THE GULF STREAM TURBINE
STEADY LOW-COST ELECTRICITY FROM A
CORIOLIS-FORCE CURRENT
March 11, 2003
November 7, 2007
Unlike the intermittent energy that comes from the
winds, the tides, and the sun, the energy in the
GULF STREAM TURBINES LLC
Contact:
JOHN H ROBSON – Chairman/Inventor
Phone – 847 566 6947
ROWEN NEGRIN – President
Phone – 954 907 2254
ADVANTAGES
OF THE GULF STREAM TURBINE CONCEPT
The Gulf
Steam is a Steady Coriolis-Force Current
Comparing
the Coriolis Current to Tidal Currents
Gulf
Stream Turbines Compared to Wind Turbines in Florida
Locating
the Center of Buoyancy above the Center of Gravity
The
Downward Vector Forces Must be Balanced
Balancing
the Downward Vector Forces with a Low Tether Hitch Point
Controlling
Depth by Moving Center of Buoyancy
The
Importance of Inherent Stability
Depth Control
System Greatly Simplifies Installation and Recoveries
Variable Pitch
vs. Stall-Controlled Turbines
How Much
Electricity Can a Gulf Stream Turbine Produce?
Mind
Boggling Environmental Benefits
Gulf Stream Turbines will be Fish Friendly
Comparative
Costs of Electricity
Revenues
from Electricity, subsidies, and carbon offsets
Gulf Stream Power Can Help Solve Florida's Water Woes
GAS SAVED BY GULF STREAM TURBINES CAN REDUCE OIL IMPORTS
Gulf Stream
Turbines should be Mass Produced in Huge Numbers
About the
Inventor and Officers
Advantages
of the
·
Powered by steady Coriolis current produced by the
earth’s rotation
·
Capacity factors comparable to those of fossil-fuel
plants
·
Unlike the winds, tides, and sun, current can
generate steady electricity
·
No fuel cost
·
Rarely used brakes should never need servicing
·
Elegant design simplicity to give it low O&M
costs
·
Silent and invisible
·
Produces no CO2
·
Slow turning rotors will not harm marine life
·
Constructed of non-corroding materials
·
Easily mass-produced
·
Depth can be accurately controlled and easily changed
by remote control
·
Inherently stable – will not tip, yaw, or pitch
·
Can produce electricity for 5 to 7 cents
per kWh during amortization period
·
Electricity Costs will drop to near zero
after the capital costs are amortized
·
Eligible for production tax credits of 2.1-cent per
kWh
·
Revenues increased from sale of carbon permits with
cap and trade legislation
·
Off-peak power can produce hydrogen and to recharge
batteries
·
Can supply
electricity for the desalinization of salt water
The Gulf Stream is a Steady Coriolis-Force Current
Though most of the efforts for
producing power from renewable energy have been concentrated on capturing
energy from the wind and the sun, there is a much better source of renewable
energy that is available to our southeastern states that can produce huge
amounts of electricity: the
With the exception of the tides, which are produced by the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, most of the ocean’s energy comes from the sun’s radiant energy. Though some of that energy is converted by algae into carbohydrates, most is stored as heat and it is the warmed water that activates the global winds that produces the oceans' waves and currents.
In
both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans the two trade winds drive an
immense body of water westwards over a width of some 50o of
latitude, broken only by the narrow belt of the east-going Equatorial
Counter-current which is found a few degrees north of the equator in both of
these oceans. A similar westward flow of
water occurs in the
In
addition to producing the Coriolis effect that produces the oceans’ gyres,
another consequence of the earth’s eastward rotation is that the center of each
of those gyres is offset toward the western edge of the ocean basin that
confines it. Because the volume of water
flowing toward the poles along the narrower western sides of the gyres is the
same as that circulating back toward the Equator down the much broader eastern
expanses, the constricted western currents are forced to flow much
faster than their eastern counterparts.
This results in such powerful currents as the Gulf Stream in the western
The Gulf Stream starts
roughly where the Gulf of Mexico narrows to form a channel, between
Though the Gulf Stream’s peak
current velocity may at times reach more than 8 miles per hour in its narrow
axis off of
Comparing
the Coriolis Current to Tidal Currents
We are interested in the tidal current turbines because they also involve the generation of electricity with underwater turbines and the transmission of electricity to shore. Also, serious money is being invested in their development – even though their capacity factors will be extremely low. The ability of a turbine to produce electricity depends on the speed and steadiness of the fluid that is driving it. Though the usable current velocities that drive the tidal turbines can be about the same as those that would drive the turbines powered by the Gulf Stream, the tidal currents oscillate and can produce at their rated power only for very short periods between the high and low spring tides.
The preceding graphs show the
potential generating potential for tidal turbines that was being planned for
If we
superimpose the power that would be generated by a Gulf Stream Turbine having
the same combined capacity onto the two graphs, the production would be
indicated by the red lines. The tidal
power plants would generate approximately 3,308,288 MW of wildly fluctuating
quantities of electricity per year, while the Gulf Stream Turbines – if it had the same 3500 MW generating capacity, would generate 22,353,300 MW of steadier
electricity.
Gulf Stream Turbines Compared to Wind Turbines in
Although wind turbines
can produce electricity without burning polluting fossil fuels, there is little
wind-power potential in the Southeastern States. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has
gathered data on a region-by-region basis to identify the nation’s wind-energy
resource. The results of this effort are
contained in the Wind Energy Resource
Atlas of the United States. The
Southeast region consists of
The preceding map is from the
Even when the wind turbines are placed in the best locations, Gulf Stream Turbines will have much higher capacity factors
simply because the wind turbines’ energy source is inherently
intermittent. The winds are
unpredictable and can fluctuate hourly and have marked seasonal and diurnal
patterns. The wind turbines can make
good use of their rated power only when the wind velocities are within a
relatively narrow range. Because the
kinetic energy of all moving fluids both increases and decreases with the cube
of the velocity, as the wind speed falls below the turbine’s rated speed, the
output drops off sharply.
Those turbines powering asynchronous generators that are
directly connected to the grid must spin above minimum speeds to produce usable
electricity that has the AC frequency in sync with the grid system. Below those rotation speeds most electronic
wind turbine controllers are programmed to let the turbine run idle without
grid connections. In contrast, the Gulf Stream Turbines will be powered by a
current having a much more consistent flow rate that will permit them to
produce usable electricity virtually one hundred percent of the time.
Because the winds do not blow steadily at even the best
wind sites, the electric power that the wind turbines can produce over time is
much less than their rated capacities.
This is known in the electricity trade as a low capacity factor. Wind
turbines also frequently produce the most power when the demand for that power
is at its lowest. Low capacity factors
and still lower dependable on-peak capacity factors are the major source of the
wind power’s problem. For example, in
Capacity factors are
extremely important to the efficiencies and economics of both wind and
water-powered generating plants. Let’s
assume that a giant wind turbine has a “rated wind speed” of 25 mph and a rated
output capacity of 2,316 kilowatts per hour.
