Solar to provide 20% of energy by 2027

[DanKegel]

I agree with him there. Intermittent sources (of whatever flavor) are not going to achieve high penetration (beyond about 20-25%) without:
1) baseload power to maintain grid reliability or
2) cheap grid scale storage.

We have 1) now, we don't have 2).

Thank you for stating your position so clearly without rancor. It's a pleasure discussing things with you.

Do you agree that one can whittle down the size of the problem with things like
- increasing appliance and building efficiency
- shifting load to when power is cheap (demand management)
- small amounts of grid scale storage sufficient to give time for efficient but slow peakers to start up
?

Also, I'm not sure 'cheap' is the right criterion for storage cost. It just has to be cheaper than the full cost of using fossil fuel, including externalities like the cost of dealing with pollution and climate change caused by that fossil fuel.

[solarix]

These charts of CO2 emissions per person are misleading in that the reason the developed countries are so high is that their productivity is so high. China not only produces a lot of CO2 - they also produce a big share of the stuff that the whole world uses. Co2 emissions correlate better to GDP than to population.

[Mike90250]

small reactors - in the kitchen https://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wil...ssion_reactors
and this one, you bury under your basement, 27 Mw baby http://www.dailytech.com/Miniature+N...ticle13389.htm
They have been made and sold around the world for the last 3 years according to the article.

[J.P.M.]

Seems like he has come down very hard indeed against the notion that solar + wind + other renewables can achieve high penetration. That's not waiting to pass judgement.

Dan, read what I wrote. Then, read it again. Take from it what you want, but if you take any notion that I wrote or intimated or believe R.E. cannot make a significant contribution to the future energy mix for the U.S. or the rest of the planet, you are under a false impression of your own making.

A fraction beyond about 20%, maybe 25 % carried by renewables other than hydro seems unlikely to me for the foreseeable, near term - say 20 or so years given the state of things, but that's probably due to the distinct possibility that I've forgotten more about the subject than you're likely to know for some time. I'd like to be wrong, but I just don't see it as more. Many folks knowledgeable in the subject might well agree that's a rather significant chunk of the load, with most of that chunk being of the intermittent, non baseline variety.

You,on the other hand, seem to have passed judgment on what the future holds based on your incomplete knowledge and experience, have your mind made up, and don't need to learn the folly of your ignorance - that ignorance based only on what seems to fit a preconceived notion of reality that someone poured into your head rather than on experience, real education and actual knowledge of the situation.

Your actions are not helping to advance the state of knowledge.

[jflorey2]

Seems like he has come down very hard indeed against the notion that solar + wind + other renewables can achieve high penetration. That's not waiting to pass judgement.

I agree with him there. Intermittent sources (of whatever flavor) are not going to achieve high penetration (beyond about 20-25%) without:
1) baseload power to maintain grid reliability or
2) cheap grid scale storage.

We have 1) now, we don't have 2).

[DanKegel]

No, he said he's waiting to pass judgment. So am I.

Seems like he has come down very hard indeed against the notion that solar + wind + other renewables can achieve high penetration. That's not waiting to pass judgement.

[DanKegel]

Hmm, I don't. Maybe you're talking to the wrong liberals.

Yeah... blocking progress is rather the opposite of what progressives are about. I don't think he's getting that idea from liberals.

[jflorey2]

Seems like a double standard -- you're giving the benefit of the doubt to fast basement breeder reactors, but not to solar?

No, he said he's waiting to pass judgment. So am I.

To me, "basement reactors" make about as much sense as massive battery banks to "go off grid" which is what so many people who come here ask about.

Solar grid tie works, and is growing like mad. Great.
Large scale nuclear works, and can provide terawatt-hours of baseline generation. Also great.
Modern reactor designs (AP600 and the like) are even better. Great.

No need to wait for the future. All the pieces needed to solve the problem are here now. Nuclear for baseload generation, solar and wind for intermittent power, natural gas for peakers and a smart grid to manage all of the above.

[jflorey2]

Dan you do not have any workable solutions. You call yourself a Progressive Liberal when in fact there is no such thing.

I'm a progressive liberal. It's why I'm in engineering - to try to advance the state of the art, and solve some of our problems with technology.

It is an Ideology of Obstructionism to block progress and prosperity for the masses. You want to control the masses and make them dependent on you for everything they need.

Hmm, I don't. Maybe you're talking to the wrong liberals.

Does anyone know the aim of the Smart Grid GE and the Goberment are planning? I did not think so.

