Renewable Energy + Battery Storage = Fossil Fuels Obsolete, Even Natural Gas

Fogdog said:

Solar farms have their place in the overall switch to solar as the main supplier of energy. Agree that tty is bonkers if he thinks they can provide more than 5% or total worldwide needs. Toss in 3% for geothermal, 2% for hydro and perhaps 5% nuclear.

So, what about Photovoltaic systems? Can they match 90% of wordwide demand?

Household photovoltaic systems convert sunlight to electrical energy at about 12% efficiency. Commercial systems are higher, perhaps 18% efficient. These are today's efficiencies. Maximum theoretical efficiency (wikipedia) is about 33%.

Big advantage PV has over the other power plant or energy farms is they can be located at the "last mile" and so don't incur efficiency loss and the high cost of transmission to the end user.

The sun delivers 89,000 tW to the earth. In 2001, energy demand was about 10 tW.

Fossil fuels produce about 80% of today's energy demands. We can assume the same was true in 2001.

http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar FAQs.pdf On page ten, the work up how much surface area is needed to supply worldwide energy needs as well as that of the US. In the Sandia paper, they estimate 2% of US would be enough to replace fossil fuels. Same with worldwide. For the US, 2% surface area would be the equivalent of North or South Dakota.

The bottom line is that Solar PV systems can replace fossil fuel with alternatives making up the rest of the balance. Not saying "easy" and not saying 80% energy from PV is cast in stone. I'd like to see a panel of experts brought together with the mission to provide a working recommendation to Congress that is backed by the scientific community as the template from which our government could base their policy, spending and taxation decisions in order to free us from fossil fuels.

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SneekyNinja said:

If you put PV solar on every rooftop you could produce 30 to 50% of the requirements.

There's a number of papers on it, you can read the literature and draw your own conclusions.

Wind turbines can conservatively do 2MW each...

You're just obviously involved in nuclear power, whether it be through stocks or employment, and are clearly biased as fuck so you're unwilling to deviate.

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ginjawarrior said:

requirements for what exactly?

30 to 50% of something??

comeback when you read this post

https://www.rollitup.org/t/renewable-energy-battery-storage-fossil-fuels-obsolete-even-natural-gas.971570/page-9#post-14364862

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ginjawarrior said:

you get less power from PV farms per m2 than you do from solar thermal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Sunlight_Solar_Farm
1287000mwh/16000000m2
0.08MWH/m2 a year

you'd need 10%more land

the number of pv panels needed for that aside

just think for a minute how many access roads you would need to build to criss cross somewhere the size of arizona

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Fogdog said:

Thanks for brushing off alternative sources without consideration. Typical of you.

If I use your number as an upper limit and mine as a lower limit then the range in surface area needed is between 2% and 10% of the US. I'd say that's a good starting point and that we can agree there is no technical reason why our energy demands cannot be mostly met by solar electrical power.

So, I'll return your favor and say that there are plenty of alternatives worth talking about and plenty of error in anybody's forecasts. Neither you nor I are going to make the decision so what you believe is irrelevant. What we really need is a panel of experts with the mission to present a working plan to congress that is backed by the scientific community.

The fact is we agree that the conversion won't be easy and there are trade-offs to make.

We also agree It is now possible for homes to provide a majority of their energy needs from rooftop PV.

Factories can also build or buy electricity from PV farms.

Nuclear is a dead end. Dirty, unsafe, expensive and well enough understood that we should know better than to try to meet the majority of our needs through that toxic solution. I've read nothing in your posts that disprove this.

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Fogdog said:

Thanks for brushing off alternative sources without consideration. Typical of you.

If I use your number as an upper limit and mine as a lower limit then the range in surface area needed is between 2% and 10% of the US. I'd say that's a good starting point and that we can agree there is no technical reason why our energy demands cannot be mostly met by solar electrical power.

So, I'll return your favor and say that there are plenty of alternatives worth talking about and plenty of error in anybody's forecasts. Neither you nor I are going to make the decision so what you believe is irrelevant. What we really need is a panel of experts with the mission to present a working plan to congress that is backed by the scientific community.

The fact is we agree that the conversion won't be easy and there are trade-offs to make.

We also agree It is now possible for homes to provide a majority of their energy needs from rooftop PV.

Factories can also build or buy electricity from PV farms.

Nuclear is a dead end. Dirty, unsafe, expensive and well enough understood that we should know better than to try to meet the majority of our needs through that toxic solution. I've read nothing in your posts that disprove this.

