Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[jonescg]

Yes, Brazil and Africa were the main two isolated nation-states I was thinking of - they constitute single digit percentages of energy to their grids and have done for a long time. They cannot constitute much more than that without it becoming a major energy security risk. Or perhaps they should just accept more Chinese influence in their society?

All the other nations you make mention of are part of a broader nuclear industrial ecosystem within Europe or North America. It is easier for those nations to utilise nuclear energy.

That's the point I'm trying to make - nuclear is not just a case of plonking a reactor somewhere on a grid and watching it generate any sizeable proportion of that nation's power. It needs a very complicated ecosystem to function smoothly, and without such support it will always be limited to a small fraction of the grid's needs. Nuclear needs scale, and scale is what most places can't afford.

 

[Hillhater]

.

That's the point I'm trying to make - nuclear is not just a case of plonking a reactor somewhere on a grid and watching it generate any sizeable proportion of that nation's power. It needs a very complicated ecosystem to function smoothly, and without such support it will always be limited to a small fraction of the grid's needs. Nuclear needs scale, and scale is what most places can't afford.

Conventional thinking there !....the world is a smaller place now than 50 yrs ago, for international commerce and technology transfer... and china is not the only player in the Nuclear supply market.
USA, France, UK, Russia, Etc, and several others, all have ability to supply various Nuke technologies
Modern and future nuke plants could be effectively “Plug and Play” with fuel “cells” being swapped out every year or so, with the spent cells being returned to the supplier for “recharging” / “reprocessing” (which wont be the complex process’s that current designs have to manage)
User nations need not have any special facilities other than operating skills, with even the normal security issues being eliminated in some technologies.

 

[Hillhater]

In reality, either coal and nuclear have hopefully reach their peaks gloably and their capacity will be shrinking.

More optimistic thinking... ?

China permitted more new coal-fired power plants in March than it did in all of 2019. The new permits come on the heels of an uptick in coal plant construction last year — reversing a two-year slowdown in China's coal expansion........
......The country added 43 GW of new coal capacity last year, up from 32 GW in 2018, according to Global Energy Monitor. Almost 100 GW is under construction and another 105 GW is either permitted or applying for permits.......
........ Today, it has almost as much new coal generation in planning or construction (206 gigawatts) as the United States has in operation (235 GW at the end of 2019).

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063354565

 

[TheBeastie]

Another post on extreme efficiency water splitting, more details.
https://fuelcellsworks.com/research-news/solar-hydrogen-production-photocatalyst-that-can-split-water-into-hydrogen-and-oxygen-at-a-quantum-efficiency-close-to-100/
https://newatlas.com/energy/solar-to-hydrogen-cell-sth-pec-efficiency-breakthrough/
And another fuel-cell breakthrough claim.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200618092445.htm

In regards to my previous post https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&start=5850#p1564705 I think folks are going to be surprised how far and deep Hydrogen Fuel-Cell technology weeds its way into everyday life, but I think the home car will be one of the last spots it will come.

Check out this all in one fuel-cell home energy station, forget about Elon Musk's crappy 13.5 kWh, this one can store 1.5MegaWh of electricity. That's 1500KWh.
It contains a battery, electrolyzer and fuel cell all working together for a self-sufficient and customizable house energy system.
It makes use of the Hydrogen fuel-cell waste heat for heating the home water and heating the house for winter/cold nights increasing overall efficiency.
In addition, the waste heat generated during the operation of Picea is provided to the house as heating or hot water, thus further reducing your energy bill.
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/green-hydrogen-captures-building-sector-worlds-first-emission-free-home-storage-system-market-ready/
https://www.homepowersolutions.de/en/product

Fuel-cell tractor!
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/china-launches-first-hydrogen-powered-5g-smart-tractor/

FuelCells for shipping/Maritime Use
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/ecap-receives-approval-in-principle-aip-from-dnv-gl-for-the-use-of-re-fire-fuel-cells-for-maritime-use/

More of the countless stories of FC buses replacing combustion buses
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/china-zhengzhou-replaces-all-its-buses-with-hydrogen-fuel-cell-buses/

I constantly see the Victorian government funding drone usage for every type of usage imaginable, including finding injured koalas etc.

