The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[lpetrich]

It's rather easy to calculate how much energy density gravity gives. For 100 meters, that's about 1 joule/gram, so I concede the low density. But one can use materials and mechanisms that are very cheap per unit mass, so the two may cancel out.

Gravel costs about $10 - $50 per ton, giving $10 - $50 per megajoule over 100 meters. By comparison, a lithium-ion battery may cost about $36 per megajoule.

But the cost of gravity storage is not just that of the lifted material. To get an idea of the cost of the lifting mechanism, I checked out CraneTrader.com | New & Used Crane And Lifting Equipment For Sale - I found several thousand dollars per ton per hundred meters.

For gravity energy storage, one may be able to take some shortcuts, since all but the lifting will be fixed, but I doubt that it would be possible to go very far with those.

 

[bilby]

It's rather easy to calculate how much energy density gravity gives. For 100 meters, that's about 1 joule/gram, so I concede the low density. But one can use materials and mechanisms that are very cheap per unit mass, so the two may cancel out.

Gravel costs about $10 - $50 per ton, giving $10 - $50 per megajoule over 100 meters. By comparison, a lithium-ion battery may cost about $36 per megajoule.

But the cost of gravity storage is not just that of the lifted material. To get an idea of the cost of the lifting mechanism, I checked out CraneTrader.com | New & Used Crane And Lifting Equipment For Sale - I found several thousand dollars per ton per hundred meters.

For gravity energy storage, one may be able to take some shortcuts, since all but the lifting will be fixed, but I doubt that it would be possible to go very far with those.

There's pretty much no material that can compete with water for this. It's cheap, fairly dense, and easy to pump. Storing large volumes of it is also relatively easy, where terrain permits.

The problem is that while pumped hydro is pretty good for following load, you need orders of magnitude more to handle intermittent generating from wind and/or solar, while keeping the lights on; And there's very little remaining un-used terrain that's suitable for this.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's rather easy to calculate how much energy density gravity gives. For 100 meters, that's about 1 joule/gram, so I concede the low density. But one can use materials and mechanisms that are very cheap per unit mass, so the two may cancel out.

Gravel costs about $10 - $50 per ton, giving $10 - $50 per megajoule over 100 meters. By comparison, a lithium-ion battery may cost about $36 per megajoule.

But the cost of gravity storage is not just that of the lifted material. To get an idea of the cost of the lifting mechanism, I checked out CraneTrader.com | New & Used Crane And Lifting Equipment For Sale - I found several thousand dollars per ton per hundred meters.

For gravity energy storage, one may be able to take some shortcuts, since all but the lifting will be fixed, but I doubt that it would be possible to go very far with those.

I wouldn't use a crane--you don't need free-form lifting, just lifting in a given situation.

Thus you have a platform 100m up with a cable running over it going to the motor/generator.

I would be amazed if the platform doesn't cost far more than the gravel. Whatever is containing the gravel probably costs more than the gravel.

Bouyant storage somewhat simplifies this as you don't need any platform. Instead, you need something that floats and a sufficiently heavy anchor to counter it. However, it's underwater, that introduces a whole new set of maintenance headaches.

The only remotely sane version of gravity storage I've seen involves exploiting existing abandoned mineshafts.

 

[lpetrich]

It's rather easy to calculate how much energy density gravity gives. ...

But the cost of gravity storage is not just that of the lifted material. To get an idea of the cost of the lifting mechanism, I checked out CraneTrader.com | New & Used Crane And Lifting Equipment For Sale - I found several thousand dollars per ton per hundred meters.

I wouldn't use a crane--you don't need free-form lifting, just lifting in a given situation.

Thus you have a platform 100m up with a cable running over it going to the motor/generator.

Yes, one can do shortcuts if one does not want the sort of motions that a crane does. It's like how photovoltaic cells can use materials like amorphous silicon rather than crystalline silicon, since one does not require the sort of quality that one needs for making computer chips.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Green hydrogen production is expected to begin by 2026 and it will tap into renewable energy from the Texan electricity grid.
...

That's almost not a complete lie.

It will tap into:

View attachment 37598

"64% fossil fuel, 36% green" energy from the Texan grid.

So, mostly it will be generated from burning fossil gas, or coal.

Of course, over time we can expect coal to largely disappear, and be mostly replaced by more fossil gas.

The plant will be making hydrogen, not as a service provided to humanity out of a sense of duty, but as a profitable saleable commodity; It's unlikely that they will shut down or even throttle back production when the wind drops, because the saving from using only the cheapest electricity in that way will be more than offset by the inefficient use of capital equipment when it's not run 24x7.

