16 ms·

Getting the Grid to Net Zero

111 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

fedeb95 3y ago
I keep wondering how we'll get rid of used batteries and panels in the future.
- breischl 3y ago
  There are recycling pilot projects out there, but yeah it's a problem. Do you also wonder how we'll get rid of used coal power plants, massive piles of toxic fly ash, and tons of pollutants from natural gas plants? Because so far the answer is not good.
  - kvgr 3y ago
    I know how we can get rid of nuclear fuel. Coal is very very dirty... nobody challenges that
    - spywaregorilla 3y ago
      How can we get rid of spent nuclear fuel
      - opwieurposiu 3y ago
        Burn it in a fast reactor
        marcosdumay 3y ago
        How do we get rid of a fast reactor's spent parts? (Yeah, it should be possible to design a reactor so it consumes more long-lived waste than it creates. But I don't think anybody ever bothered to do that.)
    - stavros 3y ago
      Nobody challenges it, but when someone says "I wonder how we'll get rid of the byproducts of solar", it obviously frames the discussion differently than "I wonder how much less impact the byproducts of solar have on the environment than those of coal".
  - 15155 3y ago
    Fly ash is a key ingredient in Portland cement.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  You could take every PV panel ever made and just stack them up in the desert. It would hardly take any space and nobody would notice. That is, if you refuse to recycle them, which would be silly.
  - asynchronous 3y ago
    Surely something with a higher energy output to waste ratio like nuclear energy waste would be an even better compromise then?
    - jeffbee 3y ago
      If you stack spent fuel bad things occur. And no, I don't agree. The volume and mass of PV panels in the world is already negligible and making the waste stream smaller is not important or relevant to anyone. Even in an extreme case nobody would pursue, it doesn't take any space. In a sane case it is a high quality silicon feedstock.
  - sidewndr46 3y ago
    Yeah that plan works great for things like tires. It's not like there are multiple large tire dumps in the world with fires that are always burning in them.
    - maherbeg 3y ago
      Did you know that something like 70% of tires in America are recycled?
      - jeffbee 3y ago
        Also that 2,000 times more tires are made than PV modules? 55GT compared to 22MT annually.
    - kwhitefoot 3y ago
      That is simply a policy decision. Here in Norway such things are collected and recycled.
- burkaman 3y ago
  Batteries are recyclable and a bunch of companies are already doing it, for example: https://li-cycle.com/press-releases/li-cycle-reports-full-year-2023-results/ https://li-cycle.com/press-releases/li-cycle-reports-full-ye.... As demand for battery materials grows I think recycling will become more profitable and widespread. Solar panels are also largely recyclable, especially since most of the panel is metal and glass (which we've been recycling for millennia): https://www.epa.gov/hw/solar-panel-recycling https://www.epa.gov/hw/solar-panel-recycling. I don't know as much about recycling the actual useful part of the panel, and I'm sure it depends on the type, but there are companies doing this as well: https://www.solarcycle.us/ https://www.solarcycle.us/. However efficient the recycling is, it can't possibly be worse than what we do with used oil, gas, and coal (set it on fire immediately and then pretend it magically disappeared).
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    > I don't know as much about recycling the actual useful part of the panel For almost all panels out there, even the toxic ones, recycling should be a lot cheaper than purifying new silicon. It's not viable today because we have way too little trash to even start the process.
  - akira2501 3y ago
    The question you want to ask, as always in recycling, is: "How much water do these processes use?"
  - briantakita 3y ago
    Is it as efficient as recycling plastic bottles? Effectively in the landfill & ocean. Theory & marketing science fiction are all well & good...But let's have some success with existing recycling programs before assuming that everything is going to work perfectly according to someone's vision. If you are actually serious about reducing CO2 emissions, let's start with the biggest producer of CO2. The US Military & MIC. Cause I don't see any solar powered military vehicles, munitions, or ordinances anytime in the next 100 years. How ironic when it's time for the US Military. With it's gas guzzling transports. To be used to enforce environmental statutes. Against the rural/suburban peasants who demand their own grid.
- titzer 3y ago
  Better solid waste than gas.
- maherbeg 3y ago
  Battery recycling is already spinning up and becoming profitable. It also means we won't have to rely as much on imports of rare earth materials because we can use already mined materials over time!
- fedeb95 3y ago
  many interesting responses which I'll read in depth better later. My comment wasn't against solar panels and batteries and in favour of oil etc. as some assumed. Just interested, because recycling seems a pretty big deal to become really sustainable in all economic matters. In my mind, which might be wrong about many things, until we get a rate of recycling >= that of waste there's a problem, maybe showing up later than today, but eventually it will surface again. Repeating myself, this is my mind model and of course subject to error.
