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About W.A. (Bill) Stevens
Expertise
I'm a professional mechanical engineer. I can explain the economic tradeoffs of making electricity from natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar, and biomass energy sources. I have a pretty good understanding of the science on global warming and can explain how these energy conversion technologies affect that process. I can tell you why we have to build more nuclear plants, keep using coal, and cut way back on using natural gas to make elctricity. I can de-mystify the concepts of efficiency and energy conservation. But, I'm not an electrician so I don't do wiring! :-)

Experience

Past/Present clients
EPA, DOE, USAID, World Bank, Bechtel, U.S. Generating, numerous electric utility and independent power companies, industry.

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Electric Power & Utilities - power generation

Expert: W.A. (Bill) Stevens - 10/31/2009

Question
QUESTION: is bio fuel successful for todays criteria...

ANSWER: Subha -
It is likely that liquid biofuels will have a high value for other purposes such as transportation, and so will not be a fuel for electric power generation.
Solid biomass can be part of the generating mix in an economical way if its cost is sufficiently low and the available quantities sufficiently great. I do not expect biomass to ever contribute more than about 5% of total generation in the U.S. That's an important fraction, but would be very far from providing the 50-80% CO2 reduction needed globally.
Good luck!
- Bill

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: what is the new trend in the generation of electricity by using nuclear fuel.can we make nuclear fuel eco-friendly...

Answer
The main attraction of nuclear power plants is that they produce no carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gas, thus they do not add to global warming in the way that coal-fired plant do. There is a concern that new nuclear plants are very expensive to build, much more so than coal-fired plants. However, if new coal-fired plants are designed so as to capture most of the CO2 that they produce, so that their CO2 can be permanently injected into deep underground geological formations, then the new coal plant with CO2 capture also becomes very expensive to build and operate. So, the conclusion is that electricity from both new nuclear and coal plants will be much more expensive than it is now ... a price we must be willing to pay if we are to the global warming that is occuring.

Nuclear fuel waste can not be made eco-friemdly. We can only process the high-radioactivity (high-level) nuclear waste to use as much of its energy as possible, and thus reduce the amount of high-level waste to be disposed of. Disposal is the had part for everyone to agree upon. All around the world, high-level nuclear waste is being temporarily stored at power plants, waiting for the time when we decide how and where we're going to permanently, safely, and securely dispose of it. The most promising way is to cast the processed, concentrated waste inside solid glass cylinders. These solid glass waste cylinders would not allow any of the waste to be lost as dust or accidentally washed away if exposed to water. The glass cylinders would be sealed in stainless steel cylinders that will not rust or decay, and these would be placed in specially prepared deep underground caverns located in areas with no historical record of earthquakes. Eventually, over many thousands of years, the radioactivity of the nuclear waste will decay to a low level that could cause no harm to life.

There are of course many other issues to be considered in deciding what technologies to use in generating electricity. I'm glad that you're interested in this very important subject.
Good luck -
- Bill

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