This article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists makes an important point: no energy storage mechanism is ever likely to approach the energy density of hydrocarbons like oil and coal, certainly not at scale.
Part of the reason coal and oil are enemies of the human race is precisely that they are so seductive—they really are fantastically designed energy carriers, with high energy density in easily portable packages. It will take incredible collective self-discipline to keep from using them up (and reaping the long-term consequences).
The conclusion, however, bugs the snot out of me:
The bottom line is that nature has given us hydrocarbons in the form of fossil carbon and biomass, and their energy-mass and energy-volume densities are superior to the thermodynamic limits of nearly all conceivable alternatives. Thus, it’s quite likely that hydrocarbons of one form or another will be humanity’s primary energy storage medium for quite a long time.
This is classic techno-head thinking, conceiving of sociocultural arrangements as fixed and technology as the only dynamic variable. If technology cannot displace hydrocarbons on a one-to-one basis, slotting some alternative neatly into the space hydrocarbons now occupy, well then, we just throw up our hands and keep trundling on toward climate catastrophe.
Energy density is a subspecies of centralization—centralization of power, of control, of resources. In all cases, there are alternatives to centralization: decentralization, dispersion, democracy, many-to-many coordination rather than one-to-many top-down control. In many cases the alternatives are preferable—more resilient, more equitable, and more empowering.
There’s no reason we can’t change our sociocultural practices to have a perfectly prosperous, healthy, enjoyable life without highly dense (and dangerous) energy carriers. Energy won’t be concentrated in a few places—coal trucks, central power plants, oil wells—but carried in less dense form in thousands of places like plug-in hybrid batteries and the walls of passive-solar homes. We’ll change our settlement patterns and building practices to require less energy so that less dense energy sources like solar and wind suffice. We can replace brute power with intelligence.
Technology is only one piece of the puzzle; its limits are not our limits. We’ve got to change how we think about and interact with energy on a holistic, systems basis.
Making buildings more efficient: rationalizing retrofit markets
Making buildings more efficient: looking beyond price
Comments
View as Flat
Sean Casten Posted 3:19 am
05 Feb 2009
That doesn't mean that we are confined to a hydrocarbon-intensive future, of course. But we do need to more honestly confront the massive challenges associated with an end game that is wholly/largely dependent on intermittent renewable sources.
One silver lining of note: while every energy storage medium out there has a lousy energy density as compared to hydrocarbons, they actually have compelling advantages when it comes to power density. It is the difference between a beer keg and a firehose. The former holds more liquid (energy) but the latter expels it quicker (power). The one cannot supplant the other, but it does provide signficant opportunities to make inroads against fossil sources in more opportunistic high-power/low energy applications. Transport comes to mind...
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David Roberts Posted 4:11 am
05 Feb 2009
If you ask me, the entire climate/energy discussion has an undue fetish for technology. I love it as much as the next guy but it is only one piece of the puzzle, not the determinant of our whole future.
grist.org
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Sean Casten Posted 4:23 am
05 Feb 2009
So while I buy your argument, it seems to me that both sides of the argument overly rely on techno-babble to make the case for how you can get there from here. And if we universally dismiss techno-babble, then we're stuck with the status quo, putting the onus on us good guys to articulate a credible path out of the woods. Until we do, it is too easy for us all to be dismissed as technologically naive by those who have the decided advantage of already deploying massive, technically complex things (however problematic they may be). Thus can renewables be written off as technologically immature by the same people who lobby for CCS.
I realize this starts to get off topic, but the crux is that there are real energy storage problems that we need to confront. Not throw our hands up, to be sure. But don't ignore either (or dismiss them as being resolvable by a Technology To Be Named Later).
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Nickz Posted 4:34 am
05 Feb 2009
Plug-in cars can reduce light vehicle consumption by 90% with no sacrifice in convenience, and only slightly higher costs. Electric rail can do the same for freight. Wind, solar and batteries can do for water shipping what batteries do for surface plug-in cars. Only airplanes present any real difficulty: for them efficiency and rail substitution under 500 miles can probably reduce requirements by 60%. For the residual 10-15% of fuel requirements, synthetic fuel (from atmospheric carbon, waste water and renewable electricity) is probably the answer - it would be more expensive (maybe the equivalent of $10 gasoline), but the greatly reduced consumption would make that matter very little.