- triceratops 3y ago
  Should be easier than cleaning up oil spills.
kibwen 3y ago
With the advent of solar and HVDC, is there a potential future where AC stops being the backbone of the grid, letting us drop the whole notion of grid-scale frequency? It sure sounds simpler not to have do the delicate phase matching dance, among other things.
- Synaesthesia 3y ago
  But transforming high voltage to low voltage or vice versa is really trivial with AC.
- GaggiX 3y ago
  I believe that with AC is easier and cheaper to change the voltage using transformers compare to DC.
  - nick7376182 3y ago
    Very much so. That is why it seems we won't have DC distribution (ever? Not sure what it would take for DC to make more sense)
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      For DC, you don’t need to synchronize the grids. For some reason HVDC (specifically HVDC, not just DC, most DC devices use low voltages, far below the voltages that would be efficient for transmission), is apparently more power efficient than AC. I’m not sure why, though.
      - markus92 3y ago
        At certain power levels, reactive effects take over. Takes more energy to charge up the transmission lines 50 or 60 times a second, than it actually can transmit. Also, no skin effect.
      - amoshebb 3y ago
        In a DC circuit, a capacitor looks like an open circuit because after it fills up it just sits still. In an AC circuit, a capacitor looks like a resistor, it takes work to fill and empty it every cycle. Transmission lines over the earth behave not just like wires, but also like capacitors. Higher voltage reduces resistive losses, but in AC they’re penalized by these “fill and empty a capacitor” ones, that DC doesn’t.
lenerdenator 3y ago
This will take expenditure that utility shareholders won't tolerate. Most of the electrical grid in the US gets used until it just can't work safely anymore, and the determinant of whether it can work safely is whether it has already caused a very hazardous condition that simply can't be ignored by the public-at-large. They're not going to suddenly say, "Oh, sure, we can make a decent gain in efficiency by updating the grid, let's build those projects out."
- doctorhandshake 3y ago
  My understanding is that utilities keep a percentage of the cost of capital improvements they make. This is because the utilities’ original arrangement from way back when was designed to incentivize the rollout of electricity as fast as possible. To that extent their incentive is actually to undertake the largest and most expensive development projects possible. The issue with distribution infrastructure as I understand it is not a lack of will or incentives on the utilities side but simply the difficulty in acquiring right of way and permitting.
  - lenerdenator 3y ago
    Most of the stuff that could be replaced exists in an easement. I don't have to agree to let my local utility upgrade my infrastructure. Also, any time something "just works" and a business can charge someone to use it, they'll do that instead of actively working to improve the product, particularly if that product is a commodity and they have a monopoly on it. They've also leveraged regulatory capture to make sure that the public utility boards don't put a lot of pressure on them to make needed changes.
    - doctorhandshake 3y ago
      I think the type of improvement you’re talking about falls under the category of ‘reconductoring’, or capacity improvements to existing deployments. That can help, but interconnection and new distribution is, I think, a much bigger piece of what’s needed, and for that, we need to get all over the place.
superboum 3y ago
It seems the correlation between the article title ("Getting the Grid to Net Zero") and the subject that is actually discussed (maintaining a power grid stability in presence of inverters) is very weak. Don't get me wrong: the article is very interesting. I really learnt something: I discovered "system inertia", I was not aware of stability issues linked to inverters, and did not know about grid-forming & grid-following inverters, and the research about finding the minimal amount of grid-forming to keep a power-grid stable in case of an issue in a given power plant. All of these topics are very interesting. But making a connection between inverters and ecology through the "net zero" terms seems either off topic, misleading or irrelevant. First because this "net zero" term is heavily criticized as it means carbon are still emitted but companies are paying for carbon credits (that are not compensating at all the carbon emitted for many reasons [1]). Here building solar panels, wind turbines & batteries emits CO2, and their lifespan is relatively short (at most 10 years for batteries, ~25 years for wind turbines & solar panels, compared to hundreds of years for a dam[7]). Second because climate change is not the only concern about ecology, there are concerning questions about mineral resource extraction, like lithium[2] that is heavily used in batteries, but more generally, we are already extracting the whole Mendeleev periodic table[3]: we don't have alternative mineral resources for batteries or other technologies, the only solution is to extract, produce & consume less. Third, if your only goal is to reduce carbon dioxide equivalent (eqCO2), you should advertise nuclear power plant as the solution. Depending on studies, they produce the same amount or less eqCO2 compared to a wind turbine without batteries[4]. Of course, often eqCO2 is