Climate Solutions BS in Houston by AIChE

Subtitle: Still BS - Bad Science, No Solutions Needed

I attended a lunch presentation by Dr. Tom Rehm, 2019 Chair of STS-AIChE on October 18, 2019 on Climate Solutions, in LaPorte, Texas.   (STS is South Texas Section)

The main points are below in bold font, with my comments in parentheses.  These are based on my notes made at the time, and may not perfectly reflect what was said; any inaccuracies are due to what I believe I heard at the time. 

(Preface:  I believe that Tom Rehm is sincere in his beliefs about catastrophic, imminent global warming caused by CO2, however he has stated in public that even if it is not true, it is prudent to do something to prevent it.  (my paraphrase, probably not his exact words).  I suspect he is also sincere in his belief that nuclear power is the planet's saviour, and that all plastic production must end and rather soon.  It is disconcerting that the STS of AIChE has taken this approach, with those beliefs based on very bad science and not on the facts.  However, the chairmanship is for only one year, and Dr. Rehm will soon hand over the chair - January 1, 2010.  It seems, though, that the incoming Chair has similar views.   That is actually ok, though, since the solutions being advanced are not workable, will have outrageous impacts on all of society, require massive government support, and cannot be implemented in less than 5 decades anyway.  By then, the inevitable global cooling will be advanced and more than evident to everyone. -- End Preface) 

The main points:

UHI, urban heat island effect, is due to aerosols that cooled the air until approximately 1980, then cleaner air caused the cities to warm.  Clean air laws were enacted.  
(That is nice to see the effect of man-made aerosols mentioned, as that is one of the several causes of warmer temperatures that have nothing to do with increased CO2 in the atmosphere.  SLB has articles on the non-CO2 causes of warming, see link. )

Population decreased in a few urban areas but temperatures increased, therefore warming is not correlated to population growth. 
(This is an attempt to show that increased temperatures are not related to population growth, however I have asked Tom in the past how does he know the temperature increase in those few locations were not related to drought, El Nino, cleaner air, fewer clouds, more local humidity, and a host of other known causes of warming?   He made no answer then.)

USCRN, United States Climate Reference Network, has more than 100 pristine sites across the US, sites with no urban warming influence for the foreseeable future.   Mentioned Stovepipe Wells, CA (actually in Death Valley), and Alaska.    Showed a slight warming trend for these locations.  
(the misdirection here was to, again, make the point that warming occurs even where population is small.  As before, no mention of non-CO2 causes of warming, El Nino, droughts, etc.) 

Professor Monty Alger of Penn State called Tom to say he was fully behind the Climate Solutions initiative at AIChE.  Alger will be AIChE president for 2020. 
 (see  https://www.che.psu.edu/faculty/alger/ for a bio of Dr. Alger.  The incoming president of national AIChE is equally misguided on the bad science, BS, of man-made global warming.  However, as an academic, it is important for the national AIChE to support and assist the other academics who receive part of their grants and other funding from promoting man-made climate change.  It is obvious that more work for chemical engineers will occur in designing and building the various systems to capture CO2, remove some from the atmosphere.)

Tom said he was instrumental in getting AIChE to change their official stance on Global Warming with the 2019 statement on climate. 
(The previous statement on climate was essentially, "we don't take a position as the science is not settled," with the new, 2019 statement emphatically stating "Scientific analysis finds that non-natural climate change is occurring and has been strongly influenced by human-caused releases of greenhouse gases. . . . Adverse climate change poses threats to all of us, both individually and as a society. These threats fall squarely in the realm of the chemical engineer. . ."  It is certainly dismaying that so many in our society could be so badly fooled by the BS, the bad science.   What the current statement should say is "Some very bad scientific analysis finds that".... the causation should have mentioned the multiple known causes of warmer temperature, none of which are related to increased greenhouse gases.) 

Mentioned Hofmeister’s book “Why We Hate the Oil Companies.”  Former president, Shell Oil. 
(Not much to say here, having not read the book.  I suspect the theme is that oil companies have been hiding very bad facts for decades, have conspired to deceive the public and elected officials, the usual such things.   It is quite instructive that Shell is mentioned, as they are notorious for having lied to the Securities Exchange Commission about the extent of their oil reserves, and were fined for doing that.  Shell would do well in an era where oil is minimized in favor of natural gas consumption.  That appears to be a primary goal of those who espouse climate solutions. )

Said presenter Stephanie Thomas is a geologist.   Matthew Berg won best presentation award for SPTC in Sugar Land, 2019.
(I sat through both Thomas' and Berg's presentations at that conference.  Dr. Thomas is listed as having a PhD in Earth Sciences, not Geology.  Dr. Berg has a PhD in Hydrology.   I wrote on SLB on Dr. Thomas' presentation, see link.    I have not yet written an article on Dr. Berg's presentation, but it can be summarized as "flooding is getting worse, and global warming is the cause."  He claimed, with a straight face, that local temperatures are melting railroad rails.  Then, showed a slide of a distorted rail juncture.  I laughed at that one.)

