Could we, right now, feasibly go 100% renewable energy for the entire nation?

[Gravitycollapse]

That's a legitimate question because if the answer is no then we have a bit of a problem on our hands.

Sticking with fossil fuel powered plants is not an option if we want to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. It seems that nuclear energy is the lesser of two evils, does it not?

[liberal N proud]

1. Between wind and solar, we should be able to

If only we were allowed to erect sufficient wind turbines and only if we were allowed to develop solar to its full potential.

Add geothermal and hydro power, this nation should be able to generate more power than it could ever use.

[Socialistlemur]

32. And we grind to a halt on windless nights, especially in winter

Your idea isn't practical. Costs too much. And even though there's some warming taking place, there's plenty of time to develop new technologies. Did you check the latest trends and reports? It's not that bad.

[madokie]

37. I wonder if they used the hydro

for nights when there was no wind

[kentauros]

55. Indeed they can.

It's called "pumped hydro" and it's a form of energy storage.

The problem that way too many people have with renewable energy is they only know about two forms: wind and solar. It's rare to find people that have even heard of all the other forms, such as geothermal, ocean thermal, ocean current (underweater turbines), hydro-electric (dams, in-stream turbines), wave action, Sterling engines (harvesting excess heat), solar chimneys, and solar antennas. There's more, I'm sure; that's just the ones I can remember

And then there are all the different forms of energy storage, including vanadium redox batteries, super and ultra capacitors, pumped hydro, thermal mass (usually warm water stored underground), and even compressed air. There's a type of cooling system for buildings that makes ice overnight (when electricity rates are lower) and then uses that stored energy to cool buildings during the day. It's supposed to be more efficient than running the same heat-pump all hours.

Hopefully, you can look up all of those. The ice-cooling system I haven't heard of being put into any kind of mass-production, so I don't know whatever happened to it. Treehugger.com is often a good site to start for reading about some of these new ideas on alternatives and efficiency.

[madokie]

58. We have pumped hydro

about 20 miles from me that came on line in '68
http://www.grda.com/grda-waters-the-w-r-holway-reservoir/

I spent 5 years bass fishing this lake back in the late '70s and early '80s

[kentauros]

61. It's a great idea and I'm glad to see it being used.

I'd like to see two things done with regards to mountaintop removal: the complete stoppage of the practice, and the recovery of those tops already destroyed converted to pumped hydro reservoirs.

We can't repair the lost geology, so we might as well put them to a much better use than what the mining companies are doing.

[nebenaube]

65. oh bullshit... n/t

[backscatter712]

89. No. I'll have to look up the study...

But with enough wind turbines and solar panels, and perhaps some battery systems in case of emergencies, (I think the figure is three times the demand in terms of peak-generating capacity), there won't be any interrruptions.

With smart-grid technology, power will be going from where it's windy and sunny to where power is needed across the country. IIRC from this study, you'd only need power from other sources 2% of the time.

[cali]

42. according to who? what expert agrees with you? do post a link.

[kristopher]

74. The Future Could Not Be Clearer for Renewable Energy

Garvin Jabusch, Green Alpha Advisors
May 30, 2013

<snip>

Renewable energies and sustainable practices can now credibly be said to have the power to increase our standards of living since they provide far greater benefits for far less cost than their economic predecessors. Moreover, since fossil fuels are demonstrably destructive - to the point that their use threatens our society and its ecological underpinnings - arguments that continuing to expand their use somehow minimizes economic risks are nonsense on their face. On the contrary, it’s now clear that failing to reduce use of fossil fuels is among the riskiest things we can do.

Piecing together how the emerging sustainable economy might look turns out to be surprisingly simple, at least in principle. In each area of the economy, we need ask only two questions of each of the various ways of doing business:
Is it notably less destructive to our economy’s ecological underpinnings than other methods of getting the same result?
Can it be employed via a working, profitable business model that lifts the economy and provides employment?


If the answer to both is yes, there’s a good chance that we’ve identified a next economy business idea. Getting at the same things another way, we might ask of a business:
Is it environmentally sustainable?
Is it economically sustainable?

Different people will bring different standards of ‘sustainable’ to this way of defining the green economy, so there will be lots going on and a ton to learn as we piece together the next economy, but the principle, if not the execution, is not complicated. Ideas that lighten our footprint on global ecologies while simultaneously accelerating the world’s economy are emerging, they’re working, and they have every chance of radically altering our up-till-now recklessly destructive path....

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/05/the-future-could-not-be-clearer-for-renewable-energy?cmpid=WNL-Friday-May31-2013

[cali]

119. The OP is talking about NOW. YOU are talking about the future.

[cprise]

121. Renewables are expanding NOW

Pilot storage systems are being deployed NOW, even before they are needed.

Lets see, what is the nuclear industry doing 'NOW'? They are fielding proposals that people know from hard experience will turn into giant scams with no way out except to pay the bill *and* mothball the partly-finished reactors.

I propose that nuclear advocates find a way to get the corruption out of the industry... NOW!

[kristopher]

75. Is a High Renewables Future Really Possible?

(Part 1)

<snip>

Skeptics often point to a number of familiar criticisms: that high penetrations of renewables are not possible; that such a future requires major technological innovation; that it requires unreasonable amounts of energy storage to balance variable wind and solar; that it requires massive build-out of transmission infrastructure, biomass generation capacity, large-scale hydro, or all of the above; that it requires major investment that simply isn’t there; that it is uncompetitively costly (at least without large subsidies); that variable renewables will undermine the reliability of grid power.

Couple such skepticism with IEA’s recent report noting that renewables have yet to make a serious dent in the carbon intensity of the global energy system—on which fossil fuels seem to have a strangle hold—and it’d be easy to side with the skeptics, but they are wrong.

Renewables’ track record shows that they continue to outpace skeptics’ expectations. “People thought that maybe renewables would get to two percent. When they did that, people said maybe five percent. Then 10 percent,” says Hutch Hutchinson, managing director at RMI. “Renewables have been fighting and scratching the entire way. Now, there’s good analytical evidence that with some creativity and customary levels of reinvestment in our energy system, we can get to a high renewables future.”

Eric Martinot, author of REN21’s Renewables Global Futures Report 2013, said something strikingly similar during a recent visit to RMI’s offices. He noted that the World Bank and others typically have a view of renewables that’s either behind the times by a decade (their image of 2013 is what renewables actually looked like in 2003) or low by a factor of ten (they think there’s much less renewable capacity than there really is).

But if we look to a growing body of consensus among energy futures studies and to an increasing number of examples from around the world today, we’ll see that a high renewables future is both possible and capable of coming soon. Indeed, in some places it’s already here....

Continues: http://blog.rmi.org/blog_05_22_2013_is_a_high_renewables_energy_really_possible_part_one

(Part 2)

High Renewables are a Reality Today
The futures studies (referenced in yesterday’s post) are not a guarantee of what will happen. They’re various visions of what could happen. But increasingly, these possible futures are shifting from the hypothetical to the real. Around the world, economies are shifting to ones grounded in high penetrations of renewables.

