Renewables in the UK and lessons for the world

[chilon]

Nothing about the economic viability of solar power is based on violating the "laws of physics".

Yes it is. Because sunshine is occasional and uneven in terms of energy. Thermodynamics 101, you cannot get more energy than system has input. Thus, as sunshine waxes and wanes your production does as well. Unless by miracle your consumption happens to follow in step, you will need some means to produce energy.

Read what I wanted you to prove. Your graph is marketing BS designed to fool people who do not look at the whole picture. Now your Google Solar city produces energy AT NIGHT? And you do not call that violation of laws of physics?

This is another of your red herrings. Solar doesn't have to produce at night. That's why we have something called a smart grid that I already linked you about. You don't seem to understand energy infrastructure very well.

See the grids of future are not solely dependent on solar as you keep insisting. They have multiple sources of energy both industrial and individual.

I have never once claimed that solar produces at night so you can stop with that strawman BS now. I said that it doesn't matter if solar doesn't produce at night for a variety of reasons: diversity of energy sources, energy efficiency, energy storage.

So what the does it make people happier if their 100MW solar plant can reach 60MW due to weather if they still NEED 100MW?
And you still do not grasp the obvious. EVERY EXCESS PLANT MEANT ONLY TO COMPLIMENT ONE ANOTHER COSTS MONEY TO BUILD AND OPERATE!
If you build geothermal, it is pointless to build solar.

I don't really understand your insistence that every area must have one and only one source of energy. That is an outdated viewpoint and not one that any working in the energy industry or researching it shares. Its essentially another of your wacky strawmen. First some areas are more well suited to geothermal than others. Same with solar. It depends on the area what is the most efficient renewable source to use. Smart grids incorporate all these sources depending on what is most viable for individual and community. Its a pretty simply concept. We already have conventional power plants. We don't need to build more just maintain what we have while we improve our energy infrastructure. Maybe the state where you live is behind the times. But what we have been doing in California works, as proven by how much our GDP keeps growing while our energy efficiency is far below the US average.

This whole BS about "energy palette" is load of . It assumes people have no grasp that multiple plants that try to compensate one another in their inability to produce energy constantly and reliably is bloody expensive.

I guess because you do not understand where the energy infrastructure is moving and how it is already successful in California you have to argue strawman and make posts filled with expletives instead of forming a coherent argument.

Smart grid cannot come up with more energy out of nowhere. If you need 100MW and production only reaches 80MW, there is absolutely nothing smart grid can do. It cannot fart up 20MW more energy out of nowhere. All it can do is stop deliveries to locations equalling 20MW of use. So, who wants to have THEIR neighbourhood go dark?

No one is talking about coming up with anything out of nowhere. Another one of your strawmen. You don't seem to understand how much energy can be saved with energy efficiency which is one thing smart grids do.

Again, I reference the graph on California energy per capita compared to US as a whole and that is only with energy efficiency measures only in their infancy in benefits.

No it is not. You are assuming that laws of physics can be ignored and somehow you can circumvent your way out of facts that
1) Physics denies possibility of getting more energy out of system than is fed to it
2) Multiple plants working to cover one another means you have to PAY for multiple plants. 300MW of potential is bloody expensive if you only produce 100MW of energy at any time, because you have to cover ALL of the costs of ALL plants with the price of that 100MW.

Sigh. Nowhere have I ever claimed anything that violates the laws of physics. That is a such a BS strawman on your part.

1. You don't seem to understand how much energy the sun actually outputs.
2. You don't understand the concept of smart grids and where our current technology lies for you to strawman that as "multiple power plants". So many errors in your formulations its ridiculous. First you ignore micro production, then you ignore energy efficiency and smart grids, then you ignore that "solar power plant" is not the same operating cost as fossil fuel and you also are ignoring the collateral hidden costs of using fossil fuel.

It has no bloody relevance to efficiency, any time you store electricity in ANY way you lose some of the energy so you have less energy than you had going in. If you want to make profit, your energy must cost much more after leaving storage than it cost when it entered it.

Obviously energy efficiency makes a difference. If a building is energy efficient then it requires far less energy to heat and cool the building and maintain an even temperature. Thus, the building uses far less energy. On a micro level the chips Intel has been designing the last few years have been much more energy efficient than they were 6-8 years ago. That makes a difference.

All of these factors work together. California has been combining factors for a long time now hence why we are about twice as energy efficient as the state you probably live in.

Which is load of crap. USA pays, many times as much subsidies to renewables.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...ssil-fuels-do/

It is really convenient to present statistics which ignore AMOUNT OF ENERGY PRODUCED. Per watt ratings are completely different thing and THAT is what you need to look at. What does the same money get you.

1. You aren't comparing sheer amounts of subsidies. You are playing with statistics to find a number you want.

2. That doesn't take into account the almost 100 years that fossil fuels have already received subsidies.

Obviously there is a higher initial cost to switching infrastructure but when one energy source is only variable for another 50 years at most and other energy sources produce way more "input" and are viable for hundreds of thousands of years there is a reason to begin switching now as many forward thinking individuals and companies are already doing.

