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If Tesla Can Run Its Gigafactory On 100% Renewables, Why Can't Others?
Lucas123 writes Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said his company's Gigafactory battery plant, the world's largest, will be "self contained" and run on solar, wind and geothermal energy. The obvious problem with renewable sources is that they're intermittent at any given location, but on a larger scale they're quite predictable and reliable, according to Tom Lombardo, a professor of engineering and technology. Lombardo points out that Tesla isn't necessarily going off-grid, but using a strategy of "net metering" where the factory will produce more renewable energy than it needs, and receive credits in return from its utility when renewables aren't available. So why can't other manufacturing facilities do the same? Is what Tesla is doing not necessarily transferable to other industries? Sam Jaffe, principal research analyst with Navigant Research, believes Tesla's choice of locations — Reno — and its product is optimal for using renewable and not something that can be reproduced by every industry.
The issue can be a complex one, but I think it boils down fairly easily:
1. Most companies can go completely to renewable power, excepting some where they need the byproducts for other uses. Concrete manufacturing, refining iron and making steel, etc... However, this doesn't mean that it's economic to do so.
2. There is however a limit - if the manufacturer uses more energy than their roof/property collects, they obviously can't go 100% renewable without obtaining more property.
3. I figure that it's probably easier to go 100% renewable if you plan to do so before even breaking ground on the factory. Such as selecting a location with nearly ideal solar patterns.
4. Net metering only works so long as there are other customers looking to buy the power when it's being produced, and generators producing when it isn't. If 'everybody' tries to do it, the system would break down.
5. To go along with this, even if they can't net meter, they're a battery factory. They can create a lot of backup storage even if they only drain/refill all their produced batteries once as a 'test', cleverly arranged to provide back up power. Or produce some batteries at cost, use degraded but still functional batteries returned under warranty/core charge, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
Stop spreading lies.
http://www.energycomment.de/wp...
These "record amounts" of yours amount to half of what was burned in 1990 and in fact the amount of brown coal burned has been basically more or less the same since 1996.
As one can clearly see from the graph, nuclear power has been displaced by renewables and only by them. Fossil fuels use either remains stable or goes down in the case of oil.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Also a bit of a lie yourself. 1990 = reunification. Any country can do better than when it just absorbed an entire other country that might as well have been burning forests in terms of efficiency.
Actually you and Dunkelfalke made similar mistakes.
He focused on energy sources, and his point that the increase in usage of brown coal is neglegtible, is correct.
You focus on TWh production of elictricity, where you clearly see there is a noticeable increase in terra watt hours of electricity produced ... however no one can deduce how much more brown coal was used for that.
In fact the amount is indeed neglible, because the "more terrawatts" come from the new more efficient coal plants, that replaced older less efficient ones ... so bottom line the "record usage" of brown coal is still nearly 20% below the 1990 level (in primary energy) and roughly 10% below 1990 level in electric power production.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
How much of that comes from their invesment in renewable energy, though? Other neighboring European countries that have not invested in renewables have comparable prices, as shown on this map. Denmark is 13% more expensive and Italy is 15% less expensive and the UK is 36% less expensive. Germany is towards the top there, but it is not an outlier. There are a few countries with prices comparable to the USA in the EU, such as Estonia which is 2.4 times chepear than Germany. But it seems strange to claim that the main difference between Germany and Estonia is the amount of renewables. And as this image shows, the price of electricity in Germany has been following the average in the European Union for some time now, which again doesn't match with the hypothesis that power in Germany is more expensive than in the USA because of all the solar power.
You have misinterpreted what is happening. The German public is buying back electricity generation and distribution. It's becoming nationalised as companies give up trying to make a profit and sell off infrastructure.
The outlay is high, although not that high compared to similar European countries. The end result will be much cheaper and very much worth it, not to mention putting Germany at the forefront of this lucrative global market for green technology.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And here in Grand Rapids Michigan we have several places that do it. The Van Andel Institute for example is covered in solar on their roofs and their solar program is very successful even through last winter when we saw more snow than Minnesota saw.
How about instead of wild speculation you actually look up the places that ACTUALLY have done it and have been running that way for years successfully?
Even Michigan Tech way the hell up against Lake Superior has a successful Solar power generation system in a place where they get on average 6 feet of snow falling per winter storm and over 30 feet of snow fall for the winter.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
One of our production facilities installed two large windmills that supply roughly 10-15% of the power the plant uses. You would think this would lower the cost for purchased electricity, but it didn't.
The electric company raised the rates for our plant because the usage dropped enough that they entered a lower usage bracket which has a higher cost per KW/h. We actually pay MORE each month in electricity costs even though the plant purchases 10-15% less electricity..
Obviously they are negotiating the contract terms now (it may be done) but this is just one example of how the utilities have everyone by the balls. They are going to get their money, one way or another.
I'm sure for Tesla, it will be easier since they are starting from the beginning instead of doing a retrofit. However I hear similar stories from residential users. Most times people want to make the choice to use returnables but outside factors make it monetarily difficult to pursue.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
In environmentalist lala-land neither the end nor the means matters as long as your ideology is sitting in the drivers seat.
And how does that make them different from lala-landers of the politically incorrect christian conservative and occasionally coal rolling variety?
The environmentalists are incorrectly lauded for their beliefs while the other groups are dismissed off hand?
Climate change is not a belief, there is no faith involved, it is not an opinion that claim that ejecting vast amounts of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere is going to have very bad effects on the lives of our descendants and that using renewable energy sources is preferable to that. Climate change and the benefits of using renewables in place of fossil fuels are observable, measurable and given the volume of data we now have it is an irrefutable fact that renewables are preferable to fossil fuels.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Here's a list from Forbes on deaths per trillion kWhr:
Coal 170,000
Oil 36,000
Biofuel 24,000
Natural Gas 4,000
Hydro 1,400
Solar 440
Wind 150
Nuclear 90
Tell me again how Nuclear is the most dangerous choice?