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The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

Loren Pechtel said:
barbos said:
Loren Pechtel said:
The conversion is easier now than then but it's still nowhere near as good as for AC.
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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.
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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.
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Converting outlets to DC will save electricity for sure and prices of electronics.
 
barbos said:
I have no idea what are you talking about .....
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Obviously you never worked with large systems such as those found in aerospace manufacturing where many ilities come together over the course of a build. For instance fuselage assembly requires continuous quality maintenance over the course of a build which calls for some method(s) for assembly measurement while building.

All of these accommodations impact machine on,off, standby and working time trades to sustain process control and quality.

Many of these build assemblies are best served by proper scheduling and interactions between build and measure components over the course of piece assembly. Instead of starting and stopping individual functions are integrated increasing travel time of the piece but saving costs of stopping and risk to measurement personnel for quality assessment and tool change.

Now do you have an idea of what I'm talking about.
 
fromderinside said:
barbos said:
I have no idea what are you talking about .....
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Obviously you never worked with large systems such as those found in aerospace manufacturing where many ilities come together over the course of a build. For instance fuselage assembly requires continuous quality maintenance over the course of a build which calls for some method(s) for assembly measurement while building.

All of these accommodations impact machine on,off, standby and working time trades to sustain process control and quality.

Many of these build assemblies are best served by proper scheduling and interactions between build and measure components over the course of piece assembly. Instead of starting and stopping individual functions are integrated increasing travel time of the piece but saving costs of stopping and risk to measurement personnel for quality assessment and tool change.

Now do you have an idea of what I'm talking about.
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Sorry, no, still don't know what are you talking about and how is that relevant to standby power usage of home appliances
 
Gee. I thought that if I scaled up a bit you'd, above all, see relationships in design principles. Home appliances are quite complicated today. An iron includes monitoring and temperature controls for water heat for different materials to be properly ironed are the same kind of principles I illustrated for $400 million dollar assembly machines for integration of systems would need be analyzed to determine which path one needed to pursue to calculate overall energy consumption based on use function.

If you use one set of apps on your Iphone you need calculate one set of interacting principles to determine best way to control and use energy available. If you check your phone you will find significant variation in battery levels when one groups of apps are deployed than when another set of apps are deployed. One set of ready, or standby, is not appropriate for all sets of use requirements.

Simply put standby is not a simple judgement. Which form one applies depends on what is being supported for best, most efficient power use. And, often, quite another is better for best function performance. One needs strong rationales to chose any use plan and,for marketabilities sake they need be clearly stated.

What I find amusing in all this is that a scientist is telling an engineer what needs be done to execute best design.
 
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Wow, never thought single word ("standby") would trigger such a stream of words, sentences and consciousness.

By the way, irons don't have standby, they are supposed to be disconnected from the power socket once you are done.
standby is what computers, TV and other such electronic boxes have.
I guess you would reply with another stream.
 
fromderinside said:
Actually it is. There are settings for different temperatures which lead to different temps for water which remain on for use during ironing. You need the know more about such products before you begin your chants.

Naybobbing isn't adequate.
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You are completely wrong about everything.
 
State of Solar Power Plants - What Is Concentrating Solar Power? - "These facilities of the future are riddled with problems—but it's not too late to find fixes."
  • A new report details issues with concentrated solar as it's being implemented today.
  • This kind of report is normal, but concentrated solar is a long way from standardized and high performance installations.
  • Making "best practices" is critical to any industry and helps train workers and improve outcomes.
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noting
Futuristic Solar Plants Plagued by Glitches, Poor Training - Scientific American
Hurrying to complete plants and meet operational and financial deadlines often left crews assigned to operate the plants with too little training about how to deal with glitches.

The sprawling facilities with mirrors arrayed in the shape of large circles are referred to as concentrating solar power (CSP) projects. Their mirrors and lenses capture high temperatures needed to efficiently produce or store electricity. Almost 100 of these plants have been built around the world.
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There are two main kinds: parabolic-trough-mirror ones and tower ones. The latter ones use mirrors to reflect sunlight into the tops of their towers.

