Need clean nuclear energy to be fully sustainable for the next 50 generations, coal is killing us. Almost half the energy is from nuclear yet so little is used. "More than three-quarters of Australia’s energy production is currently exported"

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Anonymous Thu Aug 27 21:36:49 2015 No.7494277 [Reply] [Original]

Need clean nuclear energy to be fully sustainable for the next 50 generations, coal is killing us.
Almost half the energy is from nuclear yet so little is used.
"More than three-quarters of Australia’s energy production is currently exported"

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 27 21:45:28 2015 No.7494307 File: 119 KB, 720x534, Radiation.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7494277

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 27 21:50:11 2015 No.7494319 File: 27 KB, 452x367, a74.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7494307 Clean I say, north korea's leaders are special kinds of people...

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 27 22:28:34 2015 No.7494396 >>7494307 two things one, this is a projection based on inflated numbers two, the colors in that photo are incredibly amplified, notice the scale on the right

>>	Suchong Thu Aug 27 22:29:53 2015 No.7494399 >>7494307 What is scale?

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 27 22:30:03 2015 No.7494400 >>7494307 >literally a meme http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fukushima-radiation-scare-hoaxes

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 27 22:33:16 2015 No.7494410 >>7494307 >tidal wave height from the tsunami

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 27 22:46:00 2015 No.7494442 >>7494307 >>7494400 hahaha oh wow

>>	Anonymous Thu Aug 27 22:47:44 2015 No.7494450 >>7494277 >...coal is killing us. Stop eating it and you'll be fine.

>>	Anonymous Fri Aug 28 18:40:10 2015 No.7496271 >>7494307 I didn't know radioactivity, energy deposition, and dose had units of centimeters. Is this /sci/ at its finest?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 00:42:10 2015 No.7496854 >>7494277 Is there a reason we can't just go full solar/wind renewable? Fuck nuclear. The process is inherently unsafe. No amount of nuclear engineering is ever going to change that.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 01:13:37 2015 No.7496918

>>7496854
>Is there a reason we can't just go full solar/wind renewable?
That it cannot work? To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, we'll have 10 billion people on the planet soon, approx, and they will want power, and no Kyoto protocol is going to stop that. Further, they are going to take the cheapest option (approx), because for them it is a matter of life and death. No refrig vs a little refrig is massive. Having hospitals, etc.

When you calculate 10 billion people at the energy consumption of the average person in modern Germany, and with 15% conversion efficient solar cells (which is quite generous), it's around all of South American covered in solar panels to power that. Do you understand how obscenely ridiculous that is?

And then remember that wind takes about 50x more space for the same power. It's not literally covered in windmills, but any closer and you start taking efficiency hits.

PS:
According to history, by deaths per watt-hour, nuclear is just as safe as wind and solar, approx. Contrary to popular myth, only a few thousand have ever died from nuclear power, and less than a hundred if you exclude Chernobyl which was more or less designed to explode.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 01:16:15 2015 No.7496923

>>7496854
It is inherently unsafe except for the fact it has the lowest excess mortality per TWhr (including Chernobyl) of all energy sources. Every form of electrical generation has risk and environmental or social cost. Did you know the most lethal single events in power generation are due to hydroelectric dams bursting? I still think hydropower is a terrific source of energy in spite of those disasters.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 02:06:51 2015 No.7497003 File: 386 KB, 1000x706, AreaRequiredToPowerTheWorld.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >all of South American covered in solar panels

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 02:09:21 2015 No.7497008 >>7497003 I'm familiar with the picture. Let's go through the math together, shall we? Just posting this early to let you know I'm on the case.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 02:22:19 2015 No.7497029 >>7497008 >Let's go through the math together, shall we? Oh, this should be hilariously stupid. Good ole' Scientist. Keeping it VSG-tier and maintaining our low expectations of tripfags on /sci/.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 02:41:01 2015 No.7497065

>>7496923
>Did you know the most lethal single events in power generation are due to hydroelectric dams bursting?

You missed the point completely

People don't like an excess of deadly radiation. It causes horrible things to happen. It is much more scary than the prospect of being drowned by a dam.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 02:48:19 2015 No.7497074

>20% conversion efficient solar panels

20% is supremely optimistic, and unreasonable. 10% is much more reasonable.

> 678 quadrillion BTU per year for the world

Aka
7.15e20 joules / year

My target was 10 billion people at the power usage of an average modern German, which is 1.68e11 joules / year per person, or 1.68e21 joules / year for the world.

> 2000 hour per years of 1000 W / m^2 solar insolation.

That comes out to about 228 W / m^2 daily average.

Because energy cannot be stored from summer to winter, we need to look at the worst case - daily average for a day in winter.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RenewableEnergy/renewable_energy3.php

You can verify these numbers from other sources online too.

From there, we get about 208 W / m^2 daily average for the Saraha for winter months, which is noticeably worse than the cherrypicked number from your pic.

However, that's still too generous. Let's use the numbers for Brazil - after all we are talking about South America. That comes out to about 177 W / m^2 daily average for Brazil for the worst months, which is noticeably worse still.

> Ignores energy storage problems.

The sun doesn't shine at night. Let's be generous and just assume a 4x factor to cover for energy losses for whatever energy storage technology is used for clouds, nights, etc.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 02:49:28 2015 No.7497078

That gets us to:

Required land area
= (required power)(land area / power)
= (required power)(x4 to power energy storage tech)(land area / incoming solar insolation)(1 / solar panel conversion efficiency)
= (1.68e21 joules / year)(4)(1 m^2 / 1000 W)(1 / 10%)
= (1.68e21 joules / year)(4)(1 m^2 / 1000 W)(1 / 10%)(year / 265.24 days)(day / 24 hour)(hour / 60 min)(min / 60 sec)(WS / J)
= 1.68e21 *4 / 1000 / .10 /265.24 /24 /60 /60 m^2
= 2.93e12 m^2

Land area of South America:
17.8e12 m^2

Required land as a fraction of all of South America:
About 16%

The largest Brazilian state is Amazonas. Land area:
1.56e12 m^2

Required land as a fraction of Amazonas:
About 188%. Or close to twice as large as the largest state of Brazil.

Delta from the above image macro:
About 5.90x more land.

That's assuming some rather generous numbers too. Realistically, we're going to get much less daily average insolation values because of the wide spread of geography that we're going to have to cover. I'm probably being too generous with the mere 4x number overbuild to fill the energy storage on peak days. It should probably be a bigger number.

I have to say that all of South America was a slight exaggeration. Still, the scale of this problem should be daunting. If you do not feel daunted, then you do not understand the ridiculously large amount of land we're talking about.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 02:52:58 2015 No.7497084

>>7497065
The entire world we live in is suffused with radiation. Everyday people in Brazil and Ramsar, Iran, get substantially higher radiation doses than the global average yet have observable increase in cancer incidence. The Fukushima release will not cause a statistically observable increase in cancer incidence. We already established nuclear is the safest by the measure of excess mortality per TWhr generated. Are you seriously more afraid of getting cancer in old age (like everybody else) than of drowning?

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 02:56:15 2015 No.7497089

>>7497078
>>7497074
Wait a tick, I forgot one number, the actual daily average solar insolation values. I was wondering why my number was so low. Let me try that again.

Required land area
= (required power)(land area / power)
= (required power)(x4 to power energy storage tech)(land area / incoming solar insolation)(1 / solar panel conversion efficiency)
= (1.68e21 joules / year)(4)(1 m^2 / 177 W)(1 / 10%)
= (1.68e21 joules / year)(4)(1 m^2 / 177 W)(1 / 10%)(year / 265.24 days)(day / 24 hour)(hour / 60 min)(min / 60 sec)(WS / J)
= 1.68e21 *4 / 177 / .10 /265.24 /24 /60 /60 m^2
= 1.6e13 m^2

Land area of South America:
1.78e13 m^2

Required land as a fraction of all of South America:
About 90.0%.

And at that fraction of the total land mass of South America, you can be damn sure we're going to be working with much lower daily insolation values in winter than 177 W / m^2.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 02:56:58 2015 No.7497090 >>7497084 yet have NO observable increase in cancer incidence*

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 02:57:30 2015 No.7497091 >>7497078 Why u gotta put all the solar panels together on the same piece of land? Why not just get everyone to cover their roof in solar panels, then we only need a bit that aren't on buildings.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 02:57:54 2015 No.7497092

>>7497065
>People don't like an excess of deadly radiation.
True.

>It causes horrible things to happen.
True, but this is false compared to our other options like coal, or pretending that solar and wind can work.

>It is much more scary than the prospect of being drowned by a dam.
Who gives a fuck about what's scary. We should be trying to use science and facts (and proper persuasion) to convince people to overcome their irrational fears.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 02:59:23 2015 No.7497094

>>7497091
I'm sorry. I didn't realize that 90% of South America was covered in buildings. My apologies. Or even the wrong 16% number I first gave. You really think that 16% of all of the land of South American is covered in buildings? My god - the ignorance. I have very little idea what the number actually is, but I'd guess it's much closer to 1%.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 03:05:21 2015 No.7497102

>>7497003
So, why is this image macro wrong? Lots of reasons.

It uses a ridiculously high value for solar insolation, when we need to look at solar insolation values for the worst-case months, and we need to look at solar insolation values that are not the Sahara. That's a difference of 288 W / m^2 for their value, and 177 W / m^2 for my value, and my value is still quite generous for anything but equatorial areas.

It assumes a rather small amount of energy usage and ignores the real problem that we face - 10 billion people on the planet within a century. A difference of 7.15e20 joules / year to my number of 1.68e21 joules / year.

It pretends that energy losses from energy storage are 0, and it pretends that there's no need to overbuild to handle this thing called "weather", i.e. clouds. I gave a x4 as an approximation of the overbuilding necessary, although this number is pulled directly out of my ass.

It assumes 20% conversion efficiency solar panels, whereas I'm assuming a much more realistic number of 10% - much more realistic considering the unprecedented scale that we have to build this. Of course, even with 20% efficiency, it doesn't really change the net result of "ridiculous".

