Can Solar & Wind Fix Everything (e.g., Climate Change) with a battery break-through?

[Sanwizard]

Here's another interesting court case from China:



The government seems to be pushing the courts to take an active role, from the same reference:

But China does not implement all the clean coal tech we developed, and they are building two new plants every week( at least according to that far right org NPR? ).

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin

 

[Checkthisout]

But China does not implement all the clean coal tech we developed, and they are building two new plants every week( at least according to that far right org NPR? ).

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin

Correct.

Which is bad. Coal is nasty if the flu gasses are not cleaned before releasing to the atmosphere.

 

[grizzzman]

Does the EPA consider CO2 a pollutant?


The new language, as reported by The New York Times, defines carbon dioxide as a pollutant. That gives the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.Nov 30, 2022

 

[Hedges]

Oxygen is a pollutant, and near-total depletion of atmospheric carbon dioxide by plants caused catastrophic climate change.

 

[Checkthisout]

Does the EPA consider CO2 a pollutant?


The new language, as reported by The New York Times, defines carbon dioxide as a pollutant. That gives the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.Nov 30, 2022

The Supreme Court curbed EPA’s power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. What comes next?

Harvard Chan School experts discuss the implications of a Supreme Court ruling limiting the EPA’s power to curb power plant emissions.

www.hsph.harvard.edu

 

[aenyc]

Looks like the parasite class is starting to feel the wrath (lol), so maybe they will backstep the lunacy a little? Maybe?

Wind and Solar Aren’t Nearly Enough: Why Biden Is Suddenly Supporting Fossil Fuels

Progress towards an energy transition appears to be significantly lagging the optimistic projections and any reduction in government mandates and subsidies could make many investments unprofitable, a

www.realclearwire.com

 

[aenyc]

There are even more problems scaling the "non-dispatchable" solar and wind, you don't just plug it in there's a bunch of engineering and infrastructure needed and management algorithms have to be implemented and run every day etc.

And there are accounting problems too, if you build out the gas plants to use when the sun don't shine you can only amortize them the 50% of the time they're running, IOW they cost 2x more per megawatt/hour than if they were used 24x7.

Which accounting is also true of the non-dispatchables, if solar is only good 8 hours a day then every megawatt/hour costs 3x the apparent cost, and given winter sun angles and cloudy days that's really more like 4x or 5x, and since you overbuild to try to extend that a little bit, if you overbuild by 10x then you're now paying something like 50x more per megawatt/hour, *plus* the standby plants. And we haven't even tried to pay for batteries yet, and the losses associated with batteries, another 30% or so.

So trying to make wind/solar the main source of power costs about 70x more than fossil fuels - and nukes, and even hydro if the drought don't kill it.

So, your hundred dollar a month electric bill? You're all ready to pay $7,000/month instead, right? It's for the planet.

Wait! You've got an EV now, or two. So make that $20,000 per month.

Not to mention your electric stove, LOL.

 

[42OhmsPA]

So on the mini splits....
I recently installed a 12k Pioneer Inverter++. It has had zero issues blowing heat hot enough that I didn't want to stand in front of it for an extended period, ambient temps anywhere from 28F and up (claims it heats down to - 13f).
The most I've seen it pull from the batteries was just over 1kw. I've been more than impressed.
PA winters can be pretty brutal (from a Pennsylvanian standpoint) with multiple days below freezing.
I have what I think is a brilliant idea of installing the next compressor in my basement (raised ranch)... I heat primarily with coal, I tied the stoker into my existing ductwork... My coal stove is also in the basement. My thinking is the coal stove could burn on idle all winter, greatly reducing usage, while the minisplit compressor uses the heat from the coal stove to heat the upstairs. I could easily build a plenum around the compressor to capture the cold exhaust air and dump it outside, I could even get really fancy and send some of it to combustion air of the coal stove...
When I get around to installing a HPWH it would pull the hot exhaust air from the minisplit compressor in the summer to heat water more efficiently...

Does any of that redneck efficiency engineering make sense?

