Green energy scam - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 06:26:51 pm
content: https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE

author: Masa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 10:50:33 pm
content: Looks like the document maker is somewhat badly uninformed about many basic things which is not a surprise considering he is an environmentalist.For example proposing batteries as the first energy storage method; batteries are probably the least sensible considering the effects of their production and batteries are quite expensive as well.Wind and solar works quite well together with hydro power. Hydro power is quickly adjustable. When you have a lot of wind and solar available, the hydro plants are tuned down, their dams work as an energy storage. When there is little wind or solar available and energy is needed, water is ran trough the hydro power plants. One problem with this is that there is quite limited amount of places where you can build a hydro power plant. Well another solution to this, if there is a place with enough elevation differences, is pumped storage. Water is pumped to the upper reservoir when there is production and ran down through hydro power plant when there is more consumption.For some reason he also didn't represent the numbers, how much energy does production of solar panels or wind turbines use and how much they produce during their lifetime. Probably because the numbers would have made his argument false.It is true that wind, solar and hydro alone are not going to solve the current demand, but they have the potential to help quite a bit. Probably something like nuclear will be needed as base power.It is also good to notice that there is already countries for example here in Northern Europe, that are about ~80-90% fossil free in electricity production which means it's not totally impossible.Of course it is a lot easier in a country with lower population density and suitable geography for hydro. Big countries with a lot of population and high consumption will be a lot more difficult.I think the opinion that technology can't solve these problems is too pessimistic. Maybe it can't solve it all, but there is still many things just around the corner with a lot of potential; for example biotechnology. If even remotely the same what has been done with electronics in the past 50 years, can be done in biotechnology, it may provide a lot of totally new kind of solutions to these problems. Or if they would finally manage to get forward in the realization of fusion power.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 10:54:46 pm
content: I'm not going to watch it.Only biomass energy is a scam (it's useful in tiny niches, but at the scale it's used now we're just burning up forests and depleting soils at completely unsustainable rates). Pretty much everything else at modern standards is already way positive on how much fossil fuel it saves over lifetime, even electric cars. Does it stop all unsustainable use of resources? No. Does anything short of giving up first world living standards? No and Moore isn't going to give it up either.If he just concentrated on biomass and the population problem, he'd contribute something useful, now he just buries any useful message under a ton of shit.

author: Masa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 10:59:12 pm
content: If biomass is properly implemented, it is not really a scam. But problem with biomass currently is that it's potential is way too low. It may go as tiny bit of extra energy in some use cases, but it's not going to solve the big problem in its current form.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 11:08:25 pm
content: Quote from: Masa on April 26, 2020, 10:59:12 pmFortunately there are several companies which already have industrial scale plants up & running to turn agricultural waste into fuel (3rd generation bio fuels). Their problem is the low oil price and cheap palm oil. Palm oil will be banned but the mandates to mix in at least a certain percentage of bio-fuel to regular fuels will remain and make the 3rd generation bio-fuels worth while. Since everyone has to eat but we only eat a small part of most plants there is a huge amount of organic material available; enough to replace a significant portion of fossil fuels used for transportation. One of the things which is often overlooked is that bio-fuels already play a very large role in reducing CO2 emissions. Bio-fuels just need improving the source materials; this isn't easy but it is not new technology either.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 11:16:34 pm
content: Quote from: Masa on April 26, 2020, 10:59:12 pmYou lose way too many nutrients burning wood. Oil and sugar ... then I guess, it's just carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Just don't burn the rest, that has go back in the ground. Agriculture is bad enough for soil depletion, we can afford to fix that with fossil resources for food. For wood based electricity generation we can not.Even burning agricultural waste is a bad idea, peak phosphorus isn't far away. If plants can't pull it out of the air, then don't put it there.QuoteLong term yes, short term our countries have a lot of forests to burn to meet their international obligations for treaties they signed.Is it unsustainable? Yes. Is it counterproductive? Yes. Is it insane? Yes. Is the EU doing it? Yes.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 11:47:34 pm
content: Quote from: Masa on April 26, 2020, 10:50:33 pmYes but actually no: Norway produces 99% of its electrical energy via renewable ressources, but wind and biomass are comically low: 1.4% and 0.3%, 97% of the renewable energy comes from hydroelectric plants (numbers are from 2016). I wouldn't use a country that just so happens to have the "get 100% renewable for free" joker as an example of what can be done.If you want a more realistic example what can be done you should look at germany: In 2020 56% of the electric energy came from renewable sources, if we account for the reduced energy demand thanks to corona we are probably looking at a 50:50 distribution of fossil vs renewable with 35% of the energy coming from wind turbines and 8% respectively for biomass and solar.Btw, biomass is even less "green" here in germany: Due to bio-waste being used as the fuel source there is a crapton of plastic packaging (mostly from wrapped vegetables that were never sold) inside the reactor that is partly broken up/degraded when the biomass is composted and that gets dumped onto the fields as "organic" fertilizer, introducing a lot of microplastic into the food chain... And don't get me started with the wind turbine situation, if you want a environmentally friendly solution you shouldn't look at it too hard.Sources:https://www.worldometers.info/electricity/https://www.energy-charts.de/energy_pie.htm

