Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[Punx0r]

Several million people employed to do just one job sounds like an awful lot, but across a global population of 7+ billion, it's really not and would be in line with many industries. In 1920 the UK employed 1.2 million just in coal mining, out of a total population of 43 million - probably only half of which was working.

9.7 x100 = 970 MWh

And i wouldnt be too confident that an instalation contractor would risk mounting a new bigger, heavier, taller, multi million dollar turbine, on an unknown 20 yr old foundation ....even if the mounting system was , by some fluke, identical .

Indeed it is. That brings the total to 1387 MWh or 96 days energy payback.

Let's be honest, such a decision would be carefully considered (for cost & commercial risk reasons if nothing else) and not at the whim of an installation contractor. The integrity of the foundation could be check and verified the same as for similar important structures and the mounting system is a ring of anchor bolts or similar, hardly an insurmountable engineering challenge to reuse. If a larger, heavier turbine exceeds the design capacity of the old foundation then one or the other can't be used, but as sendler says, these huge foundations are an investment that ought to have reuse as a key design criteria. I'd be surprised if they don't already!

 

[Cephalotus]

5MW turbines are generally relegated to offshore due to their transport size.

4,2MW is a typical size for a modern onshore wind turbine:

https://www.wind-turbine-models.com/turbines/1297-enercon-e-141-ep4#

Offshore is now at 7MW+

We are talking about future energy production, aren't we?

I wonder how many years are you behind in the technology race?

Well, you have elected a president who believes that burning coal is the job motor of the 21st century.

How many cars are built per day? vs how many days to build and install each giant turbine? What is the difference in mass of material throughput for a turbine vs a car?

For an 100% RE Scenario (including heat, industrial usage and fuels) Germany needs around 50.000 of those 4,2MW onshore turbines (+ some offhore turbines and solar).

At a lifetime of 25 years that's 2,000 wind turbines per year

Compare that with 3,300,000 cars we sell each year.

For solar something around 400 GW would be needed. At 25 years leiftime that 16GW per year.

On our "best" month we installed 3GW in just one month

And .6 TW from 1,000,000 turbines is still just 1/6 of current USA consumption. 1/3 if you give a 2:1 efficiency advantage after all thermal processes possible are converted to electric.

So what? Compare wind and solar ressources vs. energy needs in the US and compare that to Germany and you will see that you have it so much easier compared to us.

Consuming ressources has never been even the smallest problem for US Americans, why do you think it would be a problem building wind turbines when building F150 cars or F35 planes is no problem at all?

 

[Cephalotus]

Unfortunately, its never a continuous, reliable , 9% or 40% !
......so they will still need 100% fossil backup !

Now we have 40% RE and 100% fossil backup. I see little problem with that.

60% RE and (almost) 100% fossil backup is perfectly fine for 2030 and in 2040 we will see 80% RE and still almost 100% fossil backup. No problem with that either.

What's import is that 80% RE means that only 20% of the fossil fuels are consumed.

After 80% RE we will see. there are several options.
Some money is now spent on making better and larger electrolysis systems.
That's the cool thing about it. If you are ahead of others you have to invent new stuff. Stuff that you can export to others...

We already have 230TWh of methane storage capacity. That's would be more than enough to cover any fluctuation in wind and solar output.

 

[billvon]

Now we have 40% RE and 100% fossil backup. I see little problem with that.

Well, 40% RE and 100% conventional backup (i.e. fossil, nuclear, hydro, geothermal etc.) So soon we'll be getting to the point where we have 60% RE and 100% conventional backup - but only 60% fossil backup, with the balance of the backup supplied by nuclear and hydro. (We are now at 70%)

After that we'll see the backup eroded by storage. The storage will only be used for the ~20 days a year when power peaks due to hot weather, and that will be handled by solar during the day, and partially by batteries at the peak around 7pm. The remainder will be handled by conventional generation. This will allow shutdown of some of the least efficient peakers, saving utilities money.

What's import is that 80% RE means that only 20% of the fossil fuels are consumed.

Agreed. And almost as importantly, with only 20% of the water needed for hydro (which will become a bigger issue as the climate warms up and water becomes scarcer.)

 

[sendler2112]

5MW turbines are generally relegated to offshore due to their transport size.

