Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

Give me a questionable up-time shift to RE over continuing a known extinction outcome anytime.

Humans will learn to treat the air with the same care we would treat our own blood, or suffer the same fate we would expect if we randomly injected ourselves and families with toxins, carcinogens, and mutagens.

When it comes to the global carbon tax you have to have to understand that its quite literally bundles of money that go offshore into dubious places where wall street types start trading it and have historically got it caught up in fraud allegations while getting rich off the backs of the poor.
*Edit* I realize maybe folks have not read articles about constant fraud committed on carbon trading schemes thus it may look like a conspiracy so here are a few articles below.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-deutschebank-court/former-deutsche-banker-jailed-for-carbon-trading-fraud-idUSKCN0YZ1S6
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/dec/14/eu-carbon-trading-fraud

This guy explains the latest IPCC carbon tax that Trump is now famous for pulling out of.
https://www.pscp.tv/va_shiva/1yoKMBMPeNnGQ

To me unless solar etc manufacturers stop emitting all the super warming GHG's like SF6 gas in their manufacture which is 23,900 times more warming than of CO2 there is no point sending bundles of everyone's money to anonymous wall street types if its not going to fix the problem.
10,000tons_SF6_annually x 23,900 = 239,000,000co2 equivalent gas while all of Australias coal-power stations for example emit only around 150million tons of co2 annually.
And while co2 is core plant food for everything that does photosynthesis ( https://youtu.be/7-HcEpliMYk ) these other non-natural toxic gases released in the name of green energy will be floating in the atmosphere for the next 3,200 years. The truly wicked side of it is that simpletons will use temperature increasing charts to say we need to do even more to cut co2 and then demand we make more solar farms and cut down trees/destroy wildlife thus inhibiting co2 sequestration while far more powerful GHG's are being produced in their place just super accelerating the global warming argument, it's just pure crazy and evil.

NOAA monitors a lot of these gases at various stations around the world and a lot of them are just accelerating
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=MLO&program=hats&type=ts


Some folks hate real-world data on Wikipedia etc so I will try and use youtube videos and other sources on GHG's like SF6,NF3,C2F6 etc from green tech who don't like Wikipedia to try and make it as easily absorbable as possible.
https://youtu.be/v6uVnyjTb58?t=12m48s
It turns out that because of the emissions of extraordinarily potent greenhouse gases NF3 and SF6 and energy during the manufacture of solar modules
http://notrickszone.com/2014/03/25/analysis-shows-solar-modules-cause-more-greenhouse-gas-emissions-than-modern-coal-power-plants/#sthash.O3giOrC3.dpbs
https://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/2014/03/23/solarstrom-in-deutschland-klimakiller-nummer-1/
Used for the manufacturing of semiconductor devices, flat panels, photovoltaic panels
https://www.solvay.com/en/markets-and-products/featured-products/sf6.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-grayson/eco-etiquette-how-green-a_b_554717.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_trifluoride#Greenhouse_gas
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-02/documents/conf04_tripp.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24266144
https://youtu.be/S_9Q_6fuGNI?t=1m55s
https://youtu.be/v6uVnyjTb58?t=12m48s

With Geothermal, aside of the problem that its like hydro where you need to be in a specific place for it to work, its also a problem that Geothermal is temperamental over time in that often the heat runs out for a while due to too much water being pumped down or the pressure disappears because its just being lost elsewhere due to new crevasses etc,
this is why despite the quite detailed energy generation history on Wikipedia for renewables there isnt a single page that provides generation numbers for our convenience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_geothermal_power_stations

Also, Geothermal power stations do emit and create a lot of toxic crap. And typical for alt energy there just dumped into the environment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power#Environmental_impact
Fluids drawn from the deep earth carry a mixture of gases, notably carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and radon (Rn). These pollutants contribute to global warming, acid rain, radiation and noxious smells if released.

States like South Australia would love to have geothermal and even spent a lot of money trying to forcibly create an industry but they couldn't make it happen despite epic government money handouts.