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 12:03:30 am
content: Quote from: Masa on April 26, 2020, 10:50:33 pmExperience in Australia tells that wind works very well with batteries. Batteries paying off in less than two years. One of the largest advantages over fast response power stations is way faster response and relatively low price to build. Way cheaper to build and maintain than fast response hydro.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-28/two-years-on-musk-s-big-battery-bet-is-paying-off-in-australiaEDIT: That 100MW / 129MWh battery did cost Neoen $66 million to install.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 12:21:35 am
content: Quote from: wraper on April 27, 2020, 12:03:30 amI have a feeling this is more due to arbitrage opportunities unique to Australia, their grid seems to have issues. Remember the insane prices generating companies could demand during the partial blackout?If that happens once or twice and you can sell everything you stored you're already in the money ... regardless of wind.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 12:25:22 am
content: Quote from: wraper on April 27, 2020, 12:03:30 amYou have to be really careful and look at & compare local electricity prices & transport costs in order to say batteries are worthwhile or not. It may not work out that well in other places and (in the long run) there might be more cost effective alternatives like converting excess electricity into hydrogen.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 12:45:48 am
content: Quote from: Marco on April 26, 2020, 10:54:46 pmTake some Australian examples of "green" biomass:We promise we were going to burn this material anyway, so if we burn it in a boiler and scrub the exhaust gas then you should grant us a renewable (its biomass) and green (we reduced emissions) certificates/rights to trade/sell.Greenwashing at its best.Quote from: wraper on April 27, 2020, 12:03:30 amTo put some specifics into that, the only thing batteries are able to do better is the very short term fluctuations. They do get paid for this service:https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-battery-earns-another-4m-from-fcas-in-fourth-quarter-65127/But the demand for that short term power is limited and only a small part of the income for batteries (it could be provided by the existing capacitor storage in solar inverters for instance). To make a proper comparison you would need to look at full lifecycle costs which need predictions and can be very open to biases by the person doing the analysis. Everything I've seen still has hydro (pumped or not) as the cheapest energy storage to balance renewable generation, but it has a longer service life so higher upfront costs.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 01:06:06 am
content: Quote from: Marco on April 27, 2020, 12:21:35 amThe same highly variable market pricing is what makes hydro so profitable, you can see live pricing and generation data here:https://opennem.org.au/energy/nsw1/Historically the lowest electricity prices were overnight, but with the uptake of solar there are now negative/suppressed prices in the middle of mild sunny days. The above service plots pricing against generation types and shows it very clearly. If you want to see the market hitting its pricing cap:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/residents-asked-to-switch-off-appliances-between-1630-1830-today-due-to-heat/msg1133360/#msg1133360That happens on days when its very hot across all of the national grid at the same time, almost entirely air-conditioning demand.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 01:14:24 am
content: Suburbs in very hot places are really the perfect use case for residential solar.

author: Masa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 10:45:41 am
content: Quote from: jogri on April 26, 2020, 11:47:34 pmI was actually thinking also about Sweden and Finland. Sweden has ~12% wind.Both Norway and Germany compared like this are somewhat bad examples. Norway considered alone is bad example, because of its rather unique geography, that others cannot match.Germany is bad example because they decided to close their nuclear power plants.The important thing to notice is that wind and hydro power go well together. This means that if you have a lot of hydro power available, you can easily build a lot of wind power as well. So the amount of hydro power sets the limit for wind power as well if you want to avoid fossils.Possibly in Europe we should also consider this on a higher than national level, if we can build good connections that link grids of different countries together.For example maybe Norway could build pumped storage and sell usage of that to help balance grid in Germany.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 12:42:41 pm
content: Well, the problem is that the landscapes required for wind and hydro are basically mutually exclusive... Combine that with the fact the hydro plants require a lot of space and are rather damaging to the environment (pump-storage plants) and they suddenly don't sound like a great solution for everyone. They are a good solution for countries that have lots of space and can accomodate both wind and hydro plants, but that's it (if we exclude their use as energy storage that's shared between multiple nations).Btw, a bunch of german nuclear power plants are still running, ~14% of the energy was created by them in 2019. That's still on the level of nations like russia or canada that also have a high energy demand, even the US produces only 20% of its electrical energy with nuclear plants. Sure, they are going to be disconnected from the grid in 1.5-2.5 years but right now they are still running at 90% of their max load. And as long as france continues to operate their nuclear plants the grid is relatively stable, even with a high percentage of wind power.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 01:36:31 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on April 27, 2020, 01:14:24 amNot in "very hot places" but in any place that has a lot of sunshine regardless of the temperature. I'm in Florida and I'm getting 100% of my hot water year round from a solar panel and I have been for 34 years now.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 04:51:39 pm
content: Quote from: jogri on April 27, 2020, 12:42:41 pmCompared to river hydro it's nothing, you've got 1 or 2 orders of magnitude more head to work with.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 11:16:02 pm
content: Quote from: jogri on April 27, 2020, 12:42:41 pmExposed mountain tops/hills are usually a great place for wind... and also hydro storage. They have strong overlap in their geographic siting.People who have actually looked into the pumped hydro resources say there is plenty of untapped resource:https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-finds-530000-potential-pumped-hydro-sites-worldwidehttps://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_192.shtmlSo there are very few barriers beyond the land use tradeoffs, energy/food/environmental/aesthetic/private/etc/etc

