I claim credit for being the first person to demand a demonstration project to show how a zero emissions electrical grid is supposed to work, before trying to build such a thing for our entire population of three hundred million as involuntary guinea pigs.
How could it be that lots of others haven’t been demanding this for years? It’s like everyone has lost their minds. Before climate hysteria set in, the idea of attempting an engineering project as enormous as a zero emissions electrical grid for the United States, or even for one state, without first having a functioning demonstration project, would have been completely unthinkable. But under the powerful sway of the fear of climate armageddon, the need for a demonstration project to prove feasibility never seems to occur to anybody. And thus trillions of dollars are getting spent — wasted — on facilities that anyone with a brain can easily see will never come close to providing a zero emissions grid — although building these facilities will greatly drive up the cost of electricity to consumers.
Let me then welcome an important new voice to the still tiny chorus of those demanding a demonstration project. The new voice is Congresswoman Harriet Hageman of Wyoming. (Ms. Hageman is the woman who took out the former Wyoming Congresswoman, Liz Cheney, in a primary in 2022.). Here is a picture of Ms. Hageman from her website:
Ms. Hageman went public with her demand at a town hall held this past Tuesday, August 6, in Jackson, Wyoming. She proposed that the ultra-liberal town of Boulder, Colorado, step up as the potential guinea pig. Wyoming-based news source WyoFile had the story on August 7, with the headline “Hageman proposes a Boulder, Colorado, fossil-fuel-free experiment.” Excerpt:
[Hageman] proposed a pilot project that would strip Boulder, Colorado, a progressive enclave, of its fossil fuel infrastructure — all to be replaced with windmills and solar panels on the city’s open space. “The pilot project is, you take out all their gas stations,” she said to a crowd of about 70 people in the Teton County Library. “We take away all their internal combustion engines — cars. We take away all of their highways and streets, because that’s all oil-and-gas-produced.” . . . “They’ve been a no-growth city for decades,” Hageman said, “so they have a lot of open space around them. We fill out open space with windmills and solar panels, and we’ll see if we can actually run a city of 100,000 people [with] no fossil fuels whatsoever.”
According to WyoFile, Hageman’s remarks drew a response of “applause and laughter” from the supportive crowd in Jackson. However, the WyoFile reporter took the proposal to a City Councilman in Boulder named Mark Wallach, and asked for comment. Wallach was not amused. Here is Wallach’s reaction:
“One of the things that makes people so leery of politics and politicians is when people make ridiculous suggestions like that,” [Wallach] said in a telephone interview with WyoFile. “Nobody on the Boulder Council suggested we can do without all the fossil fuels at this point,” he said. “We make efforts to do better — to recognize that climate change is real and we do things we can do to combat it.”
Well, Mark, what am I missing? If the good people of Boulder are demanding that the whole country be force-marched to a zero emissions future, why shouldn’t they be willing to step up themselves and show that the goal is feasible to achieve? A simple zero-emissions-grid demonstration project is all that it will take.
And, if I might make a suggestion to Ms. Hageman, there is no need to be punitive about this. The claim of the green energy advocates is that electricity from wind and sun are cheaper than electricity from hydrocarbon fuels, and that electric cars and electric heat will be cheaper and better than the cars and heat we have now. So there is no need to forcibly take away the cars and the gas stations. Just have them build the magical zero-emissions grid and, if they can do it, they will have plenty of electricity to power everything, and the gas-powered cars and gas stations will rapidly fade away.
The problem is that it is not going to be possible to build a zero-emissions grid. However, the people of Boulder clearly think that it is going to be possible, and I am perfectly willing to be proved wrong.
But my confidence that I am right only increases with time. The closest thing that the world has to an attempted demonstration project of a zero emissions grid continues to fail spectacularly. That would be the Gorona del Viento project on El Hierro Island in Spain’s Canary Islands.
I have written about the El Hierro project many times, and will not go into the full background here. Suffice it to say that El Hierro was absolutely intended to be a demonstration of a zero emissions grid. A facility of five large wind turbines and a massive pumped-storage hydro backup facility (Gorona del Viento) was built and opened in 2014. The website of Gorona del Viento continues to proclaim on its opening page: “An island 100% renewable energy.”Hah!