not the only important subject here (being renewable/sustainable is also important, and uranium is a limited resource). And finally, the fact we use renewable energy more and more did not lead to a worlwide energy transition, but an addition. Having a transition will require way more than technologies[5], something that is also not discussed here. Speaking about solutions to pack a higher percentage of Intermittent renewable energy sources (IRES)[6] in a power-grid through the help of batteries and inverters would have been more accurate in my opinion. Maybe "Why we were not able to achieve 100% renewable energy before?" if you want to be catchy, and it's not perfect, as you are still hiding that you rely on lot of batteries, that are far from being renewable. As a conclusion, I would say it would be great to be careful when engineers (here IEEE) discuss specific technologies (here power-grid inverters) to not draw conclusion too quickly (having a positive environmental impact), as it's far from being obvious. I know they want to be read, I know that the title must be catchy to attract readers, but it's not an excuse as illustrated above. [1]: https://demandclimatejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NOT_ZERO_How_net_zero_targets_disguise_climate_inaction_FINAL.pdf https://demandclimatejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/... [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/a-worldwide-lithium-shortage-could-come-as-soon-as-2025.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/a-worldwide-lithium-shortage... [3]: https://www.euchems.eu/euchems-periodic-table/ https://www.euchems.eu/euchems-periodic-table/ [4]: https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/over-its-lifetime-nuclear-power-stations-carbon-footprint-same-wind-power https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/over-it... [5]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629618312246 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146... [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_renewable_energy [7]: https://www.power-technology.com/data-insights/power-plant-profile-cusset-jonage-france/ https://www.power-technology.com/data-insights/power-plant-p...
cal5k 3y ago
> Reaching net-zero-carbon emissions by 2050, as many international organizations now insist is necessary to stave off dire climate consequences, will require a rapid and massive shift in electricity-generating infrastructures. Vaclav Smil's excellent analysis on this is worth reading: https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/global/pb/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/Vaclav.pdf https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob... The tl;dr is that net zero by 2050 would require all major economies to spend 15-20% of GDP for the next 26 years uninterrupted. For reference, the entire US federal budget was around 23.7% of GDP in 2023. It simply is not going to happen, and pretending it will greatly undermines the pragmatic conversations we should be having about adaptation. I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private sector can get us there by 2100 or so - lots of fundamental advancements can happen in that timeframe - but hamfisted government policy in the EU and America that blunts economic growth will mean there's less money to spend on solving these problems in the future.
- titzer 3y ago
  > I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private sector can get us there by 2100 or so So, never. The private sector has been dragged kicking and screaming to where we are now; Oil CEOs today are still resisting calls to decarbonize (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-executives-push-back-against-calls-fast-energy-transition-2024-03-18/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-exe...) like it's the 1990s. Trillions in corporate sharedholder value are diametrically opposed to transitioning. They have vested interests, and a massive sunk cost with the current fossil fuel economy. We are so utterly screwed. > that blunts economic growth While economies have somewhat decoupled carbon from economic growth, putting economic growth as a master priority above all others is exactly what got us here and looking increasingly like a bad move.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    There is more than oilin the private sector. No surprise oil is resisting, but others are not.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
0xbadcafebee 3y ago
FWIW "Net Zero" is using carbon offsets to have "net output" of zero carbon emissions, but you can still emit as much carbon as you can buy credits for. Credits have been widely regarded as ineffectual and even worsening carbon emissions, deforestation etc. Some utilities now have programs where you can pay them extra money "to get a portion of your power from a clean energy source". This money is used effectively to buy carbon credits. So they're asking customers to subsidize them in not needing to eliminate carbon emissions. Actually not emitting carbon is what some utilities now call "real zero". But their commitments to "real zero" are a long ways away, and they're just corporate goals & in no way binding.
- jgraham 3y ago
