Building the Wind Turbines Was Easy – The Hard Part Was Plugging Them In
wsj.com
wsj.com
This has been the story of renewables since the beginning: highly trained people bringing up technical concerns that seem like impossibilities, and then that impossibility being proven to be possible.
I almost never believe a hardened, experienced, smart energy person anymore when they say something isn't possible, because what they really mean is "nobody has done that before."
Up until 2000, nobody having done something before probably meant it wasn't possible: thermal steam turbines have been optimized out the wazoo for decades upon decades.
As we move away from thermal steam production of electricity, we will need to re-evaluate everything, something the energy sector hasn't done for a very long time.
Also, as I understand it the various control systems which used to kick in just on occasion and take somewhat heroic measures in order to maintain grid stability are now having to do that constantly. This isn't the exception anymore but rather the rule, in other words, so it's probably not so much a matter of "The system is working well" as it is "We're making it work as best we can, at least for now". This is an important distinction because while in the past an outage or a hack or whatever would have probably had limited scope, today the same might end up bringing a much larger part of the grid down.
As I recall, the original goal was to try and maintain a solid 60Hz at all times. Then that was relaxed to trying to maintain an average of 60Hz over a 24-hour period. And I think that requirement has now mostly gone away, too, which is a good thing because with so many renewables in the mix these days you probably can't really do it anyway. But you can't let it slip too far because then you still might run into any number of operational problems.
Vintage gear has interesting challenges, such as finding good drive belts, they tend to turn to sticky mush after a couple of decades.
A Canadian inventor, Roger Gordon (http://www.greennh3.com/) has a refrigerator-size design that needs only electric power, water, and air, but can't raise capital.
Intermittent ammonia production is a perfect fit for wind turbines. Who needs wires?
Industrial ammonia production turns out to be the single biggest methane polluter. (https://agreenerworld.org/a-greener-world/it-wasnt-the-cows-...) Methane is much worse than CO2. Driving them out of business would be a wonderful side benefit.
Generally, the weakness in using electrolysis with intermittent power is it increases the effective capital cost. But if you make hydrogen electrolysis have low capital cost, then yeah, it’s a fantastic idea.
- ammonia/NH3 is highly corrosive IIRC, and also toxic. Do we have good ways to handle it in a safe manner?
- while capitalism has its drawbacks one thing it usually manages is to get funding for anything that seems like a good investment. And while I can understand why Exxon or Shell might stay clear there are many more who doesn't have their own oil fields and should be happy to get on the next big thing?
Don't misunderstand me: this sounds extremely cool and useful, but those two questions immediately crossed my mind.
We handle millions of tons of it every year, already. So, yes. Farmers buy it in barrels and mount them on their plows.
As you said above, ammonia is used to make fertiliser but AFAIK that happens in factories, but are you saying farmers actually use it directly? I really struggle to believe that. I'd be curious for more info, thanks.
[1] https://www.fertilizer-machine.com/product/Fertilizer_Produc...
https://www.wfyi.org/files/wfyi/articles/current/050719-anhy...
“That scenario didn’t rely on some hoped-for storage breakthrough, just a network of transmissions lines”
(I’m not a rabid greenie but it still boggles my mind that we let companies dump shit in the air for free.)
In California, 41% of carbon emissions are from transportation, the largest single source.
(IMHO we need to also legalize car-free living in addition to just a carbon tax; it's not much use to tax emissions unless we allow mixed use density and transit, and most cities do not allow that to be built anywhere. )
Parts of San Francisco predate the car, so I assume density is high enough to support car free living.
Consider the most basic of trips; you want to go from Walmart to a Target located across the street in a suburban shopping area. Where land values are low (per sq ft), the cheapest way to satisfy parking requirements is to build flat parking lots rather than structured multilevel parking. As a result, a walk across the street requires going from the front door, across a massive parking lot, then crossing a large, high-speed arterial suburban road where a suitable crosswalk may not be close by, and then crossing the Target parking lot to get to the front door. Quite the schlep through an environment that is at best unfriendly to pedestrians and at worst unsafe.
In high land value areas this is less of a problem, because the parking lots are in small-footprint garages or located underneath buildings. But most of America does not live in high land value areas, and even the most basic of trips are only practical or safe in a motor vehicle.
That suggests to me that it's currently not legal, and as I don't know where they live, there could be a law applying to this.
> allow mixed use density and transit, and most cities do not allow that to be built anywhere.
It is illegal to build for car-free living in the vast majority of our land. So much is that in some of the places where it exists today, it would be illegal to build now because the building styles were made illegal over the last century.
Car dependency is built into our laws and our built infrastructure, and that codified life style does not fit the desires of future generations, not their environmental needs.
It also isn't at all obvious that any given company is doing more damage with the stuff they dump into the air than the positive benefits they create by burning fossil fuels, which is why there isn't more support for charging for carbon emissions.
China is in a much better position to deal with the impacts of climate change after being responsible for ~25% of last years emissions than it would be if it had tried to industrialise using solar panels.
