Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought • Hacker News Board

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#31

Post by Guthur » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 10:42 AM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #24

Guthur wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how stormy, Many wind turbines have a max wind speed rating, above which they will be shutdown in some way.

Are there figures on the actual effects of this? How often it happens/the level by which electricity output is reduced?

I would imagine it is highly dependent on the model of wind turbine. The window of operation like varies widely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61400

I would imagine that high wind rating turbines are more expensive.

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#32

Post by crdoconnor » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:21 PM UTC

Guthur wrote: post #31

crdoconnor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there figures on the actual effects of this? How often it happens/the level by which electricity output is reduced?

I would imagine it is highly dependent on the model of wind turbine. The window of operation like varies widely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61400 I would imagine that high wind rating turbines are more expensive.

>I would imagine it is highly dependent on the model of wind turbine.

This is why I asked for figures on the overall effect - covering all models. I'm not seeing anything so far to convince me that its effect is more than negligible.

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#33

Post by crdoconnor » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:27 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #29

crdoconnor wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not really much lower as you'd like to portray it. A LOT of the higher usage at night is due to the fact that night-time electricity is cheaper. If you're going to run an aluminum smelting plant, for instance (uses TONS of electricity), it currently makes sense to run it full bore when electricity is cheapest - at night. If daytime electricity were cheaper or even the same price, that graph would certainly look diff…

I read that Germany is importing French nuclear power. Mind you, both could be perfectly possible in the messed-up EEC energy market.

Both happen. It depends upon demand/output conditions at the time. France tends to use a lot of electric heaters during winter, for instance, which burns through most of their nuclear power output (which is nearly constant throughout the year). On sunny winter days, they import extra from German renewable sources.

I think during summer they might import more too. During overcast and wind-free days, Germany is probably a net importer of France's excess nuclear power.

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#34

Post by ende » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 1:32 PM UTC

GoodGuy wrote: post #25

You can be 100% assured that if anybody wants to talk to you about "the costs of solar power" then it is a rep of the Neandertalers-Industry in full smokescreen operation mode. These discussions are a great example for how propaganda works. It does not make sense to calculate the "costs" of freedom, independence and the health of your family. Also the real costs of unresolved nuclear waste problems, huge wars for sec…

ad hominid attack?

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#35

Post by seanflyon » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 6:39 PM UTC

dozzie wrote: post #27

crdoconnor wrote: post #4

When looking at these graphs, it pays to take a peek at who exactly is behind them. Modeling the costs and benefits of different forms of energy (especially environmental costs) is extremely easy to fudge. There are all sorts of assumptions you have to plug in to the model where you could covertly insert a policy bias. If the 'measurer' had an agenda, it wouldn't be hard for them to push the figures one way or anothe…

> [...] global warming effect of methane leakage [...] What? So we're sure all of sudden that human activity does actually have any visible impact on global warming? O_o

The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. We know that man made pollution is highly correlated with global warming and we know that greenhouse gasses cause the globe to warm. The only thing we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming.

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#36

Post by codexjourneys » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 7:37 PM UTC

I'm not sure why wind and solar power are always mentioned together, other than they both are forms of "alt energy."

From a U.S. perspective, solar power is less productive in the eastern half of the U.S., so I'm not sure why we haven't just concentrated on blanketing stretches of desert in the U.S. West with solar farms. This is the highest-reward area, not attaching solar panels to someone's roof in Wisconsin. I think that focusing on high-yield areas with lots of sunlight might be one way to make costs fall. Done right, it might fairly well take care of much of our energy needs.

Source: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html

Conversely, I don't think wind power can come close to taking care of large percentages of our energy needs. It's subsidized, so it happens, but it's not The Answer (imho).

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#37

Post by dozzie » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 8:01 PM UTC

seanflyon wrote: post #35

dozzie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] global warming effect of methane leakage [...] What? So we're sure all of sudden that human activity does actually have any visible impact on global warming? O_o

The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. We know that man made pollution is highly correlated with global warming and we know that greenhouse gasses cause the globe to warm. The only thing we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming.

> The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood

Except that it doesn't stand even basic scrutiny. 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation.

> and methane is a potent greenhouse gas.

Water is even more potent, as I know. We don't emit much water to the atmosphere. And guess what? It's there, even more than CO_2 and methane combined together.