It’s an island of about 10,000 people. Average electricity demand is 4-5 MW, and peak demand is about 7.5 MW. Roger Andrews did an independent analysis of the project for the Energy Matters website back in 2017. They built wind turbines with nameplate capacity of 11.5 MW on a mountainside in the trade-winds zone — about the most favorable wind conditions in the world. The hydro storage facility has a capacity of some 270 MWh, which is about 54 – 68 hours of average usage. (By contrast, New York governor Kathy Hochul has a big storage initiative to spend about $10 billion to build one hour of storage.). Doesn’t it sound like El Hierro has what they need to make this work?
Here are the latest statistics from Gorona del Viento, for the full year 2023. The percent of electricity for the island supplied by the wind/storage system for the full year was 35%. The other 65% came from the backup diesel generator. The best month for the wind/storage system was July, when it supplied 62% of the island’s electricity. But then there was October, when it only supplied 10%.
How could they be failing so completely with so much excess generation capacity and a huge storage facility that no one in the world can duplicate? You’ll have to ask them. I’m just reporting the statistics they put out themselves.
This is the best that anyone in the world can do, at least so far. Boulder: it’s up to you to show how this can be done!
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Hageman called Boulder’s bluff. If tiny El Hierro couldn’t do it, NOBODY can do it.
Deep down, the net zero crowd knows this. Which is why there will never be a larger scale El Hierro demo.
Yeah, the Climate Alarmists don’t want to do a demonstration project because if it fails, what’s their alternative for saving the world from CO2? There is no alternative, so they are going with “hopium” (irrational/unwarranted optimism).
It was richly ironic that NCAR’s latest sooper dooper mega-computer system got located in Wyoming – because WY offered the cheapest most reliable power (coal – fired). Too funny
I think Hawaii should be consdered for the experiment, They claim to want to get of fossil fuels so we should help them go for it.
“And thus trillions of dollars are getting spent — wasted — on facilities that anyone with a brain can easily see will never come close to providing a zero emissions grid…”
************
Having a brain is one thing. Actually using it is something else altogether.
As Trump has pointed out, common sense is not common.
Trump was not the first to say that.
Likely because the wrong brain is being used. They’re passionate in their beliefs and, such as their passions are ignited, the blood rushes from their big brain to their little brain and we all get screwed
In a word…Capacity-Factor. Just because they have a Nameplate capacity greater than their need there are still times when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine and the battery is depleted and can’t be refilled because the sun isn’t shining and the wind is calm
Some fun capacity factor numbers. In the ‘best’ US on shore wind sites, it has run about 31% for the past decade per NREL—in the most favorable on shore wind locations. In the UK, it has run about 26% for the most favorable.
Meaning that something like ~3/4 of the time, you need storage or backup.
El Hierro was 38% CF because of very favorable siting (ocean trade winds, a mountain top) and they still failed miserably. Was not pumped storage geography per se. Was not enough wind to pump the storage while still suppling the small island grid.
When you cannot physically get there from here, you won’t no matter how hard you hope and try.
Not only is storage needed 3/4 of the time but HYUGE overcapacity is needed to refill that storage capacity when weather conditions are favorable… Likely sufficient to recharge your storage in a single day.
Pumped storage is a great option provided you…
Have a favorable location for 2 storage lakes with sufficient drop
Have sufficient Dedicated generation to Pump the water back uphill in a matter of hours
A pumped storage project in western Wokeachusetts was working fine for years- with a nuclear reactor just over the border in VT. Then the reactor was shut down after the green blob fought its re-licensing. The blob hates the pumped storage facility as it needs water from the CT River and that causes minor damage to the river’s fauna. So, now they’re fighting to prevent it getting its renewal license. Of course they also hate all fossil fuel energy- they hate wind energy on land- they extremely hate woody biomass energy (they scream that it’s worse than coal) – and now they’re complaining about the many solar “farms” popping up like mushrooms in the forests and fields. The state recently passed a law which will prevent communities from restricting “clean and green energy”.
