100 Percent Renewable Energy......

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Ted DuPuis said:
Otherwise, you can do anything with a gas powered car that you can do with an electric car in terms of basic fulfilling of the mission.
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Not having to stop at a gas station for the last 6+ years when I'm running late for a meeting, or when I'm tired and it's cold and rainy outside, or when I'm in the city and a gas station is a 30 minute drive through traffic but I really need to gas for the next day, is something that a electrical vehicle offers me that a gas powered car doesn't.

If Chevron offers to run a gasoline line to my house they would have equal mission, but until then refilling at home is a unique advantage to an electric vehicle.


Anyway, coming back to renewable energy. There is no such thing. We have 3 sources of energy: Fusion, Fission and Geothermal. Everything else is a derivative of that. And they'll all run out. /Nit.
 
The technical problems are solvable. Presently, there is not an adequate business case to justify the investments needed. When market forces demand a new energy solution, one will be created.

We're doing things backward right now by using government subsidies and research funds to invent technology, then trying to push that technology into the marketplace (which then requires market subsidies).

The most successful energy solutions so far have been those which reduce demand, such as LED lights or more efficient appliances. These provide benefit to the consumer regardless of how the energy is being created. Eventually, demand reductions may help alternative energy generation become more viable.

The popular saying is, "Money talks." That's not correct. It screams!
 
Rushie said:
Not the way we use energy. If you mean solar and wind they will never supply all our energy needs. Nuclear is probably the closest to unlimited power but we haven't figured out how to run our cars and airplanes with it.

The best solution for now is to continue aggressively pursuing fossil fuels because the more markets aggressively pursue them, the better the technology for extracting them which lowers pollution cost and environmental impact and the cheaper they become as we see in the U.S.
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Thorium-fueled nuclear with HTSE using the steam and waste electricity during off-hours to produce hydrogen to fuel vehicles. Aircraft will be a little harder.

Rich
 
deonb said:
Everything else is a derivative of that. And they'll all run out. /Nit.
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Ah, but when? 5 Years? 500 years? 5,000 years? That's the question that determines the necessary pace of investment.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Whenever I've looked into it, the payback was still going to be in the 10-20 year timeframe, even with incentives.
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Ironically, last I looked, the primary thing that stands in the way of reducing that is OSHA regulations and insurance requirements for residential roof top work. If you took those away your monthly expenses on a new construction would be less from day 1 if your house included a solar roof than if it didn't (in the Southern states at least).

Unintended consequences of trying to do a good thing...
 
Ted DuPuis said:
... I don't even like ABS or traction control. I can live with ABS if I have to but I prefer not having it.
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They don't have ABS in Formula 1, and flat-spotting tires is a major concern, even with the best drivers in the world. I'll keep mine, thanks!
 
Ok, the average house uses 897 kWh per month, to simplify the math, lets assume that number is 900 kWh per month and a month is 30 days long. Using that number the average house uses 30 kWh per day.

Flyingcheesehead posted above that Tesla is about to open a 129 MWh battery facility. So, lets see how many average houses that would power for a day, assuming it was fully charged. Others can check my math, but I come up with 4,300 houses* for a day, not very many, especially considering the cash outlay.

Alternative energy is only economically useful in areas without a power plant. In other areas it's a loser unless heavily subsidized by taxpayers. More importantly it will not provide the energy needs of a community in its present form. Someday maybe, but not yet.

*There are about 126 million households in the US.

Edit: Where I got the 897 number.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3
 
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deonb said:
If Chevron offers to run a gasoline line to my house they would have equal mission, but until then refilling at home is a unique advantage to an electric vehicle . . .
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If we're picking nits, CNG vehicles can be refueled at home, too, assuming you have natural gas service to your home (which a large majority do). However, it does cost a bit for the at-home compressor ($3-5K or so). :)
 
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deonb said:
Not having to stop at a gas station for the last 6+ years when I'm running late for a meeting, or when I'm tired and it's cold and rainy outside, or when I'm in the city and a gas station is a 30 minute drive through traffic but I really need to gas for the next day, is something that a electrical vehicle offers me that a gas powered car doesn't.

If Chevron offers to run a gasoline line to my house they would have equal mission, but until then refilling at home is a unique advantage to an electric vehicle.
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That is an additional convenience of electric cars for people with low numbers of miles they drive per day, and also never needing to wait in line at the pump (as I did this morning). The location convenience of gas stations is there, you never have to go too far out of your way to get it. The location convenience of electricity is there if you're looking to recharge at home, but the fact remains that gasoline is readily available where we normally drive and it's quick to refuel, while you've got a much shorter leash/extension cord with electric.
 
