User:Teratornis/Energy

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This user subpage contains notes to organize my edits to articles relating to energy.

Contents

[edit] Peak oil

I created a {{Peak oil}} navigation template, and I added it to all the articles it links to, and a few more.

[edit] Out of Gas

06:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC): to-do: write an article about David Goodstein's book: Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil. I checked out a copy of the book from the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. See: WP:BK and Wikipedia:WikiProject Books.

23:02, 4 May 2008 (UTC): several other users created the article. I would like to add a detailed chapter by chapter synopsis, with links to all the topics Goodstein mentions which have Wikipedia articles. That would be a lot of links. Are we allowed to do that? See some other nonfiction book articles that have synopses:

I'll make my synopsis in User:Teratornis/Sandbox3.

Google Books has some useful information about this book:

[edit] National Geographic

National Geographic Magazine has run several articles that mention peak oil. I vaguely recall at least one article in National Geographic from the 1970s or 1980s, which I believe had a large illustration of Hubbert's curve. I think that may have been the first time I ever saw Hubbert's curve. I should try to find that article.

The June 2008 issue of National Geographic has another article about peak oil. I mentioned it in a Help desk answer:

Here is the citation:

<ref name="ngm_world_oil">
{{cite web
|url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/world-oil/roberts-text
|title=Tapped Out
|publisher=[[National Geographic Magazine]]
|accessdate=2008-05-17
|last=Roberts
|first=Paul 
|year=2008
|month=June
}}
</ref>

[edit] Peak oil user pages

05:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC): I've run across several user subpages about peak oil. Search for them systematically, using one of my searches from {{Help desk searches}}:

[edit] User:Americanus/Peak Oil People

17:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC): I ran across the page: User:Americanus/Peak Oil People when I searched Wikipedia with Google for: The end of oil. I left some suggestions for the author at: User talk:Americanus#Peak oil people (permanent link). It might be nice to promote that page to a list in article space. However, it looks like that user has not recently been active, so he or she might not see my suggestions soon.

[edit] Costs of energy in different forms

05:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC): the oil price increases since 2003 have mixed up the costs of energy from different sources. Since oil has increased in price more than six times from its 2003 low, and almost ten times since its late 1990s low, petroleum and refined petroleum products are now getting to be fairly expensive sources of energy. Make a table showing the cost and energy equivalence for several forms of energy. This is relevant for determining when various alternatives become economical for various applications. For example, right now the cost of energy in the form of retail motor gasoline is considerably higher than the cost of energy in the form of retail electricity, at least where I live (where electricity comes mostly from coal-fired plants - yuck).

The following table compares several sources of energy, stating a typical cost for each one. (Since most sources of energy vary widely in price, I will extend the table to list several rows for each source, to show the effect of price variations.) For each source of energy, each row shows a sample cost for the unit which people use to measure that source, the energy density for that unit, the equivalent cost if we could convert that source to motor gasoline at 100% efficiency, and the equivalent cost if we could convert that source to electricity at 100% efficiency. (Of course because of Carnot efficiency we can only convert about 30% of the heat of combustion of a fuel into electricity in a thermal power plant. But note, using electricity to charge batteries in an electric vehicle leads to a much lower vehicle fuel cost than the hypothetical conversion of electricity into gasoline, because a gasoline engine is only between 15% and 30% efficient, whereas the combination of batteries and electric motors can be between 80% and 90% efficient, I believe. Thus the fuel cost for an electric vehicle would be only about a third of the equivalent cost to generate a gallon of gasoline from electricity. In effect, the comparison is between the energy content of the coal that feeds the power plant vs. the refined gasoline that feeds the internal combustion engine in an automobile. This compares well with the figures in Electric car#Ownership costs, which also show a much lower fuel cost per mile for electric cars compared to internal combustion engine vehicles.)

