Chapter 11: Energy discussions

[March/April 2373 AD – POV Timotheus Sinterguth – Bayern]

During one of our study group evenings, in early March, we all received an invitation to a larger church community meeting, to take place next Sunday after the regular service. This was not a very uncommon event; sometimes we needed to discuss future plans and finances for our church community, sometimes interesting events were announced, and sometimes there were calls for activities where additional volunteers were needed.

I attended that meeting, and after some financial and common topics had been presented and discussed, a young woman, a few years older than me, stood up. Her name was Heike, and she told everybody that she was leading one of the youth groups in our church community, a group for eight to twelve years old boys and girls. Her group had grown, and she was struggling to manage the entire group on her own. They were meeting once a week on Wednesday afternoons, and she was looking for someone to work with her, preferably a young man for balance.

Normally I would not have even deliberated that. Working with children and spending a lot of time with them had never been something I liked or considered to do, with the notable exception of my cousin Daniela, who was ten years younger than me, and very few others, like Ruth, my twin cousin's youngest sister, but they were family. In addition, I was a shy person, and I did not like to talk to people I did not know. On the other hand, the time with the Madison family and their two wonderful girls might have changed something in me. I thought of Lily and Rue, and I also thought about my cousins wonderful younger sisters. Here in this meeting I did not remember that I had consciously decided to act, but I suddenly found myself getting up and walking over to the woman who had asked:

"Heike, I have never worked much with children, I do not have siblings, and I do not really know what I may need to do, but I am willing to give it a try, if you want."

It turned out that I was the only person offering, and she happily accepted, assuring me that I'd learn what to do and that the kids were all nice ones. I did not doubt that, but they might just laugh about me when they heard me saying something stupid. But anyway, I already had volunteered and committed myself, and thus I nodded when I was told that, for the next group meeting, I was just to sit next to her and watch and learn. Sure, I could do that. My work hours at the university were flexible, and I should not have any problems keeping Wednesday afternoons free.

I need to mention at this time, that only very few people in the church community and at work really knew who I really was. While my last name was not common at all, only the foundation had our family name in it, and it was not public knowledge at all that a family with our name owned a lot of well known companies and brand names. We preferred it that way. Mr. Madison had made the connection, as he had probably been in contact with us before, but at work only my professor knew, and at church only the senior pastor and the deacon knew. That was just fine for me; I had no ambition to be looked at in awe or something like that, and I also had no ambition to find lots of new 'friends' just being around me because of my money. In the same way, fortunately, almost nobody knew about what had happened a few years ago, and the family lawyer had somehow managed to keep my name out of the news and official reports.

The first youth group meeting was a little odd. We met in a large room in the parish hall, which was nicely equipped with many comfortable options to sit on, including three sofas, and there was a large white board attached to one wall, too. I was introduced, I watched Heike running the session with an ease I admired, and I saw all of the kids looking at me frequently, but I did not know what to say. Well, I was not a good social talker anyway, so that this was not unusual, but they surely expected me to say something at least. With few exceptions, I only opened my mouth when it was my part to read a section from the Bible.

My chance came when one of the kids asked later on, once we had completed the 'official' part:

"Timotheus, do you know where your last name comes from?"

The girl had no trouble pronouncing my first name correctly; that was only difficult for some people with a different native language than German. Also, we were all on a first name basis, and kids in the group were not expected to address Heike and me with last name. I understood the question which had been asked well, and I was ready to answer:

"Oh yes, of course I do, let me tell you. You know, a long time ago, long before the dark times, in the 18th century, so more than five hundred years ago, some of my ancestors lived not far from here in the 'Fränkische Schweiz', in and around a village called 'Riesenwald'. Once they discovered a huge cave with dripstones and other formations made from limestone, some of them real beautiful ones called 'sinter'. The king at that time came to visit, and he liked it so much that he gave my ancestor a reward and a new name - 'Sinterguth'."

"Wow, this is fascinating. Can we go see this cave?"

I smiled and liked that interest:

"I think that we can, if you want. The cave has not been open to public for a long time, as having too many visitors in there damages the formations, but small invited tours are possible. The tourists visit other nice caves in the same area; has anybody been to one of them?"

They called out the most popular names:

"Yes, the 'Teufelshöhle'."

"Last year with my parents - 'Binghöhle'.

I nodded and added:

"There is a third one, called 'Sophienhöhle', and a few more smaller ones as well. Our cave is quite large, but much less known."

