America proposal to go all-renewable

Originally posted by humy
It is currently simply not economically nor physically feasible for the world to go all-nuclear or even mainly nuclear within, say, the next 20 years. That would require an impractical stupendous scale-up of building of large numbers of nuclear power stations as well as a massive scale-up of mining and processing of Uranium and all that is just too unrealistic. ...[text shortened]... fairly modest scale up of nuclear as a partial solution with renewables doing most of the rest.

I heartily disagree*, however I am not arguing for the world to go all nuclear.
I'm arguing that [particularly those parts of the world that already have nuclear
technology] nuclear power is allowed to remain part of the mix, and not irrationally
dismissed by environmentalists who frequently lie about the dangers and costs of
nuclear power. [not saying that you are one of those btw]

I also firmly believe [and the evidence is strongly in my favour] that more [cheaper] power
leads to better quality of life [obviously not the only factor] as well as being good for the
economy. Which is why I get particularly irritated at environmentalists ruling out a fantastic
source of power [and actively sabotaging it] and then asking for big cuts in energy use so that
they can achieve zero emissions without nuclear power. Because frankly I am not prepared
to give up any quality of life [or make others do so] simply to pander to irrational fears about
nuclear power.

*I remind you that France went 80% nuclear in ~10 years. I also remind you that thorium is
cheep and available in huge quantities and can be used in nuclear reactors [or rather it's nuclear
by products can be].

arstechnica [UK] article on the paper from the OP

http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/11/managing-a-100-percent-renewable-grid-without-batteries/

I would tend to agree with the conclusion of the article [worth reading the whole thing] that in reality
such a massive expansion of the technologies required is both politically and economically un-feasable
and highly unlikely to happen. This line in particular is a point that I think is frequently missed out ...
"Even building out existing technologies on this sort of scale would likely run into materials shortages
that would raise prices." The more general point of which is that with most technologies, beyond a
certain point, the more you use a given technology/material/resource the more expensive it becomes to
do so. As an example brought up in a previous discussion we [on this forum] had, it might be theoretically
possible to extract [say] 15% of the UK's energy demand from geothermal energy. But as you approach
that theoretical maximum, as getting more power gets harder and harder, it gets more and more expensive.
Similarly any technology that uses rare/limited materials to build, will get more and more expensive as you
ramp up manufacturing beyond supply limits. That is why the greater the range of different sources of power
using different technologies and different materials the cheaper [assuming optimised distributions] it is
over all.

Taking a different example, Tesla wants to make ~500,000 cars a year requiring ~30GWh's worth of batteries
every year. Total world production of Li Ion batteries today is ~30GWh's. Which is why they are currently building
a 'gigafactory' [for about $5 Billion] which will aim to more than double total world production of batteries to meet
that demand. With associated increases in lithium mining to go with it.

Worldwide total car production is about ~89 million per year. If all of the cars were electric [with comparable range
and thus battery size to the Tesla model S] we would need ~178 times to current world production of Li Ion batteries
to meet demand. [the factories alone costing something like ~900 billion to build] and Lithium mining would have to
increase ~180 fold to meet that demand. I don't know if that's even possible. I do know that the price of lithium will
sky-rocket with such a huge demand [at least initially, if not permanently]. If you tried to build all these factories
over [say] the next 10~20 years I can guarantee that Lithium mining wont keep up with the new demand because
we don't know where enough lithium is, let alone organise mining it.

This incidentally is how hydrogen fuel cells can make a comeback, lithium shortages putting the battery price up
till hydrogen can compete.

Which is kinda the point [my point]. Mass production will reduce costs until you hit some limiting factor [some
sort of resource scarcity] at which point costs go back up again.

