Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[sendler2112]

Drinking rubbing alcohol saved that one guy in the Andromeda Strain

Crying about it can help also. If that is to speak out. The climate change aspect has some decent awareness already. The economic conundrum tied to fossil fuel use is lesser known or talked about. Continued drinking of it is necessary also. But in a refocused direction to build a new system that can take it's place. Before it runs out. Mining and refining raw materials for batteries and wind turbines, steel and concrete for dams and nuclear reactors, all take huge amounts of energy. Liquid fuels for the heavy earth moving machines that will never be easily replaced. Focus now.

 

[speedmd]

Liquid fuels for the heavy earth moving machines that will never be easily replaced

 

[sendler2112]

There is no comparison between EV's and the density of liquid fuels. How much energy do those monsters use? Just for a Farm combine it requires roughly somewhere around 2.3 MWh per day.
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570 Liters of diesel per day = 5,700 kWh per day. Even if you cut that by2.5 for the extra efficiency of electric motors with round trip losses you get 2,300 kWh per day for a large size farm machine. 12 Tesla grid scale 200kWh powerpacks per day to hot swap in and out. for just one tractor. We are going to need to start making a lot of wire to get all of this power around.
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[Hillhater]

Civil passenger Aircraft and .ocean going shipping are two major areas that Electric power cannot tackle currently also...
Maybe those compact liquid salt fueled reactors will solve that . ??

 

[speedmd]

What are the tranny and hydro losses in those farm machines? 2.5 times is off by huge sum in my estimation. We see many of them scraping hydraulics in a host of power take off applications already. Love it when the ice folks start talking efficiency and only use raw motor numbers. No belts, exhaust or other pumping losses never mind terrible power band width. No argument that current battery tech is not ready for a direct replacement in many of the products, but at the current rate of development, it will not be long.

 

[sendler2112]

For something like cargo ships (Already in existence for the military for 50 years) or a remote mining operation, small modular reactors will be a boon. I have to guess that the energy consumption of those big EV earth movers would be several times the energy consumption of the tractor that I showed the conversion for. Lets say 20 MWh per day. 25 of those running around a giant cobalt mine would consume 500MWh per day.
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already 1/10 of a $2 Billion solar PV like SolarStar just for the trucks. If you have perfect sun. Batteries will need .7MW continuous power? And will have to be hot swapped in minutes and withstand constant 1C charge and discharge rates to keep up. Daunting.
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Don't be sucked in by cute meems showing how easy super high tech can solve all our problems without running the numbers.

 

[Hillhater]

That rediculous large earth mover doesnt exist anywhere ouside a computer screen.

 

[liveforphysics]

Sendler2112 -

If nothing runs the military ships, this would be called a start towards potentially keeping the spaceship inhabiting life.

If nothing supports petrochemical fueled big agriculture, it may be a start towards sustainable food production.

Each being has just a single person they are responsible for not continuing the auto-extinction.

 

[speedmd]

That rediculous large earth mover doesnt exist anywhere ouside a computer screen.

http://www.etf.equipment/etf-mining-trucks/etf-mining-trucks/ They have contact info listed for you to price out.

 

[speedmd]

How about a small electric shovel?

 

[Hillhater]

That rediculous large earth mover doesnt exist anywhere ouside a computer screen.

http://www.etf.equipment/etf-mining-trucks/etf-mining-trucks/ They have contact info listed for you to price out.

As i said,...it doesnt exist outside a computer CGI program. !
...or does it ?.....
[youtube]YpCP8beH4D8[/youtube]
And the Electric shovel ..?? ...... Check for the power cable trailing behind it like all the other giant electric mining equipment.

 

[speedmd]

A bigger one.

https://youtu.be/qUPaj5hi8KU?t=6

 

[speedmd]

And the Electric shovel ..?? ...... Check for the power cable trailing behind it like all the other giant electric mining equipment.

And, it runs on electricity from any source available.

 

[Hillhater]

A bigger one.

https://youtu.be/qUPaj5hi8KU?t=6

Sure ! ...did you notice its Diesel powered ! (Hybrid drive, with large hub motors)
( the sound must have been a give away)
You seem to be missing the general point of this thread .

 

[sendler2112]

Sendler2112 -

If nothing runs the military ships, this would be called a start towards potentially keeping the spaceship inhabiting life.

If nothing supports petrochemical fueled big agriculture, it may be a start towards sustainable food production.

Each being has just a single person they are responsible for not continuing the auto-extinction.

It takes a village. What if you get sick. Do you shun medical treatment?

