I enjoyed your article. You rightly say it is important to explain the difference between primary energy and useful energy. How about an example:
Gas Power Inc burn methane in a modern combined cycle gas turbine to produce electricity. They are 55% efficient, so 1kWh of gas power becomes 0.55kWh of electrical power. Mrs. Jones has a heat pump which runs at COP 3.6. She converts the electrical power into heat creating 2kWh of warming for her home. Imagine if she had used wind or solar electricity to do this. She would have nearly 4kWh of heat for every 1kWh of wind powered electricity! Imagine the tragedy if she used a conventional electric fire - she would get only 0.55kWh of heat. She would have been better off burning methane gas directly (almost 1kWh of heat per kWh of gas power. Much better than the 0.45kWh wasted when converting it to electricity as low grade heat.
My other comment is you were a little inconsistent in use of unit symbols in your article. Sometimes you said TWh (correct), other times TWH (H is a henry, unit of electric flux). Also kilo is lower case - kWh is correct. K means kelvin (a unit of absolute temperature)
This is a great project, Bela, and I'm glad you're helping convey the energy and emissions basics, which get lost or fuzzed when folks toss terms araound too easily. That issue prompted me to start a #Watchwords series of posts: https://revkin.substack.com/p/watchwords-to-examine-as-sustainability-22-06-05 . "Energy transition" is on the list. I'd love to have you on a Sustain What webcast soon to dig deeper. For instance, a compelling 2018 Resources for the Future analysis showing at the global level that, so far, the world has only seen energy ADDITION, not transition (substituion): https://bit.ly/energytransitionRFF Do you feel "energy transition" (there are even technical journals with that name) is still an aspiration or was RFF wrong? Or is that the wrong goal? I was pleased to see your Twitter ID describing your mission as a "financing climate transition" - and I really like that. That's the transition we really want, right? A safe and sustainable relationship with climate (now a two-way relationship after 99 percent of history with climate in the driver's seat). And the same with energy. We should explore all of this in a webcast!
Dear Bela
I enjoyed your article. You rightly say it is important to explain the difference between primary energy and useful energy. How about an example:
Gas Power Inc burn methane in a modern combined cycle gas turbine to produce electricity. They are 55% efficient, so 1kWh of gas power becomes 0.55kWh of electrical power. Mrs. Jones has a heat pump which runs at COP 3.6. She converts the electrical power into heat creating 2kWh of warming for her home. Imagine if she had used wind or solar electricity to do this. She would have nearly 4kWh of heat for every 1kWh of wind powered electricity! Imagine the tragedy if she used a conventional electric fire - she would get only 0.55kWh of heat. She would have been better off burning methane gas directly (almost 1kWh of heat per kWh of gas power. Much better than the 0.45kWh wasted when converting it to electricity as low grade heat.
My other comment is you were a little inconsistent in use of unit symbols in your article. Sometimes you said TWh (correct), other times TWH (H is a henry, unit of electric flux). Also kilo is lower case - kWh is correct. K means kelvin (a unit of absolute temperature)
All the best
Paul
This is a great project, Bela, and I'm glad you're helping convey the energy and emissions basics, which get lost or fuzzed when folks toss terms araound too easily. That issue prompted me to start a #Watchwords series of posts: https://revkin.substack.com/p/watchwords-to-examine-as-sustainability-22-06-05 . "Energy transition" is on the list. I'd love to have you on a Sustain What webcast soon to dig deeper. For instance, a compelling 2018 Resources for the Future analysis showing at the global level that, so far, the world has only seen energy ADDITION, not transition (substituion): https://bit.ly/energytransitionRFF Do you feel "energy transition" (there are even technical journals with that name) is still an aspiration or was RFF wrong? Or is that the wrong goal? I was pleased to see your Twitter ID describing your mission as a "financing climate transition" - and I really like that. That's the transition we really want, right? A safe and sustainable relationship with climate (now a two-way relationship after 99 percent of history with climate in the driver's seat). And the same with energy. We should explore all of this in a webcast!