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

[Lakewood90712]

Thanks for sharing the info. We can see that a home in Seattle already uses more energy than one in Phoenix. In Buffalo, NY, or Toronto, one can imagine how much worse it is.

Much of the residential use of energy is for temperature control. The use of LED for lighting, better refrigerators, and cooking appliances helps but the use of energy for heating is a much bigger part.

I don't know if there's any solution, other than demolishing existing homes, and building new ones with 2-foot-thick walls for better insulation.

Retrofitting the worst structure in the inventory yields better results. Demolition of a usable single family dwellings, and replacement with new, even if very energy efficient , the construction process is enormous on energy used and carbon production.

Look at a dozen homes of the same sq. ft and number of occupants in a tract. It is surprising, energy consumption varies quite a bit among nearly identical homes. The habits of people make a difference.

 

[Maenad]

Be glad to answer your (well, I guess my) question...

[snip several answers]

What do you have?

Thanks for the answer! I don't have anything different, I pretty much agree with you, especially about nuclear - nuke is MUCH safer than in the past, and would take care of those pesky CO2 emissions while we continue improving RE technology.

This is a big frickin' engineering problem, and if our species had any intelligence at all, we'd have started on reducing demand and improving various technologies decades ago. Not that I'm jaded or anything...

 

[Lakewood90712]

Subsidized solar: SolarCity made a huge push in my neighborhood (Southern AZ)... we now have houses with roof solar panels facing NORTH. If they were paying with their own money you can bet they'd be more concerned with orientating them efficiently.
(and they might take better care of them... most are now completely covered in corrosive pigeon poop).

It's not just Tesla's Solar City doing this loony b..l crap. Unscrupulous sales people from other solar contractors do it too. I have seen many Viviint Solar co. installs with north facing collectors

 

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by Totoro
I've seen the video and was puzzled (worried) by it. Still am a bit. What puzzles me even more is that I can find so little about the whole issue.

Just tried some Google-fu again, and the best I could do was find an MIT study (https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/up...lar-Energy.pdf) from 2015.

In the same article it mentions that to satisfy 100% of all energy production with PV alone we'd need about less area needed now as devoted to coal mining. I'd think there would be more worry and debate to it if it was such a big issue? Even if it is solvable, all these things have to go somewhere and I don't see much debate.


Then again, here in The Netherlands lots of permit issues for wind farms ..

Well that’s bizarre, I don’t know what to think now. I also found an academic paper that concluded the US would have to devote 0.6% of all land to PV solar to supply current demand. A lot of land, but not 25%.

OTOH, David MacKay was knighted in 2016, could he be that wrong?

Guess I may have to dig further...

I'll try to dig in as well. MacKay seems to have his numbers together, you can find his full paper here, something that clifp and I have referenced several times in the past:

David MacKay FRS: : Contents

Sadly, MacKay passed away a few years ago at age 48, from stomach cancer.

Before I digin though, I will say that MacKay's measurement was from replacing all energy with solar, not just electrical energy. That, and the lower insolation rates of the UK may explain some of it?

But thanks for the Ted talk from MacKay, he does a good job with this, I'd have to go back, but there's a line he uses that is parallel to something I say - something like "I like renewable energy, but I like numbers and facts, too".

From the paper and the Ted talk, he seems more positive on EVs than I am - I think that he's looking at it strictly from the efficiency from the plug, skipping the conversion from fossil fuel to electricity. Which I think makes sense if all your energy is renewable and it is all producing electricity directly, no conversion. But until we get to the excesses of RE, it still seems to me that EVs are effectively 'stealing' that renewable energy from other things that must run on electricity (we aren't going to light or air condition our homes with gasoline/kerosene). So I'm thinking it makes sense to use fossil fuel in most of our cars until those excesses of RE electricity are realized.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

Probably too late on this thread, but for the optimists here, another real factor to consider. I didn’t realize it to be honest, stumbled on this 5 year old Ted talk this morning.

Known storage issues aside, how many countries even have the land area to use wind or solar to supply 100% of their current demand?

Basically the video shows present energy consumption per capita vs population density for most countries. And then the area needed for various renewable sources. I could just post the chart, but watching the short video will make it far easier to grasp. For example, the UK is already beyond enough area to rely on biomass, would have to devote about 50% of the land area of country to wind farms, or about 25% of the land area for PV solar. Concentrated solar is a more “land efficient” source, but that’s not an option in some countries, like the UK. The situation for many European and (developed) Asian countries are similar.

For the US, biomass would require almost 100% of land area, wind would require 30-40% of land area, and PV solar about 15-20%. Imagine that, really. The picture is similar for China and India already.