This is greenwashing at its finest - a nugget of truth used to persuade fools that making profits by burning fossil fuel is "green".

They will even laud you in public without payment, defend you against people who try to reveal your villainy, and vote for politicians who want to give you fat subsidies from the public purse; All because you were able to pretend that using lots of electricity is "green", if a third of that electricity is generated without trashing the atmosphere.

Read carefully.

..
According to its website, GHI has seven projects that are under development with a combined output of one terawatt. The largest and the first one to get off the ground is Hydrogen City in Texas. <b>Using onshore wind and solar energy</b>, the project aims to produce 60 gigawatts of green hydrogen every year.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Green hydrogen production is expected to begin by 2026 and it will tap into renewable energy from the Texan electricity grid.
...

That's almost not a complete lie.

It will tap into:

View attachment 37598

"64% fossil fuel, 36% green" energy from the Texan grid.

So, mostly it will be generated from burning fossil gas, or coal.

Of course, over time we can expect coal to largely disappear, and be mostly replaced by more fossil gas.

The plant will be making hydrogen, not as a service provided to humanity out of a sense of duty, but as a profitable saleable commodity; It's unlikely that they will shut down or even throttle back production when the wind drops, because the saving from using only the cheapest electricity in that way will be more than offset by the inefficient use of capital equipment when it's not run 24x7.

This is greenwashing at its finest - a nugget of truth used to persuade fools that making profits by burning fossil fuel is "green".

They will even laud you in public without payment, defend you against people who try to reveal your villainy, and vote for politicians who want to give you fat subsidies from the public purse; All because you were able to pretend that using lots of electricity is "green", if a third of that electricity is generated without trashing the atmosphere.

Read carefully.

..
According to its website, GHI has seven projects that are under development with a combined output of one terawatt. The largest and the first one to get off the ground is Hydrogen City in Texas. <b>Using onshore wind and solar energy</b>, the project aims to produce 60 gigawatts of green hydrogen every year.

No, it doesn't do any of that.

They are building an electrolysis plant and say explicitly they are connecting to the electric grid. Then they say they are taking advantage of all that green energy production by others (usurping it without actually doing so), ie "accounting gimmick." That hydrogen is then going into industrial purposes (including ammonia production), not energy production. So either this plant is running on Natural Gas or the energy production in Texas gets a whole less greener. Can't have it both ways. This plant is a "green" fraud.




To follow up on another post, Texas current generates 33 GW of wind and about 10 GW of solar. So currently, this "Green" Hydrogen plant wants to use ALL of Texas' green renewable energy... and still require 50% more capacity being added to just get to their 60 GW!

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Note the "H2 Production Load balancing" etc. This is just one project.

 

[bilby]

Note the "H2 Production Load balancing" etc. This is just one project.

The world is full of projects.

Few of them have a significant net beneficial impact on our wider environment; This one clearly isn't amongst those few, despite the company trying to market it as "green".

If you want to see a genuinely green project - one that will significantly decrease carbon dioxide emissions, while having only a tiny environmental impact in other respects - there's one in Georgia you would do much better to get behind: https://www.southerncompany.com/innovation/vogtle-3-and-4.html

Oddly, many people who describe themselves as 'environmentalists' oppose this project, on equally spurious and irrational grounds to those they use to support making Hydrogen from fossil fuels in Texas.

It's almost as though people were ignorant dupes who are easily swayed away from hard facts by emotion driven marketing campaigns.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

And yet, the project is moving forwards.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Green hydrogen production is expected to begin by 2026 and it will tap into renewable energy from the Texan electricity grid.
...

That's almost not a complete lie.

It will tap into:

View attachment 37598

"64% fossil fuel, 36% green" energy from the Texan grid.

So, mostly it will be generated from burning fossil gas, or coal.

Of course, over time we can expect coal to largely disappear, and be mostly replaced by more fossil gas.

The plant will be making hydrogen, not as a service provided to humanity out of a sense of duty, but as a profitable saleable commodity; It's unlikely that they will shut down or even throttle back production when the wind drops, because the saving from using only the cheapest electricity in that way will be more than offset by the inefficient use of capital equipment when it's not run 24x7.

This is greenwashing at its finest - a nugget of truth used to persuade fools that making profits by burning fossil fuel is "green".

