Will Solar Power Outshine Oil in the Near Future?

[zoobyshoe]

2. "50 years" is close to the 56 years stated in my post. But that 56 years was how long nuclear could replace all of the other energy sources (not just electricity) under the same very conservative assumptions.

I am afraid you are correct. This is what I was referring to, and in the intervening time I misremembered what the 57years referred to. I did want to check before I posted that but couldn't think of any keywords to distinguish that thread from the many others in which you talk about nuclear. I suddenly hit on one earlier today; "utopia," which got me right there, to my discomfiture, because you weren't saying what I recalled you saying. I assume you only found it by watching what threads I was reading.

You're referring to this post/thread from 5 years ago and doing so very badly:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/best-way-to-produce-electricity.822014/page-6#post-5164813

July 2015 was a little less than 2 years ago, not 5 years ago. Point being, we all make stupid mistakes.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Isn't this a double standard? We have deaths from all other types of power sources constantly, but nuclear has to show there is absolutely no way it could ever harm anyone?
A very low risk is not sufficient?Coal power plants kill 1-2 million people per year. That is a big city every year.
Meanwhile nuclear power has to investigate the remote possibility that a few people in 1000 years get slightly higher cancer risks.

This doesn't make me like nuclear better, it just makes me like coal less (and I already hate it). Whatever safety assurances are to be required from nuclear ought to already apply to coal. They don't, though. Coal use became widespread before the hazards were appreciated. I don't rail against coal because it is already on the way out in the US. I don't rail against coal use in Germany and China because I can't do anything about it there. None of my objections to nuclear constitute pro-coal views.

 

[russ_watters]

This doesn't make me like nuclear better, it just makes me like coal less (and I already hate it).

How much less does it make you like solar, wind and hydro?

Whatever safety assurances are to be required from nuclear ought to already apply to coal.

And solar, wind and hydro, right?

None of my objections to nuclear constitute pro-coal views.

Yes they do. Looking back from last year (the year natural gas overtook coal), you weren't entitled to oppose both coal and nuclear power at the same time; you had to choose at most one to oppose and one to support. Your choice and the choice made by many others of the same political persuasion was to oppose nuclear more strenuously, which resulted in coal being the primary power source of the USA for decades [more than it needed to]. It was a passive choice, a choose-not-to-decide choice, but you still made a choice. Are you happy with that choice?* Moving forward, you have a new choice: coal, natural gas, or nuclear. Which do you choose now?

*Please note: I'm not being flippant here -- I really want to know the answer to that question. Solar and wind weren't options at all until about 5 years ago. So I would really like to know if you are happy with the fact that the heavy opposition of nuclear power resulted in substantially more coal power in the USA over the last 50 years or so. Or if we could do it again, would you prefer our power had been primarily provided by nuclear -- like France's has been, since the early 1980s?

 

[russ_watters]

I am afraid you are correct.

I do appreciate your acknowledging it. It's a rarity and does mean something to me.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Certainly. An entirely political block, which can be unblocked. Query: if some kind of energy system was being blocked (or continued) by political pressure from fossile fuel interests, e.g. the oil industry, is sorry-its-blocked an acceptable argument?

Here's the quote again:

In March 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reversed its policy and signed a contract with a consortium of Duke Energy, COGEMA, and Stone & Webster(DCS) to design and operate a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility. Site preparation at the Savannah River Site (South Carolina) began in October 2005.[13]In 2011 the New York Times reported "...11 years after the government awarded a construction contract, the cost of the project has soared to nearly $5 billion. The vast concrete and steel structure is a half-finished hulk, and the government has yet to find a single customer, despite offers of lucrative subsidies." TVA (currently the most likely customer) said in April 2011 that it would delay a decision until it could see how MOX fuel performed in the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi.[14

The "blockage" appears to be administrative or organizational, not from any sort of political pressure. They have all the permissions they need.

Yes accidents happen. So? A brand new gas power plant exploded up in Connecticut a couple years ago, killing some people. Tragic. The F. quake and tsunami killed over ten thousand. Very tragic. The F. radiation killed nobody, and never will to a point that's measurable. The possibility of such an accident should be low, but it need not need be down to the odds of the sun exploding.

Here's the thing: when a gas plant explodes, the ground around it isn't poisoned for 10,000 years. In any situation you have to ask what is the worst that could happen. You can't guarantee that, on May 31, 2037, 20 nuclear power plant workers won't all happen to arrive for work in the worst mental shape of their lives, all on the same day, and cumulatively do something that has horrible consequences. Freak tsunamis come in many forms.

Dry cask storage sites and underground storage are not part of live 3GW reactors that might have high pressure steam or hydrogen explosions, spreading material. Imagine the worst for stored idle waste, and the worst outcome is some kind of local cleanup that's been done many times with chemical spills and radioactive materials.

"Cleanup" doesn't always work out very well, does it? :

Despite over 30 years of cleanup efforts and billions of dollars having been spent at the site, the West Valley Demonstration Project property was described as "arguably Western New York's most toxic location" in 2013.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Valley_Demonstration_Project
The worst outcome in my mind is poisoning an aquifer.

How many does one need? A football field or two can store the waste stream from the nuclear fleet for hundreds of years. It's the same US government in charge of either military waste or commercial power waste. New Mexico volunteered.

I don't know how many are needed. You probably already know, so you tell me. I assume nuclear power plants produce more than the nuclear fleet, and that the need for storage will rise as more nuclear plants are built. If all energy needs were supplied by nuclear, the number of football fields needed would increase accordingly.

 

[russ_watters]

Here's the quote again:

The "blockage" appears to be administrative or organizational, not from any sort of political pressure.

Don't be disingenuous: you are no doubt aware of the general anti-nuclear political pressure and how successful it has been. You are part of that political pressure!

Here's the thing: when a gas plant explodes, the ground around it isn't poisoned for 10,000 years.

Nor is it for nuclear. You're fantasizing, not reacting to real/known risks. But I am curious: how long is the land underneath the Three Gorges Dam reservoir going to be uninhabitable?

In any situation you have to ask what is the worst that could happen.

No, you most certainly do not (make decisions based on worst case, not just "ask"). If you did that, you would never leave your bed for fear of slipping and falling and dying in your shower! (a substantially more significant killer than nuclear power)

[edit] That said, I would certainly like to know what you think is the worst case for nuclear in terms of deaths. Is there a scenario you see where Fukushima could have killed more people (16,000) than the earthquake/tsunami did? Any scenario you can think of where a modern nuclear plant accident could make a list of the worst industrial accidents by death toll?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disasters_by_death_toll#Industrial_disasters

If you scroll down to "structural collapses" you will find the worst industrial disaster in history was multiple simultaneous dam collapses in 1975 in China, killing a staggering 171,000 people. That's more than the total evacuated from the area around Fukushima! Do you see any scenario where a nuclear plant could kill that many people?

