In reply to GameboyRMH :
Well, assuming that you don't want to kill people in the short term, perhaps. CO2 is a long term problem, HC, NOx, and CO are very short term, and should not be forgotten at all.
And some plants put out enough HC, NOx, and CO to harm people's health directly- not needing to involve the climate.
I hate not knowing answers when Google is available, so this is what I found quickly. If anyone has different data please share the source.
SI = Spark ignition, NG = natural gas, HEV = hybrid
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214008573
In reply to bcp2011 :
Extraction and refining is still needed for materials in solar panels. Also you need ALOT of square footage to put them in any capacity to replace powerplants. Doubly so for windmills. We can't even get people to agree to new cell towers... Where are you planning to put all these solar/windfarms? Water has tremendous(immediate) impacts to the environment, so much so that new ones were all but abandoned years ago in this country. Nuclear was seen as a silver bullet 60years ago...now not so much.
Every solution you provided has its own challenges. Just because global warming is not a large byproduct doesn't mean no meaningful environmental impacts will be seen. As these alternative energy sources gain market share these effects will be magnified just as it is with petroleum today.
This doesn't mean they should be abandoned or neglected, but it also doesn't mean that our current energy producers should be either.
In reply to alfadriver :
Am I reading what you wrote correctly- that 1 EV pollutes as much as 5 PZEVs? Geesh. Talk about stacking the deck in favor of electrics.
In reply to ztnedman1 :
You're right in that every source of energy will have its drawbacks. There is no doubt. All I'm saying is that as I educate myself about energy production I've becomes more convinced that clean energy is both good for the economy and the environment. The simple logic is that with traditional energy generation, every bit of electricity generated requires a new cost (whether coal, gas, nuclear, etc.). With solar and wind and water, that cost basically goes to zero (barring maintenance, etc.). As a bean counter that makes me excited...
To your first question on how much land is required for solar panels to power the entire US: see yellow square.
They cheated, they went into Mexico.
I think the writing has been on the wall for awhile. And while I will mourn the loss of a manual transmission, it will be ok. I just wish that we'd see more plug-in hybrids for a lot longer, although they do require more maintenance than a straight electric vehicle.
bcp2011 said:In reply to ztnedman1 :
You're right in that every source of energy will have its drawbacks. There is no doubt. All I'm saying is that as I educate myself about energy production I've becomes more convinced that clean energy is both good for the economy and the environment. The simple logic is that with traditional energy generation, every bit of electricity generated requires a new cost (whether coal, gas, nuclear, etc.). With solar and wind and water, that cost basically goes to zero (barring maintenance, etc.). As a bean counter that makes me excited...
To your first question on how much land is required for solar panels to power the entire US: see yellow square.
No idea where you got that info from but not a chance that last part is true. Only solar... To power the entire US in that small footprint? Whoever did that massively over simplified. If it's too good to be true....
In reply to ztnedman1 :
Here's the source: http://www.freeingenergy.com/how-much-solar-would-it-take-to-power-the-u-s/
Here's part of their calc: "Starting with some conservative assumptions from a 2013 National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL)report, we know that it takes, on average, 3.4 acres of solar panels to generate a gigawatt hour of electricity over a year. Given the U.S. consumes about 4 petawatts of electricity per year, we’d need about 13,600,000 acres or 21,250 square miles of solar panels to meet the total electricity requirements of the United States for a year."
You seem knowledgeable about the power industry (vs. me, just an internet jockey with an interest), so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on where their calculation is wrong.
In reply to mtn :
Don't get me wrong, I'm going to keep my manual track car until the day I die (or until I can't find parts for it...). But that's a hobby, and as much as I love cars in my soul, hobbies should not dictate national energy policy.
volvoclearinghouse said:In reply to alfadriver :
Am I reading what you wrote correctly- that 1 EV pollutes as much as 5 PZEVs? Geesh. Talk about stacking the deck in favor of electrics.
In terms of a few forms of pollution that we've pretty much got a handle on, it can be true depending on where the EVs gets its energy, and if you don't count the supply chain emissions for the PZEV's fuel (which is a bit unfair because all the emissions the EV produces per mile are supply chain emissions for its fuel). Obviously if the EV is powered by some non-combustive energy source there aren't going to be any such emissions.
So the deck isn't stacked in favor of electrics without good reason. They centralize emissions, making them easy to isolate, reduce, and eventually eliminate.
volvoclearinghouse said:In reply to alfadriver :
Am I reading what you wrote correctly- that 1 EV pollutes as much as 5 PZEVs? Geesh. Talk about stacking the deck in favor of electrics.
