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The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

aupmanyav said:
The people who have voted for the current national government. That is not a big issue in India. A party proposing cutting down on nuclear development will not win in India. We have neighbors like China and Pakistan.
Yes, there are attempts by Western Christian organizations to create unrest in India under various guises. The current government knows how to handle that.
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I don't know much about Indian politics. But do they know how to handle the Woke? More specifically, do they know how to handle self-proclaimed environmentalists who have plenty of support in the West, plenty of resources for preaching, and try really hard improve the environment with methods one should expect will damage the environment? I hope so.
 
10 hrs. and 19 min. of day light today. In monsoon, it is not that there are clouds all the time. Most of India keeps waiting for rains, many a times they don't come. In Delhi, our area (West) gets the least rainfall, though rains are copious in South Delhi. Typhoon frequency is not very high (not like in West Indies). And we have large empty regions in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, where solar energy plants can be put up. In brief, India has good potential for solar-energy with lowering of cost of chips.
 
Australian cattle feed invention equal to taking '100 million cars off the road' wins international prize

An Australian company was recently awarded a $1 million international prize for creating eco-friendly cattle feed that is said to be "equivalent to taking 100 million cars off the road."

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)'s affiliate company Future Feed developed a cattle feed with seaweed that cuts down on the amount of greenhouse gases the animals emit into the atmosphere, according to Australian outlet ABC News.

The organization garnered recognition and was awarded the Food Planet Prize for its innovation, which Future Feed director Michael Battaglia said can virtually eliminate methane from cattle's bodies.

"We know that just a handful [of the product] per animal per day, or 0.2 percent of their diet can virtually eliminate 99.9 percent of methane," Battaglia said.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that has been proven to be the second-largest contributor to global warming.
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Fart free cows. I'm sure Devin Nunes would approve.

Maybe even get some for Rudy Giuliani.
 
ZiprHead said:
Australian cattle feed invention equal to taking '100 million cars off the road' wins international prize

An Australian company was recently awarded a $1 million international prize for creating eco-friendly cattle feed that is said to be "equivalent to taking 100 million cars off the road."

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)'s affiliate company Future Feed developed a cattle feed with seaweed that cuts down on the amount of greenhouse gases the animals emit into the atmosphere, according to Australian outlet ABC News.

The organization garnered recognition and was awarded the Food Planet Prize for its innovation, which Future Feed director Michael Battaglia said can virtually eliminate methane from cattle's bodies.

"We know that just a handful [of the product] per animal per day, or 0.2 percent of their diet can virtually eliminate 99.9 percent of methane," Battaglia said.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that has been proven to be the second-largest contributor to global warming.
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Fart free cows. I'm sure Devin Nunes would approve.

Maybe even get some for Rudy Giuliani.
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Cows don't fart much methane. It's generated in the rumen, and is released through the mouth by burping, not through the arse as farts.

I know that's probably going to sound like a pointless nitpick, but this is the science forum, and so I feel that accuracy is important here.
 
Shazam! Garden State Transforms Self Into Offshore Wind Superhero
New Jersey is known for many things, and now you can add offshore wind to the list. The Garden State has nailed down the coveted position of monopile supplier to the US offshore wind industry, which will soon pepper the waters of the Atlantic coast with wind turbines, each sitting on its own monopile to anchor it firmly to the sea bed. If you’re thinking green jobs, hold on to your hats.

...
The new facility will take shape at the Paulsboro Marine Terminal in Gloucester County, at Lower Alloways Creek off the Delaware River, where no bridges will interfere with the transportation route.

According to some ways of reckoning, the Paulsboro Marine Terminal is part of the Port of Philadelphia, but it looks like New Jersey is not in a mood to share bragging rights to the new monopile facility with Pennsylvania.

Among other benefits, access to ground transportation, supply chains and skilled labor is handy, risk of storm-related disruptions is lower than a coastal location would be, and the existing marine terminal provides a head start on permits and construction.

