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Is Solar + Storage A Net Energy Sink!?


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Is Solar PV even a source of energy when one considers trying to ‘buffer’ it with storage? Does the energy cost of building the solar PV AND the storage render solar PV a net energy SINK rather than energy source? Or, in other words, do you pour more coal and gas and oil into building solar PV + storage than you get back as ‘clean’ energy? Apparently so! Not only this, but we need a minimum of 12 times the energy return on energy invested (ERoEI) to run the modern world. Solar thermal + storage only gives us 9, and that’s the best performing! Sorry folks. The ERoEI of a renewable grid + storage seems to be too low. Nuclear has an ERoEI of about 75. It’s nuclear or it’s climate change. The current state of engineering says so.
morganesfig1.jpg?w=640
http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/

Edited by Eclipse Now
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How about the science of measuring the current state of engineering says so?
Besides: while I'm not ruling it out as impossible, how do you suppose that we'll figure out how to store hundreds of gigawatts of energy with less high-tech equipment than diggers moving earth to make a large hydro dam? (Far more energy storage per unit energy invested than the every energy intensive process of mining and refining all those elements for batteries).

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Yep...its a hell of s problem, especially so when you are witnessing chimpanzees burning the oil for fun.

 

Sadly the solution comes from social psychodynamics: We have too make aconcerted effort to shutdown the last 100yrs of industrialised comfort...not just for the sake of the planet, but for the sake of our own pyschological well being: There is nothing to do literally.

 

,...

ie. What worth is a cat walk model or a Lawyer in a soceity that can procure a panel based on Quantum Mechanics and a concerted effort too help/be better? --ie. Why would the Solar Panel Manufacturer's people even stand in the same room as though that work at Cleo? ...therfore, those that work at cleo are going to have to go back to University, to leran how to build a Solar Panel in thier backyards ---AND ENJOY IT...otherwise, the QMist are just going to shoot you for sport.

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How about the science of measuring the current state of engineering says so?

Besides: while I'm not ruling it out as impossible, how do you suppose that we'll figure out how to store hundreds of gigawatts of energy with less high-tech equipment than diggers moving earth to make a large hydro dam? (Far more energy storage per unit energy invested than the every energy intensive process of mining and refining all those elements for batteries).

 

Live - Below a pre-built surface...e.g. climb every mountian, use every stream...till you generate enough rainbows..to whatch bill and Teds, excellent Dreams.

 

--This is akin too: If you can't fly, ANS, Dig... dwellings have too go down...relative too the necessity of the potential height of available mountains.

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How about the science of measuring the current state of engineering says so?

Besides: while I'm not ruling it out as impossible, how do you suppose that we'll figure out how to store hundreds of gigawatts of energy with less high-tech equipment than diggers moving earth to make a large hydro dam? (Far more energy storage per unit energy invested than the every energy intensive process of mining and refining all those elements for batteries).

Are you then ruling out any decrease in costs of extraction of minerals; more efficient solar cells; unanticipated technological breakthroughs. All of this is impossible? We never advance? An odd position indeed.

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Are you then ruling out any decrease in costs of extraction of minerals; more efficient solar cells; unanticipated technological breakthroughs. All of this is impossible? We never advance? An odd position indeed.

Hi Eclogite,

I don't rule these things out, but I do worry that we need to mass produce clean energy right now if we are to avert climate change catastrophe. The only clean energy system we have that is baseload, clean, reliable, year in year out that can be mass produced fast enough is nuclear. France went from 7% to 70% nuclear in 10 years when their government just SAID they were going to do it! That's the kind of industrial-war-effort mentality we need now. We need to close most of our coal plants in the next 10 to 20 years. France went majority nuclear in 10, mostly nuclear in 20. It can be done.

But where are the huge breakthroughs in electricity storage? Where are the exponentially cheaper and less energy intensive methods of storing gigawatts of electricity? Hydro dams as batteries use the least energy to construct: what breakthroughs are going to make moving dirt and pumping concrete that much more energy efficient? I don't rule them out: but I don't base the future survival of my entire civilisation on them either!

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I do not disagree with the facts in your post. However, I was and am addressing the question asked in the thread title. Moreover in your OP, which is what I was addressing, you make an absolute statement that I have now shown to be faulty. It seems you omitted - perhaps because it was obvious to you and required no mention - to say that you were addressing the current situation, which you believe to be urgent.

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I don't think the original post includes the fact that many alternative energy sources, like PV, only have a once-off energy requirement.

