An Interesting Comparison of Renewable Power vs other options

[Westbranch]

A long treatise, a bit hard to read due  to the English style used ( almost Victorian in style) but enlightening and worthy of some discussion.

http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf

[zoneblue]

Eric S. Raymond once said [1] that in the technical world  theres usually a corelation between the clarity of writing and the writers understanding of the subject.

I only read the first half, where the conlcusion was that the guys is a bleating nuclear apologist.

The first thing any of us here learn is that energy conservation is the first thing involved in making RE work. Nuclear apologists dont get it, they just want to party on.

Our own simple RE system that took two weeks to build,  costs less than half that of grid power,  and consumes less resources than many people use before breakfast, alone, disproves his waffly argument.

[1] http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

[Westbranch]

Eric S. Raymond once said [1] that in the technical world  theres usually a corelation between the clarity of writing and the writers understanding of the subject.

I concur wholeheartedly...

The first thing any of us here learn is that energy conservation is the first thing involved in making RE work. Nuclear apologists don't get it, they just want to party on.

ditto, we spent months going over the layout of lights and appliances to reduce consumption and came out at ~ 3Kwh per day.  I'm still looking for my 'optimal' water pump, that will do what I want where I want and at the Wattage I wish to spend.

His bleating gets 'better' near/at the end

[RossW]

I agree with you guys - in isolation - but I agree with him in the greater scheme of things.

Renewable energy as we currently recognise it - PV and wind specifically, are not in a nations best interests because of many of the problems he cites.

But that all comes back to the basic problem of storage.

My system here at home is quite modest (72kWh batteries, 3600W PV) and the only thing that lets me down - is the batteries. And mine is a miniscule system compared to what an entire country would need.

However, he hasn't even considered the heliostat type plants, using the sun to collect (and store and use) thermal energy, which COULD store and dump power pretty much "on demand" - including overnight. It doesn't however address the space required (even getting 95% energy conversion from available sun still isn't a compact plant), and it still doesn't address the issues of distributing that power.

I don't see the average house being totally self-sufficient for energy (a) while people continue to use as much as they do now; (b) while we have such poor storage options; (c) while the cost of grid power is still disproportionately cheap.

Yes, grid power has increased a lot over the years, and some people would say it's already "too expensive". But really? Is it? I think in most countries, the cost is artificially low, and while it remains so low (and "someone else" is responsible for generation, distribution, maintenance etc) few people will actually turn to renewable energy.

There, I've said it. Tear me to bits, but it's the way I see it!

[Westbranch]

rip,rip, rip,...dang that Kevlar doesn't want to tear...

Rosw you hit the nail on the head, STORAGE is PV's Achilles heal. 

I had a short but inciteful discussion with one of the execs at Redflow in Aus. about a year or so ago. I am still interested in their 5  Kw model which can be expanded to 10Kw of storage and can be totally discharged.  They also have commercial units. He felt that a ZBM would be best used to bulk up a LA type battery for domestic use, slow and variable.
http://redflow.com/redflow-products/zbm-overview/
http://redflow.com/electricity-storage/off-grid-remote-power-telcos/
and lastly a study trial they did on 10 households that continued to live 'normally' .  The obj. was to see how much solar reduced diesel generator run time,  reduced to an avg of 15% of time

IMO further research into different storage options will eventually make PV completely feasible, at least on a local scale.

[RossW]

rip,rip, rip,...dang that Kevlar doesn't want to tear...

Rosw you hit the nail on the head, STORAGE is PV's Achilles heal. 
....
IMO further research into different storage options will eventually make PV completely feasible, at least on a local scale.

Yes, I agree with the "on a local scale".

I guess the distinction I'm making is that we're looking at different things.
You and I are looking at "small, piecemeal" installations, where solar *IS* (already) viable.
In my own installation, I saved up and purchased 2KW solar to boost the 300W I had.
That saved me enough in propane costs to buy the next batch of panels.
And even paying over $5/W for solar back then, it's already paid for itself in reduced propane consumption.

