Post AW9cByb2RLabGzNEcy by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
(DIR) More posts by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
(DIR) Post #AW9IdW7Rug29yfOA1A by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T13:50:56.062798Z
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Theory of #RenewableEnergy is that it’s very low surface power density, and the practice is that because of this, it occupies vast amounts of one non-renewable resource that everyone forgets about: land surface. In terms of surface power density PV outputs 6.63 W/m2, wind power 1.84 W/m2. Nuclear - 240.81 W/m2. That means for one 1 W of power you need to allocate 120x more land for wind than nuclear, and that is not only for the space occupied by the actual plant but everything: mining, manufacturing, operations, decommissioning.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/21/solar-farms-energy-power-california-mojave-desertSome people will argue that utility-scale renewables are not good indeed, but we should stick to decentralised rooftop or wall PV installations. Except that decentralisation requires vast redundancy of infrastructure (cabling, inverters), much lower efficiency, which results in 4x higher production cost (LCOE) per kWh, thus nullifying the claimed lower cost of renewables.Engineers have been trying to get that message to the broad public long ago: a PV farm or wind turbine look really nice at distance. But an utility-scale renewables power plant is what any other power plant is: a huge, industrial compound, installed on steel and concrete foundation interfering with the land it occupies.
(DIR) Post #AW9NJdkMLNidc4viO8 by InfoMgmtExec@mastodon.social
2023-05-29T14:30:01Z
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#Rubbish. @kravietz
(DIR) Post #AW9NJea7Ex7SCb933o by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T14:43:32.202480Z
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@InfoMgmtExec In which part, exactly?
(DIR) Post #AW9aYiJawLMHWsvepk by chowderman@universeodon.com
2023-05-29T14:48:44Z
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@kravietz The PV I understand and instinctively seems correct.The wind power - surprising. Although the wind turbines are spread out over a large area, the land underneath and between them is still available for agriculture etc. To say that the land is allocated to power generation would therefore be misleading, it being allocated to power generation and whatever is under/between the turbines.
(DIR) Post #AW9aYj1YIuWJjDUlLk by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T17:11:38.408167Z
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@chowderman Wind farm is not just the towers. The towers need to be built, which requires first making roads good enough for heavy equipment. Each tower is a massive construction made of concrete and steel 1st picture of tower foot alone). It’s also a huge machine that needs to be serviced, for example replacing 400 liters of gearbox oil (2nd photo of a collapsed gearbox with oil spilled in the field), so the roads need to be maintained (3rd photo gives you an idea of the road network density).They also need to be connected by high-voltage cabling. An additional complication is that wind farms make sense where well, it’s windy, so usually elevated places such as hills.This creates a very tangible competition between nature conservation and wind farms, which was one of the major factors preventing on-shore wind expansion in German, France, Norway and UK. Once of the most notable examples was cutting 14 millions of trees to make space for a wind farm in Scotland a few years ago:https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18270734.14m-trees-cut-scotland-make-way-wind-farms/#WindPower
(DIR) Post #AW9cByb2RLabGzNEcy by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
2023-05-29T15:04:46Z
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@chowderman @kravietz the statement about PV is not 100% correct though. There are some good examples with dual use solar parks used for sheep/goat farm. Or use dual use of big parking lots (malls etc).But so far these dual use solar parks are niche.Offshore wind parks mitigate this problem a bit. As are the common dual use wheat/grain farms + wind parks. There are some projects in Germany to use the places beside the ubiquitous Autobahn for wind turbines.But otherwise it is correct.
(DIR) Post #AW9cHTeMPXrZ22YCeG by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T17:31:12.245489Z
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@t_mkdf Off-shore does solve the land surface problem… in countries that have access to sea and suitable continental shelf. And they are 4x times more expensive per Wh than on-shore.@chowderman
(DIR) Post #AW9cNhJSWeUx8zjxey by Pampa@climatejustice.social
2023-05-29T15:21:55Z
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@kravietz To clarify Richard's point, your post is all utter rubbish. Every single point.@InfoMgmtExec
(DIR) Post #AW9cNhyw2RfvDd95JA by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T17:32:15.096382Z
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@Pampa Thanks, that’s very constructive. Can you provide your own numbers for surface power density or LCOE, if you believe I made a mistake.
(DIR) Post #AW9gAnQsrRF2AzJhtA by t_mkdf@ruhr.social
2023-05-29T18:11:17Z
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@kravietz @chowderman Yes. They are less prone to lulls though, aren't they?Also 1/3 of the global population lives near the coast, so I suppose they are a feasible source for at least this part of the population.(Did you follow the German discussion on different electricity pricing areas? This relates quite a bit to this topic...)
(DIR) Post #AW9gAo60OY8QEWYXz6 by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T18:14:49.244750Z
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@t_mkdf No, was it a separate thread?@chowderman
(DIR) Post #AW9ywDybmrn3Hnr9t2 by Pampa@climatejustice.social
2023-05-29T20:44:51Z
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@kravietz Solar and PV DON'T occupy "vast amounts of one non-renewable resource... land surface."Nor have people "forgotten" to use the back of an envelope to show that today's total global energy use, provided by PV, would occupy 0.4% of land.The rest of your post is an attempt to support your fallacious opening error and doomed to failure.Read about the subject before making silly claims, e.g. here:Energy and Human Ambitionson a Finite Planet.Assessing and Adapting to Planetary Limits.Thomas W. Murphy, Jr.University of California, San Diego (2022)[Hint, see page 231]
(DIR) Post #AW9ywEdjJygRLL5zyy by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T21:44:55.563281Z
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@PampaYou're certainly talking about these fabulous squares drawn as part of the advertising campaign for DESERTEC project in 2000's? Yes, I have been watching the progress of this project with great interest. Until it was canceled... So much about fallacies.
