Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "TED-Ed"
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He should not ask how much we currently can currently harvest with solar - but how much there is to be harvested. Why solar: it is everywhere, and it is the most abundant source of energy on earth.
from World Energy org - Solar Radiation Resources
The amount of solar radiant energy incident on a surface per unit area and per unit time is
called irradiance or insolation. ...the solar constant is 1366.1 W/m
The energy delivered by the sun is both intermittent and changes during the day and with the seasons.
When this power density is averaged over the surface of the earth’s sphere, it is reduced by a factor of 4.
A further reduction by a factor of 2 is due to losses in passing through the earth’s atmosphere. Thus,
the annual average horizontal surface irradiance is approximately 170 W/m
When 170 W/m is integrated over 1 year, the resulting 5.4 GJ that is incident on 1 m at ground level is
approximately the energy that can be extracted from one barrel of oil, 200 kg of coal, or 140 m3
of natural gas. However, the flux changes from place to place.
Some parts of the earth receive much higher than this annual average. The highest annual mean irradiance of 300
W/m 2 [that means double during the days when there is daylight] can be found in the Red Sea area, and typical values are about 200 W/m [400]
in Australia, 185 W/m [370] in the United States and 105 W/m [210] in the United Kingdom.
https://www.worldenergy . org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/WER_2013_8_Solar_revised.pdf
My take:
So far solar panels (Photovoltaic) can catch ? shy of 30 % of the solar energy that hits them (they cracked 30,2 % but that is not mass produced. and there are attempts to get at 40 %).
Ido not know the numbers for panels that produce hot water (solarthermie)
The country has a lot of surface in form of roofs (also garages, car ports) and walls (walls are not yet used). Not only homes, also industrial and commercial areas.
Densely populated areas offer an excellent opportunity to have good public transportation. See Zuerich, or Switzerland in general. If it is affordable, comfortable, clean, safe high frequency and all routes covered (that should be easy when so many people use it) - it will save costs, nerves, space - and CO2
MORE people live in urban areas and transport / driving is one of the major consumers of fossil energy.
Heating is another one. quality and reasonable insulation can do a lot (there were attempts to take it to extremes - well you pick a fight with the laws of physics - there is the rule of Paretto: with 20 % input you get 80 % of results. I think in the U.K. people have a lower footprint just because housing is so expensive, so like the Japanese they live in smaller units and often in a house with many other people (which all cuts the energy costs).
Good carefuly applied insulation (no styrofoam, mineral wool is better) increases the quality of experience to live there (the floor will be warm) and the walls will be evenly temperated. Add reduced costs for heating.
The solar energy is ALSO in the oceans - there are heat pumps that use the higher temperature of a large body of water (like a lake or the ocean) to heat homes.
Meat and fertilizers need a lot of energy to produce. Going mostly vegetarian / vegan can do a lot.
In China (while the U.S.and Europe did austerity after the Great Financial Crisis) they got bullet trains to cross the country - no flights needed. Even Taiwan got one route for their small island. The TGV in France has been existing for decades. Might not be an option for the U.K. - well maybe outside of the densely populated areas ? who says the route must take 1 hour or 2 - very fast half hours an hour could also avoid a lot of traffic (maybe it takes them too long to reach top speed - but then one would have to accept slightly higher energy costs and slightly longer travelling time for the fast journey).
And I wonder if zeppelines would be a solution. If they are really big they also can carry heavy load, even whole houses made from wood. The project Cargolifter was not realized (lack of money, the huge hall they needed to even build the Cargolifter became a tropical spa and fun water park).
2 smaller Zeppelines with only 120,8 m length serviced the route between Friedrichshafen and Berlin. Their maximum speed was 132,5 km/h, they had 4 motors with 177 kW each (equals in total 7 medium powered cars). They started in August 1919 and transported in that year 2400 passengers already. They dared to use larger zeppelines for crossing the Atlantic took them 70 - 80 hours - so they could withstand some wind.
And a public UBER that integrates taxes and provides flexibility additionally to the fixed routes of public transportation.
Transportation of goods
We do need SOME international trade (especially for B2B as far as it is for components where there are maybe 10 suppliers worlwide and the importer must have them (or a machine). Read a story about a "lobster" that is in the center of a traditional German customs. It is a lot of work to remove the "shell" or whatever it is that you cannot eat. People came together catching them, than cooked them, prepared them together (that was part of the party) and then they were eating them together. NOW: the lobster is sent to Marrocco to exploit cheap labour for processing the lobster, then it comes back. If they do not maintain the deep temperature at all times, and regulator test them - they get noticed in the newspaper.
Many goods are stupidly transported around for thousands of km because it is cheaper to have ONE production step done in another country (and now there will not be tarifs thanks to free trade deals) and then send them back. Thousands of km. The economic miracle after WW2 happened without Just in Time production. Manufacturers (car industry) had one consignment per week or month and held the compenents on stock. And they bought from within the country or nearby - or they held more stock.
