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Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

rameznaam.com

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Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#71

Post by pydry »

sephamorr wrote: post #28

Power markets are more complicated than most people realize. One thing to note is that solar power can be cheaper than gas, but still not be economic. The fact of the matter is that an intermittent kWh is not as valuable as an on-demand reliable kWh to a utility who's number 1 priority is reliability. Even as solar is acquired at lower and lower prices, if evening power is generated by expensive and inefficient gas t…

Intermittency and the unsuitability of grid storage batteries to compensate is heavily played up by the carbon industry.

The future of low emissions energy production will be largely driven by overproduction and demand shifting, not banks of grid level batteries.

This likely won't happen as soon in America, however, the economy is too tied in to fossil fuels and the appetite to upgrade the electric grid by utility companies heavily invested in gas isnt really there.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#72

Post by kanox »

Barrin92 wrote: post #27
lallysingh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a bullshit purity test.

It's not a bullshit purity test at all. It highlights the extremely neglected costs in raw material and non-electrifiable infrastructure that is required to produce materials that are nominally 'green'. In some cases it's questionable if some green technologies actually are a net positive at all. There is a strong 'abundance' bias implicit in articles by people like Ramez Naam, who push so strongly for green energy p…

> In some cases it's questionable if some green technologies actually are a net positive at all.

This is just FUD, unless you actually have numbers that show CO2 emissions are higher over the lifetime of a solar panel compared to a coal power plant.

> don't want to consider the very obvious alternative, dematerialisation and reduction of energy consumption.

Forcing everybody into poverty is not a viable alternative.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#73

Post by remmargorp64 »

sephamorr wrote: post #28

Power markets are more complicated than most people realize. One thing to note is that solar power can be cheaper than gas, but still not be economic. The fact of the matter is that an intermittent kWh is not as valuable as an on-demand reliable kWh to a utility who's number 1 priority is reliability. Even as solar is acquired at lower and lower prices, if evening power is generated by expensive and inefficient gas t…

All they need to do is build mechanical/hydraulic systems for storing solar power during the day and unleashing it at night.

For example, use solar power during the day to pump fluid from a lower reservoir into a higher reservoir, and then harness the energy of the water flowing from the higher reservoir into the lower reservoir through turbines.

As long as your output energy is always coming from the turbines, and as long as your solar powered pumps running during the day can keep up with double the rate of drainage flow, then you should have a constant loop with a steady supply of power.

This type of system could be retrofitted onto virtually any dam, giving you a way to create a closed loop with constant power and without the water loss typical from a dam (other than evaporation).

For areas where water is scarce and a dam isn't feasible, there are also other ideas, such as gravitational potential energy systems that use solar powered energy to lift weights on pulleys, which then power a generator as the weights are lowered by gravity.

Other ideas: Thermal storage including molten salts which can efficiently store and release very large quantities of heat energy, compressed air energy storage, flywheels, cryogenic systems, etc...

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#74

Post by pfdietz »

ph0rque wrote: post #44

This tells me that until fossil plants are mostly shut down (and perhaps afterward), we will continue to have negative electricity prices at times. It might be a profitable idea to buy extra energy storage capacity to get paid for storing energy at certain times, then sell it when it is high demand.

The only reason renewables would cause negative prices is the subsidy they get on generated output, that would cause them to continue generating because for THEM they are still making money at that instant. Otherwise, the renewable source itself could capture the negative price by just not feeding power to the grid.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#75

Post by maallooc »

pfdietz wrote: post #65
maallooc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just dumping old solar panels into the landfill will cause Cu, Pb, As, Cr to spread into the ground effectively contaminating it. The government is trying to ban dumping it and trying to impose a responsibility to manufacturers to properly recycle and decontaminate it, which will cost about 4~5 times more than dumping.

Oh no, copper! Chromium! Next you're going to tell me of the fiendish plot to incorporate these into pots and pans to poison us all. There is no reason to include As in PV. There are anti-renewable propaganda screeds that pretend otherwise ("look! GaAs PV cells are a thing, therefore all PV uses As!") That leaves lead. Lead has been used for connections, but it is being phased out, not least because of EU environment…

Actually it does matter if it's not properly processed. Government research found those metals were contaminating landfills, and imposed restrictions.