(DIR) Post #AW9zKZPNkupOhozLcW by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T21:49:15.979533Z
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@PampaYou say "PV doesn't occupy vast amounts of land surface". What do you see on these photos?
(DIR) Post #AWA0ZmS3dyJtSM3ZtQ by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-29T22:03:18.076806Z
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@PampaAnd, most importantly, what do you see on the photo from my original post, from Mojave desert? Did you read the article linked? 🤔
(DIR) Post #AWB0JVg8QpNRxcqJTE by Pampa@climatejustice.social
2023-05-30T08:44:03Z
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@kravietz I don't see a global calculation, which I provided.Not only is 0.4% the maximum land required for solar PV to supply 100% global energy use today, there are many factors that reduce it in practice:* A world without fossil fuels will use less than 50% of today's energy overall, due to extraction, transportation and conversion inefficiency.* That excludes our existing Hydro and Nuclear capacity* That excludes Wind.* Wind and Solar can be co-located on land.* There is offshore wind. * Solar PV can be located on rooftops, using zero incremental land.* Solar PV can be located in deserts and other low value land. * Solar PV efficiency is increasing.All the above excludes positive actions we can take such as reducing air travel, moving to public transport, reducing food miles, eating less meat etc. #Renewables #Energy #Climate #ClimateCrisis
(DIR) Post #AWB0JWNNq1yK7l4qsi by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-30T09:34:53.569402Z
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@Pampa A world without fossil fuels will use less than 50% of today’s energy overall, due to extraction, transportation and conversion inefficiencyHow exactly do you achieve exponential growth in renewables generation and storage capacity without exponential growth in mining and processing? Because this is exactly what is predicted by every single transition to renewables model due to their low energy density. This was exactly the point of my original post: the idea to switch from high-density sources that fossil fuels are (regardless of how harmful they are) requires exponential increase in mining and processing. That’s basic laws of physics. Some argue that it’s going to be an one-off increase for transition only, but it’s not true: in renewables low density is accompanied by relatively short lifetime, which will make the increase in mining practically eternal.So far the tactics of 100% renewables proponents in Europe and US was simple and very effective: ban all local mining to avoid spoiling the landscapes and the delicate taste of Western environmentalists, and outsource all that dirty business to Asia and Africa, where it’s less visible. The bad news is that the greenhouse gas pollution released in Asia or Africa is impacting the EU/US climate to the same extent. There’s also all the chemical pollution from mining and processing that only impacts locals, but that’s not to be noticed from Europe.Wind and Solar can be co-located on landOh, so that’s what you saw in these pictures from Mojave I posted? There is offshore wind. Which has 4x higher cost of generation and higher material inputs than on-shore.Solar PV can be located on rooftops, using zero incremental land.Which has 4x higher cost of generation and higher material inputs than utility PV farms.Solar PV can be located in deserts and other low value landSo you haven’t read the Guardian article after all?
(DIR) Post #AWB0lWceW3gczpZYhM by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-30T09:40:06.307189Z
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@Pampa Solar PV efficiency is increasingLet’s take it apart: the best new PV panel converts ~20% of solar irradiation into electricity. Of course, it does so only when it’s irradiated: global PV capacity factor is ~16%, in Europe it varies both geographically, from ~18% in Spain to 10% in UK, and temporally, from 2% in December to 20% in July. Depending on they type of PV, the improvement in the conversion efficiency was by a few percentage points since 1990’s.You can’t improve geographical and temporal capacity factors, as they directly depend on solar irradiation rates. There are some new interesting designs that excite PV investors (like UNSW claiming 35% on a 28 cm2 panel) but none of them works at utility scale.All that of course applies to new panels only. Conversion efficiency goes down with time (material degradation) and can be brought down to zero instantly by natural events.
(DIR) Post #AWBWeSQEvmhsTYRMKe by Pampa@climatejustice.social
2023-05-30T14:54:20Z
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@kravietz "requires exponential increase in mining and processing"LOL. Garbage.I tried facts, you're blocked.
(DIR) Post #AWBWeT3wYASwSh14DY by kravietz@agora.echelon.pl
2023-05-30T15:37:20.244442Z
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@Pampa As a kind reminder, you supplied zero references to your “facts”. If you actually did research that before making your “garbage” judgement, you might actually learn something. This is literally what IEA report on PV supply chains says:Driven by the exponential expansion of global demand, the total number of firms entering the PV equipment manufacturing market surged 150% during 2007-2020 to almost 1 900.Subsequently, the critical mineral demand should grow to 4000 kilotons in 2030 in order to meet the 2030 Net Zero scenarios. Note that IEA assumes quite a healthy energy mix in its 2030 Net Zero, including nuclear. Any 100% renewables scenario increases these numbers by an order of magnitude. Which is logical, because 1 MW from dispatchable electricity sources needs to be replaced by 1 MW(p) renewables times 1/capacity factor plus ~1 MW in storage or another dispatchable source.In addition to the increase in critical mineral demand, there’s another “Russian gas trap” being built right now due to concentration of PV manufacturing in a single country that doesn’t quite share our system of values:Polysilicon - 79% of global supply concentrated in China “China was home to 79% of global polysilicon capacity in 2021Wafer manufacturing - 97% in ChinaCell production - 85% in ChinaOn top of that, 60% of electricity used in PV manufacturing comes from coal. That of course could be replaced by low-carbon sources such as nuclear, but no environmental groups would support that - and mining - in EU or USA, which is why it’s done in China using coal. Source: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/d2ee601d-6b1a-4cd2-a0e8-db02dc64332c/SpecialReportonSolarPVGlobalSupplyChains.pdf