by AndyH (Posted Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:01:09 GMT)
It's not about 'big government.' You objected to the installation of grid-scale PV in S Texas by a municipally-owned power company. That's fine. The people down here, however, continue to demand more wind, solar, and efficiency while dumping coal. Since Texas is the national leader in greenhouse gas emissions, those PV farms will be keeping your air cleaner too - or isn't VA downwind? The grid projects are configured to peak with the air conditioning load peaks. And we've got a LOT of A/C loads.
No, I really don't because it's a red herring. Here's why: 1. MTBF is a statistical look at failures. It's not predictive of how any single system will perform and does not address end of life. 2. MTBF might correspond in the real world provided one installs equipment in the same type of service and conditions used for the MTBF evaluation, but it will not provide meaningful information when one departs from the standard conditions. How do I know? Some of my military work involved keeping equipment in service beyond it's generally-considered end of life (the fun with 'doing more with less'). My work with small business customers does the same thing - making operations and maintenance tweaks to extend the profitable lifespan of their equipment. And a lifetime of maintaining my own equipment for the long haul. Bottom line - my job is to adjust my power system so that my system appears as an outlier. It's not that difficult and it's fun. Put another way - MTBF is trying to characterize a forest. I'm only responsible for one tree - and I've got this-here bucket of fertilizer - hide and watch this puppy grow!![:lol:]( "Laughing")
So far, it's nothing more than your opinion (nothing personal) as you've not provided anything that shows it to be a fact, while I've provided info that shows it to be fantasy.
Fine. EROEI for the cradle to grave should be very positive, that's fine. I was looking only at the process once the machine is built. Maybe that's wrong. Solar=agrarian though? Sorry, no. Firstly, everything happening on the planet is solar. From a blade of grass to a super storm. There's nothing 'agrarian' about relying on the massive amounts of energy all around us. Want EROEI? Plant 1 seed and nature gives 100 back. How hard is that? Yes, we've been spoiled for a short time by the massive amounts of energy stored in fossil hydrocarbon fuels, but there always have been other options. It's like people standing outside in a rainstorm complaining that they don't have water to drink because their well's run dry (yes, they do that). Myopic doesn't even start to cover it...
You suggest the grid cannot handle more than 10% or somewhere between 50 and 100% depending on the post. That's fine. I don't recall anyone besides you suggesting 100% PV though. There's no need, nobody's suggesting it, and it's not going to happen. Except for off gridders and folks hanging-out on space stations. And Mars colonies.
RegGuheert wrote:
AndyH wrote:
And I have to suggest that attitude is exactly the opposite of what we need if we're going to decarbon the grid! One one hand, you suggest that it's bad to have large-scale PV because it could limit roof-top generation. Then you suggest there really is a PV limit, and that the grid operators must be able to throttle it or the grid could implode. Yet you finish with a statement that grid-tied folks will fight the throttling you suggest the grid needs. Something's got to give here - what should it be?
I NEVER suggested that it was bad to have large-scale PV. I said that I was against the government installing PV because it may block individuals from doing so in the future. I'm not in favor of big government.It's not about 'big government.' You objected to the installation of grid-scale PV in S Texas by a municipally-owned power company. That's fine. The people down here, however, continue to demand more wind, solar, and efficiency while dumping coal. Since Texas is the national leader in greenhouse gas emissions, those PV farms will be keeping your air cleaner too - or isn't VA downwind? The grid projects are configured to peak with the air conditioning load peaks. And we've got a LOT of A/C loads.
RegGuheert wrote:
You seem unwilling or unable to come to terms with the fact that the actual MTBF for a totally off-grid PV system is likely on the order of two years considering all the different types of failures. And that ignores the maintenance involved. If you think the MTBF is higher than that, then you need to come up with an unbiased study that shows ALL failures for a variety of different off-grid installations and calculate the actual MTBF.
No, I really don't because it's a red herring. Here's why: 1. MTBF is a statistical look at failures. It's not predictive of how any single system will perform and does not address end of life. 2. MTBF might correspond in the real world provided one installs equipment in the same type of service and conditions used for the MTBF evaluation, but it will not provide meaningful information when one departs from the standard conditions. How do I know? Some of my military work involved keeping equipment in service beyond it's generally-considered end of life (the fun with 'doing more with less'). My work with small business customers does the same thing - making operations and maintenance tweaks to extend the profitable lifespan of their equipment. And a lifetime of maintaining my own equipment for the long haul. Bottom line - my job is to adjust my power system so that my system appears as an outlier. It's not that difficult and it's fun. Put another way - MTBF is trying to characterize a forest. I'm only responsible for one tree - and I've got this-here bucket of fertilizer - hide and watch this puppy grow!
RegGuheert wrote:
AndyH wrote:
The point is that we have enough sun hitting the Earth in a single hour to power the entire planet for a year. We can do the entire job with solar and have more room for growth than the planet's capable of supporting. And yet - nobody is suggesting that PV be a sole source. So what's the point about even believing that a renewable grid will need cheap storage? A SINGLE solar installation needs storage (think off-grid house), or a single wind turbine needs storage (ditto), but wind AND PV need less storage! And wind and PV networked across a country need LESS storage. And wind, PV, hydro, biomass, biomethane, and geothermal need MUCH less storage. Still think storage is the bottleneck?
I stated that there is a limit to how much PV you can put on the grid. Feel free to continue to argue the point. It's a fact.RegGuheert wrote:
AndyH wrote:
Sustainable means we can continue to do the thing. That means we need 'enough' EROEI to make it a worthwhile endeavour. Sometimes that'll mean a positive return, but it could also mean a negative. We cannot convert sunlight to a liquid fuel without an energy loss, but as we've already seen, we have a significant surplus of essentially endless energy available. Seems to me that nobody 'needs' a "high" EROEI unless/until one's trying to control and/or profit from the conversion.
Regardless of how it seems to you, a high EROEI is required for the electricity generators of the future if they are to be what fuels our society. This is a basic concept. Sure, sunlight can maintain the plant and animal life on the planet because the plants can process the sunlight and the animals can eat the plants. But if we want to sustain human civilization beyond the agrarian level, we will need more than just sunlight. In an society run on electricity, then the producers of electricity (PV, wind) must produce MUCH more electricity than it takes to create them or we devolve back to the agrarian society.You suggest the grid cannot handle more than 10% or somewhere between 50 and 100% depending on the post. That's fine. I don't recall anyone besides you suggesting 100% PV though. There's no need, nobody's suggesting it, and it's not going to happen. Except for off gridders and folks hanging-out on space stations. And Mars colonies.