Don Trump Tilts at Windmills: Rescinds All Offshore Wind Energy Areas in the US; current leases up for review
- By Tuur
- American Politics
- 113 Replies
You may not want to get into a discussion about thumbs and favoring techs. Have seen credits for solar "farmed" for the credits more than the energy source. One now defunct company wanted to force utilities to subsidize panels (and their rep looked at our engineer when he voiced that opinion).It's an engineering thing, but it is also about what thumbs are being put on which scales for which technologies. And the thumb has been on the scale in favor of fossil fuels for long time.
Like it or not, what fossil fuels has going for them is energy density. They are incredibly energy dense and more or less portable. Considering that, prior to fossil fuels, steam engines burning whatever was on hand were practically everywhere, it's not like the tech was gamed in favor of internal combustion engines. Even external combustion engines went with fossil fuels when they could, all because of that energy density.
If you have a lot of late 19th and early 20th Century homes in your area, you may be able to see an example. Coal burning hearths are tiny things compared to wood burning hearths, all because of energy density.
That would mean more if your avatar hadn't marched POWs in front of his columns to detonate possible explosives, and forcibly shipped civilians to the North.I don't care what some poem says, and certainly not one by Kipling.
I don't know. I know that the Southern company dropped duel reservoirs pretty quickly after, in a demonstration attended by reporters and film crews, the water turned red when the turbines shredded a school of fish. They abandoned one project, which was completed by Oglethorpe Power, but I don't think they pursued more after that. I've seen articles on molten sulfur batteries, but they must not have been ":all that" simply because while there were a few projects, the tech doesn't seem to be used now. A promising one involving sand for heat storage doesn't seem to have advanced far. Lithium batteries have the aforementioned hazard if they happen to catch on fire, but other than that looked pretty promising. I think Stephen Chu has suggested going to a chemical form of storage where excess power is used to create a chemical, which then is oxidized to produce energy, and that might be pretty energy dense, but know nothing more about it than that.And while I thought the "storage aspects" of renewable energy plans seemed the most far fetched of them all. Storage has made huge strides in the last decade and it is definitely part of energy plans everywhere. Storage is probably the one limiting technology needed for the abandonment of fossil fuel base and surge plants, especially during the hours around sunrise and particularly sunset when demand is fairly high and solar production is modest.
Note that I'm not saying that energy storage is impossible. But we haven't built the storage we need with the tech we have, and the focus seems to be on panels and turbines. IF you want to talk about thumps on the scales to favor some tech over others, maybe if the emphasis had been on that instead of panels and windmills, we'd have more than we have now.
What's on my mind about charge at night is simply that's when most people aren't using their vehicles. It's when today's vehicles suggest scheduling automatic software updates, for the same reason. Whether there's excess generation capacity at night depends on the time of year. Where you have electric heating, like heat pumps or (shudder) resistance heat, demand can be higher between midnight until the sun is up. In hot weather, the bulk is in the evening, then tapering off as air temperature drops.Part of this "charge at night" thing is related to that being the time of day when there was the most excess generating capacity. The switch to solar flips that around making mid-day the best charging time. Unfortunately most cars are "at home" then. It is my understanding that a lot of home solar systems include some modest storage, and frankly 99% of days I could charge my car with a modest storage battery and small solar panel on my roof as I typically drive less than 150 miles per week. The only time this "range issue" comes into play is the few rare overnight trips I make each year.
For a real-world assessment of EV for extended trips, look for an article published this year or last year where someone in the UK decided to try to go on holiday in an EV. Before his trip was over, he had to shift to a diesel. It couldn't be done in his EV due to range and charging issues.
The Monday after Hurricane Helene hit, I stepped out of our main office in time to see a new Telsa Cybertruck cruise past. My first thought was "Where are you charging it?" because we and every other electric utility was putting up powerlines. In comparison, those of us in the damage area were driving out of it to find fuel, and "recharging" in minutes. Either here or elsewhere, did some back-of-the-envelope calculations for using solar panels to recharge vehicles, and a modest (by local standards) shelter could do it, but then there's cost plus you'd have to charge during the day.
The issue of range can really crop during a disaster. I drove 250+ miles the morning after Helene trying to find a way through to check on a family member who didn't live all that far way. Then I went in to work. In fairness, no one local was pumping until they got in emergency generators, the advantage being the longer range than electric plus quick "recharge."
Personal note: To this day I can't stand letting the tank get far off full, all from what I ran into post-Helene.
Normal driving varies. Have racked up quite a number of miles just with every-day driving. But that's part and parcel for rural areas. Places out West are even further apart.
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