86 Percent of New Power in Europe From Renewable Sources in 2016 (theguardian.com) 194
Renewable energy sources made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe's electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent's rapid shift away from fossil fuels. From a report on The Guardian: But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end. Of the 24.5GW of new capacity built across the EU in 2016, 21.1GW -- or 86% -- was from wind, solar, biomass and hydro, eclipsing the previous high-water mark of 79% in 2014. For the first time windfarms accounted for more than half of the capacity installed, the data from trade body WindEurope showed. Wind power overtook coal to become the EU's second largest form of power capacity after gas, though due to the technology's intermittent nature, coal still meets more of the blocâ(TM)s electricity demand.
Clearly (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly this evil, and an attack on fine upstanding God-fearing fossil fuel companies who have been so victimized by the evil uber-wealthy climatologists out to make the world into a Stone Age Communist Collective. Won't somebody think of the Kochs?
Re: Clearly (Score:4, Insightful)
Um. No.
While I know your knee is busy jerking.. You have got your over zealous reaction wrong.
You are supposed to be complaining about the way this is saving us from the devising destruction that nuclear power will spill all over our children real soon now.. not the evil oil companies.
This is Europe replacing nuclear power, not (on the whole) oil.
It is also, as is often the case, highly biased reporting. They use the inflated capacity of assuming these sources can all product at peak capacity 24/7/365. Which of course is not true for the majority of them. Once you allow for their actual protection you see it falls back under 20â..... but then that's not a story, is it.
The SD state of affairs is that the greens in Europe are managing to get one form of clean energy (nuclear) replaced with another (solar and wind) that actually kills many more people, while actually increasing demand for hydrocarbon based power to fill in the gaps in base load.
Congratulations.
Of course now the other knee will jerk with a whole lot of 60s era paranoia about how radiation is evil and will destroy us all, while ignoring the fact that the existing problems with nuclear power have almost all been produced by the green movement by stalling development of newer safer and more efficient designs and making the cost of regulatory oversight so high that old plants have to be kept running way past their design lifespans.
I guess that's with another congratulations right there.
But no.. Pat each other on the back for having increased demand for hydrocarbon based power generation.. good job!
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I don't think the green movement had much to do with Fukishima, but way to go find a scapegoat.
If nothing else, nuclear is insanely expensive, and it isn't renewable either. You still have to dig uranium and other isotopes out of the ground.
Renewable-schmenewable... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear could become (with magic and prayers) cheap and renewable as farts - it will still be a security risk.
"Yeah but this new reactor design..." doesn't matter either.
You still have to build nuclear reactors in places where there will most likely be social upheavals resulting in wars in the next 50 years.
Cause those are the places where most people are being born, which means more energy needs, which means more powerplants - built in future Syrias.
Did someone say ISIS dirty bombs? Anyone? Anyone? NSA?
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They had nothing to do with the accident per se. But they certainly inflated and hyped the problem way beyond reason and caused Japan's economy to sink deeper into depression as a result for the (needless) total shutdown. Yet the reactors are being restarted. It's not like there are a lot of economically viable alternatives for a country like Japan.
Re: Clearly (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear in Europe is insanely expensive. As in, you would be insane to pay those prices for it. Even with massive over-build and backup storage, wind is far cheaper. There is just no economic case for nuclear any more, at least not here.
Rant all you like about environmental nutjobs and NIMBYs, but it's investors and governments who are killing off nuclear. That and the returns on renewables are far better than could ever be hoped for from developing new nuclear designs to replace they crappy ones we have now.
By the way, did you know that Germany built -5 new coal power stations. Minus 5, as in they built some new ones but closed even more, ending up with 5 fewer and the new ones are cleaner to boot. Even China hit peak coal a couple of years back and is now on the decline.
Re: Clearly (Score:4, Informative)
You're not getting this.
Wind is not a base load and can't ever be so long as you don't have a guaranteed 24/7/365 air flow or massive battery reservoir.
Solar isn't for obvious reasons (night time and clouds exist).
Both wind and solar presently serve to supplement base loads, not replace them. That means they provide power when they can, not when demand dictates.
At the moment the only viable base loads are hydro, coal or nuclear.
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So when you see a new wind farm being built, know that it is economical to build thanks to the power of fracking
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Yikes, really? That's bad on several levels.
I realize I should have said fossil fuels rather than coal in the GP.
