Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

sciencemag.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 432 posts

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#161

Post by organsnyder »

darksaints wrote: post #139
nexuist wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At this point, I feel like the only reason fossil fuels are used anymore in new projects is inertia Solar might work for boats and trains, but can it work for a plane? What about drones? No renewable energy source can beat gasoline, sans nuclear power (which I think we should be transitioning to, along with the rest of the renewables). MIT built a gas powered drone that lasts 5 days (not minutes!) in the air[1] - th…

You're right...I've got an availability bias that has limited my thinking. Any application where energy density is paramount will be dominated by fossil fuels for quite a while. I'm curious to see what comes first: batteries that match the energy density of fossil fuels, or cost effective synthetic fuels created via renewable methods.

Perhaps this could be a good application for fuel cells?

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#162

Post by [deleted] »

gameswithgo wrote: post #126
ourmandave wrote: post #81

Meanwhile in Iowa, Mid American Energy is well on their way to 100% renewal by 2021 with an endless array of wind farms. Their final phase of the project started in 2018 with a $922M investment. Iowa Public Radio toured one of the windmills back in January. https://www.iowapublicradio.org/post/skyscrapers-fields-wind...

Do they have plans for energy storage?

[deleted]

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#163

Post by rb808 »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

One of the differences is that industrial production is paid differently that residential costs. Eg on a Windy and Sunny cool afternoon the spot price of electricity is very low, but residences are charged the flat rate (say 10c), so any energy you generate saves you money. On a hot, windless cloudy day the price is very high but you can buy at 10c. So as a residential customer you can game the system. Industrial Generators can't do that. Its unfair on them and inevitable we'll move to constantly changing residential prices too - some areas already have. Then solar farms will be move efficient (despite transmission)

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#164

Post by swinglock »

Baeocystin wrote: post #143
PuffinBlue wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need to think of the other things that solar requires in order to see where scale cost might arise - land and infrastructure. Labour is cheap. Solar needs space and it needs a way to export it's electricity to where it's needed, or to where it is stored. Places where space is cheap enough almost universally don't have infrastructure. So large scale solar does come with large capital costs. Contrast to home o…

>Plus there are many reasons to install solar, not just financial. The thing that surprised us the most when we installed our home solar system was how much cooler the house was during the summer, just because of how much the air-gapped panels on the roof reduced the heating load on the house. We noticed a significant reduction in our AC bills during the couple of months we had the system installed, but couldn't use…

So it works double as another layer of isolation. Seems obvious but I had not considered that before, interesting.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#165

Post by ABCLAW »

rossdavidh wrote: post #156

Good news: non-carbon energy sources will, faster than most of the world currently thinks, force carbon energy sources off the market. This has already started to happen with coal. Bad news: Well the Left may lament the fact that it will not be due to any change of heart or international cooperation, it will just be due to mercenary calculations of cost, and technology. But all of us have to consider what will (not m…

>Well the Left may lament the fact that it will not be due to any change of heart or international cooperation [..]

Pretty sure they've just been advocating for making the 'mercenary calculations' more accurate by pricing in carbon related costs.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#166

Post by organsnyder »

Animats wrote: post #12
bobthepanda wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydro can be extremely disruptive to ecosystems, and you also need a suitable site for it. It's very situational, from what I understand.

very situational Yes. You need a mountain lake and a low level lake close to each other, and the lakes aren't useful for much else because the water level goes way up and down every day. The US has 10 pumped storage plants bigger than a gigawatt, and few attractive sites for more.

Or build a reservoir next to a body of water. The Ludington Pumped Storage Plant next to Lake Michigan has 2172 MW of generating capacity and 19,548 MWh of storage capacity.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#167

Post by johngalt »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

You are underestimating how much of your electricity bill is going to capital costs. It's possible that the cost of electricity consumption will drop, but only if it replaced with other costs to subsidize the cost of the various electrical infrastructure.

Installing a small amount of solar to offset personal usage at the hottest part of the day is much different than ensuring that varied demands can be met across an entire city 24/7. This is also true on a personal scale. It is much more costly to go fully off grid, and the payoff times are much longer (if ever).

The only reason that rooftop residential solar makes economic sense is because of the way we price electricity based on consumption. Utilities are building most of the infrastructure regardless of if a handful of people using 40% less electricity on sunny days.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#168

Post by ctack »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #108
rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

You only need to think of the other things that solar requires in order to see where scale cost might arise - land and infrastructure. Labour is cheap. Solar needs space and it needs a way to export it's electricity to where it's needed, or to where it is stored. Places where space is cheap enough almost universally don't have infrastructure. So large scale solar does come with large capital costs. Contrast to home o…

I wonder if it would be cost effective for a solar power provider to line the streets with their panels such that they shade the pavement on either side to some extent. If they managed it, they’d save on transport losses and possibly in cost of space. They could possibly even host their batteries in the panel supports.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#170

Post by driverdan »

newnewpdro wrote: post #92
amluto wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the window is in the sun, your major problem is unlikely to be window insulation. It’s solar heat gain. Sunlight carries a lot of power — about 1 kW per square meter. If your window lets all of that power in, then your AC needs to consume a couple hundred watts to send it back out again. What you need are windows with low solar heat gain coefficients (SHGC), which is mostly independent of insulation. Or you can ge…

> What you need are windows with low solar heat gain coefficients (SHGC), which is mostly independent of insulation. Or you can get window treatments that are shiny on the side facing the window. In the desert by me people use substantial awnings on the exterior putting the windows in shade. It's a lot cheaper than fancy window treatments and in my experience far more effective. Provides more space to mount solar pan…

Tint is cheap and requires little to no maintenance. I can't see how awnings would cost less. That said, awnings are probably more efficient.
Post reply on HN