Some truth to people who think we can be 100% renewable

[ERD50]

Might have got caught in the updates, I started before dinner...

Originally Posted by calmloki
Something feels off here - Range of the Tesla3 with 75 battery is claimed to be about 310 miles. Would a car like the Tesla 3 get 100mpg on propane? is it that electric use is more efficient than propane use?

I checked and checked my arithmetic, and the data on different Web sites on the energy density of propane. Yes, 75 kWh is equivalent to 2.80 gal of propane. Electric motors are very efficient. Too bad lithium batteries are still expensive, else they would solve a lot of problems..

I'm sure your arithmetic is right, I'm so confident I'm not even going to double check it. The apparent discrepancy is in how the numbers are applied.

Yes electric motors are very efficient at taking energy from the battery and getting it to the wheels ( ~ 90%). The missing link in the above arithmetic is - electric motors don't run on propane!

So feed the propane to a gas turbine to run a generator to make the electricity, and you might get 30% out as electric energy. Then lose ~ 8% in transmission, and maybe 15% in charging the battery, and 90% motor eff. So the new arithmetic is:

assuming 2.8G of propane = 75 kWh,

[-]edit - messed up my math, will return....[/-] OK, 3nd try....

(75kWh ⋅ 0.3 ⋅ 0.92 ⋅ 0.85 ) ~ 17.6 kwH into battery

At 75 kWh and 310 miles per charge, we get 0.242 kw/mile

So 17.6 kwH into battery gets us ~ 72.7 miles on 2.8 G of propane, and that is ~ 26 mpg. Or about 52 mpg if you could count on using a Combined Cycle turbine ~ 60% efficiency. So probably in between, call it 39~40?

Best case for the Tesla is not too impressive compared to a modern hybrid, worst case, many cars blow the Tesla away in efficiency.

OK, we do need to account for refining and delivering gasoline to the gas station. IIRC, I've seen 6 kWh of energy (not electricity! much of comes from burning waste from the refining process itself). I'll see if I can find that number, but i it's 10% of the delivered BTU or kWh, just multiply the ICE/hybrid mpg by 0.9 - still good.

Not counting other losses in the EV, like standby, heat, AC, etc. Not sure those are included in the EPA range #'s. So that would even things up a bit anyhow.

And it looks like NW-Bound's arithmetic on propane kWh was correct - I knew it would be

-ERD50

 

[6miths]

I thought that this was going to be another health related thread!

 

[Lakewood90712]

Smart Grid

I can't speak for other regions, but California is in dire need of " Smart Grid " implementation, and that is not an easy thing to do. I have contacts at CALISO ( The state grid operator) and at So Cal Edison. Mismatches of load and small scale solar production is causing lots of problems and it gets worse by the day. For instance, some of the desert areas have had outages from wild power fluctuation minute by minute when fast moving clouds move in and out Battery storage would help but would need to be remotely controlled to stabilize local grids. . Edison is trying to deal with it.

Lack of coordination and sensible regulation, the state is to blame IMO.

CALISO has always been a day late and dollar short from the time they were created with de-regulation in the late 1990's. They also fell square into ENRON'S shenanigans in 2000.

This is a first, me sticking up for So Cal Edison.

Rant over, for now.

 

[jazz4cash]

Some truth to the people who think we can be 100% renewable

Took me awhile to get up the nerve to open this thread. I thought it was a soylent green reference.

 

[NW-Bound]

When one of my engineering society journals did a technology forecast for renewables and reducing greenhouse gases, they used the word "miracles" instead of technological advances.
This response to the hyped miracles sounded pretty realistic:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/a-critical-look-at-claims-for-green-technologies

Articles from IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) or MIT Technology Review are written by engineers for engineers. They contain more facts that laymen do not bother with. It's the same thing with medicine. The public is a lot more optimistic about the cures for cancer than the medical experts that I have read.

The article points out the source of the optimism the public has on technology; people expect that the advances in electronics would find parallels in other fields.

But just because we could double the number of transistors on a chip every few years, that does not mean we could also double the yield of crop, or the capacity of lithium batteries the same way, or extend human life at the same fantastic rate.

... Human beings have always sought innovation. The more recent phenomenon is this willingness to suspend disbelief. Credit this change to the effect that the electronics revolution has had on our perceptions of what is possible. Since the 1960s, there has been an extraordinarily rapid growth in the number of electronic components that we can fit onto a microchip. That growth, known as Moore’s Law, has led us to expect exponential improvements in other fields...