HOWEVER: I live 100% offgrid, and I manage my own energy consumption. I'm aware of supply and demand and can (to some extent) manage my demand to match supply.

The average population however are not that considerate, informed or savvy

I've looked at the ZBMs before. I can't remember the prices, but I remember being put off very quickly.

At the moment, I'm looking VERY closely at some LiFePO4 batteries and BMS. A 500AH pack will deliver superior performance to my current AGMs, but smaller and lighter, and even with the BMS I think I can get them for around $10K. Thats appealing to me, but I doubt the average householder would come at it, do you??

However the article in question is looking at it from the POV of an entire government.
They're charged with "keeping the lights on, keeping industry working". So many conflicting requirements with cost, reliability, accountability. They can't just go running billions of dollars of cables and pylons all over the country, pushing the cost of electricity up 2, 3, 5, 10 times its current price - there would be (and rightly so) questions asked if everyone was getting a "good return for their hard earned cash"... and under the current model of wind turbines and photovoltaic installations, I'd have to say - that at a governmental level - it's not!

Here in Australia, they offered stupid (66c/kWh) feed-in tariff. When the wholesale price of power was more like 4c, how was that EVER sustainable? Of course, lots of people were conned and spent money (most of it also government subsidised) to install domestic and small business PV systems. My personal view is that it was only ever done to meet some agreed RE targets, without a proper understanding of... well, just about anything! Prices, infrastructure, demand, supply.

A business putting PV on the roof and using that power during the day is a great idea. Right up until the first cloud, or bad weather day. Then you still need all your non-renewable-energy sourced power right there, online, going, to supply. Not next week. Not in a few days. Not in a few hours. *NOW*. And there's the rub. Again.

[Westbranch]

I agree, there IS a disconnect between the 'local' and the 'province/state' level as well as the 'country' level...

So what can we do about it? 
Common thinking will probably fall back on the oft used axiom, 'start small and the rest will fall in place'.
I don't think (I know) it's not that simple. 

In my former life I was a Forester and I know active systems are really hard to plan for(model), unless you use a very long planning horizon (100+-years), then things start to average out.  The hard part is explaining to the average person that they can not just take the model outputs and go looking for the 'exact ' amount of harvestable timber tomorrow... same with Solar and wind power. It works on average... 

Way I see it is if we are to have a % PV  set as a target of the Provinces/Country MWh production there needs to be some forethought given to the investment and development of large scale highly efficient storage to smooth out the sudden variability of load ups and downs...

getting late here so I will end here for now.

ttfn

[cpm]

There are no other options.

Folks really kinda need to wake up.

At a public hearing (where I was a good doobie and sat on my hands and kept my mouth shut) where our 'local' university
was fielding concepts concerning meeting their carbon targets, one fellow spoke up and said. "Oh, there is no real concern,
by your 2050 time line, the university will be completely carbon neutral, irrespective of what you do. Embrace it, or it will embrace you."

There was thunderous applause.

So, , , there's hope.

[RossW]

Folks really kinda need to wake up.

Most (first-world) folk are too fat, too lazy and too full of their own self-importance.
They won't (en-masse) "wake up" until they are forced to.

But whichever way you cut it, first-world countries now demand power 24/7, not "when it's available".

Fairly small (percentage-wise) pockets of individuals (like those participating in this forum, for example) are by far the exception. WE understand. WE do things in a more sustainable way. I bet few (if any) of us have a plasma TV in every room, turned on from when we get up to when we go to bed. None of us have dozens of halogen downlights burning all day. We don't even THINK about it - we just turn lights off as we walk out of rooms. Those of us living off-grid adapt what we do (to the extent it is practical) to suit the conditions we have. If you've got a good day, the batteries are charged and you've got plenty of power coming in you might run the washing machine and get the load done that you couldn't do the last couple of days because it was all overcast.

