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The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

 
 
 
China is building two-thirds of new wind and solar globally, report says | Reuters
Almost two-thirds of big wind and solar plants under construction globally are in China, where surging renewable capacity has squeezed coal's generation share to new lows, research released on Thursday showed.

China is building 339 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale wind and solar, or 64% of the global total, a report from U.S.-based think tank Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found. That is more than eight times the project pipeline of the second-place U.S., with 40 GW.

...
China generated 53% of its electricity from coal in May, a record low, while a record 44% came from non-fossil fuel sources, indicating its carbon emissions may have peaked last year if the trend continues, according to the analysis conducted by Lauri Myllyvirta, senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute.

Coal's share was down from 60% in May 2023.

Solar rose to 12% of power generation in May and wind to 11% as China added large amounts of new capacity. Hydropower at 15%, nuclear with 5% and biomass at 2% made up the rest of the non-fossil fuel power.

The increased renewable generation led carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector, which make up some 40% of China's overall emissions, to fall 3.6% in May.
Click to expand...
Very welcome. Good that China is on a path to becoming less of an excuse to do nothing about CO2 emission.
 
Hype Cycle Assessment Of Emerging Technologies For Battery Production
While breakthroughs in battery technology are regularly announced, the actual merits of the technologies and the potential remain uncertain until commercial deployment. The aim of this paper is to systematically identify upcoming breakthroughs and announced innovations to provide an overview of promising battery technologies that companies should focus on to enable the planning of resilient and sustainable production systems. Hence, a hype cycle assessment following Gartner was adopted as the underlying approach to evaluate battery technologies for deployment in electromobility and mass production.
Click to expand...
They identify this hype cycle:
  1. Innovation trigger
  2. Peak of inflated expectations
  3. Trough of disillusionment
  4. Slope of enlightenment
  5. Plateau of productivity
They discuss not only alternative battery chemistries but also alternative production techniques, like improved drying and improved coating techniques, and alternative designs, like all-solid-state batteries. Here are the chemistries, all competitors with Li-ion, as of mid-2023:
  • Al-air - Peak - TRL 3-4 - Medium - >= 10 yr
  • Al-ion - Peak - TRL 5-6 - High - >= 10 yr
  • K-ion - Trigger - TRL 3-4 - Medium - >= 10 yr
  • Li-air - Trough - TRL 3-4 - Transformative - >= 10 yr
  • Li-S - Trough - TRL 3-4 - High - 5-10 yr
  • Mg-S - Trigger - TRL 3-4 - High - >= 10 yr
  • Na-ion - Peak - TRL 7-8 - Transformative - 5-10 yr
  • Zn-air - Peak - TRL 5-6 - High - >= 10 yr
Chemistry - position on hype cycle - technology readiness level - technology potential - time to market

Yes, they are working on potassium-ion batteries in addition to sodium-ion ones. Abundances of the elements (data page) - Wikipedia - K is almost as common as Na on our planet's surface, and both are much more common than Li.

By TRL alone,
  • 7-8: Na-ion
  • 5-6: Al-ion, Zn-air
  • 3-4: Al-air, K-ion, Li-air, Li-S, Mg-S
So Na-ion is in the best position to challenge Li-ion.

No mention of flow batteries, however.
 
The  Technology readiness level is originally from NASA and  Spacecraft propulsion uses that assessment on a variety of technologies, from speculative technologies like nuclear-pulse engines and the Bussard ramjet to technologies with a history of successful flight like chemical and ion engines.
NASA's list:
  1. Basic principles observed and reported
  2. Technology concept and/or application formulated
  3. Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof-of concept
  4. Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment
  5. Component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment
  6. System/subsystem model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment (ground or space)
  7. System prototype demonstration in a space environment
  8. Actual system completed and "flight qualified" through test and demonstration (ground or space)
  9. Actual system "flight proven" through successful mission operations
For batteries, the TRL values seem to be
  • 3-4: Laboratory experiments
  • 5-6: Successful tests under laboratory conditions
  • 7-8: Successful tests under real-world conditions
 
Somalia opens tender for off-grid solar-plus-storage plants – pv magazine International - "Somalia’s Ministry of Energy and Water Resources has launched a tender for off-grid solar-plus-storage power plants to serve 46 education facilities in the southeast of the country. The deadline for bids is August 1."

