Renewable Energy

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blackize,

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That doesn't mean that pumping electricity in from Utah is efficient, just that it is the best available solution.

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Yeah, I'm not saying it's efficient to send power a long distance. I am in the business of generating power on-site.

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Gas is already heavily taxed in a lot of areas.

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Gas is also heavily subsidized in lots of direct and indirect ways.


bobman,

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Yeah, what's not to like about a government intervention that diverts a huge portion of the world's PV resources to sunny, sunny Germany?

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Energy supply is loaded with government intervention and there's significantly more intervention in oil and nuclear power than in solar power. Germany has hogged the solar modules though and the prices of modules have not been going down much in the last few years despite increase in supply and cheaper manufacturing, largely because of the huge demand in Germany.


ElSapo,

Part of that depends on the area. In the southwest the peak usage is caused by air-conditioning.

Also, solar power can be generated efficiently on-site for residential and small commercial consumers as well.


Wynton,

There's a huge mirror project in Barstow, CA.

[ElSapo]

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Part of that depends on the area. In the southwest the peak usage is caused by air-conditioning.

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Power gen is really on the rise in the Southwest - helped along, of course, by California's own resistance to building power plants. Funny - a few towns outside of Phoenix, Ariz., are up in arms about a pipeline expansion that would feed power gen in Phoenix. They're pissed, at least partly, because that generation isn't really benefitting them, it's benefitting Calfornia.

Anyways.... Peak demand from AC or heating, either way, I think it's the same problem. Wind doesn't blow all the time, and whe it doesn't wind generators can face hefty tariff fines, and what you'll see is a spike in traditional fuel use.

There are proposals to alter power tariffs for renewable generators so that these problems are not quite so heavy.

Now, if you mean AC demand correlates to solar power potential, I dunno. Solar power thus far has shown to be more effective onsite and in small scale, at least economically speaking. More tightly linking solar power to smart metering is probably a big step, so people can see ust how much power they have. Basically linking solar power with demand reduction/conservation.

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Elsapo,

Cali has net-metering and indeed being able to watch the meter (see it spin backwards) seems to be a big selling point. 40 states have net-metering laws for solar. I haven't looked at the details outside of California.

Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (net-metering page)

[shaftman11]

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And this is what must change. Because if it doesn't, bad bad bad things will eventually happen. Maybe not in 20 or even 50 years. But eventually.

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It must be easy to be a scientist that has to prove nothing empirically. You can continually move the goal posts of when impending doom is coming, and never be wrong!

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I'm not trying to prove anything. Though it seems that if we are just about completely reliant on fossil fuels and they run out, we are in a world of [censored].

[fsista]

In Sweden, the gas costs 8$ per gallon.

[siccjay]

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And the thing that pisses me off the most is paying $3.50 a gallon for gas, while Exxon/Mobile post record profits each month.

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How dare they.

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Ok so when does it stop? It's ok for them to keep raising prices, making more and more money, and blaming it on something else? I know barrels are high, but this shouldn't be an excuse for oil companies to make more money. Thank Bush.

[wadea]

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I'm not trying to prove anything. Though it seems that if we are just about completely reliant on fossil fuels and they run out, we are in a world of [censored].

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Not to worry. The prospect of running out of fossil fuels is overblown and will not occur in your grandkids' grandkids' lifetimes. Further, it will NEVER run out because as the supply diminishes, the price of oil will increase and oil will become a luxury item for even the richest people. By this logic, it is a certainty that economic incentive for alternative energies will appear at some point.

Running out of fossil fuel is not the problem here - pollution and warming is the problem. It would be better for us if we were closer to the bottom of the oil well and the economic incentive arrived today.

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ElSapo

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The biggest problems with solar and wind farms are economics, intermittent power, and the fact that no one wants them.

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I've been thinking about this a bit and thought that pumping water and then generating hydro power would be a good way to store energy when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. This process can be up to 85% efficient currently and I just discovered that here in Southern California there is a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant.

They pump water from one lake (Castaic) into a higher lake (Pyramid) at night and then generate power during the day when demand is higher.

Solar power could be added to the grid until it shaves off the peak demand and after that it could generate more power and as long as some was used to pump water into such a system it wouldn't cause the problem of too much power sometimes and not enough other times.

Castaic Dam wiki

[GermanGuy]

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Yeah, what's not to like about a government intervention that diverts a huge portion of the world's PV resources to sunny, sunny Germany? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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This program doesn't divert the resources. It creates a major new source of demand, which is answered by new a new supply in constructed units (more factories have to be built, of course and resources used...). By econimies of scale and incentives for new research this reduces the price of solar power world-wide.

So yeah, exactly. What's not to like?? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[ElSapo]

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ElSapo

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The biggest problems with solar and wind farms are economics, intermittent power, and the fact that no one wants them.

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I've been thinking about this a bit and thought that pumping water and then generating hydro power would be a good way to store energy when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. This process can be up to 85% efficient currently and I just discovered that here in Southern California there is a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant.

They pump water from one lake (Castaic) into a higher lake (Pyramid) at night and then generate power during the day when demand is higher.

Solar power could be added to the grid until it shaves off the peak demand and after that it could generate more power and as long as some was used to pump water into such a system it wouldn't cause the problem of too much power sometimes and not enough other times.

Castaic Dam wiki

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We're getting over my head here. I deal mostly with natural gas infrastructure and long-term forecasts, so while the specifics of renewable energy definitely play a part there I don't see it on an individual project basis.

Generally, most people don't consider hydro to be "renewable energy" because of the tremendous environmental impacts. But the pumped project you mention sounds different.

I don't mean to sound overly skeptical of renewable energy - without a doubt, it will play an increasing role in meeting the U.S. energy demands (and demands globally). It's just that debates that center on largely general ideas of "if we had X amount of X renewable resource, we wouldn't need Y amount of Z fossil fuel" are way too vauge.

The energy industry and markets are really, really complicated in my opinion - from fuel specifications to pipeline interconnects to regional power authorities, real shifts towards renewable power will be gradual and will require new policies, regulations and markets.

Ultimately, for large scale, wind is the most economic right now. Solar seems to function well for on-site generation, and net meering done at some places actually has customers -generating excess- power rather than being a net user, at least at certain times of day and year. Geothermal has been talked about, but right now is absurdly expensive. Clean(er) coal may well be the solution for the next several decades. Natural gas and oil and not going anywhere, no time soon and quite possibly ever.

But despite the huge roadblocks, innovation does continue. Small solar projects do make a difference, and eventually large projects do get permitted (though it takes an eternity). We're not going to "run out" of energy, that won't ever happen. But there will always be a need for new sources, conservation and concern.

At one point, nuclear power was supposed to make electricity "too cheap to meter." Most conventional wisdom will turn out to be wrong. Probably most of what I just typed will be wrong.