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 11:12:10 am
content: Quote from: Someone on April 27, 2020, 11:16:02 pmYes, you have rather strong upwinds on mountain tops, but they are an awfull choice for a windpark for multiple reasons:-you have to get everything on top of a mountain, including 100m long turbine blades, massive cranes and the whole generator block-you have very limited space to work with, blasting away the peak is your only real option to put more than one wind turbine on that mountain (and you need a lot more space for the construction)-mountain tops are typically not were large electricity consumers are located (even hydro plants need their energy at the lower storage pool), so you need to get HV lines on top of a mountain-wind farms need hundreds of turbines, even the most powerfull turbines today can only produce 12MW peak (and this is an offshore turbine) ->space again, good luck powering a 300MW pump with one turbineBtw, i am rather sceptical about this 530.000 potential storage sides... This is just a meta-analysis, they searched for pairs of valleys without asking the question "does this actually make sense as a storage side?"-most of the "promising sides" in europe are in switzerland and would have a height difference of 1.5km, which is more than a bit extreme given that the largest hydro plants "only" have ~300m difference (other sides of their 150GWh rating have a height difference of ~500-800m, still a lot)-most sides are in utterly useless places, no one needs a storage plant in the himalayas as you would have to transport the power thousands of miles.Granted, they explicitely stated that less than 1% of their 500k sides would be needed, but i think one of their key assumptions ("The perception has been there are limited sites for pumped hydro around the world, but we have found hundreds of thousands.") is wrong insofar that there isn't a lack of potential sides, but a lack of sides where building a large hydro storage plant actually makes sense... Local planners have access to the exact same maps, i don't think they thought "bloody hell, why has no one seen those valleys over there" after reading this meta-analysis.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 12:49:21 pm
content: Quote from: jogri on April 28, 2020, 11:12:10 amMost of the worlds mountains are not pointy Swiss alps, getting things up them is not such a problem (photo below), or spreading the wind turbines out, etc etc. A tie line between the hydro turbines and a wind far of a few km or even 10's of km in length is a tiny fraction of the project cost. Consider that any wind farm is likely to need to pay for some grid connection costs/new links, so sharing with another project is only likely toreducethose costs.Quote from: jogri on April 28, 2020, 11:12:10 amThousands of miles is more of your exaggeration, that would carry the power from the Himalayas to Beijing on the opposite side of China (one of the worlds largest countries by landmass in case you hadn't noticed). These sorts of analysis do show there are very surprising high and low elevation change sites that people had not considered previously, and they are economically viable in terms of the typical infrastructure costs required for their configuration/location.Quote from: jogri on April 28, 2020, 11:12:10 amThe point is exactly that people are reconsidering the possible sitings based on these types of analysis. But also that your hyperbole about a lack of hydro locations available is entirely wrong and misguided. If you think those locations are wildly impractical that not 1% of them would be viable, make some effort to show that, because thats an extraordinary claim and.... extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 01:20:48 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on April 28, 2020, 12:49:21 pmBut those kinds of mountains are the ones you favour when building a hydro plant... It needs a deep valley with one shallow opening to minimize the cost of the damn. A high plain is good for wind turbines, but you would need to encase your water reservoir on all sides (if you don't want to use a ditch, in which case you would need a lot of underground work to fit the generators). You could maybe use chile as a good example for your wind/hydro pair with the atacama desert/sea level combo, but high plains and deep valleys don't coexist in a lot of places.QuoteExcuse my hyperbel, it may not be exactly 1k+ miles. You still have to consider the route the energy would take: power plant->storage->consumer... Btw, one of the key points of this analysis was "we didn't consider the building costs for the rating". They just looked for places that required a minimal amount of concrete for damns to create a big reservoir.QuoteAgain, this analysis was just to see if there are geographically valuable sides out there, not if building a massive hydro plant there actually makes sense. This analysis is only good for people who haven't bothered to look at a topographical map, but i am fairly certain that nearly all options this analysis has brought up have already been considered to some extent in the regions where it would make sense (major consumers of electricity) to have a hydro plant (after all, it can be used to buffer the peak demand->you don't need other power plants as a reserve->saves costs).