Yes, but it was part of a settlement where California was requiring specific numbers of EV's to be sold. And the point of the EV was "Zero Emissions Vehicle". So when OEM's demonstrated that they could be cleaner than the actual emissions that power plants put out, which would power the EV, then they kind of forced California to re-do their EV mandate. It was in their state constitution to choose the more effective and cheaper solution- and that made PZEV.
But do bear in mind that the emissions level is REALLY clean. And an EV would still be better than most of the fleet. So the deal was to replace 1EV for every 5 PZEV sold. Which killed the EV market in 2000.
In reply to bcp2011 :
First that is calculated on just electric consumption in The US, not energy demand.
Second, the two biggest plants currently in operation in the US consume 5000acers, and produce 150MW of Solar only energy with the other 80% of these plants output coming from natural gas.
So converting 4penta watts to mega watts gives us 4,000,000,000 MW @ 33.3 Acer/MW gives us 206,000,000 square MILES to scale up our current system(which includes a plant built in 2014). That's how much space we need in real world operation to supply the US Electricity needs ONLY. Add all electric cars to this and it will get even worse. **USA = 3,800,000 square miles.
While these are certainly not best case scenario numbers these acer/MW numbers are actual proven numbers. Technology/planning will help improve this but HUGE steps in technology are needed to make this realistic as a majority power source.
Not in power per se, but I am a consultant for water/air/energy conservation and asset longevity. I am used to see grandiose claims from manufacturers/design engineers while experiencing much different results in the real world.
In reply to ztnedman1 :
First, my apologies as these power conversions are new to me so bear with me. Second, you're absolutely right that it's the existing electricity demand, and does not account for increased demand if all cars went electric.
Wikipedia is saying we are using roughly 4,000,000,000,000 kilowatt hrs / year of energy. I looked up the largest solar project in the US here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Star
Based on actual output from the page, it's saying it generated 1,664 gigawatt hrs in a year. So 1 gigawatt = 1,000,000 kw, that's 1,664,000,000 kilowatts. From the same page it says the site area is 5 sq miles. So if we divide 1,664 gigawatts by 5 sq miles we get 332.8 gigawatt hrs per year per mile
So if we divide 4,000,000,000,000 kw/hr/year (electrical demand) by 332,800,000,000 kw/hr/year/sq mile we have 12,019 sq miles of space needed. This is smaller than the number I originally cited.
I then tried to reconcile to your numbers (i think you meant acre/MW, not acer/MW because I couldn't find a acer/MW metric). Assuming it's acre/MW, you said it takes 33 acres per MW of generation. From the wikipedia Solar Star page I convert 5 sq miles to acres by multiplying by 640 and I get 3200 acres. Based on generation data it's 1,664,000 MW / year divided by 3200 acres, or 520 MW / year per acre.
So you're saying it takes 33 acres per MW, and my math is saying one acre generates 520 MW. We're off by a factor of 17,000x so I feel like something's not right here...
In reply to ztnedman1 :
I think I figured out the disconnect. Let's use your numbers as I think they are close. 5000 acres = 7.8 sq miles. 150MW of generation is 600MW of capacity with 25% capacity factor, so that sounds about right based on what I saw on Wikipedia.
I think the difference here is that you did not multiple by generation hours. 150MW of generation is on per hour basis, so 150MW x 24 x 365 = 1,314,000MW per year. So then instead of 33 acres / MW per hour, it's 0.00376 acres / MW per year. On that basis, your 205 million sq miles translates to 23,515 sq miles, very close to what the source cited.
Agreed?
bcp2011 said:In reply to ztnedman1 :
I think I figured out the disconnect. Let's use your numbers as I think they are close. 5000 acres = 7.8 sq miles. 150MW of generation is 600MW of capacity with 25% capacity factor, so that sounds about right based on what I saw on Wikipedia.
I think the difference here is that you did not multiple by generation hours. 150MW of generation is on per hour basis, so 150MW x 24 x 365 = 1,314,000MW per year. So then instead of 33 acres / MW per hour, it's 0.00376 acres / MW per year. On that basis, your 205 million sq miles translates to 23,515 sq miles, very close to what the source cited.
Agreed?
Indeed, should have clicked on your petawatt link, didn't realize it was in kwh/yr.
It is still over simplified as redundant power generation is needed incase of unexpected low solar output. You cannot just tell people in the service area "your SOL because it's an extra stormy week". So now you need additional power plants to guarantee power delivery 24/7. But you cannot just shut down a full power plant and only bring it up when needed, so you end up with the current plants we referenced where 80% of it's power generation is still done with natural gas. And those are in premium solar locations. So while 205sq M is incorrect, the 25,000sq M is not realistic either.
And my point still stands on the environment impact from the land needed for these renewable sources as seen in the complications in getting the ivanpah plant approved, and that's in the desert.
