The Importance of Balance: Electricity in Mongolia
By Paul Sullivan,
Georgetown University
Looking at the International Energy Agency graphs on electricity production in Mongolia, one can see the dominance of coal. The only other source of electricity that even shows up is oil.
Both of these fuels are the dirtiest to use for producing electricity. The air pollution from them is about as bad as it gets. CO2 (carbon dioxide) production for each kilowatt hour of electricity is highest for coal, especially the softer coals. Oil is next in line. Natural gas produces a lot less CO2 for each kilowatt hour.
A kilowatt hour can be visualized as the running of a 1,000-watt lighting system for one hour. A 100-watt light bulb uses 0.1 kilowatt per hour. And you can figure it from there. It would be just 10 100 light bulbs and you get 1 kilowatt. You might want to check the wattage of your lights, televisions, radios, computers, and so forth and then add them all up to see how many kilowatts you are using every hour when these are running. A lot of you may be surprised by the results.
So every time you use your computer, lights, radios, electric stoves, and even when you recharge your Ipod, Ipad, and other electrical systems, you are draining electricity from the grid, unless you are getting all of this from a distributed power system that is just for your house, your factory, or neighborhood. You are also causing the production CO2, particulates, sulfur oxides (SOX) , nitrous oxides (NOX), and more at the power station when you use electricity.
I know that sounds odd. However that is what is happening. Just because you cannot see the power plant does not mean you have no part of what the power plant produces beyond electricity. Many countries have placed scrubbers in the coal-fired plants to reduce considerably the production of NOX and SOX. Some other countries are putting great efforts into carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
SOX, for example, when it combines with the humidity in the air causes “acid rain.” This can damage the land, crops, wildlife, grasses, and more in long term higher concentrations. There are lakes in the state of New York in the United States that are pretty much devoid of life due to acid rain. They have a nice clear bluish-green hue, but there are no fish there. This is from acid rain that came from the power plants and factories of sometimes hundreds or more miles away. It traveled from cities and factories to once pristine hills, mountains, and lakes.
However, Mongolia is doing little to contain the pollutants from the coal and oil plants. A lot could be done. I am certain the leadership in Mongolia is thinking about this. The health costs of particulates alone could be quite large in the future. They are already building. The most vulnerable to the particulates are the very young and the elderly. However, even the most robust of people can be harmed in the short and long runs when the pollution from the coal burning in the gers combines with the coal and oil burning in the oil and coal plants, especially in UlaanBaatar, given how the hills capture the pollution and keep it hovering in the city for long times in the winter most especially.
As Mongolia develops, gets richer, starts extracting minerals and putting them to use (and I recommend that these minerals be processed in Mongolia to allow Mongolia to grasp the value added of processed minerals, not just the raw minerals) and starts more industries and services, there will be quickly growing needs for electricity.
Mongolia is looking into wind and solar power. There are many gers that have solar power. Wind is being developed by even some private sector companies. This is good. Mongolia could also develop systems like the power towers that use both and wind. These can work even in the evening. The point of them is to have the air go through a large group of massive wind vanes at the bottom of a very tall chimney. By tall, I mean from one-half to one kilometer high. At the base of the chimney are a series of solar panels that are high enough to allow the air to flow from the earth’s surface to the top of the chimney. Think of this. There would be a series of panels connected in a big circle at the base and all around the tower. The wind would rush under the solar panels, which produce electricity in its own right. The wind would swoop upward through the wind vanes and out the top of the chimney. The whole process works like the chimney for a fireplace or stove, but nothing is burning. It is the difference in the temperatures from the ground to the top of the chimney that makes this happen. It is like the eagle using updrafts to fly up the side of a mountain.