South Australia's renewable triumph is stunning proof that Dutton's nuclear plans are a folly | RenewEconomy
Port Augusta and Whyalla
Now the two cities are host to thriving renewable energy hubs, new green industries and technologies that will help propel the state into a clean energy future.

And it is remarkable how little is actually known about the achievements of South Australia beyond its borders. Already it is at an annual average of 70 per cent renewables, and by 2027 it intends to be the first in the world to reach 100 per cent net renewables primarily through wind, solar and storage.

Just to be clear, that does not mean that it will consume only renewables. “Net” means that the amount of power it produces from wind and solar during the year will be equivalent to the amount it consumes. But it will still export and import as needs must.

...
Let’s remember that the Coalition and the conservative media’s nuclear arguments are based almost entirely around the assumption that wind and solar cannot power a modern economy.

South Australia proves them wrong, emphatically so. The grid is reliable, wholesale power prices are falling, and will continue to do so as it free itself from the yolk of fossil gas. Legacy industries are being revived by the growth of wind and solar, new industries are being established, and big business with big loads are being attracted to the state.

...
South Australia is already at the stage where enough rooftop solar is generated in the middle of the day to meet all local demand. That will soon occur in other states too, including Western Australia, effectively eliminating grid demand and requiring storage or new load or exports to soak up the excess.

As every major utility in Australia makes clear, the era of always-on base-load power is well and truly passed in such grids. South Australia has not just shut down its last coal generators, and is closing down its remaining combined cycle gas plants, which perform a similar role. The gaps will be filled by facilities that are fast and flexible. There is simply no room in the grid for an always-on nuclear plant.
Click to expand...
Being net zero means exporting electricity in the daytime and importing it in the nighttime, it seems. With fossil-fuel powerplants being phased out, SA will have to invest heavily in batteries, preferably cheaper ones and ones with less resource constraint like sodium-ion ones and flow ones.
 
Labour’s ‘rooftop revolution’ to deliver solar power to millions of UK homes | Solar power | The Guardian - "Ed Miliband sets new rules on solar panels and approves three giant solar farms as Labour seeks to end years of Tory inaction"
Keir Starmer’s Labour government unveils plans for a “rooftop revolution” today that will see millions more homes fitted with solar panels in order to bring down domestic energy bills and tackle the climate crisis.

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, also took the hugely controversial decision this weekend to approve three massive solar farms in the east of England that had been blocked by Tory ministers.

The three sites alone – Gate Burton in Lincolnshire, Sunnica’s energy farm on the Suffolk-Cambridgeshire border and Mallard Pass on the border between Lincolnshire and Rutland – will deliver about two-thirds of the solar energy installed on rooftops and on the ground in the whole of last year.
Click to expand...

Homeowners associations in Michigan say yes to rooftop solar | Grist - "A new law makes it difficult for HOAs to say no to sun power."
 
Agrivoltaics Conserve Precious Water For Arizona Farmers - CleanTechnica
“You are getting significant water savings,” said Greg Barron-Gafford, the UA professor leading the effort. A study led by him found that when irrigating every other day on an agrivoltaic plot, soil moisture remained 15% higher than on a nearby plot without solar panels.

Some plants actually produced more with less water. Cowpea beans, for example — also known as black-eyed peas — had a higher crop yield when grown in the shade of solar panels. Full sun required twice as much water, it turned out. “Agrivoltaics actually helped us get even more bean production because now we were providing the shade, so they were less stressed,” Barron-Gafford said.
Click to expand...
Another New Twist On Agrivoltaics: Friendly Solar Powered Robots
Agrivoltaics is the solar industry’s answer to critics who argue that solar panels take valuable farmland out of service. It can, but agrivoltaics offers an alternative. Researchers are finding that a solar array can double as a productive area for livestock grazing and pollinator habitats, at minimum.