In one sense, this isn’t news. Historically, there has been no shortage of countries powered mostly—even entirely—by renewables. But these countries, ranging from Norway and Sweden to Paraguay and Venezuela, have depended on large amounts of hydro. Yet we’re now seeing examples of high renewables powered by wind and solar, too.

In Denmark, the Danish Energy Agency set a bold goal for the country’s power to be 100 percent renewable by 2050, including generating 50 percent of electricity from wind by 2020. The country is well on its way to realizing that vision. In 2011, renewables accounted for more than 40 percent of Denmark’s domestic electricity production; wind power accounted for 28 percent of electricity generation. Then last year, wind crossed the 30 percent threshold. This year an offshore wind farm is expected to add another 400 MW to the country’s already installed 4.2 GW of wind capacity. Earlier this year in March, wind generated nearly 4 GW of power for the grid, just 800 MW shy of the entire country’s electricity needs. Later that same month, wind output exceeded nationwide demand, even if only for a short period.

There’s been similar success on a much larger scale in Spain, where installed wind capacity is five times that of Denmark. On a day in April 2012, wind supplied 61 percent of Spain’s electricity demand.

Momentary high-percentage outputs from variable renewables and Denmark’s ramp-up of renewables—with wind’s longer-term contributions to the grid there—have been more than commendable. In Portugal, meanwhile, we’re seeing equally impressive numbers of renewables’ sustained contributions of power to the grid. For a few hours toward the end of 2011, renewables supplied 100 percent of Portugal’s electricity. But over the first quarter of this year—three full months of 2013—renewables supplied an impressive 70 percent of that country’s power. Hydro accounted for 37 percent of electricity; wind ranked second with 27 percent of generation....

Continues: http://blog.rmi.org/blog_05_23_2013_is_a_high_renewables_energy_really_possible_part_two

Recommended reading:

Germany's Renewables Revolution
While the examples of Japan, China, and India show the promise of rapidly emerging energy economies built on efficiency and renewables, Germany—the world’s number four economy and Europe’s number one—has lately provided an impressive model of what a well-organized industrial society can achieve. To be sure, it’s not yet the world champion among countries with limited hydroelectricity: Denmark passed 40% renewable electricity in 2011 en route to a target of 100% by 2050, and Portugal, albeit with more hydropower, raised its renewable electricity fraction from 17% to 45% just during 2005–10 (while the U.S., though backed by a legacy of big hydro, crawled from 9% to 10%), reaching 70% in the rainy and windy first quarter of 2013. But these economies are not industrial giants like Germany, which remains the best disproof of claims that highly industrialized countries, let alone cold and cloudy ones, can do little with renewables.

Germany has doubled the renewable share of its total electricity consumption in the past six years to 23% in 2012...

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2013_04_17_germanys_renewables_revolution


eLab: The Value of Distributed Energy Resources (Video)
March 15, 2013

The U.S. is at the cusp of transformative change in the electricity system, and the only thing limiting us may be our imagination. Uncertainties about how to navigate that transformation remain, and eLab is hard at work answering the questions many organizations in the sector are trying to address, including:

What is the value of distributed energy resources? How can we build pricing mechanisms based on accurate signals and reflections of the market, and integrate power from thousands of different locations—while keeping the lights on?

“FERC’s regulatory responsibility is to ensure that rates are adjusted and reasonable and not under-discriminatory,” explains Mason Emnett, deputy policy director at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “It’s important that we’ve got the rules right, so that customers are paying the appropriate rates and that resources are seeing the appropriate signals. eLab is an exciting collection of stakeholders and perspectives in that conversation.”

Watch now, and learn:

How to build a cleaner, more resilient electricity future with new types of technology—while successfully managing it in real time
Why eLab is exactly the right set of resources to help inform and accelerate aggregations of distributed resources interfacing with the grid
How eLab is enabling candid conversations with key stakeholders about price transparency and the real cost of renewables
What do you think it will take to change our electricity system to one that is cleaner, more reliable, and customer friendly?
http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2013_03_15_eLab_Value_of_Distributed_Energy_Resources

[kentauros]

77. "the only thing limiting us may be our imagination"

What I've seen on this thread so far is a severe lack of imagination, almost to the point of even "anti-imagination." "We can't possibly do that!!"

Yes, we can, if we'd just stop limiting ourselves.

I am so very grateful for the existence of NASA, especially for the second letter in their name, i.e., "aeronautics." NASA's currently doing and funding research into electric aircraft. "But no! The technology doesn't exist for that!" Yes, we can, and yes, it does. And the technology is getting better every day.

Glad to see you on the thread, and thanks for the info up there
Something I can read at lunch...

[Laelth]

51. I wish that were true.

Like cali, above, I would need to see some credible evidence before I would believe that.

-Laelth

[kentauros]

60. Start here:

http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/green-stats-89000.html


Wind Power Alone Could Easily Meet All Humanity's Electricity Needs, and Then Some

The UK is the Saudi Arabia of wind energy

Basically, just do any search on "renewables" and "terawatts" and you'll start to see results like those above. Those numbers are also higher than I'd read some years ago on Treehugger with regards to offshore wind potentials in terawatts

[Laelth]

62. Um ... the sun produces a lot of energy, no doubt.

The atmosphere releases a lot of (initially solar) energy in the form of wind. Also true.

So what? It's not practical to harvest that energy given the current state of our technology. It is neither efficient, nor workable, unless we are willing to settle for having electricity only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, and then we'd see massive power spikes and shortages when the wind picked up or subsided, or even when the sun passed behind a cloud. Currently, we regulate spikes and valleys through the use of natural gas.

Our civilization is now thoroughly dependent on stable, 24/7 electricity. Renewables can not give us that ... not yet. By all means, I hope we continue to expend some treasure on r&d to see if we can get stable, 24/7 power out of these sources, but the "experts" you cite above are dreamers, not engineers. I am aware of no engineer who would claim that renewables can provide the stable, 24/7 electricity that our civilization demands. Not yet.

-Laelth

[kentauros]

66. The technology does exist,

in offshore wind capacity alone. (The wind also blows at night offshore.) It just takes time to build and place all those turbines. Or are you refuting total electricity use with total offshore capacity? Those numbers are pretty solid from what I've been able to find. And that's just wind energy.

We've had the technology for decades to harvest solar in orbit and beam it to the ground. In fact, the technology has improved over the years to where it would be even easier to do it now. However, killing people with our hundreds of billions of dollars appears to be more important to our government than providing cheap and constant solar energy.

Look at my post above for all of the other means we have now in existing technology. (Solar antennas also work at night!) It's not a matter of not being advanced enough to harvest it all; it's simply a matter of logistics.

