#Video #toread about a computer powered by fire #energy
on 02026-08-26#video on sensible-heat thermal #energy storage in a 200-liter drum of sand for heating a greenhouse. The design seems badly botched to me in several different ways: silicone-insulated wires leading into the sand, trying to suck air out of the sand instead of blowing air in, using a plastic sewer pipe to try to get air into the sand, running the heating element off an inverter, using 73 volts dc, no data logging, etc. They never made a followup video in 8 months. #energy-storage
on 02026-08-18#Concept-Crafted-Creations #video about #manufacturing the #solar-energy collector based on the James Webb Space Telescope with 18 mirrors costing US$5 each. Explains that the JWST uses gold so it can do better infrared imaging. He made some small concentrating mirrors by letting heated plexiglas discs sag into a mold made with #3D-printing, which seems like an interesting technique for #optics in its own right, though possibly not imaging optics. Rather than for the final solar concentrator, this was used for a goofy invalid experiment to compare “silver” and “gold” which were represented by colored spray paint, and the “#energy” gathered was measured by some unknown kind of light sensor #electronics. For his big collector, he used not just 3-D printing but also #laser-cutting on wood and assembly with screws. He also used a laser-cut alt-azimuth wood base with a giant gear for #solar tracking. He explains the three-point screw-and-compression-spring mounting that makes each of the 18 mirrors alignable, using TPU accordions for the compression springs; the mirrors themselves are laser-cut plexiglas with reflective window film stuck to it. He was hoping to sag these plexiglas hexagons into a mold in the same way as for the small test mirrors, but his microwave oven (which must be what he used for the others) damaged the window film, so he ended up heating them to only 100° or 120° and clamping them into a mold (with a laser-cut custom clamp) instead of just letting them sag under their own weight. His aluminum collector plate with coolant grooves running through it cost him US$171 for #PCBWay to custom-machine, making this a very expensive solar collector, though he thinks it’s cheap. Also he’s in the Netherlands, where it’s cloudy a lot, especially in winter. Comments mention that blackening copper with liver of sulfur makes a good solar-collector material.
on 02026-08-15#Concept-Crafted-Creations #video about a #solar #energy collector based on the James Webb Space Telescope with 18 mirrors costing US$5 each, each mounted on three springs with screws in a giant flower, with a dual-axis solar tracker. It yielded only 924 watts out of 1.31m².
on 02026-08-15Stub article about #Project-Independence. #energy #history #USA
on 02026-08-05#Nixon’s speech announcing #Project-Independence for #energy in the #USA, on November 7, 01973, a couple months after the Yom Kippur War. #history
on 02026-08-05#history of #USA #energy programs from 01971 to 01980, with a focus on #Nixon and his #Project-Independence.
on 02026-08-05#news #video about how the world didn’t have a huge #oil shock from the #Iran war just now. Proposes a theory that #China’s Xi Jinping averted disaster.
Incorrectly states that 10% of the world oil supply is “more than a tenth of global #energy usage”. Misleading plots with nonzero baselines to exaggerate drawdowns of strategic petroleum reserves. Purportedly China’s oil imports dropped by half (5.5 million barrels per day) between March and June, though given the previous falsehoods I’m not going to trust anything out of this “Max Fisher” bozo until I verify it. Reportedly there’s a Reuters article from March entitled, “China orders immediate ban on March fuel exports, sources say,” about refinery outputs, and a Wall Street Journal article from June, “China is propping up the world economy by importing a lot less oil”. And reportedly China was burning a record amount of coal by April, perhaps shutting down liquid-fueled power plants. Oh, and supposedly China had a 1.4 billion barrel secret strategic oil reserve, larger than the strategic oil reserves of all other countries put together.
Another boner toward the end of the video: “trading in US dollars means those transactions have to be processed by a US-based bank.” No, no it doesn’t.
on 02026-07-18profile of Liz Muller, founder of the of #Deep-Fission #nuclear #energy company, who apparently lives in Berkeley
on 02026-06-13Charlie #Stross’s account of his guided tour of the Torness Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) #nuclear reactor complex. #energy
on 02026-06-12#Ember on #USA #photovoltaic #solar-energy #energy compared to coal, gas, etc. #Solar finally nosed up over coal in May: 45.5TWh vs. 44.1TWh, which I guess is 61.2GW vs. 59.3GW. But nuclear is still at 63.5TWh/month and gas is at 132TWh/month. Wind is also 41TWh.
on 02026-06-11#news: #photovoltaic #solar-energy “supplied 12.8% of [#USA] electricity in May even as #Trump boosts coal over clean #energy”, while coal was only 12.2% (and probably insignificant outside of electricity). Nice (minimally related stock) photo of #sheep grazing under #solar panels in Saltillo, Texas. “#Seia and Wood Mackenzie said solar and battery storage were practically the only energy resources being built in the first quarter, making up 91% of all new generating capacity [presumably in the US].” Sourced from #Ember but without a proper citation. #energy
on 02026-06-11#news: #photovoltaic #solar-energy “supplied 12.8% of [#USA] electricity in May even as #Trump boosts coal over clean #energy”, while coal was only 12.2% (and probably insignificant outside of electricity). Nice (minimally related stock) photo of #sheep grazing under #solar panels in Saltillo, Texas. “#Seia and Wood Mackenzie said solar and battery storage were practically the only energy resources being built in the first quarter, making up 91% of all new generating capacity [presumably in the US].” Sourced from #Ember but without a proper citation. #energy
on 02026-06-11God damn it, docs.nrel.gov no longer exists. But in 02018 utility-scale #solar system costs were US$2.27/W for 500kW to 5MW systems. Cites PVinsights for global module prices dropping from US$0.31/W to US$0.22/W in 02018. Great plot of "PV value chain spot pricing" from 02007 to 02018, and says “global solar investments” were US$132B in 02018, two-thirds in large-scale PV, 26% in small-scale solar. #Trump #USA #energy #politics #censorship #PDF #energy #solar-energy
on 02026-05-30God damn it, docs.nrel.gov no longer exists. But in 02018 utility-scale #solar system costs were US$2.27/W for 500kW to 5MW systems. Cites PVinsights for global module prices dropping from US$0.31/W to US$0.22/W in 02018. Great plot of "PV value chain spot pricing" from 02007 to 02018, and says “global solar investments” were US$132B in 02018, two-thirds in large-scale PV, 26% in small-scale solar. #Trump #USA #energy #politics #censorship #PDF #energy #solar-energy
on 02026-05-30#CAISO day-ahead electrical #energy #pricing map
on 02026-05-1129-second #video below and above a floating #solar-energy farm in #China. #solar #energy
on 02026-05-05#nuclear #energy #history, Hyman Rickover’s 01953 memo about how “paper reactors” are simple, small, cheap, light, quickly built, flexible in purpose, and require very little development, while practical reactors are behind schedule, require an immense amount of development on apparently trivial components such as corrosion, expensive, slow to build, large, heavy, and complicated. “The original was published in The Journal of Reactor Science and Technology, Volume 3, No. 3 (which is classified) and reproduced many times, e.g. in Congressional testimony.”
on 02026-05-05converting 3.2% of #corn alcohol fuel production land in the #USA to #solar farms would supply the same #energy as all of corn alcohol fuel production in the USA. #solar-energy
on 02026-04-22#news #video: in "solar grazing" the beasts keep the grass from growing up over your #solar panels; focused on third-generation shepherd Dan Finnegan in southeastern Massachusetts, whose company is Solar Shepherd, LLC <https://solarshepherd.com/>, grazing that day on a solar farm owned by National Grid. He has 100 “acres” of solar farms under management as pastures. Unlike cows, #sheep fit underneath solar panels on many utility-scale solar farms, and they’re an alternative to “five or eight guys ... running weed whackers under solar panels”. #solar-energy #energy
on 02026-04-22#ERCOT’s fuel mix dashboard, currently 38.2% solar (21GW), 26% wind (14GW), -3% power storage, 25% gas, 8% coal, 7% nuclear. #energy
on 02026-04-22“christoph” reports installing 9.2kW(p) of rooftop #solar 5 weeks ago in southeast England. #Pricing was £17k, which works out to £1.85/Wp (US$2.49/Wp). #solar-energy #energy
on 02026-04-22100Wp #solar panel for sale for US delivery, #pricing US$37.21, free shipping, and a US$4 “coupon” discount, 33¢/Wp. #solar-energy #energy
on 02026-04-22#SEIA #solar map of #USA #solar-energy state by state, including manufacturing facilities, etc. #energy
on 02026-04-22#Hyperspace-Pirate #video on #manufacturing a #jugaad #cooling setup with phase-change thermal #energy-storage in a bucket of ice with copper-tube heat exchange loops in it, one for a water and ethylene glycol coolant and one for an R600 vapor compression refrigeration loop. #solar #energy #solar-energy
on 02026-04-14#news from 02024: “Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, #Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced more than 99.7 per cent of the electricity they consumed using geothermal, hydro, #solar or #wind power.” In 02022 I think. #solar-energy #energy
on 02026-04-12“[Luxor’s Hashrate Index] estimates that only 8 to 10 percent of global #Bitcoin computing power is located in electricity markets linked to crude prices, mainly in Gulf countries such as the UAE and Oman. (...) with smaller contributions from Iran, Kuwait, Qatar and Libya.” #oil #pricing #energy #cryptocurrencies
on 02026-04-11#solar #PV module #pricing is up sharply from November’s record low €0.050/Wp for low-cost and €0.105/Wp for mainstream modules to €0.065 and €0.120 respectively. #energy #solar-energy
on 02026-04-11#solar resource map and some #capacity-factor data for the #USA. #solar-energy #energy
on 02026-04-11#photovoltaic #capacity-factor dataviz using Tableau. #energy #USA #solar-energy
on 02026-04-11From the discussion of Tom Brown’s #solar-energy calculations, ronb1964: “I build off-grid camper vans for a living and install solar + lithium battery systems regularly. The technology has matured a lot in the last few years. What used to take a massive roof array and a bank of heavy lead-acid or AGM #batteries to run basic appliances now fits in a fraction of the space with lithium.” morphle gives #pricing: “15kWh 48V LFP battery around $1800 with low quality battery management system in metal box on wheels. Car batteries need more expensive inverters if you want to fast charge them (150kW-950kW) and super fast discharge them while driving fast (>100 kW). (...) The Mercedes eSprinter 56kW van costs around $80000 new but we sell 3 year old vans like this for $4000 without battery. So refurbished and converted to eCamper with 1800 mile range you pay $6700.” #vanlife #energy
on 02026-04-09Tom Brown’s “Solar and #batteries can power the world”. He summarizes, “Solar and batteries are cheap enough that most people can get most of their electricity from them, and save money. This equation gets better and better over time as their costs decline,” and more specifically, “solar and batteries can supply 90% of electricity for 80% of the world’s population at less than 80 €/MWh (including a fuel backup) with 2030 assumptions.” He doesn’t rely on wind, but does include it. He thinks stored fuel is the solution to Dunkelflauten. Based on “the Danish Energy Agency Technology Database for 2030 in 2020 euros: solar PV installed cost 384 €/kWp, lithium-ion battery installed cost 157 €/kWh.” Open code and data. He’s summing up his computations for “the 9196 1° by 1° pixels that contains more than 10,000 people, which is enough to include 99.86% of the population,” using capacity factors for wind and solar per pixel, though I’m not sure where his pixels are from. He assumes no demand response (conservative) and no seasonality (overoptimistic). #pricing #solar-energy #energy
on 02026-04-09“The final report of the Expert Panel on the 28 April 2025 #blackout in continental #Spain and #Portugal identifies the causes of the blackout and outlines recommendations to strengthen the resilience of Europe’s interconnected electricity system.” #energy #history
on 02026-04-08replacing a chest freezer thermostat to get a chest refrigerator: much lower #energy use in exchange for taking up more floor space. #cooling
on 02026-04-08“Powering #Australia with #nuclear-energy would cost roughly twice as much as renewables, CSIRO report shows” #news #solar-energy #energy
on 02026-04-08Direct current microgrid standards, but only if you give them your personal information. #energy #futurism #electronics
on 02026-04-04the 2.25-gigawatt coal-powered Navajo Generating Station provided the majority of the income of the #Hopi tribe and a fair chunk of that of the #Navajo tribe until it was shut down in 02019 and demolished in 02020. #energy #history
on 02026-04-03archive of https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-transformers/ #news about how #manufacturing of #transformers is a bottleneck for electrifying... the world? Somehow I doubt that; it seems like the kind of problem China is good at solving. The article mentions the UK, the #USA, Europe, India, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine, before getting to China, where the vast majority of electrification is happening, and then says, “China, on the other hand, has been growing transformer manufacturing for years that feeds both its growing domestic electricity demand and rising export needs.” Also microgrids don’t need the kind of giant transformers that require a lead time of a year. And Bloomberg’s reporting here is plagued with false statements of fact, claiming that all transformers are at least as big as a household trash can, and that “a quirk of history” made the grid dependent on them, namely that Edison lost the War of the Currents. #politics #energy
on 02026-04-03persuasive #video about #energy #futurism (mostly #solar-energy) and #economics, ending up in a fiery anti-#Trump #politics diatribe
on 02026-03-14#news that #Egypt is going to build a couple gigawatts of #solar #energy production
on 02026-01-15#solar #energy #sand-battery #energy-storage feeding 250 watts into a stove burner in a flowerpot full of (construction?) sand. #toread #video
on 02026-01-14#NREL #news release from 02017: “Researchers at NREL Find Fewer Failures of PV Panels and Different Degradation Modes in Systems Installed after 2000 (...) Installations between 2000 and 2015 exhibited a median failure rate of 5 panels out of 10,000 annually, while for those panels installed between 1980 and 2000 the rate was twice as high. (...) An article detailing the findings of the research, Photovoltaic Failure and Degradation Modes, appears in the journal Progress in Photovoltaics. The authors are Dirk C. Jordan, Timothy J. Silverman, John H. Wohlgemuth, and Sarah R. Kurtz from NREL and Kaitlyn T. VanSant from the Colorado School of Mines.” #solar #photovoltaic #energy
on 02026-01-13#NREL’s “PVWatts” #calculator for #solar #energy investment returns
on 02026-01-13From September: “Rooftop #solar is a fixed-income alternative yielding ~10% ... A solar installation with a six-year payback period generates returns comparable to high-yield corporate bonds. Better yet, these returns come with unique tax advantages and inflation protection. For investors seeking fixed-income, solar deserves serious consideration as part of a diversified portfolio.” #energy #photovoltaic #finance
on 02026-01-13#HN comments on #solar #energy #pricing pointing out that #Scott-Helme’s setup is amazingly overpriced, in part because of #Tesla and predicting a “bloodbath in that market in the next years”. Also £25420 for three 13.5kWh Powerwalls is £628/kWh or US$840/kWh (my calculations) while actual #pricing of #batteries are US$60/kWh and UL-listed 16kWh prebuilt battery packs are US$3300 (US$210/kWh). “scarecrowbob” reports, “I am writing this off grid, using about 15kwh of #batteries and a $1200 (6kw) inverter. My entire system puls [plus] panels and racking those panels, plus wiring some un-powered shacks was about $10k.” “jstsch” reports, “Just received a 15kWh battery from China. A ‘Humsienk’. Combined it with a GroWatt SPA3000TL-BL inverter. Total price, 1600 euros. So close to the magical 100 euros per kWh. Driving it with some interesting combinations of Raspberry PI’s and serial interfaces and custom written Go code, but it works... :)” “Dylan1312” confirms. 1600€ is US$1900, so that’s US$125/kWh, less than a sixth of the Powerwall price. Meanwhile, “bob1029” says, “The rooftop solar game in Texas is strongly into scam territory.”