Energy source Cost Energy density $/MJ $/gallon (gasoline equivalent) $/kWh (electricity equivalent)
Coal $130/ton MJ/ton $/MJ $/gallon $/kWh
Natural gas $/ MJ/ $/MJ $/gallon $/kWh
Petroleum $128/bbl 6.1 GJ/bbl $0.0209836066/MJ $2.74885246/gallon $0.0755409836/kWh
Gasoline $4/gallon 131 MJ/gallon $0.0305343511/MJ $4/gallon $0.109923664/kWh
Electricity $0.05/kWh 3.6 MJ/kWh $0.0138888889/MJ $1.81944444/gallon $0.05/kWh

Conversion factors:

Conversions using Google Calculator (one must use {{=}} to represent the equal sign in the {{Google}} template):

  • Coal:
  • Natural gas:

Some comparisons that would be useful to make:

References:

[edit] Wind power

Several of the smaller articles about Wind power need work, or need starting.

[edit] Wind power in Ohio

Wind power in Ohio already exists, but it needs some editing.

[edit] Ohio wind resource map

06:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC): upload this map of Ohio's wind resources to Wikimedia Commons, and add the {{PD-USGov}} template to its description:

I will probably have to convert the original JPEG image to a PNG. I can do that with Netpbm.

That map for Ohio is essentially a single-state version of this wind resource map for the entire United States:

I don't think I have ever uploaded an image to Wikimedia Commons before. Read the article about it and see WP:EIW#Image. If I can figure out how to upload the Ohio wind resource map, I can then upload maps for the other states, or at least the states with significant wind power potential.

[edit] Ohio wind power potential

This page says Ohio's wind energy resources are larger than in previous estimates based on 50m elevation, because new technology (i.e., larger wind turbines) can exploit faster winds at 100m:

  • Press Release - New Wind Maps & Analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Reveal Ohio’s Significant Wind Energy Potential Could Power 2 Million Homes

Actually the article claims that Ohio's wind power potential (66,000 megawatts (MW), nameplate capacity? The capacity factor might only be 0.3 or less) exceeds Ohio's current electrical consumption. Determine what Ohio's electricity consumption is. The Ohio article does not seem to mention it; for an example from a neighboring state's article of what the Ohio article might say about Energy, see: Illinois#Energy. Economy of Ohio says nothing about energy, either.

Here is an overview I found:

Ohio's total annual energy consumption appears to be about four quads. Determine how that compares to 66 GW of nameplate capacity. I love unit conversions. The Quad (energy) article does not give the conversion to KWh.

Search some more with {{Google}}:

[edit] Lake Erie wind power potential

A very large portion of Ohio's wind resources are over Lake Erie. Lake Erie may be a good location for offshore wind turbines. As of early 2008, the United States has no offshore wind turbines. Lake Erie might be a good location for them, because:

  • Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes. The western half is especially shallow.
  • Proximity to electrical transmission networks and electricity consumers.
  • Proximity to heavy industry for making large wind turbine components.
  • Ease of transporting large wind turbine components throughout the Great Lakes by barge.

Some links relating to offshore wind power:

[edit] Wind power in the United States

Wind power in the United States#Wind power in the states shows a table listing the wind potential for the 50 states, with Ohio at 4,000 GWh/yr. This seems to be far lower than the updated NREL estimate for Ohio which accounts for 100m turbine hub heights, which I referenced in the previous section:

66,000 MW * 0.3 (capacity factor) * 24 (hr/day) * 365 (day/yr) = 173,448,000 MWh/yr = 173,448 GWh/yr

In fact the value in the table is 173448/4000 = about 43 times lower. This is a massive discrepancy. I should investigate it.

[edit] Template:Infobox wind farm

I'm thinking about making a [[Template:Infobox wind farm]]. Currently there isn't one. There is a {{Infobox Power Station}} which comes close, and appears in some wind farm articles. Maybe wind farms could use their own infobox. The infobox wind farm fields could include:

  • Name
  • Image
  • Owner
  • Location (lat/lon)
  • City
  • State
  • Country
  • Start date
  • Completion date
  • Nameplate capacity
  • Number of wind turbines
  • Wind turbine manufacturer(s)
  • Wind turbine model(s)
  • Energy storage system

But first I will look at examples of {{Infobox Power Station}} in these wind farm articles:

User:Arsenikk started all of those articles. It does look like {{Infobox Power Station}} lacks some fields we might like to include for a wind farm. There are dozens of wind farms in the world, the number is growing rapidly, and we could ultimately have thousands of wind farm articles. Therefore, a separate infobox for wind farms seems justifiable, since it would add some value.