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And hippies will tell you that any carbon emissions saved by burning natural gas are easily offset by the carbons used in natural gas production - putting the issue of man-made earthquakes and poisoned ground water aside entirely. That solar and wind power generation can be spaced across the grid - with spare power being stored via hydrostatic batteries - reservoirs or water towers in arid climates. No big whoop, with hydroelectric damns and water towers still in use that were built more than a century ag
Re: Clearly (Score:5, Insightful)
I am often struck by the way that the current debate about intermittent renewable power is strikingly similar to the arguments between net heads and bell heads two decades previously. The funny part from a historical standpoint is that both were kind of right.
You also miss an important point. The other factor that is important in power generation is if it is dispatchable. By dispatchable I mean can she adjust the power generated quickly to meet demand. Current nuclear and coal plants require long startup times and current nuclear plants can't throttle their power output very well, which makes them much less valuable in a world with a lot of renewables. Combined-cycle natural gas, on the other hand, is easy and quick to start up so it is very dispatchable.
There are a few other factors that somewhat mitigate the intermittent nature of solar and wind. The first one, kind of obvious, is that you know more or less in the near future how much power you will be able to produce from these sources (we know when the sun rises and sets, and weather forecasts 24 hours out are fairly accurate -- especially if you just want to know if it will be sunny or windy). The other is that if we have a larger geographical distribution for solar and wind, the intermittency problem is somewhat mitigated -- it is unlikely to be cloudy and windless everywhere at the same time. Finally, there are other ways to store energy than batteries. If you have an old-style hot water heater rather than an on-demand system, you are essentially storing energy in the hot water tank -- and it would be plausible to have a system that would heat your hot water when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. You can do similar things with heating and air conditioning systems in buildings, and even to a lesser extent in refrigerators or freezers.
You will still need some storage, but probably not as much as you think.
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Baseline Bullshit - you simply build your generating capacity across the grid. Coal and nuclear power is already moved hundreds of miles over power lines, so space your solar and wind generation across the same distance - the chances of a region being windless and sunless over hundreds of miles at a time is zero. Excess energy can be stored in hydrostatic batteries - pump water i
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Baseline Bullshit - you simply build your generating capacity across the grid. Coal and nuclear power is already moved hundreds of miles over power lines, so space your solar and wind generation across the same distance - the chances of a region being windless and sunless over hundreds of miles at a time is zero.
No it isn't. I wish it was, but for practical purposes of generating electricity, it's nowhere near zero.
Excess energy can be stored in hydrostatic batteries - pump water into a reservoir, then re
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massive battery reservoir
Is exactly what we're moving towards.
For instance, BMW is taking all used batteries from customers that changing to larger battery packs in their electric cars, and using them for energy storage. These battery packs still have significant capacity left, so they're ideal for applications where a slightly worse capacity:weight ratio isn't a hindrance.
I know Tesla is doing the same thing in the US, with their power banks.
Small steps, but we are actually doing it.
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This is not going
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And you don't need to use batteries for your energy reservoir, you can use a literal reservoir. Pump water to large reservoirs, use gravity to feed the water to turbines when energy is needed. Artificial hydro, baby.
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No it really isn't. Unless you think people don't need electricity on still days, or at night.
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Lies. "nuclear in Europe" is not "insanely expensive". It's just EPR that's the problem. The remaining 2nd generation nuclear reactors work just fine and cheap thank you. As should a decent design like AP1000 once they get experience building them. EPR is just too complicated (too many parts) and people already knew it when the design was announced.
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"...replaced with another (solar and wind) that actually kills many more people"
Wait, what?
[grabs popcorn]
How do you figure?
Re:Clearly (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the US should let other nations do the R&D on this one....and let someone else shake out the bug before we jump in."
It would be nice for a change....
Re:Clearly (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah totally, so that way the US can be a couple of decades behind, still be pumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, and end up with a backwards economy.
That's how the US succeeded, by sitting on its fucking ass.
Worked with digital TV (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah totally, so that way the US can be a couple of decades behind, still be pumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, and end up with a backwards economy.
That's how the US succeeded, by sitting on its fucking ass.
That's exactly what we did with digital TV.
While other countries were rolling out their own specs, the US held back and waited a couple of years. When we decided to switch the technology had grown more capable, new algorithms for compression and such were available, and ...we leapt ahead of everyone else in the world.
