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

sciencemag.org

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

#31

Post by jstsch »

krferriter wrote: post #23
ivanhoe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be also more focus on proper thermal insulation of houses in warm climate, which is something that is not often mentioned. Lots of energy gets lost on AC simply because heat easily enters the houses.

Yeah I'm renting a house in central NC and May-September our power bill skyrockets from AC. The windows are not insulated at all and we have a lot of them. Even the floors, walls, and ceilings leak heat like crazy, you can feel it just putting your hand close to the wall or ceiling. We run AC to get it down to 76F and it's still crazy expensive and using a lot of unnecessary power. We need to encourage insulation, es…

I was wondering about this the other day. In NL, insulation has been part of the building code for ages. With stronger requirements every decade or so. Insulated windows have been required since the 80ies for new houses. Now it’s triple pane krypton glass. Is this not the case for the USA.

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

#32

Post by dreamcompiler »

bobthepanda wrote: post #5
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #3

Why lithium ion batteries — are they much cheaper to make than new gravitational potential (i.e. hydroelectric) storage systems?

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

It's not (very) disruptive if you build an artificial closed-cycle lake on an existing elevation difference. But such sites are not very commonly available where storage is needed. You have to refresh the water to compensate for evaporation, and that's about the extent of the impact.

Dammed streams of course are a completely different story.

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

#33

Post by asdkhadsj »

krferriter wrote: post #23
ivanhoe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be also more focus on proper thermal insulation of houses in warm climate, which is something that is not often mentioned. Lots of energy gets lost on AC simply because heat easily enters the houses.

Yeah I'm renting a house in central NC and May-September our power bill skyrockets from AC. The windows are not insulated at all and we have a lot of them. Even the floors, walls, and ceilings leak heat like crazy, you can feel it just putting your hand close to the wall or ceiling. We run AC to get it down to 76F and it's still crazy expensive and using a lot of unnecessary power. We need to encourage insulation, es…

> The US needs to heavily encourage these sorts of improvements to buildings, it's good for everyone.

Is it though? I imagine your landlord doesn't think it's good for them. It's not bad for them, but why would they spend hundreds or thousands of dollars improving your apartments insulation when it costs them nothing to keep the poor thermal in place.

I too lived in rentals that had terrible thermal protection. It was awful to heat and cool. Yet, my landlords wouldn't have spent a dime to improve that.

Not sure what can be done here, but with seemingly more and more homes becoming rentals this perhaps needs a solution.

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

#34

Post by francisofascii »

stupidcar wrote: post #10

I wonder what the wider economic effect will be if the price of solar continues to improve and the fossil fuel industry can't find a way to remain competitive. Since some places are far more suitable for solar power generation than others, will those areas end up with a significant advantage in the cost of living? Could that in turn lead to a major migration of people and economic activity to those areas?

I don't think the differences are that extreme. I used this site: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ to get annual energy output for a 4KW system. Houston 5,737 kWh/Year Boston 5,214 kWh/Year Seattle 4,389 kWh/Year

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

#35

Post by steve76 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #18
Animats wrote: post #7

$0.02/Kwh for the solar part is pretty good. A reasonable short-term goal: get 100% of US peak air conditioning load south of 37° N on solar. That's the line from the Virginia/North Carolina border west to central California. Peak solar power output and peak air conditioning load line up pretty well, so that doesn't need storage. Storage is more of an issue for wind, which varies about 4:1 over a day over large areas…

There should be also more focus on proper thermal insulation of houses in warm climate, which is something that is not often mentioned. Lots of energy gets lost on AC simply because heat easily enters the houses.

[dead]

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

#36

Post by anonuser123456 »

krferriter wrote: post #23
ivanhoe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be also more focus on proper thermal insulation of houses in warm climate, which is something that is not often mentioned. Lots of energy gets lost on AC simply because heat easily enters the houses.

Yeah I'm renting a house in central NC and May-September our power bill skyrockets from AC. The windows are not insulated at all and we have a lot of them. Even the floors, walls, and ceilings leak heat like crazy, you can feel it just putting your hand close to the wall or ceiling. We run AC to get it down to 76F and it's still crazy expensive and using a lot of unnecessary power. We need to encourage insulation, es…

You are probably conflating window insulation with window air leaks. The best windows generally available are R-5 at best on initial installation and degrade over time as The argon leaks. They are also extremely expensive. Not a very good investment.

But most energy losses in older buildings are from leaking air not thermal conductance. So upgrading to R-1 but sealed and we'll installed Windows can do a lot without having to spend 50k.

Also, you can use thermal shutters that have MUCH higher R-value than even top of the line windows.

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

#37

Post by pstrateman »

krferriter wrote: post #23
ivanhoe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be also more focus on proper thermal insulation of houses in warm climate, which is something that is not often mentioned. Lots of energy gets lost on AC simply because heat easily enters the houses.

Yeah I'm renting a house in central NC and May-September our power bill skyrockets from AC. The windows are not insulated at all and we have a lot of them. Even the floors, walls, and ceilings leak heat like crazy, you can feel it just putting your hand close to the wall or ceiling. We run AC to get it down to 76F and it's still crazy expensive and using a lot of unnecessary power. We need to encourage insulation, es…

Why would the landlord spend money on insulation to save you money on your electric bill?

There's the problem.

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

#38

Post by ed_at_work »

So, that's cool and all. I love green tech. And I hate fossil fuels. Buuuuuuut, aren't we going to have the same issue with supplies of lithium that we are having with fossil fuels? Unless we have a dramatic shift in renewable battery tech, we're still painting ourselves into a corner with the giant battery trent.

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

#39

Post by mixmastamyk »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #33
krferriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm renting a house in central NC and May-September our power bill skyrockets from AC. The windows are not insulated at all and we have a lot of them. Even the floors, walls, and ceilings leak heat like crazy, you can feel it just putting your hand close to the wall or ceiling. We run AC to get it down to 76F and it's still crazy expensive and using a lot of unnecessary power. We need to encourage insulation, es…

> The US needs to heavily encourage these sorts of improvements to buildings, it's good for everyone. Is it though? I imagine your landlord doesn't think it's good for them. It's not bad for them, but why would they spend hundreds or thousands of dollars improving your apartments insulation when it costs them nothing to keep the poor thermal in place. I too lived in rentals that had terrible thermal protection. It wa…

They are upgrading the windows in this neighborhood. First they kick you out, do the work, then charge the next tenant (rent + 1000).

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

#40

Post by codesushi42 »

Animats wrote: post #20
ausjke wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been wonder why can't we convert outside heat into indoor cooling naturally, i.e. in Texas can we convert summer heat to AC power in real time for at least each residence house?

Because E To get energy from heat, you need a hot end and a cold end. The more difference between the two, the more energy you can extract. Extracting energy from small temperature differences is very inefficient. Temperature is measured from absolute zero for this.

Exactly, this is why steam boiler engines became obsolete, because you can burn gas at a much higher temperature than boiling water.

Lower temp can only be viable if you reduce the work needed to run the engine, and can still output the needed work/energy.

This is related to why work and heat are both measured in joules.

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