Nuclear vs. Solar vs. Others

louis · 2017-12-01 15:38:41

This is an important development. Electric cars are already cheaper to run that petrol or diesel vehicles over 4 years in several big countries across the planet. This does currently involve an element of subsidy, but clearly the "direction of travel" is all one way - it will only be a few years before they beat petrol and diesel without any subsidy.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment … esel-study

Another factor I think will be that the grid will pay you to use your battery to level out electricity supply - so a possible source of revenue as well.

Once you factor in induction charging of batteries on major roads (as you drive along - so relieving motorists of any requirement to "fuel up"), electric vehicles will be clear winners.

We'll see battery operated trains as well (they are already coming into service for short trains - bigger trains will follow in due course).

Once transport and home services fall to solar/wind plus battery (with some supplementary renewables), you only have to conquer heating really. That too will follow as prices fall.

SpaceNut · 2019-06-20 17:08:25

Batteries in general limiting factor is temperature which under use will cause very serious fires to occur. So research is being done to Expanding the temperature range of lithium-ion batteries

The researchers tested the effects of five electrolyte additives on the performance of lithium-ion batteries within this temperature range. They identified an optimized combination of three compounds that they added to their previous electrolyte solution. This new combination caused the formation of highly conductive, uniform and robust protective layers on both the anode and the cathode. Batteries containing the optimized electrolyte had greatly enhanced discharging performance at -40 F and long-term cycling stability at 77 F, along with slightly improved cycling stability at 140 F.

Its better but for mars we still would be heating them to keep from freezing....

Also Stopping fires before they start—how a salty solution is giving lithium metal batteries a safety check

Packing more energy into the same size battery means an electric vehicle using lithium metal batteries can drive farther on a single charge.

Then again Inexpensive and stable—The salt water battery

non-flammable and can conduct ions. However, water has one major drawback: It is chemically stable only up to a voltage of 1.23 volts. In other words, a water cell supplies three times less voltage than a customary lithium ion cell with 3.7 volts, which makes it poorly suited for applications in an electric car.

But that voltage is simular to nicads....

two researchers used the special salt sodium FSI (precise name: sodium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide). This salt is extremely soluble in water: seven grams of sodium FSI and one gram of water produce a clear saline solution (see video clip). In this liquid, all water molecules are grouped around the positively charged sodium cations in a hydrate shell.
The researchers discovered that this saline solution displays an electrochemical stability of up to 2.6 volts –nearly twice as much as other aqueous electrolytes. The discovery could be the key to inexpensive, safe battery cells; inexpensive because, apart from anything else, the sodium FSI cells can be constructed more safely and thus more easily than the well-known lithium ion batteries.

Not all that bad as we would applications that would make that ok....

tahanson43206 · 2019-06-20 19:13:19

From a post by Louis ... #76

louis wrote:

<snip>
We'll see battery operated trains as well (they are already coming into service for short trains - bigger trains will follow in due course).
Once transport and home services fall to solar/wind plus battery (with some supplementary renewables), you only have to conquer heating really. That too will follow as prices fall.

SpaceNut ... you brought back this topic this evening, with news about battery developments.

This evening's news from Britain included a video segment reporting on a hydrogen fuel cell locomotive entering testing on public railways there. The hydrogen is carried in cylinders under pressure.

I did a quick check to see the status of the recent explosion of hydrogen at a refueling station in Norway:
https://qz.com/1641276/a-hydrogen-fueli … ys-baerum/

However, there doesn't seem to be much new in the report, except for the detail that leaking hydrogen in the vicinity of the station ignited and caused a 'pressure wave' which then caused an airbag system in a car to activate, injuring two people.

That brings me back to the engine entering testing in Britain. I'm assuming care has been taken to avoid leaks in the first place, and to vent the storage compartment thoroughly to prevent dangerous conditions to build up if there is a leak.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-06-20 19:16:01)

Void · 2019-06-23 15:40:23

Elon Musk has suggested terraforming Mars with Nuclear bombs. I am kind of shy about that. Don't really know what he has in mind. If it is to hit the ice caps from above with such, then, I am not so warm for it. Fallout and such.

I have read articles that indicate that fusion reactors might appear within 10 years. However, you can go back to 2011, 2008, and see similar predictions. So, I will say 10-50 to never years.

In any case, on a bigger scale, we already have fusion reactors. Hydrogen bombs of course. I don't see their use on Earth as sensible.

Before I really blow things up, I will say, that if fusion reactors do appear, then the option for a more passive terraforming of Mars with them will appear also. That would be rather slow, I think.

So back to bombs. First of all we have to presume that this would somehow become politically and otherwise manageable, in a way that we don't do more harm to the cause of the human race than the use might help.

So, a controlled permission by the powers that be, is presumed here, or it does not happen.

I such bombs were to be used, I guess my impression is that including Helium 3 would make them a bit less harmful. Maybe I have things to learn. But the Helium 3 could come from the Moon, and perhaps later from Titan and Saturn.

I think I would select the Korolev Crater ice deposits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korolev_(Martian_crater)

Several reasons. It would be a good place to start smaller than the Martian ice caps. Also, if things go wrong in some way, or some better plan appears, then the contents of that crater might be contained within it over the long term. It has permafrost to contain any produced body of water (Maybe), and a air layer above it that tends to keep what is in it, in it. This technology, if it proves out, would perhaps in a similar way be usable on Titan. So potentially useful, and potentially deadly, which is what we have for nuclear power now anyway.

This would be a pulsed nuclear reactor on a very large scale.

Probably at first you could drill a hole and create a ice covered lake>sea, by a succession of impacting bombs. Each going deeper. And then I suppose you would step back, let things settle and do an investigation of results. Orbital radar should be able to probe for the nature of any lake>sea produced. I anticipate that it will end up covered with ice, which is good. That will tend to assist in containment of the results.

From there, if it is decided to continue, you would occupy the ice, place a sheltering device over it, and drop more bombs into the water.
That is a bit of a problem, I guess you want the shelter to be able to put up with it. Small bombs might be best.

