Energy: Fuels off the Future

Energy: Fuels of the Future

A time to test every thing, from the radiant sun to humble garbage

Like leftover props from a sci-fi thriller movie, strange apparitions are appearing across the U.S. In the deserts of New Mexico, huge banks of motorized mirrors track the sun and focus its rays into a cyclops-like eye of red heat. A mountain in North Carolina has been crowned with what appears to be a giant aircraft propeller. A large man-made atoll, resembling a top that Gulliver would have spun for the Lilliputians, may soon be floating off the coast of California. All are imaginative, experimental devices to help find and develop alternative energies, which would alleviate the dangerous dependency on OPEC oil.

Today the U.S. gets about 96% of its energy from only four expendable sources: oil, natural gas, coal and uranium. Each suffers one or more environmental, safety, cost or supply disadvantages. The International Energy Agency estimates that this year, even without new crude production cutbacks by OPEC, the worldwide supply of oil could fall short of demand by 2.3 million bbl. a day. The U.S. is particularly vulnerable, since it accounts for 19 million bbl. of the total demand of 60 million bbl., and uses about 60% of all the gasoline burned in the industrial countries.

Conservation can ease the crisis temporarily, but it is not a long-term solution. If the nation is to grow economically over the next two decades and moderate the fast approaching oil-fueled recession, it must secure supplementary supplies of reasonably priced, politically unfettered energy. Given the OPEC stranglehold, that means developing as rapidly as possible alternative sources of power. The U.S. has changed energy sources before, first from wood to coal and later to oil, and each conversion has led to a new burst of investment, innovation and prosperity. While some of today's energy alternatives may seem like a step backward, they could collectively contribute more than 25% of the country's energy needs by the year 2000. Says John Sawhill, former Federal Energy Administration director: "We ought to be looking at everything because we do not know where the major breakthroughs will come."

There are nine promising alternatives. Some have potential everywhere, and others are limited by the constraints of geography, cost or technology. They range from oil shale and tar sands, which have the supreme advantage of providing petroleum itself, to solar power, wind, waves and other exotic forms, which theoretically can provide huge amounts of electricity but no oil. A situation report on each:

Shale. In a 16,000-sq.-mi. area where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming meet, vast deposits of shale hold an estimated 1.8 trillion bbl. of oil, roughly 60 times the nation's proven reserves of liquid petroleum. Shale is a hard rock, light gray to charcoal in color, that contains a solid organic material called kerogen. When heated to temperatures as high as 900DEG F, it breaks down into oil and gas. The richest shale deposits yield up to 2 bbl. of oil per ton. Not all shale is recoverable, but it could contribute up to 300,000 bbl. of oil a day by 1990 and much more later.

Union Oil Co. of California, which has been operating experimental shale plants since the 1950s, now plans a major $120 million project 62 miles northeast of Grand Junction, Colo. Construction will start soon after Congress passes a $3-per-bbl. tax credit that the Carter Administration recommends and Colorado issues the final permits. Standard mining techniques will bring the rock to a surface retort for heating and converting to oil. About 10,000 tons of shale will be processed daily to deliver 9,000 bbl. of high-quality oil. Union insists that the oil can be produced for only $23 per bbl., a price competitive now. But other companies suggest that the costs are much higher.

Even with the tax credit, commercial development may be stalled by two environmental problems: water and waste. For each barrel of oil, processing requires about 2 bbl. of water for washing out impurities and cooling, and water is in short supply in the West. Also the crushed residue has a larger volume than the shale that is extracted, and rubble remains after the processing is finished.

Water and waste difficulties can be avoided by a new method being tested by Occidental Petroleum Corp. It processes the shale in situ (in place) by starting fires in underground mines to separate the oil so that it can be pumped to the surface. While environmentally attractive, the method produces low-quality oil. An even newer idea, developed by the I.I.T. Research Institute, is to "cook" the oil out of the ground by means of radio waves conducted by electrodes dropped down bore holes.

