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zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Morning. Putting aside CCS, I recall that a use for CAES is to improve the efficiency of thermal generation, so more bang for less fuel buck, so I assume that adding O2 would have the same effect as adding more air. Does that make sense?

So, something I hadn't thought about was the O2 side of the equation giving an additional boost from H2 production as you point out. Nice.

Hi

If you think of it in terms of processes improvements such as oxyacetylene cutting/welding you can appreciate the effect of increasing the oxygen concentration above that in air ... raised combustion temperatures & therefore efficiency.

The CCS element however is extremely relevant ....

In general terms air basically comprises 4x inert(ish) gas (mainly nitrogen) to oxygen by volume, therefore the combustion process in air results in oxidisation of the carbon fuel to form CO2 and the expansion of any inert gasses with a small proportion of the combustion process nitrogen converted to NOx (nitrogen dioxide & nitric oxide) emissions.

Through reducing, or even removing, the inert gasses from the combustion process, the expanded volume of emission are reduced by approximately 4/5, thus decreasing the velocity of the exhaust process as well as increasing the concentration of CO2 by 5x. Taking both of these facts into consideration describes a process improvement which isn't hard to understand why it forms the basis of combustion for efficient carbon capture for onward sequestration ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Through reducing, or even removing, the inert gasses from the combustion process, the expanded volume of emission are reduced by approximately 4/5, thus decreasing the velocity of the exhaust process as well as increasing the concentration of CO2 by 5x. Taking both of these facts into consideration describes a process improvement which isn't hard to understand why it forms the basis of combustion for efficient carbon capture for onward sequestration ...

HTH
Z

Damn, never thought of that. So CAES would be akin to a turbocharger or supercharger putting in more air, and therefore more oxygen, but also more nitrogen, and therefore more NOx.

Whereas adding the extra O2, without the nitrogen part (as you say, 4x the oxygen) would give a cleaner burn - have I got it?

Never heard that side put forward before, but seems logical and sensible if the H2 production (and O2 production) is done on site with thermal generation, or within transport range.

Hmmm, interesting, thanks.

Edit - and the CCS side too, also an interesting point.

Martyn1981

Interesting developments in Japan, and firstly I have to note that I didn't realise that they burn so much coal. Even if/as and when the nuclear fleet gets back up to speed, Japan would still be getting a majority of leccy from coal.

Well, it seems that coal generation investment is hitting a cliff edge as it becomes un-economic, and may need government support going forward.

Major Japanese investors, including those most indebted to coal, are seeking to back large-scale renewables projects across Asia, marking a “monumental” shift that energy market analysts say is “the start of the end for thermal coal”.

At the same time, Japanese banks and trading houses are walking away from coal investments, selling out of Australian mines and scrapping plans to build coal-fired power.

Buckley said coal-fired power in developing Asian countries required government underwriting to attract significant private financial investors. Such projects would be looking to JBIC, JICA and the Korean equivalent, the Export-Import Bank of Korea, which has also made significant recent moves into the renewables sector.

“The vast majority of the Asian coal-fired power fleet expansion is underwritten by government subsidies, capital subsidies,” Buckley said.

“Once you remove that capital subsidy, private enterprise is not going to put their own capital at risk on $4bn and $5bn capital projects in a foreign market. Projects that have been endorsed, announced, in train for five years all of a sudden become total stranded asset proposals.

Energy analysts forecast 'the end of coal' in Asia as Japanese investors back renewables

GreatApe

The energy industry changes slowly it is just not possible to shift from fossil to renewables/nuclear in a quick way although you can quickly ramp up the fuel through existing coal and gas plants which is more or less what happened with germany/japan turning their nukes off

The 2011 reactor meltdowns were more or less harmless but what it did do was scare politicians so much so that the best part of 40GW of nuclear was shut down needlessly and the result was ~3,000 TWh less nuclear generation in the 2010s and ~3,000 TWh more gas and oil generation which was a real environmental and economic disaster and perhaps the same again in the 2020s due to the early ending of german nukes and the very slow and not fully restart of japan nukes

More important is what happens in 2030-2050 when electricity demand will once again boom as transport and heating is electrified.

The world (and the UK) has to make a decision very very soon does it want to start building nukes today so they start up during the 2030-2050 period or is it going to leave it too late and try desperately to meet the massive 2030-2050 ramp (maybe as much as +25TWh/yr) via wind/pv/CCGT

GreatApe

And in other energy news.....USA shale gas and oil now exceed 1,500 GWt

8.5mbpd of oil and even more than that in gas equivalent and this is likely to be ~10% higher by 2020

That is equal to about 6 x total UK energy (not just electricity but all energy) usage enough to power the whole of France + Germany + UK + Spain + Poland + Switzerland + ireland + belgium +denmark combined.