Wants the world to be CO2-neutral by year 2030, and to do that we must make no more plastics.
(this one is quite incredible; I shook my head in disbelief.  The modern world depends far too much on plastics to stop production.  The disruption, increased costs, increased disease and illness, and increased energy consumption all are insurmountable factors that will make this one never happen.   For just a few examples, how will hospitals and medical practices function without plastic?  What will food packaging be made from, at what cost in product purity and increased discards, if not plastic?  What will sanitation piping be made from?  How will transportation vehicles maintain their current low weights (or mass) that allows excellent fuel economy?  This one is, to use the vernacular, a doozy.)

Renewables cannot do the job; 100 percent renewables is impossible.  Cited Austin, Texas as having grid stability problems at 20 percent renewables on the local grid.   Said that the local grid and amount of renewables is the critical issue.  
(on this minor point, we agree at least in part.  SLB has articles on the 100 Percent Renewables issue, I agree that the world will not likely ever be run entirely by renewables.   Where Rehm is wrong, though, is on the claim that 20 percent renewables causes instability on local grids.  The fact is that many locations in the US have much more than 20 percent renewable power that makes electricity.  The issue is not with the renewables, but with the flexibility of the other generating systems.  )

Mentioned the cost for renewables is prohibitively high, and the low capacity factor, 25 percent for solar and wind combined in Texas is a major obstacle. 
(this is a common talking point by the anti-renewables, pro-nuclear crowd.  The fact is, the renewable sources of wind and solar are very competitive in the areas where the wind is good and the solar energy is strong.  However, the economics of solar panels in high latitudes will continue to be very bad for many decades.  Solar does well, though, in sunny areas (not cloudy) in locations between 30 degrees north and south of the equator.  Wind is the most attractive generating source in many, many areas as thoroughly documented by the US Department of Energy and their annual Wind Technologies Market Reports.)

One solution is nuclear, with new designs as Professor Tsvetkov proposes.  Said nuclear has zero emissions,   New designs will not use water as the moderator.  
(Tsvetkov clarified that zero-emissions view in his earlier 2019 speech to AIChE, it is not true for the entire nuclear cycle.  see link to SLB article on Gen IV nuclear and Tsvetkov's presentation.  Gen IV nuclear plants are unproven, most have not been built, a few prototypes were abandoned as hopeless.  The increased safety and reduced costs claims are not true at all.  Nuclear is never the solution; it costs far too much and is far too dangerous. ) 

Favors a carbon tax as paramount importance. 
(A carbon tax, or tax on companies that produce CO2 in their operations, is favored by one segment and opposed by another.  Those in favor are typically oil and gas companies, the opposition are coal companies.  Burning coal produces much more CO2 per unit of energy released, typically 2 - 3 times as much as does burning natural gas.  So, a carbon tax is a perfect way to run coal companies out of business.  Is it any wonder that oil and gas companies favor that?  They get to sell more natural gas, usually as fuel to utilities.)  

Three steps to carbon neutrality: Mitigation, Adaptation, and Resiliency. 
The points on the slide for this statement included:
-Manufacturing Energy Efficiency - Mitigation
-Electricity Generation /Distribution  - Mitigation
-Transportation - Mitigation
-Urban Energy Efficiency - Mitigation
-Agricultural Practices - Mitigation
-Land Use Practices - Mitigation, Adaptation, Resiliency
-And, governmental policy solutions. 

(He did not discuss these points in detail, except for the next paragraph on Regenerative Agriculture.  My own experience over 40 years of engineering consulting and energy work as an employee in chemical manufacturing shows that none of the above are cost-effective, except for Transportation with electric battery-powered vehicles.  If one favors the Efficient Market Theory, radical changes must make any market more inefficient and thus more costly to operate.  The prospects of increased energy efficiency due to another world energy price shock, like the 1970s had, is virtually zero.  Oil is no longer subject to price increases, and in fact OPEC is in disarray and oil prices are decreasing.  There is a world-wide glut of natural gas, driving its prices down, and coal is on the decline except in a few isolated countries (India, China).  That leaves only a government-mandated carbon tax to force such decreased energy usage.  )

Favors Regenerative Agriculture – soil must increase carbon content to remove CO2 from the air. 
(with farming already a very slim profit endeavor, the costs to include carbon sequestration in soil must be subsidized to prevent bankruptcies.  This may be where the carbon tax comes in; a wealth transfer from CO2 producers to the farmers.  More on Regen Ag will be published shortly on SLB.  For now, it's just another scheme to transfer wealth and run the oil companies out of business.)

Electricity generation options he favors are nuclear and biomass.   Said nuclear has the best safety record of all types when calculated on fatalities per TWh/y produced.   
(I wonder if that includes the entire uranium mining and fuel preparation cycle, plant construction, generation, decommissioning, and spent fuel storage for centuries.  SLB has articles on the dubious safety record of nuclear power plants, see link to "Nuclear Radiation Injures People and Other Living Things,"  and link to "Near Misses on Meltdowns Occur Every 3 Weeks," and link to "US NRC Stops Study of Cancer Risks near Reactors."  As to biomass for power generation, there is too much power needed and not nearly enough biomass to burn.  These facts have been known for decades.  And, it gets worse.  No more biomass is produced each decade, but the power generation needed keeps increasing.)