Russia, Canada, Australia and Brazil have more “excess space” from a renewable land area POV.

Just for comparison, a nuclear power plant generates 200 times the energy for its land area use as PV solar and 400 times that of wind farms.

Technology will undoubtedly improve, but just the physical space required for 100% renewables will be a serious challenge as well.

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables

Thanks for sharing.

I watched the presentation, and did not see where the scientist said it took 25% of the land area of the US to provide it with 100% RE from solar. In fact, his chart shows a much smaller percentage of land, but I cannot interpolate easily from the logarithmic scale of the chart.

But I did catch where he said rooftop solar installation in the UK would produce 20 W/square meter. This is something I can do: compare what I compute at my own location to his number for a sanity check.

Using the best solar panel currently on the market with 22.8% efficiency, and packing them as tightly as possible, I use the data from NREL (nrel.gov) to see that I can get 36W/sq.m. at my location here in the US Southwest. That compares very well with the 20 W/sq.m. claimed by the presenter. The difference is easily caused by 1) his higher latitude, 2) the higher efficiency of my panels, and 3) the cloud cover of his location.

Now, the 36 W/sq.m. seems awfully low, but that is the power production of the solar panel averaged over 365 days, and 24 hours per day. The peak production in midday in the summer would be about 180 W/sq.m.

Over a 24-hr period, the 36 W/sq.m. means that the average daily production is 864 Whr/day/sq.m. This is the same as production at the peak rate for only 4.8 hours.

 

[NW-Bound]

Retrofitting the worst structure in the inventory yields better results. Demolition of a usable single family dwellings, and replacement with new, even if very energy efficient , the construction process is enormous on energy used and carbon production.

Look at a dozen homes of the same sq. ft and number of occupants in a tract. It is surprising, energy consumption varies quite a bit among nearly identical homes. The habits of people make a difference.

Yes. It is not cost effective to build something that's energy-inefficient, just to abandon or destroy it later.

I have a libertarian friend who is against any kind of government regulation, and says people should be able to build anything they want. I disagree with him, but balancing energy efficiency against the cost of building is not an easy task, and one that people will have a hard time to agree on. For example, a home with few and smaller windows would be more energy efficient than one with large glass panes, but who would want to live in a dark cave? Do we want the government to specify how many square feet of windows each home can have, etc...?

 

[ERD50]

.... My consumption over the last 12 months is 16,159 kWh, for a home of 2,800 sq.ft. with a large swimming pool, using electricity for everything including cooking and heating.

How does the above compare to people living in other states? Just looked it up, and found that the average Midwest household uses 766.4 gal of heating oil each year. That's equivalent to 31,200 kWh. That's double my electricity usage. And that is just for heating oil, as they also use electricity, and perhaps gas too. Yikes! And the average Midwest home is probably smaller than 2,800 sq.ft.

Now, living in the desert does not sound so bad anymore.

Yes, but you can't do a direct comparison from heating oil (actually pretty uncommon in the Midwest, most of us have natural gas now). From a BTU or kWh in the fuel perspective, our furnaces are +90% efficient, but the conversion from fossil fuel to electricity to our homes is ~ 30% efficient. And if we really needed to heat with electricity, we'd be using heat pumps and maybe geothermal sinks for some of that.

OK, looks like we only spend about $370 annually for NG to heat our largish 4 bedroom home (I took our annual bill, and subtracted the summer low rate, multiplied by 12 to factor out the connection and water heating costs). Rates are ~ 33 cents per therm... OK, my eyes are glazing over after dinner and a Goose Island Bourbon County Coffee Barlywine (15.1% alc!, but shared with DW). Hmmmm.


Wait, wait - I got it! Not so hard, that's 1,121 therms, and google says 29.3 kWh/therm, so that is 32,852 kWh --- holy cow, super close to NW-Bound's 31,200 kWh!

But remember, it would take ~ 3x that to feed into a power plant to make that much electricity to run an air conditioner.


-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

Largest battery is 300MW power for four hours, 1.200 MWH. Total power 567.5 MW & 2.270 MWH. A typical coal plant is about 600MW.



Yes. Doesn't mention it in the article, but a comparable one in Australia is rated for 5.000 cycles, 8 to 15 years. Pretty typical for li-ion as you probably know.



More duty cycles are actually favorable for the battery - as their cost is almost exclusively capital. Limited duty cycles don't make sense for batteries right now, that'll come later.



