Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Jed Rothwell]

Alain Sepeda  wrote:


> I'm not convinced Powerwall will be less expensive than LENR capacity, but
> why not.
>

I do not think of full-scale power wall would be needed with a cold fusion
generator. The PowerWall has 7 kWh capacity. I think that a steam turbine
cold fusion generator will take some time to reach peak output, so it will
need some sort of buffer -- either a battery or a super capacitor. You also
needs something for power spikes and short-term load leveling. When you
turn on most machines they tend to spike momentarily.

I suppose 1 or 2 kWh would be enough. I assume that the cold fusion
generator would be large enough to meet peak demand, but it might take ~5
minutes reach the highest power level.

https://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

In the message I wrote before, ". . . in this scenario they have a Tesla
Powerwall, so they do not need a generator capable of peak demand," I meant
the scenario with solar panels and a small gas-fired backup generator.

Suppose your average daytime use is ~8 kWh per hour, with an occasional
peak of 14 kWh for one hour. I think an 11 kW gas backup generator plus a
Powerwall could meet this. During the day the Powerwall would fill up with
solar PV power. On rainy days or at night the gas generator would turn on,
as needed. Before you run the washing machine, you might check the
Powerwall screen to see if there is enough solar power + generator power +
plus stored Powerwall energy. If it says "washing machine cannot be run"
you press a button to turn on the gas generator. It runs until the
Powerwall battery is full. The machine beeps and you know you can now run
the washing machine.

This kind of monitoring and juggling of resources would not be necessary
with cold fusion.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Alain Sepeda]

This look rational.
Note that even with the grid surviving, we would not need the usual
transcontinental grid, but a small clustered nano/microgrid.

One place for optimisation is connection different consumers like housing
and industry, or commerces, and offices, electric cars, ...

I'm not convinced Powerwall will be less expensive than LENR capacity, but
why not.
Just pluging to the block-microgrid, or just to your building nano-grid may
be more efficient than powerwall... or you share the powerwall.

some UberPop sharing economy may replace utilities.

whatever happen they have to change their model.
like for Telcos they cannot sell energy, except to industrialists by MW...
they will sell maintenance, renting, capacity, sharing of clients capacity.

The economic model of big corp will probably mostly die as it was required
for 19th industry, for mass production of clone products in big
zombie-workers factories, for continental grids and GW powerplants.

modern economic model is fabless design, independent distributed production
by specialized SMB working in ecosystems, distributed sales through
platforms using grid computing in cloud, proposed by uberPop style of micro
business selling computer nodes power.

2015-12-16 16:21 GMT+01:00 Jed Rothwell :

> Here is a situation that I think would be unfair to the power companies,
> and unsustainable. The Tesla Powerwall project aims to put small batteries
> in houses so that solar power can be saved up during the day and used at
> night. Suppose this pans out, and also solar arrays get cheaper and larger.
> A household with a solar array will no longer sell excess electricity to
> the power company, so the power company will not act as a broker, and it
> loses that source of revenue. The household seldom need to buy electricity,
> except in cloudy weather or late at night, so it buys no more than 5 or $10
> worth of electricity per month. In other words, the household treats the
> power company like a standby backup generator used only occasionally.
>
> If enough households and commercial accounts did this, it would be a
> disaster for the power company.
>
> The power company would be justified in asking for an arrangement like the
> one the Koch brothers recommended, where you pay $50 a month just to be
> hooked up to the power company. You pay that whether you use the
> electricity or not. However, if they tried to charge much more than thant,
> say $100, many people might cut the wire and discontinue electric company
> service. They would install a gas powered backup generator that turns on
> automatically. This costs about $3000 for a small 11 kW unit (2.5 years of
> $100 payments to the power company).
>
> If you are not power company customer there is no way they can charge you.
>
> I expect most people will soon cut the wire if cold fusion ever pans out.
> Some commentators have suggested that it would be more economical to
> install a small cold fusion generator with less capacity than you need, and
> then draw on the electric power company from time to time. I expect the
> incremental cost for a larger cold fusion generator will not be much, so
> there will be no point to installing a generator a little too small for
> your needs. If anything, you might want two generators, each with 2/3rds of
> your expected demand. If one of them fails, you stay online with the lights
> on while the repairman fixes it. Manufacturers might design a single unit
> that keeps running with tandem components. Back in the 1980s there were
> fault-tolerant tandem minicomputers. See:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_Computers
>
> After the technology matures, I expect cold fusion generators will cost
> roughly as much as today's standby generator. In other words, a cold fusion
> cell and steam turbine will cost roughly as much as the gas powered motor
> in a standby generator. You probably need a battery or super capacitor for
> load leveling, and you need a generator capable of nearly continuous duty.
> So it might end up costing a few thousand dollars more. You can see the
> range of power and the costs of today's standby generators here:
>
>
> http://www.lowes.com/Electrical/Generators/Home-Standby-Generators/_/N-1z0x2n8/pl#
> !
>
> As I described in my book, you do not need as much electric power capacity
> as we use today, because many applications will use cold fusion heat
> directly.
>
> - Jed
>
>