Fourth on that list is the Johnstown Flood (dam collapse) in Pennsylvania, about 50 miles from where I live. It killed 2,200 people in 1889. I suspect few people in this thread have ever heard of it, but everyone's heard of TMI, which is also about 50 miles from where I live and killed no one.
[edit2] Incidentally, there have been two more deadly floods in the area since, with the most recent causing a deadly dam failure 1975. Clearly, humans cannot be trusted with hydroelectric power and all should be dismantled!

 

[zoobyshoe]

How much less does it make you like solar, wind and hydro?

And solar, wind and hydro, right?

You are, I suppose, about to tell me about how much coal is burned in the production of one rooftop's amount of solar cells? One windmill?

Yes they do. Looking back from last year (the year natural gas overtook coal), you weren't entitled to oppose both coal and nuclear power at the same time; you had to choose at most one to oppose and one to support. Your choice and the choice made by many others of the same political persuasion was to oppose nuclear more strenuously, which resulted in coal being the primary power source of the USA for decades [more than it needed to]. It was a passive choice, a choose-not-to-decide choice, but you still made a choice. Are you happy with that choice?* Moving forward, you have a new choice: coal, natural gas, or nuclear. Which do you choose now?

*Please note: I'm not being flippant here -- I really want to know the answer to that question. Solar and wind weren't options at all until about 5 years ago. So I would really like to know if you are happy with the fact that the heavy opposition of nuclear power resulted in substantially more coal power in the USA over the last 50 years or so. Or if we could do it again, would you prefer our power had been primarily provided by nuclear -- like France's has been, since the early 1980s?

Thanks for not being flippant, but the question arises from your habit of thinking in false dichotomies.

Here's how SDG&E breaks down (4 years out of date):

SDG&E’s 2013 power mix included the following energy resources:

 Renewable: 24% = Biomass & waste:3.0% Geothermal: 2.0% Small hydroelectric:0.0% Solar: 4.0% Wind: 15.0%

 Coal: 3.0%
 Large hydroelectric: 0.0%
 Natural gas: 67.0%
 Nuclear: 0.0%
 Oil: 0.0%
 Unspecified: 6.0% (electricity from transactions that are not traceable to specific generation sources)

https://www.sdge.com/sites/default/files/newsroom/factsheets/SDG&E%20Electric%20Generation%20Fact%20Sheet_2.pdf

This is my current choice: mixed. It's what's there. For the future, I want wind and solar to take over more and more.

What I would have chosen in the past, coal or nuclear, would probably depend on how close in time to 3 Mile Island, or Chernobyl you asked me. That wouldn't have made me pro-coal. If you present someone with two really bad options and force them to chose, it's a matter of them perceiving one as the lesser of two evils. Not very nice of you to then accuse them of being pro one choice and anti the other.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I do appreciate your acknowledging it. It's a rarity and does mean something to me.

Very gentlemanly of you to say so. And I appreciate that, in turn.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Don't be disingenuous: you are no doubt aware of the general anti-nuclear political pressure and how successful it has been. You are part of that political pressure!

There is just as much anti-nuclear sentiment in Europe, and it hasn't stopped them from building nuclear reprocessing plants.. The particular reprocessing plant I mentioned, I will repeat, had all the permits and approvals it needed. It was not stalled by political pressure. It is stalled by some unexplained lack of organization on the part of the builders.

Nor is it for nuclear. You're fantasizing, not reacting to real/known risks.

I didn't pull 10,000 years out of my fantasies. I cut the actual number I found in half:

But that's not to suggest that the area has returned to normal, or will at any point in the near future. Because of the long-lived radiation in the region surrounding the former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the area won't be safe for human habitation for at least 20,000 years.

http://www.livescience.com/39961-chernobyl.html
Small pieces of the reactor core are still all over the place. Those are what's going to take so long to become safe. A lot of people moved back to Pripyat as soon as they could get away with it, mostly older peasant types who couldn't stand being relocated. Don't know if they had any problems, but all the scientists who live there go around with dosimeters, and they know where most of the dangerous spots are, and avoid them. It can't return to being a normal town where people raise kids.

But I am curious: how long is the land underneath the Three Gorges Dam reservoir going to be uninhabitable?

As long as the dam is in place. Google tells me dams last from 50 to 100 years. After it's removed, or fails, the land will be habitable, and non-poisonous, as soon as the mud dries. Or, they'll build a new one. The land is uninhabitable now, being under water, but they are getting electricity instead. Pripyat is uninhabitable, and they get no electricity.

No, you most certainly do not (make decisions based on worst case, not just "ask"). If you did that, you would never leave your bed for fear of slipping and falling and dying in your shower! (a substantially more significant killer than nuclear power)

When I consider staying in bed to avoid shower accidents, I ask myself, what is the worst thing that could happen if I did? The worst thing would be I'd start doing that every day and end up with no life. Certainly we take risks all the time but, seriously, that's because not taking them would actually be a worse scenario.

That said, I would certainly like to know what you think is the worst case for nuclear in terms of deaths...

...If you scroll down to "structural collapses" you will find the worst industrial disaster in history was multiple simultaneous dam collapses in 1975 in China, killing a staggering 171,000 people. That's more than the total evacuated from the area around Fukushima! Do you see any scenario where a nuclear plant could kill that many people?

So, you're saying any nuclear accident that doesn't kill at least 171,000 people is acceptable?

Fourth on that list is the Johnstown Flood (dam collapse) in Pennsylvania, about 50 miles from where I live. It killed 2,200 people in 1889. I suspect few people in this thread have ever heard of it, but everyone's heard of TMI, which is also about 50 miles from where I live and killed no one.
[edit2] Incidentally, there have been two more deadly floods in the area since, with the most recent causing a deadly dam failure 1975. Clearly, humans cannot be trusted with hydroelectric power and all should be dismantled!

I thought the Johnstown flood was relatively well known. The South Fork Dam that failed and caused the flood was not a hydroelectric dam:

Henry Clay Frick led a group of speculators, including Benjamin Ruff, from Pittsburgh to purchase the abandoned reservoir, modify it, and convert it into a private resort lake for their wealthy associates. Many were connected through business and social links to Carnegie Steel. Development included lowering the dam to make its top wide enough to hold a road, and putting a fish screen in the spillway (the screen also trapped debris). These alterations are thought to have increased the vulnerability of the dam. Moreover, a system of relief pipes and valves, a feature of the original dam, previously sold off for scrap, was not replaced, so the club had no way of lowering the water level in the lake in case of an emergency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood

Here is a hydrolelectric dam failure:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano–Shushenskaya_power_station_accident

75 people killed and extensive damage. The site is not poisoned, however, and:

On 11 November 2014 the renovations and repairs were fully completed.