 

For instance, it DOES take a lot of energy to construct a photovoltaic cell. No doubts about it. And it DOES take a lot of energy to manufacture a battery bank capable of storing enough energy to make the system worthwhile.

 

The thing is, by the second day, total energy output have doubled. By the third day, it has tripled. A year later, the input costs are still exactly what it was while the energy output is now 365 times that of the first day. So, over what period of time are the measurements taken to come up with the figures in the OP?

 

The ERoEI on something like coal is easy to estimate, because once you've set a piece of coal alight, you extract energy until it's gone up in smoke. You only extract energy from a lump of coal once. Then you have to spend energy to dig another piece of coal out of the ground and drag it to your boiler. How do you propose to make a similar estimation for a solar panel?

 

I suppose you can calculate a figure over the expected lifespan of such a system, and currently available PV systems guarantee the panels for 20 years. The higher-level batteries go for 10 years, So, you can make that calculation over a ten-year span only if you're certain that there will never, ever be any improvements in battery technology.

I don't think it's as clear-cut as the info in the OP states. Not by a long shot.

 

What is perfectly clear, though, is that a nuclear plant destroys the ground it stands on, making it unusable for roughly the next 20,000 years. And a power plant has a life expectancy of around 50-75 years. So, a couple of thousand years down the line, Earth will be covered in former nuclear power station sites that is inaccessible to life.

 

I honestly fail to see the allure of nuclear power, if one thinks for longer than a single lifetime. In the long run, nuclear power will destroy the very Earth it is proposing to save. And as stations advance in age, and budgets are cut at the same time less and less youngsters study science to the level of actually running these things, 3-Mile Island, Chernobil and Fukushima will become the norm rather than accidents. Even if we stop constructing any new nuclear stations today, the planet is already pock-marked with no-go zones of former nuclear station sites, to be sealed off for at least twice as long as the time since we've settled the first cities in the middle East. It's preposterous.   

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What is perfectly clear, though, is that a nuclear plant destroys the ground it stands on, making it unusable for roughly the next 20,000 years. And a power plant has a life expectancy of around 50-75 years. So, a couple of thousand years down the line, Earth will be covered in former nuclear power station sites that is inaccessible to life.

 

Evidence for the 20,000 years please?

Evidence for 'thousands of years down the line' please?

 

And as stations advance in age, and budgets are cut at the same time less and less youngsters study science to the level of actually running these things, 3-Mile Island, Chernobil and Fukushima will become the norm rather than accidents.

 

You obviously have a chip on your shoulder about this subject and are not reading the latest peer-reviewed work on it. Know about Gen3.5 reactors? Decommissioning costs built into the original pricing scheme? Cents / kwh of decommissioning? Plans for easier units that are easier to pack up and put away after their lifespan?

 

What about Cherobyl. When do you think we could move back? What if there was some medical advice that said we could move back into most of the Chernobyl area right now and hardly notice any difference in long term cancer rates?

 

Indeed, while we're talking Gen3.5 reactors, ever hear of passive safety? Neutron leak? These are now *old* technologies. The real shame is that Fukushima wasn't upgraded to have neutron leak, or we simply wouldn't be discussing Fukushima today. It would be a catchphrase for nuclear safety in extreme scenarios.

 

Dude, I'm not even a scientist and I can see gaps in your post wide enough to drive components of a GE-SPRISM through! (S-PRISM is their plan for a GenIV reactor that will eat nuclear waste).

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Evidence for the 20,000 years please?

Evidence for 'thousands of years down the line' please?

 

You obviously have a chip on your shoulder about this subject and are not reading the latest peer-reviewed work on it. Know about Gen3.5 reactors? Decommissioning costs built into the original pricing scheme? Cents / kwh of decommissioning? Plans for easier units that are easier to pack up and put away after their lifespan?

What about Cherobyl. When do you think we could move back? What if there was some medical advice that said we could move back into most of the Chernobyl area right now and hardly notice any difference in long term cancer rates?

 

Indeed, while we're talking Gen3.5 reactors, ever hear of passive safety? Neutron leak? These are now *old* technologies. The real shame is that Fukushima wasn't upgraded to have neutron leak, or we simply wouldn't be discussing Fukushima today. It would be a catchphrase for nuclear safety in extreme scenarios.

Dude, I'm not even a scientist and I can see gaps in your post wide enough to drive components of a GE-SPRISM through! (S-PRISM is their plan for a GenIV reactor that will eat nuclear waste).

