Why We Have No Wind or Solar Power

[Duffman]

First off technically steel doesn’t decay it corrodes. What this means is that it turns into Fe2O3, erodes off the main body and is blown away by the wind or water current. Yes we recycle steel, but it’s that rusting car in the field or that ship at the bottom of the ocean that is not being recycled. It’s the material that erodes away before the part is deemed unserviceable and recycled. We as humans take rich ore bodies, process them into metals and then slowly allow the metals to be transformed into dust and sprinkled in an even layer over the surface of the planet. A better example of entropy you will not find.

The nuclear industry is actually better than this yet you don’t see it because in your heart you do not want to. First off the fuel is recyclable (no different than steel), we just currently do a poor job of it. Second the small quantities that are not recycled are returned to the earth in concentrations higher than the ore that was originally mined, allowing them to be recoverable in the future. May I add that to my knowledge no material has been permanantly desposed of as of yet, its all still in manned facilities.

Uranium has but two purposes in the world, it provides a dense hard material and it is fissionable. When we don’t use it, it still sits in the ground being radioactive with a half life much longer than that of plutonium, but providing no value to humanity. Not using it doesn’t make it go away.

[trebuchet03]

Duff, technically - the steels we use today do decay as they are metastable (not necessarily 100% metastable, as the internal crystal structure will vary). They can also rust, but if not exposed to oxygen, it will decay (over a long long long time) into a different form of steel. The transformation is accelerated by heat (maybe other factors, but heat is the big one). This is how bridges in CA collapse when a tanker catches on fire underneath them and etc. Due to the very long time it takes for steel to transform (into a weaker, stable crystal structure), you have no need to worry about all the buildings with steel structures or reinforcements - unless there's a big fire (then, hopefully the structure is redundant) :/

But, that said, the results of metastable steel turning into a stable form of steel is hardly a naturally occurring product. Even moreso would be Aluminum, aluminum is a highly refined metal that won't turn back into bauxite (well, maybe it could - but the time would be immense).

Some Leisure reading:
Martensite

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Duffman

I am not a meteorologist and I am not going to debate weather, but I have experienced periods of about a week many times when it is cloudy/raining and the wind still comes and goes. Thats all I have to say about that.

You may want to familiarize yourself w/ it, especially when claiming we can't do something that's already been done over a smaller area, which will see less variability in weather.

Originally Posted by Duffman

Hell Yeah it matters. Right now we have a grid that is capable of supporting our worst summer and our worst winter day of the year, every year, if you want to compare apples to apples then your grid has to meet peak demand every day all day.

A kWh is a kWh, and it's cost is it's cost. Even if we have to build ten times what peak demand is in nameplate (wind) capacity in order to to keep up with supply, since we're talking about the overall lifecycle cost of energy, then we'll still pay roughly the same.

Originally Posted by Duffman

From what I have seen 4 cents represents the low end of a very large range for the cost of wind power. I have not seen a study from a credible source showing wind to be cheaper than nuclear.

What, the NREL isn't credible? Neither are Florida power, the DOE, and the NEI?

Originally Posted by Duffman

One thing to note is these studies are hugely dependent on the interest rate that you borrow against to build your project. I would like to drill down on an actual economic analysis of wind cost but have not been able to find it.

And that's something that nuclear is just as exposed to, if not more so. They have to sink twice as much capital just to build half the capacity, even including the difference in utilization.

Originally Posted by Duffman

A HVDC transmission line is not like your everyday AC line, you need an inverting station to get the DC back to AC. I am not an expert but I don’t think you are not going to have them all over the place, it is more likely HVDC will be used for long distance bulk transport and fed from and distributing into a high voltage AC network. Also we won’t be burying lines.

If we're using HVDC to transport electricity I doubt we'll have to worry much about weather. You can't claim that we'll have trouble w/ weather over a small area while having to worry about terrorist attacks on HVDC, that's bringing in electricity from hundreds, possibly thousands of miles away. If we have a HVDC transmission network, weather won't be much of a concern, and if we don't, then terrorists won't be. Not that I think they would bother w/ power transmission, but ya can't have both as potential problems for renweables when they're contradictory.

That said, we could bury lines if we're really that worried about a terrorist attack, but considering that would involve (for the terrorists) exposing assetts in this country, w/ the result being a power outage/inconvience, as opposed to actually killing anyone and causing serious paic, I don't think we have much to worry about in terms of HVDC/terrorism.

Originally Posted by Duffman

Immigrants is really irrelevant to the issue, the issue is can a 5000 mile power line be protected from a terrorist attack? Its relevant because you have tied your energy security to a power line.

You really think someone of middle eastern descent is going to be able to slip through with a bunch of migrant workers? They'll be tossed out on their ears so fast they won't know what hit 'em. And in terms of energy sercurity, jeez, we get a third (IIRC) of our transportation fuel from one of the most unstable areas in the world, where our soldiers are getting picked off via IEDs and the like, and you're worried about HVDC transmission lines on our home turf?

Dude, seriously... You're saying that you're not a meteorologist, and don't want to debate the weather, yet claim what's been done in Germany, with a grid much smaller than what we have in the U.S. or Canada, is still theoretical? That the cost estimates of wind power from the U.S. Government aren't credible? That we need to worry about terrorists cutting off our power, because why kill us when they can inconvience us? To top that off, you're worried about the interest rates of capital for wind power, but $24 billion for nuclear plant construction doesn't faze you? C'mon man, at least run the numbers. Even at the ~30% capacity of wind, it still was only $12 billion in capital for ~2,000MW last year, as opposed to the $24 billion in capital for ~2,000MW of nuclear power at it's 90% rate, which hasn't been built yet and may see cost run-ups.

