PE, Thx for the post. Good Background so as to give everyone a glimpse of the complexity factors. Being a EE myself I have spent my career on the plant side providing power to users. The plant side is just as challenging as the transmission side… esp. as plants get older. So as Judith would say this is also a wicked problem… with alot of wicked people working on it. Looking back a few years ago I gathered from the Obama admin folks that they expected people to buy Teslas with a couple extra batteries, install large arrays of PVs 10-20 KW to charge the batteries and inverters with maybe a backup gas generator to power their homes…. great & noble thoughts of course but totally disconnected from reality… but this is what I genuinely believed they were trying to push. The only thing that they forgot to figure in was the cost of the magic wand to accomplish that feat. I’ve always had a basic desire to be able to go off-grid – thereby diminishing somewhat the overall generation load… but the cost benefit analysis will never support it unless I could get one of those DOE grants or maybe a inheritance from some long-lost wealthy uncle ‘SAM’?
Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by Rich Van Slooten
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Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by genghiscunn
Mark: Oxford online: disbenefit: a disadvantage or loss resulting from something. Perhaps relatively recent – it doesn’t appear in my 1959 Shorter Oxford but is in my 2001 Concise Oxford as British: disadvantage.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by PA
It is what it is.
The rainforest destruction has added about 180 GT of carbon and destroyed about 40 GT/Y of sinking. The destruction during the late 20th century was about 2 GT/Y emissions and 0.5 GT/Y/Y sink loss..
The manmade emissions are about 9.8 GT.
So on paper at the current rising CO2 level is 1/5 due to emissions and 4/5 due to carbon sink destruction.
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Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by genghiscunn
Mark, PE, I interpret what PE is saying is that costs rapidly become unreasonable, notably beyond 10% penetration. Peter Lang has attempted to quantify some costs in submisisions to Australian Senate and other inquiries into use of renewables. In work he has studied, estimates of costs of renewables used in policy-making rarely if ever take account of such costs: the cost per tonne of CO2 emissions avoided (already high) is seriously underestimated because issues such as those discussed by PE are ignored. We still get people with some influence promoting 100% reliance on intermittent renewables. No doubt Peter will weigh in later.
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Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by genghiscunn
Oops, I see he has an earlier post immediately below this.
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Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by genghiscunn
Oops, I see he has an earlier post immediately below this. And I misplaced this reply. Back to sleep, Mikey.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by gymnosperm
” The timescale is probably years/decades and – on average – is in balance.”
There are definitely timescale differences. Some decomposition takes place in the yearly timescale we are mostly discussing here, but much takes years or decades. In the case of fossil fuel the same process takes millennia.
We are talking about the atmosphere. Atmospheric Carbon goes to plants, a different box. It does not go to soil significantly. Soil C goes to the atmosphere, a different box, and then to plants. We all understand that sub cycle, but the entire system is ultimately balanced. It doesn’t really matter that human C will take a long time to get back to fossil fuel through swamps and Soil C will get back to plants rather more quickly through the atmosphere. What matters is that both inputs are asymmetric to the atmospheric box we are discussing, and they can equally be put in Ferdinand’s equation.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by gymnosperm
That is actually the case but it is vastly more complicated. The ocean mixed layer is far richer in 13C than any of the reservoirs that communicate with it. The plankton within the ocean grab every 12C they can get their hands on and leave the water enriched in 13C. Biologically rejected 13C washes from the atmosphere in rain and from land in rivers. Life just doesn’t want the stuff and the ocean winds up with it.
Evaporation also concentrates 13C. Even though we don’t think of Carbon going along for the ride as some 400,000 GT of water evaporates from the ocean surface every year, it does.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v316/n6027/abs/316434a0.html
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by stevenreincarnated
“The suggestion isn’t that nature is a net sink. The suggestion is that in the presence of AE, nature is a net sink. If, in the presence of AE, nature is a net sink, it can’t be the source.”
Mathematically it can:
C’ = (Eneq + Enchange + Ea) – {Eneq + (Enchange + Ea)f}
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by matthewrmarler
and Then There’s Physics: I don’t think that the natural variability is not considered. I think that it is considered, and that it is quite well understood.
Natural variability was assumed to be negligible and dismissed before there had been much study of it. Now that it is being more thoroughly studied, it looks as though it had been dismissed too soon, and it might not be negligible.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Chris Golledge
There is this thing called conservation of matter. The increases in carbon in air and sea are a very good fit for the amount of carbon we have extracted from the ground. Not only that, but the isotopic composition of the above ground carbon has shifted exactly as one would expect from our adding fossil fuel carbon to the mix. You can believe that the added carbon is our doing, or you can believe that there is some magical sink for the carbon we have dug out of the ground, and some other magical source for carbon that happens to have the very same isotopic signature.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Anidride Carbonica e dintorni | Climatemonitor
[…] una lettura interessante, anche se a me ha fatto venire un po’ di mal di testa. E’ un guest post uscito sul blog di Judith Curry in cui, calcoli ed analisi alla mano, si sostiene ciò che è […]
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Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by Lloyd Burt
The problem is that the grid is enormous and works with the trivial long distance transmission network because every region already has most of its power needs met.
