Where is the Electricity going to come to charge EVs ?

[JeffKeryk]

I think the problem with some of the stuff shown here, is that they are interesting but not marketable as it is today. It may become valuable one day, like digital signal processing eventually did because of process node improvement.

I find Science fascinating, even if it never makes a penny. I also like Technology (applied Science in products to make money) as well. Heck, I bought a stupid Model 3 when I needed another car like I needed a hole in the head.
Also, I do not think in limits; that's my "Go big or go home" attitude.
I think this is from my experiences, from bumbling through life, ending up homeless and hopeless (which is worse) and finding I was wrong.
Accepting, no embracing the idea that my deepest beliefs could be challenged, saved my life. That's called education.

The most successful people I have met in the Valley listend to others, and listened more intently when they were challenged.
You know, the Atherton and Blackhawk folk. When you challenge these ruthless, steelly eyed leaders you'd better be able to produce!

Anyways, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

 

[PandaBear]

I find Science fascinating, even if it never makes a penny. I also like Technology (applied Science in products to make money) as well. Heck, I bought a stupid Model 3 when I needed another car like I needed a hole in the head.
Also, I do not think in limits; that's my "Go big or go home" attitude.
I think this is from my experiences, from bumbling through life, ending up homeless and hopeless (which is worse) and finding I was wrong.
Accepting, no embracing the idea that my deepest beliefs could be challenged, saved my life. That's called education.

The most successful people I have met in the Valley listend to others, and listened more intently when they were challenged.
You know, the Atherton and Blackhawk folk. When you challenge these ruthless, steelly eyed leaders you'd better be able to produce!

Anyways, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Oh the Atherton folks. I used to work for one. Let me tell you one thing: they do scrap bad ideas all the time. Sure they just move on to the next unknown and one of them will be a good idea eventually. They also do not market and sell a "not yet good" idea until it is ready.

Example: Apple Watch with its own cellular connection (instead of Bluetooth to your phone) has a completed prototype, 1 year ahead of when they were selling it, the power consumption was too much, so they scrap the idea. Is it never going to work? Of course not YET. They wait for the chips to be ready a few generation later and then finally release it.

Same for the "liquid metal" phone case, it just weren't ready, but they did bought the company and hold on to it until it is (or is it will be eventually).

Don't get me started on the Project Titan.... We know how that works out.... Not Yet again.

It's all cost of doing business, you win some you lose some. I'm cool with that. I still think we should follow China in EV, they have the best interest in getting that happen and they would rather lose a bit of money than keep buying oil. I'm sure if it works for them eventually it will work for the rest of the 2nd and 3rd world, as long as they are not oil producing nations. Let's see if they can get a battery swap, fast charging, off shore wind, gen 4 nuclear, high voltage powerline, etc working and then commoditized it for the rest of the world.

 

[BellyUpFish]

I could show you guys what my company is putting out and what the demand is - right now - and we don't supply enough. The grid isn't ready.

 

[alarmguy]

It might surprise you, but many of the host communities have indeed protested the wind turbines, it just doesn't get much media coverage because it doesn't fit the narrative. My mom was one of several hundred people in their rural New Brunswick hamlet that worked to organize a movement against these eyesores behind their expansive, and extremely beautiful rural property.

Here in Ontario, many of the communities that were forced to accept these large wind projects fought them tooth and nail. South Kent experienced, and continues to experience, huge issues with well water now due to how the infrasound from the wind turbines interacts with the shale.

Germany is currently having this problem, communities rallying against and rejecting wind farms because they are a blight on the landscape.

If all goes as expected/hoped, 2026 will mark the beginning of the end for existing wind projects in Ontario. That's the year the 20-year contracts start expiring and, barring some insane renewal or extension, this is when they will begin to be dismantled, as market rate, due to how grossly out of phase with demand wind produces, will not provide sufficient revenue to keep these things operating.

You might like this:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421515300495

And this:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/new...tance-rules-threaten-countrys-competitiveness


This is being seen elsewhere too.

No, not surprised, its going to be interesting how the future plays out. Its kind of weird that I come from a place, Long Island, NY that has battled with nuclear back in the 1970s (Shoreham Nuclear Debacle) https://www.ans.org/news/article-2048/showdown-at-shoreham/
to now wind energy.

