Why does it work on larger grids? Disptachable power is produced close to where it is used. Even in China's grid electricity is not transported thousands of miles. You are still think about a grid like a big lake and that is a false model.
Fortunately if you have weeks or months to spool up extra capacity it isn't much of a problem to take plants offline for half the year. Good opportunity for maintenance in fact.
The capitol and interest payments required to build the plant would now have to be spread over much less production which would drive up the cost of electricity. Even plants that are not operational require maintenance.
Recycled batteries are very environmentally friendly.
There will not be enough recycled batteries to make a difference for a very long time. How fast do these batteries degrade once they start having problems?
For larger grid scale storage chemistries like low temperature sodium sulphur are still much, much better than coal or gas in terms of environmental impact.
How much do the installations cost? Added costs mean higher electricity prices. What is the manufacturing process for these batteries like. Sodium is very dangerous in elemental form. They will also need to be completely replace every 15 years or so.
Not true on a country/nation wide scale or global scale.
Global scale is irrelevant as there are no trans oceanic high capacity electricity transmission lines. Those kinds of lines are extremely expensive.
ignoring the fact that you have that grid and those losses already.
Yes we have a grid but the issue is that the Grid is near capacity. It is not designed to carry electricity from Texas to New York. Most electricity is consumed within 1000 miles of where it is produced. There is a misconception of how the grid works. Many people see it as a big pond where electricity can be poured in at any point and taken out at any point. That is not the case. It is more like a network of canals where each canal has a limited capacity. Put too much in, take too much out or try to transfer too much electricity and things break.
The point many people miss is that the area that is producing must have excess capacity to deal with the ares that are not producing. That means a lot of excess capacity and extra costs. Add together the cost of local capacity, the cost of capacity to cover other areas and the cost of additional transmission lines to get the power to other areas. Those costs add up to very expensive electricity. Could it work? Yes. Could it make electricity so expensive that it has a significant impact on the economy? Also yes.
There are storage solutions out there being developed that are not batteries,
Which ones work on a household level? All the ones I have seen only work at grid level and at relatively small capacities.
some old ones like pumping water uphill during excess power generation to be used in hydro.
Have you looked into pumped hydro? It only works where there is significant height drop and large areas for reservoirs. It also nearly doubles the cost of the electricity it stores. Hydro dams work because there are millions of gallons of water flowing by daily. Their reservoirs are continually being refilled naturally for no cost. Having to refill the reservoirs by pump costs a lot in electricity for the pumps and maintenance. Do you have any idea how big a static reservoir would have to be to handle a week's worth of electricity for a large city? For example pumped hydro in Texas would not work very well at all which happens to be a great place to produce renewable electricity..
Germany and other European nations are quickly eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear.
Take a look at these actual numbers. Nuclear Power down 0.1%. Brown Coal down 3%. Hard coal down 11%. Gas down 18%. Their overall production also decreased by 21 TWhrs or 4%. So any reductions in nuclear or brown coal can be covered by decrease in demand. Sorry but Germany will be using nuclear and fossil fuels for quite some time yet.
Take a look at January 2104 (Page 13). 80% of electricity was produced by conventional sources.
Except that the Horse and Buggy industry did not have to keep thousands of units on standby for when the automobiles didn't work. The electricity producers have to keep capacity on standby to deal with weather and seasonal variations.
Does this include the cost of the base load plants that still need to exist in case there is a storm and the solar panels do not work as well? Does this take into account the seasonal variation in electricity production? For example, Germany produces ten times as much solar energy in June as it does in January. Therefore to produce one unit of electricity in January costs ten times as much as in June.
Twenty four hours may not be enough. During a big storm solar will be degraded for much longer than that. Also at higher latitudes winter solar output can be as little as 1-% of summer output. One can either massively over produce in summer or rely on grid power in the winter. If one is relying on winter grid power then the equipment generating that power will only be used a fraction of the year.
but storage costs are on the same downward trajectory as the renewable generation costs.
The problem with local storage is that it is mainly batteries. Batteries are not environmentally friendly.
