tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post8913019506257548671..comments2024-03-18T03:27:18.777-04:00Comments on Rabett Run: Hybrid renewable systemsEliRabetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-78039079174621882342017-06-16T02:52:24.611-04:002017-06-16T02:52:24.611-04:00Canman does not seen to have run his numbers acr...Canman does not seen to have run his numbers across a single envelope back-<br /><br /> if Viscount Ridley is correct as to a 2 megawatt wind turbine reoesenting 150 tonnes of coal , and a kilo of even bad coal representa roughly kilowatt hour of electrical power, then a two megawatt wind turbine works off its coal carbon footprint in its first two weeks of operation.<br /><br />In some circles this is referred to as a "fail" .<br /><br /><br /><br />THE CLIMATE WARShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02578106673226403151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-3260210842035079822017-06-16T02:37:38.118-04:002017-06-16T02:37:38.118-04:00"The Worst Mistake in the History of the Huma...<br />"The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race"<br /><br />Come on, Mal- Jared may be a policy debate question dodger in the grand tradition of Former Next President Gore, but some of his comrades have recently come clean in what the presumed to be a Safe Space:<br /><br />https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/06/an-honest-broker-isnt-afraid-to-say.html<br /><br /><br /><br />THE CLIMATE WARShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02578106673226403151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-3799379800170027452017-06-09T13:56:40.044-04:002017-06-09T13:56:40.044-04:00Yeah; wary of Russell-esque obscure-allusionism, I...Yeah; wary of Russell-esque obscure-allusionism, I'd better make it clear the "dismal science" link was ironic.Mal Adaptedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06123525780458234978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-63963745147651762562017-06-09T13:13:40.391-04:002017-06-09T13:13:40.391-04:00When someone asks me how global CO2 levels represe...When someone asks me how global CO2 levels represent America's fossil carbon emissions, I'll tell them how glad I am they asked ;^).Mal Adaptedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06123525780458234978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-54587813113847312182017-06-09T12:32:48.534-04:002017-06-09T12:32:48.534-04:00Speaking of large-scale energy storage, this recen...Speaking of large-scale energy storage, this recent article in the Business section of the New York Times may be of interest:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/business/energy-environment/biggest-batteries.html" rel="nofollow">The Biggest, Strangest ‘Batteries’</a><br /><br />Compressed air, flywheels, molten salt, pumped hydro, and so forth; all just waiting for the "invisible hand of the market", namely the pressure of thrift for consumers and the lure of profit for entrepreneurs, to drive our transition to a carbon-neutral energy economy. <br /><br />Meanwhile, in the US, the artificial market advantage fossil fuels enjoy over alternative energy sources and storage is maintained by the "freedom" of FF producers to hold their marginal climate-change costs external to the market price of their products. America's large-scale transfer of carbon from geologic sequestration to the climatically active pool <a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/" rel="nofollow">continues unabated</a> as a result.<br /><br />If only we'd enact revenue-neutral <a href="http://citizensclimatelobby.org" rel="nofollow">carbon fee and dividend</a> with border adjustment! Unfortunately, the good ol' invisible hand has also driven the growth of the for-profit disinformation industry, turning out skilled "communications" professionals offering their services to the highest bidder. By successfully planting tenacious false memes in the American electorate (prominently among them, the self-refuting notion that the market-driven Tragedy of the global climate Commons is only tragic for "liberals"), prudent investment of mere $billions of fossil fuel wealth in a sophisticated AGW-denial disinformation campaign, over at least five decades, has yielded <i>hundreds</i> of $billions in profits annually through the present day.<br /><br />As reasonable people will acknowledge regardless of their position on the political spectrum, that kind of money is empowering. Dislodging enough deeply-implanted AGW denial to impose an effective carbon price on ourselves is going to take a lot of work, most of it in mass communications and political organizing; and it's probably going to take a lot of money, too. Sadly, my own, purely voluntary efforts in those arenas have probably made things worse; communications professionals may obtain more positive results, but exposure to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/why-economics-is-really-called-the-dismal-science/282454/" rel="nofollow">the dismal science</a> inclines me toward pessimism. Depressive realism, or mood-congruent ideation? You be the judge, as if I could stop you ;^).<br /><br />None of the above is novel to the bunnies, of course. YMMV, but on the date of my first link I was encouraged to see another NYT article titled <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-leaders-climate-change.html" rel="nofollow">How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science</a>, also appearing not as an opinion piece but in the Politics section. Is it possible the NYT, after so many years of false balance, is finally getting it sussed?Mal Adaptedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06123525780458234978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-76403100026257188712017-06-08T19:03:42.652-04:002017-06-08T19:03:42.652-04:00Tom: Ah, Mal--so diet joins attitude in the Paleo...<a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2017/05/hybrid-renewable-systems.html?showComment=1496667826013#c87270470424169050" rel="nofollow">Tom</a>: <i>Ah, Mal--so diet joins attitude in the Paleolithic?</i><br />I'll cop to insufficient unpacking. I was alluding to this 1987 article by Jared Diamond in <i>Discover</i> magazine:<br /><br /><a href="http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race" rel="nofollow">The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race</a>Mal Adaptedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06123525780458234978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-9058042892831049692017-06-08T08:52:18.204-04:002017-06-08T08:52:18.204-04:00Hi Beakers
