The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[bilby]

Watched a segment on a solar system that uses salts for storage. Salts are melted and piped through water creating steam. The new facility in Spain will be around 10Mw.

The salts alas act as storage in a molten state.

The technique has been used for solar heating. Melt a bed of eutectic salts under your house to store thermal energy during the day.

Yeah, but such systems are still basically research prototypes, nowhere near ready for large scale operation.

According to the show there is a commercial station coming online in Spain. There was a development system shown on the show.

I forget the term my memory is fading. It is not just energy stored as heat like in a rock. The energy is stored in the energy added to change state.

The phrase you're looking for is 'latent heat'.

And if 10MW is meant to be 'commercial scale' they're going to need a shitload of them. 10MW wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. That's 1% of a proper power station.

And what does that 10MW mean? Is that continuous output over a long period (eg a month); Or peak output when conditions are optimum and the salt is at its maximum working temperature? What capacity factor can we expect from this facility? If 10MW is the peak output, and the CF is 20% (which is pretty good for a solar power plant) then the storage allows you to run 24x7 at a power output of just 2MW (rather less given losses assuming you don't use 100% efficient 'unobtanium' thermal insulation). You're going to need more than 500 of these to do the job of one nuclear plant. Probably closer to 1,000 than to 500.

Even if it puts out 10MW of continuous power (implying 50MW+ peak power collection after efficiency losses), you still need over a hundred to do the job of one nuclear plant.

Just how much land will the thousands of such plants you would need to run the entire Spanish grid take up? Will there be room in Spain for anything else?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Watched a segment on a solar system that uses salts for storage. Salts are melted and piped through water creating steam. The new facility in Spain will be around 10Mw.

The salts alas act as storage in a molten state.

The technique has been used for solar heating. Melt a bed of eutectic salts under your house to store thermal energy during the day.

Yeah, but such systems are still basically research prototypes, nowhere near ready for large scale operation.

According to the show there is a commercial station coming online in Spain. There was a development system shown on the show.

I forget the term my memory is fading. It is not just energy stored as heat like in a rock. The energy is stored in the energy added to change state.

Putting it online doesn't make it not a research prototype. The primary job is learning how it functions, not storing power.

 

[lpetrich]

Thunberg = 'Greatest Threat' To Fossil Fuel Companies' | Ocasio-Cortez = 'Determined To Destroy the America We Know' | CleanTechnica

Greta Thunberg, age 16, has ignited an international children’s movement. She and her cohort are calling on politicians to step up from their ennui and to take action on climate change. The images of Thunberg and her companions as they skip school each Friday outside the Swedish parliament have caught the eyes of climate change activists — and flustered politicians and the fossil fuel barons to whom they are beholden — the world over. The head of OPEC recently referred to Thunberg’s youth climate strike movement as possibly the “greatest threat” to fossil fuel companies.

...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), age 29, is US Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district. She is the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress, and her election was a surprise to many, including her well-funded incumbent opponent. With barely a year’s experience legislating, she has been the focus of much media coverage, especially surrounding her co-sponsoring of the Green New Deal (GND) with US Senator Ed Markey. The GND’s goals include “net-zero” greenhouse gases within a decade, “a full transition off fossil fuels,” and retrofitting all buildings in the US to meet new energy efficient standards. Former Congressional rep from Georgia Newt Gingrich recently labeled AOC and her politics “vicious, deliberately dishonest.”

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious' | Environment | The Guardian - nice conversation over a video link (Skype?).

GT wants to visit the UN Climate Action summit on 23 September 2019 in New York City -- UNITED NATIONS UN Climate Change Summit 2019, but she wants to do so without consuming fossil fuels.

A possibility is a virtual visit, like what she did with AOC. But she prefers to visit in person. I remember once considering the possibilities.

Air travel will require fossil fuels, unless one can make enough synfuel with renewable energy to power the airplane.

Surface travel will have to be by sea, and going by a freighter or a cruise ship will also require fossil fuels. I remember concluding that GT would have to charter a sailing ship, a ship propelled by a renewable-energy resource in a very direct fashion. Then I found: Greta Thunberg will cross the Atlantic by sailboat | TreeHugger noting Greta Thunberg will cross the Atlantic on Malizia II – Team Malizia

That's when professional sailors Boris Herrmann and Pierre Casiraghi reached out to her, offering her a ride aboard Malizia II, a speedy sailboat outfitted with solar panels and underwater turbines to generate electricity on board. They thought it would be a good fit for Thunberg, as it's one of only a few zero-emission boats. Travelling with her will be her father Svante and filmmaker Nathan Grossman, who will document the trip.