on 02026-01-13#Scott-Helme computes that his #UK #solar #energy setup (three #Tesla Powerwalls for £25420 and a £13940 Perlight #Enphase #photovoltaic array of 4.2kWp, which is US$18753 or US$4.46/Wp, roughly 45 times current wholesale solar module #pricing) saved him £3078 in 02025, which at £39360 would be a 7.8% return on investment during that year. But he only had “export capabilities” for 7 months, and he anticipates that the ROI would have been 9.2% if he’d had it all year. No thoughts on what the ROI will be when utility-scale solar drops the cost of grid power and eliminates his export capabilities.
on 02026-01-13gas pipe sizing chart for delivering gas for #energy. Seems like flow rate is proportional to the pipe diameter to a power of about 2.5.
on 02025-12-16Ian McKay at #Orca says dematerialization is really increase in embodied #energy. I think it’s mostly information. His main point is that we should be looking for alternatives that get more energy-intensive. Mention of “IRA” seems to mean “inflation reduction act”, not “Irish Republican Army”. “Thoughts in here originated with Menyoung Lee, Patrick Gallagher, Eli Dourado, Austin Vernon and George Hansel. Graphs were made with Aravindh Rajan.”
on 02025-12-12Ian McKay on “Outside Takes on Clean Energy”, linking to articles outside #Orca, including one on how lower #energy #pricing could make #aluminum cheaper than #steel #materials
on 02025-12-12archive of https://www.fastcompany.com/91314089/this-solar-powered-steel-mill-in-the-mojave-desert-is-a-glimpse-of-the-future #news by Patrick Sisson from April about Mojave Micro, the new #solar and #wind powered steel mill in the Mojave Desert, which opens in two years, owned by Pacific Steel, which supplies a quarter of California’s rebar. But it has grid #energy as a backup, which it plans to use 15% of the time.
on 02025-12-12eGroups founder Martin Roscheisen’s account of #solar #energy #history: “After the dotcom bust, initially semi-retired after Yahoo! had purchased eGroups, I felt that there’s big industries, in particular energy, that could be transformed through a Silicon Valley type approach. Like making solar power ten times less expensive. So in 2002, I started Nanosolar and ran it for eight years until 2010 — as the longest serving CEOs in the solar industry back then.
Nanosolar was the first solar tech startup funded by American venture capital (Benchmark Capital) and became Silicon Valley’s solar flagship co as we were developing an ultra-low-cost solar cell and building two substantive high-tech fabs. I ran Nanosolar from zero to $2.1B in market value. Then I was forced out over our competitor Solyndra filing for an IPO ahead of us, and three years later, Nanosolar failed with inept leadership having been installed by investors.”
on 02025-12-03#coal peaker plants for #energy in #China
on 02025-12-03#China commissioned 30.5GW of #coal power plants in 02024, permitted 66.7GW, and started construction on 94.5GW. #energy
on 02025-12-03#paper on “Experimental analysis of an institutional solar PV-powered steam cooker with sand-based thermal energy storage” at a high school in Ghana. #energy-storage #sand-battery #energy #solar
on 02025-11-28Another #news item about the #Polar-Night #sand-battery #energy-storage, which utility Lahti Energia will be using for district heating #energy
on 02025-11-27#news about the #PV #energy explosion: “#Pakistan says rooftop #solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year (...) “Negative demand” is likely in the northwestern city of #Lahore, which has some of the country's highest solar penetration, followed by Faisalabad and Sialkot, where industrial areas are driving solar adoption, [Aisha Moriani] said. (...) The south Asian nation is planning to introduce new tariffs for large solar users, as well as changes to fee structures to ensure businesses with panels share equally in the costs of grid upkeep, she said.”
on 02025-11-27Tonopah #CSP #solar #energy plant went bankrupt in 02021 and was already obsolete when it went into operation in 02015.
on 02025-11-27#video #documentary on #NIMBY in #Andalusia, #Spain, fighting #solar #energy because the #PV parks are proliferating, and the Spanish state are expropriating the lands of farmers to reach their goals, which is "in their backyard" in a far more literal sense than the usual one. “Renovables sí, pero no así”. Etc. I didn’t finish it.
on 02025-11-25#video on #cooling houses with a natural-convection earth-source PVC tube to save #energy. #HVAC
on 02025-11-25#Geothermal #energy article largely on Fervo, which has drilled three demonstration and appraisal wells for US$800 million
on 02025-11-17graph of the #history of #solar #PV #energy #pricing
on 02025-11-17apparently #Helion’s #fusion #energy press release about Malaga is from July
on 02025-11-1450MW #Helion #fusion #energy plant being built in Malaga, Washington (no date)
on 02025-11-14#Helion #fusion #energy proposal is to throw plasmons at each other and magnetically compress the fireball, then harness the plasma’s expansion (?) electrically
on 02025-11-14discussion of #Standard-Thermal #energy-storage where pfdietz corrected my misconception that a 600° sensible thermal store can only deliver useful amounts of power at much lower temperatures than 600°, and also most #USA electrical #energy generation is not using supercritical steam
on 02025-11-11people discussing #solar #energy in #Africa including #SunCulture
on 02025-11-11how #solar #energy is getting financed and deployed in #Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, the Ivory Coast, Zambia, and Togo), by companies like Sun King and #SunCulture, which in Kenya accept per-day payments over M-PESA (US$0.21/day). Not a very carefully reasoned article, seems to be AI slop, but maybe at least some of the things it says are true.
on 02025-11-11discussion of #solar #photovoltaic #energy throughout #Africa
on 02025-11-085.35 GW #Esmeralda-7 #solar #photovoltaic #energy project in Nevada, #USA, canceled due to #Trump #politics
on 02025-10-14Gallium-doped #photovoltaic cells are more resistant to light-induced degradation and have become the mainstream form. #solar #energy
on 02025-10-10Shanghai Metal Market #pricing for used #Li-ion battery commodities for #energy storage
on 02025-10-08in December #Li-ion battery pack #pricing was US$94/kWh for #energy storage. “BNEF expects pack prices to decrease by $3/kWh in 2025, based on its near-term outlook,” but if I’m reading the SMM page correctly, they’ve already dropped US$10.
on 02025-10-08Shanghai Metal Market #pricing for #sodium-battery commodities for #energy storage: “25Ah Pouch Sodium-ion Battery Cell (NFS) USD/wh: 0.05” which is US$50/kWh, more expensive than lions for #energy storage
on 02025-10-08Shanghai Metal Market #pricing for #sodium-battery commodities for #energy storage: “25Ah Pouch Sodium-ion Battery Cell (NFS) USD/wh: 0.05” which is US$50/kWh, more expensive than lions for #energy storage
on 02025-10-08Shanghai Metal Market #pricing for #Li-ion battery commodities for #energy storage, including entire batteries: “Prismatic NCM523 battery cell (50-60Ah)(weekly)” lists “average” 0.049, which is US$49/kWh. “6-series Prismatic Ternary Pack (weekly) USD/wh” is 0.084, US$84/kWh, down from US$94/kWh in December according to BNEF.
on 02025-10-08Llewellyn Jones makes all kind of misleading claims about #solar #energy #pricing
on 02025-10-05Brian Wang calculates almost 1 death per TWh for rooftop #solar #energy as of 02021. #safety
on 02025-10-050.44 deaths per TWh for rooftop #solar #energy as of 02008, according to Brian Wang, compared to 161 for coal. #safety
on 02025-10-05“I built [a plug-in microinverter #solar #energy household power station] in Utah which is the only part of the [#USA] where it’s currently legal, so I can give you the numbers.
Grand total was $1077, I set them in direct sun on my patio and have generated 6-8kWh per day. At Utah energy prices (0.12 where I live), they will pay off in about 4 years. Somewhere like California with 4x the energy prices as here, it would probably pay for itself in <1 year.” #pricing #photovoltaic
on 02025-10-05#USA #politics of #energy: Angus King says many RTO interconnection queues are 5 years long, and so are the waiting lists for gas turbines!
on 02025-09-09#maps of electrical #energy #pricing by #USA state
on 02025-09-07electrical #energy #pricing by #USA state and sector from the EIA
on 02025-09-07the modern masonry heater based on #rocket-stoves. #energy-storage #energy
on 02025-09-03overall article on thermal #energy-storage stoves like #Russian-stoves, #ondol, #dikang, etc. #energy #archaeology
on 02025-09-03"Russian stoves" also provided thermal #energy-storage and sleeping space. #energy
on 02025-09-03Chinese "dikang" also provides thermal #energy-storage, and you sleep on it. #energy
on 02025-09-03Korean "ondol" heating stoves provide thermal #energy-storage. #energy
on 02025-09-03household sand batteries, more or less, which have been mainstream in Europe for quite a while. #energy-storage #energy
on 02025-09-03huh, salinity gradients let you insulate your hot water with cold water! So you get a passive solar thermal collector for just the price of the pond liner. #energy
on 02025-09-03overview of thermal #energy-storage. #energy
on 02025-09-03hot water tanks for thermal #energy-storage, including stratified types, safety issues, etc. #energy
on 02025-09-03very nice overview of #passive-solar #energy-storage in #building. #energy
on 02025-09-03The "Barra system" is an interesting #passive-solar #energy-storage #building system using #thermosiphon air flow. #energy
on 02025-09-03#energy-storage in “earth tubes” that heat or cool air. #energy
on 02025-09-03Thermal #energy-storage in a gigantic cavern in Finland by a company called "Helen". #energy
on 02025-09-03#solar #energy #data from #China including rooftop solar
on 02025-09-01Lauri Myllyvirta’s analysis of #China CO₂ dropping mostly because of #energy
on 02025-09-01#China CO₂ emissions have fallen 1% from their peak last year, while its electric #energy industry’s emissions have fallen 3%
on 02025-09-01A claim that #India has 484 GW of electrical #energy generation capacity.
on 02025-09-01David Fishman on capacity factors and curtailment in #China’s electrical #energy market, saying the “thermal fleet” is at 39% CF now. “Yes, China is squatting on an entire USA’s worth of untapped power generation solely within the unused capacity of its current thermal fleet.”
on 02025-09-01David Fishman on the 02022 Sichuan electrical #energy crisis due to drought. #China #history
on 02025-09-01David Fishman’s capsule summary of the 02021 electrical #energy crisis in #China: “coal-fired power generators had to absorb high fuels costs from the mostly-liberalized coal market, but were restricted in how much money they could recoup by raising power rates. After many months of losses, generators literally ran out of money to buy coal, were sick of generating at a loss, and shut down their plants.” #history
on 02025-09-01The 02021 #China #energy crisis spurred market reforms #history
on 02025-09-01the #energy crisis in #China in 02021 involved cutting off electricity to industrial users for sometimes weeks
on 02025-09-01sources on #energy in #China, especially electrical, mostly from the NEA
on 02025-09-01“Global human appropriation of net primary production doubled in the 20th century” “from 6.9 Gt of carbon per y in 1910 to 14.8 GtC/y in 2005” which by my calculations at 30MJ/kg is about 14 terawatts (HHV). #HANPP #energy
on 02025-09-01wow, the #China electrical #energy grid hit a peak of 1508 gigawatts last month.
on 02025-09-01The thread by Dave Jones of #Ember #Energy about #solar taking off in #Africa, reformatted.
on 02025-09-01#China consumed 1023TWh of electrical #energy in July, which is an average of 1.4 terawatts.
on 02025-09-01#Ember #Energy report on #solar taking off in #Africa
on 02025-09-01Provincial-level analysis of #solar #energy in #China; #Shandong is seeing persistent negative spot electricity prices.
