Comments by Steven JF Scannell Subscribe

On Why We Still Need Utilities

I meant to say with OUR current set up.   Sorry for the typo, which changed the meaning.   

On Why We Still Need Utilities

Utility systems aren't used to such chaos.  I think we need a radical model change with out current set up in this world of systems changes.  The ownership structure of these good old utilities does not mesh with all the improvement we need on SO many fronts.  Utilities have to do what they do.  They can't babysit and restructure society.  This is too much.   My power grid consortium approch is the answer, and it keeps or improves the value of the utility capital assets, which isn't nothing.  People seem to think years of history can just change without planning.   Power grid systems must be put on the operating table, for some major surgery.   We as a society have needs to transition.  If our capital structures for utilities are going to be slowly smashed to bits, it's not with my help.  My systems are comprehensive designs and account for the capital reformations.   Utility companies can plan to be out front of the changes and working as partners.   Right now, that isn't happening, but it's entirely possible, but radical.  

On Renewable Energy's Hidden Costs?

Sage,  Good points.  Wind to pumped hydro is viable.  Also wind to compressed air, and hydrogen is a good possibility.  Pipes to me are the key.  www.environmentalfisherman.com  

On Senate Vote Favors Big Oil But Does Not Approve Keystone XL

We have an ideal situation.  Both the plains wind mills need to tie into a green grid, AND we need the or a pipeline system of some sort for the tar sands oil:  Or  we just need a good rail system to get the oil delivered.  I'm for the Tripe, or Track-Pipe rail system for this purpose.  It's a rail system and a pipeline.  The concept is for safe composite and multiple conduit track pipes. These pipes ship and store CAES, hydrogen, oil, water, broadband, natural gas, etc, much more.  www.environmentalfisherman.com    As usual people are all in a lather on a yes or a no answer to a complex question to which neither applies.  

On Renewable Energy's Hidden Costs?

That seems to be a real problem for us.  We want cheap storage now, as we go off the cliff in flames.  We're not doing enough R&D into viable storage, that which is scalable.  IF a storage is scalable, THEN we really should be paying attention.  But we're not.   I can't believe how we ignore CAES and Hydrogen.  We really are stuck in a rut.   We want cheap handed to us, all electrical at that. We're writing the book on barking up the wrong tree.   We're not doing enough prototype work, or even thinking and planning and designing in energy storage systems that are scalable.  We don't want to go there.  It seems emotional attachments are very tight with the electric grids.  It's our downfall.  It's all about scalability to me.  Otherwise we're chasing butterflies and happy cakes.  Coal plants need to be supercharged with CAES from wind.  I like coal, and do think it can be clean, with help from the wind. 

On Renewable Energy's Hidden Costs?

We're trying to add up some unlike objects. Complaining will not help.  Wind would be better if we used CAES and Hydrogen energy vehicles, as these two would be comodity items, and hence a standard and conventional relationship to the dollar. Utilities aren't planning for any such thing, or pulling in a direction that is good for "us and them".   It's important to develop storage and shipment systems for sustainable energy inputs, as these are, and can't help but be profitable for our future.  Costs of what to whom, if they're not explicit make my head spin.  This situation isn't fair market based, as it is now.   We can kick into high gear with energy systems of the future when we get off the damned old grid page.   As if this is the only reference we have and the only reference we will have.  OH,  yes it's an established fact.  We are qualified to self destruct now.  The main energy bank now is fossil fuels, and a future bank for different holdings will require different thinking and systems.   The Tripe System is such a system that does store and ship energy but the energy isn't as easy as we would like.  There's no easy button.  

On Thinking Outside the Box: Obama's Energy Security Trust

The first thing is this:  We absolutely must redefine what the energy problem actually is.  To me the problem is NOT a matter of science and society figuring out how to plug sustainable wind, wave, solar etc into an electric grid. It's no talent thinking, and it's to me our main fault and obstacle: it's the problem of our misapprehension of the vital first step in problem solving.  The energy problem properly framed is this:   "How do we design a system to capture, store, ship, and use the many sustainable energy sources?"  This properly framed question has been for me "job one" in getting out of that toxic thinking box: which binds us all to the chaos of our current time. 

1.  What is the problem(s)?

2.  What is the cause(s) of the problem?  

3.  List the possible solutions to the problem.  

4.  What is the best possible solution(s) to the problem?

When we get the number one question wrong, there isn't much hope for us.

On How A Battery Safety Center Would Benefit the Public and Industry

Who is testing now?  Is Underwriters Labs a possibility?  I think you have a great idea.  Thanks for such a well reasoned and enjoyable article.  Would a worldwide testing lab consortium be on the horizon? We do need standards and competition.  

On Senators Push for LNG Exports

You could argue that the natural gas in the ground is either a public or private resource, or a mix.  What is the down side of a government induced slowing of "our" gas production and keeping the market as local (Canada, Mexico and USA) only? Does it go beyond producer interests sincerely?  I can see the economic up side to lower costs for many, if not the gas producers.  What are the net job loss projections if the gas prices increase with a new export market raising the prices by fifty or one hundred percent? We can I'm sure, be well assured by the gas industry that there would be no chance of such price hikes, on a factual basis of course. And, jobs for who if this does happen?  Yes the gas industry jobs will increase, with some ripple effect also, but on the economic whole, or, from a public trust perspective, what would projections look like for both models?  Can we agree that export restrictions are, at this point in time,  a proven benefit to U.S. households, in that the natural gas price is lower?  If so, isn't it a bit false to claim exports to be of a general benefit?  Why let the horse out of the barn?  Let's keep our own gas right here, because we want it and need it.  

