Electric Highway and Infastructure Plan

In 2008 only 18% of our world energy use came from renewable resources. Yet only 0.02% of the Earth’s solar energy resource is required to completely replace fossil fuels and nuclear power. Many in society believe we are in the midst of a tipping point with regard to our environment. As traditionally less developed countries transition toward the economic model of the modern western world, competition for limited fossil based energy resources along with the environmental consequences of their use, are creating social, economic and environmental stress.   The economics of energy consumption are clearly in a state of flux. The world needs to develop and build more energy efficient technologies and products to substantially eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. The economics of our world will only substantially reward those who can provide more with less; a green technology will not succeeded if it costs more or is less useful.

New and diverse renewable electricity generation methods must be developed and implemented along with the improvement of existing ones. Surprisingly, the largest problem we face is not the availability of alternative energy resources or technologies to utilize them; it is instead a problem of societal will to do so.

Nuclear power plants should also be built as soon as possible to replace the power plants that have carbon emissions. Traveling wave reactors are still being researched, but they are potentially very promising. They are theoretically much more efficient, with a single fuel supply lasting 60 years and the ability to use stockpiled depleted uranium as fuel, which is estimated to value $100 trillion in electricity.

Opinion, unsupported by fact is not going to get us out of this situation; it will be science, and engineering.  As architects of the built environment, we must provide methods for sustainability at a lower total cost than that of fossil fuels.  The cost of fossil fuels are currently measured only to the point of use. Their back end costs are almost always ignored when comparing to other less damaging sources.

Renewable energy is free, the infrastructure that enables it, is not.  The next economic golden age has arrived but it will only benefit us if we choose to embrace it.  New technology and energy solutions that are cost effective can provide the basis for a new US energy export economy. Our countries low population density, at 81/sq. mi., in comparison to China’s, 360/sq. mi, gives the United States a very large competitive advantage, if they are to succeed at living at a western quality of life in a sustainable way. We can do this because we control 4.5 times more land per person then the Chinese. We must produce an energy surplus many times greater than our use, electricity and currency are equals. We must come together as a country to start a new high-tech industrial revolution that benefit us, both economically and ecologically. It is imperative to our national security and to ensure our continued high standard of living.

As a population we need to create a sustainable future, this future will be obtained with a balance of social, ecological and economic means. In order to be truly sustainable, these three fundamental schools of thought must merge together in harmony. This suggests that we must use our ecological resources in an economic way that is satisfactory to society. The answers to our energy problems must be more intelligent than putting photovoltaic panels on top of every telephone pole or being fashionably green with energy reducing band-aids.  We need to very methodically analyze our world to maximize the utility of each piece of earth’s surface to ensure its highest and best use; both environmentally and economically. The Seattle based company 3TEIR has developed the software to do this. There are no two locations with exactly the same environmental attributes. We need to maximize our limited resources to build economically intelligent energy infrastructure. This must include accounting for the full ecological damage of extracting and using any required resources. For example, we need to maximize the energy potential of each photovoltaic panel so as to produce the least number necessary to satisfy the required demand. We can only achieve this if their use is not indiscriminate. It is only logical to place photovoltaic’s in locations that will maximize that panel’s potential electricity production, and then transport the energy through an intelligent electrical grid to localized storage and end use.

In 2007, transmission and distribution losses in the United States were 6.5% of the electricity produced. With the use of refrigerated superconductor lines it can be reduced to 3%. Therefore no photovoltaic panel or other renewable electrical resource should be placed were it is not able to produce at least 93 today, and 97% in the future, of the output that it would produce if placed in the best place in the region. This assumes that the renewable resource is hooked to the grid, and that the solar panel is not replacing exterior cladding, in which case the cost of the cladding should be subtracted from lost electricity production.  Its local placement is logical only if the total cost of connecting to local storage or end consumer is greater than the combination of the ecological and economic cost of the lost electricity and ancillary energy benefits. Arbitrary collector placement on everyone’s house or business is happening as a result of poor energy policy, not good science. Its acceptance as a solution is primarily one of failed societal leadership resulting in inefficient individualized intervention. Einstein once said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”.