on 02025-09-01The actual source for electrical #energy #pricing around the globe; US$0.08/kWh in #China.
on 02025-09-01Electrical #energy #pricing around the globe; US$0.08/kWh in #China.
on 02025-09-01I didn’t realize there were #fuel-cell powered passenger ferries. #energy #toread
on 02025-08-27"aquavoltaics" #solar #energy fishponds (with regular #photovoltaic panels)
on 02025-08-27electrical #energy consumption list of countries
on 02025-08-27#China electrical #energy generation
on 02025-08-27#USA net electrical #energy generation by power source, working out to 9,295,921 thousand megawatt hours in 02024
on 02025-08-27#Rui-Ma on #energy in #China: “China: Electricity generation jumped from roughly ~5.6 PWh (2015) to ~10.1 PWh (2024), which is +80% in less than a decade. And 2024 alone grew ~7%, accounting for ~HALF of the world’s increase. China now produces ~1/3 of global electricity. That’s what “supply went up a lot” looks like, so yeah even if coal as a % of total went down, the total will still increase but the increase is QUICKLY PLATEAUING (...) Multiple independent analyses now show China’s CO₂ fell year‑on‑year across the last 12 months (and in Q1’25), driven by the clean‑power surge rather than an economic slump.”
on 02025-08-27#Rui-Ma’s account of her trip to #China to go to the World #AI Conference (#WAIC) and see investors and renewable #energy. “We met with companies ranging from Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT) to unicorns, as well as young startups founded less than a year ago. (...) Energy is considered a solved problem. The Chinese government’s investment in sustainable energy — from advanced hydropower to next-generation nuclear — means that, relative to many other markets, electricity supply is secure and inexpensive. Everywhere we went, people treated energy availability as a given. This is a stark contrast to the U.S., where AI growth is increasingly tied to debates over data center power consumption and grid limitations.”
on 02025-08-27“#AI experts [#Rui-Ma] return from #China stunned: The U.S. grid is so weak, the race may already be over. (...) In the U.S., surging AI demand is colliding with a fragile power grid, the kind of extreme bottleneck that Goldman Sachs warns could severely choke the industry’s growth.
In China, Ma continued, it’s considered a “solved problem.”” because “China has an oversupply of electricty [sic]”. “In China, renewables are framed as a cornerstone of the economy because they make sense economically and strategically, not because they carry moral weight. Coal use isn’t cast as a sign of villainy, as it would be among some circles in the U.S. It’s simply seen as outdated.” #energy #USA
on 02025-08-27The #Standard-Thermal white paper on #hot-dirt #energy-storage. #energy
on 02025-08-27Josh You, Alex Erben, and Ege Erdil estimate that a typical #GPT-4o #neural-networks #AI query uses 0.3 watt hours, based on the estimates that it’s a 400-billion-parameter MoE model in which ¼ of the parameters are activated for a given query, so each token requires 200 gigaflops (100 billion multiplies and 100 billion adds I guess), a typical query produces 500 output tokens (about a page of text), and they’re running on 1-petaflop/s H100 GPUs, with the overall cluster consuming at peak 1500 watts per GPU, with a utilization rate of 10%, and that the cluster on average consumes 70% of peak power. This works out to 1.05 kilojoules, or about 0.25 kilocalories, the amount of food #energy in one gram of carbohydrates. So a standard 2000kcal/day diet works out to 8000 GPT-4o queries per day, if we believe You, Erben, and Erdil’s estimate. For someone who is looking for GPT-4o-quality output, if you are producing less than 8000 pages of writing per day, you are less energy-efficient than GPT-4o.
on 02025-08-23#video on #CATL "Naxtra" #sodium-ion #batteries for #energy-storage at (rumored) US$10/kWh rather than Li-ion’s US$115/kWh. Also 175Wh/kg, compared to LFP Li-ion’s 185, though far below 250–300 for high-density non-LFP Li-ion batteries. The video is just talking heads and stock footage, though. #energy
on 02025-08-12sensible-heat #energy storage in sandy aquifers can help with chlorinated ethene bioremediation as well as providing seasonal thermal #energy-storage for climate control
on 02025-07-22Sweetwater, #Texas has a dump of #wind turbine blades. “General Electric filed a lawsuit last week claiming that Global Fiberglass Solutions has failed to fulfill its promise to recycle thousands of blades. GE says it paid the company $16.9 million to recycle about five thousand wind turbine blades, but that GFS instead stockpiled them at facilities in Sweetwater and Iowa. “Only after GFS took millions of dollars from GE, did GFS all but shut down its operations without recycling the Blades,” reads the complaint, filed in U.S. district court in New York.
GE says it later contracted with another company to recycle its blades and is seeking damages to cover these costs as well as reputational damage. Global Fiberglass has not responded to the lawsuit. GE removing its blades from Sweetwater wouldn’t clean up the giant dump; blades manufactured by other companies would still remain.” #energy
on 02025-07-21The #Netherlands also has a 700MW subsea #HVDC cable to #Denmark to get #energy, presumably #wind. It broke for several months in 02020.
on 02025-07-20archive of #energy #news article from the New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/46-billion-years-on-the-sun-is-having-a-moment #toread
on 02025-07-20"NorNed" is a 700MW subsea #HVDC cable to bring the #Netherlands #energy from #Norway, costing €600M (€0.86/W).
on 02025-07-20#history #retrocomputing Game Boy Advance used 200mW #energy running Donkey Kong
on 02025-07-20#solar #energy produced 22.1% of electricity in the #EU in June 02025, mostly. #Ember #photovoltaic, with wind at 15.8%, hydro at 12.8%, “bioenergy” (biomass?) at 3.5%, and “other renewables” (??) at 0.5%, meaning the EU electrical grid was majority renewables — but not EU energy consumption in general. Nuclear was #2 at 21.8%, so EU electricity was 76.5% from sustainable sources last month. That might mean marketed energy consumption in the EU was majority sustainable last month, I don’t know. Coal was down to 6.1%.
on 02025-07-11#video from a month ago saying lithium iron phosphate #lithium-ion #batteries had fallen in #pricing in December to US$115/kWh (US$32/MJ), quoting BloombergNEF. Says raw materials are 70% of batteries’ cost [citation needed], and that LFPs have #energy-density of 90–160Wh/kg (320–580kJ/kg), much worse than NCA (230–260Wh/kg) or NMC (250–320Wh/kg), citing a page on batterydesign.net. #energy
on 02025-06-17In April the president of #Spain was blaming nuclear #energy for the #Iberian-blackout. #news #politics
on 02025-06-17#Portugal got 71% of its electrical #energy from renewables in 02024, but only 10% of that (7% of the total) was #solar, though #photovoltaic generation grew 37% from the year before, and PV capacity by 100%. “The Portuguese National Transmission Network connected 776 MW of photovoltaic installations to the grid in 2024, doubling to 1,555 MW of installed capacity, when compared to the 779 MW operational at the end of 2023.”
on 02025-06-17overview of electrical #energy generation in #Spain in 02024: 248478 GWh total generated, of which 59512 #wind (3% less than 02023), 52391 nuclear (4% less than 02023), 43609 #solar #photovoltaic (19% more than 02023), 34909 hydroelectric (36% more than 02023), 29107 combined-cycle [gas] (27% less than 02023), and 2972 coal. That’s 18% photovoltaic and 23% wind out of 28 gigawatts. There’s a handy CSV to download.
on 02025-06-17maybe overvoltages from #solar and #wind #energy were the cause of the #Iberian-blackout? More because it’s distributed than because it’s not spinning? Because generation operators don’t get paid for reactive power? This is confusing. Solar and wind supplied 33% of #Spain’s electrical generation in 02024 and 37% of #Portugal’s.
on 02025-06-17bar chart of #wind #energy windmill #pricing from 02012 to 02022 shows a decline from about US$1.10/Wp down to about US$0.90/Wp in 02015, holding steady there until 02020, and then rising back to US$1.10/Wp in 02022!
on 02025-05-28#video by #NurdRage on the keychain-based radioisotope photovoltaic generator, extracting tritium vials from plastic keychains and using a Soxhlet extractor to remove the plastic encapsulation with dichloromethane, then removing the silicone from the ends with concentrated sulfuric acid. He put 14 of the glass vials side by side, totaling about 100mm with maybe 60mm length, sandwiching them between two amorphous silicon solar panels of that size with clear plastic tape. Open-circuit voltage 1.9 volts per panel, but only on the order of a microamp (per panel) short-circuit current. He put it in series with a 1MΩ current-sense resistor to measure the current more exactly, reduced to 893kΩ by the parallel impedance of his voltmeter, so he could measure the current accurately; short-circuit current was about 900nA, and the maximum power point was about 1.65 volts and 600nA, thus almost 1000nW, 1μW. With the second PV cell this increases to 1.23μW. The more sensitive circuit increased the measured open-circuit voltage to about 2.02V. Results with a monocrystalline cell peaked at 71nW at 70mV (when scaled up to the size of the amorphous panel) due to the cell’s poor suitability for low-light generation. #electronics #hardware #energy
on 02025-05-22#news on the #Deye #solar #energy #backdoors #security catastrophe
on 02025-05-20#Deye #backdoors disable Sol-Ark #solar #energy inverters. #security
on 02025-05-20wind #energy startup with oscillating vertical masts
on 02025-05-20#video about vanadium redox flow batteries, the biggest in the world deployed by Rongke Power at Xinhua Ushi Energy Storage Project in Xinjiang (175MW, 700MWh = 2.5TJ), dwarfing Sumitomo's 51MWh jobbie from 02022, and a 500MW 1.2GWh one planned for Laufenburg, Switzerland. The #Undecided video isn't entirely talking heads and webpage screenshots. #energy #energy-storage
on 02025-03-15“Capital Cost and Performance Characteristic Estimates for Utility Scale Electric Power Generating Technologies.” Last month, after wanting it for years, I finally found what looks like a good reference on what makes power plants so expensive. Most fusion-power proposals are based on using the fusion reactor to provide heat for a conventional thermal electrical power plant; this EIA-commissioned #PDF report from 02020 gives a couple hundred pages of details about why those are expensive. #energy
on 02025-02-2750 megawatts of #sodium-ion utility-scale power storage totaling 200MWh of #energy in Qianjiang, Hubei, #China, built by HiNa Battery, developed by Datang Hubei Energy Development, came online in July #energy #energy-storage
on 02025-02-1050 megawatts of #sodium-ion utility-scale power storage totaling 200MWh of #energy in Qianjiang, Hubei, #China, built by HiNa Battery, developed by Datang Hubei Energy Development, came online in July #energy #energy-storage
on 02025-02-10#video of #pmarca saying it’s “morning again” in #USA #politics due to #Trump, 74 minutes. I didn’t realize Al Gore sponsored the legislation that created NSFNET; I thought his advocacy started with the com-priv era.
He mentions the end of Chevron deference, which he argues means that executive agencies should abandon their quasi-legislative functions. He also questions the idea of “independent agencies” in the executive branch, like the FTC and NRC. The interviewer, the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson, argues that the CFPB's director not being fireable by the president is “unconstitutional on the face of it”, prefiguring the Slaughter verdict (I’m writing these notes in 02026).
Cites #Yarvin approvingly at 25'54" saying that we’re 80 years into FDR’s personal monarchy.
Also mentions #Elmu has been “living at” Mar-a-Lago.
Also mentions the #history of Nixon’s “Project Independence”, which I hadn’t heard of, to build 1000 #nuclear #energy power stations in the US, which turns out to be at best a very incomplete description of Project Independence.
Describes #Anduril’s original business plan as “We have to invest in this company, and his business plan is to hunt Mexicans at the southern border in 2016. And we’re just like, oh, God, we just basically have a heart attack.” So Andreessen Horowitz didn’t invest, and Trump didn’t want Anduril to do it, so they switched to military systems, which became accepted in Silicon Valley with the tragedy in #Ukraine.
Robinson claims that the US’s “only sustainable advantage over the Chinese is going to be technological innovation”, since they’re more numerous and richer, which doesn't make sense to me — how are they richer if they’re dumber, as he’s implying? Pmarca doesn’t disagree, citing the Pentagon’s new COO, Steve Feinberg, as someone who can make this happen.
At 56'40" he says the Ukrainian sea drones are built out of commercial jetskis.