They had a big hot-rocks geothermal plan in South Australia a while back but it was the same problem as soon as they could build it they started losing heat and pressure moved out of their well to somewhere else.
The claimed MW capacity of all geothermal plants is pretty small on top.
Sure you can claim that we dig a giant hole anywhere in the world deep enough into the earth and cement the sides etc it will be great but talk about pie in the sky hopefulness the reason why private companies won't invest in this stuff without government grants is that they know its stupid compared to conventional energy.
Geothermal power project closes in SA as technology deemed not financially viable
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-30/geothermal-power-plant-closes-deemed-not-financially-viable/7798962
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/another-flannery-fail-geothermal-project-scrapped/news-story/331390329e1af9da27ec28a80163b45d

Hillhater said:

More GWh "battery" plans for Australia..

https://reneweconomy.com.au/1414-plans-two-gigawatt-hour-silicon-storage-plants-s-75504/
http://1414degrees.com.au/#What
But of course, it will depend on recieving Govmt grant funding in order to be built !

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Its the same thing again as with the SA Hot Rocks project where they are given about 200 million dollars from the government to build these unproven energy technologies that then fail, this one being "molten silicon" its about as cynical as it sounds.
This is purely about praying on the Australian public for taxpayer money, the executives in charge of these energy projects will pay themselves about $1million a year managing this project and its important for it to take many years just like the hotrocks project to turn around and say it didn't work, sorry.
No one is taking the "risk" other than the clueless taxpayer who has probably been wowed by the latest "molten silicon" facebook memes and Getup! propaganda videos.

I am impressed that you've come up with an actually novel AGW denialist claim: that warming is happening, but it isn't CO2 that's the problem, it's SF6 emissions from PV panel manufacture that's to blame.

It doesn't even seem to matter to you that this claim has already been robustly refuted twice in the last couple of pages of this thread when you previously tried to claim it.

I learned a new word yesterday to describe people prone to certain ways of thinking: "conspiratard"


In other news, while dams are a wonderful source of, instant free power, there are large CO2 emissions resulting from the huge amounts of concrete used in their construction, and they are usually an ecological disaster for the rivers on which they are built. As with most sources of energy it's a case of pick your poison.

liveforphysics said:

Solar roofs and batteries on site will make less copper and aluminum demand than any distributed grid system could offer.

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This is not true (at least for copper, but I also doubt it for aluminium, but the last one is available in abundance and there is 100% true recycling available. 90% of aluminium made in Germany is from recycled material which uses only 5% of the energy that is need to make aluminium the first time from bauxit)
I don't know about the US, but distribution grid in Germany usually uses cables made from aluminium with a steel core, not copper.

Using silver would only enable a few percent thinner panels in exchange for a bunch of added cost.

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Silver is the better material for the contact fingers, that's why 5% of world silver consumption (1,400t) was from making c-Si cells in 2015. *) But you do not _need_ to use silver for c-Si, there are now substitutes available, mainly copper. It's mostly a matter of the price and the price of silver has been higher before.

*) source: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/aktuelle-fakten-zur-photovoltaik-in-deutschland.pdf page 70)

Using aluminum over Silver or copper would let panels be lighter for a given amount of current collection capacity, and reduce costs rather than adding to it.

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The weight difference is not even measureable. Silver is the superior option afaik, that's why it is used, if silver gets more expensive other materials are available and will be used instead.

Just a few decades ago we had experts telling us how the internet is impossible because the earth wouldn't have enough copper to make the infrastructure even if we mined it all. Today's data is dominantly fiber backbone with wireless to end use connection.

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I think that powering the world with c-Si solar moduls (and wind) is very much possible, we do not disagree here (a do not believe in space based Terrawatt solar industrie and microwave beams from space and rather see a global high voltage grid, but time will tell).
But there are some limitations and Problems even with RE, no reason to deny them. world is not black and white.

Problem with NF3 and SG6 is/was real, but "TheBeasty" is not interested in solving problems, he is just searching for excuses to destroy the world and keep his own livestyle of destruction. Those People will always find excuses in the sheme of "what about xy?" to do nothing.

Today a lot of folks love to talk about the grid and how important it is, yet each house that gets another solar roof and a battery swings the grids important toward just some industrial processes that make sense to locate near site of power harvesting (hydro, solar, wind, geothermal etc).

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We are much wider here with solar homes (and battery storage Systems) and both have no benefit on the grid. Especially home battery storage systeme add costs to the system.

There are also many large battery storage Systems in Operation (1MW to 20MW size) that earn money in primary reserve. The "most advanced" market for those batteries can be seen in UK, because they have a Special market for batteries (much quicker response times) and already much higher frequency fluctuations compared to entsoe-e on the European continent.

In another decade of solar roof and home battery installs, a central power grid will seem as silly and unimportant to talk about as having a pony-express or hard wired telephone to a modem for dial-up internet.

