7 ms·

I am not an energy expert but isn't 50 gigawatts extremely low? Whats the path forward for replacing our energy consumption on a larger scale?

jazzyjackson 5y ago
total grid capacity listed here [0], looks like 4 million gigawatts, so yes 50 gigawatts is a small change. edit: I'll never get this right. it's 4 trillion kilowatt hours of generation, not kilowatts of capacity. [0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...
- londons_explore 5y ago
  4 trillion kWh != 4 million gigawatts.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  I think you made a conversion mistake, that's too high. That's the equivalent of 4 million nuclear plants.
- stingraycharles 5y ago
  I think it’s 4 million megawatts, not gigawatts. Still a small change, but not as insignificant.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  The problem is none of these articles provide numbers that allow you to grok what's actually going one. Probably because journalists are innumerate. You have a total 4X10^12 kwh/year of production, that's energy. 50 GW that's power. Wtf!!!??? Teasing it out I think. Solar you get probably 5 hours a day. Wind maybe more? eh, lets assume 5 hours. 5 hours a day, 1825 hours a year. So 50GW... lets say 50Mkw instead. 50X10^6 kw X1825 hr/year => 91,250,000,000 kwh/year How does that compare to current production? Percent added is 9.125X10^10/4X10^12 = 0.0228 or 2.23% Seems like a small amount but it's growing exponentially. If it increases by 25% a year then you'll be adding 5% a year of renewables per year in 5 years.
aero-glide2 5y ago
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppable-battery-cavalcade/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppabl...
IshKebab 5y ago
Total power generation capacity in the US is about 1 TW, so it's around 5%. That doesn't seem extremely low to me for one year.
- Synaesthesia 5y ago
  I think it's like 1000TW
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    lol no. That would be 3 MW per person!
- dotancohen 5y ago
  And assuming a near-linear adoption, 20 years sounds about right for replacing a nations entire power-generation industry. Even a bit ambitious for a nation of a few hundred million people with differing goals and viewpoints.
- geenew 5y ago
  Global numbers from last year: "A record 260 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy capacity was added worldwide in 2020, up 50% from the year before, ... Cumulatively, installed global renewable generation capacity amounted to 2,799 GW at the end of 2020, including hydropower. .. The share of renewables in energy generation worldwide now stands at nearly 30%, according to the International Energy Agency and other sources."[1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/record-260-gw-new-renewable-energy-capacity-added-2020-research-2021-04-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/record-260-gw-new-re... edit: removed a reference to wiki for global energy production (wiki is in TWh, not TW)
  - igravious 5y ago
    > Global numbers from last year: […] in 2020 eh? did you mean to say the year before last? According to https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy the energy mix in renewables in 2020 was, in order: Hydropower: 4355.04 Wind: 1590.19 Solar: 844.39 Others, inc. bioenergy: 702.89 To me it seems like the renewables story is as much about mega-dam hydropower and bioenergy as it is about wind and solar pv.
gzer0 5y ago
50 gigawatts is equivalent to 156 million solar panels or 18,000 utility-scale wind turbines. [1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/how-much-power-1-gigawatt https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/how-much-power-1-gigawa...
7952 5y ago
From zero a few years ago it is amazing. This is an industry that is seriously scalable.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
It is still speculative but this week I did a deep dive in to the SPARC fusion reactor from Commonwealth Fusion Systems [1] and it seems extremely promising. They recently proved out their high field magnet design and got 1.8 billion dollars in additional funding, and they claim they can demonstrate net energy gain (a world's first!) by 2025. This would pave their way for a larger production plant design ARC which they currently claim they can have running by early 2030's, though of course these things can be delayed. But the major points are that the tokamak is a well understood design. Their system uses the same physics basis as ITER, but their more powerful high temperature superconducting magnets mean they can produce a machine with the same Q gain as ITER in 1/10th the total volume. That smaller size means that they can build the machine much faster. A few youtube videos to absorb all of this: [2] Is their original pitch lecture from 2016, and makes a compelling argument that tokamak is well understood and simply using new high temperature superconductors allows them to design better magnets to make a small reactor work. It’s the oldest but it’s my favorite talk on the system. [3] Is from last year so is more up to date. It is a recorded video meeting so it is kind of boring, but the subject matter is very interesting. I actually got this funny feeling like "it is the future and we are discussing fusion power plants over boring zoom meetings". Like it feels more real because it is almost boring. But a good talk. [4] Is a good 15 minute high level overview for a general audience. If you don't want long lectures, listen to this. [5] Is a short 4 minute video with highlights from their event last september where they demonstrated a 20 Tesla field in a large bore magnet for the first time ever. ---------------------- [1] https://cfs.energy/technology https://cfs.energy/technology [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwWGUT8rCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwWGUT8rCw [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KEwkWjADEA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KEwkWjADEA [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAv6p3grFVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAv6p3grFVM
- dotancohen 5y ago
  As optimistic as I am about recent developments, there is no practical path for fusion to be a path forward for replacing our energy consumption. Fusion will likely supplement the technologies that we instill to replace carbon-based energy, but will not itself be part of the replacement of carbon-based energy.
pjc50 5y ago
The entire UK uses 40GW at peak, or 2/3 of a kilowatt per person. The US divides 1084.37GW among its 330 million people, which comes out at 3.2kw each. There has to be significant room for efficiency savings there.
- zionic 5y ago
  There is huge room for efficiency improvements. What we need is cheap, large-scale production of 24+ SEER heat pumps.
  - g8oz 5y ago
    "IEA has launched 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas – heat pumps are part of the solution" https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/news/1/56971/ https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/news/1/56971/
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Some of that is industrial use, but yes the US also very inefficient at multiple levels. For example in other contexts you'll see mention of a preference for single family dwellings. Unavoidably all the external walls of that property lose heat in winter. Even if they were well-insulated, which they usually are not, they're losing. Britain has a lot denser housing, with terraces (most properties share walls on each side with another home) or at least semi-detached (sharing one wall) being popular layouts. Obviously if the far side of the wall is just another home you're not really losing heat.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

