Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

All earths energy (and matter) is solar sourced. Some of the energy was collected earlier, some is shining on earth 24/7.

The sun is not only adequate, but extremely reliable.

Unleashing previously stored solar energy is a fools bargain if it's waste fouls the life support system.

Nuclear is only different than coal in that you dig up tons of dirt to make milligrams of fuel after wasteful and exotic processing that still ultimately gets burned for energy like trainloads of coal, but at a tiny fraction of the fuel mass.

After all the data centers are solar with storage, after all the ISPs are solar with storage, after residential power supply is local solar with storage, all who please will still remain free to use that solar energy towards sharing doubts about its viability.
 
liveforphysics said:
After all the data centers are solar with storage, after all the ISPs are solar with storage, after residential power supply is local solar with storage, all who please will still remain free to use that solar energy towards sharing doubts about its viability.
When? This is too simplistic a view. What about the other 80% of energy that is not electric? You still do not take into consideration the whole system as it concerns a looming 11 Billion people. In China 68% of energy is embeded. In the USA it is 91% embeded in "stuff" and services. Only 9% of USA energy is used directly when we flip on a light or pour a glass of water and turn down our air conditioner. Or burn gas in our cars. Most of our energy IS the air conditioner and the car. And the hospital and the road that leads to it. ect.
 
liveforphysics said:
All earths energy (and matter) is solar sourced.
With the exception of geothermal and nuclear, both of which come from the material that made the Earth - which in turn came from _other_ big stars, some of which went supernova.
 
Ianhill said:
Fact- There's not enough land mass for solar panels to support the current world popluation
Let's do the math!

Total land area in the world: 200 million square miles (5 x 10^14 square meters)
Average solar radiation that hits that land area: 340 watts per square meter (note that in direct sunlight that number is 1000 watts per square meter, but accounting for nights and clouds you get 1/3 of that)
Average efficiency of solar panels circa 2017: 18%

Total power available if you covered 100% of the land area with panels: 310 x 10^14 watts, or 31 petawatts on average

Total energy consumption of the human race, all forms of energy: 157.5 petawatt-hours per year, based on 2013. (Oil, coal, nuclear, everything.)

That's an average of .0179 petawatts. So if you covered the entire land surface of the planet with solar panels, you would generate 1700 times the energy we need. Fact.

So let's just plan to cover 1% of the land surface with panels in the best places - deserts, mountaintops, road and parking lot covers etc. That gives us, potentially, 17 times the energy we need. That gives us room for expansion as more people leave the third world and start using more energy. Then add wind, geothermal, and hydro to round out the system, and natural gas peakers to deal with short term demand until we have the network well integrated.

And all that gives us time to get to the ultimate solution - solar power satellites, which are in the sun 100% of the time and beam power back in the form of microwaves.
 
The 157PW is based on input thermal energy. A massive amount goes towards thermal energy in refining various things to burn.

Todays solar efficiency isn't a hard cap, as with multi junction cells the maximum is at least double today's efficiency.

Oceans can float collection arrays for orbiting solar concentrator reflectors. Using the inflatable metal foil techniques they can cover acres of reflection area with minimal orbital mass.

While all the wasted energy in transporting and refining and converting from heat to mechanical loss, the value of useful work output is considerably lower than a system which doesn't generate in a natively useful form (electricity).

If humans want a heat source for heat driven industrial processes, rather than making nuclear power plants, just digging down enough taps a heat source to run boilers.
 
Some interesting valid points regarding landmass vs solar output, But we have to realize just because the land is not built on by humans it's still habit for nature, And a solar plant needs to be in an open flat area to catch the maximum sun ? I need there's lots of area that remain in shade for most of the day due to mountionous obstructions so even though figures suggest we can do it there is a big inconsistencie with what land is solar fertile or not.

Again with the sea a large array will block light to the ocean floor plankton, corals etc will all take a hit waters underneath will become colder natural heat and cold paths that stream the earth will be altered it's all going to impact somehow we have had crazy thinking from back in the 1930 and before with the Dyson sphere encapsulating the sun etc but for a tech rich planet with vast lush habitat's loaded with wildlife and human equality only fusion fits the bill to allow many years of cleaning out act up and possibly the expansion of our species into space.

