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www.reuters.com
That is China, not the US. China is faces with a very large population with rising expectations. And their leaders have to deliver. However, the Chinese are installing more renewables than any other nation in the world. Our situation is far different. We have renewables that generate electricity for far less cost than the coal fired plants that it makes economic sense to close them down and replace them with renewables. But it would be a shame to just abandon the technology there. This may well be a way to make good use of that existing equipment and provide clean energy as well as make a profit doing it.China continues to build more coal-fired plants and it looks like they are going to start importing more coal to keep the lights on. So much for the idea of shutting down coal-fired plants.
China energy crunch triggers shutdowns, pleas for more coal
China faces mounting pressure to ramp up coal imports and ensure supplies to keep lights on, factories open and water flowing as a severe power crunch roils the northeastern industrial heartland.
Funny but your video does not mention how much power these thermal storage units can generate and for how long they can operate when fully charged. At about 8:14' in the video, mention is made that "precise figures are not yet available", Everything to this point is based on a simulation with the hope that a pilot plant might be built in 2022.
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Well, the heat of fusion for water is 79.7 calories per gram and that of aluminum is 92.4 calories per gram, so allowing for inefficiencies, whatever weight of aluminum you have will convert an equal weight of water into steam. Since this plant is acting as a peaker and backup plant, you are not looking at it as 24/7 generation plant. By the end of 2022, we should know whether this is a viable solution.
www.ise.fraunhofer.de
Thank you for the link. Sounds like they are trying to cover all the bases. Yes, hydrogen storage is another way to store grid scale energy. It is not very efficient, but we are using what is basically free energy to create it, and it can be stored indefinitely. Energy storage, like energy generation, is not a single solution problem. Location, costs, amount of energy needed on peaks, all are factors in choosing what is the best solution for a given location. As more people install solar with battery backups, and a number of companies develop programs like Tesla's Autobidder, the grid will become more robust and stable. Add in grid scale storage of the various types, and the future looks very good for less costly energy and more of it.I appreciate your honesty. There is presently no way of saying if this is a viable option for energy storage but I have to say that thermal storage has a number of limitations including the inability to store energy for an indefinite period of time. The goal shouldn't be to simply find a way to convert existing coal plants but rather to find the most efficient and cleanest means for producing and storing electricity.
Here is a company that was built on solar energy production and is now moving into the field of energy storage:
Electrical Energy Storage - Fraunhofer ISE
Fraunhofer ISE conducts application-oriented research on electrical energy storage, developing solutions for grids, industry, and renewable energy systems.
Their idea is not new but they are demonstrating the possibilities of using solar energy to create hydrogen. This makes sense in a number of ways:
If you want to convert coal plants this is potentially the better way to do it.
- hydrogen is a clean burning fuel
- it can be stored until needed (indefinitely)
- it can be used by a number of different industries, as well as to provide energy to the grid (replacing natural gas, coal, diesel, etc.)
- ......
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China has the most robust solar industry in the world. They have strong windturbine manufacturers. They are installing more renewables than any other nation, and planting more new forests than the rest of the world put together. Yes, they have to quit talking and actually begin cutting their emissions. I think they will do that out of self interest. They are feeling the effects of climate change as much as we are. The past two years of continual flooding has taken a huge toll on their economy. And they have huge areas of agricultural land that are at risk if sea level rise continues to increase.When a progressive starts talking about coal as it relates to China, one will notice it is serious unicorn chasing. All theoretical crap....devoid of reality. If AGW is really a thing, the existence of China makes any discussion of mitigating global emissions laughable on its face. Any serious person understands that. The green dumbasses are not serious people. Nobody with half a brain takes China's green efforts seriously.
Fact: China is building 2-3 new coal plants EVERY MONTH for the next 9 years. Only unicorn chasers think they will mothball them. I mean........c'mon now!
Let face it......only a complete mental case thinks we can mitigate global emissions in the face of that.
"Renewables became second-most prevalent U.S. electricity source in 2020, per EIA. In 2020, renewables generated a record 834 billion kWh of electricity, or about 21% of all the electricity generated in the U.S., according to the Energy Information Administration, coming in second to natural gas at 1,617 billion kWh.Jul 29, 2021"
www.hydroreview.com
Take out the hydro and see what's left... ROFL."Renewables became second-most prevalent U.S. electricity source in 2020, per EIA. In 2020, renewables generated a record 834 billion kWh of electricity, or about 21% of all the electricity generated in the U.S., according to the Energy Information Administration, coming in second to natural gas at 1,617 billion kWh.Jul 29, 2021"
Renewables became second-most prevalent U.S. electricity source in 2020, per EIA
In 2020, renewables generated a record 834 billion kWh of electricity, or about 21% of all the electricity generated in the U.S., according to the EIA.
View attachment 545689
Hydro is not increasing, solar and wind are. Look at the line from about 1960 to 2000. We had by 1960 built out most of the usable sites for hydro, and the line for renewables was pretty flat. About 2000, the wind turbine technology became cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels, then about 2015, solar did the same. And both solar and wind continue to decrease in cost, as grid scale storage is also doing. You are going to see the renewable curve steepen up even more as the power from hydro remains the same, or even decreases because of the current Western drought.
The volume of electricity is falling...that's how those numbers were fudged.
www.osti.gov
Very interesting. Noticed immediately this does not include cost for construction, or handling of waste. Just the cost of running the plant. Evaluated in that manner, the cost of Solar and Wind are close to 0 per kw/hr. When I was young, and they were first touting the building of nuclear plants, these same people said that they were failsafe, and would produce electricity so cheap it would not be metered. LOL Also noticed this article was dated 2002. That is 19 years ago, so why are we not seeing a bunch of these reactors now?Cost of Electricity from Molten Salt Reactors (Journal Article) | OSTI.GOV
The cost of electricity is estimated for a molten salt reactor based on evaluations at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and compared to the ORNL pressurized water reactor and coal plant estimates of the same pre-1980 vintage plants. The results were 3.8, 4.1, and 4.2 cent/kWh for the...
The cost of electricity is estimated for a molten salt reactor based on evaluations at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) .... 3.8cents/KW hr
And lets not forget that to get 1.8 GW of power you only need to install 2 GW of generation capacity because a reactor runs at better than 90% capacity 24/7/365