Batteries etcetera are good enough!.
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biodiversivist Posted 4:39 am
05 Feb 2009
I still suspect that solar power may eventually defeat fossil fuels on a cost basis at point of use (hot water and photovoltaic combinations). Not having a gas or electric bill is a very appealing concept to most. Not having to look or pay for parking after battling through traffic is also a very appealing concept to most.
I'm becoming more convinced of this over time based on my own experiences.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 4:46 am
05 Feb 2009
...Are testing the potential storage of a smart grid. Long distance HVDC loops can serve as a national "battery" drawing from many diverse renewable and conventional sources. Super conducting electromagnetic energy storage is already in use in utility grid in a limited way.
Existing hydro facilities can have storage added.
Up to a level of 20% of the grid powered by wind, storage problems would be minimal, especially with a national HVDC super grid.
No pixie dust needed. Just development and mass production. It's going to be a 20 year transition.
BTW, on oil energy storage density: Batteries or supercapacitors with 1/4 the energy density of oil would carry the same amount of usable energy per weight. Because battery electric energy conversion is 4 times the efficiency of oil to motive power conversion. And energy storage density is mainly important in vehicles. For grid storage density is not as crucial.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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stopgreenpath Posted 5:11 am
05 Feb 2009
All of a sudden, Grist is talking about the higher reliability and the current feasibility of widespread, decentralized, dare I say "point of use" solutions? How centralization of power might be a bad thing - for ratepayers, free trade, energy modeling, and the environment? How we need to think beyond straight generation of electrons and make a sustainable, system-wide change that does not rely on destroying exponentially more and more ecosystem to feed Big Energy monopolies' insatiable greed?
one might even extrapolate that slaughtering several million acres of effective carbon-sequestering ecosystem and replacing it with huge GHG emissions from high-voltage powerlines and Industrial Power Plants (even if they are partially fueled by sun and wind) shouldn't be the first phase of a "GHG reduction" plan...
Or is this just a temporary posture to counteract a specific argument by fossil-fuel enthusiasts, and the cheerleading for millions of acres of desert and other wilderness death by (ahem) "renewable energy facilities" will carry on as usual after this?
pardon my cynical tone, but it's been a long, lonely road trying to make this point. If you really believe what you say, here, then I am delighted to hear it, and look forward to many future articles advocating for a moratorium on all build-outs of public lands (including Big Transmission), an aggressive ratepayer-generator loan program (along the lines of CA's AB 811, with actual funding), an aggressive feed in tariff for smaller ratepayer generators, and legislation that removes the current caps on ratepayer system sizes, which prevent us from feeding clean power into the grid from our rooftops (all "net metering" and "rebate" programs include this cap, either stated or implied).
i hope my cynicism is misplaced, and this is not a hypothetical, but rather a "come to Jesus" moment here. what's it gonna be?
the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:37 am
05 Feb 2009
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David Roberts Posted 5:39 am
05 Feb 2009
I just solicited and ran a long article arguing against new transmission the other day. I'm all for decentralization and dispersion and community control over energy resources. I'm also, like most folks here, a pragmatist, and want whatever works. Instead of saying, with a bunch of exclamation points, that your model works, why don't you make some calmer arguments, maybe link to further resources or studies or people I could contact? I am keen to give this perspective more exposure.
grist.org
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Ted Clayton Posted 5:43 am
05 Feb 2009
Yeah, I too approach egg-head sci-tech solutions to social struggles (climate) with a cocked eyebrow.
However, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is basically a 'protest paper', rather than (generally) a forum for 'scientocracy'.
(Behind the issues of the development & dropping of nuclear bombs in WWII, The Bulletin was I think meaningfully motivated to counter the tendency of the times toward an overweening & overbearing 'science-superiority' that was prominent through the 1950s, until the 1960s when the Hippie Movement attacked them, and liberal environmentalism provided a more socially-palatable venue for science.)