[Laelth]

68. I am not disputing capacity at all.

There's a lot of energy in wind. It's just not practical, for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is distance. Off-shore wind turbines can not, in any practical way, power Kansas.

-Laelth

[kentauros]

69. Of course, you're thinking in terms of how much it would cost to get that power to Kansas.

However, due to just how much potential exists offshore, the costs of getting it to Kansas aren't an issue to those that would build such a system. They're working on it even now. All they see is dollar signs in supplying energy to the whole country versus only those cities on the coasts.

In other words, there's so much potential that the energy companies looking to tap it don't care about transmission loss. Otherwise, they wouldn't be investing in offshore at all. Coastal population doesn't represent a big enough market alone.

Perhaps I should show this thread to DUer kristopher. He's knows this stuff far better than I. He's got the links readily available to show y'all just why we could go to renewables 100%. I'll see if I can get him interested

[cprise]

72. That's just an uninformed opinion

There are studies that show renewables to be quite practical even without storage.

Iowa will be at 40% renewable in a couple years due mainly to wind power.

[brooklynite]

91. So, one largely rural state will have a minority of it's power supply from renewables...

...see the problem there?

[cprise]

120. Um, lets see...

...the problem is that energy doesn't get shipped to New York.

Am I right?

Regardless, that 40% renewable will be up from 25% last year.

[wercal]

57. That just isn't realistic

Wind turbine do not operate 24/7...so there has to be a base level of capacity, that can always provide power through alternate means.

And I have no idea why you don't think we have been 'allowed' to erect turbines. Until recently, they have been heavily subsidized, and some massive wind farms have gone up. And, quite frankly, the 'footprint' of a wind farm, with its network of connecting roads and the substation is becoming an environmental concern in itself.

Again, I have no idea who isn't 'allowing' solar. Contrary to that belief, some major solar projects out west are getting fast tracked through the environmental review process. But, these types of plants are generally limited to the wide open, unusable spaces of teh west.

Geothermal is a viable energy source that has been used for large scale power generation since the 20's or 30's (its not new). But its use is very limited by its geographic location - its not that hot close to the surface, everywhere.

Hydro power?!?!? Do you seriously think that this country is ready to embark on another era of large scale dam production? Environmental damage to the impoundment area, problems with fish migration, problems with shipping, and problems as aging dams fall apart and become more dangerous.

Every one of these technologies will offset some fossil fuel use...but there is absolutely no way they will ever make up 100% of our power supply.

I don't think nuclear will either. Most people don't understand that there is a baseline requirement there also...out of every 24 months, 6 months are down time for inspection. So to go pure nuclear would require building 25% extra capacity, on top of any other factor of safety.

Realistically, and without fantasy, our future energy supply will rely heavily on natural gas, as it replaces coal in our power plants. It has suddenly become plentiful and is looking for a market. Coal will still be around, too. Google the Powder River Basin coal mine in Wyoming, and you will understand that coal will be used for a very long time in this country.

[kristopher]

78. Lots of errors there, my friend

Let's start with this study that looked at the historical records of wind and solar in the largest grid service area in the country - PJM. They found that today's technology for wind and solar with a bit of storage can do the job now:

Cost-minimized combinations of wind power, solar power and electrochemical storage, powering the grid up to 99.9% of the time

We model many combinations of renewable electricity sources (inland wind, offshore wind, and photovoltaics) with electrochemical storage (batteries and fuel cells), incorporated into a large grid system (72 GW). The purpose is twofold:
1) although a single renewable generator at one site produces intermittent power, we seek combinations of diverse renewables at diverse sites, with storage, that are not intermittent and satisfy need a given fraction of hours. And
2) we seek minimal cost, calculating true cost of electricity without subsidies and with inclusion of external costs.
Our model evaluated over 28 billion combinations of renewables and storage, each tested over 35,040 h (four years) of load and weather data.We find that the least cost solutions yield seemingly-excessive generation capacity—at times, almost three times the electricity needed to meet electrical load. This is because diverse renewable generation and the excess capacity together meet electric load with less storage, lowering total system cost. At 2030 technology costs and with excess electricity displacing natural gas, we find that the electric system can be powered 90%–99.9% of hours entirely on renewable electricity, at costs comparable to today's—but only if we optimize the mix of generation and storage technologies.

You can read the full paper here:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759

Interview with one of the authors:
http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/01/11/qa-can-renewables-alone-witih-storage-power-the-grid/


Now let's talk about geothermal. The entire world's nuclear fleet generates about 300GW continuous power. Here is what the US Geologic Survey says about geothermal:

Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed an assessment of our Nation’s geothermal resources. Geothermal power plants are currently operating in six states: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. The assessment indicates that the electric power generation potential from identified geothermal systems is 9,057 Megawatts-electric (MWe), distributed over 13 states. The mean estimated power production potential from undiscovered geothermal resources is 30,033 MWe. Additionally, another estimated 517,800 MWe could be generated through implementation of technology for creating geothermal reservoirs in regions characterized by high temperature, but low permeability, rock formations.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3082/

We DO have the technology to access that 517GW. So that's a total of more than 550GW spread all around the country.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/geothermal_basics.html

Hydropower is also far, far, far removed from what your imagination has told you:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/water/resource_assessment_characterization.html


In short, the correct, well established answer to the OP question asks is, "Yes, just as quickly as we can build out the infrastructure". As demonstrated by the national mobilization that occurred for WWII it is unquestionably achievable within 10 years given the will.

[wercal]

81. Lets look at these individually

1. The notion that wind, solar, and electrochemical storage can be used in concert to power the grid 99.9% of the time. First of all, a cardinal rule in the power busines is to prevent the storage of energy at all costs....which makes obvious sense, due to costs. But this notion also pre-supposes that both wind and solar will be abundant in all areas of the country (they aren't)...either that, or that we're going to generate all this power in the sunny windy areas and somehow transmit it economically to all areas of the country - you can't.

I'm sure its a neat paper...and I'm sure it assigns alot of external costs (subjectively assigned) to our current power system, which would offset the enormous cost of energy storage...but that's just not the real world.

(btw, in Portugal, they use lifted water stored in tanks to store the energy produced by turbines - this is exponentially more efficient than electrochemical storage, but still not preferred.)

And renewables certainly won't give us excess capacity. Hell, here in Kansas, our wind generation is approximately equal to the level of 1.5 coal plants, and we are already having second thoughts about the environmental impact. And we've got good wind! Its fundamentally impractical to think large scale wind will be a major source of power in any part of our country that is either congested or has poor wind...or even in Kansas for that matter.

