Wind droughts

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

18 minutes ago, Old-Ruffneck said:

No, my whole point is that there is a ton of "dirty" polluting of waters and landmass to mine even windmills. There surely is alot of copper, aluminum, and other finite metals that are difficult to extract but some here think it's totally ''clean'' not counting the massive mining worldwide to make these. I was in Texas and posted photos of the "freeze" that the grid wasn't ready for.. My thinking is .50 caliber armor piercing round and start plunking 'em. Goverment subsidies that some of us hard working tax payers end up eating the cost of all this crap and in 15 years will be crapped out. The longevity of all this is 15 years and degrades to nadda. Them battery packs Jay thinks so highly of is even bigger waste of money.  The problem is, we can't afford it without printing more multi-billions and make the dollar worth even less. 

Maybe they will run outta water and have to truly pay for it. More wind drought and rain drought..........

Copper gets recycled throughout and aluminum is like the 6th most common element of Earth.

The great Texas freeze seems like a failure at the stage of planning the local grid. You wouldn't do much damage with a .50 AP, try an incendiary instead.

https://www.news.com.au/national/burning-wind-turbine-spins-smoke-corkscrew-in-texas/video/1fd6e67a36189f27f3f773ad97fe3d2d

The dollar is actually gaining against all other major currencies, but the Russian ruble, at the moment.

Jay's battery packs are suspicious, indeed. If there were commercially viable, I should be able to buy one for myself. No such observable, though.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Andrei Moutchkine

[RichieRich216 + 454]

Gee, Now who would of thought that there’d be windless day’s ?

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

On 7/21/2022 at 6:44 AM, Jay McKinsey said:

Of course there are ways to store enough power you just ignore them. And of course you didn't bother to discuss the fact that many wind droughts occur in summer during heat waves when solar is at maximum production.

 It is highly questionable that you need 7 Snowy 2.0. The great European wind drought of 2021 caused only a 32% decrease in generation, not 100% and occurred when solar was at max.

Through summer and early autumn 2021, Europe experienced a long period of dry conditions and low wind speeds. The beautifully bright and still weather “wind drought” experienced in Europe this year saw SSE in the UK report a 32% drop in power from its renewable assets. https://energypost.eu/climate-change-wind-droughts-and-the-implications-for-wind-energy/pe 

The great US wind drought was Q1 2015. It was super hard to find, I had to type "wind drought" into google and look down the page to the third link. But of course we know how terrible you are at research. Let me show you how it is done right:

"This case study notably marked an extreme climatic event in the United States. During the first months of 2015 (January–March), surface wind speeds were substantially below normal in most of the contiguous United States, which reduced substantially the power generation of the wind farms in the western part of the country (Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas in particular). These conditions had severe implications for wind farm owners who saw an important reduction in revenues, making difficult regular cash-flow operations." https://s2s4e.eu/sites/default/files/2019-12/Case study 6 Factsheet_0.pdf

Now let's look at what happened:

Texas generation was down 14% from the previous year Q1: 

https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2021/03/10/FuelMixReport_PreviousYears.zip

2014 Q1:

 

2015 Q1

 

 

 

There are apparently 20 pumped hydro projects in various stages of development in Australia.

RenewEconomy has unveiled the latest in its series of renewable energy and storage project maps of Australia, this time focusing on pumped hydro storage.

The map is well-timed, given the increased focus on long-term storage needs, and it coincides with the release of a new funding scheme by the NSW government, and a feasibility study into a major new pumped hydro project at Borumba Dam in Queensland.

The Pumped Hydro Storage Map of Australia identifies more than 20 different projects. Only three of them are in operation – Tumut, Wivenhoe and Shoalhaven – and two more are in construction, including the massive and controversial Snowy 2.0 scheme and the Kidston project in north Queensland.

Another 15 or so are in various stages of development, some of them waiting for possible funding initiatives from ARENA, or the federal government’s UNGI scheme, both of which have been delayed.

