The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

The calculations in the op are really bad and the costs are likely to be many times higher. You cant just overcome intermitancy by splitting your generators into different sites, you also have to overbuild and invest in storage. You also need a system that will work all the time, every year regardless of weather.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2012 13:35

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:23

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

Hobo Erotica posted:

Which calculations?

You heard it here first folks, the actual cost of a 10 year, $370 bn project to completely overhaul a national energy system, could in fact be higher than the first practical plan that anyone has ever actually done. We need NUMBERS spazzle, it's right there in the OP. Which part of the plan would be more expensive?

In the plan, they have modeled the amount of solar radiation recieved at each site, as well as the average wind speeds, and factored it all in. Download the report and see for yourself, it's got heaps of graphs and charts and tables and everything.

The PDF acknowledges some of the limitations (though in a pretty backhanded manner). You can't just use average values of solar radiation and wind speed, especially when you have limited amounts of storage, nor can you pretend that country wide weather is always uncorrelated. If you have a couple of days where the weather deviates significantly from the average value your backup capacity will be unable to keep up. The entire country will lose power and transportation (if you are going to an electric transport model). You need to significantly overbuild your infrastructure to compensate. Its like farming, most years a country can count on rain falling in a typical pattern on most farms, but you also need to plan on drought years when everything drops out all at once.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2012 02:24

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

Flaky posted:

The claim made in the video was that solar PV could generate 100% of Australia's 2020 renewable electricity target of 20% for $25 million within 10 years. That would mean for $125 million you could provide all of Australia's electricity with that technology. So it is only a marginal difference in price, and still way more cost efficient than nuclear.

You realize you are just pulling numbers out of your rear end here right?

# ¿ Nov 20, 2012 13:59

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

I don't see anything there about it being a reversable reaction. Can it use raw hydrogen?

# ¿ Dec 8, 2012 23:30

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

Yucca mountain.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2012 14:20

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