As far as the CO2 thing, that's probably a marketing issue. The people worried about that haven't done an effective job of presenting their case to the rest of the country. I'm not saying their
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While other countries were rolling out their own specs, the US held back and waited a couple of years. When we decided to switch the technology had grown more capable, new algorithms for compression and such were available, and ...we leapt ahead of everyone else in the world.
That's probably why I can get 1080p TV in Europe, but no one broadcasts 1080p in the U.S..
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Did you? That must explain all the glowing praise I read here about US TV providers.
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While other countries were rolling out their own specs, the US held back and waited a couple of years. When we decided to switch the technology had grown more capable, new algorithms for compression and such were available, and ...we leapt ahead of everyone else in the world.
Yet somehow the picture quality is awful, far worse than Japan which also uses NTSC for terrestrial broadcasts. What you mean to say is that you were unable to progress because too many people had analogue sets plugged into a coat hanger, and when you eventually did it was shit because the commercial desire to cram as many rivers of sewage into the available bandwidth left you with sub-par picture quality.
To be fair you are not really alone, the UK suffers from massive over-compression too, but Japan did it
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I didn't know we were talking about the denialists.
Re:Worked with digital TV (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear is 500% more expensive to decommission than was projected. And after that there are millions in costs to protect the decaying nuclear waste lest it be taken by terrorists.
If only there were some new types of reactors designed after 1950....
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If only there were some new types of reactors designed after 1950...
Non sequitur. The problem with nuclear isn't that there are "new designs" available - the problem is that nuclear power is unjustifiable based on cost alone. You simply cannot justify spending a decade to build a new nuclear plant, when you can build far more wind and solar energy in less time, for less money. And that's before getting into the longterm costs of nuclear power: maintenance, security, and storing waste for hundreds to thou
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Tell that to Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. They have a lot of solar exposure, sometimes they even flare their natural gas, and they are still building nuclear reactors. Last I heard the Abu Dhabi reactor construction was also on schedule and they should start operating this year.
The difference? They subcontracted the construction to the South Koreans, who actually have recent experience building reactors, compared to other countries which haven't built one in decades and lost a lot of the know-how (leading to
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Even the wealthy jerkasses know the trouble's coming, and really has already arrived. They know they've got maybe 20 years, but if they can keep the profits rolling in a little longer, well all the more money will be made. By and large, the senior management and largest shareholders in these firms are all very wealthy people, and can insulate themselves from the worst effects anyways.
But really, what is the strategy here? Every time someone declares that oil prices are rebounding and the industry is going t
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Yeah totally, so that way the US can be a couple of decades behind, still be pumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, and end up with a backwards economy.
That's how the US succeeded, by sitting on its fucking ass.
The USA wants to stay in the 1930's eara when there was the milk-wagon. .
The milk wagon, pulled by a horse, owner delivering milk bottles to doorsteps, and retrieving milk bottles and milk tickets was supplanted by mass marketing and centralized production. The USA wants to remain with coal and oil as the major energy provider and polluter
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Isn't that the Japanese? After Fukushima, they had to go back to coal. Since approximately nobody goes to Hokkaido (the northern island), they don't have to use many concealment measures. Besides, when they throw very large tarps over the robots they look like small hills.
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Yeah. Because that's how a country stays a technological leader... Make America great again.
Re: Clearly (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be nice for a change....
For a change? The US relied on overseas development for steam engines, internal combustion engines, rocketry, Canal-building and more.
Hell, the US still hasn't caught up on the metric system. Let alone a workable political system.
No wonder you're behind.
Re:Clearly (Score:4, Interesting)
with regards to the actual R&D, German companies can take credit for industry standard wind turbine, PV, and inverter technology.
Let us know when you are willing to make a change.
The US did the pioneering work (Score:2)
with regards to the actual R&D, German companies can take credit for industry standard wind turbine, PV, and inverter technology.
I'll challenge that. German companies may have done the industrialiation of wind turbines, but when you're talking about the "actual R&D", they built on the R&D that was done at NASA, who built the first multi-megawatt scale wind turbine back in the mid 1970s, when the biggest production units were 20 kW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And the same is true of PV technology-- today's low cost panels are all outgrowth of the technologies developed in the Low Cost Solar Array (LSA) project (later
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Same can be said for almost any technology.
