![UD_logo[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ud_logo1.gif){kind=logo}
From the University of Delaware a press release that made me laugh out loud when I read it for the sheer disconnect with reality. The bold in first sentence about the 99.9% is mine. See why I think their press release is ridiculous following the PR (besides the fact that is is just another model made from unicorns and rainbows).
Wind, solar power paired with storage could be cost-effective way to power grid
Article by Teresa Messmore Dec. 10, 2012–Renewable energy could fully power a large electric grid 99.9 percent of the time by 2030 at costs comparable to today’s electricity expenses, according to new research by the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College.
A well-designed combination of wind power, solar power and storage in batteries and fuel cells would nearly always exceed electricity demands while keeping costs low, the scientists found.
“These results break the conventional wisdom that renewable energy is too unreliable and expensive,” said co-author Willett Kempton, professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. “The key is to get the right combination of electricity sources and storage — which we did by an exhaustive search — and to calculate costs correctly.”
The authors developed a computer model to consider 28 billion combinations of renewable energy sources and storage mechanisms, each tested over four years of historical hourly weather data and electricity demands. The model incorporated data from within a large regional grid called PJM Interconnection, which includes 13 states from New Jersey to Illinois and represents one-fifth of the United States’ total electric grid.
Unlike other studies, the model focused on minimizing costs instead of the traditional approach of matching generation to electricity use. The researchers found that generating more electricity than needed during average hours — in order to meet needs on high-demand but low-wind power hours — would be cheaper than storing excess power for later high demand.
Storage is relatively costly because the storage medium, batteries or hydrogen tanks, must be larger for each additional hour stored.
One of several new findings is that a very large electric system can be run almost entirely on renewable energy.
“For example, using hydrogen for storage, we can run an electric system that today would meeting a need of 72 GW, 99.9 percent of the time, using 17 GW of solar, 68 GW of offshore wind, and 115 GW of inland wind,” said co-author Cory Budischak, instructor in the Energy Management Department at Delaware Technical Community College and former UD student.
A GW (“gigawatt”) is a measure of electricity generation capability. One GW is the capacity of 200 large wind turbines or of 250,000 rooftop solar systems. Renewable electricity generators must have higher GW capacity than traditional generators, since wind and solar do not generate at maximum all the time.
The study sheds light on what an electric system might look like with heavy reliance on renewable energy sources. Wind speeds and sun exposure vary with weather and seasons, requiring ways to improve reliability. In this study, reliability was achieved by: expanding the geographic area of renewable generation, using diverse sources, employing storage systems, and for the last few percent of the time, burning fossil fuels as a backup.
During the hours when there was not enough renewable electricity to meet power needs, the model drew from storage and, on the rare hours with neither renewable electricity or stored power, then fossil fuel. When there was more renewable energy generated than needed, the model would first fill storage, use the remaining to replace natural gas for heating homes and businesses and only after those, let the excess go to waste.
The study used estimates of technology costs in 2030 without government subsidies, comparing them to costs of fossil fuel generation in wide use today. The cost of fossil fuels includes both the fuel cost itself and the documented external costs such as human health effects caused by power plant air pollution. The projected capital costs for wind and solar in 2030 are about half of today’s wind and solar costs, whereas maintenance costs are projected to be approximately the same.
“Aiming for 90 percent or more renewable energy in 2030, in order to achieve climate change targets of 80 to 90 percent reduction of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the power sector, leads to economic savings,” the authors observe.
The research was published online last month in the Journal of Power Sources.
=============================================================
So they say all this can happen by 2030. Riiiiight.
Exhibit 1:
CHART OF THE DAY: The Epic Implosion Of The Green Energy Bubble
Exhibit 2: Renewables have a long way to go:
![640px-Total_World_Energy_Consumption_by_Source_2010[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/640px-total_world_energy_consumption_by_source_20101.png?quality=75)
Source: Total world energy consumption by source 2010, from REN21 Renewables 2012 Global Status Report.
Exhibit 3: Other credible sources figure only an 8% growth over current levels by 2030.
![World-Electricity-Generatio[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/world-electricity-generatio1.jpg?quality=83)
Source: Sustainable Energy Review, Oct, 2012.