[edit] Template:Wind power

The wind power articles could use more navigation templates. There is no navigation template in Category:Energy templates specifically for Wind power. I will start by making a general one: {{Wind power}} to add to the major wind power articles. Existing templates which are similar or overlapping:

Later I might make additional navigation templates, for example to list the wind farms in various geographic areas, breaking it down into whatever regions can fit on a single template. That will depend on how many wind farms exist in a given continent, country, or state/province. As the wind industry continues to boom, the number of wind farms must eventually become enormous. The U.S. needs at least a million large wind turbines to make a dent in electricity demand and displace some significant amount of fossil fuel consumption.

As usual, start editing the template in User:Teratornis/Sandbox2. The categories to consider:

Naturally, while looking around the wind-related categories, I find a lot of articles that need work:

The Wind power article does not mention Kites currently. Kites have applications in load-lifting and ship propulsion. These are of course technologies for harnessing wind power.

19:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC): I got {{Wind power}} into preliminary shape so I created the template proper.

[edit] References

17:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC): search for some references with the {{Google scholar cite}} template that I recently created:

[edit] Bioenergy and biofuel

00:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC): edit some articles and templates about bioenergy and biofuel. I don't see biofuels substituting one for one for petroleum any time soon, but biofuels can replace some petroleum for fuel, and perhaps eventually all of petroleum for feedstock use.

[edit] Navigation template

I don't see any navigation template for bioenergy; it should go in Category:Energy templates. Such a template could link to representative articles from these categories:

I'm working on this template in User:Teratornis/Sandbox2. 07:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC): I edited the template a little. It's shaping up rather nicely. The Category:Biofuels does not distinguish between biofuels themselves, and technologies for synthesizing, converting, and/or refining biofuels from biomass. I might want to create a biofuels technology subcategory. I'm setting up the template with separate groups for links to biofuels and biofuels technologies, respectively. 07:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC): I copied the template to: {{Bioenergy}}.

[edit] Miscanthus giganteus

00:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC): the Miscanthus giganteus article needs work. The article about the genus, Miscanthus, contains more information that is specifically about Miscanthus giganteus than the Miscanthus giganteus article contains.

Some references (to-do: summarize each one):


Copy the Miscanthus giganteus article to User:Teratornis/Sandbox so I can bang on it there. Also, edit the Miscanthus article so it uses {{Main}} to refer to Miscanthus giganteus.

Things to fix in Miscanthus giganteus:

  • The {{Taxobox}} template has a red link in the genus_authority field (currently the value is: Keng). 
| genus_authority = Andersson<ref name="grin">
{{cite web
|url=http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/genus.pl?7661
|title=Miscanthus information from NPGS/GRIN
|publisher=www.ars-grin.gov
|accessdate=2008-04-11
|last=
|first=
}}
</ref>
  • Mention that the plant is a sterile hybrid of M. sinensis and M. sacchariflorus, that it doesn't produce seeds, so growers reproduce it with rhizome propagules, it's twice as productive as switchgrass, it is perennial and requires little herbicide as it outcompetes most weeds, and needs little fertilizer.
  • Dry biomass has almost the same heat of combustion as Powder River Basin coal.

07:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC): I can search more efficiently for journal articles using the {{Google scholar}} template I just made. For example:

[edit] Panicum virgatum (switchgrass)

06:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC): fix the messed-up references in Panicum virgatum (Switchgrass). First, just make a list of the references and put them into citation templates. Then try to match up the references with the statements in the article they supposedly support. Relevant discussions:

Templates I will need for these complicated references: {{Cite web}}, {{Cite book}}, {{Cite conference}}, {{Cite journal}}.

Here is a page of references for switchgrass which I ran across while searching for the references in our switchgrass article:

The following subsections contain edits to support my cleanup of the references in Panicum virgatum:

[edit] Un-numbered references

Try to find real citation links for the rest of these sources from the Panicum virgatum article. Add a <strike> tag to each reference after I put it into a template here. Then I can easily see which ones still need templates.

  • Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) Toxicity in Rodents, Sheep, Goats and Horses. Stegelmeier, BL, et.al. USDA-ARS Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory, Logan UT & ILS, Inc, Research Triangle Park, NC. As reprinted in Utah State University Extension Veterinary Newsletter. July, 2005.
  • Table 28. Guidelines for rotational stocking of selected forage crops. International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) Forage Crop Pocket Guide Developed by Ball, Hoveland, Lacefield Edited by Armstrong, Darst 2006
    • I found this reference online with a {{Google custom}} search of the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) site:
    • Ball, D.M.; Hoveland, C.S., and Lacefield, G.D. (2006). Forage Crop Pocket Guide. International Plant Nutrition Institute, Table 28. Guidelines for rotational stocking of selected forage crops. 
  • Table 33b. Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) and Relative Feed Value (RFV) Ranges for Various Forge Crops. International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) Forage Crop Pocket Guide Developed by Ball, Hoveland, Lacefield Edited by Armstrong, Darst 2006
  • Planting and Managing Switchgrass for Forage, Wildlife, and Conservation. Wolf, DD, Fiske, DA. Virginia Cooperative Extension Publication # 418-013, June, 1996.

[edit] Manually-numbered references

20:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC): several of these are redundant with the un-numbered references above. I only add citation templates here for the references which are distinct.

1. General Planting Guide for Warm Season Grasses in the Northeast U.S. & Canada. Ernst Seed Catalog Web Page http://www.ernstseed.com/switchgrass_planting_quide.htm Ernst Conservation Seeds, LLP, 9006 Mercer Pike, Meadville, PA 16335 Copyright 2007, Ernst Conservation Seeds, LLP. All rights reserved.

2. Lecture notes prepared by Tanya Silzer for lecture titled: “Panicaum virgatum L. - Switchgrass, prairie switchgrass, tall panic grass” www.usask.ca/agriculture/plantsci/classes/rang/panicum/html

3. Southern Forages. Third Edition. DM Ball, CS Hoveland, GD Lacefield. Copyright 2002 by the Potash & Phosphate Institute and the Foundation for Agronoomic Research. ISBN 0-9629598-3-9 p 26

4. USDA NRCS Plant Fact Sheet. Switchgrass - Panicum virgatum L. Plant symbol = PAVI2. 16Jan2001 JKL; 28sp05 jsp; 24may06sjp

6. Farmers' motivations for adoption of switchgrass. Hipple PC, Duffy MD. Trands in New Crops and New Uses, ed. J. Janich and A. Whipkey, pp. 252-266, ASHA Press, Alexandria VA, 2002.

7. The Biofuels Explosion: Is Green Engergy Good for Wildlife? Laura Bies, The Wildlife Society Bulletin 34(4): 1203-1205; 2006

8. Native Plants Journal. Fall, 2000. Vol. 1(2) http://nativeplants.for.uidaho.edu/ ISSN 1522-8339.

9. Switchgrass Production in Ontario: A Management Guide. Samson, R., 2007. Resourse Efficient Agriculture Production (REAP) - Canada

10. The isolation and identification of steroidal sapogenins in switchgrass. Lee ST, Vogel KP, et.al. Jnl of Natural Toxins, Vol 10 No. 4 2001 p 273-81.

11. Fall Panicum (Panicum dichotomiflorum) Hepatotoxicosis in Horses and Sheep. Johnson, AL, et.al. J Vet Intern Med 2006;20:1414-1421.

12. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) Toxicity in Rodents, Sheep, Goats and Horses. Stegelmeier, BL, et.al. USDA-ARS Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory, Logan UT & ILS, Inc, Research Triangle Park, NC. As reprinted in Utah State University Extension Veterinary Newsletter. July, 2005.

13. Table 28. Guidelines for rotational stocking of selected forage crops. International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) Forage Crop Pocket Guide Developed by Ball, Hoveland, Lacefield Edited by Armstrong, Darst 2006

14. Table 33b. Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) and Relative Feed Value (RFV) Ranges for Various Forge Crops. International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) Forage Crop Pocket Guide Developed by Ball, Hoveland, Lacefield Edited by Armstrong, Darst 2006

15. Planting and Managing Switchgrass for Forage, Wildlife, and Conservation.

  Wolf, DD, Fiske, DA. Virginia Cooperative Extension Publication # 418-013,

June, 1996.

