The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[Jimmy Higgins]

Germany Doubles Pace of Energy Transition - CleanTechnica

Thanks to a change of government that reflected the country’s move towards greater climate action, Germany has doubled the pace of its energy transition. However — “Coal is pretty much dead and buried across the rest of Western Europe, but in Germany it’s still a quarter of generation. With 12% of power coming from nuclear, which is going to be totally closed down this year, even the new Green coalition government can’t end coal until 2030 and gas will persist more than a decade further than that. In 2020, the country even built a new coal plant.”

Energy source	Now	2030 Target
Solar	59 GW	200 GW
Offshore Wind	8 GW	30 GW
H2-making electrolyzers	very small	10 GW
Onshore Wind	20 GW	100 GW
Coal	40 GW	0
Natural Gas	10%	?

Can someone explain H2-making electrolyzers to me? I get that this has industrial purposes where the H2 becomes something they use... but "Green Hydrogen" sounds like a terrible idea.

1) Let's generate green energy via solar or wind
2) Now let's use that energy to enact electrolysis to generate H2 at a loss
3) This is somehow going to help our energy sustainability?

If using H2, great. For energy? It sounds like we are using green energy to produce another energy at significantly lower efficiency, where as we could just pump the green into the grid and full efficiency.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In order to rely on wind power at nighttime, you would need to build enough turbines to handle the periods of relatively low output, such as shown around 24-26 Feb, which would leave you generating maybe 3-4 times as much power as you need at times such as 20-23 Feb.

The claim that "the wind never stops blowing over large areas" really doesn't mean that you can guarantee electricity supply by building wind turbines over a large area. Even over a large area, like an entire continent, the total amount of wind can drop far enough to reduce wind power generation to a fraction of its maximum capacity for days at a time.

It sounds like such a juvenile remark... the wind doesn't stop blowing. Well yeah... but we need it to blow enough to generate a lot of electricity. I want just solar and wind, but the laws of Thermodynamics overrule what I want. If it were that simple, we'd be there already.

 

[Swammerdami]

I clicked to the sites bigfield links to, with their interactive graphs of electricity usage. Interesting. Here are some observations; I hope any errors are brought to my attention.

IIUC, although demand is high in the early afternoon, the price remains low until early evening due to the high availability of rooftop solar. Another site has a graph showing that homes with electric vehicles which are charged when electricity is cheap consume over three times as much electricity at 1 AM as in the early afternoon.

I'm attaching a graph showing Australia's use of hydroelectric power (and similar "renewable" load levelers, all dwarfed by hydro). Note the HUGE load-leveling provided by hydro. See that hydro turns on for a brief time before dawn but, despite rising demand, cuts off when the sun rises: Solar power meets the demand. (The biggest demand for electricity is in the late afternoon.) Looking at nuclear power on the U.S. graph shows that, whatever FUTURE nuclear plants might provide, they currently provide ZERO load-leveling in the U.S.



ETA:
Australian hydro is about 6% of Oz Elec, but I suppose this is seasonal and less than 4% now. Still, it is nice to see how well this electro resource can be timed for efficacy over the course of a day or season.. And are there not a plural number of renewable sources in R&D — e.g. geothermal — including some (tide turbines?) which, like hydro, are suitable for throttling?

Note that Nuclear is NOT suitable for throttling. Sure it can be deliberately slowed down BUT since fuel can be modeled as free, as Bilby points out, that is to lose capacity for no purpose. Better would be to run the nuclear at full capacity with any excess amperes used to pump water, charge springs or batteries, manufacture H₂ fuel, or to charge electric vehicles. (These are all highly profitable endeavors.)

Similarly, one wouldn't want to turn off the wind or solar when those amperes can be delivered. Again, any excess energy is used for pumping, charging.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Here is some detailed analysis by a proponent of renewable energy. I suppose it is highly flawed, but it should be instructive to prepare and examine a detailed rebuttal.

It definitely is highly flawed.

The key claims of the article seem to be:

The author, who had some expertise in systems that include solar+storage (S+S), used actual costs for the Vogtle [nuclear[ reactors that are being built in Georgia. The two reactors, which have been under construction since 2013, are expected to come online in 2022 and 2023, at a cost of roughly $30 billion, including $3 billion in finance costs. Their capacities will be 1,117 megawatts each.

Nuclear power is mandated to be too expensive, it's not a good comparison.

The PV Magazine article calculates the cost of a solar array big enough to provide the same output as the nuclear reactors in the winter in Georgia. It assumes battery storage to supply the output of the nuclear plants for 16 hours, increased by 10% to be safe.

Which won't cover a cloudy day.

