How about solar powered pumped storage facilities, then there would be something for everyone to like.
Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here
- Thread starter CatDaddy4daWin
- Start date
How about solar powered pumped storage facilities, then there would be something for everyone to like.
I like that idea but would it be feasible in places where the terrain is flat? Of course there is the compressed air idea that could work anywhere I suppose.
Tell me this Bill, why couldn't excess capacity be used to power electrolysis processes to collect hydrogen gas to fuel the peakers when they come on line? Excess wind power at night used to produce the fuel for the generators by day?
Last edited:
I don't know much or anything about the process you're speaking of, or how much electricity would be required. Having said that, and assuming you're correct I don't see why it couldn't be used in that capacity.
The problem with wind is its either feast or famine. Let's say we do what you're proposing in using excess wind to power the electrolysis process. We then use the hydrogen to make power during the day. What happens when we get to July and August? The wind isn't blowing, so no excess power, so now we've got high loads with no wind, and to compound it we now are also running low on hydrogen because we can't replenish our supply, and we depend on it for load? Who gets electricity and who doesn't?
You're right that higher elevations are needed close to river systems for pumped storage.
Compressed air technology is at the point where about 70% of the electricity used to compress the air can be recovered. That is pretty good.
There's an environmental cost to wind turbines also. Just ask any flock of birds that navigate through a wind farm like the one in northern central Iowa off the interstate
Well storing hydrogen would be very similar to storing natural gas I would assume. I also installed a system where hydrogen was mixed with propane to give it the same btu level of natural gas. That may or may not be a desirable variable in the energy equation.
So Bill you've made me think more about nuclear reactors and the time I spent refueling the Dresden station. I recalled soldering the control conductors to the control rods. The little that I remembered was the control rods would be withdrawn from their shut-down non-reactive position exposing the fuel rods and thereby starting the reaction. That is how the intensity of that reaction was controlled, not exactly a two-bit function but somewhat a ramped system. I also realize that ramping the reactor up and down does not fully address all the factors of spinning the turbine that turns the generator, but that is just too much for me to delve into.
I then remembered that France is probably the most advanced nation when it comes to Nuclear power generation since 75% of their power is generated by nuclear plants. Surely they have to deal with load-following like every other nation. So I dug a bit to better understand this subject and found the article below that deals with this very topic. I scan through the data a bit got lost and then did what people like myself do, I read the executive summary. Thankfully it is at the beginning. Maybe this will interest you as it appears there are designs that better address the issues you've raised. It appears the newer reactors are much better at operating at less than peak load.
https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp.pdf
I then remembered that France is probably the most advanced nation when it comes to Nuclear power generation since 75% of their power is generated by nuclear plants. Surely they have to deal with load-following like every other nation. So I dug a bit to better understand this subject and found the article below that deals with this very topic. I scan through the data a bit got lost and then did what people like myself do, I read the executive summary. Thankfully it is at the beginning. Maybe this will interest you as it appears there are designs that better address the issues you've raised. It appears the newer reactors are much better at operating at less than peak load.
https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp.pdf
I think we can all agree that the subsequent effects of natural variations in climate and localized anomalies in temperatures throughout the world, including localized melting of ice and localized rise in sea water, have been exaggerated and demonized for the purpose of increased governmental control of the populace.
As Obama once said, " pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! "
As Obama once said, " pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! "
Speaking for myself I would like to see leaders---mostly politicians in this country start being truthful about the subject. These are some really complicated issues that are actually being addressed by some, but like a bad football team when all the players don't buy-in, in this case, about this issue, losing will have far reaching affects beyond losing a game. I was told a long time ago and I believe it to be true---"speaking to an oilman is like speaking to the devil."
I should've made my point clearer, they can be lowered it's just extremely hard on Units, and this includes coal units that operate under super critical steam to fluctuate loads.
The more you fluctuate temp and pressure the more likely it is for something to fail. There has been talk of pocket Nuclear plants, I'm not sure how far along that is.
Maintaining the grid is essentially buying time everyday, because the power created is used immediately. It must be available immediately and on demand, thats why solar and wind run into problems because you can't depend on it being there day in and day out.
Yup, amazing how much of the population doesnt realize this, that think there are some giant batteries somewhere storing energy for later use. If only that were true!
BTW the only climate change nightmare I've experienced is my entire normally beautiful month of May here in Kentucky being a miserable soggy mess every touching day. damn you global warming!!!!1!3!
Coal has already been passed by natural gas as our primary source of electrical generation. More and more coal fired plants are being converted to cleaner burning natural gas in order to comply with the EPA. The more realistic question is will coal be used at all in fifty years for power generation in this country.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/lo...cle_4077bac1-bc70-5659-a834-57c6cb23488a.html
Last edited:
Here is another interesting article:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/16/3778542/grid-70-times-renewables-natural-gas/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/16/3778542/grid-70-times-renewables-natural-gas/
Here is an article about breakthrough technologies from MIT I received today in an e-mail. It is rather boring stuff but gives a perspective about where the technology is regarding mass production and efficiency of PV's in North America. This is a vertically structured company that will produce and then install the PV system in residential areas where some can even sell excess power back to the grid in some states. The once promising technology that lagged in acceptance has been incrementally inching towards broad viability. This new manufacturer is now posed to compete with China for market share. Like the development of the flat screen TV, the article illustrates how mass production and demand will be the forces driving down costs that could make PV generated power a staple of life in the near future.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600770/10-breakthrough-technologies-2016-solarcitys-gigafactory/
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600770/10-breakthrough-technologies-2016-solarcitys-gigafactory/
"... the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sharer of Al Gore’s Nobel Prize. While insisting that climate models have “improved steadily,” the group abandons its central forecast of three degrees Celsius of warming from a doubling of atmospheric carbon-dioxide and offers no central forecast at all.
Where it once said warming of less than 1.5 C would be “very unlikely,” now it says warming of less than 1 C would be “extremely unlikely.”
With these adjustments, even a politicized, orthodoxy-prone IPCC recognizes an emerging shake-up in climate science. After 200 years of prolific coal burning, after 30 years of increasingly rigorous temperature measurement, data from the actual atmosphere no longer are being treated as an inconvenience by climate modelers. Now these real-world data are driving new estimates of climate sensitivity—and, lo, these estimates suggest a net impact at the very low end of previous standard forecasts."
http://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-is-big-tobacco-tell-me-another-1463526311
Best part of the article: "We also know that renewable power — both new wind and solar — is now winning bids for new generation around the world without subsidies. Some bids are coming in at under four cents per kilowatt hour!"
Great, so let's stop the subsidies wasteful spending.
Hurricanes are killing us with all the warmer seas water.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...ches-record-127-months-major-hurricane-hit-us
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...ches-record-127-months-major-hurricane-hit-us
The line chart on this site is erroneous compared to official data from NOAA, it makes it seem as if there has been a reduction in hurricane activity in the last decade. In actuality if you go back to the mid 19th century there doesn't seem to be any long term trend at all in any one direction. We do know that ocean temps are rising and that warming water contributes to hurricane formation and intensity but other factors contribute also including humidity, vertical wind gradient, and the el nino/la nina phenomena.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html
I looked for data on pacific Typhones but couldn't find any.