Renewable energy is much more than electricity.

wrote: we already have the technology for EFFICIENT and Highly transportable electricity [...] an AltairNano battery

How many AltairNano batteries do you own?

Do you need to own your own personal nuclear power plant for them to exist?

Don't quite see how that question is at all relevant.

Semantic quibbling at best.

"Renewable energy is much more than electricity." - sunflower

How right you are.  You could have 100% of peek demand generating capacity, and still not have a light bulb lit.  Wind and solar power is going to end up being very expensive if you want to use storage to enhance avaliability on demand.  Storage means you may need to go to 200% or even 300% of peek demand capacity, in order to produce the stored energy.  Even then the system may ne less than 100% reliable.

Charles Barton

I note the article on the guy who uses PV and hydrogen does mentions costs of half a million. You could pay a utility bill for quite some time with that money.

Here is the bottom line on renewable electricity. If we connect a lot of different source together with a long distance grid we will need less storage -- little enough storage that we can meet our storage needs with bulk pumped storage in an ecologically sound way. Closed cycle modular pumped storage avoids most of the ecological problems with conventional dams, and we won't need a lot of them.

And by the way if we want to provide all or most power from sun and wind, we don't need "three times peak power". We need renewable capital about three times average consumption, which is a very diffent story. Wind electricity costs 3 - 6 center per kWh even with ~29%-~35% utilization. That is because there is not fuel cost, and O&M costs are so low. Fossil fuel and nuclear plants have much higher O&M than wind.

You would have to ask Denmark. Here in the U.S. it costs between 3-6 cents per kWh. Possibly it is doing the usual thing large institutions do -- trying to extract the maximum subsidy possible?

We have to recognize the difference between the cost of wind as a supplemental source of electricity and wind as a baseload source of electricity.  The cost of wind generated electricity rises with each unit peek demand baseload penetration.  Advocates of wind must factor in the the costs of duplicate generation capacity, plus the cost of energy storage, in order to find the price of wind as a baseload electricity source.  As baseload power wind generated electricity is far more expensive than as a supplement to base load power.  It is expensive to have wind generated electricity when ever you throw the light switch.

Charles Barton

"The reason storage is so essential to renewables is the renewables are intermittent --"

The article above offers this as its central argument -
when it is of course sheer nonsense, as a highschool review of the alternative energy options will amply demonstrate.

Energy storage may, perhaps, assist the commercial viability of intermittent options such as wind and solar,
but it is wholly irrelevant to geo-thermal, forest biomass, current turbines, hydro great & small, etc.

In addition to which, at what point will authors published on Gristmill start questioning just what "Renewable" means ?

Let alone the question of whether the supply of said energies has saved even a single barrel of oil so far ?

Regards,

Bill

>Energy storage may, perhaps, assist the commercial viability of intermittent options such as wind and solar, but it is wholly irrelevant to geo-thermal, forest biomass, current turbines, hydro great & small, etc.

Currently we know how to do sun and wind on a large scale, though one can argue about the economics. No one has demonstrated a commercial current turbine. Undeveloped hydro great and small represents a very tiny potential.  There are strong limits on what we can get from sustainable biomass. Geothermal electricity we can currently tap again represents a very small number, though potential breakthroughs may change this.

As to renewable energy saving a barrel of oil. While the  Alaska wind example I posted about recently, wind electricity is directly placing diesel fuel consumption.

Well, if we want to play the externality game.

How about we add the DOD/DOE budget onto the cost of Nuclear

And the global warming cost onto coal.

GreyFlcn,

Did someone-else mention externalities?

Gar Lipow I have differentiated between the cost of supplemental wind power, and the cost of baseload wind power.  Baseload would be a reliable, 24 hour a day power source.  Supplemental power comes on line intermittently and does not respond to consumer demand.  You report the cost of wind power to be "6 cents per kWh or less."  Is this the cost of supplemental wind power, or the cost of baseload wind power?

Charles Barton

NucBuddy
Did someone-else mention externalities?

CharlesBarton
Advocates of wind must factor in the the costs of duplicate generation capacity, plus the cost of energy storage, in order to find the price of wind as a baseload electricity source.

Yep.

If you want to look at the "whole picture" costs, on one technology, it's only fair that you do the same for other technologies that you compare it to.

has major enviro impacts. Dams are dams, and you've got to look at the cost of getting all that water uphill.

Whiskerfish

Thats why I didn't mention it.

Assuming no reprocessing even if we did run out of Uranium they'd just switch to Thorium anyways.

And yes, even if the fuel cost shot up a couple hundred percent it wouldn't make much difference.

Running out of various forms of Uranium isn't really the reason why I take issue with Nuclear.

The reason I take issue is mainly because it would speed proliferation, and even though it does come in pretty big chunks, the ability for it to scale rapidly, safely, with ready access to cooling resources just isn't there.

Mainly I think the oppourtunity cost just isn't there as compared to ample renewables.  (Which in the worst case scenario all we'd have to do is create an excess of capacity and use shunts)

To store electric power from renewables is to store it as heat or cold.  And reduce electric power use with conservation so that a very small battery bank can do the job.  Or backup can come from a biogas digestor that produces gas when it is needed to go through a fuel cell/microturbine (or ICE generator collecting cogeneration waste heat for cooking and domestic hot water storage).

First reduce heating and cooling needs way down, for refrigeration, cooking, and air conditioning, the really big kwh guzzlers.

