Wind and solar could meet 85 percent of current US electricity needs(engadget.com)
engadget.com
Wind and solar could meet 85 percent of current US electricity needs
https://www.engadget.com/wind-solar-energy-needs-study-172901659.html
7 comments
Bullshit. The physics and engineering does not support the claim!
Please explain. Nearly everyone else seems to think that there are no technical roadblocks, only political ones.
It sounds like they're just comparing total power required by the countries with the power produced on average by the reliable grids.
But you can't manage a grid like that and not get brownouts.
You need to account for two numbers in your planning for capacity... the average use and the projected peak use. If you don't have the overhead capacity to cover the peaks, then you get brownouts and outages that can negatively affect the entire grid... and not just the percentage of people that the grid can't supply.
On top of that, even if you assume storage technologies get you to 90% of needs covered, that last 10% is a heavily necessary pain in the ass. Without certain industries having the power they need, none of the technologies that make all the renewable power possible can build products.
Not to mention all the consumer goods that would be impacted by not having those industries powered.
But you can't manage a grid like that and not get brownouts.
You need to account for two numbers in your planning for capacity... the average use and the projected peak use. If you don't have the overhead capacity to cover the peaks, then you get brownouts and outages that can negatively affect the entire grid... and not just the percentage of people that the grid can't supply.
On top of that, even if you assume storage technologies get you to 90% of needs covered, that last 10% is a heavily necessary pain in the ass. Without certain industries having the power they need, none of the technologies that make all the renewable power possible can build products.
Not to mention all the consumer goods that would be impacted by not having those industries powered.
The challenge basically is no one seems to adequately explain how this below consumption variability over time will be handled in a largely solar/wind grid without invoking scaled application of energy storage technology that has not yet passed lab experiments stage.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2020.02.21/chart2.s...
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2020.02.21/chart2.s...
Ah. Yes. With storage we are at least ten years behind any plausible development scenario that could keep us below 2 degrees of global warming. Still, doing it now is better than not doing it at all.
However, the technology is all there. We have it.
Electrolysed hydrogen. There is a lot of development work being done on optimising electrolysis, but it's by no means a lab experiment like carbon sequestration[1] or fusion power. Hydrogen is routinely handled at scale in ammonia production.
If we are to move away from fossil fuels for steel and cement making (and for industrial process heat), we will need to be producing quite a lot of hydrogen. So this just increases demand by a factor of two to five. Best get started on it.
However, you are right. Everyone's been focused on the electricity sector (and to a lesser extent private land transport) up till now. And within that, on production.
I don't think the "not just electricity and cars" message sunk in during COP-26. It will have to soon, though.
1. I distinguish carbon sequestration, technology to permanently lock up carbon at the same scale as our current total fossil fuel consumption, from CCS, carbon capture and storage, which is useful together with hydrogen for feedstocks for industrial chemical manufacturing. CCS is a little further along and easier to do.
However, the technology is all there. We have it.
Electrolysed hydrogen. There is a lot of development work being done on optimising electrolysis, but it's by no means a lab experiment like carbon sequestration[1] or fusion power. Hydrogen is routinely handled at scale in ammonia production.
If we are to move away from fossil fuels for steel and cement making (and for industrial process heat), we will need to be producing quite a lot of hydrogen. So this just increases demand by a factor of two to five. Best get started on it.
However, you are right. Everyone's been focused on the electricity sector (and to a lesser extent private land transport) up till now. And within that, on production.
I don't think the "not just electricity and cars" message sunk in during COP-26. It will have to soon, though.
1. I distinguish carbon sequestration, technology to permanently lock up carbon at the same scale as our current total fossil fuel consumption, from CCS, carbon capture and storage, which is useful together with hydrogen for feedstocks for industrial chemical manufacturing. CCS is a little further along and easier to do.
Additionally, quite a bit of the need for storage can be substituted by overbuilding long distance power transmission lines. That may be cheaper, if NIMBYs can be neutralised.
I read a factoid many years ago that wind speeds are only 10% correlated at a distance of 1000 km. Don't know how true it is, but it seems plausible at least.
I read a factoid many years ago that wind speeds are only 10% correlated at a distance of 1000 km. Don't know how true it is, but it seems plausible at least.