The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[lpetrich]

I'm sure that economies of scale will drive down the cost of electrolysis hydrogen as more and more of it gets produced.

Hydrogen is essential for making synthetic fuels, and establishing a firm base of productive capacity will be very useful for that. It will mean one less weak link. From  Heat of combustion and some other Wikipedia articles,
[table="class:grid"]
[tr][th]Fuel[/th][th]MJ/kg[/th][th]MJ/L[/th][th="colspan:2"]Boiling Point[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Hydrogen[/td][td]119.96[/td][td]8.52[/td][td]−252.879 C[/td][td]20.271 K[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Methane[/td][td]50.00[/td][td]21.14[/td][td]-161.5 C[/td][td]111.6 K[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Kerosene[/td][td]43.00[/td][td]34.18[/td][td="colspan:2"](liquid at room temp)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Methanol[/td][td]19.93[/td][td]15.78[/td][td]64.7 C[/td][td]337.8 K[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Ammonia[/td][td]18.65[/td][td]12.72[/td][td]-33.34 C[/td][td]239.81 K[/td][/tr]
[/table]
Numbers are Lower Heating Value numbers (water vaporized). Higher ones are for water staying luqid.

Germany’s solar boom set to continue in 2021 – pv magazine International - "From PV panels to solar storage and solar collectors, rooftop installations grew 25% in Germany this year as due to increasing consumer demand for greater energy independence, lower solar tech prices, improved subsidy conditions and the rising popularity of electric cars. A further increase in solar technology expansion targets is expected to meet climate targets and avoid electricity shortfalls, according to the German Solar Association."

 

[bilby]

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.

Will they reach some maximum size? Some size that going beyond it is not very economically feasible. Like the Airbus A380 airliner.

They reached that size about twenty years ago.

But we live in a post factual society. So nobody gives a crap.

 

[lpetrich]

Will they reach some maximum size? Some size that going beyond it is not very economically feasible. Like the Airbus A380 airliner.

They reached that size about twenty years ago.

But we live in a post factual society. So nobody gives a crap.

Airliners or wind turbines?

 List of large aircraft - the Airbus A380 (introduced 2005, MTOW 575 t) is the heaviest airliner in service and the An-225 Mriya (int. 1968, MTOW 660 t) the heaviest air vehicle in service. MTOW = maximum takeoff weight

 

[lpetrich]

Aircraft are a relatively mature technology - their size rose relatively fast at first, then slowed down roughly over 1950 - 1960, and now has pretty much leveled off.

For wind turbines, I've found The trend for a permanent increase in the size of wind turbines unfolds and World’s Most Powerful Offshore Wind Platform: Haliade-X | GE Renewable Energy - their size and power rating increased relatively fast over 1980 - 2005, then slowed down to the present. But the Haliade-X continues the trend of size increase.

There is likely some maximum practical size of a wind turbine, but we don't seem to have gotten there yet.

 

[ZiprHead]

KOREA’S ARTIFICIAL SUN BROKE A RECORD, BLAZING HOTTER THAN THE CORE OF THE REAL SUN

If our species does flee into the colder reaches of space by then, we might be able to keep from freezing to death. Korea has done the seemingly impossible by running its artificial sun nuclear fusion reactor, Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) at a scorching 212 million degrees Fahrenheit for 20 seconds. That is the same temperature as the core of the Sun—its hottest part. Maybe 20 seconds doesn’t seem like much, but for a technology we're just starting to get a grip on, this is huge.

“In its 2020 experiment, the KSTAR improved the performance of the Internal Transport Barrier (ITB) mode, one of the next-generation plasma operation modes developed last year, and succeeded in maintaining the plasma state for a long period of time, overcoming the existing limits of the ultra-high-temperature plasma operation,” said KSTAR authorities in a statement.

Think of a tokamak as a power plant on steroids. Instead of using fossil fuels or nuclear fission (the splitting of atomic nuclei) to generate power, it uses nuclear fusion (the smashing together of atomic nuclei) to generate energy. Nuclear fusion is possible when the nuclei of two elements with a low number of protons merge to form the nucleus of a heavier element that can release more energy. Tokamaks have a toroidal (donut-shaped) chamber where nuclear fusion happens, and its walls absorb the heat that is released. The tokamak will then use turbines and generators to turn this heat into steam, which will eventually be morphed into electricity.

