Why We Have No Wind or Solar Power

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

1. The Germans' plan would require a big increase in T&D lines to wheel power about the country. When was the last time a T&D project of any size was done in the US? Last one I can think of was a 25 mile interconnector link that Schwartzenegger pushed through eminent domain to mitigate the power wheeling problems CA had in the early part of the decade. The German plan would require thousands of miles of either 765 kV or DC transmission lines. It would take decades to force that through the courts.

They don't have to run different corridors, they can simply use existing ones, or add capacity for new ones, maybe by using rail corridors for example. That said, it may be cheaper to push through a new corridor than deal with the current owners. CA has a ballot initiative that would turn corridors into a state matter instead of a city/county matter since there's quite a bit of NIMBYism in terms of transmission capacity for renewables such as wind, solar thermal, and geothermal. It may take decades for the lawsuits to work their way through the courts, however the transmission capacity could be built w/ little delay, assuming of course we don't expand current corridors or create new electric corridors via other existing such as rail. IIRC, someone posted an interesting propostion regarding the electrification of rail, which would also provide much of the requisite transmission capacity.

Originally Posted by Big Dave

2. A biogas generating plant is still a generating plant and still subject to New Source Review. for the US we are not talking dinky little 70 Mw peakers. We are talking 400 Mw minimum. Not to mention the emissions from the gasification process itself. Surely nobody things that destructive distillation of cellulose is going to occur without air pollution. It would take at least a decade to get the permit and years more of court challenges.

Yes, unfortunately we can't just burn whatever we find w/o controls for pollution. That said, you can't seriously state this is a practical obstacle to biomass used for electricity generation, especially when cellulosic ethanol plants have already gotten the go ahead in the state with the nations' harshest AQ rules. Yes emissions systems cost more, and states require their installation because they don't want to end up paying for the health problems and lost productivity (read taxes) from power plants, automobiles, or whatever happens to be producing said emissions.

Originally Posted by Big Dave

3. Most of the good pumped storage sites in the US have already been developed. In the West you get into water rights issues. In the Midwest and Middle South you have no delta-y. Once again you are talking more than a decade to get the necessary permits and fight off court challenges.

Fortunately for us we already have way more pumped storage, as a proportion of electricity generated, than Germany does. Yes, I know, it would be so hard for us, with greater resources, to do what those Germans can do with fewer resources...

Originally Posted by Big Dave

5. The only idea that is not poisoned is the vanadium redox battery, and it is still at a primitive stage. The technology is at least a decade away from application if some lawyer doesn't find a way to challenge it in court for decades more.

It's nice for short term load balancing, but it just isn't cost effective on a scale large enough to make a difference, at least compared to a decent mix of renewable sources.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Can you call your local builder to construct a nuclear power plant for you?

Sure, if you include GE & Westinghouse in the list of builders, or the French. Point is that there are people who know how to build nuclear plants, how much it will cost, and who will guarantee a working result putting out a GWatt or whatever.

The temperature at ~8 miles is ~300C, and sure, you could not put an infinite amount of water down there, but the surface area is pretty big, even if you only count the hole itself; and leave out any cracks or fissures.

But what if you do have cracks & fissures? There goes a bunch of your steam pressure.

There's nothing wrong with geothermal: as I mentioned, there's a plant up the road that's been cranking out a hundred MWatts or so for years, and a number of others around the state. But despite the fact that Nevada is close to the top in geothermal resources, there's only about 320 MWatts total. Certainly not to be neglected, but only a small fraction of what the state uses.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Duffman

Its still all theoretical! Germany still uses conventional sources for 85% of thier power, so they have proved nothing in that video.

I suppose, insofar as anything that we haven't done yet is theoretical. That said, I'm pretty sure you can respond to this post, even if you still haven't done it yet, and it's as theoretical as what the German engineers have demonstrated.

That said, it's a lot less theoretical than fusion for instance, in that it's already been shown to work for the grid's requirements/profile on a smaller scale, in other words they follow the grid's demand, just w/ proportionally less of each renewable input, so all Germany would need to do is scale up renewables and implement the system for it to become reality. Similarly, even though you've only posted a few sentences that I've seen so far, while the idea that you could create more sentences is only theoretical, it's one of those theoretical things I think would have a high degree of success, just like an all renewable grid.

