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A Critical Discussion the Limits to Renewable Energy Pt 3

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby mousepad » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 07:18:28

vtsnowedin wrote:
mustang19 wrote:
Actually, at the moment, the wind industry is under layoffs. If it dies within, maybe, 2 years well see.

You obviously have not been paying attention to what Biden and Harris have promised to do about green energy and moving away from fossil fuels.


You still believe in the promises of politicians? I thought you had plenty of life experience.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby mousepad » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 07:23:34

Peak_Yeast wrote:After about 10 years I am in plus on the budget at current electricity pricing.


unless, of course, the inverter breaks, the batteries fail, or the system has other expensive problems. Then the budget calculation can look quite differently quite quickly.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 07:55:00

mousepad wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
mustang19 wrote:
Actually, at the moment, the wind industry is under layoffs. If it dies within, maybe, 2 years well see.

You obviously have not been paying attention to what Biden and Harris have promised to do about green energy and moving away from fossil fuels.


You still believe in the promises of politicians? I thought you had plenty of life experience.

That is a promise to spend money we don't have to achieve a goal we can't reach so it is a political promise that I can believe. :evil:
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby REAL Green » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 08:11:45

vtsnowedin wrote:You obviously have not been paying attention to what Biden and Harris have promised to do about green energy and moving away from fossil fuels.


You obviously have not been paying attention, Biden Harris have not won yet.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby mousepad » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 08:21:41

vtsnowedin wrote: That is a promise to spend money we don't have to achieve a goal we can't reach so it is a political promise that I can believe. :evil:


:-D Good one!
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 08:53:43

REAL Green wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:You obviously have not been paying attention to what Biden and Harris have promised to do about green energy and moving away from fossil fuels.


You obviously have not been paying attention, Biden Harris have not won yet.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby REAL Green » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 09:02:40

vtsnowedin wrote:
REAL Green wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:You obviously have not been paying attention to what Biden and Harris have promised to do about green energy and moving away from fossil fuels.


You obviously have not been paying attention, Biden Harris have not won yet.

:lol: :lol: :lol:



The last laugh will be on the liars and cheaters. Trump may not make it but there will be serious fraud and corruption exposed. The crimes committed in the last 5 years are so large and egregious they cannot compare to anytime in US history. This period is unique and transformative. If Biden wins the country that was is no more. These crimes will be institutionalized. The people laughing are drunk on the Kool-Aid of lies. I could give a shit about Trump. What I care about is exposing this grave assault on the constitution by a dirty corrupt political machine.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 10:15:02

Lets keep the political comments on the political threads please.

I use both wind and solar extensively. We also use some fossil fuel, kerosene, for cooking. Diesel for the motor. Gas for the car when ashore.

Lots of fossil fuel is used for our cloths, ropes, sails, fairing and epoxy paints.

We are a loong way from zero reliance in fossil fuels. The fastest, easiest, surest way is to limit our use. Less waste. Greater efficiency. Recycling.

There is lots of fossil fuel in the solar and wind life cycle.

Proportionately that would be reduced if we used less energy to start with.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 13:53:55

mousepad wrote:
Peak_Yeast wrote:After about 10 years I am in plus on the budget at current electricity pricing.


unless, of course, the inverter breaks, the batteries fail, or the system has other expensive problems. Then the budget calculation can look quite differently quite quickly.


There you go spouting facts based on reality again! How is an true believer ever going to rule the world if you keep that up? :twisted:
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Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby kublikhan » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 15:17:16

Speaking of facts, there was alot of BS in this thread recently. Lets return to facts shall we?

mustang19 wrote:I dont know if this has been said but wind and solar dont actually... work. Say steel costs 1mwh per ton, and glass costs 100x more. A 40 ton 1gwh per year turbine costs 5gwh.
In less than a year a wind turbine will pay back it's entire lifetime energy costs:

the entire lifecycle consumption of energy for a 2 MW wind turbine is equivalent to 3,625 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity: an amount of electricity sufficient to power 300 average American homes. Their analysis further noted that a standard 2 MW wind turbine would generate 5,650 MWh of electricity annually and consequently would have an energy payback of 7.7 months.

However their calculations assumed a relatively low wind speed – specifically an average turbine capacity factor of 29%. While this is more usual in the lower wind speed European environment; average U.S. capacity factors are higher. For turbines installed in the U.S. in 2014-2015, the average capacity factor achieved in 2016 was 42.5%. If one uses this higher number, a 2 MW machine would generate 7,450 MWh of electricity annually. In other words it would achieve energy payback in less than 6 months.
Energy Payback

mustang19 wrote:The high eroi estimates for wind assume blades are long lived, but we know from landfills they arent.
Taking pictures of garbage is really not the best way to get the lifespan of a wind turbine blade. Better to use facts. And the facts say these blades last 20-25 years:

How Long do Wind Turbines Last?
A good quality, modern wind turbine will generally last for 20 years, although this can be extended to 25 years or longer depending on environmental factors and the correct maintenance procedures being followed.
HOW LONG DO WIND TURBINES LAST?