 

[NW-Bound]

I can't speak for other regions, but California is in dire need of " Smart Grid " implementation, and that is not an easy thing to do. I have contacts at CALISO ( The state grid operator) and at So Cal Edison. Mismatches of load and small scale solar production is causing lots of problems and it gets worse by the day. For instance, some of the desert areas have had outages from wild power fluctuation minute by minute when fast moving clouds move in and out Battery storage would help but would need to be remotely controlled to stabilize local grids. . Edison is trying to deal with it.

Lack of coordination and sensible regulation, the state is to blame IMO.

CALISO has always been a day late and dollar short from the time they were created with de-regulation in the late 1990's. They also fell square into ENRON'S shenanigans in 2000.

This is a first, me sticking up for So Cal Edison.

Rant over, for now.

Didn't California just mandate residential solar for all new homes?

Sounds like a good deal for companies like Tesla who makes residential battery storage system. When the grid goes banana with fluctuating solar power due to cloud cover moving in/out, the state will also have to mandate grid management using batteries. Ka ching!

 

[target2019]

Took me awhile to get up the nerve to open this thread. I thought it was a soylent green reference.

When the black gooey stuff runs out, we are next.

 

[HadEnuff]

and yet, when I watch Monday Night Football, the blimp shots of whatever city they are playing in, show every window of every skyscraper in the metropolitan area lit up like a big Christmas Tree.

 

[Montecfo]

I tend to believe in today's world there is no such thing as truth. Just opinions .

Ok I think you are wrong...

 

[ERD50]

Posted by Totoro Wish granted?


http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/j...SStatesWWS.pdf

I'll take a look at your links later, I gotta run. But off the top of my head, I recall a rebuttal to the Jacobson paper.

I'm skeptical, as I said, I keep up on this, have discussions with experts on technical forums. I'll read your links with an open mind, but I'll be very surprised if there is any 'there' there. At least if we are talking near 100% RE in the next 20~30 years.

-ERD50

Wish not granted.

Here's the critique from NAS I was think of regarding the Jacobson paper:

http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/114/26/6722.full.pdf

Jacobson et al. [Jacobson MZ, Delucchi MA, Cameron MA, Frew BA (2015) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112(49):15060–15065] argue that it is feasible to provide “low-cost solutions to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of WWS [wind, water and solar power] across all energy sectors in the continental United States between 2050 and 2055”, with only electricity and hydrogen as energy carriers.

In this paper, we evaluate that study and find significant short- comings in the analysis. In particular, we point out that this work used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions. Policy makers should treat with caution any visions of a rapid, reliable, and low-cost transition to entire energy systems that relies almost exclusively on wind, solar, and hydroelectric power.[

The system in ref. 11 assumes the availability of multiweek energy storage systems that are not yet proven at scale and deploys them at a capacity twice that of the entire United States’ generating and storage capacity today


.....It is not difficult to match instantaneous energy demands for all purposes with variable electricity generation sources in real time as needed to assure reliable power supply if one assumes, as the authors of the ref. 11 do, that there exists a nationally integrated grid, that most loads can be flexibly shifted in time, that large amounts of multiweek and seasonal energy storage will be readily available at low cost, and that the entire economy can easily be electrified or made to use hydrogen. However, adequate support for the validity of these assumptions is lacking. ....

This reminds me of much of the work done by the guy at Rocky Mountain Institute ( Hunter Lovins), basically, if we just claim that any/all problems and objections are solved, it's easy!


-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

"... large amounts of multiweek and seasonal energy storage will be readily available at low cost..."

What is this guy smoking? Darn, the proliferation of MJ is faster than I thought.

We still are a long way from overnight energy storage, and they already talk multiweek.

We need to get these guys to help solve other problems that California has. Such as "if we have huge amounts of water in numerous reservoirs strategically placed throughout the state, we will not have the problem with the drought and will spray water everywhere to keep vegetation green and lush and will not have devastating wild fires".

Time for some music.

 

[Chuckanut]

and yet, when I watch Monday Night Football, the blimp shots of whatever city they are playing in, show every window of every skyscraper in the metropolitan area lit up like a big Christmas Tree.

I wonder if a lot of that is for security reasons.


I keep two lights on in my home whenever it starts to get dark. One at the top of the stairs and one at the bottom. Both are highly efficient bulbs. I figure one fall down the stairs, and the energy and resources that go into the EMTS, hospital and doctor services, physical therapy etc, would vastly exceed the energy and resources of burning these bulbs an extra 12 to 16 hours a day for the rest of my life. And that assumes a quick recovery.