They're never going to generate electricity in Pripyat again. Or Fukushima.

 

[mfb]

This doesn't make me like nuclear better, it just makes me like coal less (and I already hate it).

Then you should hate every power source more than nuclear. Because they all kill more people (per kWh). The double standards apply to all of them. Nuclear power has to consider this very remote possibility of slightly elevated cancer risks, while other power sources have accidents frequently, and they are just tolerated as part of the operation.

Many people don't fear what kills them. They fear what makes it into the news, and https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html.

In any situation you have to ask what is the worst that could happen.

Spontaneous decay of the vacuum, killing everyone in a few milliseconds and destroying the whole world as we know it.
... and now?
For every possible result, you have to take the probability into account.

This is my current choice: mixed.

Not that mixed in terms of its massive CO2 output, and while natural gas is cleaner than coal, it is still among the most deadly power sources.

Because of the long-lived radiation in the region surrounding the former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the area won't be safe for human habitation for at least 20,000 years.

The dominant source of radiation around it now cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years. The area will be back to normal background levels (within the natural variation) in 100-200 years. The area of the power plant itself is more complicated, but that can be cleaned actively.

They're never going to generate electricity in Pripyat again. Or Fukushima.

Or Centralia. Or in the middle of the Sahara. Which is expanding thanks to excessive use of fossil fuels, by the way. Where is your point?

 

[gmax137]

So, you're saying any nuclear accident that doesn't kill at least 171,000 people is acceptable?

Where did Russ say that?

Fatality statistics are cited all the time. "Smoking kills 480,000 americans every year... 30,000 traffic fatalities every year...heart disease - 600,000 annually..." and so on. "Snakebite kills 10 each year." Statistics like this provide some perspective, help us to see what's important to worry about and what isn't. It isn't the only metric of course, but it is one that people use a lot.

Nuclear power hasn't killed anyone in the US in the past 60 years (well, there were three killed in the Army experimental SL-1 reactor in 1960). Draw your own conclusions from that.

 

[gmax137]

The particular reprocessing plant I mentioned ...

By the way, do you know what that MoX plant in South Carolina is intended to do? It will turn plutonium weapons into reactor fuel. I don't know how anyone can be against that.

 

[mheslep]

Here's the quote again:

The "blockage" appears to be administrative or organizational, not from any sort of political pressure. They have all the permissions they need.

Reprocessing of spent fuel is prohibited in the US. MOX is a fuel type heavy with plutonium, but the plutonium can come from sources such as retired Soviet nuclear weapons or reprocessing.

First, the outright bans on reprocessing by Presidents Ford and Carter (politicians) crushed the private efforts underway at the time, meaning that any restart of the technology will understandably require government funding to reboot. The lift of the ban by Reagan provided no such finance. Second, reprocessing that recovers plutonium (which is a product of current fission reactors) is once again prohibited by US policy, both by act of Congress and President Clinton:

1993. President Clinton issued a policy statement on reprocessing stating that “[t]he United States does not encourage the civil use of plutonium and, accordingly, does not itself engage in plutonium reprocessing for either nuclear power or nuclear explosive purposes. The United States, however, will maintain its existing commitments regarding the use of plutonium in civil nuclear programs in Western Europe and Japan.”

Here's the thing: when a gas plant explodes, the ground around it isn't poisoned for 10,000 years. In any situation you have to ask what is the worst that could happen. You can't guarantee that, on May 31, 2037, 20 nuclear power plant workers won't all happen to arrive for work in the worst mental shape of their lives, all on the same day, and cumulatively do something that has horrible consequences. Freak tsunamis come in many forms.

This is the Godzilla might happen argument. Much harm and economic loss can come from a bad accident, from a chemical plant like Bhopal or a Fukushima. Even in a freak, worst case accident, there is no Godzilla. The ground was not "poisoned" for millennia after the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; those cities in modern day are thriving. Nor was Nevada and Las Vegas destroyed after 216 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests by the US, and some of those were ground tests with substantial fall out. I've been close to the Alamogordo weapon test site from 1945, and yet here I am.

"Cleanup" doesn't always work out very well, does it? :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Valley_Demonstration_Project
The worst outcome in my mind is poisoning an aquifer.

Cleanup of industrial accidents and neglect has a long history, with successes and failures not all specific to nuclear power; I doubt that any US nuclear related incident ranks among the worst of these. Keeping industrial accidents to a minimum is a worthy goal; eliminating or crippling industrialized society to do so is not. Arsenic is a naturally occurring poison for instance and also an element; it's never going away.

I don't know how many are needed. You probably already know, so you tell me. I assume nuclear power plants produce more than the nuclear fleet, and that the need for storage will rise as more nuclear plants are built. If all energy needs were supplied by nuclear, the number of football fields needed would increase accordingly.

The entire production of US spent fuel since the beginning is reportedly 64K tons, a football field stacked 7m deep. I imagine the coal ash heap at *one* large coal plant is several times that size.

 

[mheslep]

Here's how SDG&E breaks down (4 years out of date):

https://www.sdge.com/sites/default/files/newsroom/factsheets/SDG&E%20Electric%20Generation%20Fact%20Sheet_2.pdf

(Edit:)Southern California does not domestically produce nuclear power since 2012, but it does consume it. SCE owns 16% of the Palo Verde nuclear plant in AZ, the largest plant in the US.

This is my current choice: mixed. It's what's there. For the future, I want wind and solar to take over more and more.

That's an option, up to perhaps 25-30% annual share of a grid penetration by wind and solar, but at great cost. Germany for instance after enormous spending is 7% solar and IIRC 15% wind as of 2016, and has the second highest residential electricity rates in Europe. Germany has the same size coal fleet capacity it had in 2002, and is even now building more coal plants. Everywhere one looks at attempts to build out solar and wind , they are surrounded by large amounts of fossil fuel power, no exceptions. The only clean power countries (over 80%) are from nuclear and hydro.

 

[rootone]

... they are surrounded by large amounts of fossil fuel power, no exceptions. The only clean power countries (over 80%) are from nuclear and hydro.

Portugal recently achieved several consecutive days powered by only renewable sources.
It has no nuclear power, although it can import power from nearby countries that do.

 

[mfb]

30% hydro, 27% gas, 22% wind, 20% coal in 2014 (production), 20% of the demand is covered by imports. If you are lucky with the wind, drain the hydro storages and import some power, not unrealistic. That doesn't mean they would be remotely close to shutting down their coal or gas power plants.
Wind can supply a lot of power on some days. But you cannot rely on it.

 

[mheslep]

Portugal recently achieved several consecutive days powered by only renewable sources.
It has no nuclear power, although it can import power from nearby countries that do.

Why is that significant?

