The Small and the Many

The title for this post was borrowed from the article in one of the recent issues of The Economist.  The timing of the article about satellites was fitting in few days before the anniversary of the first satellite, Sputnik, on October 4. But the concept discussed in it is also relevant to a number of other areas including energy and energy policies.
The concept is using a large number of small satellites instead of one or few large ones. The reasons for doing it this way are many. The article gives an example of two companies, both in business of making satellites, both not too surprisingly located in California. One called Space Systems Loral (SSL) from Palo Alto, currently owned by MacDonald Dettwiller (MDA), a Canadian aerospace company, is a veteran of the industry. It manufactures communication satellites intended to transmit radio and television signals over the high-altitude orbit. The first satellites (and most scientific spacecraft still, such as Hubble telescope or Juno interplanetary probe) were one of a kind, large and expensive. The SSL designed 1300 series platform based on modular architecture. Each satellite uses the same structure: a cylinder 1.2 meters across enclosed in a square box.

The more more the satellite has to do, the taller the box it is built on, the longer its solar PV panels and the larger and more complex the array of antennae and reflectors through which it sends data to its earthbound clients. Few days ago SSL has delivered one of the biggest, Sky Muster II, designed to provide broadband communications to remote areas of Australia. It stands nine meters tall, with a complex array of reflectors attached to it. Despite the modular design, intended to bring the cost down, these satellites are very expensive. The smallest of them may sell for $100 million, while the biggest can approach half a billion. Add on another $100M for the launch, and the satellite may not start showing a profit for a decade.
There is another consideration. The industry which is supposed to be innovative, must be very risk-averse. Because of the need for a long lifetime in a hostile environment and already a high sticker price, a new advanced technology will not be flown.
      
The example of a totally different company and a different approach is Planet Labs from San Francisco. While the SSL's clean room for the satellite assembly could be compared in size with a cathedral, the Planet's assembly is of the size of Starbucks. The satellites it manufactures are 30-cm long and weigh about 5 kg. Their design is based on the so called "1U" standard. Making one of them utilizing many of the smartphone components takes about a week. "This is the new face of space: small objects, large numbers".
What makes this approach extremely attractive is several reasons. One is pretty obvious - cost. Small satellites are much-much cheaper than the large ones (an additional advantage, they do not require a dedicated launcher but are flown - often in batches - as a secondary payload utilizing the room left after a primary payload). Second, as noted above it does not take much time to make them which is a very important consideration in a highly competitive market. Now, because of the large number of the satellites, they are not indispensable - the reliability of the service they provide does not depend on any one of them. Related to that, because of the short time, low cost and relatively high frequency of the launches, the company can afford consistent improvement of their products!

Let's look at another area, energy generation and transmission. Be it electricity used for lighting and numerous other needs, or some fuel such as natural gas, delivered to homes and businesses for heating, energy structure is based on large facilities such as power plants, oil refineries etc. These facilities are expensive, take long time to build and often have a large environmental impact - such as area flooded by the hydro power plants. They are also vulnerable to all sorts of risks - from technical glitches to natural disasters and targeted attacks (more often recently, cyber-attacks which are easier to perform than physical attacks). The examples of such events are well known, from Chernobyl to Fukushima, and from BP oil spill in Mexico Gulf to disruption in Ukrainian energy network. These risks may lead not only to significant costs to restore the operation of the large facility but typically affect a large number of end-users. Also, because energy has to be delivered from generation facility to end-users, additional expenses, more environmental impact and more risks are involved. Large number of users can cut off the energy by a disruption in transmission lines or pipelines.         
        
By analogy, an alternative "the small and the many" approach can be successfully applied to the energy infrastructure. Instead of large centralized power plants, small-scale integrated on-site energy generation offers numerous advantages. Yes, I am talking of course about solar and other clean energy technologies. Firstly, energy conservation/efficiency measures should be implemented. Then solar thermal or geoexchange system can provide entire heating, cooling and hot water needs. Then the remaining electrical load for lighting, electronic equipment etc. can be addressed by a small solar photo-voltaic array and/or small wind turbine (where appropriate) with an on-site energy storage.    
Such a system would be much cheaper (per installation), quicker to implement, less expensive to maintain and repair, plus have smaller to none environmental impact comparing to large centralized energy generation. This would also eliminate the need for expensive and unreliable means of energy transmission. Such distributed energy generation will be much more reliable as a whole because the problem in one location will not affect anyone else. Every system can be attended and serviced and even its generation optimized on an individual basis. Finally, every subsequent deployment can be improved based on the performance monitoring of the previous installations and due to the constant technology evolution. 

So, should we continue building gigantic power plants, refineries and pipelines or move to an agile and intelligent distributed energy network? The choice is ours.
 

    

Energy: Choices we make

“All serious mistakes are made on the day One. Worse yet, you may have to live with them for decades”. This was said about project development, but can also be applied to political decisions and national strategy.

The case in point: Australian National Broadband Network.

Canada (as the rest of the world) is currently at a crossroad in respect to its long-term national energy strategy. What choice will we make? Here are some of the possible options:

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Coal

Coal is one of the traditional and still the "cheapest" sources of energy. It is however recognized even by its proponents that its impact on the environment, mostly  CO2 emissions, is not something which can be ignored. The so called "clean coal" is only a temporary solution - as its business case based on the purchasing of the recycled CO2 by the oil industry (see Clean Coal - Is It for Real?)  - until other alternatives will make it unnecessary and obsolete.   

