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What Solution Do Renewable Energy Advocates Offer For The Problem Of Storage?
Manhattan Contrarian ^ | 22 Jan, 2022 | Francis Menton

Posted on 01/23/2022 5:21:38 AM PST by MtnClimber

Most comments at this site tend to have a perspective generally consistent with my own. But sometimes a post will attract comments from people with a very different point of view. That occurred on a post earlier this week titled “Two More Contributions On The impossibility Of Electrifying Everything Using Only Wind, Solar, And Batteries.”

That post and the one immediately preceding it (“Calculating The Full Costs Of Electrifying Everything Using Only Wind, Solar, And Batteries”) had both focused on a particular issue inherent in the project of replacing dispatchable carbon-based sources of energy (coal, oil, natural gas) with intermittent “renewables” (wind, solar). That issue is that, as the intermittent renewables come to provide a greater percentage of electrical generation and as dispatchable fossil fuels get phased out, there is an accelerating need for enormously expensive energy storage to provide the electricity at times when the renewables go quiet. The two posts linked to detailed studies written by four different authors, each of whom had provided a detailed description of their methodology. Two of the four authors even provided spreadsheets, so that a reader who believes the assumptions of the author are wrong can change those assumptions and derive a new cost estimate from the altered assumptions.

The import of all of these studies is that as renewables come to dominate the mix of electricity generation, and particularly as their share of generation goes above 50% and on towards 100%, and fossil fuel backup gets phased out, then the cost of necessary storage becomes far and away the dominant cost of the overall system. Therefore, any meaningful proposal to replace fossil fuel generation with renewables must grapple with this issue.

So what is the solution that the dissenting commenters offer for the problem of increasing need for expensive storage? They don’t offer any at all. Instead, they appear to think that the whole problem can be assumed away or ignored.

The dissenting commenters were three in number, and posted under the pseudonyms “Johnathan Galt,” “GKam,” and “reneawbleguy.” Galt and GKam each posted only one comment, but “reneawbleguy” posted over forty.

The gist of all these comments really comes down to the same thing, namely that the renewables are rapidly becoming cheaper than fossil fuels to generate electricity, if they are not so already, and therefore fossil fuels are a dying industry. Mixed in with this point is a good deal of snide and accusatory language, essentially asserting that anyone who may disagree as to the relative full cost of renewables must necessarily be both ignorant and politically motivated. (e.g., GKam: “More science nonsense from this group of political hacks. . . . Give it up You have already lost.”). Meanwhile, all three fail to deal in any real way with the storage problem inherent in expansion of generation from the renewables.

Here is “reneawbleguy” on the relative cost of fossil fuel electricity generation versus renewables:

Energy costs savings. RE will be cheaper that FF business as usual. 10.43 cents per kw-hr FF 7.81 cents per kw-hr RE. Dollars into our pockets is a clear difference favoring RE. Clear difference. Money cost savings per person.

No source is cited, but I would agree that approximately these numbers can be found in some studies of relative costs of the renewables versus fossil fuels. But the studies that get these numbers it do so by ignoring the entire storage problem completely.

Similarly, from Galt:

[T]he only consideration to consumers is, was, and always will be “what is the delivered cost to me?” That is neatly quantified in Lazard’s excellent publication providing LCOE.

As I have pointed out on this blog numerous times, the Lazard numbers for “LCOE” (Levelized Cost of Energy) specifically omit any inherent costs of necessary storage. Since the cost of storage is the dominant cost of the all-renewable system, LCOE is the opposite of a “neat quantification” of comparative electricity generation costs, and rapidly becomes completely misleading as the percentage generated from renewables increases beyond 50%.

GKam is even less sophisticated, simply relying on his own personal experience with a home getting its power from rooftop solar panels:

My entire household and both electric cars are powered by the PV system on our roof, as "Galt" can tell you, and it gives us free power having paid back in three years.

GKam does not enlighten us as to how he gets his electricity at night, or overcast days in the winter, or whether he has purchased batteries sufficient to store up power from the summer for use during those long winter nights. If he lives in the United States, it is almost certain that he relies on his local grid — in other words, on fossil fuel backup, with perhaps some nuclear thrown in — for power during those times.

Of the three dissenting commenters, the only one who addresses the storage issue at all is Galt. He asserts, with great confidence, that new battery technologies are coming to make the storage problem go away:

At least two separate technologies, Ambri and Form Energy, will almost certainly have their first large factories up and running within 5 years. Both use common materials (antimony and calcium, iron), both are environmentally safe. Ambri’s battery is 100% recyclable, and in theory may last more than 100 years. Form Energy’s product is likewise 100% recyclable, should cost only 20% that of Lithium Ion, and although the lifespan is not yet advertised it has the potential for similar lifetime of use (simply a “reversible rusting” process).

