The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[Elixir]

In a dystopia where you try to go fully renewable…

Is someone recommending that? Now?
The way to go is with nuclear, and ramping up renewables as practical with tech advances.

 

[James Brown]

The Case for Nukes, by Robert Zubrin

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In a dystopia where you try to go fully renewable…

Is someone recommending that? Now?
The way to go is with nuclear, and ramping up renewables as practical with tech advances.

Unless there is a major breakthrough in batteries there's basically no market for renewables in a nuclear-based grid.

 

[bilby]

In a dystopia where you try to go fully renewable…

Is someone recommending that? Now?
The way to go is with nuclear, and ramping up renewables as practical with tech advances.

Unless there is a major breakthrough in batteries there's basically no market for renewables in a nuclear-based grid.

That's not entirely true; There is a viable market for rooftop solar in buildings that use significant amounts of daytime power, for example for air conditioning and refrigeration, where demand roughly tracks with insolation - basically the tropical and subtropical regions.

As long as solar generation is generally lower than local demand, and grid power is charged at a sufficiently expensive metered rate, such installations are likely to be viable.

In temperate and colder climates, where energy consumption is mostly for heating, (and so roughly inversely proportional to insolation), solar really isn't viable.

 

[Elixir]

In temperate and colder climates, where energy consumption is mostly for heating, (and so roughly inversely proportional to insolation), solar really isn't viable.

As a rule of thumb perhaps. Here, it gets damn cold but there are 300+ days of sunshine and solar is very viable for home heating and, depending on the home design, almost everything else.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In a dystopia where you try to go fully renewable…

Is someone recommending that? Now?
The way to go is with nuclear, and ramping up renewables as practical with tech advances.

Unless there is a major breakthrough in batteries there's basically no market for renewables in a nuclear-based grid.

That's not entirely true; There is a viable market for rooftop solar in buildings that use significant amounts of daytime power, for example for air conditioning and refrigeration, where demand roughly tracks with insolation - basically the tropical and subtropical regions.

As long as solar generation is generally lower than local demand, and grid power is charged at a sufficiently expensive metered rate, such installations are likely to be viable.

In temperate and colder climates, where energy consumption is mostly for heating, (and so roughly inversely proportional to insolation), solar really isn't viable.

Except what happens when a cloud comes along? Solar/wind is only useful to the extent that it reduces fuel consumption as you need just as much other generating capacity anyway. Since the marginal cost of a kWh from a nuke plant is tiny there's no case for solar other than off-grid.

 

[bilby]

In a dystopia where you try to go fully renewable…

Is someone recommending that? Now?
The way to go is with nuclear, and ramping up renewables as practical with tech advances.

Unless there is a major breakthrough in batteries there's basically no market for renewables in a nuclear-based grid.

That's not entirely true; There is a viable market for rooftop solar in buildings that use significant amounts of daytime power, for example for air conditioning and refrigeration, where demand roughly tracks with insolation - basically the tropical and subtropical regions.

As long as solar generation is generally lower than local demand, and grid power is charged at a sufficiently expensive metered rate, such installations are likely to be viable.

In temperate and colder climates, where energy consumption is mostly for heating, (and so roughly inversely proportional to insolation), solar really isn't viable.

Except what happens when a cloud comes along?

Both demand and supply drop. Though probably not by the same amount. As long as solar generation is generally lower than local demand, what happens is that you start to draw slightly more power from the grid than you were before the cloud came along. This shouldn't be a problem.

Solar/wind is only useful to the extent that it reduces fuel consumption as you need just as much other generating capacity anyway. Since the marginal cost of a kWh from a nuke plant is tiny there's no case for solar other than off-grid.

Sure, if grid power is not charged at a sufficiently expensive metered rate.

 

[Elixir]

In another six years my brother will be getting money back every month. In the meanwhile he is paying some derivative of his average past monthly bill, to the Company that provided and installed the array. Right now the Company is also getting the $80/mo or so credit. No reason to say no to that deal.

 

[bilby]

In another six years my brother will be getting money back every month. In the meanwhile he is paying some derivative of his average past monthly bill, to the Company that provided and installed the array. Right now the Company is also getting the $80/mo or so credit. No reason to say no to that deal.

A lot of very generous deals are out there, largely because solar generators are shielded from the market price of their production. The grid operators are required to pay a set price per kWh for solar and/or wind power, regardless of the wholesale spot price at any given moment. This means that spot prices for baseload generators, such as coal and nuclear power, are sometimes negative - they have to pay the grid operators for the power they're adding to the grid during periods of high renewables generation.