At 60'40" pmarca makes the very reasonable points that productivity growth in the US has been low since about 01970, and that low growth creates zero-sum economics, which creates zero-sum politics, “where the only way for anybody to get anything is to take it away from somebody else.”
on 02025-01-29overview of combined-cycle gas turbines (#CCGT) #energy
on 02025-01-11In 02022 24% of #USA electrical #energy generation capacity was combined-cycle gas turbines (#CCGT).
on 02025-01-11#La-Nacion #news #video about a MoU being signed for a US$140 billion export deal for #LNG from Vaca Muerta in partnership with Shell which is apparently displacing Petronas as a candidate partner. Probably kind of stupid given what’s happening with solar, but gas certainly has a role to play in peakers before battery capacity is built up. They say it's “gas no tradicional” which I think means they’re cooking shale. They’re saying maybe they’d have an export terminal in place by 02027 or 02030, which seems far too late; the floating LNG terminal that we had when Macri was president might work. Pure talking-head filler. #Argentina #energy #politics
on 02024-12-23#news #video suggesting #Bolivia might have a sovereign default soon due to diminished #energy exports (gas mostly)
on 02024-12-23#news #video of #Milei this afternoon announcing his new #nuclear #energy plan for #Argentina, starting with the construction of an SMR, apparently unaware of the solar-energy revolution that’s taken place over the last year, along with the ridiculous fantasy of manufacturing SMRs for export. What an embarrassment. It’s useful to see what kind of patriotic rhetoric they use to sell this white elephant. The second speaker is Rafael Grossi, who was the Argentine ambassador to Austria before becoming the head (Director General) of the #IAEA. Rossi, hilariously, says nuclear energy “es una herramienta que la Argentina ha usado en los últimos 70 años con marcado éxito”, not daring to mention anything that suggests Huemul. He does eventually dare to mention nuclear weapons at 8'52”. Milei finally starts speaking at 10'16”. His list of technological revolutions: fire, the wheel, the loom, the steam locomotive, electric energy, and the internet; he says today artificial intelligence opens a new frontier in this Manifest Destiny that we share as a species, which will require more energy than conventional energy — but somehow completely forgets to mention solar and wind energy. #politics
on 02024-12-20#video #news: #Milei betting on #nuclear #energy. Doh! #politics
on 02024-12-17#HVDC #energy #transmission for 1361km in California, #USA
on 02024-12-13#Bloomberg #news on #Milei getting #finance: “Shale oil driller Vista #Energy issued $600 million in New York on Wednesday in its first ever foreign bond sale. Pampa Energia SA, which is also ramping up output in #Argentina’s heralded Vaca Muerta shale patch, has arranged investor meetings as it eyes returning to capital markets for the second time this year. MSU Energy borrowed $177 million to refinance its debt. (...) Argentina’s sovereign debt spread is at 757 basis points, hovering around levels not seen in five years, according to a JPMorgan index. (...) Vista sold its 11-year bond with a 7.6% yield, compared with rates in the 8%-9% range when a wave of issuers came to the market between July and October.”
on 02024-12-12#Milei seems to be getting #finance buyin for #energy companies in #Argentina for #shale-oil and shale gas in Vaca Muerta.
on 02024-12-12#Australia #energy #statistics: 18 186 063 TJ/year (576GW)
on 02024-12-09Frank #Shuman and the #history of his #solar #energy plant in #Egypt
on 02024-12-05article from last year on #history of Frank #Shuman’s #solar #energy plant in #Egypt
on 02024-12-05article on #history of #solar #energy in #Egypt misspelling Frank #Shuman’s name but talking a bit about his power plant
on 02024-12-05#Sheinbaum did her doctorate work at Lawrence Berkeley Lab on the use of #energy in #Mexico’s transportation and housing
on 02024-11-29#China #coal #climate-change #energy
on 02024-11-28#China #climate-change #solar #energy #CREA
on 02024-11-28#China is switching from limiting #energy usage to limiting CO₂ emissions to mitigate #climate-change, as of August 2. “The output of the cement and steel industries has also been declining due to the slump in the real estate sector, suggesting that China’s CO2 emissions may have peaked in the first quarter of this year and showed a downward trend in the second quarter. However, the current trend is not sufficient to achieve the 18% target, and China needs to accelerate the development of clean energy while reducing the use of fossil fuels in the power sector and other industries.” The cement industry thing might explain why China can be importing more #coal than ever but emitting less CO₂.
on 02024-11-28Press-conference #news #video on #Mexico’s #energy plan for 02024–02030, saying they had to rescue #PEMEX after the failure of the “neoliberal period” as a product of the privatization of 02013, after which it supposedly became the world’s most indebted #oil company; apparently López Obrador rescued it in 02018, but apparently they didn’t renationalize it until #Sheinbaum did so 15 days ago? Currently producing 1833 thousand barrels per day, almost unchanged since 02019 (3400ℓ/s; at 37MJ/ℓ that’d be about 125GW), and 3754 million cubic feet of #gas per day (1.23Mℓ/s; at 37kJ/ℓ that’s 46GW). Interestingly they give lip service to promoting the energy transition, but the press conference is all about increasing fossil-fuel production and use.
on 02024-11-27#Sky #news propaganda #video opposing #solar #photovoltaic #energy. Shows the nameplate of a house-sized Mitsubishi Hitachi hydrogen-cooled steam turbine generator (310RK09-776-1) producing 3-phase 20kV at 50Hz and what looks like 17984 amps, saying it produces 570–580MW, though my calculation gives 360MW from those numbers. Shows a real-time power price of [AU?]$235, presumably per MWh, attributing the high price to a cold snap in Victoria. Says 1200 tonnes of cheap brown coal per hour produces 1140 megawatts electric, which works out to 3.4MJ/kg, which would be about 15% efficiency, which seems improbably low. “[In the past] you were seeing wholesale prices around (...) $20–40/MWh”, says a guy who’s been working in the field for only 30 years; that also seems improbably low. “10 Australian coal-fired power stations closed in the last decade. There are 15 still running, but most are slated to close in the next decade.” 62% of electric generation on #Australia’s main grid is from fossil fuels, the other 38% from renewables. At 7'51”, it profiles Belinda Jones, a pensioner who’s paying AU$1073.31 per month (US$697/month) because she’s paying AU$0.191/kWh for 3410kWh (AU$651, becoming AU$716.63 after GST) and AU$0.216 for 2700kWh (AU$582, AU$640.10 after GST), from which subsidies are deducted. That implies her house is averaging 8400 watts! Possibly in part because she’s using resistive space heaters instead of heat pumps, but more likely it’s not actually a one-month bill — yes, in fact, at 9'13” we see it’s for 92 days, but she’s still averaging 2800 watts around the clock. (The average comes out to 11.4¢/kWh, which is very cheap by retail standards.) Also, we see at 9'22” that the previous bill was only AU$457.45. A different power bill shown at 45'04” shows someone paying $415 with time-of-day billing — also for 92 days. “Energy scarcity emerges everywhere #wind and solar become the dominant form of electrical generation.” Shows the #LNG export gas terminal at Gladston, the Petra Nova #carbon-capture pilot plant in Houston, and a US$21B #nuclear power plant in Georgia, the second to be built in the #USA in the last 30 years. #Microsoft has signed a deal to reopen #Three-Mile-Island. #politics Viper-7 reports paying 27.56-67.44c/kWh: Peak time (4:00pm to 7:59pm): 67.44c per kWh; Shoulder time (7:00am to 3:59pm, 8:00pm to 9:59pm): 29.65c per kWh; else 27.56c per kWh, including GST.
on 02024-11-27#news #video nine months ago from #Deutsche-Welle on #solar #manufacturing in #Europe, for example by #Switzerland company #Meyer-Burger in #Germany, which is opening a new factory in #Colorado-Springs, #USA. Credits national #China policy prioritizing #polysilicon production in the early 02000s. Lots of talking-head filler by Richard Black, director of policy and strategy at #Ember. Says #Brazil is “leading the renewable #energy boom taking place across the continent”, but apparently is trying #import-substitution with tariffs, and #ABSOLAR isn’t convinced local producers are enough. Says #Trump plans to cut Biden’s US subsidies. “Today, solar-powered energy is the cheapest form of electricity for the majority of the countries that use it. (...) Estimates put the cost somewhere between 300 and 900 dollars per kilowatt by 2030.” I guess when they made this video the mainstream solar module price was €0.14/Wp, and now it’s 29% lower at €0.10/Wp (US$106/kWp). Panasonic and LG recently exited the market. #photovoltaic
on 02024-11-27latest #CREA #PDF slides on #China: “China #energy and emissions trends: November 2024 snapshot”. Astonishing: “Total power generation increased by 6.6%, while large-scale power generation grew by 2.1%, indicating most power generation growth comes from #solar and #wind installations that are outside of the industrial production statistics. (...) National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) underreports wind and solar generation, particularly from rooftop and smaller solar plants.” I think those figures are year-over-year rather than month-over-month because, on the same slide, they say, “solar power generation saw an increase of 46.2%.” Carbon emissions are said to have peaked in February 02024 despite #coal electric power generation growing 2.2% (in what I assume is year over year). Astoundingly: “After H1 2024 saw no new permits issued for coal-based steel plants, China issued a policy in August suspending all new #steel plant permits.” (Are they going to import their steel from India, or what?)
on 02024-11-27#CREA’s #China category. #energy
on 02024-11-27#PDF slides from #CREA (the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which seems like it ought to be “CRECA”), entitled “#China #energy and emissions trends: August 2024 snapshot”, showing a rise in #coal imports to an all-time high of 500 million tonnes per year! And a rise in total coal use to about 5100 million tonnes per year (at ≈25MJ/kg, that’s 4TW), plus 780 million tonnes a year of crude #oil (1.0TW) and 410 billion cubic meters of gas per year (490GW at 37.8kJ/ℓ), for a fossil total of 5.5TW. There’s a plot of “oil products” but I’m not sure counting that wouldn’t be double-counting. Also plots by-month #solar energy production by month going back to 02018, showing an all-time high of 40 TWh in June 02024 (55GW), which is a pretty low capacity factor given the November stat of 790GW installed from the NEA reports. If we project 790GW backward at a 3.3% monthly growth rate from November to June, 5 months, we predict 672GW installed as of June, of which 55GW would be only an 8% capacity factor. And that’s in the peak month! Not even year-round! So the 54GW they added of fossil-fuel power over the last 12 months is probably still more than the 256GW of solar after adjusting for capacity factors. The slide on p. 7 showing a bargraph of solar capacity added in the first half of each year since 02010 is pretty staggering. It seems to show that the high #pricing for #photovoltaic modules in the 02018-02022 period suppressed demand rather badly in China itself, not just abroad, though that pricing isn’t mentioned.
on 02024-11-27#video of a talking head claiming electrical #energy #pricing in #China is about 15¢/kWh, even though 20 years ago China was considered energy-poor. Also China consumes 26% of world energy (which would be about 5 TW), 55% of world coal (to India’s 12% and #USA’s 5%), and 15% of world oil (to the US’s 20%), according to the Energy Institute. Apparently the Chinese call their ultra-high-voltage #HVDC transmission lines a “Shinkansen for power”. The video author seems to be confusing HVDC with AC transmission. Claims #Brazil’s Belo Monte phase II HVDC transmission line is operated by the State Grid Corporation of China!
on 02024-11-26353MW Walla Walla #solar #photovoltaic farm in Riverina, New South Wales, #Australia, “consisting of approximately 700,000 solar panels installed across 605 hectares,” comes online, the biggest of the eight solar farms built by Spanish company Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV). No notes on contract pricing. #energy
on 02024-11-26Press release from #China’s National #Energy Administration (国家能源局), saying, “the installed capacity of #solar power generation is approximately 790 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 48.0%; the installed #wind power capacity is approximately 490 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 20.3%.” (“太阳能发电装机容量约7.9亿千瓦，同比增长48.0%；风电装机容量约4.9亿千瓦，同比增长20.3%。”) They also increased thermal power capacity (火电, which apparently specifically means fossil fuels and excludes an almost insignificant #nuclear) by 3.8% to 142597 tens of thousands of kilowatts (万千瓦); if I have the units correct, that’s 14200 gigawatts total fossil generation capacity, increased by 54 gigawatts, vs. 256 new gigawatts solar. More than half of all installed renewable capacity is wind (486GW) and hydro (431GW) so the 22.1% capacity factor I calculated from the other press release is probably mostly due to hydro’s typical 90+% and wind’s typical 40+%, with solar still down in the teens. If we assume 15% for solar and 700 gigawatts as the average installed capacity over the year, we would have 105 gigawatts of generation on average, which would be about 10% of the 1.08TW total inferred from the earlier press release. At 48% per year exponential growth, in 49 months (02028) they’d get the majority of their electricity from solar, and in something like 6 years (02030) the majority of their energy. #photovoltaic
on 02024-11-26press release from #China’s National Energy Administration (国家能源局); auto-translation: "In the first nine months, newly installed renewable #energy power generation capacity exceeded 200 million kilowatts
Release time: 2024-11-15 Source: Economic Daily
Data released by the National Energy Administration on the 31st showed that in the first nine months, the country’s newly installed renewable energy power generation capacity was 210 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 21%, accounting for 86% of the newly installed electricity capacity. Among them, hydropower has added 7.97 million kilowatts, wind power has added 39.12 million kilowatts, #solar power has added 161 million kilowatts, and biomass power has added 1.37 million kilowatts. As of the end of September this year, the country’s installed renewable energy capacity reached 1.73 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 25%.
At the same time, in the first nine months, the country’s renewable energy power generation reached 2.51 trillion kilowatt hours, a year-on-year increase of 20.9%, accounting for approximately 35.5% of all power generation. (Reporter 王轶辰)” Here “power generation” is a translation of “发电量”, which is specifically electrical power generation. 2.51 trillion kilowatt hours is 9.04 exajoules, which works out to 382GW over 9 months, which is an overall capacity factor of 22.1%, a weighted average across presumably solar, hydro, wind, and biomass. #photovoltaic
on 02024-11-26the Renew Economy article on #China’s 210GW of new renewable #energy generation capacity installed in the first three quarters of 02024, “an increase of 21 per cent on this period in 2023 and accounting for 86 per cent of all new power capacity added in the year”, according to the National Energy Administration (nea.gov.cn). “(...) new capacity installed through the first nine months was led by #solar, which added 161GW of new capacity added.
A further 39.12GW worth of new wind power, 7.97GW of new hydropower, and 1.37GW of new biomass power rounds out the new capacity added so far in 2024.
