Wind & solar now producing more American electricity than coal for the first time

[Polds4OSU]

If wind and solar are making a huge difference why is electricity so much more expensive

making a "Huge" Difference. I don't thank anyone is saying that Solar and Wind are making a Huge difference.

I pointed out that Wind and Solar were 12% of Global Production, but increasing. Prices for Energy have gone up by 350% Globally since 2020....One can not seriously think that a 350% price increases globally in energy price is coming from from 12% of the way energy is produced

 

[andylicious]

Renewable penetration into markets making thermal unsustainable on "normal" market days. Thermal is required for a multitude of reasons but capacity factors are dropping meaning you have to price in the down time to remain solvent. Additionally load supplying entities have to price in excursions due to non-dispatchable renewables not operating to schedule. To go all renewable or all carbon capture fossil your at home bill will need to triple.

So in other words the “renewable” resource is driving the cost up because we are shuttering thermal plants to derive some form of environmental benefit even though the environmental benefit is not cost efficient? That sounds like a sweet deal when you factor in all the tax benefits, manufacturers exemptions and extremely beneficial free publicity for the electric companies.

 

[GOGETUMPOKE]

MSN

 

[steross]

So in other words the “renewable” resource is driving the cost up because we are shuttering thermal plants to derive some form of environmental benefit even though the environmental benefit is not cost efficient? That sounds like a sweet deal when you factor in all the tax benefits, manufacturers exemptions and extremely beneficial free publicity for the electric companies.

How do you determine if the environmental benefit is cost effective without figuring in the cost of the environmental damage?

Seems to compare the two industries instead of just looking at an electric bill and current day subsidies you would need to factor in the years of head start in the world of government subsidies that the O&G industry has had, the billions spent on defense that was defending energy supplies when we were not at all able to be energy dependent and the portion of the environmental damage that is being caused.

Taking just the cost of the bill seems inherently unfair in making an assessment.

Energy is not my field. Let's say someone told me that smoking cigarettes eases their anxiety better than a prescription for Lexapro and costs less while big pharma gets bigger subsidies than big tobacco. I would have to point out that they are ignoring the cost of cigs to their (and anyone around them's) health.

 

[andylicious]

How do you determine if the environmental benefit is cost effective without figuring in the cost of the environmental damage?

Seems to compare the two industries instead of just looking at an electric bill and current day subsidies you would need to factor in the years of head start in the world of government subsidies that the O&G industry has had, the billions spent on defense that was defending energy supplies when we were not at all able to be energy dependent and the portion of the environmental damage that is being caused.

Taking just the cost of the bill seems inherently unfair in making an assessment.

Energy is not my field. Let's say someone told me that smoking cigarettes eases their anxiety better than a prescription for Lexapro and costs less while big pharma gets bigger subsidies than big tobacco. I would have to point out that they are ignoring the cost of cigs to their (and anyone around them's) health.

So we are supposed to have a more expensive electrical system that is less reliable because some people don’t like clean natural gas and prefers the illusion of wind turbines and solar as “clean” energy? We are supposed to not tax wind and solar electricity at the manufacturer production level only at the consumer level and give favorable property tax rates on the generation and transmission equipment? Meanwhile back in the oilfield we tax natural gas at the wellhead, at the sale, in the transmission process, to the mineral holder on their income taxes, the production company on their income taxes, and then to the consumer at the pump or electric meter?

Yep, sounds real fair to me.

 

[steross]

So we are supposed to have a more expensive electrical system that is less reliable because some people don’t like clean natural gas and prefers the illusion of wind turbines and solar as “clean” energy? We are supposed to not tax wind and solar electricity at the manufacturer production level only at the consumer level and give favorable property tax rates on the generation and transmission equipment? Meanwhile back in the oilfield we tax natural gas at the wellhead, at the sale, in the transmission process, to the mineral holder on their income taxes, the production company on their income taxes, and then to the consumer at the pump or electric meter?

Yep, sounds real fair to me.