To switch to renewables the capacity of these long transmission lines would need to be an order of magnitude larger…moving hundreds of gigawatt hours a day from one region that was overproducing to another far away that was underproducing.
The grid would also have to redesigned to accommodate rooftop solar. Rooftop solar currently gets consumed in the same area it’s produced because there is so little of it. Push it beyond levels found in germany (only in a place like the US where solar has more potential) and you run into the problem that the transformers are made to offset line losses…and running it backward through the transformers would still incur line losses but the transformers would then step the voltage DOWN.
I did a lot of math on this and honestly, the ONLY way I could find to reasonably integrate large amounts of wind/solar…is to convert most of it into hydrogen, storing WEEKS WORTH in vast, metal lined, bored tunnels (or just huge arrays of tanks) near conventional gas fired turbine power plants…and JUST BURN IT in the power plant as fuel to buffer out the remainder of the wind/solar that’s actually providing electricity. This BTW loses about 50-60% of the energy, but its the only cost effective solution (where enormous pumped hydro storage isn’t an option…which it won’t be because environmentalists)
But again, this is all a load of worthless crap for the brainwashed masses. Because anyone serious (and rational) about moving away from fossil fuels to an almost purely electrically powered society…would use nuclear
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Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by Peter Lang
To switch to renewables the capacity of these long transmission lines would need to be an order of magnitude larger…moving hundreds of gigawatt hours a day from one region that was overproducing to another far away that was underproducing.
Mental exercise: what would the transmission system cost if the only generation was solar power (and no storage)?
The sunny side of the planet would have to generate all the power for the whole planet.
Transmission would have to run right around the world and have sufficient capacity to supply peak power to meet peak demand in every individual location everywhere.
Assume capital cost of $1000/MW.km on land an $3000/MW.km under sea.
I did a lot of math on this and honestly, the ONLY way I could find to reasonably integrate large amounts of wind/solar…is to convert most of it into hydrogen, storing WEEKS WORTH in vast, metal lined, bored tunnels (or just huge arrays of tanks) near conventional gas fired turbine power plants…and JUST BURN IT in the power plant as fuel to buffer out the remainder of the wind/solar that’s actually providing electricity. This BTW loses about 50-60% of the energy, but its the only cost effective solution (where enormous pumped hydro storage isn’t an option…which it won’t be because environmentalists)
There is an alternative. The solar advocates might consider (like AK) :)
Nuclear fuel stores all the energy needed for use on demand. The energy density is so great a country can store years or decades of energy in a few warehouses. This provides the ultimate answer to energy security. There an effectively unlimited supply of it, so it is genuinely sustainable effectively indefinitely.
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Comment on Quantifying the anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric CO2 by Nick Stokes
“Natural variability was assumed to be negligible and dismissed before there had been much study of it”
Where on earth do you get this stuff from. Please give some documentation.
The silly thing is, GCMs have long proceeded on the basis that future CO2 was unpredictable within the model. That’s why they use scenarios, to cover a range. They have in mind the unpredictability of decisions on fuel use, but it certainly allows natural variability.
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Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by krmmtoday
Some weeks ago I saw a video lecture concerning the situation in Germany ( http://mediathek.cesifo-group.de/iptv/player/macros/cesifo/mediathek ).
I remember perhaps 2 additional points
– the less conventional power generators there are in the system, the less is the rotating mass that can serve to balance sudden load changes which increases stability issues.
– the remaining fossil generators have to be run at lower average loads which lowers the efficiency and reduces life time.
– as for some numbers I remember (grossly):
total electric energy consumption in Germany 600TWh
installed renewables about 150 TWh (2013).
to replace all nonrenewable sources they currently plan to convert surplus renew. energy into H2 and to convert it back by (currently unavailable) turbines with a total efficiency of about 0.4.
so according to my gross calculation there would have to be a total renewable capacity of 600/0.4=1500TWh plus the required additional infrastructure. They will not need all 600TWh from H2 so lets say 300 which still gives a total of 300+300/0.4=1050. So 7 times the current installation.
And thats only for current electricity use which is 23% of primary energy input.
Currently there’s already increasing grassroots opposition to additional wind turbines and transmission lines.
The Professor admitted to be praying each evening that fusion may work soon.
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Comment on Is federal funding biasing climate research? by Punksta
Another question, same answer, Does federal funding bias energy research?
Given the federal government’s vested interest in fostering global warming alarm, you’d need to be seriously delusional to believe this does NOT bias it.
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Comment on Week in review – policy and politics edition by beththeserf
Capitulation by the UWA. CON -sens-US rules.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/university_caves_to_group_think_bjorn_lomborg_banned/
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Comment on Week in review – policy and politics edition by Peter Lang
Geez. That’s absolutely unbelievable.
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Comment on Transmission planning: wind and solar by aplanningengineer
Bobdroege-wind turbines are asynchronous generators, but that means they turn at different speeds (depending on the wind speed) then the grid. Therefore they are made to produce DC power which is converted with inverters to AC power at grid frequency. The electronic conversion from DC to AC decouples the wind rotation from the grid.
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