(Next, Rehm really pushed nuclear, to end the talk) Nuclear is not presently used much due to unjustified public fear.    Said advanced nuclear plants are much safer 
("Unjustified fear" is a buzzword from nuclear proponents.  One must wonder how much fear was justified among the Russians, Europeans, and others when Chernobyl exploded and sent radiation around the planet?  How much fear was justified in Pennsylvania when Three Mile Island melted down and spewed radioactive steam into the skies?  Were the evacuated pregnant women supposed to remain calm, cool, and collected during those horrible few days?  How much fear was justified in Japan during and after the triple reactor meltdowns and explosions at Fukushima?   How much fear is justified among the entire population, now that nuclear plants are being built in third-world countries with earthquakes and other serious threats to the plants' integrity?   How much fear is justified now that cyber-security is a serious threat?  As to advanced nuclear plants being much safer, how could he possibly know?   None have been built except for a few tiny proof-of-concept plants.  SLB has articles on the safety of new nuclear designs, see link to "Thorium MSR No Better Than Uranium Process,"  and link to "High Temperature Gas Reactor Still A Dream" )

Advanced nuclear will recycle existing spent fuel and generate power from the recycled material, reducing toxic radioactive waste by a large amount. 
(Why bother?  Fuel is not the expensive part of running a nuclear plant.  Safety is not improved, either, as a previous article on SLB shows, see link to "Reprocessing Spent Fuel Is Not Safe."  )

Said SMR, small modular reactors, are the answer since they will be very low-cost to build in factories.  
(This is one of the same points made by Tsvetkov in his Gen IV speech to AIChE, and the same rebuttal applies: any cost reduction due to volume production requires millions of units, not hundreds as SMR would have.  Economy of scale overwhelms any production cost reductions.  NB, the wind energy business for WTG (wind turbine generators) has the same issue for blade manufacturing.  The US industry builds and installs approximately 8 GW per year, at an average of 2.4 MW per WTG, thus the average number of WTG installed was 3,333.  Number of blades made was 10,000 for 2018.  Even that 10,000 items does not give low cost, so the industry strives for cost reductions via economy of scale with ever-larger WTG per unit.  Offshore, size went from 2 to 4 to 8 and now 12 MW.   Onshore, size from 1 to 3 and now 5 MW per WTG.  See link to SLB article on SMR and all the many drawbacks, "No Benefits From Smaller Modular Nuclear Plants." )

End of speech.  

In the Q&A portion, I asked this Question:  how much will electricity prices increase if the proposed solutions are implemented?  He admitted it will be a big increase but did not give a number. 

The transition period will require decades, Shell says 50 years, he stated BP and ExxonMobil have similar time frames.  
(how does this square with the earlier statement of carbon-neutral by 2030?  That’s only 11 years away)

Q:  how will SMR reduce costs, when economy of scale is the major factor in nuclear plant costs?  He had no answer for that, either.  

Q:  On USCRN slides that showed a warming, how much of the measured warming was due to CO2 increase, and how much to other factors like cleaner air – he mentioned pollution laws cleaned the air around 1980 and temperatures immediately increased in those locations.   His response was to show a graph purporting to show IR gap in Earth’s radiated energy out to space, with CO2 responsible for the gap.   My rebuttal was, the gap is also exactly where water vapor H2O absorbs, so how do they know it is due to 300 – 400 ppm of CO2, and not due to several percent of water vapor? 

Conclusion

The points made in this speech are typical of the misinformation and Bad Science (BS) of many in the climate alarmism camp.   So much of what they know, just isn't so. (a quote from Ronald Reagan).   The good news is, almost none of this is ever going to happen.  Plastics are here to stay.  Nuclear plants are a dying breed, and the sober review process and high standards at the NRC will prohibit the approval of the Gen IV reactors.   Economics alone will kill off any other reactor designs, such as the NuScale small modular reactor system that is presently undergoing safety review at the NRC.  Low-price wind electricity and natural gas power have doomed nuclear power, which is a very good thing.   Wind energy is a booming business, and is here to stay.  Solar is also booming in those areas of the world, as stated above, not far from the Equator where the sunshine is strong.   The AIChE will likely see the Climate Solutions division, or initiative, whatever it is called, wither away in just a few short years.  

This website will have articles and updates on that, as they occur. 

Roger E. Sowell

Houston, Texas
copyright (c) 2019 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here, here,  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

Shell Presentation on Climate and Energy by 2070

Subtitle: Hydrogen and Ammonia - Both Are Disasters

A Vice-president and Chief Scientist-Chemical Engineering, from Shell made a speech on Tuesday evening, October 1, 2019 in Sugar Land, Texas, at which I am glad I attended and took a few notes.   Dr. Joseph Powell, PhD in Chemical Engineering, was the speaker.  The event was the

combined AIChE South Texas Section and Southwest Process Technology Conference dinner meeting at the Marriott Hotel conference center.   