The constant condescending, straw man arguments are why I left this place. You ignored every point I made to make a bunch of claims about things I said nothing about. Which isn't a discussion at all. Heck, if you are going to take what I said to claim that I "don't like natural gas" when the only thing I mentioned was my opinion about making the cost comparison more valid you might as well claim that I am an anarchist that wants us to have no energy at all. If making stuff up, why only go halfway?

Thanks for the reminder that this just isn't the place for me!

 

[Pokey]

Hang in there Steross. He’s been tilting windmills since OP. One of those tank batteries and pump jacks are beautiful, turbines hideously ugly guys.

 

[andylicious]

The constant condescending, straw man arguments are why I left this place. You ignored every point I made to make a bunch of claims about things I said nothing about. Which isn't a discussion at all. Heck, if you are going to take what I said to claim that I "don't like natural gas" when the only thing I mentioned was my opinion about making the cost comparison more valid you might as well claim that I am an anarchist that wants us to have no energy at all. If making stuff up, why only go halfway?

Thanks for the reminder that this just isn't the place for me!

So in other words you are butt hurt due to you ineffectual statements being invalid?

 

[Polds4OSU]

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[Donnyboy]

To me the issue with the renewable technologies that we are throwing our money into is that they aren't realistic alternatives. There is no path to weather driven technology being what we count on for our power...even if we could predict the weather for every location with 100% accuracy.....and even with batteries supporting them. You have heard me go on for years about it and it is only getting more true. Also we don't calculate environmental cost the same....the largest reduction in greenhouse gases in the power sector isn't wind and solar.....it's gas replacing coal. We could have actually offset more by continuing to replace coal/oil/old gas boiler plants with modern combined cycles than we have with our current wind and solar fleet so we are behind from a carbon perspective. The best combined cycles now can make 800 MW of power on footprint of 10 acres with greater than 90% reliability and produce less carbon in a year than the planes produced flying leaders to Europe to tackle carbon....much less the ships at sea carrying all our consumables. There is an agenda here that isn't really taking environmental savings in in the first place. When a wind farm goes in you hear "this farm produces 200MW of clean energy that will save X tons of CO2"....when a gas plant is up for construction you hear "the plant will produce X tons of carbon and we need to get off fossil fuels"....you never hear "this wind farm with disrupt 30 square miles of land and kill hundreds of birds/whales and keep the coal plant built in 1973 in operation due to being non-dispatchable" or "This gas plant can operate at 95% reliability at a range of fast responding dispatchable loads while displacing the coal plant built in 1973 lowering your bill increasing reliability and saving x tons of carbon". Due to the subsidies you can't build a thermal plant to compete.....so we are keeping around dinosaurs for times when we have to have them and excusing the emissions because we have created emergencies. Example....during a Uri a coal plant that burns lignite coal (the dirtiest lowest quality coal) was allowed to shut down it's scrubbers to produce more power. It crapped out more dirtier emissions in that week than similar size modern combined cycle does in months if not a year and it produces solid ash waste that has be disposed of. That plant shouldn't exist anymore.....but it has to. The footprint of that much wind is measured in counties. We aren't factoring in any of the land use, bird life, marine mammal life, etc that these technologies impact. It's just "carbon free" so it's good. And no one is considering the sheer scope of this. This is my number so consider the source....but if you wanted me to run ERCOT a grid with 86K MW peak load off wind/solar/battery you would need to build around 800k-1M of wind and solar and back them up with 5x that much battery. You would literally never be out of the sight some from of power production anywhere you go. During Uri there were times when the over 30K wind and 8K installed solar were putting out less than 2K combined. So to get to 86K how much do you need....well that is what batteries are for.....but they are only good for a few hours and then must recharge at a 1:1 rate. So you would need enough batteries to last days before you could recharge them. The Uri event lasted a little over a week and was a real no BS emergency for 5 of that....if you would have supplied 70K (load was higher but...) for 5 days without cycling back to recharge based on what wind and solar produced during the storm you would need over 8M MWh's from battery. Most batteries now are 2 hour discharge so you would have needed over 4M MW of battery.....and you still haven't solved the problem because once it's over you have to lean on the grid to recharge them while still supporting wind and solar that you have no control over how much they can produce....at a minimum sundown is unavoidable. So my numbers aren't crazy here. You can't just plan on covering the few hot afternoon hours or one snowy day....you have to plan for a when a hurricane takes out all wind on or near the coast for weeks....or solar panels and blades are covered with ice for 5 days. Let's say $1.2 M/MW (pretty typical for wind...batteries are cheaper but my numbers are low) install..... That's 5.7 trillion dollars for just the generations side.....not counting the 100's of switchyards...thousands of miles of additional lines...thousands of transmission resources for voltage and frequency support. You could get to 10 trillion more realistically than you can dream of 1 trillion....and that is just for one state. It's a big ol' state though and some tiny ones would be much less but there is no way even you if assume a doubling of reliability and efficiency it would cost America less than 100 Trillion dollars to go "carbon free" with what we are doing. That's 294K every man women and child is going to have to come up with....or 49 years of $500 adder to monthly billing before you pay for the actual power you use. Even then you should expect the national grid which has an availability of greater than 99% to drop to the 80's at best. There would be large scale multi-day blackouts as a practice. Factories shut down, stores closed, communications not working properly, homes with no climate control or ability to prepare food, water supplies shut down.....people die during blackouts. We are just throwing money away.