The map does not include sites of pumped hydro potential – like that put together by the ANU – but focuses instead on completed and announced projects and proposals.

It also includes a compressed air energy storage project proposal for Broken Hill, which is similar to pumped hydro apart from the fact it would use compressed air rather than water.

We hope you find this and other maps that we have produced to be a useful reference. If we have missed some project proposals, or if you spot an error, please do let us know.

You can find the other maps we have published in our series below. And there is more to come!

Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Map of Australia

Big Battery Storage Map of Australia

 

Green Hydrogen Is Cheaper Than LNG in Europe

High LNG prices mean green hydrogen—produced by a renewable-powered electrolyzer splitting water—is cheaper to burn than natural gas in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the U.K., according to research by BloombergNEF. The fuels’ costs are often compared for two reasons: So-called gray and blue hydrogen can be produced using natural gas, and green hydrogen can be a clean substitute for some gas-powered processes.

 

Compressed Air - this company has 8.7GWh in development right now globally:

Advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) company Hydrostor is waiting to hear if one of its proposed large-scale projects in California will get approved to supply electricity.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) said last week that Hydrostor’s Application for Certification (AFC) for its Gem Energy Storage Center, a 500MW/4,000MWh facility which would be built in Kern County, is complete.

An AFC is required as part of the standard licensing process for all power plants of over 50MW within the Commission’s jurisdiction. Project proposals need to meet criteria of providing adequate information to enable decision-making.

The application for the US$975 million Gem project had been filed by Hydrostor late last year, as reported by Energy-Storage.news in December 2021. The company claimed Gem could be online by 2026, creating up to 700 jobs during construction and about 40 full-time jobs once operational.

With the CEC having found the AFC to be complete, executive director Drew Bohan recommended that the 12-month timeline for a decision to be made on it should begin. Four commissioners voted unanimously to begin that process at a meeting held 13 July, with one commissioner absent and none against the approval.

Canada-headquartered Hydrostor has developed a technology which it claims greatly improves the efficiency of using compressed air to store energy in vast underground caverns.

A-CAES also eliminates fossil fuel use associated with legacy compressed air plants, CEO Curtis VanWalleghem explained in an interview with Energy-Storage.news earlier this year. The world’s 400MW of existing compressed air plants, two facilities, one in the US and the other in Germany, use thermal generation to pre-heat air for expansion as they discharge their stored energy.

Instead, Hydrostor’s technology utilises a thermal management system which heats up water during the compression process. The hot water is then used in the later step of expanding the air. The innovation boosts the round-trip efficiency of compressed air from about 40% at legacy plants to 65% for advanced compressed air energy storage.

The company not only holds the keys to the technology which it could supply to others or license, but has also taken on the role of developing projects in key territories.

Hydrostor has been able to attract the backing of investors including Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which has committed to up to US$250 million investment, based on whether the energy storage company can make progress on its 1.1GW/8.7GWh of projects in development.

According to research group Mercom Capital, Hydrostor was the biggest recipient of VC funding in the energy storage space in Q1 2022 thanks to the Goldman Sachs investment and was bolstered with a further US$25 million commitment from a Canadian pension fund in April.

In addition to the 4GWh Gem project, Hydrostor has also filed an AFC for another California project, the 400MW/3,200MWh Pecho Energy Storage Center in San Luis Obispo County.

CEO VanWalleghem said that in California, Hydrostor is developing plants with eight hours storage duration to meet the profile of facilities that supply capacity into California’s CAISO wholesale market under resource adequacy (RA) contract structures – through which load-serving entities like investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and community choice aggregators (CCAs) are ordered to make procurements to ensure their customers’ lights stay on.

However, the A-CAES technology is scalable to much longer durations: one case in point is Hydrostor’s other gigawatt-hour scale project in development at Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia.

Silver City Energy Storage Center in Broken Hill would be a 200MW/1,500MWh A-CAES plant that would participate in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM). It was recently selected by regional grid operator Transgrid as the preferred option among a number of proposals as offering the highest net benefit to consumers and integrating the most renewable energy capacity to the network cost-effectively.