They’re not fooling around. Construction on the $250 million facility will start in January, which is right around the corner, bringing new construction jobs to the state at a time the nation is reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.
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Dominion files plans for largest offshore wind project in the US | TheHill
A 2.64-GW offshore wind farm near Virginia Beach VA

EU ends funding for natural-gas pipelines with shift to power and hydrogen | Recharge
Natural-gas pipelines will be banned from receiving EU energy infrastructure funding, with the money instead being focused on electricity grids, offshore wind power lines and clean-hydrogen networks, according to new rules unveiled on Tuesday by the European Commission.
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All the buzz I'm seeing around hydrogen I find most heartening. It's another piece of the puzzle.

Scientists Turn CO2 into Jet Fuel, Paving New Avenue for Carbon Neutral Aviation and Colony on Mars
noting
Transforming carbon dioxide into jet fuel using an organic combustion-synthesized Fe-Mn-K catalyst | Nature Communications
In short, the Fischer-Tropsch process:

(x)CO2 + (2+y/2)H2 -> (2x)H2O + CxHy

It uses atmospheric CO2, making its use carbon-neutral.

So happy to see this progress in synfuels.
 
World's largest off-shore wind farm to welcome the first 14-MW turbine
"Once complete, Dogger Bank will have a capacity of 3.6 GW and be the largest wind farm in the world, providing the UK with five percent of its total energy needs."

Abu Dhabi secures funding to build world’s largest solar power plant
The plant will be located around 35km from Abu Dhabi city, will have capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW) and will supply power to the Emirates Water and Electricity Co. (EWEC).

When complete, Al-Dhafra Solar PV IPP will be the world’s largest single-site solar power plant, using approximately 4 million solar panels to generate enough electricity for approximately 160,000 homes across the UAE.
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Be water: Japan's big, lonely bet on hydrogen - Nikkei Asia

The batteries that could make fossil fuels obsolete - BBC Future
The advent of "big battery" technology addresses a key challenge for green energy – the intermittency of wind and solar.

The twin smokestacks of the Moss Landing Power Plant tower over Monterey Bay. Visible for miles along this picturesque stretch of the north Californian coast, the 500-foot-tall (150m) pillars crown what was once California's largest electric power station – a behemoth natural gas-fired generator. Today, as California steadily moves to decarbonise its economy, those stacks are idle and the plant is largely mothballed. Instead, the site is about to begin a new life as the world's largest battery, storing excess energy when solar panels and wind farms are producing electricity and feeding it back into the grid when they're not.

Inside a cavernous turbine building, a 300-megawatt lithium-ion battery is currently being readied for operation, with another 100-megawatt battery to come online in 2021.
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Another 182.5 MW of batteries is scheduled to go online there next year, adding to that expected 400 MW. Also, 250 MW in San Diego, 150 MW u.c. in San Francisco, 100 MW u.c. in Long Beach near LA, and elsewhere in California.

Plans include a 316 MW system in New York, 409 MW in S Florida, 320 MW in London UK, 200 MW in Lithuania, 112 MW in Chile.
 
EU Funds Demonstration of First Vessel with Ammonia-Powered Fuel Cell

After decades of activism, the Navajo coal plant has been demolished - Vox
The three 775-foot smokestacks of the 2,250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station (NGS) — the West’s largest coal plant — were demolished December 18, symbolically marking the end of coal’s dominance in a region where renewable energy sources like wind and solar have become far cheaper.

The Salt River Project (SRP), majority owners and operators of NGS, decided to close the plant in 2017 due to rising operating costs. Scott Harelson, a spokesperson for SRP, told me, “Natural gas prices had been low for a long period of time and are much lower than coal. So the plant was out of market, essentially.”
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Good riddance to that dirty fuel.

Biden Announces Climate Team, Including Gina McCarthy, Deb Haaland and Michael Regan - The New York Times - "The president-elect said he has chosen a team that prioritizes making clean energy jobs and environmental protection a cornerstone of his economic plans."
A top lieutenant will be Gina McCarthy, former President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator who Mr. Biden has tapped to head a new White House Office of Climate Policy.