Multiplying that hourly output capacity by the 8,760 hours in a year
gives a theoretical capacity of 20,288,160 kilowatt-hours per year. But because the capacity factors for wind
turbines are between 17 and 37 percent, the actual output of the machine would
only be between 3,448,987 and 7,506,619 kilowatt-hours per year. If any wind turbines were to be placed in
Because the Gulf Stream is driven by our planet’s spinning on its axis
and the steady trade winds, its flow rate off of
The Gulf Stream Turbine is a unique concept for a self-supporting submersible power plant that utilizes the laws of physics to maintain stability and to control depth, and permit it to operate safely near the surface and to descend to greater depths to get below the most turbulent water during storms. To neutralize the torque that would otherwise roll a tethered generator in the direction opposite to the turbine’s rotation, the machine has two turbines and generators that rotate in opposite directions so that the torque produced by one turbine is neutralized by that of the other. The two generators and gearboxes are housed in watertight, rear-facing nacelles that are located below and to each side of a torpedo-shaped buoyancy tank that extends fore and aft. The weight of the heavy generators and gearboxes serve as ballast to get the structure’s center of gravity far below its center of buoyancy (the center of gravity of the displaced water).
The invention is based on the relative positions of buoyancy and weight to obtain stability and on a unique method of using leverage to balance the hydrodynamic lifting forces to the changing downward vector forces to control depth. Because these machines are constructed of light carbon-fiber and fiberglass, they will require less displacement than if they were made of metal and – more importantly – they will not corrode. Because of the Gulf Stream Turbine’s mechanical simplicity, they can generate electricity for extremely long periods – even years – with no servicing. The actual conversion of the water’s kinetic energy into electricity utilizes the same technologies that are used by the wind-turbine industry. However, unlike the wind turbines, these machines will operate in a dust-free environment, will not contend with widely fluctuating velocities, and will be able to produce usable power 24-7.
Locating
the
The following drawing shows a
Gulf Stream Turbine tipped at an exaggerated angle of 20 degrees to illustrate
how the forces that are produced by having the center of buoyancy high above
the center of gravity can prevent tipping.
The location of the center of gravity is shown by the green dot and the
center of buoyancy by the blue dot. If
the machine were tipped, the length of the righting moment will equal the
length of the righting arm (the horizontal red line projecting to the right of
the green dot to the blue line that extends vertically downward from the center
of buoyancy), multiplied by the machine’s
weight. The length of that righting arm
will equal the distance between the centers of gravity and buoyancy, multiplied
by the sine of the angle of tilt. For any given weight and angle of tilt, the
righting moment will be proportional to the distance between the center of
buoyancy and the center of gravity. If that distance were doubled, the righting
moment for any angle of tilt would also be doubled. U.S. Patent 6,531,788 is the only patented
submersible power plant that has its center of buoyancy located above its
center of gravity.
Though
the vertical separation between of the center of gravity and the center of
buoyancy is the most important principle of physics that provides the Gulf
Stream Turbine with its great inherent stability, the invention has other
features that add to that stability. For
example, the hydrofoils are mounted high on the buoyancy tank, placing their
lifting forces far above the center of gravity, which further increases the
righting moment. The hydrofoils’
dihedral increases the structure’s stability still more because the lower
hydrofoil of a tipped machine will produce more lift than the raised
hydrofoil. Additionally, by having the
anchor line’s attachment point located far below the lifting forces adds even
more to that stability. And lastly, the placement of the vertical and
horizontal tail fins at the rear of the buoyancy tank places the structure’s
centers of lateral and vertical resistance far behind the anchor-line’s
attachment point to prevent yawing and pitching, and to keep the structure
facing directly into the current. (The center of lateral resistance is that
theoretical point from where an applied force could move the structure sideways
without it rotating. The center of
vertical resistance is that theoretical point from which a force could move the
structure vertically without it rotating.)
The Downward Vector Forces Must be Balanced
Depending on the downward angle of the anchor line at its attachment point, the downward vectored forces, produced by the horizontal drag from the turbines, could be considerable. As the angle of the anchor chain increases from the horizontal, that downward force will increase as a percent of the unit’s total horizontal drag. If the submersible power plant were prevented from moving lower by an opposing lifting force, the downward vector force would increase in proportion to the tangent of the anchor line’s downward angle where it attaches to the unit. If that downward angle remains constant, then the downward vector force will increase in proportion to the kinetic energy, increasing with the cube of the current’s velocity. To prevent this increasing downward force from pulling a unit deeper, that downward force must be balanced with an equal and opposite lifting force. This can be done by either increasing the unit’s buoyancy, by using hydrofoils to provide hydrodynamic lift, or by a combination of both. If the downward force is not equalized, the unit will be pulled down to that depth where the angle of the anchor chain’s pull will be reduced sufficiently so that the resulting downward vector force will equal the upward forces being provided by the buoyancy and hydrofoils. The forces would then be in equilibrium and the unit would remain at that depth – as long as there were no changes in the current’s velocity or in the demand for electrical power. An increase in either would further increase the horizontal resistance and cause the unit to move still lower. Likewise, if the load on the generator were reduced, the turbine’s rotors will turn with less resistance, producing less drag, which would reduce the downward vector force and cause the unit to move higher.
Balancing the
Downward Vector Forces with a Low Tether Hitch Point
The center of frontal resistance is that theoretical point where all the drag forces are balanced so that, if the structure were to be towed from that point, it would move forward without rotating. The simplest method for balancing the changing downward vector forces is to have the anchor-line’ attachment point located at a proper distance below that center of drag. Then, if an increase in the horizontal drag should cause an increase in the downward vector force, the increased pull on the low anchor-line attachment point will place a rotational force on the entire machine to raise its nose and drop the tail. This rotational force does not need to cause the structure to actually rotate, but must increase the lifting force being produced by the hydrofoils enough to balance the increased downward vector force.
If there is no change in the angle of the anchor line and no change in the hydrofoils’ angle of attack, the rotational force will change proportionally with both the horizontal drag and the tension on the anchor line. The key to this leverage system for creating the proper amount of hydrodynamic lift to balance the downward forces at varying current velocities is the relationship between the loading on the hydrofoils D and the distance (the length of the lever arm) between the center of drag A and that point C that is perpendicular to the line that extends the angle of the anchor line from B to F. If buoyancy is used to support almost all of the structure’s weight and the lifting forces produced by the hydrofoils are used to balance the downward vector forces, once the correct hitch point height B has been determined for a given velocity – because all of the forces will remain proportional – the machine will tend to remain at the same depth in currents of differing velocities and with changing generator loads.
Controlling Depth by Moving
The Gulf Stream’s central
axis, where the current flows the fastest, is located about 15 to 20 miles off
of
Previously I have described how the Gulf Stream Turbine utilizes the vertical separation of its centers of buoyancy and gravity to prevent tipping. This same principal of physics that causes a free-floating object to float with its center of gravity directly under its center of buoyancy can also be used to control the depth by simply moving the center of buoyancy or center of gravity forward or backward, relative to each other. These movements will raise or lower the machine’s nose to adjust angle of attack of the attached hydrofoil to produce the proper hydrodynamic lifting force that is needed to precisely balance the downward vector force when the machine is at the proper depth. U.S. Patent 7,291,936 adds such a depth control system that measures the depths by the hydrostatic pressures, which will increase by .4444 psi per foot of depth.