It will have two fossil-fuel emergency generators on board, as required by marine safety regulations, but they will be sealed and used only if needed.

The two-week crossing will not be luxurious. Thunberg has been warned about the lack of shower, refrigeration, air conditioning, and fresh meals. She'll be eating freeze-dried and vacuum-packed food, and must be ready for choppy seas, but Herrmann says she seems unconcerned.

 

[lpetrich]

Coal, Gas Sink As New York Sails Into Offshore Wind : RenewableEnergy
Coal, Gas Sink As New York Sails Into Offshore Wind Power Mega-Deal
New York gives green light for two huge offshore wind projects
New York passes its Green New Deal, announces massive offshore wind push | Ars Technica
Governor Cuomo Executes the Nation's Largest Offshore Wind Agreement and Signs Historic Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act | Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
1.7 gigawatts with a target of 9 GW by 2035. Europe has 18.499 GW of offshore wind capacity.

From Ars Technica,

here are also specific goals for different types of clean energy. Distributed solar is expected to have a capacity of six gigawatts by 2025. Offshore wind is expected to reach nine gigawatts of capacity by 2035. There's a target for energy efficiency improvements (a 185 trillion BTU reduction by 2025) and storage (3GW by 2030) as well. Emissions from the production of electricity are expected to be zero by 2040, a decade ahead of the state going carbon neutral.

Solar’s 20 most overlooked benefits for global sustainability – pv magazine International

The researchers found, when ‘techno-ecological synergies’ (TESs) were studied it was possible to quantify resources taken from an environment – for example water withdrawal and habitat loss – and materials released into it, such as CO2 emissions and nutrient runoff. Jordan Macknick, a researcher at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said: “Solar projects, when done using the principles of TESs have the potential to improve air, water and soil resources in addition to producing clean energy.”

It's a fairly comprehensive list, covering everything from rooftop solar panels to floating solar panels to solar panels high enough above farmland to permit crop plants and grazing.

 

[lpetrich]

The Beatrice, World’s Deepest Wind Farm, Turns on the Coast of Scotland | Inverse

The world’s deepest non-floating wind farm, located off the coast of Scotland, finally switched on this week, providing enough power for 450,000 homes.

The Beatrice offshore wind farm, activated by Prince Charles in a ceremony Monday, uses 84 turbines to generate 588 megawatts of energy. That means it ranks as the fourth-largest offshore wind farm in the world.

...
The foundations push offshore wind to its limits. The piles in the ground measure 40 meters deep and weigh 50 tonnes, anchoring it to the ocean floor. The jacket that holds the turbine measures 81 meters tall and weighs 1,000 tonnes, pushing the turbine out of the sea depth of up to 56 meters. Each tower measures 88 meters tall and weighs 292 tonnes, the nacelle in the center 350 tonnes and the 75-meter blades weigh 26 tonnes. That creates a rotor diameter of 154 meters.

That's close to the expected maximum of 60 meters, and floating wind turbines will beat that limit. They are anchored to the seafloor, and that may impose its own limit.

Power-to-Gas: Electrolysis and methanation status review - ScienceDirect - That's renewable-powered gaseous synfuels: hydrogen and methane

Despite its currently high costs and losses during conversion the technology is considered worthwhile because it is the most cost-efficient long-term storage option for power, assuming that gas power plants or combined heat and power plants exist to reconvert the renewable gas [11]. It also supports intersectoral decarbonization and the substitution of fossil energy carriers. Literature shows that with renewable power generation on the increase, long-term storage with PtG will become necessary and cost-efficient [4,12].

Methanation process -
CO2 + 4H2 -> CH4 + 2H2O
For renewable energy, it uses H2 from electrolysis. One can make larger hydrocarbons also, the Fischer-Tropsch process:
CO2 + 3H2 -> (CH2) + 2H2O

 

[bilby]

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL6uB1z95gA[/YOUTUBE]

 

[fromderinside]

I love brits who shamelessly wave hands. Nicely done presentation. Kudos.

 

[lpetrich]

World's first solar road turns out to be colossal failure - Business Insider - I am not one bit surprised.

Two years after the world's first solar road — the Normandy road in France — was set up, it's turned out to be a colossal failure, according to a report by Le Monde.

The road has deteriorated to a terrible state, it isn't producing anywhere near the amount of energy it had previously pledged to, and the traffic it has brought with it is causing noise problems.

Though a US-based solar road has suffered a similarly discouraging fate, a Dutch project has provided a silver lining on the future of solar roads.