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it's already happened. China, Germany and Japan already have more solar generation capacity than USA. China, Canada, Brazil have more hydroelectric installed capacity and production than USA. China also has surpassed USA for installed wind generation capacity.
with regards to the actual R&D, German companies can take credit for industry standard wind turbine, PV, and inverter technology.
Danish companies.Germany also has one of the largest wind-mill maker, but the technology was mainly developed in Denmark and Danish companies are still leading in tech and number of installation. In no small part due to earlier focus and subsidies on wind energy by _former_ Danish governments. German has a much bigger investment in solar energy that while started off not that great is hitting great strides right now.
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China also has surpassed USA for installed wind generation capacity*.
* outside of Congress.
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You Americans really think you invented everything don't you?
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Either way, I"m thinking "Cool!! That leaves more oil and gas for us here in the US and we can take a bit more time to switch over
Good point . It was not always beer and skittles back when the US was a world leader.
e.g. The US was first by far to have colour TV, but got stuck for decades with the terrible NTSC system.
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Re:Clearly (Score:5, Informative)
What a load of crap!
http://www.snopes.com/2017/02/... [snopes.com]
No, there's no fakery here. And when you're finished digesting just how gullible, then you can ponder the fact that the Arctic has been as high as 30 degress above normal temperatures this winter. While you try to salve your infantile feelings that the universe should behave like you want it to, CO2 still has the properties it has been known to have for over a century;
Grow up
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Even better, you gullible halfwit:
http://www.thatsfake.com/did-e... [thatsfake.com]
The Snowden story is a fake, you fucking idiot.
Solar is getting cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
When the new power gets to the point that the amount of power produced is not small compared to the existing sources, this will be interesting-- the grid will have to adapt to the time-variable sources.
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the grid will have to adapt to the time-variable sources
Stubborn grid -- why can't it just go ahead and get its act together now?
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A variable voltage, variable frequency grid would be interesting... but very difficult to safely manage.
blocâ(TM)s demand (Score:2, Offtopic)
I find blocâ(TM)s are very demanding
But this is only 2% of total power generated (Score:2, Informative)
I would say 25.4% is greater than 2% (Score:5, Informative)
I have no idea what the actual number is
Then by all means make up statistics rather than googling it, why don't change your username to Trump? :)
In 2014 renewable energy made up 25.4% of all energy production in the EU.
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s... [europa.eu]
Now don't be fooled there is lots of similar stats here, like:
Renewable energy sources accounted for a 12.5 % share of the EU-28’s gross inland energy consumption in 2014.
(Presumably because not all energy is consumed, read the details if you care, but read before you bash).
The goal remains:
The EU seeks to have a 20 % share of its gross final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020
Similarly, in 2014, the US was a 11%, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
(note. don't confuse electricity production for total energy production).
All these stats are from 2014, clearly things a better now, given most new energy production facilities are renewable.
Only 86%? I would have expected it to be 100%+ (Score:4, Interesting)
I checked and the USA was even lower at only 61.5% of new capacity being renewable. I was surprised there was any non-renewable being built new. If we truly started "phasing out" non-renewables then you would expect new capacity to be 100% renewable or even above 100% (if existing non-renewable plants were being shut down). I didn't realize we were still building *any* new coal/gas plants. I knew the existing ones were still being used but surprised that they were still building new ones. I'm surprised with as much renewable that is being built that our energy usage is going up fast enough to need that much new energy.
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Those numbers probably just mean new plants that produce power, not net capacity increases. It makes sense to shutter an older, less efficient (or more expensive to repair) fossil fuel plant and to replace it with newer natural gas combined cycle equipment.
Re:Only 86%? I would have expected it to be 100%+ (Score:4, Insightful)
Much of the new non-renewable capacity is upgrades to old stuff. For example, in Germany they are closing old coal power stations and replacing them with a smaller number of new ones, which are cleaner (but still suck) and better able to follow load and thus help support renewables.
Since they only count new builds and don't subtract all the old stuff going offline, you get 86%.
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We still need coal for base and peak-power though, and new plants are still build, though mainly to replace old dirtier coal plants.
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As soon as you have an high enough level of wind and solar, traditional base load is no longer needed, as it is replaced by wind and solar.
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Only if you have adequate storage to overcome any temporary lack of generation.
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No.
Storage has nothing to do with "base load" ... perhaps you want to read what base load actually is.
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A traditional base load constantly meets the minimum demand of the grid. If you have a relatively windless night, you can't generate enough power to provide that base. Assuming you have enough generation to meet demand in general, the problem is storing that power to allow constant output.