RE: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Chris Zell]

In some areas such as where I live, there are separate charges for delivering 
electricity and the actual electricity itself on the utility bill.

Many months I pay more for line delivery charges than for actual electricity 
itself.

Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Jed Rothwell]

Here is a situation that I think would be unfair to the power companies,
and unsustainable. The Tesla Powerwall project aims to put small batteries
in houses so that solar power can be saved up during the day and used at
night. Suppose this pans out, and also solar arrays get cheaper and larger.
A household with a solar array will no longer sell excess electricity to
the power company, so the power company will not act as a broker, and it
loses that source of revenue. The household seldom need to buy electricity,
except in cloudy weather or late at night, so it buys no more than 5 or $10
worth of electricity per month. In other words, the household treats the
power company like a standby backup generator used only occasionally.

If enough households and commercial accounts did this, it would be a
disaster for the power company.

The power company would be justified in asking for an arrangement like the
one the Koch brothers recommended, where you pay $50 a month just to be
hooked up to the power company. You pay that whether you use the
electricity or not. However, if they tried to charge much more than thant,
say $100, many people might cut the wire and discontinue electric company
service. They would install a gas powered backup generator that turns on
automatically. This costs about $3000 for a small 11 kW unit (2.5 years of
$100 payments to the power company).

If you are not power company customer there is no way they can charge you.

I expect most people will soon cut the wire if cold fusion ever pans out.
Some commentators have suggested that it would be more economical to
install a small cold fusion generator with less capacity than you need, and
then draw on the electric power company from time to time. I expect the
incremental cost for a larger cold fusion generator will not be much, so
there will be no point to installing a generator a little too small for
your needs. If anything, you might want two generators, each with 2/3rds of
your expected demand. If one of them fails, you stay online with the lights
on while the repairman fixes it. Manufacturers might design a single unit
that keeps running with tandem components. Back in the 1980s there were
fault-tolerant tandem minicomputers. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_Computers

After the technology matures, I expect cold fusion generators will cost
roughly as much as today's standby generator. In other words, a cold fusion
cell and steam turbine will cost roughly as much as the gas powered motor
in a standby generator. You probably need a battery or super capacitor for
load leveling, and you need a generator capable of nearly continuous duty.
So it might end up costing a few thousand dollars more. You can see the
range of power and the costs of today's standby generators here:

http://www.lowes.com/Electrical/Generators/Home-Standby-Generators/_/N-1z0x2n8/pl#
!

As I described in my book, you do not need as much electric power capacity
as we use today, because many applications will use cold fusion heat
directly.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Jed Rothwell]

I wrote:


> They would install a gas powered backup generator that turns on
> automatically. This costs about $3000 for a small 11 kW unit (2.5 years of
> $100 payments to the power company).
>

Note that in this scenario they have a Tesla Powerwall, so they do not need
a generator capable of peak demand. A generator large enough for average
demand will do, with the Powerwall for load leveling.