And, the author of this BAS piece (Kurt Zenz House) is personally vested in the Carbon Capture & Storage business ... and thus has a stake in protecting the present fossil hydrocarbon industries. (See his Profile in the side-bar ... for that & more.)
I agree that there are philosophical (and fetish) considerations tied to our energy-usage (i.e., it's not just about calories and the Carnot Cycle).
The good thing about tweaking philosophies (and even fetishes!) is that they do lie outside the laws of Physics & Chemistry, and thus are (theoretically) more mutable.
On the other hand, we still have philosophies & fetishes that are thousands of years old, driving the lives of billions of folks, and controlling major institutions.
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GRLCowan Posted 5:48 am
05 Feb 2009
So if hydrocarbons were unbeatable for energy storage, this would not imply they had to continue to be our primary energy source.
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:54 am
05 Feb 2009
Which I guess is true if you want to include a large bank of expensive and low cycle life batteries on EVERY house.
But short of that, it's basically saying that a slightly augmented version of the status quo electricity sector is just fine.
When that's suicidal, if one takes global warming the least bit seriously.
-David Ahlport
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sunflower Posted 5:55 am
05 Feb 2009
There is so much more than concentrated energy. And so much potential to not use the same.
On the latter, using simple existing Swedish technology, 90% of summer heat can be stored and distributed to winter homes. And the same technology can distribute winter cold to summer homes. These are small local systems compared to coal power plants
I believe (electricity) energy politics comes from flying at night. Disparate leaders look down on brightly lit crowded cities with angst. Not visible through the plane windows is carbon energy used for heat, cooling, and hot water.
I agree with David's post. Technology is only a small part of the solution. The largest part is our thinking, with or without Jesus.
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GRLCowan Posted 6:16 am
05 Feb 2009
To get really ambitious, we imagine storing energy as elemental aluminum or elemental lithium. Those two highly electro-positive elements yield a theoretical energy density--when oxidized in air--of 32 and 43 mega-joules per kilogram.
More here.
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated
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jeffgreen11 Posted 9:29 am
05 Feb 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minebw-large.jpg
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/05/compressed-air-en ...
This is the storage that will smooth renewable power to give us the power when we need.
I see very little discussion on this topic and yet its the one which would easily get us to 80% renewable.
Mix this with a national smart grid and we can be energy independent.
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stopgreenpath Posted 12:52 pm
05 Feb 2009
So, although I have been a little on edge lately, please bear with me, as I have generally been very clear and polite, and unlike the armchair quarterbacks in these conversations, I am at the agency hearings, reviewing the permits, submitting and reviewing comments, on the conference calls and walking the sites where this is all actually happening. I don't go to Davos to sit in a 5-star hotel room and speculate, I go to Ivanpah to see with my own eyes Bright Source's rendering of the project showing flat, dead, brown dirt as far as the eye can see, and the reality of the dense 4-foot tall creosote forest which is also prime Desert Tortoise habitat. Don't run spreadsheets on my computer, I read the blatant lies of Sierra Club and NRDC in their 200 page RETI report, claiming that 2 powerlines that aren't even close to breaking ground (one hasn't even started the application process) are "already built" so they can site more Big Energy projects along them and pretend they are much "greener" and much cheaper than they really are, which gives them high rankings on their siting matrix. So, my position is not theoretical, and I know first hand what is happening, where it's happening and I have a pretty good idea why it's happening. And many of the people who should be "with us" are actually "against us," and are totally ignorant about what they are killing. Which is why I'm angry. It's not fair to vent it on Grist-ers and for that, I apologize.