 

[svetz]

...My thinking is the coal stove could burn on idle all winter, greatly reducing usage, while the minisplit compressor uses the heat from the coal stove to heat the upstairs.

If the heat from the stove is already in the house pumping it upstairs would also make it colder where the stove is (left to itself, the downstairs heat should migrate upstairs via air currents). The waste heat out the flue might be heat that's recoverable and would otherwise be lost. Given the price of delivered coal, might not be worth it.

 

[42OhmsPA]

If the heat from the stove is already in the house pumping it upstairs would also make it colder where the stove is (left to itself, the downstairs heat should migrate upstairs via air currents). The waste heat out the flue might be heat that's recoverable and would otherwise be lost. Given the price of delivered coal, might not be worth it.

That makes sense, my thinking was the minisplit is more efficient at producing heat than the coal stove, I'd also reduce the losses of the duct work. Didn't even think about reclaiming the flue heat but I wouldn't want to, fly ash is already bad enough...
I pick my own coal up from the breaker, last load was $200/ton and my electricity is free (97% of the year) but I can't make enough in the winter for heating solely off electric.

 

[Hedges]

Coil of tube in flue, use water to transfer heat to refrigerant tube on inlet side of compressor.
(Maybe refrigerant tube itself could have been in the flue, but requires opening system, and over-temperature could cause breakdown of refrigerant. So water loop with pressure relief.)
Or air to air heat exchanger.
There are centrifugal air filters. My old truck had one as pre-filter before oil bath filter. That might help extract ash.

 

[MurphyGuy]

If digging into the bedrock is too difficult/expensive (but who doesn't want to blow stuff up?), then why not entomb the evaporator in the new concrete slab for the new patio? That is put the pipes down, put some fill over them, then put a slab of concrete on top and paint it black in winter and white in summer.

The buried pipes need to be embedded into a medium with a few important attributes..

1) Enough mass that the energy being exchanged doesn't significantly change the temperature of the mass they are using. When they bury pipes in cold climates, they are usually down 7 to 12 feet below ground. That means they dig a hole or a series of long wide trenches and excavate roughly the same amount of material as the home's basement to do it. Here in Michigan, I believe we need to go down about 8 feet into the clay because our "frost line" is at 42 inches... Up in Canada, I believe its more like 12 feet. If you don't have enough soil mass at a high enough temperature, your geothermal system will turn it into a giant block of ice and stop working for the same reason the mini-splits stop... ice!

2) The mass must have a high enough thermal conductivity in the general localized area to replace the energy (heat) that is being pulled out of the ground. If the ground can not transport it's natural heat energy into the pipes as fast as the energy is being removed, then the entire thing becomes one big block of ice again..

3) The mass must be at a significantly high temperature to do the job. A surface poured concrete slab would be at roughly the same temperature as the air outside.

Ponds make good places to put the pipes, they sink them to the bottom with weights.. but the pond must be deep enough and big enough to satisfy the system.

I like @LeoThomson's idea of making it mandatory for new construction, seems like a freebie if you do it when the foundation goes in. Although, servicing leaks might be a problem? Foundations do crack after all. I guess in the south it's not an issue (except the humidity), but in the north, it might only make sense with an unfinished basement you could jackhammer through to fix it. Unless it's buried under the foundation and some sort of self-sealer compound could work (it's not like the refrigerant needs to circulate in that system.

His heart is in the right place but its a terrible idea full of all kinds of problems. Geothermal in the summer is easy and can be done almost anywhere.. In fact, geothermal for cooling has almost no advantages over normal air conditioning units. Where geothermal shines is for electric heating in the winter, but again, the system has to be set up correctly or it won't won't work.

If you put your geothermal pipes in the foundation of your home, it would freeze the water around the foundation, crack the concrete due to the frozen water, and turn your entire basement into a giant ice box. That frozen water would also most likely lift your house due to "frost heave".

Horrible idea from an engineering perspective.

 

[MurphyGuy]

The existing R410a would work.