On Canada and the US: Sea-Level Rise vs. Keystone XL

Philip Kithil is doing some great work.  Most of my wave gen system designs are far offshore and also  hybridized into my Georges Bank Megamill offshore windmills.  

On The Case for Grid-Connected Energy Storage

Someone should write a book on the storage of electricity, BUT also as a "compare and contrast"  horsepower storage in it's many forms. Of course such a book would be outdated the minute it was published. So such a compilation would have to be somehow in real time and always evolving.  James, you are of course the go to battery guy, and I also share your opinion that if we invested in these storage systems with more vigor, there may well be a worthy payoff. Let's share the risk and reward, using common systems, or rather consortium systems, and average out our efforts.  

The power and transmission utilitiy models are increasingly as outdated dinosaurs in our new and changing age. We have to get the utilities in the game, so that they can make money as systems change, rather than being marginalized into oblivian. The way to do this is to use the transportation/energy/utility consortium model.  All the horses have to pull their weight together, if we don't want the chaos of an infrastructure battle: standard utility models versus the green systems. I see them as both competitive and complimentary, ideally.  However ideals don't pay the bills. 

In the context of a comprehensive consortium model, standard utilities would be among the new technology players and have skin in the game. The capital reformations must be done fearlessly. This takes leadership and authority, and especially obedience to a broader common grid system.  As an example a connected series of PV to battery storage for street and residential lighting. Normally with the utility model of today, the utility loses it's customer base. However this sub grid could be backed up by the electric grid, and by fuel cells that use hydrogen from the wind and wind to battery: and all this could benefit a consortium financially, while it could not be of financial gain for a standard utility model.  It makes more sense to delightfully capture the rewards of a consortium model, than have winners and losers in a chaotic systems infrastructure competition.  A consortium would have to absorb into itself, the utility and transmission models. Don't freak out.  The utilities will make money.  Call it a form of pseudo public private dollar cost averaging, or the first cousin thereto. Really it's not half a car pulled by a horse.  It's what the design parameters call for.  In this way utilities would keep their identity as reasonable long term investments in infrastructure: even all the while the systems evolve from centralized grid power operations, to other than that, and in addition to that.  

I would like to think that my pioneer efforts to solve the underlying structural issues of a fossil to green genre shift would be recognized. What's important is that we need storage, but we all need systems just as much to have energy transportability, universal availabilty subject to comodity prices, and adaptability through conversion systems. These answers are not in the common forms we're quite familiar with.  What we need and what we want are two different things. We want the solutions to be electrical grid based. This ventures, to my thinking, into the emotional or religious realm, as a rough analogy. This is where we're stuck.  But we don't actually need solutions to be electrical grid based. We just need solutions that are practical functional usable and financially achievable. Here's what our real challenge should be, but it isn't.  Our real challenge SHOULD be to identify and allow for many storage and shipment systems, of both an electrical nature, and as well with other horsepower forms. Our channel to this would be prototype systems, within regions such as my Rhode Island and Southeast Massachusetts model.  In order to think clearly about these hybrid prototype systems they must have an economic base worthy of the future. They must have an all in participation to cover the exigencies of our shift. The consortium way represents a relaxation of the common utility model, in our time of dire need.  Infrastructure designs must have their foundations in economic modeling structures that are practical.  Storage AND shipment AND capital reformation planning are the three keys to our green and profitable future. 

Fossil fuels married to electric power have imprinted upon our brains the importance of themselves. We are old friends.  But we have to recognize how tightly they are tied to our new carbon enemy:  steam plants fueled by a carbon based system that has evolved into our undoing.  Our new systems of my design are nonesuch, but dovetail with the old to favor our transition, ie: CAES and coal hybrids etc. Our problem in thinking is a reliance upon the old, in an effort to design the new. It's such a problem that people can not even begin to think about full scale redesigns for our systems. The rules will change.  And the new rules that go hand in hand with those changes, don't have to cause chaos and market collapses and breakdowns. Quite the opposite:  Bounty for the world with new green systems will be the wave of our future. 

On Canada and the US: Sea-Level Rise vs. Keystone XL

Perhaps two pipelines are better than one.  I agree, but we're not on the same track.  My pipeline system call for some real R&D into things beyond our comfort zones.  Storage of energy, and shipment of energy in a pipe, (even if one is in love with the electric grid; in love with all the old styles of infrastructure), has to demand by it's weight a place at the table. We need the tar sands oil, and I think we can get it our cleanly.  We also need a green grid corridor from Texas up into Canada, for the wind. All these needs confluence, and lead us to a proper comprehensive energy plumbing system design, for the public trust. Water, oil, natural gas, compressed air fuel(wind), hydrogen (wind) at low pressure, bio-products of waste in all forms both human and animal, granulated you name it, farm use, industrial and residential.  Let's live better, and have our needs served, by systems that make sense. Perhaps these systems are two pipes, one for oil, the other for water, but I hope we can do better than this.