Noting
Concentrating Solar Power Best Practices Study - 75763.pdf


CSP's main competition is PV cells: PV module prices are falling faster than all predictions – pv magazine International -- pv magazine International – Photovoltaic Markets and Technology -- looks like CSP is getting beaten by PV cells.
 
The Next Energy Battle: Renewables vs. Natural Gas - The New York Times - "As coal declines and wind and solar energy rise, some are pushing to limit the use of natural gas, but utilities say they are not ready to do so."
Utilities maintain that they need to keep using natural gas because the wind and the sun are too unreliable. They are also reluctant to invest in energy storage, arguing that it would cost too much to buy batteries that can power the grid when there isn’t enough sunlight or wind.

“We’ve got to have a resource that has an ‘on’ and ‘off’ switch,” said Katharine Bond, vice president for public policy and state affairs at Dominion.
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Renewable Energy: safe, clean, unlimited energy for our future - lots of goodies

Germany plans to phase out coal after nuclear phase-out

Article by Michael Shellenberger mixes accurate and inaccurate claims in support of a misleading and overly simplistic argumentation about climate change – Climate Feedback
 
Coronavirus accelerates global shift to cheaper, more sustainable renewable energy
Houston mayor cancels Texas GOP in-person convention
Guess what? Ordering online groceries won't take a week anymore
The Hill logo Coronavirus accelerates global shift to cheaper, more sustainable renewable energy

To paraphrase a famous "anchorman," that de-escalated quickly.
Coronavirus accelerates global shift to cheaper, more sustainable renewable energy © Getty Images Coronavirus accelerates global shift to cheaper, more sustainable renewable energy

Coal suffered a historic drop in usage last year. Buyers paid producers as much as $37 per barrel of crude oil in April. The price of plastics has fallen by roughly half over the last four years.

The fossil fuel economy, which motored happily through one century, is quickly running out of steam. Gas, once considered a viable option to bridge the transition from "dirty" fossil fuels - such as coal and oil - to renewable energy, is now more likely to serve as the end of the fossil fuel era rather than the beginning of the renewable energy age.

Originally hailed as a boon both for U.S. exporters and Asian economies, liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices have hit a 10-year low. Texas energy companies have found it's cheaper to burn $750 million worth of gas than to try selling it. Also, the company that pioneered gas fracking, Chesapeake Energy Corp., filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this week.

Neither the oil nor gas industry's woes are new. But the coronavirus pandemic, which is expected to shave roughly $8 trillion from the U.S. economy over the next decade, has thrown the troubles of the energy industry into high relief, forcing companies and investors to face reality and turn toward renewables. Evidence that renewable energy and storage sectors reached a milestone was clear this May: a record-low solar tariff of $13.50 per megawatt-hour (MWh) was awarded in Abu Dhabi, which is 13 percent below the previous global record; the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approved 100 megawatts of solar generation and 50 megawatts of dispatchable battery storage for $30 per MWh; California awarded seven projects totaling 770MW of battery storage; two mega-renewable hydrogen projects worth a total of $5 billion were reported in China; and more.

Through the middle of June, U.S. wind turbines, solar panels and dams had produced more electricity than coal on 90 separate days, demolishing the previous year's record.

Momentum for renewables continued through June, when utilities in Arizona, Colorado and Florida announced plans to close coal-fired plants and replace them with renewable sources, without using any gas-fired plants as a "bridge" fuel.
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That strikes me as rather weird. What about the economics of renewable energy encourages its development in an economic slump? Is it because it does not need a lot of supply infrastructure for its "fuel"? Or are weather fluctuations much easier to cope with than fuel-market fluctuations?

I suspect that the latter may be a strong factor in the adoption of renewable energy -- and an unappreciated one at that.
 
Proposed solar farms could power 200,000 Hawaii homes | Honolulu Star-Advertiser with 3000 acres of solar panels.

