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blowfish posted:Besides having enormous amounts of storage, it also requires Yeah there is a huge amount of storage it requires (or accept some unmet demand) and also subtly just throws in "Remove most personally owned cars from the road" but seems like as technically feasible as any plan. It is actually comprehensive, models the grid and otherwise is a lot more effort than one sees in non-renewable focused studies.
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Aug 31, 2016 07:59
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NREL released a study on what storage will be required for 50% solar PV energy in California this past week as well. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/66595.pdf
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Aug 31, 2016 08:27
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blacksun posted:In recent times it appears that this thread has swung back towards the 'renewables can't replace baseload'. We've thoroughly discussed that very plan in this very thread, you could probably use the forum's search features to pull up those posts if you want to see what people thought about it like... a year or two ago. The report itself was written in 2010, and the energy landscape has changed so much in the last 5 years that I wouldn't place any faith in its predictions (positive or negative). From what I recall, the report is mostly pie-in-the-sky stuff. Solar Thermal was the hot new popular idea for how the world could be fixed, but within a few years experts started realizing that solar thermal is actually kind of inefficient and would use an ecologically devastating amount of space if implemented on a national scale. It's also got a lot of predictions about how we'll be using a lot less energy, everyone will be happy to switch to electric public transportation, everyone will be on a Smart Grid, everyone's house will be upgraded so that their fridge can interface with a smart meter, etc. It's pinning a lot on reduced usage and increased efficiency, which makes it a lot easier to reach baseload. IIRC Australia is actually making a go of the 100% renewable idea, and I wish them the best of luck. blacksun posted:Do you think people are actually going to start building hundreds of nuclear power plants? First of all, you're dodging the question Second of all, you don't really think that that's equivalent, do you? We're actually building new nuclear power plants right now, and we have the ability to build more. "Everyone's house will be upgraded to interface with the smart grid and then we'll all start taking the bus" is a fairy tale.
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Aug 31, 2016 09:37
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QuarkJets posted:Second of all, you don't really think that that's equivalent, do you? We're actually building new nuclear power plants right now, and we have the ability to build more. "Everyone's house will be upgraded to interface with the smart grid and then we'll all start taking the bus" is a fairy tale. Even if we were building nuclear faster than the fleet is retiring (we're not), criticizing this plan for including transportation energy is dumb. Since even if we build a bunch of nuclear, we'll still need to do something about transportation energy. But then again, thank god we were able to install 7+GW of PV & 8+GW of wind in the US in just 2016. The faster we online zero emissions energy sources the better.
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Aug 31, 2016 10:33
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Trabisnikof posted:But I doubt any one scenario model will be accurate, however this seems like a technically feasible way to achieve the goals. And it doesn't just deal with the electric grid, but the entire energy economy, something often ignored in proposals. I suspected this might have been of interest. The studies BZE have done supply modeling of how a distributed grid could deal with intermittency issues inherent in renewable generation based on weather patterns and expected generation capacity of geographical areas.
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Aug 31, 2016 10:45
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Trabisnikof posted:Even if we were building nuclear faster than the fleet is retiring (we're not), criticizing this plan for including transportation energy is dumb. Since even if we build a bunch of nuclear, we'll still need to do something about transportation energy.
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Aug 31, 2016 14:28
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Trabisnikof posted:Even if we were building nuclear faster than the fleet is retiring (we're not), criticizing this plan for including transportation energy is dumb. Since even if we build a bunch of nuclear, we'll still need to do something about transportation energy. I'm not criticizing it for addressing transportation, you dumbshit
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Aug 31, 2016 17:10
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QuarkJets posted:I'm not criticizing it for addressing transportation, you dumbshit Ah when you described transportation mode change as "a fairy tale" I thought it was a criticism.
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Aug 31, 2016 18:10
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Trabisnikof posted:Ah when you described transportation mode change as "a fairy tale" I thought it was a criticism. My criticism is that "half of all cars will be gone in a few years as more people use light rail" is magical thinking and not based on evidence. You accused me of criticizing the report for merely having a portion of it dedicated to transportation energy, which is clearly not what I did.