There are hundreds and even thousands of alternative energy technologies that are out there, will be developed, and have declining costs. Solar power is not just from solar panels outside of the gers. Solar power can be painted on houses and buildings. There are thin-film technologies for solar power that can be applied to the outside of buildings and everngers if done carefully. Solar power can also be done via concentrated mirrors and parabolic dishes that heat up special salts. The technological world is wide open when it comes to alternative energies. Garbage-to-energy is another one. The waste from Ulaanbaatar could be collected in an incinerator plant and the garbage burned, which produces heat, which in turn produces steam in the plant that turns the turbine that produces electricity. Municipal and agricultural waste can also be captured under thick containing plastic sheets or within vats to produce methane, natural gas, and in turn can be used to produce electricity and can be used for heating and cooling.
The huge coal reserves in Mongolia can also be used to produce cleaner energy. I do not say clean energy because there is no such thing. Two ways of doing this with coal are underground coal gasification (UCG) and coal-bed methane (CBM) extraction. UCG, in a much simplified explanation, is created by sending down oxides and steam into a deep coal mine. Within the mine, there will be a combustion chamber to, via the use of the steam, oxides, and high pressures, create natural gas from the coal. This natural gas is extracted from the deep mine up the production shaft, which is separate from the injection shaft that brings the steam, etc. into the mine. This natural gas could then be sent to a natural gas power plant. This plant will produce much less pollutants than the coal plants. The natural gas could also be used for industrial purposes throughout the cities and town. It could also be used for much cleaner heating in apartments and more than what could be done with coal. CBM is another way of getting the natural gas, which is natural coal mines, out of the mine and into pipes and along to power plant lines. Another use is by simply extracting the water from the mine and having a production pipe direct the natural gas to a collection area and then on to its end uses.
These two methods are a lot more complex than what I describe here, but the basics give a sense of the possibilities of producing cleaner natural gas from much dirtier coal.
Another way to reduce pollutants for each kilowatt hour is to tighten up on the efficiency of power plants and of the things that use electricity. For most power plants about 65 percent of the fuel put in is lost at the plant in the form of heat out into the atmosphere. Then there are losses until the electricity gets to the house, hotel, etc. Then the inefficient lights, toasters, TVs, and more waste even further electricity. Using electricity to pipe water along 90 degree turns is just plain silly energetically. The pipes need to have smooth curves to save energy.
We can also go back to the light bulbs for ideas. Some light bulbs, such as LED (light emitting diode) bulbs produce as much light as a 100-watt incandescent light bulb, but use much fewer watts. The efficiency of light bulbs is increasing by the day. Lots of energy (lots of electricity and the fuels that go into them) is used to produce lighting in houses, hotels, factories, and more. The amount of electricity used can be drastically cut by using efficient light bulbs. From that we can see that for each light bulb, going back to the power plant, we produce less pollution. Getting the same amount of light with less damage to the environment and health seems like what we Americans call a no-brainer.
Light can also be produced naturally in buildings by redesigning the roofs to let light in. There are also light tubes that can bring natural light into factories and buildings without using a single watt.
I heard an interesting story the other day. There was a factory that was used to repair aircraft. They used very strong lights to light up the aircraft during the repairs. These lights produced a lot of heat. The workers also got headaches from the lights. They needed to take breaks from the heat and headaches regularly. It harmed productivity and it was not a nice place to work. An energy expert came in and replaced the lights with light tubes, lighting from the roof, more efficient and less heat-emitting lights, and redesigned the work floor to make it a better place to be with proper lights and cooling/heating when needed. Productivity went way up. The costs for the changes will pay themselves back in just a few years with energy savings and increased worker productivity. Everyone wins.
There are thousands of examples of how one can not only get the job done, but get it done better, in a better work environment and also while not using as much energy or harming the environment and health as much as before the changes.
Our chances for improving things, rebalancing things, are limited only by its creativity, imaginations and our desire to make things better.
Mongolia has the chance to do this right as it develops. The shelves of technologies and ideas are out there. Mongolia could grow and develop in a much better, cleaner, and more efficient way than most other countries. It is a matter of choice – and of leadership at many levels.
