Wow, this EPA guy (Joseph Goffman, EPA Associate Assistant Administrator & Senior Counsel) thinks that renewables are going to make up 30% of the power grid by 2030. That may be, but the big hidden gotcha in that is that 30% is not power on demand. It is at the whims of wind and clouds. By replacing that much of the power grid with transient energy, look for brown-outs and black-outs in our future. What happens in a major heat wave (which they predict will be more frequent) and the wind does not blow? Watch the video:
youtube=http://www.youtube.com/embed/AcNTGX_d8mY
See also this report: Renewable Energy Poses Security Risk, New Paper Warns
The reality today:
![fig_if7-1[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/fig_if7-11.png?quality=75)
Source: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/elec_proj.cfm
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Richard, you are right. However, I would point out that it was not a wasted exercise, dealing with Roger’s fantasy energy project. Just puzzling out the nature of his fantasy project was a good intellectual exercise, especially since he gave out just small bits and pieces of it at a time, and it appears there was never a serious effort by MIT to verify the validity of the concept. Those of us who are engineers, or have done technical work with this type of concept, are always eager to jump into the deep end of the pool and start wrestling with some of the thin bits of reality that were dangled in front of us. I have often done that with science fiction movies (which are normally much more fiction than science), arguing whether a particular planet could support a particular monster, or whether there could be suspended animation, and often laughing at Hollywood’s ideas about nuclear material or power. I do pledge to ignore Mr. Sowell’s rather ignorant posts in the future, though.
a 25 meter power sphere would weigh about 10,000 tonnes since it does not float on water. While there are a couple of heavy lift cranes that could manage this, they are few and far between. 10,000 tonnes of concrete is about 4000 cubic meters of concrete. Since a 25 meter sphere is 8200 cubic meters, the sphere will be about 50% concrete, with a wall thickness of 2.5 meters. The interior volume remaining will only be about 4200 cubic meters.
in comparison. a pool 100 meters by 100 meters by 10 meters deep has the same effective volume as 25 power spheres. All that would be required to contain this in an earthen pool on land is a vinyl sheet. If the water was lead down a hill thru a pipe to a similar pool 1500 meters below and you are done.
@ferdberple – that is the Bath County Power station of Dominion Virginia Power. But it uses a little bigger pond than a swimming pool.
As rule of thumb, 1 cubic meter of water, failing 1 meter per second can generate 1 Kw. So, with a 1500 meter head, a 100,000 cubic meter pool (100x100x10) will generate 1 Mw for 150 seconds. After that you need to refill the pool.
The reason that Obama has been so successful at tearing down the nation’s economy and is continuing to do so through the EPA is because of the insulation he has with Harry Reid and his party controlling the Senate. He is beyond impeachment, even if the House could muster the berries to attempt it, since Reid would merely block it ever coming to the floor. Clinton was “impeachable” on the grounds that the “opposition party” controlled the Senate. Same for Nixon. If there ever was a good reason for the citizens of the US to adopt a 3rd party, the fact that a president can destroy the nation through executive power with absolute impunity because his party controls the Senate, should be it. If there ever was a good reason to ditch the two parties that exist at this time, what is happening is reason enough. Since this relates to the proposed EPA actions, I don’t consider the comment off topic.
ferdberple says:
June 3, 2014 at 5:10 am
The “power spheres” are no different in function than water reservoirs on land. Except that they are significantly more complex to build and maintain as compared to the amount of energy they can store. Concrete does not like to flow in spheres, it like to lie flat during forming, making curved surfaces difficult at best. There are also issues with the pumping efficiency of air (compressible) as compared to water.
I think to the solution to the construction project is slipform construction….
But alas more junk science from MIT.
What a crappy institution it has become.
The ONLY way to create a truly accurate computer model of any complex system:
The methodology used by the soft sciences of economics and climatology cannot do this and, as a result, innumerable unknowns can easily cause huge prediction errors even if the models appear to follow observations temporarily with current economic and climate models not even managing to accomplish even that.
The emperor has no clothes…
The idea that hundreds, even thousands, of arrays of 1000 windmills each per sphere is an answer to our energy challenges is absurd. We are talking hundreds of thousands of windmills in an aggressive, corrosive environment. Pressure vessels that can withstand the marine environment. And are not only seawater and offshore weather resistant, but airtight as well. The water has to be either pumped up and out or pushed out by air pressure push down. Either way, the energy required for that is a *lot*. The you need require dependable marine environment rated turbines to drive the generators. The more I consider this, I think it is in a way even worse than our current windmill fiasco. The MIT plan requires hundreds of thousands, if not millions of giant offshore windmills. Each of which will need regular and prompt maintenance on a timely basis. Think of a hurricane knocking out thousands of windmills and their infrastructure in a few hours. Think of big slow winter Nor’easters inching up the Atlantic coast. Significant areas of the seafloor devoted to giant concrete spheres, displacing sea floor habitat in thousands of places.
The article is clever. Fun even. But for an idea that moves this country forward, it is a cure that is worse than the alleged problem it is claimed to be designed to fix.
Distributed generation (by for example powered by natural gas, diesel, or even biomass) will cause many more (smaller) points of emissions with short stacks much closer to where people actually live. The current infrastructure still has centralized power plants, with very high stacks (300-500ft tall), often far away from urban areas (where most people live) emitting therefore into back ground/regional air, and not directly into the air people breath.
Natgas is projected to peak at $8-10 over the next few years: http://stockcharts.com/public/1269446/chartbook/174021131. IF this is the case, then renewables will become economically more attractive (that’s not that same as cheaper btw…) and become an even larger share of the overall total energy portfolio (still small though). This will, however, further undermine grid-reliability due to renewables’ intermittent nature.
