The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[bilby]

The article concludes that we may always need gas and nuclear back-ups to handle peak or emergency power needs, or even cloudy or wind-less days,

If you have gas backup, you aren't solving the carbon emissions problem.

If you have nuclear backup, you can use the nuclear all the time, and not waste money on wind turbines, solar panels, and the vast majority of the storage those sources imply.

Indeed, the majority of the (tiny) carbon emissions due to nuclear power generation are not dependent on the amount of power generation; As a nuclear power plant has the same emissions profile in hot standby as it does while producing power, using it as much as possible minimises the carbon emissions per kWh.

 

[bilby]

An interesting recent article in The New Yorker (may be behind a paywall) discusses current developments in renewable energy storage. There are some good ideas in the proof-of-concept and prototype stages but the devil will be scaling up. The article concludes that we may always need gas and nuclear back-ups to handle peak or emergency power needs, or even cloudy or wind-less days, but still, renewable storage could become a reality. My question is, how soon?

There's a physical limit to energy density from chemistry, that sets a minimum amount of material required to store a given amount of power.

Even if we could do it, the resource extraction needed to go 100% renewables plus storage would be devastating to the environment.

The only way to get out of this physical constraint is to replace dependence on electromagnetic force with dependence on the Strong force - that is, replacing chemical energy with nuclear energy.

The article discusses gravity mechanisms and geothermal. I would think the second law of thermodynamics would be more involved, but I'm not chemist/physicist.

Gravity is another low power density option. It's even worse than electromagnetic in that regard.

I doubt that geothermal storage can be done more cheaply than geothermal generation, which has never been viable in most locations. Again, you're up against energy density constraints.

And of course, at their absolute best, these systems are only as good as nuclear in terms of emissions and other environmental impacts, while total cost, safety, and system reliability is far worse.

Tying ourselves in knots to avoid implementing the obviously best solution is just ridiculous. We need to stop fucking around with windmills and build a LOT of new nuclear power plants. And we need to do it NOW.

 

[lpetrich]

Maria Gallucci on Twitter: "Rooftop solar is booming in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, offering many households an escape from frequent power outages & rising bills. For @CanaryMediaInc I met people leading solar initiatives there despite headwinds from the gov't and utility (link)" / Twitter
noting
Puerto Ricans are powering their own rooftop solar boom | Canary Media - "Residents and shop owners are installing solar-plus-battery systems in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Will the government get on board?"

Back to Twitter.

Solar panels and batteries are powering a community kitchen & food pantry in Caguas; are running communications equipment at a fire station in sunbaked Guánica; are keeping the lights on in a San Juan neighborhood where homeowners negotiated for more affordable solar costs

One of Puerto Rico's most ambitious solar initiatives is in the town of Adjuntas, where local businesses are banding together to create a microgrid: groups of interconnected solar systems and batteries that can, as a unit, keep providing power when the grid goes down (again)

Some 42,000 rooftop solar systems were operating in January — more than 8x the # at the end of 2016, the year before Maria battered PR's grid, according to a recent @casapuebloorg-led analysis. Thousands more systems have been installed in recent months La insurrección energética: Análisis de medición neta en Puerto Rico – Casa Pueblo • Puerto Rico

Yet solar experts in Puerto Rico emphasize that the current grassroots approach isn’t enough to meet the island's energy challenges. For renewable, resilient power to reach more of PR’s 3.2M residents, the gov't and utility will need to fully get on board

(from the article)
"Right now, only well-off people and industries can get their own localized generation, and the majority of people can't," says Ruth Santiago, an environmental attorney who lives in the south coast city of Guayama and serves on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. "This is very much a social justice and equity issue."

In the meantime, groups like the Adjuntas businesses, the San Juan homeowners & the Caguas mutual aid center are finding ways to share resources with their neighbors, with an eye toward sweeping blackouts and future climate disasters

 

[thebeave]

Germany needs to be held up as an example of how NOT to construct an energy policy. That is, killing your nuclear power plants, going "green" (solar and wind) and relying on a neighboring despot for natural gas. Now that the natural gas supplies are getting short, coal plants are being fired up!