And then I guess you have to have a way to tap the heat of the water.

Radioactive results may tend to settle to the bottom, and water of that magnitude will shield humans on the ice from the radiation. I read that for expended fuel rods, storing in water actually allows divers to go into the pool, because it is so effective a shield. One of the loads on power generated could be to inject atmospheric gasses into the water, to facilitate microbes. And also CO could be injected perhaps, also as food for the microbes. Probably, trying not to interact with the sediments on the bottom of the water if possible.

The output of this should be Methane. If you have not also injected serious amounts of Oxygen into the water, it should not be consumed by microbes very much. So, a buildup of Methane could be released to the atmosphere, and also make rocket fuel.

If it worked out well then the technology might be applied to one or more of the ice caps.

Like it or not, you will have to admit that even just doing Korolev Crater would provide a really big tool for terraforming without having to nuke the polar ice caps.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2019-06-23 16:03:54)

SpaceNut · 2019-06-23 18:50:33

Sure we could do a chenobyl at the poles to melt the caps to make a thick atmospher with just a minor condition of radioactivity for them but detonation would be by far more sever...

One might hope for a nuclear melt down to the planets core to restart volocanism and its field but we would need to add more materials to make it last...

I have read one theory for why mars has just a co2 atmospher is that the once oxygen methane atmospher ignited and burned it away....

Void · 2019-06-24 12:00:09

Well, that's a bit phobic don't you think possibly....

But you made me think. I think a very nice terraforming tool, minimize the damage, and not really endanger Earth. Nice if you can do it.

A laser pilot light. This one is Australian. I will use it so they can share in the "BLAME".

I will also "BLAME" Elon Musk, as he mentioned nuking the polar caps of Mars.

And Dr. Zubrin can be "BLAMED" as he wrote a book which explained a bit about fusion reactors.

So, we could have two names for this tool. A bad name. "Flat Cascading Bomb". or....

A nice name. "Pulsed Flat Fusion Reactor".

I will describe it. I am very sure that it does not involve endangerment of current or future situations. But it could be quite good on Mars, Titan, and other worlds.

Here is the potential trigger:
https://phys.org/news/2017-12-laser-dri … usion.html
Quote(s):

Laser-driven technique for creating fusion is now within reach, say researchers

A laser-driven technique for creating fusion that dispenses with the need for radioactive fuel elements and leaves no toxic radioactive waste is now within reach, say researchers.
Dramatic advances in powerful, high-intensity lasers are making it viable for scientists to pursue what was once thought impossible: creating fusion energy based on hydrogen-boron reactions. And an Australian physicist is in the lead, armed with a patented design and working with international collaborators on the remaining scientific challenges.

So, if it works, then no fissile materials involved.

I am not in general nuclear trained. So, I might get off track, but I will go with what I think I know.

For Mars, Insitu Deuterium is a big potential. I don't really know if you need Tritium with that but Lithium irradiated will produce that I understand.

Such reactions will produce lots of Neutrons, I understand. So, it is desirable to be careful what materials you expose to those Neutrons.

I would prefer to include Helium 3, as I have read that the production of Neutrons is minimized for that situation.

But supposing you want to have lots of Neutrons, then put a "Flat Reactor" on the ice body to be irradiated.

In my mind the laser triggered fusion reaction has to be a fuse that can be able to light a fire. You would distribute tanks of the Fusion materials across the ice body, at intervals to allow sequential fusion ignition. Not sure how possible that is.

If you wanted lots of Neutrons to penetrate the ice, then lots would if it was Deuterium-Lithium>Tritium. Neutrons would be stopped by the ice I understand and it would lead to melt water inside the ice, perhaps. Maybe a lot of vaporization? But things would heat up.

Korolev Crater could be a location.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korolev_(Martian_crater)

I would wait for each Martian winter to occur, and then in the early spring, set it off. My reason is that I would hope that CO2 snow would have occurred, putting on a layer of CO2, which I would expect would include some water.

That mass will absorb some of the upward bound flash, and with the water vapors from the downward flash, you would have shattered molecules, and in re-merging they might produce significant quantities of greenhouse gasses. But I don't like that atoms will also be shattered, and possibly producing fallout with half lives of radiation emissions. I suppose if it were within tolerance, you could say that the solution to pollution is dilution. But, not the most happy way to do things.

But my understand that if you include Helium 3, much less is produced of Neutrons, and so presumably much less fallout.

I such a case as that, I expect that far less atoms would be shattered, and yet there should be thermal action on molecules that can shred them, and allow them in many cases perhaps form Methane, Nitrous Oxide, and other potential greenhouse gasses. You may actually be able to inject huge amounts of water vapor up into the mid atmosphere, and that would be a greenhouse gas as well.

Modifications of this could include cloud seeding. First for the CO2 snow, you might be able to seed for additional snow to fall on the reactor site. And for the water vapor in the mid atmosphere, you may be able to seed clouds, in order to control the formation of clouds, which is also a potential terraforming tool.

…..

I would not have made this post, if I thought it would endanger the Earth. Facts are, that a terrorist with a Nuclear trigger could make a flat bomb. But it is a huge thing, and would weigh a lot. Can't carry it in in a backpack. And I think that anyone messing with Fusion fuels will be noticed. Also, you have to get your Helium 3 from the Moon, Titan, or Saturn. Of course if they were jerks, they would not bother with Helium 3. But as I have said, I am pretty sure you would get noticed if you had means to get Heavy water. That will always be watched for, along with fissile materials.

…..

Good tool for Titan, Pluto, and many others, I think.

…..

Greenhouse gasses produced, would do the terraforming, and so might cloud control/cloud seeding.

As for the South Polar ice cap, where Dry Ice is mixed with water ice, perhaps you would not want to wait for the CO2 to thaw. If you had a relatively clean process, then you might both vaporize ices, and produce more greenhouse gasses. This might be needed, after you had warmed up the planet so much that it no longer snowed at Korolev crater.