2. Geothermal. You are looking at a report which estimates our geothermal 'reserves' and misinterpreting them to mean that all of this resource can be tapped. Hell, these aren't even 'known' resources...just a prediction about 'undiscovered' geothermal resource. And even if we 'found' that resource, we would have to use a currently nonexistent 'technology' to get at it....and if I interpret 'creating geothermal reservoirs' correctly, that technology includes putting a precious resource (water) into the ground. That is complete fantasy. Geothermal has been used for almost 100 years to produce electricity...it is not new, and we do not need to wildly speculate about its future viability. Its growth has been very slow, since it is necessary to find the right combination of factors to be economically viable. And it is not infinite...you can't expand a current plant by stacking a new one next to an old one, as it loses efficiency. This sector will continue to grow at a very slow pace, and will reach 517,000 MWe in the year gazillion 30.

Now a little bit about my background. I designed the substation for one of the first large scale wind farms in Kansas. I have run numbers on putting wind turbines next to water towers...the tower's intermittent need for pumping, coupled with the tower's ability to store energy in the form of lifted water make it very enticing. The numbers look good (with federal subsidy)...but only if the state mandates that the power utility buy excess power back at retail (as opposed to wholesale) rates...and only if your tower is very close to an existing transmission line. So far, we haven't got a district to 'bite' on this one. I also played a part in getting a demonstration turbine installed in our town. We know with great certainty that it will never cost out, needing replacement before it pays for itself - but its for demonstration, and positioned where school kids can take a tour. We are also in the embryonic stages of constructing a natural gas filling station - which we belive is the next big thing in the trucking industry. We are also working on contruction of a line to bring raw, untreated water to the oil fracking fields of North Dakota. In short, we do it all...and we run real numbers on this stuff...and we know what works, what can be bonded, what we can get a grant or zero interest loan for, what the payback is...all of that. And I gurantee you, renewables may always be part of the equation, but they will never, never, ever, fully replace coal and gas. (btw, Walter Mondale did the ribbon cutting at my coal power plant a generation ago, so coal can't be all that bad right?).


One last bit...our state has gone through quite a bit of number crunching to determine the cost of power. There is a Corporation Commission, a Ratepayer's Board, and the Courts....and this has all been thoroughly vetted....repeatedly. We know with great certainty what power costs in our state. The order of cost for power in my state, from cheapest to highest, is coal, nuclear, wind. This will not change because somebody wrote a paper...it is the true cost, as calculated and challenged in court....and unlikely to change in the near future. I find it very hard to believe that the addition of storage cost to the wind generation, will somehow inverse this reality.

[kristopher]

82. Next time try commenting after you read the paper

You obviously didn't read it, since your remarks are completely out of touch with the work that was done.

I've run a lot of numbers myself, and I recognize a solid piece of research when I see it. The PJM paper is solid.

Your remarks, on the other hand, are generalized bullcrap with absolutely no substance at all.

Readers are invited to follow the links in my previous post and read the paper themselves.

[wercal]

87. I do this for a living

You read a paper on the internet.

I'm going to give you a bit of advice: If the paper starts out suggesting battery storage of energy for the grid, throw the paper away. No convoluted offsetting costs will ever justify that...and our grid will never feature large scale battery storage...not in a million years.

[kristopher]

88. You do what for a living?

Talk bullshit on the internet?

Since you haven't read the paper you have no standing to comment. You are, quite simply put, talking out of your ass.

BTW, Since you seem set on trying to wag your stick on the anonymous internet, I'll point out that I'm a well qualified energy policy analyst specializing in the transition to a carbon free economy.

ETA: it isn't just the paper you are completely wrong about, you've also made significant false assumptions regarding both geothermal and hydro.

If you get paid for your opinion, your clients are not getting their money's worth.

[wercal]

92. I've been a licensed engineer for twelve years....practiced for seventeen

You sir are taking a nasty (albeit anonymous) tone...which is a sure sign you're winning an argument, right?

Now you have revealled that you most certainly have a dog in this fight.

I don't.

Thus we have different opinions.

[kristopher]

96. It isn't a matter of opinion.

It is a matter of facts and not-facts.

I'm dealing in facts and you are dealing in not facts.

Yes, that makes me testy. If you have legitimate criticisms, I'm open to friendly discussion, but when you spout bullshit and make an unsubstantiated appeal to authority I do tend to be a bit confrontational.

[wercal]

100. Lets try a little systems analysis, shall we

The batteries in a Volt cost 8k to store 16 kwh...or $500 per kwh...assume a very efficient house uses 50 kwh a day (and we only have one day without wind)...the cost to store the energy use would be 25 grand right? So for a city of a hundred thousand people, the cost to store a day's worth of energy is a quarter of a billion dollars, isn't it? And that cost will recur every ten years.

Lets say this can somehow be scaled and reduced to only forty percent of that cost...or ten grand per house....each house would pay a monthly premium of around eighty five dollars....which for a house only using 50 kwh is at least a 75% increase in cost. And that is on top of the higher cost for wind power in the first place.

I hope you can understand why electrochemical storage of grid electricity makes about as much sense as driving in reverse on the freeway to somebody who knows anything about energy production.

Now I already gave you an example of a better way - Portugal lifts water to store energy. You see, I already know of a substantially better mechanism for storing energy...and I told you about it. You interpret that as making stuff up.

I am not going to convince you of anything obviously, since your livelyhood and self worth are tied up in a belief system. But get back to me in 2030, when we still get the majority of our energy from non-renewables

[kristopher]

101. I'm sorry but you are still opining from ignorance

I'm not going to even address the word problem you've laid out because it isn't consistent with the nature of the problem. It does actually highlight one of the major faults I find dealing with engineers - an obsolete knowledge base and no interest in learning new things. I won't call it laziness, because time is money and maintaining a state of the art knowledge base requires a significant ongoing investment of time. The fact is though, that at this point your refusal to read the paper is hard to justify as being grounded in a lack of time.

Here is a list of a few things to consider. If you actually understand the nature of the machine you deal with you'll recognize the significance.

The years needed to build out a renewable grid is a minimum of 10 - even with the greatest political will imaginable. We've learned from the high penetration renewable countries that our previous estimates of where real problems start to occur were much too low, instead of 5-10% penetration causing problems, it looks like most problems accompanying penetrations even over 50% are able to be dealt with by normal amounts of spending on transmission and distribution upgrades. A large part of that is the existing natural gas infrastructure is fully compatible with the needs of variable sources of generation, and minimal expense is involved in meeting that need. Solar and wind hardware costs are going to continue to decline, along with their soft costs.


Concurrent with that process we expect a reasonably rapid roll out of EV and hybrid EV technology, with declining battery costs resulting from battery mfg infrastructure growth and significant technical improvements that are already in the pipeline.

How much storage potential is in 20% of the personal vehicle fleet if it is electric? Most makers are now forcasting that by 2020 200-300 mile range will be standard.

You made an another assumption about battery life, when you said they would require replacement every ten years. If you were able to spend more time reading the literature you'd know that this is an estimate of mobile lifetime based on the original power/weight ratio of the battery pack. They are expected to be replaced when they are able to be charged to only 80% of their original capacity.