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Sep 1, 2016 01:21
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QuarkJets posted:My criticism is that "half of all cars will be gone in a few years as more people use light rail" is magical thinking and not based on evidence. You accused me of criticizing the report for merely having a portion of it dedicated to transportation energy, which is clearly not what I did. Yeah but you still seem to be missing the point of reports like that one. It isn't to be predictive but offer a course of action. Saying "but we've never done that before" is kind of the point.
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Sep 1, 2016 01:28
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Trabisnikof posted:Yeah but you still seem to be missing the point of reports like that one. It isn't to be predictive but offer a course of action. Saying "but we've never done that before" is kind of the point. It doesn't actually offer a course of action if they don't bother to anchor significant sections of it in reality. You might as well just write a proposal that just says "everything gets fixed, problem solved!" at that point.
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Sep 1, 2016 02:11
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fishmech posted:It doesn't actually offer a course of action if they don't bother to anchor significant sections of it in reality. It was a model of technical feasibility not political one.
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Sep 1, 2016 02:26
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Trabisnikof posted:Yeah but you still seem to be missing the point of reports like that one. It isn't to be predictive but offer a course of action. Saying "but we've never done that before" is kind of the point. I think that I've shown that I do understand the point of this report. It suggests a course of action based on a number of assumptions, and some of these assumptions have serious issues. These are the issues that I'm bringing up. If the assumptions are unlikely outcomes, then it's important to keep that in mind when addressing whether or not that report's course of action is reasonable or whether its predicted outcomes are likely Trabisnikof posted:It was a model of technical feasibility not political one. My point is that their model is based on some seriously flawed assumptions. Throwing out half of transportation and assuming unprecedented strides in energy efficiency makes meeting baseload much easier, but in the real world it suggests that the report's conclusions probably aren't realistic QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Sep 1, 2016 |
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Sep 1, 2016 02:43
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Trabisnikof posted:It was a model of technical feasibility not political one. "Half of all cars go away" isn't technically feasible unless you footnote it with "And a shitload of people die."
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Sep 1, 2016 02:55
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Trabisnikof posted:It was a model of technical feasibility not political one. It is not a model of technical feasibility: it is not feasible, technologically, to replace Australia's sprawled out car use development pattern with something that can replace half of said car use with light rail and other transit. There would be serious, possibly insurmountable, signaling and maintenance issues for doing it with rail transport, and serious problems with doing it with buses as well. fishmech fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Sep 1, 2016 |
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Sep 1, 2016 02:57
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Phanatic posted:"Half of all cars go away" isn't technically feasible unless you footnote it with "And a shitload of people die."
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Sep 1, 2016 03:02
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Pander posted:Well, if you're waiting for green energy to replace all baseload sources I have some good news for you on that front... Not in the relevant locations though.
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Sep 1, 2016 03:05
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Trabisnikof posted:It was a model of technical feasibility not political one.
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Sep 1, 2016 12:13
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Though it still benefits from subsidies, the solar and wind power projects that have been built in the last few years are price competitive with most baseload power types, and it looks like costs should keep declining. Link Now that the big money is being put into solar and wind, the nimby hurdle seems to have mysteriously disappeared as well. <cough>.
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Sep 16, 2016 03:10
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Didn't see this mentioned yet but this happened: http://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/House-Passes-Bill-Promoting-Advanced-Nuclear-TechnNEI posted:Sept. 14, 2016—In a strong show of bipartisan support for nuclear energy, the U.S. House of Representatives this week passed by voice vote legislation that one of its sponsors said could ensure that “advanced nuclear technologies can be developed, licensed and constructed here in the United States.” My friends working on advanced reactor designs seem pretty optimistic, hopefully it gets through the Senate!
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Sep 16, 2016 03:23
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EoRaptor posted:Though it still benefits from subsidies, the solar and wind power projects that have been built in the last few years are price competitive with most baseload power types, and it looks like costs should keep declining. This is undeniably a good thing. The problem with articles like these though is that it compares baseload power sources to the cost of intermittent power sources averaged out over some long time period. This is fine until we start treading into "why can't we just use 100% intermittent power sources?" territory, which is inevitably where articles like this lead. You can effectively turn intermittent power sources into baseload sources if you have enough energy storage. That's the cost that I'd like to see.