The California Energy Commission’s hearing office is set to hold a potential information hearing and site visit for the Gem Energy Storage Center project on 11 August.

There is no equipment around that can really burn hydrogen. A stupid thing to do anyway, because you'll only get about 1/2 the efficiency compared to direct hydrogen fuel cell.

The existence of Australian hydropower was a revelation. The place is largely flat as pancake.

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

On 7/21/2022 at 3:11 AM, markslawson said:

I wrote this article  for the Australian edition of the British magazine Spectator a couple of weeks back. In essence, academics are FINALLY starting to realise that wind droughts are an issue with intermittent systems and studying them. As the article notes some work has been done in the UK, where it is known, for example, that some years back the wind made no contribution to the UK grid for nine days, and there were serious deficits during another drought at the end of last year. These wind droughts are an extreme event like cyclones or rain droughts. I saw some material recently on wind droughts in the US but I seem to have mislaid it. Perhaps someone has access? As for Australia there has been limited work to suggest that wind droughts in a given year might last for up to 36 hours. But that's just from one year of data. As noted in the article there is no way to store enough power to tide the grids over such long periods. Australia is building one water dam project called Snowy 2.0 (after the region) but a fully renewables network would need at least six of seven. In any case the blindness of policy makers to this issue to date is just extraordinary.        

Reminds me of this silly project

https://www.dw.com/en/worlds-tallest-solar-chimney-going-up-down-under/a-597381

endemic to Australia. (Though somebody over in Israel rediscovered it independently)

Methinks, the best place to put a windmill at is on top of a nuclear power plant's cooling tower. Constant updraft made out of denser water steam.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

11 minutes ago, Andrei Moutchkine said:

There is no equipment around that can really burn hydrogen. A stupid thing to do anyway, because you'll only get about 1/2 the efficiency compared to direct hydrogen fuel cell.

The existence of Australian hydropower was a revelation. The place is largely flat as pancake.

Linear generator running on hydrogen, ammonia

Mainspring Energy, a US linear generator specialist, has adapted its technology so its generators can run on hydrogen and ammonia. It said the generators can ramp up and down quickly via solar, with the ability to dynamically switch between different kinds of fuels.

“The generator has passed key tests to directly run 100% hydrogen and 100% ammonia fuels at high efficiencies,” said company spokesperson Maria Amundson.

HS2 reports hydrogen generator trial success

22 JUL, 2022 BY GREG PITCHER

 

High Speed 2 (HS2) bosses have revealed the successful results of a trial of hydrogen-fuelled generators as ministers moved to boost the development of infrastructure for the green energy source.

Use of two hydrogen power units on a site in west London slashed carbon emissions by 51t per 400 hours while producing the electricity required for operations on the rapid rail link project.

HS2 air quality manager Andrea Davidson said the use of hydrogen rather than diesel to power site equipment brought “major” benefits.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Jay McKinsey

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

On 7/22/2022 at 4:06 AM, Ron Wagner said:

I have never seen an article discussing the availability of sunlight during different parts of the year for solar users. Here is an explanation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox#Length_of_equinoctial_day_and_night

It is also of interest that climates that are too hot do not allow solar panels to work properly while those with more moderate days get better performance if there are not too many cloudy days. Temperatures can also be too cool or weather too snowy etc. 

I would like to know if solar is more or less variable than wind given all factors. We just bought a $2,000+ solar system with movable panels. It can run medical devices, lights, electric blankets, fans, charge phones and computers etc. My major issue is large trees. It is good for camping also. We can probably live well off the grid with a few extra solar panels and a medium sized propane tank. We already have a decorative windmill and might add a electric generating right next to it. 

We are preppers and having fun at it but praying we don't have to suffer through an ice storm or whatever. 