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 02:23:58 pm
content: What makes sense depends on what your aims are ... they say they want to go 100% renewable, there are very few alternatives.Just because the locations are not economically viable in the current market is irrelevant. Storing green hydrogen in old gas fields is not economically viable in the current market either.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 02:56:48 pm
content: But that's what I mean with tiny niches.The scale of wood pellet burning in the EU is on a whole other level.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 03:18:01 pm
content: Cement making requires massive amounts of heat, usually generated with fuel-oil.Some years ago, I recall that shredded automotive tires were also used as a fuel additive, as rubber burns so fiercely.Of course that pollutes a lot, but in an ironic twist cement makers would claim that they were "SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT" because they were getting rid of old tires.....go figure.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 04:31:37 pm
content: Quote from: schmitt trigger on April 28, 2020, 03:18:01 pmWell, as long as they have smoke filters to capture the heavy metals it is not much worse than burning oil...

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 06:26:53 pm
content: There is an old coal plant here in the UK (DRAX) that has been converted to burn wood chip pellets,these are produced in the US and shipped to the UK. Hardly seems very environmentally friendly.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 06:56:01 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on April 28, 2020, 06:26:53 pmIndeed:https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-pollutionQuote

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 08:42:24 pm
content: Quote from: Karel on April 28, 2020, 06:56:01 pmIt is not just the pollution from the ships, but the forest is clear felled then transported to the docks then shipped then by train and truck from the UK docks to the power station which is pretty well in the center of the UK,and burning the wood produces more Co2 than coal. What is going on is they have stopped mining coal and are mining subsidies instead.https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/uk-drax-power-plant-burning-us-trees-wood-pellets-deforestation-540122

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:06:50 pm
content: Quote from: Karel on April 28, 2020, 06:56:01 pmNot this bloody "study" again... First, the emissions they are talking about are SOx, not general emissions. Second, they just assume that the ships (Emma Maersk class) use the lowest grade crude oil available with a sulfur content of 5% when in reality that content is in the range of 0.1-4%. Third, a lot of modern ships use scrubbers to reduce their SOx emissions by over 90-99%. Fourth, the 2020 Marpol regulations state that only fuel with a sulfur content under 0.5% may be used, so there is that. Fifth, the SO2/SO3 emissions on open waters are not at all important as the gases have a much higher density than air and will just sink to the water where they are absorbed and turned into sulfuric acid (the scrubbers do the same thing, they even dump the sulfuric acid back into the ocean...).Yes, big ships pollute the air and could really use a more efficient exhaust system (especially a catalytic converter) but they are still the most efficent way to transport goods when it comes to fuel per kg goods. That "15 ships are as worse as 760 million cars" thesis is extremely misleading and shouldn't be thrown around.(Sorry if i sound harsh, i have nothing against you, i am just annoyed that this thesis is still floating around after ten years... You can count on it being brought up in every discussion about pollution, either to "show" that cars are really not the problem or that container ships are the incarnation of all evil).

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 10:45:43 pm
content: Quote from: jogri on April 28, 2020, 01:20:48 pmBut youdontneed steep terrain to make pumped hydro economically viable. You keep trying to frame it as this really picky technology that requires very specific siting, when multiple teams of researchers over many many years show this "accepted wisdom" isn't true. The practical locationsaresurprisingly common and not always the cliche. For example look at existing pumped hydro installs:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_PlantAnd thats only if you want to add the requirement to site hydro and wind on top of each other, that while possibly cost saving, isn't necessary for them to be independently profitable and feasible as separate projects in different locations.Quote from: jogri on April 28, 2020, 01:20:48 pmThere are studies that consider more detailed costs, piping, transmission, etc, and its not a problem as you make out. The Australian national grid spans thousands of km (in orthogonal directions!) and spreads the hydro resources around it, the big reserves are 600-1000km from major loads (cities/industries) and it works just fine.Transmission isn't making wide scale power projects impractical:https://www.withouthotair.com/c25/page_179.shtmlQuote from: jogri on April 28, 2020, 01:20:48 pmYou're welcome to provide some examples and figures on this. Take the list and show how many have been studied/examined before. Or perhaps when the claim by the papers is they find novel sitings, you might have to accept most people will take that over your unsubstantiated opinion.Keep repeating there aren't novel locations in unexpected places all you like. Because there are such practical sites, and they haven't been widely considered as suitable until the studies that had costings highlighted them. Pumped hydro is practical and economically viable in all sorts of geographies, and doesn't need your (and many other peoples) idealised geography constraints.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 10:50:33 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on April 28, 2020, 10:45:43 pmHowever environmental constraints will kill these projects in most places in Europe. Another problem is safety. If a dam bursts you have a land based tsunami. From that perspective hydro is kinda like a nuclear power plant. If it goes, the effects are devastating. Way more people have been killed by hydro related accidents compared to nuclear:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_station_failures. Adding up of all the casualties roughly points to 50 to 100 times more. When comparing deaths per unit of energy generated it is probably much worse.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 11:26:40 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 28, 2020, 10:50:33 pmYes, public safety is one of the significant points that gets brushed aside. For all the fear about extremely unlikely nuclear accidents and the limited (but long lasting) damage they have caused, water storage is both more frequent and more damaging in the short term. Hard one to balance.Land use competition was where I started:Quote from: Someone on April 27, 2020, 11:16:02 pm..and is entirely separate to whether the geographycanphysically/topologically support a practical hydro project. But Jogri seems to be digging in and getting louder about their misinformed position rather than looking at the reality.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 12:10:55 am
content: Quote from: Someone on April 28, 2020, 10:45:43 pmWell, you choose the only big hydro plant with a head under 300m as an example... All other plants have a head (vertical distance between upper&lower dam) over 300m, simply because the energy they can harvest from the same amount of water is more than tripled when compared to the Ludington plant. Yes, you might not absolutely need a massive height difference, but if you can multiply the storage capacity by simply increasing the elevation of your upper reservoir you might want to take that into consideration.QuoteOh no, Desertec... Bad example as this is the one project were transmission is one of the main issues: You can either take the scenic route through syria, turkey and eastern europe or go through the mediterranian sea, basically choosing between 10k+ kilometers of HV lines or using undersea cables several orders of magnitude bigger and longer than everything we had until now (the strait of gibraltar is out as it is just too vulnerable). Btw, the european grid also spans a few thousand kilometers, but both it and the australian one consist of overhead cables which are way cheaper and easier to maintain than a over 100km long undersea cable bundle.And as i've said multiple times, it is not a question IF there are topographically suited locations, but if it actually makes sense to build a hydro plant there: You can either create massive reservoirs or opt for a bigger head, and as most electricity consumers are near densily populated areas it makes sense to go for a smaller reservoir (except in the US, canada and australia where you have enough space to spread out). I will remain highly sceptical if there really are that many viable palces for a hydro plant until someone can show me a model that includes a crude cost estimate for each side, based on factors like geology (if a dam can actually be build on this ground), distance to main roads/HV grid and energy prices at day/night (you have to buy energy to pump your water back up). Building a hydro plant is one thing, not going bankrupt because of it is totally different story.Let's put it that way: If there really were hugely profitable sides for hydro storage plants all over the place, why aren't there plants already? Investors aren't stupid, they can read maps and ask engineers if it makes sense to build a hydro plant there. It is the case for flow-of-river plants, so where are the storage plants?QuoteAnd again, it is not the question if the landscape is there but if it makes sense from an econmoic point of view...