This one is distributing seeds for bush areas destroyed by fire.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1677795475706645&t=23

EPA using them
https://www.miragenews.com/epa-drone-monitors-landfills-from-sky/

Here the police are using them on the beach
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/drones-used-to-patrol-beaches-as-part-of-8m-coronavirus-fine-blitz-20200519-p54udy.html

Police buy 50 drones.
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/victoria-police-to-buy-50-drones-for-unmanned-squadron-527969
Again, I can't help but imagine a large amount of the running cost is having to swap batteries over every 25minutes, these are government jobs where a lot of time is spend in downtime of the drone.
So again I can't help but see the extra cost of Fuel-Cell drones negligible to in fact being a long term money saver.
[youtube]EMcfE-zr9qw[/youtube]

Looking at 15 of these EVTOL flying cars out there, only 3-4 are going to use hydrogen fuel-cells.
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/evtol-air-taxi-flying-car-market-players/
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/archer-evtol-air-taxi/

It's now been 41years since Lithium-ion battery chemistry we use today were discovered, I think the folks designing these EVTOLs are foolishly optimistic that some new breakthrough will occur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Development
1979 – Working in separate groups, Ned A. Godshall et al., and, shortly thereafter, John B. Goodenough (Oxford University) and Koichi Mizushima (Tokyo University), demonstrated a rechargeable lithium cell with voltage in the 4 V range using lithium cobalt dioxide (LiCoO2) as the positive electrode and lithium metal as the negative electrode.
This innovation provided the positive electrode material that enabled early commercial lithium batteries. LiCoO2 enabled novel rechargeable battery systems. Godshall et al. further identified the similar value of ternary compound lithium-transition metal-oxides such as the spinel LiMn2O4, Li2MnO3, LiMnO2, LiFeO2, LiFe5O8, and LiFe5O4

13years of lithium battery breakthrough promises and they have all turned out to be baloney.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=57256

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

13years of lithium battery breakthrough promises and they have all turned out to be baloney.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=57256

Woah there Beastie, it's bad enough that those disparaged lithium cells are 20% the cost as they were 20 years ago and are storing more than twice the power- but you're also just slapping a hundred + page thread instead of pointing out anything specific. Bad form my dude, especially when we have also been hearing "breakthroughs" in fuel cells at the same clip.

Anyway, that HPS system is wild but I can't justify comparing it to the Tesla Powerwall when that fuel cell is a 1500 KWh system at 90,000 Euros, versus a 13.5 Kwh powerwall at 4-5 thousand dollars- there's simply no comparison there, especially when both systems assume the buyer is combining them with a separate solar cell which increases the price more. The Picea also says nothing about the fuel cell's total lifespan, so we have to assume it's still the hard 15 year limit the catalysts all have.

I would compare it more against the Vanadium flow batteries, since those seem to scale on similar levels:
https://voltstorage.com/en/voltstorage-smart-home-battery/
... but they lack prices and have been having difficulties gaining traction. Still, that HPS system shows they're working around the inefficiencies of storing hydrogen well by only having it for the short term instead of the long.

In regards to my previous post https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&start=5850#p1564705 I think folks are going to be surprised how far and deep Hydrogen Fuel-Cell technology weeds its way into everyday life, but I think the home car will be one of the last spots it will come.

Agreed. Fuel cells also produce power at a consistent rate and have little ability to "surge" as far as I've found. Better to play to their strengths- besides, you don't simply JUST have hydrogen cells, there are ethanol cells as well.