You should probably be able to get the

https://globalsolaratlas.info

to calculate an exact solar budget for a given location. In general, the best you can get is high up the mountains, because it is simultaneously cold, yet gets a lot more sun. You'll need a different build for the panel to fully exploit this eventually, though. ~40% efficiency is routine for spacecraft-grade panels.

The European windmills can handle an ice storm routinely, on the account of being heated.

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

56 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Linear generator running on hydrogen, ammonia

Mainspring Energy, a US linear generator specialist, has adapted its technology so its generators can run on hydrogen and ammonia. It said the generators can ramp up and down quickly via solar, with the ability to dynamically switch between different kinds of fuels.

“The generator has passed key tests to directly run 100% hydrogen and 100% ammonia fuels at high efficiencies,” said company spokesperson Maria Amundson.

HS2 reports hydrogen generator trial success

22 JUL, 2022 BY GREG PITCHER

 

High Speed 2 (HS2) bosses have revealed the successful results of a trial of hydrogen-fuelled generators as ministers moved to boost the development of infrastructure for the green energy source.

Use of two hydrogen power units on a site in west London slashed carbon emissions by 51t per 400 hours while producing the electricity required for operations on the rapid rail link project.

HS2 air quality manager Andrea Davidson said the use of hydrogen rather than diesel to power site equipment brought “major” benefits.

Yes, I am sure a new widget can be made, but why?!? Why not a fuel cell, which has no moving parts and produces more electricity.

This construct:

https://www.mainspringenergy.com/technology/

Appears to be of marginal significance. Possibly some applications where you may want to minimize the amount of motion, at the price of making everything very large? Dunno. Both hydrogen and ammonia reactions sure necessitate exotic materials.

Also note that hydrogen does not really react with ammonia in the chemical sense. So, I have a hunch that they have a secondary contraption, which runs as a compressor (as opposed to burner/expander) instead. Ammonia is half so bad as a working fluid for a fridge.

Actually, here is a great scoop on the chemistry of it, which is more like physics.

https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/76180/does-liquid-ammonia-react-with-hydrogen-gas

Problem is, advertising an extra low temperature burn is not good for efficiency of any thermal machinery on the face of it. Perhaps, they intend to generate high pressures instead of high temps? You can prevent ammonia from boiling under higher pressure, up to 185-190C. The idea is to use hydrogen to catalyze the vapor (magic, see stack exchange), then get it to recondense due to elevated pressure, which is going to generate a lot of cold.

Possibly, they want to only burn very little hydrogen at a time, as it generates south of 2000C. The stuff also apparently autoignites in the presence of air/oxygen.

https://hysafe.info/uploads/papers/2019/214.pdf

Overall, seems like a strange reinvention of a bastard child of diesel 4-stroke boxer with an alternator. The bigger picture is slapping the cold end / fridge on top of your accessible delta t. You don't need anything specifically "linear" for that. This is my favorite one

https://electratherm.com/power-module-75/

It is nothing but a well-built screw compressor. You can replace the cooling radiator + ventilators on any large combustion engine with this, and it will make extra electricity. Incidentally, this means that a regular car should be running more efficiently with the aircon on, not less. If it were properly built...

Still don't see any of this beating fuel cells in efficiency, if you've got hydrogen.

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Andrei Moutchkine

[TailingsPond + 1,009]

On 7/20/2022 at 7:11 PM, markslawson said:

 In essence, academics are FINALLY starting to realise that wind droughts are an issue with intermittent systems and studying them. As the article notes some work has been done in the UK, where it is known, for example, that some years back the wind made no contribution to the UK grid for nine days, and there were serious deficits during another drought at the end of last year. These wind droughts are an extreme event like cyclones or rain droughts. I saw some material recently on wind droughts in the US but I seem to have mislaid it. Perhaps someone has access? As for Australia there has been limited work to suggest that wind droughts in a given year might last for up to 36 hours. But that's just from one year of data. As noted in the article there is no way to store enough power to tide the grids over such long periods. Australia is building one water dam project called Snowy 2.0 (after the region) but a fully renewables network would need at least six of seven. In any case the blindness of policy makers to this issue to date is just extraordinary.        