Fossil fuels have positive and negative externalities. Just taxing the negatives and ignoring the positives is not a rational approach.
The positives take care of themselves. The negatives are what need corrective action.
Logically speaking it would be subsidise the positives, but practically it is easiest to just let the negative externalities run and enjoy the positives, if the positives outweigh the negatives.
And from your vehicle(s), and from your yard equipment, and from your fireplace, and probably from your heating system, and maybe from your kitchen, and maybe from your clothes dryer, and so on. And don't even get me started on things like outdoor grills, which could be considered major polluters (along with fireplaces and such). Heaven help us if the EPA ever decides to crack down on this stuff, especially enforcing PM 2.5 restrictions, because this could potentially have a major impact on us at home.
No comment on PM 2.5 restrictions, entirely different topic.
Gasoline prices are headed down to below $2 a gallon in some parts of the country right now, but from what I understand California prices are going to stay at least twice that, and might even go higher. So we'll have to see what effect that has on demand there, if any.
> No comment on PM 2.5 restrictions, entirely different topic.
Carbon emissions are carbon emissions; it's not just all about CO2. PM 2.5 carbon particles and visible soot and such will likely eventually oxidize to CO2 anyway, though. And a lot of it oxidizes almost as soon as it's emitted, given its high temperature and its exposure to fresh supply of oxygen.
It would make some difference in use, in the medium to long term. It would make sure nobody moves from other carbon emission sources to gasoline to save money. And most importantly, you could use 50 cents a gallon to capture a lot of carbon.
> eventually oxidize to CO2
Let me rephrase then. Those particles, treated purely as a carbon source, are pretty negligible. Any restrictions that matter would be based on non-CO2 effects.
As to the PM 2.5 thing, like I said a lot of that gets oxidized to CO2 anyway, which adds up over time. Lately the EPA has been making a lot of noises about regulating this stuff, except that it turns out that much of it comes from places like our own kitchens. And nobody really wants the EPA involved with that part of it, hence the efforts to reign them in somewhat. But of course any talk of potentially restraining the EPA here is personified as "evil" in the press.
> A new study released Monday looks into what would happen if that limitation were eliminated. It envisions a massive web of high-voltage, direct-current transmission lines, hooked up to 32 nodes spread across the US. This allows a massive spread of renewable power that could be dispatched anywhere in the nation. The result is a grid with dramatically lower carbon emissions and the bonus of lower costs to consumers.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/making-a-single-us-e...
Of course it's one thing to engineer a carbon- and cost-minimal grid in theory, it's another thing to try to construct a market that could reach that optimum, or get it enacted politically.
This HVDC network is something I think of every few months, not only for the idea itself, but for the futility of a really really good idea that has every bit of politics stacked against it.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2921
The WSJ article is an excerpt from a coming book, so I’d imagine the study will be listed in the footnotes.
BTW, the Oklahoma-to-Tennessee transmission line referenced in this article was supposed to terminate in my area, where it would connect to TVA's system. But TVA told them that they didn't need the electricity and didn't want it (see below), so nothing ever got built. Between this and the other difficulties referenced in the article, they finally gave up on the notion and sold out to someone else, and that someone else now finds itself on the wrong side of some bankruptcy issues. To wit, certain customers of theirs are having financial difficulties and are trying to get out from under their contracts, with at least one very large customer now using bankruptcy as a lever.
As far as TVA itself goes, they currently have a good mix of hydro, nuclear, coal, natural gas (some of which has recently replaced coal), a little bit of wind (with no plans to add more AFAIK), and now some solar, which is a growing part of their base. (There's also been some noise lately about maybe finishing up a nuclear station that was halted halfway and mothballed decades ago, but I don't think that's going to happen.) The article mentions a politician who apparently is anti-wind and may have caused some difficulties here. But there is also another politician who is pro-solar and who may be influencing TVA's activities in that regard.
To use a local example, I have a solar plant nearby which is rated at one megawatt "nameplate". But for whatever reasons it is currently maxing out at only 60% of that, even under ideal conditions. And it looks like its average output may be as low as 17%, depending on how you count things. (I generally use 25% as a round, ballpark figure for wind and solar, although it looks like off-shore wind power at least is generally running much higher than that.)
Wishful thinking: The wind and solar folks like to pretend that with enough storage (battery, pumped hydro, and so on ) then these can be as reliable and productive as more traditional power sources. Except that the storage stuff only has limited capacity, and is remarkably limited in many cases (to hours of capacity if not just minutes), so they're going to need something much more robust for backup. And that's generally means that the traditional sources will still be needed to fulfill this role. Which may be mostly fine technologically, but economically it will be quite expensive, and you need to include that added expense in the overall costs for wind and solar. It is wishful thinking to just ignore these factors.
Google, which was quite into renewals themselves a while back, long ago stated that it was obvious that these were never really going to work out for them. Given that Google has pretty much unlimited intellectual and financial resources (or at least it did at the time), if there was anybody who could make this work it would probably be them. But apparently not so much.
