ENERGY COMMUNITIES ~ EnisVille
               An EnisEnerGen (EEG) Vision

 

Vision: act or power of imagination; unusual discernment and foresight—exemplified by
FDR: Axis defeat; DDE: interstate highway system; JFK: moon landing; RWR: Communism defeat.

EnisEnerGen vision:  Energy Community—self-sustaining town producing/exporting energy from multiple sources; highest, best use of specific parcel of land; complete supply chain/distribution channel development—from facilities conception to production to consumption to waste recycling/disposal. An energy community benefits producers, consumers, infrastructure builders, workers, investors, taxpayers, public policy makers; eliminates energy worker travel or barracking (man caves); permits families to live and grow together; provides schools, churches, shopping centers, taverns, ball fields; can be developed where people want to live (Appalachia, Indian reservation, island) or constructed on an energy production site using 21st Century building technology (BLM land, underdeveloped country).   

To operationalize the energy community vision, EnisEnerGen has three separate sets of patents:  energy storage, water purification, and waterless fracking, which interrelate for economic and social land parcel highest and best use.

Energy storage:  compressed air generated by any source (renewable, fossil, nuclear) stored in pipeline; reconverted to electricity as demanded: “transportable compressed air energy storage” T-CAES.  Since electricity demand varies (time of day, day of week, season), storage reduces peak load pricing and smooths production cycles (less need for “spinning reserve” investment).  Reconversion process “wastes” cold air, useful for HVAC and/or improving on-site genset efficiency—more output for same energy input or same output for less energy input. Pipeline distribution avoids high voltage transmission lines, is safer re natural disaster or sabotage. T-CAES combines off-the-shelf equipment with patented processes.

Water Purification:  desalination, shale fracking residue, mine tailing, leak/evaporation recapture, potable water, cleanroom processes, can be accomplished using liquid nitrogen, compander/genset combination, T-CAES.  Liquid nitrogen demonstration is small scale for rapid testing and for disaster relief; compander/genset is rooftop installation for hotels, office buildings and data centers; T-CAES can be scaled up for mine or fracking sites, islands, cities, countries—located on site, off-shore (sea bed or barge), pipelined from production to demand location. Again, off-the-shelf components/patented technology.

Waterless Fracking:  natural gas production uses patented liquid CO2 technology, not water/sand/toxic chemical combination.  CO2 sequestered disperses through shale, rubblizing not fracturing, releasing natural gas and adsorbing the gaseous CO2. Water fracking releases gas/water combination which must be separated at surface, increasing production cost and leaving lakes of contaminated water (which EEG could purify), but are not produced by EEG liquid CO2 process.  CO2 inserted into an abandoned coal mine would release natural gas. On-site genset installation could then use the natural gas to produce electricity, which can be stored/distributed by T-CAES and producing cold air for HVAC or genset efficiency improvement.  Subsequently, the coal can be mined (21st Century technology, less danger from gas poisoning and explosions) and used to fuel the genset.

A Possible beginning:  An Energy Community could begin development at a mining or drilling site.  For example, gold mining requires water purification.  Successful demonstration of that capability produces potable water for human/animal consumption or agriculture or ground cover foliage. Energy production might be viable on-site (renewable wind or solar installation not stand-alone profitable might pencil out in combination with gold production/mine tailings purification); shale or geothermal energy production could be possible. The CO2 shale extraction of natural gas or coal mine extraction site might then become viable for renewable energy installations, improving energy production.  Geothermal or brackish well-drilling might provide water to be purified for potability or agriculture. 
Thus might an energy community develop. An Appalachian coal mine, Indian reservation oil well, water-starved island or country (California coast?) could be the beginning site. In northwest Nevada, for example, lithium is produced by strip-mining clay and letting the water evaporate.  EEG could recycle that water for potability, agriculture, ground cover, etc.—beginning energy community development in an area depressed economically.  And in Oklahoma, the fracking-causes-earthquake hysteria suggests a possible CO2 application (and Chesapeake Corp has announced a new West very large Texas shale/oil deposit); fracking is banned in New York state and the United Kingdom.

                  The purpose of this briefing paper is to arouse curiosity.  We at EEG stand ready to expand upon any or all of these possibilities, in English with basic diagrams for exploring potential business partnerships, or in techtalk, including applicable formulae, test results and patent approval.