Energy Outlook for Renewables. Pie in the sky or real?

[Meredith Poor + 895]

4 minutes ago, Wastral said:

Basic understanding of physics is generally required when making assessments that the forces are the same between 200mph tip speeds and 600mph.... unless you enjoy being laughed at of course.  Then of course there are all those wonderful videos of destroyed wind turbines after a tornado goes through...

I was able to find a video of a wind turbine being chewed up, although losing the blades may or may not mean that the hub/generator is damaged beyond repair.

[Meredith Poor + 895]

2 minutes ago, Wastral said:

Child, you have the internet, you appear to be able to type more than 2 words.  Not sure though...

If you're making an assertion, back it up with something.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 7/13/2019 at 10:01 PM, Meredith Poor said:

"2. A 12TW expansion of generating capacity requires about $13.3 trillion of new investment between now and 2050 – 77% of which goes to renewables."

First, renewables will be 100% of the energy mix by 2050. This will be interpreted rather broadly as including CO2 capture and conversion to hydrocarbons for aircraft, ships, and specialized vehicles. Solar panels will be in the area of 1 cent per watt by about 2027 given current trends. Installed cost will be well under $1 per watt.

Second, $13 trillion is a grossly conservative number (dividing 13 trillion by 30 years is about $430 billion per year). A far more likely scenario is that solar will be built out to 'excess', meaning the kind of overproduction being observed in the oil and gas sector today. Think of the scale up of container shipping as another recent example. One cause of this will be the idea of 'energy security' within various countries, such as China and the US, where overdeployment is viewed as some form of economic, military, or environmental 'insurance'.

Most of the money spent in the 2030's will be for storage. This needs to go through several orders of magnitude of scale up. Solar only has to grow within it's current order of magnitude, since it is already in the 100Gw per year scale.

You are assuming that the voters will go along with this planning. They will pay for any false sales pitches and political hanky panky. They are doing that now for old nuclear plants. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

Just now, Meredith Poor said:

If you're making an assertion, back it up with something.

Diaper hand holding....  Or take your own advice eh

PS: Rotational Forces go up by the square of velocity.  Then add extra dynamic loads, so, cubic function. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

9 hours ago, NickW said:

But within human timescales they are non renewable. 

Take oil - the global accumulation of stable oil deposits over geological historical time is somewhere in the region of 30-40 barrels per day. 

How much do we currently burn? 

RE Coal. 

Coal deposits formed before fungi developed that could metabolise lignin. The coal literally piled up. That process is not being repeated now at anywhere near the same scale. 

Diesel and gasoline can be made from coal, natural gas, biogas, soybeans, peanuts, jatropha, etc. 

[Meredith Poor + 895]

Just now, Wastral said:

Diaper hand holding....  Or take your own advice eh

PS: Rotational Forces go up by the square of velocity.  Then add extra dynamic loads, so, cubic function. 

More likely debris. Wind speeds in tornadoes are roughly 250 MPH max. Other possible explanation are shearing forces that twist the blade off the hub. Turbine designs improve over time, so whether this is a long term issue remains to be seen.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

Just now, Meredith Poor said:

More likely debris. Wind speeds in tornadoes are roughly 250 MPH max. Other possible explanation are shearing forces that twist the blade off the hub. Turbine designs improve over time, so whether this is a long term issue remains to be seen.

No, they will put that extra "design" buffer into longer blades capturing more power.  Sigh... pitch, look it up.  250mph would require 5X greater pitch... which you cannot do on a blade.  You get a change in pitch of about ~25%--50% where it turns into a spinning flat disk to the air stream creating hundreds of times higher forces due to drag. 

Why during thunderstorms, the plant operator STOPS the turbines.  So the turbine does not turn into a flat disk where its RPM increases uncontrollably till it flys apart.  Something made for 40RPM(most turbines), is not good for several HUNDRED RPM. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

When you say natural gas do you include Carbon Dioxide because cellulose decomposing in aerobic conditions is not going to turn into Methane. 

I am referring to natural processes that end up occur in the worldwide environment. This occurs in lakes that end up filling up with peat and become bogs. Similar process take place in the oceans. Two thirds of the earth is covered in water many other areas have sufficient rainfall to create deep soil very quickly, thus anaerobic conditions. Methane hydrates can be used if we ever need to harvest them.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2931218/Icy-jellyfish-No-strange-phenomena-frozen-METHANE-BUBBLES-trapped-lake-ignited-match.html

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

5 minutes ago, Wastral said:

No, they will put that extra "design" buffer into longer blades capturing more power.  Sigh... pitch, look it up.  250mph would require 5X greater pitch... which you cannot do on a blade.  You get a change in pitch of about ~25%--50% where it turns into a spinning flat disk to the air stream creating hundreds of times higher forces due to drag. 

