The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[bigfield]

... apart from gas.

Gas consumption for electricity generation has boomed massively as coal has declined. This is an unsurprising result of the market penetration of intermittent sources, which need gas to back them up.

Gas did boom when wind and solar first appeared at significant sources, but it appears gas has peaked as increasing amounts of wind and solar are added to the grid:



(I've switched off hydro and coal to just show the relationship between solar/wind and gas)

Of course, if I reduce the timescale and increase the resolution...



...then it's pretty clear that gas won't disappear from the energy mix entirely until something else comes in to replace it in the role of backup supply.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You forget that they are fucking expensive.

it's just been irrational fear of plutonium that has kept us from going this route. (If you want plutonium for weapons you have to process the fuel fairly quickly. The desired reaction is U₂₃₈ + n > Np₂₃₉ which decays to Pu₂₃₉. Leave it too long and you start seeing Pu₂₃₉ + n > Pu₂₄₀. Too much Pu₂₄₀ and your bomb probably fizzles. Separating Pu₂₃₉ from Pu₂₄₀ is not practical--if you are going the isotope separation route to a bomb it's a lot easier to separate U₂₃₈ and U₂₃₅.

Anyone said PV were not shit under clouds? You need scale and capacity so that when it's cloudy in one place it's sunny in another and there is enough capacity to charge everything from that one sunny place.

That is an incredible amount of extra capacity, not to mention all the wires you're going to need and the losses on those wires. (Imagine what happens when the whole northeastern US is socked in with a winter storm.)

Deserts and Really High Voltage lines.

We already run the voltage about as high as you can without bleeding off too much power in corona losses.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Let see some numbers.
Little bit of googling and it seems one can buy ~250 wh LiFePO4 for $50.
That's $200 for 1KWH. US consumes ~30KWH per day per person. So let's take that number and would cost $6K per person.
LiFePO4 lasts 10 years, that's $50/month that's how much storage costs right now.
And don't forget that US for some reasons consumes 2x more than the rest of normal (EU) countries.
I suspect A/C and electric driers are the culprits. Which gives you an idea of stopping doing laundry at night and considering that A/C is mostly needed during hot sunny days when electricity is free. 30KWH may be an overkill.

Electric Storage bills could be a great incentive to change behavior. Just charge people actual cost of electricity+storage at any given moment of time and people will stop doing laundry at night and may even get rid of electric driers, same with A/C - start using more efficient (more expensive to install) systems.

1) You still are holding to the position that you can ship enough power around. I live in one of those sunny deserts--but that does not mean 365 sunny days/year. I grew up in a nearby desert, we had solar hot water which made us more aware of sun outages--with some care we could make the tank last 2 days, the third non-sunny day meant no hot water until we called in a plumber to fix what we broke (we did the whole solar installation ourselves) and didn't feel competent to deal with ourselves. It was about 50-50 whether we would run out of hot water in a given year.

2) We certainly need more AC than most of Europe--check the latitudes! And note how much closer to the ocean most of Europe is.

3) I can't find anything like the price you're talking about for LiPo--and it doesn't matter anyway. You don't want that much LiPo in your house! You want a big honking LiPo bank, you need it isolated in case it goes into thermal runaway.

4) You're forgetting the losses converting that battery power into AC. It's nothing like 100%.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-titanate_battery, I don't know how expensive they are, but suspect they are similarly priced. They are even more durable than LiFePO4 - up to 20,000 cycles which is 50 years. Car makers even complained about that

So if you plan for 50 years these batteries could be 5 times cheaper than LiFePO4.

So the only limiting factor is amount of lithium which is not a problem since we have oceans
And then there are sodium/potassium-ion batteries which have no scarcity problem at all and dirt cheap and last 10 years.

Your source does not support the 20,000 cycle claim. And twice the price of LiPo.

 

[barbos]

Let see some numbers.
Little bit of googling and it seems one can buy ~250 wh LiFePO4 for $50.
That's $200 for 1KWH. US consumes ~30KWH per day per person. So let's take that number and would cost $6K per person.
LiFePO4 lasts 10 years, that's $50/month that's how much storage costs right now.
And don't forget that US for some reasons consumes 2x more than the rest of normal (EU) countries.
I suspect A/C and electric driers are the culprits. Which gives you an idea of stopping doing laundry at night and considering that A/C is mostly needed during hot sunny days when electricity is free. 30KWH may be an overkill.

Electric Storage bills could be a great incentive to change behavior. Just charge people actual cost of electricity+storage at any given moment of time and people will stop doing laundry at night and may even get rid of electric driers, same with A/C - start using more efficient (more expensive to install) systems.