So carbon capture.....a facility I oversee had a study done by EPRI (a power sector research group, think a group of engineers that are so engineery they need to leave an engineering heavy job to go engineer harder) and the DOE to see the feasibility of capturing the carbon from a modern clean 750 MW gas turbine plant. Their number, and it's ridiculously low and they admit it, is 630M (example they have 200K for a main power transformers and if you told me you had one for sell I could get today and said 10M I'd interrupt you before you were done to take the deal).....when looking at applying for federal grant money we spoke to people who could actually do the work and they all say the number is closer to 1B (that plant has a market value of less than half that) and that is just to capture it....not put it anywhere so no off take facility to try to market it....no pipeline to ship it somewhere and put it in the ground. It will also reduce the output of the plant by around 50MW. So twice what the plant is worth to have less plant. So if we go all clean gas and capture the carbon you are still talking trillions.....trillions the rest of the world isn't going to spend.

Everything above is before unrealistic EV policies are in place....

I'm sure you have all seen it but this guy (and I don't know much about him otherwise) has it in perspective.

The BRICs folks saw this and started making moves....we saw it and said "carbon bad, wind good".

We need to be trying to strike a balance...we need to be realistically good stewards of the environment while not crippling ourselves in the process. The world is getting a taste of fuel sources being limited with the Ukraine war and supply chain disruptions post the pandemic. That would be life with what we are doing and advocating for.....at exponentially higher numbers than current cost. The answer is mid-sized identical nukes with clean gas support to move around providing voltage and frequency response/control. But that causes problems...I don't think any of us want all the worlds bad actors to have reactors or have third world untrained hands on the wheel of something that can melt down....and that's lots of fuel to get rid of. What we can do now....is stop building wind and solar there is already too much it is already impacting grid reliability across the country...and start replacing older plants with modernized burner systems/environmental controls and new build of modern combined cycle technology everywhere. This would do more to lower global carbon emissions and quickly than an environmentalists wet dream. We have to stop the ridiculous pipe dream of "carbon free" it does not and will not exist....ever. We need to accept that we can dramatically lower our carbon footprint while progressing humanity till a better way is discovered and that means burning better things in better ways. We are also neglecting the easier sectors to fix....shipping is belching black smoke all over the globe and little is done....plane engines are tuned almost entirely for fuel efficiency not exhaust profile....all new construction could have higher efficiency standards....grant money to modernize existing buildings....all this on the demand side would do more at a lower more levelized cost. America could be the model for the world and use fuel we create, machines we can create, grid auxiliaries we run better than anyone to fix this but we are not. We are spending billions with trillions on the horizon based on science that isn't the most accurate to say the least chasing a goal that will never be achieved. The maddening part is anyone that has taken a serious or educated look at it knows it and we are still heading down the same path....it's hard to call what we are doing anything other than willful ignorance.