Exhibit 4:
![wind-turbine[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wind-turbine1.jpg?quality=83)
During the study period, wind generation was:
* below 20% of capacity more than half the time;
* below 10% of capacity over one third of the time;
* below 2.5% capacity for the equivalent of one day in twelve;
* below 1.25% capacity for the equivalent of just under one day a month.
Source: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-below-advertised-efficiency/
Ok, they could never get there assuming only a halfing of solar and wind costs from today, when we consider the cost for batteries.
The key is here:
“The cost of fossil fuels includes both the fuel cost itself and the documented external costs such as human health effects caused by power plant air pollution. ”
Just estimate sufficiently high “external costs” and you can get there. Now, but not many people actually get ill from power plant exhaust assuming flue gas scrubbers… how do we get to the needed high external costs?
Here, the magic of runaway greenhouse warming comes in. Assuming that CO2 will destroy the entire planet, it will COST THE WORLD.
So, Solar + wind + batteries may cost the world as well and are still competitive in a study like this.
as for their 58 billion combinations they ran through: Oh well, how impressive. A 32 bit integer offers 4 billion bit combinations so they ran through a 36 bit value space. Sorry if that sounds less impressive.
UN turning the world in a permanent state of alarmism: http://en.vedur.is/about-imo/news/nr/2572
That largest wedge of ‘renewables’ that is biomass heat will include the burning of forests and dung in the Third World. Something we are supposed to be eliminating to save the eyesight of women cooking over dung stoves and save the forests for the furry animals and birds… so I’d not be touting how great that renewables wedge was, were I a Green…
Please! Don’t insult us ‘computer jockeys’ (not jocks… we’d like to be, but…) We get contracts from some loon asking “Can you make the computer do this?” and we say “For this much money” and they pay… we don’t make up the crazy requests, we just make the computer go!!!
😉
Those guys were “Grant Jocks”… looking for a rent-a-geek to tell them what the blinky lights mean and how to make the “Machine that goes PiiiNG!” go…
@Tom O:
Being on the bleeding edge of that cost increase curve, we’ve got nearly 30 cent / k-W hour electricity “in the wings” soon and $1/2 / k-Whr on the docket for approval. As a result, I’ve started cooking on the camp stove part of the time… It’s cheaper than the AEK. (Eventually I’ll put in a gas stove in the kitchen) I’ve also started looking at DIY electricity generation. Not economical yet, but close. Using a nat gas generator it will be… So planning one of those Honda gogeneration machines ‘when the time comes’…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/camping-at-home-is-cheaper/
Not what I’d prefer, but you do what you must… Started using the BBQ (charcoal) rather than the oven too. It, and propane, are both cheaper. Of course, burning meat and dripping fat over charcoal isn’t nearly as clean on the air as the All Electric Kitchen, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem with ‘only’ 4 million people in the S.F. Bay Area smog basin… many much more strapped for cash than I am and much more willing to embrace “alternatives” to Alternative Electricity…
(Somehow I think the Greens have not thought through the consequences of their price manipulations…)
@crosspatch:
Where I grew up, the peach orchards had nice natural gas wells scattered in them. Cleanest and neatest part of the whole place. A little 10 x 10 or so square with a neatly painted pipe and valves and some kind of what I think was a pump thing. Oh, and a fence. Used to drive past one on the dike along the Sacramento River (Yup, all of about 40 FEET from a major river / drinking water for millions) when we’d go fishing. Never even saw so much as a truck drive up to the thing, though they must have at least once a year or three to paint it…
I’d have put one in the back yard if they let me…
@mbw:
The largest DC distribution line in the USA to the best of my knowledge:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
Runs from the Washington border to Los Angeles ( now you know how California can get by without building any power plants… ) Capacity about 2 GW. You’ll be needing to build dozens of those to move the power around the nation as the wind blows in one place, or another, then stops…
Don’t need to check their 28 Billion Combinations. That’s going to be a set of ramping combinations of the much much fewer known technologies. ( In fact, anyone with a brain would have programmed the problem to find the optimal points on any of those ramps with a binary search and cut the combinations down to about 1,000 scale “right quick”… but that wouldn’t look as good on the report, so they burned a lot of computer time for political feel good numbers for the
propagandadocument.) A really really bright person would look at it and spot the bogus combinations not even worth wasting time looking at right up front. (so, say, you know that Wind in the Central Valley of California basically never works, so you don’t even ‘test’ it, as you know the wind there is nearly zero most of the year…)But back at their Unicorns…
Hydrogen storage? Please. Show me an industrial scale fuel cell running on hydrogen from wind electric water breakdown… doesn’t exist. COULD there be a FUTURE hydrogen storage system? Sure. Worth some R&D money too… from venture capitalists, not taxes.
