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Post by eclipse on Feb 13, 2014 20:49:09 GMT 9.5
Hi all, I'm a bit despondent tonight. When reporting standards glow like this across so many windie blogs and tech sites, we're losing. I really wish we could make renewables baseload at an affordable price. I want to be wrong on this, because people are just not ready. cleantechnica.com/2014/02/13/huge-wind-farm-save-ca-750b-energy-bills/#F30fIFbZr0TtYIGp.99What great nuclear activist successes have you seen? (Other than 'converting' me on Barry's blog.  ) No one I know saw Pandora's Promise: in fact, I still haven't seen it yet! And I'm just an activist, not a nuclear engineer like many here! We're just not winning yet. And besides, who am I to disagree with "Greg Brinkman, an energy analysis engineer at NREL" when I was born with humanities & sociology wiring, not physics & mathematics & chemistry & engineering? I quote NREL all the time when it suits my purposes, such as their findings that up to 84% of American family cars could be EV and charge on existing electricity if they did so overnight. I've flogged that claim to death recently. I basically want to be wrong on this, because everyone's building out wind & solar and cheering them on, but the moment you say the four letter word 'nuke', the party's over. It's hard for me to fight the windies when I'm no engineer. I mean, look how weak this reply is to the Cleantechnica blog above? That's all I had. |
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Post by Ed Leaver on Feb 13, 2014 22:55:27 GMT 9.5
And its a start. I haven't time at the moment to go through your CleanTechnica link, perhaps tonight. Meantime, one thing you can personally do to put yourself ahead of the CleanTech reporter is read Introduction to Electric Power, a brief essay specifically written for such occasions. We can discuss it later. One take-home is the actual value of intermittent renewables is just that of the fossil+biomass fuels they displace. Doesn't mean Anschutz doesn't intend to make money off their wind farm (look into possible subsidies), because they will. Two, three other references: First off is a Ben Heard video How can community support for the nuclear option be achieved? , which I value as much for Ben's measured delivery as much as his words. We aren't going to win every battle, but will lose every battle in which we let our worthy opponents' antagonism drag us into same. Words are wasted spoke in anger. Second is to realize that at low market penetration wind actually is pretty close to grid parity. Its a good value if you can get it, and if you can use it when you do. That is what LCOE measures: marginal value, and you can't change it. Neither can wind proponents change what happens beyond market penetration equal to (or less) than capacity factor, without very expensive storage which is not factored into LCOE because at low market penetration you don't need it. Wind and solar do have their place, as discussed in Renewable Economic Models Look Good. Third is Her Majesty's Government's Carbon Plan -- a bit lengthy but quite readable and intended for general audience. The Brits actually have run the numbers -- quite a range of them. Thanks for your efforts! |
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Post by eclipse on Feb 14, 2014 11:27:26 GMT 9.5
Cheers Ed. I'll gradually read through that material.
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Post by eclipse on Feb 14, 2014 19:44:00 GMT 9.5
PS: Ha ha! 8 + 3 = 11, not 12, came up. Cool. It gave me a chance to talk about rounding up for extra transmission etc, and how can they compare the price of wind anyway until it's baseload? *Then* we'll have a conversation about the real cost of wind.
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Post by David B. Benson on Feb 15, 2014 13:07:47 GMT 9.5
On shore wind farms come at some environmental costs. The worst are bat kills; we need the bats to eat insects. The next worst are raptor displacements (and actual kills); the raptors cannot fly in the turbulence caused by the wind farms and so also a long way downwind; the small ground mammal population explodes for serious deleterious effects for the agriculture or pasturage on the ground.
There are also consequences for the system operator and the operators of the load balancing equipment. Around here hydro is used for the load balancing; elsewhere natgas burners. The problem occurs in the early morning as the daytime load begins coming on and often enough the wind dies down at the same time. The result is high ramp rates which stress the equipment; the wind farm operators do not, I believe, pay enough for that extra wear on the load balancing equipment.
The third problem, in the United States, is the production credit. This heavily distorts the power market structure which has an impact on grid reliability. [There are other ways to incentivize wind turbines which do not distort the market. Solar PV uses such.]