They will even laud you in public without payment, defend you against people who try to reveal your villainy, and vote for politicians who want to give you fat subsidies from the public purse; All because you were able to pretend that using lots of electricity is "green", if a third of that electricity is generated without trashing the atmosphere.

Read carefully.

..
According to its website, GHI has seven projects that are under development with a combined output of one terawatt. The largest and the first one to get off the ground is Hydrogen City in Texas. <b>Using onshore wind and solar energy</b>, the project aims to produce 60 gigawatts of green hydrogen every year.

No, it doesn't do any of that.

They are building an electrolysis plant and say explicitly they are connecting to the electric grid. Then they say they are taking advantage of all that green energy production by others (usurping it without actually doing so), ie "accounting gimmick." That hydrogen is then going into industrial purposes (including ammonia production), not energy production. So either this plant is running on Natural Gas or the energy production in Texas gets a whole less greener. Can't have it both ways. This plant is a "green" fraud.

View attachment 37744


To follow up on another post, Texas current generates 33 GW of wind and about 10 GW of solar. So currently, this "Green" Hydrogen plant wants to use ALL of Texas' green renewable energy... and still require 50% more capacity being added to just get to their 60 GW!

Read again. This project is predicated on developing big offshore wind projects et al.. Not using up all present day wind and solar resources. This will be a long term project.

 

[bilby]

And yet, the project is moving forwards.

Of course it is. It's an excellent project, from the point of view of those who are building it, because it funnels large amounts of cash into their pockets.

It's impact on the environment isn't even a consideration to these people. They want to get rich, and the public are dumb enough to let them raid the public purse on spurious but pleasant sounding grounds.

Every fraud has a mark who is happy that he's getting a fantastic deal.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Green hydrogen production is expected to begin by 2026 and it will tap into renewable energy from the Texan electricity grid.
...

That's almost not a complete lie.

It will tap into:

View attachment 37598

"64% fossil fuel, 36% green" energy from the Texan grid.

So, mostly it will be generated from burning fossil gas, or coal.

Of course, over time we can expect coal to largely disappear, and be mostly replaced by more fossil gas.

The plant will be making hydrogen, not as a service provided to humanity out of a sense of duty, but as a profitable saleable commodity; It's unlikely that they will shut down or even throttle back production when the wind drops, because the saving from using only the cheapest electricity in that way will be more than offset by the inefficient use of capital equipment when it's not run 24x7.

This is greenwashing at its finest - a nugget of truth used to persuade fools that making profits by burning fossil fuel is "green".

They will even laud you in public without payment, defend you against people who try to reveal your villainy, and vote for politicians who want to give you fat subsidies from the public purse; All because you were able to pretend that using lots of electricity is "green", if a third of that electricity is generated without trashing the atmosphere.

Read carefully.

..
According to its website, GHI has seven projects that are under development with a combined output of one terawatt. The largest and the first one to get off the ground is Hydrogen City in Texas. <b>Using onshore wind and solar energy</b>, the project aims to produce 60 gigawatts of green hydrogen every year.

No, it doesn't do any of that.

They are building an electrolysis plant and say explicitly they are connecting to the electric grid. Then they say they are taking advantage of all that green energy production by others (usurping it without actually doing so), ie "accounting gimmick." That hydrogen is then going into industrial purposes (including ammonia production), not energy production. So either this plant is running on Natural Gas or the energy production in Texas gets a whole less greener. Can't have it both ways. This plant is a "green" fraud.

View attachment 37744


To follow up on another post, Texas current generates 33 GW of wind and about 10 GW of solar. So currently, this "Green" Hydrogen plant wants to use ALL of Texas' green renewable energy... and still require 50% more capacity being added to just get to their 60 GW!

Read again. This project is predicated on developing big offshore wind projects et al.. Not using up all present day wind and solar resources. This will be a long term project.

There is almost nothing to read. It speaks to hooking up a water electrolysis plant to the electric grid. The claim to use green energy that they aren’t developing and in some (to most?) part doesn’t exist yet.

I’m all for green. Owned a hybrid in 2001. But this plant is not green. It is a fraud.

 

[Swammerdami]

I believe in free markets tuned so that external costs are afforded.

For example, many nuclear plants produce waste that is costly to dispose of. The disposal cost should be charged to the reactor. Similarly the environmental costs of wind-farms should be charged; and obviously the external costs of CO₂ emissions for fossil fuels.