CC268 said:
If you've been to Maui they got them all over the West Maui Mountains...definitely an eye sore, but whatever floats your boat I guess. According to Hawaiian Electric, 80% of their energy still comes from fossil fuels.
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I never saw the wind turbines in the West Maui Mountains in 2001, but I did see a lot of wind turbine hulks at the Maui's southern most tip. It seemed to me at the time that if they couldn't generate enough power to pay for their maintenance in a strong, steady wind, then there was no way unsubsidized wind turbines were going to work. Oh, yes. Hawaii and Alaska both have high electricity rates.
 
What I don't get with Maui is, with so much natural heat under the island, can't they drive steam turbines and generate power from there? They're surrounded by water and are sitting on top of molten rock. I know Iceland gets a lot of their power from geothermal..

Rather than destroying beautiful hillsides with windmills they could just circulate water and steam through the rock..?

It is cool when windfarms have all the lights blinking at once.. something alien about it
 
Tantalum said:
It is cool when windfarms have all the lights blinking at once.. something alien about it
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That's what they do here in Kansas. It's pretty fun to fly over at night.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
That's what they do here in Kansas. It's pretty fun to fly over at night.
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Always thought the bank of 'em North of Ardmore around the Arbuckles was cool to see at night. Definitely gets your attention, when it's on the top of a large elevation change.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
A better wording would've been that they don't have the universal practicality that a gasoline powered vehicle has.
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Without a doubt.

Whenever I've looked into it, the payback was still going to be in the 10-20 year timeframe, even with incentives.
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Yep, I think that's pretty typical for the "come install it for me" group.

The guy I know with the quickest payback built his own garage, and then put solar on it - He took classes to learn everything he had to know for system design and installation, did all the work himself for both, put together all of the paperwork required by the power company, etc. He also purchased some "orphan" solar panels that were made by a well-regarded but now-defunct manufacturer. I think it was about a year-long project for him on the weekends. All that sweat equity saved him a lot of money.

He's got a bunch of really good writeups and YouTube videos of the process, which can be found by starting here: https://300mpg.org/bens-solar-garage/

Can electric get there? Perhaps, but the recharging hurdle is great. I can refill my tank in any of my vehicles in 5 minutes. Even with one of the high-power chargers for electric cars (which aren't as available as gas stations), there's nothing close to that level of energy transfer available.
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Yet. In the given 10-year timeframe, that's likely to change. Tesla's "v3" Superchargers are expected to be announced in the next year, and the SAE-CCS standard, at least, is improving as well.

deonb said:
Anyway, coming back to renewable energy. There is no such thing. We have 3 sources of energy: Fusion, Fission and Geothermal. Everything else is a derivative of that. And they'll all run out. /Nit.
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Yeah, but the big fission source in the sky should last long past the time that this all turns into the Mother Earth Nature Preserve.

Half Fast said:
We're doing things backward right now by using government subsidies and research funds to invent technology, then trying to push that technology into the marketplace (which then requires market subsidies).
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There's plenty of subsidies in the non-renewable side of things, too.

PaulS said:
Ok, the average house uses 897 kWh per month, to simplify the math, lets assume that number is 900 kWh per month and a month is 30 days long. Using that number the average house uses 30 kWh per day.

Flyingcheesehead posted above that Tesla is about to open a 129 MWh battery facility. So, lets see how many average houses that would power for a day, assuming it was fully charged. Others can check my math, but I come up with 4,300 houses* for a day, not very many, especially considering the cash outlay.
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But the batteries aren't meant to power everything for a day. Solar powers things when the sun is up, wind powers things when it's windy, and you build enough excess capacity into both to charge the batteries. Then, on a calm night, the batteries power things for a short period of time.

IOW, I'm sure there's more than 4300 houses in South Australia... And I think the battery array there is mostly fed by wind. It just helps stabilize the grid.
 
Pilawt said:
We just have to start breeding more dinosaurs.

:p
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When I was in school in the '60s we were taught that oil came from dead dinosaurs. They don't teach that anymore. The current thinking is this, from
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-O...xplanation-On-This-Essential-Fossil-Fuel.html :

Crude oil is created through the heating and compression of organic materials over a long period of time. Most of the oil we extract today comes from the remains of prehistoric algae and zooplankton whose remains settled on the bottom of an Ocean or Lake. Over time this organic material combined with mud and was then heated to high temperatures from the pressure created by heavy layers of sediment. This process, known as diagenesis, changes the chemical composition first into a waxy compound called kerogen and then, with increased heat, into a liquid through a process called catagenesis.

Maybe eight or ten years ago Ukrainian scientists took dolomite, a form of marble that is formed from those prehistoric microorganism remains, mixed it with water, and put it under terrific heat and pressure. They got crude oil out of it. I think that's when the theories changed big time. When you think about the constant tectonic subduction of seafloors in so many places, you start to realize that this is indeed a renewable resource.
 
bflynn said:
FTFY

Fusion will not violate Newton's laws. So if it appears to be energy positive, the question needs to be asked as to why it appears that way. Where is the energy coming from?

And Ted, my electric car is very, very practical.
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The main issue I’ve read is it currently takes more power to fuse then the process it outputs.
 