Dude, seriously, what gives?

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

Wind, solar, nuclear, natural gas, biofuels, coal, oil.

Each has its positives and negatives.

We need to desist in trying to pick one winner. We need to get government out of the way of ALL OF THEM.

We need to get government out of the way of all of them insofar as they get out of the way of us. In other words, I don't mind government regulation of pollution since it means we won't have as much risk wrt poor health, etc...

[Big Dave]

The Warmers are very big with the ad hominem that skeptics are slaves of ExxonMobil. Since that ad hominem is apparently OK, I’m sure you won’t have any problem with the ad hominem that Warmer scientists are in the employ of the UN.

Do you trust the UN? I, most assuredly, do not, and see no reason any rational person would either.

Why would anybody want to bury or eat plutonium? It is superbly fissile material. You reprocess it and burn it in a reactor. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi Dave,

Can you show any peer reviewed publications in recognized scientific publications, that go against the general conclusion that human activity is a major cause of global climate change? And if you can show some, can you show that they were not funded (directly or indirectly) by Exxon Mobil or some other energy company?

Paraphrasing from "Cradle to Cradle": DuPont, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Ford, Daimler Chrysler, Texaco, and General Motors all withdrew from the Global Climate Coalition, which is a group backed by industrialists that discount global warming.

Why did they withdraw, I wonder? Why did political appointees in the White House edit science reports from NASA and the EPA?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/sc...29climate.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/po...gewanted=print
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_111471.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in564873.shtml
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24938572/

Now, why would the White House want to censor scientists?

[Duffman]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

A kWh is a kWh, and it's cost is it's cost. Even if we have to build ten times what peak demand is in nameplate (wind) capacity in order to to keep up with supply, since we're talking about the overall lifecycle cost of energy, then we'll still pay roughly the same.

It is unfortunate; I thought I was engaging in a debate with people who were fairly well versed in this technology. You clearly do not understand what the power capacity factor or duty cycle is. If a wind turbine has a generous PCF of 40% that means it either generates 40% of peak 100% of the time or 100% peak for 40% of the time, because wind is intermittent it really isn’t either but a summation of values in between. Another simple concept is cost, if I have to keep a natural gas plant as backup reserve for wind it has a cost. Even if I never turn it on, it still has employees waiting to turn it on, people doing maintenance, the capital cost is sunk as well, backup capacity always has a cost. Now if you have 10X overcapacity in wind as you suggest, when wind is giving you 100% of rated capacity all you can do is turn the machines off. Since there is zero fuel cost you have saved nothing, you are still stuck with maintenance costs and winds huge capital investment which is every bit as much as nuclears. When wind is 10% of your grid, you never turn it off, you turn your fueled generation off, when the bulk of your grid is fuelless your cost per kWh rises a lot faster when you turn the supply off.

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

If we have a HVDC transmission network, weather won't be much of a concern,

How So?

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

That said, we could bury lines

Is that really being done for long high capacity lines anywhere? Why is that?

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

You really think someone of middle eastern descent is going to be able to slip through with a bunch of migrant workers?

Get real, north America is already full of Arabs, remember all of those Arabs wanting to take pilot training years ago, getting into the country is the easiest part, they come in legally.

If you don’t think there are consequences to cutting the power off clearly you have not been in a situation where you have been without it for an extended period of time. Do a search on the “Quebec Ice storm”, this **** happens. When you put 100 million peoples power supply dependent on a few cross country lines then you definitely have a target and real consequences when it fails.

While I am not a meteorologist (by the way are you?) I do understand math and when I see a PCF of 20% or 30% or 40% I know that that is not a reliable supply.

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

What, the NREL isn't credible? Neither are Florida power, the DOE, and the NEI?

It’s like you clearly ignored everything I said in post 78.
Also if you got links then provide them, I'm not doing your research for you.

I apologise if my tone has worsened. I expect people to return the courtesy and to carefully read my posts and if not taking the posts at their word then opening up the links provided. I don’t feel this is happening.

[dcb]

Posts so laden with insults and belittlement don't get read.

And Big "environ wacko" Dave complaining about ad hominem attacks is the most ridiculous thing I've read in a long time

[Duffman]

Originally Posted by dcb

Posts so laden with insults and belittlement don't get read.

If you think I am too callous to debate then don’t quote my posts and engage me in debate then.

Also I am not responsible for what Dave posts.

[Concrete]

Please I beg you, No global warming debate
- I can take anymore - it always comes back to "is not" vs. "is to"

Can we do something more useful - like exchanging Ideas?

Duffman
why don't they bury high power lines?
I always assumed it was technical
like 6" thick insulation required to keep from shorting to ground
or capacitive coupling wasting power etc.

from a NIMBY and shielding stand point it would be great - if possible


as a side note to our HVDC conversation:
I have thought for a while if homeland security was converted to the Bureau of Burying Power Lines instead of the waste of taking everyones shoes off in the airport - I would be more secure

think of the improved safety, reliability & economic savings vs. power outage
now after every ice storm or hurricane there is this hugh effort to get people back on the grid to minimize damage
do not usually hear that about gas pipe in the ground

and yes I do know that buried cable is ~6 time the installed cost
but it is obviously affordable enough for water - and there is not much profit there