https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-wind-and-solar/

[NickW + 2,714]

9 hours ago, ronwagn said:

You should see my windmill go! I mean to check with the city to see if I can put up a power producing one (small) for fun. I also do own a "real" solar panel I haven't tried yet. It might run an LED bulb pretty well. We have wind farms nearby. Up to 40 mph winds and a rare derecho. 

pictures please. 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 1/16/2021 at 10:18 PM, ronwagn said:

Correct. My concern is the mining, soil runoff, toxicity, and other pollution from disposal over hundreds of years. This compared to natural gas and its issues. The issue is important to me because I do not believe in the man caused global warming that has been predicted for decades. I do not want natural gas to be demonized any more than wind and solar. I am just for the best choice, whatever it turns out to be. 

You get plenty of toxic waste from gas operations. I remember trying to legally dispose of 187 barrels of radiative (NORMS) waste from a small gas plant. Adding to that the oily wastes.....

[NickW + 2,714]

9 hours ago, ronwagn said:

How can it be a Strawman Argument if Biden fully supports it?

Can you post a link where Biden or his Reps are promoting an economy run solely on wind, solar and batteries? 

Otherwise I shall assume the claim is conjecture (like most of these threads) 

I appreciate wind and solar tend to be the poster children of a green economy but usually further examination of political parties energy policies have more depth if you care to read them. 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 1/16/2021 at 10:05 PM, Ulysses said:

These are great discussions. I didn’t see much that addresses increased grid instability associated with renewables. Apparently, batteries intended as backup power for renewables are used to provide ongoing stability in California. Same is true of Tesla’s batteries in Australia. They provide stability, not backup power. Backup power is a long way off.

https://www.cfact.org/2021/01/16/california-secretly-struggles-with-renewables/

In the UK the National Grid contract companies / organisations  with back up generators to provide short term operating reservoir on an instant basis. I think the minimum criteria is 200KW for 2 hours. Its all automated and based on grid frequency. 

The advantages of this are:

• The diesel for these back up generators needs to be cycled through anyway. Better to use it when its needed. 
• The capital investment has already been made
• The owner of the equipment gets paid, partially offsetting the cost of their investment 
• No additional investment is necessary by the natioanal grid to provide back up. 

[Boat + 1,324]

Actually huge battery storage installations are being installed to take care of huge loads. Seen pictures of the duck? 
In the South it’s very hot during the day. Millions of AC units kick on. Solar can take care of demand except for a couple of hrs in the morning and 4 hrs in the evening. These batteries will cover those 6 hrs. It’s called flattening the duck curve. 
Google Battery Storage installations and you’ll see demand is growing quickly. In a few years this approach will be mainstream. So sorry to nat gas that owned the intermittent solution. 
The battery market is projected to need 600 or so of these mega Giga battery plants around the world. 
Let’s compensate for the lost birds to wind turbines by outlawing gun owners who pay to shoot birds who fly from cages for a fee. Spend that money for a print from Ducks Unlimited. 😁. You should have to stomp wheat and milo fields in the snow for your birds.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

8 hours ago, nsdp said:

Properly sited wind farms in Wyoming and the Texas Panhandle have been delivering 51%capacity since 2014 if you have followed papers Presented at the ASME annual conferences, 10% increase over PragerU's outdated 2008 info.  Multilayer solar panels  which cover from ultraviolet to near infrared are 41% efficient. Visible light only is 21% if you buy quality panels. 

This is the state of the art storage in China. https://patents.google.com/patent/CN104937222B/en Note the date 9/22/17.  China will have 7 years worth of plant construction(first one complete last October) on line by the time the first plant goes on in the US. The Chinese do not need  proctoscopes to see where they are going.  

When coupled with salt cavern storage of hydrogen and oxygen  you could store 130,000 mwh based on Liquid Air's Spindletop hydrogen storage facility (1000x Tesla's South Australia installation) or 92,000 mwh based on Phillips 66's Clemen's done (operating for 41 years now) and 84 gwh using Praxair's Moss Bluff cavern. The design solves the variability of wind and solar by using electrolyzers to balance grid load and the twin generators provide inertial mass and reactive power  that batteries do not provide.  This design needs only 3 minutes to be 60% of name plate capacity(30 min to 100%) not  4 days the way coal does nor  2 hours the way a CCGT does.

I gather no one here has been certified by NERC as grid dispatcher or by IEEE as a Power Generation and Transmission operations specialist.