 

[PokitN]

heh...Carbon Bad Wind Good...

it's like Brawndo's Got What Plants Crave!

 

[andylicious]

Hang in there Steross. He’s been tilting windmills since OP. One of those tank batteries and pump jacks are beautiful, turbines hideously ugly guys.

I am really surprised at your reaction. Yes, I give you crap because it’s fun, but you do realize the coming effects on education funding from wind, don’t you?
Here is a small sample:
1. We have lost 48% of the value of wind energy systems due to Weimueller vs Kingfisher Wind that we’re built post 2016. The valuations are being decreased due to the tax being leveled on Production Tax Credits as tangible property and Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the credits are intangible property. This will decrease ad valorem values which will move the districts back on State Aid (less money for everyone else) I’m not saying the wind systems weren’t right to protest, but the loss is a fact.
2. There is no production on wind like there is on petroleum. Petroleum is a depletion tax, but there should be a tax of some form.
3. We have local districts that are having to borrow from their General Fund and Building Fund to make their bond payments due to the tax protests. This is then put on the next years property taxes to pay for that money.

Petroleum does tax protests as well as wind, but the net effect of a large wind system protesting can be mind boggling. Once again, every tax payer should be able to protest their taxes but there does need to be more honesty.

 

[Donnyboy]

making a "Huge" Difference. I don't thank anyone is saying that Solar and Wind are making a Huge difference.

I pointed out that Wind and Solar were 12% of Global Production, but increasing. Prices for Energy have gone up by 350% Globally since 2020....One can not seriously think that a 350% price increases globally in energy price is coming from from 12% of the way energy is produced


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You are correct 12% isn't responsible for 350%.....but it's more than you would think 12% could be. Prior to 2021 in ERCOT power would hit the regulated price cap maybe a few hours a year....many years not at all. Since then retailers must price in excursions caused by extreme spikes. ALL the spikes have been caused by underperformance of wind and/or solar. 100% of them. When you hear 500MW of renewable coming to a town near you....that really means about 100 of solar or 225 of wind because they only produce full capacity under perfect conditions so if you annualize it they do between 20-45% of their capacity. So if you have Pold's Power and you have to go buy load you used to price in 2-5 hours a year at the top and market retail power accordingly.....if you are wrong and it's 10 you have a bad year but you live. Now you price in days at the cap because in a couple of days you can go bankrupt. The cap is currently $5000/MWh....it was 9K. You can get ran over in the market in hours....your ability to post credit to solve your problems evaporate. You have to price plans higher now. Price is absolutely cheaper on a pretty day but it's the volatility created that is driving overall price way up. To put this in perspective if power cost zero for every hour in a year except one at the cap the new price is $0.57. It's not hard to bake a dollar or two into a retail plan....it's a lot harder to hide $10. Extreme case 4 consecutive days at $9000 during Uri, which was handled wrong but that doesn't matter when the bill comes...at the end of Uri power could not have been less than $98/MW if we gave it away....you could easily get retail plans for under $0.098 at the meter. Those days are over. Three years ago you could by calendar year around the clock power in the upper 20s. If you sold that your broke....if you had that in your 5 year retail model your broke. Today the around the clock price in ERCOT for 2023 is $57.06 and we had no winter in 23 to speak of....If we have an event in December like Elliot last year that's going way up. If ERCOT had zero renewables with where gas indices are the price would be upper 30's low 40's. You would have hundreds of days between 20-30 dollars and a hand full in the hundreds. No $17 dollar days in April....no $1400 days in August. You used to be able to buy summer heat rate call options around a 25 heat rate.....you miss your load or lose a resource you are calling on gas price times 25.....those are now around a 50 heat rate and have big fees. The cost of credit to transact on such deals is through the roof because the risk is as well. That risk is passed on to generation facilities as well....you used to turn on and stay on for the most part....now you stop and start all the time or shutdown for long periods and have to restart a machine designed to run all the time that has been layed up....and if you miss you're dead. In other markets with capacity payments they have crushed the markets. Capacity markets are auctions where you get paid a price per MW for the total capacity of the facility based on availability performance.....ex if you have a 100 MW plant that is 100% available and the auctions clears $10 you get 100x10x8760 for just being there and doing what you say can (money is taken back if you aren't available) Renewables are subsidized to the point they enter such low prices in the auction that capacity payments are no longer meaningful revenue so all the cost of a facility that was covered by such payments (mortgage, taxes, labor, admin, etc) is gone and now daily offers for power have to be raised to make up the short fall. And yes there are plants making a ton of money but there are more barely hanging on. The price of fuel origination is way up even while commodity price has stayed low because you used to be able to go out and say I should burn on average x amount of gas on a daily basis.....now you say I'm gonna burn all the gas a few days then none for two months.....they have to price in building a yard maintaining a line...balancing unpredictable flows....quoting you a somewhat uniform rate for a product that is used mostly when the crap hits the fan and is costly for them to procure. So the cost of all thermal units is up....way up. It's not 350 but it's not out of line to say it has doubled the price.