All of the kids seemed to be in favor of seeing the cave, and when the meeting ended, Heike, the group leader, looked at me:

"It is interesting to see how much you can suddenly talk when the topic is technical."

I smiled back and replied:

"Or something about nature, which I also like a lot. Yes, I guess I am a real nerd."

"That's not actually a bad thing, I guess" she responded. "The kids seem to like that. But are you serious about the cave visit? Can you really arrange this?"

I nodded and told her: "Yes, I can, as it belongs to my family, and I will gladly get a visit organized. We can only visit after mid April, though, to make sure that all of the bats which may have been hibernating there are gone."

"Bats? I am not going in there if there are bats!"

"Don't worry, the bats stay there only during the winter, and from April on they only get into outer areas, not where the dripstones are."

A few days later I got in contact with my relatives who were in charge of the family cave, and as expected they told me that we'd need to wait a few more weeks to make sure that all of the bats had woken up from hibernation. Other than that, having the youth group in the cave for an hour or so with a tour would be all right, and I was looking forward to this event.

Meanwhile my professor invited me and a few colleagues to travel to an area which had been a river valley a few centuries ago but was now sea and part of the extended Atlantic Ocean and the 'Nordsee', the North Sea. The river Rhein had meandered between the secondary mountain ranges of Taunus, Westerwald, Hunsrück and Eifel in former western Germany before the apocalypse, and while the mountains themselves were still there, the rising sea had found its way in between and had flooded the old river upwards to about Straßburg, the big city just left of the Rhein river and now a port city. The incoming tide pushed water upriver with mighty force, as the channel between the mountains was still quite narrow, and some engineers were curious to find out if the tides could be used for power generation and storage. We were going to visit and provide advice, if possible.

Thus, we took the maglev northwest to the city of Würzburg, where the line ended. The city had been on the river Main and still was, but this river ended in the sea now rather than going on further. From there we changed to a helicraft to fly to an elevation east of the former and now underwater city of Koblenz, where the local team waited for us. We could have taken a boat, too, but the sea channel in this area was treacherous, and the currents were unpredictable. For that same reason, we learned soon after we had arrived, the local engineers had not dared to install a larger scale device in the channel, but they had experimented with smaller ones.

"Installing something large right in the channel might or might nor work" the local chief engineer said. "We'd have to make it very robust, though, to withstand the quickly changing strong currents, and as we have plenty of power from other resources, we have decided to not pursue this further, at this time at least."

He had a point. We had the large 10 GW fusion plant near München and another one of the same size near Wien. Those two huge power plants had been built and completed in the second half of the 21st century, and fortunately they had survived the dark times with only very little damage, partially also due to the high level of redundancy built into them; restarting them had been done successfully, and they still managed to run with very little maintenance. For the rest of the country we mostly had solar and wind energy, plus some hydro power, bio gas, and other sources. Solar cells had a lifetime of more than 50 years nowadays, and wind turbines could be maintained and thus also lasted very long; that was more than good enough for our population.

Energy storage was a different issue, though, both here and in Panem. There were days or even weeks when the sun was mostly covered by clouds and there was little or no wind, and for those periods of time we had a few backup gas power plants in key regions. We would like to get rid of them, but so far could not afford to do so. Now, one creative person suggested:

"We have had a look at the topography here, and the area is characterized by many side valleys joining the main one. Further away they all emerge from the current sea level, and in most of them, at least the more narrow ones, the tides push a lot of water upriver. We believe that we could build some smaller dams with gates which can be opened and closed, and when the tide has pushed enough water in and starts to recede, we can close the gates, release the water when we want and generate some power from it, except for the period of high tide. There are other options as well, like creating a higher lake and using it for pumped hydro storage, but that would be all salt water, so that all machinery exposed to water would be potentially suffering from corrosion."

"What about using the excess electricity to generate hydrogen for storage?"

"We have thought about that, too, and while this is useful for vehicles powered by hydrogen, converting hydrogen back to electricity has a poor efficiency."

That was true, of course. Electricity storage in supercaps and batteries or in flywheels was much more efficient, but not easily scalable. At this time, we simply did not have a perfect solution for that problem. The option to use excessive electrical energy to create hydrogen was already used to some extent, and the 'green' hydrogen was used for planes and some other purposes.

