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I wholly agree with your start - let's do it. The best example we have so far is the Orkneys. Tiny, but a nett power exporter built on renewables, and managing

I wholly agree with your start - let's do it. The best example we have so far is the Orkneys. Tiny, but a nett power exporter built on renewables, and managing easily. A proper example is sorely needed. Kit out a nation with wholly solar, wind, hydro etc. Add whatever pumped storage and battery the grid might require. Start moving to modern standards of insulation and community heat and power schemes. Stable, secure, and cheaper heat and power. If, as you claim, there is a gap in the capability of renewables (which I don't believe for a moment), we need to learn how large it is, as soon as possible. I suspect it's only vested interests stopping us.

ThomPete 7y ago
Wind and solar produced electricity. Electricity is a subset of energy (around 20% i think) Last summer in Denmark was amazing. The best we have had in a long time, the result was that the wind didn't blow wich meant no energy. So Denmark had to buy their energy from Germany, another country who is all in on trying to use alternatives. Of course that couldnt' deliver and instead they got energy from coal. There is so much misinformation going on when it comes to how wonderful solar and wind is. The reality is that they are less than 1% of the worlds energy production and not projected to be more than around 30% in 2040. In short. You are as wrong as you can be with regards to your believe in wind and solar. Hydro is better but only works in some places.
- CalRobert 7y ago
  Shame they couldn't buy it from France.
  - himlion 7y ago
    That's why a lot of big power lines between European nations are being upgraded so the grid will become more flexible in the future.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Solar growth projections vs reality: https://steinbuch.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/photovoltaic-growth-reality-versus-projections-of-the-international-energy-agency/ https://steinbuch.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/photovoltaic-grow... Electricity can be used to replace all uses of energy we have today more or less economically. AFAIK anything but airplanes has replacements that are as good or better than the fossil fuel variant. Problematic are things like concrete and steel production, where we don't have good replacements yet.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    Bear in mind that solar capacity and actually fulfilling electricity demand from that capacity are two very different things. The capacity factor of solar is between 20-30% as compared to >50% for fossil fuels and >90% for nuclear [1]. Hydrogen powered aircraft are hypothesized, but require lightweight hydrogen vessels. Maritime vessels can only be feasibly powered by nuclear power. The energy density of batteries is orders of magnitude less than fossil fuels, and sail boats cannot feasibly fulfill demand for shipping. There's a very strong aversion to nuclear energy, so we'll probably be burning fossil fuels in ships for a long time. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_factor_of_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_facto...
    - adrianN 7y ago
      Ships can probably be run off hydrogen, and if that is impossible for some reason you can always make synthetic fuels. Airplanes could also run off synthetic fuels, but since airplane emissions are actually a lot worse than just their CO2 output, that is not a good solution.
      - manfredo 7y ago
        Hydrogen has good energy per kilogram, but bad energy per square meter even in its liquid form [1]. Liquid hydrogen is less than 10 times as dense as water. Synthetic fuels either require considerably greater arable land and water consumption to grow biofuel, or the use of things like algae cultivation and accelerated decomposition. It's probably more effective on a $ / CO2 mass basis to just sequester carbon and keep using refined fossil fuels. Airplanes account for a single digit fraction of the CO2 emissions from transportation, though, as their mass and drag are both tiny as compared to cargo ships. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Energy_density.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Ene... Reply to your post below, HN is not letting me respond: Those synthetic fuels are effectively the same as biofuels. You're using energy to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere (or a body of water, in the case of algae based biofuels) and using that carbon to power a machine. You can either do this by using electricity generated from another artificial power source, as in your example. Or you can do this by harnessing natural energy, like setting up transparent pipes to collect solar energy into algae or by farming biomass on land. Since most energy decarbonization plans assume modest energy consumption growth, and sometimes even an overall energy consumption reduction the former plan is less feasible than harnessing naturally occurring energy.
- trekrich 7y ago
  And Germany has spent so much money on wind and solar, and has not done a very good job of it.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  Correction 3-4% in 2040! In other words not even close to being a realistic alternative.
macspoofing 7y ago
>The best example we have so far is the Orkneys. Orkneys is a tiny (20k) region, that is connected to the national grid. That's how they solve their intermittency. That they produce excess energy during peak, is fine and dandy, but that's not what we're trying to solve here. >Add whatever pumped storage and battery the grid might require. Woah woah woah woah. You just yadda-yadda over the MOST important part. You know, the thing that makes solar/wind unworkable. Pumped storage requires very specific geography and huge land-use. It is not a general purpose answer. And there is no battery technology to power a modern city (much less a nation) for even minutes, much less weeks. Now what? >I suspect it's only vested interests stopping us. No. It's not. It really isn't.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  I specifically called out their being tiny. Which is why we need a larger scale example. Nevertheless, despite having the interconnect they are a nett exporter each year, and at the export capacity of that interconnect. Being tiny there is nowhere to put pumped storage, yet they are already using a smart grid managing household, and I think EV batteries. So yeah, they use the grid as storage. Of course pumped storage, and other storage is a general purpose answer. You don't need 100% capacity to power a nation for weeks. Chances of no sun at all, no rain and empty rivers, and no wind across the whole British Isles, or Europe, including offshore? Nil. So now it needs an appropriate balance of sources, and storage. I don't know what that is in TWh, but I know with certainty it is not "running a nation for weeks". In reasonable terms, some mix of new projects like Dinorwig, that can run for about 6 hours at max power, battery, managed battery and the more exotic like power to hydrogen - already in use in Orkney, and molten salt that can cover some period far less than weeks will be the right answer.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    A house with a solar panel can be a net exporter. So can an island tied to a larger grid. It is completely orthogonal to the intermittency problem mentioned. The grid isn't "storage". And yes, Orkney is tiny, but it also needs proportionally less storage.

