ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Electric Vehicles and the impact to our power grid

If there's enough waste heat from a reactor to do something with it seems like making electricity with it is the thing to do since that's what the reactor is there for. Bleeding off some of the available heat to make hydrogen instead of electric isn't really saving anything.

You need relatively hot water to make steam but there is plenty of heat left over in the discharge water. That is why they need all that cooling water and those big stacks.

I saw a story yesterday where a guy had used electric current in a jar of water to separate the oxygen from the hydrogen and then piped the hydrogen into his injecters to increase his gas milage. Quite a little set-up under the hood. He says he was getting from 37-75 mpg. I don't know if it could work permanently or how hard it would be on the engine but a neat idea to try none the less.

Cogeneration is pretty common and extremely efficient. In a rankine cycle engine, all the energy than can be converted to electricity is, but the "spent" steam coming through the back of the turbines is still extremely hot and must be cooled and condensed to reduce the entropy levels. In some plants, they just use cooling towers. Where they can, though, the steam is used for building heat, as it's too cold for use as much else, but works great as a heater; extremely high efficiencies are gained from electric/steam heat cogeneration. If some of this waste heat can be used for processing oil shale into oil, or water into hydrogen, it's essentially free energy.

Another one of those perpetual motion machine schemes.
The fact still remains you don't get as much energy when you burn hydrogen as it takes to get it out of the water.

I believe the sizing of the cooling towers is based on dissipating all of the heat from the reactors without being able to convert 1/3 of it to electricity, as it is typically done during normal operation.

Most commercial power plants have steam use/reuse systems to increase plant efficiency. Typical items include preheating feed water, using steam driven pumps, steam driven vacuum pumps, etc.

Unfortunately, most applications require high pressure steam. The available "waste" steam is generally low pressure and high volume. Those characteristics makes it difficult to transport the energy any great distance where it can effectively utilized.

Direct conversion of nuclear heat towards hydrogen gas by way of sequential thermo-chemical transformations has been studied for years. Google around, you'll find plenty on it.

Such a system is many, many years away... just on the politics alone.

The next BIG thing is not hydrogen but Compressed Natural Gas (CGN). Honda is ALREADY selling a car build to run ONLY on CGN through their regular dealer network. You can go down right now and buy one.

CNG powered vehicles cost about half as much per mile to drive based on todays price spread between gas and natural gas. And yes, road tax is collected at the CNG pump. UPS has long converted their fleet, and normally will let you fill up at their system -- in their off hours, only. Other fleet refuelers are expanding all over. A major one is in Rancho Cordova, CA... South of I-50, east of Sacramento.

Electric vehicles are going to come like an express train in urban areas. They excel in heavy traffic: being stopped does not ruin their fuel economy.

You can expect that within ten years 400 Amp 240/120 single phase service will be the norm in upscale new homes. More than one EV will need charging.

At the current time Saudia Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and others are FLARING ( burning it off to get rid of it ) enough natural gas to cause the oil markets to crash. ( If the energy was made available to motorists globally.)A

At some juncture, a global grid of natural gas pipelines will permit this gas to be sold into the global marketplace.

In the near term: the MASSIVE natural gas deposits ALREADY available in Alaska ( equal to three times the energy content of the North Slope oil deposits ) will be brought down to the lower 48 within the next twelve years.

As the vehicle fleet shifts over to CNG and electricity gasoline demand will drop. The price surge of the last two years is already causing noticeable drops in motor fuel demand.

As electricians: study up on Division 1 Code issues. Many new CNG distribution facilities must be built.

Get prepared for a whole new round of 'heavy-ups'.

One additional note: Honda is also selling a CNG plug-in compressor that taps a homeowner's residential natural gas system and refuels the Honda overnite. (4,000 PSI)

So, an owner need rarely even visit a commercial refueler.

The compressor keeps track of the delivery... so that any tax due can be paid. Presumably, the road fuel tax would be paid with your income tax return as just another line item and calculation.

I looked at a propane conversion in the 70s. Once the cars got Stellite valves there was no good reason not to, except the lack of filling stations and the cost of the conversion (over $1000 in 74). Right now I am not sure propane is that much cheaper than gasoline. I don't think there is any LNG around here. When I was in Md I had natural gas at the house but not the compressor to make it liquid.