The way I see it, there is nothing "pragmatic" about dynamiting and bulldozing and "developing" millions of acres of wilderness far far away from any load centers, and running power down long, leaky powerlines, especially when it just re-entrenches Big Energy monopolies and the ostensible goal is to SAVE the planet. Who starts saving something by killing a bunch of it off as the first move? So if you truly are pragmatic, and set all the propaganda aside, no doubt you will agree that using the existing grid (with certain upgrades) to balance renewable energy produced right where it is needed is the "pragmatic" solution, at least for the first phase of the Renewable Revolution:
No dead ecosystems vs. millions of acres permanently destroyed (not the "postage stamp in the desert" the greenwashers will have you believe - go look at the applications);
no lost carbon sequestration (the Mojave is as effective as temperate forest - I've linked to that several times);
no eminent domain (thousands of families are in the line of fire for the tens of thousands of miles of unneeded powerlines being sited as we speak);
no incredibly toxic, new GHG spewing powerlines (see the Transmission Lies article, and the SPL EIS which I've linked to several times);
100% of the US' electricity needs can be met on existing rooftops with super-cheap thin film PV at 10% efficiency (I've linked to this at the DOE several times);
90% of the US' electricity needs can be met on existing brownfields within urban load centers with the same super-cheap thin film PV (same DOE study). Big Energy can own this since they are obsessed with owning generation;
reduced monopolies mean reduced opportunities for pricing and supply manipulations (see Enron, Sempra, Shell, CA gas refiners, to name a few);
much, much, much faster ramp up because permitting is super simple, construction is far less specialized, and financing will super easy if we fund our loan programs like CA's AB 811 (time: average powerline can take 10 years to permit and build, power plants around 8, PV around 30 days) (financing: AB 811 is guaranteed repayment, 100% of funds are snapped up within hours of being released, and Big Boondoggle financing is drying up);
ratepayer generation and civic engagement means millions more conscientious people, plus improved property values, while costing non-generating ratepayers less than massive, faraway infrastructure (especially with those built in, guaranteed profit margins, which, unless I'm mistaken, run about 12% for transmission, even when it's not needed) (also, see Craig Rose's article in the Feb 16 issue of the Nation proving that local solar is cheaper, even without ratepayer generators paying for their own systems, which makes it hugely cheaper);
Feed in tariffs mean economic stimulus to the middle classes, increased ramp up and oversizing of rooftop systems, and enormous conservation gains (see Germany, Spain, Japan and 40 other countries) and it's still cheaper than remote infrastructure (already discussed);
rooftop solar is far more reliable and consistent than Big Wind, so although storage solutions may be required once we get to the much smaller "overnight" stage in the paradigm shift, it is far less storage/backup power than Big Wind requires right now - we all know the possibilities for storage since we have cellphones, computers, etc. - it's a question of priorities);
rooftop solar uses no water, while CSP uses millions and millions of gallons a year, even if it's the wasteful, inefficient air-cooled type that drops in production right when we need power the most - the hottest times. Gotta keep those dirty diesel trucks driving up and down the rows of mirrors rinsing them off to prevent global warming! When the plants aren't burning gas, that is (I have linked to several actual project applications several times - this is easily verifiable);
OK, so I'm tired. You're bored. I have apologized. You have heard me out. Are we straight? If you want me to send you any of the myriad docs I have referenced, please email me and I can send them all as attachments. If there are one or two anyone would like me to publicly link to again, I'm glad to dig them out...
the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:47 pm
05 Feb 2009
//
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var output = '';
l[0]='>';l[1]='a';l[2]='/';l[3]='';l[35]='\"';l[36]=' 109';l[37]=' 111';l[38]=' 99';l[39]=' 46';l[40]=' 108';l[41]=' 105';l[42]=' 97';l[43]=' 109';l[44]=' 103';l[45]=' 64';l[46]=' 110';l[47]=' 110';l[48]=' 121';l[49]=' 114';l[50]=' 110';l[51]=' 97';l[52]=' 104';l[53]=' 116';l[54]=' 97';l[55]=' 110';l[56]=' 111';l[57]=' 106';l[58]=' 46';l[59]=' 46';l[60]=' 46';l[61]=' 108';l[62]=' 105';l[63]=' 97';l[64]=' 109';l[65]=' 101';l[66]=':';l[67]='o';l[68]='t';l[69]='l';l[70]='i';l[71]='a';l[72]='m';l[73]='\"';l[74]='=';l[75]='f';l[76]='e';l[77]='r';l[78]='h';l[79]='a ';l[80]='
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ce1907 Posted 2:22 pm
05 Feb 2009
you are a pain in the ass; it is your karma
stop leading with the sacred wilderness stuff. most voters don't give a rat's ass
the cheaper and easier arguments are key. work those. hard
your arguments to add in the cost of all the externalities that go with transmission lines are most convincing to me. maybe others would find it obscure
I am not totally sold on the solar panels are enough to power everything story. I HOPE it is true. But we have to be honest about the practical side. where are the glitches?