Nuclear waste is an unsolved problem that the U.S. government guarantees, at taxpayer expense. The same is true for insurance, which is covered by the Price-Anderson act. S+S systems do not have comparable costs.

Nuclear waste is a political problem, not a technical one.

The author does not take into account Wright’s Law, a recognized law of economics referred to as “the learning curve.” It suggests that construction of a battery system of the size envisioned would be sufficient to drive the cost of storage down quickly enough to reduce the cost of the S+S system itself.

Basically grasping at straws.

 

[Tigers!]

Eastern Australia is in the grip of huge rain storms. Does any one have information on what effect rain fall has on solar panel's production of electricity i.e. rain stops the cells or reduces their efficiency? Obviously rain at night will have no effect.

 

[bilby]

Eastern Australia is in the grip of huge rain storms. Does any one have information on what effect rain fall has on solar panel's production of electricity i.e. rain stops the cells or reduces their efficiency? Obviously rain at night will have no effect.

Rain itself isn't a big deal, but the accompanying cloud cover significantly reduces solar output.

The big risk in Brisbane right now is that wet solar panels pose a serious electrocution risk, as they are effectively 'always on' if they're in sunlight. People repairing damaged homes may not be aware that turning the power off at the main distribution board doesn't guarantee that theres no power to the wiring in the house.

The big problem for solar panels is large hail. We had cricket-ball sized hail out to the west of Brisbane as part of this weather system; No solar panel will survive that.

 

[Hermit]

Big problem, my foot.

How 3,000 Solar Panels Measured Up Against a Massive Hail Storm​

The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, can attest to the resilience of solar panels against extreme weather. NREL is home to an enormous solar energy system consisting of 3,168 rooftop- and ground-mounted solar panels. In 2017, a severe hail storm hit the greater Denver area and the NREL campus.
Despite hailstones up to 2.75 inches in diameter being reported in the area — and the countless cars and windows that were damaged — only one of the facility’s 3,168 solar panels sustained damage.

Added to that, storms with cricket ball sized hail stones are rare, and when they do occur, they cover small areas. @bilby will undoubtedly be able to tell me what percentage of solar panels has been destroyed by hail in Australia - or anywhere else.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Eastern Australia is in the grip of huge rain storms. Does any one have information on what effect rain fall has on solar panel's production of electricity i.e. rain stops the cells or reduces their efficiency? Obviously rain at night will have no effect.

Funny, Costa Rica is about 100% renewable due to heavy rains, about a super majority of their power is hydro.

 

[bilby]

Big problem, my foot.

How 3,000 Solar Panels Measured Up Against a Massive Hail Storm​

The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, can attest to the resilience of solar panels against extreme weather. NREL is home to an enormous solar energy system consisting of 3,168 rooftop- and ground-mounted solar panels. In 2017, a severe hail storm hit the greater Denver area and the NREL campus.
Despite hailstones up to 2.75 inches in diameter being reported in the area — and the countless cars and windows that were damaged — only one of the facility’s 3,168 solar panels sustained damage.

Added to that, storms with cricket ball sized hail stones are rare, and when they do occur, they cover small areas. @bilby will undoubtedly be able to tell me what percentage of solar panels has been destroyed by hail in Australia - or anywhere else.

Hail "in the area" might well have only a minor impact.

Hail actually hitting the panels is almost certainly required before damage becomes likely.

 

[Hermit]

Hail "in the area" might well have only a minor impact.

Hail actually hitting the panels is almost certainly required before damage becomes likely.

Yeah. Happens all the time everywhere.

There are also some very dodgy panels on the market. You get what you pay for.


Yesterday I tried to find out what percentage of solar panels are destroyed before reaching their use by date. Also, which brand(s) of panels were affected and which ones survived same-sized hailstones unscathed. My google-fu failed me on both counts, which is a pity because the data would have quantified how big the problem actually is. Would you like to have a go at finding out?

 

[bilby]

Hail "in the area" might well have only a minor impact.

Hail actually hitting the panels is almost certainly required before damage becomes likely.

Yeah. Happens all the time everywhere.

There are also some very dodgy panels on the market. You get what you pay for.


Yesterday I tried to find out what percentage of solar panels are destroyed before reaching their use by date. Also, which brand(s) of panels were affected and which ones survived same-sized hailstones unscathed. My google-fu failed me on both counts, which is a pity because the data would have quantified how big the problem actually is. Would you like to have a go at finding out?

Not particularly.

Solar panels that complete their expected service life (typically 20 years) are a huge problem, as they cannot be recycled, and contain a lot of toxic heavy metals, so I expect that ones damaged before their expected lifespan are a drop in the ocean.

