This is amongst the best of youtube, Dave. Factual, lots of info, a great start for the viewer to acquire a basis to understand the issues you tackle and present so well.
Really. Why is there a panic on countries like Germany and Britain with the highest renewables energy installations in the world? ua-cam.com/video/SRxzhpDZcJ8/v-deo.html
@@jinnantonix4570 Yes the technical aspects are covered... But the economic issues are clearly out of his spectrum, hence the strong belief that those solutions will work. Anyone doing some serious research on that topic knows that renewables are a fraud.
@@VFatalis in what way are they a fraud? It's hot outside. I'm sat in my air conditioned room using the power I generate from the PV panels I installed a few yrs ago, which have now paid for themselves, plus getting paid for every watt I generate. If that's fraud, more please.
@@JustHaveaThink Im curious what people think about climate change in general. im not sure what the real timeline is for when things will get bad but i hear people say things like "we have ten years before its too late" or something and i think to myself "well there's 0 chance of switching to renewables in ten years so were definitely screwed." In general Im pretty optimistic about the future and the development of new technologies to help solve the problem but if the timelines really that short should we be bracing for the inevitable disaster? or, is the timeline exaggerated to motivate people to push forward and for example if we're all renewable by like 2050 things will be mostly all right. I guess what im saying is should i be extremely fearful and pessimistic or is our current trajectory one that should make us hopeful?
Neither do I, but in my case I usually don’t have much to contribute. This is all new to me and I am still learning how things work. Keep up the great work.
Your presentation of transforming our energy reliance is just wholesome. A big thank you for your videos. It is an additional showcase for the underlying unity of Europe. I would love to see cooperation with other channels, which need a bit more content. The more people are aware of what actually changes, the better we can prepare ourselves for the future. Whether you do or not, I will have a look at how Patreon works.
As control room operator at FP&L for over 20 years I have seen the effects of low frequency on the grid. What typically happens in hot weather is as frequency gets lower due to not enough generation capacity dispatch load control will start shedding load during brown outs in order to keep frequency up... If there is enough battery capacity to supply enough load during this time it can eliminate brown outs. So green energy is a good option to prevent brown outs and load shedding..
Florida (In particular Florida Power and Light) is recognized in the US electric industry as one of the most robust areas in terms of energy management and disaster recovery. Here in Arizona we have hurricanes occasionally wander through the southwest corner, which does damage you would laugh at. "Aww - did it undermine a 500KV tower? Poor babies?" I completely agree with storage being magic for short-term stability. Here in the West we don't have enough Remedial Action Schemes, although California does pretty well. In Arizona the plan is to rely on line protection and manual switching.
@Patrick McNulty With a conventional generator the load is coupled electromechanically to the generator. But with the electronic inverter the frequency determining oscillator is independent of the load. If the load varies the frequency stays the same, and if the frequency is generated by a crystal oscillator, the frequency can be very accurate. So the only thing that will vary is the voltage. It used to be that the frequency was critical to many devices, but nowadays most devices don't depend on it.
@@acmefixer1 So what you are describing is an inverter which is not grid connected. For any grid connected inverter, it becomes a frequency follower, with a very small bias or "slope" toward standard. The conventional generator, as you mentioned is coupled, however it too has a "droop characteristic" which biases it toward standard (60hz in North America), which gives the grid stability.
Came across your channel last week and I’m loving the content!! It’s really refreshing and motivating to hear of different technology and ideas around renewables, after being stuck in the sphere where only problems, not solutions, were discussed.
This is a complex subject, well researched as ever and put into context. Recently retired, my last job was in the IoT space and Smart Grids were an application I studied. Storage changes everything and with batteries getting cheaper the opportunities for balancing the demand/supply equation and providing frequency response services to accommodate more renewables are increasing. The challenge is one of management which needs a lot of real-time data collection. Blockchain looks to be the best solution using connectivity technologies such as cellular, LPWA and MESH networks. We come from a world of a few power sources and many power loads, the new world is where millions of loads are also sources, e.g. electric vehicle batteries supporting V2G on the low voltage part of the grid. This is a potential nightmare from a management perspective but again IoT technology should be up to it. As we used to say, giga bytes are just as important as giga watts.
yes but remember electric vehicles though providing a large load could also be a huge source and once the system has adapted to the demand of electric vehicles they could be a huge source to help balance demand like electric hot water tank remote utility controls have been. In other words shut the charge off to the vehicles and maybe even draw from their batteries down to a particular capacity.
@@teekay1785 Yep, that’s about it. Just remember that every time power goes back and forth there’s a transaction to be done which is why I repeat, the Mega bytes are as important as the Mega Watts.
Excellent reportage and explanation as I've come to expect from this top youtube channel. It's a go-to for anyone interested in the key energy issues of today, from retirees to politicians, to teachers, the science community and high school students upwards. Many thanks
Just come across your channel and I have to say your content is amazing!🙌 You explain things so clearly yet keep a lot of detail. As a student and an energy nerd I've got to thank you for all the research and hardwork you put into your videos
Just a quick thank you, for your well presented and, without dumbing down the subject easy to follow videos. You are my go to channel on these matters.
The importance of the FERC Order 841 being upheld cannot be overstated. I work for a DNSP/TNSP and invariably it is the legislation that we operate under that is what is holding innovation back and not the technology availability or the commercial interest in using it! Good stuff Dave.
Really impressing your film. The illustration of it let me think, that there is a big lobby behind your channel. Love your British accent. Me as a German (please forgive me my English!) am sceptical against so called renewable energy. Because we already pay for it very high. We have the highest energy prices in Europe, probably in the world. We live constantly close to a blackout. If we have had no neighbours with coal or nuclear plants, our system would crash very often. 2018 we have had two critical moments in our grid. In your film you are showing a beautiful landscape at the beach "decorated" with many windmills. This was a symbolic picture: human greediness and ideology destroying nature! My point is not: I am against electrical storage. No! Not at all! This is even the crucial problem of renewables. I am for obligatory solar panels on flat roofs in industrial areas. But I am against Solar Parks on fertile soil or in woods, against cornfields for our electrical comfort. Simply because of the efficiency of renewables, the so called EROI (Energy Return on Investment), which is too low. For that reason they need a big area to compensate. Photovoltaic has an EROI of 1.6, Biomass 3.5, Wind 3.9, Gas 28, Coal 30, Water 35. In comparison to it the old veteran of Pressurized Water Reactor has an EROI of 75! Which is not too bad. The windmills are meanwhile as high as the television tower in Stuttgart. The concrete weights 7000 Tonnes. The socle of 3500 Tonnes is left for ever in the soil. The wings are impossible to recycle - they still look for an solution for this problem. And many birds and insects are victim of this sort of environmental protection. But if you compare the renewables with the new concepts of nuclear power plants of fourth generation, you will understand, that the increasing demand of energy needs a new investment of nuclear plants of the fourth generation: MSR, LFTR or DFR: They have an EROI starting from 1000 up to 2000, some people of the DFR-Team claim even an EROI of 4000! They are safe ("Walk away Security"), they are modular, fit into a container and the best of all: they burn up the nuclear waste of our good old Pressurized Water Nuclear Plants. Ah, I forgot: they produce energy very very cheap. Ah, one point more: because they run with Thorium, they could produce for the next 1000 years, without leaving behind tonnes of garbage with a long decay as the old nuclear plants. Because of the high process heat from 1000 Grade Celsius, you could add to such a plant innovative techniques like: PowerToGas with Hydrogen Production, Synthetic Fuel, LOHC, NanoFlowcell, Seawater Desalination, Long-Distance Heating. These added spin-offs could solve many problems around the globe. And the power plants themselves could help, to give back nature to nature, because these plants don't need space. Specially in Germany the Green politics have destroyed big terrains of woods with the windmills, fertile land with solar panels. And they call this environmental protection, and declare it as nature protection, which is not the same! But we do not need this sort of environmental protection. We need a new wilderness for biodiversity. In Europe there are no virgin forests anymore (ok, in Poland, the Białowieża National Parc). Just have a think!
Absolutely agree. You mentioned thorium which remind me Rubbia ,italian like I am but with Nobel prize. In Italy we are masochist and prefer to kick all the brains out in change of some desperates from Africa . It happened with Enrico Fermi too, who built atomic bomb for Usa instead of us . We would have won the ww2 with that and probably nuclear power would have been more important then oil now .
The researchers have experimented with agrivoltaics, where the solar panels are located in farms. The plants grow bigger leaves to compensate for the shade. There are no conflicts with putting wind turbines among the fields of farms. I have nothing against nuclear power, but it's very unfair for anyone to say that renewables are harming the Earth! That's what this German is saying. The harm is being caused by a fossil-fueled world and it's absolutely necessary to get rid of all CO2 causing sources. One point people fail to talk about is that thermal power plants -- nuclear too -- require a huge amount of water to keep the plant cool. This is a major problem for locating these plants, so they are located close to water. The German complained about wind turbines; there are more huge high voltage towers with thermal power plants. Wake up world! Thorium or any nuclear material is not renewable. The problems in Germany are not problems for all other countries.
Marek Stepanek - That is a fine exposition, my friend, of the benefits of nuclear power, especially in densely-populated Europe. “Desperation is the Mother of Re-invention” should be Germany’s motto if it ever wakes up to its energy mistake, after Fukushima, in closing its nuclear power plants that still have years left of CO2-free power production: If they’re not restarted, the CO2 produced in their construction added to the climate crisis for no benefit. Even worse, the country burns brown coal to replace the lost power. How the greens can be happy with this, much the same as they do here in the US, says a lot about their unreasoning fear of nuclear power. The coal, oil & gas interests spent large sums to deny the climate crisis & postpone action to address it for decades. Natural gas was once suggested as “the bridge fuel” to a green economy, but the delays have made that impossible if we’re to avoid the worst consequences of global heating. The bridge fuel now is nuclear, at least until we’ve reached the point of negative growth in CO2 concentrations. If the greens had been able to stop the fossil fuel industry from spreading their climate denial propaganda, they could have bought the time needed to avoid temporary resort to nuclear. For understandable reasons, they failed. Now it’s time to face reality: For the next 50 years or so, we either use nuclear or sustain dramatic reductions in living standards in order to avoid industrial collapse and eventual extinction. A little more perspective to close - Back in the ‘70s & ‘80s, at least until climate scientist James Hansen testified to the US Congress in 1988 of the seriousness of humanity’s situation, the term “Global Warming” might have been good for giving us a gentle wake-up call about the developing science. But now we need words that accurately describe our terrestrial reality - “The Climate Crisis, Ocean Acidification and Global Heating” (Ocean Acidification comes first, because few people even know it’s happening, never mind that it’s caused by fossil fuel pollution.)
@acme fixer - The greens around the world have spread unreasoning fear of nuclear power for decades while tens of millions suffered unhealthy lives & premature deaths from fossil fuel pollution, esp. from coal-caused CO2 & SO2 pollution, fine coal particulates, coal dust & mercury pollution. As for Germany, as was explained, it shares its problems with the rest of densely-populated Europe, w/ its interconnected electricity grid. Assume the rest of Europe had followed Germany after Fukushima in shutting down nuclear in favor of burning stuff like brown coal (while at the same time allowing the expansion of diesel vehicles as they did): Europe would have experienced depression-like conditions & a health crisis like China’s. Their gov’ts, industry & homeowners would not have the funds to expand wind & solar. The Euro-zone would now resemble something more like Central & Eastern Europe around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. Would the EU have survived; how would terrorism have played out in the new slums of Europe; how much more aggressively would the Russians have behaved; how much more would reactionary conservatism have grown beyond say, Hungary & Turkey (you can start with France...); what would have happened to the Syrian refugees, most blocked from entering Europe; and how would that weakened EU/NATO, with a stronger Russia, have played out in Trump’s America? Now go up one level higher: Many Muslims in MENA, from Morocco to Iran, have respected Europe’s social democratic traditions of medical care and other social & educational services for all that have prevented the levels of poverty found in the US & elsewhere: how might their changed attitudes have affected things today?)
I suggest you do a segment on liquid metal batteries provided by Ambri. Inexpensive, efficient and reliable with very low degradation, they offer an exceptional solution for grids and likely for businesses and homes.
Well done Dave, we're doing a community solar farm here in Ireland. I would also like to see governments encouraging community grid infrastructure as well as community energy storage, this would accelerate and extend rollout renewables within communities, it would also allow communities to benefit from revenues earned through the three components of renewable energy 👍👍
Hope the Communities are Filled with , Blood Related - JOINT FAMILIES OF MORALS = COMMON SENSE AS TO : - LIKE OTHERS AS THYSELF IN THOUGHTS , WORDS AND ACTIONS - WITH MATURITY AND ' SPAN OF CONTROL. EVERYTHING IS SIMPLE IF YOU KNOW MORAL GOVERNANCE AND MORAL SCIENCE. CHEERS. *
An excellent and well researched presentation as usual. The good news is that the market is moving more quickly than the regulators, especially in some of those "developed" countries that love to dig their coal and burn it. I'm hoping that domestic batteries will be included in the upcoming UK efficiency grant scheme, that will be a game changer for me, allowing me to both store my own solar electricity, and buy grid electricity at lower rates during the two blocks of three hours a day that are really cheap in the UK. Leading on from this, that will bring the running costs of moving from gas central heating to air source heat pump central heating PRICE EQUIVALENT in the UK, which is where the carbon game really starts to change.
Nice one! If we add Norway to the north and with Switzerland in the south there could be more than enough hydro-energy storage to keep the whole thing nice and steady. Then a big chuck of solar in the very dry Spanish interior and we'll be much less dependable on Russian and Arab fossil fuel. The EU has plenty of drawbacks but things like this really show it's worth.
This is exactly right. electrical energy storage is the ONLY thing keeping renewable energy from being the dominant source of electrical power. My idea, is similar to your idea of "behind the meter storage". Having a substantial battery at home makes the most sense right now, because the LCOE of the battery only has to compete with RETAIL rates, rather than WHOLESALE rates that it would have to compete with in front of the meter. If homes and small businesses could do a thing called "peak shaving", there would never be a need for peaker plants in times of peak demand. Peak shaving works by battery chargers set to a voltage threshold, where if the voltage from the grid sags below a certain level, the charger turns off, unloading the grid. When the voltage rises,(hopefully due to the wind turning turbines)then, the charger(s) come back on, charging the battery bank. Under high demand, your loads just run on your own battery. Once you have a DC storage system, that system can be supplied by rooftop solar, wind, micro-hydro, or any other source.(in worst cases, a backup generator) With four sources of power, you have no problem maintaining 24/7 power.(solar, your battery, the grid, or backup generator) you could even have a 5th source, if you have a wind turbine. with grid electricity getting more expensive, and off grid solar equipment becoming less, there will be a crossing point, where you could save money putting in your own off-grid photovoltaic system with battery. In the areas where local ordinances do not allow disconnecting from the grid, the peak shaving system I described above is a good idea, besides, the grid is a good backup, in case something goes wrong.(A peak shaving system is sometimes referred to as a "grid autonomous" system) A system like that could easily be adapted to work with the Zellweger ripple system, in case the voltage rise is due to a peaker plant, and not excess power from a windy day.
@Jaded Cynic - and that won't begin before the psychopathic buffoon in the oval office is replaced by a sane person. And for that to happen, the world needs a miracle.
Decentralized energy storage is where this is headed for a lot of good reasons. First and arguably most importantly, as it becomes more widespread it will make economic sense due to increased engineering expertise and the cost savings that come with mass production of the components needed. Secondly, storing energy closer to where it's being used reduces transmission losses during peak usage times, when they are most detrimental. And beyond the stabilizing effects on the electrical grid mentioned in this video, it will go a long way towards making renewables feasible for providing the bulk of our energy.
I say a (partial) solution are big mechanical batteries and gravi-tricity (lasting long enough). We make hell out of nature generating electricity, so we can't trasure the value of it handling the current as a business, also because we do not know what an electron is made of. Blockchain itself will still be a too hungry thing ("mis-trusting" people, that don't try to learn about electric current), i can't think of blockchain having gotten less complicated
Run your house with solar power and you will need lead batteries worth about 200,000 Euros to provide sufficient energy storage to become independent from the grid for up to 2 weeks (Times without sufficient usable sunshine can last much longer!). These batteries have a lifespan of 10 years after which you need a new set. And lead batteries are and will be by far the cheapest batteries of all.
