RE: SciAm predicts strong future for renewable energy

['Chris de Morsella' via Everything List]

 

 

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 7:46 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: SciAm predicts strong future for renewable energy

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strong-future-forecast-for-renewable-energy

 

As does Business Insider

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/solar-energy-is-on-the-verge-of-a-global-boom-2015-4?IR=T

 

Of course nothing doesa "global boom" quite as well as nuclear :-)

 

The essential issue being, of course, which kind of global boom nuclear does 
nuclear in the end do?

Do we slip into an era of out of control proliferation of the availability of 
the essential materials. I can think of several unfortunate outcomes arising 
from the proliferation of, especially certain breeder technology, by which I 
intend the plutonium breeders. In so far as breeder reactors go LFTRs seem the 
most benign and inherently walk away safe.

The scale up and scale out of certain energy harvesting technologies such as 
for example PV is impressive and soon the price of the cells themselves will 
come down to levels that make it feasible to incorporate PV materials into all 
manner of solar facing architectural surfaces; including the road surfaces 
themselves. 

The often mentioned storage problem is getting solved. Certain battery types, 
such as flow battery systems can and are being scaled up to utility scale. 
These systems can be made to work with relatively easy to obtain and handle 
materials and since the reagents are stored externally to the *flow* battery, 
which both extracts power in the oxidation phase and using power reduces the 
spent reagents, recharging it.  The total throughput of the system at any given 
moment is determined by the size of the battery array, by that cumulative 
capacity; this flow capacity comprises one dimension of the flow battery 
systems capacity, and is the measure of what the system can deliver at any 
given time. The other dimension -- that of the storage capacity e.g. how much 
energy can the system store – in a flow battery system can scale independently 
and at industrial scale, extending out in external tanks. Such large scale 
utility scale battery nodes will naturally become situated both near the 
producing regions (wind/solar) and within the demand regions (the LA metro area 
for example). One of the less talked about problems our current electric grid 
is facing is capacity limits during peak demand. Being able to shunt power into 
these metro areas during the middle of the night when there is little demand on 
the grid (and hence it has large free capacity) to charge up large utility 
scale battery systems (whether flow battery or other also interesting energy 
storage systems) that can be sited right in the heart of large demand areas and 
be able to take some load off of key high power lines during peak demand.

The evolution of the grid is necessary, not only in order to accommodate the 
flatter more horizontal network of wind/solar + other, but also critically just 
in order to continue to be able to meet peak demand load conditions. Having a 
battery buffer within the urban areas enables time-shifting (at a cost of 
course) of supply and demand – and also as I mentioned time shifting of transit.

The unit price of solar PV is going to continue to go down, soon it will make 
coal look quaintly expensive. All the metrics point towards solar PV being able 
to continue its extraordinary scale out both in terms of annual new capacity, 
but also in unit price. The industry obeys and is driven by many of the same 
“laws” that drove the semi-conductor sector – and it makes sense considering 
how similar they are in fundamental ways. 

The electric grid is increasingly being driven by these other transit related & 
hard and difficult to surmount capacity limits, towards solutions that bring 
either the collection of energy and/or the forward deployed dispatchable stored 
capacity into the centers of demand. 

High temperature (meaning liquid nitrogen) super conducting high capacity 
conduits (a trunk/backbone network) would be nice J -- a few small scale 
limited urban loops have actually already been laid down, so this is not a 
completely outlandish idea. Imagine what a polar high capacity (say 200GW) 
super conducting very high voltage line connecting the markets from the 
American eastern seaboard all the way (with perhaps a central line running down 
through Toronto/Chicago/Dallas/Denver and one down the west coast) across 
Alaska; the Bearing straights and connecting into the massive Chinese grid – 
down from Siberia – and also into Japan and ASEAN… across Russia (down to South 
Asia (India/Pakistan/Iran); and then onto the European grid. Almost the entire 
length of this network could be built on land – no oceans to cross. It would 
require a fair amount of infrastructure, upkeep and maintenance (such as 
keeping the supply of liquid nitrogen needed to keep the ribbons 
superconductive. But such a time shifting capacity like this could provide for 
a significant portion of the world’s total peak load electric energy market, 
smoothing out the world’s daily cycle of peaks and valleys of demand.

 

Chris

 

 

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