Previous versions of producing greenhouse gasses require 100 years, and standard nuclear reactors with the ~electrical consumption of Chicago, I believe.

Done

Last edited by Void (2019-06-24 12:41:29)

SpaceNut · 2019-06-24 17:03:12

Another thought on the nuclear bomb exploding on mars is that while it will heat the planet to allow for surface gasses to get released the issue is that it comes with an initial blowing off of what we already have for an atmosphere...
Polar sychronous orbit for solar beam down makes more sense...

Void · 2019-06-24 18:20:20

Quote:

Another thought on the nuclear bomb exploding on mars is that while it will heat the planet to allow for surface gasses to get released the issue is that it comes with an initial blowing off of what we already have for an atmosphere...
Polar sychronous orbit for solar beam down makes more sense...

Those are things to evaluate. Not proven facts. Trying to bat something down with a binary dismissal, with a replacement stated as more favorable requires proof. Or at least more argument, notions of why that would be true.

~5.5 mb for the Martian ground pressure, and a atmosphere that tapers off more slowly, suggests to me that the blast wave would not propagate upward as well as on Earth.

As for the water vapor, and supposed results generating other greenhouse gasses, (Effectiveness of that production, unknown/unproven), I anticipate that the injection of such materials into the middle atmosphere, (The desire), would be by thermal buoyancy, and also the buoyancy of water vapor after it cools off. At such altitudes, it is rather hard to get it to condense, unless you provide nucleation particles.

As for the flash, I think I have provided optimization of minimization of it's projection into the Exosphere of Mars.

By choosing the late winter, early spring, I expect the polar hood to be in place over the area. So, the flash has to convert that into vapors to make it transparent.

But before that, I have provided that a good coating of CO2 snow will be above the blast.

I have also tried to flatten the blast hoping that it will project more sideways than is normally expected.

Another trick is to modify the timing of the blast, as to the activity of the solar wind. Modeling that, it may be possible to minimize the amount of assistance the solar wind gives heated gasses to escape the planet.

……

Where there could be a loss, I believe it can be minimized. It may be quite small anyway. For the blast wave to get into that tenuous uppermost atmosphere, seems rather a weak possibility.

……

Now that we have counted the possible costs per bad effects, and have some planning to minimize them, I can give examples of what the good effects could be.

With the current atmosphere of Mars, not only does incoming solar radiation heat the upper atmosphere, but light reflected from the ground adds to that. The combination, gives the thermal assistance to puff up the upper atmosphere so that the solar wind can more easily sweep it away. A greenhouse effect in mid or lower atmosphere, should reduce the amount of reflection and also the radiation of heated ground to the upper sky, during the day side. It also then helps the ground and the lower atmosphere to store energy during the day, and shares that heat with the nighttime. It is difficult for me to state where the solar wind is most effective at removing atmosphere, but I would think it would be where the upper atmosphere is most puffed up. I expect that to be more to the day side. Perhaps afternoon.

I would also expect the levitation of Oxygen off the planet by an electric field to be subdued, as the process I am supporting would humidify the atmosphere. That is not proven. There can be many unexpected results. Mars is not Venus. But the loss of Oxygen for Venus is partially blamed for that electric field that is I believe 10 times stronger than that of the Earth. It is said that the reason for such a strong electric field is that Venus is so dry. Mars is also dry, so I think that humidifying the atmosphere could help. Not proven.

I think seeding the middle atmosphere for clouds could be helpful, and I did mention that before. The hope is a cloud diode. That is more clouds on the night side to hold in heat, and then its vaporization on the day side, preferred, to let in light, and to also provide a water vapor greenhouse gas effect. That is supposed as a process that might be implementable. I am thinking that Phobos, is the place to throw the dust from, burning it into the atmosphere to create "Smoke" as nucleation points. Doing it in a crafted way.

And so if you have activity on Phobos, then why not also use the mirrors that you have suggested, or the power stations, if you can afford them. They could be used to stimulate pressure points, if we knew where they were. And also they could at other times project power to receivers on the ground.

And if you are in orbit, then why not the artificial magnetic field. I know you have your ideas for it, and that's actually very good. However at this time I will latch onto the one where a magnetic field is projected from "L1", to protect Mars from the solar wind.

Having that, then the atmospheric loss if an issue should be serviced to a great degree.

We cool off the upper atmosphere with greenhouse gasses, we protect Mars from the solar wind, we lower the electrical potential of the atmosphere with humidity, and we have mirrors or power stations to push on pressure points, or project extra power to the surface.

Also, we then have the possibility of a ice covered lake near the North Pole, and can generate energy from it by sinking heat from the lake waters into the sky. In the waters of that lake we can put CO and nutrients, and microbes can create Methane that we can release to the atmosphere or make Rocket Fuel out of.

Go big or go home? Seems like a plan to me.

And we terraform much faster.

We don't have to work with fission reactors or fusion reactors of a plant type. We don't have to manufacture Methane.

Much of the materials can come from Earth/Moon. Some if it is easier, from Mars.

Done

Last edited by Void (2019-06-24 18:50:20)

SpaceNut · 2019-07-14 15:57:03

Not the best for Bumping for technology developement but plausible

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-06-06 06:12:09

To safely explore the solar system and beyond, spaceships need to go faster – nuclear-powered rockets may be the answer
https://theconversation.com/to-safely-e … wer-137967

Kite-Flying Robots Could Generate Energy on Mars
https://news.yahoo.com/kite-flying-robo … 00107.html

Calliban · 2021-06-08 16:07:37

This paper, written by two Swiss technologists, suggests that solar PV power is a net energy sink in high latitude countries (I.e ERoEI is less than 1). Obviously, system ERoEI depends heavily on annual insolation at the location of the plant.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 1516301379