Tar Sands. Gooey concentrations of tarlike oil are locked in surface and shallow, underground sand deposits that look like a beach after a tanker spill. The U.S. has some of these tar sands, mainly in Utah, and although there is speculation that they may be larger than originally supposed, they are still regarded as too remote and inaccessible to be exploitable. The largest tar sands reserves cover some 12,000 sq. mi. of northwestern Alberta, Canada. These 200 million-year-old deposits contain about 900 billion bbl. of oil, enough to supply the whole of North America for 114 years. Canada already extracts 90,000 bbl. of synthetic fuel a year from the tar sands, but the problem is getting more out at the right price.

Some 4,400 Ibs. of the sand, about the same weight as a Cadillac, must be mined and heated in aboveground retorts to give off 1 bbl. of thick bitumen. This, in turn, can be refined conventionally into oil. But the bitter 40DEG F below, local winters make year-round operations difficult, and the expansion of the volume of the sand during extraction creates an environmental disposal problem.

Last September Syncrude Canada Ltd., a joint venture of four oil companies and the government of Canada and the Province of Alberta, started a $2.2 billion project to extract the oil. It aims to produce 125,000 bbl. a day by 1982. Another 40 experimental projects are also under way, including two by the Canadian subsidiaries of Shell and Exxon. Most are exploring in situ extraction that involves feeding steam into the sand or lighting fires underground so that the oil separates in place and can be pumped out.

Solar. The sun's output of energy is enormous, and environmentalists regard it as the most pleasing energy alternative. But solar technology is in its infancy, and existing methods of drawing heat and electricity from the sun are inefficient and expensive. Today solar contributes less than 1% of the nation's needs.

The most common solar devices, accounting for 95% of sales, are the flat, boxlike, conventional thermal units that sit on rooftops. These use the sun's rays to heat water, which in turn heats home water systems. A basic series of units for a one-family home costs about $2,000 and saves only about $40 a year in fuel bills. The promising new frontier is photovoltaics, the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity by using silicon-crystal panels. Though the price of photovoltaic cells has been cut in half since 1975, the cost is still $9 per watt,*equal to a staggering $40,000 for a one-family home. Still, advances are being made in the efficiency of panels and methods to store power at night. Last month, Texas Instruments claimed one breakthrough that should lower the costs: a self-contained photovoltaic system, which changes the sunlight into a fuel suitable for producing electricity day and night. The Department of Energy has set a goal to reduce the cost per watt to $2 by 1982 and 30-c- by 1990.

Large-scale commercial applications of solar power are also being examined, including one far-out idea to send up a solar satellite that could beam energy to earth in the form of microwaves. At Sandia Labs, in New Mexico, the DOE is testing components for future solar-power tower systems. Large arrays of computer-directed mirrors, or heliostats, reflect and concentrate the sunlight on a tower containing a steam boiler linked to an electricity-producing turbine. This October, Southern California Edison Co. will start building the nation's first such device linked to a power grid. Located in Daggett, Calif., it will have as many as 1,800 mirrors and during the day should generate 10 megawatts of power, enough for the needs of several thousand homes. Cost: $116 million.

Biomass. One new slogan: If it grows, burn it--or convert it to energy. Homeowners, utilities, manufacturers and municipal governments are experimentally burning all forms of natural growth, or biomass, including urban garbage, sugar cane, walnut shells and plants. At the same time, government-funded projects are examining means to extract energy from common biological wastes like animal manures. A poultry farmers' cooperative in Arkansas will soon recycle 100 tons of chicken manure daily to produce 1.2 million cu. ft. of methane equal to 12,000 gal. of gasoline; it is then used to power automobiles that have engines converted to accept methane. The DOE calculates that biomass now supplies 1% of the nation's energy. In some areas, the percentage is higher and rising fast.

