The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[fromderinside]

Molten fluoride is one of a huge number of possible technologies, each with pros and cons; You write as though it's the only alternative to water cooled reactors, but it's assuredly not.

Reactor designs have been tested, and some built, cooled with lead, carbon dioxide, sodium, molten chloride salts, light water, heavy water, and molten fluoride salts. There have probably been others I haven't come across.

Molten salt reactors (chloride, fluoride, or a mixture of both) have a number of advantages, one of which is that the coolant is at or close to atmospheric pressure; and is solid below several hundred degrees celcius - this combination of properties makes their spread into the wider environment in the even of a leak of any kind incredibly unlikely.

As for extreme times and distances I was referring to nuclear power created by fusion, such as by stars.

Well nobody's ever likely to generate electricity from any star other than the sun. So you are just being stupid and childish.

Not trying to rain on nuclear power, just explaining how dependence on water, heavy or otherwise is a stupid way to go about cooling

Stupid in what sense? It's been used to great effect for sixty years, with the best safety record of any industrial process in human history.

while noting that all methods of cooling nuclear reactions either include high risk or bad design or high risk such as containment with insufficient failsafe attributes or constructed near large bodies of water and use of products that are health risky. fluro salts are very toxic ...

Humans have been using FAR more toxic chemicals routinely for millennia. Your argument here is applicable to almost all of industry, since the bronze age.

As for life being short sighted and self centered, well, that's just something on which you and I will have to disagree.

Or not. It's far from clear to me whether we agree or not on pretty much anything. You seem to be hiding your ignorance behind a wall of incomprehensibility in the hope that it will come off as inscrutable wisdom; But when pushed, your ignorance shines through.

Do you imagine that you can have a valuable opinion on a highly technical subject based on poorly remembered scraps of information from popular media? Because you can't.

Yes, I see you and raise you one "There is no 'floro compound' involved in this - I haven't got a clue what you are trying to refer to."

If you want to demonstrate lack of capabilities I suggest you check out responses like "This is pure nonsense. Millions of miles away implies 'in outer space'; and 10 to 15 billion years is an insane amount of time - even the longest lived radioisotopes in fission plants would decay to below background levels far sooner than that, with no intervention of any kind." to an obvious reference to stars under cover of an obvious reference to stars.

Not wort defending anything when you choose to ad hom your failure to recognize floro compound without the inclusion of the word 'salts'.

I've had enough of defending so I'll just go back to being a retired fellow who likes to tweak the imperious mind.

 

[lpetrich]

Lower capital costs for nuclear energy? In 2012, maybe, but not today:  Cost of electricity by source and Nuclear Energy in the U.S.: Expensive Source Competing with Cheap Gas and Renewables | Climate Nexus

I looked for trends of wind-energy pricing, and lots of the stuff on that is some years old. But I did find this recent one:
Average US Wind Price Falls to $20 per Megawatt-Hour | Greentech Media (August 24, 2018)

I found more recent stuff for solar panels, however:
Explaining the plummeting cost of solar power | MIT News

A new analysis by MIT researchers has pinpointed what caused the savings, including the policies and technology changes that mattered most. For example, they found that government policy to help grow markets around the world played a critical role in reducing this technology’s costs. At the device level, the dominant factor was an increase in “conversion efficiency,” or the amount of power generated from a given amount of sunlight.

In effect, creating economies of scale.

Solar Panel Prices Continue Falling Quicker Than Expected (#CleanTechnica Exclusive) | CleanTechnica
The price of photovoltaic cells has gone down from around $101/watt (1975) to around $0.37/watt (2018).

The Price of a Solar Panel System over the Years (in the US) - $7.24/watt in 2010 to $2.80/watt in 2017.

1. Module - This is the physical hardware of the solar panel.
2. Inverter - Solar inverters are used to convert direct current (DC) electricity into alternating current (AC). The electricity that is produced by solar panels is in the form of DC, so it is necessary to couple your solar panels with some sort of inverter to maximize your use of your solar energy.
3. Hardware BOS (Balance of System) - The BOS hardware includes the structural and electrical components of a solar panel system. These are things like wires, mounting systems, switches, batteries, etc.
4. Soft Costs - These soft costs include just the cost of labor for the installation process.
5. Other Soft Costs - Includes interconnection, land acquisition, sales tax, overhead, and net profit.

