The Pickens Plan would have made sense 40 years ago, but we now have cheap 21st century computer power to better control the electric grids and charge electric vehicle batteries with wasted power. The electric companies are already installing "smartMETERs" that communicate your electric usage to their billing computers which can also signal these meters to shut off your power for non payment. This can all be done without human intervention.
American Electric Power (AEP), has already begun to modify its distribution grid to create the "smartGrid" as part of its "gridSMART" project. "Our gridSMARTS initiative seeks to put consumers in control of electricity usage by giving them the information about when energy is at peak demand, and when there is excess capacity in the system – and enabling them to adjust their usage accordingly."
Another large electric provider, Xcel (XEL), "plans to send signals when the wind is up, and some consumers will be able to program their smart meters to, say, activate their dishwashers or heating panels in response."
Nice try guys but you are ignoring a potential bonanza, charging the batteries of the various types of new electric vehicles. GM plans to start producing its Volt in 2010. The average cost to charge the Volt battery in the USA is $0.85 to run on battery power for the first 40 miles. After that the Volt's generator will charge the battery at a cost equivalent to getting 50 mpg. Obviously on short trips you will be getting the equivalent of around 100 mpg even when gasoline is selling for $2 a gallon.
However, if millions of customers start plugging in their electric vehicles every evening, black outs will soon follow. Even if some customers have computer controlled chargers that wait until "off peak" times, to begin charging all you will succeed in doing is scheduling the black outs. We need "smartCHARGERs," battery chargers with microchips that can communicate with AEP's or Xcel's computers over their power lines or wirelessly to request scheduled charging. That technique will allow millions of batteries to be charged 24/7 without black outs.
The reality is that either more power is being generated than used at any time or the electric grid has a black out. The excess electric power is always being wasted. A "smartGRID" can stop wasting huge amounts of energy by using "smartCHARGERs". Off peak rates are nice, but a new but equal "scheduled rate" would allow power companies to sell at a discount 24/7 power that would ordinarily go to waste. That should take care of our smaller personal vehicles, but what about larger long distance vehicles?
Long haul trucking etc could use the military's diesel electric truck solution to get up to 40% better mileage. Oshkosh (OSK) has been making the HEMTT A3 for the military for a few years. If Mr. Pickens can find a way to supply natural gas to truck stop, Hybrid Fuel Systems Inc. has the technology to convert diesel engines to run on cleaner and cheaper natural gas.
We have the technology, but we need to integrate it into a total solution and learn to control when and how to use it. Write your representatives in Washington D.C. and request that they read this article. Everyone wins except OPEC.
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This article has 24 comments:
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Jakester
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37 Comments
Nov 19 11:33 AM-
Cheryl Cotterill
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12 Comments
Nov 20 02:00 AM-
john s. gordon
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699 Comments
Nov 20 08:51 AMnot so.
fossil-fueled installations are built with load-following capability. if the dispatcher wants more juice in his lines, he can ramp up output from one or more of his units according to 'lowest-cost dispatch' or least-emissions dispatch' principles.
nukes don't like to be cycled this way, they last longer if base-loaded. that's why we have pumped storage as a load-leveling device.
> jack
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nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 20 11:46 AM-
Road Runner
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129 Comments
Nov 20 11:49 AMCharging plug-in hybrids during off-peak will be big, not only at night when demand drops, but during the late morning when solar is near peak but air conditioning is not going full speed. Employers could build solar farms in their parking lots that employees could use to re-charge their cars. The rate could be adjusted during the day so employees would charge at the best time. Excess electricity would be used for office AC and to sell back to the grid.
All of this would be electronically monitored to get the most out of the solar output. For example, if it is a cloudy and hot day, then the rates to charge cars would be high all day. Cars that don’t need an extra to get back home could skip charging that day.
I like your comment on diesel electric drive systems for large trucks. We don’t need to think in terms of eliminating oil use in the next 2 decades. We need to think about drastic reductions like this one. If diesel electric drive systems for large trucks sounds like something “lame”, note that railroad locomotives have been diesel electric for decades.