Do you watch use your computer after dark? There is 400 watts. Watch TV? Do laundry? cook? Run your refrigerator? Have a shower? You numbers are very far off.
While some French tanks had considerably better guns and armor, the fact was that the Germans could fight their tanks at full efficiency and the French couldn't.
That sounds pretty much like what I said; "French tanks were better but they were used poorly".
It might be a little bit of both. I have found a couple ofreferences that state that before Belgium declared neutrality in 1936 that France did not want to cut them off. After 1936 they had little time to complete the fortifications.
You are half right. Many of the French tanks were much better than the German Tanks and Allied tanks outnumbered the Germans 3 to 2. Many captured tanks were used in the German army. Here are a few factors that decreased their usefulness. 1. Organization. Though there were four of armoured divisions (Germany had 10) most French tanks were parcelled out to infantry divisions as support. This caused them to be spread out and unable to react to breakthroughs. 2. Too few radios. Only one in 5 French tanks had radios. A general German tactic was to kill the tank with the antennas and move on. The other tanks would not know where to go or be able to coordinate effectively. 3. Rigid central command. Local commanders were ordered to hold positions and could not react to breakthroughs. 4. Communications were a mess. The French relied on land lines and couriers for communications. One of the first German objectives was to cut communications with higher command. Without orders, out of contact units sat in position, got surrounded and surrendered. 5. Delay. The French armoured divisions were held for counter attack and when they were released it was too late.
There was another huge contributor to The Fall of France. The french doctrine relied heavily of fortifications in the form of the Maginot Line. It was an impressive installation and would have stopped the German army except for one major flaw; The main fortifications stopped at the Luxembourg border. The French Government did not want to isolate Luxembourg and Belgium. The German forces easily out flanked the static heavy defences.
The costs that does not get reflected are the costs of maintaining and running generators on standby just in case your system is not generating enough electricity.
You might care if there is not enough money to build new generation plants and you get a blackout on a cold winter day when solar is ineffective. The issue with most home solar installations is that they are still connected to the grid and will use grid power when needed. This requires the power companies to have and maintain generation plants that are usually producing far below capacity but they still need to be on line is case they are needed. This is a huge cost and will drive up grid electricity prices.
In other words, they were frightened enough to attack one of the main financial benefits of distributed solar.
In other words they did the math and realized that their costs of distributing power is higher than they previously thought. Maybe the "financial benefits of distributed solar" are artificial; 1. tax subsidies. 2. low distribution costs. Perhaps the new charges better reflect the actual costs rather than giving incentive to go solar.
The researchers also found that one of the shells had clear evidence of being turned into a tool. "It had a deliberately-made sharp cutting edge," says Munro.
One shell could have been used to sharpen the edge of another shell.
That would be called the tyranny of the majority. I would still say it is not valid if the city grew up near an existing airport. Perhaps the city grew due to lower land costs caused by the existence of the airport. Now the residents want to instantly increase their land values by getting rid of the airport.
I always find situations like Santa Monica almost laughable. The airport has been there since before WW2. People moved there after the airport was built and now they want to close the airport. If you don't want to live near an airport don't move near an airport.
I like to fly chinese kits and can legally leave them airborne over my property.
That could easily be found a not legitimate. How would you keep them up 24/7? It could be easily shown to be done solely to restrict flight rather than enjoy the land. Finally, drones could avoid the strings with no problem.
People often forget that the air space over your property to like 300 feet is the property owners...
I have looked into this extensively and have found no actual height that is considered the property of the land owner. If you have references I would love to see them. All I can find are references to the statement that "a landowner owns only so much of the airspace above their property as they may reasonably use in connection with their enjoyment of the underlying land".
It would be interesting to see how many nets people put up to their max air space
There actually has been a SCOTUS ruling in this issue.
A landowner can't arbitrarily try to prevent aircraft from overflying their land by erecting "spite poles," for example.
A more accurate car analogy would be having to buy Apple Gas at Apple gas stations due to the proprietary fill nozzle even though Apple Gas is exactly the same as generic gas.
Slashdot Mirror
Why does it work on larger grids? Disptachable power is produced close to where it is used. Even in China's grid electricity is not transported thousands of miles. You are still think about a grid like a big lake and that is a false model.