To make the grid more resilient to transient problems - loss of generation, loss of transmission and loss of top level control.
To make the grid more able to match load to generation.
To give people the ability to buy power on an open and free market, rather than on a fixed PUC schedule.
To improve grid reliability without having to overbuild for rare load conditions.

[DanKegel]

until one shows up in someone's basement and proves to be practical and cost effective, I'd wait to pass judgment, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Seems like a double standard -- you're giving the benefit of the doubt to fast basement breeder reactors, but not to solar?

[J.P.M.]

Is the statement "small breeder reactors. A reactor small enough to go in your basement and no one even knows it is there can supply 10,000 homes or a large Industrial complex" an instance of "you could just do this and voila, problem solved" ?

I'm interested in real-world solutions. Really happy that wind and solar are in that category now for many applications.

In all honesty, until one shows up in someone's basement and proves to be practical and cost effective, I'd wait to pass judgment, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

More honesty: IMO, If you are really concerned about real world solutions, it might be better for more R.E viability and acceptance if you avoided the pie-in-the-sky, gee-whiz, stuff written to look like it's available technology and stuck to stuff you've taken some time to really check out, along with the education needed to be able to make a distinction between what works or what's needed to make an idea viable from science fair quality wishing and consumer traps whose sole purpose is to separate the ignorant and/or desperate from their money. A sucker might be born every minute, but you've no need to help them get screwed sooner than they will be as your actions here often do by holding out false hopes.

What I often see out of your end of the corral is little more than pass along half truth and innuendo written by stooges that mostly helps no one, or some B.S. you conjured up out of what I can only guess is your ill informed imagination - your ideas about the viability of bifacial panels being one example.

[DanKegel]

M.O. is what I've often seen for the last 40 years or so, and that's one of being part of what I've come to call the "you could just crowd" - as in "You could just do this and voila' - problem solved". To me, that amounts to straight line dead ends to non solutions driven by wishful, probably self centered and ignorant thinking.

Is the statement "small breeder reactors. A reactor small enough to go in your basement and no one even knows it is there can supply 10,000 homes or a large Industrial complex" an instance of "you could just do this and voila, problem solved" ?

I'm interested in real-world solutions. Really happy that wind and solar are in that category now for many applications.

[J.P.M.]

Dan you do not have any workable solutions. You call yourself a Progressive Liberal when in fact there is no such thing. It is an Ideology of Obstructionism to block progress and prosperity for the masses. You want to control the masses and make them dependent on you for everything they need. That is why Liberals have got their butts kicked the last 8 years at all levels of goberment in the USA

If you really believed in clean energy you would be shouting from the tallest mountain in the USA to go nuclear. Not only does it solve all electric energy issues, it also solves lightweight transpiration. No not from storing energy in batteries as that is a loosing game being way to expensive and waste huge amounts of raw materials. Nope cars would use dirt cheap hydrogen fuel cells from all that waste heat from reactors to make massive amounts of basically free hydrogen. We have a known amount of some 10,000 to 10 million years of proven conventional nuclear fuel. It is dirt cheap and we do not need to import any of it. We should import all we can from Australia as they refuse to use it, so we use it for them and keep Chi-Coms and Ruskies from having it. That would be progress and a huge economy right here at home.

But nope Dan's will not allow that to happen. He wants you to suffer and rely on him for everything keeping you poor while he rules.

Does anyone know the aim of the Smart Grid GE and the Goberment are planning? I did not think so. Yes they are looking at controlling your energy use, but more importantly how to generate and distribute the power. It goes something like this. It will work like Cell Phone Tower Network operates. Small radio sites (power plants) covering a few miles of coverage around the tower like a cell. If one tower faults (generator), the surrounding cells (generators) up the power a bit and pick up the slack. An outage in one area does not affect any other areas. Pretty darn smart and well thought out. Extremely reliable with excellent redundancy

How do you do make that happen? With small breeder reactors. A reactor small enough to go in your basement and no one even knows it is there can supply 10,000 homes or a large Industrial complex. What you are hearing here, and debating on RE is just politics,noise, and a well thought out diversion. You will not have to look at acres of solar panels or huge wind farms occupying and wasting valuable real-estate. Completely out of site, compact, inexpensive, efficient, safe, reliable, and more high paying jobs than you can imagine.

To bad Dan is in the way of progress and prosperity. That is Dan's agenda he is hiding.