Really, no more should be allowed until there's a complete and permanent solution to the waste problem.

 

[Hermit]

Yesterday I tried to find out what percentage of solar panels are destroyed before reaching their use by date. Also, which brand(s) of panels were affected and which ones survived same-sized hailstones unscathed. My google-fu failed me on both counts, which is a pity because the data would have quantified how big the problem actually is. Would you like to have a go at finding out?

Not particularly.

OK. We'll just put "The big problem for solar panels is large hail" in the pigeonhole labelled "unsubstantiated then, shall we?

Solar panels that complete their expected service life (typically 20 years) are a huge problem, as they cannot be recycled, and contain a lot of toxic heavy metals, so I expect that ones damaged before their expected lifespan are a drop in the ocean.

Really, no more should be allowed until there's a complete and permanent solution to the waste problem.

Not that canard again. The process of recycling solar panels is tedious and requires specialist machinery, but almost everything the panels are made of is recyclable.

The cost of recycling is not exorbitant either. Reclaim PV, for instance, charges $10 per panel plus freightage to Adelaide. The owner expects unit costs to diminish as volume picks up. Presumably, this will eventually lead to dead panels being picked up free of charge.

In Europe recycling of PV panels has been going on for yonks. Here's some blurb from 2012.

 

[bilby]

Yesterday I tried to find out what percentage of solar panels are destroyed before reaching their use by date. Also, which brand(s) of panels were affected and which ones survived same-sized hailstones unscathed. My google-fu failed me on both counts, which is a pity because the data would have quantified how big the problem actually is. Would you like to have a go at finding out?

Not particularly.

OK. We'll just put "The big problem for solar panels is large hail" in the pigeonhole labelled "unsubstantiated then, shall we?

Solar panels that complete their expected service life (typically 20 years) are a huge problem, as they cannot be recycled, and contain a lot of toxic heavy metals, so I expect that ones damaged before their expected lifespan are a drop in the ocean.

Really, no more should be allowed until there's a complete and permanent solution to the waste problem.

Not that canard again. The process of recycling solar panels is tedious and requires specialist machinery, but almost everything the panels are made of is recyclable.

The cost of recycling is not exorbitant either. Reclaim PV, for instance, charges $10 per panel plus freightage to Adelaide. The owner expects unit costs to diminish as volume picks up. Presumably, this will eventually lead to dead panels being picked up free of charge.

In Europe recycling of PV panels has been going on for yonks. Here's some blurb from 2012.

It's so fucking annoying when people repeat old canards about the problems of waste disposal, isn't it.

Makes me wonder why you do it.

 

[Hermit]

It's so fucking annoying when people repeat old canards about the problems of waste disposal, isn't it.

Makes me wonder why you do it.

Huh? I objected to the canard that solar panels cannot be recycled. Why should I claim it is easy and cheap to recycle them?

 

[bigfield]

I clicked to the sites bigfield links to, with their interactive graphs of electricity usage. Interesting. Here are some observations; I hope any errors are brought to my attention.

IIUC, although demand is high in the early afternoon, the price remains low until early evening due to the high availability of rooftop solar. Another site has a graph showing that homes with electric vehicles which are charged when electricity is cheap consume over three times as much electricity at 1 AM as in the early afternoon.

I'm attaching a graph showing Australia's use of hydroelectric power (and similar "renewable" load levelers, all dwarfed by hydro). Note the HUGE load-leveling provided by hydro. See that hydro turns on for a brief time before dawn but, despite rising demand, cuts off when the sun rises: Solar power meets the demand. (The biggest demand for electricity is in the late afternoon.) Looking at nuclear power on the U.S. graph shows that, whatever FUTURE nuclear plants might provide, they currently provide ZERO load-leveling in the U.S.

View attachment 37542

ETA:
Australian hydro is about 6% of Oz Elec, but I suppose this is seasonal and less than 4% now. Still, it is nice to see how well this electro resource can be timed for efficacy over the course of a day or season.. And are there not a plural number of renewable sources in R&D — e.g. geothermal — including some (tide turbines?) which, like hydro, are suitable for throttling?

Note that Nuclear is NOT suitable for throttling. Sure it can be deliberately slowed down BUT since fuel can be modeled as free, as Bilby points out, that is to lose capacity for no purpose. Better would be to run the nuclear at full capacity with any excess amperes used to pump water, charge springs or batteries, manufacture H₂ fuel, or to charge electric vehicles. (These are all highly profitable endeavors.)

Similarly, one wouldn't want to turn off the wind or solar when those amperes can be delivered. Again, any excess energy is used for pumping, charging.

