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Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

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Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#251

Post by pjc50 »

markus_zhang wrote: post #238

I recall that other power plants such as thermal power is still required to provide “inertia” for the whole system, as solar fluctuates a lot. The recent Spain-Portugal outage showed that there is not enough inertia in the system. I don’t really understand inertia in power plants but I wonder if it helps to push nuclear as primary and solar as secondary?

This is mostly a matter of control systems engineering: inverters tend to be perfectly grid-following, but there's no reason why the phase angle can't be adjusted to provide "virtual inertia". Same for battery systems - an early market for these in the UK is getting paid for "fast frequency response". Every battery can be a virtual flywheel. https://www.modernpowersystems.com/analysis/batteries-for-fa...

Conversely, the Spain problem appears to have been a classic control systems problem of a slow undamped oscillation that gradually got out of hand.

(I believe the preliminary incident reports got published and discussed on HN, if someone would like to link that here?)

Nuclear may or may not have a role, but it's much slower to build than solar, so starting a plant now is going to face a very different landscape with a lot more solar in by the time it completes.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#252

Post by DamonHD »

belorn wrote: post #149
jopsen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that depends on where you are. I've heard of 20kW installations producing 500W in December. Granted 500W isn't nothing, but what if it's snows?

That is about the numbers that we get in Sweden. Those months were solar production is lowest is also the months that consumption is highest for the average household, around 400% compared to the warmest summer months. As a result, energy prices are also significant higher during winter compared to summer.

My home's PV produces more energy than we use in a year, including heating. But the ~1:10 swing in generation from my roof in London UK between mid-winter and mid-summer is tough, and the storage to cover that interseasonally would currently cost about the same as the house and/or use ~50% of its volume. However, we import minimally in summer and export like crazy with the help of relatively modest storage.

Luckily there is this thing called a grid, and the UK has a lot of anti-correlated wind generation on it, which helps a lot.

All my detailed stats are here:

https://www.earth.org.uk/energy-series-dataset.html

Also see:

https://www.earth.org.uk/statscast-202012.html

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#253

Post by cheschire »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #132

While the US is busy trying to revive the oil-soaked 20th century, places like Namibia are leapfrogging straight into a distributed, solar-powered future with YouTube tutorials... It's like watching the fossil era get out-hustled in real time.

Those are vastly different scales you’re comparing. I doubt Namibia vs America will be another Tesla vs Ford.

The whole point of the current American efforts about oil seems to be reinvigorating economic growth. Oil supply chains are a lot easier to manipulate into growth strategies than renewables.

Countries that have leapfrogged into energy independence are doing great but thats not hustle. They’re ensuring their isolation for years to come.

And to be clear that may not be a bad thing for them.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#254

Post by ZeroGravitas »

pjc50 wrote: post #226
pshirshov wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China produces pretty much all the solar panels Why didn't other countries build up solar industries? Were busy with fossils? Were too greedy to subsidise?

Like everything else in manufacturing, economy of scale wins. There's been plenty of subsidization efforts, but they made the mistake of subsidizing technologies that were too innovative and too early on in the scaling curve. e.g. Solyndra with CIGS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra > Between 2009 and mid-2011 the price of polysilicon, the key ingredient for most competing technologies, dropped by about 89% due…

Apparently the Chinese solar industry are baffled by the US obsession with Solyndra.

It makes so little objective sense to be that angry about a failed investment in new tech that they thought there was something deeper going on that they didn't understand.

edit: I tried to Google for the source of this, but was stymied by the fact that Solyndra tried to sue Chinese manufacturers.

I did find this time capsule commentary on an NYT piece about how Chinese renewables were about to collapse back in 2012:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/10/ch...

The story, the blog take and the unhinged comments do a lot to explain USA losing out.

Not that all of the comments are unhinged, one upvoted to the top actually applies basic economic thinking and suggests this is just counteracting negative externalities and therefore the smart move to anyone with the eyes to see the facts clearly.

Second edit: extra context is that the blogger is funded by Charles Koch:

https://www.desmog.com/mercatus-center/

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#255

Post by HappMacDonald »

kragen wrote: post #189
roenxi wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that 20 years is enough time to develop a native industry of solar panel manufacturers. The issue with oil is it requires a constant flow of resources from specific locations in the world that are blessed by geography. Solar power has much less of that going on.

It's possible, but you may have noticed that out of the ≈200 countries in the world, over the last 20 years, about 180 of them have completely failed to develop a native industry of solar panel manufacturers, and about 100 of them have completely failed to develop a native industry of anything, continuing their agrarian and resource-extraction economies more or less as they have been for centuries, just with imported…

> for the same reasons the US still doesn't have any high-speed trains 60 years after the Shinkansen entered service and still doesn't have a moon base 56 years after Neil Armstrong.