Course, it's expected that we would see quite a bit of opposition to something like that, since it uses resources that are free and not likely to exhaust themselves soon for all intents and purposes. Fossil fuel energy is very lucrative for those who own it, even if the rest of us have to pay for and deal with the externalized costs associated with it. A little over three trillion alone for oil, and probably around 10%, maybe more, of world GDP per year. If I was getting 10% of the world's wealth every year due to resources I controlled, I sure as hell wouldn't want something else butting in on my piece of the pie.

[Duffman]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

How is a working system that is reliably supplying 15% of the electricity for a major European nation "theoretical"? If they can improve it and enlarge it, it will supply all their power -- if it was "theoretical", why would the German engineers even think of implementing it?

You had asked me if I had watched the link, now I ask you the same. They say their objective is to replace Coal, Nuclear and imported power with renewables. Coal and Nuke are 69% while wind, solar and Biomass are currently 10.1%. What have they accomplished? I dont think anybody here is arguing that it is not possible to generate 10, 20 or even 30% of electricity with unconventional (non-hydro) renewables.

I know the point that you are refusing to see. That intermittent sources are not a problem in small doses because by design there is extra capacity on the grid. If wind was 60% or more of the grid then there would only be 40% "peak + baseload" to prop up the system on a bad wind day and the baseload would have to more than double its output which is impossible.

Countries like Germany and Denmark are Hypocrites, they want to rid themselves of nuclear power for ideological reasons, but have no problems importing power from nuclear heavyweights Sweden and France when their utopian power supply fails to meet their needs.

[Duffman]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

That said, it's a lot less theoretical than fusion for instance, in that it's already been shown to work for the grid's requirements/profile on a smaller scale, in other words they follow the grid's demand, just w/ proportionally less of each renewable input, so all Germany would need to do is scale up renewables and implement the system for it to become reality. Similarly, even though you've only posted a few sentences that I've seen so far, while the idea that you could create more sentences is only theoretical, it's one of those theoretical things I think would have a high degree of success, just like an all renewable grid.

This is entirely my point that proponts of renewables refuse to see, it doesnt scale in a linear fashon. Lets talk wind turbines because they are the most cost effective and realistic of the group. Wind turbines generate power on a cubic function of wind speed, that means if you double the wind speed you get 8X (yes I will say it again EIGHT TIMES) the power. Also wind turbines have a minimum windspeed before they start to turn. Turbines also have a max wind speed after which they shut down to prevent damage to themselves. So based on this there is a huge variability in power production and when wind is having a poor day, some other source must be there to pick up the slack. In addition to this, it is totally impossible to forcast forward any significant time period. Right now conventional powerplants do not run at peak rated power so it is not a problem but as renewables grab a larger share of the capacity on the grid they overcome that reserve that the reliables are holding.

[CobraBall]

"The sun will rise tomorrow -- solar power is completely reliable."

Yes the sun will rise tomorrow but... will you be able to see it?

The island of Krakatoa, August 26 - 27, 1883.

“In the year following the eruption, average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.”

El Chichon, Pinatubo, Mt. St. Helens, Ruiz, etc.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Duffman

This is entirely my point that proponts of renewables refuse to see, it doesnt scale in a linear fashon. Lets talk wind turbines because they are the most cost effective and realistic of the group. Wind turbines generate power on a cubic function of wind speed, that means if you double the wind speed you get 8X (yes I will say it again EIGHT TIMES) the power. Also wind turbines have a minimum windspeed before they start to turn. Turbines also have a max wind speed after which they shut down to prevent damage to themselves. So based on this there is a huge variability in power production and when wind is having a poor day, some other source must be there to pick up the slack. In addition to this, it is totally impossible to forcast forward any significant time period. Right now conventional powerplants do not run at peak rated power so it is not a problem but as renewables grab a larger share of the capacity on the grid they overcome that reserve that the reliables are holding.