In the sequel assume that such external costs ARE afforded properly. Also assume that electricity is priced correctly: If production is half the cost at 4 AM compared with 4 PM, then the price charged for the electricity should be halved also, or rather fitted properly to supply/demand curves. In such a case, public policy is unnecessary, except for the tax or charge to cover the externalities. IF hypothetically carbon fuels are cheaper than solar with ALL costs afforded, THEN it is in society's interest that carbon, instead of solar, be used for electricity generation. (If taxation to afford external costs is politically impossible, an approximation may be feasible using regulations and subsidies.)

Free Market! Isn't it wonderful!

If a proper free market prices things so that using electricity to produce ammonia is more profitable than using it to keep ice cream refrigerated, then the free market is telling "us" to produce ammonia! Perhaps the ice cream company needs to charge more for its product. Is "perfect" free market pricing very hard to achieve? Sure. But it's a good starting point for addressing economic questions, and a perspective missing in some of the comments here.

The plant will be making hydrogen, not as a service provided to humanity out of a sense of duty, but as a profitable saleable commodity; It's unlikely that they will shut down or even throttle back production when the wind drops, because the saving from using only the cheapest electricity in that way will be more than offset by the inefficient use of capital equipment when it's not run 24x7.

If the ammonia production plant is the high bidder when the electricity at 4 AM is auctioned off, then that IS the best use of the electricity.

BUT, although irrelevant to the above argument, I'd like to see actual numbers supporting the claim that "the saving from using only the cheapest electricity in that way will be more than offset by the inefficient use of capital equipment when it's not run 24x7."

Ammonia production is just one of several uses for electricity which can be timed usefully to cope with intermittent power sources. In this thread we see no acknowledgement of that from those intent on pushing power that runs 24/7 whether wanted or not.

 

[bilby]

For example, many nuclear plants produce waste that is costly to dispose of. The disposal cost should be charged to the reactor

I agree. That would be a VAST improvement on the current situation in the US, whereby a hugely inflated disposal cost estimate is charged to the reactor by the federal government, who in return have completely failed to provide the disposal system they are supposed to have established; And the reactors are left paying a second time to actually manage their waste correctly on-site (a solution that renders the non-existent but very expensive deep geological repository, that they are funding but not getting, completely irrelevant).

The actual cost of managing spent nuclear fuel is vastly less than the industry currently pays, and they could instead profit from this material by recycling it, if Jimmy Carter hadn't outlawed doing so from a fear of weapons proliferation (one that is unfounded, as the spent fuel is completely unsuitable for bomb making due to its 240Pu content).

The scenario you describe would massively favour nuclear power.

But a free market in electricity is probably a bad idea, because free markets allow for the possibility of not supplying the product, because end users cannot afford it. But I would rather the local hospital did not turn off my granny's ventilator for half an hour while the spot price of electricity spiked as the sun sets just as the wind drops.

Electricity is infrastructure, and (like roads) should be supplied by a nationalised authority, whose remit is to make the product reliably available when needed. Profit shouldn't be a requirement. Infrastructure should run at a small loss, with the beneficiaries of its existence (the taxpayers) funding the gap in proportion to their ability to afford this - because their ability to pay is a direct consequence of their use of the infrastructure for which their taxes pay.

 

[Swammerdami]

YouTube just invited me to watch "Why renewables can’t save the planet" by Michael Shellenberger and I did. It presented little in the way of new facts that haven't already been presented in the thread, but watching it helped something go Click in my brain. I'm more convinced now that nuclear power is the proper way forward. Moreover, future generations may understand the present emphasis on wind and solar power to be a gigantic and costly mistake.

Among the points that Shellenberger makes is one that bilby has made: Natural gas producers are happy to promote "renewables" because replacing nuclear with wind and solar INCREASES the need for natural gas-based electricity.

ETA: On the other hand, I just fact-checked one of Shellenberger's complaints: that wind and solar farms threaten to make the hoary bat extinct — presumably he means Aeorestes cinereus. But Wikipedia shows this species as "LC - of Least Concern." I'm not really concerned about the hoary bat one way or the other, but am curious about this apparent discrepancy.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

And yet, the project is moving forwards.

Of course it is. It's an excellent project, from the point of view of those who are building it, because it funnels large amounts of cash into their pockets.

It's impact on the environment isn't even a consideration to these people. They want to get rich, and the public are dumb enough to let them raid the public purse on spurious but pleasant sounding grounds.

Every fraud has a mark who is happy that he's getting a fantastic deal.

These companies wish to make money! Heresy! Heresy! Well, so do the coal companies. The oil fracking companies. And the nuclear companies.