1) You still are holding to the position that you can ship enough power around.

Yes, "Depending on voltage level and construction details, HVDC transmission losses are quoted as less than 3% per 1,000 km"

I live in one of those sunny deserts--but that does not mean 365 sunny days/year. I grew up in a nearby desert, we had solar hot water which made us more aware of sun outages--with some care we could make the tank last 2 days, the third non-sunny day meant no hot water until we called in a plumber to fix what we broke (we did the whole solar installation ourselves) and didn't feel competent to deal with ourselves. It was about 50-50 whether we would run out of hot water in a given year.

2) We certainly need more AC than most of Europe--check the latitudes! And note how much closer to the ocean most of Europe is.

A/C can be made more less passive.
And I bet you use electric drier even though you live in the desert. Nobody use electric driers in Italy

3) I can't find anything like the price you're talking about for LiPo--and it doesn't matter anyway. You don't want that much LiPo in your house! You want a big honking LiPo bank, you need it isolated in case it goes into thermal runaway.

That's not LiPo, that's LiFePO4, and yes that's typical price for it and for ordinary lithium-ion as well.
LiFePO4 has no thermal runaway.

4) You're forgetting the losses converting that battery power into AC. It's nothing like 100%.

First of all losses are indeed nothing like 100% losses are around 2-5%. And you don't have to convert specifically to AC. You can use DC just fine.

 

[barbos]

Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-titanate_battery, I don't know how expensive they are, but suspect they are similarly priced. They are even more durable than LiFePO4 - up to 20,000 cycles which is 50 years. Car makers even complained about that

So if you plan for 50 years these batteries could be 5 times cheaper than LiFePO4.

So the only limiting factor is amount of lithium which is not a problem since we have oceans
And then there are sodium/potassium-ion batteries which have no scarcity problem at all and dirt cheap and last 10 years.

Your source does not support the 20,000 cycle claim. And twice the price of LiPo.

It does support that

Leclanché is a Swiss battery manufacturer founded in 1909. In 2006, it acquired Bullith AG (Germany) to establish a Li-Ion manufacturing line in Germany. In 2014, their product, "TiBox", was launched in the market. The energy content of the TiBox is 3.2 kWh, with 20,000 cycles.

And no, it does not support your claim about "twice the price of LiPo."
It does not say about price at all.

Ordinary LiPo which they install in electronics like cell phone and laptops is utter crap and should be banned for many reasons.

 

[barbos]

Calculated cost of copper to build 4000 km HVDC cable (1 mil volt) line. It will cost $90bil in copper alone but it would basically take all world production for a year. Of course aluminum is much cheaper. So it's absolutely feasible to have all energy generated in Arizona and distribute over US and even Canada. I assumed constant current which is not really fair, but then aluminum is much cheaper and 4000km is a total overkill cause it's a distance between Arizona and the farthest point - Maine. Basically for a fraction of a millitary budget you can build it.

 

[skepticalbip]

But that 4000km of power cable would only power cities in a line from the east coast to the west coast. If it were run along interstate 40 (it passes through Arizona) then a few cities would have power but most cities would have no service. Replacing the grid would require much more than 6,000,000km of HVDC cable.

 

[barbos]

But that 4000km of power cable would only power cities in a line from the east coast to the west coast. If it were run along interstate 40 (it passes through Arizona) then a few cities would have power but most cities would have no service. Replacing the grid would require much more than 6,000,000km of HVDC cable.

Obviously it would not be a single thick line. It will large number much thinner and cheaper lines. I merely tried to estimate amount of conductor to construct it

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, "Depending on voltage level and construction details, HVDC transmission losses are quoted as less than 3% per 1,000 km"

You sure like to cherry pick things without considering the whole picture.

Note: "HVDC". You're going to have a lot of losses converting it up and back down. We use AC because it's so much easier to step up to the huge voltages used for transmission.

2) We certainly need more AC than most of Europe--check the latitudes! And note how much closer to the ocean most of Europe is.

A/C can be made more less passive.
And I bet you use electric drier even though you live in the desert. Nobody use electric driers in Italy

You can make AC more passive by adding a ton of thermal mass to your building--that's expensive. The need to maintain air exchange limits how much you can do of this, though.

As we have a gas dryer. I wouldn't want to line dry anything here--frequent dust-bearing wind.

3) I can't find anything like the price you're talking about for LiPo--and it doesn't matter anyway. You don't want that much LiPo in your house! You want a big honking LiPo bank, you need it isolated in case it goes into thermal runaway.

