The transition

[mschwett]

... and yet the cost per kwh of pv solar + battery backup drops by ninety percent every decade. It is already the cheapest form of electricity generation in history. And no imaginable technology will catch up with it for a very long time.

So I will never understand why people don't want cheaper electricity. I guess some people just trust the fossil fuel companies and think they are their friends.

they listen and read, without independent thought or analysis, media which has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. lies, partial truths, and exaggerations play into their identity politics and they genuinely believe the s*it they’re being shoveled tastes good and is nutritious.

 

[Chargeride]

It is already the cheapest form of electricity generation in history

Ah I see what you did,.. yes that convenient cherry picking is the industry and political norm.
At generation.... implementing in the grid we have makes it the most expensive and unreliable power production we have.

Because fossil is so cheap and reliable it becomes a political tool, wars fought, supply adjusted for international clout.
If wind and solar where anywhere near as good as fossil, wind turbines and solar panels would start wars and invasions.

Quite likely the supply of transformers,pylons and cabling will become the new oil.

 

[mschwett]

rea

Ah I see what you did,.. yes that convenient cherry picking is the industry and political norm.
At generation.... implementing in the grid we have makes it the most expensive and unreliable power production we have.

…

read what he said. solar PLUS battery backup.

the grid doesn’t give a s*it whether the electrons are pushed by a dynamo or the sun or a battery, it just cares when and how much.

california and texas have significant quantities of these plants, with the largest around a gigawatt plus enough storage to even out the “duck curve,” as we call it here.

 

[Chargeride]

I think you need to research it all a bit more, we need a completely new grid.,battery storage gives hours of backup

 

[mschwett]

I think you need to research it all a bit more, we need a completely new grid.,battery storage gives hours of backup

and i think you don’t quite understand the dynamics of energy supply and demand. you don’t need weeks of battery for a solar plant in a sunny place. you only need enough to store the excess daytime peak, which mostly gets used up in the evening as the sun goes down and people get home. evening loads are very low (nowhere near the +/- 4 hours of storage that large facilities have) and then the sun comes back up.

a good example is the e+s facility in california, 875mw peak solar and 3.3 gwh of storage. specifically built to improve not just peak power but grid resiliency.

california had very few renewables in 2000-2001. we had rolling blackouts and brownouts. since then the mix has shifted heavily towards renewables, the grid is much more reliable (still not perfect), there are far more EVs, and we’re all doing just fine. the transition is similar in many other places, and isn’t rocket science.

 

[stompandgo]

Ah I see what you did,.. yes that convenient cherry picking is the industry and political norm.
At generation.... implementing in the grid we have makes it the most expensive and unreliable power production we have.

Because fossil is so cheap and reliable it becomes a political tool, wars fought, supply adjusted for international clout.
If wind and solar where anywhere near as good as fossil, wind turbines and solar panels would start wars and invasions.

Quite likely the supply of transformers,pylons and cabling will become the new oil.

That, and the thing that man has fought over since the beginning of time, land. Governments have already circumvented zoning laws, paid off politicians, and taken privately owned land for the "greater good". With the current political climate in the western world, this will only escalate.

 

[Chargeride]

As usual, you are talking about electrical demand.
Which is 18% of energy use.
To go net zero all fossil needs to be replaced with electricity.
They endlessy blur this with headlines that are misleading by omission.

Solar makes no power for 70% of the year, wind for 40%.

To power the world by electricity using renewables would require utterly immense amounts of land, storage and interconnecting cables.

A whole new approach is required

 

[Mr. Coffee]

What people underestimate is how much money fossil fuel companies have invested in having very effective PR and think tanks that can be quoted in the media who support their position and spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about realistic alternatives. When we purchase their products they pour that money right back into the misinformation network that keeps their competition in check.

Also the modern media is bluntly very lazy and will print someone else's press release as an actual news story. So the line between PR and "News" is completely blurred and most news outlets won't tell you when their "story" is actually a press release or who put out the press release.

When you talk about "grid upgrades" to deploy renewables one other element of dishonesty is that the FUD-mongers lump in all grid upgrades, many of which will be needed with or without renewables (recall that much of the electric grid was built decades ago in a country that had fewer people and used less electricity), in order to make renewables look more expensive and more difficult to deploy successfully. Every year they delay renewables represents many billions of dollars in profits for them.

An emotionally unweighted analogy: Back in the early 1990s there was a controversy about whether the Internet (then more a theoretical thing to most people) could realistically be used on a large scale. A lot of the FUD revolved around how a packet switched network could not guarantee bandwidth for things like watching a video or a phone call, and therefore could never be reliable enough. Even though packet switched networks were far less expensive and far more reliable.

It seemed that none of the people making those arguments had ever tried to be on a conference call with more than about five people, because in the late 80s and early 90s we got bounced from those all the time. And cable TV glitched out on you all too frequently as well.