Our sustainable infrastructure will not be arbitrary; it will be an aesthetic of our knowledge in space time based on the use of science and technology that is beautifully proportioned.  Our environmental problems are not a problem of over use of energy in general, instead they are a product of using fossil fuels as our primary energy resource and the excess carbon released as those resources are consumed.

Metaphorically, the system of the built environment will constantly be trying to achieve a state of homeostasis that is in agreement with nature. The foundation for everything we need to bring about a practical solution is presently available.

A smart grid is a network of energy sources, distribution methods, and electricity consuming products which also provide the system with the information needed to operate at the highest levels of efficiency. To manage efficiency, the system needs to integrate all electrical devices that make up the network including productive, stored, and consumptive components. This is important because the information allows the system to optimize power load forecasting, and intelligent preloading of localized storage in anticipation of peak use. 

One significant problem that must be addressed is the need to store excess electrical capacity in times of low consumption to offset the intensity of the peak demand.  Our system currently is one of “consume it or lose it” and includes virtually no storage component once energy is converted to its electrical form.   This results in a very inefficient system which must be capable of producing peak instantaneous demand even though those peak demands represent a very small portion in time. The cost of the standby capability in delivering this peak demand increases the overall cost of our energy needlessly.

Our only current control with regard to meeting demand is the sophistication with which we anticipate consumption. Hysteresis in the system is accounted for by your light bulb burning a little brighter or the motor of your furnace slowing slightly in response to transient load demands.  In times when this demand cannot be met, brownouts or even blackouts occur.

Introduction of large number of locally connected vehicle batteries would dramatically alter this equation.  By building vehicle systems which increase the effective time these batteries spend connected to the grid, a massive change in our ability to store electricity becomes a major side benefit of a switch to battery operated vehicles.  But only if the ability to keep vehicles connected is largely effortless on the part of the vehicle operator. Our current vehicles spend the vast majority of their existence, parked.  If a fleet of battery operated vehicles with means of easily retaining a connected link to the grid can be designed into their systems, it solves one of societies other major energy problems, that being storage.  The combined economic benefit connected vehicle batteries bring is rarely considered when contemplating their economic viability.   Electricity can be stored in many ways; well known methods are pumped hydro storage, flywheels, and conventional batteries, but there are also new technologies emerging such as super capacitors and liquid metal batteries. Both of these methods are new and are very promising from an economically scalable standpoint. Liquid metal batteries function through the use of poor metals with really good metals. The magnesium trades electrons with a poor metal such as antimony, which is able to conduct electricity. This allows the batteries to be built on a massive scale allowing for a low cost of $50/, and super capacitors, unlike conventional batteries,  have a high tolerance to repeated charge cycles and respond very quickly the built in hysteresis in our present system.  Electrical stability will be achieved with a combination of solutions at both ends of the electrical system. This creates a composite system which will satisfy need for both medium term energy storage as well as short, high peak loads. Storage needs to be dispersed throughout the grid to allow for peak load delivery at a rate greater than the capacity of systems core backbone could do on an instantaneous basis.

My four proposals will consist of a wireless resonance power transfer system for highways, intersections and the related infrastructure, a large state of the art factory to produce resonance power coils for the highways, small neighborhood super capacitor storage, and large liquid metal battery storage facilities.

Wireless energy transfer was first developed by Nikola Tesla in 1894, he used his well known Tesla Coil to wirelessly light up phosphorescent and incandescent lamps. His coil was able to transfer very high voltages at high frequency without serious liability of the destruction of the apparatus itself and danger to persons approaching or handling it. Tesla was a genius ahead of his time without modern day knowledge, of, the true nature of energy and the electrical distribution issues that modern society would eventually face.   Because of his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as mad by many late in his life. He died alone at 86 in his New York hotel room suite with many debts. Only in his death has the true genius of his inventions been recognized for incredible potential to solve many of today’s issues.