We do not need to drag cheap stuff from China to Europe (I read a consumers market test on certain hand tools - a rasp for metal. You cannot get reasonable quality in a DIY market, not as a consumer). it is cheap, and it is still to expensive. The tester was incensed how metal was worked in China, the "tool" was shipped for thousand of km and and it broke with the first testing (only doing what was it's purpose no heavy duty material testing).
Reminds me of the adage: We have to be prudent with our money - we cannot afford to buy cheap.
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Under which rock has he been hiding to put up the straw man of bio fuel, and wind - when obviously solar ** (see below **) is the way to go (and that was clear in 2013 already for everyone working in the field). I do not know if his Watt / m2 numbers were correct in 2012 even - it does not matter anyway: - it is like when McKinsey was asked in the mid 1980s to give an estimate how that new (expensive, not yet fully provider supported and functional) technology "mobile phone" would spread within the next 10 - 15 years.
Their estimate was 100 - 120 times too low. Economy of scale brought prices down, it became clear that it would be viable to provide an infrastructure all over the country (not sure - did they use satellites in the early days ?? ). The companies wanting to offer the infrastructure knew that it would become much more of a mass market if that technology was not only an expensive gimmick for higher management - but if they could offer it to consumers.
From then on it was a feedback loop and it got a life of it's own. No one could have predicted that smartphones would partially replace personal computers - they did not even foresee the rise of the personal computer in the mid 1980s. Laptops ? not sure if they even existed then - if so they were an high end device at best.
You cannot _predict the effects and spreading of a game changing (disruptive) technology (electronics, computers, internet, mp3, mp4, mobile and smart phones, social media - and now renewable energy) by calculating with OLD data and extrapolating from the old scenarios. (flatscreens, airbags, digital cameras are other examples of the economy of scale although they did not change society and the economy - well digital photography and recording did when integrated into smartphones).
With wind you have to take into account that the wind mills are sometimes shut off - if they produce more than the grid currently needs and can safely absorb. - Of course with affordable battery or storage solutions (power2gas, power2hydrogen, power2brine, artificial photosynthesis, .... ) that would be different.
** The sun provides ON LAND more than 1400 times the energy (ALL not only electricity demand) than the global population currently needs . The trick is to harvest it and to store and and now that the race has been opened for real, one milestone after the next is reached. PV needs light (not necessarily sunlight), good panels can use diffuse light and bring a good harvest even at a less than ideal angle / direction. And they do not need heat. On the contrary they work better at cool / cold temperatures. They bring a respectable result on a sunny winterday - even better when there is reflecting snow.
And that of course also improves.
ECONOMY OF SCALE: double the number of installeld solar panels globally and you will get a price drop of 20 %. That trend is very reliable since the mid 1980s when they were invented to power satellites. - and it is ONLY dependent on installed panels NOT on time passing by.
Windmills are an eyesore when the come in large parks on every hill where conditions are good - they produce noise and infrasound so they must keep a distance from settlements. They are often in remote areas - so not where the electricity is needed. They are not small solutions. so they can complement the mix (although the ability to provide during night and during bad weather makes them very desireable).
Now there is a project to have kites flying their eights up in the air using the currents and transforming that movement into electricity. With wind HEIGHT is everything, you win disproporionally for every meter additional height. Higher up the currents are MORE STEADY and STRONGER. So if a place would never be suited for a windmill - you add some lenght to the metall cable and the power cable that connects the kite(s) to the container on the ground - there you go.
That would very elegantly complement solar in "windstill" times and would be also a good off the grid option in areas that are not sunny. No problems with birds (hopefully - and either way), no eyesore, no noise, it could be done in the backyard.
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He starts with a misleading assumption right away. Bio fuel ** is not the answer for traffic, and no one in their right mind suggests so. SOLAR is * see below (Exclude the moronic EU scheme ** which is a favor for some "special interests" in the name of green energy the rainforests are cut down to make way for palm oil moncultures. Some of that is added to diesel).
WHY SOLAR ? Dr. Eicke Weber, top researcher (material) in a speech in March 2017 at Universitiy Karlsruhe: Current global energy demand (all ! not only electricity) is 16 Terrawattyears.
** The EU scheme is insanity - it leads to the destruction of rainforests with the sugar coating of being green energy. Now if we could grow them
in the temperate climate zone, that might be a support in the transition phase).
That is the term - 16 Terrawatt on average needed - and for a whole year.
Expected demand in 2040: 28 terrawattyears (more energy efficiency but developing countries catching up).
Dr. Eicke also compared the Terrawattyears of remaining non-renewable sources - for instance coal would last 200 years (assuming the demand of 28 terrawattyears), petrol and uranium not as long etc. They are represented in circles according to the estimates of how much there is of them (all of them not too large at the slide).
Then he gives the numbers for the standard renewables 3,5, even 8 Terrawattyears. The circles are usually smaller than those of the fossil fuel energy. But then using them does not reduce them !