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I can talk from experience. In Germany there are 1.4 million of small power solar systems with more than 30GW compared to 80 Mio. people and ca. 100.000 small home storage systems already installed.
I have datailed data from hundreds of those systems and know what they can do (today) and what they can't.

PV is a good Thing (in general), but you need more grid connection, not less. Small home storage systems today have no value to the grid, they add lots of costs to the System for no benefit (today). I rather prefer electric cars charged as smart demand systems...

Large battery storage systems can earn money in primare reserve today and maybe in countries with very weak grids, for load shifting, Arbitrage market or other applications there is no money for them to earn (today).

Hillhater said:

agreed ! but as previously mentioned , i fear it wont get too much further in developed countries.
All the "easy" sites have been developed, and there are large Eco/political groups who actively resist dam construction on the most trivial of reasons...

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The main problem is that you can not earn money with them today. In reality there is no need for more storage today, so there is no arbitrage market for it. (at least in my country).

Countrys with high % of RE ( wind and solar) need high levels of storage or thermal back up generation.

How does it make more grid connections needed if each home has a solar roof and battery and could operate equally well with no grid connection? With the right amount of solar on the roof, your grid connection is only a gift to be feeding the grid your surplus solar, but this approaches non-important as solar roofing inevitably approaches the cost of standard roofing and the costs of home battery storage continues to fall.

Silver is a few percent better than copper at conductivity per cross section, but radically higher cost for a couple percent improvement. Modern panels use no touch contact interfaces where silvers oxide layers would be appreciated or relevant. Aluminum could do same same current collection for a tiny fraction of the cost per amount of ampacity, and only need to be ~30% more volume than the equivalent silver conductor, while still ending up overall lighter due to aluminums low density. Anytime you're adding meaningful quantities of a precious metal to something you've already lost the scaling game and lost the ability to be competitive with those who accomplish the same functions without meaningful amounts of precious metals.

You can comfortably rest assured the grid as we know it simply not even being connected to modern homes, as it will be no significant cost or maintenance penalty to have them all constructed with adequate solar roofing and battery storage.

liveforphysics said:

You can comfortably rest assured the grid as we know it simply not even being connected to modern homes, as it will be no significant cost or maintenance penalty to have them all constructed with adequate solar roofing and battery storage.

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You must live somewhere it never rains or snows.

When it's hot, I take my shirt off and soak my head. When it's cold I wear warm clothes. I've never had a heated home or a cooled home, and my solar output varies maybe 20-30% between clear sky days or cloudy days, yet even even when it's 30% less it's still more than I can use.

sendler2112 said:

liveforphysics said:

You can comfortably rest assured the grid as we know it simply not even being connected to modern homes, as it will be no significant cost or maintenance penalty to have them all constructed with adequate solar roofing and battery storage.

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You must live somewhere it never rains or snows.

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liveforphysics said:

When it's hot, I take my shirt off and soak my head. When it's cold I wear warm clothes. I've never had a heated home or a cooled home, and my solar output varies maybe 20-30% between clear sky days or cloudy days, yet even even when it's 30% less it's still more than I can use.

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That's pretty easy to do if you live within the ~1% of this country's landmass that has weather like that.
I grew up a little south of where you live. Put shorts on in the summer, wear a hoodie in the winter. And rain is kind of a freak occurrence.

Do mind that the other 99% of the country looks more like this:



Summer means staying inside in AC for ~3 months. Winter means staying inside in heat for ~3 months and preferably owning an all wheel drive car large enough to handle the impact from all the various idiots from California sliding their cars across the highway like a pinball in a pinball machine all winter.. :lol:

Ah.. and bike riding? maybe if you have a lane..

liveforphysics said:

When it's hot, I take my shirt off and soak my head. When it's cold I wear warm clothes.

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This is great but you still haven't told us where you live. Ever been to Chicago, Toronto, NY, Boston, Moscow, in winter? Solar farms, let alone solar roofs, will have many days of 0% for 3 months in the winter. And home electric anywhere is a fraction of total electric. And total electric is a fraction of total energy. All of which needs to be replaced before it runs out.

neptronix said:

Do mind that the other 99% of the country looks more like this:
Summer means staying inside in AC for ~3 months. Winter means staying inside in heat for ~3 months and preferably owning an all wheel drive car large enough to handle the impact from all the various idiots from California sliding their cars across the highway like a pinball in a pinball machine all winter.

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Hmm. So highs of 83-92 degrees mean "staying inside in AC for 3 months?" And lows of 0 to 10 means you need an all wheel drive car? Interesting. I guess people live today very differently than I did a few decades ago.

