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Einstein once said that no preponderance of successful experiments can ever prove I'm right, but just one with adverse results can prove me wrong.
Zero loss? They've invented wires with no resistance? Anyone who passed hi school physics knows that's wrong....Now we can't believe anything you say. Good thing you work for the govt.
I repeat the logical deduction in the OP-- If it's so cheap, why isn't eveyone trying to convert to alternatives? Without the subsidies and tax advantages, the power companies wouldn't be doing it at all.
There is no commonly measurable loss in a Low Voltage, Low Amp wire in a common house wire. Really. Check it out for yourself. Maybe grab the cord to your PC? It is not warm (heat loss) is it? If it is warm from self-heating there is a problem.
For most wires around your house -- or a Solar PV system -- they should not be generating heat loss. The only other loss that typically could occur would be magnetic or what we call "inductive." If these are typical full circuit runs that should also be minimal to point of not being measurable, as well.
These are Good Things, and part of the design intent. We factor the known Physics in from the start. We size the wires accordingly per the National Electric Code. In longer runs, where we do have losses due to Resistance (heating, as noted above), or Induction (present in long Alternating Current runs), we keep the overall losses to 3 to 5%, as noted prior for the Transmission Industry.
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btw, you may have missed that the Power Companies ARE going massively renewable -- Silicon Solar PV in particular. This is in spite of the Trump Anti-Solar PV Punitive Tariffs. At this point, nothing to do with .gov subsidies -- Solar is the ONLY New Generation actually paying Taxes.
Also, producing electricity is only part of the equation. We need to look at what is used to produce ENERGY (not just electricity). And there's not just production of energy - there's also transporting and heating. 84.3 percent of the world's energy is dependent on fossil fuels - oil, natural gas, and coal. https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix
The path out is pretty straight forward.
Get rid of Coal Generation. (replace with renewable)
Get rid of ICEs. (replace with Electric).
Only build Renewable. (presently Silicon Solar PV is the Big Win)
Insulate the Buildings. (lotta bad Architecture, but that can be re-done).
And in the meanwhile -- avoid New Nukes, and shut down the existing Nukes as they wear out.
Not that hard, just takes some time and work.
Nice thing is the money turns out cheaper than what we are doing now.
Can have most of the world cleaned up and running right by 2050.
Just some Dinosaurs and folks throwing blocks in the road trying slow things down.
One more time for those who like to obfuscate with meaningless discussion and refuse to do the calculations-
The combined cycle ng generators are 55% efficienct at turning the potential chemical energy of fossil fuel into elecricity.
6% of that energy is then lost in transmissiom. , ie- 0.55 x .94 = 0.47 of the original chemical energy arrives at the chargng station.
Charging stations for your EV are ~75% efficeint, so 0.47 x 0.75 = 0.35 (And the faster you charge, the less efficient it becomes.)
We''ll ignore the inefficiency of batteries to hold a charge (to give you EV advocates a chance here).
The elctric motors of an EV are 80% efficient at turning battery juice into kinetic energy (ie- get you downthe road. 0.35 x 0.8 = 0.28.
That means overall efficiency of EVs at turning fossi fuel into kinetc energy is 28 %-- which compares with the 20-35% efficiency of an ICE in turning fossil fuel into kinetic energy.
If electricty for the EV is from the grid, then the same co2 comes out the smoke stack at the power plant as you would leave behind the tail pipe of your ICE....If the electricity is coming from non-fossil fuel, then of course the EV leaves behind no co2 at all.
How much fuel & envrinmental damage it takes to produce the EV & solar/wiind instllations is another discussion that detracts from the benefits of EVs.
BTW- if the power comes only from coal plants, then the EV is only 16% efficient- but that's only of acedemic interest given that the grid is a mixture of energy sources.
Renewables have won and the Dinosaurs (Carbon and Nukes) have lost.
It's too early to write off Carbon. While it is true that natural gas produces only 41% the Carbon Dioxide per kilowatt-hour as coal, the popularity of natural gas now means that we are producing 43% more electricity with natural gas than coal.
It's a big improvement, but Carbon is certainly not dead.
Nuclear power produces half the emission free electricity in the US. As the demand for electricity surges, nuclear power may make a comeback. Mexico is planning at least 4 nuclear power plants.
It's too early to write off Carbon. While it is true that natural gas produces only 41% the Carbon Dioxide per kilowatt-hour as coal, the popularity of natural gas now means that we are producing 43% more electricity with natural gas than coal.
It's a big improvement, but Carbon is certainly not dead.
Nuclear power produces half the emission free electricity in the US. As the demand for electricity surges, nuclear power may make a comeback. Mexico is planning at least 4 nuclear power plants.
To see where things are at now, is to look at the past. We have the Surplus Nukes and Coal BECAUSE they were (over) built in the 1970s to 1990s. It is all a big, lagging time-window of history. In Texas, we stopped building any new ones back about 2007. New ones under construction were abandoned in lay-down piles in the Big Piney Woods of East Texas. They had been designed and ordered 5 year earlier. We just been shutting them since. This is the case across the US. I think the only thing built new in Coal in the last 10 years was a small site in Alaska. Meanwhile, the rest are aging out.
We have Gas NOW, because of Frack Gas from over a Decade ago. So Plants were planned and built then, but now that window is passing.
Mexico is not like to actually build any more Nukes -- ever. The US would not have ever re-started the clown show at Vogtle if not for the Political Games and Federal Loan Guarantees. Here is where that is at:
Mexico talks every now and then, but no one really wants to waste the money to be last of a dying breed. If you look at a Insolation Map of Mexico (how much Sunshine it gets), you can see how silly it would be for Mexico to not just go fully Solar.