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Post by Ed Leaver on Feb 15, 2014 13:35:58 GMT 9.5
David: If God had meant for insects to be controlled by bats, he would not have given Man DDT. Likewise if, in His Wisdom, God had felt compassionate killing by raptors to be in the best interest of rats, prairie dogs, and other vermin he would not have granted Us strychnine and warfarin. And if He had intended clean reliable energy for Mankind, he would not have suggested his Dark Angel spread The Gospel of Intermittent Production Tax Credits. |
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Post by eclipse on Feb 16, 2014 7:10:00 GMT 9.5
They have a nice, clean design, look like energy experts,and link to a bunch of studies telling people what they want to hear. What's not to love if you're a lay-person without the engineering background to really understand what's going on, or already have a pre-existing bias against that scary word 'radiation'? Cleantechnica seems to be one of the world's largest renewable promotional sites, and this particular page links to dozens of world leading studies claiming to show how to have very high wind & solar penetration into the market. cleantechnica.com/70-80-99-9-100-renewables-study-central/EG: The first link says: A lay person would just read that and sigh with contentment that there was nothing to worry about. |
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Post by Ed Leaver on Feb 16, 2014 15:15:14 GMT 9.5
Roger that, Eclipse. Particularly if "close to today's energy costs!" means "only 50% more!". Still, at 99% renewables contribution Budischak and colleagues are at least fixing an appropriate target. Give them credit for that. They propose two storage technologies: plugin EV's and hydrogen. I haven't checked to see who they think will be paying for their EV batteries, and haven't time at present. But for those who haven't priced a Tesla, Leaf, or Volt, they are anything but "Free!". (In a disclaimer one of the authors discloses involvement in smart-grid EV storage start-up, so they're certainly serious about their work. And if such companies can pay EV owners enough to let them power-cycle their car batteries, fine. But one can't help but think high-density Li-ion is an awfully pricey solution to grid storage. Any battery has a finite lifetime, grid load balancing doesn't require light weight and small volume.  Thermodynamic considerations place any storage system at severe disadvantage relative to thermal generation, which doesn't mean they shouldn't be pursued. Hoover Dam for instance outputs an average of 480 MW -- less than a modest coal nuclear plant, but is used for load balancing with 2 GW peak -- two largish thermal plants. Vehicle batteries and fuel cells must be pursued, as we won't reduce transport sector emissions sufficiently without them. |
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Post by jagdish on Feb 16, 2014 15:44:25 GMT 9.5
Solar photoelectric generation is becoming important in its niches-telephone towers and rooftop panels. It needs some more actions to become a significant part of the mix.
1. Charging of vehicle batteries to mop up the surplus.
2. Fuel cells fueled by bio-fuels as back up.
Wind economy has to move from bird killers to another route. It may be more suitable in a funnel concentration-smaller turbine-compressed air-pneumatic tools path. It could be used for mechanical power like water pumps and home and farm tools. It could also be used for climate control with heat pumps.
