements.
Actually, Ditto was talking gas-fired plant, not a nuke.
It was boris who said they could build a 1 GW nuke for the price of this wind farm. I see his is fantasy-world pricing. ;-)
Sigh.
The economics will kill you. The reason is that wind is dilute. Intensity is the key to economies of scale. They (windmills) are simply a bad capital investment; you need to invest huge amounts for piddling amounts of power. A perfectly disinterested accountant would slay you for selecting wind over, say, nuclear. This is elementary economics.
--Boris
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