At the end of the first three quarters, then, China’s renewable energy generating capacity had reached 1.73TW, a year-on-year increase of 25 per cent.” Perhaps more important still: “In terms of actual generation, the NEA figures showed that China’s renewable power generation reached 2.51 trillion kWh, an increase of 20.9 per cent over the same period in 2023, and equivalent to around 35.5 pct of total Chinese power generation through the first nine months of 2024.” Presumably that’s only counting electric power in the denominator; that would be 382GW on a total of 1.08TW, and I’m pretty sure China overall uses more than 1.08TW of energy. Like, probably more like 2–3TW. #photovoltaic
on 02024-11-26#news #video on a 1-gigawatt #solar #photovoltaic offshore farm in Shandong, #China, consisting of 2934 solar platforms built on steel trusses, connected with 66kV transmission. Predicted production would be 1.78 billion kWh/year, which is 203MW, a 20.3% capacity factor, which I think is roughly double the Chinese average. I wasn’t expecting this for 20 years. #energy
on 02024-11-26#clickbait #video on #solar #energy claiming #China is “no longer approving” coal power plants. Talking-head filler interspersed with web-page screenshots and misleading stock footage (e.g. of concentrated solar power to illustrate a #photovoltaic plant). Claims #Australia will build an even larger solar farm than China’s at, implicitly, Crescent Dunes within the next 5 years. Claims 210 gigawatts of renewables added so far in 02024 (as of November 19, according to a Renew Energy reneweconomy.com story) of which 161GW was grid-scale solar, 39.1GW of #wind power, 7.97GW of hydroelectric, and 1.37GW of biomass, and that coal power plant approvals have fallen 80% according to Greenpeace, or that last year approvals for new coal power plants fell by 92%, or that over the first 9 months of 02024, an increase of 21% over last year; “86% of all power added to the Chinese grid was renewable energy” (unclear if peak or average). Claims that the average [residential?] solar [power] system being installed in #Australia now is 10 kilowatts. Claims that 70% of coal power plants are running at a loss, and that coal power plants need to hit a 70% capacity factor [in what country or countries?] to be profitable. Claims that China shuts down its coal power plants during the day, which seems unlikely to me. Claims that at the end of the third quarter this year, “China’s renewable energy generating capacity had reached 1.73 terawatts, a year-on-year increase of 25%.” Confusedly claims that the difference between the 25% increase in total renewable energy capacity and the 21% increase in the pace of renewable energy installations results from installing batteries and therefore improving the capacity factor of solar, but of course there is not particular reason why these figures ought to be close (it just indicates that growth is nearly exponential) and both numbers are nameplate capacities into which the batteries don’t figure at all. Claims China has installed more solar than the rest of the world combined this year, which is of course true. Claims Tesla’s installation of [utility-scale?] batteries this year is double that of last year, and that they have a two-year backlog of orders.
on 02024-11-26#video by #Ziroth on Helix Earth Technologies’s #air-conditioning with undisclosed liquid #desiccants to reduce #energy demand
on 02024-11-14#video about #Mr-Electron #manufacturing #aluminum-air #batteries with a carbon brush from a motor as the cathode in a potassium hydroxide electrolyte, or some bent-up baling wire. He’s hacksawing the top off a lead-acid battery case from an old motorbike and gets an open-circuit voltage of about 1.6 volts and a short-circuit current that’s initially 20mA with an aluminum-foil anode; when he replaces the carbon-brush cathode with the bent-up baling wire this jumps to 40–80mA. #hoarding #electronics #energy #toread
on 02024-10-18#PDF of #TCES #energy storage dissertation on stabilizing potassium carbonate with porous polymers
on 02024-10-02#TCES #energy storage dissertation on stabilizing potassium carbonate with porous polymers
on 02024-10-02#TCES #energy storage #paper #PDF from last year evaluating 454 (!!) salt hydrates #toread
on 02024-10-02#video by #Akio (the switched reluctance motor guy) about #TCES #energy storage. Dramatically impractical setup trying to use 45 grams of granular CaCl₂ in contact with aluminum (!!), which heats up the 2.5ℓ/s of air from his computer fan from 15.5° to 23°, which by my calculations works out to about 20 watts of heating, 13 watts by his incorrect calculations (6 Wh over 28'). Then he regenerates it (from 55g back down towards 45g) in a steel can (!!!). 6 Wh in 45g is 0.48MJ/kg. He devotes a lot of talking head footage to explaining that he doesn’t know how to use his measuring instruments.
on 02024-10-02#pricing of natural gas #energy in #USA: US$3.61 per thousand cubic feet (28.3 m³)
on 02024-09-21#video about the 20GW 283km² (or 39000km²?) #wind #energy farm in Gansu, #China, the Jiuquan Wind Power Base, with 7000 windmills, for which they’re building #HVDC transmission lines. As usual with Matt Ferrell #Undecided videos, it’s 100% talking heads and stock footage, therefore a waste of time. Although seeing the wind farm was cool.
on 02024-09-17#video about #energy from bifacial #solar #photovoltaic panels mounted vertically in Ohio, showing production curves throughout the day, and how some reflectors on the ground change them. He says Sirius brand bifacial panels, from a company in Texas, are 45¢ a watt, assembled; cloudy days have about a third as much energy as sunny days, but affect the vertical panels less; and overall the vertical panels only produce 79% of the conventionally mounted south-facing bifacial panels. It looks like he’s using a roll of shiny wrapping paper for his ground reflector (he says it’s a large roll of mylar) and stretched it over wooden boxes, supported on pallets 20° from horizontal. Reflector results plot at 12’01". They’re still not as good as conventional south-facing panels (8% better than vertical bifacial panels without reflectors, but only 83% as good as bifacial south-facing panels) but maybe different reflector designs could improve this. The midday dip was only down to 150 watts per panel instead of the previous 100. Lots and lots of time-wasting talking-head footage, even if he is standing in front of a solar panel.
on 02024-09-17#solar #photovoltaic panels conventionally contain 30 cells in 3 10-volt strings, each with a bypass diode, but now “half-cut” cells are becoming popular to reduce resistive losses #energy
on 02024-09-12#Dr-Ben-Miles #video about #China building the first commercial #thorium molten-salt #nuclear #energy plant. Including an ad for the RadiaCode Geiger counter. Mislabels monazite as “monzanite” and accidentally refers to “thorium-323”. The reactors he’s describing are 233U breeders rather than energy amplifiers; not clear which type the new Chinese plant is. Also mentions other planned thorium reactor startups in maybe 02030 or 02035.
on 02024-09-10#Texas #ERCOT #solar #energy hit 20 gigawatts yesterday afternoon (Tuesday the 20th), its second all-time high, as well as record battery discharge (3.93 gigawatts), record gross load, and record "net load", whatever the fuck that is. And LMPs hit the US$1000/MWh offer cap.
on 02024-08-21#Australia to build a 2GW #HVDC powerline to #Singapore to sell #solar #photovoltaic #energy
on 02024-08-21#video #toread although it’s by #Undecided about #solar #energy #energy-storage (“in this liquid” #clickbait)
on 02024-08-13#China government PR on how they grew the world’s renewable #energy generation capacity 50% in 02023 to 510 gigawatts. “According to Qin Haiyan, secretary-general of the Chinese Wind Energy Association, clean energy, including wind power, is being preferred in China, not only because it is “green”, but also because it is cheaper compared with traditional fossil fuels, including coal. (...) Power generated from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar now accounts for more than 15 percent of China’s total electricity consumption.” And presumably about 5% of its energy consumption. “Despite unprecedented PV manufacturing expansion in the US and India driven by policy support, China is expected to maintain its 80 to 95 percent share of global supply chains, [the IEA report] said.”
on 02024-07-28#SEIA touts #photovoltaic installations increasing in #USA in 02023: “For the first time in history, #solar accounts for over 50% of new electricity capacity added to the grid.” But it was still only 32.4 gigawatts! And of course its capacity factor is lower than the other 47%. Abigail Ross Hopper touts “helping America’s solar module manufacturing base grow 89% in 2023,” which would be great if were in the ballpark of China’s pricing. And also that manufacturing capacity only grew “from 8.5 GW to 16.1 GW”, presumably per year. #energy
on 02024-07-28Keith #Henson posts on John Walker’s right-wing #politics site #Scanalyst, about #energy
on 02024-07-28#video about #Argentina setting up a new military base in Ushuaia together with #USA, possibly inspired by #Antarctica oil #energy; #Milei went to Antarctica as soon as he assumed the presidency to repudiate #Chile’s conflicting territorial claims, in the “territory of peace and science” in the treaty signed by all three countries. The Russian discovery might be twice Saudi Arabia’s oil. Reporting by Mega Investiga or Mega Noticias of Chile. #politics
on 02024-07-24#video about #manufacturing #aluminum-air #batteries with either KOH or NaCl electrolytes. #energy #electrolysis Unfortunately “members only”.
on 02024-06-25#video about #manufacturing #aluminum-air #batteries with dual electrolytes: potassium hydroxide and 50% H₂SO₄, separated by a membrane, to get a higher voltage, over 2 volts. Uses “activated carbon felt” (??) for the air electrode. With a single electrolyte he gets 1.56V. He suggests bleach as an alternative alkaline electrolyte and vinegar as an alternative acid. He uses paper towels to hold the electrolytes in place. For “some short testing” he uses baking paper as the membrane, but of course it won’t last long in that environment! He suggests Nafion as the only viable membrane option. His postage-stamp-sized test cell gets 2.2 volts and can light an LED. He adds MnO₂ to his graphite electrode as, I think, a depolarizer, boosting the cell to 2.5V. (Maybe it’s an actual electrolyte material, though?). For whatever reason he never measures its short-circuit current, except for showing that the LED lights and doesn’t immediately burn out, so the battery presumably has on the order of 100Ω of equivalent resistance. Finally he builds a version of the battery with a salt bridge instead of a membrane, but using zinc rather than aluminum. Surprisingly the salt-bridge version is also able to light the LED, despite presumably having much higher ESR. #energy #electrolysis
on 02024-06-25#video #toread about an #energy-storage “revolution” seems unpromising due to a CSP #solar thumbnail image. #energy
on 02024-06-25#video about an “atmosphere powered battery” (like the Atmos clock, I thought, but it looks like he’s just using vacuum as a constant-force spring). The only interesting part about this is installing rubber syringe gaskets and transparent plexiglas tubes on a chassis made by #3D-printing. He ended up having to sandwich the syringe gasket between 3-D printed parts (with screws I guess) to keep it from popping off. Okay, maybe using cut timing belts as cables for power transfer is cool too. But basically I think this is dumb. Then he has a kind of cringey plug for PCBWay’s CNC services. Unfortunately the desktop-sized “battery” has an energy capacity of only 628 joules at about 10 watts, with what he said was 73% efficiency. My math: 1 atmosphere times 500mm (est.) per cylinder times circlearea(half 36mm) gives 412 joules. So maybe his cylinders are a little taller than I thought but basically it’s what you’d expect. #mechanical #energy
on 02024-06-24#video about bladeless water turbine. Way too much talking head footage and too much stock footage. But the principle is clear: water speeds up when spiraling down a drain, and you can harness that rotation through drag. He claims it has lower LCoE than solar because you don’t need any storage. #energy
on 02024-06-24#video about #energy-storage in phase-change materials, especially for hot water heaters such as the Thermino from Scottish company Sunamp; they run rectangular coils of brass pipes through a rectangular tank of an unspecified phase-change material; one £1945 model delivers 2.8kW to 15ℓ/minute of water, a price that increases to £3245 when installation is included. They advertise it as a “heat battery”. And Phase Change Solutions sells an “ENRG blanket” with quilted aluminized unspecified polymer encapsulating an unspecified “BioPCM” which has been installed in 1000 commercial buildings; it looks like it’s about a centimeter thick but costs US$4.50 per “square foot”, which would be US$48/m² in modern units and probably on the order of US$5/kg, which is about 100× more expensive than the raw materials. QE Platinum is a competing company and product. Apparently the PCM energy storage market is already half a billion dollars a year. Unfortunately this video is entirely talking-head filler and stock footage. Shame on you, #Undecided. #energy
on 02024-06-24#Nighthawk #video about DIY salt-based thermal phase-change #energy-storage. He’s using food-grade sodium sulfate in what looks like a fertilizer bag but is probably actually being sold as a phase-change material by Duda Energy, then mixing it with sodium chloride to approach the eutectic of the ternary system with water; he says 1.2ℓ water, 240mℓ of (presumably hydrated) sodium sulfate, and 60mℓ of sodium chloride melts at 18°. He says actually it has “multiple melting points” so it probably melts incongruently, giving rise to phase separation through repeated freezing; he suggests that gelling it with carboxymethylcellulose or xanthan gum (his choice) will solve that problem. He suggests sealing it in reusable silicone sandwich bags for use, which you can fit into the pockets of an ice vest. He seems to have measured it supercooling to 9°, then heating back up to 18° when it suddenly freezes, and then a second phase transition at -8°. He made a PCM blanket by soaking a towel in the gel and rolling it up inside a garbage bag, which seems like it would be a good approach to preventing leaks. He heat-sealed the edge of the garbage bag with a butane hand torch. #energy
on 02024-06-23#video demonstrating a small-scale hydropower #energy system from a mountain stream: “Glenburnie Hydro. Turbine: Powerspout GE 400. Head: 56m. Flow: up to 3 ℓ/s. Electrical output to grid: up to 750 w. Year installed: 2013. Danger: 400 volts.” Nearby stands an ornamental 120-year-old Pelton wheel. At 3.5ℓ/s it’s producing 3.2 amps at 320 volts. He also shows off his 3200Wp solar system, 120 meters up the hill through the forest at the house, where he charges his Nissan Leaf at 3.3kW, and his 10.2kWh LiFePO₄ battery storage system, about the size of a refrigerator; batteries made by BYD, controls by Sunny Boy. Then he shows his web interface.