See it as a contest between the economies of scale and economies of mass production. Before 2000, economies of scale justified huge power stations. Now the advantage of bigness isn't so clear. But the arguments are confused by government meddling, cross-subsidies, etc.
@@siggyincr7447 I am! Because if you are not fully autonomous you expect that others (Your neighbors!) are going to pay for your dream. You are 'saving' by buying less electric power from the grid. But you expect that the grid will be kept so strong and efficient that it can provide you any moment with as much power as you want, which ist, of course, very expensive for the power company. That's why the company has to charge your neighbors more. Such behavior is parasitic.
Just go with all Nuclear. This battery idea is a non starter. You are very right about how proponents of solar and wind do not understand the battery equation.
Nuclear power currently makes up around 10% of global energy use, and at current rate of consumption the world's uranium supplies are estimated to last another 200 years. Ignoring the cost, difficulty and significant nuclear security concerns of building reactors everywhere, that uranium isn't going to last long if we start using it up ten times faster.
Kent H thorium is a good candidate as the problem associated with waste and thermal runaway (meltdown) issues are mitigated. A mix of green and nuclear energy is probably the best way forward.
Ever Sunday, I look forward to watching your blog, and I have a thought that is rattling around in my brain, and want to present it to you, even though it is a tangent topic to today's show. It is geothermal, to be used for commercial and residential heating and cooling, powered by green energy, using heat pumps. Ground based systems have a sweet spot that is driven by latitude. This Goldilocks latitude is not at the Equator (ground too hot), nor the Arctic (ground too cold), but between these, where it's just right. And there, in this good zone, the expensive part is to get this desired temperature content. Drilling can almost always be done here, almost like drilling for oil, except you're guaranteed to hit your prize... local appropriate temperature circulated water. If there were millions of holes drilled and tens of thousands of drilling rigs, especially if these rig operations were funded by the state, then costs would plummet. In addition, the inside the building conditioning systems costs would be slashed as well, as you need only the heat pump. You don't need a furnace. And costs in the heat mode and the cooling mode are slashed by roughly seventy to eighty percent. Your mileage may vary. This is a winwinwin. And the carbon exhaust cost saving are similarly accumulated. Another win. In cities, the system could be provided by the municipalities, as a utility. City living costs would plummet, and it's environment would be in it's own sweet spot. In effect, you are using the Earth as a battery, swapping summer heat and winter cooling. Swapping it for six months later.
"I have a thought that is rattling around in my brain". Clear off out of it. We don't want your type polluting the comments of GoogleTubes climate videos. People with their brains being ruined by having thoughts in them. Disgusting !
I just made a video today on this exact outcome, we have a massive grid scale regional and schools program being rolled out here in Western Australia, so exciting!
The trick is, to get the turbines in BEFORE the land is developed for housing. That way, the machines are in place, the developers work around them, and anyone buying the homes see that they're there, and accept it. If you try to install the turbines AFTER the homes are occupied, it might start a riot. People just don't like change. It's best to set up ahead of the population.
@@VFatalis hmm is it true: current human population could not survive [as we do] but for the advanced industrial complex and energy from fossil fuels? what would be the limits imposed by horse and buggy technology? just think of the limits of medicine and biological/chemistry/computer sciences...my my one takes these as god given rights today? think man please!!
@@davidwatson8118 You completely missed the point. Fossil fuels have no future, and renewables are in the same boat but for different reasons. We're headed for a slow agrarian life, where only those able to grow food without fertilizers and machines will survive. Buy some candles, it will be useful.
My contribution on this planet won't be to this subject so anything I am learning here is something more towards a general awareness of this topic and not a critic in the slightest. Although I do appreciate the passionate opinions here. Thank you. Do great things and be well.
A huge salute to the depth of your research and the unbelievable ability to distill complex concepts into simple words delivered calmly. I am a HUGE fan and look forward to every new upload. Thank you very much for the amazing work you do.
3:05 Just a side note. High-Voltage direct current is used for really long distance power transfer as it has smaller transmission losses and the more expensive conversion equipment justifies itself in such a case. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
Vermont has a program to subsidize the cost of home batteries that top off at night and then power the home during peak energy demand during the day to reduce the need for peaker plant operation. Sounds like a great start.
Vermont are also on the path to building a liquid-air cryo-battery. Once there are millions of EVs that plug in at home, they will become a microgrid and perform the same service during peak hours
@@williamgoode9114 You know this for a fact? As of July 2020? They are set to announce a "million mile" battery, so I don't think they'll be worried about stressing that kind of cell with a little V2G. Grid service is far easier on batteries than EV use.
Thanks, a very interesting discussion. I have spent my entire career in recycling and alternative energy projects and very good to now see it so openly discussed.
I notice small nuances (hard to name them as they are more related to body language) which make your representation even better. Good job and great video! 😊
I think I heard you say that electricity consumption in the US and Canada will be increasing - I thought we were all supposed to be looking for ways to REDUCE our consumption?
Transport and heating are currently often done by fossil fuels. You can repalce them with electric technology, but your electrictity usage will logically go up.
Elizabeth - America keeps growing, more homes built , which needs more food and more Goods . this takes alot of Energy. thankfully we will have a SUN that burns Hydrogen for the next 10,000 years or so . even IF we build all new homes with Solar , that energy is wasted w/o home battery Storage. Solar Roof + Battery can meet 90% of home Energy needs in an Entire Year. Commerical + Business can save $$$$ with Tesla Energy Storage.
Total energy per person could decrease while a bigger fraction of it comes from electrical power. Heating with a "heat pump" in many places greatly reduces the energy needed. It, however, is a new electrical load on the system.
@@kensmith5694 Yes, you and MrMakabar have it right. This is why electricity use will rise. If not for replacing fossil fuels, it would actually be falling because appliances, lighting, and HVAC are all getting more efficient.
@Elizabeth Cleary Humans are confidently expected to move to Canada from other locations on Earth. There's a negligible number of Canadians emigrating to the Middle East, India, southeast Asia, China, Europe, South America & Africa. I would confidently say negligible emigration from here. Only my uncle Fred's wife Anne returned to Blighty. I can add from personal experience that a sizable portion of these arrivees will purchase a power boat and/or jet skis as soon as they've had their cottage built.
Dave, 100% agreement. As a rooftop solar array owner, I quickly learned the art of not wasting energy. Real needs are always met by current solar panel generation of kWh's. I am writing from Phoenix, Arizona, where sunlight is abundant and keeps the electrical cost very low, even with frequent air conditioning use.
Good for you. I pile snow against the walls as soon as the temperature drops routinely below -20 degrees. Do you do that ? Because it's a big cost saver.
My view at the moment is - if you have solar panels get a decent sized battery or 2 added to the system. That needs to be government policy the world over. It will help enormously and a bonus is that your solar will continue to work when there is a power outage, during the sunlight hours of course. You get your own power station. Great video. Greetings from Australia.
True! Just 50 nuclear power plants could produce all of Germanys electric energy, no need for storage because the source is extremely reliable, no 100,000 wind turbines, cheapest energy of all (electricity price in France is already just half as high as in Germany and Germany is still very, very far away of its goal of 100% renewable electricity and has NO storage at all at the moment))
@@TheSpecio well Germany will defintly lower the energy prices in few years quite a lot due to the now closing of coal and nuclear they now have to get a lot of money to build up the renewable energy also at the moment extra fees to get to a cleaner energy are in place We are at a peak of energy cost in Germany if we get more sutainable again prices will go way down solar energy is less the 1cent/kw wind and biomass are around 3-6 cent/kw nuclear cost more then 30 cent/kw what we shouldn't forget there is no long term storage at the moment for the nuclear waste -> which is a major cost factor not included in the nuclear price tag
@@Leicht_Sinn You know nothing jon snow...natural gas is going no where, the only thing is going to happen is that gas is going to replace coal for a cleaner solution, or even nuclear in the case of Germany.
@@Atite_Lometen ? Nuclear Germany ehmm wtf Germany litterly is closing old nulcear plants over the last decades and isn't building anymore Due to the storage problem and public opinion over nuclea power Natural gas is another way germany will buffer deficits in the electric network Gas plants can be turned on in minutes compared to coal plant hours/days There is a strong green movement in germany !
I knew a Young Man, that swallowed a fly, I don't know why he swallowed a fly, perhaps he'll DIE!... He swallowed the fly to catch the spider that wriggled and wriggled and wiggled in CIDER... He swallowed a bird trying to catch the fly, with his MONSTROUS OPPRESSIVE WIND TURBINES.... -- If you think your uber-techno, more, More, MORE, new, NEW, NEO JUNK economy is ever going to be more green, globally, or locally for that matter, you are a brainwashed tool of uber-liberal capitalist and uber-liberal socialist money junkies on crack'n'roids... A bunch of techno-Nazti HITLERS... -- You Me-Too-Poly-Ton La La Lander techno-waster FAKE GREENZ deserve nothing less than mass extinction.. Screw your global Lithium (+Neodymium/cobalt) economy, crap'n'trade bo££ock$.... You are the scum of the Earth, you and your LIBERAL GLOBAL ECONOMY.... -- No new anything in the UK. Let the economy die and kick out 10 million people and start again for a start.. Make do and mend and only buy second hand stuff from now on, except food, then I will forgive you and deem you worthy of life All urban areas should have minimum 50% food independence via vertical farms. Should be 75%. Grain crops should be banned. Grass fed organic livestock have more space.
@@incognitotorpedo42 .. I don't agree with fascism, I promote individual action... Collectively I promote constitionally limited Direct Democracy within a minarchist, as automated-as-possible state and capitalist economy apart from National Essentials that should be 51% owned by each citizen equally, minimum, dividends count towards number of years worked linked auto-benefits. Personally I don't buy new junk and think the me-too-poly-ton hypocrite Wasters are all junkies.. But it's a Neo-Waster's World, Neo Wasters... Thorium Salt Reactors are CLEAN AND MUCH BETTER VALUE, You Renewable Junk Sucker Fascists.. KEEP IT SIMPLE. Modular floating offshore power systems that are much safer and extremely POWER-DENSE, you dense fake greenz.
@@incognitotorpedo42 .. Another typically pathetic libtarded response... A crap insult that fails to address any issue that bursts their La La Lander bubble-brain... You people are not fit to own brain.
Great video! One (very!) minor nit: transformers are not used to drop voltage to 120VAC in the US for household usage. It comes in as 240 two-phase and is split to 120 (no transformer needed) at the distribution box in the building. Things like electric stoves, heat pumps, and car chargers are typically wired for 240. It's split to 120 to make it safer. If you look at the old 'tube and insulator' residential wiring used when this first became standard, it makes a lot of sense. But yes, AC is the key to electric distribution. We have Nikolai Tesla to thank for that.
Love the vid and the concept! I think in our drive for new solutions, we forget old concepts. I think that chemical storage solutions are definitely going to be an integral part of renewable transition, but mechanical batteries could play a major role at the individual household level, or at a municipal level. These would provide safe, simple, independent energy storage solutions used in conjunction with a renewable grid and chem battery array. Load management system can coordinate the systems. Battery array allows for smoothing major needs, mech battery stands in for grid in times of low output, and in case of emergency blackout etc. The solutions are all around us. We need to dedicate the will, skill, time, and resources. Inaction is a choice.
The best customer of a mega-pack would be the energy producer themselves. You could run your plant at near peak 24/7 and meet a high demand peak with ease. Power companies would clean up with this investment.
I don't think so. Regional power generators are on their way out as customers themselves can generate and store more than enough of their needs, and sell the excess to the power companies. Eventually, centralized generators will give way to the millions of roof-top generators which will fee the grid evenly and uninterrupted. In fact, the electrical grid itself will also eventually cease to exist unless your neighborhood opts for an energy co-op.
Juan Asenjo It depends, some energy sources can be scaled, such as PV solar. But some energy sources need scale to be efficient, I would expect a mix of regional and local generation would be needed.
exactly Edmund, they can design their plant to run at max all the time, and allow storage to absorb the brief demand peaks. just like how a water tower trickles full and releases it all in a few hours in the evening. on-site storage is becoming a big thing on renewable developments, but every generator could gain by it. especially nuclear, which likes to run at max (although modern designs can throttle down to 25% - a battery would still allow much more warning and a slower ramp time when they need to turn up to 50 or 100%, and also make it simpler to run them slower in the summer than the winter)
@@juanasenjo8515 I assume you live in sunny California or something - a lot of the world isn't blessed with the combination of more solar when they need more output - most places its the other way around.
@@markplott4820 Debunked by "science"? Do tell. They haven't caught on like Li-ion, but flow batteries are real. There's nothing wrong with the science behind them.
Dave, love your presentations. Presently listening to your explanation of how the electrical “grid” system works and how renewables fit in this process. Why do I envision the elimination of the “grid” as renewables and storage get better and stronger, making end users totally independent.
I hope they apply energy storage to oil production too. Currently whenever I fly over North Dakota at night I see them flaring millions of tons of natural gas.
At least they're burning the methane. Here in So California the gas company had a huge leak in the underground storage for months and had to evacuate areas. I wonder how much greenhouse gas equivalent that released? The gas company got in trouble for that disaster.
We are just a group of neighbors in Pennsylvania,U.S.A. Tinkering around with an old air conditioner. We have been somewhat successful in using wind and solar power to power the compressor of the air conditioner to compress the freon in a much larger reservoir than the original a/c unit used. We are working on the principle of kinetic energy to even out the day/night; wind/no wind. Now we can only get enough storage to run an led light bulb (7watts) all night or approximately 8.7 hours. None of us are chemists so we just use freon. Perhaps researchers with degrees in applied physics and chemistry can find a better compress able gas to liquid formula and make this a form of battery.
FREON is a Greenhouse gas and is NOT Sustainable. Renewables is more Powerful and more carbon neutral . TESLA is working on a 100% Electric HVAC with no gears, pulleys or Belts.
@@markplott4820 Mark, I read that Elon was toying with the idea of developing an efficient HVAC system for buildings but I cannot find anything that suggests there will be no moving parts (I assume that is what you are suggesting...modern HVAC systems use direct drive for air handlers (no belts or gears) and compressors are direct drive as well.)
On airconditioning: If you have water supplies, a "desiccent cycle" solar power air conditioner is the way to go. It goes like this: 1) The sun is used to dry the water out of some desiccent. 2) This desiccent is used to dry the water out of a fair amount of air but this makes the air hotter and dry. 3) The dry air is cooled to outdoors temperature. 4) The air path is split into two and one has quite a lot of water added. 5) This much cooler but too wet air is used to cool the other path. 6) The now cooler dry air has some water added and that goes into the living space. There is a method that can do even better with doing a 2 of the 2 way splits but this uses about double the water.
Nice initiative, but tragic, 7X9=63watthour. Last week's talk on liquid air, although very much on an industrial scale is a "cleaner" gas than Freon. Try just thermal storage, like ice for cooling or water for heating and run your heat pump off that. For electricity storage, batteries are best. They have made air conditioning vehicle system with out belt and pulleys for many years, PRIUS had electric HVAC twenty years ago and home units have always been electric.
@@markplott4820 The problem with FREON is not the greenhouse effect. The "TESLA" system is a known existing method. Sadly, it takes more energy than the existing designs. In a car it may not matter much. It can be extremely reliable.
Seasonal storage is a huge obstacle to renewable (electric) systems. A home in Canada's far north can require stored energy for 4 or 5 months a year and given the very high demand during the winter, would require approximately $4 million in Tesla Powerwalls to assure safe levels of heating. However, geothermal storage of low grade (heat) energy offers storage at under 1% of the cost of electrical energy storage. See "The Renewable Energy Transition, Realities for Canada and the World" for the concept and some hard numbers and examples. Electricity is a high grade energy but we have to also learn to use low grade energy (heat) if we are going to make renewables work.