If you are interested in the facts, here are one. I believe in research done by my pro-PV government and scientists, not environmental shills and anti-science PV aficionados like you and this article.

http://knrec.or.kr/file/2018%EC%8B%A0%EC%9E%AC%EC%83%9D%EC%9...

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#76

Post by ciceryadam »

ph0rque wrote: post #44

This tells me that until fossil plants are mostly shut down (and perhaps afterward), we will continue to have negative electricity prices at times. It might be a profitable idea to buy extra energy storage capacity to get paid for storing energy at certain times, then sell it when it is high demand.

Yup, storage just like that has been built in Switzerland: https://www.alpiq.com/power-generation/hydropower-plants/pro... California is mountainous enough to follow suit.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#77

Post by Scoundreller »

maallooc wrote: post #68
Scoundreller wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just smarter appliances. Plenty of opportunities for thermal banking/battery banking. Most of my loads, on average, don't need to run that exact second . I don't mind if my hot water tank super-heats water in the middle of the day for the rest of the day. If electricity is really cheap, my freezer can jump into overdrive. I don't need my clothes to dry in the next hour, just over the next 8. I don't care if my fri…

>I don't mind if my hot water tank super-heats water in the middle of the day for the rest of the day. Water does not have the capability to store much energy. >If electricity is really cheap, my freezer can jump into overdrive. Your freezer can't if it's not a ammonia refrigerant. You will actually be wasting energy. >I don't care if my fridge/freezer takes a break Your fridge actually does not use electricity const…

It's common here to have 150L+ water tanks. Can take it from 50C to 75C and then let the anti-scald valve temper the output when drawing.

OK on the freezer. Could still take the fridge down to 2C.

The concept of the fridge taking a break while running other loads is to reduce peak draw current. If everyone did that, it would make the grid more stable.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#78

Post by Pfhreak »

kanox wrote: post #53
yoavm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a natural gas plant doesn't really suffer from this "idle" problem you're describing with coal power plants. it's also much cleaner.

Why is that? I was under the impression that gas versus coal just changes the fuel that is burnt.

Natural gas produces about half the CO2 emissions per unit energy as coal. (And presumably less other harmful stuff like radioactive fly ash.)

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=73&t=11

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#79

Post by pfdietz »

maallooc wrote: post #75
pfdietz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, copper! Chromium! Next you're going to tell me of the fiendish plot to incorporate these into pots and pans to poison us all. There is no reason to include As in PV. There are anti-renewable propaganda screeds that pretend otherwise ("look! GaAs PV cells are a thing, therefore all PV uses As!") That leaves lead. Lead has been used for connections, but it is being phased out, not least because of EU environment…

Actually it does matter if it's not properly processed. Government research found those metals were contaminating landfills, and imposed restrictions. If you are interested in the facts, here are one. I believe in research done by my pro-PV government and scientists, not environmental shills and anti-science PV aficionados like you and this article. http://knrec.or.kr/file/2018%EC%8B%A0%EC%9E%AC%EC%83%9D%EC%9...

That does not display for me. Useless.

Let me repeat: we have copper and stainless (chromium) steel pots and pans (or, in the case of stainless steel, surgical implants!) The idea that PV is dangerous because of those metals is absurd on its face. Chromium toxicity is from highly oxidized (hexavalent) chromium that will not be produced from Cr in ordinary structural materials.

My priors for interpreting statements like yours is to treat them as garbage. This is because renewables have been subject to an endless stream of BS criticism for decades. The expectation upon seeing more such clearly dubious criticism, such as yours that flies in the face of elementary chemistry, is that it's just more of the same.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#80

Post by 7thaccount »

remmargorp64 wrote: post #73
sephamorr wrote: post #28

Power markets are more complicated than most people realize. One thing to note is that solar power can be cheaper than gas, but still not be economic. The fact of the matter is that an intermittent kWh is not as valuable as an on-demand reliable kWh to a utility who's number 1 priority is reliability. Even as solar is acquired at lower and lower prices, if evening power is generated by expensive and inefficient gas t…

All they need to do is build mechanical/hydraulic systems for storing solar power during the day and unleashing it at night. For example, use solar power during the day to pump fluid from a lower reservoir into a higher reservoir, and then harness the energy of the water flowing from the higher reservoir into the lower reservoir through turbines. As long as your output energy is always coming from the turbines, and a…

Which all costs a lot of money.
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