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Message
re: Solar Fails in Texas in Cold
Posted on 1/27/26 at 4:49 pm to GeauxtigersMs36
Posted on 1/27/26 at 4:49 pm to GeauxtigersMs36
quote:
You will never have solar as a primary energy source.
I don’t disagree for now but the moment we can put solar in orbit and transfer it back to Earth, rip nikolai tesla, we will. I won’t live to see that day but it is the dream.
0
Posted on 1/28/26 at 12:21 pm to bluestem75
quote:
Solar works best on top of people’s houses as a supplemental source that lowers that house’s dependence on the grid. That’s it. That’s where govt agencies should be encouraging solar use.
I'll agree that solar is fine as a supplemental source.
But residential rooftop solar is about the worst way to do it. Much better to do it large scale, like the top of big-box stores, schools, etc. Large flat roofs let you point the panels in the right direction and angle, few/no obstructions/trees, economy of scale for installation and maintenance.
When you get more bang for your buck, everybody wins.
Posted on 1/28/26 at 12:27 pm to VOR
quote:
China has gone “all in” on electric for what that’s worth..,
Your definition of "all in" must be different from.... everyone's.
LINK
quote:
Coal commissioning also rose sharply. Around 21 GW of coal-fired capacity was brought online in January-June, the highest first-half total since 2016, the report said. Full-year additions are expected to surpass 80 GW, making 2025 the biggest year for coal power completions in a decade as projects from the permitting boom of 2022-2023 reach the execution stage, the report said.
and...
LINK
quote:
China is set to commission as many as 85 coal-fired power generating units this year, out of a total global of 104 coal projects slated for start-up in 2026, according to data by non-profit Global Energy Monitor (GEM) cited by the Financial Times.
Of all the 63 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power generation expected to begin commercial operations globally this year, 55 GW will be in China, the GEM data showed.
This post was edited on 1/28/26 at 12:28 pm
Posted on 1/28/26 at 12:36 pm to Penrod
re: Solar as a *primary* source...
Please provide a credible source (not some clickbait "breakthrough!!!!!!" headline) that shows a path to an economical battery system that could provide enough energy to cover late afternoon to early morning, let alone combining that with several days of overcast skies, or snow covered solar panels.
That's just such an incredible number of kWh storage, do the math. And, there are losses, so you need another 30% or so of solar to get out what you put in.
Batteries make sense for short term load leveling. We are talking seconds, minutes, maybe a few hours of leveling (not a primary source, just leveling while the slower thermal plants adjust their output).
quote:
Not now, nor in the next couple of decades, but I certainly wouldn’t say never. If they get batteries to be cheap enough we’ll be almost all solar one day. And it seems like they will.
Please provide a credible source (not some clickbait "breakthrough!!!!!!" headline) that shows a path to an economical battery system that could provide enough energy to cover late afternoon to early morning, let alone combining that with several days of overcast skies, or snow covered solar panels.
That's just such an incredible number of kWh storage, do the math. And, there are losses, so you need another 30% or so of solar to get out what you put in.
Batteries make sense for short term load leveling. We are talking seconds, minutes, maybe a few hours of leveling (not a primary source, just leveling while the slower thermal plants adjust their output).
Posted on 1/28/26 at 12:55 pm to ragincajun03
A problem with that article is they talk about "capacity" rather than "production". They may be talking of "nameplate capacity", which is how much it can produce at peak. Wind tends to run about 20~25% average of that.
I'm having a little trouble finding current numbers that break it down, they lump renewables, or focus on increase percent of new installations, etc. But this seems to say that for 2022, wind was ~ 32% of renewable production in China, and renewables were ~ 12.6% of production. So about 4% overall from wind?
LINK
Compared to US, 2023, wind was 10.2% overall. So 3x ratio wise of China. So Trump 'over-exaggerated' it, but there is something to what he said. If it's so great, what isn't China, who builds them, using only ~ 1/3rd what we are?
I'm having a little trouble finding current numbers that break it down, they lump renewables, or focus on increase percent of new installations, etc. But this seems to say that for 2022, wind was ~ 32% of renewable production in China, and renewables were ~ 12.6% of production. So about 4% overall from wind?
LINK
Compared to US, 2023, wind was 10.2% overall. So 3x ratio wise of China. So Trump 'over-exaggerated' it, but there is something to what he said. If it's so great, what isn't China, who builds them, using only ~ 1/3rd what we are?
Posted on 1/28/26 at 12:58 pm to GeauxtigersMs36
quote:
scrubbers during the Obama administration) a
Scrubbers were good long before then. The lignite-fired SWEPCO plant near Mansfield had scrubbers in the 1990's that were efficient and what came out of the smoke stacks had a lower particulate level than the normal air levels. I'm sure modern technology is even better and applies to coal as well as gas-fired turbines.
Posted on 1/28/26 at 1:03 pm to Joshjrn
quote:
they will be the obvious choice as the primary source of power
No they won't. Wind and solar will simply never be efficient enough to be more than supplemental for the majority of energy needs.
Posted on 1/28/26 at 1:04 pm to CitizenK
You mean at 6PM solar isn't knocking it out of the park?
Posted on 1/28/26 at 1:06 pm to Clames
quote:
No they won't. Wind and solar will simply never be efficient enough to be more than supplemental for the majority of energy needs.
In a hypothetical scenario in which we could store infinite energy infinitely, do you still maintain that position? And if so, please explain.