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Sep 16, 2016 03:55
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QuarkJets posted:This is undeniably a good thing. The problem with articles like these though is that it compares baseload power sources to the cost of intermittent power sources averaged out over some long time period. This is fine until we start treading into "why can't we just use 100% intermittent power sources?" territory, which is inevitably where articles like this lead. That's one of the thing the EIA's new wind report does discuss, and the additional costs related to the intermittency it is still on track for pushing out more carbon fuels. quote:Overall, the cost of wind power has dropped to the point where power purchase agreements are running at prices that are competitive with the costs of the fuel for a natural gas plant. (While solar is just now dropping to close to $30 per MW-hr, wind has been averaging a bit below that in recent years.) They're expected to be stable over the coming decade, meaning they'll decline in real-dollar terms. In contrast, natural gas prices are expected to rise slightly; the report concludes that "The price stream of wind [power purchase agreements] executed in 2014-2016 compares very favorably to the EIA’s latest projection of the fuel costs of gas-fired generation extending out through 2040."
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Sep 16, 2016 04:02
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Isn't there a 3GW hydroelectric battery in Virginia?
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Sep 16, 2016 04:09
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That blurb doesn't sound like it's talking about the cost of turning wind power into a baseload power source (aka keeping N days of storaged power for around-the-clock utilization). It sounds like it's talking about the additional costs of dealing with intermittent power sources
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Sep 16, 2016 04:13
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QuarkJets posted:That blurb doesn't sound like it's talking about the cost of turning wind power into a baseload power source (aka keeping N days of storaged power for around-the-clock utilization). It sounds like it's talking about the additional costs of dealing with intermittent power sources That's correct in so much as $5 is the cost to handle the fact it is intermittent: quote:Studies show that wind energy integration costs are almost always below $12/MWh—and often below $5/MWh—for wind power capacity penetrations of up to or even exceeding 40% of the peak load of the system in which the wind power is delivered. System operators and others continue to implement a range of methods to accommodate increased wind energy penetrations and reduce barriers to deployment: treating wind as dispatchable, increasing wind’s capability to provide grid services, revising ancillary service market design, balancing area coordination, and new transmission investment. About 1,500 miles of transmission lines came on-line in 2015—less than in previous years. The wind industry, however, has identified 15 near-term transmission projects that—if all were completed—could carry 52 GW of additional wind capacity. So we can push our grids to 40%+ wind already without additional storage and we can add 52GW of wind capacity with just current power line projects. But yes, there will be more costs associated with very high renewables penetrations. Luckily a lot of those costs can be covered by the renewables themselves or through systems changes: quote:Recent studies of wind integration have sometimes focused on conditions that are likely to be the most challenging. For example, a recent GE transient stability72 study focused on spring light load, high wind periods in Wyoming when most of the region’s synchronous generators will be offline (Miller et al. 2015). Maintaining stability after a major disturbance, like the loss of a large transmission line, will be challenging in some extreme hours under weak system conditions. Achieving acceptable performance is found to require combinations of traditional mitigation strategies, including the potential need for transmission system improvements, and non- traditional wind power plant controls. The changes to wind plant controls would alter the low voltage power logic in a wind plant to suppress active current during severe faults.
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Sep 16, 2016 04:43
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Is anyone getting the feeling there might be a major oil crash coming up? I've been following the price of oil online and breaking $40 is becoming a real big worry point.
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Sep 18, 2016 21:01
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ColoradoCleric posted:Is anyone getting the feeling there might be a major oil crash coming up? I've been following the price of oil online and breaking $40 is becoming a real big worry point. You mean the price will drop again? One can only hope so.
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Sep 18, 2016 21:03
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Flip a coin it'll be as good a guess as anything else.