More of the countless stories of FC buses replacing combustion buses
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/china-zhengzhou-replaces-all-its-buses-with-hydrogen-fuel-cell-buses/

Countless? Really?
Also, these will still require battery systems just like any other hydrogen cell. I would also consider articles from "Fuel Cell Works" as being a little suspect.

 

[JackFlorey]

13years of lithium battery breakthrough promises and they have all turned out to be baloney.

I first designed with lithium ion batteries about 2000; only 20 years ago. The best cells avaialble were 1300mah 18650's. And those were the low discharge rate flavor (2C.) Now those same cells are 3500mah and they can discharge at 10C. Way more than twice the capacity. Over TEN TIMES the power.

There are now EV's that get 400 miles to a charge. There are cheap li-ion home power systems you can buy right now. All of that trumps an imaginary fuel cell system that someone maybe might build someday, presented in beautiful 3D renderings. That's pretty much the definition of 'baloney.'

 

[Cephalotus]

Yes, i am confused !....as to how anyone would consider maintaining 100% fossil generation as backup for a renewable energy system, is a sustainable solution ?
That has to be the biggest, most expensive, “Bandaid” for a unreliable generation system.!

Who said that this must remain 100% fossil fuel until the end.

In reality it can transfer to 100% gas -power- backup which needs (depending on grid capacity, smart demand options and battery capacity) to deliver around 10-15% of the -energy- needed.

This gas will be mostly natural gas in the first step, but can transform to carbon neutral methane or hydrogen.

So let's assume some round numbers here: 100GW gas power backup capacity with an average usage rate of 1000h/a. average efficiency 50% (some CCGT, some fuel cells mainly gas peakers), so we would need 200TWh of carbon neutral gas. This is doable.

Today German biogas production is somewhere around 80-100TWh of methane. The ratio is around 60% CH4 and 40% CO2. Using that CO2 in combination with (green) H2 you could make that to 130-170TWh of green methane.

Btw: 200TWh of methane is less than the already existing available natural gas (=methane) storage capacity in Germany.

 

[Cephalotus]

Check out this all in one fuel-cell home energy station, forget about Elon Musk's crappy 13.5 kWh, this one can store 1.5MegaWh of electricity. That's 1500KWh.
It contains a battery, electrolyzer and fuel cell all working together for a self-sufficient and customizable house energy system.
It makes use of the Hydrogen fuel-cell waste heat for heating the home water and heating the house for winter/cold nights increasing overall efficiency.

I know that system.

You need a very efficient house with low heat consumption of around 5000-8000kWh/year (which is doable with modern homes, with heatpumps you need around 1500-2000kWh of electricity for that) and very low electricity consumption of around 2000kWh/year for household systems and 2000kWh/year for your electric car. This also is doable in Germany, IF you want to do it

Such a system costs around 70.000 Euro including a 10kWp PV power plant which produces 10.000kWh/a of electricity in Germany and a lead acid battery.

On the other side only the 10kWp PV system would cost you 10.000 Euro and will still produce 10.000kWh of electricity.

From your consumption of 1500kWh + 2000kWh + 2000kWh = 5500kWh you will be able to produce maybe 1500kWh on your own.

So you have to buy 4000kWh from the grid (-1200€/year) and you will sell 8500kWh to the grid (+800€/year)

After 20 years the solar PV system will cost you 12.000 Euro initial price + 20 x 400€ anual electricity costs = 20.000 Euro

The hydrogen power solution system will cost you 70.000 Euro and this is only if nothing brakes, which is unlikey. The amount of resources needed for that system is extreme.

If you include just 1% anual interest rate from 58.000€ (70.000€-12.000€) you end up with interst of 580€/year that is higher than your entire energy cost in the simple PV installation.

Yes, you need the grid to balance demand and supply. That's why I calculate with buying price of 30ct/kWh and a selling price of 9ct/kWh.

It's a technicaly intersting system for technical freaks but it is a money and ressource grave and nothing that should be done on a large scale.