Most recently, the solar panels themselves, the balance-of-system hardware, and installation labor have around the same costs, and the inverter about 1/2 the cost of the panels. All together are a little less than the other soft costs.

 

[lpetrich]

The Cost of Nuclear Power | Union of Concerned Scientists

A half century later, we have learned that nuclear power is, instead, too expensive to finance.

The first generation of nuclear power plants proved so costly to build that half of them were abandoned during construction. Those that were completed saw huge cost overruns, which were passed on to utility customers in the form of rate increases. By 1985, Forbes had labeled U.S. nuclear power "the largest managerial disaster in business history.”

...
Instead, the industry has responded to escalating costs with escalating demands for government support. A 2009 UCS report estimated that taxpayers could be on the hook for anywhere from $360 billion to $1.6 trillion if then-current proposals for nuclear expansion were realized.

The Billion-Dollar Coal Bailout Nobody Is Talking About: Self-Committing In Power Markets - Union of Concerned Scientists

Offshore Wind’s Next Steps: 6 to Watch For - Union of Concerned Scientists - in NY (800 MW), CT (2,000 MW), NJ (1,100 MW), MA (2.400 MW total), and CA - And more: ME, RI, MD, DE, VA, NC, the Great Lakes (NY, PA, OH, MI, IN, IL, WI, MN)
La Energía Eólica Marina – 5 Próximos Pasos - Union of Concerned Scientists - Offshore Wind Energy (Marine Eolic Energy) - 5 Next Steps

 

[bilby]

Lower capital costs for nuclear energy? In 2012, maybe, but not today:  Cost of electricity by source and Nuclear Energy in the U.S.: Expensive Source Competing with Cheap Gas and Renewables | Climate Nexus

I looked for trends of wind-energy pricing, and lots of the stuff on that is some years old. But I did find this recent one:
Average US Wind Price Falls to $20 per Megawatt-Hour | Greentech Media (August 24, 2018)

I found more recent stuff for solar panels, however:
Explaining the plummeting cost of solar power | MIT News

A new analysis by MIT researchers has pinpointed what caused the savings, including the policies and technology changes that mattered most. For example, they found that government policy to help grow markets around the world played a critical role in reducing this technology’s costs. At the device level, the dominant factor was an increase in “conversion efficiency,” or the amount of power generated from a given amount of sunlight.

In effect, creating economies of scale.

Solar Panel Prices Continue Falling Quicker Than Expected (#CleanTechnica Exclusive) | CleanTechnica
The price of photovoltaic cells has gone down from around $101/watt (1975) to around $0.37/watt (2018).

The Price of a Solar Panel System over the Years (in the US) - $7.24/watt in 2010 to $2.80/watt in 2017.

1. Module - This is the physical hardware of the solar panel.
2. Inverter - Solar inverters are used to convert direct current (DC) electricity into alternating current (AC). The electricity that is produced by solar panels is in the form of DC, so it is necessary to couple your solar panels with some sort of inverter to maximize your use of your solar energy.
3. Hardware BOS (Balance of System) - The BOS hardware includes the structural and electrical components of a solar panel system. These are things like wires, mounting systems, switches, batteries, etc.
4. Soft Costs - These soft costs include just the cost of labor for the installation process.
5. Other Soft Costs - Includes interconnection, land acquisition, sales tax, overhead, and net profit.

Most recently, the solar panels themselves, the balance-of-system hardware, and installation labor have around the same costs, and the inverter about 1/2 the cost of the panels. All together are a little less than the other soft costs.

That's lovely.

But you completely forgot the most expensive component (as usual): Storage.

Electricity is not a commodity, it's a service; It has to be there when the customer wants it, not when the supplier has it available.

Any system looks cheap when you ignore more than half the costs.

 

[steve_bank]

Capital costs in the end are not the issue. The issue is how much can solar replace of current fossul plants. I belive nukes are around 20% of total production.

Problem solving 101. First define and scope the problem. That would ne determine total energy production in the USA and predict demand growth for say the next 200 years.