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Gas

It seems the world turned 180 degrees since just few years ago since the new reserves and new technologies of extracting oil and natural gas came to light. We seem to forget the concept of the "oil peak" popular a decade ago and tend to ignore now that even with comparatively lower direct CO2 emissions from natural gas there are many other negative factors associated with the oil and natural gas, particularly methane (which has 23 times more greenhouse potential than natural gas itself) and other harmful bi-products. What especially bothers me is that choosing this way will only prolong our addiction to fossil fuels and divert resources and capital from developing real clean alternatives - thus making inevitable migration away from fossil fuels in the future more painful      
Safety is an additional - and ever increasing concern. The oil and gas extracted from Northern Alberta or other places has to be delivered to the processing plants and eventually to their end-users. Pipelines are susceptible to leaks and to terrorism. Delivery by train carries an inherent danger which was tragically demonstrated by the derailment and explosion in Lac-Megantic. Also, the risk of spill from tankers, however small it can be, may as it already had in the recent past, have very serious consequences.      

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Hydro

Electricity produced by hydro plants is generally considered "clean". One of the best examples of it is British Columbia where 90% of electricity is produced by hydro plants. At the same time construction of new large hydroelectric dams, like the one is planned in the Peace River region of British Columbia (Site C dam C dam), is met with increasing and well justified resistance due to the large areas of agricultural and lands with valuable habitat would be lost.  An ambitious plan to build a large number of hydro dams in China which is in desperate need of energy while reducing air pollution causes the same concern.   

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Nuclear

It is impossible to discuss nuclear energy within few paragraphs without addressing both its high output, nuclear industry reliability track record, but also potential dangers of catastrophic failure and enormous complications related to storing of nuclear waste. I will limit the discussion by one comment only - assuming all hurdles of such endeavor as new nuclear project are overcome, it will take many years and billions of dollars of capital investment  to implement such a project.


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Wind 

Wind turbines are a source of clean energy and become increasingly popular and wide-spread, especially in Europe. The capacity factors and useful service life of industrial wind turbines (IWT) are important determinants of levelized wind energy costs. However, some recent studies have brought to light the capacity factors are less and useful service life is shorter than typically assumed. Based on analyses of actual production results, it appears the capacity factors of wind energy projects in many areas of the world are much less than previously estimated. As a result, the capital costs and environmental impacts of implementation would be much greater. It is typically assumed that the life span of the wind turbine is 25 years. But even 20 years may be too optimistic.

The analysis of almost 3000 onshore wind turbines in the UK - the biggest study of its kind - warns that they will continue to generate electricity effectively for just 12 to 15 years.

The “load factor” - the efficiency rating of a turbine based on the percentage of electricity it actually produces compared with its theoretical maximum - is reduced from 24 per cent in the first 12 months of operation to just 11 per cent after 15 years.
Icing in the Northern and mountainous regions is a factor significantly affecting the turbine's efficiency and is often underestimated. 
Because of the moving parts and exposure to the external environment, wearing of equipment require regular maintenance, and more so the longer it is in operation.

Transmitting energy from the wind turbines incurs energy losses, which is a serious addition to other losses when located in remote areas which typically is the case.

Finally, the impact on habitat. In the US alone wind turbines kill more than 14 million birds and 42 million bats a year!   

  
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Geothermal

Geothermal electrical plants is another source of clean energy because it does not require fossil fuels to be burned . A big advantage of the geothermal energy is its reliability and consistency comparing to wind or solar. It has its challenges however.

Open geothermal systems emit air pollutants. This include hydrogen sulfide, arsenic, and some toxic minerals. Mineral build-ups are frequently deposited in landfills. Closed loops avoid this problem.
The equipment and installation are both very expensive. Despite their long-term cost savings, geothermal plants have very high up-front costs. Installation can also be very destructive. It requires significant amount of drilling and digging around. Also, the under surface footprint of a geothermal plant is much larger than its above surface footprint.

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Solar

Sun gives energy for life on Earth and is one of the best sources of energy we could think of. It is clean, safe and because we know pattern of its movement across the sky, is also predictable. There are several ways of utilizing solar energy.

    Solar Photovoltaic

More familiar for most people than other solar technologies, photovoltaic (PV) technology originated first in space applications, found ts place in commercial and residential market and are even entering transport - from airplanes to ships (e.g. see Electric Aircraft  and  Solar Ship).

While their efficiency is still low to compete with any conventional or other alternative sources on a cost basis, solar PV modules have one extremely important advantage - they involve no moving parts, meaning practically no maintenance, and also zero noise.  

Despite recent dramatic improvements in efficiency and reduction in costs, solar PV systems  have a very long payback period, which holds their large scale implementation.

   Solar Concentrated Plant
 

These exotic looking installations with thousands of mirrors are popular in Europe, particularly in Spain, and are most efficient in regions with high solar irradiation like in in Africa, or California deserts. They require large secured unpopulated areas which limits where they can be deployed. Their efficiency can also be seriously reduced when the reflecting surface of the mirrors is damaged by sand storms and other factors.  

   Solar Updraft Tower 

This a concept which utilizes energy of the heated air rising in a very tall pipe with a fans inserted in it, connected to a generator - a sort of vertical wind turbine. Due to its relatively low efficiency and the lack of expertise these kind of systems did not receive wide acceptance in North America.

[to be continued]