5 ms·

Wind, solar could provide 99.9% of all power by 2030

46 points by iProject 14y ago

carlisle_ 14y ago
"As a result of this intensive modeling effort, the researchers say they've discovered that a carefully designed combination of renewable sources – wind and solar – with batteries and fuel-cell electricity-storage systems could by 2030 supply enough power to keep a large electrical grid fired up 99.9 per cent of the time, and do so at a cost comparable to today's not-so-renewable energy grid." The one thing that worries me is the word 'comparable'. With no prices listed one Congress's 'comparable' is another Congress's 'unaffordable'. Granted prices for renewable energy sources should trend downward, as has been the case, but I'm not sure if lower costs in the future have been accounted for. More than anything I want this to be true and enough to convince governments to invest in these technologies. More than that I want people advocating for renewable energies to speak with more confidence. The article says, "could provide," why not "CAN provide"? If the ultimate issue is swaying public opinion why are such things not discussed with more confidence? Granted I know this seems a little nitpicky but I believe every word counts. Additionally I'm curious what other people have to say about this.
monochromatic 14y ago
I'd love to see what kinds of silly assumptions they're making about costs for buildout, solar efficiency improvements, magical new energy storage technology, etc...
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
  When you read the article, what did you find out on the score?
maxharris 14y ago
"ALL POWER"? If that means fewer kilowatts than I get now for the same dollar, NO DEAL. My standard of living is something I won't compromise on. Everything I value - everything that makes my life great - including medicine, cuisine, art, travel, education, and countless other things, requires huge amounts of cheap, reliable energy. If these lame energy sources were truly worthwhile, their proponents would build a startup around it, start making a profit, attract private capital to expand, and make even larger profits. Notice that in this case, the entire stream of transactions is 100% voluntary. Everyone involved is free to pursue their own lives as best they see fit. Instead, what they clamor for is government handouts, and laws to shackle the production of energy from sources that actually work. That's totally involuntary. If you have to force people to accept your new idea, it's no good. That's because any such forcing prevents people from acting on their own best judgement (or even having their own best judgement - a mental process detached from reality does not constitute thought), and pursuing the things they care about.
- jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
  > That's because any such forcing prevents people from acting on their own best judgement That is not how societies work, if you believe Hydrogen cyanide is the best thing to paint your house that doesn't mean you are allowed to do it; it doesn't matter if you realize or not how poisonous it is.
  - Centigonal 14y ago
    Hydrogen Cyanide is actually a colorless liquid that would evaporate in the sunlight. You may be looking for Prussian blue, which has got a lovely blue color, but isn't very toxic. Anyway, this is orthogonal to the effectivity of your analogy, but I thought you may want to know.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Because current energy sources get no subsidies? At the very least let them compete fairly in the market. Eliminate all coal and gas subsidies.
- raphinou 14y ago
  > My standard of living is something I won't compromise on. Maybe you phrased it stronger than intended, but this rejection of any compromise feels very egoistic and short-sighted. This is unrelated to the article itself, which I didn't even read, but I wanted to react because I think the lack of compromise is doing a lot of harm these days.
- yarrel 14y ago
  > My standard of living is something I won't compromise on. You can compromise on it or you can lose it entirely. Your choice, snowflake.
  - orangecat 14y ago
    I'll go with none of the above, i.e. nuclear.
  - ngokevin 14y ago
SpikeDad 14y ago
Holy schnikes. Why are we not doing it? PS. What do places without wind or sun do? Move?
- bcoates 14y ago
  It assumes 2030 technology that doesn't exist yet. Check back in 18 years, then we can start the many-decade project of deployment. Pencil in 2080 or so.
Tuna-Fish 14y ago
Three nines reliability. That is appallingly bad.
- jewel 14y ago
  It's not a reliability number. For comparison, right now 31% of California's energy comes from renewable sources (according to wikipedia). What 99.9% means is that they'll keep some traditional power generation mechanisms, like gas turbines, around to fill in when the renewable supply is not sufficient. That could be because there isn't enough sun or because there is unusually high demand. The power isn't going to go out.
kalleboo 14y ago
Looking at the paper abstract online, looks like the storage they're building this theory on are: Hydrogen, "Centralized battery" (Li-ion? not sure), and Grid-Integrated-Vehicles. Can anyone comment on the feasibility of these in the real world?
- bcoates 14y ago
  Drivers will want them charging during peak usage hours, and the grid will want them discharging, so grid integration can only do so much, unless you expect drivers to massively subsidize the power grid by buying batteries they don't want. Hydrogen is not viable and as far as I know has never been taken seriously as a fuel storage or transport material. Centralized battery works just fine but it's currently cost-prohibitive. I'm not sure why the paper's authors think that will change by 2030.
- danielweber 14y ago
  Vehicle-to-grid always strikes me as nutty. People don't want the batteries on their cars being put under strain to power a building's lights. Car batteries have much different design constraints than grid back-up systems.
blueprint 14y ago
It's too bad the natural environment will collapse long before then.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- blueprint 14y ago
  What's the big deal with downvoting heavily someone who tries to inform others of the reality of the fact? It's because people like me are ignored and suppressed that this problem is, at this point, pretty much guaranteed not to be solved.
im3w1l 14y ago
I think 4 years of backtesting is too little. Also sounds like they used the same data for training and testing.
herf 14y ago