And then there is the amount of solar radiation we get on LAND - that was the huge disc that dominated the slide: 23.000 Terrawattyears - which is the current 16 terrawattyears times 1400 (all solar energy on the globe is way more - two thirds of the globe is covered by oceans - but swimming solar panels might not be practical).
Another example: if we would cover 5 % of the Sahara with solar panels we could harvest as much energy as the world currently needs (all: traffic, heating, cooling, what is now electricity, industrial processes). That is meant to show the scale - not as practical example - unless we would have the technologies ready to turn it into storeable fuel (like hydrogen, methane, artificial photosynthesis, ... that could be transported. Those processes will have losses - they are in the test phase and are currently inefficient - let's say 50 or 70 % loss.
Well there is no shortage of deserts in the world and they do not compete with space for settlements or agriculture. And using 0,5 or 1 % of the space can be done w/o damage to the ecosystem. If production gets even cheaper the ideal solar situation of the Sahara might overcome the costs for the pipeline and the losses when transforming electricity into fuel).
That fuel would of course would be the higher cost backup for night, peak and seasonal demands. Since there is so much solar radiation you can even harvest a part of the needed energy in winter ! in Germany - Photovoltaik also can harvest diffuse radiation and it needs cool temperatures. So in Dubai they need to cool the panel. A sunny winter day (even better with reflecting snow) can get you a respectable harvest with a panel that is now ! good quality. And of course that is one of the goals - to improve panels in that regard while reducing prices. Or having panels that are suited for facades - which would multiply the spaces where they can be installed.
There was a plan for Iranian natural gas via Syria to go to Europe Europe (in case you ask yourself for the REAL reasons of the proxy war is waged by the U.S. Qatar KSA Turkey, Israel, U.K. France). And Qatar is at the other side of that gasfield and also wanted to build a pipeline for the same purpose (also going via Syria - Well Assad favored the old allies Iran with some financial participation of Russia, another old ally. That was in 2005 and 2006) . The Russian gas pipelines to Europe are also long - so that is not out of order.
Natural gas consists almost completely of methane so if the Sahara is politically safe we could use such schemes to have gas for winter and for the fast support of gas turbines during day when demand cannot be met by renewables. We would just need to make sure there are no leakages of unburnt ! Methane. Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, 30 times the effect over 100 years (that seems to be the stadard time period for such comparsions but I think it does not last as long). It is definitely not as stable as CO2. (decades instead of centuries). That carbon cycle would be neutral. Producing methane would use CO2 from the air - and burning it would release CO2.
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@scottconroy7949 He is biased - even in 2012 it was clear that biomass or wind would be complimentary technologies. the sun provides on LAND 1400 times the energy (total !! fossil fuel, electricty, biomass) that humans currently consume on a global scale. And with electricity we can cover all uses of energy (so for instance electric car instead of combustion engines, or for heating).
The costs for kWh produced by PV drop by 20 % every time the globally installed PV panels double (got that from a world class expert Dr. Eicke Weber Fraunhofer Institute, speech March 2017). That is a reliable trend since the 1980s when PV was invented to power satellites. (the speech was held at University Karlsruhe unfortunately only in German - highly interesting).
In 2017 in (not ideal Germany) average ! production costs are 7 cents per kWh, they are lower in sunnier regions of Germany. In 2016 in Dubai midday 2,4 cents for kWh, so in sunny countries they are quickly nearing the point where most power plants cannot compete. That price is w/o storage and in Dubai they may have gas and oil extra cheap for the power plants. - But in Australia or California coal plants are already getting into trouble (which btw triggers backlash from the traditional providers and politicians serving them).
And that trend (double installations = minus 20 % in price for electricity) has nothing to do with time passing by - it correlates ONLY with the capacity of installed PV panels.
In other words the German Energy Transition with lots of subsidies in the beginning (conditions are not ideal in Germany = moderate climate zone) triggered something.
Panels got cheaper and then became viable for places like California, Australia, Texas, India, China, .... w/o (a lot of) subsidies. So they were bought and installed in increasing numbers. That triggered the next price drops (companies saw a niche, and invested in research to improve production methods and also basic and material research).
Dr. Eicke gave an example of a company in Germany KACO that produces transformers for PV panels (panels produce direct current - it must be transformed to alternating current. And these devices are also the controls - they send electricity to the batteries when the users do not need it, and send it to the grid when batteries are full - if the installation is set-up that way).
KACO put panels on their roofs (2 MW installation) which cost them 2 million Euro (no subsidies for investment or subsidized production for the grid - I am not sure they even deliver to the grid).
Using their own electricity saves them 350.000 Euro in electricity costs per year (so after 6 years it paid off - I saw a slide with production of a day in August 2013, so they likely already got their money back. Quality panels should at least !! work for 12 years. The PR value is for free - a company supplying technology for PV should use it anyway. On sunny days they only need a little bit from the grid during night and in the morning - and then they produce all the electricty the company needs. (They do not have night shifts, so the drop in production after the sun goes down does not impact them. They did not get any subsidies and do not need them.