4,2MW is a typical size for a modern onshore wind turbine:

https://www.wind-turbine-models.com/turbines/1297-enercon-e-141-ep4#ime of 25 years that's 2,000 wind turbines per year

Compare that with 3,300,000 cars we sell each year.

For solar something around 400 GW would be needed. At 25 years leiftime that 16GW per year.

Not sure what numbers you are using. 2017 shows Germany using 13,700 PetaJoules/3,800 TWH per year. .44TW average. Half of which after converting all thermal to electric is .22TW. At the national average 11% capacity factor it takes 2TW nameplate of installed solar PV to replace half of Germany's energy. So 80 GW of solar per year forever to transition and then keep up.
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4MW onshore turbines average 1MW so 220,000 turbines. 8,800 per year forever.
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The manufacture, transport, and installation of 300 ton turbines on 1500 ton pads has no rational relationship to a factory mass assembling cars.
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You still get more energy from biomass than wind and solar.
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[sendler2112]

Several million people employed to do just one job sounds like an awful lot,

I messed up the conversion of terms somewhere in that post. It takes 10,000 wind companies 24 years to build and install 8TW. Not 1,000,000.

 

[Hillhater]

Unfortunately, its never a continuous, reliable , 9% or 40% !
......so they will still need 100% fossil backup !

Now we have 40% RE and 100% fossil backup. I see little problem with that.

That is generated %
Actually installed capacity you have 135% RE (45GW solar, 55GW wind 8 GW biomass, 7.5 GW hydro .
..and an 85GW max demand)
With 100% fossil back up...
Which is fine, if you dont see having the highest power prices in the World ,as a problem ?

 

[Punx0r]

The German economy seems to be doing just fine. As does Denmark and the other high-RE countries you say have ridiculous energy prices...

Not everyone wants a race to the bottom.

 

[Hillhater]

The German economy seems to be doing just fine.

???.. The Economist doesnt seem so confident..

?.... Germany’s economy contracted by 0.2% in the third quarter of this year. That was largely because new emissions standards for carmakers temporarily slowed production; most analysts expect a robust rebound in the last quarter. Yet amid the uncertainties of Donald Trump’s protectionism, Italy’s rogue government and Brexit, forecasts for German growth next year are steadily being cut to something closer to 1.5%.

 

[Punx0r]

So yeah, just fine.

 

[cricketo]

Tesla’s new Megapack to debut at giant energy storage project in California

https://electrek.co/2018/12/15/tesla-megapack-debut-giant-energy-storage/

On an unrelated note, are there any recent compressed air battery developments ?

 

[sendler2112]

https://youtu.be/E0W1ZZYIV8o
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MacKay was a physicist so everyone here should automatically respect him better than some of my other sources. He was pro rebuildable energy but also "Pro Arithmetic". Numbers like TeraWatt are so big that they are hard to grasp so he coined an interesting term to bring total energy down to an everyday scale.
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Most people are familiar with an incadescent light bulb. A 40 Watt bulb that is left on uses approximately 1 kWh per day. So he talks about kWh/ day/ person.
The USA uses 250. The UK, Netherlands, or Germany use between 120 to 140.
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The problem with solar wind and biomass is that they are very difuse. Here is his chart of power density.
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When he made the graphic to show the required land area that is needed to supply 125 kWh/ d/ p for the UK he ran out of room to fit biomass into view so keep in mind that this only shows what it takes to make 16 so this is 1/8th of the area that would be required to power the UK. He also shows concentrated solar in an African desert and gives it a value of 20W/m^2 even though he stated that solar PV rooftop can make 5W/ square meter, gridscale farms in the UK at 4w, and concentrated in the desert at 11w. So multiply everything on the map by 8 to get to 125 kWh/d/p and then the yellow area again by 4 to show solar PV farms at 5W/m^2.
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MacKay stated that UK is conuming 1.25 Watts per square meter. To power the UK on wind would need wind farms over 1/2 of the land area. Solar farms would have to cover 1/4 of the land. And would provide 4 times too much energy at noon and nothing all night.
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To power a country with wind and solar, they have to be country sized.
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[Punx0r]

Scary numbers for sure, but also overly-simplistic. Like many relatively densely populated European countries the UK has not been self-sufficient in a very long time. 50% of energy and 25% of food is imported. Why would a system utilising a greater share of RE be expected to be different?

Also, total energy use was down by 17% from 1998 to 2015 while the share from RE increased from 1% to 9%.