 

[Pokey]

I am really surprised at your reaction. Yes, I give you crap because it’s fun, but you do realize the coming effects on education funding from wind, don’t you?
Here is a small sample:
1. We have lost 48% of the value of wind energy systems due to Weimueller vs Kingfisher Wind that we’re built post 2016. The valuations are being decreased due to the tax being leveled on Production Tax Credits as tangible property and Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the credits are intangible property. This will decrease ad valorem values which will move the districts back on State Aid (less money for everyone else) I’m not saying the wind systems weren’t right to protest, but the loss is a fact.
2. There is no production on wind like there is on petroleum. Petroleum is a depletion tax, but there should be a tax of some form.
3. We have local districts that are having to borrow from their General Fund and Building Fund to make their bond payments due to the tax protests. This is then put on the next years property taxes to pay for that money.

Petroleum does tax protests as well as wind, but the net effect of a large wind system protesting can be mind boggling. Once again, every tax payer should be able to protest their taxes but there does need to be more honesty.

I’m for alternative power systems. Air/iron batteries could solve the problems with wind and solar.

I am really surprised at your reaction. Yes, I give you crap because it’s fun, but you do realize the coming effects on education funding from wind, don’t you?
Here is a small sample:
1. We have lost 48% of the value of wind energy systems due to Weimueller vs Kingfisher Wind that we’re built post 2016. The valuations are being decreased due to the tax being leveled on Production Tax Credits as tangible property and Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the credits are intangible property. This will decrease ad valorem values which will move the districts back on State Aid (less money for everyone else) I’m not saying the wind systems weren’t right to protest, but the loss is a fact.
2. There is no production on wind like there is on petroleum. Petroleum is a depletion tax, but there should be a tax of some form.
3. We have local districts that are having to borrow from their General Fund and Building Fund to make their bond payments due to the tax protests. This is then put on the next years property taxes to pay for that money.

Petroleum does tax protests as well as wind, but the net effect of a large wind system protesting can be mind boggling. Once again, every tax payer should be able to protest their taxes but there does need to be more honesty.

I believe new battery technology will change things considerably. Continuing to belch out carbon isn’t going to fix climate change. Natural gas is the best transitional fossil fuel. It’s immoral to pass this on to future generations.

 

[UrbanCowboy]

Cost is a trend that is changing slowly, but consistently. I started this thread with the idea that Production from Wind/Solar was now outpacing Coal Output in the US..which 10 years ago would have been a laughable thing to say.


The Response to that was "Well its still more expensive' True it is...but this is yet just a matter of time before that "Its too expensive" argument goes the same way as "We will never produce the same amount"

This is a thread about trends over time and Renewables have been confronting, overcoming and rewriting the books on every obstacle that traditionalist fossil fuel fans have thrown at it so far.