I've just realised what this conve...Hi Beakers<br /><br />I've just realised what this conversation reminds me of: talking to 'lukewarmers' about climate sensitivity. BBDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10687930416706386215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-90302367560293324072017-06-08T05:31:53.211-04:002017-06-08T05:31:53.211-04:00Hi BBD 'That's why we need to start thinki...Hi BBD 'That's why we need to start thinking about large-scale storage *now*.' Think about is a long way short of plan or start building. We are thinking, yes. As I pointed out, Siemens amongst others are looking at opportunistic production of Ammonia. Flow Cells have been trialed in Ireland and Australia, Sodium Sulphur batteries have had a number of applications. BUT we do not need to start deploying these now. We are thinking but not doing because we do not yet need to do, so doing now would be wasting money that could be better spent on cutting the Gas MWh headroom to get us closer to the need to add storage. <br />Hydro and biomass are not scalable, but the more we cut gas consumption, the higher the fraction of dispatchable generation these will comprise. <br />We have lots of treasure locked in gas grids, LPG ports, 2 weeks of storage (at current UK consumption) and gas generators. Each of these are harmless. Only the consumption of gas is problematic. Given the scale of problem we face cutting CO2, the occasional application of this existing infrastructure to cover renewable and/or nuclear shortfall is trivial. You appear to be fretting about a far off issue that has lots ahead of it on the cost curve, and may be unrecognizable by the time we get to it. <br />Beakershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00683069153321019158noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-17564562717170367492017-06-07T14:40:26.335-04:002017-06-07T14:40:26.335-04:00Beakers
It would be silly to claim that costs of ...Beakers<br /><br /><i>It would be silly to claim that costs of a new nuclear plant should be described as being higher to account for other generators and grid facilities that it would run alongside, yet you are trying to do this for W&S? </i><br /><br />We still seem not to be on the same page. Take the UK. Going forward, we need very large scale wind to decarbonise. Wind, because DJF in the UK are very low output months for solar and so wind is going to be the backbone of deep decarbonisation. There's not much potential left for biomass or hydro, so wind (and maybe nuclear, if the industry ever gets it shit together) is going to have to do the heavy lifting. <br /><br />But every winter, we get national scale lulls in windspeed during anticyclonic conditions that sharply reduce wind fleet output for several consecutive days at a time. So, what - if not very large scale pumped hydro - is going to step in to meet the supply shortfall?<br /><br />The standard example is assume a 33GW UK wind fleet with an average 10GW output (30% capacity factor). To compensate for a five day lull we'd need about 1200GWh of storage:<br /><br />10GW x (5 x 24hr) = 1200GWh<br /><br />That's many orders of magnitude beyond the capabilities of any known battery technology for the foreseeable future. It's about <b>130 Dinorwigs</b>. <br /><br />That's why we need to start thinking about large-scale storage *now*. <br /><br />That's why the total system cost for wind (/solar) is <i>fundamentally different</i> than for nuclear, FFs etc. That's why I said that the cheap renewables meme is misleading - because it is. <br /><br /><i>Add more W&S, and we will cut our gas consumption. </i><br /><br />But we will *never* displace gas because the whole infrastructure, from wells to pipelines to CCGT plant will have to be kept going to deal with occasional multi-day lulls in windspeed during winter. Unless very large scale storage is constructed, starting now, because it will take a couple of decades at least to complete. And no, we can't just assume that there will always be a dispatchable surplus equivalent to UK demand at the other end of an interconnector whenever we need it. That might be an okay bet for hours or a day, but not a week. BBDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10687930416706386215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-52994123337823551352017-06-07T06:16:14.185-04:002017-06-07T06:16:14.185-04:00Hi BBD - not changing the subject, just pointing o...Hi BBD - not changing the subject, just pointing out that the concern you express is several orders of magnitude down on the scale of problems we have to deal with. When you say W&S will never displace gas without storage, you ignore that W&S (and nuclear for that matter) are displacing gas right now, and adding more capacity will displace more gas. Adding storage now makes economic sense where it is a cost effective alternative to local peaking plant and/or line upgrades. That is also provides additional distributed storage is a fringe benefit as, with plenty of gas headroom yet to displace, we dont yet need extra storage for its own sake. Dinorwig was decadal long timescale for deployment. Musk has been promising Oz '100 days or it is free' so lets see what that does for decadal long storage planning. Loads of other battery systems ready to go when they are needed (sodium sulphur ones having worked successfully in orbit) just not needed yet. Car battery developers would like us to use their Lithium tech but for a stationary battery, low weight and volume are not priorities. <br />Total system costs - again, EVERY generator depends on being part of a grid. A nuclear plant is technically and economically poor at following demand so sits on a grid alongside dispatchable and peaking plant to handle variation. Some grids built storage like Dinorwig to manage the inflexibility of coal and nuke plants. It would be silly to claim that costs of a new nuclear plant should be described as being higher to account for other generators and grid facilities that it would run alongside, yet you are trying to do this for W&S? I agree with you on the short term games - Trump being exhibit A.