BP's "giant oil discovery"

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Originally Posted By: MI_Roger

Power plants used to do this. Many cities have central steam distribution systems for heating of buidings, primarily commercial, where the steam is a "waste" product from local power generating stations. Regretably, these old small power stations are being forced out of use, and being replaced by massive installations located in remote areas where no use of the waste heat is possible.


How efficient are these new "evil, large" plants vs. the small older plants? How much energy does it take to install, transport, maintain and manufacture steam pipes to be used as conduits to buildings and into the buildings? How does regulation for such things impact costs?

As I recall, Shannow stated that attaching all forms of "other" to a power plant effects efficiency?
 
You're stuck on economic efficiency somehow equaling thermal efficiency/utilization. The two never have to be in relationship to each other if you don't intend to conserve energy in the making of money.
 
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
You're stuck on economic efficiency somehow equaling thermal efficiency/utilization. The two never have to be in relationship to each other if you don't intend to conserve energy in the making of money.

Why would someone intentionally waste money by burning something that costs money for no gain? Do you or anyone else you know let your car idle for hours on end for no reason?

I didn't think so.

You start to bump up against diminishing returns. Spending ever greater amounts of money to gain tiny amounts of performance soon starts to not make sense. It's called inefficiency.
 
You're talking in mixed tongues there, Tempest. There's all kinds of reason you may blow money out the stack. Some required. Some not.


But spending any amount on utilization is money well spent. Does it matter if I'm spending 3.5 tanks of unrenewable #2 to heat my house ..or maintenance on the piping from the nuke plant's waste heat?? Sure it does. I get to NOT USE 3.5 tanks of #2 heating oil. I get to not blow a blended 200F jet stream out my stack that has no practical use.
 
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Does it matter if I'm spending 3.5 tanks of unrenewable #2 to heat my house ..or maintenance on the piping from the nuke plant's waste heat??

What is the cost of heating fuel vs. the cost of manufacturing and installing pipe all over town to use the waste heat?

The fact that it is not happening is proof that is economically unwise. In the paste it probably made sense. Technology has found better ways to do things.

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But spending any amount on utilization is money well spent.

How much extra should we spend to get say....5% extra efficiency?
 
Originally Posted By: Trvlr500
We could have fairly cheap gas for many decades to come but since saying too much more will inevitably lead to a political discussion I won't go into any details as to who or why we have the problems we have. The oil companies have very little to do with the price or availability of oil.

However, if all the "roadblocks" that prevent exploration, refining etc. of our own natural resources were done away with we could be self sustaining for decades to come.

In addition to those problems importing 10's of millions of people every year from around the world and diluting our soveriegnty is another BIG problem. They estimate 500 million in the united States by 2050.

They haven't built any new powerplants or refineries (that I know of) in 40 years and have artificially populated this country with an additional 100 million people during that time. Many of which are here illegaly.

The big picture is right in front of everyone. All anyone has to do is look at it and accept the reality of it. The United States is intentionally being done away with.


Keep other political topics out of it (i.e. illegals) before this get locked.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: MI_Roger

Power plants used to do this. Many cities have central steam distribution systems for heating of buidings, primarily commercial, where the steam is a "waste" product from local power generating stations. Regretably, these old small power stations are being forced out of use, and being replaced by massive installations located in remote areas where no use of the waste heat is possible.


How efficient are these new "evil, large" plants vs. the small older plants? How much energy does it take to install, transport, maintain and manufacture steam pipes to be used as conduits to buildings and into the buildings? How does regulation for such things impact costs?

As I recall, Shannow stated that attaching all forms of "other" to a power plant effects efficiency?


Tempest, I too, think you misunderstood what Gary means.

True, there are reason why it doesn't make sense for people to live close to a power plant to get free heat (quality of life) and there are reason why new and big plants aren't build. They are not usually due to economical, but more about "not in my back yard" rather than regulation.

This is the main reason why many new power plants are build in Mexico and Eastern Europe rather than in the US and western Europe.

I've seen university generate its own power and route steam to buildings on site for heat/AC purposes. I've also seen refinery tag along to a power plant to use waste heat for oil refinery (Golden Bear Refinery), and I've seen paper mill and other manufacturing site generate its own power to sell back to the utility and use the heat for manufacturing.

