Energy Dependence and CO2: NearestTerm Opportunities for a Dramatic Reduction

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Energy Dependence and CO2 Nearest-Term
Opportunitiesfor a Dramatic Reduction

• Drs. Paul J. Werbos and James A. Momoh
• NSF, IEEE, ACUNU/MP, Howard U.
• -- presenting personal, not official, views
• PJW 80s EIA/DOE lead analyst for
• long-term energy futures

pwerbos_at_nsf.gov
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National Science Foundation
Engineering Directorate
Computer Info. Science Directorate
ECS
IIS
EPDT Chips, Optics, Etc.
Control, Networks and Computational Intelligence
Robotics
AI
Information Technology Research (ITR)
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MegaChallenges for the 21st Century ECS Role

• Key Challenges To Basic Scientific Understanding
• How to build/understand real Intelligent Systems?
  (computational intelligence)
• How does the Universe work? (Quantum...)
• What is Life? (QSB quantitative biotechnology)
• Key Broader Challenges to Humanity
• Sustainable growth on earth
• Cost-effective sustainable space settlement
• Human potential

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Some budget numbers for Fiscal Years 2003, 2004

• Total Engineering Directorate540m, 565m
• Total Electrical and Communication Systems (ECS)
  73m, 75m
• Available for new awards in ECS core programs
  36m, 35m
• Success rates for regular unsolicited proposals
  in ECS core programs 24, 11

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www.stateofthefuture.org
CD-ROM Energy Paper
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When Oil and Gas Get Too Costly, Economically or
Politically

• How do we keep our cars running?
• Where does the new fuel or electricity come from?
  Sources? Distribution?
• Rapid growth in imports of LNG
• Serious hope of avoiding a crisis of dependency
  in time but no guarantee

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HOW MUCH TO REDUCE CO2,WHEN?
Kyoto Approach Too little
The Purist Way True H2 , Too late
The Middle Way 6-fold goal 30 years
Carbon Dioxide Reduction
2004 2030 2100
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TECHNICAL PILLARS OF THE MIDDLE WAY
INDEPENDENT SUSTAINABLE ELECTRICITY
INDEPENDENT SUSTAINABLE CAR FUELS
TRULY INTELLIGENT POWER GRID

• Flexible fuel (e.g. Stirling)
• Plug-in hybrid step to electric
• New type fuel cell cars
• Methanol production

• Autonomous
• Adaptive
• Cyber Control
• MEMS, GPS

• Cleanest coal IGCC/sequest.
• Solar farms
• Space solar
• Also Team B?

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The chicken and egg problemwhich comes first?
H2 fuel , H2 car?

• Would you buy a car that only runs on H2 before
  your local gas station carries H2? Are PR
  stations enough?
• Would you invest trillion in gas stations and
  pipelines before people have H2 cars?
• Technically nonconvexity problem also high
  costs

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Long-Term Clean Alternatives to Carrying H2 in
Your Car Tank

• Hydrogen Carriers proven tested fuels that
  easily release hydrogen for use on-board a car
• Methanol, our best hope (next slide)
• Ammonia other carbon-free fuels (but
  chickenegg problem again)
• Electric Cars Cleanest, most efficient, but
  needs RD cant yet beat C new batteries in lab
  exciting, but not yet PLUG-IN HYBRIDS COULD GET
  US THERE.
• Thermal Batteries (Long-term option if Stirling
  grows)

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What IS Methanol?
H
H
H
C
H
C
H
H
H
C
H
H
C
H
H
H
O
Methane Natural Gas Scarce as Oil Needs Special
Tank
O
H
H
Methanol Good H Carrier Can Be Bioliquid Or From
Coal, Gas
Ethanol e.g From Corn Drinkable
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Best Hope for Fuel Cell Cars

• Carry methanol in the gas tank
• Small steam reformers (proven known technology)
  to convert methanol to hydrogen in car
• Carbon-tolerant alkaline fuel cell
• Unlike PEM fuel cell, no peroxide loss of energy
  and erosion can be made cheaper
• Realistic hope of twice the miles/Btu of hybrids
• Recent proof of air-electrode carbon tolerance
  (ECS)
• Plan for fuel side can use carbon black
  electrodes and Jiffy Lube electrolyte
  refreshing
• Breakthru battery RD needed for all hopes!

