Renewable Energy Zones on Public Lands in the American Southwest

Jolting Joe Romm has some good news. Yeah, I know I’m hard scratching for some good news in amongst all the Washington Theater.

Nevertheless, it is potentially positive development, and it is news because his father was a humorous journalist. Professor Romm notes that, at present, one of the most economical forms, which development of renewable energy can take, is a power plant that uses a combination: solar thermal/natural gas.

Utilities are willing to invest in ISCC (Integrated Solar Combined Cycle), whereby recovery of heat from a gas turbine is combined with solar thermal energy and used to power a steam turbine, because combined cycles show the highest system efficiencies.

Natural gas essentially is below ground energy (read from the Bad Place). Yet, when there is an absence of solar energy, for the sake of improved efficiency, there is a need to maintain system enthalpy, either by using stored, thermal energy or creating more thermal energy. Thus, there is a reason to include natural gas.

And, there are some additional advantages to such integrated, solar thermal electric power generation.

“It makes Boone happy?”

Well, maybe… Certainly, federal grants for utility scale, solar thermal help to sweeten the pot. But also, natural gas fired generators are an existing technology; there is the potential to include natural gas harvested from anaerobic digestion of waste; and, natural gas can be used in fuel cells now being developed for energy production.

Relative Size of Circles Reflects MWh/yr Potential Generation
(Orange = solar; Blue = wind; triangles = geothermal sites)

BLM (Bureau of Land Management) has nearly 160 active solar project applications, “with a projected capacity to generate 97,000 megawatts of electricity” — equal to nearly 30% of the nation’s household electrical consumption.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) [have] announced a series of initiatives to ‘fast-track’ those projects.

Climate Progress Guest Blogger Craig Severance describes such development as “key low-carbon bridging technology… which can provide fully dispatchable all-weather power available 24/7 with total generation costs of 7 to 8 cents per kWh.” So, such sustainable, utility-scale, energy supply is becoming more practical for certain regions. Whereas, a characteristic of “below-ground” energy is dwindling EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested). “At some point,” writes Ulf Bossel, “neither increased prices nor increased energy conversion efficiency can overcome” when “an energy source becomes an energy sink.”

The use of two turbines makes for an additional, significant cost. You might think that some clever federal policy might provide some incentives, both financially and from a public relations perspective, to shutting down the dirtiest coal plants and re-tooling the steam turbines for use in plants designed for Integrated Solar Combined Cycle.

2 Comments

jcwinnie

Posted 2009-9-11 at 8:33 am | Permalink

Hey, now, something that could make Boone and Larry happy?

Reuters reports that Google.org is looking into hybrid power plants, combining solar thermal and gas turbines. This would seem to be particularly effective from an environmental perspective when the gas supply includes upgraded biomethane produced by anaerobic digestion.

Potentially, even more efficacious, is when the CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) system is part of wastewater treatment. At PSA (Plataforma Solar de Almeria) and elsewhere, scientists are investigating AOP (Advanced Oxidation Processes). Such process engineering can be “useful for cleaning biologically toxic or non-degradable materials such as aromatics, pesticides, petroleum constituents, and volatile organic compounds in waste water.”

The reason for combining utility-scale solar thermal electric power generation with wastewater treatment is photocatalysis, i.e., application of light accelerates reactions with hydroxyl radicals. Refer to Wikipedia references and PSA documents (PDF format) Solar Photocatalysis and Solar Photochemistry Technology for more information.
jcwinnie

Posted 2009-9-14 at 10:37 am | Permalink

While I have to side with the cynical CP commentator Peter, when he observed:

If we all clap for Tinkerbell REALLY hard, all that nasty CO2 will be held underground forever where it won’t contaminate our aquifers, leak and kill people, or raise electricity rates. Oh, and all that other stuff about coal mining will get fixed. And you’ll get a pony.

I did like and make note of part of CP commentator Leland Palmer’s suggestion:

Another thing that can be done to existing power plants is to add an Indirectly Fired Combined Cycle (IFCC, aka. HIPPS) topping cycle. This adds a conventional gas turbine to the power plant, and runs it off heated air, then uses the output from the gas turbine to run the conventional steam cycle. Electrical output is greatly enhanced.

After Gutenberg