And if you watch closely ..the "Its too expensive" argument is about to be overtaken in the next couple of years.

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I was not really sure up until the last 2-3 years if Wind/Solar would ever have enough opportunity, Legit capability or enough belief that it would even be seen as a competitor to fossil fuels. It keeps proving me and LOTS more people wrong on a consistent bases year after year

I listened to a really great podcast recently about the first road trip in a car across the US. It wasn't political, there was no 'green' moral or anything. It was just a really entertaining story about how a random guy and a hired mechanic set off to try to do something everyone said was impossible.

What really got me was how much it mirrored our conversations today. People would come from miles to see the 'horseless carriage' - most had never seen a car before. And the car would breakdown constantly. They would average like 30 miles/day trying to go through the Rockies; they had tires blow out constantly and would run out of fuel. No one ever thought that it would be practical. Everyone, even the organizer and driver, saw it as a stunt or a fun distraction from their lives. They couldn't see what was happening: that something new was taking hold and the ground was shifting deep under their horses hoofs. It just served as a reminder to me that a lot of what people say is impossible or "could never happen", is now commonplace.

The renewable revolution in wind and solar seem to be that next shift.
First it was "They will never produce enough energy", but their capacity has exploded
Then it was "They cost too much", but their costs have plummeted
Now it's "They aren't reliable". Who know what happens next? Battery improvement? Grid overhauls? All I'm saying is that based on what I know about humans contentiously trying to improve things, I wouldn't bet against it.

 

[UrbanCowboy]

Can we bridge the gap here? Are we closer to consensus than we think?


I can't speak for anyone else, but maybe my thoughts mirror others. If you asked me what I thought renewables are important it's only one reason: there is too much CO2 being put into the atmosphere too quickly. The last two words are key there. Before I get the "there's been more carbon in the atmosphere than this 100 million years ago", you are absolutely correct. But at no point in the geological record of four billion years do we see it increasing at this rate. Atmospheric carbon has increased 50% in 200 years. Geologically speaking that's eyeblink fast. Give it another 50 years and it will have more than doubled in three centuries.

Forgetting taxes, politics, everything else - do we all at least agree that isn't a great development? Are we at least on the same page as to why something needs to be done? Would love some sincere responses, because I know it's a contentious subject. But eventually we're going to have to stop talking past each other and hit some base level of agreement. If you don't agree with what I've said, I would like to know what, specifically, and why you disagree.

 

[Donnyboy]

I’m for alternative power systems. Air/iron batteries could solve the problems with wind and solar.

I believe new battery technology will change things considerably. Continuing to belch out carbon isn’t going to fix climate change. Natural gas is the best transitional fossil fuel. It’s immoral to pass this on to future generations.

Iron/air has promise but also has limitations and problems. They disperse charge longer but they can’t push/pull with the same response rate. So while they are a better battery in some ways they aren’t in others. Batteries now can assist (can’t do it on their own but can definitely help) with voltage and frequency much better than iron air so the grid is gonna have to be revamped and you are gonna have to do something with all that contaminated water. They still need current to charge and if you see my post above they would have be installed at a higher capacity than the technology they support because that tech is horrible at making MWs….I don’t care what you are shoring up weather based generators with you better know exactly what the weather is gonna do and exactly what the grid is gonna do or you better have multiple days worth of multiple times your total demand cause you are a bad weather shift away from a long time in the dark. Regardless if you think climate change is crap or the science is all fact and settled you can’t around physics. In rush currents, instantaneous voltage losses, a drunk hitting power pole…..A grid is infinitely more complex than “I have 100,000 MWs of load I need 100,000 MWs of power from anywhere”. And that’s how it is being looked at and marketed by the green crowd.