Plenty of sources document how much more fossil fuel subsidies receive per year than renewable after already receiving subsidies for decades on decades.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...nergy-iea.html

Its disingenuous for you to try to set up the debate the way you are by reducing it to the specific subsidy dollar vs. watt produced right now.

I already showed you the trends. I already showed you how both energy efficiency and renewable costs are on a decreasing curve.

The point I keep making is that over the next 2-5 years renewables will become cheaper even per watt than fossil fuel. So its archaic, outdated and just plain dumb to keep subsidizing fossil fuels by a 6 to 1 ratio when we should be fecking building the energy infrastructure for the future.

Other countries are doing it. Japan, Germany, Scandinavia already have far better energy and information infrastructures than the US. The average US broadband speed is like 13th in the world which is embarrassing. If the US fails to realize where the future is moving its going to get left the feck behind.

[Poach]

Interesting debate happening, with both of you making some interesting points. I'd like to weigh in based on my own experience as someone who works for a company that operates coal and gas-fired power stations, wind farms and an electrical transmission and distribution network covering around 5 million people. My specific job deals with network automation and communications infrastructure: building the "smart grid" as it's often lauded.

To firstly address the smart grid, it's a long way off. Everyone talks about it but no one's really sure how to build it yet: there's tons of ideas but the architecture that will link it all together is much less thoroughly understood. Quoting it as a silver bullet is unfair on that count. Switching the single biggest machine we have (the power grid) from a largely dumb network requiring constant human oversight and intervention to an intelligent system that sifts through mountains of data efficiently and makes real time changes to balance the needs of millions isn't straightforward. Thus, Chilon, you can't yet argue away Tiwaz' points with "yeah but smart grid". Smart grids don't exist yet.

That said, much of what Tiwaz has said also fails to take into account time. All new technology starts off expensive and inefficient, and that included coal and gas fired generators. Renewable energy is more expensive than fossil fueled energy, and does exist on subsidy. At the moment.

The reason for this, however, is not operating cost. Renewables are behind on capital cost. It costs you a lot of money to build a wind farm, and without subsidy on the resulting income the business case would collapse, at the moment. The world as a whole has reached an agreement that it's worth the investment to develop wind and solar power because most of the cost is capital in nature and is therefore largely guaranteed to come down in the future: more efficient designs (we're now able to build 10MW turbines), more efficient manufacturing processes (cars didn't start off so cheap to manufacture, it took Ford to invent an effective production line in 1913 to bring cars to 'mass market'), more companies setting up for competing in the area (competition drives down cost), and a larger skilled workforce all take time and money to achieve.

Claiming that we should abandon the development of renewable technology because it's imperfect now is a blatantly anti-technology stance to take. It's been demonstrably proven that Renewable energy is coming down in cost every year. Even if climate change isn't a motivator, the financial case is slowly being made.

Moving on to your other statements about needing more generation to cover intermittent renewables: this is a misleading position to take, because we already have excessive redundancy in the power generation fleet that renewables actually combat. So-called "peaking plant" operate for only a few hours (at most) a day, to cover the short-lived peak periods that hit around evening time in developed countries. Generating power for less than 10% of the day necessitates selling that power at very high prices to make a business case, and this is precisely what is done: buying peak power is heinously expensive. Wind turbines "generate" for free, meaning that in the evening it becomes much cheaper to allow connection of more wind turbines rather than allow connection of more peaking generators. If the wind isn't blowing the peaking generators are there, but if the wind is blowing the total cost of electricity for that peak period comes down considerably. Couple this with the certainty that all generation goes offline at some point for maintenance or due to genuine fault. You cannot operate an electrical power network without considerable redundancy.

Once the steep capital cost of renewable energy comes down (and it is coming down), subsidies will stop and electricity will become permanently cheaper as a result of our efforts.

Your attack on storage price is also misinformed. You're right, you need to sell electricity for more than you buy it for if you own and operate storage, but you ignore the fact that electricity changes in price for multiple reasons. First, large power stations don't like shutting off, because the cost and waste associated with starting from cold is enormous, so overnight they sell electricity at lower cost. Operators of storage (eg pumped hydro) take advantage of this to charge up their storage overnight while power is cheap to buy, then re-sell it during the day and evening when demand for power creates a higher price. This is not a new mechanism. Renewable energy takes this further: it generates for "free", as it has no fuel cost, having to price itself purely in concern with covering the capital cost of construction. This loops us back to the first argument: we're driving capital cost down all the time. It's simply a matter of creating effective infrastructure. Batteries and Wind Turbines are expensive right now, but they get cheaper every year as a result of humanity's collective effort.

Going back onto Chilon's statements about "other countries". Scandinavia has Norway, which has the gift of geography, making it an unfair comparison: nowhere else in the world has near-endless Fjords to use for pumped hydro, meaning a US solution will take a very different format. Germany is also a terrible comparison, with their "energiewende" almost breaking the back of their entire power market and bringing their energy cost to among the highest in the EU: no one is in any rush to copy the German way on this one. The ideal market structure will respect the need to have a diverse energy mix while also optimising the cost of electricity without inflicting long-term damage using short-term calculations. It's not an easy challenge.