The energy revolution of 2010-2020 was really shale tech not solar and wind

Even once converted to equivalent assuming 50% efficiency (base-load CCGTs can get as much as 62%) the shale energy is worth 3 x as much as all the wind power and solar PV deplayed in the 2010-2019 period.

Let us hope annual deployment of PV and wind power triples in the 2020s so the renewable revolution can at least catch up to the shale revolution

If the world can up its game to deploy 200GW of wind and 200GW of PV per year at an average 30% & 15% CFs then it will be closer to shale tech revolution

Hopefully that will come to pass. Wind power in particular really needs to expand 4x vs 2018 rate of ~50GW

GreatApe

Even if we compare just the most recent 2018 solar and wind additions at say 100GW PV at 15% CF and 50GW wind at 30% CF that equals ~30GWe average

Compare that to the ~200GWt that will be added this year from shale and equate that to ~100GWe equivalent as electricity is worth more than thermal we still see that shale is ~3x as important to energy as wind/PV

Really it is a shame the EU did not embrace shale too. Even if the whole of the EU had just 1/5th as much shale gas production as the USA that would have been enough gas to displace all of the EU coal usage and some EU nations are very very big coal users.

2010s was shale
2020s will still be shale
2030 will be wind and solar
2040s will be EVs (negative net energy usage as they are about twice as efficient as oil/gas cars)
2050s will be EVs & Wind/Solar

silverwhistle

GreatApe wrote: »

The 2011 reactor meltdowns were more or less harmless

I don't normally read your posts but this leapt out at me and reminded me of one of the reasons why I ignore them..

Martyn1981

silverwhistle wrote: »

I don't normally read your posts but this leapt out at me and reminded me of one of the reasons why I ignore them..

Obviously the explosions were not harmless, and our focus should be on the radioactive contamination and the loss of land for those that had to move, but, if we take a purely economical look at the issue, then that cost is staggeringly harmful.

The latest government estimates for the cleanup and compensation are (or were) around 20tn Yen, about $200bn, but Japanese think tanks suggest this could more than triple to around Yen70tn or over $600bn.

That's a lot of money, but then go one step further and think what that expenditure denies/prevents (the opportunity cost of spending the money on this cleanup)?

That money isn't generating leccy, no, it's consuming leccy and vast amounts of other energy and materials as part of the clean up. Whereas averaging out the cost of cheap on-shore wind and PV with more expensive off-shore wind, $200bn would buy close to 200GW of RE generation.

Next, and just for fun, let's spend the $600bn on RE, and get 200GW of off-shore wind (50%cf), 200GW of on-shore wind (30%cf), and 200GW of PV (12%cf).

That would generate approx 1,600TWh of leccy pa, greater than Japan's current annual consumption of ~950TWh.

So, just for fun, there's the economic cost of this 'harmless' event, an opportunity cost of producing nearly two Japan's worth of clean leccy generation, with the money pee'd up against the wall, to clean up nuclear, not generate nuclear leccy, but consume leccy whilst cleaning up nuclear.

Clearly "harmless". :think:

Martyn1981

Trawling CleanTechnica this morning, I noticed a veritable hoard of news or perhaps lesser known facts and ideas for clean energy, transport and storage. Enjoy.

Despite President Trump's pro coal agenda, US clean energy jobs now outnumber FF jobs by about 3:1.

US Clean Energy Jobs Increased 3.6% In 2018 To Nearly 3.3 Million


'Holy hot rocks Batman', energy storage at a very low cost of deployment, and also very low losses.

Storing Energy By Heating Stones To 600 Degrees — Could Power Denmark For Hours


And how do you transport big, heavy and bulky items in hard to reach areas, and use less energy fuel, well, the sky's the limit in China .... possibly.

Can We Go Back To A Clean Future With Hybrid Airships?

GreatApe

silverwhistle wrote: »

I don't normally read your posts but this leapt out at me and reminded me of one of the reasons why I ignore them..

Everything is relative.

From wiki
Death(s) 1 from radiation,[3] 2,202 from evacuation,[4]

And compared to the tsunami itself there were ~20,000 deaths from that

Perhaps more relevantly, how many more will get sick or die from the ~ 6,000 TWh of coal/gas that will need to be generated in lue of the nukes that were shut down?