America Could Go Fully Electric Right Now

[ronwagn + 6,290]

13 hours ago, SUZNV said:

If we truly care about the temperature rising which makes the ice melt, then trees are the excellent choices instead of eliminate them without new planting back (and the worst reason is for mining and extracting). Especially tropical trees but any kinds of plant gonna do, better than none.

For snowy places like Canada, Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska, Minnesota don't grow trees, grow grasses, or corn farms, or soya farms so that it can be cover in snow while they can do their jobs in summer.

The way we are going with more batteries for  panel wind turbine or electric cars are no way to be sustainable in x10,x100,x1000. We will need reserve these batteries pollution for phones, for IoT devices, laptops etc. because we cannot avoid that.

 

https://www.livescience.com/4410-tropical-trees-cool-earth-effectively.html

Regulations and subsidies for more solar and wind, much much more batteries, then spend lots of regulations and  R&D subsidies or reparations to clean up the mess of the batteries and mining for toxic wastes and social costs as the only way for the sake of cooling the earth?

"keep it simple, stupid",KISS!

The local governments and waste disposal companies don't even want to deal with old light bulbs, small batteries, computers, printers etc. Now we are talking about huge projects and HUGE MONEY. This must all be considered, just as radioactive materials which are scattered all around the country because nobody wants them even in the Nevada deserts. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

5 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Cobalt is used almost exclusively for stainless steels which are used primarily in: USGS source...

Cobalt Statistics and Information

Cobalt (Co) is a metal used in numerous diverse commercial, industrial, and military applications, many of which are strategic and critical.  On a global basis, the leading use of cobalt is in rechargeable battery electrodes.  Superalloys, which are used to make parts for gas turbine engines, are another major use for cobalt.  Cobalt is also used to make airbags in automobiles; catalysts for the petroleum and chemical industries; cemented carbides (also called hardmetals) and diamond tools; corrosion- and wear-resistant alloys; drying agents for paints, varnishes, and inks; dyes and pigments; ground coats for porcelain enamels; high-speed steels; magnetic recording media; magnets; and steel-belted radial tires.

EDIT: 1 ton of or even 5 tons of Cobalt for wind turbines in a giant version using PM motors along with cobalt bearing steels for bearings etc pales in comparison to the amount required for batteries to backup those Wind turbines.  Now if we can make batteries without Cobalt...    Last I checked, TESLA batteries use ~8 parts Nickel, 1 part Lithium and 1 part Cobalt and this was a major step forward for the Model 3. 

Lets be generous: 250 Wh/kg.  Lets assume their battery pack densities increase dramatically in future. 

1 ton of batteries = 250kWh/ton or another way of saying 100kg of cobalt = 250kWh of battery storage capacity. 

1 ton Cobalt = 2.5MWh energy storage.  Of course you can only use a portion of this and max when new...

1 Megaton Cobalt = 2.5TWh energy storage. 

Yearly production of Cobalt: 140,000 tons...

We have a problem boys and girls...

Why?

Since everyone likes using California as an example: they use ~50GW/hour peak and transportation is not electrified yet, let alone chemical industry which will effectively double electricity required, but I digress... So, 50GW/hour required 24 hours a day is on the LOW side.  VERY LOW side. 

Sun dear friends only shines for a maximum of 12 hours a day in California in summer peak and winter low is around ~5hours, and they have no wind resources worth talking about.  So, California, assuming they go solar, and they are Hell Bent on going solar, need during the winter, assuming no cloudy days, will require:

24-5 hours = 19 hours of battery backup at a rate of 50GW/hour for a tidy ~1TWhours of capacity assuming everything goes perfectly...  Of course if you have a winter storm(gosh that never happens 🙄) then you need capacity for several DAYS if not at minimum 2 weeks. 

California by itself, irregardless of the rest of the world will require: 400,000 metric tons of Cobalt assuming ZERO stormy days. 

*** Does not count transportation @ 50Million vehicles which by themselves assuming 250kWh/vehicle(trucks etc will average) is 50M*(0.1 ton Cobalt/250kWh battery) =  5M tons of Cobalt or a tidy 40 years of worlds Cobalt production🙄🤣🙄🤣🙄🤣***

Reality, inefficiencies in conversion/transmission, battery degradation, storms, and we are looking at minimum probably 400k x 7days = 2.8Megatons... or a tidy 20 YEARS of Cobalt production. 