What makes that so lucrative: they save on costs for transformers and likely have the know-how for installation inhouse (obviously !) and they also do not have need for a lot of storage. Of these factors I think only storage to compensate for mismatched consumption versus production really plays a role (transformers plus on the roof installation at full price would not cost the Euro 350.000 savings of one year - and even if, it still would be a splendid ROI).
Households have a less ideal situation: often they need a lot of electricity in the morning. When harvest is good during day they are not at home and in the evening they also consume more. So they need much more batteries: think costs of 14 - 16 cents for every kWh that needs to be stored, that excludes electricity that is consumed right away or that is sent directly to the grid. But for the production for the grid meanwhile they do not get much (and even that is subsidized).
You can add up 14 - 16 cents (storage for a part of the electricity) + 7 cents average production costs (all installations or only recently produced better performing or cheaper panels) = 23 cents while electricity costs for consumers are 26 cents to 29 cents. At the surface it looks like you can already beat the system. BUT: being on the grid means fix costs - for a normal houshold / homer owner that does not squander energy the fix costs are a considerable portion of the total bill. And unless you forego the safety of having the grid as backup (that would mean much more storage - and then some for extra safety) - you will have those costs. The 14 - 16 cents storage costs per kWh still mean that you may rely on the grid 40 - 50 % of the time. Winter, longer rain periods. In other times you produce a surplus, but you cannot only look at the production numbers. ).
With costs of 8000 Euro * for a quality Lithium battery pack (seems to be a realistic estimate for 2018 for a regular home and with the stated rate of 16 cents * for storing 1 kWh - one would handle 50,000 kWh via the batteries (plus of course there is additinally the electricity that is either consumed right away or sent to the grid right away. so the batteries are not "bothered" - every charging counts towards their life span.
(* I browsed two well made informative sites, those numbers seem to be realistic right now)
50,000 would be instance 10 years with 5000 kWh via batteries per year. But that is not a realistic number for a household. So the 0,16 cents are obviously not calculated for a time of 10 years. (Unfortunately they did not give the details behind that calculation or I overlooked it - 15 years seem to be more realistic.(50,000 kWh divided by 15 = 3333 kWh that are handled via batterie per year).
Such a life span can be expected for Lithium batteries - although I am not sure there is much tolerance for extra costs of repairs, or if you are the unlucky buyer of an underperforming battery pack.
That would change the calculation. But it also shows that more lifetime or lower battery costs or better performance will be a game changer - it is just around the corner.
The surplus electricity from PV installations sent to the grid often comes at times when it is not needed - so STORAGE that becomes 10, 20 % cheaper would be already a game changer. (and that can come in form in tweaks of production processes and better battery managment that squeezes more full loading cycles out of them. If you get 1 or 2 more years of use of your battery pack - that also equals LESS costs for the investment. - And even with decreased performance a battery is not useless - you can still have it additionally when you get new batteries as your main backup.
In Germany in the first years of the project "Energy Transistion" (until the costs dropped for production) the rates for supplying to the grid were very generous. meanwhile the rates have dropped so there is an incentive now to use as much of your production yourself. The only thing limiting that is space for panels (facades are not yet used) and the price for storage.
- which still is the thing that prevents a complete breakthrough.
Now that company has other energy needs - heating, transportation .... but it is a start. With better performing panels they could produce more. Or if they are installed on facades (angle !). There are plenty of roofs that could be put to good use, if facade elements become viable even more so. people and companies that do not have the conditions (or face northwards) can invest in funds that use space - or just buy the electricity.
Electricity is a very flexible energy form, it can be used for light, heating, mobility, to run devices and also for many industrial processes. Sometimes coal and gas will be needed (steel production with coal - although there are electric solutions as well especially for recycled metals).
Good thing the solar output is THAT abundant and that it can be transferred to electricty.
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@aread13 Solar Ice Heating They use ice storage in combination with heat pumps and solar panels (thermal not photovoltaic). There are existing installations, homes, also companies. One Swiss study noted that all the projects needed some finetuning to get a optimal efficiency They can get at the same efficiency rates as heat pumps or maybe slightly better.
Advantage: the offers for heatpumps often do not include deep enough drilling (either the sales persons are clueless or they want to make the price lower ... and the other "flat" method needs more space. That may work well for farmer but not the usual home with a small garden - and it restricts the usage of the space. Deep drilling is expensive and there is always the risk that they hit hard rock.
The clients have no way of knowing if the drilling is deep enough - but over the course of a few years they take more energy out of the soil than can be regenerated. And regeneration happens naturally with rain, but even a well kept lawn (lots of roots) does not let in rain very well, no tarmac, cobble stones, etc.
Deep drilling is not everywhere allwowed - and for the other method you need space.
They Solar Ice projects have a plastic tank with water, no hassle to get it into the earth into the frost free zone (that can be done easily when digging out the basement). They send surplus energy from the solar panel during summer into the earth tank - first the watertank in the house is heated for daily use. Advantage, even during an extended heat wave the panels will not overheat (then the water tank in the house will be completey heated so the solar installation can get rid of heat that would damage it.
