Split from 2020 Elections: Energy Technology

[eigen]

Go nuclear, young man, go nuclear.

There is always that guy, who suggests nuclear. Why? I mean, why?

Solar is the cheapest energy https://webstore.iea.org/world-energy-outlook-2020, except in some places wind is cheaper. There technology is here.  It doesn't need subsidies, it just needs and open, level market.  Which, because this is a collective decision in most respects, it doesn't have.

I know nuclear is familiar, and so a go-to for many people. It is even featured on the Simpsons.  In my view, that is not a recommendation.  So stop recommending it. 

Yes, with solar and wind, presumably in some locations supplemented by  biomass, geothermal, and hydro, you need storage and/or other ways to cope with intermittency.  That's just part of the system, but it can and will be built out as it is needed.   This is not hard, there are smart people who are doing this stuff and it all just needs to scale up.

The only reason we aren't shifting away form fossils fuels in a massive way is that there are interest groups that have politicians by the short hairs, and energy transition is in most respects, as I  said before, a collective decision.   There are some specific uses where this transition is more challenging, but in general  for most of the world the solutions are all there, and no real decline  of living standards is required.  Except for people with a vested interest in fossil fuels, who will really lose a lot of money, so it will be protracted and contested transition process, which probably will not happen soon enough to save us from massive ecological disasters. 
     

For one, because the environmental impacts of mining/refining (and shrinking reserves) of the components needed for solar energy are a big deal, not to mention the issues with scaling battery technologies. Nuclear replaces our need for "on demand" generation.

Carter did a great job of convincing people that nuclear was scary and should be avoided. With current technologies, there's not a good reason not to embrace it to a much more significant degree.

::edit:: Carter, not Reagan. Should not post in a hurry between classes.

[dismalist]

Reagan did a great job of convincing people that nuclear was scary and should be avoided.

Why ever would one think that?

Looks like the opposite is true https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/statement-announcing-series-policy-initiatives-nuclear-energy

[eigen]

Reagan did a great job of convincing people that nuclear was scary and should be avoided.

Why ever would one think that?

Looks like the opposite is true https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/statement-announcing-series-policy-initiatives-nuclear-energy

Because one posted without thinking. I meant Carter and my brain thought one thing while I typed another.

[MonsterX]

For one, because the environmental impacts of mining/refining (and shrinking reserves) of the components needed for solar energy are a big deal, not to mention the issues with scaling battery technologies. Nuclear replaces our need for "on demand" generation.

This is not an argument for nuclear power, it is an argument for dismantling the consumer society. Fine, if you are taking that position; it would indeed be better for the environment to do this than to shift to renewables.  I am taking the politically more realizable position that we should transition to cheaper and cleaner energy, which should regard reduced environmental impact as a high priority, but not the only one.

Like everything else, renewable energy infrastructure is made of stuff, which, surprise, surprise, very much like fossil fuel or uranium or anything else in industrial society, needs to be obtained somehow, and this has an environmental impact.  The difference is, build it and it is putting out power for decades, instead of having to always pump out or dig up more  every time you use a watt of energy.  For fossil fuels and nuclear not only do you need to build the infrastructure, but you need to fuel it every day, with trucks and ships moving this fuel around the world, at massive environmental cost (as well as financial cost).    Environmental damage from renewables is a concern and we should mitigate it, but it is tiny compared to fossil fuels and nuclear, so this is not a reason to slow the transition.   (I do think already built nuclear should continue to operate as long as it is still economically viable - building new nuclear plants is not, however, economical)

Are you seriously asserting we should subsidize fossil fuels and/or nuclear, while trying to stop renewable growth, out of concern for the environment?

The need to  avoid loosing votes and campaign contributions from fossil-fuel dependent locations have kept Biden from addressing this issue, but the issue is not really about keeping fossil fuel jobs, because without massive government support, those will disappear over the coming decade.  Oil companies know this, as do investors, see this Financial Times article  https://www.ft.com/content/95efca74-4299-11ea-a43a-c4b328d9061c

The real issue here is the economic devastation this will cause the affected communities who depend on fossil fuel jobs, and this needs to be addressed.