Bill Gates makes the argument that energy storage is way behind. If you used all the batteries currently in existence you would only have minutes of energy, not enough to make it through the night.
- Centigonal 14y ago
  Interesting -- do you think the idea of pumping tons of water up and down a mountain for long-term, high-capacity energy storage could help bridge that gap?
  - iaw 14y ago
    I've thought about this before but the issues is that the energy is dinged 3 times by inefficiency losses. First when you capture it from the sun(or whatever), then when you pump it and convert it to potential, then when you let it out and use it to generate. They actually already do this to some extent, I think the "St. Lawrence Pump Station" is one facility.
    - snowwindwaves 14y ago
      they already do this a lot more than to some extent, it is quite common. Batteries have an internal impedance as well which means losses putting energy in and taking it out. 15% loss on a battery is a reasonable estimate
  - DaniFong 14y ago
    People are... completely out of touch with the scale of our industrial infrastructure. Cities us 3% of the Earth's land surface. Fossil fuels inject power into earth at a rate 3x the tides. We intercept about 30% of the total power generation we could get from rainfall. On the topic of energy storage, for the USA you'd need a lower reservoir approximately the size of Lake Erie, and a flow rate 150x that of Niagara Falls. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-stor... I'm not saying it can't be done -- energy storage at this scale has to be done for a switch to renewables -- I'm saying that the scale is absolutely immense.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nhebb 14y ago
I was curious about the author so I looked up his profile on the University of Delaware website [1]. Despite being listed as a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, his educational background is in Sociology and Anthropology. There are times when an appeal to authority is valid - such as an expert witness in a court of law. When it comes to scientific or engineering matters, I like to see some credentialed authority behind the research. Otherwise, I'm highly skeptical since this is the first source that I've seen to claim such a high percentage of green energy as the source for all power consumption. [1] http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/people/profile.aspx?willett http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/people/profile.aspx?willett
- mahesh_rm 14y ago
  To some extents, I agree with you. On the other hand, I am not sure a background in engineering would provide more source's epistemic authority than one in sociology, in this context. Interpreting Geist is a complex practice, and the presumption to reverse engineering it may be naively and implicitly leading to failure.
- arrrg 14y ago
  The only problem with that is that Willett Kempton is not the primary author and the primary author very definitely does have an engineering background (bachelor of engineering in 2007, PhD candidate in electrical engineering). Running down the list of other authors we have a bachelor of ocean engineering, currently a graduate student in the same field, a master in oceanography and current PhD student as well as one student with more of a policy focus plus the aforementioned professor. Your comment is ignorant and lazy. Appeals to authority can be valid, sure, but when you make them you better be damn sure you are doing it correctly, for example by quickly glancing at the abstract. Here is the actual paper: http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/resources/BudischakEtAl-2013-CostMinimizedWindSolarPJM.pdf http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/resources/BudischakEtAl-2... Have at it.
iaw 14y ago
I can't access the full paper but there's something wrong here. A few concerns I have : 1) Congestion rents are not mentioned anywhere when they have as large if not a larger impact on the cost to rate payers than energy price. 2) There's no mention of a "security constrained" commitment model which is what I believe PJM uses. 3) Saying that you'll just build a distributed system and assuming a low cost ignores easement costs, acquisition costs, and legal costs in building any energy infrastructure. I'm no high power electrical engineer but I'd be surprised to see this not including some sort of drastic misunderstanding of how these infrastructures and the markets around them function. An idea with potential is building HVDC lines from renewables to populated areas but you'll still need natural gas kickers for when demand spikes.
- danielweber 14y ago
  ignores easement costs, acquisition costs, and legal costs in That's actually pretty common among scientists who are imagining they are designing utopia.
nekojima 14y ago
"Eco-wise" the infrastructure to build and deploy solar and wind, including batteries & storage, is substantially far more un-environmentally friendly than the other main options that are environmentally friendly, which are nuclear and hydrogen. On almost any measure, nuclear power and hydrogen (which can be produced cheaply at off-peak times for vehicles) are the two key power sources we should be investing far more in, rather than the current damaging technologies being deployed on increasingly vast scales with little thought to the real environmental damage being created.
- bcoates 14y ago
  Does hydrogen have anything to offer over synthetic petroleum as a vehicle fuel?
  - nekojima 14y ago
    Hydrogen can be produced from nuclear, as well as hydro power. If produced in off-peak times (at late night) in bulk it can be efficiently produced and then distributed to filling stations. With at-home production units the distribution system can be largely removed at the expense of slightly higher per unit cost and less efficiency than bulk. Synthetic petroleum is produced from coal, oil and natural gas, carbon energy sources that don't help reduce environmental footprint.
    - danielweber 14y ago
      You can make gasoline out of nuclear power, too, from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Last I looked, a hydrogen fuel cycle was slightly more efficient than a gasoline fuel cycle. But it's a lot easier to handle gasoline than hydrogen. We already have the equipment to move and store gasoline all over the country, no cryogenics needed. (I say "gasoline" but things like methanol are also suitable.)
      - nekojima 14y ago
        Wouldn't those sources of gasoline from atmospheric carbon dioxide still produce carbon emissions? While hydrogen used as a transportation fuel produces water.