With some fancier tweaks, row crops can be grown between solar panels. Shade from the panels creates a cooling micro-climate that conserves soil and moisture, and protects crops from excess heat.

...
“Aigen’s Element robotic fleet can autonomously navigate, weed, and analyze row crops without any chemicals or diesel fuel,” Aigen explains. “Offered as a service and powered 100% by solar and wind, Aigen’s vehicles reduce farmers’ workload and their reliance on fossil fuels, while increasing their crop and soil health.”
Click to expand...
Agrivoltaics To Save US Farmland From Buildings
Solar arrays on farmland have provoked a firestorm of controversy in some parts of the US. Partly fueled by misinformation about climate change, opponents argue that solar power is not an appropriate use of arable land. Lost in the shuffle is a more significant loss of farmland due to residential and commercial development. Against that backdrop, agrivoltaics — the dual use of farmland with solar arrays — can be the solution to farmland loss, not the cause.
Click to expand...
 
lpetrich said:
South Australia's renewable triumph is stunning proof that Dutton's nuclear plans are a folly | RenewEconomy
Port Augusta and Whyalla
Now the two cities are host to thriving renewable energy hubs, new green industries and technologies that will help propel the state into a clean energy future.

And it is remarkable how little is actually known about the achievements of South Australia beyond its borders. Already it is at an annual average of 70 per cent renewables, and by 2027 it intends to be the first in the world to reach 100 per cent net renewables primarily through wind, solar and storage.

Just to be clear, that does not mean that it will consume only renewables. “Net” means that the amount of power it produces from wind and solar during the year will be equivalent to the amount it consumes. But it will still export and import as needs must.

...
Let’s remember that the Coalition and the conservative media’s nuclear arguments are based almost entirely around the assumption that wind and solar cannot power a modern economy.

South Australia proves them wrong, emphatically so. The grid is reliable, wholesale power prices are falling, and will continue to do so as it free itself from the yolk of fossil gas. Legacy industries are being revived by the growth of wind and solar, new industries are being established, and big business with big loads are being attracted to the state.

...
South Australia is already at the stage where enough rooftop solar is generated in the middle of the day to meet all local demand. That will soon occur in other states too, including Western Australia, effectively eliminating grid demand and requiring storage or new load or exports to soak up the excess.

As every major utility in Australia makes clear, the era of always-on base-load power is well and truly passed in such grids. South Australia has not just shut down its last coal generators, and is closing down its remaining combined cycle gas plants, which perform a similar role. The gaps will be filled by facilities that are fast and flexible. There is simply no room in the grid for an always-on nuclear plant.
Click to expand...
Being net zero means exporting electricity in the daytime and importing it in the nighttime, it seems. With fossil-fuel powerplants being phased out, SA will have to invest heavily in batteries, preferably cheaper ones and ones with less resource constraint like sodium-ion ones and flow ones.
Click to expand...
South Australia (pop 1.88 million) is a tiny parasitic grid attatched the the huge, fossil fuel powered grid that supplies the (much more industrial) state of Victoria (pop 6.93 million). They are utterly dependant on fossil fuels to keep the lights on, but they also love to pretend that they aren't, because they get Victoria to do most of the actual burning of coal and gas.

They don't even try to hide this; They say it, ignore it, and their enablers just assume it's of little significance. But it's not. At all.

"Just to be clear, that does not mean that it will consume only renewables. “Net” means that the amount of power it produces from wind and solar during the year will be equivalent to the amount it consumes. But it will still export and import as needs must."

Without the two interconnectors to VIC, SA is basically fucked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout

And there aren't enough batteries in the world to save them (and SA couldn't afford them if there were).

The grid is not reliable; And if they hit their 109% target, it will still be dependent on fossil fuel being burned across the border in Victoria. That's cheating on a scale that is breathtaking in both its dishonesty, and its bare faced acceptance that no matter how obvious they make it that they are cheating, nobody in the renewables camp will care.

