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Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

cleantechnica.com

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Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#181

Post by Manfredo_1 »

tzs wrote: post #119
manfredo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The factor that drives up price for grid level storage is scale. Only ~300 GWh worth of batteries is produced globally each year. The world uses 2.5 TWh of electricity each hour. If anyone tries to install battery storage at a significant scale, demand will vastly outstrip supply and drive prices up.

That's lithium batteries, isn't it? For storage to balance out fluctuations in renewable sources you shouldn't need to use lithium. It's used in cars and consumer devices because it can store a lot of energy for its size and weight and you don't have to mollycoddle it to avoid memory effects. Those are much less important concerns for this application. You'd build you battery facilities somewhere outside your cities,…

Right. Lithium batteries won't cut it. That leaves geographically-dependent hydroelectricity, which isn't so easy to build. And then proposed solutions that are still in the prototyping phase, and aren't commercially available.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#182

Post by Hypx »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #176
Hypx wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to what I said in the other post regarding gas turbines, you also don't need a gas turbine to generate power. As long as you can boil water the rest follows logically. Honestly, you should learn some thermodynamics and chemistry before accusing others of being ignorant.

Right, but then we're not talking about combined-cycle gas turbines to convert hydrogen back into electricity. If we're going to boil water than that's much less efficient than the ~66% efficiency we get out of combined cycle gas turbines. Also, in case you weren't aware a combined cycle turbine also involves boiling water and spinning a turbine. The reason why they're so efficient is because energy is extracted both…

So now you're arguing that anything less than ~60% efficiency is unacceptable? Even for emergency backup or long-term power storage reasons?

You're at multiple layers of denial at this point. It's time to admit you were wrong.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#183

Post by Manfredo_1 »

Hypx wrote: post #182
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but then we're not talking about combined-cycle gas turbines to convert hydrogen back into electricity. If we're going to boil water than that's much less efficient than the ~66% efficiency we get out of combined cycle gas turbines. Also, in case you weren't aware a combined cycle turbine also involves boiling water and spinning a turbine. The reason why they're so efficient is because energy is extracted both…

So now you're arguing that anything less than ~60% efficiency is unacceptable? Even for emergency backup or long-term power storage reasons? You're at multiple layers of denial at this point. It's time to admit you were wrong.

Sure, we could burn hydrogen and drive a boiler like a coal plant. But that's not where this comment thread started.

> Those gas turbines you're referring to can simply be modified natural gas gas turbines

Sure, if you just want to run them for a short period of time and generate a lot more wear. If these turbines are so simple to modify, why does GE say that it won't be until 2045 that their turbines will be able to run 100% hydrogen gas?

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#184

Post by Hypx »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #180
Hypx wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Soviets built a plane that flew on hydrogen, but it only completed 100 flights. And only part of those were with hydrogen, the rest were with natural gas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-155 So you admit this has been done since the 1980s? You seriously don't think we can improve on 33 year old technology? How dishonest are you going to get before you will admit you were wrong?

It was done for a very short duration during the 1980s as a technology demonstrator. A prototype, not an actually commercially viable product. Yes, we can improve on a 33 year old technology, but it's not something we can just buy off the shelf. GE thinks it'll take until 2045 to make turbines that run off of 100% hydrogen. > How dishonest are you going to get before you will admit you were wrong? When you show me wh…

Are you familiar with the term "moving the goalposts"?

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#185

Post by Manfredo_1 »

Hypx wrote: post #184
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was done for a very short duration during the 1980s as a technology demonstrator. A prototype, not an actually commercially viable product. Yes, we can improve on a 33 year old technology, but it's not something we can just buy off the shelf. GE thinks it'll take until 2045 to make turbines that run off of 100% hydrogen. > How dishonest are you going to get before you will admit you were wrong? When you show me wh…

Are you familiar with the term "moving the goalposts"?

Yes, I'm familiar with moving the goalposts. It's exactly what you've been doing in this thread. First you claimed that existing natural gas turbines could be modified to run hydrogen. That hydrogen turbines usable for grid generation were off the shelf. After realizing that these turbines only burn a mixture of 30% hydrogen and 70% natural gas you moved to goalpost to saying, "we have experience with hydrogen turbines". I certainly don't doubt the latter - in fact I'm the who provided evidence of it! But that doesn't have much bearing on your first goalpost: that the existing fleet of gas turbines can be powered with hydrogen.

