It’s funny how everything surrounding Hotcoldwetdry requires Government, particularly the Central Government, eh?
Feds must step in or renewable energy will have nowhere to go, says MIT report
Building wind and solar farms is an important part of building a new green grid, but a calm night stops their energy generation cold. It’s just as important to research and build green energy storage — and to that at scale requires federal intervention as soon as possible, suggests a new report from MIT.
“The Future of Energy Storage” is part of a series looking at the transition of power sources in America, and this one is particularly relevant given the momentum currently enjoyed by the solar and wind industries. Too much renewable energy sounds like a good problem to have, but if it can’t be relied on as a city or region’s main or only source of electricity, they’re going to feel the need to hedge their bets with a coal plant or something like it.
Wait, it’s unreliable? I wish I had mentioned that before
The solution is basically batteries: store excess power when the sun is out and the wind is high, and run off them at other times. It’s hardly a revelation, but the increasing reliance on what the study calls “variable renewable energy” means that what battery capacity we have isn’t nearly enough. We’ll need to increase it by orders of magnitude and across the country (and eventually the world, of course — but not every country is equally prepared to make this shift).
But the problem is this: Wind farms and solar make money, while storage facilities … don’t. Sure, they might break even on the long term, but they aren’t the easy money that solar farms have become. The most efficient and green energy storage options, like pumped hydro, are incredibly expensive and limited in the locations they can be built. While the most easily accessed technologies, like lithium-ion batteries, are widespread but neither capacious nor organized enough to serve as a grid supplement.
They’re also very expensive, and, since the greenie-weenies restrict our ability to mine the materials required to build the massive batteries, rather difficult to create
This is where the Department of Energy needs to step in, MIT says. The federal government has the means both to subsidize the utilization of existing storage options and to fund intensive research into new and promising ones. A hydrogen energy storage system could be a game changer, the report notes, but it isn’t going to fund itself. Like other critical infrastructure, it must be paid for up front by the feds and paid off over time.
So, basically, the Government needs to build them, and pay for the monetary loss incurred with the batteries. Because why would the private sector build them if they are going to lose money? These energy companies are making nice bank on the expensive cost of the wind turbines and solar farms. I will say, though, that I have said for a long time that if the feds want to spend taxpayer money on the “green” stuff (I’ve also stated many times that I am in favor of clean energy), spend it on research and development.
And then there’s the matter of the cost of the energy itself. The report warns that even with adequate storage, the cost of power would fluctuate far beyond the norms we’ve established today with our consistent (but dirty) fuel-based sources of energy. Maybe peak power today costs twice as much as off-peak power — but in 10 years, that gap could be much wider. On one hand, the low-end cost would be nearly zero — but peak power might be far more expensive.
Wait, it’s expensive? Huh. Who knew?
The U.S. is at a good point for the feds to step in, and if they do so it will be watched eagerly by other countries working on making a similar leap. The report notes that India, for a number of reasons, is also facing a growing power and emissions crisis, and the U.S. may serve as a useful test bed for proving out technologies that could serve their larger population similarly well.
And then the feds have compete control over your energy usage. They’ll know what you use, and we can all trust the federal government to do the right thing, to take a light touch, to leave you alone, right? Really, this is not sustainable or affordable at this time, and it will be a long time before it is, unless there is some breakthrough.
While there was the government aided rural electrification project, almost all electric power generation in this country was built by private industry, expecting to make a profit off their investments. How is it, then, that the warmunists believe that the government simply must step in and provide what is necessary for ‘green’ power to build, survive, and thrive if it’s so very, very great?
‘Green’ power must compete with ‘brown’ power that has been subsidized for a century.
Although pollutionists deny it, it’s clear that the Earth is warming rapidly from the CO2 pollution from burning fossil fuels. Critically, taxpayers and societies, and NOT the fossil fuel industry, is paying for the remediations and damages from global warming. That’s a subsidy of trillions. No wonder deniosaurs feel/claim that global warming is a scam.
The US invests billions in the nuclear power research. In addition, the US government subsidizes the liability insurance for the nuclear industry since private insurers will not insure for the total potential payouts in case of a nuclear accident.
To anyone that desires to respond to Jeff, know that we have educated him in all these points numerous times and he still does not understand. After he doxed himself we were able to see the books of his listed corporation and he actually takes the same tax breaks as the oil companies. Jeff has never, ever linked CO2 to any weather or climate. We have pointed out numerous times the failings of green power which is a greater pollutant than fossil fuels.
So if you desire to waste a moment of your life, go ahead and respond to our mental troll.
david g porter is an ignorant white nationalist and cyberstalker who thinks typing his fact-free opinions is “educating” someone. He feels/believes his hero, Don Jon tReason, won the 2020 election that was lost by over 7 million votes.
Typists such as david p good are upset that someone disagrees with their lies.
You will note that Mx porter never actually refutes anything, but just whines, which is the language of the American winger.
Oh, the irony…
I’ll let the FBI know you have been hacking corporation networks, you dumbass.
Sure you will, Rimjob.
So scary.
Another hollow threat from the keyboard kommando.
#Liars&KiddieDiddlers
#LetsGoBrandon
Bwaha! Lolgf
Jeff,
Certainly let the FBI know that I accessed legally available finically information that is required to be available for a listed corporation. Now don’t think that is stalking, I only desired to know how a corporation went from better than $21 per share to $1.30, I think that was the last listing. When I found it was your fault for not rechecking the stats on your drug, my opinion, I thought it appropriate considering the time you spend here calling people names and passing along worthless information.
What is also interesting is how quickly Rimjob’s company burned thru over $180 million dollars in less than 3 years without obtaining a patent.
Not surprising though if Rimjob was involved.
