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The goal is very noble and I'm all for it, but there is this problem that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, and electricity isn't i
by Luyt 15y ago
The goal is very noble and I'm all for it, but there is this problem that the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, and electricity isn't infinitely transportable, nor easily stored.
- yid 15y agoInteresting cadence to your comment, but the same could have been said of petroleum infrastructure before we had petroleum infrastructure.
- melling 15y agoSomewhere the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. I can guarantee that Google will have at least one data center somewhere will one of these two cases will hold true.
- elbrodeur 15y agoThere are serious hurdles to decoupling ourselves from coal, but none of them are insurmountable. At least not hypothetically. :) One interesting idea I've heard in regards to storing electricity is using electric cars as batteries. Granted, this would require a massive retooling of our grid and our transportation system -- not to mention the question of where we will find all the resources to make so many batteries -- but it's still interesting. What's troubling to me is all the sensationalism surrounding nuclear, which seems to suffer from lots of near-religious objections. Nuclear is dangerous but even in the worst scenarios (like the Fukushima Daiichi plant) the damage is far less onerous than the continued operation of coal plants.
- xal 15y agoall the batteries that we have ever build combined cannot store 10 minutes of the electricity that we currently use. We need order of magnitude breakthrough with batteries first.
- rosser 15y agoAn article posted to HN some time back: http://www.fastcompany.com/1708167/how-to-make-lithium-batteries-last-ten-times-longer-incorporate-a-plant-virus http://www.fastcompany.com/1708167/how-to-make-lithium-batte... Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1986640 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1986640 Summary: Infusing Li-based batteries with the Tobacco Mosaic virus could boost their storage capacity up to 10x. There's one order of magnitude...
- bobo888 15y agoUsually a hydro power plant is used as a "battery". When the demand is low, the electricity produced by wind/solar power plants is used to pump the water uphill. When the demand is high, the hydro power plant releases that water to produce energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped_hydro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped_hydro
- Luyt 15y agoThat works in Norway, but would it work all over the globe?
- jbm 15y agoThey do it in Japan, and I think they do it in Quebec. Don't quote me on the second one. They had to have rotating power outages for a week or two in Japan after the earthquake because of the need to replenish those reserves.
- sixtofour 15y agoAnd the tank is not always full, nor the hopper. Requiring 100% replacement/utility is not a useful position. If we want to reduce (notice I didn't say eliminate) use of fossil fuels, then we have to pursue a mix (including fossil fuels). Edit: You didn't actually require 100%, but this edit is an easier correction than a correction.
- justatdotin 15y agoI don't see much reliable wind, but the sun shines pretty regularly where I'm sitting... electricity is easily stored for short (12hr) periods.
- patrickgzill 15y agoSomeone I know who runs a nonprofit related to helping remote fishing villages and the like in his Asian country, claims supercapacitors are less than 5 years away. "If" that is true, then a time-shifting bank of such supercapacitors could presumably solve the very real issues you raise.
- karamazov 15y agoWhat do remote villages in Asia have to do with supercapacitors?
- patrickgzill 15y agoHe is someone who works full time in researching alternative energy solutions for those fishing villages. Wind or solar solutions that he specifies have to be rugged and easily maintained without access to fancy tools, and batteries can wear out quickly in high-temperature environments. Thus he has been researching supercapacitors.
- hugh3 15y agoSupercapacitors are less than five years away, and have been that way for at least ten years now.
- jws 15y agoIn the near term, the sun shines during peak usage hours. It doesn't need to be stored until it is a significant fraction of production. The other no-storage option is to retain water at hydro facilities during the day and use more at night to balance the solar production. That gives us plenty of time to see if the liquid metal battery will work out, or to start building reservoir pairs.
- lwat 15y agoWe need cheaper battery storage more than anything I think.