Then derive a plan to meet demand.

Hydro has limited growth potential. Housing, parks, agriculture and others require land. There is land not suitable to solar.

1. Determine how much solar eergy is needed.
2. Determine how many square meters are nedded at some average irradiance to meet the demand.
3. See how that could fit in the USA.

People are jumping to a solution before determining if the solution solves the problem.

 

[Derec]

What about nuclear energy?

It's not renewable

Does it matter? Technically solar and wind are powered by nuclear power as well, so they are technically not renewable either.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That's lovely.

But you completely forgot the most expensive component (as usual): Storage.

Electricity is not a commodity, it's a service; It has to be there when the customer wants it, not when the supplier has it available.

Any system looks cheap when you ignore more than half the costs.

And this is why Ohio is looking to allow our power company to add a surcharge to our energy bill to help fund the aging nuclear power plants? Nuclear might work well in other nations (especially ones without the absurd amount of energy we have), but nuclear in the US has been particularly unimpressive, either because of our size, our inability to enact anything decent technological changes (see electronic voting), or just crap management.

 

[fromderinside]

I believe all the reactors at Hanford built in the forties and fifties were built for about two billion dollars. They've all been decommissioned. Since the mid seventies US has been cleaning up the area at a cost, to date, of over three billion dollars. Expected to continue that process for another twenty five years. Can you say ch-ching,

 

[bilby]

I believe all the reactors at Hanford built in the forties and fifties were built for about two billion dollars. They've all been decommissioned. Since the mid seventies US has been cleaning up the area at a cost, to date, of over three billion dollars. Expected to continue that process for another twenty five years. Can you say ch-ching,

Hanford is a military facility. It makes bombs, not electricity. The armed forces making an expensive mess is nothing new, and has fuck all to do with electricity generation.

 

[bilby]

That's lovely.

But you completely forgot the most expensive component (as usual): Storage.

Electricity is not a commodity, it's a service; It has to be there when the customer wants it, not when the supplier has it available.

Any system looks cheap when you ignore more than half the costs.

And this is why Ohio is looking to allow our power company to add a surcharge to our energy bill to help fund the aging nuclear power plants?

Yes it is. Because they recognise the value of carbon emissions free power. They know that if those plants are shut down, they will be replaced by gas and/or coal plants - which are artificially competitive, because they don't have to pay for management of their waste products. Nuclear power would be a great deal cheaper if it was allowed to just spray its waste products into the environment and forget about them. Like gas, coal, solar, and wind are.

Nuclear might work well in other nations (especially ones without the absurd amount of energy we have), but nuclear in the US has been particularly unimpressive, either because of our size, our inability to enact anything decent technological changes (see electronic voting), or just crap management.

None of those. The reason is irrational fear leading to crazy regulatory expenses, long delays in approving anything, and a massive parasitic bureaucracy whose costs are bourne by the power companies.

And even with those millstones around it's neck, nuclear power has managed to be profitable in the US, and has supplied a significant percentage of electricity, saving hundreds of thousands of lives in the process, that would otherwise have been lost to air pollution and coal mining accidents.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes it is. Because they recognise the value of carbon emissions free power.

Interesting. So why does the same bill include money in the surcharge to keep two aging coal plants open too (one that isn’t even in Ohio?)

 

[bilby]

Yes it is. Because they recognise the value of carbon emissions free power.

Interesting. So why does the same bill include money in the surcharge to keep two aging coal plants open too (one that isn’t even in Ohio?)

Clearly they also have other priorities. I think those are a mistake, so if you want reasons for them, you're going to need to ask someone who doesn't.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes it is. Because they recognise the value of carbon emissions free power.

Interesting. So why does the same bill include money in the surcharge to keep two aging coal plants open too (one that isn’t even in Ohio?)

Clearly they also have other priorities. I think those are a mistake, so if you want reasons for them, you're going to need to ask someone who doesn't.

You had no problem providing their reasons when it was something you agreed with.

 

[bilby]

Clearly they also have other priorities. I think those are a mistake, so if you want reasons for them, you're going to need to ask someone who doesn't.

You had no problem providing their reasons when it was something you agreed with.