 

[bilby]

KOREA’S ARTIFICIAL SUN BROKE A RECORD, BLAZING HOTTER THAN THE CORE OF THE REAL SUN

If our species does flee into the colder reaches of space by then, we might be able to keep from freezing to death. Korea has done the seemingly impossible by running its artificial sun nuclear fusion reactor, Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) at a scorching 212 million degrees Fahrenheit for 20 seconds. That is the same temperature as the core of the Sun—its hottest part. Maybe 20 seconds doesn’t seem like much, but for a technology we're just starting to get a grip on, this is huge.

“In its 2020 experiment, the KSTAR improved the performance of the Internal Transport Barrier (ITB) mode, one of the next-generation plasma operation modes developed last year, and succeeded in maintaining the plasma state for a long period of time, overcoming the existing limits of the ultra-high-temperature plasma operation,” said KSTAR authorities in a statement.

Think of a tokamak as a power plant on steroids. Instead of using fossil fuels or nuclear fission (the splitting of atomic nuclei) to generate power, it uses nuclear fusion (the smashing together of atomic nuclei) to generate energy. Nuclear fusion is possible when the nuclei of two elements with a low number of protons merge to form the nucleus of a heavier element that can release more energy. Tokamaks have a toroidal (donut-shaped) chamber where nuclear fusion happens, and its walls absorb the heat that is released. The tokamak will then use turbines and generators to turn this heat into steam, which will eventually be morphed into electricity.

The only genuine and usable advantage fusion has over fission as a power source is that it doesn't work yet. This makes it no threat to the wind and solar dupes, or their paymasters in the fossil fuel sector.

If it ever does work, it will be far more expensive than fission, and will have no substantial benefits to offset that expense.

As a power source for this century, it's a red herring. If we are to reduce carbon emissions, fission is the only viable option.

 

[Bomb#20]

The only genuine and usable advantage fusion has over fission as a power source is that it doesn't work yet.

It turns a higher fraction of its fuel mass into energy; this should ultimately make it more practical than fission for powering starships.

If it ever does work, it will be far more expensive than fission, and will have no substantial benefits to offset that expense.

Well, it hasn't got a mass movement of faux-environmentalists trying to stop it. (Oh, never mind, it will probably get one as soon as it's made to work...)

As a power source for this century, it's a red herring. If we are to reduce carbon emissions, fission is the only viable option.

Oh, well, yeah, that.

 

[lpetrich]

Gov. Wolf Announces Largest Government Solar Energy Commitment in the U.S.

Governor Tom Wolf announced today a major clean energy initiative that will produce nearly 50 percent of state government’s electricity through seven new solar energy arrays totaling 191-megawatts to be built around the state. Part of the governor’s GreenGov initiative, Pennsylvania PULSE (Project to Utilize Light and Solar Energy) will go into operation on January 1, 2023. The project is the largest solar commitment by any government in the U.S. announced to date.

Hydrogen Rivalry Intensifies With South Korea Challenging Europe - BNN Bloomberg

German steel company commissions wind-powered hydrogen project

The three blast furnaces in operation at SALCOS will be gradually replaced by a combination of direct reduction plants and electric arc furnaces. This method aims to achieve almost CO2-free steel production in the long term. Such a transformation of steel production could reduce CO2 emissions by around 95% by 2050, according to a press release.

Direct reduction: using hydrogen to reduce iron ore instead of carbon from coal.

 

[lpetrich]

Powerhouse reports great progress at its waste-to-hydrogen site in Poland; looks for future expansion opportunities

Powerhouse Energy’s DMG® technology, which converts waste plastic into syngas and/or hydrogen, will soon be running in Poland.

...
With that agreement now well underway, Yeo said progress has been so satisfactory that the first plants there may be commissioned within a similar time frame to those in the UK.

In light of the encouraging progress, Powerhouse now intends to examine market conditions in other European countries and extend its footprint even further.

So one won't need to sort waste plastic by chemical composition. I think that a little bit of that could be done, for the easier cases, with the rest of the plastic being gasified;.;

Nottinghamshire's West Burton A power station to close in 2022 - BBC News - "One of Britain's two remaining coal-fired power stations is to close, its owners have announced."

Why Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Won’t Help Counter the Climate Crisis | EWG Next Level Energy
Rather skeptical about whether small nuclear reactors will be cost-effective. Economies of scale favor large reactors, and the advocates of small ones hope to overcome this difficulty with mass production.