A residence with a sufficiently large solar array on the roof obviously runs completely from solar power for several consecutive hours. That truism doesn't stop the hundreds of coal plants now under construction globally.

Several dozen countries achieve not just days but year round averages of "renewable" electricity generation above 90%, Iceland, Zambia, Ethiopia, Norway, etc, due to hydro. Even Afghanistan is 80% renewable, all hydroelectric. Countries with the resource tend to begin industrialization with some reliable hydro, but of course there is only so much hydro resource, so referencing renewables dominated by hydro is misleading, and certainly won't bring down global carbon emissions.

Intermittent wind and solar are a different matter. They make up 23% of Portugal's annual domestic electricity generation, and I suspect if the 20% of imports (per mfb) were inspected by source that the wind and solar share would fall below 20% of total consumption, and leave the fossil fuel share of generation around half, as it is in Denmark, as it is in Germany. The economic problem with wind and solar is that the thermal (or hydro) plants *must* still be built/maintained to firm up intermittent power, the cost to build them (mostly fossil) must be suffered. And, once built, the marginal cost to flip a switch and burn a little coal or gas is very cheap, less so than building more solar and wind without subsidies. Solar and wind hang precariously from a subsidy branch, and meanwhile lock in the fossil fuel plants around them.

France by contrast went from 60/40 - fossil/hydro to less than 10% fossil in 12-15 years, and did so decades ago.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Well, no: you're wrong there too(twice!), but I let it go to focus on the more important wrong discussed above. If you look again at my scenario, I assume a constant price per kWh, incorporating your assumption even though it is a bad one. And why is it bad? Because even if it is true that one peaking plant can do it, you aren't just after solar power to replace peaks, you want it to replace base load (coal and nuclear). So it does have to provide power at night.

I guess I misunderstood your complaint. I thought your complaint was that the utilities, as things are now, buy solar when it's high and sell when it's low. In fact, they sell it sideways: they buy high from Joe and sell high to Jeff. The transactions are constrained to sunlight hours when the buying price is the same as the selling price. The new battery installations here will allow them to buy it high from Joe and sell it high to Jeff, but offset by 4 hours, into the evening.

But, in fact, as Gleem mentioned earlier, California is no longer buying from Joe (a guy with solar panels on his roof). That is: they're not taking on any new residential input to the grid. In theory they are, but in practice, they've elaborated the criteria for who can dump juice into the grid from their roof, the hoops you have to jump through to get qualified for that, so much that my landlady complained, "You practically have to pay them to take it now." Pre-existing rooftop installations are grandfathered in, but there will be precious few new ones doing this. They're actively discouraging this because...

We have a solar glut:
https://qz.com/953614/california-pr...wholesale-electricity-prices-turned-negative/

Yes, the goal is 24 hour electricity from wind/solar. 24 hour wind/solar won't become real until they first develop economical storage.

In the long term, "grid parity" must be reached:

Solar generating stations have become progressively cheaper in recent years, and this trend is expected to continue.[121]Meanwhile, traditional electricity generation is becoming progressively more expensive.[122] These trends are expected to lead to a crossover point when the levelised cost of energy from solar parks, historically more expensive, matches the cost of traditional electricity generation.[123] This point is commonly referred to as grid parity.[124]

For merchant solar power stations, where the electricity is being sold into the electricity transmission network, the levelised cost of solar energy will need to match the wholesale electricity price. This point is sometimes called 'wholesale grid parity' or 'busbar parity'.[125]

So, the assumption is that grid parity will be reached, and there will be economical storage. There is no intrinsic strategy of buying high and selling low.

 

[nitsuj]

France has so many nuclear plants they even shut some down for the weekend lol. It a good read (France nuclear power), and seems to played out well economically, and the whole no carbon thing too... and pretty much financed commercially too. The power of legislation, err, the power of a crisis, to induce legislation.

I never considered France to be "advanced" with respect to engineering; but holy snap they got it going on.

 

[zoobyshoe]

My entire house is electric.

This is surely the main reason for the difference. If I were all electric, the bill would definitely be higher than my combined bill now. Still, I'm surprised by the fish tank consumption.

I'm getting the impression that people don't understand that you live in an ideal solar environment.

I do, but I grew up in New England, lived in Ohio for 5 years, and then in Minnesota for 8 years. I can understand the psychological appeal of a stalwart, imperturbable nuclear plant humming away during a blustery night blizzard. In the middle of winter up there, the idea of solar seems ridiculous: in the day you often can't tell where the sun even is through the overcast. You feel like, if you collected a day's worth of what hits your yard, you'd have about 3 minutes of night electricity. For one lamp.

But the most entertaining number of all, was my December 2016 electric bill. If I were charged at the SDG&E rates and had never doubled the insulation in my house back in the early 90's, my electric bill would have been ≈$1700. That's nearly twice what 900 watts worth of solar panels cost.
Fortunately, our rates are quite a bit lower, so my bill was only about $300.

So, how much would I have paid for 85 kWh's up there?

I've a 300 foot tall hill near my house, with a 50,000,000 gallon reservoir on top. From my calculations, it could supply a weeks worth of Zooby-trons to 2400 homes. (20 kwh)

Yesterday I found out about this pumped hydro plant in Michigan on the banks of the Great Lake there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant
It's head is 363 feet. So your site isn't a lot less.

According to google and wiki, you have two prominences, one inside the city limits, and one inside the county, that could do something similar:

Cowles Mountain with a 500,000,000 gallon reservoir could backup 79,000 homes for a week.​

Unfortunately that's in a protected park.

Cuyamaca Peak could backup 216,000 homes.

That's so high up it snows there in the winter.​

I've heard they lop off the tops of mountains, out in the east, to harvest coal, for a one time shot at energy. It seems reasonable to me to do it, for a millennia's worth of storage. Maybe they could double as water parks.

My idea was to pump seawater from sea level up about 361 feet to Telcolote Canyon in Linda Vista. As you can see, it's all twisted up, but there's probably 10 miles of it straightened out:
https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/park-and-recreation/pdf/tecolotetrailmap.pdf
Unfortunately, that's also a protected park.

The Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant article mentions they had to seal the reservoir because it wasn't bedrock:

Because impervious bedrock is more than 800 feet (240 m) below the reservoir, the builders had to line the reservoir with a layer of asphalt and clay to prevent water seeping into the ground.

I think the same might be true of any big water containment they might build here. I came upon a big sandstone outcropping once in Tecolote Canyon, which might mean it's mostly sandstone all around here under the topsoil. I don't know. It's very gravelly.

