Cone_Junkie wrote: In reply to jimbbski:
This pic reminds me of a small town called Oilfield in southeast IL. It's really just a couple homes surrounded by a few miles of these oil derricks. The smell is overwhelming! It was almost nauseating driving past, and while I'm sure you "get used to it" I have to wonder if it's a good thing to have constant exposure long-term?
jimbbski wrote: In reply to Cone_Junkie: You must not have read my engine post. I am not against wind power just those big freekin towers in rural areas. Put them where the power is needed and I don't have to look at them.
The problem here is you have to put them where the wind is blowing, which isn't necessarily in the middle of population centers.
I am trying to figure out how much longer we are going to be needing 120v/15amp power in our homes. With LEDs already needing building in step down transformers and our appliances getting more and more efficient.. is it worth using power at such inflated rates?
(yes, I am aware that we have more than 15amp power in the house.. I am going by usual home outlet output)
As a grid operator I absolutely hate wind turbines. When you turn on your light switch you expect power to be there. Since no one can predict how much load the grid will have at any given moment with 100% accuracy, we have to have some generators online but not fully loaded to have some reserve capacity available. All the wind adds is more uncertainty, which forces us to have more reserves. We are lucky, we have almost 2000MW of hydro power in our balancing area we can move pretty quickly, but there are times when that is almost not enough. Most places have to run their conventional generation at less than peak output or efficiency and just keep it on as a standby to cope. And that is just the real load MW issues. The impacts the wind has on grid voltage and frequency are quite a bit worse. Most are induction generators and therefore have no frequency control whatsoever and while they generate MW they actually cause voltage to go down as they load up. Imagine driving a car with two drivetrains, one normal and controlled by the driver and at the other end one controlled by a crazy person who can't see the road and wouldn't care if they did. As you drive down the road you come to a hill where you need more power, only the crazy person is holding back until you get halfway up, when they floor it and keep it there. Sure it helps, but as you approach the top of the hill they show no signs of letting up. That's how MW work with wind, which is bad, but as long as you keep their engine sized small enough it's manageable. As to frequency and voltage control, imagine that the back seat driver can also steer their end of the car and whenever they give it gas it steers left and when they let up it steers right. That's how your grid works, and every new tower gives the crazy driver more hp and more effect on steering. Every baseload coal unit you take offline takes away from the drivers hp and steering control.
In reply to oldopelguy:
Interesting insight, I can see that being a huge problem. It seems like we really need to get battery and/or supercapacitor technology up to a level that it can deal with the unpredictable nature of the game.
batteries are on the way according to Tesla.. that should be a big help in balancing the load
they should put solar panels on top of the wind turbines..
KyAllroad wrote: The big wind farm along I-65 in Indiana is really cool IMO. Lots of them together seems right. It's the one by itself in Plymouth Mass that seems weird. Like mentioned "War of the Worlds" is what it puts me in mind of appearing through the mist.
That thing almost put me to sleep coming back from pa with my corolla.
novaderrik wrote: they should put solar panels on top of the wind turbines..
solar does not work well in the shade.. even the momentary passing of a blade's shadow can knock the efficiency -way- down
If only there were some way to split the atom and harness it's energy...
mad_machine wrote:novaderrik wrote: they should put solar panels on top of the wind turbines..solar does not work well in the shade.. even the momentary passing of a blade's shadow can knock the efficiency -way- down
yeah, but the blades aren't always going to be between the sun and the solar panel. if the wind comes out of any direction but south, then the panel would get sun most of the day...
I saw a terrifying report about solar recently too. Generators have limits on how fast they can start up, shut down, and change load levels. Round numbers say 5%/min for steam plants and 10%/minute for hydro units for up and down maneuvers. So a mixed bag of commercial power equivalent to 10,000 MW with 5% reserves can handle a load change of 750 MW/min for less than a minute. What do you do at sunrise or sunset with 1200 MW of solar coming on or off? Or when a fast moving thunderstorm blows across the solar fields? Sure they are easier to predict in general than wind but the rate of change is is entirely unpredictable.
There are practical limits to both of these "renewable" resources with the grid being operated the way it is. The politicians won't see them until their lights are out.
In reply to Trans_Maro:
Shhhh, that's taboo thanks to the environmentalists and media.....
oldopelguy wrote: I saw a terrifying report about solar recently too. Generators have limits on how fast they can start up, shut down, and change load levels. Round numbers say 5%/min for steam plants and 10%/minute for hydro units for up and down maneuvers. So a mixed bag of commercial power equivalent to 10,000 MW with 5% reserves can handle a load change of 750 MW/min for less than a minute. What do you do at sunrise or sunset with 1200 MW of solar coming on or off? Or when a fast moving thunderstorm blows across the solar fields? Sure they are easier to predict in general than wind but the rate of change is is entirely unpredictable. There are practical limits to both of these "renewable" resources with the grid being operated the way it is. The politicians won't see them until their lights are out.
again, it's batteries. If you have a large enough battery "field" the energy can come from that and the solar cells can just recharge the field. This is why Tesla is so into Batteries
or we could just use nuclear as our main baseline power and add in things like wind, hydro, and solar power where we can with coal and natural gas for peak usage periods... this leaves fossil fuels to power things that move..