What is frightening is that they have created a singular word for migrating birds that catch fire flying over solar farms: streamers.
What is frightening is that they intentional ignore the high energy expense to create solar panel grade silicon along with all the hazmat the process produces.
What is frightening is they refuse to acknowledge cost, available science and impact to the economy as required by law under the Clean Air Act.
What is frightening is they claim lives saved yet are unable to measure any lives saved since c02 output has dropped.
What is frightening is people actually believe what a lawyer and make believe ‘scientists’ tell them.
Where will we get carbon fiber for wind generation from once our energy gets cut? The carbon production from oil is being shut down, carbon from coal is being shut down, and carbon fiber from chemical (oil) is also being shut down.
Where will we get high temperature energy to create our carbon/carbon materials and solar panel quality panels?
Where will we mine the materials needed for both items when all mining is being shut down?
Did EPA ever consider the cost and impact of the materials used in each items? I don’t think so. IN fact, I am very sure they did not.
America’s future:
http://www.weather.com/travel/ruins-rust-belt-abandoned-buildings-photos-seph-lawless-20140206
Obama is from Chicago: From above link:
pic 16/30 Inside an abandoned police station in Chicago, Ill. (Seph Lawless)
pic 28/30 An abandoned apartment in Chicago, Ill. (Seph Lawless)
Something that always intrigued me was the distribution network instability in Germany caused when the renewable portion of the supply reached 3% of the total.
A DOE insider told me last year a study had found that the US network/grid couple tolerate an 80% renewable level AS IS. Mark me incredulous.
It reminds me of the reports that John Perkins concocted out of thin air when he was hired as an Economic Hitman (see his book by the same name for details). It is stuff just made up to convince people to spend vast sums of money for putative benefits that will never manifest, all the while creating hopeless debt servitude to giant banking institutions.
Shamelessly fraudulent! ‘Carbon pollution’. 25% less soot? This is simply trying to hoodwink the uninformed.
I don’t know how you stop this lunacy, but you should.
The narrator has effective hand gestures – not quite arm waving, or is it? – as he smoothly sequed from one thing to the other without offering any specifics, but including the obligatory, ominous possibility:
http://www.epa.gov
Bobby Davis says:
June 2, 2014 at 8:09 am
It is a shame that the American people will only wake up when they see their utility bills go through the roof. Everything else that the need to buy in order to survive will also go up in prices, like food and the cloths they put on there back. All because of higher energy costs across the board. Only then will this country wake up to the fraudsters that are controlling more & more of our lives.
Just went to the grocery store that is already a reality today!
Alexander Slocum, the Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT; Brian Hodder, a researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative; and three MIT alumni and a former high school student who worked on the project.
Roger, Roger, Roger….. How, how, just answer me please. How and where are you going to construct these “spheres” and how do you do that under water so no-one can “bitch” about seeing them or “polluting” our views , Where oh Where?? And just add to that how much renewable energy is that going to require just to built one?? OH and let’s leave alone the requirements to first of all built the initial renewable energy sources you need?? (I am getting a headache). You actually start to sound like the a fore mentioned high school student
Roger Sowell says:
June 2, 2014 at 3:22 pm
If you will grant me an hour or so to commute home, I will try to answer the serious inquiries on MIT’s storage system.
Biking?
The MIT spheres will do exactly the same function: draw power from the grid at night to pump water out of the spheres.
I guess for free?
Perhaps when Sowell makes a post to any future threads pertaining to ‘renewables’ then someone could note his record of trolling such threads and his ‘contribution’ be left at that?
bingo and thanks although Janice makes a point as well, I liked the back and forth. (well at least the forth).
Roger Sowell, so and so man posts…
I am a researcher and I like the idea of pumped storage. I have often put up this idea myself when discussing renewables. And I must say that the idea of the submerged spheres is interesting and intriguing. From a research point of view.
Btw, I am Norwegian. We have lot of hydropower, we are world champions in renewables for electricity generation. Noone comes close.
And, my field of research is maintenance…offshore maintenance….subsea to be specific. I can tell you that maintenance of anything under water, regardless of whether it is in the water or in a compartment under water, is in no way trivial. It is difficult, dangerous and expensive. We know, because we do these things every day on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Technically, the spheres are feasible. Practically? With the kind of attitude you display….No.
Well I apologize for getting Roger’s degree wrong. He is a Chemical Engineer not a mere chemist. Now my daughter has just finished a degree in Chemical Engineering. I like to discuss thermodynamics with her as it is part of her degree rqmt. I enjoy the discussions greatly. And yet Roger’s posts are as far as I can tell devoid of thermodynamic considerations (such as pumping losses). It is a wonder. They also seem devoid of corrosion issues. One might think that such issues were CRITICAL to chemical engineers. My daughter is currently doing some European travel. I’ll have to ask her about corrosion when she gets home.
Any way – the short version is that the storage problem has not been solved in an economical way by the magic concrete spheres.
I wonder how this would change the calculus: http://www.ecatnews.net/
psi says:
June 4, 2014 at 10:08 am
I wonder how this would change the calculus: http://www.ecatnews.net/
I says:
If it can ever be independently verified, it’s a possibility.
Otherwise it’s simply another attempt at purported cold fusion.
For short/long term energy storage, I’ve always thought that separating hydrogen from atmosphere then running it back through fuel cells might be an option – at least on land, for large generators. So far I haven’t see a hydrogen separation process efficient enough to make it worthwhile, though.