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A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

reneweconomy.com.au

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Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#161

Post by jlmorton »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #152
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a lot of people live in Texas and California where renewables are already pretty advanced, plus there's nuclear in the north, and they have hydro and grid connections with Canada who have even more hydro and nuclear so the USA should be easier. The US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 and it di…

> US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 This seems ambitious. Source?

Getting to 100% carbon-free generation is a goal of the President's Long Term Strategy [1]:

> DECARBONIZE ELECTRICITY. Electricity delivers > diverse services to all sectors of the American > economy. The transition to a clean electricity > system has been accelerating in recent years— > driven by plummeting costs for solar and wind > technologies, federal and subnational policies, > and consumer demand. Building on this success, > the United States has set a goal of 100% clean > electricity by 2035, a crucial foundation for net-zero > emissions no later than 2050.

Other releases have set a goal of 2030 [2]:

> 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity (CFE) by 2030, at least half of which will be locally supplied clean energy to meet 24/7 demand;

I don't agree with the rosy outlook of the previous commenter, though. Things are looking up, but I think it would be quite a stretch to hit this goal.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/US-Lon... [2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#162

Post by kickout »

zo1 wrote: post #154
mattferderer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That map doesn't take off shore into an account though. Lots of potential in the oceans & Great Lakes.

Am I the only one that's kinda off put or frankly disgusted by the thought of ruining our nature by peppering it with giant wind turbines? At what point does it stop?

Your not only one, but we (society) have ruined far prettier landscapes for far less tangible economic benefits.

Hardly _any_ prairie ecosystems exist in NA, and we pretty much built a dam on every river with a pulse, ruining countless landscapes.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#163

Post by cheriot »

zo1 wrote: post #154
mattferderer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That map doesn't take off shore into an account though. Lots of potential in the oceans & Great Lakes.

Am I the only one that's kinda off put or frankly disgusted by the thought of ruining our nature by peppering it with giant wind turbines? At what point does it stop?

What do you think drilling rigs, pipeline leaks, and carbon emissions are doing right now? The impact on nature by renewables is dramatically lower.

But your comment focuses on what's visible so no, I'm not put off by that. Wind turbines look cool.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#164

Post by akiselev »

anonporridge wrote: post #135
eldaisfish wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have in mind requires someone to do the coordination. that is currently the system operator and they operate at a data rate measured in minutes or 4 s for the fastest changes (e.g. PJM). Meanwhile, solar output can go from 100% to 10% in three seconds. How is this not a problem?

One thing I've learned recently is that grid management is extremely primitive. People are literally emailing each other word docs and pdfs and calling each other on the phone to make changes to generation output to keep the grid stable. It's an area that's ripe for some software innovation, if they can actually break through the legacy management club that currently runs the grid.

I, for one, can't wait for the first ever Western Interconnect black start, brought to you by an off-by-one error. During a megadrought.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#165

Post by vbarrielle »

kkfx wrote: post #74
mattnewton wrote: post #55

Meanwhile in the US, we have states allowing counties to ban solar and wind energy production specifically on privately owned and industrially zoned land. I hope Australia can push through the fossil fuel lobby as they start to fight harder. https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/08/23/nine-ohio-counties...

If you want to play that game here (France) we can made DIY p.v. systems, pass a consuel (third party organism for electrical safety) check and connect it to the grid BUT with only two mode, one is pure-self consumption you might just have few over-voltage rejects to the grid, the other is gifting the grid of your surplus and in this case you do not only give energy for free, energy consumed by some neighbor who pay…

You make it sound unfair, but from the point of view of EDF getting the power you generate in the grid is probably never profitable. If you're in excess it's probable other sources of renewable are peaking simultaneously, but the demand does not change. They have to lower the production of the nuclear plants which is not free. Otherwise there would be a surplus.

And transport fees is actually reasonable, it's a lot more expensive to connect lots of small production sources to the grid than a couple of big ones.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#166

Post by chickenchicken »

anonporridge wrote: post #135
eldaisfish wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have in mind requires someone to do the coordination. that is currently the system operator and they operate at a data rate measured in minutes or 4 s for the fastest changes (e.g. PJM). Meanwhile, solar output can go from 100% to 10% in three seconds. How is this not a problem?

One thing I've learned recently is that grid management is extremely primitive. People are literally emailing each other word docs and pdfs and calling each other on the phone to make changes to generation output to keep the grid stable. It's an area that's ripe for some software innovation, if they can actually break through the legacy management club that currently runs the grid.

There are already companies working on that https://www.emsysgrid.com/products/grid_management/futurepow...

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#167

Post by epistasis »

scarby2 wrote: post #159
epistasis wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been an article of religious faith, but I'm not sure it has ever been a technologically defensible opinion. Before the recent order of magnitude drops in battery prices, it may have been an economical argument, but to make that economic argument one would have to ignore the technological tech curve of solar and renewables. And now that nuclear won't be able to compete on the economics, whereas 10 years ago w…

The data doesn't include SMRs and MSRs which could be extremely compelling both from a cost and time to build perspective (or they could be a dead end). Current gen LWRs are problematic for all sorts of reasons but i wouldn't rule nuclear out of the fight just yet. Especially when you take into account china's track record of delivering nuclear plants at a competitive price.

I'm reminded of Admiral Rickover's thoughts on this:

> An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now.

>On the other hand a practical reactor can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated.

SMRs and MSRs are in the academic stage at the moment. We don't know what they will look like at the end when they are actual products, but there are technical and practical reasons that they haven't been tried before now, so I think it's only prudent to withhold enthusiasm until we have data on their characteristics and potential.

Back in the 80s, we had PV panels in hand, and knowledge of silicon tech curves that could predict the rosy future we live in today. SMRs are a bit more shaky.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#168

Post by ZeroGravitas »

jlmorton wrote: post #161
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 This seems ambitious. Source?

Getting to 100% carbon-free generation is a goal of the President's Long Term Strategy [1]: > DECARBONIZE ELECTRICITY. Electricity delivers > diverse services to all sectors of the American > economy. The transition to a clean electricity > system has been accelerating in recent years— > driven by plummeting costs for solar and wind > technologies, federal and subnational policies, > and consumer demand. Building on…

I think the latter is talking about procurement of energy by the government, not generation. Which obviously helps and is something the government has more control over, but is a slightly different thing.

The 100% by 2035 is fairly widely communicated, but there's definately a document that talks about aiming for 95% in 2030 and then focusing on electrification of other sectors as the diminishing returns start to hit. Can't find it at the moment, too many other announcents with very similar google search terms.

edit: I can only find sligthly older commitments to 80% clean energy by 2030. Which I guess is close enough, as the targets keep ratcheting as it becomes more obviously a good idea.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#170

Post by erie »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #152
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a lot of people live in Texas and California where renewables are already pretty advanced, plus there's nuclear in the north, and they have hydro and grid connections with Canada who have even more hydro and nuclear so the USA should be easier. The US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 and it di…

> US intends to hit this target (i.e. 95% carbon-free generation) in 8 years I think, with 100% and wider electrification of current fossil fuel uses in 2035 This seems ambitious. Source?

And the big elephant in the room? getting the US military on board is going to be tough. Every year, US armed forces consume more than 100 million barrels of oil to power ships, vehicles, aircraft, and ground operations
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