The reality of alternative energy

[Jccarlton]

I saw this in next big future:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/1http://w ... nergy.html
I don't have fancy credentials but this is pure idiocy:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jaco ... p.indd.pdf
This article loaded with the usual sustainable energy stuff that completely ignores the rather unpleasant realities that real engineers have to live with. It's easy to had wave when you don't actually have to build the hardware.

More detailed version here:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jaco ... p.indd.pdf

Here's a critique where the paper is taken seriously:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/03/w ... -critique/

I will start with this: https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/energy/energy.html

The reality is that these guys do not have any idea of scale, thermal efficiencies, energy diffuseness or any of the other as John Ringo puts it, "fiddly parts." When it comes to energy the devil is in those details. For instance the diffuseness of wind energy and the low efficiencies of wind turbines means that they are going to be huge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQxp6QTjgJg
Industrial wind does not make a good neighbor, especially in rural areas:
http://www.batr.net/cohoctonwindwatch/
http://www.stopillwind.org/index.php



With noise and strobing being a problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVhAvos66W4


To say nothing about the fact that wind turbines are unreliable and expensive: http://www.lipower.org/newscenter/pr/2007/pace_wind.pdf

The fact is that a typical wind turbine has a capacity factor of less than 20% even in the best locations. The reality is that even if you have large amounts of wind you can't convert very much of it into electricity.
As for wave energy, I don't think these gys have every lived or worked in an ocean environment. The ocean is one of the most hostile environments even under the best of conditions. Under the conditions where wave energy might be effective most machinery self destructs in fairly short order.

As for solar, there is only a very limited amount of real estate where solar even works and it takes a lot of cells to make even the electricity of a toaster oven. Then there is the large problem of keeping the adsorption surfaces clean. i have seen many solar hot water heaters and panels that became useless simply because they got very dirty.
The reality is that renewable energy simply cannot escape it's engineering realities. And those are not going to change.

More from the Register:
I saw this in next big future: http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/critiq ... nergy.html I don't have fancy credentials but this is pure idiocy: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jaco ... p.indd.pdf This article loaded with the usual sustainable energy stuff that completely ignores the rather unpleasant realities that real engineers have to live with. It's easy to had wave when you don't actually have to build the hardware. More detailed version here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jaco ... p.indd.pdf Here's a critique where the paper is taken seriously: http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/03/w ... -critique/ I will start with this:https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/energy/energy.html The reality is that these guys do not have any idea of scale, thermal efficiencies, energy diffuseness or any of the other as John Ringo puts it, "fiddly parts." When it comes to energy the devil is in those details. For instance the diffuseness of wind energy and the low efficiencies of wind turbines means that they are going to be huge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQxp6QTjgJg Industrial wind does not make a good neighbor, especially in rural areas: http://www.batr.net/cohoctonwindwatch/ http://www.stopillwind.org/index.php With noise and strobing being a problem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVhAvos66W4 To say nothing about the fact that wind turbines are unreliable and expensive:http://www.lipower.org/newscenter/pr/2007/pace_wind.pdf The fact is that a typical wind turbine has a capacity factor of less than 20% even in the best locations. The reality is that even if you have large amounts of wind you can't convert very much of it into electricity. As for wave energy, I don't think these gys have every lived or worked in an ocean environment. The ocean is one of the most hostile environments even under the best of conditions. Under the conditions where wave energy might be effective most machinery self destructs in fairly short order. As for solar, there is only a very limited amount of real estate where solar even works and it takes a lot of cells to make even the electricity of a toaster oven. Then there is the large problem of keeping the adsorption surfaces clean. i have seen many solar hot water heaters and panels that became useless simply because they got very dirty. The reality is that renewable energy simply cannot escape it's engineering realities. And those are not going to change.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/26 ... ables_bit/

An interesting letter from the mail section of Jerry Pournelle's

Smart Grid

I've worked for several of the largest utilities in the country, so this is first hand knowledge.

The utility companies are pretty well stuck. They've been vilified by the current administration only slightly less than insurance companies. As regulated utilities, they have a moral and ethical duty to provide safe, reliable, inexpensive power to their consumers, yet they've been hijacked by the green movement. In many places, rather than building clean-coal plants for example, which are the cheapest generation capacity currently available, they are building wind and solar facilities with are the most expensive. More important, these new technologies are unreliable, and can only be used for peak power demands, rather than base-load generation. Power storage technology simply isn't advanced enough to address the situation on a large scale, and across every climate in the country. Even if we had additional generation capacity, we don't have the transmission capacity to move the power to population centers.