They’ve already picked the winner, despite it not existing at scale as a known to work product. Yeah, right…
Oh, have I mentioned it isn’t all that easy to keep a whole bunch of DC interties in sync over a dozen or twenty different grid connect points? Or to reverse them at will?
You will also need a lot of petroleum coke or similar for your ground planes and such.
But I’m sure nobody will object to 2 MILE rings of “petroleum coke” filled trenches being sunk into the ground all over the country… I mean, what could possibly be of concern with GW of power and carbon…
It’s EASY to just distribute 200 GW of power all over the country. (Since that’s the installed capacity, that’s how much you must be able to move…) So only a 100 or so of those things, call it 200 end point grounding stations. Oh, and all the feeders and distribution at each end…
(Somehow I don’t think they included the word “logistics” in their paper… )
@ATheoK:
“Inland Wind” isn’t as silly as it sounds. Thanks to the Rocky Mountains and Canada, the wind flows most steadily and at the right speeds over a large part of Oklahoma / Texas and related areas. There are already giant wind farms in Texas ( to harvest California Green Dollars…) and it’s one of the better places for it. Far fewer people to be made sick and irritable by the infrasound pollution.
Yes, it would be vastly more sensible to build a couple of nukes in California and not make Texas look like a wasteland of Three Armed Bandits… but hey, they make money off us and we get to ‘feel good about it’… 8-(
@F. Ross:
Oh Dear… only 1/5 th? OK. Make that 1,000 DC Interties with 2 mile circles of Petroleum Coke buried in the dirt… (Wonder if there’s enough petroleum to make that much…)
@A.D.Everard:
As I’ve “Lived The Dream” here in California under Gov. Grey (out) Davis…
We had regular ‘rolling blackouts’ and sporadic longer failures. Ended up owning 2 generators and was in the process of building a battery box / inverter set up to cut down on frequency of using said generators… then we had a recall election and I didn’t need that any more…
I still have the inverter I bought (corner of the office.. just in case). And kept the little 1 kW Honda (just fine for most emergencies. Runs the entertainment cluster, lighting, and fridge. Last used a week or so ago during a storm related outage of 1 hour.) but sold the 5 kW Generac to a friend. It was loud as a chain saw and a PITA. (Used it a couple of times under Gov. Grey (out) for the washer / dryer and A/C. But since he’s gone, never needed more than an emergency hour… so the Honda was enough).
So, some experience based advice for everyone as we all collectively go through this insanity:
1) Buy a Honda generator. They run like a sewing machine. 56 dB (i.e. can’t hear it much at all with it outside). I’d likely get the 3 kW version for most uses. The 1 kW is fine for anything short of ‘whole house’ or major appliances, though. You find these being run all day every day all round the world by vendors and all sorts of folks.
2) The Natural Gas / dual fuel is the best option if you expect lots of power outages or longer term crazy electric rates. Honda didn’t make a ‘three way fuel’ propane / nat gas/ gasoline one last time I looked, but some folks made conversions… I’d likely do that for a more permanent solution. Then it can ‘go camping’ on propane, work at home on Nat Gas for economy, and in a real disaster take gasoline from a can.
3) For farms or more “commercial” settings, get a Diesel. (Honda at one time made a sweetheart 12 kW that I drooled over… Hey, I ran facilities and had to have computer room backup too … but seem to have discontinued it.) The local shopping center has a large commercial dual fuel Diesel / Nat Gas rig. Cummings Engine in it, I think. Get them for commercial use. You can run effectively forever on the nat gas, but in an emergency / post quake no gas, can run for a few days on Diesel. If you don’t mind noise, there are some 3 kW scale Diesels that look decent.