Dr. Powell spoke on the need for changing the world's energy system to a carbon neutral basis to avoid catastrophic climate change.  His proposed solutions covered a range of paths, but most notably using water, or methane, CH4, to create either 1) a hydrogen energy system, or 2) an ammonia, NH3, energy system.   Solar and wind renewable energy systems were to play a big part in the basic energy input, with hydrogen or ammonia as the energy carriers.   The time-frame was a transition period of 50 years, and carbon neutrality achieved by the year 2070.   With a veiled swipe at the Green New Deal proposal, he mentioned that changing the world's huge energy infrastructure could not be done in a short period, but would require several decades.   I agree with that last statement based on my 40 years experience in the industry, the sheer size and scope of the energy infrastructure would require decades to transform. 

The presentation, as he said, was based on the Shell Sky Scenarios developed and published by Shell over the past few decades.  ( see link to Shell Sky Scenarios.)

I cringed when I heard this presentation, and more than once.   This article describes what I believe I heard, and why such things caused me to shake my head in total dismay.   In short, hydrogen is incredibly dangerous and should never be placed in general, widespread use due to the inevitable fires, explosions, and human deaths.   Ammonia is equally toxic.    The economic impact of a radical transition to hydrogen would be catastrophic to 90 percent of the world's population.  

Dr. Powell began with a brief introduction of his experience, with a BS in chemical engineering in 1978, when the US had gasoline shortages such that gasoline sales were allowed only on alternate days.   A car owner could buy gas based on the last digit of the license plate, odd numbers on odd-numbered days, and even numbers on the even-numbered days.  I recall those days vividly, as my BS in chemical engineering was awarded just one year earlier, in 1977.   

Dr. Powell obtained his PhD in chemical engineering a few years later (1984), and worked in various assignments at Shell for the past 30 years.  Part of that appears to be looking far into the future, and evaluating various processes to meet energy demands.  It is instructive, although he made no mention of this, that Shell's energy reserves are natural gas, to a significant extent.   Shell has notably failed to discover significant oil reserves, however.   So, it makes sense that Shell's Sky Scenarios would focus on processes that convert natural gas to usable transportation fuels.   He did mention at one point Shell's gas-to-diesel process plant, PERL, in Qatar.   The PERL plant takes an otherwise worthless natural gas pocket located deep in the Middle East, and produces diesel fuel that can be transported by ship or pipeline.  

Dr. Powell also mentioned that, in 1978, the world's climate scientists sounded the alarm over imminent global cooling.   That, too, is a vivid memory, since the bitterly cold winters of 1977, 1978, and 1979 were at the end of a 35-year cooling trend (since 1945).  (SLB has several articles on the Abilene Effect, and the unprecedented consecutive 3 years  of abnormally cold winters   see link.)  The climate scientists were very wrong then, as almost everyone knows by now.   

One can only wonder why those climate scientists are to be believed now, when they were so spectacularly wrong in 1980 about global cooling and an imminent ice age.  Few of the same scientists are alive today, but the discipline has quite a few people sounding an equally shrill alarm over global warming. 

The final bit of introductory material discussed the opinion polls, which he said showed a large minority (I think 30-40 percent?) believe that climate change is real and is a crisis.  Another minority view (perhaps another 40 percent?) held no position for or against, and a small minority hold the view that there is zero cause for alarm.    He said that the opinion of stakeholders led Shell to develop the future scenarios.    That was not shareholders he mentioned, but stakeholders.   He did not define exactly who he meant by stakeholders. 

As an aside, oil companies such as Shell, BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil (collectively known as Big Oil), and the national oil companies from many nations, have been the targets of many organizations for many decades.    I have met many of the Big Oil opponents, and found that they fervently believe in things like the car with a 200 mile-per-gallon carburetor, magic portable batteries that let an affordable car run for 1000 miles on one charge, and recharge in 5 minutes, solar panels that work around the clock, and wind turbines that produce free electricity.   Many of these same people advocate vigorously for nuclear power plants, even the tiny ones that would be buried in a vault in every neighborhood to produce electricity for very near free, just a small metering charge.   To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "It's not that (these people) don't know anything, but what they know just isn't so."

The reality is, yes, some cars obtain 200 miles per gallon.  Much more than that, in fact.  But, they can never be sold in commercial use because they will never meet the automotive safety standards.   Those are highly specialized "cars" with very little weight, tiny engines, very high-pressure or solid tires, and run at slow speed on an incredibly smooth surface.   We now do have batteries that would allow 1000 miles range, but the cost is still very high.  Recharging in a short time is possible, but will be very expensive.   Solar panels of course would not work around the clock, unless they are in orbit.   Wind turbines are getting better, but 3 cents per kWh for the electricity is about the best we have at this time.  

Returning to Dr. Powell's presentation, he described several process paths for a carbon-neutral energy system by the year 2070.  They were, as best I can recall, gas to methanol, gas to hydrogen via carbon black process, water to hydrogen via electrolysis, gas to hydrogen via steam-methane-reforming with CO2 capture, and natural gas to ammonia. 