Dan Thomas said:
When I was in school in the '60s we were taught that oil came from dead dinosaurs.
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I think the poster meant it as a joke. ;)

It would take a huge amount of dinosaurs to make all the oil that is in the ground.
 
ARFlyer said:
The main issue I’ve read is it currently takes more power to fuse then the process it outputs.
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That would be energy negative fusion. In order to produce power, you must use energy to assemble matter (fuse) and have that process not just consume the energy to fuse the matter together, but also to output energy in the process. The notion is a violation of the conservation of mass/energy. If anyone does manage to make it work, we need to really question where the energy output is coming from because it would mean that either there is another force in universe that we don't understand and haven't even identified yet OR that Newton is wrong. Either would be a shift in fundamental science.

Personally, I don't believe there's another force and I don't believe Newton is wrong. Therefore I am doubtful about the possibility of energy positive fusion.
 
bflynn said:
Personally, I don't believe there's another force and I don't believe Newton is wrong. Therefore I am doubtful about the possibility of energy positive fusion.
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Hydrogen bomb anyone? Seriously, that tells me it is possible. But how to control, contain, and meter it are the questions, IMO.
 
EppyGA said:
Is it possible to reach 100% renewable energy on ten years? Yes, No and why do you think that.
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Ten years? On what scale? California, the US, the world?

My answer is none of the above will happen. Let's discuss the scenario planned for 2030 by the Paris Agreement and see what's expected by then.

I must necessarily mention the names of two presidents to do so. Try to show restraint by ignoring that urge to make political comments which will cause the thread to be closed.

While our current president has been taking heat for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, no one seems to know exactly what was stipulated in it and why it needed to be scrapped.

President Obama agreed that the US would reduce carbon emissions 28% by 2030. Other countries, particularly India, agreed to much less onerous restrictions, and China's obligation was that they just had to try real hard to do better. You think I'm kidding?

Nothing horrifies the intelligentsia more than President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change. But, based on new information on China's emissions, it increasingly looks like the president made the right call.

Just last week, an analysis from Greenpeace indicated that China's 2018 carbon emissions were on track to grow at the fastest rate in six years. The study, based on government data regarding the use of coal and other energy sources, shows carbon output rising 4 percent in the first quarter of this year. Analysts are projecting similar gains over the next several quarters.

The weakness of the Paris Agreement was that it was lopsided, requiring little from China and a great deal from the U.S. President Obama committed the United States to reducing carbon emissions in 2025 by 26 to 28 percent, which would have meant a substantial jump in electricity costs.

By contrast, China committed to boosting non-fossil fuels to around 20 percent of its overall energy mix by 2030 (a project already underway) and a "hope" that emissions might peak at that time. As one analyst commented in the New York Times, "What China is pledging to do here is not a lot different from what China's policies are on track to deliver."

As vague as its goals were, it is becoming clear that the country is unlikely to meet them. To do so would require sacrificing growth to rein in pollution. Since the Chinese Communist Party has pledged to double China's 2010 GDP by 2020 and to create a "moderately prosperous society" by 2021, that is extremely unlikely.

Adhering to the Paris Agreement would have severely restricted the US economy and resulted in huge increases of electrical costs, job losses, and some scheme of taxation, all of which would land on the backs of those least able to afford it, while the Chinese would be free to continue polluting. Why should we agree to take on a burden that will cause great social and economic upheaval while the rest of the world contributes a small fraction of our efforts?

The US has done a good job of reducing carbon emissions in the last twenty years without being party to a commitment which would harm our country while allowing China and India to continue their exploding output of pollution and carbon emissions.

Oil will be far and away the primary source of power generation and transportation for the next fifty years. People ignore the fact the US isn't the world. It is projected over a billion people will join the middle class over that time period. This expansive group will come from Africa, India, and Asia.

It is quite unrealistic to expect countries in this growth area will adopt solar and wind power on a large scale, and that electric vehicles will see widespread use. There won't be charging stations across Africa.

There is a reason why Exxon and Chevron are spending billions to acquire petroleum reserves in Southeast Asia, Brazil, and even Alaska.


https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/390741-chinas-rising-emissions-prove-trump-right-on-paris-agreement[/QUOTE]
 
kyleb said:
Hydrogen bomb anyone? Seriously, that tells me it is possible. But how to control, contain, and meter it are the questions, IMO.
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Hydrogen bombs require temperatures of a few million degrees to begin the fusion process, which is provided by the X-ray flux generated by a fission explosion trigger.

It is not a process that lends itself to control, containment, and metering.
 
3393RP said:
Hydrogen bombs require temperatures of a few million degrees to begin the fusion process, which is provided by the X-ray flux generated by a fission explosion trigger.

It is not a process that lends itself to control, containment, and metering.
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Aw, just put a set of GAMIs on it and run it lean of peak.

:p
 
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