You are suggesting there are always-on systems.  Fact is fossil plant shutdowns have caused the most serious problems lately.

Fossil fuel plants should have to keep nameplate capacity all the time... using batteries if necessary. 

Good for the goose good for the gander.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

12 hours ago, Andrei Moutchkine said:

Yes, I am sure a new widget can be made, but why?!? Why not a fuel cell, which has no moving parts and produces more electricity.

This construct:

https://www.mainspringenergy.com/technology/

Appears to be of marginal significance. Possibly some applications where you may want to minimize the amount of motion, at the price of making everything very large? Dunno. Both hydrogen and ammonia reactions sure necessitate exotic materials.

Also note that hydrogen does not really react with ammonia in the chemical sense. So, I have a hunch that they have a secondary contraption, which runs as a compressor (as opposed to burner/expander) instead. Ammonia is half so bad as a working fluid for a fridge.

Actually, here is a great scoop on the chemistry of it, which is more like physics.

https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/76180/does-liquid-ammonia-react-with-hydrogen-gas

Problem is, advertising an extra low temperature burn is not good for efficiency of any thermal machinery on the face of it. Perhaps, they intend to generate high pressures instead of high temps? You can prevent ammonia from boiling under higher pressure, up to 185-190C. The idea is to use hydrogen to catalyze the vapor (magic, see stack exchange), then get it to recondense due to elevated pressure, which is going to generate a lot of cold.

Possibly, they want to only burn very little hydrogen at a time, as it generates south of 2000C. The stuff also apparently autoignites in the presence of air/oxygen.

https://hysafe.info/uploads/papers/2019/214.pdf

Overall, seems like a strange reinvention of a bastard child of diesel 4-stroke boxer with an alternator. The bigger picture is slapping the cold end / fridge on top of your accessible delta t. You don't need anything specifically "linear" for that. This is my favorite one

https://electratherm.com/power-module-75/

It is nothing but a well-built screw compressor. You can replace the cooling radiator + ventilators on any large combustion engine with this, and it will make extra electricity. Incidentally, this means that a regular car should be running more efficiently with the aircon on, not less. If it were properly built...

Still don't see any of this beating fuel cells in efficiency, if you've got hydrogen.

 

Because hydrogen will be a backup energy source that only runs a few weeks out of the year. Efficiency is less important than having lower cost burners that can sit around for months not doing anything. Actually I think compressed air and flow batteries are going to be the economic choice for handling most long term storage. Hydrogen has other demands than grid generation.

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

27 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Because hydrogen will be a backup energy source that only runs a few weeks out of the year. Efficiency is less important than having lower cost burners that can sit around for months not doing anything. Actually I think compressed air and flow batteries are going to be the economic choice for handling most long term storage. Hydrogen has other demands than grid generation.

A burner would be a lot more expensive to build if it burns hydrogen. Much tighter sealing requirements, plus it creeps into metals and makes them brittle. Cannot use any copper alloys at all. Sound like an especially bum deal for something that only "runs a few weeks a year"? If you are willing to deal with scary, why not use acetylene instead? That stuff is wicked, yet liquifies at something like wimpy -80C, which ought to render it much safer.

[Matthew MONTGOMERY 0]

Wind droughts could possibly be a result of overbuilding wind farms.  The more wind is farmed upstream, the less is available downstream.  Just a thought.  That could also possibly be a factor in the recent  waterdroughts.

[Ron Wagner + 710]

On 7/25/2022 at 7:13 PM, markslawson said:

Jay - as I think we've discussed before the figures you quote in your post are utterly trivial. Simply not worth mentioning. By grid level storage I meant storage that might tie the Californian grid over for days or even weeks not seconds. Battery storage has its usages in stabilising the grid and keeping up power while the dreaded fossil fuel generators are switched back on but they are NOT a solution to the problem of wind droughts. I ask you to adjust to that reality. This is not adding to the discussion so I'll move on. Leave it with you. 