Edited by Eclipse Now
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From Page 9 of his PDF
http://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf

 

7.2. Solar photovoltaics (PV)
So far, only Silicon (Si) based PV technologies are applicable on a large scale, so only those have been evaluated here. CIGS- or CdTe-based cells are no option since there is not even a fraction of the needed Indium or Tellurium available in the Earth crust and organic cells are still far from technical applications.
In the past, the energy demand for producing Si-based solar cells was dominated by the crystallization processes. As described in [22], for highly pure Si from semiconductor fabs’ ”scrap” (off-spec Si) many evaluations overestimated the EROI because the energy demand for the crystallization process done by that factory was not included. If included, the EROI becomes underestimated, because solar cells do not need such high-quality Si. The production of solar cells for the high demand today needs its own factory infrastructure, because such amounts of off-spec-Si are not available. It is therefore necessary to analyze the manufacturing chain of a solar module factory to get the energy demands as done by [23].
Manufacturing the cells is dominated by electrical energy use (arc-melted, cleaned and casted Si, compos- ing modules), while producing the factory and the solar plant installation components is almost completely thermal energy use (material energy inventories), each about half of the whole EI for construction. The demand for Si cleaning (30% of the whole EI) can be reduced by 75% using the mono-silane method.
Amorphous solar cells need far less amounts of Si, reducing the energy demand for the Si-based steps, but the installation demand remains unaffected. Furthermore, these modules have a lower operation lifetime and efficiency.
The numbers in Tab. 2 (data taken from Scholten et al. [23]) are calculated for 1m2 poly-crystalline modules, for which 1.6 kg metallurgical grade Si [23] is used (embodied energy is 11 to 14 kWh/kg).
The efficiency of poly-Si here is 14.4%, for the modules 13.2% because of frame cover effects, respectively [23]. There are commercial ones with higher efficiencies, but their energy demand is unknown. Dirt layers and the conversion efficiency of the inverters [24] give an additional, so-called performance factor of 75%, resulting in an overall efficiency of 9.9%. Assuming 25 years lifetime and 1,000 peak-hours (South Germany), this gives 8353 MJ electrical energy produced.
Now, the EROI for Germany (see Tab. 3) for poly-Si photovoltaics can be directly calculated from the numbers mentioned above. Mono-crystalline techniques have a 25% higher efficiency, but the energy demand will be roughly doubled. Amorphous PV products have a much less energy demand (at least the production plant, frame and installation), but their lifetime and efficiency is reduced to about 50% of polycrystalline PV, so their EROI is smaller.
Assuming the German market mix of roughly 1/3 mono-Si and 2/3 poly-Si PV modules [25], a weighted EROI of 3.3 (unbuffered) can be calculated, not considering synergetic effects by the chip industry for…
 

////Table 3: EROIs for solar photovoltaics with 1,000 peak hours per year (Germany) using the energy inputs from Tab. 2. The energy payback times are in the range from 6 years (unbuffered) to 16 years (buffered).////

…mono-Si as described above. For locations in south Europe, the EROIs are about 1.7 times higher due to the higher solar irradiation, but a higher irradiation also speeds up the aging. The resulting EROIs for a roof installtion and an open field installation are shown in Tab. 3.
Results from Battisti et al. [26], Ito et al. [27], Meijer et al. [28] and another paper from Alsema [29] are all in good agreement but less detailed. The energy per installed peak power ranges from 34 MJ/Wp to 53 MJ/Wp, at 1000 to about 2000 peak-hours, resulting in the EROI range from about 3 (where the inverters are not included [28]) to about 4 ( with remarkable 1700 full-load hours), assuming 25 years lifetime. These values correspond very well to this work’s results based on the very detailed database provided by Scholten at al. [23], though all authors calculated the armortization time using the output as the primary energy equivalent. One should also consider that all works did not take buffering into account.

 

 

 

Another thing effecting the ERoEI of renewables: Wind and solar require something like 5 to 10 times the concrete and steel than nukes! Nukes are incredibly CONCENTRATED energy per unit of steel and concrete: wind and solar are diffuse, unreliable, and require 5 to 10 times as much steel and concrete because they’re so WEAK!