Short URL: http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=3204
Georgetown University
Looking at the International Energy Agency graphs on electricity production in Mongolia, one can see the dominance of coal. The only other source of electricity that even shows up is oil.
Both of these fuels are the dirtiest to use for producing electricity. The air pollution from them is about as bad as it gets. CO2 (carbon dioxide) production for each kilowatt hour of electricity is highest for coal, especially the softer coals. Oil is next in line. Natural gas produces a lot less CO2 for each kilowatt hour.
A kilowatt hour can be visualized as the running of a 1,000-watt lighting system for one hour. A 100-watt light bulb uses 0.1 kilowatt per hour. And you can figure it from there. It would be just 10 100 light bulbs and you get 1 kilowatt. You might want to check the wattage of your lights, televisions, radios, computers, and so forth and then add them all up to see how many kilowatts you are using every hour when these are running. A lot of you may be surprised by the results.
So every time you use your computer, lights, radios, electric stoves, and even when you recharge your Ipod, Ipad, and other electrical systems, you are draining electricity from the grid, unless you are getting all of this from a distributed power system that is just for your house, your factory, or neighborhood. You are also causing the production CO2, particulates, sulfur oxides (SOX) , nitrous oxides (NOX), and more at the power station when you use electricity.
I know that sounds odd. However that is what is happening. Just because you cannot see the power plant does not mean you have no part of what the power plant produces beyond electricity. Many countries have placed scrubbers in the coal-fired plants to reduce considerably the production of NOX and SOX. Some other countries are putting great efforts into carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
SOX, for example, when it combines with the humidity in the air causes “acid rain.” This can damage the land, crops, wildlife, grasses, and more in long term higher concentrations. There are lakes in the state of New York in the United States that are pretty much devoid of life due to acid rain. They have a nice clear bluish-green hue, but there are no fish there. This is from acid rain that came from the power plants and factories of sometimes hundreds or more miles away. It traveled from cities and factories to once pristine hills, mountains, and lakes.
However, Mongolia is doing little to contain the pollutants from the coal and oil plants. A lot could be done. I am certain the leadership in Mongolia is thinking about this. The health costs of particulates alone could be quite large in the future. They are already building. The most vulnerable to the particulates are the very young and the elderly. However, even the most robust of people can be harmed in the short and long runs when the pollution from the coal burning in the gers combines with the coal and oil burning in the oil and coal plants, especially in UlaanBaatar, given how the hills capture the pollution and keep it hovering in the city for long times in the winter most especially.
As Mongolia develops, gets richer, starts extracting minerals and putting them to use (and I recommend that these minerals be processed in Mongolia to allow Mongolia to grasp the value added of processed minerals, not just the raw minerals) and starts more industries and services, there will be quickly growing needs for electricity.
Mongolia is looking into wind and solar power. There are many gers that have solar power. Wind is being developed by even some private sector companies. This is good. Mongolia could also develop systems like the power towers that use both and wind. These can work even in the evening. The point of them is to have the air go through a large group of massive wind vanes at the bottom of a very tall chimney. By tall, I mean from one-half to one kilometer high. At the base of the chimney are a series of solar panels that are high enough to allow the air to flow from the earth’s surface to the top of the chimney. Think of this. There would be a series of panels connected in a big circle at the base and all around the tower. The wind would rush under the solar panels, which produce electricity in its own right. The wind would swoop upward through the wind vanes and out the top of the chimney. The whole process works like the chimney for a fireplace or stove, but nothing is burning. It is the difference in the temperatures from the ground to the top of the chimney that makes this happen. It is like the eagle using updrafts to fly up the side of a mountain.