Investing in better insulation is usually cheaper than investing in alternative power sources. Reducing winter loss and need for Summer AC is more important than supply as reduction hits carbon footprint for less money in a short space of time with lower skill installation. This also makes seasonal changes more manageable.
It's a good thing then that the high north are so sparsely populated. Nunavut has a total population of roughly 40,000, a vast region with a population of a small town.
@@CarFreeSegnitz Absolutely. The populate the "empty" north is a developers fantasy that would be an environmental disaster. The Inuit population over about 1.4 million sq km pre-European contact was around 2000. The increase in population is mainly due to cheap fossil fuels which have built in storage.
@@JustHaveaThink I haven't followed salt cavern hydrogen storage - it must have a very low profile here. We do have salt caverns but they are in the south of the country - where we still will need large seasonal storage - but I doubt there are any salt caverns in the far north. I am generally negative on hydrogen as it is so lossey. However, one big advantage is it's high recyclability as the tanks are stainless steel. Unlike electrical batteries which would be much more difficult to recycle. For a great example of geothermal heat storage see the development of ~60 homes in Okotoks, Alberta called Drake Landing. Great stats over several years of real world usage. They are registering a COP of up to 30:1. Spectacular!
I'm an early adopter having Solar panels, Tesla Powerwall 2 and BEV. The only tie I've used the grid to charge the car since March is when Octopus Energy were paying me to use electricity. Renewables & storage are the way forward. Especially when we get V2G for BEVs.
Transfer isn't so cheap. Long high voltage power lines are NIMBY and protested even by so called Greens. Quite soon one runs out of countries to interconnect because of political reasons or reaching an ocean. Setting this aside? Yes cool, should be pushed further, but actually would be quite tedious job.
For homes in Germany, they now encourage that. It increases payback time but attenuates production. Since investors want fast payback, that's currently not happening. But tracking systems are also being used by some arrays that get the best of both, so long as maintenance is minimal. Many different systems claiming to be the best. Some use electronics, others are mechanical. The simpler, the better.
@bk_16 When we're going in to such details - even with winter you at least get evening peak demand at least slightly spread out, assuming your "cable" ;) starts in Portugal and ends in Finland.
what if we had one giant global grid? using underwater power cables of millions of volts to connect the continents? this way we can run everything on solar
I'm sure that it's necessary to add in the amortized Capital Cost of generating electricity from sunshine, plus the extra wiring. Those will not be insignificant. 80,000 kms of coastline with 10MW wind turbines at 500-metre spacing in ranks of 55 wind turbines per column stretching out 27 km into the ocean all over Earth so's ships will travel between parallel columns of 55 wind turbines each column to reach the shore anywhere on Earth is not a trivial-cost project.
It demands unclear , as to now storage creates more co2 , coal the biggest generator of electricity. China coal plants coming 6 years , most aggressive ever. Germany used more coal leaving nuclear , plan is replacing coal with natural gas .Storage is going to increase co2 emissions , leaving that out sounds better for the average man, €€€$$ is the goal.
@@creator7583 You need to edit just a little more, re: unclear/nuclear, plus a couple of other things. Battery storage is a one time emitter per item - during production. It will massively decrease CO2 emissions eventually. Fossil fuel emits all the time. Nuclear emits massively during construction. Did you not think of that?
funny thing about peak oil -- it keeps on repeating -- time and time again; of course it is limited -- we just have little idea yet on 'how limited' -- is it an emergency or crisis?
Johnny It doesn’t matter anymore, because batteries have gotten cheaper than fossil fuels, so economics will take over. Non-subsidized solar plus batteries are cheaper than any fossil fuel power plant. No one is going to build another coal-fired power plant - they are too expensive to operate. Even natural gas power plants are iffy. So today, with the cost of batteries still declining, economics favor solar/battery technologies, so that’s what is getting built. And as batteries continue to decline in price, the economics for solar/battery plants will only get better. The game-changer, as he said, is the declining cost and superior performance of battery storage.
@@bulletbob batteries are made using fossil fuels they're insanely bad for the environment. Use solar during the day and fossil fuels at night until we develop large scale safe nuclear infrastructure.
@@bulletbob time will surely tell -- it will take many gas fired power plants to produce sufficient battery capacity to overcome demand and limitations of wind and sun -- how much time is highly questionable with the volatility of government social order around the world -- currently there is no free lunch so many think there is with wind and solar, but dreams are wonderful -- all the very best
awesomedavid2012 Be wary of propaganda that promotes the status quo. “Batteries are terrible for the environment” is just propaganda. Decentralized power generation is good for everyone, except bad for executive bonuses, so propaganda is generated to preserve their bonuses. Battery manufacturing continues to get better, and it’s already net positive for the environment. Nothing is static. It’s not hard to see the winning path for batteries, as this video showed. Battery storage is better than any power plant because you can store power for use later, instead having to ramp up power generation as needed, which is crazy expensive. Nuclear will never happen, that technology has been dead for decades. It’s just not gonna happen. We already have a huge fusion reactor in the sky, so let’s tap into that Usonian simple, safe solar panels - just like everything else on earth already does. Be wary of propaganda that promotes the static quo.
Energy storage can not control the frequency or phase of grid but can control the voltage supplied to the grid. Also energy storage introduces larger in efficiencies into the grid which will require more generating capacity for the overall grid. Energy storage will allow for cleaner renewables to account for a larger percentage of the generating capacity of the grid and will eliminate the even more inefficient and a major polluter of the fossile fueled peaking stations within the the grid. As of such they probably won't replace conventional power stations but will reduce the amount of conventional stations and above all the very wasteful & major polluters of conventional power stations on the grid. Once someone comes up with a way to maintain a reliable grid phase then a 100% renewable grid will be feasible. Either way the main need in the grid is power storage. We should be perusing power storage more than renewables. You can't put the cart ahead of the horse.
There is a certain danger in saying "once we have storage solved, then we can go alternative", much like saying we need to get to zero, it presents an impossible goal so that the status quo can continue floundering along. Spinning up and down can be accomplished with natural gas to yield big co2 reduction while still taking big steps in the right direction. Also, please no block chain, its a gimmick, there is already such a thing as accounting, we don't need an inefficient form of it where everytime a transaction is made, we need to process every transaction it has ever been in all over again, huge waste of power.
The narrative in your comment's is indeed noted. Blockchain is a gimmick? Natural gas? co2 reduction? Inefficient cryptographic formula. Without co2 this construct would die. Natural gas is a joke.This realm is reverse technology we already had free energy but free does not pay. The gas turbine engine like on the jets buses trains Formula one cars and motoGP uses no fuel, also know as free energy. Of course many factory's use this technology. Compressed air. The electric universe we live on uses skyscrapers also known as power stations to gather aether to power city's. It's all here for us by the creator but again free does not pay.
You don't have to validate a blockchain by going back to the beginning - of course you could do that - but it's not necessary for most user applications.
Right? And they also forget that without that HORRIBLE petrol you couldn't make the fiber glass or resin for their wind turbines or the silica for the solar panels or the refined lithium for their batteries or the concrete for the hydro dams or the steel for the generators.
@@Unmannedair But the difference is that the fossil fuels used to make these products is not combusted, therefore not producing carbon during the process. More so, the initial use of those fossils offsets the need to continuously burn fossils for energy throughout the lifetime of the project...resulting in approx 1% of the amount of fossils used. Surely you understand that.
@tzar 1917 I find it peculiar that you didn't have anything at all to say. Surely you know if you tried to actually say something you would sound pure idiot.
@tzar 1917 Thanks for resorting to name calling instead of making an intelligent reply...because, in doing so, you confirmed what we already knew about you.
My grandmother lived in an apartment in Manhattan that had DC power! I've wondered if that building ever upgraded. She had a gas stove and a refrigerator that was electric, but it was of the adsorption type. Used to be very common as any source of heat can be used, and have been. Some campers have dual fuel refrigerators. Electricity and when not available, propane.
great episode thanks! The distributed energy system is the best future alternative for energy supply. It's more robust, more economically fair to all and less vulnerable to disturbances from solar flames to terrorism. Battery tech and storage will make a great addition here together with smart network and IT based solutions that didn't exist just 20 or so years ago. Just name block chain here as one good example... Cheers again! well done!
@Stimpy&Ren not to mention, most inefficient (prevalent turbine design, limiting output of nearby turbines, capacity factor 5%-50%, need to be backed up by LNG), environmentally damaging (noise, vibration, rodent-paradise due to bird-free zone, difficult or impossible to dispose), least predictable.
Don't be fooled. Creating all this will require an enormous amount of carbon output not to mention the carbon created during the maintenance of such a system. Renewable does NOT mean elimination of carbon.
and that is why it is disingenuous for people claim that solar and wind are cheaper than coal and nat gas. The only reason solar and wind works is because OF coal and gas, it makes the switch to renewable sound trivial to the average person who has no idea how the grid works. I am so looking forward to the introduction to cheap, saleable storage, things will change so quickly.
alex bob, you were correct up until recently, but the LCOE for solar plus storage now beats coal. See also: www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
Thank you very much for that presentation, It has given me an overview on electrical grid distributed storage capacity trends. Here are few points that I could retain : energy individual
The Tesla system is just pure evil, people buy a power wall and Tesla make money from it without their consent, it is for the owners impossible to do anything about it without disconnecting the power wall from the grid (basically crippling the capabilities)
@@sudeeptaghosh What comment? that they are evil... (my personal assessment). That they are making money off it? (that is common knowledge, well the first poster knew about this.). That you do not give consent. (that is one of those nasty things to proof things people do not do, just you proof to me that they do ask consent). That you can't do anything about it ( I seen a review ... might be able to find it, thing is really a blackbox there is ZERO control over it) Or that the power wall will be crippled (that I can explain, and was in that review as well)
Spot on.. this will be the biggest revolution whatsoever.. even bigger than EV's. This is exactly the reason Tesla is valued so high not for automotive, but energy storage.
Tesla, however could get killed in that market. For stuff that doesn't move, a bit heavier is OK. The Tesla batteries are light weight for the amount of energy. Zinc flow batteries cost less per unit energy but are heavier.
@@kensmith5694 not too sure.. right now Tesla has good price for Megapack, and their software, the autobidder, makes a real difference. Storage alone is not going to cut it. Also, behind the meter storage in cars, charging and decharging of cars, and powerwalls is a great help that competitors do not have
@@nickiemcnichols5397 the average person, is not typically in the market for a new car anyway.. this is reflected by the average price of a new car bought is well over 35k. used car market is always an option, but we will have to wait another 2 to 3 years before supply meets demand sufficiently to get used EV prices down a bit.
I'm sceptical that storage will compete with natural gas peakers for actually delivering a meaningful amount of energy such that high penetration renewables grid will actually work. -Li-ion is great for frequency control and ancillary services but monstrously too expensive for large scale storage. -Liquid air looks like it will be far cheaper but still more expensive than the renewable power it wants to store plus not all that efficient. It's all genuinely quite exciting to see the developments and i'm especially keen to see just how cheep the liquid air can get. The cost of the pilot project in Birmingham is about £340,000 /MWh so for that to backup Cleve hill solar park for 6 hours would cost £714 million. Bearing in mind Cleve Hill will cost £450 million that's a rather large extra expense for the storage system, especially when you consider that Cleve Hill is already about DOUBLE the cost of Hinkley Point C per MW and Hinkley will not require any storage to meet baseload. That being said, low carbon storage could complement Hinkley Point C (and the rest of the nuclear fleet) to meet peak power as nuclear is not particularly good at load following. I've shared these (similar) numbers with you before @just have a think and you acknowledged that they were "challenging". I think I'll remain one of your "naysayers who debate and deny what's happening right in front of them" for the time being until the liquid air guys scale up and release figures but I'm hanging on to hope for the technology! Thanks for the vid as always :)
@@incognitotorpedo42 To be fair I did make a mistake in my comment there by saying "peaker" plants. That's probably the only thing that storage is good for right now- Peaking, and for very short duration. What I meant to say is I'm sceptical batteries will displace the natural gas spinning reserve which currently handles the hours to days or even week long lulls in wind energy as well as the seasonal appalling performance of solar (2% capacity factor in December right when we use the most energy) As stated in your link... "The LCOE of battery storage systems meanwhile has halved in just two years, to a benchmark of US$150 per MWh for four-hour duration projects" which is low enough to compete with gas peaking at $152-$206 /MWh but not close enough to compete with Gas Combined Cycle at $41-$74 /MWh www.lazard.com/media/450784/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-120-vfinal.pdf Obviously 4 hours doesn't get you through the night or between windy weather systems but it does do some peaking. Another vitally important point is that the purpose of storage, no matter what they tell you, is to buy energy low and sell it back high. Sure, on a sunny/windy day renewables are the cheep option but much of the time Combined Cycle Gas Turbines are the cheapest option instead. The benefits of using more renewables rather than curtailing them could easily be offset by increasing the market for cheep gas to pump into storage during off peak hours with no wind. There's plenty of spinning reserve on the grid and the operators will happily ramp up just to sell more power. To be fair, that's not actually a bad thing. CCGT is far more efficient than gas peaking so there is a carbon saving. But it does lock in the market for gas. Then there's the true cost if carbon was ACTUALLY priced in properly which, admittedly, will probably come down for batteries in the future but currently aproximately 330 g CO2-eq/kWh (when you add the footprint of solar to that you're not much better than natural gas) www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2020/02/16/estimating-the-carbon-footprint-of-utility-scale-battery-storage/?fbclid=IwAR2NwhtLMq8PMJ5UMwhMnt99l-L-VuV0yFtBX8Yl3IeuvPzAD1cA5WzKySM#64bc4b7f7adb I don't actually want to be so pessimistic all the time. I do this because I'm a nuclear advocate. Nuclear is 12 gCO2/kWh, uses many hundreds of times less land than renewables, doesn't produce any emissions, doesn't release any of its waste into the environment (in fact its the only industry on earth which contains 100% of it), produces life-saving medical isotopes, creates lots of long term well paid jobs, objectively has the best safety record of all energy sources and yet people want to jump through all these crazy hoops to just harness the wind and sun? Madness.
Dave, A great video - it is good to see well researched and factual content like this rather than all the emotive BS that tends to circulate the internet - e.g. blaming the blackouts in Texas on proposed environmental policy that hasn't yet been turned into policy. I work in renewable energy and I think that this is an excellent summary of the political and business side of energy storage. One point that I believe in that tends to get overlooked in these discussions is a very important detail - traditional grid networks by there very purpose are geographically constrained. Transmission networks need to be constructed between points of generation and consumption and typically generators are built far away from where people want to live. PV solar is a very unique renewable source on the basis that it is practical to locate it on the very same buildings where the majority of consumption is located. The intermittency of PV is solved by using the grid and energy storage. If you try to exploit this unique benefit of PV and plan to deploy PV close to consumption (rather than utility scaled PV) then this will lead to the obvious conclusion that storage should also be located as close to the PV generation and power consumption as possible. Like PV - storage is also a technology that can be scaled-down into solutions that are compatible with being located close to where there are large densely populated areas. This combination of PV and storage located where existing populations are reduces the dependence and value of existing grid transmission and generation. If decentralized PV and storage is promoted then it might be possible to remove the need for grid scale transmission and to only keep distribution level grids in the future.
Thank you for stating the obvious. Old mindsets in the power industry are in for a world of hurt. This will probably be a disaster for most grid operators.
@@markplott4820 Sorry to burst your bubble but as exiting as Tesla's Auto bidder system is (and it is very exiting) it will only ever be part of the solution. The Grid Operators are like the Railway Track, the electricity providers are like the Trains... the Grid is going nowhere.
@George Mann Cool conspiracy theory. It doesn't change the economics of storage. www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
Grid operators, not so much. operators of fossil fueled power plants better figure out a "plan B". The grid operators merely transfer power from the sources to the loads. the sources will be different, the loads won't change at all. The power purchase agreements go to the generators that can offer power at the lowest cost. LET THE CONTEST BEGIN!! (Just let free enterprise run her course) I do believe, however, the grid operators should invest in electrical energy storage as part of their own infrastructure. That way, they can accept the cheap renewable power anytime it's available, and sell it, whenever there is a demand. They're the ones, who could profit most from large scale electrical energy storage.