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/18/tcase4/

 

Another point: the Chinese are looking to mass produce GenIV nukes that eat nuclear waste for 3 reasons: fix pollution in their cities, provide *reliable* baseload power, and to become cheaper than coal!

http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/06/propects-for-lower-cost-nuclear-fission.html

 

Finally, regarding safety: both Chernobyl and Fukushima were REALLY old reactor designs and we now have Gen3.5 with passive safety. But even if we include their fatalities in a death per terrawatt index:

Coal kills 170,000 people per trillionkWhr
Nuclear is 90 deaths per trillionkWhr, which is BETTER than solar (at 440) and Wind (at 150)! In other words, more people die falling off solar roofs and towers and wind turbines than have been killed by nuclear power.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

Edited by Eclipse Now
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It is your thread, so you have some right to change the topic. However, I remain with my position of correcting your assertion that science declares the combination of solar generation with some form of energy storage to be a net energy sink. If that is true it is true in the light of the state of current engineering.

 

You are interested in talking about our energy challenges. I am interested in correcting sloppy thinking. Since it is your thread I shall now bow out.

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It is your thread, so you have some right to change the topic. However, I remain with my position of correcting your assertion that science declares the combination of solar generation with some form of energy storage to be a net energy sink. If that is true it is true in the light of the state of current engineering.

 

You are interested in talking about our energy challenges. I am interested in correcting sloppy thinking. Since it is your thread I shall now bow out.

Well if it's that offensive, I went back and changed the sentence "The science says so" to "The current state of engineering says so." But I think you're being a bit pedantic about semantics to bow out of this discussion over my use of the word 'science'. The OP is about the ERoEI of renewables with storage. If you have anything to contribute to that, I'm all ears.

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As I stated guys...the TECHEADS already know all of this...hence why the techniques for building and living as a low footprint human are available OPENSOURCE.

 

BUT...most of us are monkeys just scratching our you know whats doing you know what: In the end no-one cares, it's all about the BLING right?

 

eg. The monkeys that need Palm Oil for make up, the Monkees that need soap: You want to go ultra change and save the planet? Drop the western ecology off a fricken cliff, and most problems would be solved. IE Most of us do mostly nothing productive in society...so what the scientists are saying too the Advertisers is that enough is enough: You no longer get to live off of the backs of the ordinary process worker: b/c we (Well not me) can teach 5 yr olds more about the environment and low footprint living, than is worth mentioning to the establishment.

 

The best solution is to lace the system with 3d printers, and Train the young to kill off the BLING people, untill they serve absolutely and utterly no purpose in society.

 

ie. Shoot all consumers. Problem Solved.

PS: Those Kids, won't be shooting with ordinary guns - they will be fully remote driven: And you will never find the maker, in effect solving the Jail/Lawyer problem in two strokes.

 

GET READY FOR ARMAGEDDON PEOPLE!!!!

Edited by ErlyRisa
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The problem here is we have two parties touting their pills as the cure, when a synergism would go a long ways further. It matters not one jot whether one system uses more energy up front, we have the energy to spare, we just use it for nefarious instead of life-giving purposes.

Consumerism has been mentioned, and rightly so. So long as people are obsessed with the affairs Kardashian - they're not worth the energy. Hardship is recommended for these folks as they're vacuous insipid energy sinks.

We have a lot of technologies, and our energy needs in future will be served piecemeal according to the environment and resources for acquiring energy. The grid is a dinosaur. Expensive, prone to failure, far too many dependant within one system. Decentralised power makes far more sense. No losing power over distance, no ability for potential enemies to knock out an entire grid.

Nuclear power should be nowhere near fault lines, coastal areas, waterbodies, above ground water, in the vicinity of people... Oh that's right, they're safe now. Safe! Are you kidding? What's man's efforts against a storm, an earthquake, volcanic or tectonic activity? A joke is what it is.  

An artificial leaf was released recently. It photosynthesises, makes oxygen. Soon we might be burning pure oxygen, or making biofuels from the sugars derived from 'pseudosynthesis'. 

 

This fat lazy entitled population of big mac inhaling SUV driving Nickleback listening whiners are not going to make it. They are dinosaurs like the grid. When the revolution (people vs corporates) comes they're all screwed. The reason we continue to push for some huge centralised system is to retain power in the hands of a few. Not on my watch.

Solar, biofuel, steam, hydro, tidal, fossil fuels... Better building design, better appliance and vehicle design. We can get there, we can do it collectively. I see tremendous energy potential merely through increasing efficiencies in current practise. 

Some legislation around manufacture of all energy drawing equipment is called for. And if we were to spend some of the Trillions used to fight 'terror' for something actually useful.

Nuclear isn't the answer. It's merely the answer of a society in it's death knell seeking convenience to maintain the status quo. The status quo is an unsustainable crock. Tighten your belt or doom your ancestors. The planet belongs to the people, not the corporations. And we want it back!

 

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