Search Results for: "energy density"
Relevance | DateWind Is Not Power at All (Part II – Power Density)
By Kent Hawkins -- September 9, 2010 9 CommentsPart I of this three-part series set the stage for examining intermittent power sources, especially wind, as viable sources of electricity. Part 2 addresses one of the critical power considerations: power density.
In his MasterResource series, Vaclav Smil compared the power densities of a range of fuels for electricity production, which demonstrates the inadequacies of renewables. David MacKay also makes a useful contribution to this topic.[i] Table 1 summarizes the results, which take into account entire fuel cycles, transportation and transmission requirements for a range of assumptions.
Note that all renewable energy sources are ten to over a thousand times less effective than those serving our needs today, with wind providing one of the poorest performances of the renewable sources shown, outside of wood. Areas required for renewables are large because of the dispersed, and often remote, nature of their energy supply.…
Continue ReadingPower Density Primer: Understanding the Spatial Dimension of the Unfolding Transition to Renewable Electricity Generation (Part V – Comparing the Power Densities of Electricity Generation)
By Vaclav Smil -- May 14, 2010 14 CommentsEditor’s note: This is the conclusion of the series that provides an essential basis for the understanding of energy transitions and use. The previous posts in this series can be seen at:
Part I – Definitions
Part II – Coal- and Wood-Fired Electricity Generation
Part III – Natural Gas-Fired Electricity Generation
Part IV – New Renewables Electricity Generation
America’s dominant mode of electricity generation is via combustion of bituminous and sub-bituminous coal in large thermal stations. All such plants have boilers and steam turbogenerators and electrostatic precipitators to capture fly ash, but they burn different qualities of coal that may come from surface as well as underground mines, have different arrangements for cooling (once-through using river water or various cooling towers) and many have flue gas desulfurization to reduce SO2 emissions.…
Power Density Primer: Understanding the Spatial Dimension of the Unfolding Transition to Renewable Electricity Generation (Part IV – New Renewables Electricity Generation)
By Vaclav Smil -- May 13, 2010 13 CommentsPart I – Definitions
Part II – Coal- and Wood-Fired Electricity Generation
Part III – Natural Gas-Fired Electricity Generation
Photovoltaic Electricity Generation
Satellite measurements put the solar constant – radiation that reaches area perpendicular to the incoming rays at the top of the atmosphere (and that is actually not constant but varies with season and has negligible daily fluctuations) – at 1,366 W/m2. If there were no atmosphere and if the Earth absorbed all incoming radiation then the average flux at the planet’s surface would be 341.5 W/m2 (a quarter of the solar constant’s value, a sphere having four times the area of a circle with the same radius: 4?r…
Continue ReadingPower Density Primer: Understanding the Spatial Dimension of the Unfolding Transition to Renewable Electricity Generation (Part III – Natural Gas-Fired Electricity Generation)
By Vaclav Smil -- May 11, 2010 No CommentsEditor’s note: This is Part III of a five part series that provides an essential basis for the understanding of energy transitions and use. The previous posts in this series can be seen at:
Part I – Definitions
Part II – Coal- and Wood-Fired Electricity Generation
Boilers of electricity-generating stations burning coal can be converted to burn liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons (fuel oil, even crude oil, and natural gas) and such conversions were fairly common during the 1960s and the early 1970s. Burning natural gas rather than coal has clear environmental advantages (it generates less, or no, sulfur dioxide and no fly ash) but the overall conversion efficiency of the boiler-steam turbogenerator unit changes little. In contrast, gas turbines, particularly when coupled with steam turbines, offer the most efficient way of electricity generation.…
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