Yet we don't see 1/10th or more of the land area consumed by it.

As has always been the case with fossil fuels, some countries will be net exporters of energy and some will be net importers.

 

[Punx0r]

So, amid the Katowice climate talks, the US and Australia held an event to promote "clean" fossil fuels and an effort to endorse the scientific report on how to limit warming to 1.5C was blocked by US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Can anyone guess the huge vested interest in common between those countries?

 

[Hillhater]

Can anyone guess the huge vested interest in common between those countries?

Maybe they all thought the IPCC report was a total load of bullshit, not worthy of endorsement, and they would be some of the few countries being asked to supply the $100bn annual "wealth redistribution/guilt" ransom.

 

[sendler2112]

total energy use was down by 17% from 1998 to 2015 while the share from RE increased from 1% to 9%.

Yet we don't see 1/10th or more of the land area consumed by it.

As has always been the case with fossil fuels, some countries will be net exporters of energy and some will be net importers.

UK gets 2.2% of energy from wind and .5% from solar. 7.9% nuclear, 6.4% biofuel, .3% hydro.
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https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/728374/UK_Energy_in_Brief_2018.pdf
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[Punx0r]

Making a total of ~18% low carbon sources, subtract the ~8% for nuclear, leaving 10% RE. My 9% was from 2015 and the source you linked is from 2018, so seems about right.

 

[Punx0r]

Maybe they all thought the IPCC report was a total load of bullshit, not worthy of endorsement, and they would be some of the few countries being asked to supply the $100bn annual "wealth redistribution/guilt" ransom.

But no one else was smart enough to see those supposed flaws? Does having huge fossil fuel reserves you want to keep on exploiting somehow give the owners a greater intelligence?

Or is it, as Occam's razor suggests, blatant self-interest in the face of the undeniable truth that limiting emissions from fossil fuels means, duh, burning less of them?

Could it be that, for example, the Australian government is desperately trying to open (and subsidise) the Carmichael coal mine, which would be one of he largest in the world, to export low quality coal to India? That the proposed output of this one mine would blow through over 0.5% of the World's carbon budget expected to limit warming by 2C?

Is it that just 25 corporate and state-owned entities are responsible for over 50% of global carbon emissions and at some point there's going to be an emissions tax and/or reparations due?

Are you really so blind as to the obvious parallels with smoking and Big Tobacco?

 

[Hillhater]

Maybe they all thought the IPCC report was a total load of bullshit, not worthy of endorsement, and they would be some of the few countries being asked to supply the $100bn annual "wealth redistribution/guilt" ransom.

But no one else was smart enough to see those supposed flaws? Does having huge fossil fuel reserves you want to keep on exploiting somehow give the owners a greater intelligence?

Or is it, as Occam's razor suggests, blatant self-interest in the face of the undeniable truth that limiting emissions from fossil fuels means, duh, burning less of them?

Could it be that, for example, the Australian government is desperately trying to open (and subsidise) the Carmichael coal mine, which would be one of he largest in the world, to export low quality coal to India? That the proposed output of this one mine would blow through over 0.5% of the World's carbon budget expected to limit warming by 2C?
Is it that just 25 corporate and state-owned entities are responsible for over 50% of global carbon emissions and at some point there's going to be an emissions tax and/or reparations due?

Are you really so blind as to the obvious parallels with smoking and Big Tobacco?

There is certainly a large proportion of delegates who do not understand what they are discussing, and another large proportion who understand that they will gain huge financial grants from the IPCCs success.
And some of them may even understand that attempting to meet the proposed targets is a one way street to economic collapse with no tangible impact on the climate.
The alternative to India using Australian coal, is that they would source it elseware,..inevitably a lesser quality coal requireing more tonnage burned and more emmissions. So Aussie coal should be seen as an advantage !
Carbon TAX.....yes ! Now you have grasped the concept...Wealth and Power. But , to whom will it go ??
There is NO parallel with Tobacco.
Tobacco is a non-essential recreational drug with direct links to cancer deaths
CO2 is an ESSENTIAL molicule, without which, every living thing on the planet cannot exist. ...and with no scientific evidence that it is linked to climate change.

 

[sendler2112]

Making a total of ~18% low carbon sources, subtract the ~8% for nuclear, leaving 10% RE. My 9% was from 2015 and the source you linked is from 2018, so seems about right.

