I have delivered to job sites east of Stockton. Over one hundred bedroom sized batteries to store millions upon millions of watts of power. The neighbors who moved way out to the countryside just love it.
You probably have a lifetime job seeing as they start to degrade almost immediately.I have delivered to job sites east of Stockton. Over one hundred bedroom sized batteries to store millions upon millions of watts of power. The neighbors who moved way out to the countryside just love it.
And that's the problem with letting ideology win over engineering and common sense. If you over-build a technology to the point that it displaces cleaner baseload supply, you are doing it wrong. The goal should be to displace peakers, not clean baseload.I guess now that sunny places can oversupply the grid during sunny periods with solar, the next step is to get some kind of storage system worked out. Nuclear isn't really a good solution alone, as it can't be ramped for daily peaks effectively, it is best for baseload power, but solar has eliminated the need for baseload during midday. Now nuclear can be used for storage systems to handle the peaks and store the baseload during the middays.
I wonder what a $2-3-4B pumped storage system would look like? Maybe do half the state?
To eliminate all fossil fuels, we still need storage for the daily peaks and valleys though, perhaps bio gas from wastewater treatment can handle some peaks as well? If we got some serious standards for reusability and recyclability of batteries, perhaps small distributed battery storage at renewable sites would work well too?And that's the problem with letting ideology win over engineering and common sense. If you over-build a technology to the point that it displaces cleaner baseload supply, you are doing it wrong. The goal should be to displace peakers, not clean baseload.
Solar hasn't eliminated the need for baseload, it's simply that over-supply of solar is being allowed to pointlessly displace baseload in some jurisdictions, and those jurisdictions also happen to generally have absolutely insane electricity prices and rolling blackouts/brownouts.
Furthermore, then you have the issue with winter. If you displace clean baseload during the summer, and that capacity is removed from the system, you are going to really have a fun time when it's -30C and solar CF is in the toilet.
Here's Ontario's solar profile for 2022 for example (note the different axis scales for solar and demand):
View attachment 174876
Here's wind, note the gaping chasms during the winter period where demand spikes and wind is AWOL:
View attachment 174877
And here's nuclear. Even in a year with TWO VBO's (both scheduled for low demand periods) and multiple units down for refurbishment, it tracks extremely well with demand:
View attachment 174878
To eliminate all fossil fuels, we still need storage for the daily peaks and valleys though, perhaps bio gas from wastewater treatment can handle some peaks as well? If we got some serious standards for reusability and recyclability of batteries, perhaps small distributed battery storage at renewable sites would work well too?
Your snide comment makes our exact point for us.Let's just go back to adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline and call it a day. Clearly reducing lead exposure has not increased the intelligence of the average person. /S/
I think in a place like California, its not an unrealistic goal for power generation. It has lots of renewables and add some nuclear and some significant storage and they are there. The climate, sunlight, lots of elevation near urban centres for pumped storage, and reasonably high public buy in for renewables has made it the spot in the US where it's probably easiest to do.This is the problem. People who actually say/write these things.
Hint: It's not going to happen. I assure you.
I agree with you. All I'm saying is that the electrical-industrial complex is not being controlled by any intelligent process. Maybe it's all the lead exposure after all...Your snide comment makes our exact point for us.
Lead was determined to cause issues and hence was phased out over time - and the government, scientists, and the automotive industry worked together to find a solution that would work - like alternate chemistry and hardened valve seats. Hence leaded fuel is no more, at least not for on highway vehicles. And no one at all misses it.
There is no such solution for the problem at hand, only fairy dust and graft.
That sounds like an easily solvable problem.I am intelligent enough to recognize a problem, not intelligent enough to offer a viable solution. I'd suggest nuclear power, but people that are smarter than me, know that solar and wind are much better.
Here in FL, FPL has taken steps to make the local powerlines more robust for hurricanes. Amazingly, we now have regular daily brown-outs. Often one leg only. Despite thinking the two are not related, they are. As the powerlines are now so high, the tops of the pine trees interfere with them. Whereas before, the pine tree tops were above the lines.
Yes, we need storage. I'm partial to PHES because it doesn't have the metals and short lifespan issue associated with most mainstream battery storage technologies (Lithium-based batteries).To eliminate all fossil fuels, we still need storage for the daily peaks and valleys though, perhaps bio gas from wastewater treatment can handle some peaks as well? If we got some serious standards for reusability and recyclability of batteries, perhaps small distributed battery storage at renewable sites would work well too?
Solar can be used to displace daytime air conditioning peaking, but wind tends to produce out of phase with demand, meaning that when there is peaking required, it's typically producing lower than average.But we *cannot* do this by switching to wind, hydro, and the various forms of solar power. They are better as peak load sources rather than baseload.
Good point.Solar can be used to displace daytime air conditioning peaking, but wind tends to produce out of phase with demand, meaning that when there is peaking required, it's typically producing lower than average.
There is no such solution for the problem at hand, only fairy dust and graft.
My exceptionally limited understanding of how power grids work is Nuclear is really only good for base loads. Perhaps if we had more nuclear then there would be more other stuff left for peak demand? Maybe others smarter than me can comment. Of course that would require the clown show in DC come up with a long term solution on how to manage the waste, which doesn't seem possible.I was guessing that nuclear power could probably do it as we have enough nuclear fuel for 1.2 Billion years of ever increasing demand, but again, folks a lot smarter than me say no.
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