Spent over 40 years of my life on Long Island, left there 15 years ago. Its a wealthy area with politicians borrowing and burning money on a constant level, no matter what party in power. Among the highest property taxes in the nation, highest electricity, highest paid police force, highest paid everything government, depending on area highest water cost. Not a misprint, the area I lived, roughly 1800 sq ft home with 60x100 foot property, school, county and local property taxes were over $10,000 a year. Technically $12,000 but residents got a $1,400 tax break. Yet, there are still always budget problems.

At the time building a nuclear plant for 5 billion dollars was a lot of money, it was finished to completion and shut down by politicians. (btw the way we now are/were close to the highest cost electric in the nation because of the cost of building it, THEN shutting it down!!! *LOL*)

Well, this thread made me wonder because I know there is major wind farm projects going on, so did a quick search, WOW... the south shore of Long Island, born, raised and boating on the great South Bay and Atlantic Ocean. Most ambitious wind farm project in the country. All areas from one end of the island to the other to NY City area ... all in the ocean. Who knows maybe the stuctures will increase the fishing I used to do 10 to 20 miles off shore.
Anyway, many people not happy of course and will be interesting to see how it all works out. I say this because construction was to start this year ... OOOPS ! anything involving politics... now delayed two years by the company building it... here come the cost overruns... )

I sure you will understand the potential since you in the industry the technical stuff doesnt peak my interest too much, I guess boating my whole life in the bays and oceans of Long Island it might have been fun with a wind farm as a destination to go blue fishing. I guess we will see if it happens.

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta.../1639083786955/Offshore+Wind+4-pager-2021.pdf
https://windworkslongisland.org/projects
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreham_Nuclear_Power_Plant

If any of this stuff interests anyone, one can simply search "Shoreham power plant", "Long Island wind farm projects" and of course various words used in the search will produce a ton of information.

I only briefly skimmed over this stuff, but was suprised that they seem to think a wind farm can be built and completed in the ocean in only 2 years. But then the Ooops ... with now a 2 year delay... hmmmmmm ...

 

[PWMDMD]

There's a gigantic thermonuclear fusion reactor at the center of our solar system that is ultimately the source of ALL energy on this planet anyway including geothermal, nuclear, petroleum products, wind, etc. Seems to me harvesting energy from these intermediary forms is almost always problematic when the star responsible for generating these forms of energy is constantly showering the planet with orders of magnitude more energy every day. The estimated amount of energy showering the earth everyday from the Sun is 9.5x10^21 Joule/day = that's 9.5 with 20 zeros after it every single day.

 

[BLND1]

There's a gigantic thermonuclear fusion reactor at the center of our solar system that is ultimately the source of ALL energy on this planet anyway including geothermal, nuclear, petroleum products, wind, etc. Seems to me harvesting energy from these intermediary forms is almost always problematic when the star responsible for generating these forms of energy is constantly showering the planet with orders of magnitude more energy every day. The estimated amount of energy showering the earth everyday from the Sun is 9.5x10^21 Joule/day = that's 9.5 with 20 zeros after it every single day.

I’d prefer to marry a super model… but I just don’t have the money or looks to swing it.

If you missed the reference - solar tech, in its current forms - isn’t ready for its big date.

 

[OVERKILL]

There's a gigantic thermonuclear fusion reactor at the center of our solar system that is ultimately the source of ALL energy on this planet anyway including geothermal, nuclear, petroleum products, wind, etc. Seems to me harvesting energy from these intermediary forms is almost always problematic when the star responsible for generating these forms of energy is constantly showering the planet with orders of magnitude more energy every day. The estimated amount of energy showering the earth everyday from the Sun is 9.5x10^21 Joule/day = that's 9.5 with 20 zeros after it every single day.

A bit over-simplified. Geothermal and nuclear both use the result of what's produced by the earth's core, be it heat, or fissile elements like uranium. Materials like uranium have been around since the big bang. Now, would the earth's core be active in the manner in which it is without the sun? I assume no, but it isn't solar radiation that produces it.

Now, fossil fuels, which are decayed plant and organic matter in the case of coal (there's some debate on the others) and of course wind, are indeed a direct result of the sun's impact on the earth.