[eigen]

For one, because the environmental impacts of mining/refining (and shrinking reserves) of the components needed for solar energy are a big deal, not to mention the issues with scaling battery technologies. Nuclear replaces our need for "on demand" generation.

This is not an argument for nuclear power, it is an argument for dismantling the consumer society. Fine, if you are taking that position; it would indeed be better for the environment to do this than to shift to renewables.  I am taking the politically more realizable position that we should transition to cheaper and cleaner energy, which should regard reduced environmental impact as a high priority, but not the only one.

Like everything else, renewable energy infrastructure is made of stuff, which, surprise, surprise, very much like fossil fuel or uranium or anything else in industrial society, needs to be obtained somehow, and this has an environmental impact.  The difference is, build it and it is putting out power for decades, instead of having to always pump out or dig up more  every time you use a watt of energy.  For fossil fuels and nuclear not only do you need to build the infrastructure, but you need to fuel it every day, with trucks and ships moving this fuel around the world, at massive environmental cost (as well as financial cost).    Environmental damage from renewables is a concern and we should mitigate it, but it is tiny compared to fossil fuels and nuclear, so this is not a reason to slow the transition.   (I do think already built nuclear should continue to operate as long as it is still economically viable - building new nuclear plants is not, however, economical)

Are you seriously asserting we should subsidize fossil fuels and/or nuclear, while trying to stop renewable growth, out of concern for the environment?

The need to  avoid loosing votes and campaign contributions from fossil-fuel dependent locations have kept Biden from addressing this issue, but the issue is not really about keeping fossil fuel jobs, because without massive government support, those will disappear over the coming decade.  Oil companies know this, as do investors, see this Financial Times article  https://www.ft.com/content/95efca74-4299-11ea-a43a-c4b328d9061c

The real issue here is the economic devastation this will cause the affected communities who depend on fossil fuel jobs, and this needs to be addressed.

Very little of our current renewable infrastructure lasts for decades. Batteries certainly don't, neither do solar panels.

Nuclear will generate more energy, with less waste, for a lower cost if we invest in the infrastructure. And this has been true for quite some time.

Whether you're talking about cost or environmental impact, we should be investing in nuclear.

That doesn't mean we can't also continue to iterate on solar technology, but we are still a way from the advances needed to. And it truly useful.

[Kron3007]

Go nuclear, young man, go nuclear.

There is always that guy, who suggests nuclear. Why? I mean, why?

Solar is the cheapest energy https://webstore.iea.org/world-energy-outlook-2020, except in some places wind is cheaper. There technology is here.  It doesn't need subsidies, it just needs and open, level market.  Which, because this is a collective decision in most respects, it doesn't have.

I know nuclear is familiar, and so a go-to for many people. It is even featured on the Simpsons.  In my view, that is not a recommendation.  So stop recommending it. 

Yes, with solar and wind, presumably in some locations supplemented by  biomass, geothermal, and hydro, you need storage and/or other ways to cope with intermittency.  That's just part of the system, but it can and will be built out as it is needed.   This is not hard, there are smart people who are doing this stuff and it all just needs to scale up.

The only reason we aren't shifting away form fossils fuels in a massive way is that there are interest groups that have politicians by the short hairs, and energy transition is in most respects, as I  said before, a collective decision.   There are some specific uses where this transition is more challenging, but in general  for most of the world the solutions are all there, and no real decline  of living standards is required.  Except for people with a vested interest in fossil fuels, who will really lose a lot of money, so it will be protracted and contested transition process, which probably will not happen soon enough to save us from massive ecological disasters. 
     

Another aspect that is often overlooked is that about half of a barrel of oil goes into other products such as plastics, so the oil industry is not only about fuel.  Even if you replace energy from oil, it will continue to be needed as long as we keep our plastic lives.  There are some alternative plastics, but they are not practical at the scale we "need".

I would love to see a transition to renewables (I would really support a combination of nuclear, solar, wind, biofuels, and others, diversification is always good) and a shift away from so much plastic, but my point is that the oil industry is more than just fuel.

