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THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Wed 04 Jan 2017, 18:17:52

baha wrote:You're counting the purchase price of capacity not energy delivered. That $470 investment returns 3650 kw hrs over 10 years.
Actually that's what you just did. You only counted the purchase price of storing the energy not the cost of the energy delivered. That $470 was just the cost for 1 kWh of batteries. It doesn't even include the cost of the electricity.

5. Cutting the grid connection will cost two or three times more than you think
2 kW should cover the average 1.2 kW electricity usage of the average American house, but 3.3 kW peak power will not be enough if you have many devices in a large American house, all running at once, and you want to disconnect entirely from the grid.

In fact, a SolarCity VP admitted that a single PowerWall is not enough to disconnect entirely from the grid, as 7 kWh doesn’t really offer enough power to cover all non-daylight hours: “it would require multiple units to take someone off the grid.”

Elon Musk noted in the 2015Q1 earnings call that it does not make economic sense to go off-grid, with PowerWalls.

6. The all-in price is twice the $350/kWh ‘wow’ number, but still impressive
the $3,000 or $3,500 cost is for the DC system only – be careful to compare apples to apples when looking at other products. For example, the inverter will add around $1,000 to $2,000 to the cost of the device.

As another real-world point, SolarCity is quoting $7,140 to add the PowerWall to a solar installation (includes inverter, maintenance contract, installation, control system). This doesn’t sound unreasonable, and again $700/kWh for a small home-scale system is very cheap, though as mentioned above, multiple PowerWalls may be needed for many customers.

7. The PowerWall does not let you make money on arbitrage, and Tesla knows it.
Tesla executives confirmed that the economics don’t work in America, and here’s why. As a residential owner, in the best case you’ll make 36 cents/kWh selling to the grid at peak hours, and buy at 10 cents/kWh at night. Once you include round-trip efficiency losses, that’s about $1.66 gross profit per 7 kWh (DC) cycle.

So revenue is $1.66 x 183 days x 10 years = $3,000. You’ll just about recoup the cost of the product, but you won’t profit because of two factors – the cost of inverter and installation, and the time value of money. We’re in a low-interest environment, but setting aside $7,000 today to make back $3,000 over 10 years still leaves you down $4,000 – not a very good deal.
Top Ten Facts about Tesla’s $350/kWh (DC) PowerWall battery
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Wed 04 Jan 2017, 20:10:18

But the Solar PV system is not free. It's even more expensive than the batteries.

And if you are talking mobile applications like cars, gasoline is alot more useful than electricity. Electricity is much more expensive to store than gasoline. That's why you see ICE vehicles continue to massively outsell EVs even with the horrible efficiency of an ICE vehicle.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Wed 04 Jan 2017, 20:29:00

yellowcanoe wrote:My understanding is that lithium batteries that are subject to a 50% depth of discharge are good for 1200 to 1500 cycles. That translates to a useful lifetime of three to four years. All the things you can do to extend the life of lithium batteries have the side effect of reducing the amount of energy you can draw from the battery each cycle thereby increasing the amount of batteries you need to be able to provide a given amount of energy in one cycle. Despite the hype of the Gigafactory, I don't think we are at the point where battery storage on a large scale is viable.

Based on what? If that were true, how do PHEV's like the Volt and the Prius Prime confidently have 8 year warranties on their batteries, and in the case of Toyota, expect the batteries to last the normal lifetime of the car (so more like 12 years or more)?

I strongly suspect you're either citing outdated stats, or you're just wrong, for modern, large, LI ION packs composed of MANY small LI ION batteries, and managed by computers, to maximize their lifespans.

If you could only get a 3 to 4 year lifespan out of an EV, people won't shell out big bucks for them very long. The real world of all EV's and PHEV's on the market (except the 1st generation of the LEAF, which lacked thermal management) strongly suggests that your estimates are already way too low, given modern technology.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Wed 04 Jan 2017, 20:41:02

kublikhan wrote:But the Solar PV system is not free. It's even more expensive than the batteries.

And if you are talking mobile applications like cars, gasoline is alot more useful than electricity. Electricity is much more expensive to store than gasoline. That's why you see ICE vehicles continue to massively outsell EVs even with the horrible efficiency of an ICE vehicle.