Everything is solar power except geothermal. The more viscous the medium you are interacting with the more effective it is.
The only thing that makes a photovoltaic cell even remotely workable is cheap hydropower. It takes almost as much energy to produce a photovoltaic cell as it will make over its lifetime. This is not the energy source you are looking for.
At some point you are left with nuclear as your best option for the future.
Jcamper
Joe Gearin wrote: Wind farms are cool in a War of the Worlds kind of way. Unfortunately, from what I understand, those big windmills will never pay for themselves--- they just aren't efficient enough. IIRC they "turn-on" with the help of an electric motor once the wind speed is above 10mph, and have to turn off if the wind speed exceeds 40,mph or they will risk breaking. A cool idea....but they don't make financial sense yet. Solar makes more sense for renewable energy.
From an insider in the industry, albeit a few years ago, solar still isn't paying back within the lifespan of the cells yet in most cases.
I may be biased, but give me one of these for this country right now.
They are awfully efficient and the emissions are nearly as clean as the air it takes in.
On a budget? One of these then.
In reply to oldopelguy:
Dude, awesome analogy
mad_machine wrote:oldopelguy wrote: I saw a terrifying report about solar recently too. Generators have limits on how fast they can start up, shut down, and change load levels. Round numbers say 5%/min for steam plants and 10%/minute for hydro units for up and down maneuvers. So a mixed bag of commercial power equivalent to 10,000 MW with 5% reserves can handle a load change of 750 MW/min for less than a minute. What do you do at sunrise or sunset with 1200 MW of solar coming on or off? Or when a fast moving thunderstorm blows across the solar fields? Sure they are easier to predict in general than wind but the rate of change is is entirely unpredictable. There are practical limits to both of these "renewable" resources with the grid being operated the way it is. The politicians won't see them until their lights are out.again, it's batteries. If you have a large enough battery "field" the energy can come from that and the solar cells can just recharge the field. This is why Tesla is so into Batteries
There are other ways to store potential energy- say use the wind and solar power to pump water UP a dam.
My wife has worked in the solar power industry for 10 years and I spent 4 years working for a utility. I have some knowledge on the alternative energy landscape.
There is as much (or more) hype, misunderstanding and outdated information floating around in this area as there is about our beloved cars. The science and government policy issues are not simple.
There are multiple ways to make solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. Some are energy intensive than others. The PV industry has borrowed heavily from the LCD manufacturing industry to improve the efficiency of manufacturing and the amount of power from a given size panel. Typical panels these days have a life span of about 20 years. It takes 5 to 6 years for the panel to generate the amount of power it took to manufacture it.
The grid management issues Oldopelguy talked about are real. There is art and science involved in matching generation to electrical demand. The infrastructure and rules governing it in most places were designed with the idea of power flowing one way from a centralize generation to distributed load. Solar adds a lot small highly distributed generation to the mix. It has predictable generation. (Sun comes up - power. Sun goes down - no power). Wind turbines generate power when the wind is blowing which may or may not be when there is demand for it. How to incorporate these power sources into the infrastructure has really interesting technical and public policy challenges. It will be a really hot issue because the cost of PV panels is getting low enough that, even without the government tax credits that expire next year, power generated from PV will be cheaper than what the utilities charge in many areas. Walmart, Target, Costco and many other businesses are going to want to put up solar arrays to bring their energy costs down.
Energy storage is part of the solution. There are energy storage options beyond Tesla's batteries. There are already two facilities in place in the US that know about do exactly what Alfadriver described. They take power from the grid to pump water into a reservoir located at a higher elevation when demand is low and run it through turbines to put power back into the grid when demand is high. There is flywheel storage in place in some grids. There is also promising work work being done with chemical power storage beyond familiar chemistry of lithium ion, lead acid, and nickle metal hydride.
This is getting long. Its a fascinating area to study if you can temper your personal biases for or against any particular group and look at the technology and economics.
I have heard of the water storage way.. and personally, that sounds very very cool
Trans_Maro wrote: If only there were some way to split the atom and harness it's energy...
Nuclear power gets a bad rap. It gets judged as if we decided not to drive cars today because it's too difficult to crank them to start by hand. Nuclear power gets judged based on its original form rather than its modernized more efficient form.
Then they are so expensive to build really the only way to convince someone to build and operate them is for the government to give them tons of money. probably should just be government run nuclear power plants one per power grid region.
Nuke power had it's day when the earthquake and tidal wave inundated that reactor in Japan. The whole world turned against it then
The biggest and most current problem with Nuclear energy is the waste. If we can find a long term waste disposal/storage system it would be very viable. We can't even handle the waste we currently have though.
In reply to Cone_Junkie: My dad was a metallurgist in the nuclear industry- so he keeps in touch with what's going on- he recently mentioned to me that there a new kind of breeder reactor that does not produce plutonium, and can last for a long time. Not sure when it will happen, but possible. Based on it's longer life, the waste/time and energy produced is much better than it currently is.
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