ETA: Just realized this got moved to the PT at some point. You guys have fun
This post was edited on 1/28/26 at 1:08 pm
Posted on 1/28/26 at 1:20 pm to CitizenK
Chuckle gif
Posted on 1/28/26 at 1:58 pm to oldskule
quote:
makes total sense.....no sun, no power....
wind and solar will ALWAYS be supplemental energy, period.
Puerto Rico had a bunch of solar and wind the US provided. A big hurricane came a long and it was all gone.
Posted on 1/28/26 at 2:03 pm to CitizenK
Now do when the sun is out..this is a miserably low effort
Posted on 1/28/26 at 2:19 pm to GeauxtigersMs36
quote:
You will never have solar as a primary energy source. You can make coal burners 99 percent clean ( scrubbers during the Obama administration) and natural gas. Just like EVs. Hybrids worked well. Why the push to go completely electric with no infrastructure amazes me.
But muh See Oh Too!
Posted on 1/28/26 at 2:53 pm to MidWestGuy
For the foreseeable future we will not get away from having reserve generation for what the Germans call Dunkelflaute. Batteries will only have to get us through the Utah night.
Technology is advancing extremely fast right now and it's accelerating. Before the semiconductor was invented the idea of a modern desktop computer would have been met with the same skepticism as yours towards batteries.
Technology is advancing extremely fast right now and it's accelerating. Before the semiconductor was invented the idea of a modern desktop computer would have been met with the same skepticism as yours towards batteries.
Posted on 1/28/26 at 3:21 pm to Joshjrn
quote:
In a hypothetical scenario in which we could store infinite energy infinitely, do you still maintain that position? And if so, please explain.
Yes. Simply put, energy density is absolutely miserable for both technologies. Take solar for example, the absolute best it could do, assuming 100% efficient PV technology (impossible) with 100% efficient conversion (also impossible) would be about 1000W/m^2. That's why it takes hundreds to thousands of acres of PV to match a gas turbine installation that takes 2 acres with half that being parking lot and storage space. Also why PV and wind have such a large discrepancy between intalled capacity and what they actually deliver to the grid. Batteries are not going to cure those issues either. Nuclear is the real future, only technology that meets the density and reliability requirements needed. If we magically come up with such batteries, vastly better idea to hook them up to nuclear power stations so they can dump huge amounts of stored power into them then be able to be taken offline for maintenance.
Posted on 1/28/26 at 8:50 pm to Penrod
quote:
Technology is advancing extremely fast right now and it's accelerating. Before the semiconductor was invented the idea of a modern desktop computer would have been met with the same skepticism as yours towards batteries.
Sorry, but this sort of commonly used analogy fails.
In this day and age, we have a far better grasp of physics, and the physical limits. There were observations of semi-conductor materials way back in the early-mid 1800's. It wasn't until we had a better grasp of atomic theory that this could be put into practice.
So sure, if some unknown to us now science can produce a better battery, it will. But we don't have anything on the horizon of what is known, and I won't count on some totally new to us science to move forward, until we at least have a glimpse of it. I've seen too many "BREAK-THROUGH!!!!!" headlines, show me something with an understandable path to the future.
Posted on 1/28/26 at 8:55 pm to MidWestGuy
quote:
In this day and age, we have a far better grasp of physics,
My life has seemed like constant amazing advances, but I guess it just stops now.
Posted on 1/28/26 at 9:07 pm to Clames
quote:quote:Yes. Simply put, energy density is absolutely miserable for both technologies. Take solar for example, the absolute best it could do, assuming 100% efficient PV technology (impossible) with 100% efficient conversion (also impossible) would be about 1000W/m^2.
quote: In a hypothetical scenario in which we could store infinite energy infinitely, do you still maintain that position? And if so, please explain.
Thank you for that. There are so many well-intentioned people that don't understand physical limits. They think we can just improve, and improve, and improve (like computers - but that's not a useful analogy).
As you state, there is only so much solar energy in a square meter. Current solar cells are ~ 20% efficient. They can't get 'infinitely' better, they can't even get 5x better (this gets into details of band gap and wavelengths, which limits it even further, but the math says it all).
It's a tough nut to crack, and even far future best estimates don't come close. Regarding batteries, I recall having this discussion years ago with a PhD chemist. He was able to determine the theoretical limit of energy storage of various chemical bonds by volume and mass, and nothing was an earth-shattering change, considering real world constraints (those chemicals needed to be housed in a container, etc).
Posted on 1/28/26 at 9:08 pm to Penrod
quote:
quote: In this day and age, we have a far better grasp of physics,
quote:
My life has seemed like constant amazing advances, but I guess it just stops now.
No, those advances occur (and will continue to occur) because we have a better grasp of physics!
Posted on 1/28/26 at 9:39 pm to MidWestGuy
quote:
No, those advances occur (and will continue to occur) because we have a better grasp of physics!
Allow me to elaborate on my above statement. For 50 years or more, we understood that if we can make finer and finer lines on semiconductors, we can increase the number of circuits in a given area, and increase performance with shorter lines and lower parasitic capacitance.
But that didn't mean we could do it in one leap, just because we understood it. It took effort to make machines that could produce those finer and finer lines at an acceptable quality/repeatability level. You improve a step at a time.
In regards to battery tech, I don't think there is much we don't understand, it's going to be a step-wise process of improvements.
Will some totally new branch of physics open up that overcomes all known theoretical boundaries of today? I'm skeptical, but we can re-visit this topic when that happens.
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