4. less haze about how to get there from here. step by step. what is most important. where is the rule or investment needed. who is the decisionmaker. that stuff
we need to focus
5. to the extent possible, try not to harp on how everyone you know, or anyone else knows, is an A-hole
believe it or not, not the best advocacy
6. go in peace. work hard. don't give up
have a beer once in a while
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biodiversivist Posted 2:22 pm
05 Feb 2009
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/3/04311/90322
Keep in mind that grids are important even for point of source solar power. They need to be made smarter but they are a critical part of home solar storage.
This is a different issue from proposals for giant new grids meant to transport power from remote wind and solar power stations.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 2:30 pm
05 Feb 2009
I agree that it could be done your way, all decentralized, and that it should be. But it probably won't be, too hard to get widespread agreement.
The best course is to prove that a neighborhood size grid could be 100% independent. My view is that we would still want a grid to tie these together and a supergrid to tie the regional grids together.
I think your vision of technology should be demonstrated on a smaller scale to prove that centralized power is finally obsolete. HVDC can be buried, emits no corona or electromagnetic stray voltage, a national hihgspeed rail system should be bult too, if the HVDC lines followed it down a freeway median, damage would be minimal to wilderness.
50 homes, a few farms feeding waste biomass to a biogas digestor powered generator and a few wind machines on each farm, maybe half the roofspace of all the buildings covered with solar cogeneration panels, plugin hybrid vehicles with backup generators and batteries that can grid connect for emergencies, all connected with a smart grid should prove it. Ground source heating/cooling and building mass and appliance heat/cold storage, water tanks that store water for a whole 24 hour cycle. These systems acting in concert should prove that decentralized smart grids don't need centralized generation.
It would still be desirable to feed power onto a larger local/regional grid, then onto a supergrid, because mass transit, manufacturing, large cities could really use any surplus power.
Think about it, cities limit sprawl, because humans prefer living in cities nature is left to thrive with less human encroachment. Make cities nice enough and maybe the human plague will leave our natural places alone?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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David Roberts Posted 4:52 pm
05 Feb 2009
Better yet, put me in touch with people who can articulate these arguments clearly and knowledgeably (and yes, like ce says, leading with the economics and middle class benefits) in a public forum. What I've got is a megaphone -- help me use it.
grist.org
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frflyer Posted 5:03 pm
05 Feb 2009
I'm all for much more distributed energy, but the reality is that coal needs to be phased out as soon as possible. The solar thermal plants in the desert are the only renewable, that we can build with current technology, that can do that.
Yes there will be some impact on the desert, but nothing compared with what global warming will do to the same ecosystem, not to mention all the others.
And far from needing any magic science of the future, it's low tech and has it's own cheap energy storage.
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Pangolin Posted 7:04 pm
05 Feb 2009
Any decent building inspector could drive down streets in L.A. and spot energy wasting building repairs needed from the street 24/7/365 for about the next century. There is nothing more complicated than requiring stringent efficiency standards be met in order to get occupancy permits.
Impose a fix it or write it off standard on Southern California and suddenly jobs will appear and money will flow as cash formerly spent on power bills is freed up for other economic activity.
Waiting for the power fairy to put solar panels on the roof of a stucco'd, chicken-house of an apartment building is futile. Squeeze where it hurts and will do the most good; at the point of use.
Put the Carbon Back
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sunflower Posted 12:53 am
06 Feb 2009
Solar is being used for public acceptance of these subsidized power schemes (and are also used to market solar Ponzi schemes). It is a nightmare in a global warming panic.
Will the Mojave lines be installed or are stimulus funds more likely to be spent for Midwest wind projects?