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ginjawarrior said:

looked at the link

they are talking about the theoretical power that can be produced

its not going into the practical where you cant just blanket the ground with panels they need to be stood up there needs to be gaps in between them and service roads in amongst them the practical side is less energy dense as you can show by googling pv farms around the world

the panels of experts have already looked at it and said nuclear needs to be part of the solution

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SneekyNinja said:

He doesn't try to disprove it, he just claims the magic new way he'd do it is super magic so it doesn't matter.

The fact he said they "burn" fuel...my word...

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The UK has a lot of plutonium — the largest civil stockpile in the world, totalling some 112 tonnes, most of it from reprocessing spent fuel over the years. The question of what to do with Britain’s plutonium has vexed subsequent governments for decades. Should it be treated as waste and kept in storage until its radioactivity has transformed it into something less hazardous?..................
.......
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is currently considering a 1,000-page report detailing a nuclear reactor called PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module). Developed by GE and now part of the GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy portfolio, PRISM is designed to run on fuels that would normally be considered waste products: the transuranic (that is, heavier than uranium) metals found in spent nuclear fuel, and plutonium........
........
This approach would not consume the plutonium, but would render it radioactive to the extent that it couldn’t be used to make weapons. It would then be stored exactly as spent fuel from conventional reactors. But this isn’t necessarily the end of the story. ‘After that, it depends how you want to use what I’d call the asset of plutonium to generate electricity.’ Loewen said. The irradiated fuel could be replaced in the reactor simply to continue generating power, he suggested, running the reactors for their entire 60-year design life; although this is counter to current government policy. This would convert the plutonium to fission products. ‘These daughter products have half-lives of 10–30 years, so after 10 half-lives, or about 300 years, you’re less radioactive than the uranium ore you started out with.’

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Fogdog said:

Agree. "Part of the solution".

How much is the question. 5% is a good starting point for discussion. There really is no need for more.

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ginjawarrior said:

nuclear currently provides 9.6% of the total production

fossil fuels make up 77.6% of the total production

not only is 5% a reduction of what we currently produce but you could double the amount of nuclear power generated and still be left with a monsterous lump still needed to be found

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ginjawarrior said:

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/energy-and-sustainability-special/prism-project-a-proposal-for-the-uks-problem-plutonium/

how do you like your crow served?

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The Government said:

Haha good one.
I'm not endorsing it, just sharing my experience. I pay around $0.09 per kwH, how about you?

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Fogdog said:

5% is absolutely the highest we should go with nuclear. As shown by many studies and some very real disasters, nuclear power isn't needed, it's dirty, unsafe, unprofitable and creates hazards to the communities around them.

As we agree, solar generated power is technically feasible for reaching 80% of the US and the world's needs. I don't know why you are continuing to argue when I'm agreeing with you.

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SneekyNinja said:

If true...

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ginjawarrior said:

Ok let's say your going to goto 80%
Say 10% every decade your are going to need to build 3000km2 a year.

Carbon is dirty it's doing the world much much more damage than nuclear does. The damage we're doing now is looking to last for hundreds of thousands of year's.

Your looking at the lesser boogie man instead of getting rid of the bigger more dangerous one

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Fogdog said:

How long do you think it takes to bring a nuclear plant on line? Recent experience is between 5 and 13 years. After that, we have a dirty, unsafe and hazardous site. Then the reactors have a life of about 40 years and need to be replaced and the site cleaned up.

None of this is going to happen overnight. PV and other forms of solar are so much cleaner and easier on the planet. Let's start building now.

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Dmannn said:

The manufacture of solar panels creates toxic by products. Heating silicon to make glass takes an enormous amount of energy. Usually coal or natural gas.

Nuclear is great, so long is it is no where near where anyone wants to live. Although, France has some pretty amazing nuclear plants and sells power to surrounding countries.

Australia and Arizona has some impressive solar arrays.

Wind turbines are great if they aren't threatening local bird populations.

Energy always comes with a draw backs. Until recently, mining or drilling created a market for the cheapest end user prices. I think the problem is unchecked population growth and the demand for an increase in the standard of living.

That is just my opinion.

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ginjawarrior said:

For a fraction of the effort needed for same percentage of power you could easily have multiple reactors built in 10 years. If you're building them at the same time the duplication of parts will make it quicker
This is the wrong point in time to be cutting back on nuclear

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