Why during thunderstorms, the plant operator STOPS the turbines.  So the turbine does not turn into a flat disk where its RPM increases uncontrollably till it flys apart.  Something made for 40RPM(most turbines), is not good for several HUNDRED RPM. 

Oh, and as someone who has worked on turbines, when it FLY's apart, completely destroying its dynamic balance?  EVERYTHING is destroyed right down to the foundation.

[markslawson + 1,058]

11 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

I had a pilot friend ask me 'what happens when a wind turbine is struck by a tornado?'. Good question. What happens to a propeller when it moves through the air at 600 MPH? The reason that aircraft taking off make so much noise is that the prop blades are breaking the sound barrier at the tips.

Just as an aside on that.. wind farms stop producing during storms.. all the blades are 'feathered' (angle of the blades are changed - this also happens with aeroplane propellers - so they pick up far less energy from the wind) and the place is shut down. A tornado is obviously an extreme event but a glance on the internet indicates that wind farms mostly survive them, surprisingly..   

[Meredith Poor + 895]

52 minutes ago, Wastral said:

No, they will put that extra "design" buffer into longer blades capturing more power.  Sigh... pitch, look it up.  250mph would require 5X greater pitch... which you cannot do on a blade.  You get a change in pitch of about ~25%--50% where it turns into a spinning flat disk to the air stream creating hundreds of times higher forces due to drag. 

Why during thunderstorms, the plant operator STOPS the turbines.  So the turbine does not turn into a flat disk where its RPM increases uncontrollably till it flys apart.  Something made for 40RPM(most turbines), is not good for several HUNDRED RPM. 

I'm not claiming that wind turbines will continue to operate in tornadoes, simply that some of them will survive intact. I've attached some content that I looked up. The Bergey company claims that their turbines can survive direct hits from tornadoes, although that's not on their website at present.

Larger (5Mw and 8Mw turbines) are probably more likely to survive direct hits, since their structural components are designed for that kind of stress anyway. However, there are going to be outliers in both directions.

[Meredith Poor + 895]

44 minutes ago, markslawson said:

Just as an aside on that.. wind farms stop producing during storms.. all the blades are 'feathered' (angle of the blades are changed - this also happens with aeroplane propellers - so they pick up far less energy from the wind) and the place is shut down. A tornado is obviously an extreme event but a glance on the internet indicates that wind farms mostly survive them, surprisingly..   

Wind turbines have 'cut-in' and 'cut-out' speeds, so they operate in a span of wind speeds considered 'normal'. These are all different depending on size, particularly the ratio of the swept area to the generator.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

10 KW.... a tiny wind play toy is your example.... when we have literally dozens of examples of the big boys being destroyed...

Once again, WHAT is THE limiting factor in wind turbine size again?  Radial tensile loads due to RPM

3 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

I'm not claiming that wind turbines will continue to operate in tornadoes, simply that some of them will survive intact. I've attached some content that I looked up. The Bergey company claims that their turbines can survive direct hits from tornadoes, although that's not on their website at present.

Larger (5Mw and 8Mw turbines) are probably more likely to survive direct hits, since their structural components are designed for that kind of stress anyway. However, there are going to be outliers in both directions.

 

[Keith boyd + 178]

I learn so much when I am at work not working and reading these forums instead. 

Thanks all who are contributing various expertise. I dont know definitely what is right exactly but I will say what is taught in school is generally 90% horse shit.

 

The theory how alberta got so much bitumen is that the rocky mountains were forming under compression from 2 tectonic plates colliding and the rocky mountains crunched and heaved up and fracced the daylights out of the canadian shield and the oil trapped in the rocks basically spilled out onto the plains of alberta causing the world's largest oil spill which soaked into the ground which we are currently in the process of cleaning up. 

True or false who knows, I can say with confidence that academic geologists who write text books dont know jack shit in general. I would rather hear from a petroleum geologist who's paycheck depends on them being right. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Just read through all the comments and have two observations:

First, regardless of feathering the blades, etc... on a big electricity generating windmill during a tornado or hurricane, wouldn't the storm simply destroy the entire structure? Even if the blades are feathered and stationary I would guess that the stress on the tower and structure would bring it down in a big blow.

Second, people keep bringing up methane hydrates like they are just waiting to be exploited. I think those folks need to research the seabed slump associated with the production of these...it is frightening.

