How to power California with wind, water and sun

[ScienceRocks]

How to power California with wind, water and sun
How to power California with wind, water and sun -- ScienceDaily

New Stanford research outlines the path to a possible future for California in which renewable energy creates a healthier environment, generates jobs and stabilizes energy prices.

Imagine a smog-free Los Angeles, where electric cars ply silent freeways, solar panels blanket rooftops and power plants run on heat from beneath the Earth, from howling winds and from the blazing desert sun.

A new Stanford study finds that it is technically and economically feasible to convert California's all-purpose energy infrastructure to one powered by clean, renewable energy. Published in Energy, the plan shows the way to a sustainable, inexpensive and reliable energy supply in California that could create tens of thousands of jobs and save billions of dollars in pollution-related health costs.

"If implemented, this plan will eliminate air pollution mortality and global warming emissions from California, stabilize prices and create jobs -- there is little downside," said Mark Z. Jacobson, the study's lead author and a Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering. He is also the director of Stanford's Atmosphere/Energy Program and a senior fellow with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Jacobson's study outlines a plan to fulfill all of the Golden State's transportation, electric power, industry, and heating and cooling energy needs with renewable energy by 2050. It calculates the number of new devices and jobs created, land and ocean areas required, and policies needed for infrastructure changes. It also provides new estimates of air pollution mortality and morbidity impacts and costs based on multiple years of air quality data. The plan is analogous to one that Jacobson and other researchers developed for New York state.

The study concludes that, while a wind, water and sunlight conversion may result in initial capital cost increases, such as the cost of building renewable energy power plants, these costs would be more than made up for over time by the elimination of fuel costs. The overall switch would reduce California's end-use power demand by about 44 percent and stabilize energy prices, since fuel costs would be zero, according to the study.

It would also create a net gain, after fossil-fuel and nuclear energy job losses are accounted for, of about 220,000 manufacturing, installation and technology construction and operation jobs. On top of that, the state would reap net earnings from these jobs of about $12 billion annually.

According to the researchers' calculations, one scenario suggests that all of California's 2050 power demands could be met with a mix of sources, including:

25,000 onshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
1,200 100-megawatt concentrated solar plants
15 million 5-kilowatt residential rooftop photovoltaic systems
72 100-megawatt geothermal plants
5,000 0.75-megawatt wave devices
3,400 1-megawatt tidal turbines

The study states that if California switched to wind, water and sunlight for renewable energy, air pollution-related deaths would decline by about 12,500 annually and the state would save about $103 billion, or about 4.9 percent of the state's 2012 gross domestic product, in related health costs every year. The study also estimates that resultant emissions decreases would reduce global climate change costs in 2050 -- such as coastal erosion and extreme weather damage -- by about $48 billion per year.

"I think the most interesting finding is that the plan will reduce social costs related to air pollution and climate change by about $150 billion per year in 2050, and that these savings will pay for all new energy generation in only seven years," said study co-author Mark Delucchi of the University of California, Davis.

 

[ScienceRocks]

I'd keep nuclear and in fact would expand it. Only a idiot would do away with that.

 

[ScienceRocks]

This would be even easier as I'd build another 50gw of nuclear.

 

[Mad Scientist]

And you can build all those Nuclear power plants right on the fault lines!

 

[flacaltenn]

That's a plan guaranteed to literally kill people Matthew..

 

[ScienceRocks]

And you can build all those Nuclear power plants right on the fault lines!

I'd build them in eastern Califorina away from the fault. They'd all be 4th generation plants with airtight departments for the back up generator.

 

[RGR]

And you can build all those Nuclear power plants right on the fault lines!

I'd build them in eastern Califorina away from the fault. They'd all be 4th generation plants with airtight departments for the back up generator.

As long as we've got plenty of natural gas fired generation on standby to provide less expensive electricity as backup. Eastern California though, just throw up some more of these....just saw it a couple weeks ago...quite impressive...

Ivanpah Solar Power Facility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

of course...keep plenty of natural gas on standby..and the hydraulic fracturing it takes to make sure that supply is ready and waiting for when...well...the sun goes down, or yet another nuke pukes a loogy for some reason...

 

[whitehall]

Wind...WATER, and sun? How do you increase hydroelectric (water) power, by damming up more rivers? Bird killing windmills and acres of solar panels are inconsequential.

 

[Mr. H.]

Wind...WATER, and sun? How do you increase hydroelectric (water) power, by damming up more rivers? Bird killing windmills and acres of solar panels are inconsequential.

Tidal turbines.

 

[RGR]

Wind...WATER, and sun? How do you increase hydroelectric (water) power, by damming up more rivers? Bird killing windmills and acres of solar panels are inconsequential.

yeah, little bit'o'trouble with that water thingy in California. Will be even more exciting when what has been happening to Lake Mead...keeps happening....