46 points by iProject 14y ago

"As a result of this intensive modeling effort, the researchers say they've discovered that a carefully designed combination of renewable sources – wind and solar – with batteries and fuel-cell electricity-storage systems could by 2030 supply enough power to keep a large electrical grid fired up 99.9 per cent of the time, and do so at a cost comparable to today's not-so-renewable energy grid." The one thing that worries me is the word 'comparable'. With no prices listed one Congress's 'comparable' is another Congress's 'unaffordable'. Granted prices for renewable energy sources should trend downward, as has been the case, but I'm not sure if lower costs in the future have been accounted for. More than anything I want this to be true and enough to convince governments to invest in these technologies. More than that I want people advocating for renewable energies to speak with more confidence. The article says, "could provide," why not "CAN provide"? If the ultimate issue is swaying public opinion why are such things not discussed with more confidence? Granted I know this seems a little nitpicky but I believe every word counts. Additionally I'm curious what other people have to say about this.

monochromatic 14y ago

I'd love to see what kinds of silly assumptions they're making about costs for buildout, solar efficiency improvements, magical new energy storage technology, etc...

SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
When you read the article, what did you find out on the score?

maxharris 14y ago

"ALL POWER"? If that means fewer kilowatts than I get now for the same dollar, NO DEAL. My standard of living is something I won't compromise on. Everything I value - everything that makes my life great - including medicine, cuisine, art, travel, education, and countless other things, requires huge amounts of cheap, reliable energy. If these lame energy sources were truly worthwhile, their proponents would build a startup around it, start making a profit, attract private capital to expand, and make even larger profits. Notice that in this case, the entire stream of transactions is 100% voluntary. Everyone involved is free to pursue their own lives as best they see fit. Instead, what they clamor for is government handouts, and laws to shackle the production of energy from sources that actually work. That's totally involuntary. If you have to force people to accept your new idea, it's no good. That's because any such forcing prevents people from acting on their own best judgement (or even having their own best judgement - a mental process detached from reality does not constitute thought), and pursuing the things they care about.

jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
> That's because any such forcing prevents people from acting on their own best judgement That is not how societies work, if you believe Hydrogen cyanide is the best thing to paint your house that doesn't mean you are allowed to do it; it doesn't matter if you realize or not how poisonous it is.
- Centigonal 14y ago
  Hydrogen Cyanide is actually a colorless liquid that would evaporate in the sunlight. You may be looking for Prussian blue, which has got a lovely blue color, but isn't very toxic. Anyway, this is orthogonal to the effectivity of your analogy, but I thought you may want to know.
mtgx 14y ago
Because current energy sources get no subsidies? At the very least let them compete fairly in the market. Eliminate all coal and gas subsidies.
raphinou 14y ago
> My standard of living is something I won't compromise on. Maybe you phrased it stronger than intended, but this rejection of any compromise feels very egoistic and short-sighted. This is unrelated to the article itself, which I didn't even read, but I wanted to react because I think the lack of compromise is doing a lot of harm these days.
yarrel 14y ago
> My standard of living is something I won't compromise on. You can compromise on it or you can lose it entirely. Your choice, snowflake.
- orangecat 14y ago
  I'll go with none of the above, i.e. nuclear.
- ngokevin 14y ago

SpikeDad 14y ago

Holy schnikes. Why are we not doing it? PS. What do places without wind or sun do? Move?

bcoates 14y ago
It assumes 2030 technology that doesn't exist yet. Check back in 18 years, then we can start the many-decade project of deployment. Pencil in 2080 or so.

Tuna-Fish 14y ago

Three nines reliability. That is appallingly bad.

jewel 14y ago
It's not a reliability number. For comparison, right now 31% of California's energy comes from renewable sources (according to wikipedia). What 99.9% means is that they'll keep some traditional power generation mechanisms, like gas turbines, around to fill in when the renewable supply is not sufficient. That could be because there isn't enough sun or because there is unusually high demand. The power isn't going to go out.

kalleboo 14y ago

Looking at the paper abstract online, looks like the storage they're building this theory on are: Hydrogen, "Centralized battery" (Li-ion? not sure), and Grid-Integrated-Vehicles. Can anyone comment on the feasibility of these in the real world?

bcoates 14y ago
Drivers will want them charging during peak usage hours, and the grid will want them discharging, so grid integration can only do so much, unless you expect drivers to massively subsidize the power grid by buying batteries they don't want. Hydrogen is not viable and as far as I know has never been taken seriously as a fuel storage or transport material. Centralized battery works just fine but it's currently cost-prohibitive. I'm not sure why the paper's authors think that will change by 2030.
danielweber 14y ago
Vehicle-to-grid always strikes me as nutty. People don't want the batteries on their cars being put under strain to power a building's lights. Car batteries have much different design constraints than grid back-up systems.

blueprint 14y ago

It's too bad the natural environment will collapse long before then.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
blueprint 14y ago
What's the big deal with downvoting heavily someone who tries to inform others of the reality of the fact? It's because people like me are ignored and suppressed that this problem is, at this point, pretty much guaranteed not to be solved.

im3w1l 14y ago

I think 4 years of backtesting is too little. Also sounds like they used the same data for training and testing.

herf 14y ago

Bill Gates makes the argument that energy storage is way behind. If you used all the batteries currently in existence you would only have minutes of energy, not enough to make it through the night.

Centigonal 14y ago
Interesting -- do you think the idea of pumping tons of water up and down a mountain for long-term, high-capacity energy storage could help bridge that gap?
- iaw 14y ago
  I've thought about this before but the issues is that the energy is dinged 3 times by inefficiency losses. First when you capture it from the sun(or whatever), then when you pump it and convert it to potential, then when you let it out and use it to generate. They actually already do this to some extent, I think the "St. Lawrence Pump Station" is one facility.
  - snowwindwaves 14y ago
    they already do this a lot more than to some extent, it is quite common. Batteries have an internal impedance as well which means losses putting energy in and taking it out. 15% loss on a battery is a reasonable estimate
- DaniFong 14y ago
  People are... completely out of touch with the scale of our industrial infrastructure. Cities us 3% of the Earth's land surface. Fossil fuels inject power into earth at a rate 3x the tides. We intercept about 30% of the total power generation we could get from rainfall. On the topic of energy storage, for the USA you'd need a lower reservoir approximately the size of Lake Erie, and a flow rate 150x that of Niagara Falls. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-stor... I'm not saying it can't be done -- energy storage at this scale has to be done for a switch to renewables -- I'm saying that the scale is absolutely immense.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