Will the average on-grid, self-important city-dweller do that? Not a chance!

[zoneblue]

No other options than what? High grade uranium is also finite and projected to peak by 2035 [3].

OTOH if you extrapolate the growth of installed pv, it takes only another 17 years  until we can produce enough solar energy to replace ALL other forms of energy combined. [1][2] Assuming the rare earths hold out etc etc.

We can either work towards that end in good faith, or we can fight it, and each other for the remaining oil and nuclear.

The US govt in 2005 offered 120 million to universitys to build a better battery, the so called 5 by 5 project [4]. Yet they spent 2 BILLION on the manhatten project , so that shows where their heart lies.

So we are on our own. Dont listen to the naysayers. One RE system at a time.

[1] http://grist.org/renewable-energy/2011-02-19-futurist-ray-kurzweil-isnt-worried-about-climate-change/

[2] http://www.pv-tech.org/editors_blog/could_kurzweil_be_right_about_solar_the_google_of_energy

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium#Hubbert.27s_peak_and_uranium

[4] http://www.extremetech.com/computing/142155-doe-calls-for-a-chemical-battery-with-5x-capacity-within-5-years-can-it-be-done

[TomW]

In order to not spark off a political discussion (usually bad) all I have to say is:

I cannot affect the big picture directly but I can affect my little corner of things by action and evangelizing.

Lead by example sounds lame but that is what we are doing here in our little corner.

The very root problem is Corporate greed fed by spoiled humans. IMHO. Most won't change unless forced to.

Tom

[RossW]

So we are on our own. Dont listen to the naysayers. One RE system at a time.

Don't mistake me - I'm not saying solar is bad, dead-end, etc.
The real crux of my issue has always been (and remains) the storage.
*NONE* of the commercial PV installations or the millions of domestic PV installations have ANY STORAGE. Period.
It's (almost exclusively) us off-grid people that do.
Because..... storage is expensive, inconvenient, requires maintenance and/or replacement.

There needs to be (a) a breakthrough in storage technology; and (b) a dramatic change in the general populations mindset.

Until that happens...

[zoneblue]

Fossil energy vested interests have no motivation to develop better storage, i guess.  One sees these sorts of promising technology like lithium sulpher [1] fairly often. Whether they go anywhere is uncertain.

But even with what we currently have is storage really a deal breaker? The lead is recyclable, efficiency is pretty fair all things conisdered. Its not like we need batterys the size of citys, just packs distributed everywhere , as with pv.

[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=breakthrough-energy-dense-battery-uses-lithium-and-sulfur

[cpm]

In order to not spark off a political discussion (usually bad) all I have to say is:

I cannot affect the big picture directly but I can affect my little corner of things by action and evangelizing.

Lead by example sounds lame but that is what we are doing here in our little corner.

The very root problem is Corporate greed fed by spoiled humans. IMHO. Most won't change unless forced to.

Tom

That's how real change is accomplished, yeah, it sounds lame,but it's still true.

There's kinda 2 ways of looking at it:

"I can't change the world, I can only change myself"

And

"It's easy to change the world, just change yourself."

[Westbranch]

good comments so far. 

As to the 'apologist' tittle used I think it is a bit off the mark, I rather look upon him as a 'schill' for the nuclear faction.

If he had used his arguments against PV/Wind and the proposed ways to integrate PV with the limitations of 'spinning mass' generators, we would have a solution. 

The issue/solution IMHO needs a 'systems analysis' approach to effectively incorporate renewables, problem is the 'system' in place in most jurisdictions has been/is a product of cobbling together physical plant from the early 1900's with modern day loads and an unconstrained explosion of appliance manufacture that assumes unlimited amounts of power be available at the flip of a switch.  The new efficiency standards for i.e. fridges, etc. is good news but a decade too late.  Political understanding of each components strength and limitations, that drives new measures (ie of efficiency) for change is needed.