[NickW + 2,714]

12 hours ago, Wastral said:

Heat and pressure does not take years, let alone MILLIONS of years to turn carbon, etc into coal or oil or fossils in normal rock.  We make it in days to weeks in a lab.  You know this science thing?  Testing? The; GASP 🏆 Scientific method. Hrmm?🤔  Earth has the same pressures and temperatures to various degrees of the various meaning of degrees of course. 

If coal were what the "experts" claim(what a slanderous joke on actual experts who work in the field and mine coal), the whole lump of coal would be fossils and every lump of coal you could see the fossils in it.  As demonstrated by every single coal operation in the world, 99.9999% of coal is NOT fossils.  Now did SOME plant matter get buried and turned into coal?  Sure, we sometimes find odd pockets of pinecones, acorns, leaf, twigs, logs.... but that is what they are, very small pockets. 

How is that heat and pressure delivered - Unicorns?

Its delivered by overlaying km's of sediment over the source material; - that takes millions of years.

By virtue of this the process of turning organic material into coal, oil, or gas assuming all other critical factors are in place takes millions of years from the starting point as it takes 100,000's thousands / millions of years for the organic material to accumulate into a potential reserve and then millions of years for the sediment to accumulate to a level that provides the pressure and trapped heat to achieve the carbonisation.

 

[NickW + 2,714]

12 hours ago, Wastral said:

Heat and pressure does not take years, let alone MILLIONS of years to turn carbon, etc into coal or oil or fossils in normal rock.  We make it in days to weeks in a lab.  You know this science thing?  Testing? The; GASP 🏆 Scientific method. Hrmm?🤔  Earth has the same pressures and temperatures to various degrees of the various meaning of degrees of course. 

If coal were what the "experts" claim(what a slanderous joke on actual experts who work in the field and mine coal), the whole lump of coal would be fossils and every lump of coal you could see the fossils in it.  As demonstrated by every single coal operation in the world, 99.9999% of coal is NOT fossils.  Now did SOME plant matter get buried and turned into coal?  Sure, we sometimes find odd pockets of pinecones, acorns, leaf, twigs, logs.... but that is what they are, very small pockets. 

No it doesn't. If you don't believe me get yourself some Scuba kit and dive to 1000 metres and see what happens. Or go to the bottom of a very deep mine and measure the air pressure and temperature

In the case of oil and gas reserves. Place 2-4km of sediment on top of them plus several hundred metres of water and measure the pressure and temperature inside that reserve.

[NickW + 2,714]

12 hours ago, Wastral said:

Heat and pressure does not take years, let alone MILLIONS of years to turn carbon, etc into coal or oil or fossils in normal rock.  We make it in days to weeks in a lab.  You know this science thing?  Testing? The; GASP 🏆 Scientific method. Hrmm?🤔  Earth has the same pressures and temperatures to various degrees of the various meaning of degrees of course. 

If coal were what the "experts" claim(what a slanderous joke on actual experts who work in the field and mine coal), the whole lump of coal would be fossils and every lump of coal you could see the fossils in it.  As demonstrated by every single coal operation in the world, 99.9999% of coal is NOT fossils.  Now did SOME plant matter get buried and turned into coal?  Sure, we sometimes find odd pockets of pinecones, acorns, leaf, twigs, logs.... but that is what they are, very small pockets. 

So what is it then - Carbonised Unicorn poo?

[NickW + 2,714]

5 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Just read through all the comments and have two observations:

First, regardless of feathering the blades, etc... on a big electricity generating windmill during a tornado or hurricane, wouldn't the storm simply destroy the entire structure? Even if the blades are feathered and stationary I would guess that the stress on the tower and structure would bring it down in a big blow.

Second, people keep bringing up methane hydrates like they are just waiting to be exploited. I think those folks need to research the seabed slump associated with the production of these...it is frightening.

Methane Hydrates are another version of 'Thorium Reactor' will solve all our energy concerns.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

54 minutes ago, NickW said:

Methane Hydrates are another version of 'Thorium Reactor' will solve all our energy concerns.

I think I knew that....damn this short term memory loss!

[NickW + 2,714]

15 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

I was able to find a video of a wind turbine being chewed up, although losing the blades may or may not mean that the hub/generator is damaged beyond repair.

Thats the crux of it. A Tornado is going to rip the blades off but leave a repairable tower and generator. 

Insurance costs are a good indicator to the actual risk. The article below suggests a typical cost of insurance on wind farms as 7-9c / $100 of property value. Taking the mid point thats $80,000 a year to insure a $100m wind farm asset. 

https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1032367/insurance-pays-prepare-worst

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

4 hours ago, NickW said:

So what is it then - Carbonised Unicorn poo?