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 03:06:22 2015 No.7497106 >>7497102 >That's a difference of 228 W / m^2 for their value Fixed. Sorry.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 03:41:52 2015 No.7497136

>>7497074
>20% is supremely optimistic
20% is commonly achieved already. 40% is being done with concentrators. But let's say 10% for the sake of argument.

>1.68e21 joules / year
Okay. So we just have to divide by the seconds in a year to find the watts needed: 5.3e13, or 53 TW. Let's round up to 60 TW.

>> 2000 hour per years of 1000 W / m^2 solar insolation.
>That comes out to about 228 W / m^2 daily average.
This is accounting for all losses, including night and clouds. So these are the only two figures we need. Let's round it to 200 W/m^2, and cut it to 20 W/m^2 for 10% efficiency, or 20 MW/km^2.

60 TW / 20 MW/km^2 = 3 million km^2. And this figure is reached with unfavorable rounding and assumptions of low efficiency.

>Land area of South America:
>1.78e13 m^2
~18 million km^2.

South America is a small continent. The Sahara desert alone is 9 million km^2. You've gone off on some idiotic tangents about the solar conditions in South America, but we're not talking about providing all of humanity's energy needs from solar power installed in South America, we're just using that area as an example.

If you wanted to make a similar example, South America has about 30,000 km of coastline. If you wanted to make 60 TW of nuclear power, you'd need GW power station for every 500 meters of coast. Basically, you'd need to cover the entire coastline of South America with nuclear power plants.

Remember that we're talking about providing ALL of humanity's energy needs. Not just grid power, but ALL energy use. There would be some efficiency losses by the necessity of producing fuel for long term storage, but we would also expect efficiency gains from charging batteries for things like cars rather than burning fuel.

>I'm probably being too generous with the mere 4x number overbuild to fill the energy storage on peak days.
Nope, you're throwing in unnecessary fudge factors.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:00:26 2015 No.7497148 File: 847 KB, 938x4167, 1311010641509small.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] This is now a thorium thread.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:02:21 2015 No.7497150

continuing >>7497136
With all of the assumptions and fudge factors Scientist is throwing around, you'd actually be generating not 60 TW, but closer to 500 TW. Because you "need" the spare capacity. But don't you think the spare capacity would have value? Don't you suppose we'd make use of this excess?

Humanity currently uses under 20 TW from all sources. That's not just electrical power. That's also all heating, chemical production, and mechanical power.

Do you really suppose we'd be just wasting the surplus from a 500 TW average output electrical power system?

There's another thread open now about a method of electrolysis of calcium carbonate, possibly with concentrated solar power. The inventors pointed out that the solar power from 10% of the Sahara could be used to restore the Earth's CO2 to pre-industrial levels in a decade, and have all of that carbon on hand in elemental form for building material or fuel.

That's the kind of thing we could be doing with the spare power. We could burn all of the coal, oil, and natural gas still in the ground, and then have it all to burn again every decade. That's the kind of thing that's possible with mature solar. Not just everyone in the world living like Americans today, but everyone in the world being able to afford regular rocket trips for a vacation on the moon.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:03:08 2015 No.7497151 >>7497136 Something tells me you don't know about things like capacity factors, load following, load balancing, or time demand... >>7497148 kirk sorensen pls

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:04:06 2015 No.7497152 File: 192 KB, 504x376, 1370359887346.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7497151

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:19:53 2015 No.7497169

>>7497151
>capacity factors
Solar is pretty low maintenance. It's not like nuclear plants, which need to be shut down to be fixed for large percentages of their operating life.

>load following, load balancing, or time demand
Since we're talking about replacing all of humanity's energy needs with solar (and about tripling the energy consumption of the human race into the bargain), both batteries and fuel production are implied. The batteries certainly aren't harder to make than the solar collectors.

Nuclear doesn't really adjust to match grid load either (although you could schedule some of the downtime for low-load seasons), nor is it suitable for portable use, so batteries and fuel production would be needed for an all-nuclear economy as well.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:20:58 2015 No.7497171 >>7494277 >Australia’s energy production >Gas, LPG, Crude oil and NGL, Brown coal, Black coal gas, oil, and coal are fuels, not energy Lrn2energy

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:24:19 2015 No.7497174

>>7497169
Like I said, you don't really know what any of these concepts are and have no understanding of them. Did you know that nuclear has the highest capacity factor of all? Solar cannot load follow by definition because of its variable output. If a grid operator needs more power, he can't just the solar PV facility to increase power; it simply is what it is at that instant in time. Most of your model relies on energy storage technology and transmission that doesn't exist or won't be built because it is not economically feasible.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 04:27:34 2015 No.7497179

>>7497136
What this person said:
>>7497151
Solar only provides power for about 1/6 of the day. If you want to provide power for the rest of the day, that means energy storage. Going to energy storage and back to the grid is not 100%. You lose energy in the process. A lot of energy.

Plus transmission energy losses as cited elsewhere.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:36:41 2015 No.7497192

>>7497174
>you don't really know what any of these concepts are and have no understanding of them.
I just said that batteries and fuel production are implied. How fucking ignorant do you have to be to not understand that batteries and fuel answer these concerns?

>Did you know that nuclear has the highest capacity factor of all?
Do you know why? Here's a hint:
>>Nuclear doesn't really adjust to match grid load
Nuclear reactors are pretty much either operating at full load, or down for maintenance. Nuclear capacity is expensive, so generally total nuclear power capacity on a grid is kept beneath the minimum grid load, so you'll always be able to use whatever power the nukes can put out.

Fossil-fuel-burning and hydroelectric plants are good at adjusting output to load. So they're built to high capacities, but spend little time operating at their peak.

A high capacity factor isn't a good thing. It's just a fact. it can actually be indicative of serious disadvantages.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:50:22 2015 No.7497216

>>7497179
>Going to energy storage and back to the grid is not 100%. You lose energy in the process. A lot of energy.
No, not "a lot of energy". On a weekly cycle, it's a few percent. And most energy consumption is not grid power.

As I've pointed out before, you'd face similar problems if you tried to go all-nuclear, and the amount of power plants would be comparably epic. If we built that much nuclear generating capacity, there'd probably be a catastrophic failure, like a Chernobyl or a Fukushima, about once a month.

>Solar only provides power for about 1/6 of the day
Holy shit, this is the kind of stupid that gives tripfags a bad name.

20 hours of darkness per day! Totally typical!

>transmission energy losses
We already have those, and conversion and inefficiency losses. Haven't you noticed? Not to mention the energy costs of mining and transporting all the fuel. Don't make estimates as if we don't already have a lot of inefficiency.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:54:06 2015 No.7497225

>>7497192
Your solar power fantasy is just that--a fantasy. Where are these huge magical batteries that will store all this energy and then generate gigawatts at a time while still being repeatedly rechargeable? How much will all this cost? As I said, you literally do not understand capacity factors, and you augmented my conviction by actually saying it was a bad thing, especially compared to NONdispatchable power sources. Although this is an academic exercise, if you really want to maintain a certain average power output, then you need to "overbuild" by the deficit. With a 90% capacity factor, you just need to build up to that missing 10% to ensure you meet it. With a 10% capacity factor, you have to overbuild a lot more. This is one of the reasons why projected land use for solar and wind is much greater than that of most other sources. It is true that nuclear cannot ramp as fast as, say, NG, but solar literally cannot do it at all unless we have the Huge Magic Batteries That Do Not Exist. You attacked nuclear for not doing something as well as fossil fuels while solar and wind cannot do it at all with the current level of technology and utility economics.

Do you write for CleanTechnica or Grist? Only someone like that would mention the higher capital cost per MW of nuclear but elide over the fact that, on a levelized cost of electricity basis, nuclear is the cheapest on a marginal production basis (20 mille/kwhre) and still quite good overall at around 60-80 mill/kwhre total. Nuclear had the cheapest levelized cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour until the natural gas glut towards the end of the 00s.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 04:56:44 2015 No.7497228

>>7497102
When you talk about population increase, are you referring to an increase in the population of high energy users or the population of the entire globe. Wouldn't using the estimated future increase in the world's middle class (from 1 billion currently to ~4 billion in the near future) be a better indicator of an increase in future energy demand?

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:13:22 2015 No.7497252

>>7497228
You're just talking about putting off the problem by a few decades. That's how many people we're going to have. It's going to be a problem in our lifetime. Solar will not solve it alone. Solar won't make an appreciable dent.

>No, not "a lot of energy". On a weekly cycle, it's a few percent.

On what planet? What magical energy storage technology that can be scaled has round-trip energy losses of only a few percent?

>And most energy consumption is not grid power.

When we move towards electric cars and/or synthetic gasoline from CO2 in the atmosphere or seawater, then a lot more is coming from the grid. When we transition from coal for industrial heat to nuclear power for industrial heat (or nuclear electric for industrial heat), then that's more on the grid.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 05:16:24 2015 No.7497256

>>7497225
>Where are these huge magical batteries
Have you noticed the progress being made in electric cars? Have you heard about the Tesla house battery?

There are lots of ways to make cheaper high-capacity batteries. You don't need to recreate the performance of the fossil-fuel-based grid. The grid can feed energy as it's produced, while the houses store it to use when needed.

We've already got a cost ceiling of a few thousand dollars per house every decade or so, and that's going to come down dramatically as the technology advances and production and recycling facilities are built.

>you literally do not understand capacity factors, and you augmented my conviction by actually saying it was a bad thing
I've explained what the high capacity factor of nuclear reactors actually means: there's no savings to be had from throttling them down. They're either running at full output, or they're down for maintenance.

Capacity factor isn't the peak output divided by the highest achievable average output, it's the peak divided by the actual output in practice.

Natural gas generators have a lowish capacity factor because they're conveniently throttleable. That makes them well-suited for running only at at peak load times. Coal is higher than natural gas because it takes time to light the fire and get the boilers up to full heat, it's considerably more difficult to adjust the output compared to gas. Nuclear is higher than coal because capacity is expensive there's no point running a nuclear reactor at less than full output. In each case, the higher capacity factor indicates greater planning inconvenience and lower versatility.