Nuclear done on large scale [with newer safer more efficient designs] is on the high end on competitive already.
When you factor in cost increases for resource scarcity on other power generation capability and nuclear becomes
not just competitive but the cheapest option for extra power generation. Add in the fact that next gen nuclear reactors
can eat old gen high level [most dangerous/expensive] nuclear waste turning it from a money sink to money maker
as well as decommissioned nuclear weapons and I think you have to be crazy not to have nuclear in the mix.
How much, will depend on where you are and what your natural resources are [among other factors].
Iceland for example has so much geothermal in such abundance [plus hydro] that in their case nothing else is needed.
But not everyone [hardly anyone] is that fortunate.

Originally posted by googlefudge

I'm arguing that [particularly those parts of the world that already have nuclear
technology] nuclear power is allowed to remain part of the mix, and not irrationally
dismissed by environmentalists who frequently lie about the dangers and costs of
nuclear power. [not saying that you are one of those btw]

.

Here we are in 100% agreement. The green movement has sadly been hijack by crazed anti-science anti-industry morons who have absolutely no real genuine interest in let alone understanding of real science whatsoever and who have been moronically responsible for inadvertently persuading many laypeople that there is no global warming because they distract laypeople away from what real science says and give the false impression to many less than totally rational people that anyone, including any scientist, that agrees that we have global warming is one of those nut jobs 'therefore' there is no global warming.

Originally posted by googlefudge
arstechnica [UK] article on the paper from the OP

http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/11/managing-a-100-percent-renewable-grid-without-batteries/

I would tend to agree with the conclusion of the article [worth reading the whole thing] that in reality
such a massive expansion of the technologies required is both politically and economically un-f ...[text shortened]... that in their case nothing else is needed.
But not everyone [hardly anyone] is that fortunate.

I think this assessment makes the flawed assumption that we necessarily have to use rare chemical elements in our renewable technology and that therefore the reserves of these rare elements will necessarily become in too short supply and thus too expensive as we scale up the renewables.

Take, for example, lithium batteries:
It is not only lithium batteries, with their expensive lithium, that would be an acceptable all-renewable energy storage for electric cars, buses etc and therefore if we go all-renewable.

-for starters, what about magnesium sulfur or magnesium-air batteries? They wouldn't contain any rare chemical elements. I know they haven't been properly developed yet but it is just a matter of when and then, problem solved.

-secondly, what about biofuels synthesized from organic waste that could be made suitable for cars etc?

So, basically, there are alternatives to lithium batteries for energy storage that don't require rare chemical elements and therefore can be scaled up without inflating costs.

The same thing goes for solar panels and various other renewable technology, which currently sometimes have relatively rare chemical elements incorporated within them -simply develop solar panels etc without those rare chemical elements and stick to only using just the common ones thus avoiding the costs increases of rare chemical elements as you scale up.

Originally posted by humy
I think this assessment makes the flawed assumption that we necessarily have to use rare chemical elements in our renewable technology and that therefore the reserves of these rare elements will necessarily become in too short supply and thus too expensive as we scale up the renewables.

Take, for example, lithium batteries:
It is not only lithium batteries, ...[text shortened]... ust the common ones thus avoiding the costs increases of rare chemical elements as you scale up.

I don't think you understood my post.

My point was that limiting the scope of technologies you use will cause you to hit
[among other things] resource scarcity and diminishing returns causing cost increases.

The solution being to use a broad sweep of different technologies.

So why do think arguing for using a broad sweep of technologies is a counter argument?
That WAS what I was arguing for.


My other response is that you keep assuming that currently theoretical or experimental tech WILL
work and be commercially viable AND on schedule in time to solve the problem.

It might, it might not. However you can't base your plans on the assumption that the tech will work
and be scalable when the relevant research has not yet been done.

Even then... You don't think that a massive increase in demand on [say] magnesium isn't going to shock the
magnesium market and cause price hikes? These materials are already being used for stuff [and we might well
find other uses for it in the mean time] and a major new demand source will push up prices.

This is not just a problem of using rare earth's.

Problem not solved.

This is one of the great things about nuclear power, it's so energy dense.