  Technically the difference between "net zero" and "carbon neutral" is supposed to be that "net zero" first eliminates all but "residual" emissions, and only then depends on offsets, whereas "carbon neutral" is more like what you describe (no required emissions cuts; possible to just buy — often dubious — offsets). Science Based Targets Initiative for example requires companies signing up to their scheme to have credible plans to cut emissions by ~50% by 2030 and 90% by 2050 to claim that they're aiming for "net zero" [1] (SBTI itself was recently in the news because employees felt that recent policy changes leaned too heavily on offsetting; I don't really know what the current situation there is). In practice usage of these terms my not be well regulated, so it's always worth checking out exactly whose definitions are being used. [1] sciencebasedtargets.org/blog/net-zero-jargon-buster-a-guide-to-common-terms
- berkes 3y ago
  This is made worse by the sheer, but actual, complexity that surrounds all this. Especially the "scopes¹". So someone buying and selling, say, diesel in solar-powered-fuel stations, can still have "net zero" because they themselves don't emit, but both the people buying it, and the companies producing it, still emit immense amounts of carbon. Which is then a very easy way to "greenwash" your business. To have marketing, that's not even a lie, but still being very misleading. (I used to build accounting software for carbon emission accounting, it's way, way more complex that this diesel-example) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_accounting#Frameworks_and_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_accounting#Frameworks_a...
HaHaHackerNews 3y ago
[dead]
MisterDizzy 3y ago
These discussions are starting to worry me. There isn't much point to talking about the climate until we can start looking at this issue as a matter of "how do we increase human flourishing," which should be a universal goal for all of us. But instead, we focus on the far less feasible "how can we stop people from using so much post-industrial technology?" People aren't going to use less energy, especially since radical consumption cutbacks of the sort that Europe sometimes attempts do seem to reduce the quality of human life, sometimes pretty radically. It seems like most people think the priority that matters is "doing what's good for the planet" while essentially disregarding the effect it has on human beings and their ability to survive and thrive. Unless you want people to die every winter and summer, the goal when talking about climate and energy should not be ""save the planet, humans are a plague, the planet would be better without us!"", it should be to maximize human flourishing. If we can't agree that human flourishing is a worthy goal, we have to step back, waaay back, and reevaluate why we're even having this discussion to begin with. If we really do think "humans are a plague and the planet would be better without us," things might get pretty terrifying pretty quickly. Who does that benefit? What is the end goal of that mindset? We can't abide by anti-humanist ways of "solving" problems. If we focus on human flourishing, everyone will get closer to what they want. Unless, of course, what they want is to decrease human flourishing. Also, any alternative energy discussion that doesn't include nuclear isn't serious about solving the problem, just kneecapping current trends in energy production. The case against nuclear is mostly ill-informed in my experience. Nuclear, the latest version of which is far safer and more feasible, will be the future, it's just a matter of who in the world will get to it first.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Sir: surely you aren't suggesting that The Humans are going about this whole thing wrong, are you? Because that would be crazy.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  > But instead, we focus on the far less feasible "how can we stop people from using so much post-industrial technology?" That's a strawman. I assume you're taking about degrowth loons on social media. Why would you do that? In the real world, policymakers and center-left political parties (and center-right parties outside of the US) do not want people to stop using technology. What policymakers are trying to do is shift from one technology (oil and gas) to another technology (firmed renewables or nuclear). The reason for this is to maximize human flourishing by preventing wet bulb temperatures near the equator from becoming too large relative to the 31-35 degree survivability limit, among other consequences which you can read about elsewhere.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Not vital to the larger point but: > to have any hope of achieving this goal would require the addition, every year, of 630 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics and 390 GW of wind starting no later than 2030—figures that are around four times as great as than any annual tally so far. But according to Bloomberg: > developers deployed 444 GW of new PV capacity throughout the world in 2023. So rather than 25% towards the 2030 goal we are 66% there on PV. Bloomberg continues: > It says new installations could reach 574 GW this year, 627 GW in 2025, and 880 GW in 2030. So hitting the target 5 years ahead of schedule by this estimate.
- Krssst 3y ago
  Bloomberg seems to be talking about capacity (does not take into account capacity factor, only max output when it's sunny), maybe the article is talking of average actual production? (which is between three and four times lower as far as I know)
sega_sai 3y ago
It's a really interesting article. It does not really talk about Net zero much, but it talks more about reliability of grids that are fed by renewables and do not have classical generators.