on 02024-06-19"sand battery" #energy storage for district heating in Finland, built by #Polar-Night Energy at Vatajankoski power plant
on 02024-06-19#Australia #solar #photovoltaic and other renewable #energy: “In 2024, we expect at least 3.1 GW of rooftop solar and 2.5 to 3.0 GW of large-scale renewables to be added. If the large-scale power stations under construction progress on schedule, the total renewable capacity added in 2024 could exceed 6 GW.”
on 02024-06-18#photovoltaic #solar #energy report from this year with lots of data, covering the history of energy payback times (EPBT), irradiance, wafer thickness, efficiency history (including CIGS, CdTe, and perovskites), European fabs by manufacturing capacity, cumulative PV installation, percentage material composition of the modules (aluminum frame, glass, backsheet, adhesive, cells, junction box), experience curve, etc.
on 02024-06-18#solar #energy #predictions: “The global [#photovoltaic] cumulative capacity grew to 1.6 TW in 2023, up from 1.2 TW in 2022, with from 407.3 GW to 446 GW[1] of new PV systems commissioned – and [on] the order of an estimated 150 GW of modules in inventories across the world. After several years of tension on material and transport costs, module prices plummeted in a massively over-supplied market, maintaining the competitivity of PV even as electricity prices decreased after historical peaks in 2022.”
on 02024-06-18Australia, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Australia, Mexico, China, Mongolia, South Africa, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Namibia, Sudan, Chad, Angola, Botswana, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Israel, Yemen, Nepal, and the Southwestern US have pretty large #solar #energy resources
on 02024-06-18narrative #history of #solar (#photovoltaic and other) #energy generation, with a number of linecharts and the World Bank’s solar resource map
on 02024-06-18plot of #solar #energy #pricing as it moves down the learning curve with a 20.2% learning rate
on 02024-06-18660 gigawatts of #solar #photovoltaic #energy installations expected in 02024 (dateline February 26) according to BloombergNEF’s “1Q 2024 Global PV Market Outlook”. #predictions “around 2,437,500 metric tonnes of polysilicon will be produced in 2024.” “Chinese producers will sell their polysilicon at US$6-7 per kilogram this year, while non-Chinese companies will sell at around US$22 per kilogram in early 2024.”
on 02024-06-18#history of #USA #solar #photovoltaic #energy trade barriers
on 02024-06-16#solar #photovoltaic panel #pricing in the #USA is closer to 20¢/W than 10¢/W. Also batteries: “Last summer, battery cell prices in China ranged from $120/kWh to $130/kWh but are expected to drop to $40/kWh or less this summer.” #energy
on 02024-06-16Last month: “Spanish developer Solaria says it bought 435 MW of #solar modules from an undisclosed supplier for €0.091 ([US]$0.09)/W. Kiwa PI Berlin confirms that average solar module prices for large-scale PV projects in Spain are now around €0.10/W.” #pricing #photovoltaic #energy
on 02024-06-16potential new #USA #tariffs on #EVs and #solar #photovoltaic panels from #China #toread #energy #politics
on 02024-06-16“Maxeon expands Mexico factory making tariff-free solar panels for US market” #solar #photovoltaic #energy #USA #politics news
on 02024-06-16#photovoltaic #energy #history growth by year #solar (this is where the table of cumulative total installed capacity is found, with numbers on mouseover of a barchart as well)
on 02024-06-15nice summary of #energy cost curves
on 02024-06-15S&P Global confirms 216 gigawatts of #solar added in #China last year #energy
on 02024-06-15PRC doubled its installed renewable #energy generation capacity to 609 gigawatts last year, 217 gigawatts being #solar. #China
on 02024-06-15more #SEIA #USA #photovoltaic #energy data. Mentions that 6% of all US electrical generation is now #solar (though it’s unclear if this is nameplate capacity or generated energy). CSP remains marginal.
on 02024-06-08More from #SEIA’s #USA #photovoltaic #energy report (this is the executive summary): Florida installed 2.7 gigawatts in Q1 02024, Texas installed 2.6. New installations in the “commercial #solar segment” (“distributed solar projects with commercial, industrial, agricultural, school, government, or nonprofit offtakers, including remotely net-metered projects”) declined 34% from Q4 02023 to 434 megawatts. “Community solar” (“part of formal programs where multiple residential and non-residential customers can subscribe to the power produced by a local solar project and receive credits on their utility bills”) also declined, 32%, to 279 megawatts. Interestingly, SEIA here cites import tariffs as a major problem: “In this report, we’ve accounted for the updates to the Section 201 tariffs, notably the removal of the bifacial module exemption. And while the Section 301 tariffs were doubled (from 25% to 50%) for Chinese solar cells and modules, the tariff increase will not have a significant direct impact on the US solar industry, given the low volume (less than 0.1%) of Chinese imports. This report does not yet incorporate the impacts of potential new antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) on imports of crystalline silicon cells and modules from four Southeast Asia countries.” I somehow thought SEIA were among the people backing the tariffs; I guess I got that wrong! Apparently part of the spike here is that the AD/CVD had a temporary two-year waiver which just expired, and the cells imported under the waiver had to be utilized within 180 days. Most alarmingly: “While [the expectation of installing 40 gigawatts a year over the next five years] is certainly proof of the solar industry’s strong standing in the energy transition, it also represents a slowdown of industry growth. The growth patterns vary amongst segments, but average annual growth between now and 2029 is 3%.” They also have a set of cost breakdowns for “turnkey installed price”, coming in at 98¢ per watt for “utility-scale fixed-tilt”, slightly higher than last year and almost half due to about 40¢ for the PV module itself. Residential is at 325¢, with about 20¢ for the PV module.
on 02024-06-08#SEIA talks more about #USA #photovoltaic #energy: 11.8 gigawatts (“GWdc”) installed in Q1 02024, 9.8 of which was utility-scale #solar. Residential solar installations shrank 25% from a year ago to only 1.3 gigawatts, due to California.
on 02024-06-08#solar #energy update from the #USA in this #SEIA press release from two days ago about the “U.S. Solar Market Insight Q2 2024 report”: manufacturing capacity increases to 27 gigawatts in Q1 02024 (per year), 11.8 gigawatts pear year more than Q4 02023; 10 new gigawatts of utility-scale #photovoltaic deployed in Q1 (largely in Florida and Texas, but also including 686 megawatts in New Mexico and 546 megawatts in Ohio); and total US solar capacity (installed nameplate generation capacity, I think) is expected to double over the next five years, reaching 438 gigawatts by 02029. According to the slide at the top, solar represents 55% of new US electricity-generation capacity added in 02023 (“over 40 GW”) and 75% of new capacity in Q1 02024; the remainder is 9% of storage and 16% of wind. In 02023 storage was 14%, wind was 12%, natural gas was 17% (fairly steady since 02020), and “other” was 2%. Coal has been at zero since 02015.
on 02024-06-08#video #toread about #energy in #Antarctica: 511 billion barrels of oil
on 02024-05-30#video on a nice #vanlife conversion for about US$900: 12-volt chest fridge (US$250), furniture from scrap wood or modified thrift-shop goods, metal bed frame off Craigslist, mattress (US$300), blackout curtains for #stealth-camping, custom insulation panels fit to (“ceramic” tinted) windows, 4 100W “Renogy” #photovoltaic #solar panels for #energy feeding two 100Ah LiFePO₄ batteries under the bed, no inverter, “shore power”, dc-to-dc charger for when driving, one-burner camping stove, 12-volt electric blanket, fuse panel under bed, smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector, “Renogy Rover” 40A charge controller. I think he’s maybe forgetting a lot of the costs and the real cost is a lot higher. USB fans for ventilation. Diesel space heater hooked up to a gas can screwed to the back door. Indiana plate C843CA. Two fire extinguishers. No toilet, uses public restrooms, bucket for emergencies. Showers at Planet Fitness, friends’, and truck stops.
on 02024-05-03#Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate apparently bought these 380-watt-peak #photovoltaic #solar #energy panels for his #vanlife, 20.83% efficient PERC, “Oushang Solar” brand OS-HM60-380. Currently US$160.
on 02024-05-02#vanlife #video of carpenter Daniel Metrailler (IG @callejer0s_viajer0s) from Caseros, Entre Ríos, who built a 1400kg wood-siding-covered trailer out of phenolic to live in with his three dogs, pulling it behind his 01974 Peugeot 404, license plate UQX 538. The trailer’s brakes are activated by compression into the car, and it has a 6ℓ hot-water heater on the front of it. On top it has two 110-watt #photovoltaic #solar panels for electrical #energy and a “100 ampere” (probably erroneous) battery. The sides of the trailer have architectural-salvage windows with screens, so it’s about as far from a stealth-camping trailer as can be. The interior furnishings (drawers, cabinets, kitchen countertop) appear to be wood. He’s removed the stove he used to have in favor of a small gas burner next to the sink, powered by a gas cylinder under the sink; vinyl fake-ceramic wall tiles line the kitchen wall. He still has a 220-volt fridge, but his inverter is insufficient to run it. The bed is a loft level about head height which can be moved aside to allow you to stand up, ceiling height 192cm. The air conditioner runs off 12 volts. Mateo of #Al-Mundo-con-el-Mate reveals his height as 176cm. There’s a bathroom with a sink and super-luxury shower, with cuerina (naugahyde) to keep the water vapor in. The toilet is a baño seco, a separating toilet with sawdust to dehydrate the poop; he made the urine separator out of PVC pipe.
on 02024-05-01#stories-from-a-van #stealth-camping #vanlife #video. Has 200 watts peak of monocrystalline #photovoltaic panels for #energy autonomy, dropping down to 20 watts on cloudy days. Reviews dc-to-dc chargers, automatic charging relays, “shore power” (plugging the car into an outlet), etc. He did the Nissan NV200 (car) conversion in 02018, with only 100 amp hours of deep-cycle lead-acid, after an earlier fancier Mercedes Sprinter conversion with 400 amp hours of LiFePO₄ batteries; he says it no longer makes sense to use lead-acid batteries because LiFePO₄ only costs 40% more. (That was August 6, 02021.)
on 02024-04-29Fibonacci turbines. A 3-blade spiral turbine reached 48% efficiency at low water speed, much higher than a conventional propeller. The Liam F1 Archimedes turbine along these lines provides wind #energy at low wind speeds. Author “Ziroth” includes lots of talking-head filler footage. #engineering #video
on 02024-04-03#Tech-Ingredients “nearly free air conditioning” by blackbody radiation into the sky with aluminum tape. Ingenious design for their thermal radiator/heat exchanger/passive low temperature solar collector panel: aluminum channels bonded with epoxy, plus foam blocks to reduce the water volume, and aluminum sheets for the faces. Polyethylene Glad film prevents convective cooling, and he airbrushes a white high-emissivity coating (barium sulfate as specified in a later video, probably nanoparticles of varied sizes with a bit of binder) onto the aluminum. Propylene glycol prevents his water coolant from freezing. He got cooling to -7.6° in an 0.5° environment. #cooling #energy #video
on 02024-04-03#Nighthawk DIY solar thermal panels #bootstrapping #energy #video #toread
on 02024-04-03UWCSEA Solar Thermal Energy Plant. In Singapore. “The solar collectors are installed on the rooftop of the buildings and cover an area of 3,900m². The system generates about 1,750MWh/yr, making it the largest solar thermal cooling plant in the world. Electricity produced by the system energises a 1,500kW cooling unit. It is a single-effect chiller which uses a solution of lithium bromide as absorber and water as refrigerant. (...) The collectors can operate at temperatures of about 100°C and provide a constant temperature of 88°C for the cooling unit. (...) [Austrian company] Solid built and installed the solar cooling plant at the new campus. SAS-ES [Solid Asia Energy Services] operates the facility as an Energy Service Company (ESCo).” Inaugurated December 02011! #solar #energy #air-conditioning #refrigeration
on 02023-11-23retail #solar #energy #pricing has this nominally 410 watt panel for $184564, which is US$213 today, 52 cents a watt. This is still 2.7 times the Solar Server price for wholesale “mainstream” panels. 113 cm x 172 cm, 21 kg (!?), 20.99% efficient, 108 monocrystalline cells, Eging PV EG-410M54, 31.76V at maximum power (12.91 amps), 37.66V open-circuit voltage, and 13.66 amps short-circuit current.
on 02023-11-09Oh my my, #solar #energy #pricing has become exciting again. At the end of 02018, when the cartel was announced at Davos, the prices were 0.19 euros per watt peak for “Low Cost” modules; 0.27 for “Mainstream”; and 0.36 for “High Efficiency”. At the end of 02022, four years later, we see 0.22 for “Low Cost”; 0.31 for “Mainstream”; and 0.41 for “High Efficiency”. Each of the last few months has set a new low-price record; now we’re at 0.11 for “Low Cost”; 0.19 for “Mainstream”; and 0.27 for “High Efficiency” so prices for the low-cost category are half of what they were at the end of last year, and 42% lower than they’ve ever been before. This is earthshattering.
on 02023-11-09Tim Latimer and Jackk Norbeck's company Fervo's first EGS #geothermal #energy pilot plant finishes its 30-day 3.5-megawatt test run.
on 02023-07-19#IEA #energy investment report in 02023 covering #photovoltaic, fossil fuels, nuclear, etc.; they say that in 02023 US$1740 billion in 02022 dollars will be invested in "clean energy" but are counting things like #electric-cars. This is up from about US$1225 billion in 02022 dollars in 02019 and exceeds the US$1050 billion in fossil-fuel investment, which is pretty steady since 02016. Renewable power investment in particular is some US$659 billion, up from US$451B in 02019. Nuclear is only US$63B. #Pricing for solar panels has remained steady since 02019.