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 01:19:21 am
content: Quote from: jogri on April 29, 2020, 12:10:55 amIts an exact example of the thing which you say doesn't and can't exist, an unusual siting, co-located with a wind farm.For all your roadblocks that you imagine, they don't actually exist as impossibilities and commercially viable projects are pushing right through them. As for heads under 300m (yourclevermisleading choice of an arbitrary threshold which many plants sit just above) among the most powerful pumped hydro stations:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Planthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumut_Hydroelectric_Power_Stationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardar_Sarovar_Damhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin-Takasegawa_Pumped_Storage_Stationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailianhe_Pumped_Storage_Power_Stationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coo-Trois-Ponts_Hydroelectric_Power_Stationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okuyahagi_Pumped_Storage_Power_Stationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintoyone_Pumped_Storage_Power_Stationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_Hydroelectric_Planthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muddy_Run_Pumped_Storage_Facilityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markersbach_Pumped_Storage_Power_PlantSo thats more than a dozen easily found examples with heads less than 300m (you claim there is only one, should I highlight it in your quote?). Your "arguments" are full of gaping holes.Practical heads could span 50-100m up to 1000m or beyond, with proven and mature technology. You could make your own search with a more restrictive range and find fewer sites to show us how impractical their number of sites are, or find other studies.Quote from: jogri on April 29, 2020, 12:10:55 amThose sorts of work have been done, you just refuse to look for and/or look at them. P.S. they're cited in the link above. You can keep adding in more constraints, and say its not proven unless there is a public study that includes all possible details, but you have no evidence to the contrary to support your point. Even a thorough geological survey for a project can miss details that later come up, you demand excessive proof against unfound doubts, but offer nothing to quantify or asses them.Quote from: jogri on April 29, 2020, 12:10:55 amWhich is why studiesincludethe economic side of the question, you can keep denying it, or saying they aren't comprehensive enough for your tastes.The big point you keep dodging is the number of economically promising sites is so large its unbelievable (given the experts prior experience with implementation details), so few of them would be impractical after further examination that there is a lack of hydro resources available. The world is awash with potential pumped hydro resource.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 11:12:31 am
content: Quote from: Someone on April 29, 2020, 01:19:21 amEmphasis on theBIGhydro plant part... Out of the 20 biggest hydro storage plants only one really dips below the 300m threshold (the Tumut-3 dam you mentioned comes in at 293m, are we really going to split hairs about 7m? [other plants on your list are at 288 and 404m, just saying...]) Sure, if you search for sides with smaller capacity you will find a lot with low heads as that is the main reason for their lower capacity: Lower height difference->less energy can be extracted from the same amount of water->smaller energy storage/generation capacity. You are arguing the hen-egg problem: Are they smaller because the head isn't as high or is their head not as high because they were designed to be smaller?If we want to use hydro storage big times we should concentrate our efforts into building fewer, but bigger (and therefore higher) storage plants to save costs. Can we build a hydro storage plant in the netherlands? Sure. Does it make sense? I don't think so. Btw, have you taken a look at the study you cited? A lot of the sides with a head in the 100-200m range have the worst rating... Might be because it just doesn't make that much sense to build there.QuoteOkay, then show me such a study. Or do you mean the Petheram/Gallam study from your ANU article? Hate to disappoint you, but this study isn't relevant in the slighest in this context: They used one region of australia (not the world), and they used a maximal dam height of 50m (that particular one would be over 500m wide). Most of their proposed dams would be over 5km long, and unlike the ANU study they didn't use close-circuit systems. They just calculated were it would make sense to dam a river.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 11:31:19 am
content: Quote from: G7PSK on April 28, 2020, 06:26:53 pmWe're burning wood pellets in old coal power plants for a couple of reasons, none of which are truly environmental. Value signalling, corruption and to prevent the owners of old coal power plants from suing states.PS. those owners are already threatening to sue (probably using ISDS of course) if the biofuel programs are ended ... billion Euro fuck up and billion kilos of extra CO2 emissions, just your every day EU decision making.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 12:13:43 pm
content: In the UK we have run 65% renewable with me being paid to use electricity. Most of the excess was from gas plants, I guess they had a minimum spend contract with the plant. This will be why "peaking" gas stations are now being incorporated into wind and solar farms.I have also noticed that Coal and Biofuel are always used in equal amounts. There is never coal burning in the UK without Bio also burning, chances are it's all in the same furnace.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 12:18:27 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on April 29, 2020, 12:13:43 pmHow much of that is "renewable" instead of renewable in the UK? Overall in the EU most "renewable" energy is wood pellet burning and there aren't enough forests in the world to make that renewable.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 12:24:19 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on April 29, 2020, 12:18:27 pmIt was mostly wind and solar. We have had a week of windy and sunny days so yes it really was renewable. The coal was turned off probably for the rest of the year now.