@George Mann Well, I would just as soon not fund the other side of the war. National security depends on energy self sufficiency. Wind and solar are good starts, what we need now to complete the triangle, is efficient, cost effective electrical energy storage.
Sounds like another middle man taking his cut in the money we pay for our bills.Another thing that bothers me the price of petrol/Diesel is 80% taxes by the time put it in our cars, so when we all have electric cars is this tax going to be Passed on?
The State of Connecticut is having the same discussion; so far the legislature is floating the idea of new taxes to capture the revenue lost to the fuel taxes. Hydrocarbon fuels or not, we'll get squeezed by the govt regardless.
Now there is a split in the ranks of the eco-Nazis...they no longer approve of Hydro electric projects because of the massive disruption of "habitat"...meanwhile they approve of off shore wind turbines which have been found to emit frequencies of sound that greatly disrupts marine mammals that use sonar...a.k.a. whales. So I guess it's now become "Kill the whales...save the planet ".
That's true! Pumped hyrdo - it's the original grid-scale storage solution, and surprisingly efficient! Not suitable in many places, though -- you need quite a large reservoir and a fairly substantial elevation difference. I'm not sure if we've had a video covering all of the alternatives yet; would be pretty interesting for everyone. I definitely agree that even non-renewable sources like gas plants have a role to play.
@@mike-barber - Gas plants are our dirty little secret, they are way in the lead for backing up wind. It would be great to see storage displace gas someday but does any country have a plan to do that in the next 20 years?
@@dougmc666 true! Gas seems like a good backup for renewables in the interim - provided overall emissions are lower. I suspect they will be because you can deploy more if you have a good backup. In the long term, I'm guessing smarter grids, better connectivity across diverse geographies, and more economical storage will just make gas less attractive to run.
@@dougmc666 Hell yes they do, and it isn't going to take 20 years: www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
Notice that the speaker never discusses costs. This is the hallmark of green vs. carbon energy debates since the costs of most of the ambitious green proposals makes their implementation economically absurd. Take for instance, the recent customer power outage in California. This was due directly to the decommissioning recently of peaker gas power plants that served 6 million customers. When A/C demand during the heat wave became too great a power draw for the grid there were no batteries or neighboring states with power to spare and 300,000 customers had to be blacked out for an hour. The estimated cost to buy the 12 Gwatts of batteries to remedy this problem is $91 billion for four hours of back-up. Then, to keep the batteries charged another 12 Gwatts of supplementary solar and wind will have to be built to be sure the batteries are charged and ready when the main solar and wind portfolios are too busy to charge, at a cost of another $20 billion. So essentially you need twice as much solar and wind in California to keep and maintain a battery backup of four hours standby. $91 + $20 billion = $111 billion which amortized over a payback period of 10 years is $100/10 = $10 billion per year which must be added to the $41.6 billion that Californians already pay for electricity per year. This mind you is only for four hours backup. Eight hours or 24 hours or God forbid a whole week makes it all infeasible.
You are making ridiculous assumptions to "prove" your point. Nobody is going to have a bunch of equipment like that sitting around to use it once per year. Your whole perspective is wrong. We had a problem so it's impossible. Nonsense. As the percentage of renewables increases, of course we have to adjust. You should look at his video on liquid air batteries. Sounds like a great solution for a one off situation. I think the most efficient way to do it is to expose everyone to the actual real time price of electricity(time of use pricing), using meters that can measure not only how much you use, but when. One obvious thing, is not charge EVs during those peak hours, but do charge them when electricity is plentiful. Google Ice Bear. It is an air conditioner that stores cold, in the form of ice. I have 2 Carrier 42 SEER mini splits. My whole house AC is 13 SEER. The minute you give people a financial reason to help with these peak hours, they will. Sure there may be a coule of bumps in the road, just like there were with fossil fuels. We'll figure it out.
Nice, informative video, as always Dave. I'm inclined to think that those who might shout down your valid information about clean power will have a vested interest in doing so. And whilst it is entirely possible for the world to be powered by Solar and Wind, with battery back-up to smooth out the irregularities, there are emerging power technologies that, until quite recently, have been very reluctant to show their tech for fear of being laughed out of the arena. I refer to cold fusion, amongst several, which even had to change its name to lenr or lanr, in order to get more than a half-second hearing from a closed minded audience [something I used to be, then neutral, then open minded]. Even on the relative pittance investment that lenr/lanr derivitives have received over the years compared to hot fusion, the return in tested power output for power input is millions more watts. And instead of being 20-50 years away, they are 2-5 years from commercialisation. And although I'm quite prepared to be flamed by anyone who won't bother to look up the progress these power technologies have made in the last decades, I will suggest this: "Never say never", and "I'd rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic than right". We've all heard the first one, and someone rather successful at getting emerging technology to disrupt, recently coined the second. Keep staying safe. 😷 👍
Most people just don't realise what's "just round the corner" LENR (not the right name) will almost certainly be the main source of non polluting energy eclipsing all others. The reason? It is cheap and non polluting. No huge infrastructure to build (it will be close to or in your home ) Think of a domestic boiler (furnace) that will supply heat and electricity directly. No huge steam plants, turbines or alternators, and the fuel is cheap. Non polluting because no effluent of any kind whatsoever is emitted from the device. Additionally to the above reasons why it will be universally adopted over others will be that no existing technology could get down to the price of this energy source to be remotely competative. Many countries and huge companies are following this up. Many are doing their own research on the technology. One private company seems to be ahead of most others and may well demonstrate a prototype unit before the end of the year. If they don't, there are others that will catch up. It will be the answer to climate change/global warming.
@@Tony-ce4ok In this vein, Brilliant Light Power is interesting. (It's not LENR, although it does rely on new physics) They've progressed a lot in the past five years or so that I've been following them, and they now have a continuous power cell capable of producing large amounts of heat for long periods. They appear to be targeting the industrial process heat market, but I don't know how long it will be until it's commercialized. At least a couple years, I'd expect.
@@ihcfn Hi, Lost and confused If you want up to date info on the process, I suggest that you go: to www.rossilivecat.com/ Read only blog. If you want to ask a question then go to: Andrea Rossi - Journal Of Nuclear Physics But this is only one of many, one example is that Airbus the aircraft manufacturer is doing research in the same technology. If you want an opinion of a British Nobel Prize winner then its, Brian Josephson FRS Professor Emeritus of Physics Cambridge University that you want. There are dozens of scientists around the world you can check on, In Sweden, Italy, United States, and others that I just can't bring to mind at the moment. One Italian scientist, who is revered for his expertise in these matters is Professor Sergio Focardi of Bologna University. He did research many years ago on the subject and later helped to develop the basic version of the Ecat ( Energy Catalyzer, which you will become familiar with if you pursue this subject further) Unfortunately Prof Focardi passed away some time ago, but there are video's of him explaining the process. There is a Ted Talk that he gave before he died that you might like. But as I say, there are many other scientists that have been involved and that you can read of their opinions on the internet. Hope that helps. Regards Tony
Norway where I live have allways had storage and cost of electrical power lower then generated from carbon based sources. That have not eliminated the use of carbon based fuel and will not do so anytime soon. We have the highest prosentage of electric cars, but we still have large areas where that is not really an option. Most homes and commerce has electricety as the main power source inluded heating. I really wish that renewable energy was the answer, but as long as so many will not include nuclear, the low energy density in solar and wind takes a lot more resource to develop then vi have available. All the development in solar and wind the last 20 years has so fare only covered as small part of the increase in electrical power and still it has put a strain on the availability of many raw materials. Just to replace what we use to day more then 20 times more has to be built and that do not include storage and transmission.
Not so sure. I have put enough solar on my roof to have enough for 9months of the year (including the car in regular dutch row housing at 52 north). If I would by new ones today I could get 30% less panels for the same output. And that is after 4 years. Plenty dense if you ask me.
bknesheim, I recommend you do some research into today's renewables. You seem to be talking about the world of 10 years ago. Things are changing rapidly.
@@christianvanderstap6257 At 59 north that would not do so well. Data from an installation that give 40kW/hours on a sunny day in the sommer. Only give1-2 on a sunny day in december.The cost to cover the last 3 months can easely be 3-4 times what you payed for 9 months. Anyway the problem is large scale utilities. The amount of material that goes into a singel 6MW windmill is stagering and since you in the best cases only get about efficensy off 35% at the very best, you need 3x to produce a 6MW/year of power. You also need tons and tons of wire to connect the windmills to the grid. Solar need less resources but they are a lot more nasty to produce and very limited in use for many areas.
@@incognitotorpedo42 I have done the math based on the best we can do in theory. If we in the next 20 years shall install 20x more then we did the last 20 years. The number of new mines needed is several times what we have to day for importen metal like iron, copper and aluminium. Up to 50-60x for special metal like the ones used in storng magnets.
@@bknesheim Your math might be right but the assumptions it's based on are wrong. The prices of renewables and storage are plummeting, and we are not going to run out of materials to make them. www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
Unfortunately, the conversion efficiency for H2 compared to Li-Ion battery storage and many other currently interesting forms of energy storage is not that great. The current conversion efficiencies are 65-70% for electricity to H2 and 50-60% for H2 to electricity. Charging and discharging Li-Ion for ordinary batteries are both in the 90% range. You lose more than half of your energy from the get go if you use H2. It's only when you want to store the energy for a very long time (years or longer), in a small container or may want to transport it over long distances (between continents and thus preventing significant transportation loss through HV lines) that H2 may make sense. The small container size may have been an advantage for vehicles a couple of decades ago when Li-Ion batteries weren't yet as well developed as they are now... but with the current progress and the next stage of EV car (>500 mile range and cheap compact cars) on the horizon, I don't think H2 makes sense anymore.
I was gonna make fun of your statement (especially about the leaking storage mechanism, which is the second worse thing about H2 as fuel - the first being its tendencies to explode violently) but started searching and there is a significant progress - Toyota's hydrogen-powered electric cars are here and EU already has 111 working H2 gas stations (..of that, 0 in place where i live and closest only 150km away). H2 fuel has also some advantages over batteries - to me, the biggest one is the filling up of the fuel takes few seconds, where batteries still take few hours.
@@nescius2 I am a mechanical engineer with tooo many years of design experience. I know what I am talking about better than the other 99% of the earths population.
@@totherarf Yep, it will. Look at any new capacity energy chart and it'll be obvious that solar, wind and hydro, with battery back-up, will be our only sources of power in the next: 30-50 years. Fossil fuels are rapidly depleting, anyone in the fossil fuels industry knows this which is why they're planning ahead with renewables. I work in the energy industry, I know.
@@rtfazeberdee3519 Yes, definitely wind and hydro as well as solar. I've developed wind farms over the past 13 years, have lived with a small wind turbine in my backyard that powers my house and EV, along with solar, and know the wind industry well but looking at the numbers, the solar industry, with battery back-up, will dominate and overtake all other energy production sources as it's getting so cheap that they can now produce energy at: $0.01/kWh, with solar. All this with virtually no maintenance or additional costs. I'm sure there will be several different technologies in batteries, which is great. The more, the better.
@@RussellFineArt What about the massive usage of fresh water for cleaning solar panels on the level needed to power an entire country of 300 million people? Isn't fresh water also becoming an endangered resource in many of the places in the US sunny enough for solar panels to be worth it?
Excellent presentation. Everything is becoming more interconnected thanks to the internet and world wide web. Automation has become so widely available as well as more efficient devices and it has become cheaper to generate your own renewable energy. I think in the future it will be possible to automatically buy energy from different sources more cheaply or greener based on your preferences
This is amongst the best of youtube, Dave. Factual, lots of info, a great start for the viewer to acquire a basis to understand the issues you tackle and present so well.
Really. Why is there a panic on countries like Germany and Britain with the highest renewables energy installations in the world? ua-cam.com/video/SRxzhpDZcJ8/v-deo.html
Great Video Dave, I particularly like the use of video diagrams to accompany your commentary. Well done and keep up the good work!
Thanks David. Much appreciated.
@@jinnantonix4570 Yes the technical aspects are covered... But the economic issues are clearly out of his spectrum, hence the strong belief that those solutions will work. Anyone doing some serious research on that topic knows that renewables are a fraud.
@@jinnantonix4570 I would like one of these money makers, show the empirical data for man made Carbon warming, as no one has yet.
@@VFatalis in what way are they a fraud? It's hot outside. I'm sat in my air conditioned room using the power I generate from the PV panels I installed a few yrs ago, which have now paid for themselves, plus getting paid for every watt I generate. If that's fraud, more please.
@@JustHaveaThink Im curious what people think about climate change in general. im not sure what the real timeline is for when things will get bad but i hear people say things like "we have ten years before its too late" or something and i think to myself "well there's 0 chance of switching to renewables in ten years so were definitely screwed." In general Im pretty optimistic about the future and the development of new technologies to help solve the problem but if the timelines really that short should we be bracing for the inevitable disaster? or, is the timeline exaggerated to motivate people to push forward and for example if we're all renewable by like 2050 things will be mostly all right. I guess what im saying is should i be extremely fearful and pessimistic or is our current trajectory one that should make us hopeful?
I don't comment nearly enough on how much I enjoy and look forward to your outstanding work. Thanks
Neither do I, but in my case I usually don’t have much to contribute. This is all new to me and I am still learning how things work. Keep up the great work.
Your presentation of transforming our energy reliance is just wholesome. A big thank you for your videos. It is an additional showcase for the underlying unity of Europe. I would love to see cooperation with other channels, which need a bit more content. The more people are aware of what actually changes, the better we can prepare ourselves for the future. Whether you do or not, I will have a look at how Patreon works.
It's nice to see the inter-connected grid gaining ground. I read about this stuff 30 years ago and finally we are beginning to implement it.
Thank you Sir, I am way less confused by "Energy usage" now.
I'm still confused but you have helped a lot. Ta
As control room operator at FP&L for over 20 years I have seen the effects of low frequency on the grid. What typically happens in hot weather is as frequency gets lower due to not enough generation capacity dispatch load control will start shedding load during brown outs in order to keep frequency up... If there is enough battery capacity to supply enough load during this time it can eliminate brown outs. So green energy is a good option to prevent brown outs and load shedding..
Florida (In particular Florida Power and Light) is recognized in the US electric industry as one of the most robust areas in terms of energy management and disaster recovery. Here in Arizona we have hurricanes occasionally wander through the southwest corner, which does damage you would laugh at. "Aww - did it undermine a 500KV tower? Poor babies?"
I completely agree with storage being magic for short-term stability. Here in the West we don't have enough Remedial Action Schemes, although California does pretty well. In Arizona the plan is to rely on line protection and manual switching.
@Patrick McNulty
With a conventional generator the load is coupled electromechanically to the generator. But with the electronic inverter the frequency determining oscillator is independent of the load. If the load varies the frequency stays the same, and if the frequency is generated by a crystal oscillator, the frequency can be very accurate. So the only thing that will vary is the voltage. It used to be that the frequency was critical to many devices, but nowadays most devices don't depend on it.
@@acmefixer1 Frequency is very important. If not held at 60 cycles here in the USA equipment starts overheating heating..
@@acmefixer1 So what you are describing is an inverter which is not grid connected.
For any grid connected inverter, it becomes a frequency follower, with a very small bias or "slope" toward standard. The conventional generator, as you mentioned is coupled, however it too has a "droop characteristic" which biases it toward standard (60hz in North America), which gives the grid stability.
How does shedding load cause brown-outs, surely it causes black-outs?
Watching Dave is like watching a highly focused and bang up to date Tomorrows World, most enjoyable.
Amazing work with these videos! Love to learn about the energy transition on your channel. Such a soothing voice and great use of diagrams and text!
Came across your channel last week and I’m loving the content!! It’s really refreshing and motivating to hear of different technology and ideas around renewables, after being stuck in the sphere where only problems, not solutions, were discussed.
