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Wind and Solar Can Power Most of the United States, Says Study (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Guardian reports of a recent paper, published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, that helps explain how wind and solar energy can power most of the United States: "The authors analyzed 36 years of hourly weather data (1980-2015) in the U.S. They calculated the available wind and solar power over this time period and also included the electrical demand in the U.S. and its variation throughout the year. With this information, the researchers considered two scenarios. In scenario 1, they imagined wind and solar installations that would be sufficient to supply 100% of the U.S. electrical needs. In the second scenario, the installations would be over-designed; capable of providing 150% of the total U.S. electrical need. But the authors recognize that just because a solar panel or a wind turbine can provide all our energy, it doesn't mean that will happen in reality. It goes back to the prior discussion that sometimes the wind just doesn't blow, and sometimes the sun isn't shining. With these two scenarios, the authors then considered different mixes of power, from all solar to all wind. They also included the effect of aggregation area, that is, what sized regions are used to generate power. Is your power coming from wind and solar in your neighborhood, your city, your state or your region?
The authors found that with 100% power capacity and no mechanism to store energy, a wind-heavy portfolio is best (about 75% wind, 25% solar) and using large aggregate regions is optimal. It is possible to supply about 75-80% of U.S. electrical needs. If the system were designed with excess capacity (the 150% case), the U.S. could meet about 90% of its needs with wind and solar power. The authors modified their study to allow up to 12 hours of US energy storage. They then found that the 100% capacity system fared even better (about 90% of the country's energy) and the optimal balance was now more solar (approximately 70% solar and 30% wind). For the over-capacity system, the authors found that virtually all the country's power needs could be met with wind, solar, and storage."
The authors found that with 100% power capacity and no mechanism to store energy, a wind-heavy portfolio is best (about 75% wind, 25% solar) and using large aggregate regions is optimal. It is possible to supply about 75-80% of U.S. electrical needs. If the system were designed with excess capacity (the 150% case), the U.S. could meet about 90% of its needs with wind and solar power. The authors modified their study to allow up to 12 hours of US energy storage. They then found that the 100% capacity system fared even better (about 90% of the country's energy) and the optimal balance was now more solar (approximately 70% solar and 30% wind). For the over-capacity system, the authors found that virtually all the country's power needs could be met with wind, solar, and storage."
If we start using a lot less energy. Using less is the only clean energy. Nicole Foss on renewables @AutomaticEarth http://bit.ly/2rzS5Pq
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
It's not "kosher" to say this, but we really should have got back into nuclear 20 years ago. The nuclear technology of today is cleaner and safer and more efficient than anything out there. But people are still stuck on *old technology* and Fukashima and so forth when that's *NOT* the technology we would use today. The simple fact is that nuclear is really the only energy technology that can reliably fill the growing need for energy.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Show me the stats where... The ozone hole kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. Climate change kills millions. I call BS on this.
Yeah we can get to 80% renewable with 150-200% times solar and wind capacity, HVDC and 12 hours of storage. It will be expensive and difficult. In California if you count all of our pumped hydro storage and if you include every battery in every phone and car we have about 23 minutes of storage. 12 hours of storage will be hard to achieve.
Also due to continental weather patterns we would need weeks of storage to get to 100% renewable. 12 hours is not feasible and 14 times that will be near impossible.
That depends upon what type of "solar collectors" you're talking about. If you're talking about photovoltaic panels, then yes there are hazardous materials used in their manufacture, but a lot less hazardous materials than used in say, hydraulic fracturing. And once you've got the solar panels made, there are no hazardous emissions created as they make electricity.
On the other hand, if you're talking about concentrating solar thermal plants (like the ones described in this story) there are no hazardous materials involved in their manufacture, which is definitely environmentally friendly.
And, once they are manufactured, there are no emissions when they make electricity.
Regarding "all the dead birds", I remember when I lived in Texas and a group of hunters was complaining on the radio about wind turbines killing birds before they could shoot them. It is one of my defining memories of the state of Texas.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re: "How may solar panels and wind turbines would it require to generate that much electricity?"
Think in terms of the wealth redistribution.
Wind and solar get massive new subsidy so "poor" people all over the USA can get their new solar on the roof and a set size of new battery.
A fair share of new low cost solar power for the poor that all power users have to support every utility bill.
That wins votes. The side of US politics that put solar on the roof of poor people.
The solar and a set size of battery per citizen would keep the low cost power on all day and night.
Want more power beyond that set limit?
Put in place a US wide heating and cooling tax beyond a set usage limit per citizen.
Air conditioning gets regulated so it will only run in a home when the power company can support all the grid connected air conditioning.
