General Energy Topic: Comparitive Energy Output

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From the article:

Quote:
Energy Source average cf

Coal 65%
Natural gas 50%
Nuclear 90%
Wind 30%
Solar PV 20%
Solar thermal 24%
Hydro 40%
Geothermal 70%


cf is Capacity Factor and is a percentage of the amount of energy produced over the maximum that a given powerplant could produce in a year at rated capacity. Wind and solar are the darlings of the enviroweenie set and are at the bottom. "Sure you can have electric power, if the wind blows and the sun shines."
 
IMO: Keep the hydros, scale up solar for rooftops and unusable land as batteries get better, gradually replace all fossil fuel plants with nuclear, and stop building anything else.
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
From the article:

Quote:
Energy Source average cf

Coal 65%
Natural gas 50%
Nuclear 90%
Wind 30%
Solar PV 20%
Solar thermal 24%
Hydro 40%
Geothermal 70%


cf is Capacity Factor and is a percentage of the amount of energy produced over the maximum that a given powerplant could produce in a year at rated capacity. Wind and solar are the darlings of the enviroweenie set and are at the bottom. "Sure you can have electric power, if the wind blows and the sun shines."


This is not completely true in the sense that a low capacity factor doesn't inherently mean that the technology is bad. It just means you need to properly size or design the system for the energy output that you desire. In other words the name plate capacity of the systems is somewhat meaningless and you have to use the actual output numbers.
 
Originally Posted By: Nate1979
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
From the article:

Quote:
Energy Source average cf

Coal 65%
Natural gas 50%
Nuclear 90%
Wind 30%
Solar PV 20%
Solar thermal 24%
Hydro 40%
Geothermal 70%


cf is Capacity Factor and is a percentage of the amount of energy produced over the maximum that a given powerplant could produce in a year at rated capacity. Wind and solar are the darlings of the enviroweenie set and are at the bottom. "Sure you can have electric power, if the wind blows and the sun shines."


This is not completely true in the sense that a low capacity factor doesn't inherently mean that the technology is bad. It just means you need to properly size or design the system for the energy output that you desire. In other words the name plate capacity of the systems is somewhat meaningless and you have to use the actual output numbers.


A lower capacity factor makes a given type of powerplant more expensive. For example; to get the same energy output from a photovoltaic solar plant, you have to install 4.5 times the generating capacity of a nuclear plant.
 
How'd I miss this thread ???

Capacity factor is the GWHr produced by a plant over the course of a year (365 days), divided by the number of GWHr available in a year...a regular year is 8760 hours.

This is where the table above reflects the unreality of the green movement.

There's dispatchable capacity, which is the capacity that a system controller can call upon to meet system needs, and a marketter can bid in to sell electricity for a profit.

There harvestable energy, which is the solar wind, tidal energy, that the systems take from the environment, and contribute to the grid, with nobody being able to press a button and ramp it up/down...it's non dispatchable...it's there when it's there, and not there when it's not.

The former can have a capacity factor of 100% (minus breakdown), the latter can have a capacity factor of what's available in the environment (minus breakdown).

Nate1979, that means that nameplate to namplate, you need to install at least 3 times an much wind, on average and in actuality much more than coal, nukes, hydro and gas...

Looking at the above table, the Coal, Nukes, Gas, and to a pretty great extent geothermal have a CF less than (100%-breakdown), simply because they are dispatchable generation, being called upon by, and marketted into a market...they could all be run flat out at 95%CF (100%-breakdown) if need be.

Europe is feeling the sting from wind, as they have been building their farms on 30% CF,and getting mid 20s...people have been talking up the wind, getting funding, and underdelivering....they need to put in 4 times nameplate, and still make an allowance for no wind days.

NATE1979, and you have to allow for non wind days in the system...or start cutting off the customers...or having the old standbys there, available at a few minutes notice to prop up wind, and carry solar through the night.

turtlevette is part right, hydro pumped storage is great.

Need an order of magnitude more solar and wind than the nameplates, generating as and when they can pumping water up hill, to dams that don't exist yet and would never get approvals if they were proposed, and enough hydro to replace the current baseload...and still need some massive machines with huge intertias, governors, and a governing margin running full time to control the frequency of said system.

Thermal isn't going away (it may, and should well be nukes), but it's needed to be there.

And the CF table needs to be read with what the plant can produce 24/7 should it be needed in mind.
 