Australia’s metal gurus engineer two energy-storage breakthroughs – pv magazine Australia
The need for inexpensive, fast, reliable chemistries and technologies for storing renewable energy is breaking the lithium-ion mould. Get used to the terms “beyond-LIBs”, “strain engineering” and “hydrogen-bonding metal hydrides”, and enter the labs of Professor Guoxiu Wang at the University of Technology Sydney and Professor Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou at the University of New South Wales.

Professor Aguey-Zinsou’s new technology could provide energy at 2 cents per kilowatt hour and is expected to be patented within weeks.
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There's a lot of other work on alternatives to Li-ion batteries, and there is still no clear sign of any "winners". Going lithium-free will enable independence from the small number of lithium mines in the world -- lithum-rich brines.
 
Europe's Leaked Hydrogen Strategy Is Very Ambitious | OilPrice.com
The current actual worldwide production of low-carbon hydrogen is a tiny amount. However, there is a growing activity on several fronts, with new pilot and early commercial projects appearing with unprecedented momentum until this year. They suggest how government and business will give birth to clean hydrogen markets.

Experts have noticed a shift in emphasis. Up until recently, the transport sector has been the center of focus for clean hydrogen, ...

But the area of activity is expanding beyond transport. Governments and companies are working together to ramp up green hydrogen with projects in key end-use technologies and low-carbon production. Although the starting point is low, new projects are for large scale deployment of electrolysers of a hundred megawatts. They have applications in heavy industry, chemical production, heat for cities, and the all-important area of energy storage.
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Also, hydrogen can be distributed in natural-gas pipelines and stored in natural-gas fashion, though one needs more refrigeration for H2 than for CH4.

Pollinator-friendly solar energy becomes the norm in Minnesota | MPR News
The environmental benefits of Connexus Energy's solar-plus-storage project are obvious enough, but this time of year, you'll notice something more: prairie grasses and flowers planted under and around the sea of solar panels.

Pollinator-friendly plantings at large solar energy sites have become common in Minnesota in recent years. Not only do they provide habitat for the bee and butterfly populations people have been concerned about, but they also promote soil health and probably even boost the solar panels' electricity output on warm days.
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Yet more agrivoltaics, as it's called. It also answers a common criticism of solar-energy development -- all the land it needs. Solar panels on roofs and canopies also do that I must add. Solar canopies make MUCH more sense than solar roadways, I must say.
 
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/biden-unveils-ambitious-climate-plan-in-new-contrast-with-trump/

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White House hopeful Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious climate change plan that would revamp the US energy sector and seek to achieve carbon pollution-free power in just 15 years.
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“Transforming the American electrical sector to produce power without producing carbon pollution… will be the greatest spurring of job creation and economic competitiveness in the 21st century,” Biden said.

“That’s why we’re going to achieve a carbon pollution-free electric sector by the year 2035.”
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Biden pledged to spend $2 trillion over four years to promote his plan, according to The Washington Post, a dramatic acceleration of the $1.7 trillion he had proposed to spend over 10 years in his climate plan during the primary race.
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This is a pleasant surprise. A good reason to vote for Biden other than he is not Trump.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/biden-unveils-ambitious-climate-plan-in-new-contrast-with-trump/

...
White House hopeful Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious climate change plan that would revamp the US energy sector and seek to achieve carbon pollution-free power in just 15 years.
...
“Transforming the American electrical sector to produce power without producing carbon pollution… will be the greatest spurring of job creation and economic competitiveness in the 21st century,” Biden said.

“That’s why we’re going to achieve a carbon pollution-free electric sector by the year 2035.”
...
Biden pledged to spend $2 trillion over four years to promote his plan, according to The Washington Post, a dramatic acceleration of the $1.7 trillion he had proposed to spend over 10 years in his climate plan during the primary race.
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This is a pleasant surprise. A good reason to vote for Biden other than he is not Trump.
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That article was a little short on details, don't you think? And no carbon pollution? Ridiculous. I'd be curious to see who came up with this plan. The fact that Biden has selected AOC as a co-chair on his climate change staff is pretty telling. Were there actually any scientists and engineers involved who have expertise in the subject matter?
 
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