2.2% from wind, much of it offshore and .5% from solar is not going to have a big visual impact yet. If UK wants 50% of it's energy from wind, an area equivilent to 1/4 of the country will be required for the wind farms. If they want the other half from solar, another 1/8 of the land mass will be needed for the solar farms.
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I'm not a proponent of lumping "RE" together as a modern success story when firewood is 2 times more than wind and solar together and hydro is already fully utilized in developed countries like UK and Germany. It is misleading because when you say "RE" most people think you are talking about wind and solar.
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Rural Afghanistan is the world leader, getting 97% of their energy from "RE" using firewood and dung.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311326506_An_overview_of_Afghanistan's_trends_toward_renewable_and_sustainable_energies
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[billvon]

There is certainly a large proportion of delegates who do not understand what they are discussing, and another large proportion who understand that they will gain huge financial grants from the IPCCs success.

And far more people who will gain huge financial windfalls by discrediting the IPCC.

There is NO parallel with Tobacco.

Same problems, same tactics, same approach - even the SAME PEOPLE spreading FUD.

CO2 is an ESSENTIAL molicule, without which, every living thing on the planet cannot exist.

So is chromium. But I bet you'd complain if someone put a bunch of it into your water, because at high concentrations it can kill.

and with no scientific evidence that it is linked to climate change.

We know for a fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. High school level experiments can prove this.
We know for a fact that we have been increasing CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere. Simple math proves this - backed up by regular measurements of CO2 levels.
We know for a fact that temperature has been increasing as CO2 concentration has climbed.

It's getting really hard to deny - but with trillions depending on denial, oil and coal companies (and those in their thrall) will find a way.

 

[cricketo]

We know for a fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. High school level experiments can prove this.
We know for a fact that we have been increasing CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere. Simple math proves this - backed up by regular measurements of CO2 levels.
We know for a fact that temperature has been increasing as CO2 concentration has climbed.

You're exaggerating, it's nice and cozy on Venus

 

[Hillhater]

We know for a fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. High school level experiments can prove this.
We know for a fact that we have been increasing CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere. Simple math proves this - backed up by regular measurements of CO2 levels.
We know for a fact that temperature has been increasing as CO2 concentration has climbed.

The earth is not a glass box , nor will it fit in a classroom or any other "lab"
For An experiment to be valid , has to be representitive of all prevailing conditions.
We DO NOT KNOW that human initiated CO2 is the cause of increasing concentrations in the atmosphere...
......it is only ASSUMED to be so. There is plenty of evidence to disprove that assumption.
Measuring a CO2 level does not "back up" the assumption or indicate the source of CO2.
Temperature increases HAVE NOT followed steady increase in CO2.
Temperatures have changed irratically, with no correlation to the CO2 "trend" .
CO2 has continued to rise even during long periods of no change in temperature.
There has been long periods (40 yrs, 18 yrs) of no increase (even a decrease !) in temperature and step changes in temperature that happen during major El Nino events.
Further, the Co2/temperature prediction models used by the IPCC have failed to correlate with actual measured temperatures .

 

[Punx0r]

Do not confuse short-term variation with a long-term trend and do not assume all temperature changes manifest at the surface (much of the change has occurred in the oceans): https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-temperature-correlation-intermediate.htm

Basic stuff really that takes all of two minutes to go from "why doesn't temperature always seem to immediately follow CO2" to a comprehensive answer that makes intuitive sense.

 

[sendler2112]

Making a total of ~18% low carbon sources, subtract the ~8% for nuclear, leaving 10% RE. My 9% was from 2015 and the source you linked is from 2018, so seems about right.

2.2% from wind, much of it offshore and .5% from solar is not going to have a big visual impact yet. If UK wants 50% of it's energy from wind, an area equivilent to 1/4 of the country will be required for the wind farms. If they want the other half from solar, another 1/8 of the land mass will be needed for the solar farms.
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I'm not a proponent of lumping "RE" together as a modern success story when firewood is 2 times more than wind and solar together and hydro is already fully utilized in developed countries like UK and Germany. It is misleading because when you say "RE" most people think you are talking about wind and solar.
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Rural Afghanistan is the world leader, getting 97% of their energy from "RE" using firewood and dung.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311326506_An_overview_of_Afghanistan's_trends_toward_renewable_and_sustainable_energies
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