The track record so far points to the same kind of dismal economic failure for SMRs as their larger cousins. Figure 2 shows the capital cost escalation for the proposed NuScale reactor and actual costs of two foreign SMRs. As a result, the total cost of a proposed project in Idaho using the NuScale design has already risen from around $3 billion, in 2015, to $6.1 billion, in 2020, long before any concrete has been poured.

...
Water use is another concern that is expected to intensify in the future. Nuclear plants have very high water withdrawal requirements. A single 300 MW reactor operating at 90 percent capacity factor would withdraw 160 million to 390 million gallons of water every day, heating it up before discharge. Reducing the demand for water by using air cooling will require the addition of a tower and large electric fans *– further raising the construction cost and reducing output of electricity by up to 7 percent of the capacity of the reactor.

 

[lpetrich]

World’s First Zero-Emission Wind and Hydrogen Power Cargo Ship

The ship concept has the project name “With Orca” - Powered by Nature, as a significant part of the energy required to operate the vessel will be harvested directly from nature through two large rotor sails. The plan calls for the vessel to sail mostly in open waters in the North Sea, where wind conditions are optimal for wind-assisted propulsion.

The wind energy will be in addition to a hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine. The design concepts, which will be further developed in 2021, call for the hydrogen to be stored aboard the vessel in compressed form

Seems like it will have two vertical wind turbines instead of sails.


Renewables met 97% of Scotland's 2020 electricity demand, new figures reveal | The National


Kansas GOP Split Over Anti-Wind Bill

Wind became Kansas’ biggest electricity source in 2019, providing about 41% of the state’s portfolio. The bill’s sponsor is State Senate Utilities Committee Chairman Mike Thompson, a retired TV weatherman, climate denier, and renewable energy critic.

If passed, the measure would be “the most wind-unfriendly legislation in the entire Wind Belt,” Dave Kerr, a former Republican Kansas Senate president, told E&E.

All Eyes On Diesel-Killing Hydrogen Fuel Cell Locomotive in California

Dirty diesel fuel still holds a tight grip on the nation’s heavy duty transportation sector, but it looks like railway companies are finally poised to break free. In the latest development, Sierra Northern Railway just nailed a $4 million grant to build a zero emission switcher locomotive powered with a hydrogen fuel cell. If all goes according to plan, all 760 switcher and short-haul locomotives in the state could ditch diesel, and the switcheroo could ripple across the entire railroad industry. As for the hydrogen angle, that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.

...
In addition to the hydrogen fuel cell and storage systems, the hydrogen fuel cell locomotive will sport battery-type energy storage and advanced control systems. It will serve as a real world, real-time data collection platform to assess performance and cost, with an eye on rapid decarbonization “in the immediate future,” as Sierra Northern tells it.

To put the potential for scale in context, Sierra Northern operates on about 75 miles of track in California. Another leading US rail company, Norfolk Southern, claims 19,500 route miles in 22 states and District of Columbia under its belt, with 3,400 locomotives rolling on the rails.

Good to see all this synfuels work.

Production of hydrogen is the first step in producing ammonia and easily liquefiable hydrocarbons like gasoline and kerosene and oxyhydrocarbons like methanol.

 

[lpetrich]

Hydrogen Folly Grows: 55% Used In Oil Refineries — Demand Will Drop, Not Rise - "Governmental expenditures on hydrogen are very useful, in other words, but should be very carefully targeted to where they actually add value, which is almost entirely in displacing black and gray hydrogen in non-oil and gas markets with green hydrogen."

The 3 Big Problems With Hydrogen Hype

As Mike Barnard, Mark Z. Jacobson, and others have explained, there are places where green hydrogen is useful (steel production and ammonia production, for example), but this is not what’s sucking up hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and limiting funding for more critical zero-emissions energy and transportation tech.

The problem is that powerful oil & gas companies, through their PR and lobbying teams as well as their C-suites, are getting governments to shovel money into this hydrogen furnace. And this money comes from government spending pools earmarked for climate action that should be going to companies, projects, and technologies that lead on cutting climate pollution.

Seems like they are trying to keep themselves in business no matter what. If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.


Yara Kickstarts Green Ammonia Industry With Green Hydrogen

Whelp, that was fast. Just a couple of months ago the US Department of Energy launched a venture aimed at teasing farmers into the green ammonia market with an assist from distributed wind power and it all seemed rather pie-in-the-sky, but now here comes the global firm Yara with a green ammonia project in Norway that is similar, but different, and much, much, much bigger.

