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Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

sciencemag.org

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Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#101

Post by nexuist »

darksaints wrote: post #46

I know someone who has gone fully off the grid via sailboat and is currently on his way around the world. He converted his sailboat to a hybrid setup (electric engines powered by the same batteries that power his stovetop, refrigerator, etc.). His power sources keeping those batteries charged are solar (1200W) and sail regeneration [0]. He has an 18kw diesel generator as a safety measure. His story is particularly in…

>At this point, I feel like the only reason fossil fuels are used anymore in new projects is inertia

Solar might work for boats and trains, but can it work for a plane? What about drones?

No renewable energy source can beat gasoline, sans nuclear power (which I think we should be transitioning to, along with the rest of the renewables). MIT built a gas powered drone that lasts 5 days (not minutes!) in the air[1] - that's simply impossible with today's battery tech. I know there are electric planes in development, maybe in production - but none of them match the passenger capacity or cargo volume of a Boeing 747. Until they do, there will always be a place for gas guzzling airliners.

Solar can work for households, skyscrapers, and apartments, and like you said, I think the advantages do outweigh the advantages of traditional coal plants so I'm excited to see that become more mainstream.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/mits-gas-powered-drone-is-...

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#102

Post by newnewpdro »

gdubs wrote: post #51
anonuser123456 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are probably conflating window insulation with window air leaks. The best windows generally available are R-5 at best on initial installation and degrade over time as The argon leaks. They are also extremely expensive. Not a very good investment. But most energy losses in older buildings are from leaking air not thermal conductance. So upgrading to R-1 but sealed and we'll installed Windows can do a lot without h…

We have an old house and the energy auditor was selling us hard on attic air sealing and insulation. Claim was that windows weren’t gonna make as big of an impact given the stack effect. (They’re also historic “wavy glass” windows, and we’d like to keep them.) Do you think attic air sealing, or more effective attic insulation would have a big impact? It does feel like the roof turns into a radiant heater in the summe…

I'm not an expert but based on my personal research adding a ridge vent to the roof and getting a convection current drawing fresh air from the soffits through the attic and out the ridge supposedly makes a big difference. When you've got it all sealed up you've got a solar oven.

You'll still want insulation on the floor of the attic space, and seal off the living space from the attic.

From what I gather the main complication is keeping critters out while opening your attic to a substantial flow of fresh air. A pile of rockwool insulation sounds like a hell of a home for many small mammals, and bees can get past all but the finest of screen meshes. It seems feasible to diligently install screens on all the vents but it'll be a maintenance burden to keep them intact as the years go by.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#103

Post by barneygumble742 »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

Energy companies see rooftop solar as competition. Their primary motivation is profit. I do not doubt that they will all eventually go 100% renewable, it's just a matter of ensuring that they lock in their profits. Another issue is the amount they can charge customers. The utilities are also charging for maintenance of the power lines. With rooftop solar, that fee is lost unless the home owner pays the monthly fee to tie their system to the grid.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#104

Post by Guzba »

viach wrote: post #56

Imagine our energy is solar 90%, don't we lose some risks diversification here just in the case if the state of affairs with the global sunlight conditions will change drastically?

"global sunlight conditions will change drastically" is an interesting way of saying near extinction level event.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#106

Post by mattferderer »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

Solar farms are spreading & starting to take over a lot of quality farmland in the northern midwest because of the scale/price reasons you suggest.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#107

Post by newnewpdro »

jdhn wrote: post #67
onetimemanytime wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The average summer high in LA was in the mid 70s during the 1950s. Now it’s in the high 80s and sometimes hits 100+. 10 degrees plus in changes over a few decades?

I bet it's due to the heat island effect due to the proliferation of roads and parking lots.

All those internal combustion engines filling the congested LA roads aren't exactly cooling the place down either. More of the energy from the fuel is lost to heat out the radiator and tail pipe than goes towards propulsion.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#108

Post by PuffinBlue »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

You only need to think of the other things that solar requires in order to see where scale cost might arise - land and infrastructure. Labour is cheap.

Solar needs space and it needs a way to export it's electricity to where it's needed, or to where it is stored. Places where space is cheap enough almost universally don't have infrastructure.

So large scale solar does come with large capital costs.

Contrast to home owners/businesses installing solar on 'space' already paid for (or under mortgage) and there is something of a sunk cost advantage in those circumstances.

Plus there are many reasons to install solar, not just financial. Plus incentives in many parts of the world are being removed, like no guaranteed feed in tarif rates etc. Solar is just becoming cheap enough that in pure electricity bill savings it can start to make sense.

If you think about that then the expectation is that energy prices won't necessarily increase as you mentioned, and may possibly fall under pressure from decentralised generation. Already I believe some areas force citizens to pay an infrastructure charge at a base rate towards upkeep of large scale transmission lines and base load power stations etc. So the situation is much more nuanced that your comment seems to presume.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#109

Post by NTDF9 »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

Long term profit vs short term profit.

Corporate execs and short term investors just want to line up their pockets RIGHT NOW! Fossil fuel based infrastructure has been built over a hundred years. The only thing to do to make profits is keep the machine running.

Why invest and work hard to create something whose fruits will be reaped only after they death?

This logic applies to a lot of baby boomer politicians if one cares to correlate.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#110

Post by kragen »

ausjke wrote: post #15
Animats wrote: post #7

$0.02/Kwh for the solar part is pretty good. A reasonable short-term goal: get 100% of US peak air conditioning load south of 37° N on solar. That's the line from the Virginia/North Carolina border west to central California. Peak solar power output and peak air conditioning load line up pretty well, so that doesn't need storage. Storage is more of an issue for wind, which varies about 4:1 over a day over large areas…

I have been wonder why can't we convert outside heat into indoor cooling naturally, i.e. in Texas can we convert summer heat to AC power in real time for at least each residence house?

Yeah, there are ammonia-absorption refrigeration devices that can run on any source of concentrated heat, including concentrated sunlight (though not merely the ambient temperature). This is considerably more efficient than going through 16%-efficient photovoltaic panels first. Ammonia refrigeration has some safety issues (upon overheating, they release a giant cloud of caustic, inflammable gas) but in this case they would be substantially reduced by putting the unit out in the yard, not inside the house.

Ammonia absorption does not require violating the Third Law as some commenters have suggested below. It is less efficient than the Carnot limit, so you cannot use it to get a perpetuum mobile.

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