As demand increases, we are headed for widespread brown and blackouts, and the utilities know it. The lead time on new plants can be up to 25 years, and transmission lines can be 10 years. For some, Smart Grid is a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable for a few more years by reducing power consumption, since they can't build cost- effective new base load generation capacity (coal, gas, hydro, nuclear), for others, it's simply a means to advance a green agenda and control our standard of living, and for the rest, a way to boost profits and defer costs.

What they call Smart Grid has been wrapped up in nice pretty packaging, but from the consumer standpoint it involves installing a meter that has two-way transmission capability. This will allow them to do several things, beginning with automated meter reading, and moving on to variable rates, which means charging different rates at different times of the day. Later, it could allow them to ration power, create rolling brown/blackouts on a property by property basis, and expand the use of 'saver switches' on a mandatory basis to turn off certain appliances (e.g. dryers and air conditioners) whenever the utility company (or in theory, the hacker) wants. I have yet to have anyone explain to me how letting the utilities (and government) monitor and manage my power usage benefits me. It doesn't.

Now there are modifications to the electric grid itself, but those are somewhat different. Until recently, the grid was managed using a protocol called SCADA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA , which is not accessible outside the SCADA network. That software has been written and tested over many many years, and works very well. Currently there are modifications underway to transition that network over to TCP/IP. It's not so much that there is new software, as that there's a new protocol.

Of course there will be firewalls, and private networks and other mechanisms to prevent remote access, but we all know that those aren't perfect. So essentially, we're moving from a network that is non- routable to the Internet, to one that is routable to the Internet. I'm not so much worried about solar flares bringing down the grid (which can still happen), rather somewhat concerned about hackers doing so. It's probably not a huge risk, but it is definitely non- zero.

In this case, the primary motivator behind the transition is money. SCADA requires the construction of dedicated network lines to each facility to be controlled, which are expensive. It requires knowledge of an increasingly arcane technology, and specialized, low-volume hardware components. By moving to TCP/IP they can leverage existing network links, reuse existing hardware and software, and reduce costs. Not a bad motivator, but security and reliability have somewhat taken a back seat.

So the net is, that Smart Grid doesn't do much for the consumer at all. For people that are retired, spend most of the time at home (or work there), it will likely result in significantly increased utility bills for those who need to use air conditioning, or like to do laundry during the day. I see zero benefit for the consumer in the long run, and many paths to future crises.

I wish that these people would stop their utopian visions just once and actually do some homework. the engineering world is littered with the rusted remains of renewable schemes that came up a cropper with reality.



For instance people have been trying to make solar practical since the beginning of the industrial revolution:
http://www.facts-about-solar-energy.com ... story.html


yet each time the same thing happens. The project gets eaten alive by the high costs. You would think that people would learn not to repeat the same mistakes. yet the allure of getting something for nothing is irresistable. Combine that allure with a command economy central planing mentality that will never admit mistakes and it is a recipe for endless misery, economic and social decline that would likely take centuries to recover from.

[stevethetinker]

I live in the St. Louis area. Several years ago Union Electric did a test program with "smart grid" type technology. They offered $10 off per month if we would allow them to put a radio-controlled device on our air conditioner that would allow them to do load control. They promised that we would not notice any difference in how well our house was cooled. We did, and they did, and, believe it or not, they were right: we did not notice a difference in how well the house was cooled. About a year later the program was cancelled: it wasn't yielding any benefit to the utility.

[Skipjack]

Wind and solar are currently not a viable alternative, not even to nuclear energy which is still more expensive than coal.
In Austria, we can luckily provide a large part of our energy needs via water power. But and that is a big but, not in winter, when the rivers are frozen over. Then, we have to buy nuclear power from our neighbours.
Solar is completely out of the question here. We are too far north and we have too many high mountains. So solar cells will not be very efficient.
Wind also is very limited due to the high mountains everywhere.
Solar does not work when the sun does not shine and wind does not work when the wind does not blow. So what would we here in Austria do in winter?
The sun does not shine (or barely at all), you have snow covering the solar panels (you have to clean them) and when there is no sun shining, you have comparably little wind also (though we do get strong winds in some exposed areas of Austria in winter also, but it is very unrelyable).
Water is also not working. So nope, this can not work here.
And then, the article claims that nuclear power indirectly produces carbon emissions (and is not considered as a valid source because of that), but neglects the fact that the production of photovoltaic cells does require a lot of energy also. So much actually that it greatly reduces the impact photovoltaics have on the total energy balance.
Where does that energy come from?
What a stupid article!