The hydrogen would be transported to the end user, where cars with fuel cells would fill up and drive away for their normal use.   He mentioned one detailed study that Shell performed, with solar panels in north Texas providing energy to produce hydrogen that would be sent to New York City for use in fuel-cell vehicles.   It was not clear to me if the solar panels would make electricity for water electrolysis (produces hydrogen), or supply electricity for hydrogen production via the carbon black process.   He did mention that excess carbon black could be permanently stored in abandoned coal mines.   As an aside, that does not seem sustainable to me, since there are such a limited number of abandoned coal mines in the world.   If we truly are about to run out of oil (and gas), surely we are equally certain to run out of space in the coal mines.  

The mix of energy providers in year 2070 also seems very implausible, with nuclear power almost quadrupling from today, solar PV providing a bit more than 30 percent of all energy, and wind providing a bit more than 10 percent of all energy.   

Nuclear power is going to shrink, and fall to almost zero within 20 years as it is completely lost in the competitive market, not to mention the growing awareness of the dangers of meltdown disasters.  (Update 10/4/2019:  Shell's proposal would have 1,800 nuclear power plants built between year 2020 and 2070, with one large 1,000 MWe output plant started up every 10 days for the next 50 years.   Clearly, that is never going to happen.  see link for SLB articles on the many insurmountable disadvantages of nuclear power  - end update) 

Solar has a distinct disadvantage compared to wind, because even in the best locations, solar can only produce at approximately 25 percent of the installed capacity.   The Sun's path across the sky dictates this outcome.  However, wind does not care where the Sun is, and wind turbine generators are already producing at an annual rate of 50 percent (some at 60 percent) of nameplate capacity.  The result of this is that any storage system for solar must be at least twice as large, require more capital to install, and have more losses on charging and discharging.  Solar PV will never, ever, win out over wind on a global basis.   

For some illustrative numbers, a 4,000 MW solar power plant that produces at 25 percent of nameplate would produce only 24,000 MWh in a 24 hour period.  But, for the 6 hours per day that it does operate, and using 100 percent output as a simplification, the plant would send one-fourth of the output to the grid (6,000 MWh), and three-fourths (18,000 MWh) to a storage system (presumably batteries).  The storage system would then discharge for 18 hours each day, returning approximately 80 percent of the stored electricity back to the grid.  

Wind turbines that operate at 60 percent of nameplate would have a similar analysis, 1,667 MW at 60 percent gives 24,000 MWh in a 24 hour period.   Only 40 percent need be stored, with 9,600 MWh stored.  

Conclusion

Shell's Sky Scenario is entirely implausible for many reasons, and is extremely unsafe due to the reliance on hydrogen as an energy carrier.  The system is also woefully too costly, with reliance on very expensive nuclear plants, and solar PV systems with twice the storage requirements compared to wind turbine generators.  

There is zero need to reduce any CO2 emissions in any event, since any measured  warming in the past 100 years is almost entirely due to natural forces, increased human population growth, and increased energy consumption.  Natural droughts since 1960, El Nino events since 1960, urban heat effect from more dense cities, increased fuel and electricity per capita, decreased cloud cover due to more sunspots, and cleaner air with fewer aerosols due to air pollution laws, all are responsible for "global warming."  But, CO2 is innocent.  (see link to SLB article on A Skeptic's View of Climate Science - It's BS)

Roger E. Sowell

Houston, Texas
copyright (c) 2019 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here, here,  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

Offshore Wind Sells Power at €44/MWh

Subtitle:  Wind Industry Will Fly from here on. 

The lowest price, so far, for offshore wind sales may just be the €44/ MWh that was announced this week.  The project, offshore Dunkirk, France, will be 600 MW and employ wind turbines with 12-13 MW capacity each.  Those are the largest at this point in time.   
see link to article describing the project. 

In US currency, that is approximately 5 cents per kWh delivered.   As stated before on SLB, wind has won. 

Future projects will most likely, almost assuredly, use the largest wind turbines available since the economics are overwhelmingly favorable.  They cost less to install per MW, and have better output via higher capacity factors.  Also, there are fewer of the larger turbines, so maintenance costs are lower.  

This is beyond the turning point the industry has long sought:  sales price of 10 cents per kWh.  

From here on, the investments will be heavy into offshore wind.   The prospects for onshore wind are more limited, since a large hurdle is transporting blades to the installation site.  The very large turbine blades for 12 MW wind turbines simply cannot pass under the various bridges.  Of course, the open ocean has no such restrictions.  

It's a good day for the renewable energy industry.  

Sandia National Lab, 50 MW offshore wind turbine concept
Blades are downwind of tower, blades flex in very high winds
to allow continued operation. 

Update: 6-23-19;  The offshore wind turbines are especially attractive in Europe, where the grid operators typically reduce natural gas-fired power plants as the wind power increases.  That is a savings of very expensive LNG that is vaporized to provide fuel to the power plants.  With LNG selling at $8 to $10 per million Btu, the electric customers should (and perhaps will) see a reduction in electric bills. 

The future is very bright for offshore wind in many areas of the world.  Northern Europe, US East Coast, US West Coast, and the East Coast of Asia are all developing wind projects offshore.   