So, 40 years of production just for tranportation needs and 20 years for electrical backup needs...

Yea... that is going to happen...

To say we are going to use Lithium Ion batteries to power the world is beyond absurd.  Not even a TINY RICH portion of the world can go electric.  IT IS NOT POSSIBLE with current battery tech.  NOT AT ALL. Not with Cobalt battery tech anyways. 

EDIT: Good news!  Supposedly there are 7,000,000M tons of Cobalt reserves.  Now how deep those reserves are... is another question entirely.  So, technically there is enough Cobalt.  I suggest invading Congo and strip mining the whole place with several of the biggest strip mines in the world.  Good news, it is near Congo's borders which are the most stable portion of the nation, but it is all mountainous...  So, maybe get lucky and kiss up to Kenya/Tanzania/Zambia and hope you can get a railroad through/connected across the Eastern African Rift zone.   Hrmm, maybe that Chinese railroad into part of Kenya might be paid off after all.  Of course the most expensive part, connecting to Congo is still to be done...

You just opened up the biggest can of worms I have ever seen. We need a lot of discussion on the renewables and mining topics. We should add a pollution topic. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

6 hours ago, NickW said:

According to this a 5MW turbine (upper end of land based models) contains 4 tons of permanent magnets of which 1 ton is composed of rare earth metals. 

https://www.peakresources.com.au/news/wind-industry-prepares-for-bottlenecks-and-price-hikes-in-rare-earth-metals/#:~:text=A 5 megawatt direct-drive,of business development at Adamas.

I don't know whether this scales proportionally for bigger turbines or whether an economy of scale exists? 

The other side to this is that once mined the metal will mostly be recycled

RE: Cobalt - I believe one of the biggest single users is the Oil and Gas industry so use of that commodity can't be solely placed  on battery manufacturers. 

That sounds about right. The current crop of wind turbines are 12mw and it roughly scales at about 650kg/mw (for the high efficiency low RPM models). The rare earths are slightly more than 25% but close enough for government work. If you're interested This article has good info. In my day job I'm starting to look into these things, I have more data but it's buried in DOE and DOD reports. Bottom line my numbers point to present and future designs going forward.

The REE issue isn't going away. If @ronwagn is interested there's a bunch out there about it. Even the so called "domestic" manufacturers of REE's send their oxides off to China for final processing, so the power of the Chinese to completely control 100% of REE delivery is immanent. As we saw with the masks at the beginning of the Covid scare, even American companies like 3M had their factories essentially nationalised by the CCP so zero masks built in American owned factories were available to meet demand here. Now think of the sword the Chinese hold over REE and other critical materials. And don't imagine they're only now figuring this out, they've been working towards this point for decades. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

20 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

That sounds about right. The current crop of wind turbines are 12mw and it roughly scales at about 650kg/mw (for the high efficiency low RPM models). The rare earths are slightly more than 25% but close enough for government work. If you're interested This article has good info. In my day job I'm starting to look into these things, I have more data but it's buried in DOE and DOD reports. Bottom line my numbers point to present and future designs going forward.

The REE issue isn't going away. If @ronwagn is interested there's a bunch out there about it. Even the so called "domestic" manufacturers of REE's send their oxides off to China for final processing, so the power of the Chinese to completely control 100% of REE delivery is immanent. As we saw with the masks at the beginning of the Covid scare, even American companies like 3M had their factories essentially nationalised by the CCP so zero masks built in American owned factories were available to meet demand here. Now think of the sword the Chinese hold over REE and other critical materials. And don't imagine they're only now figuring this out, they've been working towards this point for decades. 

https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1587918/worlds-powerful-iron-based-generator-begin-testing

[NickW + 2,714]

My electricity company (UK) are offering some really good deals on electric vehicle leasing. Full range of vehicles - Nissan Leaf, Teslas, Jaguar, Renault, Hyundai etc. It gets even better if you hook the vehicle up to supply back power when its in high demand. 

This could work well as my wife can charge at work for free😉

Edited August 27, 2020 by NickW

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

5 hours ago, ronwagn said:

 I really know very little about the environmental costs of mining aside from a little about coal. Waste disposal and the cost/benefit to local people and health for all comes in too.

I can point you towards good information,  I enforced metal mining effluent regulations for many years.

