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evil_bunnY posted:With the illum they get it was about time they rub 2 brain cells together and use the petrodollars to buy solar. Yeah, solar surely beats natural gas on price in Saudi Arabia.
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Mar 29, 2018 12:55
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Imagine being able to see a wind turbine from your mansion. Oh noes! Seeing a wind turbine from your home! It's horrific! It is almost a trillionth as bad as being within visual distance of a 1970s-era USA nuclear power plant in terms of health risks. If you squint really really hard and use the most skewed data. By the way, I walked to work the other day in full sunshine. And I didn't put on sunscreen before I went out. The cancer risk of doing that is orders of magnitude beyond spending years within walking distance of a nuclear power plant. Also, news article today about price rises in my area because a brown coal power plant shut down. Worth it. Sure, in 1919 when industry was desperate for electricity it made sense for General Monash to get that technology from the recently defeated Germans. But now it just costs lives. Like, all the people who died because of Chernobyl, including all the projected and estimated losses because of cancer and stillbirths, is a drop in the bucket compared to all the lives lost because of loving coal. Million people a year dead. Just from coal. Yup. Genuinely a million people will die, or will have their lives drastically shortened, because of coal power, just in one year. It's a toxic piece of poo poo power source. It's getting close to beating influenza! No one is allowed to beat influenza! How the hell is something allowed to beat influenza! This will not stand! gently caress coal, honestly. I would rather live next to a faulty and failing 3rd rate Soviet nuclear power station, than to a modern coal power plant. At least you can TRUST gamma rays from a definite source that is contained. But particulate matter containing radium and who-knows what else is sucked up by coal? Total poo poo-show. Plus, if you export it, you have train lines conveying coal from the mine to the port, and it goes through residential areas. And the kids in those areas inevitably get leukemia and asthma. And who pays for it? It's ME, muggins 'ere who pays for it, in taxes, for all the medical bills that come about because coal power is so loving carcinogenic and toxic. Also I hope you fusion guys are doing well I think you're the best!
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Mar 29, 2018 15:04
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I've gotten higher meter readings off coal than enriched Uranium.
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Mar 29, 2018 18:40
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Fusion is likely never to be a realistic part of the power grid. By the time they reach commercial viability there won’t be grids or grid planners willing to deal with plants that are as large and binary as fusion is expected to be. 10+GW with no ramping might be feasible on today’s grid but pretty much every major grid is moving towards more flexible and smaller production sources rather than monolithic ones.
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Mar 29, 2018 18:48
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Trabisnikof posted:Fusion is likely never to be a realistic part of the power grid. By the time they reach commercial viability there won’t be grids or grid planners willing to deal with plants that are as large and binary as fusion is expected to be. 10+GW with no ramping might be feasible on today’s grid but pretty much every major grid is moving towards more flexible and smaller production sources rather than monolithic ones. Theoretically, wouldn't that trend change in a hurry with the sudden and magical availability of bigass clean 10GW plants?
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Mar 29, 2018 18:58
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Potato Salad posted:Theoretically, wouldn't that trend change in a hurry with the sudden and magical availability of bigass clean 10GW plants? Depends on what the system in the future looks like. Lines are expensive.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:15
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Here's another way to put it, when they decide to build anything they are estimating the lifespan of whatever it is and future of the system. It's a bigass loan to build any of this power stuff, and the capital heavy nature of it makes fast changes undesirable to utilities.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:18
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evil_bunnY posted:With the illum they get it was about time they rub 2 brain cells together and use the petrodollars to buy solar.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:19
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bawfuls posted:I wonder how much of a hit they take due to the heat. It is notoriously hot on the Arabian Peninsula, and PV cells become less efficient as they get hotter. The effect is noticeable on residential solar, my dad says his highest production days are nearly always in the late spring/early fall, not the middle of the summer. Maybe an elevated array where the solar panels are on top and you have big heat sinks below catching the wind.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:29
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OwlFancier posted:Maybe an elevated array where the solar panels are on top and you have big heat sinks below catching the wind. The bottom line is probably just that they get so much sun even a 30% efficiency hit is still acceptable.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:33
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Oh yeah I mean I'm just curious as to what sort of design comes out of it, it'd be interesting to look at. If you wanted to invest the extra money you could perhaps try an old windcatcher style design but I don't know if you need water access for those to work properly, or whether it might not be cheaper to just build more solar panels.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:35
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Potato Salad posted:Theoretically, wouldn't that trend change in a hurry with the sudden and magical availability of bigass clean 10GW plants? But once the grid is adapted to a more variable and high renewable mix, it seems very unlikely that new fusion plants will be renewables with storage on a cost basis. Maybe there’s a scenario where we’re building TWs of demand in atmospheric carbon capture and then fusion starts to look more appealing. And this is all assuming they resolve commercialization issues like neutron embrittlement etc.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:09
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Trabisnikof posted:But once the grid is adapted to a more variable and high renewable mix, it seems very unlikely that new fusion plants will be renewables with storage on a cost basis.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:21
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bawfuls posted:This really depends on the state of large scale energy storage at that point. If we’re already at a place where renewables + storage are becoming price competitive with fossil fuels it seems unlikely a new and more complex capital intensive power plant design will be cheaper.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:38
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That price parity could happen because of increases to fossil fuel costs (maybe more accurately, FF costs including the externalized environmental costs) as much as decreases in storage costs.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:39
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bawfuls posted:That price parity could happen because of increases to fossil fuel costs (maybe more accurately, FF costs including the externalized environmental costs) as much as decreases in storage costs. That’s certainly true in the out years, but we’re seeing renewables + storage bids competing with fossil fuel prices today. It is cheaper to build new wind or solar than pay to operate an existing coal plant for the same MWh. Solar Thermal with storage is being contracted at $61/MWh, comparable with coal or natural gas. The issue is of course, we don’t have time to wait for market forces to change things, but the price outlook of renewables has shifted dramatically.