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Post by David B. Benson on Mar 22, 2014 9:06:49 GMT 9.5
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Post by Roger Clifton on Mar 22, 2014 14:59:17 GMT 9.5
72 hours of storage ... is not long enough DBB, I reckon you are on the mark. In your link, someone at Stanford is appealing to a popular fantasy by making the fashionable appear feasible, and no doubt finding funding easier to find for the foolery. We can get clarity (or "fight the propaganda" as eclipse puts it) by challenging the use of the word, "renewable". Every time we use it, we give credence to the idea that the world is running out of mineral resources. But the main resource we are running out of is right here at the surface of the earth, somewhere to put our wastes. Just like a colony of microbes, our main limits to growth are the poisons of our success. ... Such as the vast lead-acid future of the energy storage implied in the link. |
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Post by jagdish on Mar 29, 2014 22:02:25 GMT 9.5
It is a wrong policy to dismiss renewable energy. It should be acceptable as a niche solution, where it belongs. We should celebrate the reducing costs of solar energy and ask for cheaper storage too. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery#OrganicIt will become clear where it belongs. Let us by all means accept it wherever useful. We will still want the bulk from concentrated sources. |
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Post by Scott on Apr 13, 2014 16:44:34 GMT 9.5
I did some research and the wind farm was between 2000 MW and 3000 MW. The cost before transmission is actually 4 to 6 billion dollars. So it would appear the 8 billion dollar figure includes transmission. www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/wy/information/NEPA/rfodocs/chokecherry/rod.Par.56668.File.dat/03appB.pdfThat puts it at $2/Watt (6 Billion $ / 3 GW). Also you can't just buy an AP1000 from China like you can buy piece of consumer electronics from China. China can build a lot of things cheaper than the US can, especially when they are labor intensive, so in reality for 6 billion you're likely only going to get one AP1000 (i.e. Vogtle & VC Summer prices). When adjusted for capacity factor both come out to around $6/Watt. Which also lines up perfected with most studies from the US (ANNUAL ENERGY OUTLOOK 2014). My understanding is that wind penetration is still far too low for this to become a large issue - so wind can still expand rather significantly without issue. |
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Post by David B. Benson on Apr 24, 2014 8:21:00 GMT 9.5
Here is the Pacific Northwest, the Bonneville Power Authority is the balancing agent for about 8 GW (nameplate) of wind generation. Despite all the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers that is about all that can be regulated. Even that much causes some problems in the spring when the rivers are to run at maximum, but utilizing only the generating turbines, not spillways, (to flush salmonid fingerlings to the ocean without causing the fish equivalent of the bends) and the wind blows lots.
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Post by eclipse on Apr 27, 2014 14:14:48 GMT 9.5
Everytime I disagree with them and raise some issue about estimated renewable costs being too low because they've not counted the costs of a lower capacity, greater storage requirements, or hugely expensive super-grids, they just point to this page and say "Disprove all these studies showing renewables CAN do it cost-effectively!" How is this possible? I thought there was something called 'peer-review' and that academia were actually interested in the truth? cleantechnica.com/70-80-99-9-100-renewables-study-central/ |
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Post by jagdish on Apr 27, 2014 20:27:56 GMT 9.5
Old sources of energy just do not vanish on arrival of a newer one, better in some respects. There has to be a gradual change in the mix depending on cost, convenience and perception. Thermal power and now nuclear energy is galloping ahead in China, with biggest population and energy use. Argue for adoption of renewable in distributed generation saving on distribution costs which could be diverted to storage. Once the cost and effort of storage to cover the intermittency is realized, the base power can have its own lower cost storage to cover daily variation.
It is probably time to develop nuclear energy in East, South-east and South Asia housing half the world population. Wind and solar energy have a place in distributed generation. Japan and Germany will find their own balance in a decade or two. Do not fret if the old developed economies do not immediately go the way you want them to.
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Post by David B. Benson on Apr 28, 2014 11:43:10 GMT 9.5
eclipse --- Ask what the reliability goal is to be. There are 8766 hours per year. A reliability of merely 99.9% means there will be random outages totaling 8.766 hours per annum. If that is too much then there must be dispatchable generators on call. The cost of that service must be added in.
And so it goes, down the line of studies performed by other than specialists in grid power.
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Post by eclipse on Sept 4, 2014 19:47:03 GMT 9.5
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Post by Scott on Sept 6, 2014 17:58:01 GMT 9.5
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Post by eclipse on Jul 8, 2015 11:32:56 GMT 9.5
World Resources Institute has it sorted, apparently. This is their mix. Then there was The Conversation's announcement of a new international thought group, ClimateWorks, and their global initiatives project. Here you can select www.2050pathways.net.au/ for the energy mix, and it looks like they're also claiming that nuclear is just an option, and we could easily generate most of our electricity from renewables. It's just sad. Either we're all wrong, or they are. Either we're all suffering from some kind of attachment to an outdated technology, or they're all irrationally fearful of an inevitable future. How can human beings be so misinformed and easily led by the dominant memes of the day? I just want the job done either way, and would love a renewable future or a nuclear-green future (preferably with various breeder reactors burning nuclear waste in passive-safety setups). People just don't seem to be able to analyse risk. EG: I would rather one Chernobyl every generation than climate change! 
