Wind, solar could provide 99.9% of all power by 2030
theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
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.
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-2...
Have at it.
Synthetic petroleum is produced from coal, oil and natural gas, carbon energy sources that don't help reduce environmental footprint.
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.)
Sure - exactly as much carbon dioxide, in fact, as was removed from the atmosphere when the fuel was produced.
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.
That's actually pretty common among scientists who are imagining they are designing utopia.
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.
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.
Anyway, this is orthogonal to the effectivity of your analogy, but I thought you may want to know.
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.
You can compromise on it or you can lose it entirely.
Your choice, snowflake.
On your other point: If your complaining about government handouts, the oil/gas industry gets billions dollars in subsidies every year.
The three largest fossil fuel subsidies were:
Foreign tax credit ($15.3 billion)
Credit for production of non-conventional fuels ($14.1 billion)
Oil and Gas exploration and development expensing ($7.1 billion)
The three largest renewable fuel subsidies were:
Alcohol Credit for Fuel Excise Tax ($11.6 billion)*
Renewable Electricity Production Credit ($5.2 billion)
Corn-Based Ethanol ($5.0 billion)*
*Corn (ethanol) subsidies need to be replaced with something else. It will not work (not sustainable) and is a handout to the agriculture industry.
Also, the externalities of fossil fuel production is not priced in when purchasing the fuel. Health, disasters, other issues are not included.
By the way, do you not think that your standard of living will change when fossil fuels run out? Best thing is to be diversified.
here is the problem. cheap, reliable energy is something that will end in 20-50 years, depending who you ask.
>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.
there's no option for this because digging out energy without taking into account the price of pollution when selling it can't be beaten if the only thing that matters is the dollar. that's without government subsidies and tax breaks for mining companies.
>Instead, what they clamor for is government handouts, and laws to shackle the production of energy from sources that actually work.
that's because people like you can't be arsed to change their unsustainable lifestyle by themselves. go do the world a favor and read something about exponential growth.
If you mean fossil fuels, then your lifestyle is subsidized in part by the destruction of my environment. I consider that an unjust initiation of force. Remove that involuntary infringement on my property rights, by paying to clean up the trash you're dumping in the atmosphere, and then we'll see what solutions really succeed best in the marketplace.
They actually already do this to some extent, I think the "St. Lawrence Pump Station" is one facility.
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-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.
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.
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.
Car batteries have much different design constraints than grid back-up systems.
PS. What do places without wind or sun do? Move?
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.