I didn't provide their reasons; I am not a telepath. I provided the reason I would have used to justify the actions you reported.

 

[fromderinside]

Hanford is a military facility. It makes bombs, not electricity. The armed forces making an expensive mess is nothing new, and has fuck all to do with electricity generation.

No. It was a military facility during WWII. By 1956 it had become a government facility under management of GE then in the late sixties it went under management of a large engineering firm. It's primary mission early on was nuclear enrichment for bomb making. Bombs were never made there, just enriched uranium and plutonium. Nuclear, medical, and chemical projects, both military and commercial, were carried out from that period.

By the mid seventies large segments of Hanford activity had been cooped by the state in an energy program famously know as Whoops, actually Washington State Public Power Supply System (WSPPSS), to build three power generating reactors. One, I believe, was finished then closed down the other two dead on arrival as the cooperative which sponsored it went in to receivership.

Postscript: It's not exactly as I remember as this reference shows https://www.historylink.org/File/5482 Close enough.

Hell. Don't believe me. I just spent my teens and early twenties there. I think I've mentioned dad got contaminated three times requiring our house to be inspected and cleared after each. He was pretty good at freeing up control rods mechanically. Actually I think he was ashamed for being classified with flat feet in WWII so he volunteered for going in and freeing up rods because he wanted to make it up.

 

[bilby]

Hanford is a military facility. It makes bombs, not electricity. The armed forces making an expensive mess is nothing new, and has fuck all to do with electricity generation.

No. It was a military facility during WWII. By 1956 t had become a government facility under management of GE then in the late sixties it went under management of a large engineering firm. It's primary mission early on was nuclear enrichment for bomb making. Bombs were never made there, just enriched uranium and plutonium. Nuclear, medical, and chemical projects, both military and commercial, were carried out from that period.

By the mid seventies large segments of Hanford activity had been cooped by the state in an energy program famously know as Whoops, actually Washington State Public Power System, WSPPS, to build three power generating reactors. One, I believe, was finished then closed down the other two dead on arrival as the cooperative which sponsored it went in to receivership.

Hell. Don't believe me. I just spent my teens and early twenties there. I think I've mentioned dad got contaminated three times requiring our house to be inspected and cleared after each. He was pretty good at freeing up control rods mechanically. Actually I think he was making up for being classified with flat feet in WWII so he volunteered for going in and freeing up rods because he wanted to make it up.

So, you are talking about waste from bomb making, in a discussion about making electricity.

Which is completely off topic.

The military making a mess isn't a surprise, isn't news, and isn't an argument against commercial power generation of any kind.

You may as well rail against gasoline driven cars on the basis that flame-thrower testing by the army left an area contaminated with liquid hydrocarbons.

The one has fuck all to do with the other, no matter how much of a mess the armed forces (or their contractors) made, nor how brave your father was in helping them to fix their problems.

 

[fromderinside]

Actually no. I'm talking about waste period. Whether low level, expended, enriched, co produced, or whatever I'm talking about nuclear waste. Governments actually do better than private enterprise in containing and processing waste. and that;s saying something given the record of superpowers with nuclear waste.

The proposed power plant in CA which my late friend lead protests was to be built on a fault at the ocean. Fukushima on the coast in a tsunami zone with inadequate barriers and improper coolant supplies and protections, TMI managed by a private company, the Detroit accident in 1967, and others which caused us to hold our breath were all commercial endeavors where profit won out over safety.

Not saying governments are responsible. US bombing or Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII and various testing sites in the us and south pacific. Russian programs and military services were very careless in storing waste as NUCLEAR WASTE AND RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION IN RUSSIA points out. http://factsanddetails.com/russia/Nature_Science_Animals/sub9_8c/entry-5066.html

Across the world storage of waste has been a problem. The US is still struggling with agreeing on a location for storage of medical and power plant waste.

It may be safe compared to fossil based power but that's no advertisement for its use. I'm with those who say shoot the yuppies who want to eliminate power lines or cellphones because they fear radiation induced cancer or something like that. I'n not too fast to go after those who oppose nuclear power based on waste handling and plant placement. Hell, I was even commissioned to measure radiation from high voltage lines and sound from airbases two to three miles away because som rich people didn't want to see power lines or hear noise.