That Dutch project is a solar-panel bike lane. Bikes make less pressure than cars, which likely accounts for the difference in success.


Renewable Hydrogen Launches Sneak Attack On Natural Gas

Superior technology and competitive pricing are the tools natural gas deployed to bump coal off the leading position for power generation in the US. Well, turnabout is fair play. Now renewable energy is applying the same workbox to put the screws on natural gas. It’s not just happening in the power generation space. A new renewable hydrogen project in California could also shake natural gas loose from its grip on energy for building systems, including cooking, laundry, heating, and cooling.

...
Water splitting, aka power-to-gas, is beginning to take hold globally and that’s the basis for the new California project. The work pairs Southern California Gas Co. (aka SoCalGas) and German power-to-gas specialist Electrochaea in something called biomethanation.

Biomethanation = feeding H2 and CO2 to methanogens, which then make CH4.

Renewable hydrogen is becoming viable as a large scale, long duration storage medium for excess renewable energy, so the new system will add value on the energy storage side as well. For example, power-to-gas systems can store excess wind energy at night for use during the day.

Power-to-gas is also edging into energy storage on a regional level. Planners in the Netherlands, for example, are looking at a scenario in which power-to-gas will enable them to build more offshore wind farms, beyond the needs of their own grid.

So we are on the way to making good synfuels.

 

[lpetrich]

This Revolutionary Blast Furnace Vaporizes Trash and Turns It into Clean Energy (Without Any Emissions)
It is designed for trash that normally gets dumped into a landfill or else is incinerated. As trash in landfills decomposes, it makes methane, a greenhouse gas that complements carbon dioxide and is as much as 86 times worse.

The FastOx process works by placing some garbage into a blast furnace, then adding oxygen and steam. The resulting reaction goes at temperatures as much as 2000 C and produces "syngas" - carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Syngas can be used as a feedstock for making synfuels.

The process leaves behind some solid material that is about 10% of the original garbage, and that can be used for various things.

This process is now being commercialized.

New Waste-to-Energy Technologies Can Benefit Business - has more on FastOx and similar processes.


As renewable energy gets used more and more, we will become able to make more and more energy available for powering waste reclamation, along with such things as desalination and synfuels and plastics feedstocks and metal refining.

 

[steve_bank]

How much energy does it take to make 1 joule of hydrogen thermal equivalent? Electrolysis is inefficient. The total energy involved in the compete process. How many joules of electricity.

What hydrogen does is solve the energy storage problem along with localized emissions reduction

Back in the 80s a hydrogen economy was touted as the future. Crash proof storage tanks were developed.

There has been some fleet conversion to natural gas cars and trucks. Propane fork lifts have been around for a long time.

 

[steve_bank]

Ballard in Vancouver BC has been making fuel cells for trucks and busses since the 90s.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage
https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/

https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2016/05/02/the-potential-for-hydrogen-fueled-cars-in-washington-state/
This article was originally drafted as an Op-ed submission for the Seattle Times and included input from many people at WSU. Thank you to all of them for the help:

According to the Washington State Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, gasoline fueled cars are by far the largest polluter of carbon dioxide in the state of Washington, accounting for one out of every four molecules emitted. If our state is going to reduce carbon emissions, we’re going to need many zero-emission vehicles– and soon.

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) or hydrogen Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) are the most common zero-emission vehicles. Washington state is making excellent strides with building recharging infrastructure for BEVs. Last January, the Department of Energy (DOE) tallied 487 BEV charging stations and 1,295 BEV charging outlets in our state. While these advances are excellent, I strongly believe, along with nearly every major auto manufacturer that FCEVs will also play an important role in protecting our environment.

However, our state does not have a single hydrogen fueling station, nor plans to build one.

An article in the Energy Policy Journal found that the most sustainable zero-emissions vehicle, including infrastructure costs, is a hydrogen Fuel-Cell Hybrid Electric Vehicle (FCHEV). A 20- to 50-mile plug-in electric battery range is sufficient for most daily commutes in Puget Sound and can be recharged overnight with a standard 120 V outlet. Backing up an electric battery with a light-weight, 300-mile hydrogen fuel-cell gives more than enough driving range to make it from Seattle to Pullman for the Apple Cup.

Hydrogen fueling stations have dispensers designed similar to conventional gasoline systems and recharging a FCEV takes only 5 minutes for a 300-mile range. Even the BEV ‘superchargers’ take a minimum of 30 minutes for a 200-mile charge. That’s like comparing broadband to dial-up. Physical limitations of the electric grid won’t allow for rapid BEV recharging competitive with hydrogen.