There was a promising option on the horizon, though, and our colleagues from the university of Wien provided an update on the research and development status. The concept of superconductivity had been known since the early twentieth century. It had been observed only at very low temperatures for some time, like a dozen degrees above absolute zero, until scientists found some special substances which could be superconducting at higher temperatures, too. The concept had not been used in a very large scale at that time, but a few labs had continued to research the topic after the Great War. It was obvious that this concept could be very valuable if one could find substances showing the effect at higher temperatures and/or the devices could be isolated well, so that cooling did not claim too much energy. The energy storage systems based on that were called 'Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage', or SMES. Some progress had been made to semi-automate the production of both the superconducting materials and the efficient temperature insulation fabrics, and one of the engineers from Wien added:

"We have been starting to look for places where we can install a large scale prototype. There used to be a particle accelerator south of Wien, and it was decommissioned a long time ago. However, the tunnels still exists, fortunately just high enough to not get flooded, and we believe that we can reactivate the place and install superconducting loops in there, while applying the insulator material to the tunnel walls all around. We are not sure yet what the total storage capacity is going to be, but we estimate something between 10 and 100 MWh, which is not too shabby. Work has already started, and we estimate to start operations in about a year. If that works out, we may look into other locations like that, even larger ones like the huge former LHC near Genf. Other options are unused railroad or road tunnels."

"Why underground rather than above ground?" somebody asked.

"That makes cooling easier and more efficient" was the prompt answer. "Below ground you always have a constant low ambient temperature, no sunshine and no weather, and all you have to do is to attach insulation materials to the tunnel walls and install cooling."

That was a valid point. If that turned out to work well, we might even think about installing a larger scale device in Antarctica or so, but getting the energy there and back would be challenging. Overall, staying in Central Europe would probably be the more efficient option.

Another colleague had another question:

"Where are we getting enough raw material from? Won't we need a huge amount of copper or something like that for the loops? Do we have that much, and do we have the machines to convert it into wires of the proper thickness?"

"Good question, but yes to both. We have still plenty of spare conducting material from pre-war times, partially from the long high voltage power lines. Many of those are not needed any longer, as most places have their local energy supply. As it happens, quite a few of those lines already have the right thickness, and we can use them as they are. Material purity may not be perfect, but good enough for a start at least."

Indeed, yes, that was a good point. Almost every community or at least county in Central Europe had local energy supply, mostly solar and wind based, plus sufficient storage capacity, so that most of the long distance power lines were no longer required and had been demolished. Notable exceptions were the greater metropolitan areas around München and Wien, which were still supplied by the two huge fusion plants we had.

On the next day we also talked about long term plans. Since the apocalypse and the Great War the population on the planet had been reduced drastically, and while we did not have exact numbers, we estimated that there were less then one billion humans on Earth, compared to almost ten times that number before. We had a reasonable population count in Europe and North America, but only vague or no numbers at all from other areas, specifically Africa and Asia. According to what we knew, southeastern Asia had been hit very hard by the Great War; some other nations had apparently decided that the industrial and commercial power of India, China (the former PROC – 'People's Republic of China'), Taiwan (the former ROC – 'Republic of China') and South Korea ('Republic of Korea') was too dominating, and even now, centuries later, drones sent into the area on a regular basis came back with reports of high levels of radioactivity and very few signs of life. The area which used to be called the 'Middle East' did not really exist any longer; most of it was flooded anyway, and during the Great War nuclear weapons had been applied in the region as well. We assumed a significant part of today's global population to be in Africa, but contact with most African countries and regions was almost nonexistent. The Sinterguth foundation maintained basic support for some coastal regions with ships, providing food, medical supplies and more, but earlier attempts to check areas further inland with zeppelins had mostly failed; people there had reacted by attacking the airships rather than accepting any help.

After the Great War and the climatic apocalypse, the most advanced nations had banned everything which created excessive pollution, and the other countries just could not afford to spend time, effort and money to operate high tech oil and gas platforms; oil fields which could be exploited easily, specifically those one needed to drill only to get the oil spill out on its own, had already been used and mostly emptied in the 20th and 21st century. In a similar way, most of the coal close to the surface had been taken in earlier centuries, and the effort to dig deeper was prohibitive.

Thus, the vegetation had had a chance to catch up again, and since some time ago the CO2 content in the atmosphere had been going down from the former peak of more than 500ppm, slowly but steadily. The rise of the sea level had been stopped, and it had actually fallen a few precious meters from the highest level already. Some experts tried to predict when we'd be able to close the 'gap', the valley between the secondary mountain ranges, again to prevent the sea from pushing the tides far upriver. We did not have enough data, though, and estimation varied between a few decades and a few centuries. For the time being we'd have to live with the current situation.

In the evening of our last day together in this region, some colleagues and I also pondered the current climatic situation in Central Europe.