So the proposal is that a government-mandated total transformation of the entire energy system of our economy should depend on one or another of two not-yet-invented-or demonstrated-at-scale technologies, which may or may not work, and the cost projections of which may be wildly off. Galt does not do any actual numerical calculations. But at a cost of “20% that of Lithium ion” the storage systems he is talking about would still imply a cost of around $100 trillion in Ken Gregory’s spreadsheet, some 5 times current U.S. GDP. Shouldn’t this be acknowledged as a problem? And how can you advocate use of Lazard’s “LCOE” numbers for relative costs of energy sources when those calculations omit a $100 trillion item applicable to wind and solar but not to fossil fuels?

So I say to these three commenters: it’s time to step up your game. Don’t just make unsupported assertions that wind and solar are cheaper. Give us a spreadsheet with a numerical demonstration of how much storage a fully wind/solar/storage electricity system for the U.S. will need, what technology will be used to provide it, and how much that will cost. Without that, you are just dealing in fantasy. I for one will be happy to have the all-renewable system if someone can demonstrate that it can be built and will work at reasonable cost.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: batteries; communism; solar; wind
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To: MtnClimber

The handle “renewables” is questionable. Oil is in many respects renewable. Known reserves are always increasing and it constantly seeps up from ocean depths. Wind and solar, with maintenance and recycling challenges, seem to many of us to be not renewable at all but rather creating more challenges with more use.


21 posted on 01/23/2022 7:48:31 AM PST by jimfree (My 19 y/o granddaughter continues to have more quality exec experience than Joe Biden.)
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To: BobL

In very limited cases, based obviously on local geography, pumped storage works.

That said, there is a risk most are willing to ignore — what if the pipes break? Water has (& will) go somewhere and it ain’t gonna wait for you to pull your head out.

Case in point. I used to work for PacificGas&Electric. A project associated with mine was pump storage. Built and ready to go. Would have made us bushels of dosh, and on the year’s bonus for getting it done on time (i.e., personally it was worth $16k to me).
Well, the damned pipe broke and flooded a town. Ensuing lawsuit not only doomed the project but killed the bonus. Bugger.

Any project that does not seriously address the “What if?” issues is run by idiots.


22 posted on 01/23/2022 8:03:32 AM PST by bobbo666 (Baizuo)
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To: WhoisAlanGreenspan?

“Of coarse what is not mentioned in my Lifted from wiki post is the cost in megawatts of pumping 27 billion US gallons 363 feet uphill at night.”

True. But it is an impressive project. I ran the numbers for the country based on their parameters. With 30 days of energy storage (amount required to get through worst-case bad spells), we’d need roughly 18,000 of the facilities (allowing for some down-time). The biggest immediate problem is finding or creating the storage reservoirs. In the case of this project, they had a huge lake on one side and high terrain on the other side, which was perfect for the application. Starts getting tougher to locate another 17,999 of them...


23 posted on 01/23/2022 8:54:48 AM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: MtnClimber

Giant balloons to store the unicorn farts.


24 posted on 01/23/2022 8:59:01 AM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: Organic Panic

Giant hamster wheels with gay pairs of unicorns perpetually chasing each other.


25 posted on 01/23/2022 9:03:56 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MattMusson

Sorry, but I’m a little confused. Could you explain the 3 hours of battery backup to start the generator?


26 posted on 01/23/2022 9:15:22 AM PST by Mr. Lucky
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To: Steven Tyler

“For me, I pay bout 17.81 per kwhr
FF is by far the economical choice”

Lucky you, Here in the bay area it’s about 40c/kwh.

Exactly where is this cheap RE?


27 posted on 01/23/2022 9:34:33 AM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: MtnClimber

https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/gwh-scale-liquid-air-battery-offers-storage-at-half-cost-of-lithium/2-1-629164

The above tech also makes air district cooling cogen cheap you can suck the heat out of near by buildings to warm the liquid air up.

https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/hot-rock-24-7-offshore-wind-cheaper-than-coal-within-five-years/2-1-642636

$19 a MWh using literally dirt cheap rocks as storage.

MIT is going the other way use the most abundant element on the earth’s crust to store heat.

https://www.solarpaces.org/mit-proposes-pv-to-discharge-energy-from-2400c-silicon-thermal-storage/

Even nukes know that storage is the future.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nuclear-energy-storage-advanced-reactor-developers-trying-to-expand-nuclea/573570/

https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/storing-heat-nuclear-power-plants-could-improve

https://www.powermag.com/why-thermal-energy-storage-offers-hot-prospects-for-power/

It’s not if it’s when solar and wind are the dominate energy sources. Regardless of carbon in the air there simply is not enough fossil fuels for a population of 8 billion living at middle class standards of living and energy consumption. China added 500 MILLION to the middle class ,India is on track to add the same number, Africa and South America have large and growing middle classes. Humans need to move to solar and wind as fast as possible or the energy wars that are coming will be global. 4 billion in the middle class depletes conventional oil in 20 years or less add in heavy oil and tarsands only get you another 20. That’s only half the current world at a European Middle class energy consumption rate if they move up to American rates it goes faster. The other 4 billion also want and will fight to move up in energy consumption as well. Solar is the cheapest form of or primary power humans have EVER come up the IEA has the data proving this hundreds of pages of it Google it it will be the first result. Solar is also the only form of power distributed all over the planet that in a single hour of day light is more than a million times the yearly consumption of all humans on earth. The issue has never been supply it’s storage and transport to the not sunny areas. Less than 5% of the Sahara could power all of humanity’s energy usage at middle class levels all 8 billion of us not just the USA and EU. Again Google scholar has dozens of peer reviewed data sets to back those numbers take the time to read them.


