Oils4AsphaultOnly
Well-known member
WetEV said:Oils4AsphaultOnly said:WetEV said:Lithium isn't uncommon. Resources is the number you want, and is much bigger than reserves. But starting up mines, refining, plants to make batteries, plants to make machines that make all the above, training staff, building infrastructure, all of this takes time.
Repeat for semiconductors, copper, steel and plastics.
I never disagreed with you on the "takes time" part, only claimed that it was "easy", in the sense that no new tech needed to be developed.
If you include nuclear power.
If you will not include nuclear power, then new technologies need to be developed. While they are, new nuclear plants will need to be built to replace existing plants as the existing plants reach end of life until the new technologies are developed and deployed at scale.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this part. The whole concept of "baseload" power is a carry over from the coal days, where it was cheaper to keep the power plants running and giveaway the electricity during off-peak hours, than to stop and restart the power plants. If power is cheaper during the day, then the industrial loads will follow. This will be a seeing-is-believing condition, so I don't expect to sway any viewpoints here.
WetEV said:Oils4AsphaultOnly said:WetEV said:Biofuels are mostly in direct competition with either human and wild animal food/shelter. There just isn't enough biofuels for the Whole Earth.
Sorry, let's agree on what's "bio fuels" first. When I read Biofuels, I read it as crops grown to produce ethanol. I'm actually advocating for banning that completely, exactly because it consumes fuel for the purpose of reducing fuel consumption. It's tech that's a waste of time and resources.
But if you're including wood into the biofuels category, then I don't think there's as much of a competition with food production as you think. The fruit orchards regularly uproot their "old" fruit trees after they stop producing. The wood would release CO2 from decomposition anyway, so burning it for heat doesn't add to the CO2 total. Burning it to produce electricity is no-go, and not what I had spelled out in my off-grid solution.
Of course wood is a biofuel. How much wood is grown every year? How does that compare with the current energy usage?
Almost all of the wood is grown for either the construction or paper industry. If the scrap is what's used for making biofuels, then I won't quibble. But wood should never be used to produce electricity.
Secondly, the IEA doesn't consider wood a biofuel: https://www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/bioenergy
So arguing about biofuel impeding on food supply is a serious issue, but a red herring when talking about renewable energy replacing fossil fuels in electricity production and transportation. Biofuel should be taken off the list of renewable energy sources and is on the way to being supplanted anyway, as more of transport gets electrified by BEV's.
WetEV said:Oils4AsphaultOnly said:WetEV said:Quibble. Pick a grid. Your choice.
Why does it matter how much there currently is? There isn't enough battery storage in the grid for all the solar and wind that we already have installed. That's why there's curtailment. They are however being added, and they will have an outsized impact on the reduction of fossil fuel use in electricity generation.
But just so you have the info, there's 1.6GWh as of 2020 (https://www.energy-storage.news/eia-us-battery-storage-installed-capacity-hit-1650mw-by-end-of-2020/)
Half the answer, and none of the simple math. And I think there is more as of right now.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-electricity.php
3.9 trillion kWh per year.
Let me get the answer in seconds:
(1600000 kWh storage / 3900000000000 kWh per year) *365 days per year *24 hours per day *60 minutes per hour *60 seconds per hour.
Check my math, will you? I get it wrong, sometimes.
About 13 seconds. There is no massive impact on the grid from this. Or ten times this, but some impact on good renewable power days.
Wow, really?! Firstly, your math is correct, but is completely mis-applied.
That 1.6GWh (which is only 400MW of power capacity) was all curtailed wind/solar power (energy that was lost during peak production, but is instead saved for later). Replacing energy that would've been supplied by running a 400MW nat gas peaker plant an extra 4 hrs every day for the whole year to cover the times when solar/wind are NOT available. Every MW of battery power directly offsets that much peaker power.
So the bulk of the electricity must still come from additional solar and wind farms, but the batteries make it so that additional gas peaker plants aren't required to balance those new farms. This HAD been the case these past few years as coal power (baseload) was being replaced by wind/solar + nat gas peaker.