Value Proposition - Energy Efficiency?
The Value Proposition: What's the Energy Efficiency of Life?
By Toby Kinkaid
The value proposition of energy efficiency. Important? Of course. The problem with the concept of “efficiency” is it’s often conflated. There is a difference between Component efficiency and System efficiency. Is efficiency the bottom line?
Imagine you’re sailing the Pacific ocean on a small sailboat. Suddenly a squall hits and swamps the boat. You barely make it to your life raft. Now, days at sea, no more water, no more food the situation grim. Suddenly you see a small island. You leap from the raft and swim as hard as you can. You make landfall and drag yourself onto the beach. You look up, and there on the island is a Coconut tree.
You scramble to the tree, to your delight you find coconuts all over the ground. You open one up and you’re about the take the greatest gulp of your life. Freeze frame: full stop.
In that moment, do you think you’d stop before you drink and ask “Hey, wait a second? That Coconut tree is less than 2% efficient. Well, that’s no good, I’m throwing this away.”
Not a chance. Our marooned sailer drank and drank and drank, eternally grateful this great Earth has islands with Coconut trees.
Does energy efficiency matter? You bet. But, perspective also matters.
In general terms higher efficiency systems tend to cost more, with lower efficiency systems costing less. Which is better?
Efficiency is all about the big picture. Do we want every component to be as efficient as possible? Of course. However, let’s keep our perspective.
Often discussions about “energy efficiency” are used to justify the use of Battery EVs. Often cited is the high round-trip efficiency of charging and discharging a battery claimed to be 95%. However, this is only true under laboratory conditions. The actual efficiency of charging and discharging a Lithium-ion battery pack, for example, depends on many factors – each with dramatic impacts.
Temperature. In the lab we can choose the most helpful temperature for our test battery. Not too hot, not too cold – just right. In the real world it’s either cold or hot outside and the temperature of the battery becomes critical especially using DC Fast Charge which pumps enormous power into the battery pack for faster charge – with great stress to the battery.
Sometimes, in the discussion around the Fuel Cell EV the Battery advocate will claim it takes three times more renewable energy to deliver the total amount of energy required using green hydrogen.
This is not exactly true, but for purposes of argument, let’s say it is. So the value proposition is the only “price” we have to pay is to overbuild our Renewable Energy on the grid? What do we get?
Clean energy, 24/7, everywhere for everyone with no toxicity or inherent fuel costs – if you add energy storage producing clean hydrogen. In other words, we get everything we want. If the “objection” is to built-out renewable energy (the lowest cost primary power converter know to history) there could be must worst fates.
Energy efficiency of a Barrel of Oil
Our world is fossil fueled. For 300 years we’ve moved to coal, crude oil, and Natural gas. We emit as a civilization over 40 Billion tons of air pollution – each year.
We power our world with ancient sunlight. Depending on assumptions it takes 100 acres of biomass for 100 years to accumulate enough left overs to be buried and eventually turned into fossil fuel. It takes 10s of Millions of years of heat and pressure, sometimes longer, to pyrolyze the organic material into fossil fuels.
Cook it too much and you get Natural gas. Cook it too little and you get coal. Cook it just right – and you get petroleum.
The issue today is ancient sunlight fixed as Carbon is too toxic to continue. Our worldwide economy, under most motivations is required to grow continuously. Continuously? Is that possible using a paradigm where we tap limited resources, and release major toxicity as we use them. Doesn’t sound like a strategy for success. If we expect our worldwide economies to grow year after year – then we need a sustainable energy paradigm.
The Industrial revolution of the 21st Century is all about shifting from ancient sunlight – to present sunlight. Solar energy has many forms, direct radiation, wind, the tides it manifest all around us.
Tapping into nature is right. Tapping into nature’s toxic materials for energy is less than right. As we consider “efficiency” in systems we must be accurate about what we’re talking about. If a battery EV advocate points to battery efficiency then they have a losing argument. All materials expand when heated at different rates. This thermal heat of expansion causes great stress in batteries when forced to charge fast.
The only way to charge a battery fast is with brute force. Brute force is rarely efficient as a general method.
Energy Efficiency: How much is it Worth?