Earlier papers and U.S. Patent 7,291,936 describe changing the relative positions of the centers of gravity and buoyancy in terms of moving the center of gravity in relation to a fixed center of buoyancy to control the depth. This paper describes that movement in terms of moving the center of buoyancy in relation to a fixed center of gravity. Though the results will be the same, it is easier to understand because those parts of the buoyancy tank that will have the same density as that of the displaced water will have no effect on the structure’s buoyancy other than that water will occupy the same space that would otherwise by filled with the much more buoyant air.
In the following illustration the center of gravity is located at the green dot I. The blue dots E and F are the extreme theoretical locations of the center of buoyancy with the line F-G being the line that would become vertical if the center of buoyancy were at F, and E-H being the vertical line if the center of buoyancy were at E. The center of buoyancy for an operating machine would be between K and L, with the verticals being K-M and L-N.
The following schematic is of a modified version of the Gulf Stream Turbine described in U.S. Patent 7,291,936 that will make the installations and removals much easier – as well as provide total control of the depths from remote locations. The buoyancy tank is divided into four compartments, A, B, C and D, with the compartment D being combined with the interior volume of the hydrofoils 17. There is a water transfer system 5, capable of moving ballast water back and forth between the two end compartments A and D. This water transfer system consists of a first pump 1, a first pipe 6 and a first special check valve 4, capable of transferring ballast water from the rear compartment D to the front compartment A. The second part of this transfer system consists of a second pump 2, a second pipe 7 and a second special check valve 3, capable of transferring ballast water from the front compartment A to the rear compartment D. The two pumps 1 and 2 are controlled by a pressure switch 26 that is activated by the hydrostatic pressures going either above or below limits that can be controlled from a remote location. The special check valves 3 and 4 will not only not allow water to flow in the wrong directions through the pipe 7 and 6, but they will also not allow water to flow in the right direction if the pressure in the pipe is not above a minimum. This is to prevent the water from siphoning between the end compartments due to differences in their levels. Each special check valve is failure proof, consisting of a heavy ball that rests upon the valve's intake port to prevent low-pressure water from flowing through the valve in the wrong direction. When the pump is running, the increased pressure will lift the ball off the valve's inlet port to allow the water to move through the valve in the right direction.
Partition 20 that separates compartments C and D is connected by the pipe 27 that allows water to flow from compartment C into compartment D after compartment C is full. The pipe 27 extends to the front end of compartment C so that compartment will stay full as the loading of compartment D causes the buoyancy tank’s rear end to sink lower. Compartment C should remain full because it should have near neutral buoyancy, its purpose being primarily to increase the distance between the two end compartments that are used to adjust the center of buoyancy. By moving the ballast water from one of the end compartments to the other, the changing volumes of water will produce opposite changes in the volumes of the lighter air, which will move the center of buoyancy in the direction opposite to that of the moving water. Partition 20 also has an opening to the pipe 6 that transfers water from compartment D to compartment A. There is also a second opening through which water from compartment A is transferred through pipe 7 to compartment D. The bulkhead 18 has no openings other than for these same pipes and for a vent 22 that equalizes the air pressures between compartment A and B, and a vent pipe 24. Vent 22 uses a buoyant ball in a cage that will allow air to pass between compartments A and B, but not water. Pipe 24 links the air space in compartment A with highest points inside the raised tips of the two hydrofoils at 8 to allow air to move between compartment A and the tips of the hydrofoils. Compartments A, C, and D have baffles 23 that restrict the movement of the ballast water. Compartment B (not flooded) contains the electric pumps 1 and 2, the special check valves 3 and 4, and other electrical gear. This space is accessible through hatch 16. Partition 19 is watertight with the pipes 6, 7 and 24 passing through it. Each of the machines is linked electronically to a command center to permit the settings of the depth control switches 26 on all of the machines in a string to be simultaneously changed. This feature permits all of the machines to be raised to make them easily accessible for servicing – or lowered to get them below the turbulence during storms.
In addition to the pressure-controlled system that controls the machine’s depth, the schematic drawing on page 21 also shows a schematic of a ballast-water purging system that is similar to the one described in U.S. Patent 7,291,936 that uses air that is pressurized inside the buoyancy tank to expel the water. The valves 9 each have a buoyant ball in a cage that floats above the outlet as long as it is flooded. As the last of the ballast water is being purged from each compartment, the ball drops into the valve’s outlet to stop the pressurized air from escaping to conserve it to purge the water from the other compartments.
The Importance of Inherent Stability
There is an
important difference between an inherently stable submersible power plant and
one that is not. An inherently
stable plant uses those innate forces that are produced by the relative locations
of its lifting and downward forces to maintain an unchanging attitude in
relation to both the direction of the current flow and to the horizontal plane.
The source of that inbuilt stability cannot be separated from the machine’s
design, and it will remain level and under control without any separate control system.
In contrast, the inherently unstable submersible
power plant will not remain stable without some type of separate mechanical
control system that constantly monitors the machine's attitude and makes those
control adjustments that are needed to keep the machine level and under control. The obvious danger with such a design is
that, should any part of the machine’s control system fail, there will be no
innate force to prevent the machine from rolling and going out of control. The combination of the submersible power
plants’ close proximities, their long anchor lines, and an inherently unstable
design is a recipe for a rapidly spreading disaster.
Depth Control System Greatly Simplifies Installations and
Recoveries
The hydrostatic-pressure-activated depth-control system, working with the low-hitch point system creates benefits that exceed those that could be provided by the two systems operating separately. Working together, they will make the installations and recoveries relatively easy. During the initial installations, the proper amount of fresh or filtered ballast water is pumped into compartment C of each of the Gulf Stream Turbines that have been formed into strings that are floating on the surface. This water will first fill compartment C of each of the machines and then pour into compartment D and the hydrofoils. The resulting loss of buoyancy at the rear of the buoyancy tanks will cause the sterns to sink lower, which will increase the lifting forces produced by the hydrofoils, which will keep the ballasted machines hydroplaning on the surface. After the buoyancy tanks of all of the machines have been filled with the proper amount of ballast water, switches can be thrown to energize the generators’ stators to start producing electricity, and to activate the pressure-controlled depth control systems that will cause all of the machines to descend in unison to the desired depth.
The pressure
activated depth-control system also will allow a string of Gulf Stream Turbines
to be returned to the surface by simply overriding the depth control systems to
turn on all the pumps on all of the machines that will transfer the ballast
water from their front compartments to their rear compartments. After there resulting increases in the hydrodynamic lifting forces have lifted the machines
to the surface, the buoyancy tanks can be purged on those machines that are to
be removed. The anchor lines then can be
disconnected from the extension cables, the extension cables disconnected from
the anchor lines, the electricity extension cables disconnected from the
electricity collecting cables, and the Gulf Stream Turbines can be hoisted from
the water.