Grid conditions change and all air conditioning gets a remote command to stop. To protect the wind and solar grid.
All existing and new air conditioning has to have an energy company disconnect. No disconnect installed? No air conditioning and a fine.
Grid connected is the only way to get city approval for all other services in any part of the USA.
Big government and environmentalists can make wind and solar work. They will ration power and make all citizens pay for air conditioning.
Air conditioning and heating becomes a part of an energy luxury tax.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The whole point of the article is to point out that your canard is at best hopelessly out-of-date and at worst provably wrong for the majority of the geographical region of the continental United States during the majority of the year.
I can guarantee that 1) Not all birds shot in Texas are eaten (at least not by humans). Other non-drunk predators probably eat half of them off the ground and get to swallow all that lead shot which adds to the circle of death. Oh, and those are just the ones taken legally. There are tens of thousands of poachers in Texas. They go out there and believe it's their god-give right to blast anything that moves with the most inappropriate firearm imaginable. I knew someone who shot turkeys with a fucking AR-15. Just empty his clip, drink a few cans of Shiner Bock and load up another 30 round clip. Rinse and repeat. He was otherwise a decent human being. He took me fishing off Baytown and Galveston. Oh, and 2) there are a lot more birds killed than Parks & Wildlife have in their reports, because the reports are on the honor system, and a lot of the bird holocaust takes place on private lands, well away from rangers.. Figure all together there are at least 30 million birds massacred every year in Texas all together. Since there are only 28 million people in the whole state, there are way too many people there who have never tasted a game bird for all those birds to have been eaten.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You just completely ignored the GP's point that "we're" stuck on old nuclear and wouldn't use that technology today but describing all the problems with old nuclear.
Try here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I ran the numbers a few years ago with very optimistic assumptions, and the land area required for the solar component is about 1/4 the size of New Mexico.
Yes, it's "possible". It's just that no society has ever built anything that big before in the entire history of the planet. That doesn't make it "impossible" but it makes assuming that such a thing could be accomplished a huge leap of faith with nothing to back it up except for hope and wishful thinking. Possibly the Great Wall of China measures up in terms of man-hours and complexity but that took hundreds of years and totally-didn't-use-slave-labor, neither of which are on the table now.
Doing it in a distributed fashion only increases costs (though doing a portion of it in a distributed fashion might be the best odds for success - which is what is already happening now).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Better check your own pipes, because apparently (and to my surprise as well), the US is the number 1 producer of oil, pumping nearly 15 MM barrels per day.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
When it comes to wind and solar (particularly solar), using data from just a couple years ago is already well obsolete. And even then, your link (under "Projected LCOE in the U.S. by 2022 (as of 2016) ") shows "wind onshore" as some of the cheapest electricity around, and solar around the middle of the list. Your link also includes a nice graph of how badly cost predictions missed reality. E.g. in 2010, EIA was predicting that solar in 2016 would cost $396.1/MWh - nearly an order of magnitude too expensive.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Who the hell hunts turkeys with a .223?
...when we estimate the need for future electrical energy usage by using historical electrical energy usage. Why? Electric cars. The demand for electrical energy should rise sharply if and when we get viable (cheap enough, with enough range and a short enough recharge time) electric cars. Converting all cars, trucks, ships, airplanes, and locomotives to battery power means an enormous activity in charging those batteries. We will be building wind generators to the point that absolutely every horizon in the country will look like fur, with wind generators taking the part of individual hairs. Its fortunate that they are beautiful / majestic, but still hoping to keep them off some of the notable scenic areas such as the Grand Canyon, half-dome, painted desert, etc.
Unfortunately, not a single author of the study has any experience at all in electrical transmission or distribution, not to mention zero experience or background in grid management. It is simply a math exercise that ignores the many real constraints on the grid.
But those that want to hear this don't care, they'll take this and run with it.
Yes, the study is does not seem to adequately depict reallity, such as the massive transmission buldiout required if such a plan were even feasible. It also glosses over the true meaning of "150%" of total US energy. This would be 150% annual production, not capacity, so given an averge 35% capacity factor of wind, and 20% capacity factor of solar, we would actually require about 450% of us rated capacity. That not only would be extremely cost prohibitive up front, but the amount of curtailment would be absolutely huge and costly as well.
Even the 90% case would have huge curtailments, as curtailments get pretty significant after 30%. Why no talk of the cost of curtailment folks? And if anyone ever sat down and calculated the cost of 12 hour of storage for the entire US demand, they'd quickly realize how unrealistic it is. Remember, with storage you pay for your power twice, once for generating the power, and again for storing it.
Maybe a study where there is at least one guy that actually worked at a utility or power plant or even something close would be a bit more practical.