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No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

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Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#11

Post by lispm »

adityamwagh wrote: post #4

Nuclear energy has so much potential. Pretty sad people are scared of it. It's clean, it's energy dense, and we can make a lot of it. France gets most of it's energy from Nuclear plants.

a) there is a difference between electricity production and energy use. Typically countries don't use electricity for all energy needs.

b) are you aware that half of the nuclear fleet in France isn't online?

https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium-news/274261/controlled...

> It's clean, it's energy dense, and we can make a lot of it. France gets most of it's energy from Nuclear plants.

It's not clean, since the nuclear industry is also polluting the environment. It's not safe, since there is a risk of nuclear weapons, it's also limited (for example one needs water for the production of nuclear electricity - which in dry summers - like right now - can be a problem).

Worst:

Parts of the nuclear energy production is largely unsolved (nuclear waste storage, clean reprocessing, ...).

It's expensive, needs lots of government money and creates huge centralized structures.

Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#12

Post by ncmncm »

tuatoru wrote: post #10
ncmncm wrote: post #5

Somewhat disappointing... Would have liked for her to call out NRGV as the actual investment scam it is, rather than just pathetically inadequate. Would have preferred for mineshaft gravity storage to be mentioned, which is not a scam, in place of NRGV. Would have liked for her to cite ammonia along with hydrogen as chemical storage media. And to mention recent, radical improvements in hydrogen electrolysis efficienc…

> money is overwhelmingly better spent on building out renewable generating capacity than on storage. Yes, the world uses about 18 TW (continous). If we wanted to provide all that with PV at 20% capacity factor and with a lifetime of 20 years, we need to be producing 5 TW of PV panels per year.* Currently we're making around one percent of that. * Actually we don't need all that. The 18 TW is based on "primary energy…

We need to build way more PV factories. But building the wrong kind would be counterproductive. If perovskites end up way better, it would be wasteful to have built out too many new silicon cell factories.

While building out storage now would be a mistake, we should be building factories for storage like crazy. Every kind. We don't know which storage methods will win, but we can't afford to wait and find out.

Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#13

Post by mort96 »

ncmncm wrote: post #5

Somewhat disappointing... Would have liked for her to call out NRGV as the actual investment scam it is, rather than just pathetically inadequate. Would have preferred for mineshaft gravity storage to be mentioned, which is not a scam, in place of NRGV. Would have liked for her to cite ammonia along with hydrogen as chemical storage media. And to mention recent, radical improvements in hydrogen electrolysis efficienc…

> Disappointed that she brought up nukes without mentioning that they are wholly unable to compete with renewables, on cost.

Is this true? I mean per average watt I imagine solar might be cheaper, but is it still cheaper when you factor in the cost of the energy storage you need to have a purely solar/wind grid?

I'd love to see some numbers on this.

Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#14

Post by credit_guy »

What if we don't need anything fancy? We can reduce our fossil fuel dependency by more than 90% if we switch to renewables, and just use natural gas plants when they don't produce enough energy. No need for any new storage. The current natural gas storage will be many times more than enough.

But isn't natural gas bad? Doesn't it mean we still emit CO2? We can offset that with trees. And even if we don't, I don't think there's any climate scientist who will say if you reduce emissions by 100% by 2050 we'll all be fine, but if we reduce by 90% we'll be doomed.

Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#15

Post by thatfrenchguy »

ncmncm wrote: post #7
adityamwagh wrote: post #4

Nuclear energy has so much potential. Pretty sad people are scared of it. It's clean, it's energy dense, and we can make a lot of it. France gets most of it's energy from Nuclear plants.

Nuclear is dead not because people are afraid of it. Nuclear is dead because it is way more expensive than alternatives. Always was, and getting moreso as renewables cost continues on down. In the foreseeable future, nukes will be mothballed long short of their design life just because nobody will want to pay enough for their power to enable continuing to operate them. Geothermal might suffer the same fate. When a nu…

Renewables plus storage are incredibly expensive. There is zero grid running on renewables (besides hydro) for base loads today.

Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#16

Post by bequanna »

credit_guy wrote: post #14

What if we don't need anything fancy? We can reduce our fossil fuel dependency by more than 90% if we switch to renewables, and just use natural gas plants when they don't produce enough energy. No need for any new storage. The current natural gas storage will be many times more than enough. But isn't natural gas bad? Doesn't it mean we still emit CO2? We can offset that with trees. And even if we don't, I don't thin…

Sure. How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need?

Following your idea, it seems like we will need to replace almost all existing base load with a stable options like nat gas.

But then why bother investing in these unreliable “sustainable” sources at all?

So we can collectively pat ourselves on the back while paying much more for electricity?

At some point, perhaps we should start asking why we are replacing base load with intermittent sources when we have no good ways to store energy at scale.

Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#17

Post by credit_guy »

bequanna wrote: post #16
credit_guy wrote: post #14

What if we don't need anything fancy? We can reduce our fossil fuel dependency by more than 90% if we switch to renewables, and just use natural gas plants when they don't produce enough energy. No need for any new storage. The current natural gas storage will be many times more than enough. But isn't natural gas bad? Doesn't it mean we still emit CO2? We can offset that with trees. And even if we don't, I don't thin…

Sure. How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Following your idea, it seems like we will need to replace almost all existing base load with a stable options like nat gas. But then why bother investing in these unreliable “sustainable” sources at all? So we can collectively pat ourselves on the back while paying much more for electricity? At some point, perhaps we should start asking why we are replaci…

> How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need?

Many fewer than we already have.

Not sure I understand your other questions. What unreliable "sustainable" sources? Why paying much more for electricity?

Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#18

Post by 8bitsrule »

Article failed to mention that wind/solar storage can be usefully teamed-up with the another (renewable) energy source, the heat in the ground ... which is nearby many of our houses.

Today's heat pumps can work well for many down to outdoor temperatures of about 5 degrees F (-15C). They'll bring down the cost of using the other sources. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEHFsO-XSI]

Re: No Sun, No Wind, Now What? Renewable Energy Storage

#20

Post by Krssst »

mort96 wrote: post #13
ncmncm wrote: post #5

Somewhat disappointing... Would have liked for her to call out NRGV as the actual investment scam it is, rather than just pathetically inadequate. Would have preferred for mineshaft gravity storage to be mentioned, which is not a scam, in place of NRGV. Would have liked for her to cite ammonia along with hydrogen as chemical storage media. And to mention recent, radical improvements in hydrogen electrolysis efficienc…

> Disappointed that she brought up nukes without mentioning that they are wholly unable to compete with renewables, on cost. Is this true? I mean per average watt I imagine solar might be cheaper, but is it still cheaper when you factor in the cost of the energy storage you need to have a purely solar/wind grid? I'd love to see some numbers on this.

I also wonder if NREs can stay cheaper once we actually try to replace the entire world electricity production considering the higher material usage than nuclear if concrete and steel production cannot keep up with demand.

(well, in the end whichever we do is better than doing nothing)

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