[nebo113]

For one, because the environmental impacts of mining/refining (and shrinking reserves) of the components needed for solar energy are a big deal, not to mention the issues with scaling battery technologies. Nuclear replaces our need for "on demand" generation.

This is not an argument for nuclear power, it is an argument for dismantling the consumer society. Fine, if you are taking that position; it would indeed be better for the environment to do this than to shift to renewables.  I am taking the politically more realizable position that we should transition to cheaper and cleaner energy, which should regard reduced environmental impact as a high priority, but not the only one.

Like everything else, renewable energy infrastructure is made of stuff, which, surprise, surprise, very much like fossil fuel or uranium or anything else in industrial society, needs to be obtained somehow, and this has an environmental impact.  The difference is, build it and it is putting out power for decades, instead of having to always pump out or dig up more  every time you use a watt of energy.  For fossil fuels and nuclear not only do you need to build the infrastructure, but you need to fuel it every day, with trucks and ships moving this fuel around the world, at massive environmental cost (as well as financial cost).    Environmental damage from renewables is a concern and we should mitigate it, but it is tiny compared to fossil fuels and nuclear, so this is not a reason to slow the transition.   (I do think already built nuclear should continue to operate as long as it is still economically viable - building new nuclear plants is not, however, economical)

Are you seriously asserting we should subsidize fossil fuels and/or nuclear, while trying to stop renewable growth, out of concern for the environment?

The need to  avoid loosing votes and campaign contributions from fossil-fuel dependent locations have kept Biden from addressing this issue, but the issue is not really about keeping fossil fuel jobs, because without massive government support, those will disappear over the coming decade.  Oil companies know this, as do investors, see this Financial Times article  https://www.ft.com/content/95efca74-4299-11ea-a43a-c4b328d9061c

The real issue here is the economic devastation this will cause the affected communities who depend on fossil fuel jobs, and this needs to be addressed.

Very little of our current renewable infrastructure lasts for decades. Batteries certainly don't, neither do solar panels.

Nuclear will generate more energy, with less waste, for a lower cost if we invest in the infrastructure. And this has been true for quite some time.

Whether you're talking about cost or environmental impact, we should be investing in nuclear.

That doesn't mean we can't also continue to iterate on solar technology, but we are still a way from the advances needed to. And it truly useful.

Two concerns about nuclear:  1.  nuclear waste and 2. Price Anderson

[MonsterX]

Very little of our current renewable infrastructure lasts for decades. Batteries certainly don't, neither do solar panels.

Nuclear will generate more energy, with less waste, for a lower cost if we invest in the infrastructure. And this has been true for quite some time.

Whether you're talking about cost or environmental impact, we should be investing in nuclear.

That doesn't mean we can't also continue to iterate on solar technology, but we are still a way from the advances needed to. And it truly useful.

Solar panels typically have 25 year warranties. 

https://news.energysage.com/shopping-solar-panels-pay-attention-to-solar-panels-warranty/#:~:text=A%20solar%20panel%20has%20two,10%2D12%20years%20without%20failing.

Batteries are not the only form of energy storage, though utilities are adopting them pretty rapidly . 
Others types might be more economic for many use cases https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/74426.pdf  There is too much variety of type and many are too new to be definite about  how long they last,  but Tesla offers a 10 year warranty on its powerwall as a household product. Decades, meaning 2 decades :), is  not an unreasonable guess, but these things haven't been used in this way long enough to know for sure.  Battery capacity is certainly useful for intermitency, but it is not the only way to deal with the problem, and so concerns about needing it, and not being able to get it, are overstated. 

Warranty period is generally a massive underestimate of useful lifetime.  In 25 years a solar panel will be at 80% capacity, so you can guess it will keep going at ever declining capacity after that for many years until it gets replaced.   

Money put in nuclear at this point is money flushed down the toilet, as it WILL get out-competed.  New nuclear plants take like 10 years to build and they are already too expensive to compete with solar and wind. Utility scale solar can be built in a year or two, and by the time any nuclear plants which are started now are finished, no one will need or want them. Discussing nuclear is a distraction from what needs to be done. 

Sorry to be so OT, but it is annoying to hear the same misinformation repeat every time alternative energy is discussed. 

