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Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

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Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#141

Post by gwright »

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…

Good ideas but not currently feasible at grid-scale and so can't be really considered today as viable components of a power grid.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#142

Post by burlesona »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #105
Scoundreller wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> residential wind turbines Wind has a scalability problem. Residentially, it's only a good sell as a backup supply for when solar isn't cutting it to hopefully prevent generator use. And even that's a tough economic argument. Towers have huge economies of scale, both in total size and height. So the turbines just keep getting bigger and bigger because it's more and more cost effective.

If my understanding is correct there is curious difference in perceived scale with kinetic vs thermal energy. Based on a a rowing machine's advertised metrics, I calculated you could row across the English channel on half a packet of chocolate biscuits.

This sounds interesting but I don't really understand, could you elaborate?

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#143

Post by acidburnNSA »

gwright wrote: post #139
blake1 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned in the article, solar power is insanely cheap. So while you are right that a kWh of solar is not, on average, as valuable as a kWh of semidispatchable coal, the insane cheapness means that at some point, it is economical to massively overbuild renewable and decommission fossil fuel plants. You provide no evidence for the implausible claim that solar causes emissions to go up: your argument is only that t…

It doesn't matter that if solar/wind is cheap (or even zero) because you still have to have an alternate power source for when your intermittent power has gone AWOL. You need cheap grid-scale storage, which doesn't exist at the moment.

Or some other dispatchable low-carbon energy source, which also doesn't really exist at the moment. Load-following nuclear reactors (hooked to thermal storage) could do this physically but a lot has to happen to get the cost down. Meanwhile, various CCS options could play a role if there's a solution for safely storing vast quantities of carbon out of the atmosphere.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#144

Post by anesmike »

pfdietz wrote: post #120
anesmike wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think hard about that; huge trucks for mining, huge trucks for transport, huge amount of energy to separate component minerals, the actual energy for manufacture of these renewables, up to this point I don't see renewables at any stage of this process. Diesel fueled trucks to deliver said renewable technologies to their place of use. Oh, their is one worker who drives a tesla ...... Oh at end of their life requires f…

Nothing you listed there requires fossil fuels. If you think those activities require fossil fuels, you are basically saying industrial society is impossible after fossil fuels run out.

Simply put, there is not a battery big enough for these trucks, the trucks are too massive ,the battery would be massive,it unfortunately will not work, just the laws of the universe.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#145

Post by agumonkey »

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…

It's impressive how systemic predictability matters. When nothing happens at the right time, you basically die.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#146

Post by acidburnNSA »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #39
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…

Solar all day, NG all night would be a major improvement over our current system. Especially as batteries get better.

NG is still extraordinarily high carbon. "A little better than coal (if you ignore the pipeline and wellhead losses)" is not something we can settle for given the seriousness of climate change. We need 24/7 low-carbon power. Fracked natural gas for entire nights (recall in winter nights are quite long) is not an option.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#147

Post by anesmike »

pfdietz wrote: post #120
anesmike wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think hard about that; huge trucks for mining, huge trucks for transport, huge amount of energy to separate component minerals, the actual energy for manufacture of these renewables, up to this point I don't see renewables at any stage of this process. Diesel fueled trucks to deliver said renewable technologies to their place of use. Oh, their is one worker who drives a tesla ...... Oh at end of their life requires f…

Nothing you listed there requires fossil fuels. If you think those activities require fossil fuels, you are basically saying industrial society is impossible after fossil fuels run out.

Thats right.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#148

Post by agumonkey »

bbeekley wrote: post #109
TheGrim-888 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I quite possible could be, but from a quick Google search, I'm seeing numbers of anywhere 200Wh/mile to 350Wh/mile for a Tesla. If we're generous and assume only 200Wh/mile, then 40 miles of range translates to an energy consumption of 8,000Wh. A 100 watt solar panel, producing the full 100 watts, would take 80 hours of perfect sunlight to produce enough power for an extra 40 miles of ran…

Doing some calculations from another direction: The maximum daily energy density of sunlight in sunny Los Angeles is about 6.4 kWh / m2 [1] (assuming perfect, moving angle of panels to sun). If we can turn the entire footprint of a Model X into solar panels, that gives us about 10 m2 (big car!). The US DoE reports the Model X gets 100 mi / 31 kWh [2]. Or 12.4 kWh for 40 mi. So those panels would need to get 1.2 kWh /…

I'd like to see this for large vehicles. Buses, semi, etc.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#149

Post by acidburnNSA »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #8

I'm actually quite shocked at how much energy is produced by solar, especially when compared to residential wind turbines. Panels are efficient, and when it's sunny, you're juicing. The real challenge is of course bringing down cost of storage, which is the key to make solar systems efficient (not just cheap).

> residential wind turbines

Wind power in the USA generated 7.3% of the electricity in 2019. Solar did 1.8%.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#150

Post by acidburnNSA »

dbspin wrote: post #45
maheart wrote: post #12

I recently watched the documentary "Planet of the Humans". For context, the writer of the documentary is an environmentalist. One of the stated points was that solar and wind cannot be relied upon 24/7 -- to account for the lack of reliability, you need to have a backup power generator (e.g. coal power plant) running. The thing about coal plants (does it apply to natural gas plants too?) is that if you "idle" them, t…

None - the documentary is full of half truths, out of date information, pseudoscience and outright lies. It's been absolutely torn apart both by the research community and the environmental movement. Some examples: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-... https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/05/05/real-problem-m... https://medium.com/@btincq/10-reasons-planet-of-the-humans-g...

To be fair it did challenge an extraordinarily popular mainstream narrative that renewable energy is marching in to save the day from climate change without hardly any meaningful negative externalities. Of course the mainstream is going to tear it apart. They knew this in advance.

That said, knowing which statements are outright wrong is indeed valuable.

Still worth watching IMHO.

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