The evaporator pressure for a "standard" heat pump is probably set to around ~100 psia, so from the R410A pressure enthalpy chart below, that's a fixed temperature above freezing, and probably set that way so the outside coils don't freeze up (for those units that don't have defrost cycles as @MurphyGuy said). Probably around 90 psia for those that do (a boiling temperature of 20F), If the outside temperature is close to or lower than the boiling temperature obviously no heat can flow into the system (that is if the evaporator boils at 36 degrees and it's 30 degrees outside, heat flows from hot to cold, so heat couldn't flow into the evaporator to do its job).

Svetz's two-second guide to PE charts The chart to the left represents the pressure, temperature, and enthalpy of a gas. Given any pressure you can find the boiling temperature and calculate the change in enthalpy (heat) at that pressure between gas and liquid phases. The "hump" is the interesting part. The left side is a fluid (e.g., water) and the right it is a gas (e.g., steam). Because the transition between phases at constant pressure is a constant temperature, the horizontal lines across the hump are the temperature. So, at 90 psia, the phase change is about 120-20, or 100 BTU/lb. The red line in the diagram below shows a full cycle.

As you can also see from the chart above, if you drop the evaporator pressure to 25 psia, then the evaporation temperature is -40F, so it'll work in a lot colder environment.

Different refrigerants have very different properties. For example, water to water is 970 BTU/lb at 1 atmosphere (PE Chart). I believe water is the "king" of heat moved per lb. Also non-toxic!

So why don't they all go to 25 psia for -40F? To get to the condensation temperature (where the heat comes out) you always need to compress it to around 310 psia to get ~100F. The larger the pressure delta, the more work the compressor needs to do. So it will become slightly less efficient.

If the expansion valve were dynamic to where you could set evaporator pressure, then the system could dial in the optimum pressure for the outside temperature and ambient humidity (e.g., defrost cycles).

In Summary
Theoretically, heat pumps can work at any temperature. Practical concerns (like coils icing up) prevent them from working as efficiently with air as they need defrost cycles. But, getting heat from other mediums such as being buried solves that problem. Going deeper for geothermal heat rather than ambient heat makes them even more efficient.

Interesting.
I have a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer that freezes the food to -40 degrees and it uses the 410 refrigerant.

 

[svetz]

Interesting.
I have a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer that freezes the food to -40 degrees and it uses the 410 refrigerant.

But how much frost does it get when the kids leave the doors open??

...Here in Michigan, I believe we need to go down about 8 feet into the clay because our "frost line" is at 42 inches...

Think global warming, in a few years your lakes will have crocodiles and the frost line will be a thing Alaskans talk about ... ; -)
If your family is big enough, you could put the pipes over the leech field, those are exothermic reactions and deep enough to not freeze. ; -)

Ponds make good places to put the pipes, they sink them to the bottom with weights.. but the pond must be deep enough and big enough to satisfy the system.

Let's see, a gallon weighs about 8.34 lbs, 1 BTU per degree per pound. So, a 20k gallon pond (about the size of an average pool) that started about 60F would have a thermal capacity of 20k x 8.34 x (60-32) /12k BTUs/Ton) = ~400 tons of heat.

Well, that doesn't include the energy available to freeze the pond solid. That's about 144 BTU/lb, so to freeze it solid would be another 20k x 8.34 x 144 / 12k ~= 2000 tons.

You'd need to know the maximum coldest duration and thickest natural ice depth to properly calculate a pond size.

His heart is in the right place...

I couldn't comment even with an X-Ray, but he does seem to be a nice guy. So does everyone really, they just get a bit heated at times and I uncharitably sometimes question their reading comprehension. But on the other hand, I am probably over-optimistic too, I believe we can continue our ways and even consume more energy without killing ourselves.

If you put your geothermal pipes in the foundation of your home, it would freeze the water around the foundation

Dang, how cold are you planning on running the evaporation? I thought the prime reason to bury it was that you could use a higher evaporation temperature (40ish) and gain better efficiencies. Over a large surface area buried at the appropriate depth the temperature should be readily stable and readily conducted by ground water.

