US Grid Battery Storage

[shtferbrains]

Do you really think politicians of any type would tolerate blackouts at minus 30C? Kenney and Moe are in charge of provinces with large wind and solar projects installed with more being built. Are they part of the problem or what?

Reliability is the top of the mind for all politicians and utilities.

Its going to be a step by step process that's not done all at once. Hydro, nuclear, gas, bio mass, geo thermal, cogeneration, wind, solar, tidal plus storage systems are all in the running for what the future will look like.

Heat pumps and net zero and high effciency houses are already being used to cut energy use.

Central Socialist Government planing for massive systems that are working to something that will be better for all the people have a history of creating widespread starvation. They never "planned" it that way it just often goes that way when great socialists ideas butcher up a system that is working.

[shtferbrains]

No, any sensible politicians still left are waiting for the green scam to implode just like it did in EU, California, Ontario. Its the point where physics and fairy dust collide.

Please point us to the new hydro and nuke and biomass projects on the drawing board in Canada. Answer, there are none and none will ever be built again.

The green scam imploded years ago when China an a large part of the world only pretend to participate.
China has a total of 247 gigawatts of coal power now in planning or development.
They have another 73.5 Gigawatts proposed. They are currently using 4.3 BILLION tons of coal each year according to thier numbers. Thier numbers are rarely believable on any statistics.

Canada produces 144 gigawatts of power of which about 28 gig comes from Fossil Fuel.

We could shut down all our non renewable plants and freeze and China will cover it in less than a year.

Talk about looking out your back window when assessing climate change risk.

[poorboy]

Not sure how many solar projects in Alberta are built because they make sense on power production, but because they are being sold to businesses that are wanting to claim they are carbon neutral. That seems to be where the real profit is. Get the solar farm up and running and then sell it to a management company that deals with carbon credits for businesses.

Most of the wind farms are also some how involved in offsets for carbon emitters.

Profitability if the solar/wind farm is secondary.

It must be the unregulated enviroment in Alberta that is driving the construction of these projects for carbon offsets. Does every other province have crown corporations running the electrical production and grid?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Another question. Why do you only consider electrical energy storage as a massive battery bank consisting of chemical or rare mineral cells? There are other simpler, cheaper, and longer lasting existing technologies that could be implemented for storing excess generated reneweable electricity and which could release that energy when needed. Pumping water back up behind an existing dam for example. Or a gravity battery where by electrical energy is converted into potential energy in the lifting a weight up and when electrical energy is reguired the process is reversed and as gravity pulls weight down energy is created. A skysc****r sized builiding could store a lot of energy. We would not even have to build a skysc****r, we have mountains which could be utilized as the backbone of a gravity battery and weights either lifted vertically up a mountain side or could run up a train type track. We need less naysayers complaining about the impossibility of storing energy and more innovators looking at potential storage ideas that are economical and feasiable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery

See my above post in this thread indicating the relative size of pumped hydro vs the miniscule battery storage. It already dwarfs battery storage. And is the only grid scale economically viable storage option we have at this time. At the current cost of batteries, they are really only effective for a short term buffer, to keep the grid stable long enough to fire up the reliable generation when the sun goes behind a cloud, or to allow an organized brown/black out, instead of a catastrophic cascading black out.

Pumped hydro isn't suitable for that purpose. It is actual useful storage good for hours or days. Trouble is, all of Chuck's friends especially the NFU, are against hydro dams. There are environmentalists out there already proposing to drain all the existing dams and fill them with solar panels. This is hardly the environment that would promote anyone to invest in new,or retrofiting existing hydro dams to use as pumped storage.

Lots of other existing prototype mechanical storage schemes in place. Rube Goldberg type contraptions such as the train going up a hill, and the cement blocks lifted by a crane. balloons under water, flywheels in a vaccum with magnetic bearings. In most cases, the round trip efficiency is deplorable, and the installation and maintenance costs prohibitive, have a large ecological footprint, all the usual NIMBY issues.

Reversible chemical reactions remain the most promising potential technologies.

And the prize is so big that there is no shortage of brilliant minds ( and crony capitalists) pursuing the holy grail. I'm optimistic that we will figure out something that is cheap, and efficient, and has a small ecological footprint, and maintenance free and long lasting, and safe. We will eventually take free energy from the sun(and from the sun is certainly not limited to PV solar, almost all our energy comes from the sun, with the exception of geothermal and nuclear), store it so economically that energy will be almost free to the consumers, and an economic boom like we've never known will ensue. Which is exactly the opposite of what the green "watermelons" pushing the current agenda are aiming for. It will be interesting to see the pushback if a workable energy solution ever comes along. Much like how the only current sustainable solution, nuclear, has been so maligned by the same crowd.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Just bumping this post up, since chuck must have missed it the first time.

That would be a massive impossible change. Its never going to be our sole source of electricity.

Well said. But that is not what our politicians are saying.
So, in your own words, what do you think is going to be our source of electricity when we achieve net zero?
Without contradicting yourself, or the NFU, or the environmentalists.

[TOM4CWB]

Just bumping this post up, since chuck must have missed it the first time.

