Energy storage technology is moving along the same track that solar did a decade ago – lower cost, better performance, new technologies.
Energy storage technology is moving along the same track that solar did a decade ago – lower cost, better performance, new technologies.
With all the technologies and techniques available–a hocketed mix of different dispatchable and variable renewable cheap clean safe energies, distributed generation, demand response of various kinds, batteries and other storage, etc. the only question is how soon each region can get to 100% renewable.
J4Zonian – with PV & batteries – most domestic homes could go 80-90% renewable electricity now – and many could go off-grid completely. The real question is when are people going to invest in their children’s future and their own energy security?
Many, many people are already invested. Rebecca Solnit writes (Paradise Built in Hell) that in disasters elites fight to maintain (or even extend— disaster capitalizing) dominance and possessions, the majority cooperate to survive. In our society often those most willing to invest are least able to because they’re poor and systematically prevented from becoming not poor, if in fact they’re not caused to be poor by the extremely not-poor.
If you’re opening it up to the larger question it’s ”Can we quickly enough
1. heal those most infected with the emotional disease that makes people not feel a connection to their and others’ children and narcissistically think they’re immune to the disaster they’ve caused (among many other symptoms)?
or 2. remove the infected people and corporations from power and start making more rational decisions?
The first is extremely unlikely in time, although we should start immediately by recognizing that climate catastrophe and the larger ecological crisis are psychological problems at root, so if we survive the immediate crisis we can solve the other ones we’re suffering from and gosh, maybe stop causing them. So we should concentrate on doing the second as fast as humanly possible. It will take a peaceful revolution, and we still need to eliminate at least 90% of fossil fuels in the next 7 years, so we need to get going.
We need new people in power.
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#COP24 outcome misses urgency of #climatebreakdown
Hi Peter, Talking about skyscrapers… have you seen this yet?
https://www.solarwindow.com/
This website appears to be devoid of ANY technical detail. Of course, generating power from the giant surface area of a skyscraper could be valuable depending on cost and efficiency but there is no detail on either. This definitely has a ‘smell’ to me. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4148323-solarwindow-technologies-one-riskiest-investments-available
This stinks to high heaven—-just as bad as Solar Roadway. It’s just a scam that allows the “innovators” to bleed $$$$ from the gullible.
Ask yourself why anyone would put solar cells on VERTICAL surfaces, where they would receive little solar radiation in the middle of the day and more at dawn and dusk when the sun is lower and weaker?
Yep, another solution with nice sounding meaningless words and figures, We can have hope, but not live in hope.
Also, pumped hydro, a real possibility, is short on numbers as to its effectiveness. No doubt because each site is unique, However would really like to see a real case study with volumes and efficiencies tabulated. Note, any stored energy output is lower (much?) than excess energy input.
The usual problem with hydro remains, as in getting them built. Even if a suitable site in Oz can be found, the chances of building are between zero and that of building a nuke. Might kill an unusual plant or ruin somebodies view.
Once more unto the breach dear friends!
This is the second such post I’ve seen in 2 days.
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/grist/climate_change_caused_the_great_dying_aka_the_planets_worst_extinction/#comment-4235493077
and among hundreds of similar posts I’ve answered or observed in conversation.
I suspect concern another concern troll here–an oh so caring, constructive criticism type that really is just using the throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks method of attack. There are lots of places to get immense detail about particular topics. This isn’t and shouldn’t be one of them, although comments are a good place to put links to some such information. (David Roberts on Vox sometimes offers links to much more detail about what he’s covering.) Technical sites, professional organization sites, and to find out in great detail hundreds of things that aren’t true, check out the right wing denying delayalist sites. That at least provides a starting list of things to know better than.
What are you on about?
What is Jeffy “on about”? A good question, and one that many of us here on Crock have asked since Jeffy started bloviating here.
If you want to see what Jeffy is all about, go to the “great dying” link he provided and follow him through the comments. You will probably need a copy of the DSM-5 manual to fully understand what you see there.
Thank the lord that he has not gotten that far out of hand on Crock, although his instructions to me to kill myself and his incessant nattering about “peaceful revolution” give a glimpse of what he is capable of.
It is amazing how quickly technologies and manufacturing can move when the incentive is there, the advance from the old clunky Personal Computers in the early eighties to the sleek, easy to use, Notepads and Smartphones of that nearly everybody uses today are a testament to that. What greater incentive than the future well-being of our offspring could there be ? None I sincerely hope.
And by the looks of it Energy storage technologies will play a vital part in managing the monster we have let loose.
“One of the challenges with solar and wind power is that, on any given day, the sun isn’t always shining, and the wind isn’t always blowing when we want it to. Now, zooming out, researchers at Columbia’s Earth Institute have found that the same could be true on the scale of years to decades.