Generally higher energy consumption is required to live on Mars. Low system ERoEI does not bode well for the idea of using solar power on Mars to produce new solar panels, in addition to meeting the energy needs of an expanding base. Unless the technology manufactured on Mars is substantially more resource efficient than technology already deployed on Earth, solar PV begins to look unworkable as an expanding power supply for a Martian colony.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-06-08 16:09:37)

louis · 2021-06-08 17:13:26

Well, obviously you locate your PV installations on Mars in areas of high insolation not medium to low as in Switzerland or Germany. Switzerland looks like it gets less than half the insolation in the Sahara per annum. On Mars we will be looking for a Saharan equivalent although there are trade offs with other factors determining where the first settlement will be (eg safe landing and water ice requirements). As things stand it looks like the first settlement on Mars will be at about 30 degrees zone just outside the highest insolation zone of 25-29 degrees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irr … lation.png

It's pretty clear that there could be a million different ways of interpreting EROI in practice, as opposed to theory.
I have always thought that the levelised (unsubsidised) price of the energy produced is the best guide to how efficient a system really is. There are still issues of interpretation (e.g. do you put a price on the nuclear industry's indemnities or how far you include "additional infrastructure" which applies to all energy forms). But price is a reasonable guide and more objective than a EROI.

What is absolutely clear is that the cost of PV system has been falling steeply and consistently for decades now and that his has chiefly been driven by technological innovation. Furthermore no analyst has yet seen a brick wall ahead for further technological development.

A significant cost in PV systems is of course the land cost which won't apply on Mars. Likewise because the weather is so benign on Mars, sturdy frames are not required to protect against hurricanes and the like.

On Earth once the price falls low enough you can use PV surplus energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen and use that as your energy storage system. Or on Mars, since we will already be set up to make methane and oxygen that would be the preferred energy storage system. Once you have energy storage you have no need to double up with energy generation and overall cost reduces dramatically.

Calliban wrote:

This paper, written by two Swiss technologists, suggests that solar PV power is a net energy sink in high latitude countries (I.e ERoEI is less than 1). Obviously, system ERoEI depends heavily on annual insolation at the location of the plant.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 1516301379
Generally higher energy consumption is required to live on Mars. Low system ERoEI does not bode well for the idea of using solar power on Mars to produce new solar panels, in addition to meeting the energy needs of an expanding base. Unless the technology manufactured on Mars is substantially more resource efficient than technology already deployed on Earth, solar PV begins to look unworkable as an expanding power supply for a Martian colony.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-06-29 05:12:33

Louisville-based Sierra Space tapped for nuclear space propulsion project
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news … ocket.html
Sierra Space has been hired by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems to build propulsion components and provide integration services for the nuclear-powered spacecraft.

ISS Gets Roll-Out Solar Panels In Post-Shuttle Fix
https://hackaday.com/2021/06/24/iss-get … uttle-fix/

Astronauts are currently installing the first of six new solar arrays on the International Space Station (ISS), in a bid to bolster the reduced power generation capability of the original panels which have now been in space for over twenty years. But without the Space Shuttle to haul them into orbit, developing direct replacements for the Stations iconic 34 meter (112 foot) solar “wings” simply wasn’t an option. So NASA has turned to next-generation solar arrays that roll out like a tape measure and are light and compact enough for the SpaceX Dragon to carry them into orbit.

Considering how integral the Space Shuttle was to its assembly, it’s hardly a surprise that no major modules have been added to the ISS since the fleet of winged spacecraft was retired in 2011. The few small elements that have been installed, such as the new International Docking Adapters and the Nanoracks “Bishop” airlock, have had to fit into the rear unpressurized compartment of the Dragon capsule. While a considerable limitation, NASA had planned for this eventuality, with principle construction of the ISS always intended to conclude upon the retirement of the Shuttle.
But the International Space Station was never supposed to last as long as it has, and some components are starting to show their age. The original solar panels are now more than five years beyond their fifteen year service life, and while they’re still producing sufficient power to keep the Station running in its current configuration, their operational efficiency has dropped considerably with age. So in January NASA announced an ambitious timeline for performing upgrades the space agency believes are necessary to keep up with the ever-increasing energy demands of the orbiting laboratory.

Russia's Zeus nuclear-powered tug to search for extraterrestrial life, Roscosmos chief says
https://www.newsinfo.am/eng/article/view/VJgu4zoZsc

China Releases Plans for Permanent Mars Base. The race to establish a human presence on Mars is heating up.

China is hoping to use nuclear power to allow the first crews to travel to Mars, according to Wang.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/china-plans-mars-base
The scientist even mentioned a “Sky Ladder,” essentially a type of space elevator, that could carry cargo and crews to the Moon using just four percent of the cost. This would involve a capsule traveling along a carbon nanotube to a space station before relaunching towards the Moon.
These ideas may sound mostly like science fiction at this point. But if China’s recent track record is anything to go by — the country has managed to send rovers to both the Moon and Mars as well as establishing a space station in orbit over the course of just several years — it may just have a shot at realizing its Mars exploration goals as well.

SpaceNut · 2021-06-29 20:54:58

For the ship they are just building the end stage with the fuel and engines with no nuclear thermal source to fire them up with as that breaks the treaties of nuclear in orbit.

For a power source that is sustained and built on mars we need a stepping stone until we can mine the thorium need to make the reactor possible.

louis · 2021-07-03 16:47:38

Good news.

Solar plus storage already beating the most efficient and cheap (hitherto) conventional form of electricity generation, which is combined cycle gas generation.

This is the conclusion of an analysis of solar-plus-storage facilities in Morocco and Jordan.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles … nd-morocco

We can expect this situation to gradually extend beyond countries with very good insolation to countries with less, in temperate zones for example, where green energy packages may also include wind power.

It might take two or three decades but I think we can now say the trend is unstoppable.

SpaceNut · 2021-07-03 18:12:35

So power production facilities and plants from either will be on par to service the same customer base at a price that will keep on rising....

