The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[lpetrich]

 Electric energy consumption - the consumption per capita in the US is around 1.5 kilowatts. That's 36 kWh/day. A reserve of liquid hydrogen for 1 day with energy extracted at 100% efficiency will have a volume of 13 liters, or 3 gallons.

Scaling that up to a million people will require a volume of 13 megaliters or 13 * a cube (10 m)^3.

Fuel-cell efficiency is about 50%, so one must multiply these numbers by 2 -- 26 liters per person or 26 megaliters are 1 M people.

 

[bigfield]

 Electric energy consumption - the consumption per capita in the US is around 1.5 kilowatts. That's 36 kWh/day. A reserve of liquid hydrogen for 1 day with energy extracted at 100% efficiency will have a volume of 13 liters, or 3 gallons.

Scaling that up to a million people will require a volume of 13 megaliters or 13 * a cube (10 m)^3.

Fuel-cell efficiency is about 50%, so one must multiply these numbers by 2 -- 26 liters per person or 26 megaliters are 1 M people.

I'd guess that some parts of the world (like the US) would probably need to be able to store a couple of months' worth of fuel during winter.

To manage that in the US you'd need maybe 550GL across the country. That's about the same capacity as 1,700 supertankers or 6,000,000 gas stations. (The US currently has fewer than 200,000.)

Maybe I'm being too conservative by choosing two months, or maybe I'm not being conservative enough? Maybe they need four months?

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[fromderinside]

Ka-Ching. To your door for about $180,000.

 

[steve_bank]

The latest ferry on Puget Sound is hybrid electric and diesel.

 

[Elixir]

Ka-Ching. To your door for about $180,000.

What's the ticket for a comparable diesel? (If there is a comparable diesel)

 

[bilby]

Ka-Ching. To your door for about $180,000.

What's the ticket for a comparable diesel? (If there is a comparable diesel)

A comparable diesel is $1.59, plus postage and handling.

You might think "You can't buy a diesel truck for less than $1.60, such a thing simply doesn't exist!", and if so, you would be correct.

But given that this Tesla vehicle also doesn't exist, I am not sure that that's an important objection.

Let me know if as and when this thing starts not to be imaginary, and we can discuss prices at that point. Elon Musk's wild speculation can't haul a semitrailer. That requires an actual vehicle, not just a design concept.

 

[lpetrich]

The latest ferry on Puget Sound is hybrid electric and diesel.

Details? Does it have batteries? Or does it have electricity as an intermediary?

In diesel-electric locomotives, the diesel engine runs an generator, which in turn transmits electricity to the motors that turn the wheels.

For ships, steam engines are a thing of the past, except for nuclear-powered ones. Aside from them, diesel engines are just about universal, even in the biggest ships. Some ships use direct drive, and to reverse direction, one has to shut down the engine and then restart it in the reverse direction. Other ships use something much like diesel-electric locomotives, and some ships use propeller motors mounted in pods that can rotate, making for greater maneuverability.

 

[Elixir]

A comparable diesel is $1.59

Does Au’s Smartass Universty have hard entrance exams?

I bet you DO know the cost of a conventionally powered rig with hauling capacity similar to what is touted forMusk’s imaginary vehicle.

 

[bilby]

 

[Swammerdami]

I was discussing renewable energy in another thread ... and now see this one. Apologies.

... Things have gotten a lot better than they used to be but of any modern technologies the best you'll get is about 20 cents per kWh just for the battery. For higher up-front costs you can get that down to 9 cents per kWh by going with the ancient tech of a Nickel-Iron battery--but they do need periodic watering and proper enclosures as they vent hydrogen during charging.

I THINK you're quoting the amortized cost per kWh delivered over the battery's life-time, right? (I just found it confusing. Yes, energy storage is expensive. What are the costs of other schemes, e.g. water pumping?)

Note also the median construction days per MWh is 2.519. That's better than most wind or solar farms. And a nuclear plant gets ~900kWh/MWh of capacity, delivered on demand. A solar farm gets maybe 200kWh/MWh of capacity, delivered when the sun shines regardless of demand, and more importantly NEVER delivered when the sun isn't shining, regardless of demand.

This quotation confuses me. What do you mean by "construction days per MWh"? Can you write out a simple clarifying example? (If it means what I guess, it's a rather useless statistic, no?)

