Plain Talk about the Electric Power
System for the Non-Power Engineering Professional
23 - 25 January 2007
Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Tucker, GA
Sponsored
by the IEEE Power Engineering Society and the American Education
Institute (link
to course home page)
To see how much electricity Californians are using right now, click
here
Now have a look at Stanford's Jasper Ridge Sun Field
Station
For the rest of the country, go to
Current Energy
Advanced Transmission
Technologies (pdf,
ppt)
Paul M. Grant
W2AGZ Technologies
(Introduction by T. R. Schneider) (pdf,
ppt)
Links to Local Bookmarks on This Page
Course Background Material
Recent PMG Stuff (including
SuperGrid SciAm article)
Listen to some SuperTunes!
Background Material
History
of Electricity in the United States
"EE 101"
Power Electronics, FACTS & New
Materials
Hydrogen
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The Need for Nuclear Power
[Published in 2000 in the
prestigious policy journal, Foreign Affairs, Richard Rhodes
(author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun) and
Denis Beller, a nuclear engineer at Los Alamos National
Laboratory0, The Need for Nuclear Power is a thoughtful
argument that nuclear power must be a major component of
world electricity supply in the 21st century.]
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Megawatts and Megatons
[A Nature book review of
Richard Garwin's and Georges Charpak's treatise on the
trade-offs between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Garwin is one of the original designers of the hydrogen bomb
and Charpak, a Nobel Laureate, is a strong advocate for
nuclear power and a vigorous opponent of weapons
development.]
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An Ancient Nuclear Reactor
[Two billion years ago, in
the region of West Africa today known as Oklo in Gabon,
water seeped into an uranium ore deposit unusually in the
radioactive isotope U-235 and slowed its naturally fast
neutron decay sufficiently to produce a fission reaction and
thus "nuclear power" and plutonium! So plutonium is,
after all, a "natural" element.]
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David Bodansky's Talk at APS at APS #100
[Talk at the 100th
Anniversary Meeting of the American Physical Society in 1999
by the author of the most widely used textbook on nuclear
power engineering. Good source on numbers in the
nuclear power industry and issues with recycling and
disposal.]
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David Bodansky's Paper from APS #100
[Very thoughtful and based
on the above talk. Although Bodansky is a prominent advocate
of nuclear power and its almost limitless resources, he
speculates whether "really cheap energy" would spark an even
larger exponential growth in population.]
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SuperGrid White Paper
[A slick brochure
handout describing the project] |
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SuperGrid Functional Characteristics
[Describes the overall
technical specifications for two embodiments, 1)
SuperSuburb, loosely based on the electricity and
transportation requirements of a Silicon Valley community
such as San Jose, and 2) SuperTie, a 10 GW bi-directions
cross-continental SuperCable to effect diurnal trading
between California and an Atlantic Seaboard "California
Equivalent."]
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SuperGrid Executive Presentation
[A massive PowerPoint
file (11 MB) for use by EPRI executives and members.
It contains material from just about every SuperGrid talk
I've given over the past 5 years]
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EPRI Program 122: Power Delivery Applications for
Superconductivity
[Web site for the
non-SuperGrid EPRI superconductivity program involving SMES,
FCL and system impact projects.]
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Recent PMG Stuff
PMG
Recent Technical Papers - Peer
Reviewed
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"The
SuperCable: Dual Delivery of Hydrogen and Electric Power,"
Paul M. Grant, Power Systems Conference and Exposition,2004,IEEE
PES,PSCE04 Panel Session on Future Power
Delivery Options for Long-Term Energy Sustainability, 10-13
October 2004, New York, Pages 1745 - 1749, Vol. 3, Digital
Object Identifier 10.1099/PSCE.2004.1397675
(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org).
[Original SuperCable paper
concentrating on physical dimensions and losses.]
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| "The
SuperCable: Dual Delivery of Chemical and Electrical Power,"
Paul M. Grant, IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. 15, 1810 (2005).
[The general design of a
dual-purpose cable to deliver electricity via
superconductivity and chemical potential power via cryogenic
hydrogen or natural gas is presented. A universal
dimensionless scaling parameter for sizing each type of
power is defined.]