But hey, never underestimate the effect of happy-happy thoughts of those with a pie in the sky idea and a government grant to deliver the answer the government wants!!

 

[elektra]

Another Bullshit study, today, after spending billions on windmills and solar farms California can not produce 1% of the electricity required to pump water.

Link to the study, not to an article that contains no fact.

 

[Manonthestreet]

Keep driving people and business out and you won't need to do all that.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Another Bullshit study, today, after spending billions on windmills and solar farms California can not produce 1% of the electricity required to pump water.

Link to the study, not to an article that contains no fact.

Here you go
A roadmap for repowering California for all purposes with wind, water, and sunlight

 

[RGR]

Another Bullshit study, today, after spending billions on windmills and solar farms California can not produce 1% of the electricity required to pump water.

Link to the study, not to an article that contains no fact.

Here you go
A roadmap for repowering California for all purposes with wind, water, and sunlight

Which one will the mack trucks use, the wind, the sun or the water? What is the thought, stopping every 20 miles on the interstate to fill their batteries up?

Or should they just tank up outside of the state, do their deliveries in the state, and then plan on driving back to Oregon, Nevada or Arizona to refuel…what with wind, sun and water not working so well for 60,000# tractor trailers? Plus, this idea will allow academics to say they don't have to worry about this kind of energy, it not being "in the state" and all, because they can get real fuels elsewhere!!

Love it, see, I can do pie in the sky too!!

 

[Old Rocks]

Wind...WATER, and sun? How do you increase hydroelectric (water) power, by damming up more rivers? Bird killing windmills and acres of solar panels are inconsequential.

Tidal turbines.

Better yet, this system;

Unique hydro energy system harnesses slow water currents

We have some rather large and permanent currents off of both coasts.

 

[ScienceRocks]

How about using the gulf streams current to power the east coast? Maybe build a huge wave turbine system to use that energy...

Maybe we can build it to around 100 or more gw.

 

[whitehall]

How about using the gulf streams current to power the east coast? Maybe build a huge wave turbine system to use that energy...

Maybe we can build it to around 100 or more gw.

It's your post. How do you explain it?

 

[Politico]

He can't.

 

[Old Rocks]

How about using the gulf streams current to power the east coast? Maybe build a huge wave turbine system to use that energy...

Maybe we can build it to around 100 or more gw.

It's your post. How do you explain it?

Renewable Energy From Slow Water Currents

We can use slow moving ocean and river waves for a new, reliable and affordable alternative energy source. A University of Michigan engineer has developed a device that acts like a fish that turns the potentially destructive vibrations in water into clean, renewable energy. This machine is named as VIVACE ( Vortex Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy). It is the first known device that could draw energy from most water currents around the world, according to a statement from the University of Michigan. “There won’t be one solution for the world’s energy needs,” VIVACE developer Michael Bernitsas, a professor at the U-M department of naval architecture and marine engineering, said in the statement. “But if we could harness 0.1 percent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people.”

VIVACE can work in flowing water moving slower than 2 knots, or about 2 miles per hour. Here it should be noted that most water currents are slower than 3 knots, while turbines and water mills need an average of 5 or 6 knots to operate efficiently. VIVACE doesn’t need waves, tides, turbines or dams. It’s an unequaled hydrokinetic energy system that relies on “vortex induced vibrations.” Think like a fish not like a bird, say researchers of the University of Michigan. Because in water, nature has invented a different strategy for natural swimmers. If we observe the movement of a tiny sperm or a giant whale, we will see that they generate vortices (or little whirlpools) that they push off of to propel themselves forward. Michael Bernitsas of the University of Michigan, realized that these same vortices could be used to drive a generator. He and his colleagues have invented VIVACE whose cylinders oscillate up and down in moving waters. “This device works naturally in the marine environment,” says Bernitsas.
Bernitsas’ team has developed a working prototype in their lab. The spring-supported cylinder moves up and down in a tank of moving water. As water bangs into the cylinder, this action induces turbulence which transforms into a vortex. The vortex eventually rolls off the back, giving the cylinder a little push as it goes. The next vortex that forms will spin in reverse and give a push in the opposite direction. These opposing forces cause the cylinder to vibrate up and down. The high density of water, makes the vibrations about 800 times more energetic than they would be in air at the same speed. Due to this, the VIVACE system can produce three to 10 times more energy from a given volume of moving water than tidal turbines.

This is a cat that can be skinned in many ways.

 

[DriftingSand]

Not a fan of wind turbines. Eyesore; not overly effective; dangerous to eagles and other birds.