The materiel resources you need are steel/concrete for your building, a small amount of expensive stuff for the
core, and your fissile material, for which there are currently almost no other uses. Using thorium as an example,
it's currently a waste product that nobody has any use for so it just gets dumped. And a mere ~5,000 tonnes is all
that's needed for an entire year to power the entire planet. A single small rare earth mine produces that annually.

Using the UK as an example, we could power the entire UK national grid with ~60 nuclear power stations.
That's 60 buildings we need to build. That's it.
Granted they are very expensive buildings, but it's so small a material cost that there will be no effect on the markets,
no change in costs due to resource scarcity. [and the entire developed world could do likewise and still have no effect]

On the other hand, building the thousands of square km of solar panels, and hundreds of thousands of wind turbines
[plus energy storage] needed to do the same job, does require lots of expensive materials that will effect their markets.
They will get more expensive the faster you try to build them. [and it gets worse if you try to do the same world wide]

As ever, I am a firm supporter of renewables, and I'm perpetually irritated at their lack of support from government.
They should be a substantial proportion of our energy generation.

And I'm all for energy/heat storage and management of the kind advocated in the study in the OP.
If I ever get to build a house it will absolutely incorporate such technology. [as I think every new build should]

But every time people propose plans that eliminate nuclear I find myself wondering on why they insist on trying
to solve this hard problem with one hand tied behind their back. Because it's not difficult enough to get this done.

The UK has been needing new energy build almost all my life, we are running at ever reducing spare capacity.
If we had gone on a major new nuclear build to produce 60~80% of our power [say] 20 years ago, we would
already have met our current [soon to be missed] CO2 emissions targets, and would only need a [relatively]
small boost to renewables to complete the job.

You say that it would take at least 20 years to get new gen nuclear online, maybe even 30.

Well that's still before 2050, when this hypothetical plan is supposed to complete by.

To those arguing against any investment in nuclear tech instead of renewables, I say you're using the same arguments
as were used 20~30 years ago which is why we don't have this stuff today. And I can see you using exactly the same
arguments in 20~30 years time when we still haven't reduced our emissions enough and are still using fossil fuels and
are having power shortages to boot.

We absolutely have enough money to invest in renewables and nuclear, claiming otherwise requires an inability to do
maths. It would cost such a pathetically small portion of our budgets. Scrap 2 F35's and you've made up the difference.

If we wanted to, we could do the kind of effort that gets this done in 10~15 years. It's been done before, and can be again.

But even if we use your more pessimistic estimates, it's still worth doing.

Originally posted by googlefudge
My other response is that you keep assuming that currently theoretical or experimental tech WILL work and be commercially viable AND on schedule in time to solve the problem.

You seem to be assuming that with regards to Thorium reactors. As far as I know there are no complete demonstration Thorium reactors that prove the technology is viable and economical. That has to be done first and the technology proven before it goes large scale.
You have convinced me in the past that nuclear may be a good solution for the UK (or at least part of the solution.). Here in SA it is a very bad idea for purely political reasons. It requires us to make an exclusive deal with most probably Russia and not a particularly favourable deal at that and it would be compounded by massive corruption.

I believe the US would run into major regulatory issues with nuclear making it an inappropriate choice for them. They are better off letting China test out the new ideas first and proving that new reactor designs work as expected.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I don't think you understood my post.

My point was that limiting the scope of technologies you use will cause you to hit
[among other things] resource scarcity and diminishing returns causing cost increases.

The solution being to use a broad sweep of different technologies.

So why do think arguing for using a broad sweep of technologies is a c ...[text shortened]... and can be again.

But even if we use your more pessimistic estimates, it's still worth doing.

My other response is that you keep assuming that currently theoretical or experimental tech WILL
work

eventually, yes; providing there is no laws of physics contriving against the theory of what can be done, a reasonable assumption given it must be just a matter of time before science and technology finds a way.

and be commercially viable AND on schedule in time to solve the problem.