Lithium batteries are so expensive that small scale home systems are using lead acid batteries and planning on replacing them twice while still having a price advantage over lithium. 

They are lithium phosphate batteries which are apparently less costly but not as good as other types.  I may wait for more information and lower prices. In fifteen years here I have not had any long outages of electricity. I have never heard of a natural gas outage in America so maybe that should not be a concern?

Edited August 1, 2022 by Ron Wagner

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

1 hour ago, Ron Wagner said:

Lithium batteries are so expensive that small scale home systems are using lead acid batteries and planning on replacing them twice while still having a price advantage over lithium. 

Not true.  Used to be true.  True 5 years ago.  LiPo are ~$300/kWh for the last batch I bought and that was ~2 years ago, and you technically can use the entire kWh(dumb to do so, but you can).  To get equivalent Lead Acid kWh you would have to buy 4X as many batteries and they would still die sooner because the common lead acid batteries you buy are designed to FAIL.  You will note Lead acid batteries the telephone company uses are good for 30+ years, designed with DEEP sumps to collect the precipitated sulpher buildl up.  Likewise they are built with drain/pumps out the bottom to collect said junk to a central processing station where it gets broken down and turned back to sulpheric acid and put back into circulation.    Of course the charge efficiency is 78% compared to 99% of the Lithium.  Even these batteries you would still need 2X-->3X as many lead acid to obtain equivalent capacity of Lithium phosphate.  In terms of discharge rate you would need 5X as many, but if your rack is big enough you can go with parallel so the current issue decreases.  Of course the charge required is still 25% worse on your power bill so there is that. 

[Ron Wagner + 710]

11 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Not true.  Used to be true.  True 5 years ago.  LiPo are ~$300/kWh for the last batch I bought and that was ~2 years ago, and you technically can use the entire kWh(dumb to do so, but you can).  To get equivalent Lead Acid kWh you would have to buy 4X as many batteries and they would still die sooner because the common lead acid batteries you buy are designed to FAIL.  You will note Lead acid batteries the telephone company uses are good for 30+ years, designed with DEEP sumps to collect the precipitated sulpher buildl up.  Likewise they are built with drain/pumps out the bottom to collect said junk to a central processing station where it gets broken down and turned back to sulpheric acid and put back into circulation.    Of course the charge efficiency is 78% compared to 99% of the Lithium.  Even these batteries you would still need 2X-->3X as many lead acid to obtain equivalent capacity of Lithium phosphate.  In terms of discharge rate you would need 5X as many, but if your rack is big enough you can go with parallel so the current issue decreases.  Of course the charge required is still 25% worse on your power bill so there is that. 

Thanks for the information. I was going by what I found online and the fact that Yeti Goal Zero sells lead acid for their extra battery backup. I have only 1,500 watt hours but it is enough to run what I need for two c-paps, a fan, and lighting. My heat is natural gas from a small heating stove. I am considering adding batteries at some point but have an old generator I can rely on if my solar panels can't keep up in bad weather. I haven't even tested them for near zero to 80% charge on solar yet. I only get about eight hours of good sunlight on my property because of trees. I might add two solar panels to my roof also. Just one small spot is good for that. I have 300 watt movable solar panels right now. 

https://www.goalzero.com/products/goal-zero-yeti-1500x-portable-power-station

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

On 7/26/2022 at 3:31 AM, Andrei Moutchkine said:

There is no equipment around that can really burn hydrogen. A stupid thing to do anyway, because you'll only get about 1/2 the efficiency compared to direct hydrogen fuel cell.

 

I remember having read that you can blend Hydrogen into natgas upto 15% calorific value without major modification to generators burning it... and this was a few years ago

hydrogen-overview.pdf

[Michael Sanches + 187]

One problem is that the pro renewables are also the pro union. Regardless of power generation, there MUST be a grid. Solar roof panels? You obviously hate the American worker and your monthly service charge triples or quadruples.