For fixed use, that isn't a problem and they are expected to last decades longer. Utilities are already buying them up.

The end use of automobiles is a huge, highly flexible storage pool for "overproduction" of grid oriented renewables. With V2G technology this becomes a demand response resource on steroids.

Heating/cooling is another massive pool of end use storage that doesn't require "infrastructure" spending of the type you are envisioning.

Your entire concept of how a distributed renewable grid works is built on faulty assumptions.

[wercal]

104. You accuse me of making stuff up...

And when I give you hard numbers, you accuse me of being too lazy to learn some mystical new way of doing mathmatics.

You are a dreamer. Every one of your assumptions is based on an unsubstantiated hope that everything we know to be true today will be magically better in the future.

Yours is a belief system...and I won't pretend to be able to change it.

But please tell me which power companies are buying these batteries. I would very much like to know this.

[kristopher]

106. There is nothing mystical about it

It is in the paper.

And if I'm a dreamer then so is the outgoing Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Mr. Wellinghoff. He's been steering the nation's grid in the direction I just indicated for more than half a dozen years now.

PG&E First to Commit to Buying Used Plug-In Batteries
Jun 11, 2007 (From the CalCars-News archive)

PG&E's Sven Thesen, Supervisor for Clean Air Transportation, says the utility expects to buy batteries from plug-in cars (PHEVs and EVs) for secondary stationery uses, and he shows a reporter how it works. This first demonstration used a stock Prius battery, which is designed for power, not energy: current Prius conversions have batteries that make available 15-30 times as much energy.

PG&E continues to be a PHEV trailblazer: on April 9, the company became the first utility to conduct a public demonstration of a rudimentary "vehicle-to-grid" (V2G) setup. (at the Alternative Energy Solutions Summit, held at AMD headquarters in Sunnyvale -- see video links at http://www.calcars.org/­audio-video.html.) Last September, the utility sent a mailer promoting plug-in hybrids to its five million customers...

http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/765.html

[wercal]

108. Again

What utility companirs are 'buying up' these batteries. What are they called. Who makes them. What are they made out of. What are their specs.

Or did you make that part up.

[kristopher]

109. Call Sven.

[wercal]

111. You see...this is why you are a dreamer

You made a claim and can't back it up. If power companies are buying up Sven batteries...name one. Which company is buying them up.

Obviously you don't know.

[kristopher]

113. You don't bother reading anything, do you?

I answered your question two posts ago with a link and an excerpt. Call Sven at PG&E if you want more details.

You've clearly jumped the shark. We're done.

[wercal]

114. Good grief

You tell me there is a battery that lasts 'decades longer' and utility companies are 'buying them up'.

And then you link to a six year old article about a vehicle to grid experiment!

What about these new super batteries? They last 'decades longer'!...and are already being purchased by power companies!

Where is this battery?

Or did you make it up?

Parenthetically...if you own an electric car, never agree to use it for vehicle to grid. You have a very finite number of charging cycles available to you, because the anodes get coated with each cycle. Ergo, the whole idea is a non-starter.

Hut back to these magic batteries! Put up or shut up!

[wercal]

122. Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

Still haven't heard about where to get these batteries that last 'decades longer'....and the power companies are 'buying up'.

Silence = you made it up, right?

[FBaggins]

2. 100% nuclear isn't an option either.

If fossil isn't an option... then we should be expanding everything else.

[Gravitycollapse]

4. What I'm saying is that if fossil fuel and renewable are not current options...

then we need to be willing to consider the possibility that nuclear energy is at least a stepping stone.

[RobertEarl]

6. WTF?

Have you never heard of Fukushima and the 150,000 people run off their land?

[Gravitycollapse]

7. Aren't you the guy who said that Fukushima was cooking the ocean?

[RobertEarl]

9. That is bullshit

Why you have to say something that is untrue to make your point tells a lot about you. It reminds me of climate deniers.

[Gravitycollapse]

10. No, you're definitely the one. You posted that image claiming Fukushima was heating the ocean.

I remember it very clearly.

I also remember you being proven grossly incorrect.

[RobertEarl]

11. See my journal for the threads

And check your facts. I was not proven wrong about anything. Your ill memory and your telling untruths makes you look mighty bad, son.

And now, sport, answer the question about 150,000 people forced from their homes. How would you like it were you forced out? Would you still want to suck on nuclear power?

[Gravitycollapse]

13. You were proven wrong almost immediately.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022750608

As for the 150,000 people, what happened is tragic.

What's also tragic is the fact that coal and gas are many thousands of times more deadly per wattage hour than nuclear power. I choose not to cherry pick evidence. Care to join me?

[RobertEarl]

15. Cherry pick?

Tragic that 150,000 people were forced from their homes? Mighty big of you.

And the cost for cleanup at Fukushima is estimated at over a trillion dollars. I see now, you are another nuke supporter who is blind to the facts. Just like climate deniers, only worse.

[Gravitycollapse]

16. It was demonstrated that the temperature increase near Fukushima was an anomaly.

And that the data you used was cherry picked.

[RobertEarl]

17. Here is the thread headline

Last edited Tue Jun 4, 2013, 01:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Hot Water From Fukushima is Entering Pacific Ocean

Not as you said: "Cooking the ocean" or "heating the ocean."

You are not remembering correctly. You may now apologize for posting your bullshit, not just once, but twice.

[Gravitycollapse]

18. "All the water around Japan is cooler than usual. But there is that Fukushima anomaly hot spot..."

"All the water around Japan is cooler than usual. But there is that Fukushima anomaly hot spot, still. As much as 4 degrees warmer than what surrounds Japan. Which is what I mentioned in the OP."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022750608#post12

[RobertEarl]

21. You finally got something accurate

Good for you. Now apologize for the bullshit mistakes.

[Gravitycollapse]

24. I'll apologize when you admit nuclear energy is thousands of times less deadly than coal.

On edit: And hundreds of times less deadly than oil or gas.

[RobertEarl]

25. Lets see

You make two blatant false assertions and then carry on as if you are some superior being, and know all about the future pollution 100's of years from now.

Because 100's of years is how long nukes will be polluting the planet.

Just more bullshit from you.

[Gravitycollapse]

26. So I'm going to take that as a non-attempt on your part.

Which means no apology on mine.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

[RobertEarl]

29. Go tell the Japanese how safe nukes are

You can find them on the streets protesting about nukes.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022943029

[Gravitycollapse]

35. Well considering the Japanese have 50 nuclear reactors.

And none of the reactors have suffered failure directly due to acceleration from earthquakes, I would say they are actually very safe options for energy production.

The failure in the Fukushima plant was due almost entirely to the stupidity of TEPCO and the placement of backup generators in locations vulnerable to tsunamis.

[RobertEarl]

36. You're batting a thousand

Wrong every time.

How embarrassing can you be? Go ahead, double down.