While inductive wireless electricity has been in common everyday use for some time, significant progress had not been made in regard to high efficiency mid-range use in the last 5 years. In November 2006 Croatian physicist and electrical engineer Marin Soljačić and his colleagues at MIT applied highly coupled near field magnetic theory to produce a new twist on Tesla's wireless energy work. Using well known in electromagnetic theory to create a wireless power transmission concept based on strongly-coupled resonators. In theoretical analysis they designed electromagnetic resonators that suffered minimal loss due to radiation and undesired absorption at mid-range distances of several times the resonator size. To do this they tuned two resonant circuits to the same frequency within a fraction of a wavelength, this resulted in near fields consisting of evanescent waves. Oscillating waves develop between the inductors, which allowed the energy to transfer from one object to another with the maximum possible energy-transfer efficiency. The efficiency is lower than 80% with one object but could theoretically be 100% if there were enough receiving resonating coils within range. While 80% seems like a compromise, it is hundreds of times more cost effective when compared to conventional batteries, but rechargeable Lithium ion batteries are comparable at 80-90%. The single largest issue with current battery technology as it relates to transportation is in supporting sufficient energy densities to allow for an economically acceptable range of travel when compared to current fossil fuel based vehicles.  Because the nature of the magnetic energy created between the highly coupled coils; concrete, asphalt, and importantly biological objects, are not good absorbers of this energy and remain virtually unaffected and any radiated field is well within current standards.  Since objects will fail to resonate at the correct frequency, only those coils that do are transferred significant amounts of energy. Since this system operates in the near field spectrum, the magnetic energy radiated is more than 1000 times less than that of a medical MRI. The type of magnetic  fields created in this system interact weakly with living organisms and are quite different then the types of field used in the medical industry.  The system would be sealed from the weather and there would be no risk of shock, and would not inhibit conventional combustion vehicles from driving on the same roads. Eric Gieler, CEO of WiTricity, who is commercializing Marin Soljačić’s technology, mentioned at the TED 2009 conference that the technology can conceivably still get a lot better.  We could use a similar method of coupling to power objects from a meter away or farther. At that distance, we could power cars while they are still on the road, or create homes without plugs.

Charging people for the use of this system would be easy with use of simple transponders installed in the vehicles. The cost of using battery electric vehicles is about one sixth of the cost of operating gasoline power vehicles when considering energy cost alone. Since this system would significantly supplement the use of the installed battery, its useful life in the vehicle could be vastly extended to durations similar to that of the conventional fossil fuel based engine.  Since it is the cost of the battery and not the cost of the electricity that is the biggest obstacle to wide acceptance of purely electric vehicles, the economic advantages of this system are overwhelming.

The United States consumes about 378 million gallons of gasoline a day. Multiply this by 365 days/ year. The result is 138 billion gallons/year. Multiply this figure by a conservative, due to the cost we pay in other taxes and the environmental costs, $5/gallon. The result is $690 billion a year. Now multiply this number by 5/6, the relative savings electrical energy. The result is $575 billion. In addition there is 40 billion gallons of diesel consumed each year for on-road transportation. Multiply this by $5; the result is $200 billion. Multiply $200 billion by 4/5 since it is more efficient, the savings is $160 billion. Add these two together to arrive at $735 billion savings per year. There were 196 million drivers in 2003, this results in a savings of $3750 per person/year. The national deficit is $13.5 trillion. Divide $13.5 trillion by $735 billion savings/ year, the result is slightly over 18 years to pay off the deficit. This is the answer to our economic disaster. This only included a conservatively guessed the additional cost of the military to protect oil supplies and fight terrorism in the $5 price. While it may not all be accountable to savings, a significant portion is. In addition to the saving, we would be satisfying our energy need inside of our country, not exporting our money away, this will allow for the money saved to be taxed many times resulting in massive government revenue increases.

The cost of the infrastructure is enormous but it should be seen as negligible, there are 46,876 miles of interstate highway in the United States. After being adjusted to the 2006 consumer price index, the cost to build the entire interstate system was a mere $425 billion. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that total needed investment in electric utilities could be as much as $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion by 2030. I roughly estimate that with the additional cost of the electric roads, this cost could be increased to
$7 trillion. As a country we need to create the industry that will pay for it. We cannot afford to buy our electrical grid from china. We will go bankrupt and the world economy and our way of life will collapse. Job creation is split between two categories, productive jobs and service sector jobs. The second is unproductive and should be minimized.