[chilon]

Interesting debate happening, with both of you making some interesting points. I'd like to weigh in based on my own experience as someone who works for a company that operates coal and gas-fired power stations, wind farms and an electrical transmission and distribution network covering around 5 million people. My specific job deals with network automation and communications infrastructure: building the "smart grid" as it's often lauded.

To firstly address the smart grid, it's a long way off. Everyone talks about it but no one's really sure how to build it yet: there's tons of ideas but the architecture that will link it all together is much less thoroughly understood. Quoting it as a silver bullet is unfair on that count. Switching the single biggest machine we have (the power grid) from a largely dumb network requiring constant human oversight and intervention to an intelligent system that sifts through mountains of data efficiently and makes real time changes to balance the needs of millions isn't straightforward. Thus, Chilon, you can't yet argue away Tiwaz' points with "yeah but smart grid". Smart grids don't exist yet.

Thanks for weighing in Poach. My experience comes on the residential side and in relation to city and county programs so I am not as familiar with larger industrial scale projects.

To clarify though, I wasn't looking at a smart grid as the answer right now so much as what we can and should be working towards. The way I see we aren't at a level of building smart grids yet but we are at the level of building the building blocks that will make up the grid. The two examples I know from personal experience are PGE's smart meters and the privately developed Nest thermometer.

I see smart grids being more of a bottom-up than top-down evolution if that makes sense. Its not some command economy directive or anything like that. A lot of innovation at various levels is going on simultaneously and everyone is trying to work out how it can all fit together. If we start from the ground up the system becomes easier to envision.

You are totally correct that its a ways off, but I know at least where I lived and worked, a lot of people from city planners to Silicon Valley venture capitalists are exploring ways we can begin an efficient conversion. Personally I would rather be on the side researching and working towards the future and future efficient systems.

Going back onto Chilon's statements about "other countries". Scandinavia has Norway, which has the gift of geography, making it an unfair comparison: nowhere else in the world has near-endless Fjords to use for pumped hydro, meaning a US solution will take a very different format. Germany is also a terrible comparison, with their "energiewende" almost breaking the back of their entire power market and bringing their energy cost to among the highest in the EU: no one is in any rush to copy the German way on this one. The ideal market structure will respect the need to have a diverse energy mix while also optimising the cost of electricity without inflicting long-term damage using short-term calculations. It's not an easy challenge.

Well any comparison with the USA is not going to be totally accurate because the US is such a diverse geography. That's why I brought up a more localized solution for the US that is diversified. For instance, Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are great locations for solar (with some even more localized exceptions). Seattle is not a great location for solar. Nebraska is great for geothermal. San Francisco is not so great for geothermal.

My argument was more that any populated area needs to first look at their unique geography and build their power structure of the future accordingly. Take advantage of any natural advantages first. Since we already have a functional fossil fuel grid in place it makes no sense to me to not just look at exploring future options that slowly and diversely replace the fossil fuel grid.

Its why Jerry Brown's misinformed decision to build a fossil fuel burning "high speed rail" really makes no sense. Yes a Mag-Lev would have higher initial costs, but a mag-lev HSR from San Francisco to Los Angeles could be economically beneficial for hundreds of years. A fossil fuel burning system is going to have a shelf life of 50 years making it extremely expensive fluff with no long term benefit.

I will say though that I am biased for long term infrastructure over short term stop gap solutions although I recognize that sometimes stop gaps are needed.

Again, thanks for commenting. I would appreciate more of your comments and views on our current infrastructure and how we can reach goals in 20-30 years.

[classical_hero]

We need to test the effects of wind power has on humans and animals. The results are preliminary, but they do show the need fo further testing.
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resou...inary-results/

[SLN445]

My home town is in that area of Victoria, for the most part the Wind farms have been beneficial to the region, even more so had there not been such a backlash that killed the industry created by it.
Good to see they are actually doing proper studies into it and not just the kneejerk reactions that have plagued it from the beginning.

[conon394]

We need to test the effects of wind power has on humans and animals. The results are preliminary, but they do show the need fo further testing.
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resou...inary-results/

Seems a bit silly really. Especially in isolation I would think it should at minimum compare to houses near railroads, airport runways and say elevated train line in Chicago - as in the joke in the Blues Brothers about living next to the L

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xo2...ent_shortfilms

[Tiwaz]

RL has caused me to be absent for quite a while but this discussion clearly requires some weighing in.

This is another of your red herrings. Solar doesn't have to produce at night. That's why we have something called a smart grid that I already linked you about. You don't seem to understand energy infrastructure very well.

Load of As Poach said.. THERE IS NO SMART GRID!
And neither can smart grid make energy to replace missing power production. It can only cut electricity from some consumers to make consumption to match production capacity. Which is going to end up as pile of when people get unhappy for not getting their things done because grid cuts their energy.

See the grids of future are not solely dependent on solar as you keep insisting. They have multiple sources of energy both industrial and individual.
Which is more without founding. Physics, physics and economics. Making 100 little plants costs of cash per unit produced compared to single big plant.