28 posted on 01/23/2022 9:53:04 AM PST by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
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To: bobbo666

Damn, good story! Hopefully just property damage downstream.


29 posted on 01/23/2022 10:00:22 AM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: MtnClimber

Tesla and Freyr are both building giant battery farms. Probably others as well.


30 posted on 01/23/2022 10:02:12 AM PST by Pelham (Q is short for quack )
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To: WhoisAlanGreenspan?

“Of coarse what is not mentioned in my Lifted from wiki post is the cost in megawatts of pumping 27 billion US gallons 363 feet uphill at night.”

True, but you do get ‘most’ of it back. 70% in the case of Michigan, but maybe a bit higher with their refurb. But, on a national level, that is still a HUGE loss of energy.


31 posted on 01/23/2022 10:02:44 AM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: BobL

Geothermal energy storage and the earth battery are both capable of storing significantly more energy than pumped hydro for a fraction of the costs. Rocks are literally dirt cheap. The aspect of using high capital low fuel cost nukes as peaker plants is also worth the read.

Use the find in off feature and look at the earth battery or just read the whole thing I did it’s worth the read.

https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Light-Water-Reactor-Heat-Storage-for-Peak-Power-and-Increased-Revenue.pdf


32 posted on 01/23/2022 12:02:21 PM PST by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
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To: aquila48

If the antinuke zealots get out of the way GE Hitachi have a NRC approved design that can be built in America for $2500 or less per kw in capx with uranium prices what they are today that will make it under 5 cents kWh for a 40 year reactor life cheaper still if extended to 60. At this power level to shift demand peaks and load follow prestressed concrete steam accumulators or pipe rack types or the Westinghouse concrete thermal storage from the above MIY report all would make it even cheaper to use nuke power as the primary source with solar and wind as the other sources no gas turbines needed.

https://nuclear.gepower.com/content/dam/gepower-nuclear/global/en_US/documents/product-fact-sheets/BWRX-300_Fact_Sheet-2020.pdf


33 posted on 01/23/2022 12:08:35 PM PST by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
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To: JD_UTDallas

Thanks, I’ll take a look. But there won’t be any planet left to speak of if we really try to bring 4 billion people to Western standards with ‘renewables’ either.

Basically, it’s nukes, or let the market do its magic and determine winners and losers. Nothing top-down can work at this scale.


34 posted on 01/23/2022 2:08:21 PM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: MtnClimber

<>I believe the green energy plan is designed to fail in order to collapse our system.<>

You sir, are correct.

EVs, CRT, wokeism, climate, open borders, inflation are designed to work together . . . to destroy the middleclass, and as you say, open the way for totalitarian rule.


35 posted on 01/23/2022 3:40:50 PM PST by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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To: JD_UTDallas

Did you use to work in the nuclear power industry? Just curious - you seem to be well versed in it.


36 posted on 01/23/2022 9:17:09 PM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: WhoisAlanGreenspan?

The cost is almost nothing if the power company owns the facility and the nukes. Excess power on the grid from the nukes’ minimum loads can be burnt for free pumping the water. Or if there is no excess at that output level, increasing output by 10 or 20% to cover the pumps’ needs is a tiny cost, especially compared to brownouts or having to install other additional power generation for the daytime.


37 posted on 01/24/2022 12:54:57 PM PST by Svartalfiar
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To: jimfree
The handle “renewables” is questionable. Oil is in many respects renewable. Known reserves are always increasing and it constantly seeps up from ocean depths. Wind and solar, with maintenance and recycling challenges, seem to many of us to be not renewable at all but rather creating more challenges with more use.

To be fair, oil has plenty of maintenance and logistics issues too. "Renewable" is the energy source, not the collection method!
38 posted on 01/24/2022 1:03:59 PM PST by Svartalfiar
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To: BobL

Do note that that facility doesn’t have 30 days of energy storage at max output. In a bad spell, as if the nukes go down, 27B gal reservoir, at 27MM gpm flow, gives you about 16 hours of water to empty. So multiply your 18M facilities by 45 to get your national 30 days of storage: 800M times that one facility!


39 posted on 01/24/2022 1:18:59 PM PST by Svartalfiar
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To: aquila48; Steven Tyler

Outskirts of DFW (Rowlett/Rockwall), we’re paying around $0.11/kWh if I remember correctly. Several cents per kWh increase if you choose the ‘green’ option that sources a higher solar percentage.


40 posted on 01/24/2022 1:25:31 PM PST by Svartalfiar
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