Example: Las Vegas: Regular customer has a monthly fee of $12.

Those with solar panels have a monthly fee of $45.

In the end, they don't care where you get your power or how it is generated. You could burn babies and they would be cool with that as long as they get their $$$$. The only important part is that they get their $$$$.

In many cities and counties in CA it is illegal to have a clothes line, even if it cannot be seen outside the back yard.

Greenies: Government of the Elites, by the Elites, for the Elites.

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

5 minutes ago, Michael Sanches said:

Greenies: Government of the Elites, by the Elites, for the Elites.

The Blind leading the Blind. As they say abroad only in America. Although the EU has suffered the greatest of all.

[notsonice + 1,262]

On 7/25/2022 at 7:31 PM, Andrei Moutchkine said:

There is no equipment around that can really burn hydrogen. A stupid thing to do anyway, because you'll only get about 1/2 the efficiency compared to direct hydrogen fuel cell.

The existence of Australian hydropower was a revelation. The place is largely flat as pancake.

There is no equipment around that can really burn hydrogen. A stupid thing to do anyway????

you do realize you can blend 20 percent hydrogen with natural gas and use it the same as 100 percent nat gas......

IE In Europe you can then blend LNG with Hydrogen and F  Putin and his low IQ supporters.....

 

[TailingsPond + 1,009]

9 hours ago, Michael Sanches said:

One problem is that the pro renewables are also the pro union. Regardless of power generation, there MUST be a grid. Solar roof panels? You obviously hate the American worker and your monthly service charge triples or quadruples.

Example: Las Vegas: Regular customer has a monthly fee of $12.

Those with solar panels have a monthly fee of $45.

In the end, they don't care where you get your power or how it is generated. You could burn babies and they would be cool with that as long as they get their $$$$. The only important part is that they get their $$$$.

In many cities and counties in CA it is illegal to have a clothes line, even if it cannot be seen outside the back yard.

Greenies: Government of the Elites, by the Elites, for the Elites.

Vegas has cheap electricity because it has renewable energy already.  Hoover dam.

Terrible example

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

12 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

I remember having read that you can blend Hydrogen into natgas upto 15% calorific value without major modification to generators burning it... and this was a few years ago

hydrogen-overview.pdf

The UK plan on doing this in circa 18 months time.

Problem is they have had to dig up ALL the natural gas pipes to domestic housing and line them to avoid embrittlement issues which has cost a fortune.

Long term apparently there is a pay off for doing this, but we'll see.

The Prime Minister's November 2020 Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution stated that the Government will "work with industry to complete testing necessary to allow up to 20% blending of hydrogen into the gas distribution grid for all homes on the gas grid" by 2023.

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

1 hour ago, Rob Plant said:

The UK plan on doing this in circa 18 months time.

Problem is they have had to dig up ALL the natural gas pipes to domestic housing and line them to avoid embrittlement issues which has cost a fortune.

Long term apparently there is a pay off for doing this, but we'll see.

The Prime Minister's November 2020 Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution stated that the Government will "work with industry to complete testing necessary to allow up to 20% blending of hydrogen into the gas distribution grid for all homes on the gas grid" by 2023.

Without knowing the cost and ROI it seems a good idea from my view. reduce natgas usage by 20 % (i.e. reduce dependancy on imports); use largely existing infrastructure and a good use for excess renewables. 

I generally like this type of thing - some sort of evolution rather than tearing everything down and starting new. 

[Ron Wagner + 710]

On 7/21/2022 at 11:45 PM, Eyes Wide Open said:

We have a 12KW diesel genset in the RV, recently I've had it wired to the house and a 500 gallon tank plumbed. It should be quite successful if needed 

Congratulations! Watch the age of the gasoline and use Stabil. 

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

On 8/2/2022 at 3:49 AM, notsonice said:

There is no equipment around that can really burn hydrogen. A stupid thing to do anyway????

you do realize you can blend 20 percent hydrogen with natural gas and use it the same as 100 percent nat gas......