This is where I totally agree we would be ignorant to think that imense damage is not already happening with our current tech as we see there is devastation all over the planet all from energy production and use our material products are the byproduct and outcome of the energy consumption and as we want more cars more solar panels it's going to increase year on year but I like to think that we are heading towards a energy dense and rich future anything that has large area becomes vunerable and harder to protect from disaster so for now we take what we got and have a mixed bag some of it controversial but I do believe and hope we kick fusion off and push batteries to 10× density so we can have electric diggers and agricultural vehicles and make a real dent on the diesel pollution not just blanket tax cars that are euro 5 and above proven to be more environmentally friendly to finish their lives out than be priced off the road and scraped in the not to distsnt future with even more energy consumed when the big diesel polluters are haulage and agricultural till they are electrified we are banging our heads in a wall.
 
Its fine to dream and wonder, but if you are thinking of what can be done in the next decade or two, you have to deal with current tested , proven, commercially available, technology, . Because even just gearing up manufacturing and installation on the scale needed, will take that long.
But in the longer term,..20-40 yrs...i suspect some new form of Nuclear is the most likely hope.
 
liveforphysics said:
......
If humans want a heat source for heat driven industrial processes, rather than making nuclear power plants, just digging down enough taps a heat source to run boilers.
Its tough to smelt aluminium, reduce iron ore, convert iron to steel,..... and numerous chemical processes, using steam !
 
China nuclear power expansion.
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http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx
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china-nuclear-power-plant-construction-2016.png.aspx

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Ianhill said:
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-composite-material-reduces-helium-damage-fusion-reactors

Fact- There's not enough land mass for solar panels to support the current world popluation nevermind it's ever increasing
Exactly, the only people who don't agree are either incredibly ignorant or just don't care about the environment at all (usually in it for money).
No normal person when presented with all the facts could see it a different way and the only reason folks might not is due to the information isn't easily absorbable. If you make your decisions on memes than your going to be fooled.

You can cherry pick just about any solar farm data from the EIA.gov conveniently summarized on Wikipedia and see you need about 300km2 to replace a medium-sized nuclear/coal power plant, when you use real world generation data, not in-theory baloney, these billion dollar solar farms have been built to put the theory rubbish to bed.
Building solar farms this big means we have to kill off just about everything for 300km2. Just to replace an everyday 1960s era power plant.

Whether it is solar-tower or photovoltaic the power from them is just garbage (unless its 300km2) and its the same with the Sea you can't block all the light of the sea as your going to kill fish, mammals and pretty much everything in the sea. What is wrong with these people that they can't see their solutions are far worse than the problem only politics and money could blind someone to that effect.

This guy explains it well here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6uVnyjTb58&feature=youtu.be&t=14m45s

Over time this will be the view of all people with a clue who care about the environment, not just specialized conservationists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ8L9EAWF3E

All the NASA OCO2 satellite data shows that land clearing is at the core of the problem, co2 can't be effectively absorbed on land without trees. What kind of selfish animals want to clear away lands of trees or lands that could have trees and wildlife (anywhere you see green on satellite view google maps) and replace them with solar farms that has constantly proven to be virtually useless power? Only deranged self-centered people, I wish I could put it in a nicer manner.
Clearing trees for solar farm or installing solar farms on tree capable land has now become extreme old-school thinking similar to just dumping deliberately dumping barrels of radioactive waste into the sea.

Its so important to see and understand that when summer kicks in the northern hemisphere co2 levels drop massively due to tree growth via photosynthesis as its core plant food as much as water, plants don't grow without co2 period. https://youtu.be/u48jGKyX9xI?t=42s

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-nature-vital-climate.html
This chart helps bring home the message
15-newstudyfind.jpg
 
Aussie power debate is being raised again with our chief Scientist claiming we could easily achieve 50% RE power supply just by using rooftop solar on most houses ! :roll:
At least he recognises that storage would be required, but fails to recognise the scale/cost of that little add on.
Also goes on to say how simple it would be to use pumped hydro for grid scale storage on a much larger scale for higher levels of RE grid generation.
But, again , no mention of costs ......and i can probably see why as i have had little luck finding any reliable cost data for PHS construction and installation.
Plenty of data on system theory, calculating power , water volumes, etc etc and some info on cost for existing projets...but only in terms of $$$/MW, with no indication of $/MWh , or storage capacity, which would be more relavent for large scale systems.
Even those costings are fairly dated , ..pre 2000..so not really realistic for new or future projects.
The nearest i have found is the Tenesee Raccoon Mountain project with 1.7GW, 34GWh capacity, which cost $310m in 1978. Which i guess would be close to $2.0 bn in todays money ?
Does anyone have any cost info for recent large scale (1+ GW, 20+GWh) PHS systems ?
 