Floating Spar mooring system, artist's concept
for Hywind, Scotland offshore wind farm
credit: Statoil ASA Environmental Statement

The largest turbines are not yet here, as SLB reported earlier, Sandia National Labs has a design for a 50 MW wind turbine, with flexible blades that bend with the strongest winds.   see link to SLB article, and see link to Sandia publication on the Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor.  (see photo at right)

The economics of such a wind turbine will be very attractive.   However, there are engineering issues to resolve with a large weight balanced at the top of a long and slender tower.   I suspect the answer will be, at least in part, a tower that is designed to sway in the wind, like a palm tree.

Another very good possibility is to employ the floating spar mooring technology as the Hywind project in Scotland uses.   The floating spars also sway in the strongest winds.  See this link for the SLB article on the Hywind floating spar wind farm.   -- end update

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Houston, Texas

copyright (c) 2019 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here

Climate Change................here  and here

Fresh Water......................here

Engineering......................here  and here

Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

Meltdown Message - A Little Humility Needed

Subtitle:  Nuclear Can and Still Does Melt Down

Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant
courtesy Google Maps

Today, March 28, marks forty years to the day since the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant melted down in 1979 in Pennsylvania, USA.  It was a sobering reminder of the incredible danger associated with building nuclear power plants.   I remember it well, as a young 

process engineer working in a chemical plant on the Houston Ship Channel.   March 28 was a Tuesday, just another ordinary day, until the word began coming over the radio that a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania was having troubles.   Radiation leak was the phrase. 

As was normal then, and still is today, the nuclear industry was in full protect-thine-own-butt mode, with as little information made public as possible.  And then, only the bare minimum.  Those guys knew then, and know today, full well that their industry hangs on a slender thread.   One screwup, one meltdown, one massive radiation release into the sky or water, and they are done.  

As it turned out, TMI, as it was known, suffered "only" a partial melt-down.   The reactor operators screwed up, and screwed up royally.  They actually turned off a water pump that sent water into the core, and that act let the core overheat and melt down.  Eventually, they started that pump again and sent water into the core, but by then the damage was done.  The nuclear core had melted almost entirely through the reactor vessel's wall.   In their (operators') defense, the plant designers and those who approve the design did not give the operators a way to watch the water level in the reactor core.  They had to infer the water level by watching other measurements.   That was a design error that was changed in other US nuclear plants.  

All of the trouble started when a pump failed to operate.   As I wrote a few years ago in the Truth About Nuclear Power series, part 21:

"TMI (meltdown) was caused by a routine mechanical failure of a pump.  Nobody can claim that a pump failure is a rare event.   The problem at TMI was made much, much worse by a valve that stuck open.  It is inexcusable that nuclear plant designers, operators, and oversight agencies failed to recognize that valves sometimes stick.   The fact that valves sometimes stick in the open position, sometimes closed, and sometimes in-between is well-known to those in the process industries.   This particular valve was a relief valve.  Relief valves are even more prone to sticking open, a fact that is common knowledge.   Yet, as the facts below demonstrate, TMI operators made blunder after blunder because they believed the relief valve closed by itself – they believed it had not stuck open.  

"Nuclear proponents frequently argue that the reason nuclear plants cost so much is due to needless design changes by the NRC during plant construction, and costly retrofits to those plants already in operation.  The argument is invalid.  We would indeed be a stupid society to allow plants to operate with known safety deficiencies such as existed at TMI before the accident.   In fact, if not for the existence of all three required containment systems, deadly nuclear radiation would have spewed all over the northeastern corridor of the United States.   Those three levels of containment are the fuel tube, the reactor vessel, and the containment building.  Ultimately, the fuel tubes failed and melted, the reactor vessel barely contained the melted fuel, and the containment building contained most, but not all, of the gaseous radioactive particles.  

"With the passage of time, more than 3 decades now, TMI has faded into the background.  Yet, the lessons from that incident are serious, and point to what we can expect going forward."    see link to the rest of the TMI meltdown analysis on SLB. 

Fast forward 40 years to today, and we see the nuclear industry still points to the TMI incident as the turning point where the public mood for nuclear turned sour, and costs to build new nuclear plants began to zoom.   Today, a plant cannot be built for less than $10 billion for a 1,000 MWe output.  More typical is $12 billion.  That is approximately 10 to 12 times the price of a natural gas power plant with the same output.   We saw just recently that two new reactors were abandoned, unfinished, as completely out of the question due to construction costs rising and rising.   Two more reactors, these at Vogtle in Georgia, are staggering along, many years late and many $billions over their budget.  Only time will tell if the Vogtle reactors ever get finished, and what the final cost will be.  

In retrospect, nuclear plants seemed appropriate in the 1960s and then the 1970s after the oil price increases during the OPEC oil embargo.  We burned fuel oil then to make electricity, as strange as that sounds today.  Nuclear plants had almost zero fuel cost, we were told back then.  So, scrapping expensive oil as fuel, and building nuclear plants with very cheap fuel might have made sense.   After all, solar and wind power systems were possible, they actually worked, but their costs were outrageously high.   So, we built nuclear plants, approximately 120 of them.  