The same goes for battery home storage systems. They serve little purpose and are toexpensive and need to much ressources. batteries are best used somewhere in the grid and in electric cars.

It's now been 41years since Lithium-ion battery chemistry we use today were discovered, I think the folks designing these EVTOLs are foolishly optimistic that some new breakthrough will occur....

13years of lithium battery breakthrough promises and they have all turned out to be baloney.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=57256

Do you think so?

"... and quite a surprise is the announcement about the battery warranty, which is for up to 15 years /1,000,000 km (621,500 miles), including 75% of initial battery capacity..."

https://insideevs.com/news/425503/toyota-proace-electric-15-year-battery-warranty/

I say that a 1 million km warranty on your electric cars battery is a quite huge achievement. An electric motor, the very simple gearbox and the main electronics will usually also easily be good for 1 million km or even 2 million km.

On the other hand fuel cells after 70 years devolopment.

We now see millions of the as promises in the early 2000s in laptops:

Not to mention those millions of electric bicycles that use fuel cells today.

This is our solution. 13s8p battery at 5,5kg with ca. 1300Wh. Good for 100-200km with our speed pedelecs using Bionx D-motors throttled to 45km/h for legal reasons. Recharging from 10% to 90% takes 3 hours with a cycle satiator. (1,1kg + cables).
If I find a lightweight charger with higher power recharging from 10-90% will be doable in just 1h using cells like the LG HG2 instead.



Soon we will see millions of FCEV, too. You just need to believe.

 

[Cephalotus]

More optimistic thinking... ?

...China permitted more new coal-fired power plants in March than it did in all of 2019.

We will see. Difficult to predict. You have to look at net capacity (many cola power plants retire in China) and utilization and efficiency:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants

If the major polluters incl. China don't stop it, it will be the "apocalypse". Simple as that.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-will-china-build-hundreds-of-new-coal-plants-in-the-2020s

How long do you think it will take until there will be a great real war about carbon emissions? 20 years?

 

[Hillhater]

How long do you think it will take until there will be a great real war about carbon emissions? 20 years?

there wont be one !

 

[Dauntless]

How long do you think it will take until there will be a great real war about carbon emissions? 20 years?

there wont be one !

You mean like the way there'll never be people beating up others to prove they hate violence?

 

[TheBeastie]

Well as far as I am concerned the performance increases in Lithium cells over the last 20 years has been pretty crappy if you ask me, I think people are too overoptimistic on a miracle battery and are seeing things through beer goggles, so to speak.
The proof is all these flying cars that have actually been shown to fly but can only do crappy distances before the ass falls out of the battery/reliability, all batteries with high C rates have dog ass short total life cycle spans.


Sure the lithium cell prices have come down but I am very dubious they will go down any more than they are now.
There are a lot of dumb mining companies out there that basically mine metals for free as in they don't make any money, see stories of mining companies closing down all the time in Australian news, all those boring metal/materials that make lithium cells have to come from the ground somewhere and no ones a got dumber mining companies than Australia as far as I am concerned.

On another subject found this report pretty interesting.
"BMS style/Cell-logs" for Fuel-cell stacks, now you can monitor each individual voltage of each cell to see how its going.
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/large-automotive-supplier-orders-cvm-system-for-series-fuel-cell-vehicles/

Here is another duel-use all in one fuel-cell and home heating system
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/europe/ie-group-working-with-leading-scottish-housing-developer-to-integrate-hydrogen-fuel-cells-into-homes/

 

[sendler2112]

There is enough of that stuff to make 1 billion ICE cars which we replace every 7 years