Hydrogen production is synergistic with our state’s wind farms and agriculture. Off-peak excess wind power can be put to use for electrolyzing water to produce hydrogen, a portable energy product 20 to 30 times more valuable than electricity.

Another hydrogen source is biomass from agriculture or timber harvesting. Breaking down this waste through gasification and returning the carbon charcoal to the soil is essential for sustainability and liberates significant hydrogen. Producing hydrogen from some agriculture byproducts can even be carbon negative – the plants sequester more carbon from the air into the ground than the process emits. In addition to fueling the cars of the future, this hydrogen economy supports Washington’s growing chemical/material synthesis and manufacturing industries.

Last year, I mentored a team of WSU students that won the 2014 International Hydrogen Student Design competition for a portable hydrogen refueling station. The design is housed within a standard shipping container and estimated to cost less than $500,000, one-quarter the price of stations under construction in other parts of the country. A team of 75 WSU students is in the top six of the H2-Refuel $1 Million Prize competition to build the prototype over the coming year, which could be the first hydrogen refueling station in our state. My HYPER lab just received funding from the DOE, through a partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, to build a novel small liquefier that will allow the station to collect and purify hydrogen from just about any source. Together with the DOE’s Hydrogen Safety Review Panel, based at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, we can ensure the safety of these systems for the general public.

In short, now is the time for Washington state to seize this opportunity and begin formulating a development pathway for zero-emission vehicles INCLUDING hydrogen fuel cell technology.

 

[bilby]

To harness sufficient energy, pre-industrial fuels need huge, nature-despoiling – hardly “green” or “environmentally friendly” – power stations: massive arrays of solar panels, forests of gigantic windmills, and vast flooded river valleys. Their size attests to the weakness of the energy that they collect, while intermittency implies a typical working availability of only 30%. And, as Germany’s Energiewende policy has demonstrated, these fuels are not enough

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nuclear-energy-clean-green-reliable-by-wade-allison-2019-06

Renewable energy is a failure. The only important question now is whether enough people will wake up to the fact that their proposed solution to carbon dioxide emissions is utterly inadequate, and will switch to lobbying for the only genuinely and demonsrably effective solution, before it's too late to avoid widespread suffering and death.

The Germans have done the hard yards. They've proven beyond a doubt that a modern industrial nation cannot be powered by wind and solar, even when enormous amounts of money and political support are thrown at these technologies.

It's time for us to take a look at the results of the Energiewende experiment, recognise that wind and solar are woefully unfit for purpose, and start doing something genuinely effective about emissions reduction.

It's time to nuke climate change.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

World's first solar road turns out to be colossal failure - Business Insider - I am not one bit surprised.

I'm not, either. It was an obviously idiotic idea.

 

[ralfy]

Also, check out "Why EROI Matters". One reason why energy returns for renewable energy are low is because oil is needed (as fuel and petrochemicals) for mining, manufacturing, and shipping of various components for renewable energy as well as for infrastructure (from road networks to electric grids) and all sorts of consumer goods.

 

[lpetrich]

Believe it or not, good news: Trump's counterattack against clean energy is collapsing | Salon.com

For two years the cabal of fossil fools surrounding Donald Trump have leveraged an impulsive president's loathing of his predecessor, tapped their reactionary right-wing networks, mobilized coal and oil lobbies and political donations, and thrown themselves vigorously into two missions:

1. Bring back the coal industry and stop the “Stalinist” threat of wind and solar power.
2. Freeze the transition from oil-powered cars and trucks to electricity by reversing Obama-era plans to encourage cleaner, more efficient vehicle fleets.

In the last several weeks, the futility of both these efforts to strangle the future have become clear.

Mainly from natural gas and renewable energy.

Solar roadway experiment in Normandy, France, has failed - Curbed - "After nearly three years of use, Normandy’s photovoltaic highway is delivering disappointing results"

I am not one bit surprised.

The article notes France’s solar road dream may be over after test fails - News - GCR

The kilometre-long test road was opened by former French environment minister Ségolène Royal near the small town of Tourouvre-au-Perche in the Orne on 22 December 2016. Now the road’s 2,800 sq m of solar panels have degraded, peeled away and splintered, and 100m of them have been removed after being declared too damaged to repair.

Le Monde reports that the solar panels were unable to withstand the wear and tear caused by tractors and thunderstorms, became covered by leaf mould, and created too much noise for local residents, which meant that the speed limit had to be reduced to 70 km/h.