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| "Cryo-Delivery
Systems for the Co-Transmission of Chemical and Electrical
Power," Paul M. Grant, Adv. Cryo. Eng. (appearing).
[Emphasis on the delivery of cryofuel in the form of liquid
hydrogen or supercritical hydrogen gas at 77 K or as LNG
along with wellhead generated electricity.]
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| "Superconductivity
and Electric Power: Promises, Promises...Past, Present and
Future," P. M. Grant, IEEE Trans. Appl. Super. 7, 112
(1997). [Although
not "recent," many of the observations and conclusions are
still valid. Based
on a Plenary Lecture at the 1996 Applied Superconductivity
Conference held in Pittsburg. An in your face review of
where power applications have been, were at in 1997, and
where they might be going. Contains a description of
the "electricity pipe" concept of Grant, Schoenung and
Hassenzahl]
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PMG
Recent Popular Articles
| "Nuclear
Energy's Contribution to the City of the Future,"
P.
M. Grant, Nuclear Future, Vol. 1, No. 1, p.17 (2005).
[Lead-off
article in the inaugural issue of the trade journal of the
British Nuclear Industry, just before the second article by
El-Baradei!]
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| "A
Power Grid for the Hydrogen Economy," P.
M. Grant, C. Starr and T. J. Overbye, Scientific American,
July 2006, p.76.
[Explores the vision of cryogenic, superconducting conduits
connected into a SuperGrid that would simultaneously deliver
electrical power and hydrogen fuel.]
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PMG Recent Popular Talks
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"SuperCities and
SuperGrids: Teratechnologies for an Exajoule World," P.
M. Grant, Ohlone Community College Brown Bag Science
Seminar, 7 April 2006 (Invited).
[A popular talk
on the nuclear, hydrogen and superconductivity vision, the
basis for an article in the July, 2006 issue of Scientific
American. This page contains links to a wide variety
of energy-related publications and web sites for students
majoring in energy and environmental sciences.]
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| "View
from Electric Power Industry as a Whole,"
P. M. Grant,AFOSR-MURI
Coated Conductor Workshop, Harpers Ferry,
WV, 30 July 2004 (Invited).
[The
situation in the aftermath of the August 2003 east coast
blackout. Concludes that strong Federal action is
needed to subsidize and prod the transmission RTOs into
adapting already mature and reliable technologies.]
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Back to top
SuperTunes
| "High
Voltage," M & A Young, (AC/DC: High Voltage).
[The Power Engineer's anthem] |
| "It's
a Long Way to the Top...," M & A Young, (AC/DC: High
Voltage). [On trying to win the Nobel
Prize.] |
| "You
Can't Always Get What You Want...," M. Jagger and K.
Richards, (Let It Bleed, ca. 1969).
[Both Bill Little and I want
this played at our respective funerals. The legend is that
Mick wanted to get a "cherry coke" at a London "chemist's"
who were out of cherries and cherry syrup. He was thus
told, "You can't always get what you want." This
typifies the long search for room temperature
superconductivity. Enjoy.}
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| "Tomorrow,"
R. Seger, (ca. 1970s).
[A parable on the
difficulties of predicting the future...like applications of
superconductivity!]
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| "Roddy
McCorley," Ethna Carberry, (A Ballad of the Irish
Rebellion of 1798, lyrics ca. 1890).
[Nothing to do with
superconductivity, although the underlying ideas that
eventually explained it were developed by the Irish
physicists Michael Faraday and William Thomsen. If you
ever wonder why immigrants come to America, here's one...at
home you got hung if you spoke out.]
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| "The Skye Boat Song,"
Harold Boulton, (ca. 1930s, lyrics based on a 18th Century
Scottish aire). [Relates the
escape of Charles Stuart to the Isle of Skye after his
disastrous defeat at the hands of the English at Culludon.
Maybe he had some members of Clan Grant on board as well.
Fortunately, many Scots remained to later create rise to
James Clerk Maxwell, James Dewar and Peter Higgs.]
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| "Ringsend
Rose," Brendan Grace.
[Perhaps the most beautiful
of Irish love ballads.] |
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Personal
PMG Resume
PMG Personal Web Page
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