No, I make no such assumption. And there is no "schedule" I am aware of.

Even then... You don't think that a massive increase in demand on [say] magnesium isn't going to shock the magnesium market and cause price hikes?

No, certainly not. At least not if you allow time for supply to catch up with demand. Magnesium (Mg) is not like lithium because, unlike lithium, at least if we keep recycling it, we can easily use 100 times more of it and the price will stay stable and that is because there is so much more Mg. It is highly unlikely we will ever come short of Mg. I think I should also point out that here is vast supplies of Mg dissolved in sea water as MgS salt and it has occurred to me that technology could be developed to economically extract it from sea water in which case we would then have a truly unlimited supply. But even without that, it is highly unlikely we will become short as a result of common use of Mg batteries.

Originally posted by twhitehead
You seem to be assuming that with regards to Thorium reactors. As far as I know there are no complete demonstration Thorium reactors that prove the technology is viable and economical. That has to be done first and the technology proven before it goes large scale.
You have convinced me in the past that nuclear may be a good solution for the UK (or at lea ...[text shortened]... etting China test out the new ideas first and proving that new reactor designs work as expected.

You seem to be assuming that with regards to Thorium reactors. As far as I know there are no complete demonstration Thorium reactors that prove the technology is viable and economical. That has to be done first and the technology proven before it goes large scale.

There are no current reactors, however a small demonstration reactor was built and tested.
I don't believe it was electricity producing, but that's not the 'hard bit'. If you can make lots
of heat we can make electricity no problem.

Looking at [for example] Mg ion batteries, the technology is at the point where we don't know
what to make the electrodes, or the electrolyte solution out of. We don't know if there is a viable
solution to the problem. [there probably is, but we don't know].

By contrast, thorium reactor design doesn't have those kinds of fundamental unknowns.
It's more like an engineering problem, where we have a mk 1 primitive [working] design, and
it needs a few iterations to get it up to scratch. It's qualitatively a different kind of problem,
we KNOW that there are viable solutions.

You have convinced me in the past that nuclear may be a good solution for the UK (or at least part of the solution.). Here in SA it is a very bad idea for purely political reasons. It requires us to make an exclusive deal with most probably Russia and not a particularly favourable deal at that and it would be compounded by massive corruption.

I don't disagree with you. And I do make clear that the right mix for any given country/state/region is
going to vary depending on a bunch of different factors. SA is [for example] considerably closer to the
equator than the UK [and I believe has more hours of sunshine?] and thus solar power is likely to be
more cost effective than it is here. It's entirely possible that nuclear would not be a good idea to try
to introduce to SA now, or before the advent of fusion.

I believe the US would run into major regulatory issues with nuclear making it an inappropriate choice for them. They are better off letting China test out the new ideas first and proving that new reactor designs work as expected.

Here I don't agree, I believe that the USA is more than capable and would benefit from some nuclear power
moving forwards. Particularly if we want to see a rapid change to a carbon free world.
Those 'major regulatory issues' could be solved essentially overnight if they chose to do so. The major problem
with the US is getting them to want to tackle the problem at all, and having any sane policies on the subject
given how insane [at least one] of the parties in power is. That's a technology agnostic problem however, and
not a strike against nuclear power.

Originally posted by googlefudge
There are no current reactors, however a small demonstration reactor was built and tested.
I don't believe it was electricity producing, but that's not the 'hard bit'. If you can make lots
of heat we can make electricity no problem.

Actually there were a number of issues identified with that reactor that still have to be solved. You can't just brush them off with 'if we have heat then everything is fine'.
I am sure I could point you to hundreds of better solar panel or battery technologies that had been demonstrated 'in principle'. Bringing them to market at a competitive price point is another matter altogether.