Not that the lower capacity factors of solar and wind are good. Those aren't because of deliberate throttling. But the high capacity factor of nuclear does actually indicate something negative as well. If you honestly can't understand that after I've spoonfed it to you, there's no hope for you.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:22:57 2015 No.7497266

>>7497169
>Solar is pretty low maintenance.
Except replaced every 20 to 30 years, and the maintenance to clean off the panels. With about a billion more land area needed for the panels, that's a lot of maintenance.

>The batteries certainly aren't harder to make than the solar collectors.

Actually, they are.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
The energy storage problem is even more immense than the problem of not enough land for the solar panels.

>Nuclear doesn't really adjust to match grid load either
Pernicious lie that has no basis in reality. It's just a matter of how you build the plant. It's cheaper for the utilities to use gas to load follow, and so they build the nuclear plants to not load follow. Making the plant load follow incurs additional costs. France gets 80% of their electricity from nuclear. Nuclear can totally load follow.

>nor is it suitable for portable use, so batteries and fuel production would be needed for an all-nuclear economy as well.

There's a difference in scale of the problem of producing fuels for transportation or batteries for transportation, vs storing energy for the grid. A massive difference.

>How fucking ignorant do you have to be to not understand that batteries and fuel answer these concerns?
Informed enough to know that these are currently unsolved problems. I have some hope for the recent Navy research into producing hydrocarbons from CO2 in seawater and H2 from splitting water, but that's still highly experimental and only at lab scale.

>Have you noticed the progress being made in electric cars? Have you heard about the Tesla house battery?
They cannot break the basic laws of physics. See the link above (nation sized battery) for a detailed description of the fundamental physical limits that you're facing. There is not enough known lead, nickel, lithium, etc., to make a battery big enough for the US grid,

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:24:38 2015 No.7497269

>>7497256
>There are lots of ways to make cheaper high-capacity batteries. You don't need to recreate the performance of the fossil-fuel-based grid. The grid can feed energy as it's produced, while the houses store it to use when needed.
Name one.

>Natural gas generators have a lowish capacity factor because they're conveniently throttleable.
No, nat gas is often used to throttle beecause the capital costs of the nat gas plant is incredibly small. Whereas for coal and nuclear, approx 80% of the levelized cost of electricity is the plant itself. The fuel is dirt cheap. That's why nat gas is used to load follow, because overbuilding nat gas plants is cheaper than overbuilding coal or nuclear.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:26:47 2015 No.7497274

>>7497266
>Informed enough to know that these are currently unsolved problems. I have some hope for the recent Navy research into producing hydrocarbons from CO2 in seawater and H2 from splitting water, but that's still highly experimental and only at lab scale.
Further, it is important to note that all of the available approaches have huge round-trip energy losses. Pumped water storage is the best at IIRC 20% losses. It gets much worse from there in terms of cost, scalability due to physical limitations, and energy losses.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 05:28:00 2015 No.7497275 >>7497266 >>7497269 I was going to post, but you more or less said what I wanted to say. Thanks for posting links to Do The Math. I had forgotten the name and only remembered a UCSD prof ran it.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 05:30:29 2015 No.7497278

>>7497266
>http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
Oh this guy. The complete idiot, who only idiots would reference.

"I’ll use lead-acid batteries as a baseline." <- idiot
"Because lead-acid batteries are the cheapest way to store electricity today." <- NOPE. Lead-acid batteries are good for POWER, not ENERGY capacity.

If he were serious and unbiased, he'd have gone with something that could be made from cheap materials, such as sodium-sulfur.

Why would you quote such garbage?

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:32:59 2015 No.7497279

>>7497150
I'm taking into account the larger population that will be on this planet. Approx another 2x or 3x in energy use right there to meet German's standard of living.

I'm taking into account you need to overbuild to handle the losses of transmission and energy storage (mythical energy storage might I add), so another 4x (asspull number) right there.

I'm taking into account realistic numbers for daily average insolation values. Another 1.3x there easy - and that's for equatorial regions. For something like Germany - you don't want to know. Either crazy costs in transmission, or crazy costs in overbuilding by like 10x at least.

We'll need to spend a lot of electricity on pulling CO2 out of the air with some process, possibly similar to the one you named.

We'll need a lot of electricity for desal.

I'm talking about the real problem. You're talking about this meaningless arbitrary goalpost that you erected to have a hope of meeting. You have no chance of meeting the actual requirements.

>>Solar only provides power for about 1/6 of the day
>Holy shit, this is the kind of stupid that gives tripfags a bad name.
>20 hours of darkness per day! Totally typical!
For solar production, yes that's right. So-called full sun is 1000 W / m^2. Brazil - near the equator mind you - gets 177 W / m^2 in Winter. That's about 1/6. It only gets worse as you move away from the equator.

>We already have those, and conversion and inefficiency losses. Haven't you noticed? Not to mention the energy costs of mining and transporting all the fuel. Don't make estimates as if we don't already have a lot of inefficiency.

If you're going to cite the Sahara desert, I get to cite realistic concerns like the massive costs of building the transmission from teh Sahara to where people actually live, the energy losses of transmission, and the required overbuilding of solar to make up for that energy loss from transmission.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:34:52 2015 No.7497282

>>7497278
>If he were serious and unbiased, he'd have gone with something that could be made from cheap materials, such as sodium-sulfur.

You do realize that an estimate for the cost of these things is 10x the cost of lead batteries, which is already quite costly, right? It's likely your batteries will cost far more than the solar panels. If you want, I can do some more math.

But you are right that sodium sulphur is a proven technology that won't break the plan on the scarcity of raw materials. Instead, it breaks the checkbook, by a lot.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:39:49 2015 No.7497290

>>7497256
>We've already got a cost ceiling of a few thousand dollars per house every decade or so, and that's going to come down dramatically as the technology advances and production and recycling facilities are built.

>>7497278
>If he were serious and unbiased, he'd have gone with something that could be made from cheap materials, such as sodium-sulfur.

You're either ignorant, or dishonest. You're ignorant if you didn't know that sodium-sulphur batteries are very expensive compared to lead, lithium, pumped water, etc. You're dishonest if you used the first quote to implicitly refer to the costs of lead batteries or some such, then try to bait-and-switch and then refer to the much more expensive sodium-sulphur batteries.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 05:45:51 2015 No.7497295

>>7497282
>You do realize that an estimate for the cost of these things is 10x the cost of lead batteries,
Holy fuck, just when I think you can't get any dumber, you lower the bar yet again.

No, lead-acid batteries aren't the cheapest per unit of energy capacity even today. And if you were building out this kind of capacity, you could expect costs to fall near the price of materials. The much, much cheaper materials than lead.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:52:00 2015 No.7497299

>>7497295
>>7497282
>>7497290
Let's do some math.

The numbers I find online are sodium-sulfur batteries are sold at:
US $0.08 / kWh
75% round trip efficiency (that's pretty high actually)

Let's take a conservative approach of having storage for 7 days.

Pick some number X for the average power demand. We need (X)(7 days) of energy storage. Sodium-sulfur cost is:
(X)(7 days)($0.08 / 1000 Wh)
=(X)(7 days)($80 / 1000 Wh)(24 h / day)
=(X)(7 days)($80 / 1000 Wh)(24 h / day)
= 13.44 USD (1/W) (X)

The solar panels would cost:
.30 USD (1/W) (X)

Literally 44x more expensive.

>>7497295
Do you even understand how sodium-sulfur batteries work? Do you know why they're so expensive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery
>However, because of the operating temperatures of 300 to 350 °C and the highly corrosive nature of the sodium polysulfides, such cells are primarily suitable for large-scale non-mobile applications such as grid energy storage.

Quoting you:
>And if you were building out this kind of capacity, you could expect costs to fall near the price of materials.

You are the idiot who is living in a pipedream. There is a massive demand for this kind of technology now, yet no one is doing it. It's not some vast conspiracy of the oil companies which is preventing this magical breakthrough in manufacturing / whatever the fuck you think it is.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 05:54:22 2015 No.7497301

>>7497299
Let me quote some more from wiki.

>The entire cell is enclosed by a steel casing that is protected, usually by chromium and molybdenum, from being corroded on the inside.

>The container is sealed at the top with an airtight alumina lid. An essential part of the cell is the presence of a BASE (beta-alumina solid electrolyte) membrane, which selectively conducts Na+.

>In commercial applications the cells are arranged in blocks for better heat conservation and are encased in a vacuum-insulated box.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 06:03:14 2015 No.7497308

>>7497290
I gave sodium-sulfur batteries as an example of a familiar type that can be made from common, low-cost materials.

It's certainly not a mature technology, in the sense that prices have been pushed anywhere near their limits. Like photovoltaic cell production, it's an area of technology with potential for dramatic improvement.

If you don't like sodium-sulfur, there are many other battery technology options that don't require any rare or costly materials.

>>7497299
>There is a massive demand for this kind of technology now, yet no one is doing it.
Uh... no. There's very limited demand for high-capacity stationary battery storage. To convey any practical advantage, it would have to compete with generators, in a time when most electricity is generated by burning fuel anyway. Until we get our power from a different source, it's pretty much impossible for batteries to compete with generators.

Installations to date have been cost-insensitive experiments.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 06:08:02 2015 No.7497315

>>7497308
>If you don't like sodium-sulfur, there are many other battery technology options that don't require any rare or costly materials.

Again, name one.

>>7497308
>Uh... no. There's very limited demand for high-capacity stationary battery storage. To convey any practical advantage, it would have to compete with generators, in a time when most electricity is generated by burning fuel anyway. Until we get our power from a different source, it's pretty much impossible for batteries to compete with generators.
>Installations to date have been cost-insensitive experiments.

Do some actual research before pulling shit out of your ass.

Pumped water storage is an integral part of many electrical grids. In fact, it's the only technology that is cost-effective enough to scale with current technology.