The impact of building wind turbines and using that to produce hydrogen is not as negative and impact on the environment as oil and coal. And it is you who champions nuclear while ignoring it is nuclear that needs subsidies.

Meanwhile in Japan and Sweden, plants are being created to make steel using hydrogen from renewable energy sources. A good deal for Texas. Did you know Texas is one of America's biggest creators of steel and steel products?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Green hydrogen production is expected to begin by 2026 and it will tap into renewable energy from the Texan electricity grid.
...

That's almost not a complete lie.

It will tap into:

View attachment 37598

"64% fossil fuel, 36% green" energy from the Texan grid.

So, mostly it will be generated from burning fossil gas, or coal.

Of course, over time we can expect coal to largely disappear, and be mostly replaced by more fossil gas.

The plant will be making hydrogen, not as a service provided to humanity out of a sense of duty, but as a profitable saleable commodity; It's unlikely that they will shut down or even throttle back production when the wind drops, because the saving from using only the cheapest electricity in that way will be more than offset by the inefficient use of capital equipment when it's not run 24x7.

This is greenwashing at its finest - a nugget of truth used to persuade fools that making profits by burning fossil fuel is "green".

They will even laud you in public without payment, defend you against people who try to reveal your villainy, and vote for politicians who want to give you fat subsidies from the public purse; All because you were able to pretend that using lots of electricity is "green", if a third of that electricity is generated without trashing the atmosphere.

Read carefully.

..
According to its website, GHI has seven projects that are under development with a combined output of one terawatt. The largest and the first one to get off the ground is Hydrogen City in Texas. <b>Using onshore wind and solar energy</b>, the project aims to produce 60 gigawatts of green hydrogen every year.

No, it doesn't do any of that.

They are building an electrolysis plant and say explicitly they are connecting to the electric grid. Then they say they are taking advantage of all that green energy production by others (usurping it without actually doing so), ie "accounting gimmick." That hydrogen is then going into industrial purposes (including ammonia production), not energy production. So either this plant is running on Natural Gas or the energy production in Texas gets a whole less greener. Can't have it both ways. This plant is a "green" fraud.

View attachment 37744


To follow up on another post, Texas current generates 33 GW of wind and about 10 GW of solar. So currently, this "Green" Hydrogen plant wants to use ALL of Texas' green renewable energy... and still require 50% more capacity being added to just get to their 60 GW!

Read again. This project is predicated on developing big offshore wind projects et al.. Not using up all present day wind and solar resources. This will be a long term project.

There is almost nothing to read. It speaks to hooking up a water electrolysis plant to the electric grid. The claim to use green energy that they aren’t developing and in some (to most?) part doesn’t exist yet.

I’m all for green. Owned a hybrid in 2001. But this plant is not green. It is a fraud.

Read. Again. Slowly. Think carefully as you read. The project under discussion is to create large off shore wind turbine projects to create hydrogen. NOT to use up current wind generated power.

Texas has just announced it will regulate crypto miners who want to use large amounts of Texas energy from its grid. Crypto miners have to create their own energy projects if the want to operate at a massive scale. Any use of Texas energy seen as abusive will be curbed.

 

[bilby]

And it is you who champions nuclear while ignoring it is nuclear that needs subsidies.

Nuclear power generation is not only not subsidised, it has to pay the government for waste disposal services that the government doesn't actually provide - and then pay again to actually manage its waste (which the government prohibits it from recycling). The only subsidies to the nuclear industry are for research, and these have no impact on the profitability of existing facilities or new facilities built to existing designs.

Meanwhile wind and solar power receive massive subsidies, mostly in the form of sale price guarantees for their product.

That so many apparently intelligent people like you are not only being comprehensively lied to by people you trust, but also are repeating their lies without having bothered to do the most basic of fact-checking, demonstrates clearly that renewable energy advocacy is a cult.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Why Illinois paid $694 million to keep nuclear plants open

Nuclear power finds itself caught between cheaper sources of carbon-emitting energy and heavily subsidized clean power sources like wind and solar.

www.cnbc.com

....
Key Points

• Illinois legislators agreed to spend up to $694 million over the next five years to keep a handful of nuclear power plants open.
• The operator of the plants, Exelon, said they were losing hundreds of millions of dollars and that nuclear can’t compete with cheap natural gas and subsidized wind and solar.
• Critics say that Exelon had the state over a barrel and that longer-term solutions are necessary to make clean energy cheaper and more accessible.

 

[steve_bank]

In the news commercial wind turbine capacity exceeds that of nuclear power. Natural gas is at the top.