Horrible idea from an engineering perspective.

Nonsense, Engineers love a challenge. In fact, without a problem, they'll frequently invent new problems (paraphrasing Douglas Adams).

 

[aenyc]

Very interesting article on Information control, censorship and fact checkers.
Nothing particularly new to those of us who have been paying attention, but nicely summarized with "official" links to those just waking up from the matrix.

Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Top 50 Organizations to Know

The citizen's starter kit to understanding the new global information cartel

www.racket.news

The “Censorship-Industrial Complex” is just the Military-Industrial Complex reborn for the “hybrid warfare” age.

"Much like the war industry, pleased to call itself the “defense” sector, the “anti-disinformation” complex markets itself as merely defensive, designed to fend off the hostile attacks of foreign cyber-adversaries who unlike us have “military limitations.” The CIC, however, is neither wholly about defense, nor even mostly focused on foreign “disinformation.” It’s become instead a relentless, unified messaging system aimed primarily at domestic populations, who are told that political discord at home aids the enemy’s undeclared hybrid assault on democracy.

They suggest we must rethink old conceptions about rights, and give ourselves over to new surveillance techniques like “toxicity monitoring,” replace the musty old free press with editors claiming a “nose for news” with an updated model that uses automated assignment tools like “newsworthy claim extraction,” and submit to frank thought-policing mechanisms like the “redirect method,” which sends ads at online browsers of dangerous content, pushing them toward “constructive alternative messages.”

Binding all this is a commitment to a new homogeneous politics, which the complex of public and private agencies listed below seeks to capture in something like a Unified Field Theory of neoliberal narrative, which can be perpetually tweaked and amplified online via algorithm and machine learning. This is what some of the organizations on this list mean when they talk about coming up with a “shared vocabulary” of information disorder, or “credibility,” or “media literacy.”

 

[grizzzman]

Very interesting article on Information control, censorship and fact checkers.
Nothing particularly new to those of us who have been paying attention, but nicely summarized with "official" links to those just waking up from the matrix.

Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Top 50 Organizations to Know

The citizen's starter kit to understanding the new global information cartel

www.racket.news

The “Censorship-Industrial Complex” is just the Military-Industrial Complex reborn for the “hybrid warfare” age.

"Much like the war industry, pleased to call itself the “defense” sector, the “anti-disinformation” complex markets itself as merely defensive, designed to fend off the hostile attacks of foreign cyber-adversaries who unlike us have “military limitations.” The CIC, however, is neither wholly about defense, nor even mostly focused on foreign “disinformation.” It’s become instead a relentless, unified messaging system aimed primarily at domestic populations, who are told that political discord at home aids the enemy’s undeclared hybrid assault on democracy.

They suggest we must rethink old conceptions about rights, and give ourselves over to new surveillance techniques like “toxicity monitoring,” replace the musty old free press with editors claiming a “nose for news” with an updated model that uses automated assignment tools like “newsworthy claim extraction,” and submit to frank thought-policing mechanisms like the “redirect method,” which sends ads at online browsers of dangerous content, pushing them toward “constructive alternative messages.”

Binding all this is a commitment to a new homogeneous politics, which the complex of public and private agencies listed below seeks to capture in something like a Unified Field Theory of neoliberal narrative, which can be perpetually tweaked and amplified online via algorithm and machine learning. This is what some of the organizations on this list mean when they talk about coming up with a “shared vocabulary” of information disorder, or “credibility,” or “media literacy.”

This looks like it came from the World Economic Forum. It would be entrusting to see if the authors were involved with them.

 

[MurphyGuy]

But how much frost does it get when the kids leave the doors open??

I don't understand that question. Leave door open to a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer?

Think global warming, in a few years your lakes will have crocodiles and the frost line will be a thing Alaskans talk about ... ; -)
If your family is big enough, you could put the pipes over the leech field, those are exothermic reactions and deep enough to not freeze. ; -)

Can't comment on this, would need to do a bunch of math I'm not inclined to do.