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Mar 29, 2018 20:49
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Are they using photovoltaic or solar thermal in SA? Because solar thermal neatly avoids heat/no generation at night issues,even if its more expensive.
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Mar 29, 2018 21:00
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nothing to seehere posted:Are they using photovoltaic or solar thermal in SA? Because solar thermal neatly avoids heat/no generation at night issues,even if its more expensive. Kinda blows my mind that solar thermal generates all night long. How many tons of working fluid are we talking about with these plants' main heat reservoirs?
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Mar 29, 2018 21:05
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What kind of fluid is normally used in thermal solar?
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Mar 29, 2018 21:06
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Potato Salad posted:Kinda blows my mind that solar thermal generates all night long. How many tons of working fluid are we talking about with these plants' main heat reservoirs? Not all solar thermal does, and often it is “only” 10 hours of storage. Crescent Dunes, the US project with storage, can store and deliver 110MWs for 10 hours. They also want to build 10-15 more in Nevada somewhere. Taffer posted:What kind of fluid is normally used in thermal solar? Molten salt mostly. Stored at 556C when “hot” and 260C when “cold”.
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Mar 29, 2018 21:11
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Did they manage to stop it obliterating all bird life in the area?
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Mar 29, 2018 21:43
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OwlFancier posted:Did they manage to stop it obliterating all bird life in the area? That was more Tonopah CSP’s gimmick  But the people who run Crescent Dunes say they solved it by using more complex geometry for the way they point the mirrors. The way Tonopah points their mirrors for standby I believe was a big part of why they had so many “streamers” (that’s what they call the birds that got popped). But also in CSP gossip, Tonopah is likely going to be unprofitable because they failed to account for Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 21:51
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What as in jet contrails block out that much sunlight that it makes the SPP inviable?
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Mar 29, 2018 21:55
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OwlFancier posted:What as in jet contrails block out that much sunlight that it makes the SPP inviable? Apparently. Tonopah was Bechtel and friends’ design for storageless molten salt. For political reasons they selected a site in a valley. This combines to require a bunch of natural gas heaters to warm up the salt in the morning to be able to generate power. Apparently those early morning contrails block just enough sunlight to make their design no longer cost effective. Since they can’t count renewable credit for the energy the gas burners put in and that’s an operating cost on top of that. Crescent Dunes has had some leaking issues but their manufacturer, Solarreserve, seem full steam ahead on their GWs of planned/contracted CSP globally.
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Mar 29, 2018 22:07
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What’s the cost of that solar when you include the Patriot batteries to keep Iranian (proxy) missiles from blowing it up?
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Mar 29, 2018 23:19
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Surely you would use high energy lasers to be eco friendly.
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Mar 30, 2018 00:29
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Trabisnikof posted:If we’re already at a place where renewables + storage are becoming price competitive with fossil fuels it seems unlikely a new and more complex capital intensive power plant design will be cheaper. We’ll still have to electrify a shitton of fossil fuel based but currently non electrical stuff though (almost all vehicles for one). Unless fusion takes another century to become viable I’d expect there to be enough increases in electricity demand that it’d make sense to include it.
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Mar 30, 2018 08:25
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Syzygy Stardust posted:What’s the cost of that solar when you include the Patriot batteries to keep Iranian (proxy) missiles from blowing it up? You dont need more patriot batteries, you just aim the mirrors! Now you just have to hope no missiles are launched at night.