 

[Ken Fabos]

It is actually a bit surprising to me that as much effort has been put into storage as we are seeing - mostly before intermittent renewable penetration reaches levels that require it. Are people saying the storage must be in place first, before it is necessary and that further expansion of RE capacity should be curtailed until it is? If so I disagree; that kind of investment, at large scale, in solutions to intermittency won't happen until and unless the need for it becomes great enough. I don't see the level of foresight and planning - and regulatory interventions - that putting storage in place, before it's needed, requires. The stage where it does become needed is fast approaching but preventing that need from becoming significant will impede that transition. Foresight and planning would still be worthwhile of course.

The growth of solar and wind are, I think, the necessary precursors to the required investments in storage, demand management, distribution and efficiency that will follow. If they don't grow to the point where it strains the system that incentive will be reduced or be absent.

The shift of fossil fuel plant into an intermittent backup roles seems predictable and reasonable - and the more intermittent it gets the more it reduces overall demand for those fossil fuels. At the same time it creates the economic incentives (because running plants intermittently makes them more expensive) to invest in non-fossil fuel solutions.

 

[zoobyshoe]

It is actually a bit surprising to me that as much effort has been put into storage as we are seeing - mostly before intermittent renewable penetration reaches levels that require it. Are people saying the storage must be in place first, before it is necessary and that further expansion of RE capacity should be curtailed until it is? If so I disagree; that kind of investment, at large scale, in solutions to intermittency won't happen until and unless the need for it becomes great enough. I don't see the level of foresight and planning - and regulatory interventions - that putting storage in place, before it's needed, requires. The stage where it does become needed is fast approaching but preventing that need from becoming significant will impede that transition. Foresight and planning would still be worthwhile of course.

The growth of solar and wind are, I think, the necessary precursors to the required investments in storage, demand management, distribution and efficiency that will follow. If they don't grow to the point where it strains the system that incentive will be reduced or be absent.

The shift of fossil fuel plant into an intermittent backup roles seems predictable and reasonable - and the more intermittent it gets the more it reduces overall demand for those fossil fuels. At the same time it creates the economic incentives (because running plants intermittently makes them more expensive) to invest in non-fossil fuel solutions.

I don't know where you are posting from, but here in California I think we're at the point where we need storage:
http://www.pe.com/2017/03/18/heres-how-california-ended-up-with-too-much-solar-power/
I'm not sure what level of strain of the system you think is best, but there is already a strain, at least here.

 

[OmCheeto]

This is surely the main reason for the difference. If I were all electric, the bill would definitely be higher than my combined bill now. Still, I'm surprised by the fish tank consumption.

There are a lot of hours in a month.

731 hrs/mo x 0.0636 kw = 46 kwh/mo

When the last of the guppies die, I can turn off the heater(55 watts), and the load will only be 4 kwh/month. (≈50¢)

I do, but I grew up in New England, lived in Ohio for 5 years, and then in Minnesota for 8 years. I can understand the psychological appeal of a stalwart, imperturbable nuclear plant humming away during a blustery night blizzard. In the middle of winter up there, the idea of solar seems ridiculous: in the day you often can't tell where the sun even is through the overcast. You feel like, if you collected a day's worth of what hits your yard, you'd have about 3 minutes of night electricity. For one lamp.

So, how much would I have paid for 85 kWh's up there?

A dollar more! $19

We have a "base rate" that is tacked on.

SAN rates    $/kwh   
<380 kwh    $0.20837   
≥380 kwh    $0.42970   
       
PDX rates    $/kwh      +Base rate
≤1000 kwh   $0.11122      $10.50
>1000 kwh   $0.11844      $10.50

Yesterday I found out about this pumped hydro plant in Michigan on the banks of the Great Lake there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant
It's head is 363 feet. So your site isn't a lot less.

Unfortunately that's in a protected park.

That's so high up it snows there in the winter.​

My idea was to pump seawater from sea level up about 361 feet to Telcolote Canyon in Linda Vista. As you can see, it's all twisted up, but there's probably 10 miles of it straightened out:
https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/park-and-recreation/pdf/tecolotetrailmap.pdf
Unfortunately, that's also a protected park.

The Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant article mentions they had to seal the reservoir because it wasn't bedrock:

I think the same might be true of any big water containment they might build here. I came upon a big sandstone outcropping once in Tecolote Canyon, which might mean it's mostly sandstone all around here under the topsoil. I don't know. It's very gravelly.

Just browsing with Google Earth, it looks like you have scores of potential spots.
The Salton Sea looks like a convenient location. 4000 ft tall mountains within 10 miles.

http://www.pe.com/2017/03/18/heres-how-california-ended-up-with-too-much-solar-power/
I'm not sure what level of strain of the system you think is best, but there is already a strain, at least here.

There is some serious goofiness going on.

From your article;

"The grid system, which excludes Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Imperial Valley area utilities...​

You can't sell rooftop solar, yet half of LA's power is shipped in from 850 miles away?

[ref: wiki re Pacific DC Intertie; "The line capacity is 3,100 megawatts, which is enough to serve two to three million Los Angeles households and represents almost half (48.7%) of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) electrical system's peak capacity."]

 

[zoobyshoe]

When the last of the guppies die, I can turn off the heater(55 watts), and the load will only be 4 kwh/month. (≈50¢)

Oh, I missed the fact there was a heater involved.

A dollar more! $19

We have a "base rate" that is tacked on.

SAN rates    $/kwh  
<380 kwh    $0.20837  
≥380 kwh    $0.42970  
      
PDX rates    $/kwh      +Base rate
≤1000 kwh   $0.11122      $10.50
>1000 kwh   $0.11844      $10.50

It looks like each West Coast utility has it's own way of charging you the same as every other one.

Just browsing with Google Earth, it looks like you have scores of potential spots.
The Salton Sea looks like a convenient location. 4000 ft tall mountains within 10 miles.

I think that's just about perfect. They have been trying to figure out what to do with the Salton Sea for decades. The water is very polluted from agricultural runoff and industrial effluents, it's not like you're going to wreck the water quality. The "sea" itself, is actually 226 feet below (real) sea level. I wonder if there are any places in those mountains that could be dammed up without doing anything too radical to the mountains.

There is some serious goofiness going on.

From your article;

"The grid system, which excludes Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Imperial Valley area utilities...​

You can't sell rooftop solar, yet half of LA's power is shipped in from 850 miles away?

[ref: wiki re Pacific DC Intertie; "The line capacity is 3,100 megawatts, which is enough to serve two to three million Los Angeles households and represents almost half (48.7%) of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) electrical system's peak capacity."]

Passing strange! I had no idea. High voltage DC from Oregon!

 

[OmCheeto]

Oh, I missed the fact there was a heater involved.

As a general rule, I turn my heat on the 1st of November, and it doesn't get turned off until the 1st of May.
So the fish tank heater doesn't really cost extra until summer.

It looks like each West Coast utility has it's own way of charging you the same as every other one.