111 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

fedeb95 3y ago

I keep wondering how we'll get rid of used batteries and panels in the future.

breischl 3y ago
There are recycling pilot projects out there, but yeah it's a problem. Do you also wonder how we'll get rid of used coal power plants, massive piles of toxic fly ash, and tons of pollutants from natural gas plants? Because so far the answer is not good.
- kvgr 3y ago
  I know how we can get rid of nuclear fuel. Coal is very very dirty... nobody challenges that
  - spywaregorilla 3y ago
    How can we get rid of spent nuclear fuel
    - opwieurposiu 3y ago
      Burn it in a fast reactor
      - marcosdumay 3y ago
        How do we get rid of a fast reactor's spent parts? (Yeah, it should be possible to design a reactor so it consumes more long-lived waste than it creates. But I don't think anybody ever bothered to do that.)
  - stavros 3y ago
    Nobody challenges it, but when someone says "I wonder how we'll get rid of the byproducts of solar", it obviously frames the discussion differently than "I wonder how much less impact the byproducts of solar have on the environment than those of coal".
- 15155 3y ago
  Fly ash is a key ingredient in Portland cement.
jeffbee 3y ago
You could take every PV panel ever made and just stack them up in the desert. It would hardly take any space and nobody would notice. That is, if you refuse to recycle them, which would be silly.
- asynchronous 3y ago
  Surely something with a higher energy output to waste ratio like nuclear energy waste would be an even better compromise then?
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    If you stack spent fuel bad things occur. And no, I don't agree. The volume and mass of PV panels in the world is already negligible and making the waste stream smaller is not important or relevant to anyone. Even in an extreme case nobody would pursue, it doesn't take any space. In a sane case it is a high quality silicon feedstock.
- sidewndr46 3y ago
  Yeah that plan works great for things like tires. It's not like there are multiple large tire dumps in the world with fires that are always burning in them.
  - maherbeg 3y ago
    Did you know that something like 70% of tires in America are recycled?
    - jeffbee 3y ago
      Also that 2,000 times more tires are made than PV modules? 55GT compared to 22MT annually.
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    That is simply a policy decision. Here in Norway such things are collected and recycled.
burkaman 3y ago
Batteries are recyclable and a bunch of companies are already doing it, for example: https://li-cycle.com/press-releases/li-cycle-reports-full-year-2023-results/ https://li-cycle.com/press-releases/li-cycle-reports-full-ye.... As demand for battery materials grows I think recycling will become more profitable and widespread. Solar panels are also largely recyclable, especially since most of the panel is metal and glass (which we've been recycling for millennia): https://www.epa.gov/hw/solar-panel-recycling https://www.epa.gov/hw/solar-panel-recycling. I don't know as much about recycling the actual useful part of the panel, and I'm sure it depends on the type, but there are companies doing this as well: https://www.solarcycle.us/ https://www.solarcycle.us/. However efficient the recycling is, it can't possibly be worse than what we do with used oil, gas, and coal (set it on fire immediately and then pretend it magically disappeared).
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  > I don't know as much about recycling the actual useful part of the panel For almost all panels out there, even the toxic ones, recycling should be a lot cheaper than purifying new silicon. It's not viable today because we have way too little trash to even start the process.
- akira2501 3y ago
  The question you want to ask, as always in recycling, is: "How much water do these processes use?"
- briantakita 3y ago
  Is it as efficient as recycling plastic bottles? Effectively in the landfill & ocean. Theory & marketing science fiction are all well & good...But let's have some success with existing recycling programs before assuming that everything is going to work perfectly according to someone's vision. If you are actually serious about reducing CO2 emissions, let's start with the biggest producer of CO2. The US Military & MIC. Cause I don't see any solar powered military vehicles, munitions, or ordinances anytime in the next 100 years. How ironic when it's time for the US Military. With it's gas guzzling transports. To be used to enforce environmental statutes. Against the rural/suburban peasants who demand their own grid.
titzer 3y ago
Better solid waste than gas.
maherbeg 3y ago
Battery recycling is already spinning up and becoming profitable. It also means we won't have to rely as much on imports of rare earth materials because we can use already mined materials over time!
fedeb95 3y ago
many interesting responses which I'll read in depth better later. My comment wasn't against solar panels and batteries and in favour of oil etc. as some assumed. Just interested, because recycling seems a pretty big deal to become really sustainable in all economic matters. In my mind, which might be wrong about many things, until we get a rate of recycling >= that of waste there's a problem, maybe showing up later than today, but eventually it will surface again. Repeating myself, this is my mind model and of course subject to error.
triceratops 3y ago
Should be easier than cleaning up oil spills.

kibwen 3y ago

With the advent of solar and HVDC, is there a potential future where AC stops being the backbone of the grid, letting us drop the whole notion of grid-scale frequency? It sure sounds simpler not to have do the delicate phase matching dance, among other things.