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When I know that 5% of my demand is always fulfilled by renewables I can reduce my base load capacity by 5%.
No storage needed.
When do I know that? When I have records of significant long time about my power production with renewables.
So: there is no problem with storage.
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In order to get 5% always fulfilled without storage you would need massively more than that in production. To completely convert your base load to wind and solar you either need to be able to store some of the energy or you need to have enough generators that even in the worst conditions you're still generating enough power to meet minimum demand. The latter would require you to have far more capacity than would be used on anything like a regular basis.
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Sigh ... ... as in Germany, or many other countries of Europe, already have that!!!
In order to get 5% always fulfilled without storage you would need massively more than that in production
Of course!!!!
But we
To completely convert your base load to wind and solar you either need to be able to store some of the energy or you need to have enough generators that even in the worst conditions
Wrong again!!
A load following plant or peak plant or balancing plant is completely capable of producing "base load". Facepal
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Only if you have adequate storage to overcome any temporary lack of generation.
Not that big a problem with wind actually. We can store for that long. The bigger problem is hydros. Given a bad season rain or mild winter, the dams can have an entire year with under projected energy. That is when Sweden. normally a net exporter, needs to import massive amounts of energy because they don't have coal plants anymore.
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I was surprised there was any non-renewable being built new.
Why would you be? We still need baseload power and so far renewables that are easily accessible to any country have yet to step up to this claim. The Dutch just brought a new coal plant online early 2016. Nice and new CCS technology, base load, but non-renewable none the less. Natgas based peaking plants are cropping up everywhere, and the French are still working on major nuclear projects.
You won't get 100% renewables until you solve the baseload / peaking problem. That won't happen for a while yet.
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And, with pumped water dams, you get hydro that's basically powered by renewables. You can have your wind farms or solar installations powering pumps that push water back up into a reservoir, and then let the water out to spread it over peak times or when renewable systems aren't producing power. I've even been hearing of variations on the theme; pumped gravel systems, even using something boxcars on rails, just about anything that can be pushed up any kind of incline, and then dropped in a controlled fashi
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You mean like an AC that doesn't offer any counterargument?
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I live in BC. Almost all our power is hydroelectric, and it can deal with peak periods. You're talking bullshit, both on quantities required, and ability to deal with peak usage. I'm going to be charitable and assume you're just a fucking moron, and not a sociopath.
Capacity factor? (Score:2)
Conspiracy theory (Score:2)
For years, politicians were (publicly) in a state of denial about fossil fuel supplies while they proclaimed that fusion would soon solve all of life's problems.
Fusion using tokamaks as currently envisioned isn't sustainable even in theory, but they would be huge, centralized power sources that governments could easily control (thus, the only sort that gets any funding, whether viable or not. ) Fission power has too many problems, and would take a few decades to make a difference at best. No other source of
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I'm not clear here. Are you saying the sun is going to stop shining, the wind stop blowing and the tides stop surging?
"capacity" (Score:4, Informative)
The "new capacity" is on top of the existing base load power plants. So when they do generate you might save some fossil fuel, when they don't generate there's not a problem.
That said, when people speak of "capacity" you can be sure they're blowing smoke. Actual generated megawatt hours is what matters; capacity means nothing, especially solar capacity in northern, cloudy areas like Europe
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Because all renewable power generation goes offline at the same time,
Different forms of renewable power generation go offline at different times, and geographically separated sources don't go offline in synch. One thing you can count on is that solar power generation stops at night, but this is a known time dependence, and hence can be accounted for in scheduling; not an intermittancy, which is the hardest interruption to handle.
and there's no way to store electricity.
It's also not true that there's no way to store electricity. You should know better than that, you've never h
Re: Base load (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Fake versus real cluelessness (Score:2)
"Slashdotters should know by now that irony is completely invisible on the internet, because fake cluelessness is indistinguishable from the surrounding real cluelessness."
Could you explain that to me like I'm five?
If it's helpful, the 8th deadly sin is failure to recognize sarcasm.
Re:Base load (Score:5, Insightful)
Both of your statements are incorrect.
Because all renewable power generation goes offline at the same time,
Different forms of renewable power generation go offline at different times, and geographically separated sources don't go offline in synch. One thing you can count on is that solar power generation stops at night, but this is a known time dependence, and hence can be accounted for in scheduling; not an intermittancy, which is the hardest interruption to handle.