DOE has a good site to dig through which includes all types of electrical storage.
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects?utf8=%E2%9C%93&technology_type_sort_eqs=&technology_type_sort_eqs_category=&country_sort_eq=&state_sort_eq=&kW=&kWh=%3E+4+Hours&service_use_case_inf=&ownership_model_eq=&status_eq=&siting_eq=&order_by=&sort_order=&search_page=1&size_kw_ll=&size_kw_ul=&size_kwh_ll=4&size_kwh_ul=&show_unapproved=%7B%7D
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It seems that any storage, including pumped hydro, with a capacity of more than 8 hours is a very rare thing. And very little pumped hydro has been added recently. Most of the pumped hydro listings are more than 20 years old. Most new installations were batteries of some sort.
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A pumped hydro in Cali finished 2012 has 40MW x 6hr at $0.82/ Wh
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/75
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A big pumped hydro in Germany started in 1997 and opened in 2004 1060 M x 8hr at $0.70/ wh
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/399
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http://www.hydroworld.com/articles/print/volume-15/issue-1/articles/goldisthal-pumped-storage-plant-more-than-power-production.html
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Here is a 8MW x 4hr Li battery storage facilty in Cali which opened on 7/2014 for $1.50/ Wh.
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/8
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A Sodium/ Sulfer 1MW x 7hr battery in Minnisota on 2008 was $0.66/ Wh and is 75% efficient
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/39
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TheBeastie said:
Exactly, the only people who don't agree are either incredibly ignorant or . . . .
. . . can do math. Math is hard, but understanding it makes the world more understandable.
 
TheBeastie said:
...As for my point on the greenhouse gases released by solar panel manufacturer, lets go over the numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_trifluoride#Greenhouse_gas

...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_trifluoride#Greenhouse_gas
NF3 is a greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential (GWP) 17,200 times greater than that of CO2
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4000 tons in 2007 and is projected to increase significantly.[15] World production of NF3 is expected to reach 8000 tons a year by 2010.

Considering this gas more than doubled in 3 years and with green tech demand going through the roof its safe to say its at least 16,000tons a year now.

No it isn't. NF3 was only used for thin film modules and is to expensive to not recycle at todays solar module prices. For todays worldwide solar production NF3 emissions are irrelevant.

This is why you had to use some data from 2007. :-(
 
sendler2112 said:
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A pumped hydro in Cali finished 2012 has 40MW x 6hr at $0.82/ Wh
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/75
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A big pumped hydro in Germany started in 1997 and opened in 2004 1060 M x 8hr at $0.70/ wh
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/399
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Yes, these projects are not common, especially for high power (back up) systems of 20 + hrs storage capacity.
Unless my maths is screwed, ...isnt that German project actually $0.073 /Wh ..??
Which means there is also some huge variations in costs, probably related to available geology, scale of storage, difficulty of construction etc etc.
But neverthe less , a factor of 10x in costs is difficult to deal with in project estimating.
(Reading the history of that German project , it seems to have been spread out over 20-30 years, so i guess the final costs are likely to be somewhat a mix of old ..1975,...and new ..2004....spend.. ? Or maybe the earlier expenditure was simply written off before the project restarted in 1997 ?)
I also found this research papar which confirms the big disparity in costs.
...and reports a different cost for the German project ?
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/galvan-lopez2/
 
Hillhater said:
isnt that German project actually $0.073 /Wh ..??
You are right. But that number is suspicious isn't it?
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This pumped hydro in South Africa is even bigger at 1.32GW x 16hr and is stated to cost $0.13/Wh
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/333
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Here is a new pumped hydro project proposal in Australia. 250MW x 6hr for $0.19/Wh
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/2053
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Here are some flywheels. 30kW x 4hr for $33/ Wh.
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/1919
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Hydrogen generation injected into the gas lines. 4MW x 13hr $0.365/wh however they figure that
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http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/2181
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Thanks for the links sendler..
Wiki has the Ingula plant also, but state its cost at $3.5bn ?..($0.17/Wh)
The closest for big capacity storage i think is the Helms project near Fresno, which i estimate has 100+ hrs storage and 1.2 GW, but again the $600m cost is 30+ years out of date,...so ?? $3+ bn today ??
Im aware of the Australian Kidston project, but that is still very much in the planning/funding stage.
So much missing info and huge variation in costs still :cry:
Somehow i dont think we are going to find a 10+ GW, 100hr storage system anywhere. :shock:
 
Study suggests choice between green energy or economic growth .!
Poverty, unemployment and zero economic growth are the likely outcome for countries which choose renewable energy sources over fossil fuels, according to a study.