With the emergence of hydrogen as a seriously-considered possibility

Possibility of doing what?

What does Hydrogen achieve that couldn't already be done?

It's not a source of energy, as it requires energy to make it. So how does adding the Hydrogen step between source and use help with, well, anything?

How expensive would it be to create and store hydrogen at a windmill farm? You won't NEED to burn the hydrogen on-site: you can truck it to a near-by fueling station for hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Anyway, when will power generation from ocean currents and tides come into wider use? Currents (and tides?) avoid the intermittency problem of wind and solar.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I was discussing renewable energy in another thread ... and now see this one. Apologies.

... Things have gotten a lot better than they used to be but of any modern technologies the best you'll get is about 20 cents per kWh just for the battery. For higher up-front costs you can get that down to 9 cents per kWh by going with the ancient tech of a Nickel-Iron battery--but they do need periodic watering and proper enclosures as they vent hydrogen during charging.

I THINK you're quoting the amortized cost per kWh delivered over the battery's life-time, right? (I just found it confusing. Yes, energy storage is expensive. What are the costs of other schemes, e.g. water pumping?)

Yes. Around here I pay the electric company 11 cents/kWh. This means that even if the solar panels are free the cost of solar is twice as much with lithium batteries as from the power company. In reality the cost is going to be even higher than this because of the need to maintain reserve power for cloudy days.

Note also the median construction days per MWh is 2.519. That's better than most wind or solar farms. And a nuclear plant gets ~900kWh/MWh of capacity, delivered on demand. A solar farm gets maybe 200kWh/MWh of capacity, delivered when the sun shines regardless of demand, and more importantly NEVER delivered when the sun isn't shining, regardless of demand.

This quotation confuses me. What do you mean by "construction days per MWh"? Can you write out a simple clarifying example? (If it means what I guess, it's a rather useless statistic, no?)

I think he's talking about the labor needed to build the plants.

With the emergence of hydrogen as a seriously-considered possibility

Possibility of doing what?

What does Hydrogen achieve that couldn't already be done?

It's not a source of energy, as it requires energy to make it. So how does adding the Hydrogen step between source and use help with, well, anything?

How expensive would it be to create and store hydrogen at a windmill farm? You won't NEED to burn the hydrogen on-site: you can truck it to a near-by fueling station for hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Anyway, when will power generation from ocean currents and tides come into wider use? Currents (and tides?) avoid the intermittency problem of wind and solar.

Hydrogen is a pain to handle, it's hard to keep it from leaking out. It's also expensive to ship--whatever you do to put it in your tanker you're going to spend a lot of energy doing it and you're not going to get a lot in your tanker no matter what you do. Pipelines are better but you still have the leakage problems.

And note you also have a problem with your hydrogen powered car--short range.

And there are huge handling problems with liquid hydrogen. The only way to purge lines is with helium. SpaceX accepts the substantial penalty for not using hydrolox engines rather than deal with liquid hydrogen.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, hydrogen is popular right now for the same reason that solar roadways were popular a couple of years back - it sounds great to people who have no clue about the engineering challenges it entails, and most people have no clue about the engineering challenges it entails.

The only really viable grid-scale storage solution remains pumped hydroelectric; And there simply aren't that many suitable sites left for new pumped hydro facilities.

 

[lpetrich]

Large scale alkaline electrolyzers may be built at €444/kW in 2030 – pv magazine International - "Researchers at Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE have estimated the costs for both alkaline (AEL) and proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers and have found that AEL systems have bigger margins for cost reduction. According to their calculations, the costs of a large scale AEL electrolyzer with a capacity of 100MW should drop from €663/kW in 2020 to €444 in 2030."

The cost for the 100MW alkaline electrolyzer is estimated to drop from €663/kW in 2020 to €444 in 2030, and that for the 5MW system to drop from €949 to €726. For the PEM technology, the cost for the 100MW facility should decline from €720 to €500, and that for the 5MW system from €980 to €730.

That strikes me as pessimistic, because of the economies of scale that often happen with scaled-up technologies, economies of scale that have happened with wind energy and solar energy.