On the solar thing, while that number sounds huge, it's the harvesting of that energy, when it's available, that's problematic. Total Solar Irradiance, according to NASA, is 1,366W per square meter; 1.37kW. The ability to harness that energy is limited by two things:
1. Technology
2. Time

This means that with a PERFECT collector, that's 100% efficient in converting irradiance to electricity, it would require 729,927 square meters to produce 1GW of electricity. That's 180 acres. As I showed earlier in the thread, Pickering Nuclear occupies around that same amount of space, and had a nameplate capacity of 4.2GW when constructed. If Bruce A and B were constructed in the same manner as Pickering, they would also cover about the same amount of land and have a nameplate capacity of 7GW. That's not a theoretical limit, that's actual output capacity that we are harnessing right now. The power of the atom is by far the most energy dense source we have access to.

But, alas, a perfect collector does not exist. The earth moves. The largest part of the earth is covered in ocean. Clearly, all significant problems. In terms of technology, solar collectors are around 20% efficient (PV) and only collect full nameplate when in a direct angle with the sun. More efficient CSP (even considering the lossiness of running a steam turbine) has been a boondoggle because of the size of the collector fields and unreliability of the systems and you are still limited by hours of available sunlight.

Getting back to your original premise, no, the sun isn't showering the earth with orders of magnitude more energy than we could produce via fission. As noted, even with a perfect collector that is always in direct line of sight with the sun, 180 acres would be 7x less productive than a nuclear power plant of the same size. In reality, the nuclear power plant will have a capacity factor of north of 90%, while even a perfectly efficient collector would have a capacity factor of less than 50%. The stack of losses due to angle of the sun, conversion efficiency and seasonal variation in irradiance as well as of course nighttime, makes harnessing solar at that scale a non-solution. And that's not even factoring in the limited lifespan of existing collector technology.

 

[PandaBear]

There are energy everywhere, but it is collecting them that is expensive and hard: tornado, thunder, geothermal, nuclear (ok only if you want zero waste), solar, etc.

The solution will change over time as we have economic boom and bust that do speculation work, many will fail, one or two will succeed. Without the artificial low interest rate driven startup boom in the last 20 years we won't have the EV and solar today. Maybe if this low interest period remains we will see even more, or maybe we will crash and burn like the great depression after the roaring 20s. Who knows.

I wish one day we will move faster in gen 4 reactors, in particular fast reactor with spent fuel reprocessing, or improved heavy water reactors that will be able to use waste fuel from light water reactors in more common places than just Canada.

 

[Wolf359]

A bit over-simplified. Geothermal and nuclear both use the result of what's produced by the earth's core, be it heat, or fissile elements like uranium. Materials like uranium have been around since the big bang.

Well maybe not at the big bang, you basically just had hydrogen, helium and a few other trace elements back then. Uranium is basically from supernovas and neutron star collisions. Those took much longer to form. Our sun itself is probably at least a 3rd generation sun, made up of previous generations of suns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe
https://world-nuclear.org/informati...-resources/the-cosmic-origins-of-uranium.aspx

 

[OVERKILL]

Well maybe not at the big bang, you basically just had hydrogen, helium and a few other trace elements back then. Uranium is basically from supernovas and neutron star collisions. Those took much longer to form. Our sun itself is probably at least a 3rd generation sun, made up of previous generations of suns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe
https://world-nuclear.org/informati...-resources/the-cosmic-origins-of-uranium.aspx

Yes, should have said "on the heels of the big bang" as you are right, it's the product of supernovas and star collisions and whatever else was taking place in the cosmos at that time.

 

[PWMDMD]

A bit over-simplified. Geothermal and nuclear both use the result of what's produced by the earth's core, be it heat, or fissile elements like uranium. Materials like uranium have been around since the big bang. Now, would the earth's core be active in the manner in which it is without the sun? I assume no, but it isn't solar radiation that produces it.

Now, fossil fuels, which are decayed plant and organic matter in the case of coal (there's some debate on the others) and of course wind, are indeed a direct result of the sun's impact on the earth.

On the solar thing, while that number sounds huge, it's the harvesting of that energy, when it's available, that's problematic. Total Solar Irradiance, according to NASA, is 1,366W per square meter; 1.37kW. The ability to harness that energy is limited by two things:
1. Technology
2. Time

This means that with a PERFECT collector, that's 100% efficient in converting irradiance to electricity, it would require 729,927 square meters to produce 1GW of electricity. That's 180 acres. As I showed earlier in the thread, Pickering Nuclear occupies around that same amount of space, and had a nameplate capacity of 4.2GW when constructed. If Bruce A and B were constructed in the same manner as Pickering, they would also cover about the same amount of land and have a nameplate capacity of 7GW. That's not a theoretical limit, that's actual output capacity that we are harnessing right now. The power of the atom is by far the most energy dense source we have access to.