Any system needing massive tax breaks to survive in the market just transfers the excess cost to the middle class taxpayer. That's "OK" though, there's always more money to extort.
 
Originally Posted By: Nate1979
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
From the article:

Quote:
Energy Source average cf

Coal 65%
Natural gas 50%
Nuclear 90%
Wind 30%
Solar PV 20%
Solar thermal 24%
Hydro 40%
Geothermal 70%


cf is Capacity Factor and is a percentage of the amount of energy produced over the maximum that a given powerplant could produce in a year at rated capacity. Wind and solar are the darlings of the enviroweenie set and are at the bottom. "Sure you can have electric power, if the wind blows and the sun shines."


This is not completely true in the sense that a low capacity factor doesn't inherently mean that the technology is bad. It just means you need to properly size or design the system for the energy output that you desire. In other words the name plate capacity of the systems is somewhat meaningless and you have to use the actual output numbers.
And hope the green weenie class doesn't find fault with it....windmmlls being instruments of the devil now, hereabouts.
 
Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Any system needing massive tax breaks to survive in the market just transfers the excess cost to the middle class taxpayer. That's "OK" though, there's always more money to extort.

Not to get political, but I think we wear rose tinted glasses when we look at the past and have false memory syndrome about how few tax breaks and subsidies existed in the past. A lot of what we have that's currently surviving in the market needed an awful lot of propping up in the early days.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
How'd I miss this thread ???

Capacity factor is the GWHr produced by a plant over the course of a year (365 days), divided by the number of GWHr available in a year...a regular year is 8760 hours.

This is where the table above reflects the unreality of the green movement.

There's dispatchable capacity, which is the capacity that a system controller can call upon to meet system needs, and a marketter can bid in to sell electricity for a profit.

There harvestable energy, which is the solar wind, tidal energy, that the systems take from the environment, and contribute to the grid, with nobody being able to press a button and ramp it up/down...it's non dispatchable...it's there when it's there, and not there when it's not.

The former can have a capacity factor of 100% (minus breakdown), the latter can have a capacity factor of what's available in the environment (minus breakdown).

Nate1979, that means that nameplate to namplate, you need to install at least 3 times an much wind, on average and in actuality much more than coal, nukes, hydro and gas...

Looking at the above table, the Coal, Nukes, Gas, and to a pretty great extent geothermal have a CF less than (100%-breakdown), simply because they are dispatchable generation, being called upon by, and marketted into a market...they could all be run flat out at 95%CF (100%-breakdown) if need be.

Europe is feeling the sting from wind, as they have been building their farms on 30% CF,and getting mid 20s...people have been talking up the wind, getting funding, and underdelivering....they need to put in 4 times nameplate, and still make an allowance for no wind days.

NATE1979, and you have to allow for non wind days in the system...or start cutting off the customers...or having the old standbys there, available at a few minutes notice to prop up wind, and carry solar through the night.

turtlevette is part right, hydro pumped storage is great.

Need an order of magnitude more solar and wind than the nameplates, generating as and when they can pumping water up hill, to dams that don't exist yet and would never get approvals if they were proposed, and enough hydro to replace the current baseload...and still need some massive machines with huge intertias, governors, and a governing margin running full time to control the frequency of said system.

Thermal isn't going away (it may, and should well be nukes), but it's needed to be there.

And the CF table needs to be read with what the plant can produce 24/7 should it be needed in mind.


My point was that there is nothing new here. I have sat through many technical reviews of PV technology as part of my job. This type of comparison is always taken into account when you review serious cost per watt comparisons (or grid parity).

Cost per watt is cost per watt. If I want so much power within a year I have to build certain size plants to output that much power. Those plants have a CAPEX and OPEX.

So, this type of "comparison" of yearly energy output is a way to negatively put in light those technologies whose output is not consistent.

The error here is people who compare directly nameplate capacity of one plant vs another plant. This is the fault of the ignorant person doing the comparison not the technology because the people who actually do this for a living this is nothing new.
 
Originally Posted By: Nate1979
My point was that there is nothing new here. I have sat through many technical reviews of PV technology as part of my job. This type of comparison is always taken into account when you review serious cost per watt comparisons (or grid parity).

Cost per watt is cost per watt. If I want so much power within a year I have to build certain size plants to output that much power. Those plants have a CAPEX and OPEX.

So, this type of "comparison" of yearly energy output is a way to negatively put in light those technologies whose output is not consistent.