Not sure if you did the maths, but you would have paid a rate twice what I pay, due to that base fee.

Spring 2017

Zoob using 85 kwh in PDX: 22.7¢/kwh
Om using 1084 kwh in PDX: 12.1¢/kwh
​

I think that's just about perfect. They have been trying to figure out what to do with the Salton Sea for decades. The water is very polluted from agricultural runoff and industrial effluents, it's not like you're going to wreck the water quality. The "sea" itself, is actually 226 feet below (real) sea level. I wonder if there are any places in those mountains that could be dammed up without doing anything too radical to the mountains.

Passing strange! I had no idea. High voltage DC from Oregon!

Lots of strange to go around everywhere. We have similar geography here in the Columbia river gorge, which could be dammed up and used for pumped storage, as our wind farms are also dumping energy when there is too much.
But what do we use the hillsides for? Garbage. You may recall that Seattle ships their garbage there, 260 miles, by the trainload. [ref: PF Oct 2015]

Utility; "We'd like to dam up a ravine on Otay Mt, and use the water from lake Otay for a pumped storage project."
Public; "No! Turtles and Flowers and things!"
Utility; "Ok. How about a dump. If we don't dig a pit, it means you'll have to separate your glass from your trash."
Public; "Um. Go ahead and scorch the earth. Ain't nobody got time for recycling."​

This is why I hate humans.

 

[mheslep]

...

I never considered France to be "advanced" with respect to engineering; but holy snap they got it going on.

Snap:

 

[mheslep]

Are people saying the storage must be in place first,

Utility scale energy storage is not like warehouse space that one can simply run out and rent when the basement gets full. The technology for the scale of economicly suitable storage required must be invented first; it does not exist. There is cause for solar and wind advocates to waive away this problem, since if the technology of large scale storage became available, it's cost is almost certain to be large relative to the existing cost of power, and that cost would become prominent. Then comes an end to throw away lines about the low cost of solar, as the high cost of solar plus storage becomes new starting point.

As it is, solar and wind seem to the best thing going for fossil fuel power, as where there is someof the former there is a lot of the latter, and for a long time. An alternative scenario of 80% nuclear would demolish fossil fuel power, as it did in France, Sweden, Switzerland, putting real fear in our fossil fuel interests.

 

[mheslep]

4000 ft tall mountains within 10 miles.

Lopping the top off such a mountain in CA would yield 10 hrs or so of power at a couple GW. Intermittent power needs 10 days of storage, with power sufficient to run the CA load that's not covered by hydro.

Of course, attempting to lop off a mountain in CA would first have Jerry Brown or the Sierra Club lopping off the head of the storage developer. Apropos, it was Jerry Brown that either stopped or closed enough nuclear power to make California 3/4 clean power today.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Reprocessing of spent fuel is prohibited in the US. MOX is a fuel type heavy with plutonium, but the plutonium can come from sources such as retired Soviet nuclear weapons or reprocessing.
First, the outright bans on reprocessing by Presidents Ford and Carter (politicians) crushed the private efforts underway at the time, meaning that any restart of the technology will understandably require government funding to reboot. The lift of the ban by Reagan provided no such finance.
Second, reprocessing that recovers plutonium (which is a product of current fission reactors) is once again prohibited by US policy, both by act of Congress and President Clinton:

OK. I find what you are saying confusing with respect to the particular plant the wiki talks about:

In March 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reversed its policy and signed a contract with a consortium of Duke Energy, COGEMA, and Stone & Webster (DCS) to design and operate a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility. Site preparation at the Savannah River Site (South Carolina) began in October 2005.[13] In 2011 the New York Times reported "...11 years after the government awarded a construction contract, the cost of the project has soared to nearly $5 billion. The vast concrete and steel structure is a half-finished hulk, and the government has yet to find a single customer, despite offers of lucrative subsidies." TVA (currently the most likely customer) said in April 2011 that it would delay a decision until it could see how MOX fuel performed in the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi.[14]

First, did someone not notice there wasn't enough money to complete this project without a government reboot? What's your understanding of why it was ever started when there was no money for it? The quote claims the government was offering lucrative subsidies for customers, at any rate. Which indicates the government had cash in hand waiting to give it out somewhere.

Second: I'm not following whether MOX recovers plutonium or not. If it does, why wasn't this project quashed from the get go? The site preparation began in 2005, long after Clinton had prohibited this, apparently.

 

[mheslep]

MOX reactor fuel and reprocessing of spent reactor fuel are two different things. MOX requires plutonium as a source, which can come from various sources, retired military nuclear weapons, overseas recovered plutonium. At one point a majority of US reactors were burning, in part, the plutonium from Soviet weapons. For years.

 

[OmCheeto]

Lopping the top off such a mountain in CA would yield 10 hrs or so of power at a couple GW. Intermittent power needs 10 days of storage, with power sufficient to run the CA load that's not covered by hydro.
...

I thought I posted something that refutes that?
hmmm...
I think I have several conversations going on in my head at the moment.

Anyways, my analysis of "Otay" gave me a number that says it could supply all of Zoobytown for 2+ weeks.
Of course, my numbers might be wrong.
And it assumes all 'Diegans consume at a Zoob rate.
Which might be difficult, as even I can't do that.
(pats Zoob on the back)

 

[mheslep]

Bath County PHS is the world's largest by power, with 45 million m^3 upper reservoir. At max flow, empties in 14 hrs. Even in Zoob land the municipal water pumps, the hospitals, the grocery stores, the farms and factories and street lights and police stations and movie theaters all use more than a few dozen kWh per month.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station

 

[OmCheeto]

Bath County PHS is the world's largest by power, with 45 million m^3 upper reservoir. At max flow, empties in 14 hrs. Even in Zoob land the municipal water pumps, the hospitals, the grocery stores, the farms and factories and street lights and police stations and movie theaters all use more than a few dozen kWh per month.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station

Sounds like some hospitals, grocery stores, et al, had better get up to green-speed.

 

[zoobyshoe]

MOX reactor fuel and reprocessing of spent reactor fuel are two different things. MOX requires plutonium as a source, which can come from various sources, retired military nuclear weapons, overseas recovered plutonium. At one point a majority of US reactors were burning, in part, the plutonium from Soviet weapons. For years.

Thanks. That clears it up.

 

[mheslep]

Why? Those are the things that allow a civilization to make people relatively healthy, safe, prosperous and, well, not Haiti. Pumped water is not private jet travel, and requires a certain amount of energy.

There's always a shack in the woods for those compelled to go 18th century peasant.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Utility scale energy storage is not like warehouse space that one can simply run out and rent when the basement gets full. The technology for the scale of economicly suitable storage required must be invented first; it does not exist. There is cause for solar and wind advocates to waive away this problem, since if the technology of large scale storage became available, it's cost is almost certain to be large relative to the existing cost of power, and that cost would become prominent. Then comes an end to throw away lines about the low cost of solar, as the high cost of solar plus storage becomes new starting point.