Green ammonia is part and parcel of the green hydrogen economy that many are talking about these days. Both ammonia and hydrogen are ubiquitous industrial chemicals as well as fuels. They are also climate-killers because they are mainly sourced from natural gas (and coal in some places, such as China).

...
Once you have green hydrogen in hand, it’s only one more baby step to get green ammonia, by capturing nitrogen from the air and combining it with hydrogen.

The Haber-Bosch process, in use for over a century.

An alternative is producing ammonia directly with electrolysis.

As a fuel, ammonia is roughly comparable to methanol and less than half as energy dense as hydrocarbons.

• Ammonia (NH3): 22.48 MJ/kg
• Methanol (CH3OH): 22.65 MJ/kg
• Hydrocarbons ([CH2]): 48 MJ/kg

From Heat of combustion in The Engineering Toolbox site

 

[lpetrich]

Hydrogen is Big Oil’s Last Grand Scam

Green Hydrogen, Waste Hydrogen Both In Play For Rapid Decarbonization

Indian Solar Developer Plans Foray Into Green Hydrogen


Naomi Klein: Conservatives Are TERRIFIED Of A Green New Deal - YouTube
Starting around 21:10, NK states something interesting about the economics of renewable energy. Its use is much less centralized than fossil-fuel use -- no need to extract it at some location then transport it long distances and process it if necessary. That leads to monopolies or oligopolies. Wind energy, solar energy, etc. are essentially everywhere, and are thus decentralized by their nature.

Fossil fuels thus lead to political oligarchies; NK called Texas a "petrostate" around 21:08. Host Sam Seder then mentioned a Swedish economist, Andreas Malm(?), who wrote a book, "Fossil Capital". SS then claimed that the investor class prefers big projects to small ones.

NK then noted that there is a big lobby that supports nuclear energy, a lobby that she claims often lies about renewables. NK then speculated that the reason is that nuclear energy production has the same sort of ownership structure as fossil-fuel energy production. Very expensive, resource extraction usually far away, continual need for new fuel, etc. NK then noted that AM noted that this made fossil fuels a hard sell in the early days of the Industrial Revolution - one has to keep buying them, as opposed to not needing to do so for watermills. But fossil fuels had the advantage of enabling industrialists to move their factories to wherever the industrialists wanted.

Verso Books - Fossil Capital

Fossil Capital
The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming
by Andreas Malm

How capitalism first promoted fossil fuels with the rise of steam power

The more we know about the catastrophic implications of climate change, the more fossil fuels we burn. How did we end up in this mess?

In this masterful new history, Andreas Malm claims it all began in Britain with the rise of steam power. But why did manufacturers turn from traditional sources of power, notably water mills, to an engine fired by coal? Contrary to established views, steam offered neither cheaper nor more abundant energy—but rather superior control of subordinate labour. Animated by fossil fuels, capital could concentrate production at the most profitable sites and during the most convenient hours, as it continues to do today. Sweeping from nineteenth-century Manchester to the emissions explosion in China, from the original triumph of coal to the stalled shift to renewables, this study hones in on the burning heart of capital and demonstrates, in unprecedented depth, that turning down the heat will mean a radical overthrow of the current economic order.

 

[steve_bank]

The problem with hydrogen ism efficiency.

I worked on a request for quote from someone interested in having commercial windmills crete hysdrogen as a back up for low wind.

We would nave built the power inverters to go from fuel cells to mains voltage. It was not feasible. The idea was they would tap off a little power tp create hydrogen. Turned out they would need multiple turbines just to make hydrogen.

 

[skepticalbip]

The problem with hydrogen ism efficiency.

I worked on a request for quote from someone interested in having commercial windmills crete hysdrogen as a back up for low wind.

We would nave built the power inverters to go from fuel cells to mains voltage. It was not feasible. The idea was they would tap off a little power tp create hydrogen. Turned out they would need multiple turbines just to make hydrogen.

That sounds like a perpetual motion scheme... use hydrogen to power fuel cells - convert the DC from the fuel cell to AC and step up the voltage to power the grid - use some of the power from the grid to make hydrogen to power fuel cells - repeat, repeat, repeat. Why would they think they needed the windmills if they thought they could do this as backup when there was no wind?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem with hydrogen ism efficiency.