But, alas, a perfect collector does not exist. The earth moves. The largest part of the earth is covered in ocean. Clearly, all significant problems. In terms of technology, solar collectors are around 20% efficient (PV) and only collect full nameplate when in a direct angle with the sun. More efficient CSP (even considering the lossiness of running a steam turbine) has been a boondoggle because of the size of the collector fields and unreliability of the systems and you are still limited by hours of available sunlight.

Getting back to your original premise, no, the sun isn't showering the earth with orders of magnitude more energy than we could produce via fission. As noted, even with a perfect collector that is always in direct line of sight with the sun, 180 acres would be 7x less productive than a nuclear power plant of the same size. In reality, the nuclear power plant will have a capacity factor of north of 90%, while even a perfectly efficient collector would have a capacity factor of less than 50%. The stack of losses due to angle of the sun, conversion efficiency and seasonal variation in irradiance as well as of course nighttime, makes harnessing solar at that scale a non-solution. And that's not even factoring in the limited lifespan of existing collector technology.

Nope essentially ALL energy in our solar system (we do get some radiation from other sources but it's minimal) is the result of the sun or previous stars!

1. Geothermal - Caused by the clumping together of matter initiated by the gravity of the sun that eventually formed our
planet - no Sun, no clumping, no planet,, no geothermal. The earths core is only "active" because the immense weight of the earth above it squeezing down on it.

2. The only two elements made in the big band were hydrogen and helium. Lithium, beryllium, boron, and carbon are formed in the core of stars and every other heavy element above that during super novae and other large events involving stars.

3. Oil and gas are formed from either vegetation power by the sun or animals that eat vegetation power by the sun or animals that eat animals that were powered by the sun.

4. Wind is caused by temperature differentials power by the sun.

As far as capturing it - sure it takes time and energy and innovation but why every large commercial building with a large flat roof isn't covered in solar panels is beyond me. It may not allow total energy independence from fossil fuels anytime soon but it would help.

 

[alarmguy]

There's a gigantic thermonuclear fusion reactor at the center of our solar system that is ultimately the source of ALL energy on this planet anyway including geothermal, nuclear, petroleum products, wind, etc. Seems to me harvesting energy from these intermediary forms is almost always problematic when the star responsible for generating these forms of energy is constantly showering the planet with orders of magnitude more energy every day. The estimated amount of energy showering the earth everyday from the Sun is 9.5x10^21 Joule/day = that's 9.5 with 20 zeros after it every single day.

Ahh... well said BUT the star shuts down for a lengthy period every 12 to 18 + hours and why we use the energy stored in these intermediary forms that the star created and other forms that were created during the same time the star was.

 

[alarmguy]

.

 

[PimTac]

Ahh... well said BUT the star shuts down for a lengthy period every 12 to 18 + hours and why we use the energy stored in these intermediary forms that the star created and other forms that were created during the same time the star was.

 

[PWMDMD]

Ahh... well said BUT the star shuts down for a lengthy period every 12 to 18 + hours and why we use the energy stored in these intermediary forms that the star created and other forms that were created during the same time the star was.

Every little bit helps.

 

[OVERKILL]

Nope essentially ALL energy in our solar system (we do get some radiation from other sources but it's minimal) is the result of the sun or previous stars!

That's not what you said, in case you need a reminder, you stated:

There's a gigantic thermonuclear fusion reactor at the center of our solar system that is ultimately the source of ALL energy on this planet anyway including geothermal, nuclear, petroleum products, wind, etc.

Uranium and other fissile elements are not the result of our sun, as I noted.

1. Geothermal - Caused by the clumping together of matter initiated by the gravity of the sun that eventually formed our
planet - no Sun, no clumping, no planet,, no geothermal. The earths core is only "active" because the immense weight of the earth above it squeezing down on it.

I allowed for that in my explanation:

Now, would the earth's core be active in the manner in which it is without the sun? I assume no, but it isn't solar radiation that produces it.

The sun is not the source. While there's certainly a dependence there, your gross oversimplification (which is what I pointed out) didn't sufficiently cover these details.

2. The only two elements made in the big band were hydrogen and helium. Lithium, beryllium, boron, and carbon are formed in the core of stars and every other heavy element above that during super novae and other large events involving stars.