I have never once claimed that solar produces at night so you can stop with that strawman BS now. I said that it doesn't matter if solar doesn't produce at night for a variety of reasons: diversity of energy sources, energy efficiency, energy storage.

You apparently cannot grasp that you cannot pretend that is acceptable answer. You are essentially giving us the answer from Emperor's new clothes, saying how great it is but unable to give us solid answer on how the your multitude of plants each running inefficiently will somehow be economically viable. Also, you fail to grasp that huge number of societies do NOT reduce their energy consumption as sun goes down. Finland is one of the more extreme examples, but same reasons apply in large part of world. We use energy most during DARK WINTER NIGHTS! Not during ing sunny summer noon. Our powerplants have their scheduled shutdowns during summer because that is when consumption is at lowest.

I don't really understand your insistence that every area must have one and only one source of energy. That is an outdated viewpoint and not one that any working in the energy industry or researching it shares. Its essentially another of your wacky strawmen. First some areas are more well suited to geothermal than others. Same with solar. It depends on the area what is the most efficient renewable source to use. Smart grids incorporate all these sources depending on what is most viable for individual and community. Its a pretty simply concept. We already have conventional power plants. We don't need to build more just maintain what we have while we improve our energy infrastructure. Maybe the state where you live is behind the times. But what we have been doing in California works, as proven by how much our GDP keeps growing while our energy efficiency is far below the US average.

Locations with viable geothermal are extremely few and far apart. Same with solar. Idea of "just maintain what we have" is also stupid. Powerplants have expected life, you cannot infinitely just maintain them. Also, you fail to grasp the question of economics. Inefficient energy production with lots of plants on top of one another trying to squeeze their maintenance and other costs from irregular production are ing useless. They cost more per unit of energy, which means that our economies will start to stagnate with runaway energy prices.

I guess because you do not understand where the energy infrastructure is moving and how it is already successful in California you have to argue strawman and make posts filled with expletives instead of forming a coherent argument.

You are taking one state in USA and failing to grasp that it is not representative of even remotely notable part of the globe. Also, California is famous for massive cost of energy, which shows that system is ed up. Growth of California is DESPITE their ed up infrastructure. It would be far better with functional one.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclem...e-electricity/

No one is talking about coming up with anything out of nowhere. Another one of your strawmen. You don't seem to understand how much energy can be saved with energy efficiency which is one thing smart grids do.

No, you think that smart grid can do miracles. You can only DELAY inevitable with your energy effiency. As successful societies grow, their consumption grows. You cannot keep saving energy infinitely. Sooner or later you come to situation where you need X megawatts of energy, but production is only X-y megawatts. Your smart grid is ed up.

Again, I reference the graph on California energy per capita compared to US as a whole and that is only with energy efficiency measures only in their infancy in benefits.

How about you start looking at picture on more global scale, and stop using individual case, famous for it's ed up infra, to assume same thing applies abroad.

Sigh. Nowhere have I ever claimed anything that violates the laws of physics. That is a such a BS strawman on your part.

Yes you have, but you do not grasp what the your fantasies require in REALITY.

1. You don't seem to understand how much energy the sun actually outputs.

I have seen another guy like you talk about how much energy is in one cubic meter of wood. Like you, he had no ing clue on how much of that energy is actually possible to harness and what kind of limitations there are. I could talk about how much energy we could output if we make antimatter meet matter and harness all that, but reality is that what we could (if we had antimatter in sufficient quantity) hanrness in realistic way is totally different.

2. You don't understand the concept of smart grids and where our current technology lies for you to strawman that as "multiple power plants". So many errors in your formulations its ridiculous. First you ignore micro production, then you ignore energy efficiency and smart grids, then you ignore that "solar power plant" is not the same operating cost as fossil fuel and you also are ignoring the collateral hidden costs of using fossil fuel.

I understand them prefectly, you are someone who does not grasp the real world where your solution has to work. Smart grid sounds fine on paper, but so does communism. It is APPLICATION TO REALITY THAT MATTERS! You cannot cover need of X megawatts with X-Y megawatts of production.
And micro production is about building multiple plants. Multiple small and INEFFICIENT plants.

Obviously energy efficiency makes a difference. If a building is energy efficient then it requires far less energy to heat and cool the building and maintain an even temperature. Thus, the building uses far less energy. On a micro level the chips Intel has been designing the last few years have been much more energy efficient than they were 6-8 years ago. That makes a difference.

Only if you forbid anyone from building more houses. If house consumes 20% of energy compared to old, it is fine. But when you have 6 new houses, you still are ed up if your production has not been upgraded!

All of these factors work together. California has been combining factors for a long time now hence why we are about twice as energy efficient as the state you probably live in.

Which is where you might find yourself talking totally out of your rear, like your all arguments.

1. You aren't comparing sheer amounts of subsidies. You are playing with statistics to find a number you want.

I COMPARE THE ONLY NUMBER THAT MATTERS! How much energy you get from one unit of currency.

2. That doesn't take into account the almost 100 years that fossil fuels have already received subsidies.

Because it is irrelevant. Also, you fail to notice that those subsidies are by and large paid in underdeveloped regions, not in developed world.