The error here is people who compare directly nameplate capacity of one plant vs another plant. This is the fault of the ignorant person doing the comparison not the technology because the people who actually do this for a living this is nothing new.


Problem with PV is that all of the watts aren't dispatchable when needed.

They are all there when the sun says that they are there.

You need 24KWHr over a single 24 hour period, you have to install 4 or 5 KW, and find a battery to hold 15-20 of them...that's a cost per watt comparison, or you learn to do all your living,cooking, washing and TV/Internet while the sun is shining.

Or conversely, save it up for that windy day.
 
Originally Posted By: Nate1979
The error here is people who compare directly nameplate capacity of one plant vs another plant. This is the fault of the ignorant person doing the comparison not the technology because the people who actually do this for a living this is nothing new.


So you are saying that a 1KW (measured electrical output) panel should only be labelled at 300W to give it 100% capacity factor over a day...

I'm cool with that.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
They are all there when the sun says that they are there.


Or conversely, save it up for that windy day.



Still worth doing. Especially since they're non polluting and the input is free.
 
Originally Posted By: Nate1979

... because the people who actually do this for a living this is nothing new.


Absolutely ... it's just normal engineering. That article does nothing more than educate the public on what capacity factor is.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: Shannow
They are all there when the sun says that they are there.


Or conversely, save it up for that windy day.



Still worth doing. Especially since they're non polluting and the input is free.


I'm not quite sure that the Earth was created with pre-packaged solar cells ready to be installed...they will have pollution in their manufacture, and embodied energy in their construction, and waste streams when they all start to fail and need replacement some time down the future.

Don't get nothing for nothing, even free energy.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: Nate1979
The error here is people who compare directly nameplate capacity of one plant vs another plant. This is the fault of the ignorant person doing the comparison not the technology because the people who actually do this for a living this is nothing new.


So you are saying that a 1KW (measured electrical output) panel should only be labelled at 300W to give it 100% capacity factor over a day...

I'm cool with that.


Kind of. More like when doing an installation you should know how that particular panel (specific to the PV technology being installed) will perform in the specific installation location.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow

I'm not quite sure that the Earth was created with pre-packaged solar cells ready to be installed...they will have pollution in their manufacture, and embodied energy in their construction, and waste streams when they all start to fail and need replacement some time down the future.

Don't get nothing for nothing, even free energy.


You come up with some doozies once in a while. I'll put up solar and wind per MW capacity to your coal generator. Coal is terribly wasteful and polluting. Something like 15% of the gross output is needed for auxiliaries. Massive electric motors on the order of 10,000 hp for FD and ID fans, a half dozen 600hp coal crusher motors, massive cooling tower pumps, condensate, boiler feedwater. A 12 story building of massive steel and 1000s of millions of tons of coal ash that will sit somewhere for forever and pollute groundwater. Trillions of tons of sulphur, ash, and various heavy metals injected into the atmosphere. Then what do you do with the small city of steel when it is done after its 40 year design life?

Is the energy input to solar and wind free? yes or no

Please.....just please.
 
No free lunch anywhere.

Simply put, (in your words), solar does not work yet. Without ridiculous amounts of gummint money, most of which will go to cronies who helped elect folks, most alternative energy sources are simply not practical. Yet. Perhaps a breakthrough will happen soon?

About time we quit mindlessly repeating dogma and just discuss realities. or you can just tell me what I'm thinking as you have said in the past. Imagining you are the smartest person in the room is not necessarily truthful...
 
turtlevette,
in turtletopia, you have miraculous lubricants that have MOFTs that are not related to viscosity for starters.

Yes, the sun shines for free.

Do you admit in return that these panels require a huge energy input in the first instance ?

Fair's fair...UK reckons that they don't break even in energy output/input for 1/4 decade.

And to BE fair, solar/wind need some sort of storage, or the consumer only gets light, heat and TV when they are available...what's the environmental cost of batteries ??? lead smelters, peak lithium...and try building enough hydro storage to keep the greenies happy, while the greenies are busy standing in their way.

You must have worked at some junk plants for 15% aux energy...really.

And surely that vast experience gives you a handle on how many square metres, at 20% efficiency, and 250KWhr per square metre embodied energy, at 30% capacity factor is needed to make 700MW of thermal redundant.

http://www.ivanpahsolar.com/about

3,500 acres to make half of 700MW ... 30% of the time.

(the small city of steel is recycled into cars and beercans)
 
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