[Gravitycollapse]

38. I'm not concerned with popular sentiment. I'm concerned with reality.

And the reality is that nuclear power is extremely safe. Even in the earthquake prone country of Japan.

[moondust]

3. Denmark is small but a renewable leader.

And their official goal is to be on 100% renewables by 2050.

[Laelth]

50. And, despite building thousands of wind turbines ...

... they have not been able to shut down a single conventional power plant. Not one.

Wind power is a major boondoggle.

-Laelth

[RobertEarl]

5. We could be

We should be.

Jimmy Carter set us on the path in 1978. 35 years ago. But the stupid ass people let him get run out of office by a slimy bunch of politicians.

We could be nuclear free and fully into renewable power in 10 years, but the money bags behind nuclear and oil will fight the whole way so we will end up cooking ourselves.

Too bad. Tough luck. If only the people weren't so gawd damn stupid.

[Laelth]

53. Um ... I have my doubts.

I wish it were true that "We could be nuclear free and fully into renewable power in 10 years," as you say, but all the evidence I have seen indicates that it's just not possible given the current state of renewable technologies.

I would love to see some credible evidence from an expert who sustains your claim. Truly.

-Laelth

[Wounded Bear]

8. Only if we could break the corporate stranglehold on everything....

We desperately need distributed power generation from renewables, not more major power generating terrorist targets that keep everybody dependent on the power companies.

[Yo_Mama]

12. Right now, no

But that is a different issue from what the energy mix will look like thirty years from now.

There is nothing that we could do "right now".

Aside from hydro, achieving large percentages of renewable power requires storage. Storage must be built.

But if you were going to go 100% nuclear (which is not an option because of the operating characteristics), all of that would have to be built as well.

So asking "right now" is not the right question to evaluate future options.

[Gravitycollapse]

14. You make a reasonable point.

Although, I wonder about the differences between the limitations in infrastructure cost and construction between renewable and nuclear. I remember reading a study a long time ago about the feasibility of 100% renewable energy compared to other options but I can't remember the conclusion.

[Yo_Mama]

31. Realistically it requires major changes to the grid

plus ways to store power.

So yes, there's a cost there. But costs also depend on the mix of sources and how they are deployed.

If you are talking distributed solar across wide swaths of the country, the associated costs would probably be huge using today's tech - without local storage, you'd have to both increase line capacities and change the transmission structures, plus add storage.

But perhaps other mixes would be easier. Also storage is the huge issue with that type of renewables. I am sure that the US could go higher, but in some places the local transmission lines are already getting tapped out with grid-tied solar.

There's already a number of issues related to distributed solar, and different states are experimenting with different ways to deal with them. For example, VA:
http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=VA02R
And Hawaii:
http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=HI04R

But people don't understand how grid-tied solar even works, really.
http://articles.dailypress.com/2011-12-02/news/dp-nws-scc--approves-dominion-charge-20111128_1_solar-advocates-solar-power-net-metering

The current capacity limits involving grid-tied solar are set to prevent destabilization of the local grids.

Also, a lot of individuals don't realize that their own inverters have cut-offs, so that when grid voltage gets too high or too low their inverter will automatically cut out and stop providing power to the grid. Common sense tells you that many residential areas are going to start seeing overloads and cut-outs.

But suppose a better small battery system or power cell system were developed for residential use? That could change the picture very dramatically and greatly lower the overall cost of solar. Research is proceeding quite actively, and I suspect it's going to be facilitated by the fix that Germany's got itself into.

For wind, it produces a lot of power, but the power is concentrated into unpredictable periods. So when you try to go high penetration with wind, you need shitloads of backup generation plus the cost rises because you are getting huge peak loads of power at a lot of times when it can't be used, so you end up dumping power and the effective capacity of the installed turbines drops.

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. Fossil fuel powered energy plants is not the problem. Burning fossil fuels moving people and stuff

around consumes the overwhelming majority of what we use, and that can indeed be all but eliminated "right now".

[Gravitycollapse]

20. It seems that electricity production is the single largest CO2 emitter.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html

[Egalitarian Thug]

41. OK, I can accept this as far as it goes, but I have serious reservations that this is

the whole story. We have an entrenched and nearly invulnerable industry sponsored graft factory that has been buying politicians and churning out misinformation for generations, so I will remain skeptical of anything that comes from the position of this is our only alternative until it is verified by a reasonably neutral outside party.

However, what I do know is that something over 90% of the oil we use is burned up in engines moving people and things around the country in just about he most inefficient way possible.

We have an antiquated, dilapidated rail system that is still far more efficient than trucks, yet trucks move most of our freight because the trucking industry has more political clout. Diesel engines are far more efficient and durable than gasoline engines, yet nearly all of our engines are gasoline because the oil and automobile industries have far more political clout. For light load (passenger) transportation, electricity is far superior to the aforementioned gasoline based systems, but the gasoline based economy rules. And so on.

Nuclear energy is like all of these disparities times a million. It is hugely expensive and can only be euphemistically called clean because the environmental consequences are externalized and delayed. Had the industry not been able to stifle innovation and suck up virtually all of the subsidies since back when Carter was President, we would be a solar/wind/geothermal powered nation today.

There is nothing pragmatic about pursuing a dead-end technology in favor of short-term profitability, it's just graft.

[RobertEarl]

22. The real question is:

What are you doing to limit your use of fossil fuels? Have you cut back? Are you planning to cut back? Or are you just going to sit around and let someone else do it for you?

[Gravitycollapse]

23. That's not the real question. However, I have a surprisingly small footprint.

[Agnosticsherbet]

27. Right now, no. Ten to Twnety Years, yes if the government were willing to create

the infrastructure.

We have an entire nation engineered to use fossil fuels. It would require a massive rebuilding of everything and a near complete change of the way we think as a nation.

Since nothing could possibly get done before 2017, it is more like 20 to 25 years.

[Demo_Chris]

28. Not without nuclear. Not even close. nt

[Socialistlemur]

30. Between nuclear and a bit of warming, I'd rather be a bit warm

I think the original post limits choices too much. It assumes we have to make a full switch right now. And it assumes global warming is so bad we need to go nuclear. I disagree on all counts. Switching the USA right now is of course impossible and non sense. So lets say we would do it over a period of time (50 years?). But no matter what we do the rest of the world isn't about to change much, right now US emissions are dropping due to the switch from coal to natural gas. But the Indians, Chinese, and other 3rd world nations are increasing coal and other non renewables use. And even Europe has been increasing emissions. Therefore the whole proposal and associated logic are very weak.

[Gravitycollapse]

33. Being "a bit warm" is not the issue with climate change.

[Recursion]

34. Possible? Yes, if we imported all of our food and converted 90% of engines in the country to diesel

We'd have to do a lot from bio.