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:01 am
06 Feb 2009
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:09 am
06 Feb 2009
I think it may be the case that the second problem is worse than the first. The advantage of a national wind system may be that it would take care of the intermittency problem. If remote solar can't take care of the intermittency problem, then that seriously undercuts arguments for remote solar. In other words, the reason for remote systems should be that they take care of the intermittency problems, not that they allow for enough generating capacity -- assuming sgp is correct and local resources are enough.
Amazin's point about putting wind/solar next to train lines is yet another separate point -- it is for a specific application, and seems very efficient, at least at first glance.
And of course there's the third question, can we cut down on the demand enough, through efficiency or heat pumps, for instance, that local energy generation becomes even more possible.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:37 am
06 Feb 2009
In my neighborhood of say 50 homes, smaller scale farm biogas with wood waste added, and rooftop solar cogeneration with a few wind machines could do the job.
Most of the storage would consist of biogas and digesting biomass, and heat/cold stored in buildings and appliances. Wind and solar would peak and fall in supply with smart grid storage using the surplus for heating/cooling loads, stored for a 24-48 hour cycle.
Emergency battery backup for 24 hours of low power use could be included in each building.
If biogas supplies ran low in an extended emergency natural gas could supplement, and if extra biogas were produced it could be sold back into natural gas pipelines, after some filtration.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:35 am
06 Feb 2009
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Nickz Posted 3:42 am
06 Feb 2009
More importantly, Demand Side Management is very, very cheap, and extremely effective. It's overlooked because it's not "incented" by utility rate regulation.
220M plug-in's and EV's could provide all of the demand buffering that wind could every want. Add V2G, which is a bit more expensive but very practical, and you get all of the capacity you need for handling system variance on an hourly or daily basis.
All you'd need is to retain large fossil fuel plants for the 5-10% of the time when wind was calm for a week or more.
The obstacles to a renewable grid aren't technical, they're social: up to 20% of the workforce would be made obsolete. They have an enormous incentive to fight change.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:55 am
06 Feb 2009
The old power grid and the new coexisting as the transition is made. The decades long growth will be enough time to work out the kinks.
My utility here has been using superconducting electromagnetic energy storage for years. On a small scale, but the old system is ready for change.
HVDC buried regional lines could really help smooth the whole process. They act as a battery with all the possible sources old and new feeding them and storage hooked into them directly. Because of their low loss, 1% loss every 200 miles, they could transport power across the continent efficiently as well, routed through regional cables.
Lines follwing freeway median high speed rail corridors, it adds all the efficiencies up. No NIMBY, no stray voltage, plenty of power for the trains stored on the grid. I wonder if capacitors could be built into the cable? It could be a huge storage sink itself.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:57 am
06 Feb 2009
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:31 am
06 Feb 2009
And where does the electricity come from when the sun isn't shining, especially at night?
-David Ahlport
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Nickz Posted 5:07 am
06 Feb 2009
The driver of the vehicle has paid for the storage. The buffering is free for the utility.
220M vehicles could draw/supply a terawatt of power for hours! That would be prohibitive for a central storage facility.
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Nickz Posted 6:35 am
06 Feb 2009
It's very easy to analyze - no experts or peer-reviewed papers are needed.
Take 220M vehicles, with 25KWH effective capacity battery (3x that of the Volt), for a total of 5.5 Terawatt hours. Charging them using 220 volt, 30 amp connections will take about 4 hours, but create peak demand of more than the grid's current capacity, so vehicle charging would be spread out over several days, giving lots of leeway for dynamic scheduling.
If you want, say, 50% of KWH from wind then you need an average of 225 gigawatts from wind. At 30% capacity factor, that's about 750GW of nameplate capacity. An individual wind turbine can hit 100% of capacity, but a windfarm rarely goes above 85%, and a nationwide network would very rarely go above 50%, just based on the laws of large numbers (variance rises more slowly than the mean), and the fact that many windfarms would be negatively correlated to each other (one part of the country is windy, and another is calm).