mustang19 wrote:Since 2000, wind prices have simply tracked oil. Prices doubled 2000-07 for both. So there doesnt seem to be even a monetary way that wind would replace natural gas, oil etc.
No they haven't, not even close. Wind prices have been steadily falling since 1980. Oil prices were all over the price since 1980. Falls in the 80s, a spike in 1990(no spike there for wind) followed by more falls. Oil spikes again in 2008, followed by a fall in 2009. Wind on the other hand saw prices rise in 2009. Then oil started rising again and hit high levels again around 2010-2014. Wind on the other hand fell during this period.

mustang19 wrote:Polysilicon follows the same pattern, for solar.
Again, no. There was a huge increase in Polysilicon prices between 2005 and 2008. But this was because of a shortage of polysilicon. Up until this point, the electronics industry was the main customer of polysilicon. However during this time period there was a huge increase in demand because of solar PV panels. This let to a shortage of supply. High demand and low supply = high prices. However this huge increase in demand also caused a huge buildout of new polysilicon factories in China with greatly increased capacity. This caused prices to crash around 2008-2009. Oil spiked up again around 2010-2014. There is no such spike like that for polysilicon. There is a slight increase on 2011, but from 2012-2014 prices fell to even lower than they were in 2009-2010. There was no corresponding fall in price for oil during this period. I covered all of this polysilicon price activity in previous posts:

kublikhan wrote:Not to go too far off topic, but it reminds me a bit of what happened with polysilicon a decade ago. Climbing demand causes polysilicon prices to rise. Rising prices mean climbing profit margins for producers. High profit margins invite competition and new supply. A surge of new supply causes prices to fall. Weaker producers fall into bankruptcy.

2006 - Market observers reckon that profit margins for producers of high-purity polysilicon are now around 50 percent.

High margins attract new entrants
That‘s exactly why Tom Werner believes that capitalism will come into effect. High margins attract new entrants. No less than half a dozen new projects have been announced in China in the past few months, most with a capacity of 3,000 MT and more. The large, established silicon producers have now realised that the photovoltaic industry is growing into their most important customer. By 2007 at the latest, silicon consumption in the solar sector will exceed that of the semiconductor industry for the first time.
Polysilicon Market Survey

2016 - Polysilicon companies saw amazing amount of profits during 2008-2011, as prices of polysilicon shot up to $400/kg resulting in profit margins of 90%. This led to capacity expansion as majority was lured by high profitability. However, by the end of 2011, there was an oversupply when compared to the demand for solar panels. This led to prices crashing to $20-25/kg, while cost for smaller companies remained at $40-50/kg, resulting in bankruptcies of a number of polysilicon companies. Bigger producers were still able to breakeven given their low cost of production. Currently, there is a situation where prices of polysilicon is close to the costs.
The Polysilicon Industry Is Witnessing Interesting Times
The Ethane Thread

mustang19 wrote:I appreciate your concerns but in any case, solar is already used. It is photosynthesis. Using solar for solar sort of defeats the purpose. Even in the desert, if there is groundwater production can occur. Solar is virtually never sensible over alternate uses of the land. And the places which lack people usually lack resources anyway.
I guess you never heard of rooftop solar?
The oil barrel is half-full.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby Peak_Yeast » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 16:48:21

Since I have already had my inverters and 9KW solar panels for 10 years now and they earned their own production energy and materials costs in the first 2 years I am solidly in the plus according to the producers energy budget for them. The actual costs of the system was recuperated in about 5 years. And this old system was far more expensive than the new system

Besides .. I am an electrical engineer. I know exactly what can go wrong with inverters and I can fix every single problem.

The batteries... Yes.. But it is highly unlikely that more than a few cells die and needs replacement. Besides there is 5 year warranty and it is likely that dying cells will die before that period since it is a failure of production.

But the batteries are not going to be cycled hard - because the capacity is larger than needed for 90% of the year. According to the datasheets they should last about 10.000 cycles and probably more.

You can go about being negative - I let fools be fools if they want to be.

So the reality is... No matter if you like it or not. My system will extend the fossil fuel investment by a factor of at least 5 and probably much more. Or an EROEI of 5-10 at LEAST.

And if effort is put into it - the EROEI can be much higher.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 19:22:20

Peak,

Good for you. But you are not a “typical” user. Most folks have no practical skill and cant do what you do. You can not accurately project your success into the general population.

Power companies should he able to do better than you, but not the average guy.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby mustang19 » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 19:34:37

Peak_Yeast wrote:Since I have already had my inverters and 9KW solar panels for 10 years now and they earned their own production energy and materials costs in the first 2 years I am solidly in the plus according to the producers energy budget for them. The actual costs of the system was recuperated in about 5 years. And this old system was far more expensive than the new system

Besides .. I am an electrical engineer. I know exactly what can go wrong with inverters and I can fix every single problem.