For the third time, if this modification is so simple why is GE saying it won't be until 2045 that its turbines will be able to run 100% natural gas? Hydrogen gas turbines are not off the shelf devices.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#186

Post by zizee »

makomk wrote: post #50
zizee wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average household consumes 28.9kwh in a day Maybe in the USA. > which is way more than rooftop solar can provide. Maybe in your part of the world this is true, but it is not unrealistic in many places. Also, why are you limiting your thinking to rooftop solar?

Probably in a lot of countries in the future. One common reason countries have lower average household electricity consumption is the widespread use of non-electric heating, and there's been a huge push to switch to electric heating for environmental reasons.

American houses tend to be bigger than those in other countries, and built with poor insulation than say those of europe.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#187

Post by Hypx »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #183
Hypx wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now you're arguing that anything less than ~60% efficiency is unacceptable? Even for emergency backup or long-term power storage reasons? You're at multiple layers of denial at this point. It's time to admit you were wrong.

Sure, we could burn hydrogen and drive a boiler like a coal plant. But that's not where this comment thread started. > Those gas turbines you're referring to can simply be modified natural gas gas turbines Sure, if you just want to run them for a short period of time and generate a lot more wear. If these turbines are so simple to modify, why does GE say that it won't be until 2045 that their turbines will be able to…

Then repurpose old coal plants for the same reason. None of this needs to be hard.

This whole debate started when you were caught making ignorant statements regarding basic chemistry and thermodynamics. You're not going to win by just doubling on everything or moving goalposts. It's past time to admit you were wrong.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#188

Post by Manfredo_1 »

Hypx wrote: post #187
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we could burn hydrogen and drive a boiler like a coal plant. But that's not where this comment thread started. > Those gas turbines you're referring to can simply be modified natural gas gas turbines Sure, if you just want to run them for a short period of time and generate a lot more wear. If these turbines are so simple to modify, why does GE say that it won't be until 2045 that their turbines will be able to…

Then repurpose old coal plants for the same reason. None of this needs to be hard. This whole debate started when you were caught making ignorant statements regarding basic chemistry and thermodynamics. You're not going to win by just doubling on everything or moving goalposts. It's past time to admit you were wrong.

If we aren't using combined cycle gas turbines round-trip efficiency of hydrogen storage is seriously reduced.

I'm not moving any goalpost. This is your comment when you claimed that gas turbines could be repurposed to burn hydrogen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26599162

> Those gas turbines you're referring to can simply be modified natural gas gas turbines.

> It's past time to admit you were wrong.

Follow your own advice. You can't just feed a gas turbine hydrogen and run it as normal. Existing gas turbine manufacturers don't plant to offer 100% hydrogen gas turbines for decades.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#189

Post by Hypx »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #185
Hypx wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with the term "moving the goalposts"?

Yes, I'm familiar with moving the goalposts. It's exactly what you've been doing in this thread. First you claimed that existing natural gas turbines could be modified to run hydrogen. That hydrogen turbines usable for grid generation were off the shelf. After realizing that these turbines only burn a mixture of 30% hydrogen and 70% natural gas you moved to goalpost to saying, "we have experience with hydrogen turbin…

You do realize that has more to do with the availability of hydrogen and that they only have to hit their emissions target by 2050?

If you have done any kind of digging at all you realize that they have ran gas turbines at 90% hydrogen decades ago: https://www.ge.com/news/reports/hydrogen-generation-gas-turb...

> Take the Gibraltar-San Roque oil refinery in Spain, where the GE-made 6B.03 turbine has logged thousands of hours burning a blend of fuel gas and hydrogen. This same 6B.03 machine is also working in a South Korean refinery, where it has racked up more than 20 years burning a fuel blend containing more than 70 percent hydrogen. This turbine has even gone all the way up to a 90 percent hydrogen blend.

So even your goalpost moving argument is still wrong.

This whole thing started because no one here thought someone would seriously try to argue that hydrogen gas turbines are impossible. For some of us this was too obvious to even bother trying to debunk.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#190

Post by Hypx »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #188
Hypx wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then repurpose old coal plants for the same reason. None of this needs to be hard. This whole debate started when you were caught making ignorant statements regarding basic chemistry and thermodynamics. You're not going to win by just doubling on everything or moving goalposts. It's past time to admit you were wrong.

If we aren't using combined cycle gas turbines round-trip efficiency of hydrogen storage is seriously reduced. I'm not moving any goalpost. This is your comment when you claimed that gas turbines could be repurposed to burn hydrogen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26599162 > Those gas turbines you're referring to can simply be modified natural gas gas turbines. > It's past time to admit you were wrong. Follow y…

It's almost endearing how far someone can shove their head up their own asshole and still keep shoving...
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