There are hundreds and even thousands of alternative energy technologies that are out there, will be developed, and have declining costs. Solar power is not just from solar panels outside of the gers. Solar power can be painted on houses and buildings. There are thin-film technologies for solar power that can be applied to the outside of buildings and everngers if done carefully. Solar power can also be done via concentrated mirrors and parabolic dishes that heat up special salts. The technological world is wide open when it comes to alternative energies. Garbage-to-energy is another one. The waste from Ulaanbaatar could be collected in an incinerator plant and the garbage burned, which produces heat, which in turn produces steam in the plant that turns the turbine that produces electricity. Municipal and agricultural waste can also be captured under thick containing plastic sheets or within vats to produce methane, natural gas, and in turn can be used to produce electricity and can be used for heating and cooling.
The huge coal reserves in Mongolia can also be used to produce cleaner energy. I do not say clean energy because there is no such thing. Two ways of doing this with coal are underground coal gasification (UCG) and coal-bed methane (CBM) extraction. UCG, in a much simplified explanation, is created by sending down oxides and steam into a deep coal mine. Within the mine, there will be a combustion chamber to, via the use of the steam, oxides, and high pressures, create natural gas from the coal. This natural gas is extracted from the deep mine up the production shaft, which is separate from the injection shaft that brings the steam, etc. into the mine. This natural gas could then be sent to a natural gas power plant. This plant will produce much less pollutants than the coal plants. The natural gas could also be used for industrial purposes throughout the cities and town. It could also be used for much cleaner heating in apartments and more than what could be done with coal. CBM is another way of getting the natural gas, which is natural coal mines, out of the mine and into pipes and along to power plant lines. Another use is by simply extracting the water from the mine and having a production pipe direct the natural gas to a collection area and then on to its end uses.
These two methods are a lot more complex than what I describe here, but the basics give a sense of the possibilities of producing cleaner natural gas from much dirtier coal.
Another way to reduce pollutants for each kilowatt hour is to tighten up on the efficiency of power plants and of the things that use electricity. For most power plants about 65 percent of the fuel put in is lost at the plant in the form of heat out into the atmosphere. Then there are losses until the electricity gets to the house, hotel, etc. Then the inefficient lights, toasters, TVs, and more waste even further electricity. Using electricity to pipe water along 90 degree turns is just plain silly energetically. The pipes need to have smooth curves to save energy.
We can also go back to the light bulbs for ideas. Some light bulbs, such as LED (light emitting diode) bulbs produce as much light as a 100-watt incandescent light bulb, but use much fewer watts. The efficiency of light bulbs is increasing by the day. Lots of energy (lots of electricity and the fuels that go into them) is used to produce lighting in houses, hotels, factories, and more. The amount of electricity used can be drastically cut by using efficient light bulbs. From that we can see that for each light bulb, going back to the power plant, we produce less pollution. Getting the same amount of light with less damage to the environment and health seems like what we Americans call a no-brainer.
Light can also be produced naturally in buildings by redesigning the roofs to let light in. There are also light tubes that can bring natural light into factories and buildings without using a single watt.
I heard an interesting story the other day. There was a factory that was used to repair aircraft. They used very strong lights to light up the aircraft during the repairs. These lights produced a lot of heat. The workers also got headaches from the lights. They needed to take breaks from the heat and headaches regularly. It harmed productivity and it was not a nice place to work. An energy expert came in and replaced the lights with light tubes, lighting from the roof, more efficient and less heat-emitting lights, and redesigned the work floor to make it a better place to be with proper lights and cooling/heating when needed. Productivity went way up. The costs for the changes will pay themselves back in just a few years with energy savings and increased worker productivity. Everyone wins.
There are thousands of examples of how one can not only get the job done, but get it done better, in a better work environment and also while not using as much energy or harming the environment and health as much as before the changes.
Our chances for improving things, rebalancing things, are limited only by its creativity, imaginations and our desire to make things better.
Mongolia has the chance to do this right as it develops. The shelves of technologies and ideas are out there. Mongolia could grow and develop in a much better, cleaner, and more efficient way than most other countries. It is a matter of choice – and of leadership at many levels.
Short URL: http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=3204
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