The Energy Transition and technologies

[Fuzz]

https://majorprojects.alberta.ca/det...r-Project/5536


https://majorprojects.alberta.ca/det...r-Project/3811


These are weird ones. Is the land not useful for anything else? Seems land within city limits would be too valuable for this.

[burn_this_city]

Judging by the storm water ponds on both sites I think the land is contaminated. The Barlow one for sure used to have a tailings pond from the fertilizer plant across from the Esso Tank Farm. It was emerald green and stood out from every other body of water nearby.

[Samonadreau]

Asking out of ignorance, what is the waste footprint of battery production and recycling? Sounds like a staggering amount of batteries for the Traverse project.

Also what happens when you get a week of no sun in the Winter, do you need to size battery banks accordingly or just spin up other standby or reserve generation?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Samonadreau

Asking out of ignorance, what is the waste footprint of battery production and recycling? Sounds like a staggering amount of batteries for the Traverse project.

Also what happens when you get a week of no sun in the Winter, do you need to size battery banks accordingly or just spin up other standby or reserve generation?

There's a number of studies out there with wildly different numbers. That's because the variables for the inputs are huge:
-the GHG emissions from mining for LiFP batteries are wildly different due to different composition compared to ones containing cobalt and are wildly different from flow batteries.
-the power source used in manufacturing. A battery made at Northvolt will have much, much lower production emissions than a battery made in China due to the emissions from the energy used to make the battery.
-how many discharge cycles before they're retired? If it lasts 500 cycles or 1000 cycles, the GHG emission per kWh will be quite different.
-as for recycling, once large batteries are ubiquitous there'll be recycling plants everywhere. Until then, how much GHG are emitted when hauling a 50 ton battery 1000 miles to the nearest recycling plant?

In the end, it's very complex. What we do know is there's ways to massively decrease the already lower emissions from battery storage than from burning FF.

As for the no sun scenario, there's a few different uses for the batteries and DoubleK can expand better than I. Some is used for short term when demand is high, some is used for frequency modulation, and some is used for longer term (days without sunlight). There's still no seasonal storage to my knowledge though, and I'm not sure what the intended purpose is here specifically, but it's too big for just frequency modulation I'd think

[para transit fellow]

oops, my point was already made by another post

[PeteMoss]

Thought this was interesting. We don't currently mine enough uranium to satisfy the demand of current nuclear generators. We rely on stockpiles and old weapons.

If nuclear does become a bigger part of the energy landscape. We will need to ramp up the amount mined.

Current Kazakhstan protests are driving up costs currently as the protests have happened on supply chain link to China. Some purchases has switched to Canadian companies

https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/statu...942518792?s=21

[Julio]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Thought this was interesting. We don't currently mine enough uranium to satisfy the demand of current nuclear generators. We rely on stockpiles and old weapons.

If nuclear does become a bigger part of the energy landscape. We will need to ramp up the amount mined.

Current Kazakhstan protests are driving up costs currently as the protests have happened on supply chain link to China. Some purchases has switched to Canadian companies

https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/statu...942518792?s=21

Cameco could fairly easily ramp up production at their facilities in northern Sask. to cover off on a large part of the shortfall. They are just holding back until prices go up and demand solidifies.

[para transit fellow]

180 MW battery storage project is going through development permit process for a site at Ghost Lake Dam (trans Alta is developer)

start of bigger battery implementations?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

180 MW battery storage project is going through development permit process for a site at Ghost Lake Dam (trans Alta is developer)

start of bigger battery implementations?

I wonder if financially they make a lot of sense to deploy, given that when electricity rates go through the roof, that's when you turn them on, and charge them on cheap power. Will this then incentivize them to hold off covering grid shortages until they can maximize profit?

[para transit fellow]

Oops. Nevermind

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I wonder if financially they make a lot of sense to deploy, given that when electricity rates go through the roof, that's when you turn them on, and charge them on cheap power. Will this then incentivize them to hold off covering grid shortages until they can maximize profit?

Doesn't work like that. In order to be dispatched they have to offer. Once the price hits that level, they are dispatched.

It's not like you can wait in the weeds and name your price.

[Fuzz]

Good article on the challenges of "going green" and the geopolitical ramifications of it. Yes, I know it's from a mining publication, but they'd know better than most the challenges of getting raw materials.

Think about it. Without a workable plan to transition from fossil fuels to renewables, one that does not involve natural gas shipments from Russia, burning coal, or buying petroleum products from Saudi Arabia (like Canada and Japan), and without a concerted push to mine and explore for minerals within its own borders, the West is literally giving away its energy security to two countries: China and Russia.
They must be laughing at our stupidity.

https://www.mining.com/web/rushing-h...-with-another/

[zamler]

Despite having the world’s third-largest oil reserves, more than half of the oil used in Quebec and Atlantic Canada is imported from foreign sources including the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. In 2019, Canada spent $18.9 billion to import more than 660,000 barrels of oil

This is beyond discouraging.

[Azure]

Can't imagine the emissions involved in doing that.

But hey, we're going greeeeen!

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by zamler

This is beyond discouraging.

Despite having the world’s third-largest oil reserves, more than half of the oil used in Quebec and Atlantic Canada is imported from foreign sources including the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. In 2019, Canada spent $18.9 billion to import more than 660,000 barrels of oil

The only place still imports crude from outside of the US are the Atlantic refineries which export a large chunk of their output.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by zamler

This is beyond discouraging.

Energy East was such a slam dunk.

It's laughable the feds let that happen.

[blender]

Isn't it basically free trade at work?
Refineries can buy their oil from whomever they want, no?
Is it legal under NAFTA to force or incentivize refiners to purchase domestic product?

[DoubleK]

The electricity used to run the pipeline would be overwhelmingly hydro for 2/3 of its length.

That alone would make it better than transporting foreign oil by ship from a climate perspective.

[chedder]

Thought this was interesting. Canadian company that pushes compressed air into underground caverns which can then somehow store electricity for use in hours up to days later. Like a big battery if I'm reading correctly.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-r...te-Growth.html

https://www.hydrostor.ca/

[Torture]

This might be a long shot, but if anyone is interested in sustainability, clean tech, net-zero/energy transition has some time over the next month and might be interested/willing to help out with an MBA project.....shoot me a PM.