The earth tank is NOT insulated, energy is "lost" of course. At the end of the saison the water will have 20 degree Celsius,- in that range while the surrounding soil may have 8 - 10 degrees.
The tank is not that huge. estimate for a home 2,8 high, 1,5 - 2 in diameter
Especially in fall they start to take out heat from the tank (there is heat pump and a grid of tubes that absorb the heat and are filled with fluid - anti-freeze). If there are sunny days and there is a surplus (the panels are more than a house would have for warm water production) it will regenerate the tank. At some point the water start to freeze around the tubes.
In nature water will freeze from the outside and from the top. since the heat is extracted at the tubes the freecing starts in the middle and from the top. That way they will be no pockets of water entrapped in ice. That water would expand when it also freezes - which would burst the tank. They have an overflow and some extra space for the water.
For thawing ice at 0 degrees to water at 0 degrees celsius a lot of energy needed.
And likewise the same amount of heat can be extracted if the same mass of water is frozen. The energy needed to thaw 1 kg * ice to 1 kg * water is the same energy that is needed to heat 1 kg water with 0 degrees to approx. 85 degrees Celsius. * (volume will differ, water expands when freezing, so no liters comparsion)
And when the water in the tank gets that cold, the surrounding soil (frost free depth) is warmer - so some of the lost sommer heat should land in the tank again. That's why it is not insulated. Picking up some heat in winter (which is the critical application) is more important than losing some of the surplus heat of summer.
And of course it is easier to play around at deep temperatures for storage than trying to store very hot water in the earth over months.
Ice storage is not a new idea, they have used it in commerce for heat storage - but now they also use it for heating homes it in some regions in Germany, Switzerland. I think it needs a lot of know-how to get everything right so the client will have a well working, efficient system.
I like the name Solar Ice Heating though.
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@richardpetek712 I just saw a presentation of Dr. Eicke Weber from March 2017 (Fraunhofer Institute). A company named KACO in Germany (producing transformers for PV) got a 2 MW (= 2000 kW) installation on their company roof (to give you an idea: 5 - 6 kw would be for a typical house, that's a normal but not large installation for consumers). On a sunny day they need a little power during night and in the morning form the grid, and again from 5 or 6 pm on (I saw the slide of August 2013).
They invested 2 million Euro and save 350.000 Euro on electricty costs per year (so they earn it back within 6 years, they got no subsidies no better electricity price I am not sure if they even deliver to the grid, probably not).
Their advantage: their demand and time when PV produces (sunshine or at least light) aligns with the time when they have demand. So very little need for storage which would be more costly.
Homes have a less ideal situation. Demand in the morning, when production is high during day no one is at home, and again a lot of demand in the evening. -
Guess what: NOW that the companies could fully go electric the German government sabotages it - they must pay 2,7 cents per kWh on self produced electricity. Considering the average production price in Germany of 7 cents that is 30 %.
I am not sure if that would be the case if they would go off the grid completely (would be an interesting case for the Supreme court).
The reason: Merkel never was for Green energy - she had a political problem after Fukushima in March 2011. Before that she had just reversed an orderly plan from the former government to fade out nuclear power - suddenly she did a 180 and ordered a hasty exit from nuclear (the exit from the exit from the exit is the folclore term for it). Her plan favored investors and (upper) middle class homeowners who had the money to invest into an installation and could take the highly subisidized rates in the beginning. Which were paid for by all citizens in form of higher and steadily rising electricity rates (a burden to lower income people). That was the low-interest phase after the Great Financial Crisis - and a safe and lucrative investment possibility.
But NOW a lot of companies (if they have a roof facing in the right direction and need the electricity mainly during day) could save a lot of money - so now Chencellor Merkel and her coalition government protect the established industry and hold back. That is especially a gift to Big Coal. With those rates every company with a suitable roof would make that investment - or invite a fund to do it for them if they do not have the cash.
It would be the much feared decentral competition for the large providers who did not care to prepare. So now Merkel makes those schemes less lucrative (note that large commercial installations do not get any subsidies - they use of course the grid as backup and need it on rainy days. PV and also wind production is predictable on a large scale with the weather forecost - but the established providers MUST deliver on certain days - and do not get the biz they would like to get on others.
I just did a quick calculation: if they save 350,000 Euro and 1 kWh costs the industry 20 cents (not sure about the rates for industry: could be 15, 20, 25 ? - consumers pay between 26 and 29 cents) - they would produce and consume 1,75 Mio kWh from their OWN installation. If you multiply that with 2,7 cents per kWh cents (=0,027 Euro) that amounts to 47.250 Euro per year. That is the fee that was recently imposed for self produced and consumed electricity. They need to pay something to support the grid - but that seems to be a hefty price for having a little backup from the grid.