4) A 1 kW inverter cost me something like $70 at Costco (many years back). Nearly trivial to put a battery charger to some batteries and some 1 kW inverters to selected circuits. That’s what I was doing when “things changed”, but will likely be doing again.
So one easy ‘fix’ is just some battery / inverter boxes in selected places that ‘buffer’ the incoming circuit to the devices plugged in. Junks ups the floor with a UPS box (like a large hat box), but keeps the lamps and TV on… Once that’s in place, it becomes very easy to just cut over to the generator. Unplug UPS from wall, plug into generator line. Buffers the surge demand too, so the generator can power more total.
5) If you KNOW it’s coming, and not leaving, there’s no need to do this kind of slow phased incremental process. Just get an Onan or similar whole home generator and a commercial UPS box. Cost is about $12,000 (IIRC).
Yes, I’d really rather NOT be in the DIY Electric Utility Business, but I live in a Democratic Dominated Green Dream State, so it’s that or live in the dark… from time to time…
So yes, they would decide to just junk it all for the NEXT fantasy. That’s why I had started building my own solution… Frankly, if I’d known how long it was going to go on, I’d have just done a commercial quality Diesel / nat gas generator install and been done with it. OTOH, the piecemeal was more fun and cost a lot less…
Useful Metric: On one occasion for the Honda Diesel, I discovered that the cost per kW-hr in cents was the same as the $/gallon shifted by a decimal. So $4.00 Diesel gave 40 Cent /kW-hr electricity. That ought to hold for other Diesels (or close.) As we’re headed for 50 Cent tariff Real Soon Now and Diesel is under $4, it will shortly be cheaper to run your own Diesel here than buy from the utility. About parity even before that if you get untaxed offroad Diesel). Nat Gas here is running about $1.50 / Gallon of Gas Equivalent (GGE) and is the cheapest. It’s already economical to make your own electricity from Nat Gas (on a direct fuel basis – not on a full maintenance and capital amortization though.. but close).
So as the Green Dream / Nightmare hits, a lot of folks will start ‘rolling their own’ with natural gas and Diesel. It’s economically insane as well as thermodynamic stupid (nat gas turbines run about double the efficiency); but that’s what will happen as the “social cost” burden ladled on gets too high.
Either that, or we’re all going to end up living in Texas…
John M says:
December 10, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Not if your butterfingers quarterback still can’t hang on to the ball! As this should indicate, I am a Green Bay Packers fan. Lol!
This bunch in Delaware is cut from the same cloth as those who pushed for renewable power in Germany–and here’s what happened there:
========================
Almost all predictions about the expansion and cost of German wind turbines and solar panels have turned out to be wrong – at least by a factor of two, sometimes by a factor of five.
–Daniel Wentzel, Die Welt, 20 October 2012, at http://thegwpf.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=40cadd5219&e=c1a146df99
When Germany’s power grid operator announced the exact amount of next year’s green energy levy on Monday, it came as a shock to the country. The cost burden for consumers and industry have reached a “barely tolerable level that threatens the de-industrialization of Germany”, outraged business organisations said. Since then politicians, business representatives and green energy supporters have been arguing about who is to blame for the “electricity price hammer”. After all, did not Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) promise that green energy subsidies would not be more than 3.6 cents per kilowatt hour? Now, however, German citizens have to support renewable energy by more than EUR 20 billion – instead of 14 billion Euros. How could Merkel be so wrong?
–Daniel Wentzel, Die Welt, 20 October 2012
outtheback says:
October 25, 2012 at 10:36 am
Depending on how one does the numbers I think that Germany will find that they have to increase the levels of subsidies even further in about 5 years as the solar panels installed pre 2007 will start to reduce their output and will need to be replaced if the output per panel is to be kept up. The earlier wind turbines will come to the end of their life also, if any of those early ones are still going by then.
For anyone to replace their existing panels/turbines the current subsidy will not be enough to be viable as they won’t have made real money yet of the original installation. Although I am sure that on paper you can make it appear so that it looks like one made a euro or two.
The good news is that the manufacturers of panels and turbines are looking forward to those times as it will mean an increase in demand, replacement and new installations. More work for installers also. With a bit of luck we can re-use the vast concrete pads the turbines stand on, so that saves, but then perhaps they won’t pass the stress tests to last another 15 years.
