Congressional liberals press Biden to declare emergency and restrict fossil fuels

[Lightbringer]

No I don't. And neither do you.

Akshually, I do. We're talking about boiling water. I know that...you don't.

Anyway, i have to go pick up a trailer and get back on the road. See you in a few weeks.

 

[AProudLefty]

Akshually, I do. We're talking about boiling water. I know that...you don't.

Anyway, i have to go pick up a trailer and get back on the road. See you in a few weeks.

Have fun! Stay safe.

 

[Hoosier Daddy]

link doesnt take me to article.. incremental improvements wont do it.
If batteries are ever able to hold enough power for spikes, cold cloudy days - get back to us

it won't if we do not research it. you are like the bozos that said man could never fly!! the point is- a transition---if each house had solar or wind power ALONG with regular power, you would save tons of carbon fuel from being used each day. idiot.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Well since you want to nitpick, it's more clean than fossil fuel and coal.

Actually, the solution in nuclear which is cleaner than wind or solar start to finish and can meet our current and future needs for energy. It's really the only choice for going to EV too if that's where we really are headed.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

it won't if we do not research it. you are like the bozos that said man could never fly!! the point is- a transition---if each house had solar or wind power ALONG with regular power, you would save tons of carbon fuel from being used each day. idiot.

False analogy using a special pleading. We have researched wind, solar, and batteries thoroughly. None of these are new technologies, only ones that have seen incremental improvement. There is, just as with any other technology, a limit to what is achievable theoretically as well as practically. For example, you can only make a transistor so small--about 27 atoms total--before you can't go smaller. In that case, the limit is quantum physics derived.

With wind, the mechanical and material strengths of the wind turbine and generator determine the physical limits of size. For solar it's the chemistry of the materials used and the size of the individual cells that make up the panel. You also cannot get around wind speed and the watt density of sunlight.

With batteries, the first ones that were based on some degree of scientific knowledge showed up as "voltaic piles" about 1790. The earliest solar cells showed up around 1840. Both are pretty much thoroughly understood science that can only be marginally improved at this point.

The inefficiencies of all three are such that without grotesquely, and prohibitively, expensive investments that would cripple economies they aren't going to come close to meeting our needs. You mention solar in a residential setting. About a third of all power production goes into residential usage. Of that, about two-thirds is for use other than during daylight hours. That means only about 20 to 25% of residential power can be met with home solar systems.
But due to the inefficiency and cost of such systems we are looking at an over rise in price to about triple what a kilowatt-hour currently costs to do that.

The only viable, and cost effective, answer to our energy needs that doesn't create carbon is nuclear.

 

[BartenderElite]

False analogy using a special pleading. We have researched wind, solar, and batteries thoroughly. None of these are new technologies, only ones that have seen incremental improvement. There is, just as with any other technology, a limit to what is achievable theoretically as well as practically. For example, you can only make a transistor so small--about 27 atoms total--before you can't go smaller. In that case, the limit is quantum physics derived.

With wind, the mechanical and material strengths of the wind turbine and generator determine the physical limits of size. For solar it's the chemistry of the materials used and the size of the individual cells that make up the panel. You also cannot get around wind speed and the watt density of sunlight.

With batteries, the first ones that were based on some degree of scientific knowledge showed up as "voltaic piles" about 1790. The earliest solar cells showed up around 1840. Both are pretty much thoroughly understood science that can only be marginally improved at this point.

The inefficiencies of all three are such that without grotesquely, and prohibitively, expensive investments that would cripple economies they aren't going to come close to meeting our needs. You mention solar in a residential setting. About a third of all power production goes into residential usage. Of that, about two-thirds is for use other than during daylight hours. That means only about 20 to 25% of residential power can be met with home solar systems.
But due to the inefficiency and cost of such systems we are looking at an over rise in price to about triple what a kilowatt-hour currently costs to do that.

The only viable, and cost effective, answer to our energy needs that doesn't create carbon is nuclear.

Who is to say that traditional solar cells are the future for solar - or that wind turbines will always be how we harness wind energy?

 

[BartenderElite]

Except, that battery, solar, and wind technologies are all well-established engineering issues that have been around for well over a century now. They are not new technologies and there really isn't anything that's going to come along as a breakthrough with them.

No new technologies?

Aren't they already working on things like bio-solar & simulating photosynthesis?

That's kind of an odd blanket statement. There are going to be ways of harnessing solar & wind that no one has thought of yet. I know I keep saying that - but it's true.

 

[Nordberg]

link doesnt take me to article.. incremental improvements wont do it.
If batteries are ever able to hold enough power for spikes, cold cloudy days - get back to us

Incremental improvements will do it. I'm back. You will of course define incremental to your advantage. Is an 83m percent improvement in a year incremental?https://www.powermag.com/best-is-yet-to-come-for-energy-storage-technology/ I am lot older than almost all of you and I am looking into the future more than you knuckle draggers. Embrace the furture.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Who is to say that traditional solar cells are the future for solar - or that wind turbines will always be how we harness wind energy?

The watt density of sunlight is somewhere between 164 and 320 watts per day per square meter of the Earth's surface. That is an unalterable fact. You cannot get more energy out of that square meter than is put in. That too is an unalterable fact. Right now, the best solar PV panels convert at a rate of about 20%. Even if you double that efficiency, even triple it, you still can't meet the needs of society for energy using solar. That's how bad it is.

Wind has the same sort of limits. The wind blows only so hard, and the amount of energy in it depends on altitude and velocity. Conversion to power requires some means of taking that mass of air that is moving and using mechanical motion to turn it into electricity.

There's simply no way around these limitations on these systems. You can't make more sunshine, or more wind. Also, with wind if you are taking it and converting the energy in wind to electrical power you end up with less wind. That too is an unalterable fact. You can't get something for nothing and perpetual motion machines don't exist.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Incremental improvements will do it. I'm back. You will of course define incremental to your advantage. Is an 83m percent improvement in a year incremental?https://www.powermag.com/best-is-yet-to-come-for-energy-storage-technology/ I am lot older than almost all of you and I am looking into the future more than you knuckle draggers. Embrace the furture.

Yep, pretty much incremental.

The company in a recent earnings report said its 2020 energy storage deployments “for the first time … surpassed 3 GWh in a single year, which is an 83% increase compared to the prior year

(from your article)

By year-end 2018, there were 125 systems in operation, with 869 MW of installed power capacity.

The US uses about 10.4 million MW of power a day. 869 MW of storage represents less than 1 / 100,000th of US daily usage. That is, NOTHING! Tesla's portion of that is less than NOTHING! Embrace reality!

 

[BartenderElite]

The watt density of sunlight is somewhere between 164 and 320 watts per day per square meter of the Earth's surface. That is an unalterable fact. You cannot get more energy out of that square meter than is put in. That too is an unalterable fact. Right now, the best solar PV panels convert at a rate of about 20%. Even if you double that efficiency, even triple it, you still can't meet the needs of society for energy using solar. That's how bad it is.

Wind has the same sort of limits. The wind blows only so hard, and the amount of energy in it depends on altitude and velocity. Conversion to power requires some means of taking that mass of air that is moving and using mechanical motion to turn it into electricity.

There's simply no way around these limitations on these systems. You can't make more sunshine, or more wind. Also, with wind if you are taking it and converting the energy in wind to electrical power you end up with less wind. That too is an unalterable fact. You can't get something for nothing and perpetual motion machines don't exist.

I mean, once again - you're only talking about the current state of technology.

We won't have to wait that long. Something will come along in the next 2 years that will be completely outside of the limitations you keep talking about.