I assume the Powerwall will have sophisticated diagnostics and warnings, so
if storage and generation are low it will warn you not to run the washing
machine.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Bob Higgins]

One of the states where there is an ongoing war between the electric
utility companies, the solar homeowners, and solar businesses is Arizona.
It seems to be a centroid of a lot of utility changes.  I have read about
the utility companies holding private large scale cross-utility conferences
to develop a strategy to combat home sited solar.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> The Hawaiian Electric Power Company is squawking about the effects of
> rooftop solar:
>
>
> http://www.hawaiianelectric.com/heco/_hidden_Hidden/CorpComm/Hawaiian-Electric-Companies-propose-plan-to-sustainably-increase-rooftop-solar
>
> They make valid points here. It is not reasonable to ask the power company
> to act as distribution network for PV electricity while not paying them for
> that service.
>
> As I said, I doubt cold fusion will need any kind of distribution network
> for backup. No one will sell excess power from home generators because it
> will be worth nothing, once cold fusion penetrates a large fraction of the
> market. (I am guessing maybe half.) I am assuming that by that time, cold
> fusion generators will be about as reliable as today HVAC equipment,
> meaning that outages and emergency repairs will happen less often than
> today's power company outages, for fewer hours per year.
>
> Needless to say, this will lead to the quick demise of the power companies.
>
> Interesting quote:
>
> Across the three Hawaiian Electric Companies, more than 51,000 customers
> have rooftop solar. As of December 2014, about 12 percent of Hawaiian
> Electric customers, 10 percent of Maui Electric customers and 9 percent of
> Hawaii Electric Light customers have rooftop solar. This compares to a
> national average of one-half of 1 percent (0.5 percent) as of December
> 2013, according to the Solar Electric Power Association.
>
>
> If ~10% of mainland U.S. customers in places like Florida and Georgia
> install rooftop solar, the power companies in Florida and Georgia will be
> in the same kind of trouble the Hawaiian power companies are in. Going from
> 0.5% to 10% is not such a leap.
>
> - Jed
>
>

Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Jed Rothwell]

Bob Higgins  wrote:

One of the states where there is an ongoing war between the electric
> utility companies, the solar homeowners, and solar businesses is Arizona.
> It seems to be a centroid of a lot of utility changes.  I have read about
> the utility companies holding private large scale cross-utility conferences
> to develop a strategy to combat home sited solar.
>

Yes. I think we discussed this here before. See:

"Utilities wage campaign against rooftop solar"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/utilities-sensing-threat-put-squeeze-on-booming-solar-roof-industry/2015/03/07/2d916f88-c1c9-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html

I expect the fight against cold fusion will be far more vicious. It has not
yet begun, but it is inevitable.

As you might expect, the Koch brothers are in vanguard of the fight against
home solar panels:

Legislation to make net metering illegal or more costly has been introduced
in nearly two dozen state houses since 2013. Some of the proposals were
virtual copies of model legislation drafted two years ago by the American
Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a nonprofit organization with
financial ties to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.


If they live long enough to see cold fusion, I expect they will spend tens
of billions of dollars to combat it. Their net worth is ~$42 billion. They
will understand right away that if cold fusion succeeds, they will be
bankrupted. The Saudis will also understand this. I predict that hundreds
of billions of dollars will be marshaled in worldwide legislative lobbying
efforts (bribes) and mass media advertising to crush cold fusion. I expect
the wind and solar industries will join fossil fuels in opposition to cold
fusion.


. . . However, as I said, in the fight against solar the power companies do
have a valid point. You cannot expect them to act as distribution grid for
PV electricity for free. If PV becomes a significant fraction of all
electricity they will have to start charging everyone a "toll" for use of
the distribution network, even people with large PV arrays who produce a
net amount of electricity more than they use.