Appears you did not read my post on page 1.  Capacity factor for wind is a meaningless arbitrary number.  It actually means something for solar though. 

Glanced VERY quickly at link... Appears you actually posted a link to a so called "patent" by the Chinese.  That is no patent at all.  You can't patent basic Thermodynamics or adding another turbine or a heat exchanger... 🙄    All the big boys already use a 3 stage turbine closed loop, so the CO2 boys wish to try their hand at a loop on a loop for 6... uh, good luck, maybe 5 stage would be my guess.  The super low pressure would be absolutely GARGANTUAN(EDIT: I think I got tha backwards, I think it would be smaller... maybe, but what is the condenser Cold fluid>?) for CO2 compared to water and horrifically expensive and the super low pressure(2/3 or more vacuum) of water on the CO2 condensing problems... seem rather impossible, so it appears these guys need to do some more reading of basic literature in the west so they can "patent" some more BS... Ah, what are they going to condense the CO2 with... LOX?🙄

CCGT does not need 2 hours(where do you get this crap from?).  Same 60% CF is under 30 minutes and with a modification(bypass) to act as a simple cycle could be just as fast as or nearly so as peaker gas plants but slower due to size difference of 1st turbine stage.  For single cycle gas turbine it is under 5 minutes and closer to 2minutes(smaller spindle full load) for 40% fuel burn efficiency.

Edited January 18, 2021 by footeab@yahoo.com

[Ulysses + 21]

Perhaps a better solution to stabilize renewable electricity generation would be these zero emission gas plants. The plants can be scaled down for wide application.https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2021/01/08/net-power-ceo-announces-four-new-zero-emission-gas-plants-underway/

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by Ulysses
readability

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

On 1/15/2021 at 9:19 PM, Dan Clemmensen said:

For wind, "efficiency" is not an interesting metric. For solar, "efficiency" is only interesting in exotic situations where cost is driven by area. Everywhere else, the interesting metric is the amount of energy captured per invested dollar. Who cares how much wind is not captured or how much solar is not captured, except as it affects the capital cost?  For other generators, "efficiency" is a critical metric because the fuel is expensive.

If capital cost stays the same or shrinks while efficiency increases, less capital is spent per actual installed Watt. So I'd argue that it's very important. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

@footeab@yahoo.com How in the world can that be false? 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

7 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

@footeab@yahoo.com How in the world can that be false? 

The word efficiency used does not mean what you think it means is why.  Engineering does not work that way is why. Just spitting out the word efficiency does not magically make it so.  Efficiency gains do not happen for free. 

In fact, sometimes being LESS efficient in the case of wind turbine actually collects MORE power.  Lets give an example: So, if you make the chord of the blade wider or the airfoil creates more drag, but increases total lift lowering the L/D ratio(the Lift to Drag ratio), you ultimately collect more power, but your efficiency at collecting it went DOWN.  Tower forces went up, or did they?  Depends on velocity of the wind, advance ratio of the blades, etc.  I already gave out the example of how the Capacity Factor "efficiency" number keeps getting thrown around and ultimately means very little other than how intermittent the power source is, not how cost efficient the turbines are at delivering power 24/7. 

Solar, increase in efficiency = what new rare earth material has to be doped into these silicon wafers?  Doubt this new doping process is free... Cadmium Telluride are king right now(24%), but that means Cadmium a rather heavy metal poisonous nightmare to cleanup after the fact.  How quickly does this new doped silicon wafer oxidize compared to the older tech?  Just because nameplate efficiency says HIGH, is it actually HIGH?  What happens when it heats up?  Take thin film for instance, its efficiency is HIGHER than monocrystal panels... but since this thing called the SUN heats them up just like monocrystaline wafers, its heat characteristics are MUCH poorer so in REALITY, said thin film solar panels collect LESS power due to heating unless said panel is refrigerated(not a joke some people do that to gain efficiency and total power collected) and degrade MUCH faster than "less efficient" monocrystaline panels. 

So, throwing out the word efficiency, which superficially sounds "scientific" is in fact, not.