All (84% and not dropping) of our current gains in infrastructure, hardware and "stuff" (GDP) is due to the current, one time bolus of energy from fossil carbon energy to mine, refine, manufacture, deliver, and install. And the previously empty and untouched state of non-renewable resources of the planet. We have used resources according to the best, first. So it now requires increasing amounts of energy, hardware and time for any given production. Copper and Phosphorous will be a choke point in the 50 years time frame.
Battery raw materials of Lithium and Cobalt are stated to have possible reserves in the range of producing just 1.5-2 billion 60kWh battery packs total. Which is 90-150 TWh. Total world annual production is just .26 TWH. Increase this by doubling this manufacturing capacity twice over the next 10 years and it takes 100 years to make this many batteries. Just for 1.5 billion cars. For the eventual 6 billion drivers to share. Not to mention heavy transportation, agriculture (will have to be corded) and stationary storage.
.
Scale.
.

We are going to come up way short and these are just a couple examples that show we are already caught in an energy trap whereby we cannot sizably diminish the use of fossil Carbon energy without a corresponding (probably catastrophic) degrowth of economic activity and resource throughput. And resultant failure to pay back the interest bearing debt mechanism we have been using for the last 20 (50?) years to kick all cans down the road.
.
The cans are piling up and our boot is wearing out.
.

I already explained to you why it is nonsense to use primary energy numbers for wind and solar.

So you may triple the value of total wind and solar if you like to account for thermal losses in electrical generation and still only get 13.8% of total net usable energy. You would need 7x the current levels of wind and solar along with perfect load control and storage. But new gas plants are approaching 60% thermal efficiency. And diesel farm tractors are 42%. So a tripling would not be accurate either. And there is also the big consideration of the fungibility of various forms of energy, Particularly liquid fuel, which can be stored and carried on board with much higher density and refill times than electricity. So valuing electricity at three times that of thermal is not correct and would have to be additionally based on the concept of the complete electrification of all processes to accompany the near complete transformation to rebuildable energy. And adequate storage. The $200 trillion dollar world level task of which is generally insurmountable given available levels of capital in the economic system currently employed by Capitalism.
.

If that assumption would be true, that there are not enough RAW materials to build a RE world, wouldn't it be wise to be the first to do it and to finish it, while all those resources are still available?
.
I see a future for the world and for me living in my flat, using an BEV car (or just electric bikes), eating meat 1 per week, using 100% RE for electricity and home heating, a industry that also uses 100% RE and hydrogen and flying maybe less, but more expensive, with synthetic carbon neutral fuel costing 3€/l vs 0,50€/l today.

It appears to me that you do not see the scale of the world. You mainly see Germany. If one country consumes most of world rebuildable energy production, large percentages of transformation can occur. While depriving the rest of the world of these resources. Keep in mind that poor people will not stay where they are if they are to starve or flood or die in heat. They will start walking to wherever has the highest standard of living. As we are already seeing. And this will increase exponentially in the coming decades. Walls and rifles will lead inevitably to genocide. There has to be a better way. With a whole world focus
.
There is also the scale of deep time which is completely absent in your discussion. What are they going to do 100 years from now? 1,000 years? People are not going to have any car. A bicycle will be a prized possession. Food will be grown and distributed locally and regionally. Organically. With the commensurate reduction in productivity per acre back to 1/3 of the current value as it was before the Green Revolution. And the required fallowing of unproductive fields as it was. And migrations.
.
Do we care about "them"? What should we be doing with our current energy and resource surplus to get ready?
.

 

[Cephalotus]

Battery raw materials of Lithium and Cobalt are stated to have possible reserves in the range of producing just 1.5-2 billion 60kWh battery packs total. Which is 90-150 TWh. Total world annual production is just .26 TWH. Increase this by doubling this manufacturing capacity twice over the next 10 years and it takes 100 years to make this many batteries. Just for 1.5 billion cars. For the eventual 6 billion drivers to share. Not to mention heavy transportation, agriculture (will have to be corded) and stationary storage.

I expect there to be 2 billion cars by 2050.

There is no limit for cobalt, because you can make Li-ion cells without cobalt. lithium is only limited at current prices, if you are willing to pay more than the dirt cheap prices of now you will have access to much more lithium.