That's today, and 567.5MW isn't peanuts. Even 5 years ago you would be laughed at for even suggesting such a thing, and here they are coming, profitable too. The shift from niche to utility scale deployment is happening.

Yes, we have a long while to go. But a) there's more than solar b) we have 30 years left and c) don't underestimate the cost declines we're seeing.

Thanks, that gives me something to chew on. I'll try to get to it tomorrow.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

... But remember, it would take ~ 3x that to feed into a power plant to make that much electricity to run an air conditioner.

OK. So, instead of my electricity usage being 1/2 that of the energy you use for heating, I actually use 1.5x as much energy if we count it at the generating plant.

But, the number is my total usage, while you still have to add your electric usage to your heating consumption. Perhaps we are even.

But, but, but think about this. If push comes to shove, I can cool 1/2 of my home using the 5.5kW solar installation I am working on. I do not really need the other 1/2 of the home anyway. And I am thinking about adding more solar panels too. You, on the other hand, will not have anything to burn to keep warm when it is cold and snowy and dark. Brrr....

 

[ERD50]

Been busy, haven't had a chance to go too deep, but a few comments for now....

Largest battery is 300MW power for four hours, 1.200 MWH. Total power 567.5 MW & 2.270 MWH. A typical coal plant is about 600MW.

Yes. Doesn't mention it in the article, but a comparable one in Australia is rated for 5.000 cycles, 8 to 15 years. Pretty typical for li-ion as you probably know.

More duty cycles are actually favorable for the battery - as their cost is almost exclusively capital. Limited duty cycles don't make sense for batteries right now, that'll come later. ...

Thanks - I actually did have my mind in the EV world, those LION battery are slightly different formulations, and these (like the PowerWall versus the PowerPack) are rated for ~ 5,000 cycles, so have a good life even at daily cycling.

I'm assuming these are actually cost effective relative to a new gas peaker, they didn't mention subsidies, but there might still be something there? But if they are, that's good. What I wonder about is, how far can we go? I have not found anything I can use about the range of peakers on the grid. Though I read the Michigan grid had something like 80 peakers that run an average of 40 minutes a day (annual average) and ~ 150 that ran ~ 4 hours a day. But there was no % of the grid numbers to help put that in perspective, and I didn't try to reverse engineer it yet. I'm guessing that you would need hundreds of these per grid to eliminate the gas peakers.

And don't forget, these batteries need to be 'filled', and lose something on the in/out path. I'm seeing numbers of 92.5% round trip for PowerWall (not sure that includes full AC-DC-AC? and there was mention of eff% degradation with age). But that means that until we have regular excesses of RE, we would need to burn about 8% more fossil fuel than if we used the peaker directly.

And when that battery is empty, it is empty. I grid operator could always run a peaker another couple of hours if needed.

I'm curious about the next step after that. Get past those few hundred peakers, are we now talking about 12 hour cycles for maybe 1/3rd of the average production, versus those peakers maybe handling 10% for a few hours? I wish I had numbers on this. But I suspect the problem grows very rapidly.

And as we get to RE, just remember it isn't the cost (LCOE) of the RE alone to compare to fossil fuel, it is the cost of the RE plus the cost of this storage, and we need to start talking storage for days/weeks, not hours once we get past these short term peakers. And it takes another 8% or so of RE to cover storage losses.

... That's today, and 567.5MW isn't peanuts. Even 5 years ago you would be laughed at for even suggesting such a thing, and here they are coming, profitable too. The shift from niche to utility scale deployment is happening.

Yes, we have a long while to go. But a) there's more than solar b) we have 30 years left and c) don't underestimate the cost declines we're seeing.

Right, and it looks like these batteries can start filling more and more of the area under the curve as they progress. I'd love to see some analysis of that next level. Certainly progress will be made, and 30 years is a long time. But grids change slowly, the advances are coming at a good, but not extreme pace. It will be interesting to watch - but I still think getting near 100% is going to be very, very tough. Every incremental % gets harder and harder.

-ERD50

 

[HFWR]

I think a good mix of sources, and certainly solutions/advancements in storage, will be needed to provide a reliable grid, and, of course, that will depend on how much extra we’re willing to pay for “cleaner”...

 

[Lakewood90712]

Santa Claus & EPA going to put Coal in our stockings this year

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1120360_epa-rolls-back-emissions-standards-on-coal-plants

 

[happy2bretired]

I’m betting on Warren.[emoji1]

http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/warren-buffett-vs-elon-musk/

 

[kcowan]

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! facepalm: -ERD50

I did a cursory review of the RMI work and most of it seemed to be political rather than factual. Do you have a broader view?