To your second point and this is more where I’m headed really cause we could beat up or build up battery types/wind/solar/gas/nuke all day….. what is it we are leaving the next generation? The sky isn’t falling it’s getting cleaner…..are we leaving a world with clean affordable power to the masses not just those born here? A world where everyone has lights and the air we breathe is better….This whole existential threat stuff is hyperbole. “We hope this technology can shore up the one that we said was the answer 15 years ago because turns out it doesn’t work and if we don’t we will all be dead in a few decades”. It’s crap. Doesn’t mean we don’t impact our environment and doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take care of it but stuff like it’s immoral to leave this to the next generation is based on nothing….or predictions that continue to be proven false.

 

[Pokey]

Iron/air has promise but also has limitations and problems. They disperse charge longer but they can’t push/pull with the same response rate. So while they are a better battery in some ways they aren’t in others. Batteries now can assist (can’t do it on their own but can definitely help) with voltage and frequency much better than iron air so the grid is gonna have to be revamped and you are gonna have to do something with all that contaminated water. They still need current to charge and if you see my post above they would have be installed at a higher capacity than the technology they support because that tech is horrible at making MWs….I don’t care what you are shoring up weather based generators with you better know exactly what the weather is gonna do and exactly what the grid is gonna do or you better have multiple days worth of multiple times your total demand cause you are a bad weather shift away from a long time in the dark. Regardless if you think climate change is crap or the science is all fact and settled you can’t around physics. In rush currents, instantaneous voltage losses, a drunk hitting power pole…..A grid is infinitely more complex than “I have 100,000 MWs of load I need 100,000 MWs of power from anywhere”. And that’s how it is being looked at and marketed by the green crowd.

To your second point and this is more where I’m headed really cause we could beat up or build up battery types/wind/solar/gas/nuke all day….. what is it we are leaving the next generation? The sky isn’t falling it’s getting cleaner…..are we leaving a world with clean affordable power to the masses not just those born here? A world where everyone has lights and the air we breathe is better….This whole existential threat stuff is hyperbole. “We hope this technology can shore up the one that we said was the answer 15 years ago because turns out it doesn’t work and if we don’t we will all be dead in a few decades”. It’s crap. Doesn’t mean we don’t impact our environment and doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take care of it but stuff like it’s immoral to leave this to the next generation is based on nothing….or predictions that continue to be proven false.

I’m sure I’m less informed than you on this topic but my understanding of iron/air batteries is that they can deliver power for up to 100 hours . Surely that helps. Regarding your waste water comment, what chemicals and gasses are we pumping down bore? Scary boring through our aquifers. Nothing is perfect apparently. I think altruism is dead. Every parent wants things better for their children. Perhaps wind and solar are just there for progressives sense of duty, I feel better seeing alternatives while the fossil fuel industry screams drill baby drill. If our power companies cared they’d incentivize or lease solar and wind to their customers instead of huge farms, but obviously profits are greater with the farms. I disagree with you on your climate comments. If you think we’re leaving our heirs a better world then melting ice and sea level rise are fictional, and raging wildfires and long term droughts are just the cost of doing profitable business. Pogo said “ I see the enemy, and we are it”. My hope is that the current power brokers quit standing in the way of progress, and quit denying climate change as an existential threat.

 

[UrbanCowboy]

Iron/air has promise but also has limitations and problems. They disperse charge longer but they can’t push/pull with the same response rate. So while they are a better battery in some ways they aren’t in others. Batteries now can assist (can’t do it on their own but can definitely help) with voltage and frequency much better than iron air so the grid is gonna have to be revamped and you are gonna have to do something with all that contaminated water. They still need current to charge and if you see my post above they would have be installed at a higher capacity than the technology they support because that tech is horrible at making MWs….I don’t care what you are shoring up weather based generators with you better know exactly what the weather is gonna do and exactly what the grid is gonna do or you better have multiple days worth of multiple times your total demand cause you are a bad weather shift away from a long time in the dark. Regardless if you think climate change is crap or the science is all fact and settled you can’t around physics. In rush currents, instantaneous voltage losses, a drunk hitting power pole…..A grid is infinitely more complex than “I have 100,000 MWs of load I need 100,000 MWs of power from anywhere”. And that’s how it is being looked at and marketed by the green crowd.