Well said. But that is not what our politicians are saying.
So, in your own words, what do you think is going to be our source of electricity when we achieve net zero?
Without contradicting yourself, or the NFU, or the environmentalists.

The Metaverse Is Already Here
Mark Zuckerberg’s new platform builds on the success of popular videogames.
WSJ Opinion: Simone Biles and Facebook's Mental Health Problem
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0:00 / 4:260:52
WSJ Opinion: Simone Biles and Facebook's Mental Health Problem
WSJ Opinion: Simone Biles and Facebook's Mental Health Problem
Wonder Land: With social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, we have democratized neurosis. Images: Getty Images/Walt Disney via Everett Collection Composite: Mark Kelly

By Andy Kessler
Dec. 26, 2021 10:30 am ET

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TEXT
152

00:00 / 02:43

1x

Are you ready to live in a 3D-navigable, socially connected, conscience-curving, carefree virtual world? Facebook ’s pursuit of this metaverse dream as its next platform is bold, though it may be like swapping out a car’s engine while it’s going 100 mph—hard to do without crashing. Look at Apple as it transitioned from computers to iPods and iPhones. Facebook even changed its name to Meta. “The dream was to feel present with the people we care about,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained. He also promised “immersive all-day experiences.” Facebook may need a new platform anyway if the Biden administration dismantles its current one in the name of antitrust.

This has been tried before. A virtual space called “Second Life” launched in 2003. You could buy digital property and clothes with real money and hang out with other blocky avatars. It was early days. Naysayers in Silicon Valley liked to say that “Second Life” was for those who didn’t have a first one.

2.4 Billion humans play in the Metaverse.... and what do they spend most of their time doing....

KILLING EACH OTHER!

Difficult not to extrapolate where this terminates...

GIANT FLASH... A NET ZERO CARBON WORLD THE RESULT!!!! 99.99999999 infinity % of the Universe... is already net zero carbon based... looks like this 'experiment' is about to terminate itself... Faith, Hope, and Love... do not appear to be where humanity is headed....

As the human instruction manual [Bible] predicts... the chances of the Bible's future predictions not being fulfilled...

99.99999999 infinity % of the Universe's net zero mass imploding into a black hole[Hell].

Difficult not to see this as the probable outcome!!!!

NET ZERO CARBON = TERMINATION OF CARBON BASED LIFEFORMS.

Cheers

[Hamloc]

It is important to note that the electrical grid in North America is interconnected for the most part. Second, electrical usage for cooling now exceeds electrical needs for heating throughout the us. Us brownouts are most common in summers when demand is highest and when solarenergy is most available. Smart Electricity producers are building solar to meet summer peak demand when additional power is most needed. Summer power exports are possible from canada in summer and we can import in winter when we need it.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915

Alberta has 3 export-import power lines. One to B.C., one to Montana and one to Saskatchewan. Each one has a maximum capacity of 600 megawatts. If all 3 were at maximum capacity it would provide between 15-20% of Alberta’s electrical needs, certainly helps but no where near a solution.

Hydro Quebec’s new line to Maine got shut down by voters in that State, it might not be as simple as you think!

[Hamloc]

Another question. Why do you only consider electrical energy storage as a massive battery bank consisting of chemical or rare mineral cells? There are other simpler, cheaper, and longer lasting existing technologies that could be implemented for storing excess generated reneweable electricity and which could release that energy when needed. Pumping water back up behind an existing dam for example. Or a gravity battery where by electrical energy is converted into potential energy in the lifting a weight up and when electrical energy is reguired the process is reversed and as gravity pulls weight down energy is created. A skysc****r sized builiding could store a lot of energy. We would not even have to build a skysc****r, we have mountains which could be utilized as the backbone of a gravity battery and weights either lifted vertically up a mountain side or could run up a train type track. We need less naysayers complaining about the impossibility of storing energy and more innovators looking at potential storage ideas that are economical and feasiable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery

“Excess generated renewable electricity”, this certainly isn’t a problem in the winter. This certainly could apply to generate electricity 24 hrs. a day from solar though in the summer.

[shtferbrains]

The interconnect to the US southwest so ee could buy thier cheap solar overproduction and sell them hydro during the afternoon would answer a lot of problems if you could send it down the line that far.

And had no NIMBY factor.

They are already over the duck curve with solar. They don't have enough when everyone comes home from work and turns on the air con and cooks supper. Sun goes down there early.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

Remember Wiki is a socialist site now and is edited to reflect that.

[chuckChuck]

Just bumping this post up, since chuck must have missed it the first time.

Well said. But that is not what our politicians are saying.
So, in your own words, what do you think is going to be our source of electricity when we achieve net zero?
Without contradicting yourself, or the NFU, or the environmentalists.

Which politicians? Which environmental groups? They don't all have the same views on what needs to be done do they?

All of the above mentioned sources of electricity except for coal generation, which is on its way out in Canada. Plus carbon capture and storage for the remaining fossil fuel plants.

I am guessing of course because net zero is likely to be a relatively long way off and who knows what will happen.