There all at it.... Discussing the problems But No Real Solutions, just Blah Blah Blah
This is a complex subject, well researched as ever and put into context. Recently retired, my last job was in the IoT space and Smart Grids were an application I studied. Storage changes everything and with batteries getting cheaper the opportunities for balancing the demand/supply equation and providing frequency response services to accommodate more renewables are increasing. The challenge is one of management which needs a lot of real-time data collection. Blockchain looks to be the best solution using connectivity technologies such as cellular, LPWA and MESH networks. We come from a world of a few power sources and many power loads, the new world is where millions of loads are also sources, e.g. electric vehicle batteries supporting V2G on the low voltage part of the grid. This is a potential nightmare from a management perspective but again IoT technology should be up to it. As we used to say, giga bytes are just as important as giga watts.
yes but remember electric vehicles though providing a large load could also be a huge source and once the system has adapted to the demand of electric vehicles they could be a huge source to help balance demand like electric hot water tank remote utility controls have been. In other words shut the charge off to the vehicles and maybe even draw from their batteries down to a particular capacity.
@@teekay1785 Yep, that’s about it. Just remember that every time power goes back and forth there’s a transaction to be done which is why I repeat, the Mega bytes are as important as the Mega Watts.
Excellent reportage and explanation as I've come to expect from this top youtube channel. It's a go-to for anyone interested in the key energy issues of today, from retirees to politicians, to teachers, the science community and high school students upwards. Many thanks
Just come across your channel and I have to say your content is amazing!🙌 You explain things so clearly yet keep a lot of detail. As a student and an energy nerd I've got to thank you for all the research and hardwork you put into your videos
You need to learn to count.
Just a quick thank you, for your well presented and, without dumbing down the subject easy to follow videos. You are my go to channel on these matters.
This channel is superb content. Great topics, keep em coming.
It's wonderful for those techno yuppies who believe that renewables will save their future... Ain't happening
The importance of the FERC Order 841 being upheld cannot be overstated. I work for a DNSP/TNSP and invariably it is the legislation that we operate under that is what is holding innovation back and not the technology availability or the commercial interest in using it! Good stuff Dave.
Really impressing your film. The illustration of it let me think, that there is a big lobby behind your channel. Love your British accent.
Me as a German (please forgive me my English!) am sceptical against so called renewable energy. Because we already pay for it very high. We have the highest energy prices in Europe, probably in the world. We live constantly close to a blackout. If we have had no neighbours with coal or nuclear plants, our system would crash very often. 2018 we have had two critical moments in our grid. In your film you are showing a beautiful landscape at the beach "decorated" with many windmills. This was a symbolic picture: human greediness and ideology destroying nature! My point is not: I am against electrical storage. No! Not at all! This is even the crucial problem of renewables. I am for obligatory solar panels on flat roofs in industrial areas. But I am against Solar Parks on fertile soil or in woods, against cornfields for our electrical comfort. Simply because of the efficiency of renewables, the so called EROI (Energy Return on Investment), which is too low. For that reason they need a big area to compensate. Photovoltaic has an EROI of 1.6, Biomass 3.5, Wind 3.9, Gas 28, Coal 30, Water 35. In comparison to it the old veteran of Pressurized Water Reactor has an EROI of 75! Which is not too bad.
The windmills are meanwhile as high as the television tower in Stuttgart. The concrete weights 7000 Tonnes. The socle of 3500 Tonnes is left for ever in the soil. The wings are impossible to recycle - they still look for an solution for this problem. And many birds and insects are victim of this sort of environmental protection.
But if you compare the renewables with the new concepts of nuclear power plants of fourth generation, you will understand, that the increasing demand of energy needs a new investment of nuclear plants of the fourth generation: MSR, LFTR or DFR: They have an EROI starting from 1000 up to 2000, some people of the DFR-Team claim even an EROI of 4000! They are safe ("Walk away Security"), they are modular, fit into a container and the best of all: they burn up the nuclear waste of our good old Pressurized Water Nuclear Plants. Ah, I forgot: they produce energy very very cheap. Ah, one point more: because they run with Thorium, they could produce for the next 1000 years, without leaving behind tonnes of garbage with a long decay as the old nuclear plants. Because of the high process heat from 1000 Grade Celsius, you could add to such a plant innovative techniques like: PowerToGas with Hydrogen Production, Synthetic Fuel, LOHC, NanoFlowcell, Seawater Desalination, Long-Distance Heating. These added spin-offs could solve many problems around the globe. And the power plants themselves could help, to give back nature to nature, because these plants don't need space. Specially in Germany the Green politics have destroyed big terrains of woods with the windmills, fertile land with solar panels. And they call this environmental protection, and declare it as nature protection, which is not the same! But we do not need this sort of environmental protection. We need a new wilderness for biodiversity. In Europe there are no virgin forests anymore (ok, in Poland, the Białowieża National Parc).
Just have a think!
Absolutely agree. You mentioned thorium which remind me Rubbia ,italian like I am but with Nobel prize. In Italy we are masochist and prefer to kick all the brains out in change of some desperates from Africa . It happened with Enrico Fermi too, who built atomic bomb for Usa instead of us . We would have won the ww2 with that and probably nuclear power would have been more important then oil now .
The researchers have experimented with agrivoltaics, where the solar panels are located in farms. The plants grow bigger leaves to compensate for the shade. There are no conflicts with putting wind turbines among the fields of farms. I have nothing against nuclear power, but it's very unfair for anyone to say that renewables are harming the Earth! That's what this German is saying. The harm is being caused by a fossil-fueled world and it's absolutely necessary to get rid of all CO2 causing sources.
One point people fail to talk about is that thermal power plants -- nuclear too -- require a huge amount of water to keep the plant cool. This is a major problem for locating these plants, so they are located close to water. The German complained about wind turbines; there are more huge high voltage towers with thermal power plants.
Wake up world! Thorium or any nuclear material is not renewable. The problems in Germany are not problems for all other countries.
@star cruiser
You don't know what you are talking about.
You are nothing but a fool.
Marek Stepanek - That is a fine exposition, my friend, of the benefits of nuclear power, especially in densely-populated Europe.
“Desperation is the Mother of Re-invention” should be Germany’s motto if it ever wakes up to its energy mistake, after Fukushima, in closing its nuclear power plants that still have years left of CO2-free power production: If they’re not restarted, the CO2 produced in their construction added to the climate crisis for no benefit. Even worse, the country burns brown coal to replace the lost power. How the greens can be happy with this, much the same as they do here in the US, says a lot about their unreasoning fear of nuclear power.
The coal, oil & gas interests spent large sums to deny the climate crisis & postpone action to address it for decades. Natural gas was once suggested as “the bridge fuel” to a green economy, but the delays have made that impossible if we’re to avoid the worst consequences of global heating.
The bridge fuel now is nuclear, at least until we’ve reached the point of negative growth in CO2 concentrations. If the greens had been able to stop the fossil fuel industry from spreading their climate denial propaganda, they could have bought the time needed to avoid temporary resort to nuclear. For understandable reasons, they failed. Now it’s time to face reality: For the next 50 years or so, we either use nuclear or sustain dramatic reductions in living standards in order to avoid industrial collapse and eventual extinction.
A little more perspective to close - Back in the ‘70s & ‘80s, at least until climate scientist James Hansen testified to the US Congress in 1988 of the seriousness of humanity’s situation, the term “Global Warming” might have been good for giving us a gentle wake-up call about the developing science. But now we need words that accurately describe our terrestrial reality -
“The Climate Crisis, Ocean
Acidification and Global Heating”
(Ocean Acidification comes first, because few people even know it’s happening, never mind that it’s caused by fossil fuel pollution.)
@acme fixer - The greens around the world have spread unreasoning fear of nuclear power for decades while tens of millions suffered unhealthy lives & premature deaths from fossil fuel pollution, esp. from coal-caused CO2 & SO2 pollution, fine coal particulates, coal dust & mercury pollution.
As for Germany, as was explained, it shares its problems with the rest of densely-populated Europe, w/ its interconnected electricity grid. Assume the rest of Europe had followed Germany after Fukushima in shutting down nuclear in favor of burning stuff like brown coal (while at the same time allowing the expansion of diesel vehicles as they did): Europe would have experienced depression-like conditions & a health crisis like China’s. Their gov’ts, industry & homeowners would not have the funds to expand wind & solar. The Euro-zone would now resemble something more like Central & Eastern Europe around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union.
Would the EU have survived; how would terrorism have played out in the new slums of Europe; how much more aggressively would the Russians have behaved; how much more would reactionary conservatism have grown beyond say, Hungary & Turkey (you can start with France...); what would have happened to the Syrian refugees, most blocked from entering Europe; and how would that weakened EU/NATO, with a stronger Russia, have played out in Trump’s America?
Now go up one level higher: Many Muslims in MENA, from Morocco to Iran, have respected Europe’s social democratic traditions of medical care and other social & educational services for all that have prevented the levels of poverty found in the US & elsewhere: how might their changed attitudes have affected things today?)
Congratulations from all of us Sir for the amount of work you put on each video. You make the world a better place
Best teacher on UA-cam !
I love your clear reasoning and explanations ! Regards.
I suggest you do a segment on liquid metal batteries provided by Ambri. Inexpensive, efficient and reliable with very low degradation, they offer an exceptional solution for grids and likely for businesses and homes.
Well done Dave, we're doing a community solar farm here in Ireland. I would also like to see governments encouraging community grid infrastructure as well as community energy storage, this would accelerate and extend rollout renewables within communities, it would also allow communities to benefit from revenues earned through the three components of renewable energy 👍👍
Hope the Communities are
Filled with , Blood Related - JOINT FAMILIES OF MORALS = COMMON SENSE AS TO : - LIKE OTHERS AS THYSELF IN
THOUGHTS , WORDS AND
ACTIONS - WITH MATURITY AND ' SPAN OF CONTROL.
EVERYTHING IS SIMPLE IF YOU KNOW MORAL GOVERNANCE AND
MORAL SCIENCE.
CHEERS. *
An excellent and well researched presentation as usual. The good news is that the market is moving more quickly than the regulators, especially in some of those "developed" countries that love to dig their coal and burn it.
I'm hoping that domestic batteries will be included in the upcoming UK efficiency grant scheme, that will be a game changer for me, allowing me to both store my own solar electricity, and buy grid electricity at lower rates during the two blocks of three hours a day that are really cheap in the UK. Leading on from this, that will bring the running costs of moving from gas central heating to air source heat pump central heating PRICE EQUIVALENT in the UK, which is where the carbon game really starts to change.
Nice one! If we add Norway to the north and with Switzerland in the south there could be more than enough hydro-energy storage to keep the whole thing nice and steady. Then a big chuck of solar in the very dry Spanish interior and we'll be much less dependable on Russian and Arab fossil fuel. The EU has plenty of drawbacks but things like this really show it's worth.
This is exactly right. electrical energy storage is the ONLY thing keeping renewable energy from being the dominant source of electrical power.
My idea, is similar to your idea of "behind the meter storage". Having a substantial battery at home makes the most sense right now, because the LCOE of the battery only has to compete with RETAIL rates, rather than WHOLESALE rates that it would have to compete with in front of the meter. If homes and small businesses could do a thing called "peak shaving", there would never be a need for peaker plants in times of peak demand. Peak shaving works by battery chargers set to a voltage threshold, where if the voltage from the grid sags below a certain level, the charger turns off, unloading the grid. When the voltage rises,(hopefully due to the wind turning turbines)then, the charger(s) come back on, charging the battery bank. Under high demand, your loads just run on your own battery. Once you have a DC storage system, that system can be supplied by rooftop solar, wind, micro-hydro, or any other source.(in worst cases, a backup generator) With four sources of power, you have no problem maintaining 24/7 power.(solar, your battery, the grid, or backup generator) you could even have a 5th source, if you have a wind turbine.
with grid electricity getting more expensive, and off grid solar equipment becoming less, there will be a crossing point, where you could save money putting in your own off-grid photovoltaic system with battery. In the areas where local ordinances do not allow disconnecting from the grid, the peak shaving system I described above is a good idea, besides, the grid is a good backup, in case something goes wrong.(A peak shaving system is sometimes referred to as a "grid autonomous" system) A system like that could easily be adapted to work with the Zellweger ripple system, in case the voltage rise is due to a peaker plant, and not excess power from a windy day.
Excellent presentation. Clear and articulate and well modulated (no droning).
I’m definitely studying the right thing
what are you studying
@Jaded Cynic - and that won't begin before the psychopathic buffoon in the oval office is replaced by a sane person. And for that to happen, the world needs a miracle.
Whatever yo're studying it's already too late...unless it's permaculture, in which case it's also too late
Wtf is going on here
@Dongs Oi, microgreens are cool too, same for tiered farming and hydroponics. I recommend looking into how Belgium makes its food supply.
Decentralized energy storage is where this is headed for a lot of good reasons. First and arguably most importantly, as it becomes more widespread it will make economic sense due to increased engineering expertise and the cost savings that come with mass production of the components needed. Secondly, storing energy closer to where it's being used reduces transmission losses during peak usage times, when they are most detrimental. And beyond the stabilizing effects on the electrical grid mentioned in this video, it will go a long way towards making renewables feasible for providing the bulk of our energy.
I say a (partial) solution are big mechanical batteries and gravi-tricity (lasting long enough). We make hell out of nature generating electricity, so we can't trasure the value of it handling the current as a business, also because we do not know what an electron is made of.
Blockchain itself will still be a too hungry thing ("mis-trusting" people, that don't try to learn about electric current), i can't think of blockchain having gotten less complicated
Run your house with solar power and you will need lead batteries worth about 200,000 Euros to provide sufficient energy storage to become independent from the grid for up to 2 weeks (Times without sufficient usable sunshine can last much longer!). These batteries have a lifespan of 10 years after which you need a new set. And lead batteries are and will be by far the cheapest batteries of all.
@@TheSpecio Who was taking about fully autonomous electrical supply from solar?
See it as a contest between the economies of scale and economies of mass production. Before 2000, economies of scale justified huge power stations. Now the advantage of bigness isn't so clear. But the arguments are confused by government meddling, cross-subsidies, etc.
@@siggyincr7447
I am!
Because if you are not fully autonomous you expect that others (Your neighbors!) are going to pay for your dream. You are 'saving' by buying less electric power from the grid. But you expect that the grid will be kept so strong and efficient that it can provide you any moment with as much power as you want, which ist, of course, very expensive for the power company. That's why the company has to charge your neighbors more. Such behavior is parasitic.
Just go with all Nuclear. This battery idea is a non starter. You are very right about how proponents of solar and wind do not understand the battery equation.
And what do we do with the radioactive waste my good sir?
Nuclear power currently makes up around 10% of global energy use, and at current rate of consumption the world's uranium supplies are estimated to last another 200 years. Ignoring the cost, difficulty and significant nuclear security concerns of building reactors everywhere, that uranium isn't going to last long if we start using it up ten times faster.
Kent H thorium is a good candidate as the problem associated with waste and thermal runaway (meltdown) issues are mitigated. A mix of green and nuclear energy is probably the best way forward.
@@AnthonyFlack Fine by me, add a couple of decades of CO2 free power generation. I'm not against.
Simple answer. Too expensive.
Ever Sunday, I look forward to watching your blog, and I have a thought that is rattling around in my brain, and want to present it to you, even though it is a tangent topic to today's show. It is geothermal, to be used for commercial and residential heating and cooling, powered by green energy, using heat pumps. Ground based systems have a sweet spot that is driven by latitude. This Goldilocks latitude is not at the Equator (ground too hot), nor the Arctic (ground too cold), but between these, where it's just right. And there, in this good zone, the expensive part is to get this desired temperature content. Drilling can almost always be done here, almost like drilling for oil, except you're guaranteed to hit your prize... local appropriate temperature circulated water. If there were millions of holes drilled and tens of thousands of drilling rigs, especially if these rig operations were funded by the state, then costs would plummet. In addition, the inside the building conditioning systems costs would be slashed as well, as you need only the heat pump. You don't need a furnace. And costs in the heat mode and the cooling mode are slashed by roughly seventy to eighty percent. Your mileage may vary. This is a winwinwin. And the carbon exhaust cost saving are similarly accumulated. Another win. In cities, the system could be provided by the municipalities, as a utility. City living costs would plummet, and it's environment would be in it's own sweet spot. In effect, you are using the Earth as a battery, swapping summer heat and winter cooling. Swapping it for six months later.