 

The National Pollution Release Inventory is a great place to start. Only Canadian operations but the numbers will be similar for a given mine type. 

https://pollution-waste.canada.ca/national-release-inventory/archives/index.cfm?lang=en

Here is a Oil sands facility

https://pollution-waste.canada.ca/national-release-inventory/archives/index.cfm?do=facility_substance_summary&lang=en&opt_npri_id=0000002230&opt_report_year=2017

Here is a Metal mine Cu,Zn,Au,Ag

https://pollution-waste.canada.ca/national-release-inventory/archives/index.cfm?do=facility_substance_summary&lang=en&opt_npri_id=0000028028&opt_report_year=2017

Uranium mine

https://pollution-waste.canada.ca/national-release-inventory/archives/index.cfm?do=facility_substance_summary&lang=en&opt_npri_id=0000004866&opt_report_year=2017

Edited August 27, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

4 hours ago, ronwagn said:

https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1587918/worlds-powerful-iron-based-generator-begin-testing

The economics economics just aren't there for little generators like 250kw. The whole reason they're going headlong into 12mw generators is that by the time you've done the site prep and built your tower, you've spent a ton of money, whether it's kilowatts or. Megawatts. Given that cost factor, bigger is better, by far. The weight of all that iron up in the sky is why they've gone to REE permanent magnets in the first place. Same hysteresis levels at one quarter the weight. There's simply no way in hell electromagnets compete, not to mention the lost power energizing the magnets. No wonder they can't raise money. 🤔

[NickW + 2,714]

27 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

The economics economics just aren't there for little generators like 250kw. The whole reason they're going headlong into 12mw generators is that by the time you've done the site prep and built your tower, you've spent a ton of money, whether it's kilowatts or. Megawatts. Given that cost factor, bigger is better, by far. The weight of all that iron up in the sky is why they've gone to REE permanent magnets in the first place. Same hysteresis levels at one quarter the weight. There's simply no way in hell electromagnets compete, not to mention the lost power energizing the magnets. No wonder they can't raise money. 🤔

Double the diameter gives a square increase in output. Also increases capacity factor as the unit is inevitably higher up. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

33 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

The economics economics just aren't there for little generators like 250kw. The whole reason they're going headlong into 12mw generators is that by the time you've done the site prep and built your tower, you've spent a ton of money, whether it's kilowatts or. Megawatts. Given that cost factor, bigger is better, by far. The weight of all that iron up in the sky is why they've gone to REE permanent magnets in the first place. Same hysteresis levels at one quarter the weight. There's simply no way in hell electromagnets compete, not to mention the lost power energizing the magnets. No wonder they can't raise money. 🤔

PM need no power to "electrify"... Weight up high is not the problem.  Bending moment IS the problem + dynamic gust forces.  Weight is so far down the list as to be rediculous.  Weight actually helps if you can damp the dynamics...  Surprised they have not moved to active damping.  The only problem with active damping was response time which VERY quickly made the $$$ shoot upwards when we were looking into it.  Solved most of it by angling the blades back so any increase in gusts increases RPM which puts an OPPOSITE bending moment on tower.  And it avoids hitting the tower during operation. 

[Strangelovesurfing + 737]

First read about this tech a couple years ago. Looks like they're moving toward production, game changer for sure, if they get it right. 

https://newatlas.com/energy/nano-diamond-self-charging-batteries-ndb/

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by Strangelovesurfing

[NickW + 2,714]

50 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

The economics economics just aren't there for little generators like 250kw. The whole reason they're going headlong into 12mw generators is that by the time you've done the site prep and built your tower, you've spent a ton of money, whether it's kilowatts or. Megawatts. Given that cost factor, bigger is better, by far. The weight of all that iron up in the sky is why they've gone to REE permanent magnets in the first place. Same hysteresis levels at one quarter the weight. There's simply no way in hell electromagnets compete, not to mention the lost power energizing the magnets. No wonder they can't raise money. 🤔

I assume the 250KW model is a proof of concept model rather than the commercial product which it appears they need to partner with a manufacturer to scale up. 

TBH I hope it is a success - would certainly loosen Chinas grip on our REE balls. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

40 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

PM need no power to "electrify"... Weight up high is not the problem.  Bending moment IS the problem + dynamic gust forces.  Weight is so far down the list as to be rediculous.  Weight actually helps if you can damp the dynamics...  Surprised they have not moved to active damping.  The only problem with active damping was response time which VERY quickly made the $$$ shoot upwards when we were looking into it.  Solved most of it by angling the blades back so any increase in gusts increases RPM which puts an OPPOSITE bending moment on tower.  And it avoids hitting the tower during operation. 