[Gravitycollapse]

39. Those seem like pretty lofty expecations. I'm really looking for what is feasible...

Which is not to say what's possible because what is possible is not always feasible.

[napoleon_in_rags]

40. Important distiction...

nuclear is not renewable, but carbón producing ethanol is. (sorry for accents, my phone thinks I'm italian or something.)

[GliderGuider]

43. No.

Not even "unfeasibly" and certainly not "right now". There are far too many people on the planet with far too many consumptive needs, wants and desires. We should (of course) work towards reducing our impact if we wish to, but in the few decades we have left before the collision, we're not going to be able to turn the Titanic enough to miss the iceberg.

When we look dispassionately at the I=PAT equation, we find that human impact on the planet is between 25,000 and 50,000 times too big to be considered sustainable. The smooth road to Hell has been paved with the asphalt of good intentions, and we seem to have arrived.

Her are two short analyses that illuminate the depth of our predicament:

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/TF.html
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Sustainability.html

[customerserviceguy]

44. How do you power aircraft with renewables?

With present technology, you need the energy contained in a fuel to get sufficient force to lift a wing. Other than a few toy RC planes, batteries just don't have the ability to fly a craft big enough for even one person to be in.

If you're willing to allow this exception, perhaps an economy could be run on 100% renewables, but it would be very expensive to build the necessary infrastructure. If the US, Canada, and Europe all did this, the price of fossil fuels would plummet, making the gap between using them and going 100% renewable even larger for developing nations, including China.

[Laelth]

49. Aircraft absolutely require fossil fuels, no doubt.

It's in electricity production where we actually can make some environmentally-conscious changes.

-Laelth

[Bay Boy]

56. Electric engines...

...and extension cords. Duh!

[kristopher]

80. You don't need fossil hydrocarbons - you only need hydrocarbons aka biodiesel

The US military and several airlines are now conducting trials of various non-fossil fuel sources.

It is a matter of economics, not technology.

[backscatter712]

90. Use electricity to create fuel.

Hydrogen is the simplest one - apply electricity to water, and you separate H20 into H2 and O2.

You can also make ammonia. Pure ammonia is a perfectly decent fuel that can go into internal combustion engines.

[uponit7771]

102. electricity, already being done

[jberryhill]

115. The size/weight ratio doesn't scale

[Earth_First]

45. I'm not sure that a 100% renewable economy is possible...

However mitigating it by providing somewhere in the 60-70 percent range is a step in the right direction; and leagues beyond where we sit right now.

[Laelth]

46. No way. Not even close.

Some basic research into electricity production is needed on the part of any person asking such a question.



There's no way that any renewable we currently use could make up for the loss of coal and natural gas. It will take decades to build that kind of infrastructure. Even if we put a ton of our treasure into the project, it's unlikely that our current renewable technologies could produce reliable, 24/7 electricity of the kind we have come to enjoy and upon which modern civilization depends.

-Laelth

[Chan790]

47. At this point honestly...

I'd settle for the means to zero coal. That's the big stinky polluting elephant in the room. Take coal out of the equation and we have a good start.

Environmentally destructive to get out of the ground, environmentally destructive to burn, produces byproduct refuse (both soot and ash) that is a pollutant to dispose of. We can do better than coal.

[Laelth]

48. I agree.

We've got to have natural gas, for the time being, because that's how we regulate changes in demand/supply output. I'd be very happy replacing coal with nuclear (which is what France did). Nuclear energy has many, many problems, but it can meet our needs for base output and can replace coal.

-Laelth

[Kelvin Mace]

52. Even with a Manhattan Project effort

that would take 30-50 years and a political will that simply does not exist. The only way it would be possible would be for the government to nationalize the entire energy industry, which just isn't going to happen.

[dumbcat]

54. Of course we can

All we need is for the Good News Fairy to bring us the new magic storage battery.

Then it's pretty simple.

[Laelth]

63. Spot on.

And welcome to DU.

-Laelth

[badtoworse]

59. No way

[Tikki]

64. Nuclear is evil, the greater and lesser and all in~between.

NUKE is like spicy food...burns you going in (very expensive to build and maintain) and coming out(what about the waste and by-products NOBODY wants stored in their backyard?).

Years ago, the head of Toyota said he would continue to build Prius even though he wasn't sure how the market for them would
proceed; it was the correct thing to do to help the consumer and the environment. Now 8 years later Prius and other
hybrids and some EVs are all over where I live; so is solar and even wind power.

NUKE is on it's way out...and I say 'good riddance to bad rubbish'.


Tikki
child of the radiant glow

[Iggo]

67. All or nothing, huh?

[SoCalDem]

70. In practice, NO, but if we had used the base that Carter laid down for us

and had built on it for the intervening years, we could probably be close by now..

[cprise]

71. Why nuclear is just evil

In short, its centralized oligarch power.

The long version: The west's business culture can't manage nuclear power projects because it is too corrupt. The pattern of epic cost overruns, which started years before 'no-nukes' protests in the 70s, exist due to the fact that you have to get a commitment from a community before building such large, complex facilities... greed takes over and they can't resist cutting corners and jacking up the costs by 5x, 10x or more.

The concentrated power, owned and managed by a very few, quickly degenerates into a scam. Most of the world, unfortunately, does not have France's peculiar culture enabling it to honestly manage such a feat, and even the French desperately want to privatize their nuclear industry before their reactor fleet gets too old.

And when has an expansion of nuclear accompanied/caused a reduction in either coal or gas? Its never happened here.

--

BTW, GD is a notoriously bad forum for discussing complex subjects. You can find detailed, information-rich posts about energy in the Environment & Energy forum.

I'll leave you with this:
German Study: Not Much Power Storage or Coal Power Needed for 40% Renewable Power Supply

Iowa at 40% renewable in a couple years

This is partly due to renewable output fluctuations cancelling each other out to a degree on grids that cover a large area (as most grids do) and partly because of existing peaking capacity.

There is also lots of real development afoot in storage now, including:
* Germany and California instating subsidies for storage tech
* GE's new wind turbines with built-in battery storage
* Flow battery products from mfgs around the world; some getting pilot projects this year
* Other storage tech like undersea compressed air chambers
* Germany cutting a new deal w/Norway, which has massive hydro storage potential

I think we'll be able to manage a mostly renewable infrastructure in the mid-term. The renewable market has garnered a good reputation for continued growth and reduced costs over several decades. That makes renewables the clear choice in my book.

[hunter]

73. People living in refugee camps and dead people don't need electricity.

That's where this is going. People who live in places where the environment goes rotten will have to move away or die, and the people living in the more habitable places won't welcome them.

The USA won't be exempt, at times it will be state vs. state as it was during the Great Depression.

Simply imagine the Colorado River going stagnant, or a nation that doesn't have the resources to rebuild a city after a hurricane... Where do all those people go?

[n2doc]

76. Feasible? Yes. (with the exceptions of heavy industry and transportation)

Do we have the will? No.

