I once had a sweet, brown pit bull mix named Thembi, who had impressive musculature and a magnificent nose. Often on our walks, I would feel the leash go taut and know she’d sniffed out something tantalizing, likely a squirrel or a rabbit. She would snuffle excitedly, muzzle to the ground, tracing her quarry’s skittish […]
If we want to build a stable 100% renewable energy electrical grid we need backup power station for when there is no sun or wind.
These are known as “Peaker” plants. Their purpose is to come online very quickly when loads increase or production drops, and to go offline again when loads drop, or production increases.
Nuclear could work perfectly but I’m losing hope on trying to convince people that a bit of nuclear would help to each a 100% renewable energy grid.
Nuclear is an excellent option for a base load plant, but it is terrible for a peaker. Nuclear generation is extremely slow to adjust. It can’t be ramped up or down quickly enough to match a daily load curve, let alone react to rapidly changing weather conditions.
What is most needed is “demand shaping”. Our current model assumes that consumers will take whatever they want, whenever they want it, and the onus is on the power companies to ensure power is always available. What we need is to provide a means for consumer products and industrial processes to understand and adapt to power availability in real time, so that they can play an active role in adjusting demand. A water heater (with a mixing output to maintain a constant output temperature) could be told to superheat its stored water to just below the boiling point during the solar peak, then shut off until the following day. If it’s a cloudy day with no major solar peak, it maintains a much lower, consistent temperature throughout the day.
Desalination, hydrogen generation, and a variety of other industrial processes can similarly ramp their operations up and down to match their demand to available supply.
Biomass is probably best utilized as feedstock for Fischer-Tropsch synfuel production, which effectively functions as long-term grid-scale energy storage. Basically, it is a synthetically-produced fuel suitable for gas turbine engines like those used in aircraft or grid-scale peaker plants. The Air Force has certified its entire fleet to operate on synfuel, it’s just not currently cost effective relative to petroleum due to the massive energy inputs required. But, those same energy inputs are becoming available as solar peaks begin to pose a problem for energy providers.
Would love to see nuclear base load just used for inefficient process when in surplus. Inefficient hydrolysis to make hydrogen for fuel cells, pumping water around for water stored energy generation, and such.
There is energy efficiency, and cost efficiency. It doesn’t really matter if the energy efficiency of a process is low. If it is using energy that we couldn’t use for much of anything else, it can be cost effective.
These are known as “Peaker” plants. Their purpose is to come online very quickly when loads increase or production drops, and to go offline again when loads drop, or production increases.
Nuclear is an excellent option for a base load plant, but it is terrible for a peaker. Nuclear generation is extremely slow to adjust. It can’t be ramped up or down quickly enough to match a daily load curve, let alone react to rapidly changing weather conditions.
What is most needed is “demand shaping”. Our current model assumes that consumers will take whatever they want, whenever they want it, and the onus is on the power companies to ensure power is always available. What we need is to provide a means for consumer products and industrial processes to understand and adapt to power availability in real time, so that they can play an active role in adjusting demand. A water heater (with a mixing output to maintain a constant output temperature) could be told to superheat its stored water to just below the boiling point during the solar peak, then shut off until the following day. If it’s a cloudy day with no major solar peak, it maintains a much lower, consistent temperature throughout the day.
Desalination, hydrogen generation, and a variety of other industrial processes can similarly ramp their operations up and down to match their demand to available supply.
Biomass is probably best utilized as feedstock for Fischer-Tropsch synfuel production, which effectively functions as long-term grid-scale energy storage. Basically, it is a synthetically-produced fuel suitable for gas turbine engines like those used in aircraft or grid-scale peaker plants. The Air Force has certified its entire fleet to operate on synfuel, it’s just not currently cost effective relative to petroleum due to the massive energy inputs required. But, those same energy inputs are becoming available as solar peaks begin to pose a problem for energy providers.
Would love to see nuclear base load just used for inefficient process when in surplus. Inefficient hydrolysis to make hydrogen for fuel cells, pumping water around for water stored energy generation, and such.
There is energy efficiency, and cost efficiency. It doesn’t really matter if the energy efficiency of a process is low. If it is using energy that we couldn’t use for much of anything else, it can be cost effective.