Also, google "California duck curve" to see how close California is from having surplus solar. A similar problem exists for Germany right now too, and Germany only has IIRC 10% or less of its yearly average electricity coming from solar. Yet, they still have days where they have excess solar electricity at noon. This is not some faraway problem. This is starting to become a real problem now due to the penetration of solar reaching unprecedented levels like 10% of the yearly average.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 08:08:29 2015 No.7497429

>>7497252
>>7497074
Why are you assuming everyone on the planet will maintain the same energy consumption of a modern German. If you look at current energy usage you'll see that only a small portion of the Earth's population, i.e. people living in developed countries, use the vast majority of energy resources. It's highly unlikely that the entire population of the planet, or even >50%, will ever consume as much energy as we do in the west.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 08:11:56 2015 No.7497432

>>7497429
>It's highly unlikely that the entire population of the planet, or even >50%, will ever consume as much energy as we do in the west
not that guy but energy consumption in southeast asia and latin america is going to skyrocket in the coming years as they develop and produce more cheap goods

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 08:15:16 2015 No.7497435 File: 14 KB, 219x346, truuu.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] yall shoud read this

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 16:56:54 2015 No.7498204

>>7497315
>Pumped water storage is an integral part of many electrical grids.
Now you're talking about something entirely different from battery storage, in technology and in value proposition.

Nobody builds something that's ONLY pumped water storage. They build a hydroelectric generating plant, which is a valuable power source without pumps, then they add pumps. Or in some cases they use pumps as part of a net-energy tidal generator.

Pumped water storage is parasitic on the opportunistic technology of hydroelectric power.

You're jumping all over the place to justify your unreasonable claims and ridiculous comparisons. You do your best to make the challenges of using solar power for everything look insurmountable, while ignoring the fact that most of the same problems apply to nuclear power.

You focus on the efficiency losses, while ignoring the efficiency gains. It's like you don't understand the most basic things like the fact that figures on energy consumption are based on things like the higher heating value of fuel consumed, and that the figures of delivered electricity and mechanical power would be much lower.

You're like bias and ignorance met and had a baby tripfag.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 17:12:51 2015 No.7498237 Just posting ITT to say that solar technology is quite a promising area of development in engineering and we are likely to be seeing efficiencies much higher than the quoted 10% by 2030.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 17:21:34 2015 No.7498254 >>7497148 Dem sources. So what's the deal with thorium? People think energy companies are holding it back? What else is?

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 17:49:07 2015 No.7498305

>>7497174
>If a grid operator needs more power
No such thing.
High energy required factories already pay for quite a bit of power, and they will keep on paying.
Assume a peak load, calculate it. And done. And if you really need more power, there is always:
-Tidal power
-Waterfalls
-Smaller scale nuclear

>>7497179
Worst case Solar for equator is 1/3 for good yield.
You can still cheat and install a mirror at middle of sections, to reach a almost 50% uptime.
1/6 is in the case of solar panels for houses, on one side of a wall.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 17:52:56 2015 No.7498312 >>7496854 nuclear is the future, and it's safe now

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 18:06:03 2015 No.7498338

>>7498305
Yes, there is such a thing. It's called load/peak matching, and you need dispatchable power sources to do it. You're confusing power purchase agreements, which are contracts, with the actual power needed at some time t. This is how I know you don't know anything.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 18:08:12 2015 No.7498345 >>7498338 >and you need dispatchable power sources to do it. Thats called a battery. Literally.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 18:08:35 2015 No.7498350

>>7498204
>Nobody builds something that's ONLY pumped water storage.
Do you even read my links? Seriously? Stop being an ignorant fool, and read.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
>The largest pumped hydro installation in the U.S. (in terms of energy, not power) is at Raccoon Mountain, in Tennessee.

Google Earth:
Raccoon Mountain Pumped Station Reserve
35.048925, -85.399613
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_Mountain_Pumped-Storage_Plant

>>7498204
>You focus on the efficiency losses, while ignoring the efficiency gains. It's like you don't understand the most basic things like the fact that figures on energy consumption are based on things like the higher heating value of fuel consumed, and that the figures of delivered electricity and mechanical power would be much lower.
That's why I'm focusing on Germany. They've gone pretty far in reducing demand while still maintaining an industrial base. That's why it's like IIRC 50% or 100% less than America's energy usage per capita. Even if you think that there's a lot of room left for further improvement, how much farther do you think they can go? Another factor of 2x? It doesn't change the net result, which is that a ludicrous amount of land area would need to be covered by solar panels.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 18:13:30 2015 No.7498362 >>7498345 Where are the big magic batteries that do this? We're talking about the real world. Your argument is predicated upon a technology that doesn't exist.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 18:13:50 2015 No.7498364

>>7498305
>-Tidal power
Are you talking wave power or tidal power? I know less about tidal power, but I once ran the numbers for wave power. If you were to install wave power installations along every coastline on this planet, you still don't come up to the number needed.

>-Waterfalls
That's called conventional hydro. And all of the good spots are tapped. It's highly unlikely we could increase output by even 2x, and it's already less than 10% of the current output in the US IIRC. In the grand scheme of things, it will be less than 1% of the total solution for our 10 billion people.

>>>7498305
>Worst case Solar for equator is 1/3 for good yield.
>You can still cheat and install a mirror at middle of sections, to reach a almost 50% uptime.
>1/6 is in the case of solar panels for houses, on one side of a wall.
You need better sources. This is demonstrably bullshit. There is no way you can go from 177 W / m^2 daily average - as actually measured by measuring devices on the ground - to 500 W / m^2. You're living in a fantasy. That claim has no semblance to reality.

>>7498345
And as I've been trying to point out, there is no demonstrated battery technology that is anywhere close to practical for the scale of the problem. As far as I know, there's not even anything that's under research that's close to practical.

(There is that one liquid metal battery that was on a TED talk, but the original design called for the use of antimony IIRC, which is too rare to scale, and then they said they switched formulas, but they didn't realize the new formula, and thus I call vaporware.)

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 18:15:02 2015 No.7498368 >>7498364 >they didn't release / publish the new formula Fixed.

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 18:16:45 2015 No.7498374 >>7498237 Perhaps. However, we have a problem now that we need to start solving now, not in 15 years time. Ocean acidification is threatening mass extinctions in the ocean, and we might not have that 15 years.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 18:18:05 2015 No.7498377

>>7498350
>They've gone pretty far in reducing demand while still maintaining an industrial base. That's why it's like IIRC 50% or 100% less than America's energy usage per capita.
Well, that makes no sense. Let me try again.

Germany energy usage per capita is IIRC 75% or 50% of American's energy usage per capita.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 18:58:32 2015 No.7498460 File: 91 KB, 248x363, moot meow.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] So /sci/ help me here, is EVERY single form of energy generation based around a turbine spinning?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 19:10:41 2015 No.7498470 >>7498460 No.

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 19:10:51 2015 No.7498471 >>7498460 Mostly. Solar panels operate on an entirely different principle. Otherwise, all commercial forms of energy production effectively involve a turbine, a magnet, and a coil of wire, to induce a current AFAIK.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 19:14:31 2015 No.7498478 File: 53 KB, 240x238, moot 2.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7498471 That seems almost medieval. Aren't there any researches about a completely new way to "create" energy?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 19:15:54 2015 No.7498484 >>7498460 fusion direct conversion master race

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 21:47:16 2015 No.7498776
File: 33 KB, 800x600, Global_Wind_Power_Cumulative_Capacity.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>7496918

Brazil gets 84% of their electrical needs from renewables. They have not even begun to fully invest in Solar and Wind.

Now tell me again with a straight face why we need nuclear at all? The only missing puzzle piece right now is storage technology, but see the Tesla Powerwall. Once they start scaling that technology up we are good. Store energy during peak, unload during night.

The public fucking hates nuclear with a passion. For good reason too. Chernobyl is good enough reason to never mess with nuclear ever again. The city and entire surrounding region is still abandoned. No disaster can compare to that.

Solar tech will still improve, while wind is fully mature and ready to go.

The Department of Energy envisions 20% of all electrical demand to be met by wind by 2030.

>http://energy.gov/eere/wind/20-wind-energy-2030-increasing-wind-energys-contribution-us-electricity-supply

Nuclear is a shitty meme that needs/is going to die except for extremely specific applications like satellites and aircraft carriers.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 21:51:04 2015 No.7498783 >>7498776 >5-6 times less energy consumption than the US

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 21:57:26 2015 No.7498792 >>7498783 >They have not even begun to fully invest in Solar and Wind. >Didn't even read the US governments own reports on the potential of wind power

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:00:16 2015 No.7498795 >>7498792 >>They have not even begun to fully invest in Solar and Wind. what difference does that make when they dont use a whole lot of energy to begin with? wind power is shit btw. even solar is much better

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:03:49 2015 No.7498803 >>7498795 So why do they need to use nuclear? Brazil is already mostly renewable and is choosing to scale up using more renew ables, not nuclear.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:06:04 2015 No.7498810

>>7498776
I know you don't know anything because you believe power projections more than five years into the future (wind growth is predicated on PTC and feed-in tariffs continuing), think the public hates nuclear, and don't know about or understand what happened at Chernobyl.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:06:55 2015 No.7498812 >>7498803 because brazilians are literal barbarian retards. theyre too retarded to harness the most based power source

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:07:49 2015 No.7498816

>>7498776
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Brazil

(capacity)
Hydroelectricity 72.1%
Biomass 3.6%
Wind 0.2%
Solar not even listed.
What's your point again? How is this a defense of solar and wind?

>Now tell me again with a straight face why we need nuclear at all?
Because biomass and hydro cannot scale, and because hydro is incredibly destructive to the nearby environment, something that any good environmentalist should know.

>Tesla Powerwall
Lithium chemical battery
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
It's like you're not even bothering to read the points made by your opponent. Assuming that you can get the maximum energy storage per lithium atom, and using known worldwide reserves of lithium, it's a single digit percent (probably) for the necessary energy storage capacity for the current US needs, that's 300 million. We need to solve for 10 billion, and that technology is single digit solution for 300 million.

>Chernobyl is good enough reason to never mess with nuclear ever again. The city and entire surrounding region is still abandoned.

The people in Chernobyl missed that memo. Lots of people still live there. 3 other reactors on site remained operational for quite a while later too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Aftermath
>The Ukrainian government continued to let the three remaining reactors operate because of an energy shortage in the country.