Only small installations up to 5 kWh are excempt (that is a modest medium sized installations for homes) - but with that you cannot become mostly self-reliant. So even if panels become much cheaper or their performance per area becomes better (there is only so much space on the roof or carport) - it does not matter, NOW they hinder people and companies to go full solar.
And being completely off the grid is a little tricky.
The (flawed and inconsistent) project Energy Transition still did some good: German demand triggered more sales, the manufacturers offered the sets of course in other countries as well.
Every time installations double (globally) the price for the produced kWh drops by 20 %. That is a reliable trend since the 1980s when PV was invented to power satellites. Germany is not ideally suited for solar - but with the high subsidies in the beginning the economy of scale kicked in - and then installations in California, Australia, Texas, India, ..... became viable w/o or much less subsidies. In sunny countries where a lot of energy is used for A/C peak demand and peak production align so the (then even more expensive) batteries did not matter as much. (And Australia and even California have high prices for electrictiy - CA for an U.S. state. Wasteful use, lots of sun, not that cheap prices - there a PV installation could shine even some years ago with somewhat higher production prices.
So that was the next wave of sales - which triggered more price drops, research and technical improvements. Now battery and storage have become a hot issue - they will make every installation more economic.
Production is fairly cheap already - on average 7 cents per kWh in Germany, less in German regions that are sunnier. 2,4 cents per kWh in 2016 in Dubai during midday - at 2 cents there is no electricity source that can compete with that price (maybe huge hydropower plants but nothing else).
Now, storage is more costly (so far) - I got the impression that it is 14 - 16 cents (w/o subsidies) for every kWh that needs to be stored (for home installations). If the electricity is immediately used or if it is deliverd to the grid then the batteries are not used. That is important because they have only so many cycles. That again depends on quality and material (Lithium maybe 6000 cycles ) - lead much less but is less expensive too, versus Lithium - those are very high quality but cost more. They ave a bad reputation when the material is mined or won from salt seas (brine). And it looks like they are hard to recycle so far (I assume that is no problem with lead).
Of course the users get much less for electricity that they deliver to the grid (in Germany it is 12 cents I think - but they have to pay 26 cents if they need to rely on the grid (not enough sun and battery empty).
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kcotte59 your old teacher was right with 8 light minutes (time till the radiation incl. visible light from the sun reaches the earth). Not correct about the danger that pollution could cause the earth to eventually freeze over. That did not even happen 65 million years ago when the asteroide hit the earth (it got cold because of all the dust in the atmosphere for some years, but not even that catastrophe (which triggered a mass extinction) was enough to start a glaziation.
Global dimming because of air pollution does have a measurable effect (so do volcanic eruptions) but it is not that dramatic, it is a small effect.
Teachers are not scientists, she certainly did not want to misinform you but fell for some "pop-science" narrative. Maybe she also wanted to impress on you that clean air is important - well it worked you remembered it.
people (but not scientists) also have the misconception that in the 1970s a global cooling was discussed as something that could happen with some likelyhood and in the near future.
Actually some scientiests examined if and when the next glaziation would happen (in 10,000 years or maybe 20,000 - that time range). Some even discussed a soon to come cooling. Interesting question, they were not the mainstream though ...
and then some media outlets, TV and newspapers picked up the info (and got it partially wrong, quoted things out of context etc. No one reads the peer reviewed studies, with luck they browse the abstracts).
The public was intrigued and responded to the stories so that was trotted out some more, likely somone made money of a book on that issue. That is why it is remembered, the audience had a strong reaction, and that is the reason the media ran with the narrative.
Scientists did not bother much to correct that. Most that are engaged in research are not trained in communication (actually some are really bad if they are supposed to explain something to us mere mortals) and also do not have an interest to teach the public.
With peer review it is global swarm intelligence among the experts in often very specialized fields. THAT's their turf.
I browsed over one such "documentary" from back in the day that a denier had uploaded (the argument often is: They told us back in the day the great freeze was imminent and now they tell us there is global warming ...). The video was awful and they did feature have ANY scientist that would deliver the usual statements to make the video more interesting and to lend credibility to the documentary. Of course not, it was all speculation, gloomy music. No scientist risked their reputation to appear in that video.
the scientists that had studied the outsider position of "is there a cooling imminent" found out: No, it isn't and moved on. Which is normal in science, the question itself was legitimate. Good thing they had researched that - after all this is something we would want to know in advance.
Even then most of the scientific community engaged in questions of climatology were leaning in the other direction (warming) or neutral (it stays the same with some ups and downs).
Since then a LOT of research has been done, so there im more clarity and the measurements back that up (warming defintitly and with unprecedented speed, also compared to the warming that happened after the end of the last ice age - and THAT was fast in geological terms).
No, Scientists did not tell us back in the day that there would be a new Ice Age soon. Sloppy media people selling something that the laypersons found interesting may have given that impression.
but not scientists that work on studies and submit their findings to peer review (they have to be very precise, specific and back everything up, it is work that requires high levels of expertise and perfectionism). They can't just make an interesting sounding story up or embellish their findings (it is the task of their peers to find flaws in studies. In these circles one earns a reputation for "publishing" - or if they find a relevant flaw in a paper and then to write a convincing rebuttal paper.