Long-term climate patterns such as El Niño “could change where the wind is blowing and where the sun is shining” for one to ten years at a time, says study author David Farnham, who completed the research at the Columbia Water Center. Farnham’s work is the first to highlight what these longer-term patterns could mean for renewable power generation.”
https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/12/11/climate-solar-wind-power-supply/
Estimates put the number of cars and trucks in the United States at between 250,000,000 and 260,000,000 vehicles. In 2016 alone, around 17,500,000 million brand new trucks and cars were sold.
There are approximately 760,000 EV’s on American roads, and sales are around 200,000 per year.
Some 32,000,000 Ford F-150 pickup trucks have been manufactured, and 2018 sales are heading for an annual record of over 900,000.
Wake up and look at all those zeros (or lack thereof), folks—-bright-sidedness and wishful thinking are not going to get it done.
(I won’t bore you with the coal figures from India, China, Indonesia, and Australia—or how much “clean, safe, and cheap” natural gas is helping us “get away” from coal. They look very much like the EV vs ICE figures).
And pumped storage is a great idea—-too bad there are not enough sites at low enough costs to utilize more of it.
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On Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 11:38 PM Climate Denial Crock of the Week wrote:
> greenman3610 posted: “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9mfUT6ZboQ Energy > storage technology is moving along the same track that solar did a decade > ago – lower cost, better performance, new technologies.” >
For interest I attach a list of pumped hydro over 1000MW in operation worldwide and under construction, in a mix of countries including Russia, U.S.A, China, India and Japan.
It, of course, is in no way a total solution but a part in the sum we need to aspire toward, using Solar, Wind, Tidal, Nuclear and whatever else is available without adding huge amounts of carbon. Is that so difficult ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroelectric_power_stations
Thanks for that. Shall hunt further as a matter of interest. Shall also steal your second paragraph, if you don’t mind, as a concise statement of aim (duty?aspiration?).
Mission Statement.
Here’s something promising about energy storage.
MIT’s conceptual “sun-in-a-box” energy storage system plugs into molten silicon
“there are a few problems with salt as a storage medium – for one, it becomes quite corrosive when the heat is cranked up.
Salt tops out at about 1,000° F (538° C), after which its damaging effects become too problematic. So the MIT team looked for a new material that could store more heat, which in turn raises the energy density of the system. They eventually settled on silicon, which can be heated to over 4,000° F (2,200° C) and is abundant to boot.”
https://newatlas.com/mit-molten-silicon-energy-storage-system/57562/
I don’t see any reason why this couldn’t also be used with solar thermal (or CSP), instead of molten salt heat storage. The ability to run 4 times hotter would make a big difference for base load solar thermal power plants.
Some good thoughts from Redsky, Sailrick, and BJS about possible solutions. Too bad that we are moving so slowly (or not at all) in such sensible directions. We ARE, however, talking all the more frequently about emergency slap-dash SRM measures—-sprinkle sparkly stuff on arctic ice and mountain glaciers to increase reflectivity, seed the atmosphere with sulfur compounds, etc. Typical human behavior—engage in wishful thinking until disaster strikes, then run around like the proverbial headless chickens.
Article in today’s WashPost about the success of Branson’s vehicle for taking “tourists’ into near space—-at $250,000 each ~700 have already signed up. Excerpts:
“Virgin’s ultimate goal is to build spaceports around the globe, “and we’re operating multiple times a week at each one of those and enabling tens of thousands of people to experience space,”…….
“Eventually, the company would like to turn those spaceports into “future hubs for a network of intercontinental transportation nodes” where the spaceships can transport people across the globe in a matter of hours.
“In the long term, the company wants to fly “into major airports because we have a winged vehicle that can integrate smoothly in traffic patterns,”….
“That goal is still “many years out,”…..“But that’s the evolution — so that at the end of it you’ve built up, step-by-step, a capability to go between continents in an hour or two.”
Does anyone here remember the furor over SST’s (SuperSonic Transports) 30-40 years ago? How there was much concern over their emissions in the upper atmosphere would impact the ozone layer and add to global warming? Now we’re going to go up there to indulge wealthy TOURISTS? Just as we are taking tens of thousands of tourists to the arctic and antarctic every year and people are still climbing Mt. Everest for no reason? Sorry to say it, but it looks like we are doomed by our own hubris.
“looks like we are doomed by our own hubris.”
After reading the following NYT article, strangely I had that exact thought. After the vigour and hope of the Paris agreement, many people who are free to keep up with the latest news, still preferred to stick with the same ways and vote for the same old politicians.
We seem to be like those Humpback, pilot and other whales that keep getting stranded en masse on my local beaches.
The Paris Accord Promised a Climate Solution. Here’s Where We Are Now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/climate/paris-climate-future-poland.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate&action=click&contentCollection=climate®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront