Alternative Energy

[markg]

I am interested in hearing about forms of energy that don't use oil, wind, or solar.

I know a bit about Thorium and Cold Fusion. Please feel free to post anything interesting,a link or video that shows some cool science

[Sundancefisher]

I am interested in hearing about forms of energy that don't use oil, wind, or solar.

I know a bit about Thorium and Cold Fusion. Please feel free to post anything interesting,a link or video that shows some cool science

Look up tidal and geothermal...assume you are also excluding hydro.

[EZM]

hydrogen.

[FlyTheory]

Heliostats are friggin awesome. Check it out!

Technically it uses solar, but it's cool.

[Weedy1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ7r0TWKlls

[SLH]

http://terrapower.com

[79ford]

Nuclear fusion is slowly rolling along, not sure when Iter or whatever its called will fire up over in france.

I like uses for waste heat aswell, lots of people forget how much heat we waste. I think the fort sask industrial area is worki g on some form of heat belt for the town powered by waste heat from the process plants nearby. Norway has a few garbage furnaces that burn stuff soo hot only water and co2 go up the stack, the liquid heat belts provide towns with silly cheap winter heating while eliminating landfill costs.

[markg]

[QUOTE=Weedy1;3645137]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ7r0TWKlls

I dont see the world shifting energy production to a system like that. The most important question I have would be; How does it at affect the flavor of the meat?

[markg]

Heliostats are friggin awesome. Check it out!

Technically it uses solar, but it's cool.

That kind of a system is very cool. It kind of reminds me of the "death ray" of my childhood. How does it compare to other solar system in the amount of energy it produces?

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

[Big Grey Wolf]

Short news story today BP is considering going back much more to oil production as claimed profit margin in their alternative energy program quite disappointing.

[BlackHeart]

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

https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_trashblaster/

This has the potential to solve two problems at the same time: landfill issues and the waste/potential contamination to water/vast handling costs and nowadays the trucking costs/fuel to move it away from city residences; and potentially produce more energy than it consumes resulting in positive returns from what was a growing cost.

[Ken07AOVette]

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

https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_trashblaster/

This has the potential to solve two problems at the same time: landfill issues and the waste/potential contamination to water/vast handling costs and nowadays the trucking costs/fuel to move it away from city residences; and potentially produce more energy than it consumes resulting in positive returns from what was a growing cost.

When I was working for Enerflex I was on a project for the City of Saskatoon. They wanted to catch the natural gas that was being produced by the dumps and use it to power generating stations. Budget was incredible, it was a fascinating project. This is leaps and bounds ahead of their idea, but along the same line.

[cdmc]

City of Calgary spent huge dollars on the same concept. Dump gas to make power. Ruined a couple Waukesha 9390s in the process. Don't know if it ever worked. Tax dollars hard at work.

[Chuck_Wagon]

Short news story today BP is considering going back much more to oil production as claimed profit margin in their alternative energy program quite disappointing.
Drilling for subsidies from this current Government may have looked like it would produce a steadier income stream than drilling for hydrocarbons did, however with the almost certain change of Government going to occur in the next Alberta election, those promised subsidies could get tossed like a wrench down a drill hole.

[gz1423]

Making ethanol from sugar cane.
60% of brazil's cars can use ethanol as fuel.

[DExplorer]

Bioenergy?

[lmtada]

Doing it right here in Edmonton. Enerkem. Bio mass producer. Utilizing your garbage as feedstock. Will produce Methanol, and Ethenol.

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0SO81ywEQpaqgkAigUg7YlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByb2lvbXV uBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--/RV=2/RE=1510638129/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fenerkem.com%2f/RK=1/RS=6I6Tn6vNDSdYlcOTJN8yVe.nkQ0-

[HVA7mm]

City of Edmonton Clover Bar landfill is currently doing this, albeit with the help of money from Alberta Innovates and the Province. I guess we'll see what happens.



Here is a copy fro the Edmonton Sun earlier this year.

Edmonton’s garbage-to-fuel plant should finally start commercial ethanol production this summer, a company official said Wednesday.

Enerkem Inc.’s facility at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre in Clover Bar, which started construction in 2012, will convert old carpet and other non-recyclable trash into ethanol that refineries can add to gasoline to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The product was recently given the lowest carbon intensity value yet issued by the B.C. government, meaning it can now be sold in that province’s gas, as well as in Alberta, said Marie-Hélène Labrie, Enerkem’s senior vice-president for government affairs and communications.