The group includes progressives like Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico, Mr. Biden’s choice to lead the Department of the Interior and a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, and establishment figures like Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan who Mr. Biden selected to be Energy secretary.
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Great job so far. Let's see how much it can do. I'm concerned that the Biden presidency may turn out much like the Clinton and the Obama ones: lots of nice talk at the beginning but poor followup and the Republicans dominating. Complete with the President acting remarkably meek toward them.
 
Windfarms in Great Britain break record for clean power generation | Wind power | The Guardian - "Forty per cent of Friday’s electricity was generated in windfarms thanks to blustery winter weather"

Denmark reveals its Green Hydrogen Hub to support its renewable energy transition
The companies will be including a 350 MW electrolysis plant in this plan, in addition to a 200,000 MW hydrogen storage facility, as well as several industrial H2 customers with a 320 MW Compressed-Air-Energy-Storage (CAES) facility. The Green Hydrogen Hub Denmark (GHH) was described as the final link to this value chain. That facility will have the capacity to re-convert the green H2 into usable electricity. In this way, they intend to boost the supply security of the project.
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MW or MWh for the storage? Seems like a good way of getting around the intermittency problem.

Yara planning 500 kton/year green ammonia project in Norway - Green Car Congress
Ammonia’s chemical properties make it suited for the hydrogen economy. It does not require cooling to extreme temperatures, and has a higher energy density than liquid hydrogen (3.75 kWh/liter vs. 2.0 kWh/liter and 5.22 kWh/kg vs. 33.33 kWh/kg), making it more efficient to transport and store. Ammonia (NH3) is therefore the most promising hydrogen carrier and zero-carbon shipping fuel.
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It is also MUCH easier to liquefy. Hydrogen has a boiling point of 20 K (1 bar) and a critical point of 33 K. That means that hydrogen cannot be liquefied at temperatures greater than -240 C without a *lot* of pressure. Higher than the critical point, it doesn't jump from gas to liquid but gradually fades between the two states. Ammonia's boiling point is -33 C (1 bar) and its critical point is 132 C. Though its boiling point is still low relative to familiar temperatures, it is not much lower, and its critical point is higher than familiar temperatures.

But ammonia has a strong smell, one that will make leaks of it very apparent.
 
New form of solar energy to enter US market - ABC News
Organic energy is getting a jolt with the launch of GO-OPV's ORENgE system in North America.

Organic energy uses a thin film panel to capture the sun's rays and converts it to power, similar to traditional solar power.
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Its home page: HOME | GO-OPV
It linked to: ORENgE Power

These are thin-film organic photovoltaic cells that can be placed on windows and the like. Instead of tinted-glass windows, we can have PV-sheet-on-glass windows.

Renewable energy capacity to set new record in 2020: Report - ABC News - "Renewable energy capacity is expected to increase by 4% this year globally, according to the International Energy Agency's Renewables 2020 report."

Continued exponential increase means a 50% increase by 2030. But recovery from COVID-19 will likely make it even faster.
 
lpetrich said:
New form of solar energy to enter US market - ABC News
Organic energy is getting a jolt with the launch of GO-OPV's ORENgE system in North America.

Organic energy uses a thin film panel to capture the sun's rays and converts it to power, similar to traditional solar power.
Click to expand...
Its home page: HOME | GO-OPV
It linked to: ORENgE Power

These are thin-film organic photovoltaic cells that can be placed on windows and the like. Instead of tinted-glass windows, we can have PV-sheet-on-glass windows.

Renewable energy capacity to set new record in 2020: Report - ABC News - "Renewable energy capacity is expected to increase by 4% this year globally, according to the International Energy Agency's Renewables 2020 report."

Continued exponential increase means a 50% increase by 2030. But recovery from COVID-19 will likely make it even faster.
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...and continued exponential increase also means that by 3030, renewable energy will produce more power than the total output of the Sun.