I lived in Boston for four years. Never needed a four wheel drive car. And the drivers were way worse than any CA drivers.

Repeat ..Repeat,.. Again..
Majority of the developed world lives in cities, with a high proportion in apartment blocks....with the majority of those renting, not owned.
There is no way in hell you can get enough solar (or wind) generated either for individual residences, or even on a suburb scale for city dwellers....even if they did own the residence and felt it worthwhile to invest more capital into the building...and forget any city outside the "sun belt" !
Home solar is fine for those in a fortunate situation to use it, but it cannot work for the majority of the developed world population.
Centralised generation and grid distribution is essential for urban areas.
I recently visited NYork,..and rode (twice) on the elevated train from JFK to Queens. That is several miles of elevated track with a great view over the roofs of heavily populated suburbs of neat detached houses. Out of interest i tried counting the number of houses with Solar on the roofs expecting to estimate rough % od solar equiped properties.
It was easy ! The first trip i counted ONE ! ,...on the return trip i rechecked and saw one more !
There must be 5-10,000 houses visible during that 20 min trip, and even if i missed several others, it demonstrated to me that the uptake of rooftop solar, even by those that have the space and wealth, is very small.

Hillhater said:

Majority of the developed world lives in cities, with a high proportion in apartment blocks....with the majority of those renting, not owned.

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Which makes them a lot more energy efficient.

There is no way in hell you can get enough solar (or wind) generated either for individual residences, or even on a suburb scale for city dwellers....even if they did own the residence and felt it worthwhile to invest more capital into the building...and forget any city outside the "sun belt" !

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There is about 24GW of solar generation in CA now. That will indeed power a fair sized city.

Home solar is fine for those in a fortunate situation to use it, but it cannot work for the majority of the developed world population.
Centralised generation and grid distribution is essential for urban areas.

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Right. And there is no way in hell that apartment-based coal power plants will work either. Fortunately, centralized power plants (whether solar or coal) can work for them.

I recently visited NYork,..and rode (twice) on the elevated train from JFK to Queens. That is several miles of elevated track with a great view over the roofs of heavily populated suburbs of neat detached houses. Out of interest i tried counting the number of houses with Solar on the roofs expecting to estimate rough % od solar equiped properties.
It was easy ! The first trip i counted ONE ! ,...on the return trip i rechecked and saw one more !
There must be 5-10,000 houses visible during that 20 min trip, and even if i missed several others, it demonstrated to me that the uptake of rooftop solar, even by those that have the space and wealth, is very small.

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Now try that on the San Diego trolley when it passes over Mission Valley. You will see a very different picture.

But going back to the AirTrain - New York has one of the most antiquated mass transit systems around, and breakdowns, delays and cancellations are common. One of the biggest problems is that exposed tracks require a lot of maintenance. So for a solution, cover the elevated tracks in NYC with solar. Feed the power directly to the existing distribution system (the third rail) which just happens to be the perfect voltage for solar - 625 volts. Lower maintenance and reduced loads during peak demand times; a win-win.

liveforphysics said:

How does it make more grid connections needed if each home has a solar roof and battery and could operate equally well with no grid connection?

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Because peak load in some rural grids grid is not maximum demand, but now maximum production of solar.

With the right amount of solar on the roof,

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The right amount of solar is to fill the roof with it.

Cities and large industries will never be able to produce all their own energy, so it has to come from rural aereas. That's why it is stupid to think of islands. The smaller the "island" the more expensive and less reliable your power supply.
Larger grids make power cheaper and more reliable.

Silver is a few percent better than copper at conductivity per cross section, but radically higher cost for a couple percent improvement.

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If you know it better than those that produce the cells, make your own and win the market.

I don't know the reason why they prefer silver, maybe its not just because of the conductivity but because of oxidation processes or ease or speed of the process. I assume that there is a reason why they chose the more expensive material in such a ultra cost competitive market...

billvon said:

neptronix said:

Do mind that the other 99% of the country looks more like this:
Summer means staying inside in AC for ~3 months. Winter means staying inside in heat for ~3 months and preferably owning an all wheel drive car large enough to handle the impact from all the various idiots from California sliding their cars across the highway like a pinball in a pinball machine all winter.

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Hmm. So highs of 83-92 degrees mean "staying inside in AC for 3 months?" And lows of 0 to 10 means you need an all wheel drive car? Interesting. I guess people live today very differently than I did a few decades ago.