What’s the energy efficiency of double, or triple A batteries? First, let’s talk about value. The sketch on the right shows a AAA and AA battery, respectively. The energy capacity of these batteries is fairly low in the grand scheme of things. A triple A battery only contains 1.4 wh on average, with the double A holding about 3 wh of energy.
In a world where the cost of each kWh of electricity you buy is measured in cents/kWh how do the batteries compare?
The AA battery comes in around $330 per kWh with the AAA battery coming in around $890 per kWh.
Why would anyone buy a battery? Because of the value proposition. An AAA battery may be relatively expensive, but does it matter if it powers an emergency beacon and saves your life? From that perspective, $890 per kWh is a great deal.
The real value of an energy proposition is relative. However, what is absolute is our need to profitably convert from fossil fuels worldwide. We need to convert to clean Green Hydrogen systems because of all the benefits in doing so. Energy independence, energy security, energy richness, energy availability and best of all energy which is 100% non-toxic.
The path to Green Hydrogen systems has to be rooted in profitability to the consumer and provider. There is a famous scene in an old Western where the bounty hunter interrupts a poker game and finishes the hand. The outlaw say’s when he loses “Didn’t hear what the bet was?” The bounty hunter’s answer “Your life.”
Carbon Fuels, or Clean Fuels from Water?
The new world energy is based on life. It’s based on access to clean, safe, and potent energy for all people everywhere. This is the point.
In the past energy has always been, or nearly always, a commodity. You need it. You buy it. Need more fuel? Then, buy more fuel.
Green Hydrogen realizes there is a formula for the modern energy world. Sunlight (renewables) plus water equals modern civilization.
Imagine the rest of the 21st century, will it be fossil fueled? With climate disruption affecting all normal supply chains across the globe from fossil fuels, food, and industrial feedstocks the future is a bit dicy.
The sketch on the right compares the big picture concepts of continued fossil fuel use – or a new way. A better way to provide all of the energy needed for all human communities wherever they are in the world.
All energy systems have three parts: input, storage, and output. In the fossil fuel world imagine how much goes into the Input part.
Fracking, mining, scraping, drilling as much Carbon fuel as we can find. For three hundred years we spew this toxic soup out the tailpipe – wasting most of the energy to begin with. How is this an intelligent system – unless you’re the one selling it?
The Economic Opportunity of the Green Hydrogen Economy
The New World of energy is really going back home. Back home to the basics of how we intend to develop our civilization. Our human existence depends on designing a new value chain. A new supply chain which is much less dependent on moving materials and energy around the world. A supply chain which provides the basic energy we all need locally.
This is in no way an appeal to consume less. There is no point to saying that. The point here is to make these consumptions non-toxic and sustainable.
The key is toxicity. Too much and you collapse. The fossil fuel world is too much on the toxicity side. The sketch on the right reminds us that all of our vehicles can be electrified using Fuel Cell drivetrains. All of them. Not just small cars and trucks.
All fuel cell drivetrains still use batteries, but they’re very small. Instead of 100% of the drivetrain load only 1% typically is required. Moving to FCEV would allow us to make two orders of magnitude more zero-emission vehicles than using 100% battery alone.
The greatest opportunity exists in this moment. As we consider infrastructure it’s vital we get this one right. Converting our fossil fuel internal combustion engines to fuel cell drivetrains and the green hydrogen front end to fuel them – is the call of the century. The 21st century.
The Green Hydrogen Economy
The world economy must change. Rather, it must evolve from where we are to where we need to be. The path of this industrial revolution is the key consideration.
The sketch on the right intends to bring the big picture into focus. Our current thinking and infrastructure is based on business as usual. All based on the model of commodity based energy economics. After World War II the old style of empire was replaced with a new style: globalization through trade.
The future of this 21st century will transition from commodity based to self-sufficient based energy. Transitioning our energy model provides every country on earth to become essentially energy independent. Every country.
That’s a big difference to how it is today – and all of the geopolitical and environmental damage we inflict on each other. The Green Hydrogen Economy is based on mass-producing the major components of the green hydrogen power block – namely Electrolyzers, H2 Storage, and Fuel Cell stacks. We need Giga factories in each state, and each country providing local jobs providing energy to local economies.
This is how the 21st century can drag itself out of the muck, and into the light. Into increase energy, self-determination and importantly independence from fossil fuel costs and toxicity.