The batteries... Yes.. But it is highly unlikely that more than a few cells die and needs replacement. Besides there is 5 year warranty and it is likely that dying cells will die before that period since it is a failure of production.

But the batteries are not going to be cycled hard - because the capacity is larger than needed for 90% of the year. According to the datasheets they should last about 10.000 cycles and probably more.

You can go about being negative - I let fools be fools if they want to be.

So the reality is... No matter if you like it or not. My system will extend the fossil fuel investment by a factor of at least 5 and probably much more. Or an EROEI of 5-10 at LEAST.

And if effort is put into it - the EROEI can be much higher.


Residential is cheap. The other 90% of energy is used for food, cars, cities whatever. That will dry up.

And it's not my opinion, right now the issue appears on the fence but well know within 2 years.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 20:20:59

mustang19 wrote:
Residential is cheap. The other 90% of energy is used for food, cars, cities whatever. That will dry up.

And it's not my opinion, right now the issue appears on the fence but well know within 2 years.

Once again you are not using the facts. Residential is 37% of consumption with commercial using 35% and industrial just 27%.
There is no point in talking with you if you can't use real numbers and facts to try to make your points.
https://www.epa.gov/energy/electricity-customers
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby Peak_Yeast » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 21:10:31

It is absolutely technically possible to change to a solar powered society worldwide. The question is if our rich people and the politicians are willing to change away from using massive amounts of resources on a wasteful, idiotic way of living and working in the rich countries until the transition has been made.

The only reason its not possible is because those who decides where the resources go are too rigid in their ways. Which is entirely possible.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 21:42:45

Peak_Yeast wrote:It is absolutely technically possible to change to a solar powered society worldwide. The question is if our rich people and the politicians are willing to change away from using massive amounts of resources on a wasteful, idiotic way of living and working in the rich countries until the transition has been made.

The only reason its not possible is because those who decides where the resources go are too rigid in their ways. Which is entirely possible.

Well I'm not sure that is true. The sun only shines half of each day on average for any given location and for the high latitudes both north and south at very low angles. To go totally solar would require a major battery storage system or some other storage device not yet invented. And if you suck up that much solar energy perhaps the environment that presently relies on that solar energy will find the loss a problem.
I think we have to limit ourselves to the amount of solar radiation that is now wasted as radiation back out into space. We are not using it and space doesn't need it.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby mousepad » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 22:02:22

Peak_Yeast wrote:Besides .. I am an electrical engineer. I know exactly what can go wrong with inverters and I can fix every single problem.

A modern inverter is a complicated piece of electronics.
Without access to schematics, documentation of debug/test modes, access to firmware used in micro-controllers and FPGAs, high-voltage scope probes etc., the chances of you fixing every single problem are practically 0. And even if you are able to fix a problem, in all honesty you would have to charge your hourly rate against your budget calculation.

So the reality is... No matter if you like it or not. the EROEI can be much higher.


The reality is, mileage varies. I had a brand new 10kW wind turbine installed a few years back. Comes a strong storm and knocks it over after 6 month of use. Total loss. Lucky it didn't fall on anybody or any car. It didn't cost my anything because it was a case for the insurance, yet the EROEI wasn't that great, was it?

I then installed a 10kW solar system. Sure enough 3 years in, the inverter broke. Needed to be replaced. it was still under warranty so it didn't cost me anything, but still that ain't good for EROEI, right? Fast forward another 2 years. Lighting strike into the panels. 2 of those micro-inverters on the roof burned up. Again warranty. But replacing them on a steep roof took 2 guys 3 hours, removing and resetting panels. No cost to me, but certainly not good for EROEI. System is out of warranty now and so far nothing has happened. Let's hope it stays that way.

After those experiences I'm leaning more in favor of community solar farms. It spreads the risk of malfunctions to a larger number of people. That's why I bought an additional 10kW from a small local farm. Costs a little maintenance every year, but it's worth it.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby mustang19 » Thu 12 Nov 2020, 22:17:06

vtsnowedin wrote:
mustang19 wrote:
Residential is cheap. The other 90% of energy is used for food, cars, cities whatever. That will dry up.

And it's not my opinion, right now the issue appears on the fence but well know within 2 years.

Once again you are not using the facts. Residential is 37% of consumption with commercial using 35% and industrial just 27%.
There is no point in talking with you if you can't use real numbers and facts to try to make your points.
https://www.epa.gov/energy/electricity-customers


In warm areas its probably less. Residential is mostly heating. But I digress.

Anyway I gave a hubbert curve for wolfcamp and its working so far (with no apparent help from wind).
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 13 Nov 2020, 08:29:22

Mustang,

Living in temperate climates, at our population levels, is a modern luxury, that is not sustainable.
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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

Unread postby mustang19 » Fri 13 Nov 2020, 16:28:36

Newfie wrote:Mustang,

Living in temperate climates, at our population levels, is a modern luxury, that is not sustainable.


Yes, all the wheat, trees, and grazing is in cold areas.
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