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GEM Flexibly Fuel Vehicles (FFV)One Tank To Hold
Them All
G Gasoline
E Ethanol
M Methanol
With an FFV, you choose each day which to buy At
100-200/car, a more open competition, level
playing field, better unleash the
power of the free market 40 of new cars in
Brazil GE flexible already
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GEM Flexibility Is Well-Established
ALCOHOL FUELS "Detroit is ready now to -- make
cars that would run on any combination of
gasoline and alcohol -- either ethanol, made from
corn or methanol, made from natural gas or coal
or even wood. Cars produce less pollution on
alcohol fuels, and they perform better, too. Let
us turn away from our dependence on imported oil
to domestic products -- corn, natural gas, and
coal -- and look for energy not just from the
Middle East but from the Middle West."
Source George Bush 1988 Campaign Brochures
www.4president.org
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AREAS FOR NEEDED LEGAL REFORMS

• EthanolMethanol Fuel flexibility should be
  MANDATORY in new gasoline-using cars from
  2006/7/8. Hybrids or advanced Stirling can also
  use GEM fuel tanks easily.
• Incentives and research opportunities for
  bio-methanol should be the same as for
  bioethanol, biohydrogen or better
• Zoning rules discouraging Distributed Generation
  should be modified to simplify renewable or
  alcohol fuel use
• Grid regulation needs to be made to fit
  "intelligence
• Leak proof tanks in gas stations for ALL fuels

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Short-Term Benefit of FFVsto US Oil/Gas Industry

• Outside US, cost of new methanol is 98/ton from
  remote gas (Google Canaccord methanol), much of
  which is now wasted (vented and flared).
• For oil companies, new remote methanol plant will
  be equivalent to new proved reserves! Free market
  will supply methanol if FFVS.
• Dont burn CH4 to electricity! There are better
  new electricity sources!
• Near-Term RD CH4-to-Methanol small to follow
  up Catalytica, could cut cost in half

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MAIN Sustainable Paths as Oil/Gas Run Out (i.e.
Cost More)
Nuclear
Methane
Buildings
Electricity
Space Solar
Motor Vehicles
Methanol (CH4OH)
Earth Solar
Industry
?
Coal
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Sources Where Does the Electricity or Methanol
Come From If Not Oil/Gas?

• Two scenarios Base-Case-Present-Trends Versus
  Real-Hope-If-We-Act-More
• Base Case
• Iran, China, eventually everyone builds fission
  as fast as they can. Bin Laden Construction Co.
  and its less savory competitors grow very rich,
  very fast. 4-8/kwh
• Little guys (wind, rooftop solar, Anwar, ethanol)
  make big but dont plug half the supply-demand
  gap
• Supply-demand gap still widens. Old coal fills
  the gap, filling half the world with barely
  survivable air (worse than Chinas cities today).
  Not so much methanol.
• Santa Claus drowns Arctic Ice Cap Double or
  Nothing

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Real Hope If We Work/Think Hard

• THREE TEAM A TECHNOLOGIES
• We know that all three CAN WORK and CAN provide
  all the worlds energy needs cleanly
• IGCC (Cool Water/Texaco/Eastmann/GE) Clean Coal
  Technology, Good for carbon sequestration,
  efficiency, wants to produce electricity and
  methanol together
• solar farms on earth with mirror or lenses but
  breakthru needed on cost, new workshops?
• Space solar power new designs from
  NASA-NSF-EPRI
• Need better (agile, international?) funding
  vehicle for high risk breakthrough TEAM B hopes,
  like advanced large-scale biomethanol
  biotechnology.