[eigen]

The NREL link does not discuss alternatives to batteries, other than one off-hand mention of water pumping for hydroelectric storage, which isn't very efficient. It discusses different types of batteries, as well as how to mix renewable generation with power plant generation to share loads. Of particular concern is that the current leading technology requires lithium, of which world-wide sources are dwindling.

Your link to warranties is interesting, but doesn't seem supported by the science in terms of longevity of components in most common solar panels. The other rub is that the current technologies have really low conversion efficiency, and the newer panels have lower longevity (things like DSCs).

If you'd like to provide links to sites that aren't consumers trying to sell things to support either of your points, I'll listen, but I'm a bit irked at someone I don't know telling me I'm spreading "misinformation" about a field I I keep up with pretty well because they disagree with me.

[marshwiggle]

I have an off-grid cabin. I could easily increase the number of solar panels I have, but batteries will awlays be the weakest link. They require maintenance, and I didn't get cheap batteries. If I spent 10x the amount of money, I could get more batteries, but I couldn't get better batteries. Many of the storage technologies being developed now are still at the research stage, and their performance at scale over time is unknown.

When I was a kid in the 70's I wanted to have a solar house. Batteries have been around for a century, so this is not a new issue; there is no silver bullet, and there isn't one on the horizon. Improvements will likely be incremental, and over time renewables will be able to play a bigger role, but it's not just a matter of some legislation flipping the switch.

[eigen]

I have an off-grid cabin. I could easily increase the number of solar panels I have, but batteries will awlays be the weakest link. They require maintenance, and I didn't get cheap batteries. If I spent 10x the amount of money, I could get more batteries, but I couldn't get better batteries. Many of the storage technologies being developed now are still at the research stage, and their performance at scale over time is unknown.

When I was a kid in the 70's I wanted to have a solar house. Batteries have been around for a century, so this is not a new issue; there is no silver bullet, and there isn't one on the horizon. Improvements will likely be incremental, and over time renewables will be able to play a bigger role, but it's not just a matter of some legislation flipping the switch.

And this gets magnified when you're trying to do it on an immense scale. An off-grid house or cabin isn't likely to have a serious crisis with a short interuption of power, beyond inconvenience. But when you're doing it grid-wide, you have places like hospitals that really can't afford variable power. Or, for instance, times like the recent fires in the PNW that led to almost zero solar production over most of several states for an extended period of time.

I think it will be quite some time before we are able to divorce ourselves of a need for on-demand power generation. That need is currently supplied from coal plants, with a smaller subsection using other fossil fuels. Hydroelectric is a good source in some parts of the world (country) as well.

An ideal longer-term plan would be to replace our on-demand power generation that is currently fossil fuels with nuclear generation, and pair that with a significant amount of renewable sources (hydroelectric, solar, wind).

There are worries about waste, but a lot of that is because the US does not refine and re-use its waste. If you look at "modern" nuclear power with multiple tiers of plants, each refining and re-using the waste, the final product is both small in amount and not nearly as dangerous as what we end up with in the US. France is a great example of this, imo.

[polly_mer]

Something I haven't seen mentioned yet in my skimming of the thread is the limitations related just to material availability, except eigen's mention of lithium.  We don't have enough rare earth metals, even if we mined every last molecule we currently know exist, to meet demands.  We can't rewire everything electrical for transport and storage using the good materials, now that we are so, so far past the energy usage last century.  One of the interesting (and sad for the details of humans doing it by hand with no protective gear) part of recycling electronics is how much of the rare earth metals and the precious (gold, silver, platinum) metals are in a normal electronic device.

We did start battery research decades ago.  I know because that paid for some of my grad schooling and, every few years, I get paid again to come back up to speed on current technology to contribute to the research.  I sigh every time about how the progress is much, much slower than even moderate predictions based on the physical chemistry/chemical physics involved down at the near individual atom level (grains, orientation, stacking faults, impurities at the ppm and smaller concentration both desired and undesired).  I have spent tons of quality time with lithium for battery uses over the years and there's a lot of interesting chemistry for polymer electrolytes and solid electrolytes.

