I created this little graphic to address a subject that is important to me, and I believe, important to you too! The graphs shows how much energy I have used for my home and family in the last year. (This graph doesn't include transportation energy use.)
My house uses natural gas for space heating, hot water, and drying clothes. Electricity is used for everything else, including central air conditioning. I have converted the decatherms of gas used to kilowatt hours (1 decatherm = 293.07 kwh) so I can compare the two.
I live in North America at a fairly high latitude (41° 30" N), so the heating season extends from mid-October until May. The peak cooling season is July, August, and September. This can be seen in the graph - gas usage is the light blue bars and electricity is the maroon colored bars. The peak usage is in January, 8055 kwh. This is also why solar and wind are a bit farcical as alternatives - the demand is the highest and the availability of wind and solar is the lowest. We can go for weeks without seeing the sun on very cold and windless days. These are the typical winter inversions in the mountain valleys of Utah.
My dream is to have a personal energy device that can provide this demand. Will this dream every materialize? I don't know, but that's no reason not to ask Santa for it.
There are a couple of technologies that might make this possible. I will concentrate on the nuclear fission ones at the moment.
Edward Teller, Freeman Dyson and others conceived and designed a research reactor at General Atomics called TRIGA. The purpose of the reactor was not to provide energy, but for research, radioanalysis and isotope production. However, the reactor does produce 250 kw of thermal power. Two hundred and fifty times 168 hours per week times 4 weeks per month equals one hundred sixty eight thousand kwh - more than enough for my energy needs even during peak demand in January.
There are a number of other small reactors designs that have been tried over the years - SLOWPOKE, Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor (LOPO HYPO, and SUPO) and Argus. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited even designed a SLOWPOKE-3 for district heating, which produced between 2 and 10 MWth. Now, that's what I'm talking about! The SLOWPOKE reactor is even licensed for unattended operation for up to 18 hours.
Yes, there are many issues to address and many roadblocks - economics, proliferation, safety, etc., but like I said before, why can't I hope for a washing machine sized device that provides me with all the power I need? Maybe it could even be a liquid fluoride thorium reactor that breeds fuel!
Think how disruptive this could be!
My house uses natural gas for space heating, hot water, and drying clothes. Electricity is used for everything else, including central air conditioning. I have converted the decatherms of gas used to kilowatt hours (1 decatherm = 293.07 kwh) so I can compare the two.
I live in North America at a fairly high latitude (41° 30" N), so the heating season extends from mid-October until May. The peak cooling season is July, August, and September. This can be seen in the graph - gas usage is the light blue bars and electricity is the maroon colored bars. The peak usage is in January, 8055 kwh. This is also why solar and wind are a bit farcical as alternatives - the demand is the highest and the availability of wind and solar is the lowest. We can go for weeks without seeing the sun on very cold and windless days. These are the typical winter inversions in the mountain valleys of Utah.
My dream is to have a personal energy device that can provide this demand. Will this dream every materialize? I don't know, but that's no reason not to ask Santa for it.
There are a couple of technologies that might make this possible. I will concentrate on the nuclear fission ones at the moment.
Edward Teller, Freeman Dyson and others conceived and designed a research reactor at General Atomics called TRIGA. The purpose of the reactor was not to provide energy, but for research, radioanalysis and isotope production. However, the reactor does produce 250 kw of thermal power. Two hundred and fifty times 168 hours per week times 4 weeks per month equals one hundred sixty eight thousand kwh - more than enough for my energy needs even during peak demand in January.
There are a number of other small reactors designs that have been tried over the years - SLOWPOKE, Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor (LOPO HYPO, and SUPO) and Argus. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited even designed a SLOWPOKE-3 for district heating, which produced between 2 and 10 MWth. Now, that's what I'm talking about! The SLOWPOKE reactor is even licensed for unattended operation for up to 18 hours.
Yes, there are many issues to address and many roadblocks - economics, proliferation, safety, etc., but like I said before, why can't I hope for a washing machine sized device that provides me with all the power I need? Maybe it could even be a liquid fluoride thorium reactor that breeds fuel!
Think how disruptive this could be!
No comments:
Post a Comment