For statonary storage systems sodium based batteries are an option which elimenates the Lithium "prblam" alltogether for taht usage case. You can buy those sodium based batteries now:

https://www.bluesky-energy.eu/en/greenrock-home-2/

We are going to come up way short and these are just a couple examples that show we are already caught in an energy trap whereby we cannot sizably diminish the use of fossil Carbon energy without a corresponding (probably catastrophic) degrowth of economic activity and resource throughput.

If you are in a fossil fuel energy trap the most stupid thing would be to just keep burning fossil fuels, wouldn't it?

It appears to me that you do not see the scale of the world. You mainly see Germany. If one country consumes most of world rebuildable energy production, large percentages of transformation can occur.

It's my country. This is where I live. It's what I understand, it's where I have at least some influence. So I concentrate on my home country. Pointig with fingers to others is usualy only used for excuse. China burns this and that, so I don't need to do... The average US citizen consumes so much more than we do, so as long as they continue we need to change nothing...
And so on.

While depriving the rest of the world of these resources. Keep in mind that poor people will not stay where they are if they are to starve or flood or die in heat. They will start walking to wherever has the highest standard of living. As we are already seeing. And this will increase exponentially in the coming decades. Walls and rifles will lead inevitably to genocide. There has to be a better way. With a whole world focus

So what's wrong buying hydrogen from Africa or Russia?

(of course for the US it is wrong, because the only energy we should be allowed to buy is stupid expensive fracking gas from the US with its huge ecological footprint , this is why the US government actually is so deeply concerned about our energy imports from Russia )

There is also the scale of deep time which is completely absent in your discussion. What are they going to do 100 years from now? 1,000 years? People are not going to have any car.

I think it is stupid to make technological forecasts for 1000 years. What would have someone predicted in the year 1020? At that tie we didn't even know whoch continents exist.

I personally do hope that we will coquer our solar system and than explore beyond that. I'm not sure if it is possible to use this to get ressources back to the Earth, but it would be a new step for Human migration and hopefully will give us new planets someday.

This is why I support research in fusion. I would actually 10fold that.

But for the Earth fusion is to little to late. We will need scaleable solutions now. For me this is solar, wind, electric cars and green hydrogen (and much less meat in our diet)

 

[Hillhater]

Yes, i am confused !....as to how anyone would consider maintaining 100% fossil generation as backup for a renewable energy system, is a sustainable solution ?
That has to be the biggest, most expensive, “Bandaid” for a unreliable generation system.!

Who said that this must remain 100% fossil fuel until the end.

In reality it can transfer to 100% gas -power- backup which needs (depending on grid capacity, smart demand options and battery capacity) to deliver around 10-15% of the -energy- needed.

This gas will be mostly natural gas in the first step, but can transform to carbon neutral methane or hydrogen.

So let's assume some round numbers here: 100GW gas power backup capacity with an average usage rate of 1000h/a. average efficiency 50% (some CCGT, some fuel cells mainly gas peakers), so we would need 200TWh of carbon neutral gas. This is doable.

Today German biogas production is somewhere around 80-100TWh of methane. The ratio is around 60% CH4 and 40% CO2. Using that CO2 in combination with (green) H2 you could make that to 130-170TWh of green methane.

Btw: 200TWh of methane is less than the already existing available natural gas (=methane) storage capacity in Germany.

So basicly you propose to replace coal and nuclear with an additional 70GW of new gas generators as back up for the Wind/Solar unreliability.
Effectively that means replacing the cheapest thermal fuel sources with the most expensive , which your Government have already said they dont see any sense in supporting due to its cost limitations and environmental impacts...that can only lead to further power cost increases
Also, that current Biogas production is already consumed in the power generation supply, so any further supplies would require a whole new fleet of Biogas fermenting plants,..and the feedstock farms etc to support them.
Can you not see the horrific economics behind this need to support intermittent Wind and Solar generation.?