Solar panel technology is limited in many ways by physical/chemical constraints.  Sure, lots of sand exists and could be made into solar panels.  The materially efficient ways to construct the solar panels are hugely energy intensive (ever tried growing a perfectly structured crystal with exactly the right impurities in exactly the right places?).  Better materials to build the most energy efficient solar panels are limited by their existence and therefore expensive.  We still can't get really efficient solar panels in terms of solar energy in transformed to usable energy out.  The losses in just the solar energy capture, unless they have done something incredible since the last time I was up to speed, are huge.  We as a community are sometimes better off in an overall sense of efficient material usage just concentrating the sun with large parabolic mirrors to boil water in a central tower to turn a turbine in a central place and then transmit the electricity to the community instead of having lots of small solar panels on individual houses.

The nuclear power plant questions are a fascinating example of the high consequence decisions we as a technologically advanced society are attempting to make with good simulations using the limited experimental data we can get coupled with the observations of opportunity we can make (my current day job is also related to risk from simulations when we cannot do the experiments we would like to do).  The science and engineering for the new power plants are heavily reliant on models that we can't necessarily validate (i.e., compare to exactly what happens in physical reality) and must build in huge margins of error.  I am far from an expert in this area, but I spend a lot of time with colleagues at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) discussing the ways we can use the limited data we can get to put uncertainty margins on the simulations and thus make decisions to go forward.

The nuclear materials are also much more limited (both physically on Earth and politically because of alternate uses for those materials) than one might desire if the goal were to do something like large numbers of smaller plants close to where the electrical need exists.  Our geographic region is officially going forward with the smaller nuclear plant option as the coal-fire plant is nearing end of life and crossing every digit imaginable that we can make the timelines work.  We have absurdly high electrical needs for our region and there's no way, even with 300 days of sun per year and a nearly constant blowing wind, to replace even a large fraction of our electrical needs with renewables.

[polly_mer]

Money put in nuclear at this point is money flushed down the toilet, as it WILL get out-competed.  New nuclear plants take like 10 years to build and they are already too expensive to compete with solar and wind. Utility scale solar can be built in a year or two, and by the time any nuclear plants which are started now are finished, no one will need or want them. Discussing nuclear is a distraction from what needs to be done. 

Anyone who immediately discards nuclear as a distraction from what needs to be done is very unlikely to actually be working in the energy sector or even anything adjacent because of the material limitations and the fact that much more energy is needed in many places than can be met with what we could ever build, especially the constant demand with no gaps in service as eigen mentioned.

Like eigen, I tend to keep a close eye on this science and technology because I often get to work in it and am frequently employed at Department of Energy labs so the seminars are frequently on energy topics including overviews.  When I decided to stop teaching and get serious about being paid good money to do research, the Department of Energy welcomed me back with open arms.

[eigen]

Yeah, I alluded to the material limitations (I'm thinking mostly of rare earth metals for organometallic catalysts), but I appreciate you bringing it back up. I think it's a really crucial limitation of most of our PV devices relative to, say, photosynthetic approaches at light harvesting.

I really wish people had put more research into biological membranes 30 years ago (or even now), since the main barrier to photosynthetic mimics is the membrane environment providing the exact spacing needed for efficient transfer, and one of our biggest gaps in biochemical research (IMO) is synthetic membranes.

There have been advances in PV technology here and there, but I think most of the work (probably rightfully) is going into water splitting / fuel cells. A lot of the limits I see are in longevity and durability, where there are some really promising new materials that just do not last very long, or for many of the liquid DSCs aren't durable enough for long, constant use.

So the trade-off is often between low conversion (efficiency) and durability and longevity.

[polly_mer]

We, as a polymer research community, were doing a lot of research into membranes about fifteen years ago and it was much easier to get separation membranes to work.  As a related application, getting the polymers to work as masks (membrane/coatings) on semiconductors to manufacture the denser packed computer chips have run into physical limitations related to the polymer size compared to the desired feature size.

Research into self-assembled polymer films was the next thing, but again the physics gets fun and not always in the good way.  For example, a polymer that is rubbery in bulk can be glassy in a thin layer, which means the membrane properties don't necessarily work as expected once you get a membrane thin enough to work on the diffusion scales.