Achieving Energy Independence
Posted by: Christian P. Milord | 07/07/2008 10:41 AM
How would you like gas prices to return to a more reasonable $2 to $3 a gallon, as prices were a year or two ago? While plenty of folks think that this will never happen, it could occur if certain events are set in motion. Indeed, there is no need to remain dependent on foreign oil.
The problem of rising fuel costs has hit the world very hard over the past year, impacting the costs of other goods and services that rely on energy sources and transportation systems. People in several countries pay even more for fuel than Americans currently pay. These rising costs could reduce demand to a degree, encourage conservation and the use of alternative fuels, and/or trigger more development of fossil fuels.
OPEC and our domestic oil companies are trying to pump more oil to meet an escalating demand. However, available supplies aren't keeping pace with the demand, thus the higher prices. If supplies increased and outstripped demand, then the prices would go down. The role of commodities speculators in this dilemma has been exaggerated. They have minimal influence in lowering, or raising prices since they are only part of the overall equation.
Our energy problem could have been solved years ago, if Congress had acted to lift regulations on energy exploration, research and development. Most members of Congress claim that they want to reduce dependence on Mideast oil, yet they fail to act in order to achieve that end. Unfortunately, too many members are more concerned with self interest, instead of the national interest of energy security.
Although more Americans might someday drive battery powered cars, hybrids, and vehicles powered by hydrogen, that scenario is still many years away. Ethanol is impractical because it's cost prohibitive to develop with huge amounts of corn that could go towards human and livestock consumption. Let's face it. Developed and developing nations still need coal and petroleum products to power their primary, manufacturing, and service industries.
Alternatives such as hydrogen, biofuels, nuclear, solar, water, and wind power are limited in scope at the present time. Certainly, we can encourage the use of cheaper and cleaner fuels and technologies. However, it could take decades to transform machines, entire industries, and the engines of buses, cars, planes, ships, trains, and trucks over to different types of fuels.
So what can Americans do to lower fuel costs, and push for energy independence? Well, we can besiege members of Congress with calls and letters. Congress ought to stop wasting time on petty issues and start spending time solving problems related to national prosperity and security. Congress doesn't have to set up new agencies, or committees to study the energy problem.
Congress and some states should just eliminate the ban on offshore drilling, so that oil companies could develop oil resources off all of our coasts. Moreover, there should be more development in the land areas of the USA. Drilling, pumping, and refining have become much cleaner during the past few decades, so environmentalists don't have to worry as much about pollution. Of course, we want to keep our air, land, and water as safe as possible, but we also need economic growth.
When Congress and the Executive ease the regulations on R&D for oil, oil companies could move quickly to increase the supply at existing sites, as well as develop new fields, and build refineries. These actions don't have to take many years, as some gloom and doom Congressional members often state.
In addition, it's unnecessary to apply a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies, because that gives them less incentive to produce oil. Reasonable regulations and taxes can facilitate greater productivity, and profits can generate further development of efficient fuels and technologies.
We could still purchase some oil from more stable nations such as Canada (Alberta tar sands) and some Latin American states. Remember, shorter distances for tanker trips can translate into fewer accidents and oil spills. Gradually we could wean ourselves away from foreign sources, as our supplies of oil and natural gas increase to meet the demand, and alternative fuels are utilized to a greater extent in the future.
It's quite possible that if Congress acts in the national interest, Americans won't have to worry about spiraling energy prices. Prices could become more stable, which could positively affect other consumer prices and keep inflation under control. In fact, if engineers, inventors, and oil companies are allowed to use their talents, America could someday even export some surplus energy supplies to nations that need it.
Achieving greater energy independence can certainly help America become stronger. It can also help foster greater prosperity and stability around the globe through business partnerships and trade. Congress needs to do its duty and get out of the way, so that America can have more autonomy as it moves ahead in the 21st century.
Attachment 1
Aggressive Use of Technology 2,074 Gigawatt Solar Array Power Plant
By
Arthur A. Nussberger
MSME USC
Retired Aerospace Engineer
There was a time when we believed that our country could accomplish most anything. After all, we completed construction of the Panama Canal, built the Hoover Dam and we landed men on the moon. The “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” taken by Neil Armstrong in July 1969, helped convince us that nothing is impossible. In 1968 Dr. Peter Glaser, (Arthur D. Little, Inc) described a concept for a series of Solar Power Satellites (SPS) each delivering 5 Gigawatts at the utility interface over twice the power output of the Hoover Dam. A satellite located in a 24-hour geosynchronous orbit (GEO) collects solar energy and converts the solar energy to electrical power using large photovoltaic arrays. The electrical power is transformed to microwave RF energy and beamed to a receiving antenna (rectenna) on the ground. The ground rectenna converts the RF energy to electrical power and the power is fed into the utility grid for distribution. In the 1970’s many believed that a significant amount of the world’s electrical power demand could be met by power generated in space. The international community was excited about the prospects of a new clean non-polluting electrical power plant of the SPS size. Many experts in the United States seriously believed it possible to build 30 Solar Power Satellites in space by the year 2005 and deliver 150 Gigawatts (150, 000 megawatts) to the ground.