High-Temperature Steam Electrolysis - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

High-Temperature Steam Electrolysis

While in the HTSE process, water is first converted to steam by using nuclear thermal energy rather than electricity, and then dissociated at the cathode to form the hydrogen molecules as well as oxygen ions, which subsequently migrate through the solid oxide electrolyte material, and then form oxygen molecules at the anode surface.

From: Hydrogen Economy, 2017

noting
Introduction of Hydrogen Routines - ScienceDirect

 

[lpetrich]

 Experience curve effects -- the more experience some industry has in producing something, the less it takes to produce each unit of that. Another source: [1703.05979] How well do experience curves predict technological progress? A method for making distributional forecasts

The best-fitting simple approximation is Wright's law: (cost per unit) = (number produced)^{- (progress exponent)}

The progress exponent = - log(2, (progress ratio) )

where the progress ratio is the ratio of unit costs after doubling production.

Though this effect is often observed, exponents can vary quite a bit. The Wikipedia article quotes

• Aerospace: 85%
• Shipbuilding: 80-85%
• Complex machine tools for new models: 75–85%
• Repetitive electronics manufacturing: 90–95%
• Repetitive machining or punch-press operations: 90–95%
• Repetitive electrical operations: 75–85%
• Repetitive welding operations: 90%
• Raw materials: 93–96%
• Purchased parts: 85–88%

noting
Learning Curve Calculator

Despite wind turbines and photovoltaic cells being old technologies, the recent development of them, since roughly 1978, follows Wright's law very well, with no clear evidence of leveling off.

 

[lpetrich]

Grazing animals increase carbon sequestration by up to 80% in PV projects – pv magazine International - "Temple University researchers have found that managed sheep grazing on an acre of recovering agricultural soil with native plants may sequester 1 ton of carbon per year, which could accumulate for 12 to 15 years before reaching saturation."

"The analysis found that the ‘meaningful forage productivity’ of most of their chosen ruminant appropriate species significantly increased under 45% shade, while most plants under 80% shade saw a marked decrease in biomass volume."

Shade is good for some plant species but not others.

Solar-over-canal project announced in California – pv magazine International - "Project Nexus is a pilot project that aims to build solar panel canopies over a portion of Turlock Irrigation District’s existing canals to operate and research a how water-plus-energy can meet California’s needs for climate resiliency."

There are some PV canopies over canals in India, and PV canopies are MUCH better than PV cells in roads.

Short payback periods for PV-powered heat pumps in Spain – pv magazine International

He said that a residential PV system deployed without a heat pump in Spain has a payback period ranging from six to 10 years, but coupling the array with a heat pump means it can be repaid in less than five years. In addition, if the heat pump produces hot water for a household, works efficiently for low-temperature systems such as radiant floors, and also produces cooling during the summer, the payback time could range between two and three years.

In effect, the panels run heat-pump water heaters and A/C.

 

[lpetrich]

Portable, space-saving photovoltaic towers – pv magazine International - "Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi have developed solar towers that can be moved from one place to another and can generate 20-30% more power while requiring only 50-60% space compared to conventional mounting setups."

The Hydrogen Stream: Fortescue develops tech based on photocatalytic water splitting coupled with solar – pv magazine International - "Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries wants to develop a green hydrogen technology based on photocatalytic water splitting coupled with solar radiation. Elsewhere, Linde has signed a long-term agreement with German chemical company BASF for the supply of hydrogen and steam in France and Nel has received a contract for a containerized PEM electrolyzer and light-duty hydrogen fueling station package from an unnamed U.S. power utility."

Glut of Solar Panels is coming in 2025

Just in time for peak oil, Rethink Energy predicts that there will be a surge of new polysilicon production capacity coming online in the next two years, leading to a glut of solar panels by 2025.

The production capacity of solar panels is expected to exceed 1,000 GW per year by 2030. Pledges made by several dozen companies should see production capacity triple over the next three years. An expansion to nearly 4 million tons of solar-grade polysilicon production capacity will have been announced just in the last few weeks alone. Running at two-thirds capacity utilization would be enough to manufacturer 900 GW of photovoltaics every year

The more the better.

 

[lpetrich]

Spoiler Alert: We Can Still Knock The “Comet” Off Course - CleanTechnica

I am far from the only UCS staffer to feel “seen” by Don’t Look Up, a satire that I found to be infuriating and cathartic all at once. You don’t have to like it. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was heavy-handed, too. But we are going to keep talking about it.

