4 ms·

It's not just "uninhabitable weather". I live in Michigan. It's the second-cloudiest state in the nation, just barely behind Oregon (but they get way more rain

by jerf 1y ago

It's not just "uninhabitable weather". I live in Michigan. It's the second-cloudiest state in the nation, just barely behind Oregon (but they get way more rain than we do), but in terms of "plague"-type weather it's not bad. We do get some thunderstorms, and nominally, we're the northeastern end of "Tornado Alley", and we do have the occasional tornado, but it's not that common. On the net I think Michigan is rather less prone to natural disasters than most places. But it's cloudy. A lot. It literally does not raise to my conscious awareness if the sun does not shine in December. And I mean literally in its original sense. It takes over 30 days in the winter for me to notice that I haven't seen the sun in a while and another couple of weeks before I'm really bothered by it. We're already far enough north that winter days are noticeably shorter and less bright as it is, and then the sun doesn't even shine. In the summer 50% cloudy is a fairly normal day. Bright blue sky from horizon to horizon is uncommon enough to be worth noting. Solar advocates may relax as I'm not going to claim that solar is "useless" in Michigan. However, it is undeniably a lot more useful in deserts that are much closer to the equator. And big government solar projects really do pencil out much worse in Michigan than they do in California or Arizona, even though I'm not constantly dodging death around here. I like the diversity in power sources on general principles but we do take an efficiency hit to get it.

Guid_NewGuid 1y ago
I'm originally from the UK so I know cloudy. Not sure if we're better or worse than Michigan but the weather is one of the main reasons I left. For sure solar isn't as effective in the UK but we're lucky to have shallow sea nearby for offshore wind (onshore wind being opposed by the same kind of NIMBY clowns that are a true biblical plague in every country). But if solar is cheap enough you may as well deploy it even where it's not especially efficient. Then you can start to look at things like transmission lines or whatever energy source works best for your area. Edit: it's a reasonable point that dollars spent in the 2nd cloudiest state on solar aren't particularly well spent, but that leaves you with 48(?) less cloudy states. While CA is pretty south there are 10 more states to the south of it, one of them is even called the sunshine state and is effectively an uninhabitable sinking swamp, ideal for solar!
- philipkglass 1y ago
  There's a good article here showing how solar, gas, and battery storage work together in the UK: https://electrotechrevolution.substack.com/p/renewables-allow-us-to-pay-less-not https://electrotechrevolution.substack.com/p/renewables-allo... The whole thing is worth reading, but this is the most interesting result: Let's push the boundaries further and see how much solar we can get in the system without exceeding the 100% gas case’s £76/MWh. Playing with the numbers we find that installing 6.5 GW of solar and 12 GWh of battery storage alongside our 1 GW gas plant, we can get to the result plotted below... Solar now accounts for over 70% of total generation. During the summer basically all electricity now comes from solar. This system costs the same £76/MWh as the 100% gas case. Remarkably, a combination of 1 GW of gas, 6.5 GW of solar, and 12 GWh of battery storage can achieve the same overall system cost as installing just 1 GW of gas. The lowest-cost scenario has much less solar, but not 100% gas either: Solar energy now accounts for over a quarter of total generation, while the total system costs £9/MWh less than just using gas. You can modestly decarbonize a gas-driven electricity system with solar and save a modest amount of money, or keep costs constant and deeply (though not completely) decarbonize the same system with solar and batteries, even in the relatively sunlight-poor UK.
adrianN 1y ago
How is the wind in Michigan?
- jerf 1y ago
  Mixed. There are some substantial wind farms in the middle of the state and on the lakes, especially on the northern part of the thumb. I'm not sure how they compare in general but they're pretty big when you're driving through them. Here's some info on that: https://thumbwind.com/michigan-wind-farm-map/#h-the-great-lakes-map-of-wind-farms-in-michigan https://thumbwind.com/michigan-wind-farm-map/#h-the-great-la... And since their google maps embed seems to be broken, a direct link to that: https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=11HL-d8V1MCxM01uEwpn6Zy6Cvhk&msa=0&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=43.30998612510548%2C-84.93528471213014&spn=5.550208%2C8.349609&z=7&output=embed&w=1200&h=840 https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=11HL-d8V1MCxM01uEwpn... Where I live isn't that great though.

by jerf 1y ago

Guid_NewGuid 1y ago

I'm originally from the UK so I know cloudy. Not sure if we're better or worse than Michigan but the weather is one of the main reasons I left. For sure solar isn't as effective in the UK but we're lucky to have shallow sea nearby for offshore wind (onshore wind being opposed by the same kind of NIMBY clowns that are a true biblical plague in every country). But if solar is cheap enough you may as well deploy it even where it's not especially efficient. Then you can start to look at things like transmission lines or whatever energy source works best for your area. Edit: it's a reasonable point that dollars spent in the 2nd cloudiest state on solar aren't particularly well spent, but that leaves you with 48(?) less cloudy states. While CA is pretty south there are 10 more states to the south of it, one of them is even called the sunshine state and is effectively an uninhabitable sinking swamp, ideal for solar!

philipkglass 1y ago
There's a good article here showing how solar, gas, and battery storage work together in the UK: https://electrotechrevolution.substack.com/p/renewables-allow-us-to-pay-less-not https://electrotechrevolution.substack.com/p/renewables-allo... The whole thing is worth reading, but this is the most interesting result: Let's push the boundaries further and see how much solar we can get in the system without exceeding the 100% gas case’s £76/MWh. Playing with the numbers we find that installing 6.5 GW of solar and 12 GWh of battery storage alongside our 1 GW gas plant, we can get to the result plotted below... Solar now accounts for over 70% of total generation. During the summer basically all electricity now comes from solar. This system costs the same £76/MWh as the 100% gas case. Remarkably, a combination of 1 GW of gas, 6.5 GW of solar, and 12 GWh of battery storage can achieve the same overall system cost as installing just 1 GW of gas. The lowest-cost scenario has much less solar, but not 100% gas either: Solar energy now accounts for over a quarter of total generation, while the total system costs £9/MWh less than just using gas. You can modestly decarbonize a gas-driven electricity system with solar and save a modest amount of money, or keep costs constant and deeply (though not completely) decarbonize the same system with solar and batteries, even in the relatively sunlight-poor UK.

adrianN 1y ago

How is the wind in Michigan?

jerf 1y ago
Mixed. There are some substantial wind farms in the middle of the state and on the lakes, especially on the northern part of the thumb. I'm not sure how they compare in general but they're pretty big when you're driving through them. Here's some info on that: https://thumbwind.com/michigan-wind-farm-map/#h-the-great-lakes-map-of-wind-farms-in-michigan https://thumbwind.com/michigan-wind-farm-map/#h-the-great-la... And since their google maps embed seems to be broken, a direct link to that: https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=11HL-d8V1MCxM01uEwpn6Zy6Cvhk&msa=0&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=43.30998612510548%2C-84.93528471213014&spn=5.550208%2C8.349609&z=7&output=embed&w=1200&h=840 https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=11HL-d8V1MCxM01uEwpn... Where I live isn't that great though.