Engineering Improbability
Posted on January 15, 2009 | By Denny Tyler | No Comments
Big Stone II Pushes Clean-Energy Alternative
The plant also could be built with extra space for “clean coal technology” that could be installed later, proponents said. Such equipment could trap carbon dioxide and send it in a pipe to oil fields in North Dakota or Canada. It could then be pumped underground and used to push up trapped oil, Otter Tail Power CEO Chuck McFarland said.
Being someone that has worked in mechanical and electrical engineering for nearly 30 years, maybe that gives me a slightly better view of ridiculous related notions. Every time I see a statement like the one highlighted above, I can’t help but think how absurd the idea is. Very rarely does an engineered product fit an engineered product when all dimensions are known without a lot of trial, error, and re-engineering. In the case of the extra space – no dimensions are known because the technology doesn’t exist.
For laymen – it would be the same as buying a pair of shoes for someone you’ve never met and the only thing you have to go on is their name.
As far as clean coal technology, if it ever does exist, it is going to be very expensive. Even more so because of the plants supposedly fit for future clean coal technology. It adds much tighter size constraints to technology that does not exist. Constraints that you may or may not be able to meet. You just simply don’t know.
So in a nutshell – if you want to keep throwing good money after bad, you are on the right path. Who knows, maybe the industry will get lucky and pull a rabbit out of a hat… in 20 or 30 years.
Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation’s character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us. – Aldo Leopold
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