"I have a thought that is rattling around in my brain". Clear off out of it. We don't want your type polluting the comments of GoogleTubes climate videos. People with their brains being ruined by having thoughts in them. Disgusting !
Thanks again for all your work. I really learn a lot from you.
I learned this in grad school ten years ago. You just summarized three semesters very well!
I just made a video today on this exact outcome, we have a massive grid scale regional and schools program being rolled out here in Western Australia, so exciting!
Very good video about a revolution that is undergoing without major public attention.
The trick is, to get the turbines in BEFORE the land is developed for housing. That way, the machines are in place, the developers work around them, and anyone buying the homes see that they're there, and accept it. If you try to install the turbines AFTER the homes are occupied, it might start a riot. People just don't like change. It's best to set up ahead of the population.
You call that a revolution ? I call it the ultimate joke of our dying industrial world.
@@VFatalis hmm is it true: current human population could not survive [as we do] but for the advanced industrial complex and energy from fossil fuels? what would be the limits imposed by horse and buggy technology? just think of the limits of medicine and biological/chemistry/computer sciences...my my one takes these as god given rights today? think man please!!
@@VFatalis
Do you light your house with Candles, Whale oil or kerosene?
@@davidwatson8118 You completely missed the point. Fossil fuels have no future, and renewables are in the same boat but for different reasons. We're headed for a slow agrarian life, where only those able to grow food without fertilizers and machines will survive. Buy some candles, it will be useful.
Anyone who can keep me interested and learning this topic for 15 minutes is, well brilliant! 👍🏻😁
Yeah "learning" lol.. just make sure you learn from somebody that knows what they are talking about
@@MrDmadness I hope you aren't suggesting that Dave doesn't know what he's talking about. That is certainly not the case.
@@incognitotorpedo42 well, he does not accurately describe energy storage, or fossil fuel use, so there's that
My contribution on this planet won't be to this subject so anything I am learning here is something more towards a general awareness of this topic and not a critic in the slightest. Although I do appreciate the passionate opinions here. Thank you. Do great things and be well.
@@MrDmadness Care to provide an example or two of things Dave gets wrong?
A huge salute to the depth of your research and the unbelievable ability to distill complex concepts into simple words delivered calmly. I am a HUGE fan and look forward to every new upload. Thank you very much for the amazing work you do.
What qualifications have those who write all this happy talk?
3:05 Just a side note. High-Voltage direct current is used for really long distance power transfer as it has smaller transmission losses and the more expensive conversion equipment justifies itself in such a case.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
Vermont has a program to subsidize the cost of home batteries that top off at night and then power the home during peak energy demand during the day to reduce the need for peaker plant operation. Sounds like a great start.
Vermont homes still need Autobidder to buy/sell electricity and PRINT money for the homeowner.
Sounds like a good plan!
Vermont are also on the path to building a liquid-air cryo-battery. Once there are millions of EVs that plug in at home, they will become a microgrid and perform the same service during peak hours
@@rtfazeberdee3519 well I know Tesla for one has abandoned the idea grid feed from car.
@@williamgoode9114 You know this for a fact? As of July 2020? They are set to announce a "million mile" battery, so I don't think they'll be worried about stressing that kind of cell with a little V2G. Grid service is far easier on batteries than EV use.
Thanks, a very interesting discussion. I have spent my entire career in recycling and alternative energy projects and very good to now see it so openly discussed.
This is the best channel I’ve seen on sustainable energy.
This channel and content is simply amazing! Thank you!
I notice small nuances (hard to name them as they are more related to body language) which make your representation even better. Good job and great video! 😊
I Think I noticed hair growing on Mister Think's pate. I hope this isn't the start of lycothranpy., You never know with all this Covid-19.
I think I heard you say that electricity consumption in the US and Canada will be increasing - I thought we were all supposed to be looking for ways to REDUCE our consumption?
Transport and heating are currently often done by fossil fuels. You can repalce them with electric technology, but your electrictity usage will logically go up.
Elizabeth - America keeps growing, more homes built , which needs more food and more Goods .
this takes alot of Energy.
thankfully we will have a SUN that burns Hydrogen for the next 10,000 years or so .
even IF we build all new homes with Solar , that energy is wasted w/o home battery Storage.
Solar Roof + Battery can meet 90% of home Energy needs in an Entire Year.
Commerical + Business can save $$$$ with Tesla Energy Storage.
Total energy per person could decrease while a bigger fraction of it comes from electrical power. Heating with a "heat pump" in many places greatly reduces the energy needed. It, however, is a new electrical load on the system.
@@kensmith5694 Yes, you and MrMakabar have it right. This is why electricity use will rise. If not for replacing fossil fuels, it would actually be falling because appliances, lighting, and HVAC are all getting more efficient.
@Elizabeth Cleary Humans are confidently expected to move to Canada from other locations on Earth. There's a negligible number of Canadians emigrating to the Middle East, India, southeast Asia, China, Europe, South America & Africa. I would confidently say negligible emigration from here. Only my uncle Fred's wife Anne returned to Blighty. I can add from personal experience that a sizable portion of these arrivees will purchase a power boat and/or jet skis as soon as they've had their cottage built.
Amazing time to be alive !
You have no idea.
Dave, 100% agreement. As a rooftop solar array owner, I quickly learned the art of not wasting energy. Real needs are always met by current
solar panel generation of kWh's. I am writing from Phoenix, Arizona, where sunlight is abundant and keeps the electrical cost very low, even with
frequent air conditioning use.
Good for you. I pile snow against the walls as soon as the temperature drops routinely below -20 degrees. Do you do that ? Because it's a big cost saver.
My view at the moment is - if you have solar panels get a decent sized battery or 2 added to the system. That needs to be government policy the world over. It will help enormously and a bonus is that your solar will continue to work when there is a power outage, during the sunlight hours of course. You get your own power station. Great video. Greetings from Australia.
In other words you want someone else to pay for you novelty?
Second :-) That was good. I needed a think. Thanks Dave, nicely done as always.
Any particular reason you couldn't have done that on your own?
Think what would be possible if we keep our Nuclear Energy.
If Germany would have kept 20-40 GW of reliable energy production.
True!
Just 50 nuclear power plants could produce all of Germanys electric energy, no need for storage because the source is extremely reliable, no 100,000 wind turbines, cheapest energy of all (electricity price in France is already just half as high as in Germany and Germany is still very, very far away of its goal of 100% renewable electricity and has NO storage at all at the moment))
@@TheSpecio well Germany will defintly lower the energy prices in few years quite a lot
due to the now closing of coal and nuclear they now have to get a lot of money to build up the renewable energy also at the moment extra fees to get to a cleaner energy are in place
We are at a peak of energy cost in Germany
if we get more sutainable again prices will go way down solar energy is less the 1cent/kw wind and biomass are around 3-6 cent/kw nuclear cost more then 30 cent/kw
what we shouldn't forget there is no long term storage at the moment for the nuclear waste -> which is a major cost factor not included in the nuclear price tag
@@Leicht_Sinn You know nothing jon snow...natural gas is going no where, the only thing is going to happen is that gas is going to replace coal for a cleaner solution, or even nuclear in the case of Germany.
@@Atite_Lometen ?
Nuclear Germany ehmm wtf
Germany litterly is closing old nulcear plants over the last decades and isn't building anymore
Due to the storage problem and public opinion over nuclea power
Natural gas is another way germany will buffer deficits in the electric network
Gas plants can be turned on in minutes compared to coal plant hours/days
There is a strong green movement in germany !
@@Leicht_Sinn
Where do you get your natural gas? How do you feel about that?
Nukes hve and are pricing themselves out of the market.
Nice! And as always, can't wait for battery day ;-)
If only the doomsters knew what battery day was, and what the significance of it is. Maybe they'd be less gloomy.
I knew a Young Man, that swallowed a fly, I don't know why he swallowed a fly, perhaps he'll DIE!... He swallowed the fly to catch the spider that wriggled and wriggled and wiggled in CIDER... He swallowed a bird trying to catch the fly, with his MONSTROUS OPPRESSIVE WIND TURBINES....
--
If you think your uber-techno, more, More, MORE, new, NEW, NEO JUNK economy is ever going to be more green, globally, or locally for that matter, you are a brainwashed tool of uber-liberal capitalist and uber-liberal socialist money junkies on crack'n'roids... A bunch of techno-Nazti HITLERS...
--
You Me-Too-Poly-Ton La La Lander techno-waster FAKE GREENZ deserve nothing less than mass extinction.. Screw your global Lithium (+Neodymium/cobalt) economy, crap'n'trade bo££ock$.... You are the scum of the Earth, you and your LIBERAL GLOBAL ECONOMY....
--
No new anything in the UK. Let the economy die and kick out 10 million people and start again for a start..
Make do and mend and only buy second hand stuff from now on, except food, then I will forgive you and deem you worthy of life
All urban areas should have minimum 50% food independence via vertical farms. Should be 75%. Grain crops should be banned. Grass fed organic livestock have more space.
@@PrivateSi Ecofascist.
@@incognitotorpedo42 .. I don't agree with fascism, I promote individual action... Collectively I promote constitionally limited Direct Democracy within a minarchist, as automated-as-possible state and capitalist economy apart from National Essentials that should be 51% owned by each citizen equally, minimum, dividends count towards number of years worked linked auto-benefits. Personally I don't buy new junk and think the me-too-poly-ton hypocrite Wasters are all junkies.. But it's a Neo-Waster's World, Neo Wasters... Thorium Salt Reactors are CLEAN AND MUCH BETTER VALUE, You Renewable Junk Sucker Fascists.. KEEP IT SIMPLE. Modular floating offshore power systems that are much safer and extremely POWER-DENSE, you dense fake greenz.
@@incognitotorpedo42 .. Another typically pathetic libtarded response... A crap insult that fails to address any issue that bursts their La La Lander bubble-brain... You people are not fit to own brain.
Great video!
One (very!) minor nit: transformers are not used to drop voltage to 120VAC in the US for household usage. It comes in as 240 two-phase and is split to 120 (no transformer needed) at the distribution box in the building. Things like electric stoves, heat pumps, and car chargers are typically wired for 240. It's split to 120 to make it safer. If you look at the old 'tube and insulator' residential wiring used when this first became standard, it makes a lot of sense.
But yes, AC is the key to electric distribution. We have Nikolai Tesla to thank for that.
Interesting, UK uses 440v three phase to a local distribution transformer and then sends 220v single phase to each home.
Love the vid and the concept!
I think in our drive for new solutions, we forget old concepts.
I think that chemical storage solutions are definitely going to be an integral part of renewable transition, but mechanical batteries could play a major role at the individual household level, or at a municipal level.
These would provide safe, simple, independent energy storage solutions used in conjunction with a renewable grid and chem battery array.
Load management system can coordinate the systems. Battery array allows for smoothing major needs, mech battery stands in for grid in times of low output, and in case of emergency blackout etc.
The solutions are all around us. We need to dedicate the will, skill, time, and resources. Inaction is a choice.
Thank you for your informative videos 👍😎
The best customer of a mega-pack would be the energy producer themselves. You could run your plant at near peak 24/7 and meet a high demand peak with ease. Power companies would clean up with this investment.
I don't think so. Regional power generators are on their way out as customers themselves can generate and store more than enough of their needs, and sell the excess to the power companies. Eventually, centralized generators will give way to the millions of roof-top generators which will fee the grid evenly and uninterrupted. In fact, the electrical grid itself will also eventually cease to exist unless your neighborhood opts for an energy co-op.
Juan Asenjo It depends, some energy sources can be scaled, such as PV solar. But some energy sources need scale to be efficient, I would expect a mix of regional and local generation would be needed.
exactly Edmund, they can design their plant to run at max all the time, and allow storage to absorb the brief demand peaks. just like how a water tower trickles full and releases it all in a few hours in the evening. on-site storage is becoming a big thing on renewable developments, but every generator could gain by it. especially nuclear, which likes to run at max (although modern designs can throttle down to 25% - a battery would still allow much more warning and a slower ramp time when they need to turn up to 50 or 100%, and also make it simpler to run them slower in the summer than the winter)
@@juanasenjo8515 I assume you live in sunny California or something - a lot of the world isn't blessed with the combination of more solar when they need more output - most places its the other way around.
Flow batteries for grid look good
NOPE , already DEBUNKED by science.
Indeed the world's largest battery is currently being built at 800MWh in the CENTRE of Dalian city in China (pop 8 million people)
@@markplott4820 Debunked by "science"? Do tell. They haven't caught on like Li-ion, but flow batteries are real. There's nothing wrong with the science behind them.
Check out Redflow.com. Flow batteries are commercially available now. I think the DEBUNKED comment is a coal industry troll.
Its always nice to hear your voice. Good video.
Dave, love your presentations. Presently listening to your explanation of how the electrical “grid” system works and how renewables fit in this process. Why do I envision the elimination of the “grid” as renewables and storage get better and stronger, making end users totally independent.
I hope they apply energy storage to oil production too. Currently whenever I fly over North Dakota at night I see them flaring millions of tons of natural gas.
At least they're burning the methane. Here in So California the gas company had a huge leak in the underground storage for months and had to evacuate areas. I wonder how much greenhouse gas equivalent that released? The gas company got in trouble for that disaster.
We are just a group of neighbors in Pennsylvania,U.S.A. Tinkering around with an old air conditioner. We have been somewhat successful in using wind and solar power to power the compressor of the air conditioner to compress the freon in a much larger reservoir than the original a/c unit used. We are working on the principle of kinetic energy to even out the day/night; wind/no wind. Now we can only get enough storage to run an led light bulb (7watts) all night or approximately 8.7 hours. None of us are chemists so we just use freon. Perhaps researchers with degrees in applied physics and chemistry can find a better compress able gas to liquid formula and make this a form of battery.
FREON is a Greenhouse gas and is NOT Sustainable.
Renewables is more Powerful and more carbon neutral .
TESLA is working on a 100% Electric HVAC with no gears, pulleys or Belts.
@@markplott4820 Mark, I read that Elon was toying with the idea of developing an efficient HVAC system for buildings but I cannot find anything that suggests there will be no moving parts (I assume that is what you are suggesting...modern HVAC systems use direct drive for air handlers (no belts or gears) and compressors are direct drive as well.)
On airconditioning:
If you have water supplies, a "desiccent cycle" solar power air conditioner is the way to go. It goes like this:
1) The sun is used to dry the water out of some desiccent.
2) This desiccent is used to dry the water out of a fair amount of air but this makes the air hotter and dry.
3) The dry air is cooled to outdoors temperature.
4) The air path is split into two and one has quite a lot of water added.
5) This much cooler but too wet air is used to cool the other path.
6) The now cooler dry air has some water added and that goes into the living space.
There is a method that can do even better with doing a 2 of the 2 way splits but this uses about double the water.
Nice initiative, but tragic, 7X9=63watthour.
Last week's talk on liquid air, although very much on an industrial scale is a "cleaner" gas than Freon.
Try just thermal storage, like ice for cooling or water for heating and run your heat pump off that.
For electricity storage, batteries are best.
They have made air conditioning vehicle system with out belt and pulleys for many years, PRIUS had electric HVAC twenty years ago and home units have always been electric.
@@markplott4820
The problem with FREON is not the greenhouse effect.
The "TESLA" system is a known existing method. Sadly, it takes more energy than the existing designs. In a car it may not matter much. It can be extremely reliable.
Seasonal storage is a huge obstacle to renewable (electric) systems. A home in Canada's far north can require stored energy for 4 or 5 months a year and given the very high demand during the winter, would require approximately $4 million in Tesla Powerwalls to assure safe levels of heating.
However, geothermal storage of low grade (heat) energy offers storage at under 1% of the cost of electrical energy storage. See "The Renewable Energy Transition, Realities for Canada and the World" for the concept and some hard numbers and examples.