In reply to ztnedman1 :
Agree that PV will not, and cannot, be the only source of electricity for the reasons you cited. That was not my claim - I merely suggested that the space needed is not significant as you had initially claimed.
As for other source, wind still blows at night, and CSP has hours beyond just the sun hours, and of course battery technology will need to improve such that the redundancy is on the batteries. Even in that scenario, which would take a long time to get to, there will still be natural gas plants that could provide quick power when needed (BTW I believe natural gas is generally used more as "peakers" rather than baseload).
Lastly, I understand that these issues are complex and every solution has its own set of issues, but god dang it, we're Americans, and if we can fly a space ship 300 million miles to mars and manage to land the friggin thing going 12,000MPH using a parachute we can figure out how to solve our power problems!
At this point I could care less what VAG said about anything. They are trying to be relevant at this point due to there little PR problem. They will spout all this stuff to try and get some interest from part of Subaru and Toyota Prius market. They could only wish that they had that brand loyalty at this point. I just realized that I hardly see any VW's on the road around here. The interesting part is that Audi's are like the cockroach of the cars my area. I would not be surprised if VW does away or at least is shrunk down tremendously and they focus on there upscale brands for a while. They they could re launch VW as an EV / EV hybrid brand. That is what I would do. They already have the technology on the road in the Porsche line up cars. Refine it there at the expense of the people that can afford the high end cars and then move it down to the VW line.
dean1484 said:At this point I could care less what VAG said about anything. They are trying to be relevant at this point due to there little PR problem. They will spout all this stuff to try and get some interest from part of Subaru and Toyota Prius market. They could only wish that they had that brand loyalty at this point. I just realized that I hardly see any VW's on the road around here. The interesting part is that Audi's are like the cockroach of the cars my area. I would not be surprised if VW does away or at least is shrunk down tremendously and they focus on there upscale brands for a while. They they could re launch VW as an EV / EV hybrid brand. That is what I would do. They already have the technology on the road in the Porsche line up cars. Refine it there at the expense of the people that can afford the high end cars and then move it down to the VW line.
VWs are all over the place here.
In reply to nderwater :
This very same prediction was gospel when the oil industry was crashing in the 90s. I remember specifically the petroleum engineering department having more staff than students. I also remember in mechanical engineering we were working on methanol, ethanol, hybrid, natural gas and other alternative powered automobiles. I also remember solar, wind and other alternative energy projects galore.
Now.... I work in the oil and gas business because it pays. In 9 years, I won't be too far away from retirement. And I can tell you that many big oil companies have plans that go way beyond 9 years. Maybe they are wrong though...... or perhaps not.
We already have a ton of underutilized electric trains. If people really cared about the environment they'd use them. It's all about freedom and being able to go where you want when you want. This might be an area where electric vehicles shine, but in the meantime we are still burning a whole lot of coal to charge electric vehicles.
I understand VW’s logic:
The other problem not addressed by the solar energy math is power transmission losses. Most of the power in this country is used to heat wires just like most of the fuel burned in an ICE heats water or oil. You generate all the power needed in Arizona, and you’ll have blackouts in the other 49 states. Imagine all the green power people when they can’t complain on social media.
AnthonyGS said:We already have a ton of underutilized electric trains. If people really cared about the environment they'd use them. It's all about freedom and being able to go where you want when you want. This might be an area where electric vehicles shine, but in the meantime we are still burning a whole lot of coal to charge electric vehicles.
Actually, we have shut down more coal plants in the last 2 years than in the previous 10. Even more telling, business insider reports that "The cost of producing solar power is rapidly declining: It now costs $50 to produce one megawatt-hour of solar power, according to a new analysis" versus coal, which is " $102 per megawatt-hour to produce."
To be honest, I genuinely see the future being that we all have our own solar cell system with battery backup- not because of regulations or environmental issues, but simply because it makes economic sense and protects you from future issues out of your control.
AnthonyGS said:The other problem not addressed by the solar energy math is power transmission losses. Most of the power in this country is used to heat wires just like most of the fuel burned in an ICE heats water or oil. You generate all the power needed in Arizona, and you’ll have blackouts in the other 49 states. Imagine all the green power people when they can’t complain on social media.
Even if you just change local areas over to solar only, that would be a pretty huge step.
And for some of the places, the smarter way of doing it would be to make an agreement with home owners to use their unused rooftops- which are structurally sound. Then you can have neighborhood scale distribution and storage of the power. Which would make the grid far more robust. Arizona isn't the only place where solar makes sense- it's just the best one. There's no need to concentrate it all there.
Rumor has it that the the next gen Corvette will be GM's last hurrah in gas powered sports cars.
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