Obviously there is a higher initial cost to switching infrastructure but when one energy source is only variable for another 50 years at most and other energy sources produce way more "input" and are viable for hundreds of thousands of years there is a reason to begin switching now as many forward thinking individuals and companies are already doing.

Yeah, if you assume that energy can cost anything. But since it does not, smart people look for COST EFFICIENT methods which are ADJUSTABLE in output.
There is every reason to never start moving to energy productoin that cannot provide cost efficient energy as required.

Plenty of sources document how much more fossil fuel subsidies receive per year than renewable after already receiving subsidies for decades on decades.

How about figuring out WHO is paying those subsidies and WHY. Huge portion of those subsidies are coming from places like Iran where they subsidise fuel price to make car viable method of transportation.

Its disingenuous for you to try to set up the debate the way you are by reducing it to the specific subsidy dollar vs. watt produced right now.

BS. Only dishonest method is to compare numbers without looking what it gets you. Or are you a someone who does not grasp importance of purchasing power? Whatever gives you most of what you need for least cost is rational option.

I already showed you the trends. I already showed you how both energy efficiency and renewable costs are on a decreasing curve.

Which I have pointed to be

The point I keep making is that over the next 2-5 years renewables will become cheaper even per watt than fossil fuel. So its archaic, outdated and just plain dumb to keep subsidizing fossil fuels by a 6 to 1 ratio when we should be fecking building the energy infrastructure for the future.

And here you point out again that you have no clue of what you talk about. Iran will keep subsidising their fossils because they have no alternative. Their people will not drive on wind cars
Renewables cannot become much cheaper, because problem is that there are lots of running costs to be measured in.
1. Necessary backup power
2. Massive running costs compared to produced energy

Running costs come from for example being forced to pay for land you use. Wind plants need insane amount of space, because you cannot set windmills close to one another. This on top of physics stating that they can never be reliable producers.

Other countries are doing it. Japan, Germany, Scandinavia already have far better energy and information infrastructures than the US. The average US broadband speed is like 13th in the world which is embarrassing. If the US fails to realize where the future is moving its going to get left the feck behind.

And guess where electricity prices are skyhigh in Europe?
Germany and Denmark, places which are furthest down the road of renewable idiocy.

That said, much of what Tiwaz has said also fails to take into account time. All new technology starts off expensive and inefficient, and that included coal and gas fired generators. Renewable energy is more expensive than fossil fueled energy, and does exist on subsidy. At the moment.

And it will ALWAYS exist on subsidy. You just cannot ing get profitable energy at reasonable price when PHYSICS makes it impossible for you to have overall better than 20-30% production compared to nominal output.
Also, saying that "time" is solution is quite stupid. We CANNOT RELIABLY PREDICT FUTURE! Idea of solving matters we have to deal with NOW by trusting that future will sort it out. I like to compare this to idea of jumping in car which has no brakes and hitting pedal to metal, speeding towards massive stone wall in distance with idea that time will solve the problem. Because if time does not solve problem IN TIME, you are going to be in deep when you run out of road.

The reason for this, however, is not operating cost. Renewables are behind on capital cost. It costs you a lot of money to build a wind farm, and without subsidy on the resulting income the business case would collapse, at the moment. The world as a whole has reached an agreement that it's worth the investment to develop wind and solar power because most of the cost is capital in nature and is therefore largely guaranteed to come down in the future: more efficient designs (we're now able to build 10MW turbines), more efficient manufacturing processes (cars didn't start off so cheap to manufacture, it took Ford to invent an effective production line in 1913 to bring cars to 'mass market'), more companies setting up for competing in the area (competition drives down cost), and a larger skilled workforce all take time and money to achieve.

False. Your windplant company needs to hire people, it has to pay off it's debts and it has to pay rent from land they build on. If they buy the land, they have to go to bigger debt.

You also fail to grasp that you cannot bring down the design by much. Issue of wind turbines is intermittant nature of wind. Theoretical absolute maximum you can get from wind turbine is 40% of power in wind. And that is never achievable as it relies on infinite blades hanging magically in the air and so forth.
Another issue is space. Bigger your windmill is, less you can fit in any given area because too close to one another and they will disrupt one anothers function. As the wind moves the blades of the windmill, aircurrent is disrupted. If you try to use it to run another windmill too close, your second windmill will get pittance of energy as wind has not yet had time and space to build up strength. First rule of thermodynamics here is kicking windmills in the nuts.

Also, nominal output of windmill is NOT ACHIEVED ANY TIME BLADES MOVE! Problem is that production is wildly varied. Nominal output of windmills is only achieved in VERY tight envelope of windspeed. Below and your output drops rapidly. Above and you have to hit the brakes and stop the plant to avoid damage, bringing output to total ZERO in matter of moments.

Claiming that we should abandon the development of renewable technology because it's imperfect now is a blatantly anti-technology stance to take. It's been demonstrably proven that Renewable energy is coming down in cost every year. Even if climate change isn't a motivator, the financial case is slowly being made.

We should abandon any research which does not have possibility of providing realistic, reliable and cost effective solutions unless they break rules of physics.