 

[ERD50]

I did a cursory review of the RMI work and most of it seemed to be political rather than factual. Do you have a broader view?

It's been a long time since I looked at any of his work, not sure I could find the article/paper now Like I said, just too much 'hand-waving' of all the problems, just couldn't take him seriously anymore, so I stopped looking.

The last straw was some article about getting to 100% RE. We just conserve in our zero-energy homes, we all tele-commute, load-shift massive amounts of energy, rely on massive storage made from unobtanium, and everything is peachy! Let's do it yesterday! OK, I'm exaggerating a bit for effect, but probably not by much.

Well, we could conserve whether we use RE or not.

Utilities would benefit from load-shifting today, RE or not. But the big users of energy are capital intensive, they don't want to shut down part of the day. They don't want to buy storage.

You can do some of this, but you can't do it to the extent that he talks about, and he makes it sound easy.

-ERD50

 

[Totoro]

I did a cursory review of the RMI work and most of it seemed to be political rather than factual. Do you have a broader view?

It's work an MBA / strategy consultant does typically. Building business cases and such.

 

[explanade]

Let's not forget everything made out of plastic and even some medicines. Oh, glues, resins, fertilizer, etc. It would be a much different world without these compounds.

Does producing these products release CO2 to the atmosphere like burning fossil fuels does?

 

[aja8888]

Does producing these products release CO2 to the atmosphere like burning fossil fuels does?

For the most part, they are all made in chemical plants and use heat in many of the processes. There are also reactions using catalysts. So the answer is both yes and no depending on the product.

But, the bottom line is natural gas is a feedstock for literally thousands of products we use every day.

Without plastic products, some medicines, and almost anything synthetic, you will be living like in the 1800's. Sound like fun?

Go milk your cow and heat your log cabin with a wood fire.

 

[explanade]

For the most part, they are all made in chemical plants and use heat in many of the processes. There are also reactions using catalysts. So the answer is both yes and no depending on the product.

But, the bottom line is natural gas is a feedstock for literally thousands of products we use every day.

Without plastic products, some medicines, and almost anything synthetic, you will be living like in the 1800's. Sound like fun?

Go milk your cow and heat your log cabin with a wood fire.

I don't doubt that it requires some energy use. But does it emit as much CO2 as coal plants?

Anyways, there are always politics involved in this.

The fossil fuel industry wants to quash all alternatives because they don't want policies which would move the world away from fossil fuels any time soon.

In any event, all of us here won't be around long enough to see a world without plastics or a world suffering from the worst effects of climate change, other than anomalous weather patterns leading to more frequent catastrophes -- more level 4 hurricanes, more wildfires, etc.

 

[eroscott]

I've followed this topic for quite a while. I have a Google Alert set up on: how are utilities using battery storage --- crazy the number of articles that get generated.

It seems we are at an inflection point. Many utilities now are putting up their own solar farms which are very cheap to maintain by comparison to many plants. I can't believe how many I've seen in just my travels in the past couple of years. More and more are putting in battery storage as those prices are dropping as the interest in batteries has skyrocketed in the past couple of years with electric cars and battery storage.

A lot of this already discussed. Various other countries are moving forward and saving millions on peaker plant needs. Australia is a big one recently. It is worked so well and is so fast (millisecond) at responding to problems that the old method they used to track it and do the accounting doesn't work. Quote at the bottom.

Many companies besides Tesla energy but they are making as many "Power Packs"(Power Walls are for residential) as they can produce at the NV gigafactory for businesses and utilities. https://www.tesla.com/powerpack

Utilities: https://www.tesla.com/utilities
Businesses: https://www.tesla.com/commercial

Homeowner PowerWalls for storing solar for when the sun goes down: https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

http://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-bi...bering-coal-units-after-loy-yang-trips-70003/

The Tesla big battery is having a big impact on Australia’s electricity market, far beyond the South Australia grid where it was expected to time shift a small amount of wind energy and provide network services and emergency back-up in case of a major problem.

Last Thursday, one of the biggest coal units in Australia, Loy Yang A 3, tripped without warning at 1.59am, with the sudden loss of 560MW and causing a slump in frequency on the network.

What happened next has stunned electricity industry insiders and given food for thought over the near to medium term future of the grid, such was the rapid response of the Tesla big battery to an event that happened nearly 1,000km away.

Even before the Loy Yang A unit had finished tripping, the 100MW/129MWh had responded, injecting 7.3MW into the network to help arrest a slump in frequency that had fallen below 49.80Hertz.