Fortunately if you have weeks or months to spool up extra capacity it isn't much of a problem to take plants offline for half the year. Good opportunity for maintenance in fact.
The capitol and interest payments required to build the plant would now have to be spread over much less production which would drive up the cost of electricity. Even plants that are not operational require maintenance.
Recycled batteries are very environmentally friendly.
There will not be enough recycled batteries to make a difference for a very long time. How fast do these batteries degrade once they start having problems?
For larger grid scale storage chemistries like low temperature sodium sulphur are still much, much better than coal or gas in terms of environmental impact.
How much do the installations cost? Added costs mean higher electricity prices. What is the manufacturing process for these batteries like. Sodium is very dangerous in elemental form. They will also need to be completely replace every 15 years or so.
Not true on a country/nation wide scale or global scale.
Global scale is irrelevant as there are no trans oceanic high capacity electricity transmission lines. Those kinds of lines are extremely expensive.
ignoring the fact that you have that grid and those losses already.
Yes we have a grid but the issue is that the Grid is near capacity. It is not designed to carry electricity from Texas to New York. Most electricity is consumed within 1000 miles of where it is produced. There is a misconception of how the grid works. Many people see it as a big pond where electricity can be poured in at any point and taken out at any point. That is not the case. It is more like a network of canals where each canal has a limited capacity. Put too much in, take too much out or try to transfer too much electricity and things break.
The point many people miss is that the area that is producing must have excess capacity to deal with the ares that are not producing. That means a lot of excess capacity and extra costs. Add together the cost of local capacity, the cost of capacity to cover other areas and the cost of additional transmission lines to get the power to other areas. Those costs add up to very expensive electricity. Could it work? Yes. Could it make electricity so expensive that it has a significant impact on the economy? Also yes.
That conventional is not being eliminated quickly.
There are storage solutions out there being developed that are not batteries,
Which ones work on a household level? All the ones I have seen only work at grid level and at relatively small capacities.
some old ones like pumping water uphill during excess power generation to be used in hydro.
Have you looked into pumped hydro? It only works where there is significant height drop and large areas for reservoirs. It also nearly doubles the cost of the electricity it stores. Hydro dams work because there are millions of gallons of water flowing by daily. Their reservoirs are continually being refilled naturally for no cost. Having to refill the reservoirs by pump costs a lot in electricity for the pumps and maintenance. Do you have any idea how big a static reservoir would have to be to handle a week's worth of electricity for a large city? For example pumped hydro in Texas would not work very well at all which happens to be a great place to produce renewable electricity..
Germany and other European nations are quickly eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear.
Take a look at these actual numbers. Nuclear Power down 0.1%. Brown Coal down 3%. Hard coal down 11%. Gas down 18%. Their overall production also decreased by 21 TWhrs or 4%. So any reductions in nuclear or brown coal can be covered by decrease in demand. Sorry but Germany will be using nuclear and fossil fuels for quite some time yet.
Take a look at January 2104 (Page 13). 80% of electricity was produced by conventional sources.
Except that the Horse and Buggy industry did not have to keep thousands of units on standby for when the automobiles didn't work. The electricity producers have to keep capacity on standby to deal with weather and seasonal variations.
Does this include the cost of the base load plants that still need to exist in case there is a storm and the solar panels do not work as well? Does this take into account the seasonal variation in electricity production? For example, Germany produces ten times as much solar energy in June as it does in January. Therefore to produce one unit of electricity in January costs ten times as much as in June.
Twenty four hours may not be enough. During a big storm solar will be degraded for much longer than that. Also at higher latitudes winter solar output can be as little as 1-% of summer output. One can either massively over produce in summer or rely on grid power in the winter. If one is relying on winter grid power then the equipment generating that power will only be used a fraction of the year.
but storage costs are on the same downward trajectory as the renewable generation costs.
The problem with local storage is that it is mainly batteries. Batteries are not environmentally friendly.
Do you watch use your computer after dark? There is 400 watts. Watch TV? Do laundry? cook? Run your refrigerator? Have a shower? You numbers are very far off.