What happened was that bandwidth became so cheap and so widely available that it didn't really matter. Some weird and broken protocols were developed that supposedly helped packet switched networks "guarantee" bandwidth, but nobody ever used them on a significant scale and they became irrelevant. And yeah, Zoom calls glitch out all the time, just like conference calls on Centrex did in the 1990s. Except Zoom is probably far more secure. And I think a similar thing will happen with The Transition. Because we can afford to build insane amounts of redundancy into a system that uses widely distributed solar and batteries largely because those things are becoming so damned cheap and will certainly get cheaper, and because they have zero moving parts (well, outside of electrons) they require very little maintenance.

You can pretend but you can't fight the numbers. Like I've said, solar + batteries will cost about ten percent of what they do today in 2036. And about 1 percent of what they do today in 2046. And they are already cheaper than anything else. So outside of polar regions no foreseeable generation technology can realistically expect to compete with them.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

To power the world by electricity using renewables would require utterly immense amounts of land, storage and interconnecting cables.

Except you don't have to dedicate that land to generation and can still use it for other things.

A wind farm can be built on a farm. Estimates are that if you made all farms additionally be wind farms in the Untied States you'd generate 10x the amount electricity we currently use.

A solar plant also generates shade. If you made all parking lots in the Untied States have solar panels over them would represent 25 to 50 percent of total electricity usage. And keep our cars cooler on hot sunny days.

So the land use argument is another FUD argument because when you do the math the numbers actually work out very well.

 

[stompandgo]

As usual, you are talking about electrical demand.
Which is 18% of energy use.
To go net zero all fossil needs to be replaced with electricity.
They endlessy blur this with headlines that are misleading by omission.

Solar makes no power for 70% of the year, wind for 40%.

To power the world by electricity using renewables would require utterly immense amounts of land, storage and interconnecting cables.

A whole new approach is required

The "whole new approach" has been here for a while. Subsidize solar to homeowners that have capability to make use of it, and then charge every ratepayer for the privilege of giving them a break on their bill. This is why I pay some of the highest electric rates in the country. My transmission fees dwarf my usage. Things are going back to the serfs and the kings.

 

[mschwett]

As usual, you are talking about electrical demand.
Which is 18% of energy use.
To go net zero all fossil needs to be replaced with electricity.
They endlessy blur this with headlines that are misleading by omission.

Solar makes no power for 70% of the year, wind for 40%.

To power the world by electricity using renewables would require utterly immense amounts of land, storage and interconnecting cables.

A whole new approach is required

but you referred - specifically - to the grid. at this point you’re just arguing with anything you can to back up your position that fossil fuels are the future.

california and texas comprise 70 million people across diverse landscapes, climate zones, and politics, and generate around 35% of their electricity (no, this doesn’t include jet aircraft or semis or container ships) from renewables. the transition is going to take decades but it is well underway.

over a third of new cars in the bay area are fully electric. not hybrid. not PHEV or LEV of BHEV or whatever. battery electric.

 

[Roamers]

a good example is the e+s facility in california, 875mw peak solar and 3.3 gwh of storage. specifically built to improve not just peak power but grid resiliency

And create one of the highest cost of residential electricity in the country.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

And also, if you just put rooftop solar on all homes that could manage it, you'd generate around 40 percent of the current electricity we consume here.

That ain't nothing, to be sure.

And because a lot of that electricity would be consumed by those homes, you wouldn't need the "grid upgrades" that people prattle on about. So win-win.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

And create one of the highest cost of residential electricity in the country.

Except much of those high electricity rates are due to the enormous costs of wildfire mitigation. Which are exacerbated by fossil fuels wrecking the climate.

Also another big hit is for grid upgrades since CAs power grid was architected and substantially built in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1930 there were 5.6 million people in California, and the 2020 census put that number almost 40 million. So there is a bit of work to be done there.

 

[mschwett]

And create one of the highest cost of residential electricity in the country.

which has a lot to do with wildfires, decommissioning nuclear, the environmental impact of hydro, and environmental policies around fossil fuels. and very little to do with the cost of solar or wind.

and yet, it still costs me less to drive our EV than a comparable gas vehicle, and our electric bill is about $40/person for a family of four INCLUDING charging.

… and what about my other example, of Texas? soaring renewable ratios AND cheap electricity. make it make sense.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

This whole tread should be knocked on the head at this point it so full of Fossil fuel propaganda and cimate disinformation. It's incredible, and on an ebike forum

Is it Facebook breeding all this bullshit? I'm not on facebook other then checking the bike marketplaces and I'm not on twitter. Is this where all the disinformation is coming from? Same with all that sea of anti vax shite during covid. Anyway here's some facts about recent energy use in UK.

Facts are easily verified. Not as easy as lapping up hearsay from yer mate down the pub or [email protected], it does take a bit of looking up reliable scientific sources, in this case Imperial College London And Carbon Brief, both of which are renowned for facts, not PR paid crap.