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Some Issues Re Earth Solar

• DOE 10-year targets 14/kwh PV, intermittent
  power, cant compete with coal 4 baseload. Cost
  of balance of system is stubborn with solar
  farms. Even worse for low efficiency (now 3)
  nano-based PVs this decade.
• Sandia has projected 6/kwh using mirrors and
  advanced Stirling to convert heat to electricity.
  But we dont yet have the mirrors and
  improvements seem slow.
• Cost breakthrough in mirrors may be possible,
  e.g. as spinoff of NASA work on flexible
  self-assembling lenses to focus light for space
  use. But options have yet to be scoped out and
  explored systematically. Workshops?
• All DG (solar, biomass, wind) Hayes says
  hookups are the real barrier. Solution
  intelligent grid and zoning changes and improved
  advanced Stirling (industry)

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NSF-NASA Workshop on Learning/Robotics For
Cheaper (Competitive) Solar Power
See NSF 02-098 at www.nsf.gov URLs
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Some Outcomes

• 98 proposals, 21 million recommended after tough
  merit review, 3 million funded
• Previous NASA SERT program first well-validated
  designs but 17/kwh even assuming 200/lb
  earth-to-LEO (Low Earth Orbit)
• Now 4 designs may achieve cost breakthrus, merit
  follow-up. One hybrid light-to-light laser with
  D-D inertial fusion and microwave beaming might
  get lt1/kwh for kwh to receiver (rectenna).
• Little of Texas AM claims he can demo ability to
  avoid communications interference.
• Near-term vehicle design 1st wi real hope
  lt200/lb

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Key Needs for Space Solar

• Partnership with NASA
• New Big Laser (2/4 cheap ways)
• Affordable launch (follow-on to ECS-funded plasma
  hypersonics)
• Improved Robotics REQUIRES MORE USE OF
  COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE!!! (NSF/DARPA??)
• Cheaper rectennas PES/MTT partnership

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Human mentors robot and then robot improves skill
Learning allowed robot to quickly learn to
imitate human, and then improve agile movements
(tennis strokes). Learning many agile movements
quickly will be crucial to enabling gt80 robotic
assembly in space.
Schaal, Atkeson NSF ITR project
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Distribution and Grids Upgrading the Middle is
As Important As Cars And Sources!
Nuclear
Buildings
Electricity
Space Solar
Motor Vehicles
Methanol (CH4OH)
Earth Solar
Industry
?
Coal
Successful Transition Will Require An Intelligent
Electric Power Grid
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Dynamic Stochastic Optimal Power Flow (DSOPF)
How to Integrate the Nervous System of
Electricity

• DSOPF02 started from EPRI question can we
  optimally manageplan the whole grid as one
  system, with foresight, etc.?
• Closest past precedent Momohs OPF integrates
  optimizes many grid functions but
  deterministic and without foresight. UPGRADE!
• ADP math required to add foresight and
  stochastics, critical
  to more complete integration.

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Beyond Bellman Learning Approximation for
Optimal Management of Larger Complex Systems

• Basic thrust is scientific. Bellman gives exact
  optima for 1 or 2 continuous state vars. New work
  allows 50-100 (thousands sometimes). Goal is to
  scale up in space and time -- the math we need to
  know to know how brains do it. And unify the
  recent progress.
• Low lying fruit -- missile interception,
  vehicle/engine control, strategic games
• New book from ADP02 workshop in Mexico
  www.eas.asu.edu/nsfadp (IEEE Press, 2004, Si et
  al eds)

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Emerging Ways to Get Closer to Brain-Like Systems

• IEEE Computational Intelligence (CI) Society, new
  to 2004, about 2000 people in meetings.
• Central goal end-to-end learning from sensors
  to actuators to maximize performance of plant
  over future, with general-purpose learning
  ability.
• This is DARPAs new cogno in the new
  nano-info-bio-cogno convergence
• This is end-to-end cyberinfrastructure
• See hot link at bottom of www.eng.nsf.gov/ecs
• Whats new is a path to make it real

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Intelligent Grid Requires Intelligence But Also
Hardware

• Brain-like intelligence is embodied intelligence
  sensors, actuators and feedback on performance
  are essential parts of the new designs.
• Reduce world CH4 to kwh sell and upgrade
  Brazils superior transmission technology
  (Pilotto, Watanabe could save California
  billions quickly, allow cheap electricity from
  underused Utah coal plants)
• EPRI plan to add more communications, sensors,
  intelligent appliances (e.g. car chargers to turn
  on at quiet times at night, to exploit times of
  strong wind)
• Interface of intelligent grid with human users,
  markets and regulations. (www.pserc.cornell.edu
  EPNES at www.nsf.gov.)