"Do you recall,", one of my friends from München said, "when the global warming was intensifying and we saw an increasing lack of rain during the summer months in Germany?"

"Oh yes, I remember from history lessons in school. Lots of people started to get worried, and farmers experimented with other plants to grow, plants being more resilient towards lack of water and excessive heat."

"And they found that there were not so many plants suitable for both and still tolerating frost in winter."

"True, and everybody got worried about what to do and how to continue to grow enough food. Then, they learned about the change of ocean currents."

"Indeed, the rising sea levels eventually flooded parts of Central America and in particular the Panama Canal. As soon as water could move between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, parts of the Norther Equatorial stream diverted west, and the warm Gulf Stream current got weaker. With that, what used to the be the 'heating' for us here, started to fail, though only partially."

"Yes, and Central Europe had been very lucky that this partial failure just about compensated for the global warming, so that the climate here nowadays is again very similar to the one in the 19th and 20th century."

"Not only here; the east coast in Panem also got some benefit, and with the reduced Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift the climate in the coastal regions there did not get as hot as it would have been otherwise. District Twelve and Thirteen clearly benefit from that, and specifically in Twelve the climate is only slightly warmer than it used to be in the 20th century, mostly humid subtropical."

All this was of course known to me, but it was good to refresh knowledge from time to time. Indeed, Central Europe had been very lucky compared to most other regions in the world. Not only had the climate changes been very moderate here, but the area had also been less targeted by weapons of mass destruction during the Great War. A democratic and benevolent government had helped to get us out of the bad days quickly, and today we were probably by far the most advanced nation on the planet. As far as we knew, many areas in South America had fallen back into pre-industrial times, and most of the former most densely populated region in southeastern Asia had been hit most hard by bombs and might be uninhabitable for centuries to come. We had sent ships and zeppelins there a few times, decades ago, but they all had had to turn back due to high radiation levels.

Once I was back home, I spent some time to refresh my knowledge on the energy storage concepts I was not so much familiar with. What we had talked about during the last few days had been very interesting, and I also tried to find out which concepts I could recommend to my twin cousin in Panem. As far as I knew they did not have the sophisticated machinery and expertise to manufacture superconductors over there, but they did have a lot of unused area. While it was always possible to install smaller flywheel devices locally, large installations, for instance to compensate for a week with clouds and no wind, would probably have to be pumped hydro storage. They already had a few smaller ones in District Twelve, as I knew, and there were discussions now to create one or two larger scale ones. Naturally, this concept was only feasible for areas with variation of elevations, but not for relatively flat areas. However, they had the long Appalachian mountain range in the western and northwestern part of their district, and according to what I had seen and heard before, there might be suitable locations in this area.

While this was not my area of work, I also maintained my contacts with other departments at the university. Specifically, I loved to talk to a few of my friends who had specialized in biology or were starting to do so, and about once a month we met to talk. There was a little bit of social talking, too, but most of the time we talked about work. I provided some information and updates on power related issues, and they told me about their work with plants and animals.

In the 20th and 21st century, the increase of human population, global warming, and constant extension of human habitation areas and consequent reduction and elimination of habitats for natural flora and fauna had made many animals and plants extinct or at least endangered, and experts estimated that the planet may have lost half or even two thirds of species within just a few centuries. Now, even though the land mass on the planet was reduced after the rising sea level, human population was probably less than a tenth of what if had been a few centuries ago, and wildlife had a chance to expand and proliferate again. We tried to not regulate that at all as much as we could, but some experts observed and learned. This not only applied to areas far away from population centers; the variation of fauna and flora even showed in the cities, like in Erlangen, where the many parks and gardens offered niches to live for many different plants and smaller animals.

There was only a need to become active if species started to move in which better should not. For instance, teams intervened when foxes or raccoons got to close too the cities. Mice had been a problem for some time, but once people remembered what cats were good for and got more of those, the problem was soon under control. We had a population of semi-wild cats in some cities, but they did not cause any trouble and harmonized well with city life. In the agricultural areas around the cities, the diverse environment, with many bushes and copses between the fields, also served as habitat for birds hunting rodents, such as hawks and owls, including the 'Uhu', the German eagle owl, the largest owl species.

[Author's Notes: Some sections are getting quite technical, but I am an engineer after all and can't resist. The energy storage technologies mentioned are all available already in real life, but some of them only on a smaller scale or as early prototypes.

The mentioned European cities – Straßburg, Würzburg, Koblenz and so on – are all real, and the environment is based on a sea level rising of about 150 meters.]