Collaborative Energy Research Group
An Experiment in Online Collaborative Research
How can the internet change the way people do research? Several organizations have attempted to develop web-based systems for collaborative research, but most are expensive, proprietary, and focus on some esoteric area of knowledge. WiserEarth, on the other hand, is free and open, and addresses the largest movement in history: social and environmental restor ...learn more
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Oct 23, 2007
Updated: Nov 02, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Topic: Research Project Topics
Posts (1 - 17 of 17)
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An idea I have had for awhile that is related to the cost of carbon is an open source footprint calculator The assumptions made in most footprint calculators rendered them almost useless. Further, the lack of transparency in how the calculations are done results in outputs that do not engender a lot of respect.
A truly accurate footprint calculator would depend on at least two things: 1) Accurate input (garbage in is garbage out) 2) Calculations based in fundamental principles I think the accurate cost for carbon would be major step in achieving the first step. And because of my background, I think an analysis using the principles of thermodynamics and heat transfer would contribute to the second. There may be others, but conservation of energy and mass is pretty fundamental. A envision the calculator defining some sort of boundary and taking into account all energy flows across the boundary and all energy created or destroyed within the boundary. The technique is applied all the time to mechanical devices, like turbines but I wonder if it could be applied to a bioregion. Lawrence, regarding the accurate cost of carbon - can you give me an example of what the research could include. Would it include a line item account of a carbon molecule from extraction to combustion to greenhouse effect? Seems like that might take a couple hours to figure out. |
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"Would it include a line item account of a carbon molecule from extraction to combustion to greenhouse effect?"
That's a good example of what I'm getting at. Of course, if would be a rough estimate depending on how far you extrapolate it. On a macro scale, what do we include in the cost? The war in Iraq, International instability, our tarnished reputation in the world, the toll on natural resources and our health care systems, etc. It would be an interesting, though complex, project to tackle. |
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Maybe a good place to start would be to pick a smaller research project first and use what we learn from that project to tackle larger, more complicated problems. Either the final product from the smaller project would contribute to a larger research project, or at the very least, we can document our methodology and come back with the concrete feedback for the WiserEarth tech team.
So a smaller more manageable problem might be: How much energy does San Francisco currently get from renewable sources? Followed by a more challenging question: What is the renewable energy potential in San Francisco? |
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I agree about tackling a more manageable topic; I was just casting a larger net to get things started. How do people feel about mostly data driven versus thesis or argument driven projects?
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I agree that this should be data driven, argument and thesis is too open to debate.
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I would be interested to look at energy availability. If for arguments sake we assume that we are right now at the peak of the petroleum age and that the energy available from oil will now recede down the other side of the bell curve, how much energy will have to come from alternative sources? And, at what rate will this energy have to come online to avoid shortage? Furthermore, how dependent is alternative energy on petroleum for such things as inputs? How much oil goes into a solar panel or a windmill? I know that the steel in the turbine is not mined with solar diggers.
Just an idea. |
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Hey, all:
While on another website awhile back, we calculated that if all the roof area in the USA (for example) were covered with PV, at then current energy conversion of 12-15%, it would satisfy 40% of electrical energy demand. Obviously a lot of give-and-take is needed here (not all roofs are appropriate, but energy conversion is rising) but simply moving in that direction would make a lot of the academic, recent history worry over Peak Oil seem pointless. Add residential and industrial Wind to the equation, and the amount of energy supplanted by sustainable sources climbs dramatically. Peak Oil is in fact a big bugaboo that we should leave behind, just like bad dreams, bad sitcoms, or bad relationships--learn from them but move ON. We won't even know when Peak Oil is until after it happens, for at least a year or so. It may have in fact already happened. I will not be sitting on my hands 'til then--otherwise, kinda makes the term "activist" seem ambivalent. All manufactured goods have embodied energy ("emergy") in them. The sooner and more completely they are manufactured using sustainable energy, the faster the amount of emergy drops. Using this as an argument against sustainability is a needless, unwise distraction. The 1-Sky demand to create "green-collar" jobs would start this process, and we do have to start somewhere. Let's research how fast we can do the above, with the goal, expressed as simply and as starkly as possible, of this: We have to KILL CARBON as an energy source. The USA is where the photovoltaic panel was invented, at Bell Laboratories, for the space program. With all the bally-hoo about all the advances in civilization the space program would provide, the PV panel is one yet to be fully realized, or even a ghost of reality. The first panels offered only 2-5% energy conversion, and now consumer panels are in the 15-18% range. More money derived from greater sales of PV would drive R&D to even greater performance. What are we waiting for? Another War of Terror? More Enrons? Another coup d' etat by Big Oil/Big Gas/Big Coal/Big Nukes? More oil spills? Indeed, I would invite anyone, everyone, anywhere, and everywhere, to look at energy availability. To do this is one must arrange a precise sampling regimen--go outside when it is sunny or windy--or both. Hold your Face up to the Sun, Hold your Hand out to the Wind. Write up your results. David Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun! |
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Hello all
I am wondering if anyone has personal experience with alternative energy systems. I am planning on moving back to the prairies and build with straw bales, generate power with wind turbines and solar panels as I find it frustrating to look for answers from governments. If anyone has experience with alternative building etc. please let me know. Thanks Sassy |
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I'm also very interested in financial instruments for community-based energy efficiency and renewable energy development. For example, one project idea is to develop a kit-in-a-box for small communities to form a "home energy weatherization retrofits cooperative". Another is to develop highly refined contractual documents for people to use when contracting for energy related improvements. I believe one set of documents should be readily available for home-scale projects and another for business. I believe a great deal of the relevant work is already in the public domain, and just needs to be collected and assembled. "Performance Based Fees" is part of the answer. So is Pay-As-You-Save financing (www.paysamerica.org). So is "requests for results" (from Osborne & Hutchinson's book, The Price of Government, 2004).