Joseph;
Many years ago i was part of a project to convert Mount Wachusett Community College from its existing heat source – it was built with all electric space heat – to a new system with a wood-chip fired central boiler plant. New boiler plant building and piping, etc.
At the time, the College had a very active “green/sustainability” program, and the conversion project was hailed as being environmentally correct and “sustainable”.
How ironic that the way things have gone, they will probably have to shut the wood-fired system down and return to the use of electric heat.
I think that college still has the biomass burner but biomass is now considered TERRIBLE in this state- “worse than coal”, claim the idiots. Too bad, because we have millions of acres of crappy forests that can ONLY be improved to the max with more biomass burners, to get rid of the “junk wood”. If you haven’t been there in recent years- now there are 2 wind turbines that dominate the skyline of the campus. I have no idea how productive they are. You can see them for many miles along Rt. 2. More often than not, the blades are not turning. At least one parking lot, across from the windmills, is covered with solar panels. Putting solar on parking lots must be very expensive. Large steel beams hold up the panels. I presume the real need for the large beams is in case a car or truck crashes into them to prevent the entire system from crashing to the ground- on top of vehicles.
Rud,
“Meaning that something like ~3/4 of the time, you need storage or backup.”
Meaning that, in the very least, you need triple the existing capacity if relying on storage, plus however much in reserve.
The figures just do not add up to realism
That of course is for intermittency, where is the inertia, reactive power and short circuit current input going to come from Some claim all of these can be met artificially, but that requires more power, complication and cost.
Like climbing a sand dune of loose sand. Every footstep, you loose altitude.
No – it is the notion of Capacity Factor that leads people down the wrong path. The only valid method is to base calculations on time run data. When you do that, you inevitably find that at 28N, solar panels are better option. Wind can go missing for weeks on end. The unbridled CF of a wind turbine might be 30% but if it goes missing for 2 weeks then that sets your storage capacity. Australia has experienced wind droughts through Jun and Jujy this year.
Solar is more reliable. It is very rare to not get any sunlight over a 24 hour period at 28N. No more than 100MW of solar panels could source 4MW average demand with 270MWh of storage.
I am betting that thee 11.5MW of wind turbine was selected on the basis of a 35% unbridled CF. Using averages does not work unless the storage has infinite capacity.
Rick I doubt even your solar panel example works. See the CA and HI experiments. Lots of brown outs for residents 🙁
Solar is only reliable (though sometimes unpredictable) between 10am and 2pm so a tremendous amount of dedicated overcapacity would be needed to refill the storage in the 4 hours afforded by the sun
Australia has concurrently also had long periods of overcast weather so limiting the solar panels at the same time.
Even sunny Australia has a low average solar CF – only 16.26%.
Similar result from King Island in Bass Straight between Tasmania and the mainland. Small community with no heavy industry.
But they are still trying! https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3883717218
Short survey of islands.
https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/renewables/21-3-the-island-effect
Sorry, this is the correct link for the exciting wave power project at King Island
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-31/wave-power-generator-supplying-king-island-with-electricity/101282070
Hi Rafe.
I was downloading King Is info for my comment below, as you were posting yours.
Same conclusions though 🙂
For convenience here is the official link King Island (hydro.com.au)
Thanks FG, I was too busy to find it this morning:)
Flinders and King Islands, in the “roaring forties”, are supposed to be in one of the windiest parts of Australia, yet even these sites cannot obtain sufficient energy from wind alone to supply their power.
Well this is easy for the El Hierro group to fix – just switch from the “light” water they are currently using to “heavy” water. And since heavy water is damned expensive, it will fit right in as yet another Unicorn Rainbow Fairy Fart spree of spending (wasting) other people’s money to satisfy their bottomless desire for Virtue Signaling. And of course it too won’t work BraHaHaHa, but they got to Virtue Signal, and THAT is all that counts (to them).