The following drawing
shows the electricity collecting cable that carries the electricity from all of
the Gulf Stream Turbines that are in a string to where the cable connects to another
cable that follows one of the anchor lines down and forward to where the cable
connects to the transmission cable that is on the seafloor, near the
anchor. This cable arrangement will
allow the Gulf Stream Turbines to swing laterally to accommodate moderate
variations in the direction of the current.
.
The first step in the installation process is the
placing of the individual anchors. Using a typographic map of the ocean floor,
an echo-depth finder, and GPS, each anchor is accurately placed. As each anchor reaches the bottom, the large
buoyant spool onto which its neutrally buoyant anchor lines had been wound and
to which it is still attached, can be rolled into the water to serve as a float
to support the top end of the anchor line.
The preceding two drawings show a concept for catamaran designed for
accurately placing the anchors, anchor line, and, later, the electricity
collecting cable segments. The large deck area is for carrying and installing these
segments. The following three
drawings show a catamaran that is designed for transporting and installing the
Gulf Stream Turbines. Both watercraft
are shown equipped with two forward and two rear jet drives that can rotate 360
degrees to permit them to maintain position in a strong current.
Variable Pitch vs. Stall-Controlled
Turbines
Serious damage can occur if an excessively strong fluid velocity should overpower an asynchronous generator to force it to spin too fast for its electricity to remain in sync with the grid. Wind turbines use both pitch-controlled and stall-controlled systems to avoid this problem. On a pitch-controlled wind turbine the turbine’s electronic controller checks the power output of the turbine several times per second. A computer then changes the pitch of the blades a few degrees every time the wind changes to keep the rotor blades at the optimum angle to maximize output for all wind speeds.
The stall-controlled wind turbines have fixed blades that are designed so that they will start to stall when the wind’s velocity goes above the turbine’s rated speed. As the rotational speed of the rotor is effectively constant, limited by the grid’s 60-Hz current that is magnetizing the generator’s stator, the angle of attack of the blades will increase with an increasing wind speed. As the wind speed increases above that of the turbine’s rated speed, the angle of attack of the air passing over the blades increases so that the blades will begin to stall, causing the lift to drop and drag to increase to a more inefficient lift-to-drag ratio to reduce the driving torque. These blades are typically designed so that stall occurs at the rated wind speed, with the most optimal angle-of-attack setting occurring earlier.
Because the pitch of the blades is fixed, the turbine rotor is mechanically simple as there is no blade pitch system required, thus eliminating the need for hydraulics, electrics, or pitch bearings. Because of their mechanical simplicity, the stall-controlled blades should prove to be an excellent choice for the Gulf Stream Turbines. The following shows the stall-controlled blades that are used on Verdant Power’s six turbines that have been producing power from the East River of New York City.
The stall-controlled turbines that are being used on Verdant Power’s
(Because the stall-controlled
rotor blades cannot be feathered, Verdant Power had a few problems with the
blades breaking as the rotors were being lowered into the fast-moving
water. Because the rotors were not
turning, the force of the river’s current pushing against the outer portions of
the non-rotating blades were perpendicular to their surfaces, which caused
some of the blades to break as they are being lowed into the rapidly moving
water. This isn’t a problem when
installing the wind turbines because their rotors can be installed during
periods when the winds aren’t blowing.
However, when installing the Gulf Stream Turbines in the constantly
flowing
How Much Electricity Can a
The fact that the most common generators that are now being installed on new wind turbines have capacities of 1500 kW or more does not mean that the generators on the Gulf Stream Turbines must also be large to be efficient. The major reason why the wind turbines have been getting bigger is – because the larger machines are also taller – they can capture energy from the higher winds that are stronger.
Because
the velocity of the
Mind
Boggling Environmental Benefits
On May 27, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that the chief executives of such companies as BP, PepsiCo, and Duke Energy called for an immediate and substantial change in the trend of rising global greenhouse-gas emissions, which they said must peak and begin to fall within the next decade and be reduced by at least half of the 1990 levels by 2050. Quantitatively, the most important of the greenhouse gases causing global warming is carbon dioxide, and the generation of electricity is responsible for 40% of all US CO2 emissions.
Every
kilowatt-hour of electricity that can be generated with water or wind can
replace an equal amount of electricity that is now being generated by burning a
fossil fuel. According
to the EIA the gas-fired power plants produce approximately 1.321 lb of carbon
dioxide for every kWh of electricity that they produce. A Gulf Stream Turbine that is equipped with
two 600-kW generators would generate 8,941,300 kWh of electricity per
year. To produce the same amount of
electricity as the Gulf Stream Turbine, a gas-fired power plant would need to
consume 52,650,000,000 Btu of natural gas and emit 5,905 tons of
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A
coal-fired plant producing that same amount of electricity would emit about 13
thousand tons.
According to Our Ecological Footprint, (Wacklermagel
& Rees, 1996), a forest absorbs about three
Unlike fossil-fuel powered plants, the amount of power that will be generated by the Gulf Stream Turbines will not be affected by the demand for the electricity but by the strength of the current. During off-peak periods, any surplus power that might be generated can be used to recharge the batteries of electric cars and plug-in hybrids, and to produce hydrogen for those cars that use fuel cells – all of which will further reduce the emissions of CO2 and our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
Gulf Stream Turbines Will Be Fish
Friendly
The Gulf Stream Turbines will not harm fish
or other marine life because its rotors will be turning no faster than about
2.25 rpm. (This is based on a rotor that
is sized to generate 600 kW of electricity from a 5-mph current. The remainder of this section was redacted
from the article, Hydro Green Energy
Hydrokinetic Technology Proves Fish Friendly, which
appeared on the website of HydroWorld.com on January 10, 2010:
The first
and only direct fish survival study performed on a hydrokinetic turbine shows
that the technology is exceedingly safe for fish. The hydrokinetic power turbine tested was
designed and manufactured by Texas-based Hydro Green Energy, LLC, which also
operates the unit at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lock and Dam No. 2 in
At the
This
methodology uses a controlled experiment approach and produces comprehensive,
statistically reliable and verifiable results on injury and survival of fish
passed through a turbine, spillway or over falls. To accomplish this task, Normandeau deployed
502 balloon and radio tagged fish of a variety of species and sizes. 402 fish
swam through HGE’s hydrokinetic turbine, which rotates at 21 revolutions per
minute, and 100 were allowed to swim freely in the river near the turbine. Environmental scientists studied fish survival
and injury rates of both groups after recapture of nearly all the tagged fish.
Only one
fish out of the 402 that were introduced into the hydrokinetic unit showed
evidence of direct physical harm, and Hydro Green Energy reports that this may
have been due to the fact that the fish was outfitted with a balloon tag,
causing it rise to the surface to interact with the hydrokinetic device in a
manner that otherwise would never occur.
“The
comprehensive study performed on our hydrokinetic turbine wholly confirms what
we had modeled with a computer before the turbine was installed, as well as
what we knew in our minds: our hydrokinetic turbine is an extremely
environmentally friendly technology,” said Wayne F. Krouse, Chairman and CEO of
Hydro Green Energy. “From the first day this project was envisioned, Hydro
Green Energy committed itself to performing this study as a way to not only
advance our technologies and projects, but to advance the global hydrokinetic
power industry as a whole. While the study specifically validates our
technology, it also validates our pre-installation computer modeling, which can
be performed on other technologies with a high degree of confidence.”