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Proposed research topic: Modeling the redevelopment of the grid.
This is mostly a financial design question, linked with governance and technology. A person who works at FERC just told me that it is never in the interest of any power company to improve the grid. All they do is make incremental patches, which make effective redesign more difficult. Yet a new grid is essential infrastructure for a sustainable economy. Also, there are some remarkable technical options (see recent Scientific American). Mark Warner, expected to be the new senator from Virginia, just announced to a small group of us (an environmental group at his church) that his priority is infrastucture and energy security, using market mechanisms, led from the center. I could put our study directly in his pocket, and he would use it. I could bring in a lot of expertise on this topic. A model for this effort might be what my friend did for the nuclear power industry. She did a brief study at Harvard that argued that what nukes need is yet another subsidy (for insurance) and then it would be unleashed. For that, she got all sorts of positive attention. It seems to me that we could use a similar formula. Lay out the structural changes that unleash the development of an effective grid. It would be best to aim, NOT for a small problem, but for an important problem that can be formulated in a compact study that will have impact. That's why I suggest modeling, and aiming for Warner as a client. I also think a model is a way to keep the product coherent despite diverse contributions and input. A model can synthesize many existing studies without having to redo them. I'd like response to this proposal. I'm going to do something like this, but at the moment I don't have enough competent and committed participants, only piece parts. I am a systems thinker, strategist, and facilitator (PhD from Wharton). I'n not an expert any of the technical issues, though I have read enough about it to see that this is an area where something important needs to be done and can be done. |
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Myersk -- This is a fascinating concept, and I am interested, but will be unable to provide anything other than a very modest bit of conversation for the time being.
I can refer you to a pretty good summary of lots of the important work in this area. At this website: http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/mpsc/electric/capacity/energyplan The third bullet down on the page, "Energy Plan Appendix II" (~1.25MB PDF) includes a major section about "Smart Grid" at the end (Chapter 5C, beginning on p. 194 of the PDF file), which includes descriptions of essentially all of the major project activities in the U.S. and to some small extent also Europe on this subject. It gives links to the many important organizations and associations working on this: http://www.epri.com/IntelliGrid/ http://gridwise.pnl.gov/ http://www.oe.energy.gov/randd/gridworks.htm https://www.gridapp.org/eidb/gridapp_home.htm http://www.galvinelectricity.org I have a drafted prospectus on a computer model that I have called "SimUtility". I can send that to anyone who is interested. You are correct that this is an important subject. My personal interest right now is mostly in the areas of eco-village / microgrid design (how neighborhoods and communities can design themselves to be extremely energy efficient and self-reliant and sustainable from an energy standpoint). Because I work in the field of utility regulation, I am exploring concepts about how to make it in the utility company's financial best interest to allow the system to gradually morph towards a sustainable vision. Modeling what that sustainable vision might look like would be a compelling exercise. I do have a need to complete some of this work by mid-July for a rate case that is going on at our public utility commission (where I am employed in my day job). Let's keep the conversation going about this and see where it might lead... You might also look at: "Solartopia" by Harvey Wasserman; www.solartopia.org Have you seen the book by Walter Patterson called "Transforming Electricity?" See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Patterson -- Tom Stanton / |
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That's terrific content, Tom. Now, what are we going to do with it? Let's shoot for world domination via collaboration. Our task is to set up a collaborative project that is so compelling that everybody wants to participate. Eventually, everybody will need to participate in in order to be noticed.
In version 2 below, I took your systems dynamics plan, found the people who are doing it now, and propose shifting their project into an open research process.
Proposal: Collaborative Grid Model (version 2)
Decisions surrounding the power grid are an important influence on sustainability.
The grid is a complex system whose dynamics are opaque to many decision makers. Decisions are often made without benefit of a strategy, and the grid may become a stumbling block to energy transformation.
Grid dynamics can be modeled, however. There is a great deal of data that can be synthesized in a systems dynamics model that would help clarify the effects of various options.
