What Is the Most Efficient Source of Electricity?

[NickB79]

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/what-is-the-most-efficient-source-of-electricity-1754/#?mod=wsj_valettop_email

The true cost of electricity is difficult to pin down. That’s because a number of inputs comprise it: the cost of fuel itself, the cost of production, as well as the cost of dealing with the damage that fuel does to the environment.

Energy Points, a company that does energy analysis for business, factors in the these myriad values in terms of what percentage of the energy input—fossil fuel energy, plus energy for production and energy for environmental mitigation—will become usable electricity.

The chart above shows that fossil fuels yield, on a national average, only a portion of their original energy when converted into electricity. That’s because they are fossil fuels that require other fossil fuels to make the conversion into electricity; their emissions, such as carbon dioxide, also require a lot of energy to be mitigated. Renewables, however, have energy sources that aren’t fossil fuel and their only other energy inputs are production and mitigating the waste from that production. That actually results in more energy produced than fossil fuels put in. Wind, the most efficient fuel for electricity, creates 1164% of its original energy inputs when converted into electricity; on the other end of the efficiency spectrum, coal retains just 29% of its original energy.

snip

Energy Points’ methodology measures environmental externalities and calculates the energy it takes to mitigate them. For example, it quantifies the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that result from turning coal and natural gas into electricity and then calculates the energy it would take to mitigate those emissions through carbon capture and sequestration. Water scarcity and contamination are quantified as the energy that is required to durably supply water to that area. And in the case of solar or wind energy, Energy Points incorporates the life cycle impact of manufacturing and shipping the panels.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I find the numbers somewhat confusing.

Are they saying that an average windmill will generate 11.6 times the energy over its lifetime than that it took to manufacture and place it?

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Yes - and that was confusing to me too at first too.

But then when you think about it, it is obvious. For renewables there is an initial NRE, after that a small amount of ongoing maintenance, the rest of the energy output is cost free. Oil is now very expensive to extract, unless you are in Saudi Arabia, and even after extraction there are huge costs to produce usable fuel.

[Demeter]

3. Photo-voltaic, DC, not on the grid

[Travis_0004]

4. wouldn't being on the grid be more efficient

Being on the grid means you don't need to buy and maintain batteries.

[nationalize the fed]

5. Mike Strizki is on the grid only to sell solar electricity back to the local utility

Solar combined with Hydrogen storage and batteries.
No bills, just a monthly check in the summer.

Strizki is a legend. A pioneer.

TL;DV version- (10m)

Strizki stores hydrogen in propane tanks

Scientific American: Inside the Solar Hydrogen House- No More Power Bills -Ever

EAST AMWELL, N.J.—Mike Strizki has not paid an electric, oil or gas bill—nor has he spent a nickel to fill up his Mercury Sable—in nearly two years. Instead, the 51-year-old civil engineer makes all the fuel he needs using a system he built in the capacious garage of his home, which employs photovoltaic (PV) panels to turn sunlight into electricity that is harnessed in turn to extract hydrogen from tap water...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hydrogen-house/

Future fuel is here now

[bananas]

6. LOL - "Ashamed of my Fellow GOPers wrote: ..."

In the comments tab where a number of anti-science anti-renewable pro-nuclear pro-stupid comments,
then some sanity:

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/what-is-the-most-efficient-source-of-electricity-1754/tab/comments/

12:27 pm September 15, 2014
Ashamed of my Fellow GOPers wrote:

“This article presents a false picture of energy generation cost, and the author has no qualifications related to energy.” Translation: this article does not conform to Republican values; therefore, it is not true.

This article is based on the research conducted by Energy Points, a privately held for-profit organization honored as one of the top five of the top 10 in the rankings of The WSJ’s Next Big Thing in Clean Tech. The article summarized and, one might say, the article dumbed down the results of the research for secondary publication for a non-data audience.

Apparently, it didn’t dumb down the research enough or the Republican audience is just too dang dogmatic to accept evidence that doesn’t agree with their preconceived notions.

[GliderGuider]

7. I dropped a comment on there. Quite the collection of stupid. nt