The highways will look very similar to the way they do today, but there will be additional electrical infrastructure adjacent to the road. I believe that it should be placed underground to minimize the visual impact to our environment. Einstein also said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”. The least design is often the best design. Although I don’t believe that this statement is true for all structures, I think it is for this application. Something with cultural significance, such as a city center, is much different the system that supports the accessibility of our world. As humans we do enough damage to the earth, the last thing we should do is glorify our dominance by making architectural transportation. It also will be safer in the rare, but possible, event that a motorist drives off the road into a structure, the preservation of human life trumps architecture. 

The resonant energy transfer coils will probably eventually run in a linear fashion down each lane. When the system is being implemented, it would be wise to take multiple passes of construction. One reason is to prevent the closing of both lanes; another is because vehicles equipped with resonant technology can use one lane initially. The vehicles and road will communicate using short range ultra wide band wireless parallel data transmission with an extremely high data rate up to 6.17 Gbps per channel. This will allow for cars to drive themselves allowing for drafting at high speeds very close to the adjacent cars bumpers. This is the same concept as a peloton in road bike racing to increase aerodynamics and efficiency. The wireless energy source will be intelligent in that it only broadcasts magnetic energy when there is a device to use it, in addition it will provide more kilowatts to higher power vehicles such as electric semi trucks and much less to motorcycles and personal cars. Another nice feature of this system is that it will also be able to power and charge all personal electronic devices such as computers, cell phones and music players while the user is driving down the road. New underground lines will have to be installed down the middle of interstates with transformer stations every few miles. These transformer stations will then provide the electricity to the individual resonant energy transfer pads located in the roadway and the wireless data transmission system. They will also be equipped with super capacitors to stabilize the erratic nature of the pads turning on and off. There would be large inefficiency induced without local power storage. I suggest that this system be installed at all stop signs and intersections where acceleration takes place. This will allow cars to charge while they are stopped and also provide all of the high intensity power output momentarily needed during initial acceleration. This will greatly reduce the economic and environmental impact of battery production which could become as devastating as our current problem with fossil fuels. The last thing we want to do is create a foreign dependence on batteries.

The vehicles will still require batteries, but they can be much smaller, which inherently leads to greater efficiency due to reduced weight. In addition to regular batteries, they will also use super capacitors to store the highly fluctuating regenerative breaking loads. While all electric vehicles that are not in use on their charging pads will also be able to transfer energy back into the electrical grid in case of an energy shortage. As previously stated super capacitors will control the power spikes in neighborhoods.  Initially these will be built in a sculptural way that expresses and raises awareness of the start of the age of renewable electrical power. Although within years, society will take it as common knowledge and they will be placed underground out of sight in concrete boxes. There is no reason to have the structure on grade that people will very rarely go into. Electricity is something that is not seen; therefore the poetics suggest that its infrastructure should not be seen either. Is it not much better to plant trees then have more above ground buildings? Below ground units will be accessed through hatches and made in a way that allows capacitor modules to be lifted out of the ground, and quickly replaced at the end of its life and then recycled.

Above ground super capacitor stations will be very light weight structures made out of sheet steel placed on a concrete slab on grade. It will use daylight to provide light to the technicians; the capacitors are extremely reliable and capable of cycling hundreds of thousands of charges and discharges. They are non essential pieces of the electrical grid which suggests that repairs will only be done during the day. A geothermal cooling system with a heat exchanger will be used for cooling of the capacitors. Excess heat should be recaptured and use in adjacent structures. Artificial lighting will not be required, and only minor insulation will be used in the roof. Ventilation combined with thermally isolated heat screens will be used to prevent overheating of the capacitors in combination with solar heat gain. These structures will use no electricity with the exception of electrical actuators that operate the computer controlled ventilation system. Generally speaking the ventilation will open during the night to let in the cool air with the purpose of chilling the concrete pad and close during the day. The thermal mass of the concrete will create temperature stabilization reducing the daily temperature differential wave.