on 02023-07-12#nuclear #energy #safety and #statistics
on 02023-07-01#PV #solar #energy #pricing falls to a new low? OPIS APAC Solar Weekly says their “module marker” has fallen to 17.3¢/W over the last four weeks after being between 20¢ and 25¢ since the beginning of the year, falling 11.7% in just the last week, its “largest percentage drop ever”. “Europe installed a record 46.1 GW of solar power in 2022, according to a SolarPower Europe report. But around 85 GW of modules were shipped there last year, with the remainder ending up in warehouses owned by Chinese companies across Europe.”
on 02023-06-24discussion of #PV #solar #energy #pricing.
on 02023-06-24iron powder as a thermal #energy storage medium, promoted by Altiro Energy (misspelled Altira), IRON+, Metalot, RIFT, and the Metal Power Consortium
on 02023-06-23https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/02/13/war-and-subsidies-have-turbocharged-the-green-transition #energy transition: predicted CO₂ emissions peak in 02027
on 02023-02-14Tom Murphy’s 02012 analysis of #fusion #energy, advised by Bob Hirsch: “In the end, it is unclear whether a fusion plant—even after the physics is tamed—would be economically viable, and attractive enough for investors to take on endeavors of this scale, complexity, and risk.”
on 02022-12-30In 02014 #Amory-Lovins explains that #fusion #energy needs to beat not fossil fuels and fission, but renewables, which have become cheaper
on 02022-12-30#GE, in preparation for splitting into three companies, cuts 20% of its onshore #wind #energy workforce because of aggressive competition from Siemens, among other things. “While demand for clean energy options is rising as energy shortages continue to wreak havoc, analysts say it's been difficult to make wind energy a cost-effective option.”
on 02022-10-12naval #nuclear #energy is very costly compared to other ship power plants, just like non-naval nuclear energy
on 02022-09-30my comment on #fertilizers #energy use in #agriculture, citing Woods et al. #food
on 02022-05-21“#Energy and the #Food System”, Jeremy Woods, Adrian Williams, John K. Hughes, Mairi Black, and Richard Murphy, Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Sep 27; 365(1554): 2991–3006. doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0172 #agriculture #fertilizer
on 02022-05-21from “#Energy and the #Food System,” graph of Ontario #agriculture: grains and oilseeds mostly yield 30-90 GJ/hectare (I assume per year), but grain corn is up around 120, and switchgrass more like 170; fossil-fuel energy consumption is shown at the bottom as 10–20 GJ/ha.
on 02022-05-21“#Energy Inputs in #Food Crop Production in Developing and Developed Nations,” Pimentel’s #EROEI #paper where he found about four joules returned per joule spent on industrialized #agriculture, #CC-BY, Energies 2009, 2(1), 1-24; https://doi.org/10.3390/en20100001
on 02022-05-21“George Jetson” gets the #EROEI of industrial agriculture badly wrong: he quotes Pimentel as saying the EROEI of industrialized agriculture is about 0.25:1, but what Pimentel actually found was 1:0.25, four joules returned per joule spent. Consequently Jetson’s entire point about “The EROI of global food production” is wrong. #food #energy #agriculture
on 02022-05-21how much #ammonia does #agriculture need per bushel of #corn? 3kg of hydrogen makes 17k of ammonia which makes 250 bushels of corn (56 lb. each, so 6350 kg; 3.5 kcal/g gives 370 MJ/bushel, so that’s 93 GJ), so the 142MJ in 1 kg of hydrogen has about 3% of the energy content of the resulting 31 GJ of corn. #fertilizer #economics #energy #food
on 02022-05-21we’ve just crossed 1 terawatt of installed #photovoltaic #energy generation capacity due to 183 GW installed in 02021, with a doubling time a bit under three years. Tongwei says they’ll have a million tonnes of polysilicon production by 02027; currently 3 g per (peak?) watt is needed.
on 02022-05-21CO₂ emissions in #Germany did go up in 02012, and by 1.5% in 02013, but not up to their 02000 levels, and then they went back down. #energy “There is no dark side to the Energiewende”. Jesus, I still have 1342 tabs open
on 02022-02-11#USA #petroleum imports and exports up to 02020. #energy
on 02022-02-09#magnesium smelters shutting down to save #energy in #China
on 02021-11-06The Dorsey/Square white paper arguing #Bitcoin subsidizes renewable #energy
on 02021-07-1545000 #Bitcoin mining machines seized in #Iran because they were using subsidized electrical #energy
on 02021-07-15more on #Bitcoin, #energy, #China
on 02021-07-15#Bitcoin miners seeking cheap #energy and friendly regulations leaving #China
on 02021-07-15racist Grauniad article about #solar #energy #pricing, with discussion veering off into the history of #Wuxi
on 02021-05-29discussion of #energy starting from a 01953 book on #nuclear #energy
on 02021-05-29discussion of #energy starting from a 01953 book on #nuclear #energy
on 02021-05-29IEA #WEO says #solar #photovoltaic #pricing is now the “cheapest electricity in history” and offers the chance to stop global warming. “New utility-scale #solar projects now cost $30-60/MWh in Europe and the US and just $20-40/MWh in China and India.” Includes a plot of the IEA’s abysmal past record predicting solar — from which we can see that PV’s exponential growth did in fact smash into a wall in 02017, when 95 GW were installed, up from 46 GW in 02014, 25 GW in 02011, and 7 GW in 02008. The WEO’s figure for 02020 is 103 GW, nothing like the 196 GW you'd expect if the exponential trend had continued. #CC by-nc-nd #climate-change #energy #pricing #history
on 02021-01-24“I made a graph showing the historic track record of the IEA in predicting solar: reality steeply increasing but IEA is having none of it.” #solar #photovoltaic #history #energy but no pricing. Also, ends in 02016. #WEO
on 02021-01-24in August, 02019, analyst Tom Heggarty speculates that recent low #photovoltaic PPAs like Portugal’s US$16.48/MWh #pricing represent not the true LCoe but a bet that the market value of the #solar plant in 15 years will be substantially higher than it is today, because the market price of electrical #energy is, like, US$34/MWh or US$56/MWh: after the PPA is over they can sell on the spot market. VP of Development at Scale Microgrids @duncan__c agreed on Twitter, and BNEF analys Jenny Chase also confirmed that “seemingly negative NPV PPA bids” are now common
on 02021-01-21#Solar #energy #pricing in the #USA southwest is killing coal plants; the coal-fired San Juan Generating Plant in New Mexico costs US$44.90/MWh (cost of production), triple “the just-approved solar PPA” at US$15/MWh for 100 MW; the Palo Verde trading hub price averaged US$26.58/MWh in 02019.
on 02021-01-21Electrical #energy #pricing in the #USA in 02019 for new PPAs averaged US$27.40 per megawatt hour, down 4.7% from 02018, including non-renewables. #Solar, nearly all #photovoltaic, dropped slightly, wind rose slightly. #Google was the biggest buyer globally.
on 02021-01-21#solar #energy #pricing record in January 02020 in #Qatar was US$15.67 per megawatt hour (US$0.01567/kWh) with a 25-year PPA for 800 MW #photovoltaic
on 02021-01-21WSJ PR hit about Tesla CTO Straubel's #lithium recycling company, Redwood Materials. #energy
on 02020-11-18#Don-Lancaster’s 2020 blog, covering power electronics #hardware, the CMOS cookbook, hanging canals, HVAC efficiency, #photovoltaic #energy, and so on.
on 02020-11-11#photovoltaic #pricing information provided as a PNG, again including not just cells but various kinds of inputs. #energy
on 02020-11-11weekly #photovoltaic #pricing information, not just cells but various kinds of inputs. #energy
on 02020-11-11The International Energy Agency keeps assuming that renewable #energy will stop growing fast.
on 02019-11-30Article from 2019-04-19: Solarpack Corp. Tecnológica won a contract in Chile to build a 120-megawatt #photovoltaic #energy plant in the Atacama desert and sell the energy at US$29.10 per megawatt-hour. “As part of this current deal, families and business owners in Chile will see their electricity bill fall by 20 and 25 percent, respectively, from 2021.”
on 02019-07-05more on #photovoltaic lifetime. #energy
on 02019-02-11#photovoltaic lifetime and degradation data. #solar #energy
on 02019-02-11#energy including #solar #photovoltaic, wind, and utility-scale energy storage
on 02019-02-11utility-scale #photovoltaic power plants in #USA. #energy
on 02019-02-09even in 2016 #nuclear #energy cost more than #photovoltaic to build, by an order of magnitude
on 02019-02-09"Desertec" was a #solar #energy project to build #CSP plants in the Sahara; it ran from 2009 to 2014 but then was eaten by photovoltaic.
on 02019-02-092014 #solar #photovoltaic #energy capacity factors in the #USA are estimated at 13%–19%, averaging 16%, including rooftop installations, but the EIA estimated 28% for utility-scale installations in 2016, which may be a few percent too high, with 25.2% perhaps being more accurate; but it varies greatly by state, from 28.1% in California, 27.0% in Arizona, 26.7% in Nevada, and 25.8% in New Mexico, down to 15.5% in Maine and 16.1% in Pennsylvania.
on 02019-02-09Chuck McManis is skeptical that #photovoltaic #solar #energy is going to get more expensive
on 02019-01-28#photovoltaic #solar panels are expected to rise in price by 10% to 15% over the next couple of years — by a Chinese solar-panel company executive speaking at Davos! #energy #cartels
on 02019-01-28in German, historical by-month spot #market prices for crystalline #photovoltaic #energy modules. Now at €0.19 per peak watt for low-cost panels!
on 02018-12-28Levelized cost of #energy
on 02018-06-212.5 GW of #photovoltaic #energy production installed in the #USA in 1Q 2018, 55% of all new electrical generating capacity, but up only 13% from a year earlier. 2010 849 MW, 2011 1900 MW, 2012 3400 MW, 2013 4800 MW, 2014 6200 MW, 2015 7500 MW, 2016 15.1 GW, 2017 10.6 GW, 10.6 GW forecast for 2018, from SEIA and GTM Research.
on 02018-06-12The #Suniva #photovoltaic tariff hearing. #USA #energy #politics
on 02017-09-10Grid-scale Li-ion #batteries are predicted to reach parity with gas turbine peakers in a U Minnesota paper. #energy
on 02017-08-06#USA #photovoltaic #energy #predictions: Morgan Stanley says, ‘“by 2020, renewables will be the cheapest form of new-power generation across the globe,” with the exception of a few countries in Southeast Asia.’ Also, ‘the price of #solar panels has fallen 50% between 2016 and 2017.’
on 02017-08-06Rooftop #solar feed-in tariff is under pressure in #USA. #energy #politics
on 02017-08-06Massachusetts, #USA, installed 1.6 gigawatts of #solar #photovoltaic power in 2012–2017, its goal for 2020, and so it’s going to try installing another 1.6 gigawatts by 2022, citing a 5-year 64% decline in installation costs. #energy
on 02017-07-23#solar #photovoltaic #energy is “now” (2017-06-09 I guess) 1.6% of #USA electricity, and should reach 2% by the end of 2017, despite #Trump, according to SEIA. Also mentions #Suniva. Naïve extrapolation of such a 25%-semestral exponential growth rate would project that solar would reach 25% of total US electric supply 5.7 years later, around August 2022.
on 02017-06-17utility-scale #photovoltaic #solar #energy prices in #USA are below US$1 per peak watt now, including the whole plant cost. It was 39% of new US electricity generating capacity additions in 2016 (compared to 29% natural gas, 26% wind, and 6% coal) and 30% of new capacity additions in Q1 2017, but presumably that’s before you derate it for its lower capacity factor.
on 02017-06-14“Tucson Electric Power…igned a 20-year power purchase agreement with NextEra #Energy Resources to buy #solar power from a new 100-megawatt solar power plant that will be built and operated by NextEra” for “less than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. … the unsubsidized cost of electricity from fossil fuels has a low end of about 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour in the US. … The average cost of residential electricity in the US is 13 cents per kilowatt-hour and the average cost for commercial customers is 10.5 cents per kilowatt-hour." #photovoltaic
on 02017-06-07#solar #photovoltaic #energy #politics "Suniva" tries to impose punitive tariffs on silicon photovoltaic cells of US$0.40/W for four years.
on 02017-05-24#PDF #dissertation #ebook, “Thermal Analysis of a Solar Cavity Receiver”, by Yuvraj Singh. Mostly about molten-salt solar thermal #energy plants. #thermodynamics
on 02017-05-19commentary on Jassby’s #fusion #energy article.
on 02017-04-26drawbacks of #fusion #energy: on-site power drain, tritium loss (and insufficient breeding), neutron degradation, weapons proliferation, etc., by Jassby.
on 02017-04-26Tesla batteries for #solar #energy supply smoothing (peak shaving)
on 02017-04-15probably #Westinghouse’s bankruptcy means #USA #nuclear #energy plants currently under construction won’t be finished
on 02017-03-30how long-distance electrical #energy transmission can work with lower losses and less coordination: "HVDC".
on 02017-03-29international #energy outlook: in 2016 they say, “Total world consumption of marketed energy expands from 549 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2012 to 629 quadrillion Btu in 2020 and to 815 quadrillion Btu in 2040—a 48% increase from 2012 to 2040.” I think actual energy consumption will increase much faster than this starting in the mid-2020s.
