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Offshore wind to become a $1T industry
- tim333 7y agoRelated, they've figured it could generate 100% of present electricity needs https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/25/business/offshore-wind-energy/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/25/business/offshore-wind-en...
- toomuchtodo 7y agoWith solar penetration increasing fast, and so much wind potential, it’s almost impossible not to transition off of fossil fuels rapidly. The economics are just too good to ignore. Storage isn't even an issue; we'll overbuild renewables and curtail as needed, which is cheap now (under 2 cents/kwh) and works until batteries come down in cost (which will happen).
- danans 7y agoWhat will stand in the way, at least for a bit, are interests that have tied their outlook to fossil fuels. In the case of transportation, its the oil industry down to the local gas stations. I think we should work from the bottom up to turn this case around. Incentivize gas stations to install rapid chargers, which will help to shift car buyers' mindsets. IIRC, gas stations make very little margin on gas anyways.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoI think about it the other way. Use land regulation to no longer permit zoning, permitting, or construction of gas new stations. If existing gas stations think they can compete as a place EVs will come charge, let them install vehicle charging hardware. More likely, gas stations lose out to places people will be at anyway to charge (grocery stores, work places, parking lots/structures, etc). I already Supercharge my Model S at the local grocery store if I've been driving more often than my 120V garage wall outlet can recover in range over a day or two (currently renting; when I buy, I'll pull 100amp service to the garage and never need to Supercharge locally again). Where do cars dwell for hours each day already (average vehicle isn't moving 90% of the time)? That's where you get chargers installed. The electricity and parking spots are usually already there, it's just a matter of getting the conduit, conductors, power conversion gear on site, installed, and painting and signing the parking spaces as EV only. In an EV future, gas stations are (mostly) a relic (IMHO). Think of the real estate cost savings, the reduction in truck traffic to deliver fuel, etc!
- saagarjha 7y ago> More likely, gas stations lose out to places people will be at anyway to charge (grocery stores, work places, parking lots/structures, etc). This isn’t economically practical unless you have subsidized charging. It’s significantly cheaper to charge my car at home than it is to use some random public charger.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoWe're not comparing home charging to fast charging though. We're comparing fast charging locations to other fast charging locations. Home charging is absolutely going to be cheaper due to no demand charges, but for where people elect to fast charge, you colocate where they will already be. At work places, you would want to provide charging current rates as high as possible without incurring demand charges. This is not to hand wave away street parking charging! This is definitely an issue, but there have been great strides in developing charging stations for street use (integrated into light poles, for example). Does you locale have Dig Once policies (call to action: get involved locally if they do not!)? Throw some fiber in there while you're upgrading street power! At home, I charge using power from Exelon's nuclear fleet at 1-6 cents/kwh (Time of Use plan). I want to stress: most people will plug in every time they arrive at home and charge at home. You will leave your house every day with a full charge by doing so. Supercharging costs me ~30 cents/kwh, so $10-15 for an 80% charge. Regardless, the costs are so low I don't care either way, I come out ahead versus gasoline (previously $40-60 per fill up) no matter how I charge. I literally don't even think about it when Tesla dings my credit card for Supercharging. It is annoying to use a J1772 public charger (install adapter, swipe Chargepoint card, troubleshoot why the station isn't providing current), so I avoid using those whenever possible. In the US, you are never more than 150 miles from a Tesla Supercharger, and of course the network will continue to grow over time: https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
- danans 7y agoA motivating example for this is someone who drives the 80 miles from Austin TX to San Antonio to spend the day with friends. With only a 150mi range EV, a 15-20 min fast charge would be enough to comfortably do the return trip that same day without range anxiety. Existing gas stations (or parking lots) could serve that use case, which is fairly common in the US, where mid distance trips are almost completely car based. Today, they could charge the same or lower price/mile-of-range as gasoline and make a large margin, since electricity is less than half the price of gasoline per mile (at retail prices, there's an even bigger difference with wholesale prices).
- danans 7y agoHot off the press, looks like someone just did this: https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773446805/gas-station-converts-to-electric-charging-station-and-speeds-ahead-of-curve https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773446805/gas-station-convert...
- ThomPete 7y agoThere are a number of misunderstandings when it comes to wind and solar I wish more people were aware of. Wind and solar is only electricity. Electricity is 15-20 percent of our energy needs. Wind and solar needs backup sources from either gas, coal, nuclear or oil because of the intermittency issue and low capacity factor. Regardless of whether solar cells become cheaper, it makes energy more expensive as a whole because it makes the energy system more complex and as many might have learned in physics, starting up something take more energy than when it's up and running. This is true for coal plants too and with wind and solar being highly fluctuating and with highly fluctuating demands on the backup sources. The use of fossil fuel is increasing not decreasing more than wind and solar. You can't make either windmills or solar cells without fossil fuel. Wind and solar is only 1% of the worlds energy not projected to be much more than 3-4% in 2040. https://www.iea.org/weo/?fbclid=IwAR2LwDYcozvpGCOa3bIi2ieMbjuykZb0HY-p3ZByxMXDEIfH36ydeYbVaxs https://www.iea.org/weo/?fbclid=IwAR2LwDYcozvpGCOa3bIi2ieMbj... In other words, fossil fuels aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 7y agoElectricity can replace most energy needs. Whatever is left should be minimal (~5% total oil consumption, air travel, chemical processing, steel coking, etc). Coal and nuclear are already not cost competitive, if natural gas can't compete with batteries, it too will be left as a stranded asset. Natural gas is a perfect fit now for renewables, it throttles very fast and ramps every night for the steep duck curve in California. Batteries are even faster. Hundreds of GWs of annual battery production coming online across the world.