I lived in Boston for four years. Never needed a four wheel drive car. And the drivers were way worse than any CA drivers.

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It's true in Santa Cruz nobody needs to heat or cool homes because it's nice year round.

I lived in Seattle for years, didn't heat my home ever. Lived in Socal and never had AC or used home heating. Worked in Texas in summer, never had AC.

I also don't own a car, and only ride my DSR motorcycle year round in all seasons over a wide range of climates and snow. I plug in my heated riding gear to my bike when it's freezing out, and for 50w of power use it keeps my whole body warm even with highway speed windchill or rain.

The idea of heating or cooling the inside of a structure when its only ones body which senses or appreciates the temperature doesn't compute as being worthwhile.

billvon said:

There is no way in hell you can get enough solar (or wind) generated either for individual residences, or even on a suburb scale for city dwellers....even if they did own the residence and felt it worthwhile to invest more capital into the building...and forget any city outside the "sun belt" !

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There is about 24GW of solar generation in CA now. That will indeed power a fair sized city.

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Except that it is already committed to powering someone else's requirements !

Home solar is fine for those in a fortunate situation to use it, but it cannot work for the majority of the developed world population.
Centralised generation and grid distribution is essential for urban areas.

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"Right. And there is no way in hell that apartment-based coal power plants will work either. Fortunately, centralized power plants (whether solar or coal) can work for them...

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No i would not consider coal, although that was historically the method of local generation.
But, these days many modern large buildings are individually using efficient gas CHP systems.
However, my real point was , that for RE to have any penitration into our bulk residential city population, it will still require a distribution grid and some form of centralised generation. As opposed to home solar !
[/quote]

Hillhater said:

I recently visited NYork,..and rode (twice) on the elevated train from JFK to Queens. That is several miles of elevated track with a great view over the roofs of heavily populated suburbs of neat detached houses. Out of interest i tried counting the number of houses with Solar on the roofs expecting to estimate rough % od solar equiped properties.
It was easy ! The first trip i counted ONE ! ,...on the return trip i rechecked and saw one more !
There must be 5-10,000 houses visible during that 20 min trip, and even if i missed several others, it demonstrated to me that the uptake of rooftop solar, even by those that have the space and wealth, is very small.

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And that is with 30% federal rebate and 25% state rebate on top of that for solarPV. My small town in central NY state was quoting $3.20/W for a 9kW grid tie roof top. I can't imagine how much more expensive it would be in the NY/NJ Metro area due to higher labor.

billvon said:

I lived in Boston for four years.

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You should know better than to say many of the things you have been saying.

Most major population centers are near coasts. NYC with miles and miles of ocean front and nice hard rock bottoms that are not too deep, steady breeze, is near perfect for wind. Fact that you saw few roofs equipped with pv, shows it has tons of upside. Guess your argument is much the same a many have against owning and ridding a ebike to work in our climate as we still need that auto to stay warm and clean on those often inclement days. :?

Tesla meets timeline on big battery. For our friends downunder.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/tesla-fulfills-australia-battery-bet-whats-that-mean-industry#gs.4euolCw

sendler2112 said:

You should know better than to say many of the things you have been saying.

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I certainly know better than to listen to all the pessimists! Fortunately we live in a world where those who can do, do.

Hillhater said:

billvon said:

There is about 24GW of solar generation in CA now. That will indeed power a fair sized city.

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Except that it is already committed to powering someone else's requirements !

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As are the coal plants near NY.

Home solar is fine for those in a fortunate situation to use it, but it cannot work for the majority of the developed world population. Centralised generation and grid distribution is essential for urban areas.

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Mostly true - although there are plenty of apartment buildings where the owner implements large scale solar.

But, these days many modern large buildings are individually using efficient gas CHP systems.

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Yep. We have one here. Gas turbine generates electricity, waste heat runs the air conditioning.

However, my real point was , that for RE to have any penitration into our bulk residential city population, it will still require a distribution grid and some form of centralised generation. As opposed to home solar !

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Most home solar relies on the grid as well. However, largely as the result of several newsworthy disasters (Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, New England and Sandy) there are more and more solar systems capable of running independently.

billvon said:

I certainly know better than to listen to all the pessimists! Fortunately we live in a world where those who can do, do.

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Big difference between pessimistic and objective. We need smart decisions. Irrational wishful thinking will leave us with do do.

sendler2112 said:

billvon said:

I lived in Boston for four years.

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You should know better than to say many of the things you have been saying.

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Works fine in Minnesota winter to be 1-wheel drive.
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