Exactly.

But, it should be pointed out that some few utilities have already incurred that "high cost" in pumped storage (pumped hydro) for the purpose of simply not wasting the fossil energy they have to make at the "wrong" time. The mismatch between time of generation and time of demand already exists in the fossil grid, and solutions have been 'pioneered,' at least, but probably better than pioneered. I think 'invention from scratch' is not quite the situation. No one has ever piped hydrogen around the country, but we have piped oil and gas and water. Some meaningful percentage of that know-how will carry over into solving the new problem.

Solar and wind people have to start thinking of large scale storage in terms of much longer periods of time. 24 hours of storage is a joke. You have to start thinking about months. Smaller storage units have to feed into a strategy of larger storage, rather than end up interfering with it later.

As it is, solar and wind seem to the best thing going for fossil fuel power, as where there is someof the former there is a lot of the latter, and for a long time. An alternative scenario of 80% nuclear would demolish fossil fuel power, as it did in France, Sweden, Switzerland, putting real fear in our fossil fuel interests.

This site:https://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/World-Statistics says 11% of the world's electricity is now generated by nuclear. A figure given in various places for how many years we have left of nuclear fuel at current rate of usage is 230 years. So, if electricity were now 22% nuclear, we'd have 115 years of fuel left, If it were 44%, then 57.5 years left, if it were 88%, 28.75 years left. The more nuclear plants you add, obviously, the faster you consume your remaining fuel. That's just electricity, not all energy needs. And that's today's electricity needs: I assume we'll be consuming more and more per annum as time goes by, rather than less. No breeder reactors = no nuclear utopia. The longer you go without breeder reactors, the faster you use up the best fuel.

 

[acidmatic]

when one resource runs out, another will takes its place. solar maybe, power densities per area are increasing (aka efficiency). surface area for solar are a key constraint.

a skyscraper that powers itself?? but only until the sun goes down, then the whole building becomes dark and cold :(

the flip side, oil hoarders love solar, why? because solar can offset the massive use of oil thus slowing down the pumping of oil, so instead of $20 billion a month for the next 150 yrs, they have $5billion a month for the next ~400yrs.

oil will be around for a long time even with the introduction of newer/better technologies in large salt water batteries, solar, wind, nuke, coal, plant fuels, etc.

Completely agree... It's similar to the current situation with cars... Hybrids. Most of them run on electricity + petrol. Technology is developing gradually just like anything else in our Universe.

 

[OmCheeto]

...
There's always a shack in the woods for those compelled to go 18th century peasant.

I call those people "worm eaters".

Can't cut down trees. Can't eat meat. Can't do this. Can't do that.

I always think to myself;
"Where do tree huggers live, and what do they eat?
Ah ha! They live in their parent's crawl spaces, and eat worms."

As far as your laundry list of "other" users goes:

municipal water pumps
hospitals
grocery stores
farms
factories
street lights
police stations
movie theaters​

Umm... As I've said before; "I ain't god, and I ain't got time to micro-analyze and come up with a solution to every stinkin' little problem."

ps. I believe Russ said "street lights" were a prime candidate for solar. I'm pretty sure the solar panels I inherited from my dad were from oceanic bouys. Kind of the same thing. Still pumping out plenty of trons, even after 20+ years.

 

[zoobyshoe]

And it assumes all 'Diegans consume at a Zoob rate.
Which might be difficult, as even I can't do that.
(pats Zoob on the back)

Thanks!
But for humans you should figure in AC in the summer and an all-electric household, the goal being to replace our dual gas/electric system entirely.

I have to tell you that most people I know in San Diego do not even bother turning on any heat in the winter! 60 ºF feels pleasantly cool to them, so they might throw on a sweater at most. I start shivering and my teeth chatter at 72 ºF. On the other hand, I find AC has an unpleasant clammy quality that gives me a headache if I sit in it for over 30 minutes, so I cool with fans in the summer. Desert heat is dry heat, and feels 20 degrees cooler than eastern humid heat.

 

[mfb]

A figure given in various places for how many years we have left of nuclear fuel at current rate of usage is 230 years.

At the current price and current way to use it. Breeding would increase that number massively. Thorium would increase it again.
The current uranium reserves with the current way to use it don't last long simply because there is no need to save uranium. The reactors can use the uranium that is the most readily availabe, in the most wasteful way - because there is no shortage of uranium.
This has been mentioned multiple times already.

The mismatch between time of generation and time of demand already exists in the fossil grid

At a much smaller scale, and you can plan ahead to reduce the mismatch.
Hydro can be a nice storage method, but the number of places where it is cheap is very limited. You can't store a significant fraction of the daily or weekly electricity consumption there in most countries.

 

[OmCheeto]

Thanks!
But for humans you should figure in AC in the summer and an all-electric household, the goal being to replace our dual gas/electric system entirely.

I have to tell you that most people I know in San Diego do not even bother turning on any heat in the winter! 60 ºF feels pleasantly cool to them, so they might throw on a sweater at most. I start shivering and my teeth chatter at 72 ºF. On the other hand, I find AC has an unpleasant clammy quality that gives me a headache if I sit in it for over 30 minutes, so I cool with fans in the summer. Desert heat is dry heat, and feels 20 degrees cooler than eastern humid heat.

Although Wolram started the thread out with "spray on" solar "PV" technology, my experiments in solar "thermal" indicate that you could probably heat your dwelling very inexpensively with such a unit. As you may have seen, my San Diego sister talked me into building one a couple of years ago. I told her it was just an idea, and I hadn't worked out all the details, but she insisted; "Stop thinking about it, and build one!". So I did. Fortunately, it was only $100 for all of the components, and would probably have generated quite a lot of energy. Unfortunately, solar energy in the winter here is a bit scarce so I've never used it. I haven't even bothered testing it, as I haven't even bothered finishing it. From Oct 1st of last year through May 1st of this year, it rained an average of 4 out of 5 days. (I'm guessing this is why we have lower electrical rates. It acts as an anti-depressant for all this flirpin' cloudy weather...)

But anyways, from my somewhat simple equations, my sister could heat her house with two of my units.
She used 941 kwh worth of natural gas therms for heating in February of this year, and one of my units has a theoretical output of 600 kwh per average month. In San Diego of course.
Theoretical output in Portland is zero!