- ThomPete 7y agoFossil fuels are used for thousands of products everything from medicine to concrete to asphalt to pesticides, to solar cells, to windmills and machinery and manufacturing, etc. We are not even close to having the battery technology that will work with most things we use fossil fuels for today let alone replace the other products that come from fossil fuels. Fuel Cells are not even on the drawing board let alone at scale. With regard to nuclear, it's expensive because it's being demonized which creates all sorts of extra requirements which is part of what make it more expensive. Furhtermore nuclear is calculated at actual cost neither wind or solar is.
- vkou 7y ago> With solar penetration increasing fast, and so much wind potential, it’s almost impossible not to transition off of fossil fuels rapidly. How rapidly is it, really? Solar, wind, and geothermal currently supply 6% of global on-grid electricity consumption. But on-grid electricity is only 20% of our energy consumption. Every year, the rate of growth in coal and oil energy is greater than that of all solar deployment world-wide. The rate of growth in natural gas energy consumption is greater than that of all wind deployment world-wide. Let this sink in. The increase in the amount of fossil fuels that we burn, year, over-year, is greater than that of all existing solar and wind energy deployment. Wind and solar deployment is growing fast. But you know what's growing an order of magnitude faster? Fossil fuel use.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoEmail in profile. I am happy to discuss at length the path forward, but this thread is not the forum. Boils down to market forces and public policy. We are awash in clean energy.
- ThomPete 7y agoWind and solar is less then 1% of worlds energy today and not projected to be more than 3-4% in 2040. My guess is that it won't even be 2% by 2040.
- throwaway5752 7y agoPlastics, other chemicals, and energy density are problematic. I am a huge proponent of renewables but density, distribution, and inability (as of yet) to economically replace chemical feedstocks are the biggest issues I see.
- SEJeff 7y agoOne approach for renewable energy not always being available is molten salt: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012018/csp-concentrated-solar-molten-salt-storage-24-hour-renewable-energy-crescent-dunes-nevada https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012018/csp-concentrated... It heats the salt up to 1050 degrees where it is essentially a liquid and uses that to produce steam to turn a turbine.
- xbmcuser 7y agoWe can also use the excess energy to do carbon capture as I think world moving off carbon wont be fast enough so using excess renewable energy in the future to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
- riffraff 7y agoWhile I would love for that to happen,I still haven't seen an obvious plan on how we're going to manage millions of electric cars in high density cities. It seems it will take decades before we have a pervasive enough grid, or effective charging techniques.
- achow 7y agoActually more than that.. But the maximum potential for offshore wind production is more than 120,000 gigawatts, or 11 times projected global electricity demand in 2040..
- ncmncm 7y agoUndersea storage of compressed air, as an alternative to batteries, needs no technological advances. Just air pumps, pipes, and bags. Heat lost to the water (maybe half of the energy input to compressed air) could be reclaimed as the pressure is released, with simple heat exchangers.
- thehappypm 7y agoIt is a major challenge to have functioning mechanical equipment in a salty, high-pressure aquatic environment.
- privateSFacct 7y agoCame to say this. I always want to hear the maintenance story on wave power systems but the never seem to release it as well.
- generatorguy 7y agoThey’ve already got wind turbines and offshore oil rigs. The compressed air as stored energy under the sea idea uses Kevlar bladders anchored to the sea floor with a hose or pipe going to the surface. It’s not really that far fetched.
- bilbo0s 7y agoHuh? No it's not. It's a solved problem. Has been at least since way back when I was at Halliburton. In fact, they're almost the same pumps, mechanically speaking.
- nradov 7y agoHow much time have you spent underwater? Such schemes are totally unrealistic maintenance nightmares due to corrosion, encrustation, storms, and difficulty of site access.
- simonebrunozzi 7y agoWhy would you store it at sea instead of storing it just onshore?
- kitd 7y agoAs a fun aside, the largest offshore wind farm in the world has just been opened off the UK's east coast. Just a single rotation of one of the 174 turbines can provide an average house with its electricity needs for a day. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/25/business/worlds-largest-wind-farm/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/25/business/worlds-largest-w...