 

[ncbill]

How many years before your I phone batteries stop holding a charge

Coal & Nuclear are the best energy solution available.

Coal cost something like $0.05 KW to produce, and with the latest in stack scrubbing technology has greatly reduced the smog effect of the 70's. The cost of regulation and security drives the cost of nuclear, so there are ways to cost down that solution.

My last check of solar, several years ago before the Chines dumping, had a 10+ year pay back; at 100% efficiency! Even in Florida and Arizona, there aren't 365 days a year of sun.

We shuttered a rebuilt coal plant near my house a few years ago. Before it was shuttered it was providing 35%+ of the power in the region.

Pull the subsidies for Solar & Wind and it is like a fart in the wind.

Sorry, nuclear & coal are both dying.

Nuclear has proven too expensive to build/operate...nearly all the projects that were in process have been shut down.

Coal is cheap but has proved to be too much of an environmental headache (coal ash disposal is the latest problem) so utilities are converting them to natural gas as rapidly as they can convince state regulators to force customers to cover the cost.

My utility says it will shut down all its coal-fired power plants within 30 years, but I doubt it will be more than 20.

 

[Lakewood90712]

Nuclear power solutions

We will some day return to nuclear power imo but it will be a decade of severe shortages preceding it.

The nukes we use today are 1960-70 tech, huge plants intended to run flat out at a calculated cost less than coal (well, that was the plan before TMI and Cnhernobal ).

Smaller nuke plants <500Mw are supposedly economically feasible with modem design. Doubt I will see during my lifetime

 

[Midpack]

We will some day return to nuclear power imo but it will be a decade of severe shortages preceding it.

The nukes we use today are 1960_70 tech, huge plants intended to run flat out at a calculated cost less than coal (well, that was the plan before TMI and Cnhernobal ).

Smaller nuke plants <500Mw are supposedly economically feasible with modem design. Doubt I will during my lifetime

They'll still have to solve the disposal issues no? Or get better with recycling uranium etc.?

 

[OldShooter]

They'll still have to solve the disposal issues no? ...

IMO there is no disposal issue. The world is a big place with lots of rock. What there is, is a NIMBY issue created by the clueless and ignorant.

 

[Lakewood90712]

IMO there is no disposal issue. The world is a big place with lots of rock. What there is, is a NIMBY issue created by the clueless and ignorant.

Dry cask storage is easy.

Some newer reactor design use more of the fuel and generate less waste .

A far bigger problem , the earth does not have a limitless amount of uranium to mine.

 

[Luck_Club]

Sorry, nuclear & coal are both dying.

Nuclear has proven too expensive to build/operate...nearly all the projects that were in process have been shut down.

Coal is cheap but has proved to be too much of an environmental headache (coal ash disposal is the latest problem) so utilities are converting them to natural gas as rapidly as they can convince state regulators to force customers to cover the cost.

My utility says it will shut down all its coal-fired power plants within 30 years, but I doubt it will be more than 20.

I refer you to the second chart of the UPENN study which shows the operating cost of nuke and coal are on the lower end of the scale.

I would reference our on Department of Energy, but they have gummed up their accounting using a levelized cost mombo jumbo, to obfuscate the fact that they capitalize the cost of a plant over a 20 year life, despite the fact that many are in operation many years beyond that period. Some are even in operation over 100 years.

 

[Totoro]

Coal is cheap but has proved to be too much of an environmental headache (coal ash disposal is the latest problem) so utilities are converting them to natural gas as rapidly as they can convince state regulators to force customers to cover the cost.

Coal isn't cheap. It's actually being outcompeted by renewables and gas. Roughly half the world's coal plants are already operating a loss today.


If we want coal to survive we need to subsidize it.

 

[CaptTom]

The problem with nuclear is purely political.

It’s not only waste, but nuclear waste.
It’s like a politician’s wet dream.

Political careers have been made scaring people about nuclear energy. That's not going to change. Capital markets just aren't going to go up against that headwind.

New coal generation is not on any forward-thinking power company's radar.

The smart utility companies are making investments in renewables and storage. No-one knows for sure where the technological winners will be, but everyone wants to have a horse in those races.

 

[Totoro]

Wish not granted.