I guess BBC did the speculative documentary on a slightly higher quality level than the one I had browsed.
Nixon was advised accordingly (that Global Warming because of ongoing burning of fossil fuel could become a problem).
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@hotshotsunnyz The energy production tends to be decentral with solar - except when there would be large PV power plants. And it is quite plannable with the weather forecast. So are day and night hours or seasonal differences in harvest. - Do I have to spell it out that the fluctuations are handled with storage and grid management and backup from flexible small to medium sized gas turbines ? ?
Plus: the cheaper batteries get, the more they will be used and the more stable the production / consumption situation will become.
The large providers are not going to like it.
While I am at it: there are regions where solar AND wind can be harvested and they tend to complement each other pretty well (when the sun is not shining it is often windier - same in the cooler/cold saison). (or there is geothermal or hydropower)
The rest (peak demand, rainy windstill days) is going to be covered by occasional resp. seasonal use of gas turbines.
Nuclear power plants are in for trouble as well, they aim for a fairly steady output and have high fix costs.
Gas, biogas, biomass plants can be central or decentral smaller units. Ideally they also produce warm water and sell it to households or companies to be economically viable - that is how they do in Germany, Austria, Switzerland - gas and biomass plants exist in medium and small sizes - mini biomass units are run by homeowners / small companies / neighbourhood cooperatives if people want to be energy independent or the more recent rules make them consider to go off the grid alltogether.
The German gov. in recent years started to protect their (subsidized) coal plants with extra fees on self-consumed ! electricity for those who are connected to the grid as backup (and to get a little bit or a part of electricity when solar is not enough). Household installations up to 5kW are excempt (that is a normal, rather small installation).
With the dramatic price drops in the past 5 years companies can invest in large installations (if they have a roof or other space for the panels) and can produce a large part of their electricity (w/o subsidies).
When they need almost all of the electrictiy during the day they have to invest less in storage (not quite there with the prices for storage) - and such production-oriented solutions have already become competitive in the last years (we are talking about cloudy Germany, winter and all). 7 cents per kWh production costs, that is the yearly average - less in the regions in Germany that have more sunshine hours - 2,4 cents per kWh in Dubai midday for comparsion (not ideal what the yearly average is - that is just to give an idea).
Example - and that was in 2013 even before some of the price drops.
A German company KACO invests into a 2 MW installation, which costs them 2 million Euro, they have yearly savings of 350.000, the devices should at least work for 12 years, likely longer - do the math.
So now they pay a fee of 2,7 cents per self-produced and consumed kWh, I assume that is meant as their contribution to support the grid (from which they get some electricity on rainy days or in winter when harvest overall is reduced). The provider misses out on a lot of revenue. That fee must amount to approx. 47,000 Euro per year - well THAT adds up and gives an incentive to go off the grid alltogether.
Housholds that would like to install more (again in Germany) do not like the fee either - they are just waiting for the batteries to get a little bit cheaper to get their community installation. The companies doing R & D in the field will be delighted to help out. In the end the German government may have sped up the process - giving at least the potential European manufacturers extra incentives (if they come up with 10 or 20 % price reduction for batteries for homes they have a sales hit already, that is just around the corner).
China has massively invested into solar - and for them too the installations become much more stable, economic, reliable the moment they can use MORE storage at lower prices. Would help them to reduce the coal plants and the pollution from them, too.
Conventional plants (in Germany and even more so in the U.S., and especially in red states) already ordered their politicians to protect them from competition (by passing laws to restrict how homeowners or even companies can finance / lease their installation). so THEY take the upcoming competition serious or already feel it.
With solar production is spread out over a region in small(er) units - that helps to stabilize. If they manage to do it in cloudy, rainy Germany that can't be a challenge in CA, Fl, Tx, Az,..Australia, India, ... where the sunshine hours are much more and more predictable.
The solar producers are not going to replace the conventional producers (especially coal) right away, the grid will remain (as storage, backup, managment of surplus and demand). But the way to finance the grid will change.
In Australia an old coal plant plus some Tesla batteries was replaced by a solar power plant plus batteries (in NSW - they do have a rainy saison).
Sunny regions tend to be reliable and the panels also produce with light. If there are clouds some installations are going into shade while others get out.
There are constant fluctuations, but not the challenge when ONE larger plant has an unexpected problem and cannot deliver as planned. Which is why the German grid has become more stable not less.
The German providers deal well with it (they were forced to automate), the dire prediction that the German grid could not cope with more than 5 % (front page ads by the industry in ? 2008) were hyped up. Germany has on average now 35 % of its electricity from renewables and still doing fine. They also halved the blackout times. Had good 25 minutes when starting out (it is an industry standard, now it is 10 minutes - while France and U.K. lag behind with 50 - 60).