BTW, I don’t really fault the El Hierro group or their original idea. I thought it was a grand idea when it was first posted, and I expected it could actually work. I too believe there should be a feasibility “test-bed”, the same as they usually is for most engineering projects. Imagine building a commercial airliner aircraft in the 1980s, or even now, without wind tunnel testing of a scaled prototype. I wish well for El Hierro, and that somehow they can find a way.
Slightly disagree. Followed El Hierro from the beginning EU subsidy requests long ago. Euan Mearns and Roger Andrews did a great multiyear dissection of it over at Energy Matters. Not just failure, assured cost/benefit failure from the outset. (Side note. If any green energy project demands subsidies, you know from the outset it is not economically viable in the real world.)
IF El Hierro proponents had been realistic about the physically then available engineering input numbers, they would never have tried and then spectacularly failed. For example, pumped storage round trip efficiency depends on head, but at El Hierro during design phase was on paper about ridiculous 90%+, NOT the then engineering known about 70%. (Higher the head, smaller the stored water volume, the lower the round trip PS efficiency. Is just the direct engineering consequences of basic electric motor water pumping physics. At any electric motor efficiency, higher heads mean more impeller pumping losses. The reverse is also true—a higher natural hydraulic dam head means more efficient hydropower generation—which is why Lake Powell is perilously close to shutdown on all its unmodied for out of design low hydraulic head generators. They have modified 7 of 16 to be less efficient at design head but functional at low head.)
Hopium is not a chemical element in the Periodic Table. Not even amongst the newer transuranic very fleeting ones.
Yes; I have repeatedly seen the 90% number used for “round trip” efficiency for pumped storage. I always found that hard to believe.
Even if the generator efficiency is 90%, the pump mechanical efficiency is maybe 76% and pump electric motor efficiency is 95%…(0.95 x 0.76) yields 72% efficiency before you even get to the generator.
Keep the pressure on! I worked in the Boulder area quite a bit. It’s two worlds – a bunch of nuts mostly associated with or influenced by the university, and a bunch of smart hard working people in the area high tech. It’s a bit schizophrenic.
Defining a demo project – where does it start? How much is “spotted” from the evil FF world?
King Island in Bass Strait between Tasmania and Victoria in Australia claims that –
The King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project (KIREIP) provides a glimpse of what’s achievable in renewable energy.
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island#
Been at it since 2014, and average years they have achieved 20% of supply from windmills and solar.
Current generation situation is diesel 80%, wind 16%, solar 4%.
I forgot to add this gem –
The King Island Renewable Integration Project (KIREIP) was an initiative of Hydro Tasmania, with the assistance of the ARENA to develop a world-leading, hybrid off-grid power system to supply 65% of King Island’s energy needs using renewable energy. The system is capable of 100% renewable operation, the first megawatt class off-grid system with this capability in the world.
Yet in the 10 years of its installation, ~ 20% a year from renewables has been the actual result.
What’s up with that?
Reality.
Ain’t that the truth.
Simple solution – cull the 10,000 population until it is small enough for the net zero system. No wonder Net Zero is about starving millions to death.
As I recall, Roger Andrews of Energy Matters, also explained that El Hierro is an autonomous community of Spain, and could not finance the project. There was aid from the European Union, and (I think) Spain. Maybe others.
Boulder doesn’t have to go it alone. Let the states, municipalities, and individuals who are convinced of the necessity, as well as those developers who stand to profit from it, invest their own funds and effort in a demonstration project on their own turf. They can choose Boulder since it would be a reasonable challenge and they seem eager to comply.
Instead of putting a gun to our heads and demanding we all jump off together, let them put their money where their mouths are and prove how stupid we the skeptics actually are by taking the leap of faith themselves. They can give us a well-deserved “Told you so!” when they succeed.
I won’t hold my breath, since we all know they are not half as confident or sincere as they pretend to be.
Why don’t the countries build global models of their own and stop using the IPCC models that don’t include the variability of the Sun, which is 99+ of the heat.They don’t include the variability of the clouds which reflect around 30% of the sunlight. And, they don’t include the oceans that can hold heat for 100+ years.
All major countries have their own climate models. They are all based on the “greenhouse” fantasy.
Academia in most countries is no the propaganda arm of government. Peter Ridd is one of the more notable examples of how people in academia is treated for telling the truth.