No one knows. 

 

5 hours ago, NickW said:

How is that heat and pressure delivered - Unicorns?

Its delivered by overlaying km's of sediment over the source material; - that takes millions of years.

By virtue of this the process of turning organic material into coal, oil, or gas assuming all other critical factors are in place takes millions of years from the starting point as it takes 100,000's thousands / millions of years for the organic material to accumulate into a potential reserve and then millions of years for the sediment to accumulate to a level that provides the pressure and trapped heat to achieve the carbonisation.

And yet we have shale rock which varies between tar to rock to coal, the only difference?  Not quite cooked.  It is temperature/pressure dependent, not time.  You could hold it in place a Trillion years and it would not change.  Same goes for the oil we pump out of ground.  The temps/pressures from where we pump are NOT high enough to create the oil from existing hydrocarbons(water/methane) and once again, they could sit there for a trillion years and not change from methane to oil.  The source has to be deeper.  Much deeper where temps/pressures are higher than where we have been scooping up the surface stuff. 

How does it get that deep from the surface?  Simple answer?  It doesn't other than ONLY subduction of plate techtonics.  Which means the hydro carbons, oil, ng, coal, etc  are not plant life, but rather methane sequestered on ocean floor and subducted under continents till it migrates back to surface.  Of course proving this.... uh... we 1) cannot drill deep enough other than even the deepest wells on earth have water and methane in them and 2) requires the plates to move. 

One has to wonder how quickly plate techtonics move when pegged with a giant asteroid though...

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

17 hours ago, Keith boyd said:

True or false who knows, I can say with confidence that academic geologists who write text books dont know jack shit in general. I would rather hear from a petroleum geologist who's paycheck depends on them being right. 

In Alberta these are the same people - especially during times of oil down turn where university jobs are much more secure than the, traditionally better paying, oilfield jobs.

In "Oil country" the universities do a bunch of industry-funded research.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Enthalpic

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

4 hours ago, Wastral said:

No one knows. 

 

You have to come up with an alternative before you can debunk current models of coal formation. Peat bogs make intuitive sense.

[PaLM + 5]

I'm new here and don't pretend to know a lot about geology or wind shear forces, but this whole string seems to have a lot of scientific posturing almost more than it has good info.

For starters, the first poster (Meredith) objected to a 77% renewables mix of energy (spending) through 2050, remarking that it will be 100% by 2050. Well it may or may not, who really knows, but the poster seemed to be objecting to the 77% number, which I don't get. It seems to me the 77% number is an average over the period to 2050, not a number AT 2050. So every argument back and forth after that seemed off to me, missing the point and starting a tangent discussion.

Then another self-appointed expert (Wastral) is telling us coal doesn't come from organic materials, even though the great majority of experts otherwise seem to believe it does. His explanation: Too few fossils embedded in coal. His answer: No one knows how coal is formed, but surely from ocean-bottom continental subduction processes. Again, I'm no rocket scientist, but in todays organic recycling processes, there don't seem to be a lot of fossils left over from the degradation/conversion of grass clippings and banana peels and dead squirrels into dirt. Nor do there seem to be a lot of fossils in peat or lignite or ... Not that there couldn't be fossil formation, but nice clean fossil formation probably happens under unique conditions not normally associated with high-organic-content, high-initial-water, long-time, high-pressure, anaerobic coal formation. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. Furthermore, there are a heck of a lot of processes that have gone into the formation of this planet of ours over the millenia, including plenty of volcanoes, lava runs, geysers and hot springs, asteroid and particle hits, underwater activity - both shallow and deep, sinkhole and fissures, earthquake-induced surface cracking and shaking, deeper subduction activity, solar flares, floods, aerobic and anaerobic conditions, dry and arid conditions, gas and fume activity, etc. Entire cities in man's time have been buried without any sign of subduction or volcanic causes - what the heck, major duststorms? Floods? I personally have no trouble believing conventional theory that coal is formed from organic materials. It seems perfectly reasonable given the geological transition from peat through to anthracite. As long as it carries the tagline "theory" - as many things in science warrant - I'm ok with it.

Again, I'm no expert, but I do object to people sounding like they are stating facts when they are only stating opinion. Please be a tiny bit humble and helpful to the rest of us by differentiating clearly between opinion, conjecture and fact. And please, don't be an ass by trying to make others feel small because they aren't all knowing like you may be.

Edited July 16, 2019 by PaLM