But where this is going -- we have what is today because of PAST decisions and plans, and what was built DECADES ago. Same thing NOW. Folks will have in Decades to come what is being planned and actually built NOW. We have mostly Solar and Big Wind being built NOW because that is the planning shift that happened 2 to 3 years ago. So we can already know out Decades ahead what they/we will have.
Look at the line-up:
+ New Coal has stopped for all practical purposes.
+ New Nukes are few-to-none.
+ New Gas is winding down.
+ Solar PV and Big Wind are WAY UP on the New Build list.
What do you think that means we will have 10 to 20 years from now?
Mexico talks every now and then, but no one really wants to waste the money to be last of a dying breed.
Another opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by World Nuclear Association :Nuclear Power in Mexico(Updated January 2021)
High-level government support exists for an expansion of nuclear energy, primarily to reduce dependence on natural gas, but also to cut carbon emissions – until 2011 the country's energy policy called for increasing carbon-free power generation from 27% to 35% of total by 2024.
The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) in May 2010 had four scenarios for new power generation capacity from 2019-28, ranging from a heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants to meet growing demand, to a low-carbon scenario that calls for big investments in nuclear and wind power. Under the CFE's most aggressive scenario, up to ten nuclear power plants would be built so that nuclear energy supplied nearly a quarter of Mexico's power needs by 2028, which would allow the country's carbon emissions from power generation to remain virtually unchanged from 2008 despite projections of substantially higher demand. An earlier proposal was for one new nuclear unit to come on line by 2015 with seven more to follow it by 2025 to bring nuclear share of electricity up to 12% then.
New things and new thoughts cannot exist, because you can not align them with old thoughts and old things?
I follow you are or were . . . an expert on such things . . . some decades ago. But consider we are now into a whole new Century -- it is 2021, now -- and times and technology have advanced. It is not 1973 or whatever, anymore. That was 50 years ago.
In THIS Century and THIS Decade, in particular -- remember, it is 2021 -- we are no longer building Coal, have only one New Nuke boondoggle going on (which cannot even be brought on line), and most Coal and Nukes are shutting down. Even Natural Gas is stalling out. All the BIG - MECHANICAL - TONS of Spinning Steel and Conductors . . . is fading to the past. I know from prior conversations around here that nothing changes in olde folkes mindes -- but out in the REAL World -- Times and Technology is moving on.
I track this stuff out ahead because I do the permit reviewing out some years ahead. So I already have the look-ahead. But hit this link, and you can see the numbers of NOW -- this Decade, this Century -- with pretty graphs, pictures and all that. The Look-Ahead is to mostly Renewable, and especially Silicon Solar PV -- because it has won on: Cheapest, Fastest, Cleanest, and Lowest Risk. Everything we want in an Energy Source. Really, go ahead and look. These numbers are correct >>>
As far as your technical question -- regarding Unity and Voltage/Current control into the 1E9 watt range. Yes, that has been the case for some decades now as well. You already know this, if you think about it? At the terminal or receiving end of EVERY HVDC line there is a LARGE (actually parallel set of Large) Inverters doing just that.
I'm not sure you work in the Power Generation industry or not (I do) but I'm here to to tell Utilities all across the Midwest and now Texas are building or planning to build Natural Gas fired power plants as fast they can get the equipment. We've built 2 and are planning a 3rd.( Both have positive cash flowed from day one and we run @ 2000 hrs. a year). 2 Other Municipals in Minnesota have built Engine plants and a Montana Utility just completed the purchase of 32 10Mw recips for 3 different sites. Your theoretical magic power doesn't keep the lights on or the grid up without the help of old fashioned fossil fueled plants ...
I'm not sure you work in the Power Generation industry or not (I do) but I'm here to to tell Utilities all across the Midwest and now Texas are building or planning to build Natural Gas fired power plants as fast they can get the equipment.
Between 2015 and 2019 annual electricity generation from natural gas power plants in the United States increased by
31% in the Northeast region, by
20% in the Central region, and by
17% in the South region .
In the West region of the continental United States, electric power generation from natural gas power plants remained relatively flat during the same period.
Quote:
Originally Posted by my54ford
Your theoretical magic power doesn't keep the lights on or the grid up without the help of old fashioned fossil fueled plants ...
Natural Gas was 42.97% of electrical generating power from in-state California in 2018, Renewables Total 32.09% of instate.
California must import 38.9% of it's instate electrical generation to meet consumption requirements.
In order to supply energy from wind turbines for EVs @40% of the EU fleet, 27,000 sq mi of land would have to be paved over by an impermeable surface for the mills--that would pencil out to 68,000 sq mi for an all EV fleet.... (~the size of CO & VA put together, or almost half of CA)...For the US, that would be even more (~10%) habitat lost to the bulldozer, given our larger fleet.
According to the article. Scotland just chopped down 14 million trees in order to make room for wind mill installations. Does that make sense if it's the envrironment they're trying to protect?
In order to supply energy from wind turbines for EVs @40% of the EU fleet, 27,000 sq mi of land would have to be paved over by an impermeable surface for the mills--that would pencil out to 68,000 sq mi for an all EV fleet.... (~the size of CO & VA put together, or almost half of CA)...For the US, that would be even more (~10%) habitat lost to the bulldozer, given our larger fleet.
According to the article. Scotland just chopped down 14 million trees in order to make room for wind mill installations. Does that make sense if it's the envrironment they're trying to protect?
The writer of your blog doesn't understand the paper he's citing. The "impermeable surfaces" are a consequence of the electric vehicles being individual vehicles - that is, they come with a requirement for roads, parking facilities etc. And cars encourage urban sprawl.
Incidentally, wind turbines do just fine on farmland.
The generous interpretation is that the blog isn't written by a very smart person.
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