To your second point and this is more where I’m headed really cause we could beat up or build up battery types/wind/solar/gas/nuke all day….. what is it we are leaving the next generation? The sky isn’t falling it’s getting cleaner…..are we leaving a world with clean affordable power to the masses not just those born here? A world where everyone has lights and the air we breathe is better….This whole existential threat stuff is hyperbole. “We hope this technology can shore up the one that we said was the answer 15 years ago because turns out it doesn’t work and if we don’t we will all be dead in a few decades”. It’s crap. Doesn’t mean we don’t impact our environment and doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take care of it but stuff like it’s immoral to leave this to the next generation is based on nothing….or predictions that continue to be proven false.

You know a ton about the tech, and I'm not questioning that, but the last line seems a bit dismissive based on ocean temperatures steadily increasing over the last century. A lot of smart people seem to be worried that this is a big deal and will get increasingly worse. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that ocean temperatures are quickly rising over the same time period humans started artificially adding CO2 to the atmosphere.



There are obviously dips and spikes to this, but we appear to be in a long upward trend.

 

[Donnyboy]

Human's just started having a carbon footprint in the 40's? Then should we go back to the way we did things at the in onset of the industrial revolution 150 years before? To sort of respond to a couple of posts in one.... What I am saying is to your point we are probably closer than we think..... but the climate side is doing nothing to help itself by constantly saying the sky is falling in 10 years and then the sky is still there and instead of saying "maybe we were wrong on this" saying the sky is going to turn to fire and kill us all in 30 years. It's the only science that is settled even though it has completely reversed it's position in my lifetime....and it's priest's don't practice what they preach...and is "new" as a science. We shouldn't be burning coal anywhere at this point.....20 years ago absolutely it was still a necessity for a multitude of reasons but not anymore. We need to be working with other countries to give them modern affordable options instead of funding inherently flawed technology at home and ignoring emerging nations. I hear the horse/car analogy but there is a bit of a disconnect. The car wouldn't be nearly as attractive if you couldn't predict when you could use it they never ran at night and you had put guard rails on every inch of road because the steering is so bad you can't keep it on the road.....and you can't get around those issues because of laws of physics...or fuel for cars was only available at best 50% of the time and that will never change because we don't make the fuel....something else would come along because the horse ain't hard to beat....a different vehicle would be created but that wouldn't come along as fast if you forced everyone to buy a car. Instead of putting in ridiculous policies like carbon free by 2050....no combustion cars in 5-10 years etc we should be saying no global coal or oil fired traditional boilers by 2035. That is achievable and would do so much more for carbon emissions than what we are doing. Again.....switching to gas has reduced emissions MORE than all the wind and solar....by a long ways. So why not do that? Why don't we say "we the modernized rich nations are going to build 1000 modern power production facilities using modern turbines and emission systems reducing carbon emissions from coal by 50% and clean up shipping" Instead of "we will be carbon free at a cost of trillions of dollars of infrastructure that will never work for a problem we don't fully understand but won't budge". I think most people are closer to the middle. I don't think a considerable % of population thinks 8 billion large carbon producing mammals don't impact the environment....I don't think a large % believe climate change is an existential threat to humanity and all coastal cities will under water soon....I also think that massive group in middle that is paying 13-15 cents a KW on average isnt going to lean more green at 45 cents a KW....all while watching Kuwait burn a mountain of 5 million tires. If what the hardcore greenies are saying is true it doesn't matter what we do if China, India, and emerging nations aren't acting as well. Like the guy in the video said you aren't going to keep people poor....people aren't going to choose poverty over hypothetical while their lives have improved more in the last couple of decades than the last 100 years. IMO there are still a lot of issues with climate science....we still don't agree on the data and that's not saying big oil and green peace don't agree the IPCC and UNFCCC don't agree. We know....like beyond a shadow of a doubt know what is being proposed won't work....it's so politicized it's not science anymore and whatever impact we are having be it smaller or greater than we think isn't getting accurate attention.