Data from AEMO (and gathered above by Dylan McConnell from the Climate and Energy College) shows that the Tesla big battery responded four seconds ahead of the generator contracted at that time to provide FCAS (frequency control and ancillary services), the Gladstone coal generator in Queensland.

...

 

[explanade]

There was a recent article in the NY Times about a resurgence of coal around the world.

It wasn't due to "base load" concerns but the fact that a lot of developing countries like India and Vietnam saw it as the easiest, cheapest way to get reliable power for economic development.

So there's a lot of coal-based power generating plants being planned. The Japanese are helping Southeastern Asia build new coal plants. They're looking to get a return but I guess they're also influenced by Fukushima.

In any event, babies born from now on will have some kind of retirement planning to do. Having enough money to be able to migrate away from areas prone to flooding, maybe disrupted potable water supplies, etc.

 

[morriss003]

Almost all those who say we can reach 100% renewables do not live in 3rd world countries.

 

[eroscott]

This 'documentary' was really impressive. It was a $3 rental when my family and I watched it last year. So so well worth it. It includes David Letterman (India) and Cicily Strong (Nevada and Florida).

David Letterman opened some doors in who he was able to talk to. The parts about rural India were stunning.

 

[NW-Bound]

http://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big...g-trips-70003/

The Tesla big battery is having a big impact on Australia’s electricity market, far beyond the South Australia grid where it was expected to time shift a small amount of wind energy and provide network services and emergency back-up in case of a major problem.

Last Thursday, one of the biggest coal units in Australia, Loy Yang A 3, tripped without warning at 1.59am, with the sudden loss of 560MW and causing a slump in frequency on the network.

What happened next has stunned electricity industry insiders and given food for thought over the near to medium term future of the grid, such was the rapid response of the Tesla big battery to an event that happened nearly 1,000km away.

Even before the Loy Yang A unit had finished tripping, the 100MW/129MWh had responded, injecting 7.3MW into the network to help arrest a slump in frequency that had fallen below 49.80Hertz.

Data from AEMO (and gathered above by Dylan McConnell from the Climate and Energy College) shows that the Tesla big battery responded four seconds ahead of the generator contracted at that time to provide FCAS (frequency control and ancillary services), the Gladstone coal generator in Queensland.
...

I don't understand something.

Yes, a backup battery bank consisting of just lithium battery and electronics can respond extremely fast, compared to various mechanical means of electricity generation which involves rotating parts, which need time to spin up. So, what is new here?

But despite its speed of response, can the Tesla battery really shoulder the load? It was rated at 100MW, while the coal plant that went down suddenly was 560MW. And the storage capacity of the Tesla battery is 129MWh, which means it can provide its rated 100MW for only 1.29 hours or 77 min. And when it is depleted, it will draw from the grid to recharge itself.

We will need much larger and more expensive banks of lithium batteries before they can really provide for long periods. That of course does not mean that they are not useful for shorter transient loads. It's the case of different technologies complementing each other.

We are still a long way from RE+storage replacing thermal and nuclear plants.

 

[eroscott]

I don't understand something.

Yes, a backup battery bank consisting of just lithium battery and electronics can respond extremely fast, compared to various mechanical means of electricity generation which involves rotating parts, which need time to spin up. So, what is new here?

But despite its speed of response, can the Tesla battery really shoulder the load? It was rated at 100MW, while the coal plant that went down suddenly was 560MW. And the capacity of the Tesla battery is 129MWh, which means it can provide its rated 100MW for only 1.29 hours or 77 min. And when it is depleted, it will draw from the grid to recharge itself.

We will need much larger and more expensive banks of lithium batteries before they can really provide for long periods. That of course does not mean that they are not useful for shorter transient loads. It's the case of different technologies complementing each other.

We are still a long way from RE+storage replacing thermal and nuclear plants.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-b...bering-coal-units-after-loy-yang-trips-70003/

The Tesla big battery is having a big impact on Australia’s electricity market, far beyond the South Australia grid where it was expected to time shift a small amount of wind energy and provide network services and emergency back-up in case of a major problem.

These early ones are really proof of concept on a 'small' scale. These can be scaled as needed. That is what you are missing. This started off in a conversation on Twitter and given 100 days. (Of course a lot of prep was done so 100 days is just a highlevel idea that these are not multi-year projects). https://www.afr.com/news/tesla-battery-boss-we-can-solve-sas-power-woes-in-100-days-20170308-gut8xh?&eid=socialn:twi-14omn0055-optim-nnn:nonpaid-27/06/2014-social_traffic-all-organicpost-nnn-afr-o&campaign_code=nocode&promote_channel=social_twitter