I worked on a request for quote from someone interested in having commercial windmills crete hysdrogen as a back up for low wind.

We would nave built the power inverters to go from fuel cells to mains voltage. It was not feasible. The idea was they would tap off a little power tp create hydrogen. Turned out they would need multiple turbines just to make hydrogen.

That sounds like a perpetual motion scheme... use hydrogen to power fuel cells - convert the DC from the fuel cell to AC and step up the voltage to power the grid - use some of the power from the grid to make hydrogen to power fuel cells - repeat, repeat, repeat. Why would they think they needed the windmills if they thought they could do this as backup when there was no wind?

The idea is to produce the hydrogen in times of excess and thus use it as a storage medium. That's the big problem with renewables on the grid--storage.

 

[steve_bank]

The problem with hydrogen ism efficiency.

I worked on a request for quote from someone interested in having commercial windmills crete hysdrogen as a back up for low wind.

We would nave built the power inverters to go from fuel cells to mains voltage. It was not feasible. The idea was they would tap off a little power tp create hydrogen. Turned out they would need multiple turbines just to make hydrogen.

That sounds like a perpetual motion scheme... use hydrogen to power fuel cells - convert the DC from the fuel cell to AC and step up the voltage to power the grid - use some of the power from the grid to make hydrogen to power fuel cells - repeat, repeat, repeat. Why would they think they needed the windmills if they thought they could do this as backup when there was no wind?

Not perpetual motion. The idea was to create H when the wind blows to generate electricity when the wind dies down.

Efficiencies multiply.

The people with the idea did not understand LOT. They thought they could 'trickle charge' a H supply. It ended up needing additional wind turbines desiccated to making H while the wind blows.

It was tied into Pickens who was thinking of a string of wind turbines running north south down the Midwest.

There is a DOE paper on the idea that may be online. If you had a water supply the idea could work if you used it to burn as fuel.

The idea of a H economy goes back to the 80s. Some thought it was the solution to energy. Did not pan out.

You can buy hobby electrolysis kits online and set up your own backyard system powered by solar.

 

[skepticalbip]

The problem with hydrogen ism efficiency.

I worked on a request for quote from someone interested in having commercial windmills crete hysdrogen as a back up for low wind.

We would nave built the power inverters to go from fuel cells to mains voltage. It was not feasible. The idea was they would tap off a little power tp create hydrogen. Turned out they would need multiple turbines just to make hydrogen.

That sounds like a perpetual motion scheme... use hydrogen to power fuel cells - convert the DC from the fuel cell to AC and step up the voltage to power the grid - use some of the power from the grid to make hydrogen to power fuel cells - repeat, repeat, repeat. Why would they think they needed the windmills if they thought they could do this as backup when there was no wind?

Not perpetual motion. The idea was to create H when the wind blows to generate electricity when the wind dies down.

AHA, my error... I misread your post.

Efficiencies multiply.

The people with the idea did not understand LOT. They thought they could 'trickle charge' a H supply. It ended up needing additional wind turbines desiccated to making H while the wind blows.

It was tied into Pickens who was thinking of a string of wind turbines running north south down the Midwest.

There is a DOE paper on the idea that may be online. If you had a water supply the idea could work if you used it to burn as fuel.

The idea of a H economy goes back to the 80s. Some thought it was the solution to energy. Did not pan out.

You can buy hobby electrolysis kits online and set up your own backyard system powered by solar.

Yes, there was great enthusiasm for Hydrogen for a while, still is for some people. Unfortunately, there are serious difficulties in both storage and transportation of Hydrogen that make it not as attractive.

 

[steve_bank]

It is in the current news reporting. Some claim zero environmental issues.

I still think nuclear base load backing up decentralized wind and solar is the way to go.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is in the current news reporting. Some claim zero environmental issues.

I still think nuclear base load backing up decentralized wind and solar is the way to go.

That has no storage and no quick-throttle power. It won't keep the lights on.

 

[steve_bank]

It is in the current news reporting. Some claim zero environmental issues.

I still think nuclear base load backing up decentralized wind and solar is the way to go.

That has no storage and no quick-throttle power. It won't keep the lights on.

I believe the TVA combines hydro and nuclear.

For any rotating generator the problem is maintaining voltage and frequency over a range of loads.

An electronic C generator can go no load to full load.

Nuclear uses steam turbines. I'd have to look up specifies, but there should be a minimum load and a maximum load for frequency and voltage regulation.