Intermittent renewables cause wild and often unpredictable swings in wholesale prices, which are a boon for gas generators that can start up fast and shut down fast to operate only when prices are high.

Which is why fracking companies love wind power.

And that's a major reason why wind and solar don't have a huge impact on overall carbon dioxide emissions. They tend to push carbon free nuclear power off the grid, and bring fossil gas onto it.

If the objective is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, intermittent generation is a terrible way to try to achieve that objective.

As evidenced by the difference in carbon emissions from the German electricity grid, compared to that of the French.

It feels like renewables should be a good way to reduce emissions. But we don't need to rely on our feelings, we can look at the actual emissions from actual countries with different generating mixes.

Low emissions require mostly nuclear and/or hydro power. Large amounts of wind and solar power imply medium emissions; Large amounts of coal power imply high emissions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Except what happens when a cloud comes along?

Both demand and supply drop. Though probably not by the same amount. As long as solar generation is generally lower than local demand, what happens is that you start to draw slightly more power from the grid than you were before the cloud came along. This shouldn't be a problem.

The problem is supply side swings much faster than the demand side.

Solar/wind is only useful to the extent that it reduces fuel consumption as you need just as much other generating capacity anyway. Since the marginal cost of a kWh from a nuke plant is tiny there's no case for solar other than off-grid.

Sure, if grid power is not charged at a sufficiently expensive metered rate.

But why would you jack up the price of power just to get people to install solar? That would be horribly inefficient.

 

[bilby]

But why would you jack up the price of power just to get people to install solar? That would be horribly inefficient.

I have no idea why you would do it, but I observe that almost every OECD government has done it nonetheless.

My working hypothesis is that most voters think solar=natural=good (and also that wind=natural=good), a chain of poor reasoning that fails at both supposed equivalences.

Nuclear fission however is unnatural, and therefore must be evil.

 

[Tigers!]

Wind turbines favourite movie: "Gone with the wind"
Solar panels favourite song: "Here comes the sun"

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I've reported the above post for violating the board's policy on distasteful content. It is just awful!

 

[Tigers!]

Something for Bilby. Impressed by the 16 year old.

Nuclear for Australia

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But why would you jack up the price of power just to get people to install solar? That would be horribly inefficient.

I have no idea why you would do it, but I observe that almost every OECD government has done it nonetheless.

My working hypothesis is that most voters think solar=natural=good (and also that wind=natural=good), a chain of poor reasoning that fails at both supposed equivalences.

Nuclear fission however is unnatural, and therefore must be evil.

Huh? They're subsidizing solar but how are they jacking up other power prices?

And in the current situation it does help--it's replacing fossil fuel use.

 

[bilby]

Well done Germany, for saving the planet by going for renewables rather than nuclear, unlike those dastardly Frenchies!

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Extracting electricity from air thanks to humidity.

Engineers harvest abundant clean energy from thin air, 24/7

A team of engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has recently shown that nearly any material can be turned into a device that continuously harvests electricity from humidity in the air. The secret lies in being able to pepper the material with nanopores less than 100 nanometers in...

techxplore.com

 

[Tigers!]

Certainly exciting.
We would be careful not to oversell the production though.
Pity the article did not mention W/m² to get an idea of the scale.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

While interesting, it is at the proof of concept stage. The big problem I see is this relies on a substance with nanoscale holes 1000 times finer than a human hair. Meaning dust will be a problem. To work, such a device would have to have air filtered to a clean room standard. Ain't gonna be easy.

 

[lpetrich]

What a squabble.

US Inflation Reduction Act could torpedo EU green hydrogen ambitions | Science|Business - 15 Dec 2022

European hydrogen producers and researchers fear that vast new subsidies to US industry could decimate EU efforts to become a world leader in the technology, with conflict over the issue overshadowing a meeting between negotiators earlier this month.

Hydrogen is elemental to U.S.-EU green compromise | Reuters - February 10, 2023 9:19 AM PST

Heated trade tensions could cool if the United States and the European Union make concessions on hydrogen. Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act includes subsidies that could slash the cost of the element’s sustainably produced “green” version by 2030. If the EU can negotiate better access to America’s production chain while attractively managing its future import needs, it could help defuse a wider transatlantic spat.