The problem is not with the greenhouse effect (GHE); it is with the enhanced greenhouse effect (EGHE) assumed in all the CliSciFi models except the Russian ones. EGHE believers assume a very slight CO2 warming results in a large temperature change from a tropospheric Hot Spot. Sorry (not) but no Hot Spot has ever been measured.
Solar panels are a better choice than wind turbines at 28N. If they installed 100MW of solar panels with the 270MWh of storage, they could have achieved their objective.
There is plenty of data around for off-grid power. It is not a matter of possibility it is a matter of cost.
Installing 100MW of solar panels for $100M to supply 4MW average demand over 10 years works out at $285/MWh just for the solar panels.
Australians are gradually being anaesthetised to thee extraordinary costs. Everything involves energy so the high cost of energy is highly inflationary.
Australia is already getting 27% of its electricity from weather dependent sources. 35% if you count hydro as weather dependent. South Australia is over 70% but it leans on other States when there is no wind or sun.
There is just a lot of magical thinking around WDGs. Diversity fairy plays a significant role in most calculations but even a grid as extensive as Australia’s NEM proves the diversity fairy does not exist. A working system based on WDGs will have generating capacity factors in single digits. Anything higher is fantasy.
Rather than trying to embarrass the posers in Boulder into following through on their virtue signaling, maybe what Boulder needs is an incentive.
Find a governmental unit, Colorado State comes to mind, that will pony up, say, $250M or some appropriately sized investment, to prime the pump, so to speak.
We really need someone to try, and fail, in order to make our point but if our approaches prevents that one or two demonstration projects from being tried then what have we gained?
In the climate religion net-zero serves the same purpose as perfection innocence and saintliness does in Christianity, it is a state that believers realise is unattainable but must be continually strived for and falling short instills guilt and compliance.
therefore a basic understanding of anything to do with the early church christian message….
(IGNORE The major heresis – catholicism, greek orthodox gnosticism etc) …ie Paul states very clearly in Romans ALL have fallen short – therefore innocence, perfection, belong to the lost paradise and the eternal after life.
In the meantime the early 1st century church was severely persecuted and people like Latimer and Ridley who stood up for the truth were burnt at the stake, just as those Baptists in the USSR/Russia were hunted down and sent to mental hospitals and Gulag.
You forget these little details thru ignorance.
Public companies require a bankable feasibility study (+/- 15% on Capex and Opex) by law if the want to develop a mine, a manufacturing facility, etc. This is to protect investors, and other stakeholders. Arguably, the public should be protected if they are footing the bill for electric power so they know in advance what all this is got cost them. Government used to restrict pricing for products of “natural monopolies” like power companies, cable companies, heating companies, etc. Probably government is actually breaking laws the way they do it today!
Electric heat may in some circumstances be cheaper than gas heat. My house is 1,600 square feet and heated/cooled buy an electric heat pump. But it is a ground source heat pump served by three 200 ft deep wells drilled into the constant 55 degree earth on my 2 acre property. I did this because gas was not available at my house when we bought it in 2011. There is a gas main about 700 feet from the house but to run a pipe the utility wanted $25K. Instead we installed a ground source heat pump for about $20K to replace an electric resistance heater and air source AC heat pump. About 1/3 of the cost was for the wells, 1/3 for the machine and 1/3 to install it. It works very well. My electric bill for the house averages around $150 per month for everything, heat, cool, lights, hot water and cooking. It is higher in summer than winter because the delta T from the ground in summer is 90 ish to 55 or 35 degrees while in winter it is 35 ish to 55 degrees or 20 degrees. I am told by several HVAC contractors that this is less during the heating months than gas and less in summer than an air source machine. I have no oil service and no fireplace.
All you need to do this is enough land and enough money. Note that my house is quite small at 1,600 ft2. For a typical single family home in my area of about 2,500 ft2 at least 5 wells would be needed and a bigger machine. That would up the $$ quite a bit but could not be done for most such homes around me for lack of enough land as most are on 1/4 of 1/3 acre lots. An apartment building? Forgetaboutit.