I'm not a lover of the irrationally or economically motivated fearful.

If you look around you'll see the problem isn't with solutions it's with fear and greed. Unfortunately fear is something humans are never going to deal with well. Nor are we going to curb greed, just not going to happen. Rogers is right. Freud is wrong. And Yung is worse than Christianity or Islam in dealing with human fear and greed.

Call them idiots. They vote and they should vote if you care about your own rights.

We will find a way forward without fossil fuel or nuclear energy and probably without hydro or solar or thermal either.

I'm sure that if we made use of insect energy we'd have plenty of ready power at all times, or maybe other cellular energy entities.

We already know that power storage is just as troublesome as all the others.

It comes down to getting people to make choices about things which might kill them but will solve the problem if only we keep it on the down and low.

This last bit is sane and probably what I should have said all along.

 

[lpetrich]

US Offshore Wind Race Heats Up, Now Connecticut In The Mix

Connecticut’s 2,000-megawatt goal is set forth in new legislation that just passed the state Senate unanimously. All that’s left to do is for Governor Lamont to sign the bill and it’s off to the races. According to a report in the Connecticut Mirror, the initial solicitation round is set to kick off a mere two weeks after the signing, with the aim of getting all 2,000 megawatts in the water by 2030.

As the Mirror’s Jan Ellen Spiegel points out, that’s just around the time that the 2,088-megawatt Millstone nuclear power plant is set to expire, under the terms of a new deal with owner Dominion Energy.

Then a problem: production of too much electricity on the more windy days.

That brings up a good question: with the world’s top offshore wind companies all competing for a slice of the US offshore pie, northeastern states could end up with more clean kilowatts than they know what to do with.

Well, they could take a look over at the Netherlands, where Ørsted is hatching up a plan to link its Dutch offshore wind farms with renewable hydrogen production.

A good way of getting around the intermittency problem and a good alternative to batteries. It is also a feedstock for synthetic fuels, a missing piece of the renewable-energy puzzle.

 

[lpetrich]

Joe, Joseph, Jay & Juliana -- The Status Of The Green New Deal Today | CleanTechnica

Joe Biden Caves To Sunrise Movement Pressure: Sunrise Movement - "On June 4, he bowed to pressure from the Sunrise Movement and announced his own climate plan calling for the United States to get to net zero emissions by 2050. He says his proposals will create 10 million new jobs."

Climate Change Is Our Third World War - economist Joseph Stiglitz: “The war on the climate emergency, if correctly waged, would actually be good for the economy — just as the second world war set the stage for America’s golden economic era with the fastest rate of growth in its history amidst shared prosperity. The Green New Deal would stimulate demand, ensuring that all available resources were used and the transition to the green economy would likely usher in a new boom. Trump’s focus on the industries of the past, like coal, is strangling the much more sensible move to wind and solar power. More jobs by far will be created in renewable energy than will be lost in coal.”

Jay Inslee Slammed By DNC - “Today, my team received a call from the Democratic National Committee letting us know that they will not host a climate debate. Further, they explained that if we participated in anyone else’s climate debate, we will not be invited to future debates.

“This is deeply disappointing. The DNC is silencing the voices of Democratic activists, many of our progressive partner organizations, and nearly half of the Democratic presidential field, who want to debate the existential crisis of our time. Democratic voters say that climate change is their top issue; the Democratic National Committee must listen to the grassroots of the party.”

If Politicians Won’t Act, Will The Courts? - "On June 4, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held a hearing in the case of Juliana Vs. US, the landmark climate lawsuit brought by a group of young people, including the granddaughter of noted climate scientist James Hansen, which argues the government has a duty to ensure that Americans have a clean environment in which to live."

 

[barbos]

What about nuclear energy?

It's not renewable

Does it matter? Technically solar and wind are powered by nuclear power as well, so they are technically not renewable either.

Actually it does matter. Sun is burning at the same rate whether we use solar or not. Nuclear is fairly limited resource which can be used up pretty quickly. Once it's gone, it's gone. And nuclear is currently only viable way of colonizing this solar system.