EV's are just getting started. Claiming they haven't somehow magically managed to sell more than the entire established ICE market doesn't mean gasoline is "much more useful" than electricity. Especially if you don't count the bad effects like pollution and AGW of burning that gasoline.

And why does one need to go completely off the grid (discussion in a post above, where you objected to the cost to go off the grid with the Powerwall) to take advantage of technology like the Powerwall?

I'm hoping in a few years of so when I get solar panels that having a system like a Powerwall will help make running my PHEV truly green, as far as charging the battery. I also hope it will help be a backup system for when the grid power goes out. (My whole house generator isn't getting any younger and at some point I'd enjoy not needing to replace that).

None of that means I need to or plan to go off the grid anytime soon.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Wed 04 Jan 2017, 21:19:16

Outcast_Searcher wrote:EV's are just getting started. Claiming they haven't somehow magically managed to sell more than the entire established ICE market doesn't mean gasoline is "much more useful" than electricity. Especially if you don't count the bad effects like pollution and AGW of burning that gasoline.
I did not ask for anything magical. Gasoline's high energy density and liquid form do make it more useful than electricity for vehicles, IMHO. Ignoring inconvenient facts that make your case weaker is not a very good debate strategy IMHO. This does not mean I am a naysayer on EVs however. EVs have several advantages over ICE that I like: higher efficiency, lower maintenance costs, greener, etc. But those advantages come at a higher cost. And at this point I would rather purchase an ICE than an EV. I am hoping this will change in the years to come. As battery prices come down, EVs gain economy of scale advantages, and/or fuel prices go up, I am expecting the case for EVs will grow stronger. However recognizing that at this point in time the vast majority of people would rather purchase an ICE is just the facts.

Outcast_Searcher wrote:And why does one need to go completely off the grid (discussion in a post above, where you objected to the cost to go off the grid with the Powerwall) to take advantage of technology like the Powerwall?

I'm hoping in a few years of so when I get solar panels that having a system like a Powerwall will help make running my PHEV truly green, as far as charging the battery. I also hope it will help be a backup system for when the grid power goes out. (My whole house generator isn't getting any younger and at some point I'd enjoy not needing to replace that).

None of that means I need to or plan to go off the grid anytime soon
Actually baha was the one bringing up off grid situations. I was arguing that the economics of powerwall don't make sense for trying to do power arbitrage in an on the grid situation(buying electricity low then selling it high). Even Tesla said this makes no sense. So if you are buying it for backup power during a blackout, that is fine. But don't expect to recoup the money you spent on the powerwall through savings on electricity.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Thu 05 Jan 2017, 09:39:24

baha wrote:If you are taking power from the grid, chances are, you are being powered by a steam engine. How's that for obsolete technology:)


If hunter shoots a deer with a wooden bow using natural fiber string, a wooden arrow shaft with real bird feathers on the back and a stone arrowhead chipped by hand and he kills the deer does he get to eat it?

There is no such thing as 'obsolete' technology, just technology that is less modern. The only thing the steam plant at Vermont Yankee has in common with Newcomen's engine is they both use water steam as the working fluid to convert heat into useful work. Newcomen's engine was about 3 percent efficient converting steam into a vertical oscillation motion for a large mechanical pump. Vermont Yankee uses fission heating to boil water and spin a very delicately balanced turbine to generate massive amounts of electricity by spinning a turbo-generator at about 37 percent efficiency.

Take away the fossil fuels and nuclear that prop up your Solar PV dream and you dream collapses quite rapidly. Your system can not produce enough energy to reproduce itself and maintain itself and supply your needs all at once.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
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
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 05 Jan 2017, 12:01:31

Tanada wrote:
baha wrote:If you are taking power from the grid, chances are, you are being powered by a steam engine. How's that for obsolete technology:)


If hunter shoots a deer with a wooden bow using natural fiber string, a wooden arrow shaft with real bird feathers on the back and a stone arrowhead chipped by hand and he kills the deer does he get to eat it?

There is no such thing as 'obsolete' technology, just technology that is less modern. The only thing the steam plant at Vermont Yankee has in common with Newcomen's engine is they both use water steam as the working fluid to convert heat into useful work. Newcomen's engine was about 3 percent efficient converting steam into a vertical oscillation motion for a large mechanical pump. Vermont Yankee uses fission heating to boil water and spin a very delicately balanced turbine to generate massive amounts of electricity by spinning a turbo-generator at about 37 percent efficiency.