A modeling effort is well under way here: http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/climate_change/simulations.html http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/pubs/Systems_Climate_Utilities.pdf
This project is no doubt excellent, but excellent in the manner of Encyclopedia Brittanica – well respected, expensive and slow to build, with limited participation in terms of input, interaction, and use.
We propose to use this model as a base for an open, on-going, collaborative model, in the manner of Intellipedia. (Intellipedia is the intelligence community’s version of Wikipedia. Contributions are signed and constantly updated, and the materials are focused on knowledge and judgments that inform security decisions.)
In order to keep thousands of participants focused and organized, the model will have standardized units of analysis and components. The levels are North America, States, and microgrids. For each state, there is a common set of attributes. There are two required sets of values per State: Plan A (business as usual) and Plan B (most plausible path to sustainability).
The inputs for each level and component are posted and documented in the open on wikicalc and wikitext pages. State teams maintain the information and may develop submodels (such as for microgrids) that generate the inputs.
(One might object that the “State” unit is analytically flawed from an engineering point of view. This may be true, but the overarching purpose of the model is to generate high participation from interested and informed citizens, causing high attention from politicians and other decision makers. This purpose argues for the use of political units.)
A network modeling team:
A network interaction team:
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Looks as though we have a possible research topic here. I've been occupied with a green development project, but I'll take a closer look at the information.
Lawrence |
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Kent -- I should have also thought to mention Distribution Engineering Workstation (DEW), which is a rather complete model utilities and others can use to diagnose and plan electricity distribution systems. See http://www.edd-us.com/Products.htm.
A serious difficulty with any model of "the grid" is that any possible "solution" to a problem can be seen as at least a partial substitute for any other solution. If there's a need on the system, any combination of generation, transmission, distribution, end-use efficiency, distributed generation, and/or demand-response can be brought to bear on "solving" the need. With the move to electric utility restructuring in so much of the U.S., we have systematically dismantled the capabilities of any single utility company to do all this planning in an integrated manner, and have instead begun to replace it with a system where transmission companies always and only want to build transmission, generation companies generation, and distribution companies distribution. All three are generally rewarded for throughput on their part of the system. It is not clear who, if anyone, will do the integrated planning necessary to "optimize" the system.
I've started a brief review and summary of the different U.S. state policies towards integrated resource planning, which I would be happy to share. From what I've seen so far, Delaware and Oregon probably have the best developed standards for IRP. Maybe this project should consider focusing on specific areas within those jurisdictions for starters, because there are already nascent systems there that will help to focus people and organizations on the planning process.
-- Tom S. |
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Let's try to produce a very simple and rough abstract for this research project; one that those potential researchers from different backgrounds who may be interested in getting involved can understand. Developing this mission statement could help us better clarify how best to break down the requirements and competencies that need to be addressed.
Lawrence |
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My research topic in energy is how to provide the best renewable energy choices to even the poorest and most remote villages, allowing for terrain, climate, and other factors. One Laptop Per Child is deploying wireless networks to high and rugged mountains, deserts, rain forests, and every other habitable environment in the world. Some have cloud cover for months at a time, limiting the use of solar power. Some have extended drought seasons, limiting the use of microhydro. Wind does not reach below the canopy of branches and leaves in the rain forest effectively. In areas of subsistence agriculture, food crops cannot be used to make fuel, and there may be a desperate shortage of any other usable fuels, to the great detriment of the environment. But in every case there is a best combination of choices, and we need to find it and make it available.
The other part of this question is how to pay for it. We cannot hope for donations or for government funding on the scale required when we are starting out. We must start from the bottom up, with microfinance. Just as a single cell phone in a village provides opportunities for others to make money and buy their own phones, so electric power opens up numerous economic opportunities, and can have a very high Return on Investment.
The renewable energy revolution in the developed world is well under way. (I know it doesn't feel that way, but we are quite close to several tipping points, where quite sudden effects will be felt.) If political and economic obstacles (subsidies, preferences, inappropriate regulation or the lack of any) can be overcome, as seems quite possible today, we will see a great flowering of photovoltaic, solar thermal, wind, and many other forms of power, of ways to conserve energy, of carbon-neutral transportation, and a great reshaping of the corporate organization that currently provides coal, oil, nuclear power, cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes. The entrenched political power of the corporations in these businesses is the only real obstacle to progress. There is no way it could stand up to articulate and informed voting populations demanding that it be subjected to the ordinary forces of supply and demand. Those forces would soon settle the hash of any who insisted on remaining as the proverbial buggy-whip manufacturers.
That thought about articulate and informed voters brings us back to education, to computers and communications, and to the principle that information should be free and freely accessible wherever possible, not the supposed Intellectual Property of publishing and media corporations for an unconscionable length of time. |
Here are a few ideas to get the juices flowing:
Research and formulate an accurate cost for carbon (somewhat ambitious; involves nice mathematical and graphical aspects).
Research the creation of financial instruments or development of financial markets related to sustainable energy.
Determine how a new, ethanol economy would impact consumers, industry and the environment.