>Store energy during peak, unload during night.
If only we had a magical technology that could do that.

And if only we had enough spare land on the scale of an entire continent that we could "pave" with solar cells. I'm sure we can expect minimal environmental impact with that plan (sarcasm).

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:11:11 2015 No.7498822

>>7498816
>>Store energy during peak, unload during night.
>If only we had a magical technology that could do that.
not that brazilian faggot doenst know what he's talking about, but neither do you.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525121/molten-salts-might-provide-half-price-grid-energy-storage/

not to mention flywheel storage

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:13:52 2015 No.7498827

>>7498803
>Brazil is already mostly renewable and is choosing to scale up using more renew ables, not nuclear.
To emphasize - almost all of the good hydro spots are taken. It's probably physically impossible to scale that by even a factor of 2x. For the 10 billion people solution, hydro will be a rounding error.

Biomass directly competes for food, and good arguments can be made that the use of biofuels is directly contributing to increased food prices and mass starvation. Further, we can do the same calculation in terms of land, and we find that there's nowhere near enough land for biomass to make a dent. For a 10 billion people solution, biomass is also a rounding error.

>>7498822
I don't have the time or effort to track every piddly startup. I'm hopeful that it can work - I'm one of the "research everything" guys - but your technology is not even in the prototype stage yet. Why are you so confident from a goddamned popular news article?

>not to mention flywheel storage
This has been around for forever. No one uses it for grid storage, and for good reason. The only technology that is actually used for grid-scale storage in any appreciable amount if pumped water. Flyswheels are not a viable technology for our problem.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:19:03 2015 No.7498843 >>7498827 >piddly startup. yeah, the 70 mile generating facility in arizona or the several in spain beg to differ. you'd be better of researching shit even a little before spouting bullshit that makes you look retarded

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:22:07 2015 No.7498855

>>7498843
You didn't say concentrated solar with molten salt as a heat storage. That's a fundamentally different technology. It's directly tied to solar, and it's not a storage technology that can work with every source. Give me a bit to get some numbers on the concentrating solar.

Again, you recognize that you're just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, right? You're jumping around from tech to tech, as I dismantle them one by one. It would be nice to admit that you're full of shit and taking this shotgun approach. If you were honest and informed, you would have started with your best technology, rather than this shotgun approach.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:24:40 2015 No.7498860

>>7498822
National labs have been doing molten salt experiments for years and are no closer to a competitive commercial system. These guys are in over their heads. Storage also does not uniquely benefit renewables anyway. Any plant can go full blast and store the energy.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:24:47 2015 No.7498862 >>7498855 >You're jumping around from tech to tech, as I dismantle them one by one i've mentioned exactly two things, none of which you've "dismantled" you sound very unintelligent, uninformed, and closed minded. and the best technology is nuclear

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:26:02 2015 No.7498867
File: 20 KB, 366x449, Selection_005.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>7498816

From your own source:

>If we ever got serious about building big storage, there will be choices other than lead-acid.

If you were smart and knew something about wind turbines, you could have countered with the low abundance of the rare-earth metal neodymium.

The rest of your post in nonsense.

>And if only we had enough spare land on the scale of an entire continent that we could "pave" with solar cells

Ahahhahahah.

You better warn investors who are dumping hundreds of billions into renewable tech about how unpractical they are!

>http://time.com/3931551/softbank-solar-energy-power-india-japan-climate-change/

We are in an exponential growth phase right now for renewable Solar and Wind power. Nothing will stop this train.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:26:03 2015 No.7498868 >>7498860 but there are commercial systems..

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:26:26 2015 No.7498871 >>7498862 You're still sticking to flywheels as a grid-scalable energy storage solution? Please. Be serious now.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:28:19 2015 No.7498874

>>7498867
>>And if only we had enough spare land on the scale of an entire continent that we could "pave" with solar cells
>Ahahhahahah.

I refer you to my calculations here:
>>7497089

>You better warn investors who are dumping hundreds of billions into renewable tech about how unpractical they are!
>We are in an exponential growth phase right now for renewable Solar and Wind power. Nothing will stop this train.
Yes, there is a massive hype train that is simply unsustainable. Your fallacious appeal to popularity notwithstanding. Mass shared delusion does not overcome material facts.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:29:30 2015 No.7498879 >>7498874 >I refer you to my calculations here: Even after it was pointed out what trash they are?

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:30:03 2015 No.7498880

>>7497089
Also, goddamned types.

Required land area
= (required power)(land area / power)
= (required power)(x4 to power energy storage tech)(land area / incoming solar insolation)(1 / solar panel conversion efficiency)
= (1.68e21 joules / year)(4)(1 m^2 / 177 W)(1 / 10%)
= (1.68e21 joules / year)(4)(1 m^2 / 177 W)(1 / 10%)(year / 365.24 days)(day / 24 hour)(hour / 60 min)(min / 60 sec)(WS / J)
= 1.68e21 *4 / 177 / .10 /365.24 /24 /60 /60 m^2
= 1.20e13 m^2

Land area of South America:
1.78e13 m^2

Required land as a fraction of all of South America:
About 67%

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:33:06 2015 No.7498884

>>7498868
Yes, the tiny handful of facilities propped up by the generosity of the federal government and portfolio mandates. If the current technology is so great, why doesn't everyone use it? It would reduce costs and allow nearly any producer greater latitude in selling its power and becoming more profitable as a consequence, not just concentrated solar generators.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:33:14 2015 No.7498885 >>7498792 >>Didn't even read the US governments own reports on the potential of wind power Wind power is shit. You'd need something like 200 manhattans worth of wind fields to power manhattan.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:35:57 2015 No.7498892

Let me address it again. Please point out where you disagree.

>>7497136
>20% is commonly achieved already. 40% is being done with concentrators. But let's say 10% for the sake of argument.

Pick a goddamned technology and stick with it. The bait and switch is annoying. Are we talking concentrated solar thermal, or are we talking photovoltaic? Your reference to solar thermal is a non-sequitir w.r.t. my takedown of photovoltaic.

20% is not commonly done. 13% approx is commonly done with solar panels that can be cheaply mass produced.

You again ignored the problems of energy storage. We need to overbuild so that on the good days we can put energy into storage to cover the bad days. Plus, the energy storage will have losses, and transmission will have losses. That's where my (asspull) 4x number came from. You're not addressing these arguments, and ignoring them.

>You've gone off on some idiotic tangents about the solar conditions in South America, but we're not talking about providing all of humanity's energy needs from solar power installed in South America, we're just using that area as an example.

Contrary to popular myth, there's not a hundred different technologies that can provide power. There's around a dozen. Of the so-called renewables, solar is by far the best in terms of meeting our 10 billion person goal. Hydro is a rounding error. Biofuels are a rounding error. There's simply not enough land for wind. What else do you got? Going to pretend that geothermal will make up an appreciable amount? Put up or shut up. Give us your actual solution that will actually work for 10 billion people at Germany's per capita energy usage.

>Basically, you'd need to cover the entire coastline of South America with nuclear power plants.

Yes. That's what we need to do. That's actually doable. We need to start doing that now.

Now where did I go wrong again?

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:41:46 2015 No.7498913

>>7498885
We get 4.4% of our TOTAL electricity needs RIGHT NOW from Wind.

>http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/

You guys don't even read the official numbers put out by the US government showing the steep increase and availability of renewbles.

As you shipost shilling for dumb technology like nuclear, billions of dollars are being invested into increasing the electric generation share of renewables.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:43:38 2015 No.7498919 >>7498913 you're retarded m8

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:44:25 2015 No.7498921

>>7498880
How about you also correct that low efficiency figure and ridiculous arbitrary 4-times multiplier you pulled completely out of your ass?

And oh hey, look, now it comes out to around 9% of South America, to provide the whole world with more power it currently gets from all sources. That's about 1% of the global land surface area. Of course, there's no reason we can't use some of the ocean surface area, which is several times more than the land surface area.

Funny how you never address the challenges of deploying nuclear for all the world's power needs, despite how many of the same problems would need to be overcome.

Nope, just "Hey, look at how BIG the problem is to solve for the WHOLE WORLD ALL AT ONCE! Doesn't that seem like TOO MUCH?" with gratuitous pessimism and random fudge factors thrown in, for the solution you don't like, and hand-waving denial of all problems with the solution you do like.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:45:08 2015 No.7498924

>>7498843

>>7497136
>40%

http://www.nrel.gov/csp/solarpaces/project_detail.cfm/projectID=3
Andasol-1
200 hectares
158,000 MWh/yr (Expected/Planned)

So, let's see what this conversion efficiency according to usual solar panel metrics.

(power / area) / (standard metric)
= (158,000 MWh/yr / 200 hectares) / (1000 W / m^2)
= (1.58e11 W h / 200 hectares yr) (m^2 / 1000 W) (year / 365.24 day) (day / 24 h) (1 hectacre / 10000 m^2)
= 1.58e11 / 200 /1000 /365.24 /24 /10000
= 0.00901
= 0.9%

I am not impressed. Remember what we were arguing about before? 10% vs 20%. Someone claimed above that concentrated solar thermal gets 40%? Come again? Not according to these numbers.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:47:45 2015 No.7498927

>>7498921
>How about you also correct that low efficiency figure and ridiculous arbitrary 4-times multiplier you pulled completely out of your ass?

You're not engaging. You're just pretending the problem doesn't exist. Again, the numbers we're talking about in terms of solar insolation are for yearly average. We would need to overbuild so that on the good days, we store enough energy to cover the bad days. We also need to overbuild to handle energy storage roundtrip losses and transmission losses. These are facts. 4x is approximately fair.

You're probably using the cherrypicked yearly average number for that calculation rather than the daily average in the worst time of year. Another dishonest tactic.

And again, back in the real world, 13% is what's commercially available now for cheap mass production, not this mythical 20% for cheap mass production.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:49:54 2015 No.7498933
File: 53 KB, 649x352, Selection_006.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>7498919
Yeah. I am an idiot for following the most obvious trend of the century.