Take away the fossil fuels and nuclear that prop up your Solar PV dream and you dream collapses quite rapidly. Your system can not produce enough energy to reproduce itself and maintain itself and supply your needs all at once.

Ahh!!**** Umm****** Tanada?,,,,. Vermont Yankee is closed down for good. :oops:
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Thu 05 Jan 2017, 12:13:04

baha wrote:
Again, my electricity is free. Yes I need to buy some equipment to harvest it, but the power is free. And to compare my equipment to yours is ridiculous.

.

No your electricity is not free by any means. You must compare and compute the total of equipment, installation repairs , maintenance and fuel and then divide that by the total electricity in KWHs produced over the lifetime of your system to get a cost per KWH including all efficiency and availability factors.
Your fuel is free which is a plus. Your output varies with the season and dose not work at all at night without the addition of battery storage.
Compare that to the 24/7 availability of grid power generated by coal or natural gas and the massive amounts of power produced over the lifetime of those steam engines as you call them and the comparison of equipment is anything but ridiculous.
Perhaps solar cells can be improved to be 33% efficient which would be a good thing but that still wont make the sun shine at night. :)
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Thu 05 Jan 2017, 12:56:06

baha wrote:The only advantage gas has is the ability to easily pour it from one container to another. And that's using lots of high tech piping, pumps, and filters to keep you from exploding.

Again, my electricity is free. Yes I need to buy some equipment to harvest it, but the power is free. And to compare my equipment to yours is ridiculous.

I set a few posts in the ground, build a rack, run some wires, install hardware with absolutely NO moving parts and start harvesting. If you want I can have you up and running in a week.

For your power it starts with exploration and seismic surveys. Then drill a few miles deep holes to assess and find the sweet spot. Then drill more holes with pipes and pumps. Not to mention the occasional spill and explosion. Then build hundreds of miles of pipelines and infrastructure. Oh, and then you have to buy the equipment that makes this stuff useful like a car or a generator or just a burner. Best case if you start now you could have power in 5-8 years.

Like I said in another thread...FF's will fade into the background of obsolete technology.
I have to buy a car if I want to use gasoline? I think you have that backwards. I bought the gasoline because I need it to fuel my car. I did not buy a car so I can use it to burn up this liquid stuff I have sitting in jugs around my house. That is a really poor argument to be making.

And as for accidental spills and explosions, this is a problem for the Solar PV industry as well. Silane gas, used in the manufacture of silicon, sometimes leaks out. This stuff doesn't even need a spark to ignite, it explodes on contact with air. That's why you sometimes get explosions at facilities that manufacture the polysilicon for Solar PV.

And that's not even getting into the even bigger problem with Solar PV manufacture: Toxic Waste.

Before the proponents of solar energy can claim the moral high ground, they may need to deal with an inconvenient truth of their own: mountains of hazardous waste being created by the production of solar panels.

Sodium hydroxide and hydrofluoric acid are among the caustic chemicals required in the manufacturing process, along with water and electricity, the production of which emits greenhouse gases. Metals that go into solar panels are often mined in jurisdictions with low environmental standards and even poorer safety records. The biggest problem, though, is waste. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), a San Francisco-based non-profit, has been tracking the waste created by solar panel manufacturers since 1982, and reports a disturbing upward trend in the amounts being generated annually.

In a sense, the problem is a byproduct of the industry's success; fueled by government incentives, production of solar panels has skyrocketed in recent years, and in the process, millions of pounds of polluted sludge and contaminated water have also been produced. Disposing of the waste by truck is expensive, so in the absence of regulations, it gets dumped where it shouldn't. The most egregious example is, unsurprisingly, in China, where until recently solar panel makers simply dumped silicon tetrachloride on fields near their factories.
Toxic Waste Sullies Solar’s Squeaky Clean Image

Then there's the 16 different metals used in solar panels. These are mined with what you call "obsolete technology".

Of course there is also the massive electricity required for manufacturing Solar PV. That too is provided by "obsolete technology".