Don’t count on Boulder to do anything but wag their “holier than thou” finger. They are well known as the People’s Republic…and that is not a compliment. But they do embrace it. There is no leftist lunacy that they have not tried time and time again. They have for decades been trying to buy or take over the local utility and make it “for the people”. And you know how that goes. The big hurdle was that the Utility (Excel Energy) expected to be paid for their infrastructure and the Boullderites thought it was just theirs. Oh well.
With apologies to Joseph Zorzin, I recommend that Massachusetts be a trial example for Net Zero. 🙂
I would graciously and vociferously recommend Manhattan to test Nut Zero. The Island is easily severed from the mainland grid but I sincerely doubt they could produce all their needs within the confines of the island. I figured to replace heating and cooking with electric, allow for backup battery recharging, electrify transportation AND replacing all current usage with Solar plus Battery would require covering a space the size of Connecticut with panels…and the battery could be a tall building in Battery Park made to look like a giant Duracell… Copper top
For decades, the Adirondacks have been mostly protected from those evil loggers. So now the region can be covered with solar and wind “farms”. I’m sure the green blob won’t mind to “save the planet”. 🙂
Is there much Gang Green on the island?
I wouldn’t want to be in NYC during a power outage: stuck in elevators, looting, car stuck in parking garages, etc. Probably not many climatistas in the city- but I don’t know.
Stephen King wrote a novel with that scenario, I believe.
I hate elevators. I’ll go on them, but I hate them. Ever since I got on the elevator in the Empire State Building back in ’65. It was huge- must have held 30 people and it was extremely fast and scary.
Yeah I’ve been up to the top of the Empire State Building in that elevator too Joseph.
It was one afternoon of a 36C, 87% humidity August day, peak of the tourism season for NYC, so the elevator was packed with all us sweaty tourists, half of whom had garlic for lunch.
I did discover that day that I can hold my breath in an ascending elevator for 102 stories.
I was so relieved when we alighted at the top to breathe in a great big lung full of NYC smog.
They’re working on it. But now many communities have decided they not only don’t like wind turbines on land- they also don’t like solar “farms” built on farm and forest land- but then the state passed a law restricting communities from restricting wind and solar “farms”. Almost no resistance to the idea of a climate emergency- it’s just that everyone is now a NIMBY- they now suggest we can arrive at net zero nirvana by putting solar on every building and parking lot- which of course is a crazy idea.
“but then the state passed a law restricting communities from restricting wind and solar “farms””
That sounds like what the new Labour government in the UK is doing to its citizens. They are not allowing the people affected to legally oppose the placement of widmills and solar.
One more step into totalitarianism. This is what Radical leftists do. They take away your freedoms in order to get their way.
A couple days ago the new UK authorities arrested some people for driving a bus around with a banner that read “Stop the Attacks on Christians” — they are willing to let the jihadi horde do the wet work for them.
The problem is that with modern Progressivism, it’s always up to someone else to make the real sacrifices. The people of Boulder have no intention of sacrificing their comfortable lives for the sake of the green dream. That’s for the deplorable class to do.
But under the powerful sway of the fear of climate armageddon, the need for a demonstration project to prove feasibility never seems to occur to anybody.
I’m the clear exception wanting the climate changers to simply prove a net zero electricity grid for Canberra in Oz with full user pays of course and no bludging beyond ACT borders. That’s even without Canberrans having fully electrified their transport so what more could we ask? No coal oil gas or imported biofuel heating or dodgy outside offsets but just their pure firmed fickle electricity all paid for via their power bills. Show us you’re not all dribble in Canberra.
Ob
Great idea. They would only need about $300 Billion worth of industrial batteries or about $300,000 for every man, woman and child.
They could be guaranteed finance for the thousands of windmills and tens of thousands of solar panels all fully funded by their own power bills and given 5 years to set the thing up.
Canberra could be an energy superpower.
Then of course they would need to do it all again every 15 to 20 years.
“Then of course they would need to do it all again every 15 to 20 years.”
That is another thing not talked about by Climate Alarmists. After spending $TRILLIONS on windmills and solar, all this infrastructure will have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years.