Suggest you find sources. We've argued This before, it's clearly not your area of expertise. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

8 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Suggest you find sources. We've argued This before, it's clearly not your area of expertise. 

Link papers, I would like to read your sources.

Spinning weight can actually be stabilizing...

 

 

 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

3 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Suggest you find sources. We've argued This before, it's clearly not your area of expertise. 

Might not be my area of expertise, but someone, I forget who *** 😁showed me a PM controller PM magnet motor need no power to electrify.  Loses are friction and hysteresis only.  Magnetic field when run at correct RPM is entirely based on the PM's.  Now if you overpower or massively underpower the magnetic field, yea, you get loses, why power matching, field switching is required.  Why PM motors can achieve exceedingly high efficiency.  I even gave responding link to a guy with a homemade 96% efficient PM motor running at 1.5?KW as I recall with a motor controller running at 95% efficiency for an overall efficiency of ~92% which holds said efficiency over a WIDE range of torques/RPM and only falls off at high/low Torque/RPM....  But hey, you do you...

[Matto777 + 7]

Nuclear energy is the future. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

8 hours ago, Matto777 said:

Nuclear energy is the future. 

The safe Nuclear technology is already available and the numbers add up, all that's needed is to educate the public and a good solid marketing campaign.  Or so @Jan van Eck convinced us with references.  Hopefully he comes back at some point and engages, but I must say it is probably unlikely.

There is room for all sources, depending, depending.  Here in Thailand you won't be selling many personal use EVs until the price and personal finance options are in place. 

Having said that, the government and the distributors of LNG have invested heavily in setting up LNG stations throughout the country.  There is little room/land for solar or windmills.  I'd love to have solar on our roofs, but not at the available prices; it would amount to buying 25% of my house, in cost, again.  I can buy electricity @ $375/month for that.

[NickW + 2,714]

45 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

The safe Nuclear technology is already available and the numbers add up, all that's needed is to educate the public and a good solid marketing campaign.  Or so @Jan van Eck convinced us with references.  Hopefully he comes back at some point and engages, but I must say it is probably unlikely.

There is room for all sources, depending, depending.  Here in Thailand you won't be selling many personal use EVs until the price and personal finance options are in place. 

Having said that, the government and the distributors of LNG have invested heavily in setting up LNG stations throughout the country.  There is little room/land for solar or windmills.  I'd love to have solar on our roofs, but not at the available prices; it would amount to buying 25% of my house, in cost, again.  I can buy electricity @ $375/month for that.

Thailand is a poor location for wind. I cant see why roof top solar is expensive. panels and inverters are dirt cheap and labour costs there are reasonably low (which is the main driver of costs in the west) 

[Meredith Poor + 895]

12 hours ago, Matto777 said:

Nuclear energy is the future. 

Fusion power is the past, the future, and the holy ghost.

[carbonates + 22]

"Complete electrification and close to 100 percent renewable energy generation: this is a vision of the United States 15 years from now."

Not without major deterioration of service levels. California's rolling blackout is an excellent example of that right now. Since I live in hurricane country, I am especially skeptical that wind and solar have any chance of surviving a major hurricane. Instead of just losing power lines, which usually can be repaired in a week or two, they will lose power plants. I don't think a solar installation can survive 130 mile per hour winds and flooding and be restarted without completely rebuilding the installation. Likewise, I expect wind turbines to see heavy damage and become inoperable for quite some time. While I am it, I have already witnessed electric cars burning after flooding, and here it is not unusual for cars to get submerged to levels above the passenger seats and even higher, just sitting in a parking lot and sometimes on the streets. Electrification has to have backup from fossil fuel power. Cell phone towers mostly turn to propane power during disasters and power outages. Many residential homes in the southeast US are installing full home generators powered most often by propane. Solar and wind are nice, but they are not reliable when the weather does not cooperate, so those that rely on it will find themselves without lights, phone, internet, and sometimes even water supply. I saw a demonstration of how water supply goes out when San Diego had a two day power outage and the public water system simply ran out of water pressure. Most people had no idea they relied on electricity to pump their water, power their credit card purchases, and power gasoline pumps. The county became a chaotic mess, all due to a problem at a power substation. Hurricane Laura managed to knock out my internet for two days even though I had no wind or rain, simply because my internet provider operates from an area that was damaged and lost electric power. Switching to solar and wind will likely give us service levels more akin to developing countries where the power goes off every day for a few hours. I've lived in places like that, and it gets tiring knowing there is only one flush left in the toilet until the power comes back on. You get used to cold showers using bottled water. You are never sure the food in your refrigerator is still good, and you don't dare rely on an electric alarm clock. Many of the luxuries we take for granted become useless junk when there is no reliable power supply. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