Try again?
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CombiningRenew/WorldGridIntegration.pdf

https://physicsworld.com/a/jacobsons-new-100-renewables-model-aims-to-rebut-critics/

This reminds me of much of the work done by the guy at Rocky Mountain Institute ( Hunter Lovins), basically, if we just claim that any/all problems and objections are solved, it's easy!

Basically, if we just claim that any/all problems and objections cannot be solved, it's impossible!

 

[Spock]

I remember watching a documentary on PBS where they did a auto-shutdown test by shutting off the coolant on a nuclear reactor that was using metal fuel rods instead of ore pellets stacked in a tube.
As the reactor heated up, the metal rods expanded which physically separated the fissile materials and stopped the chain reactions.
During the test, techs and cameras were "breathlessly" staring at the coolant temp gauge. There was a loud BANG that made the whole room jump, it was the steam turbine (non-nuclear side of the operation) tripping off.
The fuel cycle was brilliant. 4-5 reactors in a complex. "Spent" fuel rods (fuel rods are "spent" when only 3ish% of the fuel is consumed) from reactor 1 were re-processed to recycle the rods back into reactor 1 and the byproducts used as fuel in reactor2. Spent fuel from reactor 2 was reprocessed and byproducts used to fuel reactor 3. And so on. What came out of the back of reactor 5(?) was a much smaller amount of waste with a dramatically shorter half-lifes because the various fuel cycles consumed so much more of the nasty stuff. You could feed today's fuel waste and decommissioned weapons into the fuel cycle.

Reactor 1 was also a breeder reactor. It could convert otherwise unusable isotopes into its fuel.
The project was canceled 3 years early in 1994 when a new administration took office.
So we don't need to look to miracles in the future, we can dust off and update 25 year old projects. (I'm not saying the tech was "shovel ready" 25 years ago, but I'm pretty confident it would have been by now)

Google EBR-II and the IFR project if you want to see where we could be
Instead we're passing laws to put solar panels with a 20 year expected live and 25 year payback on peoples houses and depending on rare earth metals from China and Afghanistan (you wondered why we've been at war there for 16 years?) to make batteries.

(I won't touch on the connections between the admin that canceled IFR and then later sold 20% of US uranium mines to another country).

 

[CardsFan]

Regarding nukes:

About 20 years ago I was in South Africa looking at local vendors. One day we ended up in a research facility (that had fabrication units). After the discussion of our issue, they asked if we wanted to see what else they were up to.

We were treated to a very detailed intro to their nuclear energy program, with a detailed description of what they called "pebble reactors". Very standardized, with units about 100 to 500 MW, that could be added to later.

I think PP&L had an agreement with them for a demo unit. Don't know if it ever got built.

My only point is, there is technology out there to get us from fossil fuel to the future (not sure what that will be).

 

[NW-Bound]

I'm going to buck the trend and be an optimist here.

Sure, we are using coal today and will continue to for some time. Ditto oil and gas.

But not forever. There are huge advances being made in all sorts of great technologies. Solar and wind are now about at parity with other sources, and new plants are being built as fast as the solar panels and wind generator blades can be produced. Battery technology continues to incrementally improve, and the more forward-thinking power companies are dabbling with storage technologies. I just read an article today about advances in fusion technology.

We WILL get to a renewable world. I think it's as short-sighted to argue that we shouldn't support moving to renewable sources, as it is to argue that it has to happen over night. Maybe we should all just agree to doing the best we can with the technology we have today, while supporting new options as they become available.

In the long run, the world will have to use only RE, even if that means everybody will live in tiny houses. There's no other choice when the earth resources run out. The world population will probably be a lot smaller than it is now. I think this is very likely, no matter what technologies we will develop.

But I do not want to see us spending our resources now on things that are not economically sound. Who knows, there might be something in the future better than the current lithium ion battery, which is good but not quite enough for the job, so why spend all our money on that?

Try again?
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CombiningRenew/WorldGridIntegration.pdf

https://physicsworld.com/a/jacobsons-new-100-renewables-model-aims-to-rebut-critics/

Basically, if we just claim that any/all problems and objections cannot be solved, it's impossible!

Well, before you make big plans, you've got to show that the things you have on hand look promising enough. You build a small house for a demo, before you try to sell the plan for a skyscraper.

 

[mpeirce]

Sorry, nuclear & coal are both dying.

Nuclear has proven too expensive to build/operate...nearly all the projects that were in process have been shut down.

It's basically the inverse of renewable energy today. Renewables are cheap if society pretends they are cheap. Nukes are expensive if we pretend it is expensive. Both are driven by politics. Sad.