Nuclear isn't scaling up. Renewables are. We had high hopes for nuclear for so long now, but the technology is shit and not worth mass rollout. That is why we are choosing renewables and abandoning nuclear.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:50:36 2015 No.7498937 File: 14 KB, 658x365, Mort par tw - nucléaire très dangereux.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>7496854

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:50:36 2015 No.7498939

>>7498867
Photovoltaics are going to go down in Europe, since we quite correctly decided to stop funding this scam with state money while we get most of our power from nuclear and coal still.

Feels nice to know my people are smarting up while the rest of the world keeps going full retard.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:51:29 2015 No.7498940

>>7498924
Oh wait, I need to use the actual insolation values, and not the 1000 w / m^2 full sun value.

(power / area) / (incoming radiation)
= (158,000 MWh/yr / 200 hectares) / (2,200 kWh/m^2 per year)
= (158,000 MWh/yr / 200 hectares) (m^2 per year / 2,200 kWh) (1 hectacre / 10000 m^2)
= (158,000e3 / 200 ) ( / 2,200) (1 / 10000)
= 158,000e3 /200 /2,200 /10000
= 0.03590909090909090909090909090909
= 3.6%
Still paultry.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:52:14 2015 No.7498944 >>7498933 we're building 4 new ap1000s in the US alone right now

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:53:03 2015 No.7498947

>>7497074
>Because energy cannot be stored from summer to winter
Wrong and you're looking at it from the wrong angle. You look at it from a centrally distributed point of view and it makes more sense for each house/business to generate their own power. Less loss through distribution

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:53:23 2015 No.7498949 >>7498933 It's a self-fulfilling prophesy. Because of lies and misinformation from people like you, we are not pursuing nuclear. Again, got anything but fallacious appeals to popularity?

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:54:52 2015 No.7498956

>>7498947
I don't give a fuck right now where the powered is created and consumed. I care about a 100% solution for 10 billion people at Germany's energy usage per capita. Do you have a plan that can do that?

>You look at it from a centrally distributed point of view and it makes more sense for each house/business to generate their own power.
No it fucking doesn't. Economies of scale. Larger power producers and specialization of labor means that it will be cheaper for centralized power generation. Did you flunk basic econ and engineering classes?

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 22:55:56 2015 No.7498958 >>7498940 I need to add that at that conversion efficiency, solar thermal is a complete non-starter. There's simply not enough spare land in the world at that conversion efficiency.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:58:16 2015 No.7498963 >>7497094 >My god - the ignorance That's what we're thinking. Just because you have 50 acres doesn't mean you want to cover 49 of them with panels

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:59:43 2015 No.7498966
File: 41 KB, 313x629, Selection_008.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>7498939
Europe was always a bad candidate for current solar power, but you love rolling them out anyways.

Offshore Wind power was always a better better bet.

This is one of things about renew ables. Politicians and the public love them, and they can't get enough it seems ;^), it bodes very well for the future when it starts to reach grid-parity in most of Europe.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 22:59:49 2015 No.7498967 >>7498956 It would also be political suicide as subhumans would make sure to destroy their power sources swiftly and then complain about how racist it is they don't got no electricity.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:02:32 2015 No.7498974

>>7498892
You're not arguing with only one person. Basically everyone here thinks you're an idiot.

>>20% is commonly achieved already. 40% is being done with concentrators. But let's say 10% for the sake of argument.
>Pick a goddamned technology and stick with it.
Why? Why would we have to solve all the worlds problems with only one technology? Why does it have to be all one type of solar farm? Why do you keep idiotically talking about putting it all in South America?

Oh that's right, because that makes less sense, and you want it to be easy to argue against.

>my takedown of photovoltaic.
You didn't take down shit. You started to do the math, realized it was going to embarass you, and started tossing in fudge factors and assumptions until you got the number you wanted.

>>Basically, you'd need to cover the entire coastline of South America with nuclear power plants.
>Yes. That's what we need to do. That's actually doable.
If you think that's doable, why would you think deploying large areas of solar collectors isn't?

Also: by your own arguments, that wouldn't actually be adequate. That would only meet the world's year-round average power needs, not even daily peak let alone seasonal variation, and not covering conversion inefficiencies for when portable energy or chemical reactants are needed.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:09:35 2015 No.7498983
File: 102 KB, 1024x683, OffshoreFuture.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>7498949
See: >>7498958

This is the biggest lie in the entire thread. You keep pulling your bullshit numbers regarding solar land area.

We have MORE than enough dessert land for Solar, AND we can always go offshore.

Plus Wind turbines don't take up a lot of room and can be placed offshore as well.

This is the future we are choosing. You nuclear maniacs can go suck a dick, all the money in the world will not be able to get people to like nuclear more than renewable power.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:10:24 2015 No.7498986

don't be too hard on solar

if nothing else, it can decently offset the energy requirements of rich and middle class people, especially since the efficeincy on those small panels can be upwards of 15 or 20% and the price would only go up a little bit for a civilian installation.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:11:00 2015 No.7498990 >>7498956 >Did you flunk basic econ and engineering classes? No that's where my argument is coming from. economies of scale don't apply to a process with such a low efficiency

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:11:25 2015 No.7498992 >>7498983 > all the money in the world will not be able to get people to like nuclear more than renewable power. so you're admitting that, fundamentally, we are not pursuing nuclear because "it feels icky"?

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:18:15 2015 No.7499003

>>7498992
We're not doing nuclear because it means trusting government bureaucrats and profiteering corporations to always do everything properly and never fuck up.

Think about what it would really mean to have hundreds of times as many nuclear power plants as we have now. The talent stretched hundreds of times as thin. Hundreds of times more opportunities to cut corners. Hundreds of times more chances for sabotage. Hundreds of times the supply of materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Around the world, in every country, even the fucked up ones that we probably shouldn't trust with knives and matches.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:19:19 2015 No.7499006
File: 29 KB, 637x338, Selection_009.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>7498992
No. I am just being a realist.

We live in a democratic society, where people have an influence in deciding their energy future. See: >>7498966

People love renewable so much they are going for it, even when it isn't at grid-parity (the point at which it is cheaper to buy your own solar panels and produce your your electricity and make back the investment in a reasonable timeframe).

On the other hand, people despise nuclear almost as much as coal. If you want to take over the world and shove nuclear down our throats in order to 'save us' then be my guest.

I will stay on the winning side of exponential rollout rates, high public approval, and largest investment money. The winning combination that actually gets shit done.

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:20:00 2015 No.7499009 >>7499003 lel you dumn nigga

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 23:21:16 2015 No.7499013

>>7498974
I don't care what number of technologies you have to use in what combination, but give me something like a 100% solution for 10 billion people at Germany's per capita energy usage.

I believe I have done a good job at showing that you cannot do it.

Unreliables:
Concentrated solar thermal is too inefficient in land usage - there's not enough land. Photovoltaic is maybe 10x better at land usage, but we're still talking about crazy amounts of land. The energy storage to back wind and solar at grid scale doesn't exist at anything close to economical costs.

Hydro is a rounding error for the 100% solution.

Geothermal is another rounding error.

Biomass and biofuels is another rounding error.

What else do you have?

>We have MORE than enough dessert land for Solar,

Concentrated solar thermal comes out at about 3.6% conversion efficiency going from the numbers of the Spanish installation Andasol-1. see: >>7498940

Needed power for 10 billion at Germany's energy usage per capita: 5.32e13 W

Land area of the Sahara: 9.4e12 m^2

Daily average worst time of year incoming solar radiation for Sahara: 208 W / m^2

Needed land, ignoring energy storage losses, transmission losses, overbuilding, etc.,
= (5.32e13 W)(m^2 / 208 W)(1 / 3.6% conversion efficiency)
= 5.32e13 /208 /.036 m^2
= 7.10e12 m^2

Fraction of land area of Sahara:
75.5% approx. As soon as you add on the need to overbuild to handle all of those losses, then the Sahara is not enough. Covering the entire Sahara desert in concentrated solar panel is not going to happen. It's well into pipedream territory. The scale is so immense and vast. It's impossible.

>AND we can always go offshore.
Do you have any idea what that does to costs?

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:30:07 2015 No.7499032

>>7499013
>Hydro is a rounding error for the 100% solution.
>Geothermal is another rounding error.
>Biomass and biofuels is another rounding error.

None of this is remotely true. China is getting 20% of their energy needs from renewables with ambitions to rapidly increase that number.

USA gets 13% and rapidly growing >>7498933

India is betting hardcore on renewables with the largest solar power planets in the world coming up, while investment money is pouring in for these projects.
>http://time.com/3931551/softbank-solar-energy-power-india-japan-climate-change/

Brazil is getting 84% already with similar plans to China and India
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Brazil

Everywhere you go renewable is ALREADY producing an enormous amount of the electricity we use today and is expanding at an exponential rate.

India, China, US, and Brazil already covers ~40% of the world.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 23:35:13 2015 No.7499037

>>7499032
We just went over this.

See:
>>7498816
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Brazil

(capacity)
Hydroelectricity 72.1%
Biomass 3.6%
Wind 0.2%
Solar not even listed.

Hydro cannot grow. All of the good spots are already taken. Physical limitations - geographic limitations - prevent that.

>None of this is remotely true. China is getting 20% of their energy needs from renewables with ambitions to rapidly increase that number.

China:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China
>Total installed capacity in 2013 was 1247 GW.[3]
>Coal 801 GW[4]
64%
>Other thermal, natural gas, bio-mass 61 GW[5]
5%
>Hydropower capacity 280 GW[6]
22%
>Wind power capacity was 91.4 GW[7]
7%
>Solar power capacity was 18 GW[8]
1.4%
>Nuclear power capacity was 15.69 GW[9]
1.3%

I have no idea where your 20% number came from. Fact of the matter is that a large majority is again from hydro, which again cannot scale because of geographical limitations. All of the good spots for dams are already built.

And the rest you cite is entirely consistent with a mass shared delusion. An appeal to popularity is no substitute for proper math and science.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:47:37 2015 No.7499068

>>7499037
I never said hydro needs to grow.

It ALREADY produces a sizable amount of energy. See: USA. Where per capita energy is high and hydro makes up a good chunk of electricity production.

We have a strong base today. That is scaling up.