Looking at [for example] Mg ion batteries, the technology is at the point where we don't know
what to make the electrodes, or the electrolyte solution out of. We don't know if there is a viable
solution to the problem. [there probably is, but we don't know].
Yes, and Thorium salt is extremely corrosive and we don't yet know if there is a viable solution.

we KNOW that there are viable solutions.
Evidence please. You seem to be making unwarranted assumptions about Thorium reactors but unwilling to do the same for batteries. What is the fundamental difference?

providing the laws of physics don't directly/indirectly contrive against a particular theory of what technologically can be done (such as warp drive etc) , surely it is just a matter of time before it can (or likely will ) be made in the real world eventually?
But the operative word there is "eventually" and I think the important question is not whether it can be made in the real world but how likely it be made in the real world soon enough to do us any good?
For example, I am certain that highly efficient cheap cost-effective cheap magnesium-sulfur batteries that use NO rare elements will be made eventually; the real question is, by the time they are developed, will we have already solved all our energy storage problems by other cost-effective practical means?
The same goes for fission power, Thorium reactors etc: of course they can be made practical and cost effective eventually; but if that eventually is 100 years time then it does us no good.

Originally posted by humy

My other response is that you keep assuming that currently theoretical or experimental tech WILL
work

eventually, yes; providing there is no laws of physics contriving against the theory of what can be done, a reasonable assumption given it must be just a matter of time before science and technology finds a way.
[quote] and be commerc ...[text shortened]... hout that, it is highly unlikely we will become short as a result of common use of Mg batteries.

eventually, yes; providing there is no laws of physics contriving against the theory of what can be done, a reasonable assumption given it must be just a matter of time before science and technology finds a way.

Hmmm, but the laws of physics [or in this case chemistry] saying yes is one of the things that
is not yet a given. It's not explicitly banned, but it's possible [all be it unlikely] that it's implicitly
so.

No, I make no such assumption. And there is no "schedule" I am aware of.

You are making such an assumption if you propose it as a solution to our "we need to make all
cars carbon free as fast as possible problem".

In my post I pointed out [as an example] that scaling up Li Ion batteries for all current car production to
be of electric vehicles would require massive and impractically large scaling up of current production.

Your response was "we could use Mg Ion batteries".... Only if they actually work and we figure out how
to make them work in time for us to solve this problem. That's the schedule, we have to solve this problem
before we emit enough CO2 to cause catastrophic climate change. Of course new technologies will be
invented, but we don't know precisely what those technologies will be, their precise costs and limitations,
or WHEN we will get them.

No, certainly not. At least not if you allow time for supply to catch up with demand

Well supply will increase because the price goes up because of increased demand.

And it does take time, and I don't know if we do have enough time to 'allow' the supply to catch up.
And you are also assuming that we don't find some other fantastic new use of Mg in the meantime.
[maybe we discover a room temp superconductor that uses Mg, or some new super-strong alloy
that we want to build everything out of, or it turns out to be the crucial building block of quantum computing
and replaces silicon... etc etc] Things like extracting Mg from sea water on an industrial scale are
going to require all kinds of investment in research and then building the expensive kit to do the work.
It's not likely to happen unless the price has gone up to high enough levels to support such 'mining'
in the first place.

Magnesium (Mg) is not like lithium because, unlike lithium, at least if we keep recycling it, we can easily use 100 times more of it and the price will stay stable and that is because there is so much more Mg.

Well that's handy, if true, because total world production of magnesium is ~1/6th the lithium production.
If we need roughly 1/2 the magnesium to get the same power as a lithium battery then we need ~600 fold
increase in magnesium production to make the needed batteries.

Please don't tell me that is going to happen over night.

Originally posted by humy
providing the laws of physics don't directly/indirectly contrive against a particular theory of what technologically can be done (such as warp drive etc) , surely it is just a matter of time before it can (or likely will ) be made in the real world eventually?
But the operative word there is "eventually" and I think the important question is not whether ...[text shortened]... tive eventually; but if that eventually is 100 years time then it does us no good.