Moving on to your other statements about needing more generation to cover intermittent renewables: this is a misleading position to take, because we already have excessive redundancy in the power generation fleet that renewables actually combat. So-called "peaking plant" operate for only a few hours (at most) a day, to cover the short-lived peak periods that hit around evening time in developed countries. Generating power for less than 10% of the day necessitates selling that power at very high prices to make a business case, and this is precisely what is done: buying peak power is heinously expensive. Wind turbines "generate" for free, meaning that in the evening it becomes much cheaper to allow connection of more wind turbines rather than allow connection of more peaking generators. If the wind isn't blowing the peaking generators are there, but if the wind is blowing the total cost of electricity for that peak period comes down considerably. Couple this with the certainty that all generation goes offline at some point for maintenance or due to genuine fault. You cannot operate an electrical power network without considerable redundancy.

You are actually not thinking this rationally. Yes, you need some plants that adjust the output to match demand. Problem is that when you have intermittant producers that keep going up and down even in seconds, you are messing up the system. In conventional solution widely used, you have bulk power plants and plants that match the production to demand. But latter ones are usually ones that have cheapest costs. With production system that relies on RELIABLE production methods there is no issue with maintenance, it can be agreed to shut down individual plants or reactors during lowest consumption and keep all online during high demand. You do not need large redundancy as you can match maintenance to demand drops.

With uncontrolled intermittant energy production messing up things this gets harder. You need backup supply on ratio of 1:1 for wind power, because it is impossible to be certain that it can provide at time of need. But you have to PAY FOR BOTH! So where does THAT money come from? Problem is made worse by fact that weather phonomenons are VERY big. So poor winds are going to be prevalent in massive areas. More plants you need to build to achieve same reliability, more it costs.

Once the steep capital cost of renewable energy comes down (and it is coming down), subsidies will stop and electricity will become permanently cheaper as a result of our efforts.

BS. CEO of Fortum, major energy company has stated flat out that wind power will NEVER be worth it without subsidies. Representative of wind power producers has stated that when current tariff setups run out, there HAS to be new ones on the line. Essentially, these guys admit that wind power is never going to be profitable method of production unless producers are given free access to taxpayer wallet on top of money paid from electricity produced.

Your attack on storage price is also misinformed. You're right, you need to sell electricity for more than you buy it for if you own and operate storage, but you ignore the fact that electricity changes in price for multiple reasons. First, large power stations don't like shutting off, because the cost and waste associated with starting from cold is enormous, so overnight they sell electricity at lower cost. Operators of storage (eg pumped hydro) take advantage of this to charge up their storage overnight while power is cheap to buy, then re-sell it during the day and evening when demand for power creates a higher price. This is not a new mechanism. Renewable energy takes this further: it generates for "free", as it has no fuel cost, having to price itself purely in concern with covering the capital cost of construction. This loops us back to the first argument: we're driving capital cost down all the time. It's simply a matter of creating effective infrastructure. Batteries and Wind Turbines are expensive right now, but they get cheaper every year as a result of humanity's collective effort.

There is no "free" energy. Stop pretending there is. Even if fuel does not cost, company runnig the plant has costs that run essentially 24/7 and that is cost of making that energy as much as "fuel". You also fail to realize that powerplants do not have to run at 100%. Over here, it is more sensible to scale production to consumption to a point. Hydropower is foremost in this, as it's cost structure permits such behaviour. Ergo, we do not have radical differences in nighttime and daytime energy. Not nearly enough to make storage profitable. Very few places have.

Going back onto Chilon's statements about "other countries". Scandinavia has Norway, which has the gift of geography, making it an unfair comparison: nowhere else in the world has near-endless Fjords to use for pumped hydro, meaning a US solution will take a very different format. Germany is also a terrible comparison, with their "energiewende" almost breaking the back of their entire power market and bringing their energy cost to among the highest in the EU: no one is in any rush to copy the German way on this one. The ideal market structure will respect the need to have a diverse energy mix while also optimising the cost of electricity without inflicting long-term damage using short-term calculations. It's not an easy challenge.

Correct. Solutions have to match the conditions. However, my preferred solution is useful in vast majority of the world, requires no magical achievements in technology and is reliable and cost effective. While also reducing carbon output massively! Bulk energy by nuclear power, with other conventional (preferably hydro) plants handling the matching with consumption.

You can add smart grids if you wish, they improve system but are not necessary. You can increase mileage with energy savings. But it does not rely on it. You do not need eternal subsidies or insane energy prices as systems are ones that can pay their own operations with quite affordable energy cost.

[Town Watch]

Thanks for weighing in Poach. My experience comes on the residential side and in relation to city and county programs so I am not as familiar with larger industrial scale projects.

To clarify though, I wasn't looking at a smart grid as the answer right now so much as what we can and should be working towards. The way I see we aren't at a level of building smart grids yet but we are at the level of building the building blocks that will make up the grid. The two examples I know from personal experience are PGE's smart meters and the privately developed Nest thermometer.