<br />1) Suggested, but I would politely point out that the significant renewable generation that we have benefited from so far coupled with the lack of addition of any backup and the MWh of gas generation headroom plain for all to see put paid to your suggestion. <br />2) No, we have had storage on grids for decades (Dinorwig 'Electric Mountain' being the the best known UK example) and batteries on local grids are now cheap enough to be used instead of line upgrades. So not gas. <br />3) one of the storage techs coming forward is Ammonia, with the added benefit of the surplus Ammonia going to N Fertiliser, displacing current N fert production from Gulf States Gas. Siemens (with a demonstrator) say it is not economic yet, but it is just one storage tech coming forward, and some of these may even follow the price trajectory that we have seen with the previously impossibly expensive solar PV and car battery. I did read of Ammonia storage being used for grid stability on a small grid in Alaska. Answers are out there to the problems that we are not yet up against and remain a long way off from.<br />4) Not true at utility scale as we are not building them at utility scale, owing to there not being a need to build them at utility scale. Why build something well in advance of when you need to build it when its costs are falling and alternatives are being appraised? <br />Add more W&S, and we will cut our gas consumption. We have plenty headroom and in the UK with the current development of interconnectors, that headroom is being enhanced. Add nuclear too but dont neglect W&S because of nuclear, because of the slow build time and horrible risk of delay. Once the gas headroom starts to diminish, then look at adding more storage that will benefit that future grid regardless of the mix of nuclear and renewable generation on it. Beakershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00683069153321019158noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-20674747195541590252017-06-07T03:16:09.846-04:002017-06-07T03:16:09.846-04:00Hank Roberts, a properly designed pebble nuclear p...Hank Roberts, a properly designed pebble nuclear power reactor has a drain to a geometry which suppresses fission. David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15914145623997712113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-80529880465243824652017-06-06T16:19:40.132-04:002017-06-06T16:19:40.132-04:00The apotheosis of lead paint :
http://tinypic.c...The apotheosis of lead paint :<br /><br />http://tinypic.com/1r55guxlTHE CLIMATE WARShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02578106673226403151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-42408332276719445722017-06-06T16:01:37.983-04:002017-06-06T16:01:37.983-04:00T'he "real elephant in the room" is ...T'he "real elephant in the room" is that the invention of agriculture was the worst mistake in the history of our species."<br /><br />Mistake? What elese can you do after you've eaten the last pachyderm?<br /><br />Cue Francis Fukuyama to write <i> The End Of History And The Last Giant Ground Sloth</i>?THE CLIMATE WARShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02578106673226403151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-72516392197997267002017-06-06T13:05:07.367-04:002017-06-06T13:05:07.367-04:00> scrambled userid: "too obvious and rati...> scrambled userid: "too obvious and rational.... Won't work."<br /><br />What? We need a guaranteed local supply of the amount of electricity needed to cool a fission pile that was scrammed late in its fuel cycle, when the fuel rods are loaded with short-lived fission daughters producing the maximum amount of heat.<br /><br />You know why they're not replacing the coal burners with standard fission plants, right? It's because coal plants run hotter than a fission pile can be safely operated -- because the hotter you run a fission pile, the longer it takes to cool the thing off once it scrams.<br /><br />You know why China is building pebble bed fission piles to replace coal burners at their power plants, right? Because they can; because they're saving money by not building containments around them; because they feel lucky.<br /><br />Check this article by an enthusiast:<br />https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/11/08/china-is-taking-serious-stides-towards-cleaner-air/<br /><br />Want to check his reasoning? <br /><br />Try this. It'll shock you, I suspect:<br />http://questioningattitude.blogspot.com/2010/06/it-is-probable-that-atmospheric.htmlHank Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07521410755553979665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-872704704241690502017-06-05T09:03:46.013-04:002017-06-05T09:03:46.013-04:00Ah, Mal--so diet joins attitude in the Paleolithic...Ah, Mal--so diet joins attitude in the Paleolithic?<br /><br />I hear farmers were all deniers anyway.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12747117922597525042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-27527207042969013682017-06-04T13:49:51.684-04:002017-06-04T13:49:51.684-04:00Nigel Franks: The real elephant in the room is agr...Nigel Franks: <i>The real elephant in the room is agriculture and especially the wasteful habit of feeding anything up to fifteen calories of crops to animals to get one calorie of meat. </i><br /><br />The "real elephant in the room" is that the invention of agriculture was the worst mistake in the history of our species.Mal Adaptedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06123525780458234978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-58909455265596940472017-06-04T13:46:16.005-04:002017-06-04T13:46:16.005-04:00Tom: Extinction again...So... serious.