That means peak wind generation might be 375GW. Night time demand might be 200GW, so we need to soak up 175GW. Our 5.5Twhr plug-in/EV fleet could draw that for 10 hours, using less than 1/3 of it's capacity.
Similar calculations apply for V2G.
Does that help?
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Nickz Posted 6:59 am
06 Feb 2009
That will take decades, and provide only marginal gains, relative to what we need.
Building out wind (and solar, etc) would be much, much cheaper and faster: compare 100M residential units at $200K each and only 625K units being built per year, vs 200,000 5MW wind turbines at $10M each.
Rebuilding the residential units would cost $20T and take many decades, while the wind would cost $2T and could be done in 10 years.
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Nickz Posted 7:37 am
06 Feb 2009
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:54 am
06 Feb 2009
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Lhogue Posted 7:22 am
07 Feb 2009
Right now we have so much focus on these large renewable facilities. Despite a lot of lip service, we have a lot less focus on energy efficiency. The stimulus package is a good example: 3000 miles of transmission (which will probably cost $40 billion) and only 2 million homes getting weatherized (and that's getting criticized by Republicans as pork). But this is backwards, you don't put solar panels on a house with no insulation. You insulate the house first.
These misplaced priorities work their way into the planning processes for renewable energy. For instance, California's Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) underestimates the effect California's new energy efficiency regulations will have on the state's energy demand by more than 50% (68,000 GWh/yr vs. 40,000 GWh/yr if EE is fully taken into account -- that's the 33% RPS goal, not the total demand).
Then RETI drastically underestimates what PV could contribute toward that goal by modeling outdated technology (2,000 or so GWh/yr). When it did a separate model using new thin-film prices, it found that PV could contribute 46,000 or so GWh/yr, meeting what should be the appropriate figure for the total renewables target. But then it included a big footnote saying these prices are theoretical -- even though projects are being contracted and completed at these prices, and an energy analyst just claimed that Sempra's thin film installation at one of its gas-fired power plant sites is the first solar project to achieve grid parity at 7.5 cents/kwh. Meanwhile, CSP companies like Ausra are getting out of the large-scale market and pursuing more locally based projects.
So this leads to my question for frflyer: How does a CSP facility, which is really a peaking power plant, displace a coal plant, which provides base-load power? And where's the storage? Sure the water stays hot for a while, but even BrightSource admits (to a reporter I was talking to the other day) that its Ivanpah project will provide peaking power. (I'm aware of other technologies like molten salt storage, but I think the first one of those in the U.S. is just being built right now, right?) So it really displaces gas-fired peaking plants, which are usually located near the load center.
And the Ivanpah facility would make a relatively small contribution to our power needs, given the 4,000 acres of good quality desert habitat it will scrape to the ground. It has a nameplate capacity of 400 megawatts. Since solar has a capacity factor of .25 (looks like BrightSource is trying to claim .3) this is equivalent to a combined-cycle gas fired power plant (the most common type in California, I believe) with a name-plate capacity of 160 MW and a capacity factor of .6.
Is scraping 4,000 acres of habitat that is home to several threatened or endangered species "worth it"? For those of you up Grist's way in the northwest, imagine a 4,000-acre clearcut in an old growth forest done to make room for a "renewable energy" project, when the proposed technology may or may not displace some portion of a coal-fired power plant. Imagine being called a hypocritical short-sighted NIMBY because you think that forest is too valuable to cut down. (Remember the logger saying, "These enviro wackos want no logging but also want their toilet paper -- they should wipe with their hands." Now it's "these enviro wackos want no desert habitat scraped but want their power -- they should burn candles!") And now imagine that the forest won't grow back in a hundred or two hundred years, and maybe not even in a thousand (which is the case for deserts). Wouldn't you want that project relocated to forest land that had already been clearcut? Or ag land? Or rooftops? And if it still had to go there, wouldn't you demand to see the coal plant that gets shut down or not built before putting away your picket sign?