Let's see, a gallon weighs about 8.34 lbs, 1 BTU per degree per pound. So, a 20k gallon pond (about the size of an average pool) that started about 60F would have a thermal capacity of 20k x 8.34 x (60-32) /12k BTUs/Ton) = ~400 tons of heat.

Well, that doesn't include the energy available to freeze the pond solid. That's about 144 BTU/lb, so to freeze it solid would be another 20k x 8.34 x 144 / 12k ~= 2000 tons.

You'd need to know the maximum coldest duration and thickest natural ice depth to properly calculate a pond size.

That's a good start, but your 60F number assumes the water at the bottom is quite warm and is going to stay that way without influence. The reality is that even for a pond that doesn't freeze to the bottom, the water at the bottom is going to be just a bit over freezing itself.

Remember, the heat pumps cools the water, it doesn't warm it up.. Replacement heat has to come from somewhere or the water freezes.

Dang, how cold are you planning on running the evaporation? I thought the prime reason to bury it was that you could use a higher evaporation temperature (40ish) and gain better efficiencies. Over a large surface area buried at the appropriate depth the temperature should be readily stable and readily conducted by ground water.

It doesn't matter. This part is simple.. every bit of energy you are transporting into the home will come from the pipes in the ground or pond. As the energy is moved into the home, the energy in the area around those pipes will be removed and MUST be replaced or it freezes.

It's not the coolant or refrigerant that freezes.. the pipes will still move the liquid inside them.. but they won't transport any more energy because the ice around them will insulate the pipes.

I don't know how much pond would be needed to warm the average house in a northern climate, but I suspect you'd need at least a 12 foot deep pond with a 1/4 to 1/2 acre surface area. And there further north one goes, the larger and deeper the pond would need to be.

Of course, there are a lot of caveats to this.. a pond with a strong natural spring would support more energy transfer than one without a natural spring.. Even the soil conditions that make up the pond would play a part if the numbers were close enough.

And for a disclaimer: Damn it Jim, I'm an electrical engineer, not a geothermal engineer! (only Star Trek fans will understand that)

The laws of physics don't change based on the subject matter, but I'm not familiar enough with the variables to provide solid answers.. What I do know is that there have been a lot of incidences in the early days where geothermal systems have frozen up due to poor conduction, not enough ground loop, or other similar problems. I'm sure they have that stuff straightened out these days, but the message is that you would have to consult with someone who does this for a living because it's not a straight numbers game.

Geothermal is a very different animal than something like requiring solar panels on a house. Mandating geothermal would be an absolute nightmare of red tape, engineering problems, cost, etc.

For reference: A friend of mine in mid-Michigan has a 2800sqft home. His geothermal was 12 feet down and something like 2400 feet of pipe laid into the ground in loops and layers. His system was about $30,000 back around 2007 or so.

Nonsense, Engineers love a challenge. In fact, without a problem, they'll frequently invent new problems (paraphrasing Douglas Adams).

 

[Checkthisout]

Yeah. That's what many don't understand about the northern U.S.

The cold. It gets cold and it gets cold down deep. A pond in the winter would be worse than just burying it in the ground.

Unless just huge and deep, you would ruin the thermocline by introducing cold to the bottom of the bottom of the pond and the whole thing would freeze solid. Remember they get into negative temps for days.

And also, I mean you do all that shit and then start thinking.....its just easier to put a gas furnace in or electrical or heat with wood or pellets.

 

[Hedges]

Sometimes, freezing the ground is the objective.

Explainer: Wall of ice at Fukushima's crippled nuclear plant

The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant said this month that two storage tanks had leaked about four tonnes of coolant solution used to create an ice wall that prevented groundwater from seeping in.

www.reuters.com

 

[LeoThomson]

You ought to be in California government ?

You do know that the price of land is depended on the ability for buyers to pay for that land, right? (If you don't, you shouldn't be in any government)