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Jet6330
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1 Comment
Nov 20 12:01 PMFurthermore, the margin reserve and spinning reserves in the USA are on average around the 15% mark, further showing that even if every single car were to plug in at the same time during PEAK load periods, we would not suffer any such black out. It is very annoying when people such as yourself try make a point but fail to do the necessary research. You are not doing anyone any justice, unless you by any chance work for the oil industry, then it all makes sense why you would be trying to mis-inform the general population with your unjustified claims.
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Road Runner
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129 Comments
Nov 20 12:13 PM-
nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 20 12:16 PM-
nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 20 12:18 PM-
John Lounsbury
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614 Comments
My Website
Nov 20 01:12 PMThis entire aspect of our energy future is in such lack of focus right now. Some comprehensive engineering and economic analysis is needed to get a foundation for planning. As things stand, we are all just grasping at straws.
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Mark Goldes
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29 Comments
My Website
Nov 20 01:17 PMWe are developing revolutionary new technology. Some of our generators may prove to be tapping the same, Space Energy resource. Ambient heat surrounds us at all times. It is another huge untapped energy reservoir. Those who doubt this is possible may find the two papers dealing with Maxwell at the following link of interest: arxiv.org/find/physics...
Advanced designs will soon be capable of producing torque and/or electricity on a self-sustaining basis. Devices without moving parts are comparable to an inexhaustible electric battery. One Proof-of-Concept prototype was evaluated by Lee Felsenstein, EE. He concluded it to be analogous to the early work on the transistor, which eventually led to a Nobel Prize and the creation of Silicon Valley.
2,000 watts is the maximum amount of power that can be drawn from a 110 volt wall outlet to recharge the battery of a plug-in hybrid car. Generators we are developing are expected to generate this much power and demonstrate replacement of the plug needed by a plug-in hybrid car, within a year. This will be a harbinger of automobiles that need no conventional fuel. With normal progress, prototype new energy conversion systems are anticipated to replace an automobile engine within three years.
It was recently estimated that selling power to the grid from future production hybrid electric cars (V2G) might earn the vehicles’ owner $4,000 each year. In the future, cars powered by new energy conversion systems are expected to earn much more, as these generators are anticipated to replace both batteries and car engines. Therefore, they are expected to produce far greater amounts of electricity. No plug will be required.
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nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 20 01:47 PM-
john s. gordon
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699 Comments
Nov 20 01:52 PMwell if you go to florida you will see that the executives get reserved spaces with a roof over each. this helps make your paint & vinyl upholstery last longer. the plebians get to sit out in the direct sun. just put solar panels on the roofs that already exist. better yet give everybody a solar roof.
> jack
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nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 20 01:55 PM-
nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 20 01:57 PM-
Road Runner
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129 Comments
Nov 20 02:02 PM-
nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 20 02:04 PMDon't puke, now: just listen up.
Let's have Uncle directly take 1% of the 2%(+) of total assets that all financial management firms take from us as management fees and apply it to the Nations' debt. It's really our money, first. The firms take the 2% whether they make of lose money. It's a win-win. Pays the debt AND CUTS EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION (a form of "legal" white collar theft).
It is a myth you know, that we have to pay lots to get the best managment. The proof is overwhelming.
And what's best, we Joe Blow's won't feel the pain.
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keithfeather
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19 Comments
Nov 21 11:05 AMThe author misses the intent of peak shaving which I assume is the crux of the project discussed.
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John Lounsbury
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614 Comments
My Website
Nov 21 11:07 AMWhat proportion of electrical energy should be produced from these sources depends on the engineering and economic factors beyond the scope of my ability to discuss (and I am serious student of economics with a Ph.D in Physical Chemistry). If there have been comments from true experts in this area on Seeking Alpha, I have not read any of them.
