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Guest post by John D. Morgan. John runs R&D programmes at a Sydney startup company. He has a PhD in physical chemistry, and research experience in chemical engineering in the US and at CSIRO. He is a regular commenter on BNC. A 10-page printable PDF version of this post can be downloaded here. ———————————– Beyond [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 106 Comments »
Guest post by DV82XL. He is a Canadian chemist and materials scientist. For his previous article on the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, see here, and on why an informed public is key to acceptance of nuclear energy, see here. Unless you intend to design a nuclear reactor from scratch, you are going to have to accept whatever [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, TCASE Series | 28 Comments »
In the Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy (TCASE) series — currently up to 10 parts on the BNC blog — I consider the challenges we face in scaling up renewable or nuclear energy technologies to replace fossil fuels. The blog serialisation of TCASE will continue on BNC, but the format is now also moving into a [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 22 Comments »
As I noted in a recent post, my new goal with TCASE posts is for them to be shorter, more targeted and more regular, with the aim being to break big problems in sustainable energy down into very focused questions (each of the new TCASE posts will be a maximum of 1,000 words — my [...]
Filed under: Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 58 Comments »
In TCASE (thinking critically about sustainable energy) #5, I analysed a currently deployed technology for harnessing wave energy – the Pelamis device. If you haven’t read TCASE 5 then please do so now, since it explains some of the basic physical properties of wave energy, the extend of the global resource, etc. In writing the [...]
Filed under: Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 34 Comments »
The concept of energy return on investment (EROI), often called energy returned on energy invested (EROEI), is a simple and familiar one. Here is the short definition, from the Encyclopedia of Earth. To cite: ———————————————– Energy return on investment (EROI) is the ratio of the energy delivered by a process to the energy used directly and indirectly [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 20 Comments »
Andasol 1 is Europe’s first parabolic trough solar thermal power station, which went online in Nov 2008. It is located on a high desert site in Granada, Spain, which enjoys a high level of direct insolation – an average of 2,136 kWh / m2 / year. The mirror field — turbine infrastructure can yield a [...]
Filed under: Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 118 Comments »
Heat engines require cooling, to turn heat energy into mechanical energy (and then, via a turbine-connected generator, to electrical energy). This is an unavoidable physical principle, and is typically exploited via the Carnot cycle. Usually, this cooling requirement uses water. Why do I raise this point? Because it seems to be a source of much confusion (innocent [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 49 Comments »
The first four posts of the TCASE series were logically sequential — each post built on the conclusions of the previous one. Overall, I hope the TCASE will retain a sense of coherency, but at the same time, I don’t want to get too constrained in following a rigid structure. To be frank, I can’t [...]
Filed under: Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 20 Comments »
In TCASE 3 – The energy demand equation to 2050, I concluded the following: The world in 2050 will demand ~700 EJ of thermal energy, or roughly 300 EJ of electrical energy. This will require ~10,000 GWe (10 TWe) of generating capacity, which is a 5-fold increase in electricity generating capacity, or 680 MWe, every [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 164 Comments »
Updated 13/10/2009, based on post comments. Bottom line: 2050 power demand will be ~10 TWe of electrical generating power — a 5-fold increase on today’s levels, requiring the construction of ~680 MWe per day from 2010 to 2050. Before we look in detail at the various low-carbon energy technologies that may provide the means to [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 95 Comments »
Before getting entangled in the thorny bramble of sustainable energy options, I thought it helpful to arm you with a set of terminological secateurs. So TCASE #2 (recalling that TCASE = the Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy series) is a brief primer and glossary on energy terms. This is not meant to be anything comprehensive, [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 45 Comments »
This is the first post in what is planned to be an extended series, ‘Thinking critically about sustainable energy‘ (henceforth TCASE #). As explained in my previous blog entry, A necessary interlude, this series will look in detail at the issues confronting renewable and nuclear energy, with an aim to break down the often complex [...]
Filed under: Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 93 Comments »
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![[1/5] Fitting the Steam Engine](http://static.flickr.com/4134/4947531347_120a565eaa_t.jpg "[1/5] Fitting the Steam Engine")