Hydro complements solar and wind nicely:


Tasmania's power supply is almost 100% hydro, but mainland Australia is lacking in suitable sites for hydroelectric generation.

Since it's summer in Australia right now and rainfall is low, this would be a good time to be pumping water back up into dams during the day using solar power. However, there's hardly any pumping happening at all. Hydroelectric capacity mostly depends on rainfall.



I can think of some problems that prevent pumped hydro from solving the intermittency problem of renewables:

1. Many existing dams can't pump water back up.
2. Australia doesn't have many suitable sites for hydroelectric dams.
3. Construction is pretty slow. Australia's hydro capacity in 2050 will probably only be slightly higher than it is now.

And are there not a plural number of renewable sources in R&D — e.g. geothermal — including some (tide turbines?) which, like hydro, are suitable for throttling?

This is why renewable energy is not up to the task of urgent climate action.

Batteries, tidal power, geothermal, flywheels, all of these technologies have potential to supplement or complement solar and wind, but they aren't ready to be built at scale.

Sure, one day we will have much better batteries (and without lithium), but we don't really know how long it's going to take to make these technologies scalable, let alone the time it takes to actually build these systems and decommission gas turbines. While we're waiting for these technologies to mature, 2050 is creeping closer and scientists are going to keep reminding us how increasingly bad the climate will get.

 

[lpetrich]

Can someone explain H2-making electrolyzers to me? I get that this has industrial purposes where the H2 becomes something they use... but "Green Hydrogen" sounds like a terrible idea.

1) Let's generate green energy via solar or wind
2) Now let's use that energy to enact electrolysis to generate H2 at a loss
3) This is somehow going to help our energy sustainability?

If using H2, great. For energy? It sounds like we are using green energy to produce another energy at significantly lower efficiency, where as we could just pump the green into the grid and full efficiency.

H2 can be used for:

• Energy storage: one gets electricity back by running it into a fuel cell.
• Fuel: burning it.
• Feedstock for:
  • Synthetic fuels
  • A variety of materials, like fertilizers and plastics

One can combine it with nitrogen to make ammonia, a raw material for the nitrogen part of fertilizers. The process for doing so has been used for over a century: the Haber-Bosch process:

N2 + 3H2 -> 2NH3

Ammonia, in turn, is often used as a feedstock for making nitrate fertilizers, using the Ostwald process:

4NH3 + 5O2 -> 4NO + 6H2O
2NO + O2 -> 2NO2
3NO2 + H2O -> 2HNO3 + NO
or
4NO2 + O2 + 2H2O -> 4HNO3

An alternative is to make urea:

CO2 + 2NH3 -> (NH2)2CO + H2O

Ammonia is used as a feedstock for making some kinds of plastic, and nitric acid for making explosives.

For hydrocarbons and oxyhydrocarbons, the Fischer-Tropsch process:

x*CO2 + (2x+y/2-z)*H2 -> CxHyOz + (2x-z)*H2O

That process can use CO2 from the air, making it carbon-neutral or even a sink for atmospheric carbon.

For example,
CO2 + H2 -> HCOOH - formic acid
HCOOH + H2 -> CH2O + H2O - formaldehyde
CH2O + H2 -> CH3OH - methanol
CH3OH + H2 -> CH4 + H2O - methane (natural gas)

 

[bigfield]

Germany Doubles Pace of Energy Transition - CleanTechnica

Thanks to a change of government that reflected the country’s move towards greater climate action, Germany has doubled the pace of its energy transition. However — “Coal is pretty much dead and buried across the rest of Western Europe, but in Germany it’s still a quarter of generation. With 12% of power coming from nuclear, which is going to be totally closed down this year, even the new Green coalition government can’t end coal until 2030 and gas will persist more than a decade further than that. In 2020, the country even built a new coal plant.”

Energy source	Now	2030 Target
Solar	59 GW	200 GW
Offshore Wind	8 GW	30 GW
H2-making electrolyzers	very small	10 GW
Onshore Wind	20 GW	100 GW
Coal	40 GW	0
Natural Gas	10%	?

Can someone explain H2-making electrolyzers to me? I get that this has industrial purposes where the H2 becomes something they use... but "Green Hydrogen" sounds like a terrible idea.

1) Let's generate green energy via solar or wind
2) Now let's use that energy to enact electrolysis to generate H2 at a loss
3) This is somehow going to help our energy sustainability?

If using H2, great. For energy? It sounds like we are using green energy to produce another energy at significantly lower efficiency, where as we could just pump the green into the grid and full efficiency.