Keeping steam hot enough to route around a town is going to be less efficient than making more electricity out of these heat (via lowered exhaust temperature).

There are new big plants being built, just that it is usually cheaper to renovate old plants with newer technologies or buy power from a neighbor in poverty and let them dump their pollution there. Their lives are cheaper than ours, so they get more pollutions, capitalism at work here.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: Trvlr500
We could have fairly cheap gas for many decades to come but since saying too much more will inevitably lead to a political discussion I won't go into any details as to who or why we have the problems we have. The oil companies have very little to do with the price or availability of oil.

However, if all the "roadblocks" that prevent exploration, refining etc. of our own natural resources were done away with we could be self sustaining for decades to come.

In addition to those problems importing 10's of millions of people every year from around the world and diluting our soveriegnty is another BIG problem. They estimate 500 million in the united States by 2050.

My mention of "ilegal's" doesn't have anything to do with "politics" especially since bith parties support it. The point I'm trying to make is that if our government continues to artificially populate this country for reasons that I won't go into then our resources will be depleted that much faster.

They haven't built any new powerplants or refineries (that I know of) in 40 years and have artificially populated this country with an additional 100 million people during that time. Many of which are here illegaly.

The big picture is right in front of everyone. All anyone has to do is look at it and accept the reality of it. The United States is intentionally being done away with.


Keep other political topics out of it (i.e. illegals) before this get locked.


The mention of "ilegal's has nothing to do with politics especially since both parties support the invasion. You can't possibly have a discussion on natural resources without taking into account the fact that our country is being artificially populated which depletes our natural resources that much faster and adds to the level of pollution which is the phony reason they are using to prevent us from USING our own natural resources. The ridiculous levels of immigration into this country have as much to do with the oil market as anything else.
 
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Energy that we want will cost money, depends on how much road block like Trvlr500 said (i.e. Nuclear is mostly regulation cost, coal is pollution control, natural gas is mostly fuel, and solar is mostly the panels, etc).

As reason as the mid/late 90s, oil was $30/barrel and people don't want to spend money researching new oil well and extraction methods. When it reaches $100, all of a sudden we have tar sand, oil shale, gas to liquid conversion, etc happening. If oil price goes up to $1000/barrel (I hope not), you'll probably see everyone converting to soy bean oil, pork lard, extra virgin algae, or even compressed swamp gas as vehicle fuel, and nuclear power plants will be everywhere and people will have solar panel on every surface of their home, all heating and cooking will be in electricity, at their own free will, all because of energy cost.

Like Tempest said, capitalism will work.
 
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Like Tempest said, capitalism will work.

I just fell out of my seat...
34.gif
 
Capitalism always works under any and all conditions. It's present always under all forms of governess and population management methods. It's used by the provincial official for the rubber stamp. It's present in prisons and among the homeless. It's the fairest form of distribution that there is.

What can't be accounted for is tragedy of the commons.
 
Most definitely worse. When you pick something clean and move on ..it can lead to he myth that there will always be something to move on to. That's unpredictable ..and can only exist in the imagination.

Capitalism is a distribution model. Nothing more. It has no assurance ..in any way, that there will be enough to distribute.
 
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It has no assurance ..in any way, that there will be enough to distribute.

So do you have a different system in mind that will provide that "assurance"?
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
As I recall, Shannow stated that attaching all forms of "other" to a power plant effects efficiency?


Like to see that quoted.

Adding district heating will reduce the efficiency of electricity generation, at a total higher thermal efficiency for the entire system.

Adding a desal plant to the back of a 500MW thermal station might reduce 500MW to 350-400MW, at a lesser thermal efficiency for the plant, but the desalination process in series increases the efficiency of the total system.

If your assertion of my assertion were true, combined cycle and cogen would be steps backwards.
 
Quote:
Adding a desal plant to the back of a 500MW thermal station might reduce 500MW to 350-400MW, at a lesser thermal efficiency for the plant

That is exactly what I meant in my post.
 
AT A GREATER OVERALL EFFICIENCY IN TERMS OF FUEL USED.

Need to add another definition to the thread in general and off topic.
 
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