[LINK] Ceramic Fuel Cells
steve jenkin
sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au
Sat Jun 4 14:59:19 AEST 2011
At CEBIT I talked to someone (senior) from Emmerson who sang the praises
of co-gen with Natural Gas.
Way cheaper because Govt. doesn't yet tax it,
and like these fuel cells, very efficient & environmentally friendly
with extra use being made of what is "waste heat" in remote power stations.
I applaud the intent, but don't understand where the extra methane is
coming from, or how the gas supply network will handle the demand, or be
upgraded. We already have significant grid-connected gas generation
capacity.
The data from Environment Australia suggest moving to electric passenger
vehicles might need 50-100 TWh/year of extra supply, or another 50% of
generating capacity, and up to 100% increase in residential demand.
Increasing overnight demand on the residential electricity network by
this huge amount isn't going to work with our current generation &
distribution models.
For me it implies we can only get there by embedding power generation
and/or storage capacity within the (residential) network.
Which means massive capital investments for generation/storage and
possible large infrastructure upgrades (gas & electricity).
Then there's network control and avoiding black-outs ('smart grids'?).
Any ideas on how we get there?
SJ
====================================
AU Energy use, Environment Australia
- by Sector, 1980-2002 + est to 2020:
<http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2006/publications/drs/indicator/326/index.html>
+ 2001-2:
* Total energy consumption, both primary and derived energy,
* 5346 petajoules(PJ) or 1,485TWh
* electricity generation sector consumed the largest share
of total energy used:
- 31% of energy fuels, 1552.6 PJ or 431TWh.
- transport sector 25%
- manufacturing sector 23%
- residential sector 8%
+ Road use Total Fuel Consumption (million litres)
* Passenger vehicles: 16,401ML or 175TWh
* Buses: 497ML
* Total: 26,164ML: 1004.6 PJ or 280TWh
+ electricity generation sector is the largest energy
consuming sector in the Australian economy,
currently accounting for
* ~46% of all primary energy use.
+ transport sector is the 2nd largest energy consuming sector
* 24% of total primary energy consumption
+ followed by the manufacturing and construction sector
* 20+%
+ Road transport is the single biggest end user of energy
consuming ~40% of the energy used in Australia.
+ Since 1980, energy consumption in both the transport
and residential sectors
* increased by 50%
- 2008 residential use:
<http://www.energyrating.gov.au/library/pubs/2008-energy-use-aust-res-sector-full.pdf>
- residential sector energy use, electricity, gas, LPG and wood:
+ 1990: ~299 petajoules (PJ) or 83TWh
+ 2008: ~402 PJ or 112TWh
+ 2020: 467 PJ projected under the current trends.
- 2020 predictions, contribution to total residential energy use:
+ electricity from 46% in 1990 to 53% in 2020
+ Natural gas from 30% in 1990 to 37% in 2020
+ wood from 21% in 1990 to 8% in 2020
+ LPG remain relatively unchanged at 2%
ACTEW-AGL 'Quirky Facts':
<http://www.actewagl.com.au/education/QuirkyFacts/default.aspx?section=Energy>
- Avg household consumption: 8,000kWh/year
- 75+% ACT home *energy* (not elec) used for space & water heating.
- 15% ACT domestic electricity used for refigeration
- appliances on standby ('phantom loads') consume ~10% household power
vs another claim that they can account for 85% of
household electricity consumption.
CIA factbook:
<https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2042.html>
- Total AU electricity
- consumption: 222 billion kWh/year
- production: 239 billion kWh/year
World Nuclear .org:
<http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf64.html>
For 2008/9:
- prodn: 266 billion kWh/year (TWh), 72% more than the 1990 level,
and growing at 3% pa.
- prodn: 254 TWh public supply + 12 TWh for non-grid autoproducers.
- Breakdown of gross amount,
+ ~17 TWh is used by the power stations themselves
+ 249 TWh actually sent out (net production).
+ ~18 TWh is lost or used in transmission
+ and 11TWh in energy sector consumption
+ with 220 TWh for final consumption
+ or 195 TWh apart from aluminium exports)
* Vencorp suggest that typically net TWh are ~10% less
than gross TWh,
with transmission and distribution losses often being 10%
- electricity produced from:
+ 56 gigawatts (GWe) total capacity:
- 30.3 GWe (54%) coal-fired
- 14.7 GWe (26%) gas or multi-fuel
- 7.1 GWe (13%) hydro
- 2.5 GWe (4.5%) other renewables
- 1.35 GWe (2.4%) oil
- Australian electricity prices are almost the lowest in the world.
- Residential prices are 36% of those in Japan
- and a little over half of those in most of Europe.
- Industrial prices are 30% of Japan's
- and 60% of most European prices.
stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote on 1/06/11 1:10 AM:
> In future, Australia's power lines to each building could mainly be used
> to upload power, rather than downloading electricity from the power grid.
>
> For eg, "The BlueGen at the Smart Home has been generating about twice
> as much electricity as the family has been using to run their household
> appliances (and water & house heating) AND to charge an electric vehicle.
> Excess electricity generated by the BlueGen has been exported to the grid"
>
> Aparently, normal power-station-to-home losses are about 70 percent. But,
> with ceramic fuel cells (burning gas, or algae, etc etc) at buildings for
> electricity, water & house heating, electric car charging AND for sending
> excess power to the grids, energy losses are around 15 percent. Naturally
> adding solar panels to buildings as well would mean *dramatic* results.
>
> "Ceramic Fuel Cells sells 25 BlueGen units to Ausgrid for Newcastle ‘Smart
> Grid, Smart City’ project" Tuesday 31 May 2011
> <http://www.cfcl.com.au/Assets/Files/20110531_CFCL_sells_25_BlueGen_units_
> to_AusGrid_31May2011.pdf>
>
> http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/ceramic-fuel-cells-up-on-
> smartgrid-win-20110531-1fdwr.html
>
> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/australias-ceramic-fuel-cells-hails-
> success-of-californias-bloom-energy/story-fn2pxvk0-1225840644743
>
>
>
> Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server
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--
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA
sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin
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