The landfills will become flooded with obsolete panels, old turbine magnets and blades. And possibly millions of cubic meters of concrete.
Ever increasing levels of SF6 in the air, already detectable, as a side effect of panel production and increased mining for rare earth minerals for magnet production leaving an ever increasing number of toxic tailing ponds in their wake.
Is this the green world the “greens” had in mind?
Pingo says:
October 25, 2012 at 11:14 am
Germany has a big problem. They need two ramp ups of gas turbines each day. You have the morning peak, which solar can’t cover. You also have the evening peak, which again solar can’t cover. The middle of the day is fine, and energy prices approach zero due to huge amounts of solar generation. But how do you cover the cost of gas fired plants having to ramp up twice a day…
Oh yeah, the consumer pays. And then ends up blaming the “energy monopoly” (or something like that). Therefore the government has to intervene and do something..
And so the problems gets worse and worse.
Despite being expensive and unreliable, ‘renewables’ might make some sense if a cost effective way of storing electricity could be found.
In this study, they propose using batteries and fuel cells. These are proven technologies, but both systems would be extremely expensive and dwarf the capital cost of the wind and solar power units they are supposed to support. Then there is also the cost of all the new power lines to be built, which does not seem to have been considered.
At the end of the day, the only beneficiaries of this type of system would be the Chinese manufacturers of the equipment.
Anyhow, the subject of ‘renewables’ is moot, as the USA already has the answer to its energy problem, it is called fracking. The greenies/lefties/loonies/Gazprom in the rest of the world are doing their very best to stop the development of fracking, as it makes too much economic sense.
Why not use the excess power to drive wind turbines in reverse, to create wind. Then harvest the wind later ? Keep the unicorns cool, too.
“The authors developed a computer model to consider 28 billion combinations of renewable energy sources and storage mechanisms…”
A computer model? So it must be correct then, eh? (sarc off)
Drat.
I meant to say “batteries and fuel cells. These are proven technologies, but both systems would be extremely extensive and be a multiple of the capital cost of the wind and solar power units they are supposed to support.”
The three fatal flaws of solar and wind power are:
1. High capital cost,
2. Unreliability, and
3. Cost of electricity storage.
The unpleasant side effects of solar and wind power are:
1. Unsightly,
2. Noisy (wind only) and
3. Need massive subsidies to compete with coal and gas generated electricity.
I am reminded of when I lived in Switzerland in the early ’90s. At the time, France had a lot of nuclear power plants which need a minimum load for some reason, but they couldn’t supply full demand at peak periods either. So the Swiss had a smart deal, they bought the excess off-peak power from the French and used it to pump water up hills to their hydro-electric dams. Then, during France’s peak, when the French system could not meet the peak demand, the Swiss generated hydro-electric power from the water pumped up and sold it back at a premium because it was peak period! I believe, but can’t verify, that the Swiss made a profit on the whole thing. The dammed lakes were used as massive storage batteries.
I’m also an optimization kind of guy, loved OR at Uni and used it occasionally professionally so perhaps one thing to take away from this article is that we could perhaps minimize energy costs significantly if we can implement mass energy storage systems, irrespective of the generation methods and that in principle would be a good thing.
Hydrogen TANKS? Ah. Does this mean for long term storage?
I may be operating under a misconception—or even three.
However, it is my understanding hydrogen is one of the, if
not *the*, most difficult substances to contain in any container.
This is the main reason we don’t have a hydrogen-based economy,
it’s just too damned dangerous.
Or am I wrong?
..
If there ever was an opportunity for such a massive system to be built, it’s now in Germany. Maybe this bunch from DE could persuade the country’s powerful green faction to double down on its bet on renewables, instead of moving from nuclear to coal. The result would be an object lesson, one way or the other.
I love objective research with no hint of conflict of interest or bias or following the research money.
Be objective now.
I will take their word for that they are in no way influenced by BIG WIND. Imagine if a paper came out in support of shale gas and its lead author had similar links to the gas industry. There would be howls of “shills” / “under the pay of big gas”.
This is a computer model in turtles all the way down. These people are calling themselves scientists , of what field? If they where researching real stuff like how to store energy with real technology and not a turtle stack, maybe we could stop laughing at them. Sadly many will be sucked in mainly the loud and useful idiots.