The per-kilowatt cost of generating electricity, regardless of the method used, consists of the fixed costs, fuel costs, and the non-fuel operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. It is the high capacity factors and the low operating costs that make it possible for the Gulf Stream Turbines to produce more electricity and greater revenues than any other method of generating electricity, per dollar invested.
The
amount of power that can be produced is the single most important factor that
affects the costs per kWh of the power generated. Because there will be no fuel costs and low
O&M costs, the costs of the electricity that a Gulf Stream Turbines produces
will basically be the amortization costs, divided by the kWh of electricity
generated during the amortization period.
(They can also be based on the power produced during the expected life
of the machine.) The first of the
following two tables gives the amortization costs per kWh for Gulf Stream
Turbines that have a capital cost of $2,000 per kW, with the amortization
periods and interest rates that are indicated.
The second table is for those Gulf Stream Turbines that have a capital
cost of $2,500 per kW. Obviously, the per-kWh
cost of the Gulf Stream Turbines’ electricity will drop to near zero at the end
of the amortization period because of the only costs remaining will be the low O&M
costs.
There are several reasons why
the O&M (operation and maintenance) costs for the Gulf Stream Turbines will
be substantially lower than those for the wind turbines. Unlike the winds that must contend with winds
that can vary from zero to hurricane-force velocities, the velocities of the
Gulf Stream Turbine’s current will be much more even. This makes it possible for their generators
to continuously produce electricity by having the generator’s high cutoff speed
set higher than the current’s highest expected velocity and its low cutoff
speed set lower than the current’s lowest expected velocity. Because the
Following are some of the wind
turbines’ maintenance costs that the Gulf Stream Turbines can avoid:
·
The brakes should not
need servicing because they will seldom be used and then only briefly
·
Using stall-controlled
rotors blades eliminates those problems with pitch-control
·
Excessive current
velocities can be curbed by increasing depths to slower water
·
There will be no
yaw-control system that will need servicing or repair
·
Steadiness of the
current’s velocity will eliminates breakage caused by excessive forces
·
There will be no dust
from brake wear or from the environment to cause problems
·
The structures will be
made of non-corroding materials and have no moving parts
Wind
Turbines’ Fixed Costs
According to the report Projected Costs of Generating Electricity
2005 Update, published by the International Energy Agency “…For intermittent renewable sources (of
energy) such as wind, the availability/capacity factor of the plant is a
driving factor for levelized costs of generating
electricity… They range between 17% and
38% for onshore plants, and between 40% and 45% for offshore plants except in
Typically, those wind turbines that are installed by developers are financed over 12 years and those installed by investor-owned utilities are financed over 20 years. Capitalization costs range from about $1,500 to $2,500 per kW of capacity. The following table provides the amortization costs per kWh for wind turbines that have a capital cost of $2,000 per kW of generating capacity, operating with a capacity factor of 15% over various amortization periods and at different interest rates.
Because the wind turbines in
Wind Turbines’ O&M Costs
According to the website of the EWEA (Europe Wind Energy Association):
Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs constitute a sizeable share of the total annual costs of a wind turbine. For a new turbine, O&M costs may easily make up 20-25 percent of the total legalized costs per kWh produced over the lifetime of the turbine. If the turbine is fairly new, the share may be only 10-15 percent, but this may increase to at least 20-35 percent by the end of the turbine’s lifetime. As a result, O&M costs are attracting greater attention, as manufacturers attempt to lower these costs significantly by developing new turbine designs that require fewer regular service visits and less turbine downtime.
To the wind turbines’ higher fixed costs and higher O&M
costs must be added the costs of the additional gas that would be consumed by the
standby generators that will be needed when the winds aren’t blowing. Because the capacity factors for
Many More Nuclear Plants Are Needed
The
estimates of the costs for new nuclear power plants place them among the
costliest private projects ever undertaken.
Even though the projected costs for new nuclear reactors have been
increasing by 15% per year and have quadrupled over the past decade, the
utilities that are promoting new nuclear power assert that it is their least
costly option because the renewable sources of wind, tidal, and solar energy
are intermittent and unreliable.
The Wall Street Journal (Dec 5-6, 2009) reported that escalating
costs of nuclear power have spooked CPS Energy, a city-owned utility in
If the two nuclear plants that cost $13 billion were to operate at the same 85% capacity factor as the Gulf Stream Turbines, they would generate 20,117,970,000 kWh of electricity per year. If those same funds were used to purchase Gulf Stream Turbines that cost $2,000 per kW of installed capacity, those billions would purchase enough Gulf Stream Turbines to produce 48,432,041,667 kWh per year. It the Gulf Stream Turbines were to cost $2,500 per kW of installed capacity, the number of machines purchased with that $13 billion would produce 38,754,633,333 kWh per year.
In addition to the Gulf Stream
Turbines producing as much as 2.7 times the electricity per dollar invested, the
Gulf Stream Turbines would also no fuel costs and much lower non-fuel O&M
costs. According
the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the total annual costs associated with the
“burnup” of nuclear fuel resulting from the operation of a nuclear power plant
is based on the amortization costs associated with the purchasing of the
uranium, conversion, enrichment, and fabrication services, along with the
storage and shipment costs, and inventory (including interest) charges, less
any expected salvage value. For a
typical 1,000 MW reactor, the approximate cost of the fuel for one reload
(replacing one third of the core) is about $40 million, based on an 18-month
refueling cycle. The average fuel cost
at a nuclear power plant in 2008 was 0.49 cents per kWh.
There
are also the annual costs associated with the operation, maintenance,
administration, and support of a nuclear power plant. Included are the costs of labor, material and
supplies, contractor services, licensing fees, and miscellaneous costs such as
employee expenses and regulatory fees. The average non-fuel O&M cost for a
nuclear power plant in 2008 was 1.37 cents per kWh. Based on the figures for the amortization
costs, fuel costs, and non-fuel O&M cost, the total costs for the electricity
produced by the nuclear plant would be between 26.85 cents and 31.85 cents per
kWh.
Though
the costs of nuclear power will be higher than those for that electricity that
can be generated with the Gulf Stream Turbines, we must build many more of them
because – other than the Gulf Stream Turbines, conventional hydroelectric, and
geothermal – none of the other sources of renewable energy can supply reliable
electricity.
Natural Gas
Even
though the recent development of the horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing technologies have made available much of the shale gas that formerly
had not been economically producible, any energy policy that encourages an
increasing long-term dependence on that fuel can only result in the total
collapse of our economy, sometime after about 2040. Though the development of the new drilling
technologies may have increased the proved gas reserves to 100 years (based on
the present rate of consumption), the production of that gas will not remain at
the present level for one-hundred years and then suddenly drop to zero in
2110.
FUTURE
The
preceding graph shows a forecast of possible future gas production that is
based on the assumption that rate of gas production will increase rapidly
during the next few decades, spurred by the need to satisfy the growing demand
that will be caused by much higher oil prices and by the reductions in coal
use. The problem will appear suddenly
when the gas producers are no longer able to increase production fast enough to
satisfy the increasing demand – while replacing that production that will be
being lost due to depletion. Unless
there are enough new non-polluting nuclear and other nonpolluting power sources
installed and operating before the production of gas starts rounding over (the
graph shows this occurring in the late 2030s) there will be a serious problem
that will be caused by an increasingly unsatisfied inelastic demand.