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 12:24:51 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on April 29, 2020, 11:31:19 amIt's even worse here in germany, the law requires that all coal power plants have to be shut down until 2038. But the companies get reimbursed for every MW of power generation they had to shut down at that day-> if they run their plants beyond their expected lifetime and at full power until the last day that they can legally operate them, they get the most amount of money-> guess what happened...

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 03:11:01 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on April 29, 2020, 12:24:19 pmWell where I am in Norfolk right now it is overcast with vey little win so the solar farm up the road is not doin much and the wind farms are not turning, the gas powered station at Kings Lynn is now mothballed.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Lynn_Power_StationThere is another at Sutton Bridge.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Lynn_Power_Stationand a Straw burning power station at Ely Cambridgeshirehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elean_power_station. Not sure how environmentally freindly that is as the straw has to be baled and transported to storage sheds from all over the country and then transported again to the power station,if you then take into account soil depletion due to the straw not getting incorporated back into the fields disposal of ash various combustion products etc. Nuclear is probably greener.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 04:18:57 pm
content: https://gridwatch.co.uk/10% biomass and just over 40% renewables which is not bad on the 25% average. You local conditions mean sod all, that is the UK wide picture, updates every 10 minutes

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 08:03:40 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on April 29, 2020, 04:18:57 pmAnd how much of that so called renewables is wood pellets seeing as how Drax supplies 12% of the total UK electrical energy. There are quite a few solar farms in Norfolk a 50MW unit just up the road a a rather smaller one a few miles away and 19 others dotted around the county and the whole of Norfolk was overcast as was most of the eastern part of the UK and we have the Sheringham shoal wind farm of the coast here which can be seen from Wells,so when Norfolk renewables are fogged in or otherwise in the doldrums a large amount of UK "renewables" are off grid. Allowing that Drax cannot go on burnning wood and or coal the only answer to reliable electricity is going to be nuclear.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 11:14:03 pm
content: Quote from: jogri on April 29, 2020, 11:12:31 amMoving the goalposts again? Stop adding your artificial constraints to the problem, particularly just to reframe a narrower and narrower idea to try and claim there is a lack of exploitable hydro resources (big storage capacity isn't always the most profitable design corner). The question (a good one) is: are there sites for cost effective hydro installs? are there many of them? When costing analysis says a site is probably worth investigating it has already taken into account the head/capacity/dam/etc trade offs:Opportunities for Pumped Hydro Energy Storage in Australia, 2014https://energy.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1526587/Opps-for-pumped-hydro-in-Australia.pdfand just for you that does include transmission, and a look at co-siting with wind:QuoteYou can complain that isn't worldwide or inclusive of geological feasibility (I can introduce you to the people who will do that research if you want to fund them, they'd love the money, or you could ask the commercial companies who are doing exactly this) but its saying the same thing over and over: people who go looking find many many many sites, and they are economically viable. From the weight of published data its implausible that the world couldn't find enough hydro storage to meet the current needs, thats the big claim the recent papers are making. If you want to claim otherwise then start pointing to the analysis which says that rather than claiming you know the constraints and costings better than the experts.But I'll keep pointing out you factually incorrect hyperbole. There is not only one significant pumped hydro system with a head under (your chosen threshold) 300m. You're continuously making factual mistakes, provably incorrect. Your arguments are nonsense.Quote from: jogri on April 29, 2020, 11:12:31 amYou offer nothing to counter the existing studies, yes, more detailed (and publicly available) analysis has only been done in smaller regions, but taking what has been done in a detailed manner (such as completed real world projects) as representative to build models applicable to the larger picture. Those studies refute your narrow constraints which you insist are necessary to be profitable. You're very very wrong on the specifics so why would your larger estimates be more accurate?