IE In Europe you can then blend LNG with Hydrogen and F  Putin and his low IQ supporters.....

 

Do check out what it takes to liquify hydrogen, oh mighty high IQ Putin opponent? If you meant CNG instead, note that hydrogen under pressure creeps into metals and makes them brittle, and is outright incompatible with any copper-based alloys.

[NickW + 2,714]

On 7/22/2022 at 3:06 AM, Ron Wagner said:

I have never seen an article discussing the availability of sunlight during different parts of the year for solar users. Here is an explanation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox#Length_of_equinoctial_day_and_night

It is also of interest that climates that are too hot do not allow solar panels to work properly while those with more moderate days get better performance if there are not too many cloudy days. Temperatures can also be too cool or weather too snowy etc. 

I would like to know if solar is more or less variable than wind given all factors. We just bought a $2,000+ solar system with movable panels. It can run medical devices, lights, electric blankets, fans, charge phones and computers etc. My major issue is large trees. It is good for camping also. We can probably live well off the grid with a few extra solar panels and a medium sized propane tank. We already have a decorative windmill and might add a electric generating right next to it. 

We are preppers and having fun at it but praying we don't have to suffer through an ice storm or whatever. 

Ron

Use this - it will calculate daily, monthly, annual outputs for your location . You need to put in angle of the panels and their wattage. Its Europe based but it appears to cover North America. 

For example a 1KW installation just south of Chicago will produce 1300kwh a year Year to year variability 52kwh) . In terms of monthly output 58 kwh in December and 143 in July. 

JRC Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS) - European Commission (europa.eu)

 

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by NickW

[NickW + 2,714]

On 7/31/2022 at 5:34 AM, Ron Wagner said:

Thanks for the information. I was going by what I found online and the fact that Yeti Goal Zero sells lead acid for their extra battery backup. I have only 1,500 watt hours but it is enough to run what I need for two c-paps, a fan, and lighting. My heat is natural gas from a small heating stove. I am considering adding batteries at some point but have an old generator I can rely on if my solar panels can't keep up in bad weather. I haven't even tested them for near zero to 80% charge on solar yet. I only get about eight hours of good sunlight on my property because of trees. I might add two solar panels to my roof also. Just one small spot is good for that. I have 300 watt movable solar panels right now. 

https://www.goalzero.com/products/goal-zero-yeti-1500x-portable-power-station

Today I am awaiting delivery of 2.7KW of solar panels and 2 grid tie inverters. This will be added to my 1.5KW set up. 

The intention was to tie up the installation with my wifes purchase of a PHEV (next spring) but I bought the plan fwd so we have more of our own supply over winter  and my small personal FU to Putler.

I am also purchasing 4 135ah 12v batteries as stand alone storage plus an additional inverter (already have 2). In the event of extended power cuts I can run an extension cable from the inverter and run lower power items such as the solar water heating pump and controls, LED lamps, IPAD charges, the internet connection. I will resist powering the boiler as this would just exacerbate the European gas shortage in our personal way. House is well insulated and we are acclimatised to 16 Deg C internal temp. Most peoples houses are way too hot. 

For cooking and hot water I have 2 spirit stoves and the 2 ring gas cooker off the yacht. Also got one of these for using wood outside and cooking food. 

Portable Wood Burning Cook Stoves | Rocket Stove Cooking - EcoZoom

and one of these

'Base Camp' Kelly Kettle® 1.6ltr : Anodised Aluminium Kettle + Upgraded Stainless Steel Fire-Base + Green Whistle | Boil Water Fast Outdoors | Camping Kettle and Camp Stove in one | Ultra fast | Lightweight | Wood Fueled Camp Stove For Solo or Group Use | NO Batteries | NO Gas | Fuel is FREE | For Fishing, Hunting, Scouts, Family Picnics | Weight 1.8lb / 0.8kg : Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors

In fact as part of my personal FU to Putler I am going to cook 2 meals a week on the wood stove over the winter months