So.. lack of demand and ROI?

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#256

Post by pjc50 »

HPsquared wrote: post #180
jillesvangurp wrote: post #175

The article doesn't mention a technology that deserves some attention because it counters the biggest and most obvious deficiency in solar: the sun doesn't always shine. That technology is cables. Cables allow us to move energy over long distances. And with HVCD cables that can mean across continents, oceans, time zones, and climate regions. The nice things about cables is that they are currently being underutilized.…

Any country relying on international cables for electricity would need to build and maintain full local backup power capacity. The combined cost of cables + backup may be more than storage cost. (Of course there are many factors which affect all these costs)

You might say "any country relying on international pipelines for gas would need to build and maintain full local backup capacity", except they didn't. Hence the Russia/Ukraine war causing all sorts of problems.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#257

Post by CoolChum »

louwrentius wrote: post #191

In Star Trek The Next Generation, energy is a 'solved problem'. Material needs are also a 'solved problem'. Money doesn't exist anymore. I think at least 70% of the Hacker News crowd would hate this world because they would have no idea what to do with their life under these circumstances. What is life about except turning a profit? How can you have power over other people? Feel important with all your money? Look at…

> In Star Trek The Next Generation, energy is a 'solved problem'.

In later Star Trek shows of the same era they show that it isn't really. A major plot point of voyager is them having to save power because they can't get the resources to keep the ship running. It kinda forgotten about later, but it shows that whatever power sources they are using isn't infinite and is still finite.

> Material needs are also a 'solved problem'.

Did you forget the episode where Troi literally has a breakdown in one episode because she knows the desert she is eating isn't real? She won't be the only person.

They end up bartering BTW in one episode to get real eggs in so they can make real "authentic" scrambled eggs.

Throughout the show they have to barter (which is less efficient form of transaction) to get things the replica can't produce or that are hand produced.

Which echoes more wealthy people in reality buying hand produced items at a greater cost, over cheap mass produced items.

> Money doesn't exist anymore.

Money certainly exists in some sort of context as Federation has to trade and everyone else use Gold Pressed Latinum. It may not be used on Earth, but it is used elsewhere extensively and the Federation must also have some of that currency to be able to trade with those outside of it.

People who rave about the vision that TNG put forward. They seem to forget that in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 they show the other side of the Federation.

In the first episode they show the other side of the federation. Q introduced the federation to the Borg early and set off the chain of events which leads to the death of thousands of Starfleet personnel including Sisko's wife which he is haunted by throughout the entire series. This was a direct consequence of Picard's poor choices when dealing with two

There are disaffected federation citizens that have started a terrorist / militia force called the marquis as a direct consequence of the colonisation of their homes by foreign invaders when the Federation sold them out.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#258

Post by pjc50 »

buckle8017 wrote: post #185
pshirshov wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China produces pretty much all the solar panels Why didn't other countries build up solar industries? Were busy with fossils? Were too greedy to subsidise?

China builds solar panels using electricity produced by burning coal. China is by far the world largest producer of green house gases.

China is also one of the top two countries by population. The other is India, at almost exactly the same number of 1.4bn.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#259

Post by VBprogrammer »

DesertVarnish wrote: post #248
VBprogrammer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terraform Industries (and others); I'd seriously consider taking a long bet that these companies turn out to be better at converting investor capital into employee salaries, for a finite period of time, than they are at converting atmospheric CO2 into natural gas. If such a technology was possible then it would be far better to start with carbon capture from existing emitters. The concentration of CO2 being easily 3…

For hydrocarbon synthesis, hydrogen production from electrolysis dominates the energy usage, along with driving the Sabatier process. DAC might be like 5-10%. Higher CO2 concentration is better but certainly not needed, it doesn't make or break the economics.

I'm not going to argue over the numbers but any business which ignores such an obvious upside / upside scenario is not really serious about achieving economic criticality. It would allow a power plant, iron ore plant, cement producer, what have you, to make claims about their environmental credentials while simultaneously improving the efficiency of the process.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#260

Post by markus_zhang »

matwood wrote: post #210
Animats wrote: post #152

"Last year, for the third year straight, heat pumps outsold furnaces in the U.S." Now that's a major development not mentioned much. Heat pumps have both improved quite a bit, and become cheaper due to sheer volume.

I recently bought a heat pump dryer and it's pretty cool. No exhaust vent, just water drain. It also doesn't need the heavy duty power plug since it pulls so much less electricity than a typical heated air dryer.

I don’t know this thing exists. I need to take a look and maybe buy one when the current one breaks down. What brand did you purchase? Thanks.
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