Posted on 01/20/2025 4:58:15 AM PST by MtnClimber
Manhattan Contrarian Ping
We need nuclear reactors generating electricity. Especially the smaller ones now designed to be operative within a private business such as pebble bed reactors:
https://insights.globalspec.com/article/16577/pebble-bed-reactor-demo-project-planned
AI computers will require this.
they’re clean and green and free.
No, they are not. The true costs are exorbitant for intermittent power.
[For example, commercial wind turbine cost:
$2.6 – $4 million per average-sized commercial wind turbine
Typical cost is $1.3 million per megawatt (MW) of electricity-producing capacity
Most commercial wind turbines have a capacity of 2-3 MW, but offshore turbines can be as large as 16-18 MW
Cost increases as turbine size increases, though there are benefits to using fewer, larger turbines – complexity and construction of the overall farm site is greatly reduced with fewer and larger turbines.]
“Green” energy is an illusion, imho.
NYT ‘all the news that fits, we print’
If green energy is free why do I get a growing bill every month for it?
Never give up the con.
Dams produce clean energy as well as storage for water.
So you have to wonder why the eco=nazis are determined to not only not build new ones but tear down existing ones.
California could solve both it’s energy problem as well as it’s water problem by simply building more dams. They don’t need to big and massive such as Hoover Dam, they can be relatively small and still be useful.
It doesn’t matter if it actually works or not.
The point is to funnel as much taxpayer money to political donors as possible.
Bingo
seems these bozos cannot understand through their ideology that the very BEST solar storage system and one that man can never mimic or replace is and always has been right before our very own eyes. TREES! easy to store for the long-term, easy to release energy from and completely renewable. who knew?
An alternative to mass storage is load-balanced distribution over large longitudinal distances using high-voltage DC.
I did a back-of-napkin calculation and this concept is about 75% efficient. (Think average distance from source to load is 1/4 of the circumference of the Earth max, and you lose about 2.5% every 620 miles.)
The way this would work is to share solar (and other) power-generating resources so that less energy storage is needed.
For example, if the East Coast and West Coast shared power, solar energy during peak hours in the west would be shared with the east during non-peak hours there, and vice versa. The lines cost money but existing ones can be repurposed. (The downside is that to achieve the maximum efficiency you need lines circumnavigating the globe.)
Ideally, solar collectors would be positioned and connected into arrays along latitudinal lines such that enough total solar energy (minus losses) would supply all of the energy needs to those connected along its path. Then, there would be no storage requirements.
At 75% efficiency, enough solar panels would be needed for 33.33% above capacity, making it cost-effective when equivalent battery storage is more than a third of the cost of solar panels.
Of course, this simple estimate does not include many other significant factors that affect cost, such as how to extend the power grid around the globe.
Many of the consultants working on the Clean Energy advisory board exhibit a very weak grasp of scientific, engineering and economic principles. The don't seem to know what they don't know -- or it's something more sinister than that. Considering how DEI got shoe-horned into corporate board rooms by BlackRock, Main-Street and one other major investment firm, we can assume a similar conspiracy is underway with Clean Energy.
Actually, it does matter. The energy policy of the Left is no energy for the masses. So, if it doesn’t work, they support it and push it, if it does work, they demonize it. If wind and solar could be made cheap and effective enough to power a first world economy today they’d be protesting tomorrow over how expensive and dangerous to the environment it was.
Good point and one that I hadn’t considered.
500 to 1000 hours of total grid backup seems way overkill.
That would mean that 100% of the grid power would be down for 20 to 40 days.
I don’t thing even at war or worst storm has 100% of the grid ever been down.
“NBC quotes Monterey County District 2 Supervisor Glenn Church calling this “a worst case scenario of a disaster” that nobody predicted. Church continues: “
This could turn out to be the “Three Mile Island” of renewables.
Storage does *not* HAVE to equal massive LiPO battery banks.
https://www.ipautah.com/ipp-renewed/
H2 stored underground - the H2 made via solar. H2 burned in a turbine. Expensive? Yes. But all that power will go to SoCal where they will pay thru the nose....also fine by me.
Batteries that *don’t burn* and have a very long life
https://ambri.com/ you haven’t seen these in mass deployments owing to scaling issues.
NONE OF THOSE NUMBERS INCLUDE PROPER DISPOSAL.......
You’re right...that just makes it worse!
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