nhebb 14y ago

I was curious about the author so I looked up his profile on the University of Delaware website [1]. Despite being listed as a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, his educational background is in Sociology and Anthropology. There are times when an appeal to authority is valid - such as an expert witness in a court of law. When it comes to scientific or engineering matters, I like to see some credentialed authority behind the research. Otherwise, I'm highly skeptical since this is the first source that I've seen to claim such a high percentage of green energy as the source for all power consumption. [1] http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/people/profile.aspx?willett http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/people/profile.aspx?willett

mahesh_rm 14y ago
To some extents, I agree with you. On the other hand, I am not sure a background in engineering would provide more source's epistemic authority than one in sociology, in this context. Interpreting Geist is a complex practice, and the presumption to reverse engineering it may be naively and implicitly leading to failure.
arrrg 14y ago
The only problem with that is that Willett Kempton is not the primary author and the primary author very definitely does have an engineering background (bachelor of engineering in 2007, PhD candidate in electrical engineering). Running down the list of other authors we have a bachelor of ocean engineering, currently a graduate student in the same field, a master in oceanography and current PhD student as well as one student with more of a policy focus plus the aforementioned professor. Your comment is ignorant and lazy. Appeals to authority can be valid, sure, but when you make them you better be damn sure you are doing it correctly, for example by quickly glancing at the abstract. Here is the actual paper: http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/resources/BudischakEtAl-2013-CostMinimizedWindSolarPJM.pdf http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/resources/BudischakEtAl-2... Have at it.

iaw 14y ago

I can't access the full paper but there's something wrong here. A few concerns I have : 1) Congestion rents are not mentioned anywhere when they have as large if not a larger impact on the cost to rate payers than energy price. 2) There's no mention of a "security constrained" commitment model which is what I believe PJM uses. 3) Saying that you'll just build a distributed system and assuming a low cost ignores easement costs, acquisition costs, and legal costs in building any energy infrastructure. I'm no high power electrical engineer but I'd be surprised to see this not including some sort of drastic misunderstanding of how these infrastructures and the markets around them function. An idea with potential is building HVDC lines from renewables to populated areas but you'll still need natural gas kickers for when demand spikes.

danielweber 14y ago
ignores easement costs, acquisition costs, and legal costs in That's actually pretty common among scientists who are imagining they are designing utopia.

nekojima 14y ago

"Eco-wise" the infrastructure to build and deploy solar and wind, including batteries & storage, is substantially far more un-environmentally friendly than the other main options that are environmentally friendly, which are nuclear and hydrogen. On almost any measure, nuclear power and hydrogen (which can be produced cheaply at off-peak times for vehicles) are the two key power sources we should be investing far more in, rather than the current damaging technologies being deployed on increasingly vast scales with little thought to the real environmental damage being created.

bcoates 14y ago
Does hydrogen have anything to offer over synthetic petroleum as a vehicle fuel?
- nekojima 14y ago
  Hydrogen can be produced from nuclear, as well as hydro power. If produced in off-peak times (at late night) in bulk it can be efficiently produced and then distributed to filling stations. With at-home production units the distribution system can be largely removed at the expense of slightly higher per unit cost and less efficiency than bulk. Synthetic petroleum is produced from coal, oil and natural gas, carbon energy sources that don't help reduce environmental footprint.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    You can make gasoline out of nuclear power, too, from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Last I looked, a hydrogen fuel cycle was slightly more efficient than a gasoline fuel cycle. But it's a lot easier to handle gasoline than hydrogen. We already have the equipment to move and store gasoline all over the country, no cryogenics needed. (I say "gasoline" but things like methanol are also suitable.)
    - nekojima 14y ago
      Wouldn't those sources of gasoline from atmospheric carbon dioxide still produce carbon emissions? While hydrogen used as a transportation fuel produces water.