As my climate scientist colleagues have pointed out, the comet is a powerful allegory for climate change and the consequences of failing to overcome fossil fuel and corporate interests. But the film was also a powerful reminder that these interests are obstructing clear-cut solutions, such as renewable energy, leaving us with nonsense “solutions” that only serve to maintain the status quo — benefiting the wealthy and powerful at the expense of literally everyone on the planet.

We need to talk about the scene where the fictionalized U.S. government had a clear-cut solution in front of them, and just … didn’t do it.

Once the corrupt government in Don’t Look Up finally found it in its self-interest to *do something* about the comet, there was actually a pretty good plan to knock the comet off course with nuclear missiles. The mission had more than an 80 percent chance of success once things were in motion.

That movie, "Don't Look Up", is at Netflix, and I've thought of subscribing for a month to watch it.

We know that renewable energy and electrification is the key to reducing fossil fuel emissions that drive climate change. We know all about the problem, and we also have solutions at hand. What are we waiting for?

Instead of implementing clean energy solutions we know can work, some want us to wait on fossil fuel-friendly “innovation” and technologies that have not been proven at scale. (These are the supporters of BASH Cellular’s plan for the comet, and we know how that went for planet Earth).

Such things as "renewable natural gas".

These technologies are far from a replacement for the clear need to deploy renewable energy and electrify everything we can. This is akin to the BASH Cellular CEO (a blatant parody of tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos) in Don’t Look Up proposing a profit-motivated “solution” to the comet problem that isn’t peer-reviewed and ultimately fails.

...
In Don’t Look Up, the corporate proposal to mine the comet is fundamentally incompatible with the safety of the planet. Similarly, the fossil fuel industry’s profit motives are fundamentally incompatible with reaching zero fossil fuel pollution. When it comes to decarbonization, our interests are not aligned. And yet, fossil fuel interests are often the most powerful voices in conversations about emission reductions.

... And we must face the fact that the only way to tackle the climate crisis is head on, by defeating fossil fuel interests. Billionaires like the BASH Cellular CEO won’t save us.

Meryl Streep played the President in that movie, and she gave a rambling non-answer when asked who her character was based on. Someone else in the movie's production said that it was recent Presidents like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

 

[lpetrich]

Then a section on beyond “looking up”

The final gut punch of Don’t Look Up for someone who works for a science advocacy organization was watching the scientists and activists spend so much time and energy on trying to get people and politicians to acknowledge the bitter reality of impending apocalypse while failing to communicate what anyone could do about it.

The call to action from the benefit concert featuring Ariana Grande’s improvised lyrics is to simply “look up,” not to “call the White House to demand that the president relaunch the nuclear missiles.”

I agree that that's a problem. That's why I like renewable energy, and I attempted to get some people I know to put solar panels on their house's roof, without much success.

Notorious comet-barons like Sen. Joe Manchin are always going to stand in the way, and corporate interests and the wealthy elite (aptly named “Platinum Eagle”-level donors in the film) will continue to have outsized influence on policy. But unlike a comet collision, where everyone faces the same fate, climate change is more harmful to people who are already overburdened by social harms and injustices.

 

[bilby]

Renewables are fiddling while Rome burns.

They are hugely popular, both with victims of the Appeal to Nature fallacy and with fossil fuel companies, and as a result are much beloved by politicians who see them as a huge vote winner.

But they don't and can't actually solve the problem at hand.

Only nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal are actually effective in reducing to a negligible level carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation.

All other 'solutions' are half-baked at best; Wind turbines and solar arrays do tend to push production from coal to gas, but that's a fairly small improvement (and may be completely eliminated by 'fugitive emissions' of methane to the atmosphere).

The really bizarre thing, IMO, is that the supporters of wind and solar power genuinely believe that they are helping, and that they are following the science, while all the actual data on emissions shows very clearly that even the massive investment made by places like Germany and California has been futile; While France and Ontario have fixed the problem incidentally, before it was even widely understood to be a problem at all.

Wind and solar are an exercise in environmental vandalism on a scale not seen since Tom Newcomen invented a way to pump water out of mineshafts using coal.