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 11:29:57 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on April 29, 2020, 12:18:27 pmAlso note that is probably a "peak" renewable generation, just as Germany was able to claim "100%" renewable power*:https://reneweconomy.com.au/germany-reaches-100-renewables-hours-42-far-year-30642/*for brief periods under ideal conditions

author: jogri
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 12:05:48 am
content: Quote from: Someone on April 29, 2020, 11:14:03 pmGreat, you arrived at the same question i asked three times already...Quote from: Someone on April 29, 2020, 11:14:03 pmIf one end of a ship is rising above the waterline, would you take that as sign that the ship is unsinkable as it isn't even in the sea any more at that end? Why did i choose that arbitrary 300m threshold? Because 90% of BIG hydro storage plants have a head that is at/over that threshold. Exceptions prove the rule, just because some sides happen to be economically viable with a much lower heigh difference the physics behind using a larger heigh difference still holds up (and that was the point i was trying to get across: bigger head->more efficient->probably the better choice over a side with the same capacity that has a lower head and therefore needs a lot more water). Not going to argue the physics behind it, if you want to do that contact the guy who invented our laws of nature.Quote from: Someone on April 29, 2020, 11:14:03 pmI take it the study you were referring to was the one i found? You pointed me at such a study, i demonstrated why that particular study isn't that usefull for "our problem". Well, if you have studies that can prove your points, why not show them? I am not going to do your work for you, if you want to substantiate your theses you have to do it yourself. Btw, where was i "very very very wrong on the specifics"? That the overwhelming majority of big storage plants use a substantial height difference between their reservoir because the laws of physics say that this is more efficient?

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 01:23:16 am
content: There are no cheaper alternatives to go 100% renewable, which many countries say they want to do.Pumped hydro or green hydrogen in old gas fields, those are the options. Both expensive options with current technology relative to current electricity prices ... but the expense is irrelevant, because there are no alternatives. If you want 100% renewable, you simply have to pay.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 01:34:59 am
content: Quote from: jogri on April 30, 2020, 12:05:48 amSo far all you can nit-pick is nothing has been comprehensive enough to convinceyoupersonally that there are sufficient commercially viable pumped hydro resources available. But the experts disagree, thats their big argument as presented in the the larger context:https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-finds-530000-potential-pumped-hydro-sites-worldwideand the important direct quotes:QuoteQuoteDirectly contradicting your statements of "fact", that you seem unable to provide evidence for. That big picture study did look at economic viability, and there are much more detailed examples you ignore:Opportunities for Pumped Hydro Energy Storage in Australia, 2014https://energy.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1526587/Opps-for-pumped-hydro-in-Australia.pdf... economically viable pumped hydro resources, in places people didn't expect them. Which supports the claim that there are both substantial untapped resources available, and they are economically viable.We can go back to where you started:Quote from: jogri on April 27, 2020, 12:42:41 pmPumped hydro doesn't require significant land area, to work with much simpler examples:https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_192.shtmlTaking "poor quality" siting with a head of just 100m, the 1200GW figure suggested to support a renewable grid in the UK would take 120km^2. The UK is not a sparsely populated example by any consideration, but would only need 0.05% of their land area set aside for storage ponds. How much space would be needed for batteries? Or storage of some other kind? Say the piles of coal they used to rely on?There are commercially viable untapped pumped hydro resources spread across the world. Everywhere people make a detailed look, they find it.All you do is add your personal additional "requirements" which I can keep pointing out are nonsense, and not supported by any (let alone credible) sources you can show.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 06:57:36 am
content: Quote from: G7PSK on April 29, 2020, 08:03:40 pmWell if you could be arsed to click the link and read the website you would see!!!!

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 07:43:36 am
content: Quote from: Simon on April 30, 2020, 06:57:36 amI did look at the site but as the "greens" and renewable advocats" always mix the data I am not sure how much to believe what is being shown on that site biomass is usually classified as renewable. In fact I just took another look and as yesterday the figures looked like the old union votes at the AGM so I got the calculator out the total generated figure was a tad over 27GW but add the rest of the dils up and its 40GW.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 09:06:30 am
content: Quote from: G7PSK on April 30, 2020, 07:43:36 amYou are still not reading it, just looking and seeing what you want to see. The data is from the national grid FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you really read it you would see how fair they have tried to be with any interpretation which is only on the carbon emissions of biomass.Clearly you have an agenda and believe whatever conspiracy theory this comes under!