It's a cult. They can hear the emperor himself admitting that he is stark naked, and yet they still insist on how beautiful his new clothes are.
 
lpetrich said:
Somalia opens tender for off-grid solar-plus-storage plants – pv magazine International - "Somalia’s Ministry of Energy and Water Resources has launched a tender for off-grid solar-plus-storage power plants to serve 46 education facilities in the southeast of the country. The deadline for bids is August 1."
Click to expand...
I thought that Somalia had broken up into into statelets and bandit kingdoms years ago. Exactly how much of the putative state of Somalia does the government of Somalia rule?
Based on the article just the south east corner including Mogadishu.
 
lpetrich said:
They discuss not only alternative battery chemistries but also alternative production techniques, like improved drying and improved coating techniques, and alternative designs, like all-solid-state batteries. Here are the chemistries, all competitors with Li-ion, as of mid-2023:
  • Al-air - Peak - TRL 3-4 - Medium - >= 10 yr
  • Al-ion - Peak - TRL 5-6 - High - >= 10 yr
  • K-ion - Trigger - TRL 3-4 - Medium - >= 10 yr
  • Li-air - Trough - TRL 3-4 - Transformative - >= 10 yr
  • Li-S - Trough - TRL 3-4 - High - 5-10 yr
  • Mg-S - Trigger - TRL 3-4 - High - >= 10 yr
  • Na-ion - Peak - TRL 7-8 - Transformative - 5-10 yr
  • Zn-air - Peak - TRL 5-6 - High - >= 10 yr
Chemistry - position on hype cycle - technology readiness level - technology potential - time to market

Yes, they are working on potassium-ion batteries in addition to sodium-ion ones. Abundances of the elements (data page) - Wikipedia - K is almost as common as Na on our planet's surface, and both are much more common than Li.

By TRL alone,
  • 7-8: Na-ion
  • 5-6: Al-ion, Zn-air
  • 3-4: Al-air, K-ion, Li-air, Li-S, Mg-S
So Na-ion is in the best position to challenge Li-ion.

No mention of flow batteries, however.
Click to expand...
And note that this includes all the likely prospects from columns 1 and 2. Going farther down the only element with any reasonable abundance and safety (you do not want a beryllium battery!!) is calcium and it's not nearly so reactive as the rest.
 
  •  Atomic radius is "usually the mean or typical distance from the center of the nucleus to the outermost isolated electron."
  •  van der Waals radius "of an atom is the radius of an imaginary hard sphere representing the distance of closest approach for another atom."
  •  Ionic radius "is the radius of a monatomic ion in an ionic crystal structure."
  •  Metallic bonding - "The metallic radius is defined as one-half of the distance between the two adjacent metal ions in the metallic structure."
  •  Covalent radius "is a measure of the size of an atom that forms part of one covalent bond."
Ion sizes: Li 90 pm, Na 116 pm, K 152 pm

That's why Na-ion batteries are much farther along than K-ion ones - Na ions are only a little bit larger than Li ions.
 
www.bbc.com

Planes, trains and monster diggers: The vehicles pushing the limits of electric power

How much energy you can pack into a battery is one limit on how big an EV can get – but meet the EVs ditching batteries altogether to attain mammoth proportions.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
He notes that the batteries for these trucks have become rapidly more energy-dense over time. The first version of the battery launched by Volvo Trucks in 2019 weighed about 500kg (1,100lb) and offered 49 kWh of energy. Last year, the company came up with a new battery that is roughly the same size and weight but offers nearly twice as much power – 94 kWh, says Andersson.

The rate of improvement of electric vehicle batteries in recent years has surprised Chris Thorne, director of strategy and operations at UMAS, a maritime consultancy, and advises on various power sources for marine industries.

"In 2015, I'm pretty sure at some point I said heavy goods vehicles will never be battery electric and five years later I was working on it. It taught me a hard lesson," he jokes. Electric drivetrains are actually well-suited to heavy duty machines because they don't require the system of shafts and gears used in petrol and diesel vehicles – these can require higher maintenance over time.

"You have a lot of flexibility in how you lay the vehicle out. You can have a motor on each wheel if you want to," adds Thorne. And he points out that batteries are helpfully modular. You can just keep adding modules until you get the amount of power you need.
Click to expand...
Nearly doubled the energy density in 4-5 years.
I like the hub motor design. No shafts. Power at the wheels.
 
