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Let’s imagine that you own a nuclear power plant. You are in a pretty good position these days because, compared to a coal-fired power plant, your operation is very green. You are producing lots of reliable electricity without releasing any carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. You don’t release any other pollutants, like sulfur or mercury, [...]
How Fusion Power Works -and- where fusion research stands today
by Marshall Brain | December 13, 2010
Human beings already have access to one fusion reactor. The sun is a gigantic fusion reactor that creates nearly all of the energy making life on earth possible. Sunlight provides the warmth that keeps water from freezing, and sunlight lets plants create the food that animals need. What if we could take the fusion principles [...]
Coal-fired power plants produce a majority of the electricity in the United States. According to this article: Coal is primarily used to generate electricity. In fact, nine out of every ten tons of coal mined in the United States today is used to generate electricity, and about 56 percent of the electricity used in this [...]
Imagine that you have found a way to generate carbon-free electricity that has big advantages:
- It is relatively inexpensive
- It burns no fossil fuels
- It does not create toxic byproducts (like nuclear waste and coal waste lagoons)
- It is fairly quick to erect (especially compared to a nuclear power plant)
- In the right location, it can produce huge amounts of electricity
- It creates jobs
- It generates property taxes
- There are already tax credits in place
It sounds perfect, but there is one small problem…
If you take a look at How Air Conditioners Work you can see that a typical air conditioner is a very simple thing. It has an electric motor that runs a compressor, and everything else in the system is passive – tube on the hot side and cold side, plus an expansion valve.
The only problem with the existing system is that the electric motor needs a lot of electricity to spin the compressor. In the summertime, a sizable portion of the power grid is dedicated to feeding the electricity needs of air conditioners.
Now there may be an alternative that uses a lot less electricity…
Most batteries that we use on a daily basis are chemical batteries. They contain chemicals that react in some way to create a flow of electrons. Lead-acid batteries, alkaline batteries, Nickel-metal hydride batteries and lithium-ion batteries are all chemical batteries. See How Batteries Work and How Electricity Works for details. A flywheel battery is a [...]
If you have read How Power Grids Work, you know that power lines carry a lot of juice. This video demonstrates how much juice: There is so much voltage between the two wires that the branch becomes essentially a fuse wire that is vaporized. The arcing that occurs across the smoke is a plasma effect. [...]
As described in the previous post on Bloom Boxes, Bloom had its big unveiling today. Bloom boxes are in fact Solid Oxide Fuel Cells running at 800 degrees C. There were no surprises and no magic in the announcement. You can learn more about Bloom Box technology on the company’s web site: Bloom Energy What [...]
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