Seems like electric is the end goal

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Electricity doesn't necessarily mean coal.

Of course not, but it's not so easy to get rid of. Even in Brazil, at least in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul there are some large coal powerplants. Well, the heavy ashes from the one in Santa Catarina are used for cement production...

[oil pan 4]

In the US electricity means thermal plants will be involved.
Only about 30% of the power on the power grid can come from wind and solar.
Everything else has to be base load which is hydro electric or a thermal plant, coal, gas, nuclear.
Or a peaker plant which has to be gas fired or hydro.
In the US we can't build any more hydro electric plants and use able geothermal sources are mostly all tapped already.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

In the US electricity means thermal plants will be involved.
Only about 30% of the power on the power grid can come from wind and solar.
Everything else has to be base load which is hydro electric or a thermal plant, coal, gas, nuclear.
Or a peaker plant which has to be gas fired or hydro.
In the US we can't build any more hydro electric plants and use able geothermal sources are mostly all tapped already.

The use of this word 'can' implies some physical limitation on the part of renewable energy to ever exceed some arbitrary 30% boundary, which is 'scientifically' absurd.
'Loads' are agnostic. It doesn't matter the source.
Btus are Btus.
KWs are kWs.
It matters not where they originate.
Peaking plants are already being superannuated by grid-scale battery technology.
If the American Coal Producers Association, API, and American Gas Institute can come up with 100% carbon sequestration, halt methane leaks at the source, plus remove 150-years worth of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then they can 'dig baby dig', and 'drill baby drill' until the cows come home. Otherwise, it's got to go, and as quickly as possible.

[freebeard]

In the US we can't build any more hydro electric plants and use able geothermal sources are mostly all tapped already.

My friends living upriver have the EWEB power canal cutting their property in half (it's a Century farm). They pay hundreds of dollars every month for electrricity, bu if they were to drop a paddle wheel in the canal, lawyers would decend on them like locusts.

[Isaac Zachary]

• ICE's could still be relevant if fuel could be sourced from 100% renewables and still remain economic.
  • The major con is the lack of efficiency. For every kWh of electricity used to make synthetic fuel, for an example, you'd get way more miles from a BEV than an ICEV.
  • The pro is that we already have a world-wide infrastructure for fuel. No need to put an EVSE on every house and building. No need to upgrade the electric grid, even in countries where most homes may have only a single 110V outlet with only a few amps available.
  • The other pro is flight which may still be impossible to do with batteries even decades from now.
• EV's using renewables make sense, but the transition will be slow.
  • We expect batteries to improve, but so far there are manufacturing limits that haven't been resolved yet even for the things we do know. Silicon batteries seem like the best bet right now to me but suffer from charge-discharge degredation due to swelling.
  • Changing the grid is complicated. Not everyone owns their own home. There are lots of situations where EV charging could become a huge inconvenience unless public charging gets better.

[freebeard]

The target is still moving.
newatlas.com: "Inside-out Wankel" rotary engine delivers 5X the power of a diesel/

LiquidPiston says its new XTS-210 solves the efficiency, lubrication and fuel type issues of Wankel rotary engines. This supercharged, liquid-cooled two-stroke claims 5X the power of an equivalent size or weight diesel engine, and 3X the torque.
Targeted at military, commercial and aerospace applications, the XTS-210 is about the size of a basketball, weighs in at 19 kg (42 lb), and displaces 210 cc. It'll run on multiple fuels, including diesel and kerosene/jet fuel. The company is shooting for about 20 kW (26.8 hp) and 29.4 Nm (21.7 lb-ft) of torque, both at 6,500 rpm.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by aerohead

The use of this word 'can' implies some physical limitation on the part of renewable energy to ever exceed some arbitrary 30% boundary, which is 'scientifically' absurd.
'Loads' are agnostic. It doesn't matter the source.
Btus are Btus.
KWs are kWs.
It matters not where they originate.
Peaking plants are already being superannuated by grid-scale battery technology.
If the American Coal Producers Association, API, and American Gas Institute can come up with 100% carbon sequestration, halt methane leaks at the source, plus remove 150-years worth of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then they can 'dig baby dig', and 'drill baby drill' until the cows come home. Otherwise, it's got to go, and as quickly as possible.

It makes the power grid unstable.
In California they created the goose neck load profile when they have too much solar come on line. The max amount for solar is around 5%, California proved more than 10% is definitely too much.
More than 20% power coming from wind makes the power grid unstable because when the wind stops gas plants have to take over. And it takes hours to get gas plants up and running at full power. The northern half of new Mexico can go from running nearly 2Gw of wind to 0 in about 5 to 6 hours, 5hrs is the fastest wind shutdown I have observed, it could happen even faster and I just haven't seen it.
Sure 70% of power could come from wind, then there would have to be more even faster acting, always ready power plants to pickup the slack when wind cuts out. That means lots of thermal plants just hanging out, idling, burning fuel, paying employees to not make any power.
In theory you could have any amount of wind power if you had hydro electric power to back up the wind when it cuts out. But that's not practical anywhere. Places with lots of hydro electric tend to have mountains and elevation changes, wind likes flat open areas.
Diesel driven piston engines come on line real fast...
There's effectively 0 grid battery power in the US.
The best thing to replace coal and most of the gas with is nuclear.

[Isaac Zachary]

Cheap, efficient, reliable energy storage (batteries, for an example) would make a lot of those kinds of problems go away.

[freebeard]

It makes the power grid unstable.
...
5hrs is the fastest wind shutdown I have observed,

Are we talking software-defined power, with AI oversight trained on metrological data?

https://spectrum.ieee.org › the-softwaredefined-power-grid-is-here
The Software-Defined Power Grid Is Here - IEEE Spectrum
The Software-Defined Power Grid Is Here - IEEE Spectrum Energy Feature The Software-Defined Power Grid Is Here It's time to move away from our antiquated, hardware-dependent power grid to a modern, digital software-based grid Patrick T. Lee 23 Jun 2020 9 min read Photo: PXISE Energy Solutions

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com › archives › 2013 › 05 › 30 › software-defined-power-the-path-to-ultimate-reliability
Software-Defined Power: The Path to Ultimate Reliability
Software-Defined Power is emerging as the solution to application-level reliability issues being caused by power problems. Software-Defined Power, like the broader Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC), is about creating a layer of abstraction that makes it easier to continuously match resources with changing needs, writes Clemens Pfeiffer of Power Assure.

[oil pan 4]

Giving AI control of the power grid is probably a very bad idea.

Here is a perfect example of how to get "most of your electricity from wind".
https://reneweconomy.com.au/one-of-a...gets-makeover/

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Cheap, efficient, reliable energy storage (batteries, for an example) would make a lot of those kinds of problems go away.

They're definitely not cheap and "efficient" is subjective.