"We’re now getting ready for ethanol production and we expect to begin offering ethanol to our customers in the summer," she said, adding the company is seeking to meet similar low-carbon fuel standards in such jurisdictions as California and Oregon.

"Right now, there’s little local (Alberta) production, which means some refineries have to import ethanol from other areas."

The plant started making methanol in 2016, but last week completed installing equipment to convert the methanol into higher-priced ethanol, she said.

This year’s ethanol output will be several million litres, ramping up to full production of about 40 million litres annually in 2018, she said.

That’s enough to meet 10 per cent of the demand in Alberta, where gasoline must include at least five per cent renewable fuel.

The plant will annually use 100,000 tonnes of dried trash that would otherwise go in the ground, taking the city from diverting roughly half its garbage from the landfill to approximately 70 per cent.

The project has been in development for more than a decade. In 2006, the city approved an agreement through Alberta Innovates that included a $20-million construction grant for Enerkem and $9 million for the city to develop a pilot facility using gasification technology.

The province gave the Montreal-based company an additional $9.6-million grant in 2015 to produce ethanol.

Labrie said the plant, built on land leased from the city, is the world’s first full-scale facility of this type — ethanol is usually made with corn — and developing the new process takes time.

The company hopes to start constructing a similar plant on the south shore of Montreal next year, and also plans to put up a facility twice as big with partners in Rotterdam, using modules built in Canada.

"Enerkem has been successful by taking a very rigorous approach, by scaling up the technology, and by implementing it as we did … It’s not an overnight thing."

[79ford]

It is probably smart to invest in different types of energy. Somewhere down the road we will need the energy and hopefully we got an early enough start on it so that it is not insanely expensive when we do need it.

Shale oil/gas has been kind of a hail mary pass to keep our energy needs fed for some time while we figure out other ways to produce lots of energy.

Shale is responsible for about 5 million barrels of daily oil production and natural gas was getting tough to come by in the 05/06 regions until shale picked up the slack.

Whithout the shale we would be screaming for alternative energy right now because of the price of oil/gas and lack of availibility. Without shale we would be 3 million barrels or more behind on demand everyday....one year and every spare drop of oil on the planet would be gone.


Shale in itself doesnt really seem entirely sustainable, no one really seems to make much money drilling the stuff, its all paid for with some one elses money, whethers its debt or shareholder equity. Short lived wells that are really expensive.

I read something about energy creation once... oil works when you got saudi arabia, nigeria, iraq, siberian style wells pumping thousands of barrels per day. The net amount of energy going into the economy vs just extracting the energy is much greater with conventional good producing wells. With shale, tarsand, heavy oil etc it is more a manufacturig process where energy is transformed more so than created, leaving not much energy going into the production of goods and trade.


Think oilsands, you spend 32-45$ per barrel to mine, upgrade the sand/bitumin mixture...in syncrudes case 42$ per barrel... tag on 4-7$ to ship, roughly 40$ to refine into fuel leaves you at 80$ effort into a 110$ barrel of gasoline or diesel. Add in the layers of shipping to get it from the refiner and marketed the barrel is probablyfully expended.

No one really created much more than an operating profit.

You see qatar or who ever produces a 12$ barrel or less and they pile in 30-40$ of gravy trainon that expedition vs the few bucks a shale or bitumin producer makes

I would even argue bitumin producers are ahead of shale, the asset produces for more than a few years without having to drill all new holes all the time. Shale can produce but it could drop off a cliff if money started pulling out of it for whatever reason.

[79ford]

Moral of that is shale may have just bought us some time to get something else together.... and i doubt it ll be a green revolution it ll be more like an energy evolution, utilizing more and more sources to keep the human race fed.

We got energy pretty stretched and only a few billion humans out of the 7.5 billion live a modernized life. Unless large stretches of civilization want to live in poverty and levels of modernization that resemble the early 1900's we have no where near enough energy to fuel a fully modern human civilization


Lots of places dont have oil and gas either... they need something to call their own. Everything probably needs to get tapped some how.

You got to think that as glaciers etc melt for whatever reason the hydro is going to suffer aswell... we will need alternatives to hydro at some point too. Which is like an alternative to what we consider an alternative right now.

Remember 2008 and 147$ oil? That didnt end well