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]

Innovation Today - Notes From The Road

I am back from Vancouver where attended the Cisco Connect Roadshow event where I was able to get a feel of what they think is innovation of today thanks to the excellent presentation of Victor Woo, General Manager, Industry Transformation at Cisco Canada: "Fueling Innovation with the Internet of Everything". Notes below are some thoughts arising from and illustrating Victor's talk and other sessions.

Thanks to widespread Internet adoption and over 10 billion connected devices around the world, companies today are more excited than ever about the Internet of Things. Add in the hype about Google Glass and the Nest Thermostat, and nearly every business, including those from traditionally low-tech industries, wants to get on the cloud, track a group of devices, and gather data. The question, however, is not if a device can be connected, but why the company is connecting a previously “dumb” product to the cloud. Or stated differently, if a company invests in making my toaster talk to my lawnmower, is that really a good business model and why?
Companies that are successfully adapting and innovating Internet of Things platforms are focused on identifying meaningful opportunities, not just technologies.

Various forms of post-implementation maintenance will become more common, and may change how you deal with your vendors. The Internet of Things (IoT) goes well beyond human Internet users. Some predict that by 2015, not only will 75% of the world population have access to the Internet, so will 6+ billion devices.
Traditional business models focused on the sale of an item, with post-sale revenue coming from maintenance. The maintenance was usually an on-call service without real-time monitoring. Many will still follow this business model, however this model is vulnerable to shrinking profit margins in very competitive markets.

The world we live in is becoming increasingly complex and increasingly connected.
More than 12 billion people and things are communicating today via the Internet; yet it is estimated that more than 99% of objects are still unconnected.
Advanced standardization of communication protocols and the consequent rapid global adoption of IP and the Internet is moving from the information age into the networking age. The Internet provides the technical and human network to connect people with processes with data and things. As the Internet of Everything (IoE) connects the unconnected, it is expected that more than 50 billion smart objects will communicate freely over the Internet by 2020 and early indicators show that it might be a conservative estimate.


Acknowledgement:  Victor Woo, Rick Huijbregts, Gary Audin

The History of Innovation

It is important to review history to understand how radical innovation works with technology to transform people's perception and create new previously unexpected opportunities. In the recent post I talked about how an evolution of engine made it possible an evolution of the modern aviation. But there is another, crucial component of an aircraft, without which the machine would be useless - its control. It is what allows an airplane to ascent, change direction, stay in flight and safely land. Ability to control an airplane was in fact a real innovation of Wright brothers - and not the invention of an airplane as many may believe.

      Interestingly, in a speech to the Aero Club of France, 5 November 1908 Wilbur Wright admitted: "I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years. . . . Ever since, I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions". How things change! The next year already Wrights became engaged in the legal fight for establishing their priority of the first controlled flight and anything related to it. Their opponents derisively suggested that if someone jumped in the air and waved his arms, the Wrights would sue him ...

Today we are talking about the "Internet of Things" (IOT). The term was was coined in 1999, but Mark Weiser at Xerox PARC with John Seely Brown led visionary research in the late 1980's on what is now called the IOT and used the term "ubiquitous computing" as the third generation of computing. Their paper, "The Computer for the 21st Century", was published in the September 1991 issue of Scientific American. In the early 1990's, Steelcase from Grand Rapids, Michigan built and patented several inventions of what is now called IOT before becoming a charter founding member of the M.I.T. consortium called "Things That Think" (TTT) created in 1995. Start-up companies such as Echelon were founded in the early 1990's to commercialize IOT technology. GE changed their business model to a manufacturing/service model and began building products with embedded networked "smarts" in the 1990's and recently identified the "industrial Internet" as a $32 trillion opportunity. GM launched OnStar(tm) in the 1990's. IBM now promotes the concept of  "smart planet".

Today radical innovations are built with a new fourth generation of innovation theory and practice that replaces the linear stage model with an iterative nonlinear model. The linear model is only effective for incremental innovations within the dominant design (DD) that governs an industry or market. 4G creates a new dominant design. It was first described in the 1998 book, Fourth Generation R&D.  The USA Department of Energy is now practicing these principles which is Innovation Hubs. A similar concept is utilized in the Research and Innovation Centre concept at the newest Russian University Slolkovo Tech  set up by M.I.T. Economics changes with 4G to replace neoclassical and Keynesian economics with "Innovation Economics". 4G changes financial accounting to measure both tangible and intangible capital. 4G is based on capabilities which are built as people garner knowledge, tools, technologies and processes. It is a natural extension of the principles exercised by Systems Architecture.

Systems Architecture is concerned with formal tools and methods to define the elements and their interfaces of complex, large-scale technical and non-technical systems. It helps to structure and link the capabilities to build new technologies, organizations, business models and infrastructures.