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 11:04:12 am
content: From the site. There is no central recording of Solar Generation. This figure is an estimated figure which comes from Sheffield University. This value is now included in the Demand figureThis is the power from Wind Farms and does not include unmetered wind turbines. The output from this fluctuates with the wind. There are currently over 6500 wind turbines in wind farmsThis is the percent of the energy produced from renewable (wind + solar + hydroelectric + biomass) So they dont really know as the solar is a guess

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 12:18:55 pm
content: I bet it's a damn good guess and no they are not intentionally lying to you. Guess what else is not included, my 4kW of generation because the UK government are a bunch of idiots and they do not even know what the capacity of microgeneration solar is.I'm sure even you can see how they can get a damn good estimate of solar. The information may not be centrally recorded in real time (because in the UK we are too stupid to do anything right, current situation being case in point!) but just like I can give you a log of my output "after the fact" I'm sure so can those solar farms and that can be correlated to weather conditions.Given the fact that I was being paid nearly 4p/kW to use it some days in the mid afternoon I would think they do have a decent understanding of what is going on and they certainly know when they need to dump gas generated power because wind and solar are doing so well. My tarrif that changes every 30 minutes with wholesale prices every 30 minutes always stacks up with what that sight shows. Loads of renewable, cheap power, no renewables? expensive electric.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 12:56:07 pm
content: You are not doing as well as the Spanish then, not sure if it going on now but at one time the were generating solar power at night, they got such a big subsidy that they used diesel powered lights, The wind farms arround here make more money for the operators when there is no wind as they get a payment for that the same goes for some of the solar farms as well they get payment for not producing power that is more than they would get for the electricity which might explain why when I drive past the local substation the HV isolators for the solar farm are open more often than not.There is no getting past it the renewable power industry is driven by corporate greed.The Raynham estate runs a biogas plant that feeds into the gas grid, they use 60% of the crops produced to feed that plant on top of the chicken manure from their chicken sheds and the cattle muck, they have only been able to build it due to subsidies they can only run it due to subsidies and they get an over the odds price for the gas produced. Meanwhile shalegas production has been halted largely due to Russian sponsored anti fracking protesters,the reason Russia wants home gas production stopped is so they can threaten to turn the taps off on us and therefore exert undue influence on us, like we hardly did more than say boo when the FSB decides to use nerve agents on people in the UK.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 12:58:47 pm
content: I'm sorry but to put it bluntly you are a conspiracy theorist full of shit!

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 02:37:41 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on April 30, 2020, 12:58:47 pmOr you are wearing rose tinted glasses. I an not a conspiracy theorist, I just like the straight truth and nothing else and quite frankly people who think the sun shines out of so called renewables have lost the point where truth starts and ends.I also object to paying taxes on electricity to subsidise so called green energy and then the green energy companies charge more for the power they sell. The whole electricity supply chain is nothing more than a rip off these days and quite frankly it was better when there was just the local supply board and the CEGB,now there are just far to many snouts in the trough.

author: Masa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 02:39:52 pm
content: Quote from: jogri on April 29, 2020, 12:10:55 amWell, has someone claimed it to be hugely profitable in current situation in the short term? If you only look at profits, by far most profitable is to use fossil fuels in most places and other cheaply available fuels and forget renewable all together.At least in Finland, even for conventional hydro there is still sites where hydro power and artificial lakes for storing the water could be built and plans do exist for these.Mainly it is environmental reasons why more of them haven't been built. And it has been debated for decades should they be built or not. People wanted to keep some rivers in natural condition. Same thing with artificial lakes. And indeed it is a good idea to not build every suitable site.But I would imagine, pumped storage is a lot more flexible about where you can build it, if you just have enough elevation difference.Most likely they haven't been built yet, because it hasn't been economically viable. But if we want to get rid of fossil fuels, this may change quite quickly.Or what do you consider as a better alternative?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 02:50:18 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on April 30, 2020, 02:37:41 pmElectricity is not exactly expensive. I pay on average 7-10p/kWh plus 20p/day connection fee. I don't entirely agree with subsidies. For my solar I am paid around 9-11p/kWh. which is just under what most people pay to buy it. I never agreed with the huge subsidies to the tory voting wealthy who are now getting something like 50p/kW for their "investment", go protest about those. I am paid pretty much the market rate and that cost me £11k. I installed because I felt it was the right thing to do and the cost of the system is about what I would be paying for electricity over the life of the system.So tell me why are gas stations running on a day when we clearly do not need them and are now paying people to use electricity. I am with octopus energy, the only ones that do a wholesale linked tariff. If there is too much electricity they pay me to use it. So explain to me the conspiracy around that other than the gas generators have it as good as the renewables and are being paid to produce power no one wants to the point they are not giving it away but pleading with people to use the over production that they could just turn off and paying them to.It is no surprise that they are starting to put gas peaking stations on wind farms. This is because you cannot ask a private company to build a gas station and then never buy from them. So they are making each energy producing "unit" self sufficient. If there is no wind they have to run their own gas station so that someone else does not have to be paid to run their gas station regardless of whether we want the power.