That's not LiPo, that's LiFePO4, and yes that's typical price for it and for ordinary lithium-ion as well.
LiFePO4 has no thermal runaway.

And way, way above the price you listed.

4) You're forgetting the losses converting that battery power into AC. It's nothing like 100%.

First of all losses are indeed nothing like 100% losses are around 2-5%. And you don't have to convert specifically to AC. You can use DC just fine.

You can only use DC if you have DC-using appliances.

 

[skepticalbip]

You sure like to cherry pick things without considering the whole picture.

Note: "HVDC". You're going to have a lot of losses converting it up and back down. We use AC because it's so much easier to step up to the huge voltages used for transmission.

Sounds like a repeat of the 'war of the currents' between Edison and Tesla way back in the 1880s. Edison's view (DC) was soundly defeated by Tesla's much more practical and economical electrical system (AC).

 

[barbos]

You sure like to cherry pick things without considering the whole picture.

Note: "HVDC". You're going to have a lot of losses converting it up and back down. We use AC because it's so much easier to step up to the huge voltages used for transmission.

HVDC are used for something too, must be a reason for that, don't you think?

A/C can be made more less passive.
And I bet you use electric drier even though you live in the desert. Nobody use electric driers in Italy

You can make AC more passive by adding a ton of thermal mass to your building--that's expensive. The need to maintain air exchange limits how much you can do of this, though.

There are ventilation systems with heat exchangers, they are 90% efficient. So insulate your house well and use them and you can have 90% reduction in A/C bills.

As we have a gas dryer. I wouldn't want to line dry anything here--frequent dust-bearing wind.

you can use your damn sun to at least heat air instead of electric drier. And the air your electric drier use are from outside anyway, it's just get filtered out of dust one way or another.

3) I can't find anything like the price you're talking about for LiPo--and it doesn't matter anyway. You don't want that much LiPo in your house! You want a big honking LiPo bank, you need it isolated in case it goes into thermal runaway.

That's not LiPo, that's LiFePO4, and yes that's typical price for it and for ordinary lithium-ion as well.
LiFePO4 has no thermal runaway.

And way, way above the price you listed.

Dude, are you calling me a liar? Yes it's chinese prices, but they ship everywhere including your shithole

4) You're forgetting the losses converting that battery power into AC. It's nothing like 100%.

First of all losses are indeed nothing like 100% losses are around 2-5%. And you don't have to convert specifically to AC. You can use DC just fine.

You can only use DC if you have DC-using appliances.

Yes, and most of them would prefer DC.
Most electronics (TV, computers, etc) would work from DC without any modification. Even most modern fridges will work from DC.
Cheap Microwaves would not work, but expensive ones with PWM power will either work or can be made work easily.
Dumb vacuum cleaner will work from DC, no power control though. same with dumb stoves.

 

[barbos]

You sure like to cherry pick things without considering the whole picture.

Note: "HVDC". You're going to have a lot of losses converting it up and back down. We use AC because it's so much easier to step up to the huge voltages used for transmission.

Sounds like a repeat of the 'war of the currents' between Edison and Tesla way back in the 1880s. Edison's view (DC) was soundly defeated by Tesla's much more practical and economical electrical system (AC).

Not anymore, Problem with DC at the time was no practical way to convert it to different voltages. Not a problem anymore.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You sure like to cherry pick things without considering the whole picture.

Note: "HVDC". You're going to have a lot of losses converting it up and back down. We use AC because it's so much easier to step up to the huge voltages used for transmission.

Sounds like a repeat of the 'war of the currents' between Edison and Tesla way back in the 1880s. Edison's view (DC) was soundly defeated by Tesla's much more practical and economical electrical system (AC).

The conversion is easier now than then but it's still nowhere near as good as for AC.

 

[barbos]

You sure like to cherry pick things without considering the whole picture.

Note: "HVDC". You're going to have a lot of losses converting it up and back down. We use AC because it's so much easier to step up to the huge voltages used for transmission.

Sounds like a repeat of the 'war of the currents' between Edison and Tesla way back in the 1880s. Edison's view (DC) was soundly defeated by Tesla's much more practical and economical electrical system (AC).

The conversion is easier now than then but it's still nowhere near as good as for AC.

AC transformers are rarely used in electronics, it's not economical anymore. So in a way AC lost to DC already. AC is converted to DC internally in almost all electronics.

 

[bilby]

The conversion is easier now than then but it's still nowhere near as good as for AC.