Electricity is a high grade energy but we have to also learn to use low grade energy (heat) if we are going to make renewables work.
Investing in better insulation is usually cheaper than investing in alternative power sources.
Reducing winter loss and need for Summer AC is more important than supply as reduction hits carbon footprint for less money in a short space of time with lower skill installation.
This also makes seasonal changes more manageable.
It's a good thing then that the high north are so sparsely populated. Nunavut has a total population of roughly 40,000, a vast region with a population of a small town.
@@CarFreeSegnitz Absolutely. The populate the "empty" north is a developers fantasy that would be an environmental disaster. The Inuit population over about 1.4 million sq km pre-European contact was around 2000. The increase in population is mainly due to cheap fossil fuels which have built in storage.
And you may have an opportunity to develop long term salt cavern hydrogen storage up there in Canada too I think?
@@JustHaveaThink I haven't followed salt cavern hydrogen storage - it must have a very low profile here. We do have salt caverns but they are in the south of the country - where we still will need large seasonal storage - but I doubt there are any salt caverns in the far north. I am generally negative on hydrogen as it is so lossey. However, one big advantage is it's high recyclability as the tanks are stainless steel. Unlike electrical batteries which would be much more difficult to recycle.
For a great example of geothermal heat storage see the development of ~60 homes in Okotoks, Alberta called Drake Landing. Great stats over several years of real world usage. They are registering a COP of up to 30:1. Spectacular!
Thank you for the thorough and detailed explanations. Keep up the good work
I'm an early adopter having Solar panels, Tesla Powerwall 2 and BEV. The only tie I've used the grid to charge the car since March is when Octopus Energy were paying me to use electricity. Renewables & storage are the way forward. Especially when we get V2G for BEVs.
Wouldn't it help to spread grids east to west to extend solar "day length"
Transfer isn't so cheap. Long high voltage power lines are NIMBY and protested even by so called Greens. Quite soon one runs out of countries to interconnect because of political reasons or reaching an ocean. Setting this aside? Yes cool, should be pushed further, but actually would be quite tedious job.
For homes in Germany, they now encourage that.
It increases payback time but attenuates production.
Since investors want fast payback, that's currently not happening. But tracking systems are also being used by some arrays that get the best of both, so long as maintenance is minimal. Many different systems claiming to be the best. Some use electronics, others are mechanical.
The simpler, the better.
@bk_16 When we're going in to such details - even with winter you at least get evening peak demand at least slightly spread out, assuming your "cable" ;) starts in Portugal and ends in Finland.
what if we had one giant global grid? using underwater power cables of millions of volts to connect the continents? this way we can run everything on solar
The UK's 2gw connector to France was built for that reason , to use the hour time difference to smooth the peak demand.
When the cost of grid storage falls below the cost of fossil fuels, it is all over for carbon. From Don Sadoway MIT/Ambri
At least for any stationary purpose, it is true. Aircraft may be a harder problem.
I'm sure that it's necessary to add in the amortized Capital Cost of generating electricity from sunshine, plus the extra wiring. Those will not be insignificant. 80,000 kms of coastline with 10MW wind turbines at 500-metre spacing in ranks of 55 wind turbines per column stretching out 27 km into the ocean all over Earth so's ships will travel between parallel columns of 55 wind turbines each column to reach the shore anywhere on Earth is not a trivial-cost project.
It demands unclear , as to now storage creates more co2 , coal the biggest generator of electricity. China coal plants coming 6 years , most aggressive ever. Germany used more coal leaving nuclear , plan is replacing coal with natural gas .Storage is going to increase co2 emissions , leaving that out sounds better for the average man, €€€$$ is the goal.
Really? Wait when the weather and climate becomes more like the Arctic and Antarctica, then you will really regret saying your words!
@@creator7583 You need to edit just a little more, re: unclear/nuclear, plus a couple of other things. Battery storage is a one time emitter per item - during production. It will massively decrease CO2 emissions eventually. Fossil fuel emits all the time. Nuclear emits massively during construction. Did you not think of that?
The rate of collapse of fossil fuel energy will be startling. Well done, thanks for posting.
funny thing about peak oil -- it keeps on repeating -- time and time again; of course it is limited -- we just have little idea yet on 'how limited' -- is it an emergency or crisis?
Johnny
It doesn’t matter anymore, because batteries have gotten cheaper than fossil fuels, so economics will take over. Non-subsidized solar plus batteries are cheaper than any fossil fuel power plant. No one is going to build another coal-fired power plant - they are too expensive to operate. Even natural gas power plants are iffy. So today, with the cost of batteries still declining, economics favor solar/battery technologies, so that’s what is getting built. And as batteries continue to decline in price, the economics for solar/battery plants will only get better. The game-changer, as he said, is the declining cost and superior performance of battery storage.
@@bulletbob batteries are made using fossil fuels they're insanely bad for the environment. Use solar during the day and fossil fuels at night until we develop large scale safe nuclear infrastructure.
@@bulletbob time will surely tell -- it will take many gas fired power plants to produce sufficient battery capacity to overcome demand and limitations of wind and sun -- how much time is highly questionable with the volatility of government social order around the world -- currently there is no free lunch so many think there is with wind and solar, but dreams are wonderful -- all the very best
awesomedavid2012
Be wary of propaganda that promotes the status quo. “Batteries are terrible for the environment” is just propaganda. Decentralized power generation is good for everyone, except bad for executive bonuses, so propaganda is generated to preserve their bonuses. Battery manufacturing continues to get better, and it’s already net positive for the environment. Nothing is static. It’s not hard to see the winning path for batteries, as this video showed. Battery storage is better than any power plant because you can store power for use later, instead having to ramp up power generation as needed, which is crazy expensive. Nuclear will never happen, that technology has been dead for decades. It’s just not gonna happen. We already have a huge fusion reactor in the sky, so let’s tap into that Usonian simple, safe solar panels - just like everything else on earth already does. Be wary of propaganda that promotes the static quo.
Energy storage can not control the frequency or phase of grid but can control the voltage supplied to the grid. Also energy storage introduces larger in efficiencies into the grid which will require more generating capacity for the overall grid. Energy storage will allow for cleaner renewables to account for a larger percentage of the generating capacity of the grid and will eliminate the even more inefficient and a major polluter of the fossile fueled peaking stations within the the grid. As of such they probably won't replace conventional power stations but will reduce the amount of conventional stations and above all the very wasteful & major polluters of conventional power stations on the grid. Once someone comes up with a way to maintain a reliable grid phase then a 100% renewable grid will be feasible. Either way the main need in the grid is power storage. We should be perusing power storage more than renewables. You can't put the cart ahead of the horse.
It's a no brainer. Cheers from another Steve Read. Great documentaries.
There is a certain danger in saying "once we have storage solved, then we can go alternative", much like saying we need to get to zero, it presents an impossible goal so that the status quo can continue floundering along. Spinning up and down can be accomplished with natural gas to yield big co2 reduction while still taking big steps in the right direction.
Also, please no block chain, its a gimmick, there is already such a thing as accounting, we don't need an inefficient form of it where everytime a transaction is made, we need to process every transaction it has ever been in all over again, huge waste of power.
The narrative in your comment's is indeed noted. Blockchain is a gimmick? Natural gas? co2 reduction? Inefficient cryptographic formula. Without co2 this construct would die. Natural gas is a joke.This realm is reverse technology we already had free energy but free does not pay. The gas turbine engine like on the jets buses trains Formula one cars and motoGP uses no fuel, also know as free energy. Of course many factory's use this technology. Compressed air. The electric universe we live on uses skyscrapers also known as power stations to gather aether to power city's. It's all here for us by the creator but again free does not pay.
You don't have to validate a blockchain by going back to the beginning - of course you could do that - but it's not necessary for most user applications.
"all participating participants" - Because those non-participating participants are so pesky to pin down.
Looks like 'oor oil' is in the deep doo doos.
...and almost as hard as finding a comment that has been proofread and edited.
It staggers me that so many people don't appreciate the difference between 'storage' and 'creation'. Batteries don't MAKE energy.
Right? And they also forget that without that HORRIBLE petrol you couldn't make the fiber glass or resin for their wind turbines or the silica for the solar panels or the refined lithium for their batteries or the concrete for the hydro dams or the steel for the generators.
@@Unmannedair But the difference is that the fossil fuels used to make these products is not combusted, therefore not producing carbon during the process. More so, the initial use of those fossils offsets the need to continuously burn fossils for energy throughout the lifetime of the project...resulting in approx 1% of the amount of fossils used. Surely you understand that.
@tzar 1917 I find it peculiar that you didn't have anything at all to say. Surely you know if you tried to actually say something you would sound pure idiot.
@tzar 1917 Thanks for resorting to name calling instead of making an intelligent reply...because, in doing so, you confirmed what we already knew about you.
@@samt.863 But the world needs more Carbon Dioxide it is the main building block of all life on this planet. More is better👍😎
My grandmother lived in an apartment in Manhattan that had DC power! I've wondered if that building ever upgraded. She had a gas stove and a refrigerator that was electric, but it was of the adsorption type. Used to be very common as any source of heat can be used, and have been. Some campers have dual fuel refrigerators. Electricity and when not available, propane.
great episode thanks! The distributed energy system is the best future alternative for energy supply. It's more robust, more economically fair to all and less vulnerable to disturbances from solar flames to terrorism. Battery tech and storage will make a great addition here together with smart network and IT based solutions that didn't exist just 20 or so years ago. Just name block chain here as one good example... Cheers again! well done!
an internet for power, with the same kind of reliability, might be mighty nice.
Not anytime soon.
New systems and technologies have to earn their way on merit, not on feelings.
Exactly. Not tomorrow, and not the day after either.
nice to have some good news every once in a while
THANK YOU FOR THIS CHANNEL! IT CLLEARLY EXPLAINS HOW THE TRANSITION TO A FOSSIL FUEL FREE POWERED SOCIETY
WILL TAKE PLACE....FRANK MOELLER
Never happen. Waste of time.
Today's episode brought to you by Power Ledger.
All joking aside, this was a great episode and just gave me a proper think.
~ thanks
This is a very good segment
GREAT VID. Carbon is on the way out. Here's to a better tomorrow!!!
@Stimpy&Ren not to mention, most inefficient (prevalent turbine design, limiting output of nearby turbines, capacity factor 5%-50%, need to be backed up by LNG), environmentally damaging (noise, vibration, rodent-paradise due to bird-free zone, difficult or impossible to dispose), least predictable.
It better be coming back because I want my graphene and carbon nanotube goodies.
Don't be fooled. Creating all this will require an enormous amount of carbon output not to mention the carbon created during the maintenance of such a system. Renewable does NOT mean elimination of carbon.
Just between two carbon life forms, we're not going away from carbon.
Dream on, not going to happen anytime soon.
Thank you, a loud and clear information to see an LED light at the end of the grid.
That is the light of an unstoppable freight train
and that is why it is disingenuous for people claim that solar and wind are cheaper than coal and nat gas. The only reason solar and wind works is because OF coal and gas, it makes the switch to renewable sound trivial to the average person who has no idea how the grid works. I am so looking forward to the introduction to cheap, saleable storage, things will change so quickly.
Nope you can also use hydro to regulate the grid, if you have enough of it.
alex bob, you were correct up until recently, but the LCOE for solar plus storage now beats coal. See also: www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
@@MrMakabar Okay, but you can't have enough of it, except in a very few places. And hydro has terrible hidden costs (to rivers, deltas etc).
If you expect cheap storage, why are you still interested in nukes?
@@bozo5632 nukes are expensive and unpopular. And when they go wrong, they go bad wrong.
I think this is a great idea. This has a lot of potential here in Canada.
Thank you very much for that presentation, It has given me an overview on electrical grid distributed storage capacity trends.
Here are few points that I could retain :
energy
individual
Awesome. Let's build our renewably powered global economy all together as fast as possible!
Lets slow down just a bit to make it a really good one. we don't want it to crash and burn in 10 years.
This sounds much like Tesla Autobidder, already in use in some groundbreaking markets.
The Tesla system is just pure evil, people buy a power wall and Tesla make money from it without their consent, it is for the owners impossible to do anything about it without disconnecting the power wall from the grid (basically crippling the capabilities)
@@buddy1155 could you please provide your source for above mentioned comment?
@@sudeeptaghosh What comment?
that they are evil... (my personal assessment).
That they are making money off it? (that is common knowledge, well the first poster knew about this.).
That you do not give consent. (that is one of those nasty things to proof things people do not do, just you proof to me that they do ask consent).
That you can't do anything about it ( I seen a review ... might be able to find it, thing is really a blackbox there is ZERO control over it)
Or that the power wall will be crippled (that I can explain, and was in that review as well)
@@buddy1155 what a horseshit...
Spot on.. this will be the biggest revolution whatsoever.. even bigger than EV's. This is exactly the reason Tesla is valued so high not for automotive, but energy storage.
Tesla, however could get killed in that market. For stuff that doesn't move, a bit heavier is OK. The Tesla batteries are light weight for the amount of energy. Zinc flow batteries cost less per unit energy but are heavier.
@@kensmith5694 not too sure.. right now Tesla has good price for Megapack, and their software, the autobidder, makes a real difference. Storage alone is not going to cut it. Also, behind the meter storage in cars, charging and decharging of cars, and powerwalls is a great help that competitors do not have
There are more Tesla cars here every month. But, the average person cannot afford one.
@@nickiemcnichols5397 the average person, is not typically in the market for a new car anyway.. this is reflected by the average price of a new car bought is well over 35k. used car market is always an option, but we will have to wait another 2 to 3 years before supply meets demand sufficiently to get used EV prices down a bit.
I'm sceptical that storage will compete with natural gas peakers for actually delivering a meaningful amount of energy such that high penetration renewables grid will actually work.
-Li-ion is great for frequency control and ancillary services but monstrously too expensive for large scale storage.
-Liquid air looks like it will be far cheaper but still more expensive than the renewable power it wants to store plus not all that efficient.
It's all genuinely quite exciting to see the developments and i'm especially keen to see just how cheep the liquid air can get.
The cost of the pilot project in Birmingham is about £340,000 /MWh so for that to backup Cleve hill solar park for 6 hours would cost £714 million. Bearing in mind Cleve Hill will cost £450 million that's a rather large extra expense for the storage system, especially when you consider that Cleve Hill is already about DOUBLE the cost of Hinkley Point C per MW and Hinkley will not require any storage to meet baseload.
That being said, low carbon storage could complement Hinkley Point C (and the rest of the nuclear fleet) to meet peak power as nuclear is not particularly good at load following.
I've shared these (similar) numbers with you before @just have a think and you acknowledged that they were "challenging". I think I'll remain one of your "naysayers who debate and deny what's happening right in front of them" for the time being until the liquid air guys scale up and release figures but I'm hanging on to hope for the technology!
Thanks for the vid as always :)
It might be time to rethink the naysaying: www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
@@incognitotorpedo42 To be fair I did make a mistake in my comment there by saying "peaker" plants. That's probably the only thing that storage is good for right now- Peaking, and for very short duration.
What I meant to say is I'm sceptical batteries will displace the natural gas spinning reserve which currently handles the hours to days or even week long lulls in wind energy as well as the seasonal appalling performance of solar (2% capacity factor in December right when we use the most energy)
As stated in your link... "The LCOE of battery storage systems meanwhile has halved in just two years, to a benchmark of US$150 per MWh for four-hour duration projects" which is low enough to compete with gas peaking at $152-$206 /MWh but not close enough to compete with Gas Combined Cycle at $41-$74 /MWh
www.lazard.com/media/450784/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-120-vfinal.pdf
Obviously 4 hours doesn't get you through the night or between windy weather systems but it does do some peaking.
Another vitally important point is that the purpose of storage, no matter what they tell you, is to buy energy low and sell it back high. Sure, on a sunny/windy day renewables are the cheep option but much of the time Combined Cycle Gas Turbines are the cheapest option instead.