I see smart grids being more of a bottom-up than top-down evolution if that makes sense. Its not some command economy directive or anything like that. A lot of innovation at various levels is going on simultaneously and everyone is trying to work out how it can all fit together. If we start from the ground up the system becomes easier to envision.

You are totally correct that its a ways off, but I know at least where I lived and worked, a lot of people from city planners to Silicon Valley venture capitalists are exploring ways we can begin an efficient conversion. Personally I would rather be on the side researching and working towards the future and future efficient systems.



Well any comparison with the USA is not going to be totally accurate because the US is such a diverse geography. That's why I brought up a more localized solution for the US that is diversified. For instance, Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are great locations for solar (with some even more localized exceptions). Seattle is not a great location for solar. Nebraska is great for geothermal. San Francisco is not so great for geothermal.

My argument was more that any populated area needs to first look at their unique geography and build their power structure of the future accordingly. Take advantage of any natural advantages first. Since we already have a functional fossil fuel grid in place it makes no sense to me to not just look at exploring future options that slowly and diversely replace the fossil fuel grid.

Its why Jerry Brown's misinformed decision to build a fossil fuel burning "high speed rail" really makes no sense. Yes a Mag-Lev would have higher initial costs, but a mag-lev HSR from San Francisco to Los Angeles could be economically beneficial for hundreds of years. A fossil fuel burning system is going to have a shelf life of 50 years making it extremely expensive fluff with no long term benefit.

I will say though that I am biased for long term infrastructure over short term stop gap solutions although I recognize that sometimes stop gaps are needed.

Again, thanks for commenting. I would appreciate more of your comments and views on our current infrastructure and how we can reach goals in 20-30 years.

Tiwaz made an important point earlier. Not the entire world is California or Texas... This is fact of life.

You never accounted for Tiwaz's argument about this issue. You ignored it without any remark, indeed. Concede or adress the point.

Yes we understand that the fact of life is as follows. The sun exists, it produces solar energy... Solar energy has good promises for future development.(space-based energy etc.)

However, tha fact remains that North Dakota is a cold place. Alaska is a cold place... Michigan tends to be cold too... Russia is a cold place... Canada is a cold place... Finland is a cold place... What do we do with regards to the situation?

Physics professor David MacKay from Cambridge, argues that it is impossible because of laws of physics, to make Europe run on green energy (solar, geo, wind, hydro). That is so say that it is simply impossible. He calculated thus, in his book that even with 50% reduction in current level of consumption for British residents. These are acheived by efficiency-based savings on consumption. Britain wil , be unable to meet this newly halved energy demand, with renewable-based supply. There simply is not available enought supply according to the professor.

What needs to happen, is to construct massive solar farm into North African countries, and generate solar-based electricity from there. It cannot be done in Europe.

Evidently it is fact of life that Europe is not Africa. Africa is Africa and Europe is Europe.America is America...

There tends to be more sunshine in African Sahara region...

[Iskar]

What needs to happen, is to construct massive solar farm into North African countries, and generate solar-based electricity from there. It cannot be done in Europe.

Some time ago there were plans by a syndicate of basically all major German companies involved with technology and power supply to develop such a project, but it was abandoned because it became clear that the power loss due to resistivity of the wires from Africa to Europe would make it all extremely inefficient, with only a small fraction of the electric power actually reaching its destination. Since there is no technology on the horizon that would qualitatively reduce these losses they called it a day and built more conventional power plants.

[Town Watch]

Some time ago there were plans by a syndicate of basically all major German companies involved with technology and power supply to develop such a project, but it was abandoned because it became clear that the power loss due to resistivity of the wires from Africa to Europe would make it all extremely inefficient, with only a small fraction of the electric power actually reaching its destination. Since there is no technology on the horizon that would qualitatively reduce these losses they called it a day and built more conventional power plants.

It seems the energy storage is a serious problem then... for renewable

If it were oil you could just store the energy in liquid form inside barrels etc...

Norway does have massive hydro alreaady. They are preparing to increase exports to nordic countries like Denmark + Sweden. The distance is not that large who knows how successful they will be? Even now Norway still exports spare electricity I think...

In Finland the renewable with most promising result seems to be "earth warmth" also known as geothermal power. It is mainly used for house heating purposes, which is indeed a serious concern in cold countries during winter time. We have forestry industry also, but it's unlikely it will save us for the purpose of solving energy crisis...

Of course we have nascent wind, hydro, and bio energy industries, but they don't seem very promising options sadly... Finland still relies considerably upon fossil fuel base as it's foundation as far as I recall. Earth gas (russia), gasoline, diesel, nuclear, coal

The market situation is still quite nascent with regards to earth warmth. Though there has been trend of growth admittedly.

my understandin is that the there is still considerable potential for "earth warmth" in Finland's heating sector.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Hydroelectric is a very viable power source compared to "Bio", Solar, and Wind. The only generator that produces more power than a single Nuclear Reactor is the Hoover Dam (although the Three Gorges Dam in China may have now topped that, I don't know).

[Town Watch]

Hydroelectric is a very viable power source compared to "Bio", Solar, and Wind. The only generator that produces more power than a single Nuclear Reactor is the Hoover Dam (although the Three Gorges Dam in China may have now topped that, I don't know).