Synaesthesia 3y ago
But transforming high voltage to low voltage or vice versa is really trivial with AC.
GaggiX 3y ago
I believe that with AC is easier and cheaper to change the voltage using transformers compare to DC.
- nick7376182 3y ago
  Very much so. That is why it seems we won't have DC distribution (ever? Not sure what it would take for DC to make more sense)
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    For DC, you don’t need to synchronize the grids. For some reason HVDC (specifically HVDC, not just DC, most DC devices use low voltages, far below the voltages that would be efficient for transmission), is apparently more power efficient than AC. I’m not sure why, though.
    - markus92 3y ago
      At certain power levels, reactive effects take over. Takes more energy to charge up the transmission lines 50 or 60 times a second, than it actually can transmit. Also, no skin effect.
    - amoshebb 3y ago
      In a DC circuit, a capacitor looks like an open circuit because after it fills up it just sits still. In an AC circuit, a capacitor looks like a resistor, it takes work to fill and empty it every cycle. Transmission lines over the earth behave not just like wires, but also like capacitors. Higher voltage reduces resistive losses, but in AC they’re penalized by these “fill and empty a capacitor” ones, that DC doesn’t.

lenerdenator 3y ago

This will take expenditure that utility shareholders won't tolerate. Most of the electrical grid in the US gets used until it just can't work safely anymore, and the determinant of whether it can work safely is whether it has already caused a very hazardous condition that simply can't be ignored by the public-at-large. They're not going to suddenly say, "Oh, sure, we can make a decent gain in efficiency by updating the grid, let's build those projects out."

doctorhandshake 3y ago
My understanding is that utilities keep a percentage of the cost of capital improvements they make. This is because the utilities’ original arrangement from way back when was designed to incentivize the rollout of electricity as fast as possible. To that extent their incentive is actually to undertake the largest and most expensive development projects possible. The issue with distribution infrastructure as I understand it is not a lack of will or incentives on the utilities side but simply the difficulty in acquiring right of way and permitting.
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  Most of the stuff that could be replaced exists in an easement. I don't have to agree to let my local utility upgrade my infrastructure. Also, any time something "just works" and a business can charge someone to use it, they'll do that instead of actively working to improve the product, particularly if that product is a commodity and they have a monopoly on it. They've also leveraged regulatory capture to make sure that the public utility boards don't put a lot of pressure on them to make needed changes.
  - doctorhandshake 3y ago
    I think the type of improvement you’re talking about falls under the category of ‘reconductoring’, or capacity improvements to existing deployments. That can help, but interconnection and new distribution is, I think, a much bigger piece of what’s needed, and for that, we need to get all over the place.

