Water, Power and Energy
Water, Power and Energy is the Key to modern Life
By Toby Kinkaid
The famous quote “water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Especially true when sailing the ocean it now applies to everyone, everywhere in our modern world. Water, power and energy are all connected.
Water’s relationship with life is absolute. Without water there is no life. Everything alive involves water. Water is amazing having no nutritional value directly. It’s a mild solvent, however, a critical characteristic which makes it very conducive for life’s complicated chemistry to evolve and take hold. Water dissolves things. As such, mineral salts and almost all other materials can become dissolved in an aqueous solution.
We’re truly a water world. Nearly three-quarters of the surface of the earth is covered with water. The human body is mostly made of water – around 60% by weight on average. Each of us are mostly made of water. Is water a vital thing?
In fact, the human body being mostly made of water means by the number of any specific element you’re made from – you’re mostly made of Hydrogen. By number, there are more Hydrogen atoms in your body than any other element.
Looking at the elements the human body is made from, forged long ago in the death throws of ancient stars, if you’re mostly water, then by weight you’re mostly made of Oxygen. By mass, the human body is mostly Oxygen.
We are water creatures, literally formed from Hydrogen and Oxygen and as such a great realization occurs. Water, and its use and management is the most important aspect of our existence. Master water and you master life. Be at the end of the stick with water and we face grave misfortune.
Our civilization’s use of water has industrial appetites. Ten thousand years ago it was moving water which was first tapped. Water wheels are evident in Ancient China where moving water was used to pump water to fields – over 12,000 years ago demonstrate the amazing power of moving water.
Water, Power and Energy have always been vital
From the standpoint of human civilization water has always been crucial. The very rise of civilization is defined by our use and control of water. The first great cities to emerge were only possible when water intake and waste water outflows were considered, engineered, then actually built.
The control of water for the ancients was life itself. The ancients designed and built extraordinary cisterns to hold vast water reserves for times of drought. Can we remember this old knowledge and common sense?
The current “climate disruption” we are experiencing has water at the forefront.
The best kept secret about water in the United States is the single largest consumer: cooling thermal power plants. Most people would guess Agriculture is the largest user of fresh water in the US north of 42%.
In fact, the largest user of fresh water is the power industry consuming a whopping 44% of all the fresh water on the surface and in the aquifers. Why? To cool down condensers in thermal power plants.
Even those who advocate for Nuclear Power plants nearly always fail to mention water. They don’t want to confront the 12 Million Gallons per Hour per GW required to cool the “Condensers” of the heat engine.
Nuclear power is a big steam engine. The boiler and the condenser being the mainstay as it was in 1799 when the early steam engines using one cylinder were heated externally (the External Combustion Engine) to lift the cylinder. The actual work done, however, was on the down stroke. These early steam engines were called “Atmospheric Engines” because it was the weight of the air above the cylinder which did the work and pushed the cylinder down. Why? Because after the cylinder was simply lifted up by steam injected under the piston, it was the Condenser property which caused the work to be done.
By injecting cool water under the piston when it reaches the top of the stroke the sudden change of temperature under the piston by injecting cool water caused a partial vacuum. It’s this partial vacuum under the cylinder which allows the greater atmospheric pressure above it which pushes the piston down.
In modern terms, all coal-fired and Nuclear power plants around the world drink rivers of water to cool down. Recent droughts in Europe highlight this reality as low river levels caused some nuclear reactors to be curtailed. So much water is required to cool down these large condensers, used to cool the working fluid water to liquid so it can be boiled again, that it’s causing big water access and use issues.
The Steam Engine is our past. Not our future.
Water, Power and Energy
in the 21st Century
Water and Energy are joined at the hip. Recent droughts in the West and now Floods all conspire to keep humans on the edge. We use such enormous amounts of water, but for most commercial and “human” use only 14% of fresh water is available.
Take into account “Commercial” uses out of the remaining 14% leaves about 9% of fresh water available for domestic use.
Our civilization’s use of water goes way back. For industrial purposes the use of moving water (its Kinetic energy) traces back to old China. Evidence of large water wheels date back over 10,000 BC. This is direct use of the kinetic energy in moving water.
In the 20th and early 21st century water is used as a battery for utilities so equipped with suitable hydro electric dams. Pumped Hydro, the idea of pumping water up to a higher elevation requires work to do so, but returns a portion when you release it back through the pipes to the generators. Pumped hydro system efficiencies can return about 72% of the energy it took to get it there.
The third big use of water was the discovery it could boil. Boiling water expands as has an amazing capacity to do work. Vaporizing water takes a lot of energy. In chemistry class we learned a “calorie” will raise one gram of water one degree C. You’d think in water to go from 0 degrees to 100 degrees would require 100 calories? No. If we started with ice we need to add the latent heat required for phase change from ice to water.
This heat of fusion (from solid to liquid) is around 80 cal/gram. Once water is liquid you can raise the temperature 100 degrees with 100 Calories, however, to get from hot water to steam we need to add another latent heat phase change energy – a whopping 540 Calories/gram to turn hot water to steam. This is the power of latent heat. To boil 1 gram of water from an ice state to steam you need (80+100+540) or 720 Calories to do it.