Wood is by far the most promising popular biomass fuel, especially in the thickly forested areas. In northern New England, where energy costs 26% more than the national average, nearly 20% of all homes rely on wood as a primary heating source. Its use has grown sixfold since 1970 because 1) new, all-enclosed wood stoves increase heat efficiency way above that of open fireplaces, and 2) new central-heating furnaces that burn both wood and oil can save up to 200 gal. of oil for each cord (128 cu. ft.) of wood consumed. A New England Congressional Caucus study optimistically forecasts that 50% of Maine's energy needs could be met by wood in the mid-1980s. Also, about 150 paper and pulp plants burn wood commercially, each producing an average of 500 kw of electricity for local industry, thus saving about 5 million bbl. of oil per year.

Another increasingly popular fuel for commercial plants is urban garbage. At least 16 plants burn refuse in such cities as New York, Chicago, Sacramento and Milwaukee. One of the latest to switch to garbage power is Hempstead, N. Y., which has set up a $73 million plant on Long Island that will consume 2,000 tons of waste a day and generate up to 40 Mw (megawatts), enough electricity for 15% of the residential needs of Hempstead's 865,000 population.

Coal Conversion. The U.S. has just over a quarter of the world's known reserves of coal. But coal is expensive to transport and heavily polluting. One solution: convert it into gas or oil. Neither idea is new; London's street lights last century were powered by coal gas, and during World War II Germany fueled its planes and tanks with coal oil. The conversion involves heating the coal to very high temperatures under high pressure so that it decomposes and gives off oils, carbon monoxide and hydrogen gases, which then have to be passed through a catalyst and cleaned of impurities.

South Africa, loaded with coal but shy on oil and boycotted by most of OPEC, leads the world in coal-to-oil technology. Converting coal since the 1950s, South Africa now produces 10% of its oil and gas from coal. The Pretoria government has commissioned Fluor Corp. to build two new plants for $6.7 billion that will produce more than 80,000 bbl. of oil per day by 1983. The process requires 1 ton of coal for 1 bbl. of oil. South Africa keeps cost figures secret, but outside estimates of close to $30 per bbl. make conversion only a longterm, expensive solution to U.S. energy needs. However, a small test plant has been built in Catlettsburg, Ky., with federal, state and private money. It will open this fall and produce 1,800 bbl. of oil daily from 600 tons of coal.

Geothermal. Iceland already gets much of its energy from the earth's hot interior, and DOE analysts believe that many Western states could start to follow this example. Geothermal energy exists in volcanoes, geysers and hot springs, and can be tapped by sinking wells roughly 2,000 ft. into the reservoirs of superheated water and steam that are sandwiched between layers of rock close to the earth's molten lava. Steam rises to the surface, where it can be used to power turbines that generate electricity, and is then allowed to flow back underground for natural reheating and reuse.

There are three problems. The reservoirs often can be as difficult to find as oil deposits; they are close to the surface in only a few areas; and the steam usually has a relatively low temperature that is not very efficient for turning turbines. But the energy is essentially inexhaustible, environmentally benign and, above all, free.

Union Oil Co. has built one of the first U.S. geothermal power stations at Geyserville, Calif., 90 miles northwest of San Francisco. It sends 608 Mw, 2% of California's electricity, to Pacific Gas and Electric's utility grid, enough to power 500,000 homes. The cost is only 1.80 per kw, and Union Oil optimistically suggests that by 1990 geothermal energy could provide 25% of California's electricity.

Hydro. Fifty years ago, the U.S. got a third of its electricity from dams. But many were destroyed or abandoned during the era of cheap oil, and that contribution has since dropped to less than 15%. But water power is now coming back into fashion.

Since dams have already been built on most commercially promising sites around the nation that have steep drops as well as fast and large river flows, the greatest enthusiasm now is for the restoration of "low head" dams (less than 65 ft. high) to supply power to local communities and industries. The New England Congressional Caucus, a group of the area's federal representatives, puts the potential regional saving from new dams at up to 19 million bbl. of oil a year, or as much as the U.S. uses in one day.

A number of states are surveying their rivers to measure the hydroelectric potential. A study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concludes that there is an untapped power supply of 40,000 Mw from new and existing U.S. dams that have been allowed to fall into disuse, enough to power 100 cities the size of Washington. By some estimates, if all the hydro sites now under study could be repaired, they would yield the energy output of 16 nuclear plants for the cost of only 2% new nuclear plants.