And now quick question: how are you sure that Sun's increasing activity is not the reason of climate change?

And a hint: four centuries ago Batic Sea was freezing seasonally, so people could even build inns on it. Now there's little ice on Baltic since mid-1800's. The climate changed drastically, was it industry's fault as well? 19th century industry was not developed enough yet to affect whole climate.

> We know that man made pollution is highly correlated with global warming and we know that greenhouse gasses cause the globe to warm.

We know it is highly correlated, true. Correlation is not causation, though. It is basic logic. Then, we do not know that greenhouse gasses cause the global warm. It is merely a hypothesis, and given the historical facts, it doesn't stand the Occam's razor principle.

> The only thing we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming.

No. The first thing we don't know is whether the hypothesis is actually true. It's unverifiable at best. There are plenty of possible effects in thermodynamics that would easily make the noise in measurements above the level of changes that are announced for greenhouse effect. We have no way to verify the claim the greenhouse effect takes the place, all the argument about it revolves around some mental model, which nobody tell is correct.

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#38

Post by seanflyon » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 8:26 PM UTC

Klapaucius wrote: post #22

The issue of intermittency is in my opinion vastly undercommunicated in public debate about renewable energy, at least in Europe. A diagram like this [1] can be used to illustrate the issue. Although this diagram is from a hypothetical UK modeling exercise for 2020, the broader point it makes is valid. On the diagram we see how daily electricity demand follow a predictable daily curve, and the different sources of el…

It is worth noting that demand is highest during the day and higher still on bright sunny days. This means that solar can provide a significant portion of our power before intermittency becomes a problem. Your point is still correct that without massive grid storage we will still need some other (not solar or wind) power source.

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#39

Post by seanflyon » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 8:37 PM UTC

testrun wrote: post #17

crdoconnor wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not really much lower as you'd like to portray it. A LOT of the higher usage at night is due to the fact that night-time electricity is cheaper. If you're going to run an aluminum smelting plant, for instance (uses TONS of electricity), it currently makes sense to run it full bore when electricity is cheapest - at night. If daytime electricity were cheaper or even the same price, that graph would certainly look diff…

Calling bullshit on this one. Smelters do not work this way, they buy electricity in bulk and is a 24/7 operation.

Every time I have seen someone "buy electricity in bulk" that meant that they had time of day pricing (payed more during the day and less at night). Perhaps smelters don't take advantage of the cheaper nighttime rates but I would expect that many industries do.

Re: Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

#40

Post by seanflyon » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

dozzie wrote: post #37

seanflyon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. We know that man made pollution is highly correlated with global warming and we know that greenhouse gasses cause the globe to warm. The only thing we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming.

> The greenhouse effect is reasonably well understood Except that it doesn't stand even basic scrutiny. 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation. > and methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Water is even more pot…

> 10 meters high layer of CO_2 with current concentration already absorbs 99,94% of IR radiation, so whatever made it above fourth floor would be swallowed by next floors. Any change to the concentration of CO_2 makes no difference on Earth's radiation.

Do you have a source for this?

>Water is even more potent

Yes and that would be a huge problem if it built up instead of falling out of the sky.

>how are you sure that Sun's increasing activity is not the reason of climate change?

This is actually what I was thinking of when I said "we don't know for certain is if there is another currently unknown cause with a larger contribution to global warming" though I believe this particular theory has been debunked.

>four centuries ago Batic Sea was freezing seasonally

You are referring to the little ice age which was primarily a localized event and therefore not caused by changes in the greenhouse effect or solar radiation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

>We know it is highly correlated, true. Correlation is not causation, though.

I completely agree. The fact that they are correlated does not give us a causal link. The fact that green house gasses increase temperature does. The only missing piece here is how much of the increased temperature is caused by our greenhouse gas emissions and how much is caused by other unidentified forces.

>There are plenty of possible effects in thermodynamics that would easily make the noise in measurements above the level of changes that are announced for greenhouse effect.

I completely agree. When I said there could be an unknown effect, I did not mean to imply such an effect would be outside of "possible effects in thermodynamics".

>We have no way to verify the claim the greenhouse effect takes the place

Actually we can. We can measure the radiation before it hits earth, when it hits the ground and when it leaves the atmosphere as well as measure what radiation is absorbed and emitted by various gasses. We don't have a perfect understanding of the green house effect, but we can observe it in action.