Actually, peak load and solar don't happen to match up well, peak load is usually in the late afternoon (summer AC). Wind is not much better and a whole lot less reliable. Both are extremely hard to schedule with sufficient margin to keep a stable power grid. This means you have to overbuild by a lot of capacity (more than double) to provide the reliable energy source necessary to keep the electric grid up.... OR you have to keep a pile of fossil fueled capacity around to pick up the slack when the renewables are not able to provide what is needed.
and there's no way to store electricity.
It's also not true that there's no way to store electricity. You should know better than that, you've never heard of batteries? What you probably mean to say is that electrical storage is too expensive to be economically viable. That statement, however, is disputable. Definitely in places where hydropower is stored in reservoirs this is untrue, and new battery, fuel cell, compressed-air, and even flywheel technologies are coming online with decreases in price.
Again, you are sort of right, but practically wrong. Energy storage is indeed expensive if for no other reason than conversion losses. A really good chemical battery is going to chew up about 30% of the input AC power when you do all the conversions and account for all the losses (AC -> DC, DC into chemicals to charge the battery.. Chemicals -> DC, DC to AC to discharge it). The equipment just doesn't scale well either and over the total cost of such systems + the loss make them *really* expensive.
Then there is the question of "how big" you need to make the storage capacity. I dare say that it's got to be a LOT bigger than you think it should be t account for the worst case. This is driven by or dependence on the electric grid and it's reliability. We simply cannot easily absorb outages and not realize that they will come with significant financial costs and even loss of life. We have nearly zero tolerance for blackouts, which drives the needed capacity in any storage system higher and higher. Oh, and don't forget the extra capacity on the generation side to recharge your storage PLUS keep the grid online...
The primary point I'm making here is that storage is NOT a viable option. Renewables as they exist today, do not have enough reliability to be anything more than alternatives and we will need to keep backup fossil fueled alternative sources ready for when the wind stops and it's raining for days longer than the batteries can cover....
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If you're charging batteries using AC, you're doing it wrong (except in extended bad weather). There's been this push to make PV panels convert to AC immediately using a micro-inverter on each panel, then feed that AC to the grid - which is fine if you're grid-connected. OTOH my batteries are mostly fed by old-school DC. Being lead-acid, they need about 10% more put in than they can supply, they feed the DC lighting and refrigeration circuits directly, an the AC inverter runs at about 89-94% efficiency depe
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Sure, you can void the conversion losses by using DC from Photovoltaic solar panels to charge those batteries, but actually that's not going to add a whole lot of efficiency to the system. BY FAR the most inefficient part of a battery storage system is the chemical reaction (charging and discharging) in the battery, followed by IR losses (because battery electrodes are not usually good conductors) and THEN conversion losses, of which AC -> DC is usually the most efficient. You can even avoid the AC-DC-
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...but DC does NOT go though transmission systems very well, just ask Edison about how well Westinghouse cleaned his clock on that question.
I don't think that's correct [wikipedia.org]:
Depending on voltage level and construction details, HVDC transmission losses are quoted as about 3.5% per 1,000 km, which are 30 – 40% less than with AC lines, at the same voltage levels.[22] This is because direct current transfers only active power and thus causes lower losses than alternating current, which transfers both active and reactive power.
AC is still subject to resistance, and you end up with AC problems like the skin effect [wikipedia.org]. It's true that low voltage is problematic; before things like switching power supplies, the way to get from high to low (or vice versa) was to use a transformer -- AC device -- so using AC arguably made more sense.
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Insightful, but wrong.
Solar curve matches the demand curve quite nicely in most countries. No idea if YOU have an AC peak at the afternoon in the US. Most countries have not. And turning solar panels more westward would account for such a peak.
Then to your battery recharging meme ... recharging is close to 99% efficient, the loss is marginal.
No idea where you get your numbers from.
Large scale storage is usually done with pumped storage, both pump and turbine are over 90% efficient, so the total efficiency i
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Batteries are NOT 99% efficient, no way, no how... Not even close... The best chemistry you can get is about 90%, meaning for every 100 Watt Hours you put in, you get 90 out (best case). That's JUST the battery. Modern Switching power supplies can approach 95% in the AC-DC conversion, but DC to AC is a lot less efficient, PLUS the losses though the system are cumulative... You lose 5% here, 10% there and 20% there and it's looking pretty bad for efficiency, not quite 35% of total loss, but not that far a
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90% is not possible without violating some basic rules of thermodynamics or physics..