See my last post, it was delayed due to ISP switch-over killing my internet half way
through writing it. 😕

There is more than one kind of next gen reactor that works, thorium salt is one*, but
there are others than have been demonstrated to work, that we can build now while
doing any research needed on better tech.

We can mass build non-pressure reactors that use solid metal fuel and [sodium or lead] as
the coolant. A fully working test reactor of that kind of design was built decades ago.
It worked. We can build new ones in the 10~15 year time-scale we expect a regular reactor
to be built in.

This is not something with a long research lead in required.

But yes, you are right that the operative word is eventually, and soon enough.

Which was kinda my point, not that magnesium batteries wont happen. But that you cannot
just assume that they will come soon enough.

Any plan we make today, while it should make room for new technologies we develop during it's
intended lifespan, should not rely on any technology being invented that we do not already know
how to do.

My criticism of your [wonderfully optimistic 🙂 😉 ] arguments is that you frequently [seem to] make
claims about how we WILL develop such and such a technology and that WILL solve the problem.
I don't dispute that it might be true that these technologies will come about, but we shouldn't count
chickens before they have hatched and assume that they will work, and in time.


*and we are talking about 10~20 years [max] not 100 😉 😛

Originally posted by twhitehead
[b]Actually there were a number of issues identified with that reactor that still have to be solved. You can't just brush them off with 'if we have heat then everything is fine'.
I am sure I could point you to hundreds of better solar panel or battery technologies that had been demonstrated 'in principle'. Bringing them to market at a competitive price poin ...[text shortened]... ]
Yes, and Thorium salt is extremely corrosive and we don't yet know if there is a viable solution.

Actually there were a number of issues identified with that reactor that still have to be solved. You can't just brush them off with 'if we have heat then everything is fine'.

I'm not, that wasn't my point.

I am sure I could point you to hundreds of better solar panel or battery technologies that had been demonstrated 'in principle'. Bringing them to market at a competitive price point is another matter altogether.

Agreed.

Yes, and Thorium salt is extremely corrosive and we don't yet know if there is a viable solution.

Actually there is a viable solution, you have a preferential [oxidation I think] substance in the solution
that protects the pipes. There are other molten salt technologies [solar thermal power plants for example]
that have needed to solve the same problem.


EDIT: incidentally, are you going to carry on our discussion in the "Are we being attcked by Aliens, and the public ..."
thread?

Originally posted by googlefudge

eventually, yes; providing there is no laws of physics contriving against the theory of what can be done, a reasonable assumption given it must be just a matter of time before science and technology finds a way.

Hmmm, but the laws of physics [or in this case chemistry] saying yes is one of the things that
is not yet a given. It's not ...[text shortened]... uction to make the needed batteries.

Please don't tell me that is going to happen over night.

NONE of the solutions will happen 'overnight' including a nuclear one. And is there any reason to think the laws of physics would likely implicitly contrive against making it impossible to make a practical Mg-S battery? Since we already have many other types of batteries that work just fine, the default assumption should be it is almost certainly possible to make a Mg-S battery work just fine until if or when we have some specific reason to think otherwise.

Your response was "we could use Mg Ion batteries".

No, I said nothing about Mg ion batteries, which I assume have no future (relatively poor energy density compared to Mg-S ). Try Mg-sulfur and/or Mg-air.

Originally posted by humy
NONE of the solutions will happen 'overnight' including a nuclear one. And is there any reason to think the laws of physics would likely implicitly contrive against making it impossible to make a practical Mg-S battery? Since we already have many other types of batteries that work just fine, the default assumption should be it is almost certainly possible to ma ...[text shortened]... have no future (relatively poor energy density compared to Mg-S ). Try Mg-sulfur and/or Mg-air.

facepalm.

No, I was talking about batteries using Mg rather than Lithium. Whether they are Mg sulphur or Mg air it makes no difference to the argument.