I don't know if Dan K. has an agenda or not, or if he's well intentioned but simplistic in his thinking, or has more sinister objectives and goals, and don't much care.

I do know (or at least believe) his M.O. is what I've often seen for the last 40 years or so, and that's one of being part of what I've come to call the "you could just crowd" - as in "You could just do this and voila' - problem solved". To me, that amounts to straight line dead ends to non solutions driven by wishful, probably self centered and ignorant thinking. I see such attitudes and actions as those of "idea" people who are long on simplistic solutions to complex situations and short on the details and facts necessary to get to realistic and workable solutions.

I see such attitudes and actions as doing damage and hurting rather than helping. I started out that way, thinking R.E. a viable path to the future. I still do. However, back in the day, and having already been a peddler for about 10 years or so and therefore already seen and participated in a fair amount of the same B.S., I quickly formed the opinion that most such folks were little more than dreamers who wound up being shills for the R.E. conmen who prey on the ignorant, or were conmen and crooks themselves.

I'm about the biggest fan of workable and sensible R.E. utilization I know of. FWIW, attitudes and loose cannon stuff of the type such as Dan's ilk often pukes out only gives the Sunking's of the world more low hanging nonsense to pick and use to skewer the treehuggers. That does more damage to R.E. than a dozen Sunking type attitudes could ever do.

Not that it matters much now, but not wanting to be duped by the treehugger scammers, or eventually getting sucked into joining them is what drove me back to school in the mid '70's.

Caveat Emptor. Some things never change.

Take what you want of the above. Scrap the rest.

[DanKegel]

How do you do make that happen? With small breeder reactors. A reactor small enough to go in your basement and no one even knows it is there can supply 10,000 homes or a large Industrial complex.

Well, that'd be cool. When will it be on the market? And how would we prevent the fissile material they breed from falling into the wrong hands? (Maybe they'd be designed to not generate anything that could make a bomb?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power is the only small reactor being licensed that I know of. That page quoted a cost of $5/watt, which seems about on par with the cost for molten salt solar systems quoted in http://labusinessjournal.com/news/20...roject-nevada/

I'd like to see all non-fossil-carbon power sources developed, including nuclear.
Molten salt solar seems like it ought to be able to address LA's evening demand in the 2020-2022 timeframe, should LADWP decide to pursue it.
Nuclear would probably take longer to build.

[Sunking]

Dan you do not have any workable solutions. You call yourself a Progressive Liberal when in fact there is no such thing. It is an Ideology of Obstructionism to block progress and prosperity for the masses. You want to control the masses and make them dependent on you for everything they need. That is why Liberals have got their butts kicked the last 8 years at all levels of goberment in the USA

If you really believed in clean energy you would be shouting from the tallest mountain in the USA to go nuclear. Not only does it solve all electric energy issues, it also solves lightweight transpiration. No not from storing energy in batteries as that is a loosing game being way to expensive and waste huge amounts of raw materials. Nope cars would use dirt cheap hydrogen fuel cells from all that waste heat from reactors to make massive amounts of basically free hydrogen. We have a known amount of some 10,000 to 10 million years of proven conventional nuclear fuel. It is dirt cheap and we do not need to import any of it. We should import all we can from Australia as they refuse to use it, so we use it for them and keep Chi-Coms and Ruskies from having it. That would be progress and a huge economy right here at home.

But nope Dan's will not allow that to happen. He wants you to suffer and rely on him for everything keeping you poor while he rules.

Does anyone know the aim of the Smart Grid GE and the Goberment are planning? I did not think so. Yes they are looking at controlling your energy use, but more importantly how to generate and distribute the power. It goes something like this. It will work like Cell Phone Tower Network operates. Small radio sites (power plants) covering a few miles of coverage around the tower like a cell. If one tower faults (generator), the surrounding cells (generators) up the power a bit and pick up the slack. An outage in one area does not affect any other areas. Pretty darn smart and well thought out. Extremely reliable with excellent redundancy

How do you do make that happen? With small breeder reactors. A reactor small enough to go in your basement and no one even knows it is there can supply 10,000 homes or a large Industrial complex. What you are hearing here, and debating on RE is just politics,noise, and a well thought out diversion. You will not have to look at acres of solar panels or huge wind farms occupying and wasting valuable real-estate. Completely out of site, compact, inexpensive, efficient, safe, reliable, and more high paying jobs than you can imagine.

To bad Dan is in the way of progress and prosperity. That is Dan's agenda he is hiding.