AC transformers are rarely used in electronics, it's not economical anymore. So in a way AC lost to DC already. AC is converted to DC internally in almost all electronics.

Who gives a shit about electronics?

Base load power is about big power hungry devices - factory machines, process heat, industrial and commercial refrigeration, etc.

Domestic power is a small part of the issue - it gets a lot of press because it's both familiar, and readily curtailed or timeshifted to accomodate intermittent sources. But you can't decide to shut down Aluminium smelting for a few hours because the wind dropped; Or let your glass furnace cool down overnight.

Turning off even a million TVs instead of putting them on standby makes bugger all difference to demand, because industry and commercial demand completely swamps small variations in domestic demand.

This is also why battery storage is still a major headache, even if every home installs a Tesla Powerwall. Homes are one small part of a much larger problem, and you won't find factory owners lining up to install ten thousand Powerwall units.

Even within a home, heating and cooling represents almost all of electricity use (cookers, refrigerators, room heaters, A/C, water heaters, etc). Lighting and electronics use sweet fuck all compared to these.

 

[barbos]

The conversion is easier now than then but it's still nowhere near as good as for AC.

AC transformers are rarely used in electronics, it's not economical anymore. So in a way AC lost to DC already. AC is converted to DC internally in almost all electronics.

Who gives a shit about electronics?

Tesla and Edison apparently, the reason for war of currents was electronics (light bulbs and radios)

Base load power is about big power hungry devices - factory machines, process heat, industrial and commercial refrigeration, etc.

Domestic power is a small part of the issue - it gets a lot of press because it's both familiar, and readily curtailed or timeshifted to accomodate intermittent sources. But you can't decide to shut down Aluminium smelting for a few hours because the wind dropped; Or let your glass furnace cool down overnight.

Most of the energy consumption happens in homes, not in factories. And most of home consumption goes through DC. Well, if your crap is more less modern.

Turning off even a million TVs instead of putting them on standby makes bugger all difference to demand, because industry and commercial demand completely swamps small variations in domestic demand.

Well, Some older CRT TVs and VCRs were consuming 10W in standby. That's 87KWH per year, just saying.
Modern crap is typically 1W standby which is still too much if you ask me.

This is also why battery storage is still a major headache, even if every home installs a Tesla Powerwall. Homes are one small part of a much larger problem, and you won't find factory owners lining up to install ten thousand Powerwall units.

They install bigger units, some have no choice but install it.

Even within a home, heating and cooling represents almost all of electricity use (cookers, refrigerators, room heaters, A/C, water heaters, etc). Lighting and electronics use sweet fuck all compared to these.

That's a thing, the only reason why all that wasteful crap even exists is because electricity is dirt cheap, and it's dirt cheap because real costs are delayed/externalized. If people were to pay actual costs they would quickly find a way to reduce waste.

 

[fromderinside]

.....

That's a thing, the only reason why all that wasteful crap even exists is because electricity is dirt cheap, and it's dirt cheap because real costs are delayed/externalized. If people were to pay actual costs they would quickly find a way to reduce waste.

First. We wash our energy by using water power generation here in NW US.

Second, processes are most wasteful during startup and shutdown which leads to widespread use of low power standby modes for reducing initiation jerk losses in irregular demand systems. The trick is to calibrate energy flow for least overall usage while maintaining efficiency of electrical components in processes. It is bad thinking to suggest that standby is wasteful without knowledge of effects of onset and offset energy consumption and machine wear trade functions.

 

[barbos]

.....

That's a thing, the only reason why all that wasteful crap even exists is because electricity is dirt cheap, and it's dirt cheap because real costs are delayed/externalized. If people were to pay actual costs they would quickly find a way to reduce waste.

First. We wash our energy by using water power generation here in NW US.

Second, processes are most wasteful during startup and shutdown which leads to widespread use of low power standby modes for reducing initiation jerk losses in irregular demand systems. The trick is to calibrate energy flow for least overall usage while maintaining efficiency of electrical components in processes. It is bad thinking to suggest that standby is wasteful without knowledge of effects of onset and offset energy consumption and machine wear trade functions.

I have no idea what are you talking about and I think neither do you.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The conversion is easier now than then but it's still nowhere near as good as for AC.

AC transformers are rarely used in electronics, it's not economical anymore. So in a way AC lost to DC already. AC is converted to DC internally in almost all electronics.

Depends on what you care about. In most cases the cost will show up in the purchase price but the electricity used shows up to the consumer and isn't obvious. Thus showing that most electronics simply convert to DC doesn't mean it's the best from a power used standpoint.