TV and credit cards said:
www.bbc.com

Planes, trains and monster diggers: The vehicles pushing the limits of electric power

How much energy you can pack into a battery is one limit on how big an EV can get – but meet the EVs ditching batteries altogether to attain mammoth proportions.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
He notes that the batteries for these trucks have become rapidly more energy-dense over time. The first version of the battery launched by Volvo Trucks in 2019 weighed about 500kg (1,100lb) and offered 49 kWh of energy. Last year, the company came up with a new battery that is roughly the same size and weight but offers nearly twice as much power – 94 kWh, says Andersson.

The rate of improvement of electric vehicle batteries in recent years has surprised Chris Thorne, director of strategy and operations at UMAS, a maritime consultancy, and advises on various power sources for marine industries.

"In 2015, I'm pretty sure at some point I said heavy goods vehicles will never be battery electric and five years later I was working on it. It taught me a hard lesson," he jokes. Electric drivetrains are actually well-suited to heavy duty machines because they don't require the system of shafts and gears used in petrol and diesel vehicles – these can require higher maintenance over time.

"You have a lot of flexibility in how you lay the vehicle out. You can have a motor on each wheel if you want to," adds Thorne. And he points out that batteries are helpfully modular. You can just keep adding modules until you get the amount of power you need.
Click to expand...
Nearly doubled the energy density in 4-5 years.
I like the hub motor design. No shafts. Power at the wheels.
Click to expand...
No shafts but you have more unsprung weight and thus more of a beating from the road.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
TV and credit cards said:
www.bbc.com

Planes, trains and monster diggers: The vehicles pushing the limits of electric power

How much energy you can pack into a battery is one limit on how big an EV can get – but meet the EVs ditching batteries altogether to attain mammoth proportions.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
He notes that the batteries for these trucks have become rapidly more energy-dense over time. The first version of the battery launched by Volvo Trucks in 2019 weighed about 500kg (1,100lb) and offered 49 kWh of energy. Last year, the company came up with a new battery that is roughly the same size and weight but offers nearly twice as much power – 94 kWh, says Andersson.

The rate of improvement of electric vehicle batteries in recent years has surprised Chris Thorne, director of strategy and operations at UMAS, a maritime consultancy, and advises on various power sources for marine industries.

"In 2015, I'm pretty sure at some point I said heavy goods vehicles will never be battery electric and five years later I was working on it. It taught me a hard lesson," he jokes. Electric drivetrains are actually well-suited to heavy duty machines because they don't require the system of shafts and gears used in petrol and diesel vehicles – these can require higher maintenance over time.

"You have a lot of flexibility in how you lay the vehicle out. You can have a motor on each wheel if you want to," adds Thorne. And he points out that batteries are helpfully modular. You can just keep adding modules until you get the amount of power you need.
Click to expand...
Nearly doubled the energy density in 4-5 years.
I like the hub motor design. No shafts. Power at the wheels.
Click to expand...
No shafts but you have more unsprung weight and thus more of a beating from the road.
Click to expand...
Yup. Motors in the hub are not a good idea. That area takes a lot of beating from the roads and the suspension has to be much more robust to handle that extra weight.
 
Here's an article about a large wind turbine built in China. The article is titled

The largest wind turbine in history, switched on for the first time: 500,000 ft² and an unexpected effect​

The article contains a sentence repeating the "unexpected" meme: "But it is having an unexpected effect that experts have been warning about for some time."

My question is: WHAT is the "unexpected effect"? I read the article and didn't find any mention of any specific "unexpected effect." In the olden days, I'd reread the article multiple times until I find what I'm missing. But nowadays? The very titles of articles and videos are consistently trashed with fictitious click-bait! I'll give it a 50% chance I missed nothing at all, and the entire "unexpected effect" is just blather folded in by an incompetent editor.

What am I missing?
 
Constellation Energy, will be restarting Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor to sell the power to Microsoft for, what else, power hungry AI data centers. They expect to be on line by 2028 if all goes well with the NRC.
 
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