On January 2, 2001, the Wall
Street Journal ran a front-page story that said, "In California, where natural gas powers many electricity plants
and state rules until recently banned electricity producers from buying on the
futures market, the cash price has risen, though fleetingly, to as high as $60
per million BTU.” This astronomical
price proves that, whenever there is an unsatisfied inelastic demand, the
prices of the gas will be determined only by what people will be willing to pay
to get the gas that they need. Because
the demand for gas is inelastic, a slight shortage can cause the prices of gas
to increase several fold. Because the
resulting high gas prices would reduce discretionary spending, they would cause
a far more serious economic problem than the
present recession that has been caused by unsound financial policies.
Though the new horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies have allowed us to rapidly increase the gas production for perhaps the next 30 or 40 years, it is important that we realize that these technologies have only postponed supply of gas to avoid a serious gas shortage that had been eminent, it is important that we realize the these technologies will not the these technologies did not remove the danger of the gas shortages causing an economic disaster – they have only postponed the inevitable – postpone that natural gas shortage that had been eminent – the development of the shortages of conventional gas depression than the present one. There will be no way to end a recession that will be caused by the energy shortages other than to other sources of energy.
Revenues from Electricity,
Subsidies, and Carbon Offsets
Electricity Prices Follow Natural Gas Prices
The
wholesale prices of electricity tend to follow the wholesale prices of natural
gas because the price of the electricity includes the cost of that fuel that is
consumed to produce it. It is because
the operating costs are the highest for the gas-fired power plants it is that
electricity that is sold on the wholesale market. The close relationship between the
electricity and gas prices can be seen by comparing the prices in the following
two graphs after January 1, 2008.
Since
the spot prices for electricity hit their peak in July of 2008, the drop in
demand for gas from industry and the electric utilities, plus an increase in
the production of unconventional gas from shale, created a gas glut that caused
the gas prices to slump to $2.00 per MBtu and the
electricity prices to fall to about 2.5 cents per kWh ($25/MWh) in September of
2009.
The preceding
graph that is on the left shows the Henry Hub daily spot prices between January
4, 2009 and January 4, 2010. The graph
on the right shows the average monthly prices between 1999 and the present. Because the Henry Hub prices represent only those sales contracts
for next day delivery, the prices can be extremely volatile. The next graph shows the average wellhead
prices since 1930. The wellhead prices
include the value of natural gas liquids and cover
the wellhead prices of all gas sold under contracts of all durations.
Higher Gas Prices Needed for Shale Gas
Production
It is only in the
last few years that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies
have made the production of that natural gas in shale economically
feasible. However, because the costs of
developing these unconventional wells are much higher than those for
conventional wells, the incentives to produce this gas are understandably
sensitive to the gas price. Because of
the differences in the permeability of the shale and the depth of the
formations, the costs to produce the gas vary greatly. A price that is high enough to justify the
development of production from the Barnett Formation of Texas may not be high
enough to develop production from the Marcellus Formation of Ohio,
Though the initial production from the unconventional wells is higher
than for older conventional wells that are in the same rock formations, the
technology is so new that long term production data is not available. After the initial production of that gas is in the open
fissures, flow rates decline because the most of the gas is contained in tiny
pore spaces within the rock and there is poor communication between them. There is also gas in the shale’s organic
matter that also releases slowly. The
combination of the high capital costs and the slow flow rates mean that the
wellhead gas prices must be high to justify the investments.
As
long as the gas producers know where the shale gas is located and can increase
production by simply drilling more wells into the easier to develop formations
whenever the gas prices are sufficiently high to make the new wells profitable,
the gas prices will probably fluctuate between roughly $6 and $12 per MBtu, though they could spike much higher due to changes in
the supply-demand balance caused by cold weather.
Revenues from Government Subsidies
On
February 17, 2009, President Obama extended the production tax credits (PTC)
and investment tax credits (ITC), which have been critical to the growth of the
renewable-energy sector, and added a new incentive: Treasury grants that could
be taken in lieu of tax credits, designed to promote the growth of renewable energy
despite the economic downturn. Companies
that generate electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, hydrokinetic, and
“closed-loop” bioenergy that use dedicated energy
crops are eligible for the PTC which provides a 2.1-cent per kWh benefit for
the first ten years of a renewable energy facility's operation.
A second subsidy is double
declining 5-year depreciation, which allows investors to take a 40% tax
deduction the first year and a 24% deduction the second year. At the end of
five years the deduction is complete. In
addition, about 20 states have adopted renewable portfolio standards
(RPS). An RPS requires retail electric
providers to purchase a certain percentage of their power from renewable
resources.
Returns on Investments in
The next graph
shows how the returns on the investment in a Gulf Stream Turbine will vary with
the wholesale prices of the electricity.
Because the capacity factors will be at about 85%, those machines that
have a capital cost of $2,000 per kW of capacity would produce an annual return
of 7.82% from just the 2.1 cent
per kWh production tax credit alone. The
table on the right gives the percentages of returns on investments from the
sale of the electricity at prices from zero to 21 cents per kWh and from the
PTC for Gulf Stream Turbines that have capital costs of $2,000 and $2,500 per
kW of capacity.
Based on a capital cost of $2,000 and an 85% capacity factor, with each penny increase in the wholesale price of the electricity, the annual return on the investment would increase by 3.73%. As can be seen in the table, if the wholesale electricity price were at only 6 cents per kWh, each Gulf Stream Turbines would produce an annual return of 30.18% [(3.73 x 6)+7.82% = 30.18%]. If the capital cost were $2,500 per kW, that return would be 24.14%. If the wholesale electricity price were at 10 cents per kWh and the capital cost was at $2,000 per kW, then the annual return on the investment from both the sale of the electricity and from the 2.1 PTC would total 45.08%.
Large Additional Income from the
To help curb global warming, the federal government has set a goal to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide by 17% by 2020. Under a cap-and-trade program, those industries that emit CO2 at levels that exceed a certain level or cap would either have to buy carbon permits from those greener industries that do not need all of the permits that they are issued. The sale of the carbon permits would be handled through an organized exchange, similar to the trading of stocks and commodities. Because the prices per ton of CO2 would be determined by auction, they will be determined by supply and demand. Over time the carbon limits would be lowered to allow less and less emissions, until the ultimate reduction goal is met.
Economists Joseph Aldy and William Pizer performed a study on behalf of the
“According to financial experts, carbon permits could
quickly become the world’s largest commodities market, growing to as much as $3
trillion by 2020 from just over $30 billion today. With thousands of firms and energy producers
buying and selling permits to emit carbon, transaction fees for exchanges and
clearing alone could top nearly half a billion dollars.