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The Energy Transition in Germany is flawed (Merkel solved a political problem with it after Fukushima) - it still did some good: German demand (country does not have top conditions so plenty of subsidied in the beginning) triggered more sales, economy of scale kicked in big time, the companies offered the sets of course in other countries as well.
every time installations double (globally) the price for the produced kWh drop by 20 %. That is a reliable trend since the 1980s when PV was invented to power satellites. (Dr. Eicke Weber, Fraunhofer Institute, March 2017). After the first German wave - and installations in California, Australia, Texas, India, ..... became viable - not to forget China, the rich thee cannot escape pollution.
In those countries w/o or much less subsidies. In sunny countries where a lot of energy is used for A/C peak demand and peak production align so the (then even more expensive) batteries did not matter as much. (And Australia and even California have high prices for electrictiy - CA for an U.S. state. Wasteful use, lots of sun, not that cheap prices - there a PV installation can shine.
So that was the next wave of sales - which triggered more price drops, research and technical improvements. Now battery and storage have become a hot issue - they will make every installation more economic. - the same economy of scale will make their prices drop.
Production is fairly cheap already - on average 7 cents per kWh in Germany, less in German regions with a lot of sun.
2,4 cents per kWh in 2016 in Dubai during midday - at 2 cents there is no electricity source that can compete with that price (maybe huge hydropower plants but nothing else).
Now, storage is more costly (so far) - I got the impression that it is 14 - 16 cents (w/o subsidies) for every kWh that needs to be stored. If the electricity is immediately used or if it is deliverd to the grid then the batteries are not used. That is important because they have only so many cycles. That again depends on quality and material (Lithium maybe 6000 cycles ) - lead much less but is less expensive too - as opposed to Lithium which are very high quality but cost more.
Lithium batteries have a bad reputation when the material is mined or won from salt seas (brine). And it looks like they are hard to recycle so far (I assume that is no problem with lead).
Of course the users get much less for electricity that they deliver to the grid (in Germany it is 12 cents I think - but they have to pay 26 cents if they need to rely on the grid (not enough sun and battery empty).
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every time installations double (globally) the price for the produced kWh drop by 20 %. That is a reliable trend since the 1980s when PV was invented to power satellites. (Dr. Eicke Weber, Fraunhofer Institute, March 2017). and it ONLY depends on installations not on the passing of time. In other words some initial promotion with subsidies can do wonders to start a game changing technology.
After the first German wave - installations in California, Australia, Texas, India, ..... became viable - not to forget China, the rich there cannot escape pollution. In those countries w/o or much less subsidies.
In sunny countries where a lot of energy is used for A/C peak demand and peak production align so the (then even more expensive) batteries did not matter as much. (And Australia and even California have high prices for electrictiy - CA for an U.S. state. Wasteful use, lots of sun, not that cheap prices - there a PV installation can shine.
So that was the next wave of sales - which triggered more price drops, research and technical improvements.
Now battery and storage have become a hot issue - they will make every installation more economic. - the same economy of scale will make their prices drop.
Production is fairly cheap already - on average 7 cents per kWh in Germany, less in German regions with a lot of sun.
2,4 cents per kWh in 2016 in Dubai during midday (no storage costs - but in Dubai with lots of A/C solar can be base load).
At 2 cents there is no electricity source that can compete with that price (maybe huge hydropower plants but nothing else).
Now, storage is more costly (so far) - I got the impression that it is 14 - 16 cents (w/o subsidies) for every kWh that needs to be stored (that applies to units for homeowners). If the electricity is immediately used or if it is deliverd to the grid then the batteries are not used. That is important because they have only so many cycles.
Of course the users get much less for electricity that they deliver to the grid (in Germany it is 12 cents I think - but they have to pay 26 cents if they need to rely on the grid (not enough sun and battery empty). If you want to produce at least half of your electricity you will have overcapacities - and there is an incentive to try to NOT send it to the grid - so that is a niche for battery suppliers.
There are plenty of attempts for LARGE storage solutions:
One idea that was new for me brine4power. Large caves in former salt mines - like they are also used for natural gas storage (The company EWE provides storage for natural gas). The caves could be filled with brine (saltwater) plus polymers that can be recycled - that would be a redux flow battery. The idea is to store the energy for Berlin for 1 hour. That may not sound like much and it wouldn't be much for one home or one company.
But for a city it would make a real difference and it would take the good use of the sources of renewable energy in the region to the next level.
An "one hour wriggle room" would open a lot of possibilities and also make existing installations more viable. Like the city having its solar power park. When they have surplus they store it - and they could put those wind mills in the North of Germany to good use (in the north there is a lot of wind power produced, the industry is in the middle and the south - and not sufficient high voltage power lines so far. Not all possible electricity is being used or even produced. They cannot turn off solar power panels - but they can turn off the wind mills. They occasionally have to export for almost nothing just to get rid of the extra power or it would be dangerous for the grid - or they forego the possible harvest by shutting off windmills.
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