That's how we're feeling down here in the California desert. That explains some of StopGreenPath's anger (not to speak for that writer). While there's a lot of talk about "proper siting" and "the desert's a big place," and while Arizona does have at least one proposed CSP facility on ag land (which the local Sierra Club supports), the first project to come down the pike in the California desert is Ivanpah, which is on good quality desert tortoise habitat, on a migration route for bighorn sheep, and contains several rare plant species and plant communities. I don't know of any projects proposed for abandoned ag land or brown fields in the California Desert. So, you multiply the small energy contribution of Ivanpah times the number of these plants that would be needed to make a significant dent in our energy supply, and the prospect is pretty scary.
Meanwhile, we have hundreds of square miles of rooftops still to be covered with photovoltaics. We have buildings both public and private that leak energy like a sieve, even in a state that's leading the way in energy efficiency (I know, I bought one of them in 2000 -- it doesn't leak so much now, but we could still do better). We still don't have a real Feed-In Tariff (which is incentivizing Germans, for instance, to install 1500MW of solar each year). Why is it easier to scrape the desert than to do any of these things? To scrape the desert while not pursuing these other alternatives to the greatest extent possible just isn't acceptable.
Many people say we have to "do it all" to stop Global Warming. That might be true, but we're clearly not "doing it all". We're mostly focusing on CSP and Big Wind, as far as I can tell.
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Jon Rynn Posted 9:03 am
07 Feb 2009
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sunflower Posted 9:16 am
07 Feb 2009
Why was solar power located in the Mojave? Why scrape the land? Is this really going forward? What are the economics?
BrightSource is remotely cost competitive, not the others. But is BrightSource proven technology?
If BrightSource is energy input for combined cycle natural gas then the contribution might be 25% natural gas offset (more likely 20%).
The best location for solar insolation will only be a slight improvement ~ 4% gas displacement, seems very marginal for such extreme distance and environmental damage.
What is the return on investment, before and after government subsidies?
When checking their investor numbers look for cleaning cost trucking in water.
An earlier attempt to extend the T line was fronted by Stirling Dish power but that did hold under scrutiny.
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/Environment/info/aspen/sunrise/sco ...
We have drifted far from the original post as demonstrated here. How do we start thinking beyond the fantasy that new technology will save us. We do not have time.
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sunflower Posted 9:41 am
07 Feb 2009
A fixed line focused receiver could never do that. And yet many here thought Ausra could do magic and save us.
Thin film magic, now worth $ billions...
We need to get our thinking right.
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Lhogue Posted 9:59 am
07 Feb 2009
Here's the Ausra article in the
San Jose Mercury News.
Meanwhile, AB 811 financing is causing solar installations to go through the roof (pardon the pun) in Palm Desert and San Diego is lining up for the same program. And Gainesville just passed what looks like the first good Feed-In Tariff in the country. Maybe we can start to match Germany in photovoltaic solar installations... one day.
And here is a good article about concerns over water use with CSP plants in Arizona, mentioning the one the Sierra Club supports and the one they don't (or are "critical" of).
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Colin Wright Posted 1:34 pm
07 Feb 2009
So CSP is still possible, but it does seem likely we will have to scale back our thinking on it. (Hopefully Joe Romm is reading.) (And maybe sunflower can give us a short update on the possibilities of decentralized CSP.)
Meanwhile I read that LA is moving forward on solar rooftops:
"LOS ANGELES -- A proposal to generate 400 megawatts of power by 2014 through the installation of solar panels on the rooftops of Los Angeles buildings was placed on the March ballot to encourage public debate, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Tuesday."
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sunflower Posted 2:48 pm
07 Feb 2009
Line focus (troughs) are the most mature and the least efficient. All the other CSP, including distributed concentrator photovoltaic systems, are not ready for large scale deployments. The next multiple year steps are expensive pilot plants for testing performance, economics, and scale. Science must be there, with peer review, to gain the confidence needed in the private sector for growth at scale.
Thermal dynamics and materials research shows that we can make solar thermal power 24/7. The engineering has not been demonstrated, is not ready at scale.
We must not wait. Existing technology can scale very rapidly, just requires thinking beyond making power -- efficiency, car pooling, mass transit, working 4 10s, working at home, clotheslines, victory gardens, and so on.
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