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This assigment is due by 8 pm, Friday Feb 10

Use this tool to help with determining exponential growth rates (will be demonstrated in class for the case of Iowa )

Also, Cellphone Example

1. Can wind replace coal? Currently the US has approximately 336,000 MW of nameplate capacity for Coal fired electricity.

   Let's assume that we have an energy plan to replace this nameplate capacity in coal with wind energy by continuing the build out in wind energy in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, North and South Dakota and Texas.

   Use this spreadsheet as your basic reference point

   a) What is the total nameplate capacity in MW for each state as of 2009?

   b) Calculate the approximate growth rate (we will be doing examples of this in class) of wind energy build out in each of the states over the time period of 2000 to 2009. You will have to do some spreadsheet or other operations to parse the data into more convenient formats to do this.

   c) What is the growth rate for the combined 6 state region over this same period?

   d) Given the growth rate that you determined in c) above, how long will it take for this growth to reach 336,000 MW?

   e) Over this region, in reality, the wind capacity factor is, at best, 50% where as the capacity factor for coal is essentially 100%. This means nameplate capacity has to be twice that of coal. How long will it therefore take to have a nameplate capacity of 670,000 MW?

   f) Now find data on the 2010 capacity additions in each of these six states. A good place to find this might be awea.org. Based on the growth rate previously determined, is the 2010 and 2011 build out consistent with that growth rate in these six states.

   g)Using the 2010 and 2011 data revise your growth rates and do part e) again with that new growth rate.

   h) Finally, given what you found above, comment on the feasibility of obtaining this goal of replacing coal fired electricity with this 6 state wind farm project at 50% capacity factor. What barriers might exist to prevent achieving this goal?

2. Maintaining our Dependence: Harvesting the Oil Sands of Canada
   The Athabasca Tar Sands are potentially a large source of crude oil. Yet there is considerable controversy on what the total yield might be or what the production rate (in terms of millions of barrels of oil per day MBD) might be. Again, do some research (you will find highly variable opinions/information) and attempt to determine coherent anwsers to the following questions:
   • Determine the approximate growth rate of Canadian Oil Production since 1995 from data that you will need to find.

     This Article suggests continued increases

   • Based on your growth rate, in what year will Canada produce approximately 10 million barrels a day (roughly 1/2 of US consumption).

   • At what price of a barrel of crude oil does the harvesting of oil sands make economic sense? (note: prior to 2008 there had been significant cut back of future harvesting plans due to disfavorable economics)

   • Assuming that future mining does occur, what is the probable production rate (in MBD) and delivery rate projected to be in the year 2025. That is, what percentage of the world market might this serve during the time period (2020-2025).? This question is not the same as above. Previously you should have just used the raw data to determine this. Here you are to research various opionions on the MBD yield of the Athabascan Tar Sands. For reference, they look like this.