The study's focus on how to reduce storage needs is the opposite of ignoring storage cost. Backup power isn't ignored either.
http://www.tresamigasllc.com/docs/nclimate2921.pdf
A quick read of it suggests the following limitations, among others; take the time to read it for yourself if you like:
1. It seems predicated on the notion that we can have a system where any shortfall in one part of the country can be easily made up for just by using the excess generation in other parts of the country. This appears to be a rather "blue sky" assumption to make, and one that I personally wouldn't be willing to make.
2. For the numbers quoted, it makes no mention of "nameplate" capacity vs. actual average capacity, which of course makes a huge difference as to the item above.
3. It makes the rather bizarre statement that HVAC lines can't transmit power over long distances, which clearly isn't true. (They can stretch for thousands of miles if need be, although most aren't anywhere near that long.) It may be true, though, that with current technology HVDC lines can transmit power more efficiently and for longer distances than HVAC lines can.
4. If I'm reading it correctly, it admits to not taking short term variability (an hour or less) into account, when such variability can be substantial. I may be reading it wrong, though.
And so on.
So at best this study can be taken as an example of out-of-the-box, non-traditional thinking, and perhaps as an encouragement for doing more of the same. But it hardly qualifies as any kind of proof that what they describe is technologically or economically feasible.
At least until people start showing up with pitchforks and torches.
And by 'torpedo the economy' I mean raise energy costs up to the point were all this energy pipe dreams becomes viable.
Of course if people were interested in actually solving the problem then we would be building nuclear power plants left and right and wouldn't have to worry about insanely long transmission lines.
Nuclear power plants are fine too.
Which is probably just not going to happen, for the most part. The people pushing this stuff are generally just lying about it (lies of omission in many cases), and they should be ashamed of themselves. And we as a whole should be treating them quite harshly for it, rather than accommodating them.
By way of example, lately they've been talking a lot about how melting permafrost will release lots of CO2 and methane (greenhouse gases), as biological activity kicks in which causes old organic matter to break down. But what they fail to mention (and this is an intentional omission on their part, in my opinion) is that pretty much as soon as that starts happening, other biological activity will kick in which mitigates those emissions, since a lot of things use that stuff for food. So while some extra CO2 and methane might very well be emitted, this will be far more limited in scope than they let on. It's just scare tactics, mostly.
But some of them are also clearly dishonest, too, IMO. Michael Mann, for example, who is generally considered an esteemed climate scientist, got caught some years back attempting to commit perjury by claiming in court documents that he was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, which he clearly was not. (The situation with him - and a few others who made similar claims - got so bad that the Nobel folks eventually had to step in and put a stop to it.) And those who looked closely at the tree-ring data which he used to help build his famous "hockey stick" temperature chart found a lot of problems with that data and how he used it, but I don't remember all of the details. I do remember it being stated that tree ring growth responds primarily to changes in precipitation, though, rather than temperature.
I recently read a paper where two of the authors (out of several) are considered to be among the most esteemed climate scientists in the world. And I just shook my head at how bad that paper was, the ridiculous claims that it made, and at how seriously it was being taken, at least at first. One of those esteemed authors has of late taken to making such outrageous claims that even his own acolytes don't really want to talk about it much, so I was a bit surprised to even see his name on that paper to begin with.
Of course, in the press the paper was being hailed as breakthrough research at the time. But I noticed that it kind of fell off the radar pretty quickly, so I guess a lot of other folks had quietly come to the same conclusion as to how bad it was. I have to see any public acknowledgement of that, though.
BTW, I read somewhere that there are something like 200x as many climate papers being published today as there were a generation or so ago. So if there is a research bandwagon that someone might want to jump on in order to get funding and get their papers published, that's probably a good one to go for. But it turns out that an awful lot of so-called "climate experts" publishing such papers actually have little to no formal training in matters of climate, which I find very telling. Some of them have little to no STEM training at all, in fact.
That's a rather bizarre association to make! I suggest that you refrain from making any further comments on the matter until you've done a little digging for yourself - looked at the backgrounds of the so-called "experts"; read some of the history of the matter, going back decades to centuries; and read some of the papers and critiques of those papers - instead of just depending on whatever the headlines tell you.
If your mental model relies on them choosing fossil fuels over money, it’s wrong.
Nobody wants to allow anything to change near them anymore. The chances of new transmission are extremely slim no matter the economic or environmental benefits because of the process that has been enacted over the past decades.
Maybe forget trying to get to Texas and go east to Illinois, and feed Chicago and points east.
[1] https://new.abb.com/news/detail/10464/abb-enables-worlds-fir...
You can go to tribunal (like a court) but "Too bad, now nobody gets any electricity" isn't one of the options they have, so unless you're going to show that they had another better route open to them the tribunal will just rule against you.
But then there are in some cases whole municipalities or larger units of administration (usually driven by citizens) against new power lines, and they can prevent them... and that is a current problem.