If you can't see why that's roughly equally probable as an outcome, as your 50% increase by 2030, then I can't help you.

Assuming ongoing exponential growth is, frankly, dumb.
 
There has been a lot of research in technology adoption curves. Like:
From the last one: "A combination of an exponential decrease in cost and an exponential increase in production would make Moore's law and Wright's law indistinguishable, as originally pointed out by Sahal. We show for the first time that these regularities are observed in data to such a degree that the performance of these two laws is nearly the same."

These links have plots of adoption curves of various technologies:
For all the older ones, growth eventually stopped, as a result of market saturation. Like adoption fractions reaching 100%.

Growth hasn't stopped for wind turbines and solar panels, and their growth has so far been approximately exponential, much like many previous technologies.
 
lpetrich said:
There has been a lot of research in technology adoption curves. Like:
From the last one: "A combination of an exponential decrease in cost and an exponential increase in production would make Moore's law and Wright's law indistinguishable, as originally pointed out by Sahal. We show for the first time that these regularities are observed in data to such a degree that the performance of these two laws is nearly the same."

These links have plots of adoption curves of various technologies:
For all the older ones, growth eventually stopped, as a result of market saturation. Like adoption fractions reaching 100%.

Growth hasn't stopped for wind turbines and solar panels, and their growth has so far been approximately exponential, much like many previous technologies.
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But the markets are already over saturated for intermittent power. It's only profitable because it's supported by guaranteeing high wholesale prices for renewables, even when they are selling into markets where the wholesale price of freely traded generation is very low, or even negative.

That you can profit by selling wind power in Germany when the wholesale electricity price is less than €0, indicates only that the markets are not able to signal their demand for less intermittent power, as a result of political decisions to disregard market and engineering realities.

These distortions also massively favour natural gas, leading to the paradoxical situation that more renewable capacity means more carbon dioxide emissions.

But nobody cares, because it's easy for the voters to believe that wind power is clean, and very hard for them to understand why it is not.

Market saturation cannot occur until there's a market to saturate. Right now, there are vanishingly few places where wind or solar power are expected to compete on their actual merits - and those places are not profitable places to build such generators.

Meanwhile, generation that would be genuinely profitable in a free market are pushed out, leaving a grid that's more expensive, higher carbon, less reliable, and more expensive to manage than it should have been.

Energiewende has failed massively. Germany and Denmark have the most expensive and least reliable electricity in Europe, and are far from the lowest emitters of Carbon Dioxide. Indeed both nations depend on importing power from France, which has by FAR the lowest carbon emissions from electricity generation in the EU.
 
Problem with all your common sense bilby is that humans have very little of it. No pragmatic solution will ever outsell the attractive speculation. I'm amazed we developed written language. I believe that came about out of competition between attractive solutions and least labor solutions. Nothing better that expecting to pay a nickel and realize you only need a penny. (for language it apparently worked)

I expect the German solution (paying a penny) will prove the value of your notion (winding up with nuclear because it is the only way out) though. I expect Japan will come to that conclusion in time as well.

Obviously I'm not disagreeing with you at all bilby except to the extent I take account of human nature.
 
fromderinside said:
Problem with all your common sense bilby is that humans have very little of it. No pragmatic solution will ever outsell the attractive speculation. I'm amazed we developed written language. I believe that came about out of competition between attractive solutions and least labor solutions. Nothing better that expecting to pay a nickel and realize you only need a penny. (for language it apparently worked)

I expect the German solution (paying a penny) will prove the value of your notion (winding up with nuclear because it is the only way out) though. I expect Japan will come to that conclusion in time as well.

Obviously I'm not disagreeing with you at all bilby except to the extent I take account of human nature.
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The problem being that the decisions on where to spend government funds for energy development is being made by government bureaucrats. They know little to nothing about the energy industry so their primary concern is what currently plays best politically. The public has been conditioned to believe anything "renewable" is good, anything nuclear is bad, and fossil fuels will destroy the Earth. Aiming for popular political approval, the bureaucrats will opt to fund what the public has been conditioned to like.