- achow 7y agoThat's a very interesting trivia. The size comparison: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/13/14/4D2F6ADC00000578-5838555-With_an_enormous_505_foot_154_metre_wingspan_each_turbine_is_lar-a-23_1528895401905.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/13/14/4D2F6ADC000...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- skrebbel 7y agoBecause it's Friday night, here's some additional, off-topic, trivia: http://superset.eu/abraj.jpg http://superset.eu/abraj.jpg That's the Daily Mail's windmill size picture, set beside the Abraj Al-Bait. My hobby is pointing out the existence of this building to people. Please forgive the jpg artifacts and the horrible photoshopping, but the point is, this is to scale. (give or take a few %) Now, it's not the worlds tallest building per say, but certainly the most collosal thing ever made by mankind. Of course (where else) in Saudi Arabia. As shown schematically in the image, its dimensions are insane x nuts x wtf. EDIT: fix image link
- Gabriel_Martin 7y agoToo bad our "fiscal conservatives" will let the opportunity slip away.
- sbhn 7y agoOffshore wind is a land/sea grab
- 40acres 7y agoHow many offshore wind farms are there in the US? I heard a radio story a while back about some homeowners in New England pushing back against a proposed wind farm for aesthetic reasons -- not a surprising development but I must say I didn't consider it when thinking about proliferation of turbines.
- notadog 7y agoAs of September 2019, the American Wind Energy Association claims there is only one. [1] > The U.S. currently has one operational offshore wind project with many more on the way. The nation’s first commercial offshore wind project, the Block Island Wind Farm, came online in December 2016. Developed by Deepwater Wind, the Block Island Wind Farm is a 30 megawatt (MW) project with five turbines located three miles off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island. > According to the Department of Energy, the U.S. has a total project pipeline of 25,434 MW of offshore wind energy as of June 2018. This pipeline includes 3,892 MW of project-specific capacity and 21,542 MW of undeveloped lease area potential capacity. Out of this pipeline, project developers have announced that roughly 2,000 MW of new offshore wind capacity is expected to be operational by 2023. States including Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have completed solicitations for nearly 1,770 MW of offshore wind energy, and additional soliciations are planned for the near future. > The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has issued twelve active commercial wind energy leases to date. Another four projects have submitted unsolicited lease applications to BOEM, while four demonstration projects have obtained exclusive development rights to a site from federal or state authorities. While a majority of the nearer-term activity is concentrated in the Atlantic off the Northeast coast, projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, in the Pacific off of California and Hawaii, and the Great Lakes. > With stable policies in place, the Department of Energy found the U.S. could develop a total of 22 GW of offshore wind projects by 2030 and 86 GW by 2050. As we continue to develop this homegrown resource, costs will continue to drop, value to consumers will grow, and the U.S. will see new jobs and investments in manufacturing and port infrastructure. [1] https://www.awea.org/Awea/media/About-AWEA/U-S-Offshore-Wind-Fact-Sheet-September-2018_2.pdf https://www.awea.org/Awea/media/About-AWEA/U-S-Offshore-Wind...
- hannob 7y ago
- pithymaxim 7y agoIs the headline figure here actually kind of small? | The IEA finds that global offshore wind capacity may increase 15-fold and attract around $1 trillion of <<cumulative>> investment by 2040. Averaged over the next 20 years, that's $50 billion per year, or 2.5 percent of oil and gas revenues in 2017[0], or 7 percent of what was invested in oil and gas supply in 2016[1]. I could be thinking about this wrong but it seems like there numbers could have been much more encouraging. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030915/what-percentage-global-economy-comprised-oil-gas-drilling-sector.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030915/what-percent... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iea-energy-investment/electricity-investments-surpass-oil-gas-for-second-year-running-iea-idUSKBN1K70KB https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iea-energy-investment/ele...
- dev_dull 7y agoOut of curiosity, what would happen to you if you were swimming in the water nearby and a transmission cable was exposed to seawater? What path would the electricity take in the vastness of open sea?
- prof_mm 7y agoThere would be no electricity, since the automatic safety systems should detect such a failure and break the circuits, similar to what should happen if a cable fails in your bathroom. But assume not, to make it interesting. The way of shortest resistance is probably still through the cable. Or it would all go into the ground. I doubt that there would be any danger to a swimmer (that is not too close). Note that such cables are buried in the ground to protect them, or rocks are deposited on top of them.
- dev_dull 7y agoThank you for indulging my curiosity!
- Animats 7y agoWhen you look this up, you find more estimates than actuals. Wikipedia shows world offshore wind capacity at 18GW as of 1997. If that's nameplate capacity, average output is less, maybe half. There are at least 10 individual nuclear plants in the world with 4GW output or more. Offshore wind is cheap, but you need dispatchable power or really big batteries somewhere. Tesla's big battery in Australia is about 129MWH. That's enough storage to replace a 12 hour wind lull for 5 large offshore turbines. The battery to wind turbine ratio needs to increase if wind power provides a large fraction of energy.