#Liars&KiddieDiddlers
#BelieveTheLie
Bwaha! Lolgf
“wither” not “whither” in headline
Chemical batteries are currently expensive but of course their costs will go down in the future
Water storage batteries (pumping water back up over a dam) are about 90%efficient
The number of viable sites for pumped storage is very limited. We have one in Michigan that acts as load leveling for conventional sources.
J must be off his meds again-“green power must compete with brown power that’s been subsidized for a century”. Tax breaks and depreciation allowance aren’t subsidies, which is mostly what fossil fuels receive. For our resident genius, it’s actually the other way around-ff must compete with unreliables because in many places unreliables have mandated use. Wow-they’re so good their use must be forced on us. But there’s more-“the damages from global warming..” What damages? You mean increased crop yields and a greening earth? Scary. “Earth warming rapidly from CO2”. You must eat the same cereal our Johnny does-care to show proof of “rapidly”? And of course it’s irrelevant even if it’s warming rapidly-it would be the alleged effects that would matter. Ever notice how the bed-wetters usually stop at “it’s warming!”
“Government subsidizes liability insurance for nuclear”. Oh, my-up until, well, now, nuclear wasn’t thought to be green. The EU recently changed their mind on that, conveniently, because their unreliables weren’t doing the job-which shows you it’s not about science but about politics
Jill pulls this stunt each and every time subsidies of industry are mentioned. Blah, blah, blah. Seen it all before, Jill.
She ignores that the negative externalities of pollution end up falling on society, not the industry. She says this is not a TRUE subsidy. She will argue that CO2 is not a pollutant. She will debate “rapidly”.
She doesn’t deny that nuclear energy has received subsidies.
She repeats Mx Teach’s disinformation that it’s not about science but politics, ignorant of the FACT that it’s both. It’s always been both. Politics is the action based on scientific knowledge.
Rimjob: Politics is the action based on scientific knowledge.
Now do Solyndra.
#Liars&KiddieDiddlers
#TrustUs
Bwaha! Lolgf
Funny-“same stunt every time subsidies of industries are mentioned….” You mean as opposed to your stunt of continually mentioning them to begin with? So in other words you are incapable of refuting my facts about subsidies. Shocking. “It’s not a true subsidy..” No, it’s not, as “subsidies ” are money given by the government; tax breaks are not. And fossil fuels return billions in the form of taxes from the sale of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. So returning billions to governments is the the opposite of governments giving money, don’t you think? In effect, a negative subsidy. But thanks for the verbal run-around. “The negative externals of pollution falling on society..” So you can’t list them? You mean that as your “pollution” has gone up, so have life expectancies, crop yields, world-wide GDP, literacy and poverty levels down,,ect?
“Doesn’t deny that nuclear receives subsidies”. Hello-I never mention nuclear and subsidies, I said nuclear( and gas) until recently, or whenever you guys make your minds up, hasn’t been thought of as “green” till it became convenient to do so.
“Will argue CO2 isn’t a pollutant”. False premise-you’d first have to prove it is. As CO2 has gone up, so has the quality of life on the planet.
You have to look at the energy density of batteries… LiPO batteries are currently the best… and have a power density between 250-680 W-Hr/L. So given that a typical power plant is 1000 MW… So for every hour of storage, that’s 2,000,000 liters batteries, before you add the space for battery management electronics, temperature control, and maintenance access. That’s a cube 16 meters on a side. Double that for the access, control & electronics. for every hour of run time…. for every plant.
I stopped by when I saw the headline I was sure Jeffty would come up with some innane, pointless and dogmatic comments.
I was not disappointed.
Oh Stormy… nothing to add. As usual!
Photovoltaic Solar holds great promise, thermal to a lesser degree, but in either case the technology is just not ready for market, never has been. So far it’s been a complete boondoggle. The definition of a false economy. “Pennywise, pound foolish” and “robbing Peter to pay Paul” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I have no problem with the responsible subsidizing of research but the truckloads of cash that have been pissed away on the current solar, EV, and battery technology so far has only made a few really rich assholes a little richer while creating more of a mess. That and plumped up the campaign coffers of the even worse assholes that created and administered the programs in the first place. These .gov programs, besides the obvious corruption, are actually stifling advances in the technology. Why make a product better when you can bribe some politicians to pay you for your shitty one? And guess where all that cash comes from, you and me.
Solar panel and battery technology needs to get to a place where the raw materials can be obtained without creating ugly humanitarian and ecological disasters on every continent first. Wouldn’t that be a nice start? Jesus fucking Christ, we’ve got half the planet losing sleep over sustainable coffee production, but we can’t apply the same market forces to solve this little inconvenient snag in the green process? Apparently not while our elected “officials” are on the tit! All we see are a vapor trail of decrees and rulings, commanding utterly unattainable (ambitious, we’re told) shifts to “renewables” as though that sort of thing could be accomplished by fiat.
Then let’s work on improving the efficiency such that the hardware will at least have a prayer of producing as much energy as it took to create it over its service life and figure out how to recycle the parts afterward without adding to the environmental troubles created by the mining and manufacturing operations that it took to produce them.
Pretending that we’re on the right track with the current “green technology” is absolutely psychotic, and it’s not helping the citizenry, the consumer or the planet in the least. The collective “actions” by governments, as usual, have created a cure that’s way worse than the disease. Every time we’re told by our betters in authority that they have devised some wonderful new green ordinance, it just costs us more and makes everything just a little dirtier. Meanwhile, if some actual genius were to come up something that was genuinely a great advance in the field, someone (usually driving several black Tahoes) would purchase the patent and we’d never see it again. So it goes.
Oh, and wind is a joke that never made sense even in theory and should be immediately abandoned.