The benefits of using more renewables rather than curtailing them could easily be offset by increasing the market for cheep gas to pump into storage during off peak hours with no wind. There's plenty of spinning reserve on the grid and the operators will happily ramp up just to sell more power.
To be fair, that's not actually a bad thing. CCGT is far more efficient than gas peaking so there is a carbon saving. But it does lock in the market for gas.
Then there's the true cost if carbon was ACTUALLY priced in properly which, admittedly, will probably come down for batteries in the future but currently aproximately 330 g CO2-eq/kWh
(when you add the footprint of solar to that you're not much better than natural gas)
www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2020/02/16/estimating-the-carbon-footprint-of-utility-scale-battery-storage/?fbclid=IwAR2NwhtLMq8PMJ5UMwhMnt99l-L-VuV0yFtBX8Yl3IeuvPzAD1cA5WzKySM#64bc4b7f7adb
I don't actually want to be so pessimistic all the time. I do this because I'm a nuclear advocate. Nuclear is 12 gCO2/kWh, uses many hundreds of times less land than renewables, doesn't produce any emissions, doesn't release any of its waste into the environment (in fact its the only industry on earth which contains 100% of it), produces life-saving medical isotopes, creates lots of long term well paid jobs, objectively has the best safety record of all energy sources and yet people want to jump through all these crazy hoops to just harness the wind and sun?
Madness.
Dave,
A great video - it is good to see well researched and factual content like this rather than all the emotive BS that tends to circulate the internet - e.g. blaming the blackouts in Texas on proposed environmental policy that hasn't yet been turned into policy.
I work in renewable energy and I think that this is an excellent summary of the political and business side of energy storage.
One point that I believe in that tends to get overlooked in these discussions is a very important detail - traditional grid networks by there very purpose are geographically constrained. Transmission networks need to be constructed between points of generation and consumption and typically generators are built far away from where people want to live.
PV solar is a very unique renewable source on the basis that it is practical to locate it on the very same buildings where the majority of consumption is located.
The intermittency of PV is solved by using the grid and energy storage.
If you try to exploit this unique benefit of PV and plan to deploy PV close to consumption (rather than utility scaled PV) then this will lead to the obvious conclusion that storage should also be located as close to the PV generation and power consumption as possible.
Like PV - storage is also a technology that can be scaled-down into solutions that are compatible with being located close to where there are large densely populated areas.
This combination of PV and storage located where existing populations are reduces the dependence and value of existing grid transmission and generation.
If decentralized PV and storage is promoted then it might be possible to remove the need for grid scale transmission and to only keep distribution level grids in the future.
“Use blockchain to track energy production ...”. The cost of per unit energy will be times more.
Sure ?
Oh yes, multiples, more.
@justhaveathink
Have u heard of Ecosia? Maybe you'd like to make a video about them. : )
Thank you for stating the obvious.
Old mindsets in the power industry are in for a world of hurt. This will probably be a disaster for most grid operators.
grid operators are OUT of a job, thanks to Tesla Autobidder.
@@markplott4820 Sorry to burst your bubble but as exiting as Tesla's Auto bidder system is (and it is very exiting) it will only ever be part of the solution. The Grid Operators are like the Railway Track, the electricity providers are like the Trains... the Grid is going nowhere.
@George Mann Cool conspiracy theory. It doesn't change the economics of storage. www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
Grid operators, not so much. operators of fossil fueled power plants better figure out a "plan B". The grid operators merely transfer power from the sources to the loads. the sources will be different, the loads won't change at all. The power purchase agreements go to the generators that can offer power at the lowest cost. LET THE CONTEST BEGIN!! (Just let free enterprise run her course) I do believe, however, the grid operators should invest in electrical energy storage as part of their own infrastructure. That way, they can accept the cheap renewable power anytime it's available, and sell it, whenever there is a demand. They're the ones, who could profit most from large scale electrical energy storage.
@George Mann Well, I would just as soon not fund the other side of the war. National security depends on energy self sufficiency. Wind and solar are good starts, what we need now to complete the triangle, is efficient, cost effective electrical energy storage.
Very clear explanations.
Great video .This one is spot on and with references to more reading. Love it !
Sounds like another middle man taking his cut in the money we pay for our bills.Another thing that bothers me the price of petrol/Diesel is 80% taxes by the time put it in our cars, so when we all have electric cars is this tax going to be Passed on?
The State of Connecticut is having the same discussion; so far the legislature is floating the idea of new taxes to capture the revenue lost to the fuel taxes. Hydrocarbon fuels or not, we'll get squeezed by the govt regardless.
Amazing presentation that managed to skip Norway, pumped hydro and natural gas balancing out renewables.
Now there is a split in the ranks of the eco-Nazis...they no longer approve of Hydro electric projects because of the massive disruption of "habitat"...meanwhile they approve of off shore wind turbines which have been found to emit frequencies of sound that greatly disrupts marine mammals that use sonar...a.k.a. whales. So I guess it's now become "Kill the whales...save the planet ".
That's true! Pumped hyrdo - it's the original grid-scale storage solution, and surprisingly efficient! Not suitable in many places, though -- you need quite a large reservoir and a fairly substantial elevation difference. I'm not sure if we've had a video covering all of the alternatives yet; would be pretty interesting for everyone. I definitely agree that even non-renewable sources like gas plants have a role to play.
@@mike-barber - Gas plants are our dirty little secret, they are way in the lead for backing up wind. It would be great to see storage displace gas someday but does any country have a plan to do that in the next 20 years?
@@dougmc666 true! Gas seems like a good backup for renewables in the interim - provided overall emissions are lower. I suspect they will be because you can deploy more if you have a good backup. In the long term, I'm guessing smarter grids, better connectivity across diverse geographies, and more economical storage will just make gas less attractive to run.
@@dougmc666 Hell yes they do, and it isn't going to take 20 years: www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
Notice that the speaker never discusses costs. This is the hallmark of green vs. carbon energy debates since the costs of most of the ambitious green proposals makes their implementation economically absurd. Take for instance, the recent customer power outage in California. This was due directly to the decommissioning recently of peaker gas power plants that served 6 million customers. When A/C demand during the heat wave became too great a power draw for the grid there were no batteries or neighboring states with power to spare and 300,000 customers had to be blacked out for an hour.
The estimated cost to buy the 12 Gwatts of batteries to remedy this problem is $91 billion for four hours of back-up. Then, to keep the batteries charged another 12 Gwatts of supplementary solar and wind will have to be built to be sure the batteries are charged and ready when the main solar and wind portfolios are too busy to charge, at a cost of another $20 billion.
So essentially you need twice as much solar and wind in California to keep and maintain a battery backup of four hours standby. $91 + $20 billion = $111 billion which amortized over a payback period of 10 years is $100/10 = $10 billion per year which must be added to the $41.6 billion that Californians already pay for electricity per year.
This mind you is only for four hours backup. Eight hours or 24 hours or God forbid a whole week makes it all infeasible.
You are making ridiculous assumptions to "prove" your point. Nobody is going to have a bunch of equipment like that sitting around to use it once per year. Your whole perspective is wrong. We had a problem so it's impossible. Nonsense. As the percentage of renewables increases, of course we have to adjust. You should look at his video on liquid air batteries. Sounds like a great solution for a one off situation. I think the most efficient way to do it is to expose everyone to the actual real time price of electricity(time of use pricing), using meters that can measure not only how much you use, but when. One obvious thing, is not charge EVs during those peak hours, but do charge them when electricity is plentiful. Google Ice Bear. It is an air conditioner that stores cold, in the form of ice. I have 2 Carrier 42 SEER mini splits. My whole house AC is 13 SEER. The minute you give people a financial reason to help with these peak hours, they will. Sure there may be a coule of bumps in the road, just like there were with fossil fuels. We'll figure it out.
logical and educational video on a topic I had never thought of before, thanks!
Nice, informative video, as always Dave. I'm inclined to think that those who might shout down your valid information about clean power will have a vested interest in doing so.
And whilst it is entirely possible for the world to be powered by Solar and Wind, with battery back-up to smooth out the irregularities, there are emerging power technologies that, until quite recently, have been very reluctant to show their tech for fear of being laughed out of the arena. I refer to cold fusion, amongst several, which even had to change its name to lenr or lanr, in order to get more than a half-second hearing from a closed minded audience [something I used to be, then neutral, then open minded]. Even on the relative pittance investment that lenr/lanr derivitives have received over the years compared to hot fusion, the return in tested power output for power input is millions more watts. And instead of being 20-50 years away, they are 2-5 years from commercialisation.
And although I'm quite prepared to be flamed by anyone who won't bother to look up the progress these power technologies have made in the last decades, I will suggest this: "Never say never", and "I'd rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic than right". We've all heard the first one, and someone rather successful at getting emerging technology to disrupt, recently coined the second.
Keep staying safe. 😷 👍
Most people just don't realise what's "just round the corner" LENR (not the right name) will almost certainly be the main source of non polluting energy eclipsing all others. The reason? It is cheap and non polluting. No huge infrastructure to build (it will be close to or in your home ) Think of a domestic boiler (furnace) that will supply heat and electricity directly. No huge steam plants, turbines or alternators, and the fuel is cheap. Non polluting because no effluent of any kind whatsoever is emitted from the device. Additionally to the above reasons why it will be universally adopted over others will be that no existing technology could get down to the price of this energy source to be remotely competative.
Many countries and huge companies are following this up. Many are doing their own research on the technology.
One private company seems to be ahead of most others and may well demonstrate a prototype unit before the end of the year. If they don't, there are others that will catch up. It will be the answer to climate change/global warming.
@@Tony-ce4ok In this vein, Brilliant Light Power is interesting. (It's not LENR, although it does rely on new physics) They've progressed a lot in the past five years or so that I've been following them, and they now have a continuous power cell capable of producing large amounts of heat for long periods. They appear to be targeting the industrial process heat market, but I don't know how long it will be until it's commercialized. At least a couple years, I'd expect.
@@Tony-ce4ok "hydrogen is merged with nickel, which is transmuted to form copper + energy" from hydrofusion.com/ . Really?
@@ihcfn Hi, Lost and confused
If you want up to date info on the process, I suggest that you go: to www.rossilivecat.com/
Read only blog.
If you want to ask a question then go to: Andrea Rossi - Journal Of Nuclear Physics
But this is only one of many, one example is that Airbus the aircraft manufacturer is doing research in the same technology.
If you want an opinion of a British Nobel Prize winner then its, Brian Josephson FRS Professor Emeritus of Physics Cambridge University that you want.
There are dozens of scientists around the world you can check on, In Sweden, Italy, United States, and others that I just can't bring to mind at the moment.
One Italian scientist, who is revered for his expertise in these matters is Professor Sergio Focardi of Bologna University. He did research many years ago on the subject and later helped to develop the basic version of the Ecat ( Energy Catalyzer, which you will become familiar with if you pursue this subject further) Unfortunately Prof Focardi passed away some time ago, but there are video's of him explaining the process. There is a Ted Talk that he gave before he died that you might like. But as I say, there are many other scientists that have been involved and that you can read of their opinions on the internet.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Tony
Norway where I live have allways had storage and cost of electrical power lower then generated from carbon based sources. That have not eliminated the use of carbon based fuel and will not do so anytime soon. We have the highest prosentage of electric cars, but we still have large areas where that is not really an option. Most homes and commerce has electricety as the main power source inluded heating.
I really wish that renewable energy was the answer, but as long as so many will not include nuclear, the low energy density in solar and wind takes a lot more resource to develop then vi have available.
All the development in solar and wind the last 20 years has so fare only covered as small part of the increase in electrical power and still it has put a strain on the availability of many raw materials. Just to replace what we use to day more then 20 times more has to be built and that do not include storage and transmission.
Not so sure. I have put enough solar on my roof to have enough for 9months of the year (including the car in regular dutch row housing at 52 north). If I would by new ones today I could get 30% less panels for the same output. And that is after 4 years.
Plenty dense if you ask me.
bknesheim, I recommend you do some research into today's renewables. You seem to be talking about the world of 10 years ago. Things are changing rapidly.
@@christianvanderstap6257 At 59 north that would not do so well. Data from an installation that give 40kW/hours on a sunny day in the sommer. Only give1-2 on a sunny day in december.The cost to cover the last 3 months can easely be 3-4 times what you payed for 9 months.
Anyway the problem is large scale utilities. The amount of material that goes into a singel 6MW windmill is stagering and since you in the best cases only get about efficensy off 35% at the very best, you need 3x to produce a 6MW/year of power. You also need tons and tons of wire to connect the windmills to the grid.
Solar need less resources but they are a lot more nasty to produce and very limited in use for many areas.
@@incognitotorpedo42 I have done the math based on the best we can do in theory. If we in the next 20 years shall install 20x more then we did the last 20 years. The number of new mines needed is several times what we have to day for importen metal like iron, copper and aluminium. Up to 50-60x for special metal like the ones used in storng magnets.
@@bknesheim Your math might be right but the assumptions it's based on are wrong. The prices of renewables and storage are plummeting, and we are not going to run out of materials to make them. www.energy-storage.news/news/bloombergnef-lcoe-of-battery-storage-has-fallen-faster-than-solar-or-wind-i
Generate Hydrogen gas with the extra power and store the gas. H2 has the largest "Delta H", thus perfect storge mechanism!
Unfortunately, the conversion efficiency for H2 compared to Li-Ion battery storage and many other currently interesting forms of energy storage is not that great. The current conversion efficiencies are 65-70% for electricity to H2 and 50-60% for H2 to electricity. Charging and discharging Li-Ion for ordinary batteries are both in the 90% range. You lose more than half of your energy from the get go if you use H2.
It's only when you want to store the energy for a very long time (years or longer), in a small container or may want to transport it over long distances (between continents and thus preventing significant transportation loss through HV lines) that H2 may make sense. The small container size may have been an advantage for vehicles a couple of decades ago when Li-Ion batteries weren't yet as well developed as they are now... but with the current progress and the next stage of EV car (>500 mile range and cheap compact cars) on the horizon, I don't think H2 makes sense anymore.
I was gonna make fun of your statement (especially about the leaking storage mechanism, which is the second worse thing about H2 as fuel - the first being its tendencies to explode violently)
but started searching and there is a significant progress - Toyota's hydrogen-powered electric cars are here and EU already has 111 working H2 gas stations (..of that, 0 in place where i live and closest only 150km away).
H2 fuel has also some advantages over batteries - to me, the biggest one is the filling up of the fuel takes few seconds, where batteries still take few hours.
@@nescius2 I am a mechanical engineer with tooo many years of design experience. I know what I am talking about better than the other 99% of the earths population.
No question, solar w/ batt. storage will be the way we receive all of our power in the coming decades.
No it won't! The sums simply do not add up!
Don't forget wind in the mix and the new application of liquid-air cryobatteries.
@@totherarf Yep, it will. Look at any new capacity energy chart and it'll be obvious that solar, wind and hydro, with battery back-up, will be our only sources of power in the next: 30-50 years. Fossil fuels are rapidly depleting, anyone in the fossil fuels industry knows this which is why they're planning ahead with renewables. I work in the energy industry, I know.
@@rtfazeberdee3519 Yes, definitely wind and hydro as well as solar. I've developed wind farms over the past 13 years, have lived with a small wind turbine in my backyard that powers my house and EV, along with solar, and know the wind industry well but looking at the numbers, the solar industry, with battery back-up, will dominate and overtake all other energy production sources as it's getting so cheap that they can now produce energy at: $0.01/kWh, with solar. All this with virtually no maintenance or additional costs. I'm sure there will be several different technologies in batteries, which is great. The more, the better.
@@RussellFineArt What about the massive usage of fresh water for cleaning solar panels on the level needed to power an entire country of 300 million people? Isn't fresh water also becoming an endangered resource in many of the places in the US sunny enough for solar panels to be worth it?
Great video..like the research you do and the presentation.
Excellent presentation. Everything is becoming more interconnected thanks to the internet and world wide web. Automation has become so widely available as well as more efficient devices and it has become cheaper to generate your own renewable energy. I think in the future it will be possible to automatically buy energy from different sources more cheaply or greener based on your preferences