 

[speedmd]

No hill I did not miss that nor do I miss the point of the thread. Beating on solar or wind because the sun does not shine at night or the wind is not constant is not missed either. I drive my car only a few percent of the time and I also don't concern myself that this makes it a bad investment or if it will pay for itself to some schedule.

Adding cost effective Clean generation is better than none. Adding more efficient drives to large applications make sense and like anything else the improvements are incremental. Large ships are also moving to electric pod drives. Yes, and most are powered by diesel gen sets until something better comes along. The pressure to improve that side is higher now than at any time I can remember.

 

[sendler2112]

.did you notice its Diesel powered ! (Hybrid drive, with large hub motors)

Again we see so much hopeful thinking. The web site states zero emission. But obviously not that one in the video. We will eventually have to try to get by with all machines being battery powered. But they will never be a match for liquid fuels in run time and power. If we are going to build 1,000's of new dams, we would be much better off to get busy now. Before the liquid fuel runs out. Diesel has 13.3 kWh / kg. Batteries have .25 kWh / kg. Good luck farming or building gigantic things with 1/50th of the energy density. We need to get as much of the heavy lifting done now so that we can coast more gently down the other side. There is absolutely no comparing the current fossil fuel paradigm with whatever will come next.
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1 barrel of oil has the equivalent energy as 1 strong man working 8 hour days at 70w, for 11 years.

 

[billvon]

Nice spin. But basing our analysis on "we did it before" isn't based on facts. Just hope.

Actually, "we did it before" is a fact, not hope. Wise people learn from the past.

Please be pragmatic and run the numbers as I have been posting. Fossil fuel is very dense, very special stuff. A one time gift. Which allowed our growth to explode. Well beyond any sustainable level without it. But we can use what is left to cushion the transformation.

Agreed. Which is why we should use what's left of our oil to switch to a more renewable method of energy generation.

There is a huge difference in energy density between solar and crude oil. And solar PV in the best location only averages 33% of the stated capacity nameplate. In NY, USA it averages 13%. Which means it is at 0% much of the time. Wind is predicated at 30% of nameplate in the best location here. Storage (And footprint density. And cost) is the big hangup for intermittents. The BYD gridscale container batteries will indeed help us. But keep in perspective. One container battery is rated at 1 MWh of storage. A container of diesel fuel would be 684 MWh.

Agreed. And a container of uranium would be orders of magnitude higher than that - and a container of tritium and deuterium would be orders of magnitude beyond _that._ That's not an argument that a container of diesel (or of batteries) is effectively worthless.

What is the EROI of a container battery?

Zero. What's the EROI of a coal power plant without the coal?

Do you really think we can mine and refine these elements and produce finished products at a 35 TWh every 20 years rate without liquid fuels and immense industrial scale grids? Which is jut enough to cover 12 hours of storage of electricity at current levels and then replace what gets weak from cycle life. Current electrical only. Not the other 70% of energy use. Nor any growth. 50 Gigafactories entire output continuously, FOREVER, just to keep up with 12 hours storage at the current level.

You are assuming that "gigafactories" are the only (and best) way to make batteries. That's a poor assumption. Do the calculation on how much semiconductor fab capability it would take to supply all our current needs for memory, processing and control on 10um processes (state of the art in 1971.)

Batteries will be good for personal transportaion and every vehicle needs to be utilized in vehicle to grid when not charging or moving. But autonomous vehicles will generally keep moving at all times whenever they are not charging. Solar and wind can only go as high as 15% of the baseload without storage.

Interesting claim, since in Kauai solar generates 75% of the island's power during the middle of the day.

And can only go higher as to the matching amount of non-intermittents from hydro in special areas, geothermal in special areas, and nuclear. If fossil fuels are to be replaced.

Those all sound good to me. Nuclear is going to have to get a lot cheaper for it to be effective (they just abandoned several large projects in the US due to cost overruns.)

 

[Hillhater]

Meanwhile in Australia...
We just had a live media interview with the CFO of our largest energy provider AGL.
When asked about what plans they had for electricity supply into the future as coal fired generators are decommissioned, his comments were as follows..

... Solar and Wind will increasingly become the primary power source with "firming" provided by battery systems, and some more Gas generation for back up...

His logic was that solar provides the lowest price power, and it will continue to fall making other sources unviable.
Somehow he ignors the fact that we have a critical situation with gas supply already
What really worries me, is this guy should be one of the best informed on the costs involved in generation, and yet he seem to be completely ignorant of the financial and social implications of what he is saying.