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-07-06 17:52:56

Solar-powered Moon rovers will help scientists seek lunar ice
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2021/07/s … -lunar-ice

On Mars, dust gets everywhere and can ruin everything
https://mashable.com/article/mars-dust-insight

60 Years on, Nuclear Power Still Enables Pioneering Space Missions
https://www.jhuapl.edu/NewsStory/210629 … spacecraft

louis · 2021-07-06 18:24:45

These solar plus storage solutions are undercutting the cheapest form of conventional energy and once you have storage in place, you don't need to maintain alternative forms of electricity generation, which further brings down the cost of electricity, plus you can forget about the expensive forms of electricity generation like nuclear power. Also if solar is effective, you don't have the same issues as with wind energy where you might need to transfer it over hundreds or thousands of miles.

Of course currently we are only at the beginning of this process - so it is only in areas of very high insolation that these economics work. But given that nearly all analysts think the price of solar and storage are going to continue to decline dramatically, I think we can see this price profile moving out like a shock wave across the globe, totally altering energy economics.

SpaceNut wrote:

So power production facilities and plants from either will be on par to service the same customer base at a price that will keep on rising....

SpaceNut · 2021-07-06 19:25:29

Businesses are in it to make profits so as the cost drops for making a station produce the energy that one needs there is no reason to give away your profits by dropping the cost to the customer. This is now going to cause a changing of the ownership of the wires and poles that are used to bring power to the homes as the companies will get rid of there costs as they fail (fossil fuel companies) from the alternative energy providers which will cause another upward shift in energy costs to the consumer.

tahanson43206 · 2021-07-06 19:58:14

For SpaceNut re #94

Is there no place in your vision for competition?

Your points are certainly good ones. A company would naturally gouge it's customers if it can, but doing so opens the door to the competitor who is willing to earn a bit less for the stockholders per customer, by pricing low enough to have more customers.

I receive unsolicited offers every now and then from companies trying to pull my business away from my reliable local supplier. So far I've resisted, because my local provider has treated me fairly, but that could change rapidly if I got the impression something wasn't right.

There's another factor your post doesn't seem to take into account ... in the region where I live the utilities are regulated .... is regulation no longer available in your vision?

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-07-06 20:15:28

The power companies while they still have some regulations they are deregulated in that they can offer power to any customer on the line but the owner of the line gets to charge you for delivering the power..
Some one must own the line that provides the connection and that means that the company which was a fossil fuel deliverer is going to make the others cost more....

kbd512 · 2021-07-07 17:42:46

Louis,

The report noted that CSP thermal stores are typically designed for long-duration discharge applications, with up to 15 hours of storage. “If tenders are designed for long-duration storage, lithium-ion projects may find it difficult to scale and compete at this level,” the report states.
“However, if tenders are modeled based on a technology-neutral approach, solar-plus-storage could compete and win on an LCOE basis after the expected cost reductions have come to fruition for four-hour systems.”

When last I checked, industrialized civilizations do not require power for less than 24 hours of any given day. More importantly, 60 years from now they will still require power (and more power, not less), which means the photovoltaic panels that need to be completely replaced 3 times and batteries that need to be completely replaced 6 to 12 times is most definitely not a less costly substitute for solar thermal or nuclear thermal power, at a human civilization level. In 10 years, salt will still be salt. In 100 years, salt will still be salt. In 1,000 years, salt will still be salt. Long after photovoltaic panels and batteries are completely unrecognizable to anyone alive today, salt will still be salt.

There have been solar thermal and nuclear thermal plants that have been continuously producing commercial electric power for longer than any of the current generation of photovoltaic panels and batteries have existed, or will ever exist, since photovoltaic panels and batteries require continual replacement and recycling over relatively short time periods. Total cost over time is entirely relevant. What can be accomplished with photovoltaic panels and batteries in one desert region, in one part of the world, is not. Most of the world is not a sunny desert, and most people in the world don't live in deserts, because far more energy would be required to sustain human life if they did.

Are Batteries at a Turning Point?

I just finished listening to a podcast interview of a research scientist involved in the development of Silicon anodes for Lithium-ion batteries. By the year 2050, he thinks 600Wh/kg is achievable for Lithium-ion batteries using either solid state cell chemistries or Silicon anodes, and that they could last for 30 years. All of their research effort has been focused on lowering the cost-per-kiloWatt-hour and improving the cycle life of the cells. That means these new battery technologies will never be a like-kind replacement for liquid hydrocarbon fuels or fuel cells within your lifetime or even my lifetime.

You should probably listen to what the actual research scientists have to say about the nature of the problems they encounter, rather than rosy projections about the future based upon religiously-held beliefs without evidence. 10 years ago, this guy thought development of a Silicon anode would be easy and that they would've solved the problem 5 years ago. 10 years later, there's still no commercial battery using Silicon anode technology. His company is far from the only one working on the problem.

This kind of nonsense about batteries being a replacement for liquid hydrocarbon fuels is pure science fiction fantasy, plain and simple. He stated quite plainly that the reason we're still perfecting technology that was available 30 years ago, is that the battery manufacturers can't afford to make mistakes with their technology, because they have to pay if their product doesn't meet performance specifications. As such, the only technology that goes into production is technology that has been thoroughly tested and proven to work as advertised. To paraphrase the US Army Ground Forces statements during March of 1944, as it related to forcing a new tank into production / operational status before it's truly ready: "These batteries have not been tested by a service board, and it is not known whether they are usable- and fit to be put in combat. This headquarters does not view with favor the idea of making any combat zone a testing agency."

Contrary to what GW claimed about starting a "Better Battery Manhattan Project", said research scientist also stated that he doesn't think a solution will be forthcoming by merely throwing more money or more parallel lines of development at the problem, either. In fact, he stated the opposite appeared to be the case if an objective view of the company's own history was considered, and that some of the most creative and impactful work his team had done, that did go into production with the major players, was produced when constraints on investment money was applied to the R&D process, so that pragmatic decisions were made about which lines of research to pursue and which to forego, in favor or more promising results. They tried both approaches, within reason, BTW. This guy had also previously worked for Tesla before starting his own battery R&D company, so he has both real-world automotive Lithium-ion battery development and production experience, as well as fundamental research experience while working for both very large and very small companies.