 

[Hillhater]

A overview of the effect of replacing Coal generators with Wind/ Solar in Australia...
Just one component of the operating costs for the grid operators...FCAS costs over the past 5 years..
..indicates an increas of 10-20x over 5 yrs.

 

[momus3]

Just for the fun of it, we could revisit the original premise of this post and leave out the political and national angles for the other forum.

Obviously solar is preferable to other sources (the wind ain't always there, but the sun usually is), but it's area dependent. I'm not talking about national power grids, but how an individual can supply power to his home. About 30 years ago I saw people living off grid on the Big Island of Hawaii with solar, but it was only possible due to the mild climate over there. You didn't need heat or cooling capability, just a modest solar setup with golf cart batteries for reserve worked great, along w/ a small propane stove and fridge. Hot water was an on demand Paloma propane water heater. All of this cost little money, didn't need a team of professionals to set up, and worked well within it's intended limits.

But you can't do that in Florida, where you need massive cooling units, and in the Northern states you need massive heating systems. So solar is something to be used as an add on to the existing power grid. Once the politics get into this, that's where things go off the rails. In many places, you are expected to pay some sort of usage fee even in a 100% solar home if it's located within an electric grid. In other words, they're charging you for NOT using the utility's electricity. Similar to municipalities wanting to charge us bike riders a fee to use the roads because we don't buy gasoline, and gasoline is where they get the tax money for roads.

Here in the Southwest, it's relatively simple and not all that expensive to go 100% solar and free yourself from the corporate/government 2 headed monster of utility companies. So a lot of this wind/solar/coal thinking only applies to people that live in climates where they need lots of energy to live their current lifestyles. I won't even mention nuclear power because that whole thing is insane. Highly radioactive waste that has no safe place to be stored! God only knows how much of that waste has been dumped into the oceans in metal barrels and is leaking out. Or going into the cave they have there over in New Mexico, where any natural or man made disturbance is going to have it leaking into the ground water. You would have to be stark raving mad to go w/ that as your power source for anything.

Rather than looking to politicians and corporate think tanks owned by utility companies to solve our energy needs, it would be smart to go the DIY route. It's doable, as long as we keep the scale in mind and don't live where there are extreme weather challenges. Sorta like watching your hurricane, wind, rain and flood insurance needs disappear when you move from the coastal cities.

Electric cars probably cause more pollution to the earth than gasoline fueled cars, so that's no magic bullet, but a whole lot of magical thinking is going on around that issue. When you look at the huge water pollution caused through mining lithium salts, the lack of recycling plants that will handle lithium batteries (resulting in them going into landfills), the pollution costs of transporting the batteries and/or vehicles all over the world, the toxic and harmful chemicals and materials involved in their production, etc, you would probably have a cleaner environment through gas driven vehicles. There's this persistent belief that is similar to a religious belief (unproveable, and brings out a lot of emotions and "faith") that somehow, someway, technology is going to come to the rescue and save us, when it's technology that has caused a lot of the problems we're experiencing today, along w/ overpopulation. Looking to governments for our energy needs is pretty stupid. Scientists and engineers are the people we need to talk to concerning our energy needs. Or simply downsize and live a cleaner, simpler life that doesn't require massive amounts of travel and power.

 

[JackFlorey]

In many places, you are expected to pay some sort of usage fee even in a 100% solar home if it's located within an electric grid.

Not if you are off grid, which is certainly possible. This is 100% legal in most places. If you want to connect to the grid and get power at night then you'll have to pay for it of course.

Highly radioactive waste that has no safe place to be stored!

I live about 20 miles from a lot of highly radioactive nuclear waste. No problems with it.

You would have to be stark raving mad to go w/ that as your power source for anything.

Call me stark raving mad, then. Nuclear is better (cleaner/less polluting/less nuclear waste) than coal. And it generates a lot less CO2 than natural gas per megawatt-hour.