You are an idiot.
Pumping up water: has nothing to do with thermodynamics. There is no physical reason that it could not be 100% effective. As I pointed out: it is already above 90%
Running water down: has nothing to do with thermodynamics, either! And hydro plants are above 90% efficiency all over the world since literally centuries!!
So: the combined efficiency in pumped storages is above 80% ... (I never claimed 90%)
BTW, a
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Pumping up water: has nothing to do with thermodynamics.
You are horribly mistaken. Please revisit your thermo text.
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90% is not possible without violating some basic rules of thermodynamics or physics.. You are an idiot.
Pumping up water: has nothing to do with thermodynamics
Let's just stop there, because in one breath you call me an idiot, then in the next you make it clear that there IS an idiot in this exchange and it's not me. Surely the first two laws of thermodynamics apply here? Yes they do, they ALWAYS apply to physical systems...
Wisely I will refrain from debating you as you don't have even a cursory understanding of what you are making such confident assertions about.
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I don't think that many countries in Europe have an AC-induced afternoon peak electricity usage. A few blackouts would be no big deal to me, I would just go outside and do something else, get a bit of fresh air or something. Chop a few logs maybe
Still, blackouts are serious problems. Maybe not to you directly, sitting at home, but to most of the critical infrastructure you depend on for your daily needs like food, water, transportation and medical services. If you where in the hospital in the ICU on a ventilator, a power outage has a whole lot bigger impact on your immediate survival. If the blackout cause the freezer at that food supplier to thaw, you are doing to have issues getting those frozen pizzas for next weeks dinners, or if you can, th
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Still spreading myths? Trolling actually?
Hospitals have emergency back up power, even in "third world" countries ... no idea where you live.
Black outs ... unless there is a disaster with a huge area effected, there are no black outs.
Black outs are grid problem ... is there a wire going into region A after all other wires are destroyed? ... and not a question of the power source ... at least in: Europe.
Stop using your idiotic grid and power problems as arguments when the rest of the civilized world has not y
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Take it from me.... I know AC power distribution systems fairly well, although I sometimes get confused about where to use the square root of 3 and square root of 2... (If you know so much about this, explain what I just said, but I seriously doubt you can.)
Yes hospitals have "backup generators" that run on? Ding! Ding! Fossil fuels, usually diesel. By the way, where diesel motors can be started in a few minuets when necessary, they are an awfully inefficient and dirty way to generate power. But think
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Who cares about the fact that emergency power needs Diesel? ...
It is supposed to never be used
Regarding your idea about Blackouts, sorry. Such isolated grids where your scenario could happen don't exist in Europe. And most civilized countries have a decent grid where such scenarios can not happen either.
If an "isolated section" gets in to "unbalance" as you call it, balancing power plants and reserve power plants come into play. At least in my country and in Europe.
The only way to have a black out is a phys
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Who cares about the fact that emergency power needs Diesel? It is supposed to never be used ...
And if you are on a ventilator, that's the risk you are having to assume. Sure hopes that thing works for you...
I see you didn't address my basic AC power systems theory question, so I'm not going to waste my time trying to argue how a power grid works with you. You need a bit more education on that subject and I don't have the time to do it on \.
Hear what I'm saying.. Renewables are not consistent power sources, they vary from one day to the next, one hour to the next and are REALLY hard to schedule.
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You did not ask a question regarding power grids.
And thank you, you don't need to tell me how grids work, I worked in that business about 10 years.
one hour to the next and are REALLY hard to schedule.
They are not. They can not be "dispatched", that is waht you mean probably. The scheduling is easy. In "the grid world" I worked in (might be different from your grids as square root of 2 and 3 seems important to you) we use weather reports, or more precisely: "prognosis" systems for wind and solar plants. Accu
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I saw where they have lakes and they pump water to an uphill reservoir during the day using excess solar and then generate power by running it downhill through dynamos to the downhill reservoir at night.
Simpsons did it (Score:2)
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All of these stories about the uptake in renewables have these funny phrasings that seem to indicate they are cherrypicking to get the numbers they want.
I don't doubt that wind/solar/etc are being installed in increasing numbers, but the way these figures are presented have a "the chocolate ration has been increased" quality to them.
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