By the way, the economics of using hydrogen (or any other chemical storage system for energy) depends (among other factors) on the cost of the energy needed to create hydrogen from the raw material (water). If the energy is surplus and would otherwise be wasted (rather than stored) the cost of the energy is essentially zero. Of course, there are other factors, such as storage (which you mentioned), distribution outlet facilities and transportation which are part of the economic equation.
Finally, technically, hydrogen is not burned in the sense of combustion, unless you are thinking of the Hindenburg. The use proposed for hydrogen as an energy source is to use the electricity produced when it reacts with oxygen under controlled conditions to reproduce the original water. The system proposed for this is called a fuel cell. Fuel cells are similar to batteries except that they are "open systems" that keep running as long as the "fuel" is supplied. Batteries are closed systems that do not introduce additional material after they are made. To be used for energy storage, the battery must be "rechargable"...
I apologize for sounding like a professor, but maybe these comments will be of use to someone.
On Nov 20 01:47 PM nakedjaybird wrote:
> jonebury - making and storing Hydrogen to then burn it is a waste
> of energy and money.
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nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 22 01:09 PM-
nakedjaybird
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458 Comments
Nov 22 01:20 PMYou are almost suggesting stripping hydrogen from methane to then burn the hydrogen - when when should just burn the methane at no additional enegy input or cost - unless the application justifies the additional cost (such as needing hydrogen for it's specific impulse in a nuclear propulsion system in outer space).
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John Adam
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15 Comments
Nov 24 04:43 PMIt would be nice is a human dispatcher could "instantaneously&... do what you imply he can. If that were actually possible "off peak" rates would not exist or make sense! What I described is computer process control of electric power transmission, distribution and use system by adjusting the number of electric vehicle batteries being charged. The dispatcher does not have a clue as to how much electric power customers are currently considering using to dry clothes or charge batteries. Computers at millions of homes could make requests over a smart grid and computers controlling the grids could schedule them and authorize them to manage the grid at a micro level that your human dispatcher obviously could not.
The dispatcher could reduce the amount of electricity being generated but this takes time. However the burning coal producing heat can not be put out nearly as rapidly. Even if you could extinguish the burning coal you would waste energy extinguishing and reigniting it over and over again. It would be nice if your dispatcher had such god like power, but unfortunately massive hot processes are not easily controlled.
Computer process control for smaller processes does work in most of the things we do already. Humans can be a good fail safe control but otherwise computers are clearly superior.
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John Adam
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15 Comments
Nov 25 10:14 AMIt would be nice if a human dispatcher could "instantaneously&... do what you imply he can. If that were actually possible "off peak" rates would not exist or make sense! What I described is computer process control of electric power transmission, distribution and use system by adjusting the number of electric vehicle batteries being charged. The dispatcher does not have a clue as to how much electric power customers are currently considering using to dry clothes or charge batteries. Computers at millions of homes could make requests over a smart grid and computers controlling the grids could schedule them and authorize them to manage the grid at a micro level that your human dispatcher obviously could not.
The dispatcher could reduce the amount of electricity being generated but this takes time. However the burning coal producing heat can not be put out nearly as rapidly. Even if you could extinguish the burning coal you would waste energy extinguishing and reigniting it over and over again. It would be nice if your dispatcher had such god like power, but unfortunately massive hot processes are not easily controlled.
Computer process control for smaller processes does work in most of the things we do already. Humans can be a good fail safe control but otherwise computers are clearly superior.
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Old Zeb
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1 Comment
Dec 26 12:30 AMWrong.
If more mechanical energy is applied to an electrical generator than is being withdrawn as electricity, it will speed up. And the frequency of your voltage will speed up...a very bad thing it that were to occur. But this does not happen because generation is automatically controlled by the existing utility computer control systems. The frequency of the AC outlet in your home is well regulated -- your synchronous motor driven clocks rely on it! As the total system load varies, so does the power input to the electrical generators. It is easy to throttle hydro-electric systems. Nukes, not so much.
Yes, we need to generate electricity from the cheapest sources, and that can -- and is being done. An I assure you, as an electrical engineer, very little energy is wasted.