How the Grid Compares

• Generation Share: Renewables supplied a record 47% of UK electricity, significantly outpacing gas (28%) and nuclear (11%).
• Emissions Reduction: The UK's reliance on fossil fuels hit a record low, and the final coal plants were officially phased out.
• Reliability and Records: The grid routinely sets new benchmarks for zero-carbon operations. For example, the transmission system achieved 97.7% zero-carbon power for half-hour periods and has successfully run on 100% clean power (when accounting for exports) for stretches lasting up to 87 hours. (Carbon Brief)

Here's a full article about 'myth busting' from LSE & Imperial College goes into pros cons benefits and problems:

"How reliable is a renewables-dominated electricity system in comparison to one based on fossil fuels?​

How reliable is a renewables-dominated electricity system in comparison to one based on fossil fuels? | Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment | Imperial College London

www.imperial.ac.uk

 

[Chargeride]

I understand the lure of 'cheapest at generation'

But holding your breath is cheaper than scuba gear.

An Oxford calculation estimated to power the UK by wind alone would require the worlds turbine fleet, every lake converted to hydro storage and the entire land criss crossed
with hundreds of thousands of miles of pylons and cable to share the wind power generation.

Fossil actually is stored solar power, oil has a 100X the energy density of lithium batteries.

Whatever you pay for energy is what they think you can pay, if they made it from grass, they would tax grass.

 

[Chargeride]

This whole tread should be knocked on the head at this point it so full of Fossil fuel propaganda and cimate disinformation. It's incredible, and on an ebike forum

Is it Facebook breeding all this bullshit? I'm not on facebook other then checking the bike marketplaces and I'm not on twitter. Is this where all the disinformation is coming from? Same with all that sea of anti vax shite during covid. Anyway here's some facts about recent energy use in UK.

Facts are easily verified. Not as easy as lapping up hearsay from yer mate down the pub or [email protected], it does take a bit of looking up reliable scientific sources, in this case Imperial College London And Carbon Brief, both of which are renowned for facts, not PR paid crap.

View attachment 211204
How the Grid Compares

• Generation Share: Renewables supplied a record 47% of UK electricity, significantly outpacing gas (28%) and nuclear (11%).
• Emissions Reduction: The UK's reliance on fossil fuels hit a record low, and the final coal plants were officially phased out.
• Reliability and Records: The grid routinely sets new benchmarks for zero-carbon operations. For example, the transmission system achieved 97.7% zero-carbon power for half-hour periods and has successfully run on 100% clean power (when accounting for exports) for stretches lasting up to 87 hours. (Carbon Brief)

Here's a full article about 'myth busting' from LSE & Imperial College goes into pros cons benefits and problems:

"How reliable is a renewables-dominated electricity system in comparison to one based on fossil fuels?​

How reliable is a renewables-dominated electricity system in comparison to one based on fossil fuels? | Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment | Imperial College London

www.imperial.ac.uk

When factoring in petrol and diesel for vehicles alongside gas for heating, fossil fuels still meet approximately three-quarters (75%) of total UK energy use

If you add in biomass burning at Dax its 80%

Those are the facts, if facts are propaganda, then welcome to politics.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

I understand the lure of 'cheapest at generation'

But holding your breath is cheaper than scuba gear.

An Oxford calculation estimated to power the UK by wind alone would require the worlds turbine fleet, every lake converted to hydro storage and the entire land criss crossed
with hundreds of thousands of miles of pylons and cable to share the wind power generation.

Fossil actually is stored solar power, oil has a 100X the energy density of lithium batteries.

Whatever you pay for energy is what they think you can pay, if they made it from grass, they would tax grass.

Heres another Oxford Uni major calculation called:

Decarbonising the energy system by 2050 could save trillions - Oxford study​

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-09-14-decarbonising-energy-system-2050-could-save-trillions-oxford-study

 

[Rás Cnoic]

When factoring in petrol and diesel for vehicles alongside gas for heating, fossil fuels still meet approximately three-quarters (75%) of total UK energy use

If you add in biomass burning at Dax its 80%

Those are the facts, if facts are propaganda, then welcome to politics.

Ha now you're changing the goalposts. The vehicles numbers change month on month, you have to factor in the movement over ten, 15 years and it's all moving one way.

When factoring in petrol and diesel for vehicles alongside gas for heating,

Slaps head - thats exactly why EVs are making such a difference! Get petrol and diesel down to Norwegian numbers and the numbers overall change deramatically. Home heating is already moving away from gas but our shitty housing standards are stuck in the 1950s (as demonstrated by Guy Martin's house energy C4 program)- this is why it's called transition, to move between techs at a pace that is not disruptive or has a fall out economically and unfortunately, politically.

Why are you a climate denier Charge? Is it too much Facebook? I don't get the point of it.