” developed a computer model”
I always find that phrase convincing.
Modelling the health effects on humans for fossil fuels to include in their estimates looks like they are using ecological economics. It is another branch of post modernism. One branch is post normal science. They hold since there is no such thing as truth and because the observer has a natural bias, then selecting the data to justify the conclusion is faultless.
Therefore, don’t be surprised at this nonsense. Wind towers have a very bad effect on health of people and animals in their path, let alone the birds they kill and presumably insects. Could a case be raised that wind towers are destroying diversity?
It is obvious that the solution to the use of renewables is the law. At present the necessary laws are not in place. Legislatures can and do change laws. Write your congress-critters and demand the the 2nd law of thermodynamics be changed in order that the production of energy for nothing is permitted.
Another remark
“Renewable energy could fully power a large electric grid 99.9 percent of the time by 2030 ”
Even if it worked this would cover only about one seventh of the ENERGY needs of a develop country, at least that’s the ratio for Germany, as three seventh of ENERGY needs are for heating and three seventh are for (currently non-electrically driven) transport needs. (Electricity for trains is of course part of the one seventh electricity in our energy mix.)
Hang on a minute. A couple of weeks ago, on the BBC Today program, a representative of Renewables UK stated that in the UK renewables were generating just under 10%
So wind power is generating just under 10% That’s impressive.
For anyone who might doubt that figure (some horrible sceptics who actually look at the data might say the real figure is closer to 2%), there’s an obvious answer:
Surely, no one would tell lies on the BBC.
Would they?
” we can run an electric system that today would meeting a need of 72 GW… using 17 GW of solar, 68 GW of offshore wind, and 115 GW of inland wind,” said co-author Cory Budischak, instructor in the Energy Management Department at Delaware Technical Community College and former UD student.”
Here in Sweden we on average get a duty cycle of about 11 % for solar, 20 % for inland wind and 30 % for offshore wind, so those 200 GW would on average produce about 45 GW, not 72 GW.
If we very optimistically count on 30 % for solar (located in Arizona presumably) that means that 183 GW of wind must on average produce 67 GW. 67/183 = 37 % which is unheard of for inland locations and very good for an offshore installation (based on actual production figures, not computer models).
I have spoken to Willett about their wind tower at the Univ of Del. Here is a website that shows the power output of the turbine. http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/lewesturbine/
templedelamour says:
December 11, 2012 at 1:33 am
“I’m also an optimization kind of guy, loved OR at Uni and used it occasionally professionally so perhaps one thing to take away from this article is that we could perhaps minimize energy costs significantly if we can implement mass energy storage systems, irrespective of the generation methods and that in principle would be a good thing.”
I’d be the first to invest in a commercial operator of such a system who basically exploits the newly introduced unreliability of an electrical system half-destroyed by political meddling. Never let a crisis go to waste! Of course there is a rather big political risk – people might actually elect a sane government that stops subsidizing unreliable energy sources and lets the market decide about the price. In such a case, a wind or solar kWh would be priced at nearly zero while a reliable base load kWh would be about as expensive as today, at least on average.
In a market, wind and solar have the huge problem that nearly all the contraptions deliver at the same time irrespective of demand. Driving the price to zero and even into negative when the grid is close to overload.
So the operator of a storage could exploit that. Oh, here’s another HUGE political risk: An Obama/Chavez style caudillo might decide that the storage operator is ripping off the poor masses and go into socialist shakedown mode.
So… We have political risk from sanity and political risk from the environmental/marxist side … maybe I’d take a pass on the investment.
“Renewable energy could fully power a large electric grid 99.9 percent of the time by 2030”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability
And those would not be scheduled outages but would come just as you were getting the kids ready for school or during a conference call with your sales team or while you are getting Thanksgiving dinner on the table.
I followed your link Anthony, “…. according to new research by the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College.”
There’s just a single error.
Their date is out by 31 days. “Journal of Power Sources – Volume 225, 1 March 2013, Pages 60–74”
@crosspatch
Your original comment: “While it is an increase of 8% share, it is an increase of 135% in power output.”
Yes, the increase in raw output is 135%, but the increase in share is 40%.