Germany will fire up coal plants again in an effort to save natural gas.

BERLIN — Germany will restart coal-fired power plants in order to conserve natural gas, the country’s economy minister announced on Sunday, amid concerns about a looming supply shortage after Russia cut gas deliveries to Europe this week.

The move was part of a series of measures, including new incentives for companies to burn less natural gas, announced by Germany as Europe takes steps to deal with reduced energy supplies from Russia.

 

[No Robots]

Germany sticks to 2030 coal exit target amid energy worries​

 

[bilby]

Germany needs to be held up as an example of how NOT to construct an energy policy. That is, killing your nuclear power plants, going "green" (solar and wind) and relying on a neighboring despot for natural gas. Now that the natural gas supplies are getting short, coal plants are being fired up!

Germany will fire up coal plants again in an effort to save natural gas.

BERLIN — Germany will restart coal-fired power plants in order to conserve natural gas, the country’s economy minister announced on Sunday, amid concerns about a looming supply shortage after Russia cut gas deliveries to Europe this week.

The move was part of a series of measures, including new incentives for companies to burn less natural gas, announced by Germany as Europe takes steps to deal with reduced energy supplies from Russia.

France has lower Carbon Dioxide emissions from electricity generation than Germany; Has no dependence on Russian gas; And has no problem keeping every electricity customer reliably supplied with power.

Everyone needs an energy policy more like France’s and less like Germany’s.

 

[thebeave]

Germany needs to be held up as an example of how NOT to construct an energy policy. That is, killing your nuclear power plants, going "green" (solar and wind) and relying on a neighboring despot for natural gas. Now that the natural gas supplies are getting short, coal plants are being fired up!

Germany will fire up coal plants again in an effort to save natural gas.

BERLIN — Germany will restart coal-fired power plants in order to conserve natural gas, the country’s economy minister announced on Sunday, amid concerns about a looming supply shortage after Russia cut gas deliveries to Europe this week.

The move was part of a series of measures, including new incentives for companies to burn less natural gas, announced by Germany as Europe takes steps to deal with reduced energy supplies from Russia.

France has lower Carbon Dioxide emissions from electricity generation than Germany; Has no dependence on Russian gas; And has no problem keeping every electricity customer reliably supplied with power.

Everyone needs an energy policy more like France’s and less like Germany’s.

Yep. It's odd. Germany has a reputation for pursuing excellence in engineering and France...eh, not so much. Yet France has clearly outperformed Germany when it comes to developing a viable energy infrastructure. How did Germany get it so wrong, while France got it so right?

 

[No Robots]

France chose nukes, Germany chose renewables. Germany has it right. Short term pain for long term gain.

 

[bilby]

France chose nukes, Germany chose renewables. Germany has it right. Short term pain for long term gain.

Germany has it wrong. Nuclear power is the only way to avoid both energy poverty and climate change.

Thermodynamics trumps ideology. You cannot power a modern society from diffuse power sources.

Germany has proven this beyond any reasonable doubt. They have put vast effort in time and money into making renewables work. If it were possible, they would have done it by now.

France achieved a low carbon electricity grid in a decade, using 1970s and ‘80s materials and technology, at a far lower cost than has been spent by Germany on Energiewende. Germany have thrown higher technology, twice the time, and well in excess of twice the money at their attempt, and have failed (while simultaneously making their country Putin’s bitch).

Anyone who cares about the environment should, at this stage, be lobbying hard for nuclear power. That they aren’t is yet another example (if one were needed) of how humans prefer comforting myths over uncomfortable realities.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

France chose nukes, Germany chose renewables. Germany has it right. Short term pain for long term gain.

Germany chose a path that doesn't work. Without sufficient storage renewables mean gas plants. Renewables reduce fuel use, they don't remove it.

 

[skepticalbip]

France chose nukes, Germany chose renewables. Germany has it right. Short term pain for long term gain.

Germany deactivated its clean nuclear plants and Germany's renewable energy will not support the grid so they are reactivating their dirtiest power plants, coal.