There is a Scottish equivalent that doesn’t make many headlines. The isle of Rhum is not connected to the UK grid. You can read about it here
https://www.windandsun.co.uk/pages/isle-of-rum
The description of the Electrical system is a little way down.
Greens are all talk and no trousers.
“and no trousers.”
That’s because they are perpetually crapping themselves over the latest tipping point leading to the next unprecedented eco-catastrophe … and a constant diet of green
If they add 10MW solar panels into the mix, it would work. According solar gain page:
https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/tools.html#api_5.1
Solar gain on El Hierro is fairly stable throughout year.
10MW of solar would gain 18GWh yearly. That is 5kWh per capita daily.
With their big hydro storage it would work nicely.
10MW of panels is 40,000m2 of panels (500W, 2m2) with spacing it is around 120,000m2 of area. 346m x 346m that is on island of 276km2 area.
Nick Stokes performed a quite good analysis a while back, based on hourly data for the USA. He came up with needing about a 5x overbuild tied in with a modest storage capacity.
A 50:50 mix of wind and solar seems to be a good starting point.
It would certainly constitute a useful large-scale experiment / pilot.
Here they have flexible storage capacity already, worth 2 days of consumption. This is most expensive part of such system. 10MW solar panel price is around 200E per capita. With all install costs, somewhere around 600E, this is acceptable.
Yes, that should be sufficient. It would make an excellent pilot project.
I wonder why our little chat has been downvoted, Peter. As Jim Morrison said, people are strange.
Probably because you used the “N” word –
‘Nick’
Hmm, that brings to mind an experiment to to determine the sophistication of the ‘N’ word vote-bots.
Is just the string sufficient to trigger downvotes?
Depends what sort of day they’ve been having I reckon.
Let’s see what this does:
MATTHIAS: Look. I-I’d had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was, “That piece of halibut was good enough for Nick Stokes.”
…
MATTHIAS: Look. I don’t think it ought to be blasphemy, just saying ‘Nick Stokes’.
MOB: (squealing) Oooh! He said it again! Ooooh!
HIGH PRIEST: You’re only making it worse for yourself!
MATTHIAS: Making it worse?! How could it be worse?! (Starting to dance) Nick Stokes! Nick Stokes!Nick Stokes!
MOB: Oooooh!
HIGH PRIEST: I’m warning you. If you say ‘Nick Stokes’ once more…
It works!
It’s not very effective, though. All those N.S.s for one lousy downvote 🙁
And you believe his results are unbiased and technically accurate?
That particular analysis was well done, although we disagreed about the necessary size of the storage safety margin.
Already wasted huge amounts of money on their current FAILURE.
Why would anyone want to waste any more. !!
To salvage investment and finish project. I was playing with wind turbine, I’ve got around 1,5kWh per year from 500W turbine. Then I played with solar and I’m getting 3200kWh per year makes a little difference.
To complete the experiment / PoC.
Experiments and proofs of concept are almost always net costs.
Or they could just keep bashing their heads again a brick wall.
Would be at least as productive.
When are you two investing?
Financial viability comes later. Spreadsheet exercises only go so far. Then experiments and proofs of concept come into play to validate or invalidate the calculations.
Thomas Watson Jr. is famously quoted as seeing a worldwide market for 5 (or 9, depending on the retelling) of these devices.
I already invested. Solar system works on my house almost three years.
So far it returned around third of investment and 8 months a year I’m enjoying my hot tub heated by surplus from my solar system.
You are far from the first person demanding a pilot project to demonstrate this.
That’s what I’m also asking. Run a test case, a medium sized city of 100.000 people and power it only with renewables for one year. If that doesn’t work then how can it work on a national level? I know how it will end. Just by logic one can tell it’s impossible to power a civilization with renewables. This is just for power generation, I’m not even asking to go fossil free. We are governed by madmen.
Well, like socialism, just because it didn’t work the first (200?) times, doesn’t mean it won’t work NEXT time 🙂
Quote from Independence Day:
We can’t just give up on this. Maybe they will have better luck.