13 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Might not be my area of expertise, but someone, I forget who *** 😁showed me a PM controller PM magnet motor need no power to electrify.  Loses are friction and hysteresis only.  Magnetic field when run at correct RPM is entirely based on the PM's.  Now if you overpower or massively underpower the magnetic field, yea, you get loses, why power matching, field switching is required.  Why PM motors can achieve exceedingly high efficiency.  I even gave responding link to a guy with a homemade 96% efficient PM motor running at 1.5?KW as I recall with a motor controller running at 95% efficiency for an overall efficiency of ~92% which holds said efficiency over a WIDE range of torques/RPM and only falls off at high/low Torque/RPM....  But hey, you do you...

Who took over your account? You used to actually speak the Kings English, this mismash? 

You pretended then to be an EE, or something like it. Now I see you're just completely lost. I'll break it down for you. The company making the 250kw wind turbine did not use permanent magnets! They used electromagnets instead. So, reread what you wrote (if you can, it gives me a headache), and see how you're totally off base. I know all about PM motors, I've got a patent on them. You naively believe you can just run a motor backwards and make AC, but these are brushless DC motors, so you'll make a useless PWM square wave that needs substantial conditioning to turn into a clean sine wave, times three phases. There's simply more to all this than you understand and than I feel like teaching. 

As for weight up a 100 meter tower "so far down the list as to be rediculous" shows you're no mechanical engineer either. Each tower has over 1000 tons of concrete and rebar in the base, that's before they've built one inch of the wind turbine. This is why bigger is better, those are sunk costs whether you make 250kw or 15mw. That nacelle can weigh 70 tons, you think it would be "no problem" to make it 140 tons, hanging 100 meters in the sky? Are you delusional? Don't forget the moments of force on the blades traversing multiple acres of airspace that have to be engineered (plus the base) to withstand a 100 year wind event. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

10 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

The company making the 250kw wind turbine did not use permanent magnets! They used electromagnets instead.

DEAR BLIND FOOL:
" is the world's most powerful ferrite-based direct-drive permanent magnet generator, "

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

10 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Are you delusional? Don't forget the moments of force on the blades traversing multiple acres of airspace that have to be engineered (plus the base) to withstand a 100 year wind event. 

Apparently you are, as the dynamic forces = 98% of the tower load and not the weight, but if you had EVER done said dynamic equations you would know this...  Gust front load alleviation. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

13 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

DEAR BLIND FOOL:
" is the world's most powerful ferrite-based direct-drive permanent magnet generator, "

The difference between us is, I can take one glance at the picture and know what's going on, while you can only read the headlines written by some flack. 

They've built a hybrid motor with a combination of old school ferrite magnets (weak and heavy) augmented by electromagnetic coils, which were clearly visible in the photo. I don't care about the weak ass magnets, I'm trying to focus attention on the power draining electromagnet component. Their site Doesn't explain much but focus on the single word "coils" and ask yourself what those are doing. Remember, the magnets are too weak as is, they need help. The Curie point is another clue to what they're doing but they are trying to "catch" investors so are purposely holding back info. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

13 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Apparently you are, as the dynamic forces = 98% of the tower load and not the weight, but if you had EVER done said dynamic equations you would know this...  Gust front load alleviation. 

Ignore mass at your peril. Perhaps if you knew the first thing about aerodynamics.

That mass has to be accounted for in the overall design. Your arm waving won't make the tower base, stanchion and the rest just go away. Here's a little hint they should have taught you in school, it's mass times velocity squared. You must account for every gram of mass in the design. 

[Meredith Poor + 895]

On 8/28/2020 at 11:14 AM, carbonates said:

Likewise, I expect wind turbines to see heavy damage and become inoperable for quite some time

So why would the Irish, the Scots, the Norwegians, the Danes, and the Germans plant wind turbines in the North Sea and the Baltic? Seems like those are about the worst areas in the world for storms. Or, perhaps this is exactly what wind turbines need to generate power economically.