Calling FFs obsolete is premature, to say the least.

Tanada wrote:Take away the fossil fuels and nuclear that prop up your Solar PV dream and you dream collapses quite rapidly. Your system can not produce enough energy to reproduce itself and maintain itself and supply your needs all at once.
+1
Solar PV is several orders of magnitude away from rendering FFs & nuclear obsolete.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Thu 05 Jan 2017, 17:52:29

vtsnowedin wrote:
Tanada wrote:
baha wrote:If you are taking power from the grid, chances are, you are being powered by a steam engine. How's that for obsolete technology:)


If hunter shoots a deer with a wooden bow using natural fiber string, a wooden arrow shaft with real bird feathers on the back and a stone arrowhead chipped by hand and he kills the deer does he get to eat it?

There is no such thing as 'obsolete' technology, just technology that is less modern. The only thing the steam plant at Vermont Yankee has in common with Newcomen's engine is they both use water steam as the working fluid to convert heat into useful work. Newcomen's engine was about 3 percent efficient converting steam into a vertical oscillation motion for a large mechanical pump. Vermont Yankee uses fission heating to boil water and spin a very delicately balanced turbine to generate massive amounts of electricity by spinning a turbo-generator at about 37 percent efficiency.

Take away the fossil fuels and nuclear that prop up your Solar PV dream and you dream collapses quite rapidly. Your system can not produce enough energy to reproduce itself and maintain itself and supply your needs all at once.

Ahh!!**** Umm****** Tanada?,,,,. Vermont Yankee is closed down for good. :oops:


Picky picky picky, substitute whatever currently operating plant you want the point is still the same.
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Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 06 Jan 2017, 08:57:32

Tanada wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
Tanada wrote:
baha wrote:If you are taking power from the grid, chances are, you are being powered by a steam engine. How's that for obsolete technology:)


If hunter shoots a deer with a wooden bow using natural fiber string, a wooden arrow shaft with real bird feathers on the back and a stone arrowhead chipped by hand and he kills the deer does he get to eat it?

There is no such thing as 'obsolete' technology, just technology that is less modern. The only thing the steam plant at Vermont Yankee has in common with Newcomen's engine is they both use water steam as the working fluid to convert heat into useful work. Newcomen's engine was about 3 percent efficient converting steam into a vertical oscillation motion for a large mechanical pump. Vermont Yankee uses fission heating to boil water and spin a very delicately balanced turbine to generate massive amounts of electricity by spinning a turbo-generator at about 37 percent efficiency.

Take away the fossil fuels and nuclear that prop up your Solar PV dream and you dream collapses quite rapidly. Your system can not produce enough energy to reproduce itself and maintain itself and supply your needs all at once.

Ahh!!**** Umm****** Tanada?,,,,. Vermont Yankee is closed down for good. :oops:


Picky picky picky, substitute whatever currently operating plant you want the point is still the same.

Is there one in North America that isn't past it's prime and due to be shut down?
We should have started building state of the art replacements a decade ago but that boat has sailed.
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Re: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 06 Jan 2017, 10:40:24

vtsnowedin wrote:
Tanada wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
Tanada wrote:The only thing the steam plant at Vermont Yankee has in common with Newcomen's engine is they both use water steam as the working fluid to convert heat into useful work. Newcomen's engine was about 3 percent efficient converting steam into a vertical oscillation motion for a large mechanical pump. Vermont Yankee uses fission heating to boil water and spin a very delicately balanced turbine to generate massive amounts of electricity by spinning a turbo-generator at about 37 percent efficiency.

Take away the fossil fuels and nuclear that prop up your Solar PV dream and you dream collapses quite rapidly. Your system can not produce enough energy to reproduce itself and maintain itself and supply your needs all at once.

Ahh!!**** Umm****** Tanada?,,,,. Vermont Yankee is closed down for good. :oops:


Picky picky picky, substitute whatever currently operating plant you want the point is still the same.

Is there one in North America that isn't past it's prime and due to be shut down?
We should have started building state of the art replacements a decade ago but that boat has sailed.


Watts Bar 2 opened six months ago, but lets not drag this thread further off topic into Nuclear power.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... n-decades/
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Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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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: THE Battery Technology Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 06 Jan 2017, 10:42:30

OK :-)
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