In the first year, when the panels were relatively intact, they generated about half of the expected yield, amounting to 150,000kWh during the year. This fell to 78,000 in 2018 and 38,000 since January, according to figures from BDVP, the French association for the promotion of solar energy.

Solar canopies are MUCH better. MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better. I can easily find several companies that sell them.

 

[lpetrich]

Oops. I accidentally posted an article I'd meant for elsewhere.

I've found several "Green New Deal" plans, and I'll be posting about them next.

 

[lpetrich]

Adoption of renewable energy is an important part of lowering carbon emissions, and for best effect, it ought to be accompanied by efficiency and conservation measures like improved building insulation and high-speed trains.

Text - H.Res.109 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress -  Green New Deal Introduced in the House by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on 2019 Feb 7, it originally had 67 cosponsors and it now has 94. AOC and all the cosponsors are Democrats, and 235 out of the 435 Representatives are Democrats.

Green New Deal goes down as Democrats protest 'sham' vote - POLITICO (2019 Mar 26) Senator Ed Markey introduced it in the Senate, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted a vote on it without any hearing. The Democrats boycotted that vote, making the vote 57-0 against. The Senate is 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and 2 Independents.

From the Washington Post's summary of it:

• Guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.
• Providing all people of the United States with – (i) high-quality health care; (ii) affordable, safe, and adequate housing; (iii) economic security; and (iv) access to clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and nature.
• Providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States.
• Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.
• Repairing and upgrading the infrastructure in the United States, including . . . by eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible.
• Building or upgrading to energy-efficient, distributed, and ‘smart’ power grids, and working to ensure affordable access to electricity.
• Upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification.
• Overhauling transportation systems in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in – (i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing; (ii) clean, affordable, and accessible public transportation; and (iii) high-speed rail.
• Spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States and removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as is technologically feasible.
• Working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible.

Close to 100% renewable electricity generation looks feasible by 2030, but vehicles are another story. Nothing in it on synthetic fuels - that's a necessity for sea and air travel.

 

[bilby]

Close to 100% renewable energy doesn't look anywhere CLOSE to being feasible in the next millennium, much less by 2030.

It's time to stop fart-arsing about with intermittent and unreliable wind turbines and solar panels, which without a mythical storage solution do more harm than good.

It's time to nuke climate change.

 

[lpetrich]

Stuff about "frontline and vulnerable communities" was inspired by such things as the rerouting of the Dakota Access Pipeline. In late 2016, AOC visited some protesters of it, and she was deeply impressed by their commitment to nonviolence and with their being ordinary people and not rich and well-connected people like Teddy Kennedy, someone whom she had once interned for.

An Evergreen Economy for America | Jay Inslee for Governor - has a detailed implementation plan.

• Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy
• Building Sustainable & Climate-Smart Infrastructure
• Leading the World in Clean Manufacturing
• Investing in Innovation & Scientific Research
• Ensuring Good Jobs with Family Supporting Wages & Benefits

The Green New Deal by Bernie Sanders: "As President, Bernie Sanders Will Avert Climate Catastrophe and Create 20 Million Jobs"

• Reaching 100 percent renewable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030 and complete decarbonization by 2050 at latest.
• Ending unemployment by creating 20 million jobs needed to solve the climate crisis.
• Directly invest an historic $16.3 trillion public investment.
• A just transition for workers.
• Declaring climate change a national emergency.
• Saving American families money.
• Supporting small family farms by investing in ecologically regenerative and sustainable agriculture.
• Justice for frontline communities.
• Commit to reducing emissions throughout the world.
• Meeting and exceeding our fair share of global emissions reductions.
• Making massive investments in research and development.
• Expanding the climate justice movement.
• Investing in conservation and public lands to heal our soils, forests, and prairie lands.
• This plan will pay for itself over 15 years.

Bernie Sanders' $16 Trillion Climate Plan Is Nothing Short of a Revolution

The plan itself doesn’t focus on where the money will come from, though the campaign did say it would come in part from new taxes on the rich, raising revenue from the plan itself, reduced social safety net costs, and a few other sources. Instead, it focuses on who gets the money. The plan commits trillions of dollars to grants for low- and middle-income families to do everything from home weatherization to buying a new electric vehicle, and it would create a whole new host of publicly owned energy and internet infrastructure. It also uses language like “we will spend,” “we plan to provide,” and “give.” I’m not going all bUt HoW wIlL wE pAy FoR iT, given that we need a livable planet, but the language and the recipients themselves are the message: This is a goddamn revolution.

 

[bigfield]

Close to 100% renewable electricity generation looks feasible by 2030

About as feasible as spontaneously regrowing a severed arm.