ThomPete 7y ago

Wind and solar produced electricity. Electricity is a subset of energy (around 20% i think) Last summer in Denmark was amazing. The best we have had in a long time, the result was that the wind didn't blow wich meant no energy. So Denmark had to buy their energy from Germany, another country who is all in on trying to use alternatives. Of course that couldnt' deliver and instead they got energy from coal. There is so much misinformation going on when it comes to how wonderful solar and wind is. The reality is that they are less than 1% of the worlds energy production and not projected to be more than around 30% in 2040. In short. You are as wrong as you can be with regards to your believe in wind and solar. Hydro is better but only works in some places.

CalRobert 7y ago
Shame they couldn't buy it from France.
- himlion 7y ago
  That's why a lot of big power lines between European nations are being upgraded so the grid will become more flexible in the future.
adrianN 7y ago
Solar growth projections vs reality: https://steinbuch.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/photovoltaic-growth-reality-versus-projections-of-the-international-energy-agency/ https://steinbuch.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/photovoltaic-grow... Electricity can be used to replace all uses of energy we have today more or less economically. AFAIK anything but airplanes has replacements that are as good or better than the fossil fuel variant. Problematic are things like concrete and steel production, where we don't have good replacements yet.
- manfredo 7y ago
  Bear in mind that solar capacity and actually fulfilling electricity demand from that capacity are two very different things. The capacity factor of solar is between 20-30% as compared to >50% for fossil fuels and >90% for nuclear [1]. Hydrogen powered aircraft are hypothesized, but require lightweight hydrogen vessels. Maritime vessels can only be feasibly powered by nuclear power. The energy density of batteries is orders of magnitude less than fossil fuels, and sail boats cannot feasibly fulfill demand for shipping. There's a very strong aversion to nuclear energy, so we'll probably be burning fossil fuels in ships for a long time. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_factor_of_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_facto...
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Ships can probably be run off hydrogen, and if that is impossible for some reason you can always make synthetic fuels. Airplanes could also run off synthetic fuels, but since airplane emissions are actually a lot worse than just their CO2 output, that is not a good solution.
    - manfredo 7y ago
      Hydrogen has good energy per kilogram, but bad energy per square meter even in its liquid form [1]. Liquid hydrogen is less than 10 times as dense as water. Synthetic fuels either require considerably greater arable land and water consumption to grow biofuel, or the use of things like algae cultivation and accelerated decomposition. It's probably more effective on a $ / CO2 mass basis to just sequester carbon and keep using refined fossil fuels. Airplanes account for a single digit fraction of the CO2 emissions from transportation, though, as their mass and drag are both tiny as compared to cargo ships. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Energy_density.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Ene... Reply to your post below, HN is not letting me respond: Those synthetic fuels are effectively the same as biofuels. You're using energy to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere (or a body of water, in the case of algae based biofuels) and using that carbon to power a machine. You can either do this by using electricity generated from another artificial power source, as in your example. Or you can do this by harnessing natural energy, like setting up transparent pipes to collect solar energy into algae or by farming biomass on land. Since most energy decarbonization plans assume modest energy consumption growth, and sometimes even an overall energy consumption reduction the former plan is less feasible than harnessing naturally occurring energy.
trekrich 7y ago
And Germany has spent so much money on wind and solar, and has not done a very good job of it.
ThomPete 7y ago
Correction 3-4% in 2040! In other words not even close to being a realistic alternative.

macspoofing 7y ago

>The best example we have so far is the Orkneys. Orkneys is a tiny (20k) region, that is connected to the national grid. That's how they solve their intermittency. That they produce excess energy during peak, is fine and dandy, but that's not what we're trying to solve here. >Add whatever pumped storage and battery the grid might require. Woah woah woah woah. You just yadda-yadda over the MOST important part. You know, the thing that makes solar/wind unworkable. Pumped storage requires very specific geography and huge land-use. It is not a general purpose answer. And there is no battery technology to power a modern city (much less a nation) for even minutes, much less weeks. Now what? >I suspect it's only vested interests stopping us. No. It's not. It really isn't.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
I specifically called out their being tiny. Which is why we need a larger scale example. Nevertheless, despite having the interconnect they are a nett exporter each year, and at the export capacity of that interconnect. Being tiny there is nowhere to put pumped storage, yet they are already using a smart grid managing household, and I think EV batteries. So yeah, they use the grid as storage. Of course pumped storage, and other storage is a general purpose answer. You don't need 100% capacity to power a nation for weeks. Chances of no sun at all, no rain and empty rivers, and no wind across the whole British Isles, or Europe, including offshore? Nil. So now it needs an appropriate balance of sources, and storage. I don't know what that is in TWh, but I know with certainty it is not "running a nation for weeks". In reasonable terms, some mix of new projects like Dinorwig, that can run for about 6 hours at max power, battery, managed battery and the more exotic like power to hydrogen - already in use in Orkney, and molten salt that can cover some period far less than weeks will be the right answer.
- mlyle 7y ago
  A house with a solar panel can be a net exporter. So can an island tied to a larger grid. It is completely orthogonal to the intermittency problem mentioned. The grid isn't "storage". And yes, Orkney is tiny, but it also needs proportionally less storage.