From 1976 to 1980, a study program was funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) to evaluate the technical and economical feasibility of building such large satellites in space. NASA was responsible for the technical effort and funded studies by both Rockwell International and Boeing. Preliminary design concepts of large solar cell arrays in GEO were fully evaluated. In late 1980, after a National Academy of Science (NAS) review the SPS program was shelved because of technical and economic uncertainties. However, a NASA sponsored “peer” group of experts concluded that the solar array and power management portions of the SPS concept were feasible and they found no major problems that couldn’t be solved.
Why not develop the SPS solar array design and install it here on earth on desert property where sunlight is plentiful? Modularity of design would permit it to be duplicated anywhere in the world. Many potential sites exist including our southwestern states. Development and construction of such a large solar array for terrestrial use would create thousands of needed jobs, e.g., design and development, material mining, construction, qualification testing, quality assurance, installation, operations, maintenance, and power distribution. An end result would be continued technical superiority for the United States.
The SPS solar array design is an advanced concept consisting of an inverted Gallium Arsenide (GaAs)/sapphire configuration solar cell. The active GaAs cell region (n and p) is designed to be only 5 microns in thickness and mass manufactured by chemically depositing gallium arsenide onto a thin 20-micron transparent single crystal sapphire ribbon as both substrate and cover glass. The cell stack is then mounted on a 25-micron kapton blanket. Replacing silicon solar cells with gallium arsenide cells significantly improves the efficiency of the system and permits higher operating temperatures favoring the use of low cost reflectors to reduce the requirements for expensive solar cells. In the initial solar array design-sacrificing performance would permit the use of conventional silicon solar cells. The concentration ratio in the SPS design is a geometric ratio of 2:1 with the potential of increasing to 8:1.
Design trade studies, cost estimates, preliminary design concepts, and a ground based exploratory development (GBED) plan exist including specific tasks for development of the GaAs solar cell. A ground operating SPS solar array power plant would validate the solar array design and make it likely that a space system could be achieved in GEO. Sunlight is available continuously in GEO and about 75% more available then the highest average daily solar insolation on the earth (32.76 kwhrs/sq/meter/day compared to 7.66 kwhrs/sq.meter/day). A portion of the array power could be used to produce hydrogen by electrolysis for mass distribution, a first step towards a hydrogen economy.
Past achievements of the United States are nearly endless giving us a reason to be proud of our country and resulting in tremendous benefits to the United States and all mankind. The United States finished building the Panama Canal in 1914, one of the largest construction projects in history. The Panama Canal was built in 34 years from initial effort in 1880.The canal is 51 miles in length and required over 80,000 persons working on its construction and 4,535,000 Kg of dynamite every year with peak excavation in the first 3 months of 1907 exceeding 512,000 cubic meters of rock and soil. The United States expended a total of $353 million. The canal has been profitable and successful for over 100 years. More than 800,000 ships have used the canal.
The Hoover Dam construction started in 1933 and was completed in 1936. Hoover Dam is one of the largest in the world and measures a height of 726.4 feet and a thickness of 660 feet at its base and required 4.36 million yards of concrete. The Hoover Dam cost the U. S. government $44 million (adjusted for inflation $676 million). For over 70 years it has delivered approximately 2,074 megawatts of continuous power with about 56% of the power transmitted to California a distance of about 266 miles. Power from the dam sustains Las Vegas as one of the most exciting cities in the world.
The Apollo objective of safely landing a man on the moon was accomplished in 8 years (President Kennedy’s announcement on May 25 1961 to Neil Armstrong’s setting foot on the moon July 20, 1969). For eight years the Apollo Program required 500,000 workers directly and another 2.5 million in support jobs. The Untied States spent 6% of its yearly national budget to accomplish the moon program. As a result the United States is the uncontested technological leader of the world in a technology revolution that we are still witnessing.
Drawing a comparison to the Hoover Dam project, the mass of an SPS solar cell array (to deliver 5,000 megawatts) was calculated to be 8.08 million kilograms (8,080 metric tons). The SPS system required about 6500 acres of solar cells and a projected total planar area of 15,590 acres. Capital investment costs for an SPS were estimated to range from $1458 to $3000 per kilowatt of delivered power. The solar array was estimated to be 43.4% of the total SPS cost and for a comparable size to the Hoover Dam (2074 megawatts) cost estimates range between $3.02 billion and $6.2 billion. It is expected that the Government would fund the advanced technology and development and that the Utility companies would fund recurring capital costs. Utility companies would recover their investment costs from electric power users. The space solar array power system once built and operating as a ground power plant could provide electrical power for 70 years or more, duplicating the Hoover Dam lifetime.
If we want to seriously consider building 5 Gigawatt (5,000 megawatts) SPS systems in space why not start by building large SPS type solar arrays (non-polluting renewable energy) for use in ground power generating plants?
The End