Sigh. One s...<a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2017/05/hybrid-renewable-systems.html?showComment=1496444998945#c211659347621585677" rel="nofollow">Tom</a>: <i>Extinction again...So... serious.</i><br />Sigh. One step forward, two steps back...Mal Adaptedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06123525780458234978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-65229343443519006642017-06-03T19:13:46.271-04:002017-06-03T19:13:46.271-04:00Blogger Nigel Franks said...
The real elephant in ...Blogger Nigel Franks said...<br />The real elephant in the room is agriculture and especially the wasteful habit of feeding anything up to fifteen calories of crops to animals to get one calorie of meat.<br /><br /><br />A strong argument for extending deer and wildfowl seasons alike.THE CLIMATE WARShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02578106673226403151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-83638319946610870722017-06-03T15:17:32.741-04:002017-06-03T15:17:32.741-04:00Facts: 1. Geography and Ocean currents where diffe...<i>Facts: 1. Geography and Ocean currents where different during the Pliocene (look up Scotese's videos on YouTube).</i><br /><br />A bit different. Not really all that much. So, all you can argue from mid-Pliocene warmth is that the climate system is really quite sensitive to small changes in boundary conditions. BBDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10687930416706386215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-57989788995812970192017-06-03T14:41:19.353-04:002017-06-03T14:41:19.353-04:00The real elephant in the room is agriculture and e...The real elephant in the room is agriculture and especially the wasteful habit of feeding anything up to fifteen calories of crops to animals to get one calorie of meat. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07784872872859319666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-68690500024244224722017-06-03T08:57:08.553-04:002017-06-03T08:57:08.553-04:00Facts: 1. Geography and Ocean currents where diffe...Facts: 1. Geography and Ocean currents where different during the Pliocene (look up Scotese's videos on YouTube). 2. Crude oil and condensate production is running at a 80-81 mmbopd plateau over the last 2 years or so. 3. CO2 emissions aren't rising much over the last three years. <br /><br />My conclusions thus far: solar and wind continue to struggle because the are intermittent, and in many countries such as Jamaica and Congo they don't make much sense. The economic benefits of the current elitist mindset in Paris and California aren't demonstrated. It would be really useful to research geoengineering and develop new fission nuclear plants. The pope is useless, hobnobs with dictators and human rights abusers. China is humanity's number one enemy. Fernando Leanmehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16085680730729620836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-35772390656604991262017-06-03T08:53:27.984-04:002017-06-03T08:53:27.984-04:00Large body mass mammals, Tom, so well paleorecorde...Large body mass mammals, Tom, so well paleorecorded in the paleorecord.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-42039398868925282812017-06-02T22:01:03.401-04:002017-06-02T22:01:03.401-04:00Is Mal unable to imagine the possibility of the En...Is Mal unable to imagine the possibility of the Energy Crisis that inspired Carter to turn on the coal and go after bitumenous shale morphing into the Oil Glut? Or a doofus like Julian Simon skinning John Holdren and Paul Erhlich on a commodity scarcity bet?<br /><br />As we are already exercising our imagination of disaster, I doubt we will be fatally surprised, although many may perish of tedium atop various mountains waiting for the end to come.THE CLIMATE WARShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02578106673226403151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-2116593476215856772017-06-02T19:09:58.945-04:002017-06-02T19:09:58.945-04:00Extinction again...So... serious.Extinction again...So... serious.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12747117922597525042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16612221.post-65968774237322442492017-06-02T17:15:31.640-04:002017-06-02T17:15:31.640-04:00Russell Seitz / "Bright Water" WTF?:
Th...<a href="http://rabett.blogspot.com/2017/05/hybrid-renewable-systems.html?showComment=1496373247711#c2277509884252409976" rel="nofollow">Russell Seitz / "Bright Water" WTF?</a>:<br /><br /><i>The historical experience of the last millennium is that a lot can happen in a millennium. Imagine how much more will happen by the time science & the technology arising from it turn 500. </i><br /><br />Yes, Russell, one can imagine that. Are you unable to imagine <i>even the possibility</i> that it might not save us from extinction?Mal Adaptedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06123525780458234978noreply@blogger.com