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Sep 18, 2016 21:03
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So... nuclear question.... Right now which commercial power reactor design is the 'newest' that is currently operating? I know Korea has the APR 1400 but I don't know how 'new' it is compared to say the Russian designs floating around... AP1000 still not connected to the grid in China. EPR still under construction ABWR - operating in Japan and Taiwan I think... ESBWR - none built yet
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Sep 18, 2016 21:39
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Senor P. posted:So... nuclear question.... The fast breeder BN 800 recently reached full power in Glorious Mother Russia and is commercial-ish.
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Sep 22, 2016 00:41
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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EoRaptor posted:Though it still benefits from subsidies, the solar and wind power projects that have been built in the last few years are price competitive with most baseload power types, and it looks like costs should keep declining. quote:(While solar is just now dropping to close to $30 per MW-hr, wind has been averaging a bit below that in recent years.) Electricity prices are about 40-50 cents per kWh, or $400 per MWh. The price quoted here seems to be very, not right? Or did I do something not right?
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Sep 22, 2016 00:56
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BattleMoose posted:Electricity prices are about 40-50 cents per kWh, or $400 per MWh. The price quoted here seems to be very, not right? Or did I do something not right? The average US electricity price is 12.73 cents per KWh for residential customers, 10.58 cents for commercial and 7.03 cents for industrial. And the actual cost at point of generation is even lower than those, since companies need to make money along the way - including covering things like the distribution network upkeep. Washington State offers an average industrial customer price for electricity of 4.46 cents per kilowatthour. This seems to be because they use hydroelectric dams for power far more than any other source: 
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Sep 22, 2016 01:13
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Okay those numbers add up. Also, electricity in the USA is *crazy cheap*. Australia is more than double.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:25
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I imagine energy is cheaper in the continental US than in Australia because there's a lot more people in roughly the same area.
Concordat fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 01:34
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Well that's what you get for living on an island.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:37
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Concordat posted:I imagine energy is cheaper in the continental US than in Australia because there's a lot more customers in roughly the same area. Population in Australia is actually very highly concentrated on its Eastern Seaboard. The majority of it is like, literally, completely empty. I would guess bigger issues would be higher minimum wages and possibly distance from coal mines to power plants.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:37
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I have no idea, but my other guess would be the US government subsidizes energy companies a lot more.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:40
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If I remember rightly there were also a lot of beauractic shenanigans regarding privatization of some companies and allowing companies to build more infrastructure than that was needed and being able to pass those costs onto consumers for reasons... :./
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Sep 22, 2016 01:53
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BattleMoose posted:Population in Australia is actually very highly concentrated on its Eastern Seaboard. The majority of it is like, literally, completely empty. I would guess bigger issues would be higher minimum wages and possibly distance from coal mines to power plants. Labor costs shouldn't be too much of it. But the fact that your country's electricity was 61% from coal and 22% from natural gas with 15% renewables (7% hydro and 8% other) probably has a lot to do with it. If you have to haul a ton of coal a long way, that's going to be a big issue. In comparison the US generation share is about 33% coal, 33% natural gas, 20% nuclear, 14% renewable (6% hydro, 5% wind, 3% other) with minor usage of oil-fired plants in outlying places like Hawaii and for specialized peaking plants. Generally better infrastructure for transport of the coal and natural gas probably helps.
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Sep 22, 2016 02:05
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fishmech posted:Labor costs shouldn't be too much of it. But the fact that your country's electricity was 61% from coal and 22% from natural gas with 15% renewables (7% hydro and 8% other) probably has a lot to do with it. If you have to haul a ton of coal a long way, that's going to be a big issue. Australia has way more coal and natural gas than required locally, to the point it is a large exporter of both. Transport costs aren't an issue because coal power stations are built right next to large coal mines and gas power stations are built near gas fields and existing pipelines. The reason electricity is a lot more expensive for the australian consumer than the american is a combination of a few things. There is a significantly higher level of direct subsidies for renewables through state level small scale PV schemes that pay well over market rate for customer generation as well as larger schemes being funded by federal renewable energy certificate mandates, the subsidy of rural supply through state wide tariff structures increases distribution charges, and australian distribution grids are built to an almost european standard instead of being run on a shoestring like in america.
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Sep 22, 2016 14:51
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