superboum 3y ago

It seems the correlation between the article title ("Getting the Grid to Net Zero") and the subject that is actually discussed (maintaining a power grid stability in presence of inverters) is very weak. Don't get me wrong: the article is very interesting. I really learnt something: I discovered "system inertia", I was not aware of stability issues linked to inverters, and did not know about grid-forming & grid-following inverters, and the research about finding the minimal amount of grid-forming to keep a power-grid stable in case of an issue in a given power plant. All of these topics are very interesting. But making a connection between inverters and ecology through the "net zero" terms seems either off topic, misleading or irrelevant. First because this "net zero" term is heavily criticized as it means carbon are still emitted but companies are paying for carbon credits (that are not compensating at all the carbon emitted for many reasons [1]). Here building solar panels, wind turbines & batteries emits CO2, and their lifespan is relatively short (at most 10 years for batteries, ~25 years for wind turbines & solar panels, compared to hundreds of years for a dam[7]). Second because climate change is not the only concern about ecology, there are concerning questions about mineral resource extraction, like lithium[2] that is heavily used in batteries, but more generally, we are already extracting the whole Mendeleev periodic table[3]: we don't have alternative mineral resources for batteries or other technologies, the only solution is to extract, produce & consume less. Third, if your only goal is to reduce carbon dioxide equivalent (eqCO2), you should advertise nuclear power plant as the solution. Depending on studies, they produce the same amount or less eqCO2 compared to a wind turbine without batteries[4]. Of course, often eqCO2 is not the only important subject here (being renewable/sustainable is also important, and uranium is a limited resource). And finally, the fact we use renewable energy more and more did not lead to a worlwide energy transition, but an addition. Having a transition will require way more than technologies[5], something that is also not discussed here. Speaking about solutions to pack a higher percentage of Intermittent renewable energy sources (IRES)[6] in a power-grid through the help of batteries and inverters would have been more accurate in my opinion. Maybe "Why we were not able to achieve 100% renewable energy before?" if you want to be catchy, and it's not perfect, as you are still hiding that you rely on lot of batteries, that are far from being renewable. As a conclusion, I would say it would be great to be careful when engineers (here IEEE) discuss specific technologies (here power-grid inverters) to not draw conclusion too quickly (having a positive environmental impact), as it's far from being obvious. I know they want to be read, I know that the title must be catchy to attract readers, but it's not an excuse as illustrated above. [1]: https://demandclimatejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NOT_ZERO_How_net_zero_targets_disguise_climate_inaction_FINAL.pdf https://demandclimatejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/... [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/a-worldwide-lithium-shortage-could-come-as-soon-as-2025.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/a-worldwide-lithium-shortage... [3]: https://www.euchems.eu/euchems-periodic-table/ https://www.euchems.eu/euchems-periodic-table/ [4]: https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/over-its-lifetime-nuclear-power-stations-carbon-footprint-same-wind-power https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/over-it... [5]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629618312246 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146... [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_renewable_energy [7]: https://www.power-technology.com/data-insights/power-plant-profile-cusset-jonage-france/ https://www.power-technology.com/data-insights/power-plant-p...

cal5k 3y ago

> Reaching net-zero-carbon emissions by 2050, as many international organizations now insist is necessary to stave off dire climate consequences, will require a rapid and massive shift in electricity-generating infrastructures. Vaclav Smil's excellent analysis on this is worth reading: https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/global/pb/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/Vaclav.pdf https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob... The tl;dr is that net zero by 2050 would require all major economies to spend 15-20% of GDP for the next 26 years uninterrupted. For reference, the entire US federal budget was around 23.7% of GDP in 2023. It simply is not going to happen, and pretending it will greatly undermines the pragmatic conversations we should be having about adaptation. I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private sector can get us there by 2100 or so - lots of fundamental advancements can happen in that timeframe - but hamfisted government policy in the EU and America that blunts economic growth will mean there's less money to spend on solving these problems in the future.

titzer 3y ago
> I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private sector can get us there by 2100 or so So, never. The private sector has been dragged kicking and screaming to where we are now; Oil CEOs today are still resisting calls to decarbonize (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-executives-push-back-against-calls-fast-energy-transition-2024-03-18/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-exe...) like it's the 1990s. Trillions in corporate sharedholder value are diametrically opposed to transitioning. They have vested interests, and a massive sunk cost with the current fossil fuel economy. We are so utterly screwed. > that blunts economic growth While economies have somewhat decoupled carbon from economic growth, putting economic growth as a master priority above all others is exactly what got us here and looking increasingly like a bad move.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There is more than oilin the private sector. No surprise oil is resisting, but others are not.
idiotsecant 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

0xbadcafebee 3y ago

FWIW "Net Zero" is using carbon offsets to have "net output" of zero carbon emissions, but you can still emit as much carbon as you can buy credits for. Credits have been widely regarded as ineffectual and even worsening carbon emissions, deforestation etc. Some utilities now have programs where you can pay them extra money "to get a portion of your power from a clean energy source". This money is used effectively to buy carbon credits. So they're asking customers to subsidize them in not needing to eliminate carbon emissions. Actually not emitting carbon is what some utilities now call "real zero". But their commitments to "real zero" are a long ways away, and they're just corporate goals & in no way binding.