Calliban · 2021-07-09 04:56:37

louis wrote:

These solar plus storage solutions are undercutting the cheapest form of conventional energy and once you have storage in place, you don't need to maintain alternative forms of electricity generation, which further brings down the cost of electricity, plus you can forget about the expensive forms of electricity generation like nuclear power. Also if solar is effective, you don't have the same issues as with wind energy where you might need to transfer it over hundreds or thousands of miles.
Of course currently we are only at the beginning of this process - so it is only in areas of very high insolation that these economics work. But given that nearly all analysts think the price of solar and storage are going to continue to decline dramatically, I think we can see this price profile moving out like a shock wave across the globe, totally altering energy economics.

Louis believes what he wants to believe. His obsession with solar power is closer to religious zealous than to any scientifically derived conclusion. I know this because he has never been interested in understanding the science behind how these things work and just parrots the same preconceptions week after week, year after year, hoping that people have suffered enough collective memory loss since the last time his pet technology got shot to pieces, that they might just buy into it, without asking difficult questions. It won't matter what anyone here says of course. But I will say it again anyway: Solar PV is not a sustainable technology for anything other than niche offgrid applications at present technology sets.

Solar PV appears cheap right now, because it is subsidised by fossil fuels. About 90% of solar modules produced in the world are being made using very low cost, coal based electricity in the People's Republuc of China. For most of the past two decades, China has had some of the cheapest electricity rates for industrial users in the world. Solar manufacturers in China also benefited from zero interest rate loans on the capital investments needed to get the operations up and running. In both China and the West, large capital projects (especially renewable energy projects) are also benefiting from low interest rates, which is very favourable to any project in which the bulk of costs are upfront capital costs. So of course they look cheap right now. But it would be foolish to assume that this favourable nexus of conditions can be maintained indefinitely.

To understand how difficult it will be to replace a large chunk of human energy consumption, I suggest reading Patzeak's 3-part series: The New Green Revolution.
https://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.com/ … grand.html

To produce 1watt-peak of solar infrastructure, requires an upfront energy investment of about 40MJ of energy, much of it electricity. Under UK conditions, 1We-peak will generate about 0.1W on a time average basis. If you divide 40million by 0.1, you get an energy payback time of about 13 years. If you factor in the round trip energy losses and embodied energy of sodium-sulphur or lithium-ion batteries (what Louis calls 'storage'), then 'solar and storage' in the UK will barely pay back the energy needed to create it in its 20 year life. Even in a country with double or triple the UK's solar energy budget, a solar PV array still spends most of the first decade of its life just paying back its initial energy investment. That gives an EROI of between 1-3, for 'solar and storage' as Louis describes it. An EROI of at least 11 is needed to sustain an industrial civilisation, because of the energy invested and used in every other part of society.

The sensible conclusion to draw, is that whilst cheap Chinese electricity and low interest rates have provided temporarily favourable conditions for solar power, it would be foolish to assume that this technology is about to replace the huge quantities of energy presently derived from fossil fuels. Given the limitations in solar EROI, it is presently impossible to develop an industrial system on solar power alone, because these power plants barely produce enough energy to replace themselves. For wind power, the situation may be a little different, at least in countries where wind resources are abundant. But solar PV is not a sustainable technology at present technology sets. For this to change, technology would need to develop in a way to allow a very large reduction in embodied energy per peak-Watt of solar PV systems. Is there any reason to simply assume that this is possible or is going to happen anytime soon?

Last edited by Calliban (2021-07-09 05:23:42)

louis · 2021-07-09 10:18:10

I made no claims beyond citing the article revealing that solar plus storage is the cheapest energy solution in Morocco and Jordan. But clearly, these islands of price-busting solar power are going to expand. I wouldn't be surprised if we find perhaps half the world's population can replicate the Morocco-Jordan experience in the next few years. Obviously the situaton in Northern Europe is different but eventually we will be included. We are more likely to rely on wind energy in the interim.

Here's a relevant article:

https://www.rsc.org/news-events/article … st-labour/

The price differential between China and the USA is put at 23%. There's no suggestion that is going to increase. It's more likely to narrow.

You're saying that it is cheap fossil fuels that drive the price down. No suggestion that is the case. You're on firmer ground in talking about access to capital. I expect China's state capitalist system has helped them build up a big industry through use of cheap loans etc.

In any case a 23% differential is not the most crucial variable when the cost is halving per decade over several decades e.g..

Yr0 1000 (plus 23% = 1230)
Yr 10 500
Yr 20 250
Yr 30 125 (plus 23% = 154)

Even with a 23% addition the price has dropped from 1000 to 154.

The link you gave sound like the ravings of a madman. I wouldn't pay much attention to someone who accuses Elon Musk of "idiocy".

As for the "13 year energy payback period" for solar power where does that come from, I mean apart from your own calculations?

All analyses I read say it's now down to 2-3 years.

https://www.renewableenergyhub.co.uk/ma … -analysis/

Why are you right and all the expert analysts wrong? Are you sure you're not relying on out of date figures?