The decision would most likely be different if made by experts in energy production rather than politicians.
 
Really?

Do you know to whom energy production experts are subservient? Where do you think Coal and Petroleum industry get their experts. Its not as if they were like academicians where objective productivity is front and center.

Don't hurt yourself trying to get this answer right.
 
A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending an Industry - The New York Times - "G.E.’s giant machine, which can light up a small town, is stoking a renewable-energy arms race."

Nice to see it getting into a mainstream publication like that. It has an illustration of how big that wind turbine is.

GE Haliade-X 13MW - diameter 220 m, 722 ft, height (blade top) 260 m, 853 ft.
The turbine is capable of producing as much thrust as the four engines of a Boeing 747 jet, according to G.E. will be deployed at sea, where developers have learned that they can plant larger and more numerous turbines than on land to capture breezes that are stronger and more reliable.

The race to build bigger turbines has moved faster than many industry figures foresaw. G.E.’s Haliade-X generates almost 30 times more electricity than the first offshore machines installed off Denmark in 1991.
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Will they reach some maximum size? Some size that going beyond it is not very economically feasible. Like the Airbus A380 airliner.
 
Renewable Shares | Energy-Charts
2002 T 10%, W 3% S 0%
2020 T 50% W 27% S 10%
T = total, W = wind, S = solar

Scotland Banks On Hydrogen Fuel Cell Trains For Zero Emission Railway

Wisconsin witnessing rapid transition to solar energy | Free | apg-wi.com - in US state Wisconsin
New solar installations nationwide are expected to increase 43 percent from 2019 to a record 19 gigawatts of capacity installed in 2020, according to projections from the Solar Energy Industries Association. Solar also accounted for 43 percent of all new electricity generating capacity added this year.

The state currently has 20 solar farms under active development that will generate more than 2.2 gigawatts of power, according to Michael Vickerman, policy director for RENEW Wisconsin. Vickerman said that's enough capacity to account for roughly 7 percent of the state's annual electricity use.
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US consumes more green energy than coal for first time since 1885 - Electrek
 
If we want hydrogen to live up to its promise, let's get it right from the start | Greenbiz
There is broad consensus that green hydrogen can help us meet our climate goals. But hydrogen’s ability to play a role in cleaning up the economy hinges on its own production being clean, and there’s much work to be done to get us there. Carbon-free "green hydrogen" can be produced by using renewable power to split water into hydrogen and water in electrolyzers.

Green hydrogen is 4 to 6 times more expensive than fossil hydrogen and makes up less 1 percent of U.S. hydrogen production.

But there’s hope: This year’s global commitments are projected to significantly reduce costs and could bring green hydrogen to cost parity by as early as 2030 thanks to economies of scale and dirt-cheap renewable energy. In fact, the massive deployment targets in the European Commission’s hydrogen plan alone could drive costs of electrolyzers by 2030 to levels below those previously projected for 2050 and beyond.
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Does the world need hydrogen to solve climate change? | Carbon Brief
Hydrogen could help tackle “critical” hard-to-abate sectors, such as steel and long-distance transport, says Timur Gül, head of the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) energy technology division and lead on its major 2019 report on the future of hydrogen. He tells Carbon Brief:

“I think hydrogen has its place, has quite an important place…but I think if you’re aiming towards net-zero emissions, you don’t look for building a hydrogen economy, you look for a decarbonised energy sector. It’s a means to an end.”

Hydrogen can be made by splitting water with electricity – electrolysis – or by splitting fossil fuels or biomass with heat or steam, using “reforming” or “pyrolysis”. Any CO2 can be captured and stored.

Hydrogen can be stored, liquified and transported via pipelines, trucks or ships. And it can be used to make fertiliser, fuel vehicles, heat homes, generate electricity or drive heavy industry.
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