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Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

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Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#201

Post by neltnerb »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #186
mtdewcmu wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to speculate on how it could be done. Maybe it could be soft, like a fire hose, and kept open by internal pressure. That way it could be unfurled from a ship. Rigid pipe seems pretty difficult.

Rigid steel pipe is the only feasible way, I believe. Current longest subsea pipeline (Nord Stream) is 760 miles. Here's how it's done (it's pretty darned fascinating): https://youtu.be/EyrdjqEiTZc

Yet there's the whole thing where the end points are on tectonic plates moving away from one another...

Okay, maybe a little flexible would be good!

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#202

Post by neltnerb »

ndonnellan wrote: post #139
PeterisP wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Natural gas energy can be transported much more easily than solar or wind." makes me think - is it really cheaper to build and maintain a natural gas pipeline than a large high-voltage line capable of transmitting as much power?

One of the holy grails of solar is syngas: using solar thermal power to convert CO2/water to a mix of hydrogen and methane. If you can do it efficiently enough, the gas is the energy storage and you can either pipe it or use it to fuel a NG turbine/combined-cycle plant which will be more thermodynamically efficient than a simpler solar->steam cycle plant. The reason it's a holy grail is because there are some major m…

> The reason it's a holy grail is because there are some major materials > science breakthroughs that need to happen before it's feasible. Since > the sun's energy cycles rapidly on the minute/second timescale, whatever > receiver you're using to convert inputs to syngas needs to not be > destroyed by that periodic, rapid temperature (and thus stress) cycling.

What do you mean here? What aspect of the sun's energy cycles on the minute/second timescale? And why would variability at that time scale do anything to a solar thermal system?

I'm pretty sure the reason it is hard is because you need to go above and below phase transitions that change the oxidation state, achieve high rates of oxygen absorption and release, and maintain a high enough surface area to not lose your oxygen diffusion rate.

Or are you talking about some new issue?

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#203

Post by mcv »

davidf18 wrote: post #89
mcv wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the company is not producing enough energy to meet demand, it's probably required to purchase green energy elsewhere.

But the energy is fungible. So that if it is purchasing the green energy from elsewhere, it is simply depriving others from that benefit meaning that ultimately is is carbon-based fuels that are used.

I think they also purchase it from elsewhen. At the moment, the fluctuation in demand is probably mostly handled by gas powered plants (because they're the quickest and most efficient to adapt). I suspect that green energy providers just need to meet the total demand over time for green energy, and end up paying gas plants for taking care of the fluctuations (because they need to buy energy when its expensive and sell it back when it's cheap).

If the green power providers produce exactly as much over time as the demand from their customers, that would mean some of the customers'money would still go to the gas plants, so I suspect the green energy companies produce a bit more, so they have some extra to sell to make up the difference.

It's absolutely true that until large scale efficient energy storage is real, green electricity will continue to depend on gas plants. Of all the fossil fuels, those will be the last to go, but that's okay, because it's both the cleanest and apparently the cheapest of the fossil fuels. But as long as there are still coal plants, there's still every reason to move forward with more green energy production.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#204

Post by mcv »

adrianmonk wrote: post #175
mcv wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be great for wind farmers on the Oklahoma coast, however.

I have my doubts that sea level will rise 88 meters.

I was joking of course, but 88 meters is not that far above the sea level if all the Earth's ice caps melted. I think if that happens, it would add up to about 70 meters. So Oklahoma is safe, but it would get a lot closer to the coast.

Hopefully we can prevent all ice caps melting, and even if they do melt, the process would probably take 1000 years (+/- an unknown number of centuries based on how this plays out, how much we manage to mitigate or accellerate it, etc.).

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#205

Post by Sami_Lehtinen »

london888 wrote: post #108
olegkikin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Europe is trying to reduce its dependence on the russian natural gas, so they are building LNG terminals all over. LNG tankers are freaking scary though, they are like mini-nukes, approaching 1 megaton equivalent.

UK Readers may find this page interesting giving info on our energy sources. I didn't realise we use less energy now than we did in 1998. http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-wh...

Live power generation info for Finland: http://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/Pag...

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#206

Post by jacquesm »

Retric wrote: post #171
slang800 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the undersea distance is not actually that far relative to other undersea projects. Undersea HVDC lines are nothing like the undersea fiber optic cables. The problem isn't whether or not we can create a cable like that, it's the transmission losses that long-distance power lines have. Even for HVDC you're dealing with ~3.5% loss per 1000km. Shipping electrons over the oceans is only going to be a "question of displ…

It's 51 miles from US to Russia. On both sides there are people who use power. Now if 100,000 houses in Russia get power from the US and zero changes Russia could then supply ~100,000 houses with power outside of Russia. Now sure, you need the right substation setup to get this to work out, but a modern grid can quickly route power in response to both changing demand and internment supply. US already sends and receiv…

Conversion would actually be quite expensive, the United States uses 60 Hz and Russia 50, so you're not just looking at a voltage step-up/down but also a frequency change and that's quite hard.

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#207

Post by zeristor »

alex8022 wrote: post #188
london888 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK Readers may find this page interesting giving info on our energy sources. I didn't realise we use less energy now than we did in 1998. http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-energy-how-much-what-type-and-wh...

Another interesting site shows current uk grid demand and generation from different types of power: http://gridwatch.co.uk

This site has been completely revamped, the graphs look a lot clearer.

I guess this is down to the inclusion of solar power which was cursory a few years back. Do they now aggregate all of the roof top solar and add that in?

Snooping around Glastonbury and my great Aunt's old town I've noticed a number of Solar farms in the countryside:

http://www.wessexsolarenergy.co.uk

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#208

Post by cr1895 »

mtdewcmu wrote: post #176
adrianmonk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They put a telegraph cable under the ocean in 1858. With all the technology (including materials) we have today, I bet it's very feasible from a technological point of view. An economic point of view is a different question, though.

It's interesting to speculate on how it could be done. Maybe it could be soft, like a fire hose, and kept open by internal pressure. That way it could be unfurled from a ship. Rigid pipe seems pretty difficult.

Flexible pipe for subsea O&G has existed for a long time now (it's certainly not soft, but it is flexible and it is installed from huge spools):

http://www.technip.com/sites/default/files/technip/fields/pu...

Re: Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money

#210

Post by mac01021 »

bdauvergne wrote: post #64
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also be pretty difficult to use solar in Murmansk, Russia, for about a quarter of the year (it's within the arctic circle, so the sun is below the horizon for most (or all near the solstice) of the day during the winter. And it can actually be less efficient if there's too much sun, solar panel efficiency decreases with temperature. Solar thermal also depends on temperature differential, so if the environmen…

Noboby wants to live in Murmansk.

But some people do live there. Either they want to or they're trapped.
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