How is moving from clean nuclear to dirty coal the right direction?

 

[No Robots]

Despite having to return to coal because of a war, Germany is still planning for 100% renewable power supply by 2035. Nuke bros have had their day.

 

[No Robots]

France’s bet on nuclear energy, however, is an egregious miscalculation that will severely inhibit its decarbonization efforts. At a critical juncture in the battle against climate change, diverting any finances and losing time with nuclear power, which has been in decline worldwide for decades, will only set back the country’s climate efforts, perhaps dooming its chances to go carbon neutral by 2050. Indeed, this Hail Mary pass, taken out of desperation as France has fallen woefully behind on its climate targets, will most probably come to naught anyway as the era of nuclear power wanes further no matter France’s declarations. The simple explanation: Fully fledged renewables are faster, cheaper, and lower risk than nuclear power.--Emmanuel Macron Gets Nuclear Energy All Wrong: Nuclear power won’t help France meet its climate goals on budget or on time

 

[bilby]

Despite having to return to coal because of a war, Germany is still planning for 100% renewable power supply by 2035. Nuke bros have had their day.

Plans don’t generate electricity.

 

[bigfield]

Pretty sure no-one has a 100% renewables plan that doesn't require miraculous progress in energy storage technology.

I hope the necessary storage technology emerges in time but it was a stupid gamble to have made.

In 2050 Germany may still be burning Russian gas while touting their 2080 plan for 100% renewables.

 

[bigfield]

Think tank Agora Energiewende provides a pretty simple data dashboard that lets you visualise the result of increased renewable capacity on the grid:

Electricity Data

How can the energy transition succeed? What changes should be made to adapt energy systems to the needs of the future? Agora Energiewende provides answers based on scientific research.

www.agora-energiewende.de

I did a comparison between current generation and projected generation with 86% renewables:



The dashboard doesn't go higher than 86%. I think that's because it is projecting increases in wind and solar generation, which combined tend to leave huge gaps in generation at night time. You simply cannot get to 100% renewables with those technologies.

The question now is, what's going to fill the gaps left by wind and solar, if not gas?

Perhaps synthetic fuels that can be burned in gas-fired plants? I don't know much about the technology but I would like to know why gas-fired turbines haven't already been converted to use synthetic fuels. What's stopping that from happening?

 

[bilby]

Think tank Agora Energiewende provides a pretty simple data dashboard that lets you visualise the result of increased renewable capacity on the grid:

Electricity Data

How can the energy transition succeed? What changes should be made to adapt energy systems to the needs of the future? Agora Energiewende provides answers based on scientific research.

www.agora-energiewende.de

I did a comparison between current generation and projected generation with 86% renewables:

View attachment 39163

The dashboard doesn't go higher than 86%. I think that's because it is projecting increases in wind and solar generation, which combined tend to leave huge gaps in generation at night time. You simply cannot get to 100% renewables with those technologies.

The question now is, what's going to fill the gaps left by wind and solar, if not gas?

Perhaps synthetic fuels that can be burned in gas-fired plants? I don't know much about the technology but I would like to know why gas-fired turbines haven't already been converted to use synthetic fuels. What's stopping that from happening?

Efficiency of conversion in both directions is poor, so it’s FAR cheaper to use fossil fuels than synthetics.

The only serious forays into synthetic fuels were by Nazi Germany and later Apartheid South Africa, in both cases because they had plenty of coal, but no access to oil.

In both cases they skipped the very expensive step of trying to concentrate atmospheric carbon dioxide as a feedstock, and just extracted it from cheap coal, which still left them with a product that was hugely expensive compared to mineral oil, and that was essentially a fossil fuel.

The benefit is that you can’t practically use coal for fuel in light vehicles (particularly aircraft), and certainly not as a lubricant. So it’s worth doing if you are a regime that has limited access to oil and needs cars, trucks and aircraft; But it’s not worth doing if you want to generate electricity, and even less so if you want to generate electricity without burning fossil fuel.