16. Native Warm-Season Perennial Grasses for Forage in Kentucky. Rasnake, M., Lacefield, G. University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service. AGR-145, 2004

17. Establishing and Managing Switchgrass. Renz, M., Undersander, D. University of Wisconsin Extension, 3/15/07

18. Switchgrass. Salvo, SK, Brock, BG. Division of Forest Resources, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

19. Plentiful switchgrass emerges as breakthrough biofuel. Bob Secter. Chicago Tribune. SignOnSanDiego.com The San Diego Union Tribune. 12/21/06.

20. Switchgrass Profile. David Bransby, Auburn University. http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switchgrass-profile.html

[edit] Images

04:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC): while googling around to resolve the references for the Panicum virgatum article, I noticed this handy template:

with which I can mark images such as this one from the Natural Resources Conservation Service:

[edit] Chris Somerville: Development of Cellulosic Biofuels

This is a long lecture about biofuels by Chris Somerville (Director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, University of California).

As is common among many in the biofuels community, Somerville seems to be working from the orthodox science assumption that global warming is the main problem, and the Energy Information Administration's optimistic projections of steady expansion in global oil extraction are true. I.e., Somerville seems not to have heard of peak oil yet, not that it really matters to his work. He's trying to develop biofuels either way. If peak oil really did occur in 2005 or 2006, as seems increasingly likely, that will merely add urgency and value to his work, rather than change its essential character.

Wikipedia seems to have no article about Chris Somerville yet, although it has an article about one of his business partners, George Church, as well as the Energy Biosciences Institute which Somerville directs. (I added {{Bioenergy}} to the EBI article.) I could think about starting an article about Dr. Somerville.

At 18:32 in his video, Somerville mentions that he is on the National Research Council's Committee on America's Energy Future. At 19:13 he says he is on the Transportation Fuels Subcomittee which is looking at biofuels and coal. Wikipedia does not seem to mention that comittee; googling for: "Committee on America's Energy Future" finds a few other members, for example:

  • Christine Ehlig-Economides, Ph.D. (note the typo in her name in the section heading on that page, hah)
  • Mark Stephen Wrighton who curently serves as Vice Chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on America's Energy Future
  • Harold Shapiro, President Emeritus, Princeton University and Chair, National Research Council Committee on America's Energy Future; Wikipedia has an article about Harold Tafler Shapiro who appears to be the same person.

At 22:30 he mentions Miscanthus giganteus, and shows a seven-year-old stand of the plant at an agricultural research field of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He says the stand has never been irrigated nor fertilized, and each year they harvest the biomass, with a yield of up to 26 tons per acre. He says M. giganteus is one of his favorite biomass plants. And no wonder.

At 24 minutes he lists several advantages of perennial energy crops. He mentions Miscanthus is a C4 perennial, so you harvest it in the winter, because the plant recycles its nutrients into its root system in autumn. That's why it is a low-input crop compared to annual crops such as maize, which must grow from seed each year. He mentions that perennial plants outperform annual plants because the root systems survive the winter, and the leaves and stems begin growing in early spring, from well-developed roots, before farmers are even able to plow fields to plant annual crops.

At 48 minutes he summarizes the problems that limit algae fuel. Basically, it costs too much to build the containers, relative to the solar energy the algae can capture (only about 20 watts per square meter).

Overall, I would say this is the most outstanding video lecture about biofuels that I have seen so far, probably because it's one of the few by an actual scientific expert. However, Dr. Somerville whips through some of his slides too rapidly for me to scrutinize, and the YouTube resolution makes the text one some illegible. See if I can locate his source materials in HTML format.

[edit] Template categories

08:21, 30 March 2008 (UTC): I noticed some less than optimal categorization in the templates that appear in energy articles. Presumably the most generally appropriate category would be:

but some templates are in:

I will recategorize the clearly energy-related templates into Category:Energy templates, when I notice them as I browse around energy articles.

I noticed that Category:Energy templates is itself in no category. I looked around for a suitable parent category, and I decided Category:Applied science and technology templates probably makes the most sense.

[edit] Energy-related wikis

17:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC): Wikipedia has a no original research policy. This is necessary on Wikipedia because of its nature, but it has the unfortunate side effect of limiting what users can write, when no published source already happens to say what they want to say. Since many topics relating to energy are controversial, not to mention speculative, look for other wikis which accept a wider range of content on the subject.

[edit] Articles that need cleanup

[edit] See also