The only way it doesn't scale linearly is if we try to replace our current grid mix with one source. It scales in a linear fashion, for the most part, given a mix of renewables sources. We need a baseload of wind/geothermal/solar w/ dispatchable hydro and biomass/biofuel, just like we need a baseload of coal/nuclear/NG with dispatchable NG/fuel oil. If you watch the video and possibly visit the project site, you can see that any local variability does not translate into a system wide drop. For example, if the sun isn't shining due to a storm moving in, the wind is moving, and providing electricity via wind turbines. This does require some degree of forecasting, but it is possible. Of course this ignores demand side management, so by the time we see a large enough roll out of renewables in the states to account for a significant portion of electricity production, any uncertainty in predictions can be easily accounted for via demand side management.

[Duffman]

The numbers I have seen are duty cycles of 30 and 20% respectively for wind and solar. The only thing reliable that you can say for either one of them is that reliably you can predict there will be no solar power during the night. There will be times when neither is worth a damn and their duty cycles suggest that it will be more times than you think. To get it to work you need Wave and Geothermal to emulate the performance of our current thermal supply. Is there enough of both to replace our current thermal supply, because as James points out, they are small units and our big thermal plants are about 1000MW. This also speaks nothing to whether or not a particular site is a good location for either technology. Same for Hydro, really the hydro is there or it is not, Germany with less than 5% hydro was not endowed with those resources plain and simple.

We will always need peaking plants, right now they are Hydro and Gas, if you have no hydro, then you are pretty dependent on gas. Can we make enough BioGas? We know right now we can’t make enough ethanol to meet our needs, why would we think we can cover additional bases as well.

This is not a problem of taking 4 or so sources of electricity, summing up their W*hours and saying that it meets the avg need over a years worth of time. Supply must equal demand at every single second of the year or the system doesn’t work properly.

To put it in an analogy, right now we have a toddler sized person falling from one story when renewable supply doesn’t meet expectations and a 200 lb man (conventional supply) underneath him to catch him and break his fall. But it won’t work the other way around, the toddler is not capable of catching the man should he be the one falling from one storey up. You can’t make unpredictable renewables the size of the man and reliable sources the size of the toddler.

And all this talk of storage and mass transport of electricity is just grasping at straws to make an unworkable system workable, but nobody will go for it when they see what it means in the end.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

How long will oil last? How long will natural gas last? How long will coal last? And how long until we poison our environment with radioactive waste and too much carbon dioxide?

Germany has much less sunshine than almost anywhere in the USA -- it is equivalent to Washington state, which has the least sunshine anywhere in the lower 48 states. Wind power is also quite abundant over a very large area of the central western part of the country, and off shore, the wind is ideal for constant power generation. New Jersey will be getting a wind farm off shore:

New Jersey to Get Huge Coastal Wind Farm | EcoRenovator.org

Also, in Buzzards Bay in Rhode Island, and eventually Cape Wind will get it's 135 wind turbines. Hull Massachusetts has two turbines already, and is getting four more. Maine has a (35?) wind turbine farm (at least). In "Plan B 3.0", the author proposes building 1.5 million 2MW turbines and installing them in the windy parts of the USA -- this will produce a large majority of the electricity we need; and just three states: Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could produce enough for ALL of our electricity needs!

Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization; Chapter 12: Turning to Renewable Energy; Harnessing the Wind

One of wind’s attractions is that it requires so little land compared with other sources of renewable energy. For example, a corn farmer in northern Iowa can put a wind turbine on a quarter-acre of land that can produce $300,000 worth of electricity per year. This same quarter-acre would produce 40 bushels of corn that in turn could produce 120 gallons of ethanol worth $300. Since the turbines occupy less than 1 percent of the land in a wind farm, this technology lets farmers harvest both energy and crops from the same land. Thousands of ranchers in the wind-rich Great Plains will soon be earning more from wind royalties than from cattle sales.

And again, there are numerous other renewable sources of energy that can be used to balance out the shortcomings: ocean power, biomass, biodiesel, geothermal, and recent improvements in generating hydrogen from water (nearly 100% efficiency), and heat storage underground, compressed air storage underground, raised water hydro -- the list goes on... Not to mention the (good) possibility that we can engineer an oil-pooping bacteria.