Calliban wrote:

louis wrote:
These solar plus storage solutions are undercutting the cheapest form of conventional energy and once you have storage in place, you don't need to maintain alternative forms of electricity generation, which further brings down the cost of electricity, plus you can forget about the expensive forms of electricity generation like nuclear power. Also if solar is effective, you don't have the same issues as with wind energy where you might need to transfer it over hundreds or thousands of miles.
Of course currently we are only at the beginning of this process - so it is only in areas of very high insolation that these economics work. But given that nearly all analysts think the price of solar and storage are going to continue to decline dramatically, I think we can see this price profile moving out like a shock wave across the globe, totally altering energy economics.
Louis believes what he wants to believe. His obsession with solar power is closer to religious zealous than to any scientifically derived conclusion. I know this because he has never been interested in understanding the science behind how these things work and just parrots the same preconceptions week after week, year after year, hoping that people have suffered enough collective memory loss since the last time his pet technology got shot to pieces, that they might just buy into it, without asking difficult questions. It won't matter what anyone here says of course. But I will say it again anyway: Solar PV is not a sustainable technology for anything other than niche offgrid applications at present technology sets.
Solar PV appears cheap right now, because it is subsidised by fossil fuels. About 90% of solar modules produced in the world are being made using very low cost, coal based electricity in the People's Republuc of China. For most of the past two decades, China has had some of the cheapest electricity rates for industrial users in the world. Solar manufacturers in China also benefited from zero interest rate loans on the capital investments needed to get the operations up and running. In both China and the West, large capital projects (especially renewable energy projects) are also benefiting from low interest rates, which is very favourable to any project in which the bulk of costs are upfront capital costs. So of course they look cheap right now. But it would be foolish to assume that this favourable nexus of conditions can be maintained indefinitely.
To understand how difficult it will be to replace a large chunk of human energy consumption, I suggest reading Patzeak's 3-part series: The New Green Revolution.
https://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.com/ … grand.html
To produce 1watt-peak of solar infrastructure, requires an upfront energy investment of about 40MJ of energy, much of it electricity. Under UK conditions, 1We-peak will generate about 0.1W on a time average basis. If you divide 40million by 0.1, you get an energy payback time of about 13 years. If you factor in the round trip energy losses and embodied energy of sodium-sulphur or lithium-ion batteries (what Louis calls 'storage'), then 'solar and storage' in the UK will barely pay back the energy needed to create it in its 20 year life. Even in a country with double or triple the UK's solar energy budget, a solar PV array still spends most of the first decade of its life just paying back its initial energy investment. That gives an EROI of between 1-3, for 'solar and storage' as Louis describes it. An EROI of at least 11 is needed to sustain an industrial civilisation, because of the energy invested and used in every other part of society.
The sensible conclusion to draw, is that whilst cheap Chinese electricity and low interest rates have provided temporarily favourable conditions for solar power, it would be foolish to assume that this technology is about to replace the huge quantities of energy presently derived from fossil fuels. Given the limitations in solar EROI, it is presently impossible to develop an industrial system on solar power alone, because these power plants barely produce enough energy to replace themselves. For wind power, the situation may be a little different, at least in countries where wind resources are abundant. But solar PV is not a sustainable technology at present technology sets. For this to change, technology would need to develop in a way to allow a very large reduction in embodied energy per peak-Watt of solar PV systems. Is there any reason to simply assume that this is possible or is going to happen anytime soon?

kbd512 · 2021-07-09 16:52:30

90% of the photovoltaic panels in the world come from China and they're using coal to make them, not previously manufacture solar panels, wind turbines, or magic pixie dust. Unless someone here can refute that point, then you're repeating your ideology, as if that's supposed to mean something to anyone who can count. We're transforming coal, oil, and gas into photovoltaic panels that have a lifespan of 15 to 25 years, at most, before they need to be replaced. Over that period of time, dependent upon where they're installed in the world, they may not return all of the energy that was invested into producing them to begin with, which means that when, not if, we run out of coal, oil, and gas, there is no way to sustain the use of wind and solar energy into perpetuity. What about that do we refuse to understand?

Scroll to Page 56 of the following report from IRENA:

International Renewable Energy Agency - Future of Solar Photovoltaic - Deployment, investment, technology, grid integration and socioeconomic aspects

Resource Consumption per 1GWe (extrapolated from Figure 25 on Page 56, materials required for a 1MWe solar photovoltaic plant):

70,000t of glass - 3,077kWh/t (I think that's actually per short ton since my source is from the US, not metric ton, but let's pretend anyway)
Energy Efficiency Improvement and Cost Saving Opportunities for the Glass Industry - An ENERGY STAR® Guide for Energy and Plant Managers

If that link doesn't work for you, it's an archived OSTI Report from 2008, produced by the Energy Analysis Department, Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

56,000t of steel - 770kWh/t (a little less than 500kWh/t using EAF, but only when it's recycled scrap)
*Numerous sources are available for this info, and I've already provided it several times, so I'm not repeating it here
43,120MWh

47,000t of concrete - 1,028kWh/t (Portland cement; global average from actual collected data over several decades, although it can be a lot more efficient than this, dependent upon the process used)
Energy Efficiency and CO2 Emissions from the Global Cement Industry
47,000MWh

19,000t of Aluminum - 12,500kWh/t (newest smelters presently operational) to 15,000kWh/t
*Numerous sources are available for this info, and I've already provided it several times, so I'm not repeating it here
237,500MWh

7,000t of Silicon - 50,000kWh/t to 65,000kWh/t (50kWh/kg to 65kWh/kg, per the document below from NREL)
Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Module Manufacturing Costs and Sustainable Pricing: 1H 2018 Benchmark and Cost Reduction Road Map
350,000MWh to 455,000MWh

7,000t of Copper - around 19,444kWh/t (if it came from rich ores in Chile or Congo, but can be a lot more if it came from somewhere else)
Historical, Current, and Future Energy Demand from Global Copper Production and Its Impact on Climate Change
136,500MWh

6,000t of plastics - 5,744kWh/t (since this is the energy savings associated with 1 metric ton of recycled plastic, producing 1t obviously consumes even more energy)
FAQ - Benefits of Recycling
34,500MWh

848,620MWh of energy merely to produce the materials required, not to ship them half way around the world or transform them into finished goods. This amount of energy can be overcome if the plant is located in a desert. If it's not, then it may require half of the plant's useful service life to overcome.