jgraham 3y ago
Technically the difference between "net zero" and "carbon neutral" is supposed to be that "net zero" first eliminates all but "residual" emissions, and only then depends on offsets, whereas "carbon neutral" is more like what you describe (no required emissions cuts; possible to just buy — often dubious — offsets). Science Based Targets Initiative for example requires companies signing up to their scheme to have credible plans to cut emissions by ~50% by 2030 and 90% by 2050 to claim that they're aiming for "net zero" [1] (SBTI itself was recently in the news because employees felt that recent policy changes leaned too heavily on offsetting; I don't really know what the current situation there is). In practice usage of these terms my not be well regulated, so it's always worth checking out exactly whose definitions are being used. [1] sciencebasedtargets.org/blog/net-zero-jargon-buster-a-guide-to-common-terms
berkes 3y ago
This is made worse by the sheer, but actual, complexity that surrounds all this. Especially the "scopes¹". So someone buying and selling, say, diesel in solar-powered-fuel stations, can still have "net zero" because they themselves don't emit, but both the people buying it, and the companies producing it, still emit immense amounts of carbon. Which is then a very easy way to "greenwash" your business. To have marketing, that's not even a lie, but still being very misleading. (I used to build accounting software for carbon emission accounting, it's way, way more complex that this diesel-example) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_accounting#Frameworks_and_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_accounting#Frameworks_a...

HaHaHackerNews 3y ago

[dead]

MisterDizzy 3y ago

These discussions are starting to worry me. There isn't much point to talking about the climate until we can start looking at this issue as a matter of "how do we increase human flourishing," which should be a universal goal for all of us. But instead, we focus on the far less feasible "how can we stop people from using so much post-industrial technology?" People aren't going to use less energy, especially since radical consumption cutbacks of the sort that Europe sometimes attempts do seem to reduce the quality of human life, sometimes pretty radically. It seems like most people think the priority that matters is "doing what's good for the planet" while essentially disregarding the effect it has on human beings and their ability to survive and thrive. Unless you want people to die every winter and summer, the goal when talking about climate and energy should not be ""save the planet, humans are a plague, the planet would be better without us!"", it should be to maximize human flourishing. If we can't agree that human flourishing is a worthy goal, we have to step back, waaay back, and reevaluate why we're even having this discussion to begin with. If we really do think "humans are a plague and the planet would be better without us," things might get pretty terrifying pretty quickly. Who does that benefit? What is the end goal of that mindset? We can't abide by anti-humanist ways of "solving" problems. If we focus on human flourishing, everyone will get closer to what they want. Unless, of course, what they want is to decrease human flourishing. Also, any alternative energy discussion that doesn't include nuclear isn't serious about solving the problem, just kneecapping current trends in energy production. The case against nuclear is mostly ill-informed in my experience. Nuclear, the latest version of which is far safer and more feasible, will be the future, it's just a matter of who in the world will get to it first.

mistermann 3y ago
Sir: surely you aren't suggesting that The Humans are going about this whole thing wrong, are you? Because that would be crazy.
hackerlight 3y ago
> But instead, we focus on the far less feasible "how can we stop people from using so much post-industrial technology?" That's a strawman. I assume you're taking about degrowth loons on social media. Why would you do that? In the real world, policymakers and center-left political parties (and center-right parties outside of the US) do not want people to stop using technology. What policymakers are trying to do is shift from one technology (oil and gas) to another technology (firmed renewables or nuclear). The reason for this is to maximize human flourishing by preventing wet bulb temperatures near the equator from becoming too large relative to the 31-35 degree survivability limit, among other consequences which you can read about elsewhere.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

Not vital to the larger point but: > to have any hope of achieving this goal would require the addition, every year, of 630 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics and 390 GW of wind starting no later than 2030—figures that are around four times as great as than any annual tally so far. But according to Bloomberg: > developers deployed 444 GW of new PV capacity throughout the world in 2023. So rather than 25% towards the 2030 goal we are 66% there on PV. Bloomberg continues: > It says new installations could reach 574 GW this year, 627 GW in 2025, and 880 GW in 2030. So hitting the target 5 years ahead of schedule by this estimate.

Krssst 3y ago
Bloomberg seems to be talking about capacity (does not take into account capacity factor, only max output when it's sunny), maybe the article is talking of average actual production? (which is between three and four times lower as far as I know)

sega_sai 3y ago

It's a really interesting article. It does not really talk about Net zero much, but it talks more about reliability of grids that are fed by renewables and do not have classical generators.