total grid capacity listed here [0], looks like 4 million gigawatts, so yes 50 gigawatts is a small change. edit: I'll never get this right. it's 4 trillion kilowatt hours of generation, not kilowatts of capacity. [0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

londons_explore 5y ago
4 trillion kWh != 4 million gigawatts.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
aero-glide2 5y ago
I think you made a conversion mistake, that's too high. That's the equivalent of 4 million nuclear plants.
stingraycharles 5y ago
I think it’s 4 million megawatts, not gigawatts. Still a small change, but not as insignificant.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Gibbon1 5y ago
The problem is none of these articles provide numbers that allow you to grok what's actually going one. Probably because journalists are innumerate. You have a total 4X10^12 kwh/year of production, that's energy. 50 GW that's power. Wtf!!!??? Teasing it out I think. Solar you get probably 5 hours a day. Wind maybe more? eh, lets assume 5 hours. 5 hours a day, 1825 hours a year. So 50GW... lets say 50Mkw instead. 50X10^6 kw X1825 hr/year => 91,250,000,000 kwh/year How does that compare to current production? Percent added is 9.125X10^10/4X10^12 = 0.0228 or 2.23% Seems like a small amount but it's growing exponentially. If it increases by 25% a year then you'll be adding 5% a year of renewables per year in 5 years.

aero-glide2 5y ago

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppable-battery-cavalcade/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppabl...

IshKebab 5y ago

Total power generation capacity in the US is about 1 TW, so it's around 5%. That doesn't seem extremely low to me for one year.