Let's suppose would be times when solar or wind output exceeds demand. At times like that it would be a good idea to be able to use that excess electricity supply for something rather than letting it go to waste. In this case, you would storing it by making fuel. In this way the electrolysers would act as a load on the grid when electricity supply exceeds regular demand.

Even if some energy is lost during the H2 making process, it's probably still better than doing nothing. But then, that also requires that there's infrastructure in place to put that H2 to good use.

I'm poorly informed about the applications of H2. It seems to me that it would be better to make other synfuels that are easier to store and consume. Even better would be a fuel that's a close substitute for natural gas that would allow existing gas turbines to be converted to use synfuels.

 

[lpetrich]

Let's suppose would be times when solar or wind output exceeds demand. At times like that it would be a good idea to be able to use that excess electricity supply for something rather than letting it go to waste. In this case, you would storing it by making fuel. In this way the electrolysers would act as a load on the grid when electricity supply exceeds regular demand.

Even if some energy is lost during the H2 making process, it's probably still better than doing nothing. But then, that also requires that there's infrastructure in place to put that H2 to good use.

That's the idea. In fact, that's the idea behind electrical-energy storage in general.

I'm poorly informed about the applications of H2. It seems to me that it would be better to make other synfuels that are easier to store and consume. Even better would be a fuel that's a close substitute for natural gas that would allow existing gas turbines to be converted to use synfuels.

H2 is used in some industrial processes, like making ammonia with the Haber-Bosch process, and also for "cracking", making light hydrocarbons from heavy ones.  Cracking (chemistry)

H2 has a boiling point of 20 K at 1 atm pressure. That's -253 C, below the boiling point of everything but helium. Let's see:

He 4.2 K -- H2 20 K -- Ne 27 K -- N2 77 K -- O2 90 K -- Ar 87 K -- CH4 112 K -- Kr 120 K -- Xe 165 K -- C2H6 185 K -- CO2 195 K (subl.) -- NH3 240 K (-33 C) -- H2O 373 K (100 C)

Subl. = sublimation, going directly from solid to gas phase.

H2 is usually made by natural-gas reforming:

CH4 + H2O -> CO + 3H2

 Steam reforming

 

[lpetrich]

Methanol - CH3OH - has a melting point of -98 C and a boiling point of 65 C, so it may not be very good for warm climates.

 Energy density
Combustion Heat

• Hydrogen: 120 kJ/g
• Natural gas: 53.6 kJ/g
• Gasoline: 46.4 kJ/g (avg) - LHC
• Diesel fuel: 46.2 kJ/g (avg) - LHC
• Aviation gasoline: 44.0 kJ/g (avg) - LHC
• Jet fuel: 43 kJ/g (avg) - LHC
• Gasohol E10 (90 gasoline - 10 eth): 43.54 kJ/g (avg)
• Ethanol: 30 kJ/g
• Methanol: 19.7 kJ/g
• Ammonia: 18.6 kJ/g
• Coal (anthracite): 26 - 33 kJ/g
• Coal (bituminous): 24 - 35 kJ/g
• Coal (lignite): 10 - 20 kJ/g
• Wood: 18.0 kJ/g (avg)
• Dry cow, camel dung: 15.5 kJ/g (avg)

kJ/g = kilojoules/gram - mass of fuel only, no oxygen
LHC = room-temperature liquid hydrocarbon

So methanol and ammonia are a little less than half as good as hydrocarbons.

Batteries are VERY low, at 0.36–0.875 kJ/g for Li-ion, and 0.17 kJ/g for Pb-acid.

 

[lpetrich]

Electric cars do as well as they do because gasoline cars' engines typically have a thermal efficiency of 20% - 40% -  Petrol engine - and because those engines may add a lot of weight to the car. I looked for numbers, and I found

What is The Approximate Weight of a Car Engine? – Weight of Stuff - typically 160 kg.

How Much Does a Transmission Weigh? - typically 100 kg.

How Much Does a Car Battery Weigh? - typically 20 kg.

The fixed parts thus add up to nearly 300 kg.

Fuel capacity is 45 - 65 liters, and gasoline density 0.715 - 0.780 kg/L. That means an average weight of fuel of 40 kg. With the engine added, that makes 340 kg.

Why Are Electric Cars Heavier?

Electric cars' motors weigh in at about 30 kg each, making 60 kg total.

The difference is in the cars' batteries. Let's estimate how much battery is necessary to get a gasoline car's range. A car may have 2000 MJ of energy in its fuel tank, and the usable amount is 400 MJ. So the best case for electric-car batteries is 500 kg. With the mass of the motors, that makes 560 kg.