Energy from fossil fuels appears to ignite economies into greater and more sustained growth, whereas energy from wind and solar power not only fails to enhance or promote economic growth, it actually causes economies to flat-line.
The results, from an in-depth study of more than 100 countries over 40 years, pose a serious ethical dilemma.....
....Should we choose high economic growth, which brings lower unemployment and wealth for many, but which is unsustainable for the environment?
"Or should we choose low or zero economic growth, which includes high unemployment and a greater degree of poverty, and save our environment?"....
There is some obvious bias in there, implying that you cannot have economic growth without destroying the environment, and vice versa, that you ensure environmental security by adopting RE power !.....obviously extreme results.
However, i would suggest that a society that is not economically growing, is an unsustainable society !
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-choice-green-energy-economic-growth.html
 
We haven't seen what solar taken seriously looks like yet. A single year of the US military budget is more than all the worlds solar panel cost.

Low cost tracking mounts for multi junction cells panels will happen, and as mfg technology continues to improve, it will use less materials and less energy that it does with today's best.

For humans to continue it requires implementing solutions to stop burning things in our life support system, as all non-sustainable practices conclude.
 
"We should probably start considering different economic growth paradigms, such as those of de-growth or a-growth".
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Energy consumption, and GDP are tied 1:1. And our current economic system only functions with constant growth. Anything less than than 2% growth is a recession. 0% growth is a major world depression with 25% unemployment and soup lines. But we can't keep growing. There has to be a new way.
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2% growth is exponential growth. It is insanity. We are already using 1.5 Earths worth rate of resources. And a Billion humans still live at barely above a prehistoric agro existence.
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Tom Murphy discusses what 2.3% energy growth looks like here:
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https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
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sendler2112 said:
Energy consumption, and GDP are tied 1:1.

Neg.

Energy consumption* and GDP are correlated but not proportional.

Top two results on google:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/17506220910970560
https://secondlawoflife.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/energy-consumption-and-gdp/

I.e. USA has 10 times the energy consumption of India but 70 times the GDP. Japan has roughly the same GDP as USA but only half the consumption.

*energy consumption itself isn't the problem, it's the source of that energy.
 
GDP will quickly seem like a less important metric than being able to survive breathing the air.

Some of you already have been to places where the air leaves you coughing black particles, puking and performing at maybe 1/4 normal aerobic performance capability.

The O2 and CO2 gas ratios will still support combustion of many things at levels well below what humans can survive.

If it was a giant collective water tank the whole world could see and recognize they all shared it, we would have security 24-7 on it and nobody would even enter it for service without through accidental contamination protection measures.

When it's an 'invisible' giant collectively shared air tank, and it's connected right into the lungs and blood of all the air breathing life including yourself reading this, somehow a disconnect happens where it's OK to use this finite and singular shared air like an unlimited dumping ground for toxins. Even while that same air supply is fueling the chemical processes used by the fingers to type the messages about why its so important to continue using it to burn things because GDP and whatever thing you want to imagine, which turns out not to be even remotely important vs having another clean breath.
 
Also, while it looks big compared to distances we have a good feel for riding or walking, our beautiful spaceship is not so large at all. I've stayed up and watched out the window all the way from central China to LA, as well as NY to UK over the pole and the plane is doing under 600mph, which is only one order of magnitude over normal highway travel.

Above each square inch if it is just 14.7lbs of air mass in that whole column extending through all atmosphere layers and the exosphere to space.

14.7lbs of air mass in that inch by inch column isn't much, it's 192 cubic feet(5.4m^3) of air at sea level and room temperature. This is a concerningly thin layer of gas we are sharing. None to waste, none to use as a dump for dirty caveman practices of getting fire to turn something.

Humans will evolve beyond practices which by design intent function to poison themselves or not.
 
liveforphysics said:
Low cost tracking mounts for multi junction cells panels will happen, and as mfg technology continues to improve, it will use less materials and less energy that it does with today's best.
While that's true, increasing solar efficiencies will make tracking mounts obsolete. Single axis tracking mounts can gain you 30% production over fixed mounts - but we have seen a 30% improvement in solar cell efficiency (17% to 22%) over the past 10 years, while simultaneously decreasing costs ($3 to $0.70/watt) over the same period.

There's some benefit in having no moving parts.
 
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