Synaesthesia 5y ago
I think it's like 1000TW
- IshKebab 5y ago
  lol no. That would be 3 MW per person!
dotancohen 5y ago
And assuming a near-linear adoption, 20 years sounds about right for replacing a nations entire power-generation industry. Even a bit ambitious for a nation of a few hundred million people with differing goals and viewpoints.
geenew 5y ago
Global numbers from last year: "A record 260 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy capacity was added worldwide in 2020, up 50% from the year before, ... Cumulatively, installed global renewable generation capacity amounted to 2,799 GW at the end of 2020, including hydropower. .. The share of renewables in energy generation worldwide now stands at nearly 30%, according to the International Energy Agency and other sources."[1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/record-260-gw-new-renewable-energy-capacity-added-2020-research-2021-04-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/record-260-gw-new-re... edit: removed a reference to wiki for global energy production (wiki is in TWh, not TW)
- igravious 5y ago
  > Global numbers from last year: […] in 2020 eh? did you mean to say the year before last? According to https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy the energy mix in renewables in 2020 was, in order: Hydropower: 4355.04 Wind: 1590.19 Solar: 844.39 Others, inc. bioenergy: 702.89 To me it seems like the renewables story is as much about mega-dam hydropower and bioenergy as it is about wind and solar pv.

gzer0 5y ago

50 gigawatts is equivalent to 156 million solar panels or 18,000 utility-scale wind turbines. [1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/how-much-power-1-gigawatt https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/how-much-power-1-gigawa...

7952 5y ago

From zero a few years ago it is amazing. This is an industry that is seriously scalable.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

It is still speculative but this week I did a deep dive in to the SPARC fusion reactor from Commonwealth Fusion Systems [1] and it seems extremely promising. They recently proved out their high field magnet design and got 1.8 billion dollars in additional funding, and they claim they can demonstrate net energy gain (a world's first!) by 2025. This would pave their way for a larger production plant design ARC which they currently claim they can have running by early 2030's, though of course these things can be delayed. But the major points are that the tokamak is a well understood design. Their system uses the same physics basis as ITER, but their more powerful high temperature superconducting magnets mean they can produce a machine with the same Q gain as ITER in 1/10th the total volume. That smaller size means that they can build the machine much faster. A few youtube videos to absorb all of this: [2] Is their original pitch lecture from 2016, and makes a compelling argument that tokamak is well understood and simply using new high temperature superconductors allows them to design better magnets to make a small reactor work. It’s the oldest but it’s my favorite talk on the system. [3] Is from last year so is more up to date. It is a recorded video meeting so it is kind of boring, but the subject matter is very interesting. I actually got this funny feeling like "it is the future and we are discussing fusion power plants over boring zoom meetings". Like it feels more real because it is almost boring. But a good talk. [4] Is a good 15 minute high level overview for a general audience. If you don't want long lectures, listen to this. [5] Is a short 4 minute video with highlights from their event last september where they demonstrated a 20 Tesla field in a large bore magnet for the first time ever. ---------------------- [1] https://cfs.energy/technology https://cfs.energy/technology [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwWGUT8rCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwWGUT8rCw [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KEwkWjADEA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KEwkWjADEA [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAv6p3grFVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAv6p3grFVM

dotancohen 5y ago
As optimistic as I am about recent developments, there is no practical path for fusion to be a path forward for replacing our energy consumption. Fusion will likely supplement the technologies that we instill to replace carbon-based energy, but will not itself be part of the replacement of carbon-based energy.

pjc50 5y ago

The entire UK uses 40GW at peak, or 2/3 of a kilowatt per person. The US divides 1084.37GW among its 330 million people, which comes out at 3.2kw each. There has to be significant room for efficiency savings there.

zionic 5y ago
There is huge room for efficiency improvements. What we need is cheap, large-scale production of 24+ SEER heat pumps.
- g8oz 5y ago
  "IEA has launched 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas – heat pumps are part of the solution" https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/news/1/56971/ https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/news/1/56971/
tialaramex 5y ago
Some of that is industrial use, but yes the US also very inefficient at multiple levels. For example in other contexts you'll see mention of a preference for single family dwellings. Unavoidably all the external walls of that property lose heat in winter. Even if they were well-insulated, which they usually are not, they're losing. Britain has a lot denser housing, with terraces (most properties share walls on each side with another home) or at least semi-detached (sharing one wall) being popular layouts. Obviously if the far side of the wall is just another home you're not really losing heat.