I am not sure why u keep trying to deny the ever growing amount of electricity being produced by renewables that has occur ed just in the last 5-10 years. Nuclear roll-out wouldn't be nearly as fast, due to all the clearances needed.

US, with its high per capita energy use, went from 8% renewables to 13% renewables in a matter of 9 years. Wind increased by x10 and solar by x33. Why do you keep denying the prevalence and growth rate of solar and wind? We are expanding renewable energy resources at a rate that has never been seen before in human history, and this will not stop until we are at 100%.

>I have no idea where your 20% number came from

Uhhh, add some of the numbers you posted?

>>	Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:49:31 2015 No.7499071 >>7499068 see: >>7498933 For the future. You are basing your arguments off of best case scenarios for nuclear, which is being rolled out at a fraction of the pace of solar+wind. Nuclear isn't going anywhere, and it never will.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 23:51:29 2015 No.7499074

>>7499068
>Because we have lots of hydro now, renewables will grow lots in the future.
I'm sorry, I don't see how that argument makes any sense.

>>7499071
>Nuclear isn't going anywhere, and it never will.
This is not a technical argument.

Generally in public policy debates such as this one, it's customary that both sides be given some degree of fiat power. Otherwise, it is not a debate over what we should do, and instead becomes a debate over what will happen. I am engaging in a public policy debate, not an argument over prediction of future public policy. I do so in hopes of influencing and directing future public policy to be something other than what it would be without my interference.

Your appeal to popularity arguments have no place in this discussion.

Anonymous Sat Aug 29 23:59:52 2015 No.7499092

>>7499074
>I'm sorry, I don't see how that argument makes any sense.

If you can't read graphs that is on you.
>>7498867
>>7498776
>>7498933

You don't have any argument. Your only argument is "B-but we can't scale it up." I am showing you we can and we are. You just don't want to listen.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Aug 29 23:59:53 2015 No.7499093

>>7499074
Let me explain.

"Renewables" is a diverse set of technologies, and it's not intellectually honest to try to draw trends by looking at the aggregate and ignore the details.

Many of those numbers you quote about the current capacity of renewables is largely attributable to hydro, and we have lots of good reasons why hydro cannot grow much more.

When we do the breakdown further, we see biofuels taking up a large proportion.

The amount left for solar and wind is usually quite paultry. Even modern Germany is hovering around 10% IIRC combined solar and wind yearly average.

When we look into the problem more closely, your argument falls apart. It is an incredibly inappropriate and unsupported extrapolation regarding several technologies to completely unrelated technologies.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 00:01:12 2015 No.7499096

>>7499092
I'm still waiting for you to explain the solution to the energy storage problem, transmission problem, and land use problem. You've given but handwaves. Do you really think that solar and wind can constitute a 100% solution for 10 billion people at Germany's per capita energy usage?

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:03:43 2015 No.7499101 >>7498956 >Did you flunk basic econ and engineering classes? No and I don't think you did either. Think about what you said and reconsider.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 00:08:00 2015 No.7499112

>>7499101
Specialization of labor alone means that having every building be responsible for its power generation is beyond foolish. Plus the fact that many of these technologies are more efficient at bigger scales - such as concentrated solar thermal - also means it's cheaper to have centralized power production.

I'm sorry that I don't buy into your anarcho-capitalist commune fantasies.

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:10:37 2015 No.7499118 >Do you understand how obscenely ridiculous that is? Wait till this guy hears about farmland

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:12:21 2015 No.7499124 >>7499118 For >>7496918

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:13:36 2015 No.7499130

>>7499096
>Do you really think that solar and wind can constitute a 100% solution for 10 billion people at Germany's per capita energy usage?

Yes. The only question is when we are going to achieve this.

>land use problem

Doesn't exist

>energy storage problem, transmission problem

These problems have been solved in the micro-scale with certain regions of America already being powered primarily by renewables. We defiantly still need some fossil fuel stopgaps, but getting to %100 is not unfeasible. I am not saying it will be easy, but it is not impossible like you are insisting.

Renewables are a moving technology. We have 3rd generation PV cells being rolled out shortly in 2017 by startups that achieve 20% efficiencies.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_solar_cell

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:14:09 2015 No.7499132 File: 130 KB, 896x864, MSRE_Reactor.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] and these NIMBY's are why were need molten salt reactors not even they can complain about safety, those things just cant go wrong

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 00:17:10 2015 No.7499138

>>7499130
>These problems have been solved in the micro-scale with certain regions of America already being powered primarily by renewables.

Citations please.

>>land use problem
>Doesn't exist

I'm sorry. When we're covering an amount of land equal to 50%+ of the Sahara desert in solar cells, I call shenanigans.

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:17:49 2015 No.7499140 >this thread >all these stupid misinformed retards

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:25:45 2015 No.7499162

>>7499138
>https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/09/14/vermont-milestone-green-energy-efforts/fsLHJl4eoqv6QoFNewRYBK/story.html

>It’s part of a broader movement that includes a statewide goal of getting 90 percent of Vermont’s energy from renewable resources by 2050, including electricity, heating, and transportation.

>http://theweek.com/speedreads/449594/village-india-now-runs-entirely-solar-power-grid

Propaganda Video:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYHKcQdf8p4

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_America_Cities

<90% renewables will start from smaller villages and towns, then later larger cities, and then entire states like Vermont. In a macroscale it is very easy to see the growth, as I am sure you have seen by now with all the charts I have posted, but just in case. >>7498933

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:30:18 2015 No.7499173 >>7499132 MSRE eat themselves apart within 5 years. they just aren't viable right now.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 00:32:12 2015 No.7499181

>>7499162
You're just ignoring the substance of many of my arguments, such as the physical limitations that are only now being reached. Example: land usage. Example: Providing 100% up-time for the grid minute by minute, aka energy storage problems. Your extrapolation does not address these concerns, and these concerns are why your extrapolation will not happen.

>>7499173
The fuck did you get that information? They ran a core of a MSRE for more than 5 years, and it was entirely fine afterwards. (Yes, they fucked up the clean-up decades later, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.)

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:37:53 2015 No.7499192 >>7499181 >Example: land usage Citation please. I am curious, can you tell me when America will stop its growth of renewables? We went from 8% to 13% in 9 years. In the next 9 years (2023) we will be at....?

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 00:39:52 2015 No.7499200 >>7499192 I gave my citations above. >>7498880

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 00:47:44 2015 No.7499220 >>7499192 I'm also still waiting for you to give a 100% solution for 10 billion people at Germany's per capita energy usage. How can it be done with "renewables"? I'm waiting.

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:47:51 2015 No.7499221

>>7499200
lol. That is such bullshit, I don't even....

Please give me a credible source like the US Department of Energy where I am sourcing my own numbers from.

Also:

>I am curious, can you tell me when America will stop its growth of renewables?

>We went from 8% to 13% in 9 years. In the next 9 years (2023) we will be at....?

I am predicting we will be up to +20% by that time. If all the problems you mentioned are such a big deal and impossible to solve, then we will see some kind of major downturn soon, easily within the next 9 years. So tell me, where are we going to be with renewables by 2023?

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 00:49:13 2015 No.7499228

>>7499221
>Please give me a credible source like the US Department of Energy where I am sourcing my own numbers from.
Even the Department Of Energy cannot change the basic laws of physics. Your fallacious appeal to authority notwithstanding.

>So tell me, where are we going to be with renewables by 2023?
I don't know. I do not that it cannot scale up for the stated reasons - lack of energy storage technology, and lack of available land.

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 00:54:05 2015 No.7499236 >>7499228 Okay, then! 20% vs 0% due to the basic laws of physics. See you in 2023!

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 00:57:50 2015 No.7499240 >>7499236 You're a dishonest asshole.

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 01:09:00 2015 No.7499262 >>7499173 depends on the design Thorcon is actually designing them to only last 5 years because its easier to get regulators OK with the concept. they just take the core back and recycle it

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 01:26:54 2015 No.7499287

>>7499228
>lack of available land.
Wow. Just wow. Even your own laughable figures don't point to a lack of available land. 67% of South America is less than the amount of rooftops and empty tropical desert. The Sahara alone is about 50% of South America.

>the basic laws of physics
Yeah, it's clearly physically impossible to do better than 10% PV efficiency, or more than 25% round-trip energy storage efficiency, plus even though we use a 4x multiplier to account for energy storage, we need to overbuild power capacity to cover all instantaneous needs during the most poorly-lit season. And if we start basing our entire energy economy on an electricity-generating foundation, the end user will need as many post-delivery joules of electricity as he would have needed joules of heat from burning fuel, since obviously we can expect energy efficiency to get worse with advancing technology.

Those are hard, physical limits, not arbitrary fudge factors founded in bias or anything. And when we can find a way to describe the numbers they give us so they sound big, that means we should just declare them "infeasible" without actually comparing them to availability, or current exploitation for other purposes (like, I don't know, worldwide arable land, which is coincidentally about 80% of the area of South America -- that's plowed and planted land, only about a third of the total land used for agriculture).

Yup, those sure are some hard physical limits, and a totally fair and rational way to look at them.

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 01:29:41 2015 No.7499289

>>7499262
>easier to get regulators OK with the concept.
>they just take the core back and recycle it
>just lift the core full of used fuel onto a barge and transport it down the coast
>about one core per week in the steady state of a full-scale power plant
>hopefully the weather is nice
>and never surprises anyone
>every week
>forever

>regulators OK with the concept

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 01:35:23 2015 No.7499295

>>7499287
>more than 25% round-trip energy storage efficiency, plus even though we use a 4x multiplier
You're an idiot. The 4x multiplier does not imply an assumption of 25% round trip efficiency for storage. Let me explain again. Listen this time.

Suppose you have a requirement of 100 W. Suppose you have an installation that produces 100 W average. Suppose Monday it's cloudy, and you only get 20 W. That means you need to rely on storage to produce that other 80 W. That means you need to build like 200 W, so that on the good days, 100 W of that can go to filling your storage to cover the days that you'll only get 40 W from your solar.

And as I've been saying, that number also included energy losses from transmission, and accounted for real world solar radiation values for anywhere that is not the Sahara. A number of 4x is actually incredibly generous for you.