Yes, @Wolf359 and I already covered that in the posts preceding your reply.

3. Oil and gas are formed from either vegetation power by the sun or animals that eat vegetation power by the sun or animals that eat animals that were powered by the sun.

Yes, I said as much. Though there is some discussion as to whether that's the source for all oil and methane, but that's going a bit OT.

4. Wind is caused by temperature differentials power by the sun.

Yes, I agreed with that as well.

As far as capturing it - sure it takes time and energy and innovation but why every large commercial building with a large flat roof isn't covered in solar panels is beyond me. It may not allow total energy independence from fossil fuels anytime soon but it would help.

As I went into detail on, it's simply not as you claimed/oversimplified. Solar irradiation is more diffuse than fission-derived electricity, and that's despite the fact that this process (running a steam turbine) is only ~30% efficient.

Your initial series of statements came-off as blind advocacy for "harnessing the sun" without going into any of the details as to why that's not practical at the scale required or acknowledging the significant caveats associated with the methods of doing so. It also stated that solar irradiation dwarfed other sources of power generation, which is patently false when it comes to fission.

As far as rooftop solar goes, it depends on whether it's of net benefit to the grid or not, and that's a far more complex subject but one we can certain delve into if you'd like.

 

[Wolf359]

Well if we got into a Dyson's sphere/swarm, then that would make electricity from the sun more reliable. But maybe we'll have fusion power before that happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

 

[PandaBear]

As far as rooftop solar goes, it depends on whether it's of net benefit to the grid or not, and that's a far more complex subject but one we can certain delve into if you'd like.

I'm a strong believer that we should live according to the energy source instead of energy source has to compromise for us. There's a lot of waste just to make sure we have energy when we need it with a flick of a switch, and then we waste a bunch on standby just to make people happy like that.

One way is to store electricity for what must be stored (EV) when there's cheap / excess / "free electricity", if parking a spare car isn't viable, detach the battery so it can be charged when the car drives.

Another way is to store them in another form, like pumping water into a tower, make ice for AC later, It helps to make hydrogen as well but it is even worse than storing the energy in battery IMO.

Finally we should have a lot of work that can be done like smelt aluminum, mine bit coin (personally I believe it is stupid but human is stupid anyways, so might as well be stupid more efficiently), arc furnace, freeze TV dinners in factory scale, dry clothes when electric price is cheap, turn on semi-retired data center for background processing when it is cheap, etc.


Usually if you follow the 3rd world you know what is the most rational solution to most of our problems. A lot of rural off grid 3rd world has solar panel and they just live life around the sun, and make ice for the fridge during the day time for the off grid night time.

 

[y_p_w]

I'm a strong believer that we should live according to the energy source instead of energy source has to compromise for us. There's a lot of waste just to make sure we have energy when we need it with a flick of a switch, and then we waste a bunch on standby just to make people happy like that.

One way is to store electricity for what must be stored (EV) when there's cheap / excess / "free electricity", if parking a spare car isn't viable, detach the battery so it can be charged when the car drives.

Another way is to store them in another form, like pumping water into a tower, make ice for AC later, It helps to make hydrogen as well but it is even worse than storing the energy in battery IMO.

Finally we should have a lot of work that can be done like smelt aluminum, mine bit coin (personally I believe it is stupid but human is stupid anyways, so might as well be stupid more efficiently), arc furnace, freeze TV dinners in factory scale, dry clothes when electric price is cheap, turn on semi-retired data center for background processing when it is cheap, etc.


Usually if you follow the 3rd world you know what is the most rational solution to most of our problems. A lot of rural off grid 3rd world has solar panel and they just live life around the sun, and make ice for the fridge during the day time for the off grid night time.

Storing potential energy with water by pumping is pretty common. I used to think that it was wasteful, but it does make sense to some degree, even with the inefficiency.

 

[IndyIan]

Storing potential energy with water by pumping is pretty common. I used to think that it was wasteful, but it does make sense to some degree, even with the inefficiency.

There's also flywheels, gravitational energy batteries(lifting lots of weight to store energy, the lowering to release energy), compressed air, compressed air underwater. Even large scale lead-acid batteries are being use now. https://www.convergentep.com/
Part of me thinks that in solar rich areas, a large scale grid won't even be needed with some incremental efficiencies in power production and storage? How many years it takes, who knows... Things can happen fast, or slow.