Since we like using countries located in deserts as our models for solar power cost, the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station cost $2.5B, produces produces 1,470GWh/yr, and was built over the same timeframe that the $5B Watts-Bar #2 nuclear power plant was built, which produces 6,825GWh/yr. If we do some simple math, a plant that was double the cost produced 4.64X as much power output, despite running at far less than nominal capacity. If it ran at nominal capacity, then it's producing 5.66X as much power output for double the purchase price. Ouarzazate is selling power from OSPS at $0.19/kWh. It actually costs TVA $0.0241/kWh to supply power from Watts-Bar (and yes, they charge more than that for the power, because they're in business to make a profit).

*** Edit ***:
Ouarzazate Solar Power Station is located in Morocco and came online in the same year as Watts-Bar #2. The plant in question now has storage sufficient to produce power for an additional 8 hours after the Sun goes down, so you would need 2 Ouarzazate generating stations to produce 24/7/365 power, and they would cost every bit as much as Watts-Bar to purchase. This would mean 2,940GWh/yr, still 2.32X less than Watts-Bar #2 running at 2/3 of its nominal output or 2.83X less output than Watts-Bar #2 running at full nominal output (95% capacity factor). However, that's not what Morocco actually did. They used natural gas as a backup for their unreliable energy, and that's why the electricity costs so much.

During the same period of time that Watts-Bar is producing power, 100% of installed wind and solar will have to be replaced a bare minimum of 3 times if Watts-Bar #2 operates for 60 years the way Watts-Bar #1 almost already has (Watts-Bar #1 is literally a few short years shy of 60 years of operations), so there's no way in hell that a photovoltaic generating solution is less expensive over time. Imagine how expensive nuclear power would be if we were scrapping nuclear reactors every 20 years. Since that's clearly not how nuclear power works, why can't we produce a wind turbine or photovoltaic panel (with precisely zero moving parts) that lasts longer than about 20 years before it's degraded to the point that we need more panel surface area to replace the power it's no longer producing?

Energy Savings by Material:
14,000kWh/t for recycled Aluminum (re-melting Aluminum is fairly easy to do, drastically less energy intensive than making it from scratch)
5,774kWh/t to 7,200kWh/t for recycled plastic
4,100kWh/t for recycled office paper (yes, that's for friggin typing paper!)
2,778kWh/t for recycled Copper (not listed in the document, but still very relevant)
642kWh/t for recycled steel (re-melting steel consumes more energy than re-melted Aluminum)
602kWh/t for recycled newspaper (amazing how much energy goes into making what's essentially toilet paper, huh?)
42kWh/t for recycled glass (takes almost as much energy to re-melt glass as it does to make from scratch, but you still save by recycling)

This sophomoric "plan" to try to use wind and solar for everything is not a serious solution to conserve our natural resources or to sustain a habitable environment for humans to live in, but it is a better than average way to "light the afterburner" on materials consumption.

Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021

All we're doing is increasing CO2 emissions at break-neck speed through absurd over-consumption of concrete, glass, plastic, Aluminum, Copper, and Iron, required to prop up the sophomoric ideas of our "green energy" people. Namely, the notion that you can require 10X to 1,000X more energy input using an energy production and storage methods that are 10X to 1,000X less efficient than nuclear alternatives, in terms of materials and therefore energy consumption. That is precisely why CO2 emissions keep increasing as more and more wind and solar power comes online. These non-working ideas continually demand more and more concrete / glass / plastic / metals, so the associated energy to endlessly produce more and more of those materials over time.

Solar panels aren't made with sunshine.

The blast furnaces that produce steel use lots of Oxygen, but the refining process is certainly not powered by the wind.

There's no such thing as "doing more with less" whenever our "less" endlessly requires more and more.

That is the simple truth of this matter. It's always been that simple. Heck, even Michael Moore eventually figured this out, and he's about as mentally disabled by his ideology as anyone I've ever had the displeasure of listening to.

We've been relentlessly pursuing the fanciful daydreams of these possibly well-intentioned but insufferably indoctrinated people. They have achieved "critical mass" over time, through mass-indoctrination rather than actual education. They either can't count high enough to understand the nature of the problem or maybe can't think far enough ahead, or don't actually care enough to know that they're being lied to. We have no shortage of charlatans, or equally uneducated people, who are falsely claiming that they're going to make the climate change boogeyman go away with this little-examined fantasy that's filled with rosy projections of the future, but little to no account of what actual performance has indicated.

We can either deal with a few million tons of radioactive nuclear waste that will all neatly fit onto a single football field (over more than half a century of nuclear power generation), or we can deal with hundreds of billions to low trillions of tons (every single year, from now until the Sun inevitably runs out of fuel) of toxic waste generated by mining the stunning quantities of materials required for anything wind or solar powered that will still fail to provide 24/7/365 power and require more frequent replacement. The false "cheap-ness" of wind and solar power is an illusion. When you can no longer drink the ground water because it's been thoroughly contaminated with Arsenic and Lead, then you will come to appreciate the benefits of using a reliable energy source that doesn't stop producing power when the Sun disappears over the horizon.

Solar is cheaper than natural gas, but your electricity bill relentlessly increases as more and more wind and solar power are added to the grid- well beyond the highest fraudulently manipulated estimates for what coal or natural gas or nuclear actually cost... because wind and solar are the "cheapest energy available". That's why the typical German pays $0.3/kWh, with more installed wind and solar than just about any other country, as a total percentage of their electricity supply, while the typical American pay $0.1/kWh using natural gas. That's not a marginal increase / decrease that can be explained away, it's a factor of 3 increase for the same product (moving electrons delivered to your outlets). If you have re-wired your brain to believe that the wind and solar power actually cost less than the alternatives, then you're suffering from mass-indoctrination. In the real world, money talks and BS walks. I'm calling BS on how "cheap" wind and solar power are, until someone can adequately explain that discrepancy; or practices the slightest bit of intellectual honesty through the simple straightforward admission that the Sun don't shine in Germany, and thus solar power is not a "silver bullet" that cures all power generating problems. My explanation for that major discrepancy is simple fraud perpetrated for ideological reasons. That requires no Special Olympics gold-medal caliber mental gymnastics to understand.

Last edited by kbd512 (2021-07-09 17:05:53)

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