Nah... mate.. Hoover dam used to be the biggest badass in the 1930s

In modern day, indeed Three Gorges Dam produces more kwh than Hoover dam

Moreover in modern times the Colorado river has suffered from reduced water levels, which indeed causes less production of energy from Hoover dam.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

I thought Three Gorges had surpassed it by now.

[Tiwaz]

It seems the energy storage is a serious problem then... for renewable

If it were oil you could just store the energy in liquid form inside barrels etc...

Norway does have massive hydro alreaady. They are preparing to increase exports to nordic countries like Denmark + Sweden. The distance is not that large who knows how successful they will be? Even now Norway still exports spare electricity I think...

In Finland the renewable with most promising result seems to be "earth warmth" also known as geothermal power. It is mainly used for house heating purposes, which is indeed a serious concern in cold countries during winter time. We have forestry industry also, but it's unlikely it will save us for the purpose of solving energy crisis...

Of course we have nascent wind, hydro, and bio energy industries, but they don't seem very promising options sadly... Finland still relies considerably upon fossil fuel base as it's foundation as far as I recall. Earth gas (russia), gasoline, diesel, nuclear, coal

The market situation is still quite nascent with regards to earth warmth. Though there has been trend of growth admittedly.

my understandin is that the there is still considerable potential for "earth warmth" in Finland's heating sector.

Except geothermal heat is just that, heat. It requires electricity to run. Sure, we save electricity compared to direct electric heating, but need is still there. Problem is where to get that electricity in Finland?
Hydro is not an option, flat land and all of it used up. Solar has production profile which goes opposite to consumption... Wind has issues too, biggest consumption is during winter months at hardest cold. Which comes usually during low winds, and weather fronts are so huge that they cover country practically completely.

Storage is another issue. You would need zero cost and zero loss to avoid it pushing price up. And profitable price for renewable electricity, short of hydro and possibly some forms of bio, are already absurdly high. That is why all the subsidies.

Relying on someone else to produce essential thing with short shelf life like electricity is not very smart in terms of dependencies. Ever come across little snafu with your supplier, they have a firm grip on your jinglies.


Oh, TW. On note about space energy, I got some serious scares about it myself. Idea is great, satellite up where it always shines, beam energy down with microwaves. What I personally can't get my head over is that last part with microwaves. Useful energy would need to be in the class of megawatts at least. Average microwave at home pushes maybe 1 kilowatt, using it to heat stuff hot fast. Imagine a little "accident" with satellite...
Made worse by fact that you really need to have some control over satellite, so it has to be possible to interface remotely. In my little world of paranoia, anything accessed remotely can be broken into remotely.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Oh, TW. On note about space energy, I got some serious scares about it myself. Idea is great, satellite up where it always shines, beam energy down with microwaves. What I personally can't get my head over is that last part with microwaves. Useful energy would need to be in the class of megawatts at least. Average microwave at home pushes maybe 1 kilowatt, using it to heat stuff hot fast. Imagine a little "accident" with satellite...
Made worse by fact that you really need to have some control over satellite, so it has to be possible to interface remotely. In my little world of paranoia, anything accessed remotely can be broken into remotely.

Wasn't there a James Bond movie about that?

[Tiwaz]

Wasn't there a James Bond movie about that?

Goldeneye? Well, something along same lines. Along with C&C ion cannon and such.

[Phier]

Made worse by fact that you really need to have some control over satellite, so it has to be possible to interface remotely. In my little world of paranoia, anything accessed remotely can be broken into remotely.

Not necessarily. Something that important could well be a manned station, with only emergency remote control which could be disabled manually.

Now in the spy movie you kill the crew and then take control of the satellite, but everything has risk

[Tiwaz]

Not necessarily. Something that important could well be a manned station, with only emergency remote control which could be disabled manually.

Now in the spy movie you kill the crew and then take control of the satellite, but everything has risk

Cost would go through the roof with regular rocketrides up and down when switching crews, building habitable portion to the satellite which costs both resources and energy (they need to use some of the output locally) and then general supply issues. Specially regular launches up and down would drive the cost of final product up as they are regular and quite expensive no matter what.

And also rather energy intensive. Rockets burning whole lot of energy to go up there.

[Phier]

Cost would go through the roof with regular rocketrides up and down when switching crews, building habitable portion to the satellite which costs both resources and energy (they need to use some of the output locally) and then general supply issues. Specially regular launches up and down would drive the cost of final product up as they are regular and quite expensive no matter what.

And also rather energy intensive. Rockets burning whole lot of energy to go up there.

Basically use it as another ISS, now with a reason besides pure science. It would HAVE to be producing enough energy to make it worth having up there in the first place to be viable.

[Tiwaz]

Basically use it as another ISS, now with a reason besides pure science. It would HAVE to be producing enough energy to make it worth having up there in the first place to be viable.

Except it would not be worth it to build ISS that tries to double as geostationary solar plant. Insane cost for single installation.
If we want to make anything worthwhile, there have to be dozens of those satellites so that their output would be anything more than amusing proof of concept.