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How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

nytimes.com

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Re: How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

#51

Post by Symmetry »

nabla9 wrote: post #15

The interesting question is what effect clean energy has to the usage of hydrocarbons. Will it bring reduce global demand or just reduce the price of energy. The good news is: CO2 emission intensity is going down globally and emissions per capita in US, China and EU28 are going down. The bad news are: Emissions per capita are still going up globally, and hydrocarbon usage and CO2 emissions are breaking records year a…

If clean energy manages to get cheap enough eventually it will be easier to synthesize simple hydrocarbons out of atmospheric and water than to drill them out of the group and we can end up carbon neutral as a whole. We'll see how cheap midday solar ends up when the price finishes dropping.

Re: How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

#52

Post by graycat »

shaqbert wrote: post #2

As the production costs with windpower decrease due to the technological progress, the question of grid storage and grid interconnection becomes more pressing. E.g. in Germany, they frequently have days of negative energy prices, where producers need to pay to feed energy into the greed because of overproduction of energy on windy/sunny days [0](in German). Without storage and grid interconnection, there is only so m…

IMHO:

(1) Cheap, large scale storage of electric energy might be a big game changer.

(2) Without such storage, basically a country has to notice what their peak load is and assume that they have installed capacity that is reliable, e.g., independent of the weather, and meets this peak load.

(3) So, net, intermittent sources such as wind and solar don't much lower the capital expense needed. That is, the country still needs the same capacity to meet peak loads without the intermittent sources. So for this capacity they can use nuclear fission, coal, oil, natural gas, hydro, geo-thermal, and that's about it.

So, net, when power from intermittent sources is available, then get to save on the fuel cost of fission, coal, oil, and natural gas and accumulate some water behind hydro. So, e.g., a big fission or coal plant is still there, still with its capital expense and operating expense but is running at reduced power and, thus, saving on direct fuel costs.

At that point, I'm wondering if, really, just for the money part, if the intermittent sources are wanted on the grid even for free.

There is an issue about the intermittent sources: They are not very predictable and, thus, can cause some grid stability problems. E.g., IIRC, can't just change the power level of a fission or coal plant minute by minute to match the minute by minute fluctuation in the intermittent sources; so, can get some grid instability, and that is bad stuff for the whole grid and country.

Re: How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

#53

Post by mhb »

NullPrefix wrote: post #20
mhb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And maybe it can be mediated by fungible electricity transmitted over a grid of conductive wires. Or an electricity market.

What I've meant was mining on the wind mills themselves. So there would be no need of passing through the grid.

I know. And there's really no difference between colocating mining hardware on wind turbines and just mining using the lower cost electricity which will be on the grid thanks to the turbines. Except the inconvenience of the colocating.

Re: How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

#54

Post by EADGBE »

shaqbert wrote: post #2

As the production costs with windpower decrease due to the technological progress, the question of grid storage and grid interconnection becomes more pressing. E.g. in Germany, they frequently have days of negative energy prices, where producers need to pay to feed energy into the greed because of overproduction of energy on windy/sunny days [0](in German). Without storage and grid interconnection, there is only so m…

> frequently have days of negative energy prices, where producers need to pay to feed energy into the greed because of overproduction of energy on windy/sunny days

This is one reason why I'm skeptical for home production of solar and wind for the ability to "feed back" into the grid while getting a credit on your account.

If the power company is also doing this, at scale, I find it really hard to believe that there's no reason the power company won't discredit/discount my rates being returned to the grid.

In which case, I'd rather have a battery installation and not rely on the power company at all.

Most service reps for solar disagree with me. Maybe because battery storage isn't super common/in their inventory?

Re: How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

#55

Post by w_t_payne »

Autonomous utility boats will have a significant role to play in monitoring and supplying the offshore wind industry.

https://www.asvglobal.com/

These little boats can continuously monitor the foundations of offshore wind turbines for scour, and their larger brethren can quickly deliver supplies in a wide range of weather conditions -- without putting human engineers at risk.

Re: How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

#56

Post by baud147258 »

Milner08 wrote: post #37
baud147258 wrote: post #29

I wouldn't call wind turbines exactly clean energy, between the need to have thermic power plant on stand-by to pick up the slack, since wind is highly irregular, the metric cube of concrete poured in the ground in the middle of nowhere to built them, the kilometers of copper to link them back to the network and the batteries to keep the excess electricity. And it's even worse when you see a field of turbines where h…

Except, in the grand scheme of things thats very clean. Compared to Gas or Coal power plants that are much more difficult to build and are also often located in relatively remote locations. We need some kind of power to pick up the slack but not necessarily fossil fuel based. There are all sorts of ways to store energy created at times of high wind for later use, from simple batteries to things like Dinorwig in Wales…

Thank you for Dinorwig. I did not know about this.

Re: How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

#59

Post by toomuchtodo »

Scarblac wrote: post #42
nabla9 wrote: post #15

The interesting question is what effect clean energy has to the usage of hydrocarbons. Will it bring reduce global demand or just reduce the price of energy. The good news is: CO2 emission intensity is going down globally and emissions per capita in US, China and EU28 are going down. The bad news are: Emissions per capita are still going up globally, and hydrocarbon usage and CO2 emissions are breaking records year a…

This is why the only way to deal with climate change is countries with carbon reserves deciding to leave it in the ground. If they don't, there is so much demand for the stuff (burning it is so incredibly useful) that it'll all be burned.

Or for those with wealth to buy those reserves and put mechanisms in place to inhibit the extraction of those petroleum resources.

Re: How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream

#60

Post by baud147258 »

ocschwar wrote: post #35
baud147258 wrote: post #29

I wouldn't call wind turbines exactly clean energy, between the need to have thermic power plant on stand-by to pick up the slack, since wind is highly irregular, the metric cube of concrete poured in the ground in the middle of nowhere to built them, the kilometers of copper to link them back to the network and the batteries to keep the excess electricity. And it's even worse when you see a field of turbines where h…

> I wouldn't call wind turbines exactly clean energy, between the need to have thermic power plant on stand-by to pick up the slack Depending on the source of thermal power, the amount consumed on standby can go to 0. If you have a decent transmission grid, the amount of standby power you need goes down. And if you have hydro, your emissions go down to 0. > the metric cube of concrete poured in the ground in the midd…

The problem with wind farm is that they are often built in area with little or no human presence, which is whey I consider this a problem, especially since the grid would be further away.
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