[cfg83]

NeilBlanchard -

Thanks for your commentary. I follow the RMI argument against nuclear :

Forget Nuclear

Nuclear power, we’re told, is a vibrant industry that’s dramatically reviving because it’s proven, necessary, competitive, reliable, safe, secure, widely used, increasingly popular, and carbon-free—a perfect replacement for carbon-spewing coal power. New nuclear plants thus sound vital for climate protection, energy security, and powering a growing economy.

There’s a catch, though: the private capitalmarket isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street.

The Nuclear Illusion - May 2008
https://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Ener...uclIlusion.pdf

A widely heralded view holds that nuclear power is experiencing a dramatic worldwide revival and vibrant growth, because it’s competitive, necessary, reliable, secure, and vital for fuel security and climate protection.

That’s all false. In fact, nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it’s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete - so hopelessly uneconomic that one needn’t debate whether it’s clean and safe; it weakens electric reliability and national security; and it worsens climate change compared with devoting the same money and time to more effective options.

Yet the more decisively nuclear power is humbled by swifter and cheaper rivals, the more zealously its advocates claim it has no serious competitors. The web of old fictions ingeniously spun by a coordinated and intensive global campaign is spread by a credulous press and boosted by the nuclear enthusiasts who, probably for the first time ever, now happen to lead nearly all major governments at once. Many people have been misled, including four well-known individuals with long environmental histories -- amplified by the industry’s echo box into a sham but widely believed claim of broad green endorsement -- and some key legislators. As a result, the U.S. Congress in late 2007 voted $18.5 billion, and the industry will soon be back for another $30+ billion, in new loan guarantees for up to 80% of the cost of new U.S. nuclear units. And the long-pronuclear British government, abruptly reversing its well-reasoned 2002 policy, has decided to replace its old nuclear plants with new ones, although, it claims, without public subsidy -- a feat no country has yet achieved. Thus policy diverges ever farther from market realities.

The Case Against Nuclear

Lovins highlights four problems with nuclear that keep it from competing against cheaper, swifter rivals such as cogeneration, wind and energy efficiency:

Cost: Nuclear plants are very expensive to build, and getting more so. Worldwide, construction costs have risen much faster for nuclear plants than non-nuclear plants.

Carbon: Because new nuclear power costs far more than its competitors, it buys far less energy per dollar, and therefore displaces far less coal energy per dollar than other sources of power.

Reliability: When nuclear plants go offline, they fail in billion-watt chunks and take a long time to restart.

Security: Proliferation is greatly facilitated by nuclear power’s flow of materials, equipment, skills, and knowledge, all hidden behind an innocent-looking civilian disguise.

On all these fronts, Lovins says small, distributed energy sources are better buys than nuclear. ...

Missing the Market Meltdown - May 26, 2008

Capitalists have already scuttled Patrick Moore's claimed nuclear revival. New U.S. subsidies of about $13 billion per plant (roughly a plant's capital cost) haven't lured Wall Street to invest. Instead, the decentralized competitors to nuclear power that Moore derides are making more global electricity than nuclear plants are, and are growing 20 to 40 times faster.

In 2007, decentralized renewables worldwide attracted $71 billion in private capital. Nuclear got zero. Why? Economics. The nuclear construction costs that Moore omits are astronomical and soaring; low fuel costs will soon rise two-to fivefold. "Negawatts"—saved electricity—cost five to 10 times less and are getting cheaper. So are most renewables. Negawatts and "micro-power"— renewables other than big hydro, and cogenerating electricity together with useful heat—are also at or near customers, avoiding grid costs, losses and failures (which cause 98 to 99 percent of blackouts).

The unreliability of renewable energy is a myth, while the unreliability of nuclear energy is real. Of all U.S. nuclear plants built, 21 percent were abandoned as lemons; 27 percent have failed at least once for a year or more. Even successful reactors must close for refueling every 17 months for 39 days. And when shut by grid failure, they can't quickly restart. Wind farms don't do that.

CarloSW2