When the wind blows hard or the sun shines use heat pumps or direct circulation to ground heat sink to store refrigeration as frozen salt water. Home air conditioning coolness is already stored in the ground, simple circulation will do that job.

Cooking heat can be stored with molten wax.  And home heating and hot water storage stored with phase change salt solutions like sodium sulfate decahydrate.  

What is left to feed on kwh?  lighting, computers, teevees, and appliaces are all available in super efficient versions.

If power use is very low, batteries will be cost effective.

the goal of powering a home and plugin car as well from a home power system (disconnected from the grid) is attainable at a reasonable cost with a 5 to 10 year payback period without subsidies.  I believe it, but can't prove it..yet.

Given a large enough grid with various inputs of biogas, wind, solar, and water power, storage might be a completely  moot point though.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

"While it's true that electricity itself cannot be stored"

Capacitors and superconducting energy storage systems store electricity directly.  A 500 KVDC grid that used nanotech capacitors or superconducting storage would do the job.  But at what cost?  Mass production efficiency might bring them within reach economically.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I just read through all of the above comments and the only one that seemed connected to the business reality of providing substantial substitutes for conventional energy in the near to medium term was amazingdrx's mention of the importance of conservation, IMO.  Think about it.  We have built up the oil, gas, and coal economy in earnest over the past 100 years.  We did it because it was relatively cheap, quick, and easy to do so.  Now we are seeking to develop new energy sources that mostly convert various forms and effects of current solar energy reaching the Earth into something we can use almost immediately.  It has not proven to be nearly as quick, cheap, or easy to figure out how to do this on the enormous scale we have come to rely on conventional sources to provide.  This despite more and more fat grants, tax breaks, and consumer subsidies that are being poured into newer sources of energy.

The fact is, the most hyped sources of cleaner current energy (as opposed to dirtier, ancient, stored in the ground sources) make up a tiny fraction of 1% of world energy sources.  Even if we can grow the clean and new energy sources as quickly as we were able to scale up the simpler tasks of pumping and digging vast stores of fuel out of the ground, which, so far, we can't, it is going to take the better part of a century to get close to where we are today in terms of energy demand.  And so long as that demand grows at a modest 1% per year, the increase in the quantity of energy demanded will dwarf the new energy coming online at current 30% to 80% growth rates--rates that are very difficult to sustain, by the way.

Some day, probably after all of us are dead and the population as a whole has declined enough to reduce energy demand for that reason alone, cleaner, current energy conversion and use may be the answer to most energy needs.  But for right now, with the capabilities and cost structures we really face when we go about reducing the amount of GHG and toxins we put into our air and water when we light up our world, heat and cool our buildings, and do some work, efficiency and conservation measures beat the crap out of the potential to make a dent in the problem with new energy sources.  To put it in perspective, a mere 1% decrease in what would otherwise have been the level of this year's energy demand trumps all of the wind and solar generation installed over the past few decades many times over.

What this means to energy storage is that efficiency is critically important because it provides a way of balancing peak loads and peak generation from the energy sources most of us will use for most of our energy needs for most of our lives.  If we can keep dirty peaker plants offline, and maybe retire some other older plants, by storing the excess generation capacity of cleaner plants, we will be able to do more good in the next decade or two than all of the wind and solar we can even hope to see during that period.  And, of course, what we learn about efficient and less expensive storage will eventually pay enough benefits to worry about when cleaner and more current energy sources eventually scale up decades from now.

Oh it'll scale.  hehey.  I got your scale.  

It's only a challenge...  from a design and business perspective.  So what's the problem, without challenge life would be boring.

Tackle these problems and come on in for the win with us.  Big fossil corporate governance has an ass kicking coming, and they are going to get it. From small business building out distribuited renewable generation and storage.  

Say ghoodbye to all that loot you oily pirates.  Arrrrhh.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Why pay $6000/8000 per/kW for Wind Energy, which requires 1.8cent/kWhr subsidy--not very economic. ( this $2000/kw name plate rating) Useful energy delivered averages in most regions no better than 30%.Energy Storage as a power "extender" can increase the WTG capacity to 65% or more, with the benefit of delivering firm capacity,allowing for capacity payment, a better deal than just delivering energy.The "spilled" energy or night time generation has very little value to the grid.

 Compressed Air Energy Storage-CAES(Bulk) Plus Wind can now provide Load following,Voltage Regulation, Frequency control,Grid support, Spinning reserve,VaR control etc. and reduce thermal plant cycling( that is the extra capacity that must be available when the wind velocities drop)

Installing a 300 MW CAES plant vs. 3 x 100MW open cycle Gas Turbines or a Combined Cycle plant for better fuel utilization is a costly proposition and does nothing to "extend" the WTG capacity.
Wind as renewable source of energy will continue to grow here in the USA and is a resource to look upon favourably--Storage can really bring WTG's into the Baseload Market, reduce C02 emissions, and bring increased "green" power to the market.

'Run of the River' hydro plant which avoids new dams can also benefit from Bulk Storage, as the night time generation(rather than shutting down)can now fall into the same benefit profile outlined earlier.

Septimus van der Linden. Gas Turbine and Emerging Technologies.

"Uranium supplies [are] also going to peak well-before 2050, even in the best-case scenario." - Richard Heinberg

It is inexcusable for someone who bills himself an an expert to know so little about energy.  Generation IV reactors are expected to use Thorium rather than Uranium for breeding purposes.  Thorium is 4 times as plentiful as Uranium in the Earth's crust.  Sigh.  This guy is a blithering idiot who needs to take a Freshman course on energy resources.  

Charles Barton