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, Ulysses said:

Perhaps a better solution to stabilize renewable electricity generation would be these zero emission gas plants. The plants can be scaled down for wide application.https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2021/01/08/net-power-ceo-announces-four-new-zero-emission-gas-plants-underway/

 

The other side of this equation is demand management. With smart meters its relatively easy to switch off certain types of plant for short periods whether it be at the industrial or domestic scale - refrigeration, air Con, water desal. certain types of smelters can be switched off for short periods.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

48 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

If capital cost stays the same or shrinks while efficiency increases, less capital is spent per actual installed Watt. So I'd argue that it's very important. 

As I said, all that matters is $/Wh. If the best way to reduce $/Wh is via efficiency increases, then sure, but it's really stupid to try to increase some arbitrary efficiency metric if it increases $/Wh.  (Exception: Solar panels for satellites, where kg/Wh is the critical metric)

The PragerU propaganda piece cleverly plays on your implicit assumption that capital cost will stay the same or shrink as efficiency increases. I do not see any evidence for this assumption, and I do see evidence against it for both wind and solar.

Please note: $/Wh must include all capital costs including things like cost of the land and cost of transporting the equipment, and those costs are indeed reduced when efficiency increases, so efficiency increases are multiplied. But they are still only useful as they affect the fully-loaded $/Wh.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

11 hours ago, NickW said:

Can you post a link where Biden or his Reps are promoting an economy run solely on wind, solar and batteries? 

Otherwise I shall assume the claim is conjecture (like most of these threads) 

I appreciate wind and solar tend to be the poster children of a green economy but usually further examination of political parties energy policies have more depth if you care to read them. 

" President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of a zero-carbon U.S. energy sector by 2035, but it’s still a lofty target that will require a radical reconfiguration of the country’s generation and transmission system to achieve. "

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-charts-a-path-for-u.s-to-reach-50-renewables-by-2030 From 6% to 50% in ten years! If possible, it would cost tens of trillions of dollars over a short period of time, raise energy prices dramatically, and waste the installed energy plants in place. Am I wrong? Show me how?

Edited January 18, 2021 by ronwagn

[NickW + 2,714]

46 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

" President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of a zero-carbon U.S. energy sector by 2035, but it’s still a lofty target that will require a radical reconfiguration of the country’s generation and transmission system to achieve. "

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-charts-a-path-for-u.s-to-reach-50-renewables-by-2030 From 6% to 50% in ten years! If possible, it would cost tens of trillions of dollars over a short period of time, raise energy prices dramatically, and waste the installed energy plants in place. Am I wrong? Show me how?

Renewables describes a wider suit of technologies than solar and wind. 

With a lot of nuclear decommissioning over the next decade a lot of investment needs to made anyway. 

I suspect what you will see is a Renewable - natural gas electricity sector as nuclear is decommissioned and coal is squeezed out. 

Natural gas may well be winner in this scenario. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, ronwagn said:

" President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of a zero-carbon U.S. energy sector by 2035, but it’s still a lofty target that will require a radical reconfiguration of the country’s generation and transmission system to achieve. "

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-charts-a-path-for-u.s-to-reach-50-renewables-by-2030 From 6% to 50% in ten years! If possible, it would cost tens of trillions of dollars over a short period of time, raise energy prices dramatically, and waste the installed energy plants in place. Am I wrong? Show me how?

US electricity consumption is in the region of 4 trillion kwh

If 6%  of that is renewable then that leaves about 3.76 trillion. So you need to produce an extra 1.76 trillion kwh from renewables. 

 

However to produce 1.76 trillion kwh

23000 14 MW GE offshore turbines (op at 60-64% cap factor) 

Cost - $2 trillion (ish) based on $6m per MW installed. May fall with economies of scale / larger turbine development. 

or

1 TW of solar panels operating at 1800kwh/ kw of capacity per year. That would cover approx 4000km2 of surfaces

Costwise about $600bn for the panels, probably less given the scale. Multiple that by 2.5-3 to account for installation costs, labour & transmission lines. 

Building at that scale would generate large economies of scale so costs would fall significantly on whats paid today 

However I don't believe  this can be done with solar and wind  alone in that time frame. 