While some French tanks had considerably better guns and armor, the fact was that the Germans could fight their tanks at full efficiency and the French couldn't.
That sounds pretty much like what I said; "French tanks were better but they were used poorly".
It might be a little bit of both. I have found a couple of references that state that before Belgium declared neutrality in 1936 that France did not want to cut them off. After 1936 they had little time to complete the fortifications.
german had a very good air and tank superiority
You are half right. Many of the French tanks were much better than the German Tanks and Allied tanks outnumbered the Germans 3 to 2. Many captured tanks were used in the German army. Here are a few factors that decreased their usefulness.
1. Organization. Though there were four of armoured divisions (Germany had 10) most French tanks were parcelled out to infantry divisions as support. This caused them to be spread out and unable to react to breakthroughs.
2. Too few radios. Only one in 5 French tanks had radios. A general German tactic was to kill the tank with the antennas and move on. The other tanks would not know where to go or be able to coordinate effectively.
3. Rigid central command. Local commanders were ordered to hold positions and could not react to breakthroughs.
4. Communications were a mess. The French relied on land lines and couriers for communications. One of the first German objectives was to cut communications with higher command. Without orders, out of contact units sat in position, got surrounded and surrendered.
5. Delay. The French armoured divisions were held for counter attack and when they were released it was too late.
There was another huge contributor to The Fall of France. The french doctrine relied heavily of fortifications in the form of the Maginot Line. It was an impressive installation and would have stopped the German army except for one major flaw; The main fortifications stopped at the Luxembourg border. The French Government did not want to isolate Luxembourg and Belgium. The German forces easily out flanked the static heavy defences.
The costs that does not get reflected are the costs of maintaining and running generators on standby just in case your system is not generating enough electricity.
You might care if there is not enough money to build new generation plants and you get a blackout on a cold winter day when solar is ineffective. The issue with most home solar installations is that they are still connected to the grid and will use grid power when needed. This requires the power companies to have and maintain generation plants that are usually producing far below capacity but they still need to be on line is case they are needed. This is a huge cost and will drive up grid electricity prices.
In other words, they were frightened enough to attack one of the main financial benefits of distributed solar.
In other words they did the math and realized that their costs of distributing power is higher than they previously thought. Maybe the "financial benefits of distributed solar" are artificial;
1. tax subsidies.
2. low distribution costs.
Perhaps the new charges better reflect the actual costs rather than giving incentive to go solar.
The researchers also found that one of the shells had clear evidence of being turned into a tool.
"It had a deliberately-made sharp cutting edge," says Munro.
One shell could have been used to sharpen the edge of another shell.
That would be called the tyranny of the majority. I would still say it is not valid if the city grew up near an existing airport. Perhaps the city grew due to lower land costs caused by the existence of the airport. Now the residents want to instantly increase their land values by getting rid of the airport.
I always find situations like Santa Monica almost laughable. The airport has been there since before WW2. People moved there after the airport was built and now they want to close the airport. If you don't want to live near an airport don't move near an airport.
I like to fly chinese kits and can legally leave them airborne over my property.
That could easily be found a not legitimate. How would you keep them up 24/7? It could be easily shown to be done solely to restrict flight rather than enjoy the land. Finally, drones could avoid the strings with no problem.
People often forget that the air space over your property to like 300 feet is the property owners ...
I have looked into this extensively and have found no actual height that is considered the property of the land owner. If you have references I would love to see them. All I can find are references to the statement that "a landowner owns only so much of the airspace above their property as they may reasonably use in connection with their enjoyment of the underlying land".
It would be interesting to see how many nets people put up to their max air space
There actually has been a SCOTUS ruling in this issue.
A landowner can't arbitrarily try to prevent aircraft from overflying their land by erecting "spite poles," for example.
I wonder how many people use it as their workout soundtrack. That could add up quite quickly.
Apple blocked the ability to buy DRM wrapped music from anyone else.
A more accurate car analogy would be having to buy Apple Gas at Apple gas stations due to the proprietary fill nozzle even though Apple Gas is exactly the same as generic gas.