Today, though, all that has changed.  Wind turbines have declined in cost and improved in output, and the same is true for solar PV systems.  Also, natural gas power plants no longer are limited to the modest efficiency of a steam plant, with the Rankine cycle.  Improvements over the years now make the combined-cycle gas turbine plant much more efficient, at 60 percent.  Low natural gas prices also exist today due to superb innovations in natural gas production that uses precision directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing.  

Because of these things, we no longer have a need for nuclear power plants.   They served their purpose, they had their day.  It is time to retire them and stop building them.  

We note that it is seldom, and perhaps never, that a meltdown occurs in a shutdown nuclear power plant.   We don't need another Three Mile Island meltdown.   We need clean, safe, low-cost wind energy with efficient natural gas plants to accommodate the variations in output.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Houston, Texas

copyright (c) 2019 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here

Climate Change................here  and here

Fresh Water......................here

Engineering......................here  and here

Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

A Brief History of Wind Energy - USA

Subtitle:  It Took 30 Years But We Made Wind Profitable

This is just a start on a longer article that discusses why we have wind energy subsidies and grants in the US.   The short answer is, the US government got tired of having to import energy and at one point the experts told government we were running out of natural gas.  The gas industry took that as a challenge and proceeded to drill in novel ways and find huge amounts of natural gas.    Gas became cheap, and wind energy could not yet compete, so government extended the subsidies until 2021.  By then, onshore wind turbine generators can compete without assistance.    This will be added to from time to time. 

Some of these events are described briefly by the DoE at this link.

1973 - Arab oil embargo increased gasoline prices; 1973 and again 1979 with Iranian revolution.  America decides to act, to reduce our energy consumption across all sectors.

1977 President Carter's famous sweater speech; he tells the nation we are running out of energy (including natural gas) and all must conserve. Public fountains across the US go dry as pumps are switched off.  Cities and towns across the US have no Christmas lights that year. 

1978  President Carter signed PURPA, the Public Utilities Regulatory Act, which made utilities purchase electricity from small renewable plants, including wind.  Industries across the country built their own cogeneration plants over the next decade to supply electricity and steam to the processes.  

1980 - First large wind farm was built at Altamont Pass, California - bad design, too many perches for birds, developers discover the wind in California is weak at only 26 percent capacity factor.

1981 - NASA scientists develop Viterna Method for wind blade calculations

1988 10 MW lead-acid battery installed in Chino, California

1990s - faster computers allow better calculations.  Wind blade calculations are long and complicated, so that fast computers are required to give optimal solutions. 

1992  -  President George H.W. Bush signed The Energy Policy Act, which authorizes a production tax credit of 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour of wind-power-generated electricity and re-establishes a focus on renewable energy use.  The PTC increases over time with inflation.  Presently is at 2.3 cents per kWh. 

1993  DoE builds the National Wind Technology Center to test wind systems

1996  5 MW lead-acid battery for grid-scale storage installed at Vernon, California

2008  The U.S. Department of Energy publishes their 20% Wind Energy by 2030 report

2008  US installed wind capacity reaches 25.4 GW. 

2008  US wind energy production exceeded 1 percent of all electricity for the first time.  Wind was 1.34 percent of all electricity sold in the US that year.   Wind output jumped 62 percent over the previous year. 

2011  The U.S. Department of Energy releases the National Offshore Wind Strategy in partnership with the Department of the Interior to reduce the cost of energy through technology development and reducing deployment timelines. In the following year, three offshore wind demonstration projects are chosen as a part of this $168 million initiative.

2012  US installed capacity reaches 60 GW.  Annual electricity produced was barely under 3 percent (2.93) of all US electricity sold.  The wind output had more than doubled in just 4 years.   The annual growth rate was astounding, at 27 percent per year.    Much of the new capacity is in the fabulous wind in the Great Plains region of the US, from Canada to Texas and Colorado to Missouri. 

2013 First Grid-Connected Offshore Wind Turbine in the U.S., a small, 20 kW unit offshore Maine, with Dept of Energy funding.  A storage battery on California's Santa Catalina Island was installed, at 1 MW and 7 hours capacity.   (This was to allow the diesel generators to run constantly rather than cycle on and off, which created more air pollution). 

2014  8 MW, 4 hours,  grid-scale battery for wind energy storage installed at Tehachapi, California

2015 The Wind Vision Report is released showing that 35% wind energy is possible by 
2050.  Installed capacity reaches nearly 74 GW, while electricity produced was 4.68 percent of the total.  Grid-scale batteries for storing electricity are installed in California. 

2015 Wind technology improved dramatically, with onshore projects in the Great Plains region profitable with only 4.3 cents per kWh (total) sold.  Installation costs fell to $1600 per kW nameplate capacity.  Annual capacity factors in the best locations exceed 40 percent.  

2016 First grid-scale offshore wind farm starts operation offshore Rhode Island, the Block Island project with 30 MW using 5 turbines of 6 MW each.  Production tax credit is reduced over several years and ends completely in 5 years. 