Total DIY cost: ≈$300.
Cost of her heating and hot water (1345 kwh of natural gas) from SDG&E: $20.28 (again, Feb 2017)
Good grief! ≈1.5¢/kwh natural gas

It's no wonder I'm broke, and everyone says I'm stoopid...

ps. It looks as though she would require a third unit to heat her water in February.

pps. Obligatory graph:

 

[OmCheeto]

Of course, if my heating costs had only been 10% of their historical values, I'd never have calculated that $4000 worth of insulation would have saved me $700 per year. (Payback time: ≈6 years)
(I thought I was going to be a "house flipper" 28 years ago, and opted just to only install the minimum.)

And scratching my head about why Zoob's e-bill is so comparatively low, prompted me to google, and find out that buying a brandy new refrigerator, rather than keeping my 2nd hand refrigerator, would have a payback time of 3.4 years.

current Omic fridge: 1350 kwh/yr
$400 new fridge: 300 kwh/yr [ref]

@ PDX rates, of course.

ps. @wolram , thank you for this thread.

 

[zoobyshoe]

one of my units has a theoretical output of 600 kwh per average month. In San Diego of course.

I don't recall this project. Link me, please.

$4000 worth of insulation would have saved me $700 per year. (Payback time: ≈6 years)

When I lived in Minnesota, I observed this to be a common problem: people did not have adequate insulation on their (decades old) homes. And that caused unnecessarily high heating bills.

current Omic fridge: 1350 kwh/yr
$400 new fridge: 300 kwh/yr

Yes, my fridge is only about 4 years old. It replaced an older energy hog. A kWh saved is a kWh earned.

Which brings me to the question of why it ends up being easier to engineer and build a pumped hydro plant in Michigan (or anywhere they've built one) than it seems to be to engineer and build an electricity generation system that you can 'turn down' when demand is low. What are the obstacles to that?

 

[OmCheeto]

I don't recall this project. Link me, please.

No wonder. It's a bit old.

Is now a good time to invest in solar? [ref: PF]

Om
Aug 25, 2010, 08:09 AM
...

I did an experiment last summer using 1/2 inch 100' long black irrigation hose and a $22 bilge pump. The system collected ~2.3 kwh of thermal energy in about 3.5 hours.
...
Some numbers:
flow: 1.6 gpm (~ 24 watts pump)
area of hose: 0.27 m^2
system fluid capacity: 32 gallons
max delta T / hr: 11 'F
To = 61.7'F
Tf = 90.9'F

Eek! Late for work. BBL.​

Basically, it just proved that you get ≈1 kilowatt of "thermal" power from 1 square meter of black stuff.

When I lived in Minnesota, I observed this to be a common problem: people did not have adequate insulation on their (decades old) homes. And that caused unnecessarily high heating bills.

Yes, my fridge is only about 4 years old. It replaced an older energy hog. A kWh saved is a kWh earned.

Which brings me to the question of why it ends up being easier to engineer and build a pumped hydro plant in Michigan (or anywhere they've built one) than it seems to be to engineer and build an electricity generation system that you can 'turn down' when demand is low. What are the obstacles to that?

I would answer, but I have not a clue.

 

[mfb]

Which brings me to the question of why it ends up being easier to engineer and build a pumped hydro plant in Michigan (or anywhere they've built one) than it seems to be to engineer and build an electricity generation system that you can 'turn down' when demand is low. What are the obstacles to that?

Thermal cycles are bad for the materials in big power plants.
Even if you can build a power plant that doesn't have that issue, it is still wasteful. Plant construction and fixed operation cost is the dominant cost of nuclear power and still the largest part for coal. The marginal cost of running the plants is small.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Thermal cycles are bad for the materials in big power plants.

This is something that would never have occurred to me. Why worse for materials in big power plants, as opposed to, say, the common car engine?

Even if you can build a power plant that doesn't have that issue, it is still wasteful. Plant construction and fixed operation cost is the dominant cost of nuclear power and still the largest part for coal. The marginal cost of running the plants is small.

What about natural gas? I found out that the "peaker" plants that serve my local utility are natural gas and use gas turbines. I googled gas turbines and it said:

Another significant advantage is their ability to be turned on and off within minutes, supplying power during peak, or unscheduled, demand. Since single cycle (gas turbine only) power plants are less efficient than combined cycle plants, they are usually used as peaking power plants, which operate anywhere from several hours per day to a few dozen hours per year—depending on the electricity demand and the generating capacity of the region. In areas with a shortage of base-load andload following power plant capacity or with low fuel costs, a gas turbine powerplant may regularly operate most hours of the day. A large single-cycle gas turbine typically produces 100 to 400 megawatts of electric power and has 35–40% thermal efficiency.[36]

So, our "peaker" plants can only be turned off and on because they are single cycle gas turbines: Hence, only 35-40% efficient because they don't recover the waste heat.

So, this makes me wonder what other ways of recovering the waste heat could be developed that also can be turned on and off quickly. Of course the first thing that comes to mind is a stirling engine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

The claim is made in that article: "Stirling engines have a high efficiency compared to steam engines,[4] being able to reach 50% efficiency." The heat recovery steam generator mentioned in the article achieved a 62.22% efficiency rate, so the Stirling is not miserably far behind.

Which sounds good enough to start mentally exploring scenarios. A combined cycle gas turbine/stirling engine would have that quick on-off capability. The cost of the fuel wasted may be small, but there is its finite nature to consider.

 

[mfb]

This is something that would never have occurred to me. Why worse for materials in big power plants, as opposed to, say, the common car engine?

In a car engine you cannot avoid it, you make it more robust and tolerate a lower efficiency and a higher price (compared to a car that would break down after a month).

Gas turbines are more expensive to operate and have a lower efficiency. They are a bit like cars in that aspect.

The cost of the fuel wasted may be small, but there is its finite nature to consider.

And the CO2 emissions. Both are relevant for fossil fuels only. As discussed, there is more than enough uranium.

Stirling engines are difficult to scale up to gigawatts of power.

 

[mheslep]

The mismatch between time of generation and time of demand already exists in the fossil grid, and solutions have been 'pioneered,

Yes, dispatchable power, i.e. [power with an on/off switch that works any time, night/day, winter/summer. Intermittent power like solar is so named because it has no such switch.

 

[rootone]

Depending on how 'green' you want your power supply infrastructure to be,
I'm sure that a large diverse nation as the US could set up a reliable 2O% or so from a variety of solar,wind, hydro, and tidal.

 

[mheslep]

Depending on how 'green' you want your power supply infrastructure to be,
I'm sure that a large diverse nation as the US could set up a reliable 2O% or so from a variety of solar,wind, hydro, and tidal.

Solar and wind could hit 20% in the US, at substantial cost, because it means for the most part leaving the fossil fleet in place and running it a bit less, but not replacing it. And to what end? Cutting *global* GHG emissions means adopting an affordable clean energy plan that can ~80% of emissions, and one that the developing world can use, in India, Vietnam, Philippines, etc. There's only one technology available that can make it happen, close fossil fuel plants. Its not solar/
&wind.