Such a historically retrograde energy step is unlikely, partly because some river flows are too weak and environmental opposition is too strong. The objections center mainly on fears that the dams would either silt up rivers or require large reservoirs that destroy land. But with the promise of inexhaustible free power, some utilities are again becoming interested in this old idea.

Wind. Don Quixote's nemesis could supply perhaps 2% of the nation's electric power by 1990. Modern windmills, which turn electric generators rather than grind grain, do not look anything like the revolving sails that dot Holland's countryside.

Atop Howard's Knob mountain, near Boone, N.C., the world's largest windmill is about to start producing electricity for up to 500 homes. Costing $6 million, it has two 100-ft. propeller blades, which will generate power for about 180 per kw. A similar looking but smaller model in Clayton, N, Mex., produces electricity for more than half the town's 3,000 residents.

Sandia Labs is experimenting in Albuquerque with a vertical-axis wind-turbine design that looks like a weird eggbeater. Like all windmills, it suffers commercially from having intermittent power output, but the small estimated cost of no more than 50 per kw-h can make it an attractive alternative, especially in inaccessible and rural areas, where power is costly.

The Sea. The power of the ocean is obvious to anyone who watches the violence of the sea in a storm. Four forms of seapower could be exploited: currents, tides, waves and heat.

Current power is being studied under a DOE grant by Aerovironment Inc., a small firm in Pasadena, Calif. It is considering sinking large electricity-producing turbines off the Florida coast, with rotating "windmills" turned by the Gulf Stream and connected to generators that pump power to shore by submarine cable.

Tidal power is being generated in small quantities in France and the Soviet Union. Long, low dams are built at estuaries, where the tidal rise and fall is large. The dams capture the water at high tide and let it run out through turbines at low tide. The catch is that power is generated only twice a day.

The waves falling on a mile of beach contain an estimated 65 Mw of power, but that force is difficult to harness. The British, French and Japanese are working on wave-power projects. Most involve some kind of rafts hinged together by pistons; the rocking motion forces the pistons to pump water that turns turbines. A different U.S. plan, now being studied by Lockheed, would use a 250-ft.-diameter man-made "atoll" tethered at sea. Looking like a giant doughnut, it would float with its top just above the surface. The waves surging across the rim would flow down the center hole and turn a turbine.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) devices, which get power from the 45DEG F temperature differential that can exist between surface tropical water and the deep, are being studied by both Lockheed and TRW Inc. The idea is to use the warmer water to heat liquid ammonia into gas, which would drive a turbine, and then draw up cold water through long pipes to recool the gas into liquid. Tested as early as the 1930s, the idea has been shown to work, but it has never been very economical. A 10,000-Mw complex, enough for 6.6 million people, would cost $25 billion.

Experts have strong and sharply differing opinions on which of these alternatives stands the best chance of succeeding and should be given the most attention. But the U.S. is not yet in a position where it can make the hard choice to ride with one and damn the others. Until the applications, costs and technologies of each alternative become better understood, the U.S. would be wise to examine all of them. That will require sharply increased Government funding, since most of the options are too long-term and high risk to gain financial backing in the open market.

In some cases, increased R. and D. expenditure may not pay off in terms of squeezing out more energy, but the costs will not have been wasted. OPEC operates on the theory that oil prices are destined to go up, and so it makes little sense to pump out huge quantities of oil now. A substantially increased effort to develop alternative sources could destroy, or at least temper, the idea that oil is certain to become increasingly more valuable. Such an effort could both persuade OPEC to pump more oil today and tend to hold down prices tomorrow.

*Electric power is measured by the number of watts that can be generated by a single power source. A kilowatt is 1,000 watts, a megawatt is 1,000 kilowatts. The U.S. consumes about 30% of its energy in the form of electricity, and the cost of building and maintaining a plant to generate a single watt is $1 for a coal-fired utility and $1.25 for a nuclear plant.

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