If you have enough reliable, cheap, and consistent low-carbon electricity to make synfuels from atmospheric carbon, and you have a means to concentrate atmospheric carbon dioxide for your feedstock at low cost, then synfuels for vehicles are a neat idea; But you need the cheap and reliable electricity as an input, if you are going to keep costs comparable with use of fossil oil, and burning synfuels to get that electricity is like trying to lift yourself up by your shoelaces.

As it happens, power plant cooling towers can be fairly easily and cheaply used to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for making synfuels. But of course, you only get that kind of facility at coal or nuclear plants.

The best option for ground vehicle fuels is probably to just use electricity; That way the amount of synthetic oil needed for lubricants and aviation fuels becomes far less, and producing enough from the sparse carbon supply available in air stops being such a mammoth problem. As long as you have plenty of power plants with cooling towers. You can probably see where this is headed…

 

[bigfield]

Think tank Agora Energiewende provides a pretty simple data dashboard that lets you visualise the result of increased renewable capacity on the grid:

Electricity Data

How can the energy transition succeed? What changes should be made to adapt energy systems to the needs of the future? Agora Energiewende provides answers based on scientific research.

www.agora-energiewende.de

I did a comparison between current generation and projected generation with 86% renewables:

View attachment 39163

The dashboard doesn't go higher than 86%. I think that's because it is projecting increases in wind and solar generation, which combined tend to leave huge gaps in generation at night time. You simply cannot get to 100% renewables with those technologies.

The question now is, what's going to fill the gaps left by wind and solar, if not gas?

Perhaps synthetic fuels that can be burned in gas-fired plants? I don't know much about the technology but I would like to know why gas-fired turbines haven't already been converted to use synthetic fuels. What's stopping that from happening?

Efficiency of conversion in both directions is poor, so it’s FAR cheaper to use fossil fuels than synthetics.

The only serious forays into synthetic fuels were by Nazi Germany and later Apartheid South Africa, in both cases because they had plenty of coal, but no access to oil.

In both cases they skipped the very expensive step of trying to concentrate atmospheric carbon dioxide as a feedstock, and just extracted it from cheap coal, which still left them with a product that was hugely expensive compared to mineral oil, and that was essentially a fossil fuel.

The benefit is that you can’t practically use coal for fuel in light vehicles (particularly aircraft), and certainly not as a lubricant. So it’s worth doing if you are a regime that has limited access to oil and needs cars, trucks and aircraft; But it’s not worth doing if you want to generate electricity, and even less so if you want to generate electricity without burning fossil fuel.

If you have enough reliable, cheap, and consistent low-carbon electricity to make synfuels from atmospheric carbon, and you have a means to concentrate atmospheric carbon dioxide for your feedstock at low cost, then synfuels for vehicles are a neat idea; But you need the cheap and reliable electricity as an input, if you are going to keep costs comparable with use of fossil oil, and burning synfuels to get that electricity is like trying to lift yourself up by your shoelaces.

As it happens, power plant cooling towers can be fairly easily and cheaply used to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for making synfuels. But of course, you only get that kind of facility at coal or nuclear plants.

The best option for ground vehicle fuels is probably to just use electricity; That way the amount of synthetic oil needed for lubricants and aviation fuels becomes far less, and producing enough from the sparse carbon supply available in air stops being such a mammoth problem. As long as you have plenty of power plants with cooling towers. You can probably see where this is headed…

I wondered why energy companies were interested in hydrogen instead of making other synthetic fuels that are easier to store, and this provides some explanation: making carbon-based fuels is expensive, even more expensive than making hydrogen.

 

[lpetrich]

I wondered why energy companies were interested in hydrogen instead of making other synthetic fuels that are easier to store, and this provides some explanation: making carbon-based fuels is expensive, even more expensive than making hydrogen.

However, hydrogen is (1) necessary as a feedstock for other synfuels, and (2) usable much like natural gas, so getting hydrogen going is a step on the way to more easily stored synfuels.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Despite having to return to coal because of a war, Germany is still planning for 100% renewable power supply by 2035. Nuke bros have had their day.

They can plan all they want. We'll see what rally happens.