on 02017-03-22this article claims SnoPUD’s UET vanadium redox flow battery (#VRFB) is scheduled to come online before Q3 2017, not in January. The cost for that project and a couple of others is US$15M. #energy
on 02016-12-218 MWh of vanadium flow battery (#VRFB) #energy storage is scheduled to come online in January 2017 at Snohomish County Public Utility District (SnoPUD)’s Everett Substation in Washington State, built by UniEnergy Technologies; they claim the cost of storage is 5¢/kWh; the photo makes it appear to occupy ten TEUs (it’s containerized) but maybe the battery in the photo is only 4MWh. An 800MWh system is planned for Dalian by “UET’s sister company Rongke”. The electrodes are solutions of vanadium salts at different oxidation states separated by an ion-selective membrane. #hardware
on 02016-12-21a 2016 #paper on #solar #energy payback times and EROEI (“EROI”) and life-cycle analysis (LCA) and net energy analysis (NEA). In particular fixed ground-mounted “multicrystalline” silicon #photovoltaic cells have EPBT of 0.9 to 2.1 years depending on irradiation (insolation), and an EROEI of 15 to 35. This is surprising because that’s pretty much what it was when NREL published an EPBT analysis around 2001 or so.
on 02016-12-21National Geographic documentary #video about Adani’s new #solar #photovoltaic #energy plant that was built in 8 months in #India. Seems like they graded the site but didn’t concrete it, and use a dry robotic brushing system to clean the panels.
on 02016-12-21discussion of #energy; mentions capacity factors of 32.2% for wind and 25.8% for utility-scale #solar #photovoltaic in the US in 2015. Includes the rather terrifying report from Japan, “They are clear cutting forest to put up installations everywhere.”
on 02016-12-21#solar #photovoltaic #energy is now cheaper than wind at US$1.65 million capex per megawatt (nameplate I guess). And the latest auctioned solar contracts (US$29.10/MWh in Chile) are half the price of coal energy.
on 02016-12-21#solar #photovoltaic EROEI just crossed oil #energy at about 14:1 or 15:1
on 02016-12-21discussion of how #solar #photovoltaic EROEI just crossed oil #energy at about 14:1 or 15:1
on 02016-12-21#Iceland #geothermal #energy from magma via 200-atmosphere supercritical steam
on 02016-10-23a #nuclear #energy plant was attacked via computer #security problems “two to three years ago” which caused “some disruption”
on 02016-10-10More #solar #photovoltaic #energy #predictions. The Powerwall sold out, selling a billion dollars’ worth of batteries in a year or so.
on 02016-10-07Still more about the #solar #photovoltaic #energy project in Abu Dhabi, #UAE. Lots of #predictions.
on 02016-10-07a “looming glut of panels” should send #photovoltaic prices down again at last, 10% to 44.7¢/W (Wp I suppose) in the last 6 weeks and maybe another 15% by the end of the year, maybe even catching up to their former exponential curve; global panel production capacity should grow 18% in 2016. Mentions that there was a “two-year slump” starting in late 2011 due to this happening before. “World’s largest panel maker” is Trina, and its shipments are actually falling in the third quarter. #China is the world’s biggest market, installing 22 GW in the first half of 2016 before subsidies expired on June 30, and probably 6 to 8 GW in the rest of the year. “Global installations this year may reach about 67 gigawatts, up 27 percent from last year, according to New Energy Finance. In 2017, it’s expected to increase by 25 percent, and in 2018 it will rise 23 percent.” #solar #energy
on 02016-10-07“Huge growth in PV and wind helped renewables grow to over 30% of installed global power”; that seems to be 30% of electrical generation, not 30% of world marketed #energy consumption. More than half of that 30% is still hydroelectric. 181 gigawatts of #solar #photovoltaic was the installed capacity in 2014, with a 51% annual growth rate over the previous 10 years, and 211 TWh were produced with it. 154 GW of renewables were added in 2015 (at a cost of US$286 billion, or US$1.86 per watt; unfortunately the article doesn’t give broken-out numbers for PV and wind, just a total across all renewables) and 97 GW of conventional generation.
on 02016-10-07#Energy storage is on a pretty quick learning curve, and has dropped by a factor of 10 since the 1990s to US$0.26/kWh round-tripped, but adiabatic compressed-air energy storage and flow batteries are likely to be cheaper than lithium-ion batteries.
on 02016-09-23#pdf of slides about #energy storage levelized costs from 2015
on 02016-09-16Apparently Wärtsilä’s internal-combustion #energy electrical power plants have a faster ramp rate even than simple-cycle gas peakers.
on 02016-09-16They’re mining #methane from Lake Kivu between #Rwanda and #Congo for #energy and to prevent a disastrous lake overturn with a potential death toll in the millions. Mazuku depressions are all around; historical limnic eruptions happen there about once a millennium. #geography
on 02016-08-12electrical #energy generation levelized costs (LCOE)
on 02016-08-01Even in the US, #solar #photovoltaic #energy panel #pricing is US$370 for a 265-watt panel, US$1.40 per watt. This uses 19%-efficient cells.
on 02016-07-11A 250-watt peak #solar #photovoltaic #energy panel costs AR$7000 (=US$467) now here. That’s US$1.87 per watt, which is almost four times what such modules supposedly cost in bulk. The brand is “Luxen”. 20kg, 1640mm × 992 mm × 40mm, suggesting about 15% efficiency. #pricing
on 02016-07-11A 2000-watt inverter (24-VDC input, 220-VAC output, allowing peaks of 4000 watts) costs AR$7500 (=US$500) now here. #energy #pricing
on 02016-07-11this #lead-acid battery (model Trojan 27TMX) stores supposedly 105 amp-hours of #energy at 12 volts, but really more like 73 amp-hours, which works out to 880 watt-hours or 3.2 MJ; it can manage 530 amps at 0°. It weighs 25 kg and costs AR$5100, about US$340, giving about 9.3 kJ/US$ or reciprocally US$108/MJ. Although this is more than twice the cost in the US, it’s still a bearable cost. The battery lifetime is given as 750 full charges.
on 02016-07-11California reduced its use of coal-generated electricity to 0.2% in 2015 (not clear if this is 0.2% of electrical #energy or of total marketed energy). Natural gas has taken up the slack. Average retail price is 15.15¢/kWh.
on 02016-06-21In 2014, by contrast, #Juan-Cole suggested high Saudi #oil #energy production would weaken the recognized government of #Iraq, providing opportunities to #Daesh. He also predicts, “By 2016, solar and wind will be grid parity everywhere in the US with coal and natural gas for heating and cooling buildings.” #predictions
on 02016-05-04Saudi Arabia maintains high #oil #energy production possibly in order to squeeze #Daesh revenues.
on 02016-05-04SEIA says the millionth #solar #energy installation in the US happened in February after 40 years; the second million will take two more years, representing a 40% annual growth rate.
on 02016-05-04Flood #Egypt’s Qattara Depression with Mediterranean water in order to generate hydroelectric #energy from the continuing evaporation, and cover much of the Sahara with rain? Probably not a great idea in 2016, aside from the possible groundwater contamination, since the resulting clouds would probably reflect a lot more solar energy than you could harvest hydroelectrically, and putting photovoltaic panels in the Qattara would probably generate more energy than letting the water evaporate. The alternative of capturing freshwater from the Nile seems more appealing.
on 02016-04-20#photovoltaic #energy is cheaper in India than new coal plants now: “a new record low in January with the auction of 420 megawatts in Rajasthan at 4.34 rupees a kilowatt-hour. In comparison coal tariffs range between 3-5 rupees/kWh.”
on 02016-04-19Jordan is installing a 5 km² 160MW #photovoltaic #solar plant outside Ma’an; Jordan imports 96% of its #energy as fossil fuels, amounting to 10% of its GDP. China, since 2015 the biggest producer of solar energy, subsidizes PV plants, now producing 3% of its electricity; it’s expected to install 12GW in the first half of 2016. India, the other leading country, is still shooting for just 100GW in 2022; KPMG thinks solar will provide 12.5% of India’s energy by 2025. “Such is the frenzy that officials in sunny Punjab are urging farmers to lease their land to solar developers rather than till it.” Global solar-energy capacity rose by 26% last year. Saudi company Acwa Power won a 200MW contract in Dubai in 2014 at a levelized cost of “less than $60/MWh”; Acwa also built the world’s largest #CSP plant, in Morocco, and bought a 50MW Jordanian plant initially started by Greek company Sunrise. Italian company Enel Green Power won a 20-year contract in Perú in February for “just under $48/MWh” and a “similarly lengthy” contract in Coahuila for “about $40/MWh”.
on 02016-04-16#photovoltaic and other renewable #energy sources are now adding capacity (?) faster than other sources of electricity.
on 02016-02-22historical by-month spot #market prices for crystalline #photovoltaic #energy modules. Until August 2013, they also tracked thin-film modules. They’re now at about €0.5 to €0.7 per peak watt (“Wp”), with very little price change over the last year (!!). In China they’re €0.56 now, €0.57 in July 2015, €0.54 in January 2015, €0.55 in July 2014, €0.58 in January 2014, €0.56 in July 2013, €0.53 in January 2013, €0.64 in July 2012, €0.79 in January 2012, €1.12 in July 2011, €1.47 in January 2011, €1.62 in July 2010; and €2.17 at their farthest-back datum of May 2009. Optimistically this is no change over three years; pessimistically it’s a 6% price increase! This is all the more surprising given the 36% per year price decreases over the previous two and a half years. Another two years of such price decreases would reach the magic 25¢ per peak watt that Don Lancaster thinks will be needed to go net energy positive.
on 02016-02-18#oil #energy prices will probably stay low for a few years (probably until photovoltaic dominates)
on 02015-12-14#jacquesm’s critique of Google’s #Makani wind #energy harvesting project.
on 02015-12-03household scale #energy storage to smooth out intermittency of common renewable power sources like #solar; #batteries are best. 10m³ of #lead-acid batteries weigh 19 tons and store 750 kWh (2.7 GJ), but they cost US$150/kWh (US$41/MJ). 360 kg lifted by 3 m is required to store 3 Wh (at 29J/kg at 3 m), about 500× less energy density per mass than lead-acid batteries, so gravitational energy storage is impractical. #Flywheel storage is practical at a multi-meter scale even with steel, but the construction is expensive. Compressed air at a multi-meter scale (10m³) is practical, but again expensive.
on 02015-11-16blog post about how to cut your #energy usage in your house, especially in the US.
on 02015-11-16Tom Murphy’s #predictions blog, mostly about #energy. He’s pretty pessimistic.
on 02015-11-16notes on #energy storage in #flywheel systems
on 02015-11-10figures on the #energy-density of different #flywheel designs. Discussion of #energy storage for I guess #solar?
on 02015-11-10#Obama rejects #Keystone-XL #oil #energy pipeline to save the #environment. The Republicans are all in favor.
on 02015-11-06#solar #photovoltaic #energy is only four times less CO₂ intensive than conventional grid electricity if the panels are made in China and installed in northern Europe, assuming you don’t have to worry about intermittency.
on 02015-11-03crystalline silicon #photovoltaic #solar cells have fallen “to $0.4-0.5/W with fair efficiency in early 2015”. #energy
on 02015-10-07Tri Alpha is firing plasmoids at each other and getting the resulting fireball to hold together for 5ms? i.e. tori of #plasma confined by their own magnetic fields, aka “field-reversed configuration” thingies. Attempt to harness hydrogen-boron #fusion to harvest #energy. Also they’re supposedly firing the tori at “nearly a million kilometers per hour”, which would allow them to travel nearly 1400 meters in those 5ms, evoking sci-fi notions of plasmoid weapons; but in fact this is under very special conditions which wouldn’t obtain in space, and they are constantly adding energy to keep the plasma confined during those 5ms. So far they’re only at 10MK; need to reach 3GK, not just the 100MK needed for D-T fusion.
on 02015-08-26World marketed #energy consumption was 148000 TWh in 2010 (17000 GW) and 155000 TWh in 2012 (18000 GW).
on 02015-08-15Renewable #energy overview from BP, showing 185.9 TWh consumed in 2014 (21 GW). Germany, China, Italy, Japan, and the US are the leaders, trailed by Spain, and 2013 to 2014 growth was 38.5%, for a doubling time just over two years. In 2007 it was 6.8 TWh (per year; only 0.78 GW), for an average compounded yearly #growth rate of 60%, so it’s slowing down from an #exponential curve, which would be super bad news if this is a normal #logistic diffusion curve.
on 02015-08-15Tom Murphy worrying about economic #collapse from an #energy crunch in 2011, using NREL #EROEI figures about #photovoltaic modules from 2000. From my point of view, a 4-year energy payback time is the same as a 25% limit on the annual economic growth rate: if energy is like super expensive and PV is the only way to get it, then making PV cells will consume nearly all of the energy produced with them, and we can expect the amount of PV power available to double every three years under those circumstances, even if no fossil fuel is available. In 2010 the world produced 31.4 TWh of #solar energy and marketed 148000 TWh of all energy, so about 12 doublings were needed for solar to reach world marketed energy consumption. At three years per doubling, that would be around 2046. The availability of some fossil fuels can only accelerate that trend, under capitalism, anyway. (He makes a good point that a central planner might very easily prefer to devote today’s energy to today's needs instead of investing it to produce returns tomorrow.)
on 02015-08-15Tom Murphy dooming about #collapse as of 2012 because #energy. Specifically he’s worried that an #oil crunch “within the decade” will make #transportation very expensive, which will cause the #economy to collapse, and then we won’t be able to make #photovoltaic solutions. This is causing him a motivational crisis because he worries that his scientific work will be lost in the collapse.
on 02015-08-15#Geothermal #energy in #Hawaii is under active development despite being a sacrilege against Pele and using volcano-contaminated water from underground, resulting in H₂S releases. #environmentalism
on 02015-08-10the Navajo Generating Station #predictions #energy
on 02015-08-05End of the #petrodollar. #Saudi wanted to crush #Putin? #politics #energy #forex Lots of graphs and data tables on #oil prices
on 02015-08-05Discussion of #YCombinator getting into #energy startups.
on 02015-08-05