 

[Hillhater]

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Adding cost effective Clean generation is better than none. Adding more efficient drives to large applications make sense and like anything else the improvements are incremental.

Actually, my real beef with renewables is not that they are unreliable, unpredictable, or intermittent,...but that they are. NOT "cost effective " and are being promoted by deception and subsidies.

Large ships are also moving to electric pod drives. Yes, and most are powered by diesel gen sets until something better comes along. The pressure to improve that side is higher now than at any time I can remember.

Large ships are not going to electric pod drives, except for those with special manouvering requirements for frequent difficult ports..such as cruise ships, and special purpose vessels.
Large bulk freighters and container carriers use direct coupled shaft drive from Diesel ICEs because they are much more efficient and hence cost effective.

 

[jonescg]

In Oz, we're adding about 1 GW of solar and 0.5 GW of wind each year - solar is currently at 6 GW (nameplate) installed, and conservatively expected to hit 12 GW by 2020. That's going on unabated and I suspect even without any external influence influence (including subsidies) it will continue regardless. New gas peaking plants will also be built, but they won't be cheap to run either. So in my mind the generation side of things will look after itself. Cheap, bulk storage should really be our objective now, so we can accommodate a higher proportion of intermittent generators. And yes, allowing the gas extractors to sell their product overseas ahead of the domestic market was stupid - something the WA government got right back in 2003.

As for farm equipment and mining equipment, we'll be burning diesel for a long while yet. But luckily we still have quite a bit of the stuff, so we still have time to work something out.

 

[Hillhater]

Most of that 6GW of Solar, is privately installed domestic (rooftop) facilities, which was mainly initiated bythe huge Feed in Tarrifs offered a few years ago, but is being supported now by the RET scheme subsidies. That is fine , but there are some obvious limitations to domestic uptake.
Not all domestic properties are physicaly suitable, limited roofspace with sun exposure, too much shade,multi unit blocks, etc etc....i guess less than 30% of households....
..and of those that are suitable,, how many can afford the initial outlay ?...and then how many actually will do it ?
I doubt it will get to even 10GW (domestic) for many years.
But, the real issue is the minor detail of actually keeping the power flowing to keep industry working , and the freezer cold, whilst we are asleep. !.. Because that domestic solar is not going to do it, and cheap bulk storage seems elusive currently.

 

[Punx0r]

Diesel has 13.3 kWh / kg. Batteries have .25 kWh / kg. Good luck farming or building gigantic things with 1/50th of the energy density.

You're comparing the calorific value of one with the usable electrical output of another. You might as well quote the energy value obtained for burning a lico pouch cell.

AFAIK those monster minetrucks are powered by two 60-litre diesel genset with a combined output of around 3MW. They also use huge resistive loads to dump energy recovered by the electric drivetrain when the truck is braking. Considering they spend all day going up and down a hole in the ground, a BEV version should be able to utilise regenerative braking to a significant extent. If memory serves, maintenance of the mechanical braking system is the largest running cost and cause of down-time.

A good quote the other day about how China is leading the way in the green energy revolution (for what it is) was that China is seeking to dominate the industries of the future, whereas the U.S. and Australia are seeking to dominate the industries of the past (coal).

 

[Hillhater]

AFAIK those monster minetrucks are powered by two 60-litre diesel genset with a combined output of around 3MW. They also use huge resistive loads to dump energy recovered by the electric drivetrain when the truck is braking. Considering they spend all day going up and down a hole in the ground, a BEV version should be able to utilise regenerative braking to a significant extent. If memory serves, maintenance of the mechanical braking system is the largest running cost and cause of down-time.....

Nothing new there... Most of the big mine trucks have been Diesel hybrid for years, its pretty much the standard config now. And yes, regen braking is a major advantage in reducing downtime for brake rebuilds.

...A good quote the other day about how China is leading the way in the green energy revolution (for what it is) was that China is seeking to dominate the industries of the future, whereas the U.S. and Australia are seeking to dominate the industries of the past (coal).

.?? Odd then that China is currently building over200 new coal fired power stations, with hundreds more planned, (and no plans to reduce its emmissions until 2030), whilst Australia is building none and no plans to either, and the USA has only one new coal plant in construction !!

 

[speedmd]

they are. NOT "cost effective

As opposed to drilling in your back yard for oil? WTF. Ever try making fuel? This is a no brainer by any measure for domestic roof tops in most of the world. Subsidies have been exactly what has been needed to get the costs down to the point that it could be implemented wide scale and financially stand on its own without them, even if the pay back is a bit longer than the local coal plant. It is the right thing to do.