2016  Annual electricity produced by wind comprised 6.53 percent of all US electricity sold in 2016.

2017 Total installed capacity reaches 84,000 GW.   In early 2017 (April), wind energy exceeded 8 percent (8.65) of all US electricity sold on a monthly basis.  EIA numbers show that wind energy output was as much as hydroelectric power output. 

2017  Oklahoma announces approval and financing for a 2,000 MW wind energy farm in the panhandle region, having 800 turbines at 2.5 MW each.  

2017  70 MW total of grid-scale batteries, all 10 MW or larger, operating in Southern California.  The two largest are 30 MW each.  

2017 Contracts are signed for a 100 MW, 85 MW and a 50 MW battery systems, for Long Beach and Los Angeles, respectively. Storage is 4 hours for the 100 MW battery. 

2017  August, US Dept of Energy states: " . . . 28 (offshore wind) projects, totaling 23,735 megawatts (MW) of potential installed capacity, are now in the works. Near-term activity is concentrated in the North Atlantic, but other projects are in various stages of development across the country, including the Great Lakes, the West Coast, and Hawaii."   see link

2017 September, offshore Block Island Wind Project easily withstands tropical-storm force winds as Hurricane José passes nearby. 

2018 May, GE publishes details of the 12 MW offshore wind turbine, "Haliade-X 12 MW, the most powerful offshore wind turbine in the world to date, featuring a 12 MW capacity (the world’s first), 220-meter rotor, a 107-meter blade designed by LM Wind Power, and digital capabilities. In addition to being the biggest offshore wind turbine, the Haliade-X will also be the most efficient of wind turbines in the ocean."  see link   Anthony Watts publishes on WUWT blog a scathing article on the new turbines, after Sowell informed him by email of the GE publication.   Such negativity displays a vast ignorance, or a considered dis-information ploy.  Meanwhile, as the next item shows, offshore wind developers install ever-larger turbines with ever-better economics.  As Andrew Breitbart stated so eloquently, "Walk toward the fire.  Don't worry about what they call you.  All those things are said against you because they want to stop you in your tracks.  But if you keep going, you're sending a message to people who are rooting for you, who are agreeing with you.  The message is that they can do it, too."

2018 May, Vestas V164-8 MW turbines are installed at the Borkum Riffgrund 2 offshore windfarm, Germany.  This is a 450 MW installation, requiring only 56 turbines.  

2018 May, OTC2018 (Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, TX) devotes several sessions and one lunch seminar to offshore wind, where the lunch speakers were from DeepWater Wind, and the wind division of Statoil.  Floating spar technology is planned for installation off the northern California coast where the wind is outstanding.  Statoil stated the next decade will see $30 Billion invested in offshore wind worldwide.  DeepWater stated the new, larger turbines will bring down sales price of offshore wind to 10 cents per kWh.   Statoil stated they installed a 1 MW, 1-hour duration battery known as Batwind at the 30 MW Hywind, Scotland offshore wind farm; to ease the transition of power on and power off into the Scotland grid. 

UPDATE July 16, 2019:  Two major events in both offshore and onshore wind occurred in 2019; both have enormous (some would say HUUUGE) implications for renewable energy worldwide.  The first event is the installation of the largest-ever offshore wind turbine generator (WTG), the GE-built Haliade 12X in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.  Yes, it is an onshore installation, not offshore, but that is for ease of access during testing and verification purposes.   The 12X has a nominal output of 12 MW, and a claimed annual capacity factor of 63 percent.   The economics of the 12 MW WTG are very favorable; such that a sales price of 5 cents US per kWh allows a nice return on the investment.   A major wind project offshore in EU has announced they will use the 12 MW turbines.   see link for details of the GE Haliade 12X. 

Meanwhile, GE has done it again.  This time in the onshore industry, where a major limit to increased size and better economics for WTG has been the inability to transport longer blades from manufacturer to the wind turbine site.   The US Department of Energy recently sent out a call for ideas to solve the transportation problem.   GE has since (March, 2019) announced their 5 MW WTG, the Cypress model, that has blades fabricated in two parts for ease of shipping.  At the site, the two parts are joined for installation and operation.   This also is huge for onshore WTG, since the almost double output brings down the sales price of electricity.   Adequate returns are provided at present with 4.3 cents per kWh from the 2.5-3 MW size WTG.  The 5 MW Cypress WTG will allow an adequate return at something below the 4.3 cents, most likely in the 2.5-3 cents per kWh range.   see link for details of the Cypress 5 MW.   --- end update 7-16-2019

UPDATE 4 November 2019: US has now 100,000 MW of wind turbine generators installed (nameplate capacity), per AWEA press release. "US wind power reaches milestone 100 gigawatts, 46 gigawatts more on the way" - 10/31/19.   This total surpasses nuclear power in the US, which now is down to 98 GW and declining as more and more nuclear reactors are shut down permanently.  

GE reports strong orders for the 5 MW Cypress WTG.  The 12 MW Haliade WTG is complete and tests are underway in Rotterdam.   The offshore US market is hot and growing rapidly.  -- end update 11-4-2019

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Spring, Texas
copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here