If Congress establishes proper oversight of a carbon
market,
An infrastructure is already beginning to form, as entities
like the
Investors can play the carbon market by either investing in the carbon credits themselves, or by investing in those companies that will be increasing their profits from selling those credits they don’t need. Because the Gulf Stream Turbines will emit absolutely zero carbon dioxide and operate with high capacity factors, they well earn more than twice as many salable carbon permits than those renewable system that rely on the kinetic energy of the winds or tides, or the radiant energy from the sun – in terms of both the number of permits issued per kilowatt of generating capacity and per dollar invested.
In the earlier section entitled Mind Boggling Environmental Benefits we stated that a Gulf Stream Turbine, equipped with two 600-kW generators and operating at an 85% capacity factor, would generate 8,941,300 kWh of electricity per year. We also stated that to replace that same amount of electricity that was presently being generated with a coal plant would reduce the carbon dioxide emissions by about 13,000 tons. If the price of the carbon permits were at the $30 per ton, which happens to be the European carbon commodity futures price for January 2011, the owners of a 1.2-megawatt Gulf Stream Turbine could conceivably receive an additional $390,000 from the sale unneeded carbon permits to those generating electricity with coal. That additional income would increase the return on a Gulf Stream Turbine that cost $2,000 per kW by an additional 16.25%.
When the
various revenues that can be generated by the Gulf Stream Turbine are combined,
the results become impressive. For
example, if that $390,000 from the sale of the carbon offsets were to be added
to revenues of $894,130 that would be received from the sale of the 8,941,300
kWh at 10 cents per kWh, and the 2.1 cent per kWh hour production tax credit,
the total revenues would come to $1,471,887 per year, which be a return of
73.6% on an investment cost of $2,000 per kW, and a return of 58.9% if it were
$2,500.
Returns on the Investments for Wind Turbines
The following four
graphs are similar to the preceding graph for the Gulf Stream Turbine except
for the differences in the capacity factors.
The first graph shows the percent returns on investments of $2,000 per
kW of capacity for a wind turbine with a capacity factor of 15%, which is
probably more than what should be expected from wind turbines in
Gulf Stream Power Can Help Solve Florida’s Water Woes
Why
Beginning
in 1998,
The most important of the
surficial aquifers is the Biscayne
aquifer, which covers 3,000 square miles in southeast
The Chokoloskee aquifer is yet another on
of
The much deeper Floridian
aquifer is a portion of a much larger artesian aquifer that extends into the
Drought Caused Water Management to
Consider Alternative Water Sources
It
was because of the three-year drought of 1998-2001 that the utilities, local
governments, and water management districts began making plans to develop
alternative water sources to ensure that the future demands for drinking water
can be met. These plans have included the
building reservoirs, drilling deep wells to store water for dry times,
expanding the use of treated sewage water for lawns, and the desalination of
seawater. The West Coast Regional Water
Supply Authority (later to become Tampa Bay Water) chose desalination because
it was the only alternative water source being considered that would not be
adversely affected by drought. This
decision resulted in the construction of the largest desalination plant in the
Though
this plant was designed to have a maximum capacity of 25 million gallons a day,
the plan was to have it produce only 15 million gallons a day – enough to
provide about 10% of Pinellas Hillsborough, and
The following diagram is reproduced from the website of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It was contained in a paper entitled Water, Energy and Climate Change. It shows the kilowatt-hours of electricity required to produce one cubic meter of drinking water from those sources that are listed. The diagram was amended by WBCSD from an article that appeared in Scientific American in October of 2008.
The desalination of seawater requires extremely large amounts of energy, making the desalinated water costly compared to costs of fresh water from rivers and groundwater. It is because of the very high water pressures that are required by the reverse osmosis technology to push the water through the semi-permeable membranes that separate the salts from the seawater that the costs of the per cubic meter of the produced fresh water are high and extremely sensitive to the costs of the energy used.
When
Thermal Power Plants Consume Large
Quantities of Water for Cooling
According to the second law of
thermodynamics, not all of the thermal energy produced by a heat engine can be
transformed into mechanical power.
Consequently, all thermal power plants produce
waste heat energy as a byproduct of the useful electrical energy that they produce.
The amount of the waste heat energy normally exceeds the amount contained in
the electrical energy that the plants produce.
Natural draft wet cooling towers at nuclear and large fuel-fired power plants
use large hyperbolic chimney-like structures that release the waste heat to the
ambient atmosphere by the evaporation of fresh water. Of the potential desalination sites in
Water
used for cooling Susquehanna Nuclear Plant in
In areas with restricted water
use a dry cooling tower or radiator that is directly air cooled may be
necessary when the costs or environmental consequences of obtaining make-up
water for evaporative cooling would be prohibitive. These air cooled systems have
lower efficiencies and higher energy consumption than the evaporating cooled
systems, largely due to the power used by the fans to blow huge volumes of air through
the dry cooling towers.
Where economically and environmentally feasible,
the electric companies sometimes prefer to use cooling water from the ocean, a
lake or river, or a cooling pond, instead of a cooling tower. Though this type
of cooling can save the cost of a cooling tower and may have lower energy costs
for pumping cooling water through the plant's heat exchangers,
the waste heat can significantly increase the water temperatures. Power plants using natural bodies of water
for cooling must be designed to prevent intake of organisms into the cooling
cycle.
Unlike the thermal power plants that are
powered by steam produced by boiling water, the Gulf Stream Turbines are
powered by the “free” hydrokinetic energy contained in the constantly flowing
Gulf Stream, and unlike the thermal power plants, the Gulf Stream Turbines will
require no freshwater for cooling and cause no noticeable heating of the environment.
“Greetings from
On April 5, 2009, I received the following
email:
Dear Dr. Robson,
This is Falin Chen writing this email from
In this
national program, there is a major project is to harvest the momentum of ocean
current “Kuroshio” to generate electricity. Due to this project, your article “The
Before I go
any further into our KPP in
He then asked questions about whether the Gulf Stream Turbine is
suitable for deep-water deployment and about the potential effect that a very
large numbers of machine might have on the momentum of the current. Then he stated:
In fact, we I have surveyed suitable turbines
worldwide, we found your design for Gulf Stream could be applied immediately to
Kuroshio as well. I hope my above questions do not
bother you. And hope sincerely that your design can be the solution to our
‘long quest’.
Best wishes
Falin
Chen
University Chair Professor
Professor Chen then sent me another email in which
he said:
For a long time
passed, I had read your report before and was very impressed by your design in
which many practical thinking are very useful to us in
He then asked
about how much power could be removed from the Kuroshio
without affecting the environment, about the most economical size, about best
mooring system, about whether the machines would be able to survive typhoon,
and an estimation of the cost per MW of Kuroshio
power. He then wrote:
To reply your kind offer, let me first
describe briefly about the progress of Kuroshio Power
Plant (KPP) project in
There are many other questions to be
answered, but please let me know you thoughts about the questions above and
maybe other questions I do not mention above but you think are important to us.
After reading your story about your
involvement in Gulf Stream Turbines, I would like
to let you know about my part also: I have been traveling around the globe four
times seeing different turbines (such as MCT in north Ireland, Mythos in
Messina Strait, UEK in Annapolis (the old Swiss engineer CEO died last year, he
is a good man really), Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Race Rocks in Vancouver,
Korea, ….
