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The effect of bed roughness uncertainty on tidal stream power estimates for the Pentland Firth.

ABSTRACT: Uncertainty affects estimates of the power potential of tidal currents, resulting in large ranges in values reported for sites such as the Pentland Firth, UK. Kreitmair et al. (2019, R. Soc. open sci. 6, 180941. (doi:10.1098/rsos.191127)) have examined the effect of uncertainty in bottom friction on tidal power estimates by considering idealized theoretical models. The present paper considers the role of bottom friction uncertainty in a realistic numerical model of the Pentland Firth spanned by different fence configurations. We find that uncertainty in removable power estimates resulting from bed roughness uncertainty depends on the case considered, with relative uncertainty between 2% (for a fully spanned channel with small values of mean roughness and input uncertainty) and 44% (for an asymmetrically confined channel with high values of bed roughness and input uncertainty). Relative uncertainty in power estimates is generally smaller than (input) relative uncertainty in bottom friction by a factor of between 0.2 and 0.7, except for low turbine deployments and very high mean values of friction. This paper makes a start at quantifying uncertainty in tidal stream power estimates, and motivates further work for proper characterization of the resource, accounting for uncertainty inherent in resource modelling.

SUBMITTER: Kreitmair MJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7029936 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The effect of bed roughness uncertainty on tidal stream power estimates for the Pentland Firth.

Kreitmair M J MJ Adcock T A A TAA Borthwick A G L AGL Draper S S van den Bremer T S TS

Royal Society open science 20200115 1

Uncertainty affects estimates of the power potential of tidal currents, resulting in large ranges in values reported for sites such as the Pentland Firth, UK. Kreitmair et al. (2019, R. Soc. open sci. 6, 180941. (doi:10.1098/rsos.191127)) have examined the effect of uncertainty in bottom friction on tidal power estimates by considering idealized theoretical models. The present paper considers the role of bottom friction uncertainty in a realistic numerical model of the Pentl ...[more]

PMID: 32218944

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Project description:UnlabelledBackgroundCost-effective production of lignocellulosic biofuels remains a major financial and technical challenge at the industrial scale. A critical tool in biofuels process development is the techno-economic (TE) model, which calculates biofuel production costs using a process model and an economic model. The process model solves mass and energy balances for each unit, and the economic model estimates capital and operating costs from the process model based on economic assumptions. The process model inputs include experimental data on the feedstock composition and intermediate product yields for each unit. These experimental yield data are calculated from primary measurements. Uncertainty in these primary measurements is propagated to the calculated yields, to the process model, and ultimately to the economic model. Thus, outputs of the TE model have a minimum uncertainty associated with the uncertainty in the primary measurements.ResultsWe calculate the uncertainty in the Minimum Ethanol Selling Price (MESP) estimate for lignocellulosic ethanol production via a biochemical conversion process: dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment of corn stover followed by enzymatic hydrolysis and co-fermentation of the resulting sugars to ethanol. We perform a sensitivity analysis on the TE model and identify the feedstock composition and conversion yields from three unit operations (xylose from pretreatment, glucose from enzymatic hydrolysis, and ethanol from fermentation) as the most important variables. The uncertainty in the pretreatment xylose yield arises from multiple measurements, whereas the glucose and ethanol yields from enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation, respectively, are dominated by a single measurement: the fraction of insoluble solids (fIS) in the biomass slurries.ConclusionsWe calculate a $0.15/gal uncertainty in MESP from the TE model due to uncertainties in primary measurements. This result sets a lower bound on the error bars of the TE model predictions. This analysis highlights the primary measurements that merit further development to reduce the uncertainty associated with their use in TE models. While we develop and apply this mathematical framework to a specific biorefinery scenario here, this analysis can be readily adapted to other types of biorefining processes and provides a general framework for propagating uncertainty due to analytical measurements through a TE model.

Dataset Information

The effect of bed roughness uncertainty on tidal stream power estimates for the Pentland Firth.

Publications

The effect of bed roughness uncertainty on tidal stream power estimates for the Pentland Firth.

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