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Post by eclipse on Oct 10, 2015 9:28:52 GMT 9.5
And the other 50% comes from...? Again, renewable energy is 'trendy' but nuclear 'oh so old school, so unnecessary'. I've been blocked on the Climate Council's Facebook page. So much for free speech?  |
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peterc
Thermal Neutron
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Post by peterc on Oct 15, 2015 6:16:15 GMT 9.5
Just what drives the media folk to be so tilted towards renewables baffles me. Here in Germany, only Spiegel ever attempts a balanced picture. One of their journalists actually pointed out that many of his colleagues consider bias in environment questions to be a virtue.
Scientific media, which really should know better, are just as bad: in the comments section on a Scientific American website report on energy, I've seen a pro-nuclear post taken down, even though it was purely objective and unimpeachable in tone.
Just recently New Scientist published an interview with a guy from the German Fraunhofer Wind Energy Institute. His views are obviously predictable, but the questions were all underarm bowling. The most pertinent one, i.e. what is the effect of German energy transition on CO2 output? (answer: virtually zero) was not put.
I've had the same treatment as eclipse at skepticalscience : they don't want to hear anything about nuclear. So much for their vaunted concern about global warming.
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Post by eclipse on Oct 15, 2015 7:14:40 GMT 9.5
Personally, I'd love to be wrong and see renewables actually do it. It would be great to get a whacky surprise like that. Because right now, it looks like we're just going to burn all the fossil fuels we can and really cook this planet.
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Post by Greg Simpson on Oct 16, 2015 14:17:01 GMT 9.5
Renewables probably can do the job. Certainly there is enough sunlight that if we can store it it can provide all our energy needs, and creating and consuming hydrogen can probably do that, even if the hydrogen storage is only 33% efficient round trip.
This seems like it will be much more expensive than nuclear, and it will have a larger deleterious effect on the environment. I also expect that it will take longer to fully achieve our goals. I don't like it, but it appears we are headed that way.
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Post by Frank Eggers on Oct 20, 2015 7:42:31 GMT 9.5
The title of this thread is, "Renewable propaganda just too hard to fight". I disagree!
Although I could conceivably be mistaken, I think that the problem is that too little effort has been put into finding effective, as opposed to simply technically correct, arguments to fight the renewable propaganda. It is essential to recognize that we are dealing with emotional, psychological, and political problems and formulate an approach with that understanding. Simply stating facts without considering psychology is insufficiently effective as has been more than amply demonstrated.
In addition to enlisting the efforts of scientists, it will be necessary to enlist the efforts of psychologists and marketing experts to counteract the renewable propaganda. A group of these experts could work together to formulate various approaches which could be tested for effectiveness with focus groups. It is likely that multiple approaches would be needed because not everyone would be swayed by the same arguments. Once EFFECTIVE, as opposed to merely technically correct, arguments have been formulated, they could, although not without significant difficulty, be disseminated via appropriate media.
In countering renewable propaganda it is important to recognize that solar power has already improved the quality of life for people living in remote areas where connecting to the grid would be impractical. Failure to recognize that would be interpreted as bias and result in distrust of statements made in support of nuclear power.
If we put such an approach in action, I think that we could succeed in speeding up the implementations of power and energy solutions, i.e., nuclear power, to phase out fossil fuels much more quickly.
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peterc
Thermal Neutron
Posts: 30
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Post by peterc on Oct 20, 2015 15:57:49 GMT 9.5
Frank Eggers "solar power has already improved the quality of life for people living in remote areas where connecting to the grid would be impractical" Well, take a look at this: www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-trumps-solar-in-india/The SciaAm article doesn't directly contradict your assertion, because these villagers in the end got access to the grid. But it shows that grid access is what they want, a thousand times more than solar. |
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) No one I know saw Pandora's Promise: in fact, I still haven't seen it yet! And I'm just an activist, not a nuclear engineer like many here! We're just not winning yet.