The next great leap with water is in the 21st century where electrochemistry will replace thermal systems – and a higher efficiency is attained. Instead of boiling water, like you great, great, great grand-pappy used to do, the 21st century uses direct electrochemistry. We store energy by disassociating water, storing the resulting hydrogen, then when we want the electricity back – we recombine the hydrogen and oxygen (released and returned by the air) releasing energy, and returning back to water. No boiling water required.
Water, Power and Energy can all work together
The Earth is mostly covered with water. The human body is mostly made of water. Isn’t it remarkable the answer to industrial civilization is based on the proper and respectful use of water? That is to say un-wasteful. Respectful? Is to say unpolluted. Fresh water used to cool down thermal power plants is not just returned no-harm, no foul.
There is a foul. When fresh water is used from rivers, streams, lakes and oceans to cool down Condensers in Steam Engines the water is compromised. It gains a lot of heat, which when discharged back into rivers and streams greatly inhibits the water’s ability to hold dissolved Oxygen.
Further, the water is concentrated due to steam lost to the atmosphere and becomes very heavy in minerals, salts and other dissolved solids.
It’s so bad, that it’s largely ignored by the “experts” who claim some form of Nuclear energy (still just a steam engine) is in anyway our future.
Water is the key to our success as a civilization. The Water Cycle is the future of our energy system. It’s the same technology using electrolyzers, storage and fuel cells in a standardized power block which will set this world on a new direction. A direction of improved health for the citizens of the world, but improved health for our total world our economy, our environment, and our energy access.
Water is the common denominator between all people. All economies, the environment, and energy all depend on water. The Electrolyzer, Storage, and Fuel Cell power block uses a water cycle. Add renewable energy to water and your get clean fuel (Hydrogen). Use the clean fuel (Hydrogen) in a fuel cell and get energy out, most of the water back, and being stored as Hydrogen – at any time you want.
Isn’t that the point? We want potency, safety, availability to all local economies, and 100% non-toxic. Does anything do that? Yes, green hydrogen.
Transition from Fossil Fuels to Water-based Fuels
It’s hard to imagine the world any other way. Or is it? Jules Verne wrote about the Hydrogen economy often as many people including Jules Verne were very concerned about the future of highly polluting coal on our world – over 150 years ago.
Once John D. Rockefeller set the stage for the business model of oil refining, and controlling the pinch point the world was set on a race. A race to find, extract, transport, process, store, and sell liquid and solid carbon fuels of enormous energy density.
The “internal combustion engine” where all of the combustion is within the working cylinder was unleashed by Rockefeller once the electric light hit the scene. Rockefeller changed targets, instead of Lighting fuels, Rockefeller pivoted to transportation and industrial fuels – all under control through his refining empire.
By 1892 the Kerosine business for Rockefeller was international and gigantic by any measure of the day making Rockefeller one of the richest people in history. By the late 1890s Standard Oil was not only enormous it was in effect a monopoly.
Back to 1893 when electric light caught the public’s imagination Rockefeller saw the writing on the wall. His worldwide empire was facing being obsolete by the end of the decade. Drastic times call for drastic measures.
Rockefeller pivoted to a new product. Same refinery, just a different Fraction tower extraction point to maximize the fractioning of crude oil to produce Gasoline, not Kerosine.
This refinery retooling set Rockefeller ahead of whatever competition was left, but like Rockefeller anyone in the Kerosine business was soon finished. Rockefeller, by now focusing on transportation fuels set the world into a frenzy.
Black gold was gold again, but not for lighting, but for transportation and stationary power – 100x the market. All at a tidy profit.
Rockefeller was selling the very energy used by modern machines by the gallon – worldwide. This enormous profitability set the world to ruin – as we find ourselves, all countries and economies increasingly vulnerable to the restrictions and toxicity of basic fuels.
If Rockefeller was here today, he’d recognize the similarities with 1893, a new paradigm has emerged. I believe if Rockefeller where here today – he’d be all over Green Hydrogen looking for any pinch point he could control.
The Retirement of Steam Engines for Electric Power
The Steam engine, since James Watt’s advancement of using a separate “Boiler” and “Condenser” instead of heating and cooling a single cylinder. Watt realized that if you had a separate Boiler which is always kept hot, and a separate Condenser which is always kept cool a single working fluid could be used between the two.
Water. Having a closed loop working between boiling to get that work from expanding steam through vaporization and cooling in the Condenser to return to liquid water again allows a closed-loop.
What about now? Would green hydrogen systems consume water? Yes, but much less than a steam engine. Where current water consumption for thermal power plants consume 44% of fresh water in the US, a green hydrogen system would consume on the order of 2% of fresh water.
A recent study regarding how much water California uses for thermal power plant cooling being replaced with clean hydrogen systems the conclusions are very encouraging. If California replaced all fossil fuel generation with green hydrogen the resulting increase in water demand was less than 2%.
This is a technology which grows out of the Steam Engine thermodynamics and water consumption evolving from “Thermal” uses of water moving to “Electrochemical” uses increasing efficiency and lowering the water footprint of power production dramatically. It’s a water world – now, industrially too.