Rather than looking to politicians and corporate think tanks owned by utility companies to solve our energy needs, it would be smart to go the DIY route.

That's doable right now. You can order such a system for about $50-80K for a typical energy efficient home in a temperate climate.

There's this persistent belief that is similar to a religious belief (unproveable, and brings out a lot of emotions and "faith") that somehow, someway, technology is going to come to the rescue and save us, when it's technology that has caused a lot of the problems we're experiencing today, along w/ overpopulation.

Very true that there are a lot of aspects to this problem - population is one big one.

 

[sendler2112]

 

[sendler2112]

keep in mind also that for wealthy countries with infrastructure, services, entertainment, ect, the energy used at home is only 20-30% of someone's energy footprint.

 

[Hillhater]

Obviously solar is preferable to other sources (the wind ain't always there, but the sun usually is), but it's area dependent. I'm not talking about national power grids, but how an individual can supply power to his home.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Unless you are in one of a few ideal areas (like Hawaii ), RT solar is one of the least reliable sources of power.
It is certain not to work 60+% of the time, requireing back up storage , and if you are “Off Grid” it is wise to have a back up diesel generator also.
It is universally accepted as the MOST expensive source of power for a domestic property.
Most developed countries also insist on having licienced installers, and inspections to ensure community safety.

 

[jonescg]

Now lets look at the rate of population growth (the next graph along):


Yes the population is still growing, but slower and slower every year. We'll peak at about 10 billion and turn around after that.
I don't know how nice it will be by then, but it's good to know it's largely happening on its own without any top-down pressure.

 

[Cephalotus]

USA, France, UK, Russia, Etc, and several others, all have ability to supply various Nuke technologies

Westinghouse is out of the market. Areva survives on state money. (Siemens gave up on nukes, too, as did the Candiens and most of the Japanese companies. What's left is mostly China, Russia and South Korea, all backed by taxpayers money, otherwise none of them would survive on a competetive market)

UK was not able to build a single one of its planned 6 new reactors. From those 6 reactors 3 have started construction, both Japanese reactors have stopped the project, taking billions of losses, the 6th is Hinkly C, built by French + China and it already has become a huge problem for EDF.

 

[Cephalotus]

But you can't do that in Florida, where you need massive cooling units, and in the Northern states you need massive heating systems. So solar is something to be used as an add on to the existing power grid. Once the politics get into this, that's where things go off the rails. In many places, you are expected to pay some sort of usage fee even in a 100% solar home if it's located within an electric grid. In other words, they're charging you for NOT using the utility's electricity. Similar to municipalities wanting to charge us bike riders a fee to use the roads because we don't buy gasoline, and gasoline is where they get the tax money for roads.

No they charge you for USING the grid.

And it's dirt cheap compared to batteries and obviously it needs much, much much less resources compared to home battery systems to keep your heat running in winter.

In Germany solar house have been built for decades, but they use huge hot water storage for winter months. The old ones used solar thermal, but PV is now a (better/another) option.

This is not something that I would prefer. A much smaller hot water storage in combination with the grid (there is more wind in winter than summer) is much cheaper and better. The grid is already here. Just use it.

 

[Ianhill]

The nuclear of old will become a dirty trick the government's used for an excuse to have shit loads of war heads, the nuclear of the future if given chance could be what saves the humans thirst for energy but we got to not blow everything up we made with the first few rounds of nuclear (energy)
Sounds silly to me that Chernobyl was actual a save from disaster what type of equipment are we putting together that has such danger and the top chiefs go yea that's acceptable PMSL nothing should be able to cause that destruction it's a major terrorist target with out negligence and natural disaster these plants are just plain stupid the cost involved in construction of such garbage is crazy but we won't skip a generation no way france has reactors way out of date but they still function there's still alot to go wrong and no doubt time will allow it as long as there's the potential.