We have a similar problem with electric cars. The owners do not pay a
gasoline tax, so they do not contribute to the cost of maintaining the
roads. If electric cars become more widespread governments will haveto
start charging a fee for electric cars. They are already doing that in
Georgia.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Jed Rothwell]

Since 2000, wind has gone from producing 0.3% as much as coal to 11%. You
can see why the coal companies are in a panic, and trying to stop the
expansion in wind energy.

Overall U.S. electricity production has not increased much since 2007, so
any increase in wind, natural gas or solar means less coal is used.

Electricity overview:

http://www.eia.gov/beta/MER/index.cfm?tbl=T07.01#/?f=A

Note the increased generation by the industrial sector (green line), rather
than by power companies, starting in 1988. The EIA says that this year for
the first time, solar power generated by individuals -- the so-called
"behind the meter" sector, mainly rooftop PV systems -- has produced a
significant amount of electricity. They will start tracking it in more
detail soon.

"EIA electricity data now include estimated small-scale solar PV capacity
and generation"

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=23972

This is having a big impact in Hawaii, as I noted here before:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19731

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/business/energy-environment/solar-power-battle-puts-hawaii-at-forefront-of-worldwide-changes.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/16/hawaii-solar-industry_n_4452177.html

This is what I expect cold fusion will do, only faster on a much larger
scale. Cold fusion, unlike solar, will allow the user to cut off all
connections to the power company. I assume the user will buy a cold fusion
generator large enough to produce all electricity, with no need for a power
company backup. Of course it will also work at night, unlike solar. It will
not need much of a battery. Maybe a super-capacitor will do.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Jed Rothwell]

The Hawaiian Electric Power Company is squawking about the effects of
rooftop solar:

http://www.hawaiianelectric.com/heco/_hidden_Hidden/CorpComm/Hawaiian-Electric-Companies-propose-plan-to-sustainably-increase-rooftop-solar

They make valid points here. It is not reasonable to ask the power company
to act as distribution network for PV electricity while not paying them for
that service.

As I said, I doubt cold fusion will need any kind of distribution network
for backup. No one will sell excess power from home generators because it
will be worth nothing, once cold fusion penetrates a large fraction of the
market. (I am guessing maybe half.) I am assuming that by that time, cold
fusion generators will be about as reliable as today HVAC equipment,
meaning that outages and emergency repairs will happen less often than
today's power company outages, for fewer hours per year.

Needless to say, this will lead to the quick demise of the power companies.

Interesting quote:

Across the three Hawaiian Electric Companies, more than 51,000 customers
have rooftop solar. As of December 2014, about 12 percent of Hawaiian
Electric customers, 10 percent of Maui Electric customers and 9 percent of
Hawaii Electric Light customers have rooftop solar. This compares to a
national average of one-half of 1 percent (0.5 percent) as of December
2013, according to the Solar Electric Power Association.


If ~10% of mainland U.S. customers in places like Florida and Georgia
install rooftop solar, the power companies in Florida and Georgia will be
in the same kind of trouble the Hawaiian power companies are in. Going from
0.5% to 10% is not such a leap.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:EIA graphs shows the decline in coal use, increase in natural gas and wind

[Jed Rothwell]

I wrote:


> . . . the power companies do have a valid point. You cannot expect them to
> act as distribution grid for PV electricity for free. If PV becomes a
> significant fraction of all electricity they will have to start charging
> everyone a "toll" for use of the distribution network, even people with
> large PV arrays who produce a net amount of electricity more than they use.
>

They do not actually have to charge these people anything. What they have
to do is pay the producer some dollar amount and then mark up the
electricity and charge other people a lot more for it. In other words, they
have to act like any broker does, such as a company that buys wheat from
farmers and then sells it to bakers.

I believe they already do mark up the electricity they buy from people with
solar panels. I guess they need to mark it up more, charge more at night,
and also raise overall rates to pay for the new distribution network
infrastructure needed to handle rooftop PV excess electricity.

As noted in the WaPost, what the Brothers Koch want to do is gauge anyone
who installs solar panels to keep the panels from being cost effective.
That's different.

- Jed