Here's what it would take, in my opinion:

Massive increase in Solar and wind generation, including large scale plants in the south and southwest

Complete overhaul of the nations power grid for efficiency

massive investment in biofuel, carbon sequestration and artificial fuel production for transportation needs.

I think we have the tech to take 100% of the nation's electrical needs off carbon sources. The rest will take some serious innovations in fuel production and energy storage to be feasible.

[badtoworse]

79. What about grid stability?

You can't control load, so system operators match the generation to the load in real time. Solar and wind can't be controlled in the same way that conventional generation can. With large amounts of solar and wind on the grid, system operators would have to maintain stability in a situatio where neither load nor generation could be controlled. How would you deal with that?

[kristopher]

83. Read this post above

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2945090

[badtoworse]

95. I'll look at the links tomorrow

I know there is a lot of work being done with utility scale batteries, but my understanding they are still too expensive to be a cost effective alternative to fast start turbines. I'm evaluating an investment right now that would involve using GE LMS 100 combustion turbines to back up wind generation. At about $1100 per kW, I think they beat battery storage.

[kristopher]

99. I can see that.

But the question isn't one of developing new technologies. It is establishing a manufacturing base for a new industry. There is no one-size-fits-all mix with renewables, just as there isn't with our current fossil/hydro/nuclear mix, but in general, the outlook shows that storage is to play a much smaller role than most people imagine. And much of that will be in the form of end-use applications that can absorb overproduction from renewables.

[FSogol]

84. Um, by shutting down excessive turnbines (like they do in high wind situations)? You could also use

excessive electricity to run thermal ice storage plants. Then the melting ice could be used for cooling without using electricity during peak daylight hours. I designed that type of system about 15 years ago (when VA Power still offered commercial rebates) for a local community college and it is still chugging along. BTW: Thermal ice storage systems make ice all night when the rates are low and then uses the melting ice during the day for cooling. Saves a load of power during peak demand times.

[badtoworse]

97. What will you do when the wind drops and you can't supply all the load?

I don't believe the approach you are suggesting could respond quickly enought to control the grid.

BTW, I like ice storage, but in general, I think the best use is for inlet air cooling a combustion turbine to increase the output. What you did for the college works great, but you typically need a large load served from a central chiller plant and you don't find that everywhere.

[cherokeeprogressive]

94. You changed the question. The OP said 100% renewable for the ENTIRE nation. n/t

[n2doc]

118. Well, I did say 'no', under those terms

given present day tech. I am convinced that it will not remain that way.

And quite frankly, if all the world's fossil fuels disappeared tomorrow, do you really think we would go back to a pre-industrial society? Or would we find a way, like we always have? The problem is, the pain to do so is far more than we humans are willing to bear, given the plentiful and relatively easy access to fossil fuels.

[FSogol]

85. No. The infrastructure is not in place. It would take a huge investment

of time and money. Plus there are coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuel companies that would fight you the whole way.

[kristopher]

86. I think it is asking about "right now" (IOW existing) technologies.

In which case the answer if fundamentally yes. The idea that the questioner thinks the infrastructure would magically appear without being built isn't really credible in my mind.

[cherokeeprogressive]

93. Sure. As soon as you figure out to move 10,000 ton trains with renewable energy.

Not to mention 80,000 lb trucks.

Take those two things away and no one eats.

[kristopher]

98. Electricity is an excellent energy carrier for trains.

And trucks are tailor made for fuel cells.

Both of which can have their energy sourced from renewables.

[jberryhill]

116. Moving freight trains on electricity is inherently ridiculous

Passengers enter trains from the side.

Freight does not enter trains from the side.

Please explain how you are going to manage freight train operations using electricity.

You get two choices:

1. Overhead wires - again, think about how containers, liquid, coal, etc. get ON and OFF the train

2. Electrified track - works great on subways and short runs outdoors. On long hauls, not only with the I^R loss in the "third rail" kill you, but you are constantly being shorted out to ground.

If by "right now" you mean - "by replacing all freight locomotives with a nonexistent variety and putting in the generating capacity at intervals from nowhere to nowhere in order to power them" - sure.

Electric motors are GREAT. It is why "diesel locomotives" use a diesel engine to generate electricity to actually run the motor to move the train.

[uponit7771]

103. Electricity already used on trains

[cherokeeprogressive]

105. 10,000 ton freight trains?

Electric locomotives are used for passenger trains on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between Washington, DC and Boston, with a branch to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and on some commuter rail lines. Mass transit systems and other electrified commuter lines use electric multiple units, where each car is powered. All other long-distance passenger service and, with rare exceptions, all freight is hauled by diesel-electric locomotives.

In North America, the flexibility of diesel locomotives and the relative low cost of their infrastructure has led them to prevail except where legal or operational constraints dictate the use of electricity. An example of the latter is the use of electric locomotives by Amtrak and commuter railroads in the Northeast. New Jersey Transit New York corridor uses ALP-46 electric locomotives, due to the prohibition on diesel operation in Penn Station and the Hudson and East River Tunnels leading to it. Some other trains to Penn Stations use dual-mode locomotives that can also operate off third-rail power in the tunnels and the station. Electric locomotives are planned for the California High Speed Rail system.

During the steam era, some mountainous areas were electrified but these have been discontinued. The junction between electrified and non-electrified territory is the locale of engine changes; for example, Amtrak trains had extended stops in New Haven, Connecticut as locomotives were swapped, a delay which contributed to the decision to electrify the New Haven to Boston segment of the Northeast Corridor in 2000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_locomotive#United_States

And when freight reaches the end of the rail... it's normally put on either trucks or boats. I don't envision a time soon when 100% of freight is moved with electricity.

[kristopher]

107. You asked about trains and trucking

I'm not sure of the point of your post. It was interesting, but are you saying that we can't electrify our freight rail system? We have many applications where fossil fuels are used now that can be transitioned to different energy carriers. There are some where the energy density of liquid fuels is going to be absolutely necessary. Trucking is one IMO. Aircraft , ships and agriculture, heavy earth movers etc and the like are also going to be hard to move away from liquid fuels. I suspect in some cases (like trucking) we'll get some good efficiency improvements with fuel cells and electric motors, but the energy source for the engines or fuel cells will be either biofuels or stored hydrogen made with renewables.

The good news is that we don't have to go that route for our personal transportation fleet. Battery electric is set to fill that role.

[cherokeeprogressive]

110. The OP said "feasibly go 100% renewable energy for the entire nation".

So I guess my point was NO if it's a question of whether or not it can be done right now.

[kristopher]

112. Yes, I suspect it was worded poorly.

Since it's obvious the infrastructure isn't in place, I took the question to be can existing technology do the job. It (by and large) can.

[jberryhill]

117. How are you planning to get the freight on and off?

The longshoremen are going to love maneuvering containers onto flatbed cars while not hitting the wires.