The program would need to heavily focus on business and domestic energy efficiency to get the 50% figure down in actual numbers. Efficiency generally gives a quick return on investment

Really heavily push other renewables -

• Hydro / Hydro upgrades,
• geothermal - both electrical and heat
• Biogas - a lot of potential here. The UK's estimated resource is 150 TWh so 5-6x for USA
• Tidal - Bay of Fundy has highest tidal range in the world. Tidal is intermittent but very predictable and available daily
• Import a lot more hydro from Canada
• Wave energy

Use gas much more efficiently - promote combined heat and power. Several manufacturers have developed micro CHP boilers which output 1KW of electricity for every 9KW of heat. These work very nicely to help meet peak demand as most peoples heating and HW come on at similar times as peak electricity consumption

Nuclear could be included but whether much could be built inside a 15 year time frame is open to question. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by NickW

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

3 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

The word efficiency used does not mean what you think it means is why.  Engineering does not work that way is why. Just spitting out the word efficiency does not magically make it so.  Efficiency gains do not happen for free. 

In fact, sometimes being LESS efficient in the case of wind turbine actually collects MORE power.  Lets give an example: So, if you make the chord of the blade wider or the airfoil creates more drag, but increases total lift lowering the L/D ratio(the Lift to Drag ratio), you ultimately collect more power, but your efficiency at collecting it went DOWN.  Tower forces went up, or did they?  Depends on velocity of the wind, advance ratio of the blades, etc.  I already gave out the example of how the Capacity Factor "efficiency" number keeps getting thrown around and ultimately means very little other than how intermittent the power source is, not how cost efficient the turbines are at delivering power 24/7. 

Solar, increase in efficiency = what new rare earth material has to be doped into these silicon wafers?  Doubt this new doping process is free... Cadmium Telluride are king right now(24%), but that means Cadmium a rather heavy metal poisonous nightmare to cleanup after the fact.  How quickly does this new doped silicon wafer oxidize compared to the older tech?  Just because nameplate efficiency says HIGH, is it actually HIGH?  What happens when it heats up?  Take thin film for instance, its efficiency is HIGHER than monocrystal panels... but since this thing called the SUN heats them up just like monocrystaline wafers, its heat characteristics are MUCH poorer so in REALITY, said thin film solar panels collect LESS power due to heating unless said panel is refrigerated(not a joke some people do that to gain efficiency and total power collected) and degrade MUCH faster than "less efficient" monocrystaline panels. 

So, throwing out the word efficiency, which superficially sounds "scientific" is in fact, not.

You took this way too far. In this case, efficiency is simply how much of the available sunlight energy a panel can capture.

Note the constraints I made: Capital cost stays the same or declines

If you capture more energy for the same capital cost, that's an advantage. That's all I said, and it's absolutely correct. 

[EDIT] The general trend of technology is an increase in reliability and a decrease in cost. I'm not saying that this must be true for solar, but to dismiss it as impossible doesn't seem to be a strong position. 

Edited January 18, 2021 by KeyboardWarrior

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

3 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

As I said, all that matters is $/Wh. If the best way to reduce $/Wh is via efficiency increases, then sure, but it's really stupid to try to increase some arbitrary efficiency metric if it increases $/Wh.  (Exception: Solar panels for satellites, where kg/Wh is the critical metric)

The PragerU propaganda piece cleverly plays on your implicit assumption that capital cost will stay the same or shrink as efficiency increases. I do not see any evidence for this assumption, and I do see evidence against it for both wind and solar.

Please note: $/Wh must include all capital costs including things like cost of the land and cost of transporting the equipment, and those costs are indeed reduced when efficiency increases, so efficiency increases are multiplied. But they are still only useful as they affect the fully-loaded $/Wh.

Yes I completely agree. I never made the assumption that capital cost will stay the same or shrink, I said IF.  Of course land and equipment have to be included, but as I said in the simple statement "If capital cost declines or stays the same". 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 1/18/2021 at 12:06 AM, nsdp said:

 

Hydrogen and oxygen mixed in a huge cavern reminds me of a hydrogen bomb? How can safety be assured?

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

3 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Hydrogen and oxygen mixed in a huge cavern reminds me of a hydrogen bomb? How can safety be assured?

I'm not sure why he mentioned both hydrogen and oxygen, they don't need to be stored together. An equivalent would be having tanks on your car for oxygen. It doesn't make sense. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 1/18/2021 at 3:32 AM, NickW said:

pictures please. 

My farm style small windmill lit by multiple solar LEDs. 

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPsJFENgfyd8gfVm2V1xetsTRDOsBP6gb15cXAC

Edited January 21, 2021 by ronwagn
add

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

9 hours ago, ronwagn said:

My farm style small windmill lit by multiple solar LEDs. 

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPsJFENgfyd8gfVm2V1xetsTRDOsBP6gb15cXAC