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> Not inherent nature, just economics and politics. I didn't know that night and calm days with no wind are economics and politics > Wind always blows somewhe

• ben_w 2y ago
  > I didn't know that night and calm days with no wind are economics and politics Planet is round. Your winter solstice midnight is someone else's midsummer midday. Convincing everyone to join up, that's economics and politics. > How much wind and sun needs to shine somewhere to cover the needs of, say Europe, on a quiet night? I've seen EU night power draw is about 87-107 GW, so 85% of the area of Rhode Island but in Australia: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=107%20GW%20%2F%20%281%20kW%2Fm%5E2%20%2A%200.2%20%2A%200.2%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=107%20GW%20%2F%20%281%2... > Note that that somewhere will need to cover that somewhere's needs, too. And our day provides their night. It's called "trade". > you're also likely underestimating how large the area covered by nighttime Your links are, bluntly, an insult. Everyone here knows the thing they show. ~50% of the planet technically, more than that in practice because local structure; average capacity factor (24 hour including night) of PV is 10%, so I'd be happy to approximate that as a 12 hour day-focused capacity factor of 20%. > I'm guessing your proposal is to pump energy from China to the US through the Pacific Ocean? China has an actual proposal for a demo project to go further across the Pacific and connect to Chile. If that works, they might feel like making it thicker and longer. > Or ever. You underestimate the size of the Earth 40,000 km, requires 1 m^2 cross section to keep the resistance down to 1 Ω when using Aluminium; this requires just over a year of current global production of aluminium and has a material cost of a few hundred billion dollars at current metal prices. > You know that Europe has a unified power grid, right? And that the US has three major grid regions? Which is why it's a political problem. There will always be a place like Texas is now that wants to be difficult and independent even at its own expense. > Just because you have batteries in electric vehicles doesn't mean you have enough batteries to provide electricity for a country/continent. There's approximately a billion cars on the road today. Half a billion cars multiplied by let's say 60 kWh per car is 30 TWh; current global electricity use (which includes daytime) is about 2 TW, that's therefore 15 hours before I include trucks, bikes, busses, etc. But night use is lower than day use, so in practice the capacity to build that many batteries is also the capacity to build enough batteries for overnight use too.
  • troupo 2y ago
    > I've seen EU night power draw is about 87-107 GW, so 85% of the area of Rhode Island but in Australia And what's your proposal for getting that energy to the EU from Australia? > And our day provides their night. And who's providing your day if you're busy providing someone else's night? > Everyone here knows the thing they show. Oh, I doubt it. I keep seeing how people keep pretending that night doesn't exist or how it's easy to provide EU's electricity from Australia during the night. > 40,000 km, requires 1 m^2 cross section to keep the resistance down to 1 Ω when using Aluminium; this requires just over a year of current global production of aluminium and has a material cost of a few hundred billion dollars at current metal prices. For a single cable with no redundancy, unknown points of ingress/egress and how to handle that much power in those points of ingress/egress etc. And not pricing in the cost of actually making such a cable, and the cost to actually lay it securely, maintenance costs etc. > Which is why it's a political problem. I'm still waiting to hear an actual solution to getting continuous 107GW of power from Australia to the EU. Oh, at the same time keeping up with fluctuating energy demand, frequencies etc. And not a fantasy of redirecting Earth's entire aluminium output to building a single 40 000-kilometre cable. > Half a billion cars multiplied by let's say 60 kWh per car is 30 TWh; current global electricity use (which includes daytime) is about 2 TW Something tells me those cars need to be charged somehow, this is probably done by another 40 000 km cable from Australia. This also assumes that all of those cars and busses and trucks are somewhat continuously and consistently plugged into energy grids, with no disruptions, which is not true: https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/179114/local_179114.pdf https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/179114... Edit: > China has an actual proposal for a demo project to go further across the Pacific and connect to Chile. Quick googling didn't reveal any such proposal for a ~12000-kilometre cable. The longest proposal is to connect Morocco to Britain with a 3800-kilometre cable, and even that will be an engineering feat of epic proportions if it's not scam/vaporware
    • ben_w 2y ago
      > And what's your proposal for getting that energy to the EU from Australia? Are you trolling? Obviously the same. Why would it possibly be anything other than the same? > And who's providing your day if you're busy providing someone else's night? Again, are you taking the piss? Because the only way you're not trolling here, is if you're guilty of what you accuse me of: You underestimate the size of the Earth. There's plenty of room to do both. As in, several thousand times over. > Oh, I doubt it. I keep seeing how people keep pretending that night doesn't exist or how it's easy to provide EU's electricity from Australia during the night. If you're constantly arguing with a whole host of other people, which is more likely: that they're all idiots who don't know about one of the more fundamental aspects of living on a planet, or that you're misunderstanding their points? Hint: I did not say "easy", I said "I don't expect anyone will do in the next 15 years" and priced it at hundreds of billions of dollars and even then requiring political collaboration. 15 years is the minimum time in the best case, not the default. > I'm still waiting to hear an actual solution to getting continuous 107GW of power from Australia to the EU. You've already got one. > Oh, at the same time keeping up with fluctuating energy demand, frequencies etc. DC. > And not a fantasy of redirecting Earth's entire aluminium output to building a single 40 000-kilometre cable. Output for one year for something that, from other examples, lasts about a century. > Something tells me those cars need to be charged somehow, this is probably done by another 40 000 km cable from Australia. Again, are you trolling? Because that was an alternative to a global power grid. If you've got those batteries then because the battery is itself the storage system it doesn't care when it gets charged, so it doesn't matter if you can only charge them in your own local daytime as they last through the night and to the next day (and for most people, days plural) anyway. > This also assumes that all of those cars and busses and trucks are somewhat continuously and consistently plugged into energy grids, with no disruptions, which is not true: It's not making any such assumption, it's the capacity to build that much battery in the first place, not where the batteries actually are. > Quick googling didn't reveal any such proposal for a ~12000-kilometre cable. 15,000 km, not 12,000: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/building-a-2-billion-subsea-solar-power-cable-from-chile-to-china-1030989814?op=1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/building-a-2... > The longest proposal is to connect Morocco to Britain with a 3800-kilometre cable, and even that will be an engineering feat of epic proportions if it's not scam/vaporware Epic, yes. That's why I'm setting the minimum time for a global grid as pessimistically as 15 years, even if it's made by a government that has a history of using this kind of project as a soft-power projection policy, that already has a project of this kind in planning, and using (1 year/15 years = 6.666…%) ~7% of the aluminium that the world would otherwise be expected to produce in that timeframe.