I am also deeply involved in the current
generation, I also sincerely hope that we can help each other to make this
concept become reality, which will help not only the US but also Taiwan to
resolve their energy dilemma.
Please keep in touch and we need to
encourage each other to maintain our energy to push forward our projects.
Thank you again for your kind email
and look forward to our future cooperation.
Best wishes
Falin
(Though the Kuroshio
is comparable to the Gulf Stream where it flows past the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula, southwest of Tokyo, where it passes along
the east coast of Taiwan, it is both wider and slower, traveling at an average
speed of only about 1.2 meters per second (2.6844 mph) during the summer and
about 0.9 meters per second (2.0133 mph) during the winter. Because the amount of hydrokinetic energy
contained in a moving fluid increases and decreases with the cube of its
velocity, for a Gulf Stream Turbine to produce a total of 1.2 MW from a 2-mph
current, each of its two rotors would need to have diameters of 246.27
feet. (They would require 4.396 minutes
to make a single revolution.) If the
machines would be equipped with rotors of the same size as those that would
power 600-kW generators in the
Gas Saved by
Not only can the Gulf Stream Turbines indirectly produce large reduction in the emissions of CO2, they can also indirectly reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil. Though only about 1.6% of this nation’s electric power is presently generated with oil, by reducing the amount of natural gas that is consumed to produce electricity would make more gas available for other purposes. The “Pickens’ Plan” proposed by T. Boone Pickens would use wind turbines to replace the gas that is now being consumed to produce electricity, which could then be used as fuel in our vehicles. The difference between the Pickens Plan that uses the wind turbines and one that would use the Gulf Stream Turbines is that – because of the Gulf Stream Turbines will have much higher capacity factors – each dollars invested in the Gulf Stream Turbines would free-up 3 to 5 times as much gas as would the investments in the wind turbines.
A better plan, and one proposed by a growing number of groups is to electrify our transportation system. Instead of converting part of our transportation system to natural gas, only to later have to convert it back to renewable fuels, we should start now to convert the transportation system to electricity and hydrogen and make that electricity increasingly from renewable sources. Whether the Gulf Stream Turbines would produce electricity that replaces gas that would then power vehicles, or whether the Gulf Stream Turbines would produce electricity that would be charge the batteries of plug-in hybrids and electric cars, and produce hydrogen for fuel-cell powered cars, the electricity that would be generated by the Gulf Stream Turbines would indirectly be replacing imported oil.
The
The Gulf Stream Turbines, operating in the central axis of the
Gulf Stream off the coast of
During World
War II, the Ford Motor Company built a giant plant at Willow Run,
The Inventor and Chairman: John Robson
John Robson was raised in
After receiving his Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture,
John served two years as a personnel officer at Luke AFB,
While John was operating the farm, he invented a variable-speed conveyor that allowed trucks to quickly dump their loads of chopped forage onto a movable apron that could move at widely varying speeds. The machine allowed dump trucks to unload as quickly as they could raise their dump bodies. Not only did the invention permit the trucks to immediately return to the field for another load, the invention's variable-speed apron also permitted the material to be transferred to the silo filling machine at a rate that would perfectly match the silo filling machine's maximum capacity. John had not planned on patenting his variable-speed conveyor until a representative from a farm equipment company saw it operate and urged him to do so. It is US Patent No. 3,370,695.
After the farm was sold, John went into the retail fuel business
with his two older brothers. During the
1970s and early 1980s, John served eight terms as the president of the Oil Heat
Marketers Association, a trade association that represented retail fuel oil
marketers in northeastern
The paper that John presented at that hearing described how the
government’s policy of controlling the interstate natural gas prices had not
only discouraged investments to increase the production of natural gas and
encouraged its wasteful use, but that had also discouraged the investments to
increase the production of all the other sources of energy. After Representative John Rousselot
(R. CA) read John’s paper, he made a short speech about it before Congress and
had it printed in the Congressional Record (Dec 4, 1973). He then had John’s paper reproduced from the
Congressional Record and mailed to all of his constituents. A few weeks after that Senate hearing, the CEO
of Mobil Oil, “Wally” Warner, had two of his men call on John at his office to
ask permission to reprint the essence of John’s paper in the informational
“ads” that Mobil was running to educate the public about the need for the
government to end its short-sighted and disjointed energy policies.
Later John developed a relationship of mutual respect with Dr.
William A Johnson, an economist whom William E. Simon had brought to the then
new Federal Energy Administration from the Treasury Department. It was through
Dr. Johnson that John managed to get the FEA to stop allocating naphtha (raw
gasoline) and other light petroleum feedstock to the gas utilities which they
converting to synthetic natural gas (and losing 10% of the fuel’s heat content
in the process). The gas companies were
then mixing their very expensive synthetic gas with their much larger volumes
of the artificially cheap price-controlled natural gas and then used the gas to
convert more residential oil customers to gas.
John did not realized that he had been the one to cause the end of the
allocations of the naphtha to the synthetic gas plants until “Bud” Lawrence,
the Executive Director of the American Gas Association, told him that he had
attended a meeting in which Dr. Johnson had repeated my arguments almost
verbatim and that he had been adamant about ending the allocations.
As the result of the earlier statement that John had presented at
the Senate Commerce Committee’s hearing, he was asked to serve as the Chairman
of the Natural Gas Task for of the National Oil Jobbers Council (later to be
renamed as the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association). He did all of his own research for the papers
that he wrote for the testimonies that he presented to congressional committees
and federal and state commissions. He
was also asked to serve as a member of the Natural Gas Transmission and
Distribution Advisory Committee of the FEA and the DOE, was appointed to the
Natural Gas Supply Committee of the Federal Power Commission (which never met),
and served as a member of the Energy Efficiency of Buildings in Cities Advisory
Panel for the Office of Technology Assessment (1982) of the 97th Congress. In addition to representing the members of
the National Oil Jobbers Council, the Illinois Petroleum Association, the Oil
Heat Marketers Association, on two occasions John was asked by the National
Federation of Independent Business (he was a member of NFIB) to represent that
organization at meetings with the Department of Commerce.
It was Dr. M. King Hubbert, probably the best known geophysicist
in the world for his 1949 prediction that the fossil fuel era would be of very
short duration, who convinced John that the
John Robson
December 13, 2009
President: Rowen Negrin
Rowen, living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and a graduate of
the University of Miami, is helping to bring fresh, new, renewable technologies
to the market that will help stabilize climate change while becoming a critical
part of the solution towards the building of better national security,
addressing environmental challenges and tackling the problem of economic
competitiveness we all face in today's world. Gulf Stream Turbines new source
of electricity generation and its cost, comparable with wind turbines, along
with an 85% + capacity factor will ensure a more efficient future with zero CO2
emissions. Mr.Negrin's driving force, entrepreneurial
background, management skills, production skills and marketing expertise will
help make this vision a reality. He created an American icon with his creation,
manufacturing and marketing of "THE CHIA PET", designed and
manufactured products for Revlon, and other ventures. He has owned &
operated 2 restaurants: POPPY'S in
Rowen Negrin
December 29, 2009
