The Energy Transition and technologies

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by 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.

I seem to recall something I watched a few years ago where they were showcasing a type of urban wind turbine. Basically, they were installing them into the street light pole (which they explained a huge portion is just empty space) and it would contribute towards the energy required by the light.

Rather than solar, what if they incorporated this by roads and take advantage of the wind coming from vehicles? Is the repair too high if they are damaged? Is Calgary weather with the cold and ice something that increases the risk of the units breaking?

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by 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/

Neat idea but i get nervous about pumping anything in and out of the ground. Similar concepts can be achieved with water storage (like a giant dry dam we will potentially have west of the city...) or with above ground concrete bricks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmrwdTGZxGk

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by 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.

This land has a bunch of phosphogypsum stacks from fertilizer production.

Perfect landuse for solar.

[Street Pharmacist]

Former Nuclear Leaders: Say ‘No’ to New Reactors

In short, nuclear as strategy against climate change is:

Too costly in absolute terms to make a relevant contribution to global power production

More expensive than renewable energy in terms of energy production and CO2#mitigation, even taking into account costs of grid management tools like energy storage associated with renewables rollout.

Too costly and risky for financial market investment, and therefore dependent on very large public subsidies and loan guarantees.

Unsustainable due to the unresolved problem of very long-lived radioactive waste.

Financially unsustainable as no economic institution is prepared to insure against the full potential cost, environmental and human impacts of accidental radiation release#– with the majority of those very significant costs being borne by the public.

Militarily hazardous since newly promoted reactor designs increase the risk of #nuclear weapons proliferation.

Inherently risky due to unavoidable cascading accidents from human error, internal faults, and external impacts; vulnerability to climate-driven sea-level rise, storm, storm surge, inundation and flooding hazard, resulting in international economic impacts.

Subject to too many unresolved technical and safety problems associated with newer unproven concepts, including ‘Advanced’ and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

Too unwieldy and complex to create an efficient industrial regime for reactor construction and operation processes within the intended build-time and scope needed for climate change mitigation.

Unlikely to make a relevant contribution to necessary climate change mitigation needed by the 2030’s due to nuclear’s#impracticably lengthy development and construction time-lines, and the overwhelming construction costs of the very great volume of reactors that would be needed to make a difference.

Https://www.powermag.com/blog/former...-new-reactors/

[GGG]

The first signatory Jazko has been Anti-nuclear since he was fired/resigned from the NRC. I don’t recognize the names of the other 3. But Jazko may never have been pro nuclear like the headline tries to imply.

[Fuzz]

If it's so unreasonable to do, how does France pull it off? Or the approximately 60 others under construction now?

[Fuzz]

TransAlta has officially filed its application with the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) to build a battery energy storage facility near the Ghost Reservoir on the Bow River while addressing concerns about safety and emergency planning in the event of a fire or leak.


The batteries will be capable of storing and deploying up to 180 megawatts of electricity, making this one of the largest storage facilities of its kind in the province.


The company says the lithium-ion batteries will be charged by electricity from TransAlta's existing hydroelectric facility at the reservoir, 15 kilometres west of Cochrane.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...326684?cmp=rss


I'm a little confused by this. The dam is already a giant battery. The only thing that makes sense is that TransAlta hates that they have to manage water levels in the spring to prevent flooding, and this is a way that allows them to do that, but still gather the electricity? I dunno, seems like a weird project.

[DoubleK]

It allows them a further level of arbitrage.

As you point out, if they have to spill to manage water levels, they can take that energy and sell it to the grid at whatever the price is. Or they can take the energy to charge the batteries and sell it later when they get a better price.

[Fuzz]

So it's more about making more money from us than anything. Sounds about right.

[DoubleK]

Equal parts making money, operational flexibility and firming non-dispatchable energy sources.

It's not that far-fetched to see a future where all of the wind and solar farms have battery storage attached to them.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

So it's more about making more money from us than anything. Sounds about right.

I'm not sure that spin works. By building them and making money from arbitrage you pay less than you would if they didn't exist. It really drives down price, not raises it

[para transit fellow]

Flood prevention strategies negotiated by The Province and TransAlta now require Ghost Reservoir to stay at a fairly low level.

Since transalta can't just open the taps to meet growing electrical demand, they're using battery storage to make nighttime generation of electricity available during daytime peak hours.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Former Nuclear Leaders: Say ‘No’ to New Reactors
Https://www.powermag.com/blog/former...-new-reactors/

'There's no disposal program for the waste' complains Jaczko, the guy who cancelled the disposal program for the waste.

Jaczko should be held personally responsible for the 2,000 people that died after he pushed the Japanese government to needlessly expand the evacuation zone around the Fukushima accident. No one should ever listen to anything this fool has to say, especially nuclear power.

[mrkajz44]

Hydro power, even with a dam, is much more variable than I think people realize. A huge factor is downstream flow that must be managed very carefully (there are minimum flow amounts and the flow cannot increase or decrease too quickly). The idea of battery storage to capture any power as much as possible and deploy it when needed just makes sense.

[para transit fellow]

Discussion on this forum has mentioned several times that an electric pickup truck won't have the towing range to pull a trailer.

What if the trailer has EV full size battery capacity... and electric motors to the tires to carry it's share of the load?

https://www.airstream.com/air-lab/concepts/estream/

[Fuzz]

Ya, I saw that. I'd imagine it's not cheap, and you get extended range, but you still need to charge it. Maybe all camp grounds will be setup for EV charging at some point, and it won't matter much.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

Discussion on this forum has mentioned several times that an electric pickup truck won't have the towing range to pull a trailer.

What if the trailer has EV full size battery capacity... and electric motors to the tires to carry it's share of the load?

https://www.airstream.com/air-lab/concepts/estream/

Why is that better than an RV?

As long as you are staying a few days charging wouldn’t be an issue with even 20 amp service.

[D as in David]

Could battery capacity in the trailer be diverted to the tow vehicle if it was running low on juice?

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Ya, I saw that. I'd imagine it's not cheap, and you get extended range, but you still need to charge it. Maybe all camp grounds will be setup for EV charging at some point, and it won't matter much.

The Thing about EV charging capacity is it is all relative to how long your stay is. Show up to a campsite with a 120V AC standard wall outlet, it might take you 60 - 100 hours to get a 100% charge, really not a big deal if you are camping for 4-7 days. If you are only gone for 2-3 days hopefully you aren't going so far as to use up all of your range getting there, so maybe it only takes 30-40 hours to charge on that outlet.

I don't know if true, but I've heard of people trying to find ways to get 660V for charging into residential garages. a 480V is going to get your vehicle charges in 6 -10 hours depending on the battery. Plenty of time to plug it in every night if need be.

The service station ones, absolutely, we need to get 660V 3ph DC on them, we need to consistently be getting 150+KW out of them (right now most of the ones in Alberta are rated at 500KW and operate between 25 KW & the high 40s, they are taking 1-2 hours to charge, get up to 150, get down to 30-40 minute stops and we are getting into a realistic use case).

[GGG]

I think trying to solve highway driving may be a waste of time.

In a world of limited resources to make batteries are we better off with 4-8 times more 50km range battery packs covering all daily driving needs?

If that covers 80% of the usage case you are in good shape with widespread adoption