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Mar 30, 2018 11:28
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Speaking of fusion, Lockheed Martin recently received a patent for their supposed compact fusion reactor. Which is indicative of nothing, really.
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Mar 30, 2018 16:22
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bawfuls posted:I wonder how much of a hit they take due to the heat. It is notoriously hot on the Arabian Peninsula, and PV cells become less efficient as they get hotter. The effect is noticeable on residential solar, my dad says his highest production days are nearly always in the late spring/early fall, not the middle of the summer. Just use the electricity from the array to run a condenser that generates liquid nitrogen to cool the array. Simple really.
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Apr 2, 2018 01:50
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Concordat posted:Speaking of fusion, Lockheed Martin recently received a patent for their supposed compact fusion reactor. Which is indicative of nothing, really. Bah. When was the last time that LM built something that was great and on time? The 70s?
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Apr 3, 2018 09:45
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Charlz Guybon posted:Bah. When was the last time that LM built something that was great and on time? The 70s? It's sad to say but in the world of government contracting it always seems to be design-build at the same time which is a bad idea. Additionally, you run into issues like one agency vs. another agency and people forming their own "fiefdom" over years and years and years. Working with the government is a huge pain. Then again I have heard that working with the Department of Defense is pretty good. (Then again we also wind up with like F-22 and F-35 gently caress ups.) TLDR, make a contract with clear and meaningful objectives for both parties. (A leads to B leads to C...) Something that can be built and designed in 2-3 years is a very different animal from something that takes 10-15 years. (Get met to Z and uhhhh design and build it at the same time!)
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May 11, 2018 02:54
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The legal scrambling continues over VC Summer here in SC. http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article211324814.html When we find out that the project was plagued by fraud and grift, I will be so surprised.
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May 18, 2018 13:07
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angryrobots posted:The legal scrambling continues over VC Summer here in SC. Gee here is an idea (charitably it might not be allowed under SC law), roll back the rate charges here and now, order past ones to be refunded, and only put back into place if they can justify it. I love that they can just stall for time as the regulatory body takes forever to see if they can justify rolling back the rare increase.
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May 19, 2018 00:47
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Meanwhile, bitcoin's energy usage continues to undo decades of progress https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30177-6
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May 19, 2018 02:08
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QuarkJets posted:Meanwhile, bitcoin's energy usage continues to undo decades of progress I've hated Bitcoin's uselessness for years, but this kind of thing makes me genuinely mad. 
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May 19, 2018 20:36
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QuarkJets posted:Meanwhile, bitcoin's energy usage continues to undo decades of progress The end of the article is the scary part. 300kWh to up to 900kWh of electricity per transaction is what bitcoin averages out to. Even at the low wholesale rate of $.05 per kWh used in the paper, that is $15 to $45 per transaction. That can’t be remotely viable in the long term.
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May 19, 2018 21:02
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Orvin posted:The end of the article is the scary part. 300kWh to up to 900kWh of electricity per transaction is what bitcoin averages out to. Even at the low wholesale rate of $.05 per kWh used in the paper, that is $15 to $45 per transaction. That can’t be remotely viable in the long term. I feel like the viability of having a huge cost/transaction is a much lesser concern. What's really unsustainable here is the electricity usage Everyone knew this was what bitcoin would lead to but bitcoiners didn't give a poo poo
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May 19, 2018 21:26
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QuarkJets posted:I feel like the viability of having a huge cost/transaction is a much lesser concern. What's really unsustainable here is the electricity usage In the grand scheme of things, 6GW is not a huge amount of power, especially when it is distributed worldwide. Some of the large cities in the US have over 6GW in difference between their daily peak and daily minimum usage. If there was a way to cycle the mining so that it only ran at night in their location, power companies would probably welcome them. I do wonder how much of that electricity usage is wasted. How much of that is going to generating hashes that are not used. Is there some way that the whole block chain process could be made more efficient? Or is it a fundamental flaw of the whole idea.
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May 19, 2018 21:44
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Orvin posted:In the grand scheme of things, 6GW is not a huge amount of power, especially when it is distributed worldwide. Some of the large cities in the US have over 6GW in difference between their daily peak and daily minimum usage. If there was a way to cycle the mining so that it only ran at night in their location, power companies would probably welcome them. Only one hash is used for each block, the bitcoin mining network currently generates 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 hashes per second, bitcoin adjusts the mining difficulty to average one block every 10 minutes, so that's an average of 18,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 hashes generated to find a useable one. It's a fundamental flaw in the entire idea, blockchains accept massive inefficiency for the ability to have no central authority in charge of updating the transaction ledger.
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May 19, 2018 21:57
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