You really don't know what you're talking about as well as you think you do.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 01:38:59 2015 No.7499299

>>7499289
You're still operating under this false assumption that nuclear is actually incredibly dangerous.

You're also ignoring that the core is only transported after 4 years of cooling off and decay.

And so what if the ship sinks. It's not like there's an action to break the core. How's the core going to break? An especially large wave? Not seeing it.

And it's still better than coal. And solar and wind cannot work.

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 01:44:46 2015 No.7499305

>>7499295
So what you're saying is that you're double-applying the insolation factor.

In a good spot for solar, averaged over the course for a year, you get about a quarter of the light that you get at peak, square overhead. You're applying that multiplier twice. Like an idiot.

Jesus.

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 01:47:18 2015 No.7499306 >>7499299 >Not seeing it. You're not seeing a lot of things. A combination of ignorance, stupidity, and bias tends to do that.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 01:51:31 2015 No.7499310

>>7499305
>You're applying that multiplier twice.
Uh, no, no I'm not. You really need to educate yourself better.

For example, the cited number of 228 W / m^2. That means that if we put an accurate measuring device on the surface of the Sahara desert, and kept it clean of dust, and let it record for 1 year, then divide the reported energy by 1 year and factor in the area of the detector, we would get 228 W / m^2. That's what that number means.

Assume 20% conversion efficiency for the sake of argument. That means a 1 meter-square solar panel in that location will produce 20% * 228 W as an average throughout the year.

If we had infinitely cheap energy storage, we would only need to account for the energy losses. However, we don't have infinitely cheap energy storage. Rather, the energy that we pull from storage has to come from within a very short time period in the past due to limited capacity, such as approx 7 days. That means we need sufficient solar panels to produce enough power on the worst 7 day period stay net neutral. Approximately.

You're assuming that we have infinite storage capacity, and that's the flaw in your reasoning.

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 02:03:43 2015 No.7499319

>>7499310
>we need sufficient solar panels to produce enough power on the worst 7 day period stay net neutral.
This is so wrong and stupid I don't even know where to start.

We're not talking about just replacing grid power with solar. We're talking about replacing ALL energy use. That includes a considerable amount of fuel production.

In the worst week of the year, you burn some of the accumulated fuel (and let some of your pent-up hydro power run, because let's remember that hydro's not going anywhere), to make up the shortfall. That's it. You don't overbuild total, worldwide, all-uses capacity by a factor of 4 just in case of the occasional bad week where you only get 1/4 of the average week's output, and then just not get any value out of 3/4 of your capacity for the rest of the year.

Holy fuck, this is like actually trying to teach a retarded kid. Is that what I'm doing here?

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 02:36:54 2015 No.7499358

>>7499319
It's not just one bad week per year. It's every single night. It's every single day that it's cloudy.

So, gasoline is your energy storage medium? That's your answer? Do you have any idea how bad this is compared to even sodium-sulfur batteries?

You still fail to comprehend the problem of intermittency.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 02:41:06 2015 No.7499360

>>7499319
>>7499358
And again, that number includes the inevitable loss from transmission, or the inevitable smaller solar radiation number for anything that is not the Sahara.

Also, back to pumped hydro. You read but don't listen. You don't learn. We already covered how pumped hydro cannot scale.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
For example, for our target numbers of 7 day energy storage for 10 billion people, we would need like 18 more Great Lakes of America. It's not going to happen. Even 1% of that is not going to happen. It's physically impossible.

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 02:47:10 2015 No.7499370 ^^ ExxonMobil shill ^^

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 02:58:49 2015 No.7499374

>>7499370
Right, like a big oil company would pay someone to get on here to advocate for nuclear.

Rather, if you look at the funding of lots of green groups, it actually does come from the oil companies. Because they know "renewables" are not a threat, and they're paying for advocacy against the only threat, nuclear.

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 03:20:22 2015 No.7499381 >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKORsrlN-2k The solution to all our problems. Also shows exactly how much land we need for solar cells and a fully scalable battery solution. Also, I trust Elon Musk more than some faggot with a tripcode.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 03:36:25 2015 No.7499393

>>7499381
Don't trust me. Trust yourself. Do your research. Figure out what power requirements we'll need. Figure out how much lithium there is available. Figure out a reasonable amount of storage - I advocate 7 days as a ballpark. Figure out if that lithium can provide the necessary storage.

Elon Musk cannot break physics.

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 04:06:57 2015 No.7499433 >>7499381 For example: http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/issues/renewables/the-grid-will-not-be-disrupted I'm still looking more into the details of lithium supplies, but it's sunk even before that.

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 04:07:33 2015 No.7499436

>>7499393
Lithium is the 25th most abundant element in the Earth's crust. It is not rare or scarce by any stretch of the imagination, which is why it is so widely used in today's batteries. And there is no reason why u can't build batteries that don't use Lithium.

The amount of space needed for solar to fully power the US is also incredibly small.

>cannot break physics.

I don't think u know what the phrase means.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 04:09:47 2015 No.7499440

>>7499436
>Lithium is the 25th most abundant element in the Earth's crust. It is not rare or scarce by any stretch of the imagination,
Uhh, yes it is, when used on this scale.

>which is why it is so widely used in today's batteries.
It's not like gold rare, but it's still rare. Proven reserves are well less than the total amount needed. Elon Musk is either lying, or banking on amounts well past current estimated reserves.

>And there is no reason why u can't build batteries that don't use Lithium.
Same problem with nickel, with lead, etc.

Again, you need to educate yourself. The problem is actually much harder than you want to believe it is.

Ex:
Let’s take 4 eV per lithium ion to be generous. Some research is going into lithium ion battery cells with this voltage, such as lithium cobalt oxide.

Required amount of lithium assuming this maximum theoretical possible efficiency
= (energy storage target) (amount of lithium per energy storage)
= [ (7 days) (5.3299e13 W) ] (1 lithium atom / 4 eV)
= (7 days) (5.3299e13 W) (1 lithium atom / 4 eV) (6.941 g / 6.0221413e23 lithium atoms) (kg / 1000 g) (5.39266407e23 eV / days watts)
= (7 ) (5.3299e13) (1 / 4 ) (6.941 / 6.0221413e23 ) (kg / 1000 ) (5.39266407e23 )
= 5.80e11 kg

Lithium chemical batteries. Assuming perfectly efficient storage per lithium ion, our target battery is 5.80e11 kg of lithium. Total estimated global reserves for lithium is 3.00e10 kg. We’re short by a factor of 19x.

Anonymous Sun Aug 30 04:15:29 2015 No.7499444

>>7499433
Of course today's Tesla batteries can't scale the entire grid.

But just like the original Tesla Roadster, doesn't make it a failure. It will kickstart an exploration into affordable storage technologies that will power the future. I recall a similar number of detractors to the electric car. Look at them now.

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 04:17:20 2015 No.7499447 >>7499444 >Of course today's Tesla batteries can't scale the entire grid. Elon Musk said that it could in the above video. He /very/ clearly stated that. That makes him unbelievably ignorant, or a liar.

>>	Anonymous Sun Aug 30 04:21:42 2015 No.7499449 >>7499447 I trust him, who is backed by actual elite scientists and engineers and billions of dollars of investor money, rather than some guy on a Mongolian goat herding form.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 05:34:24 2015 No.7499507

>>7499449
Just doing some calculations. I decided to finally make a doc and save this shit, rather than keep redoing it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_0aZwNFdJIZW8MG1P-D7NjaY3Hc6DkEe42lSFlcULHk/edit#

Some straightforward calculations show that we would need 2.51e12 kg of lithium. Some source put estimated global reserves of lithium at 3.00e10 kg. The amount of lithium that we suspect exists in economically accessible locations around the world is about 1% of the needed amount. That should be concerning.

Let’s look at cost. Taking Tesla at their word, 3000 USD for 7 kWh of storage. Scaling to our target, the cost is:
(5.3299e13 W) (7 days) (3000 USD / 7 kWh) = 3837.53 trillion USD.
To put that in perspective, global GDP is about 74 trillion USD.

Suppose someone said “screw the money, let’s do it”, remember that GDP is a rough measure of production capacity. Assuming that we did nothing else as a planet except build these batteries, by this simplistic analysis, it would take 51 years to do so. That’s assuming we didn’t spend effort on things like water and food, or entertainment.

As a 100% solution for the intermittency of solar and wind, it’s impossible. Even as a 1% solution for the intermittency of solar and wind, it’s impossible. We can safely ignore this technology when looking for our 100% solution.

Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sun Aug 30 05:35:25 2015 No.7499510

>>7499507
Here are those "simple calculations" for mass of lithium.

Let’s look at how much energy we can store per unit of lithium.
Some theoretical maximums:
At 3.6 V → (3.6 eV / lithium atom) (6.0221413e23 lithium atom / 6.941 lithium gram) → 13.9 kWh / kg lithium
At 5.2 V → (5.2 eV / lithium atom) (6.0221413e23 lithium atom / 6.941 lithium gram) → 20.1 kWh / kg lithium.
A range of reported values for actual batteries:
246 g lithium for 1 kwh → 1000 kwh / 246 kg lithium → 3.9 kWh / kg lithium
80 g lithium for 1 kwh → 1000 kwh / 80 kg lithium → 12.5 kWh / kg lithium
In practice, real Li-Ion batteries require at least 4x more raw lithium than a simple theoretical model would predict.

Let’s take Tesla Powerwall as our exemplar to determine how much lithium we would need. Specifically, we’re using the Tesla Powerwall model that is advertised for daily cycling. That model is nickel-manganese-cobalt chemistry. That has a cell voltage of 3.7 V. That means it has at best an energy per lithium value of
(1/4) (3.7 eV / lithium atom) (6.0221413e23 lithium atom / 6.941 lithium gram) = 3.57 kWh / kg lithium
The total amount of required lithium is
(target energy storage) (kg / 3.57 kWh)
= (target power) (7 days) (kg / 3.57 kWh)
= (5.3299e13 W) (7 days) (kg / 3.57 kWh)
= 2.51e12 kg

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