EEVblog #632 - Solar Roadways Are BULLSHIT!

[ziggyfish]

Are you really that stupid? It takes time to generate power.

That's not what my physics teacher told me.

So you think power companies just dial a number and thats how much power they get.

The reality is nothing like that sorry (I am truly sorry to bring you back down to reality). It takes time to mine the coal, it takes time to mine the uranium, it takes time to build the solar cells, wind turbines, etc.

he tells me that power is generated based on possible peak demand regardless of how much power is actually used

Grid energy storage must have come a long way since I last looked. 

Firstly you still have to generate the power to put into storage. The other thing is there is a "shelf-life" with power storage (i.e power leakage). There is also a energy cost in storing and retrieving that energy. Again we simply don't have the technology to make long term power storage viable.

Thirdly unfortunately because it takes time to generate the power needed at peak demand, power is generated ahead of time. Power companies estimate how much power is going to be used in 6 months time, and build the infrastructure accordingly. A perfect example of this is solar. Power needed at night is generated during the day when the sun is shining.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

What I was trying to underline, was that you should be more careful with your terminology otherwise you could give a different meaning to what you are trying to say.

he tells me that power is generated based on possible peak demand regardless of how much power is actually used

could be: he tells me that the power generation capacity is based on possible peak demand regardless of how much power is actually used

It takes time to generate power.

could be: It takes time to bring generators online.

[JoeO]

ziggyfish - turn on your country flag.

[ziggyfish]

What I was trying to underline, was that you should be more careful with your terminology otherwise you could give a different meaning to what you are trying to say.

he tells me that power is generated based on possible peak demand regardless of how much power is actually used

could be: he tells me that the power generation capacity is based on possible peak demand regardless of how much power is actually used

It takes time to generate power.

could be: It takes time to bring generators online.

Ok got the point, still learning the electronics lingo

[ziggyfish]

ziggyfish - turn on your country flag.

There you go.

[ziggyfish]

Your physics teacher is probably a lefty

His physics teach is probably a hard-right, its just lefties have selective hearing. They only hear what they want to hear.

[Noize]

I did this MOOC by Donald Sadoway from MIT called Solid State Chemistry. Excellent course. He thought about the problem of grid level storage of electricity and found a solution. Here is his Ted talk about. This about 2 years old and his company getting massive investment now, because it will make renewables much more plausible or effective.

[JoeO]

So where are the batteries?

[ziggyfish]

I did this MOOC by Donald Sadoway from MIT called Solid State Chemistry. Excellent course. He thought about the problem of grid level storage of electricity and found a solution. Here is his Ted talk about. This about 2 years old and his company getting massive investment now, because it will make renewables much more plausible or effective.

The issue there is scalability, we would need 115,377.1504 of those shipping containers just to power our current daily demands in Australia. Also he doesn't mention anything about how much energy is lost by heat and other processes in the battery.

[ludzinc]

That's not horrid.

If each battery cost $1M to build and deploy (including infrastructure to integrate into the grid) you looking in the order of $1B.

If you take a decade to roll this out its $100M a year.

What the hell - double it to $200M a year for 10 years and you could supply a whole country's power from renewable energy.

I'm not a fab of government subsidised PV but I can get behind this!

[ziggyfish]

That's not horrid.

If each battery cost $1M to build and deploy (including infrastructure to integrate into the grid) you looking in the order of $1B.

If you take a decade to roll this out its $100M a year.

What the hell - double it to $200M a year for 10 years and you could supply a whole country's power from renewable energy.

I'm not a fab of government subsidised PV but I can get behind this!

That is $100M a year to support the demand 10 year ago. The figure I am using for total households was 2006, it would be much bigger than that now.

But anyway, thats enough ranting for a week. Time to get some actual work done.

[JoeO]

That's not horrid.

If each battery cost $1M to build and deploy (including infrastructure to integrate into the grid) you looking in the order of $1B.

If you take a decade to roll this out its $100M a year.

What the hell - double it to $200M a year for 10 years and you could supply a whole country's power from renewable energy.

I'm not a fab of government subsidised PV but I can get behind this!

It is $115B, not $1B.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Also he doesn't mention anything about how much energy is lost by heat and other processes in the battery.

Wikipedia suggests that they have it at 69% efficient.

Which doesn't sound great but pumped storage is apparently 70-85% efficient, and in some cases 69% would be a whole lot better than nothing.

I guess another good thing is it would really help with load balancing too.

But it's not going to fix solar roadways.

[EEVblog]

But it's not going to fix solar roadways.

Nothing will fix solar roadways, the entire concept is that inherently stupid, like chocolate teapots:
http://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-brew-tea-in-a-chocolate-teapot-did-it-melt/
Sure you can make both work if you really really try, but they are both inherently stupid ideas.

[ludzinc]

That's not horrid.

If each battery cost $1M to build and deploy (including infrastructure to integrate into the grid) you looking in the order of $1B.

If you take a decade to roll this out its $100M a year.

What the hell - double it to $200M a year for 10 years and you could supply a whole country's power from renewable energy.

I'm not a fab of government subsidised PV but I can get behind this!

It is $115B, not $1B.

Ah crap, you're right.

Lessons learnt:

Coal power rules.
Don't do math before morning coffee...

[ziggyfish]

But it's not going to fix solar roadways.

The only thing that is going to fix solar roadways is for us to stop donating money and we shut down fairy land.

With batteries, rather than needing to generate 230 GWh, we would need to generate 300GWh (well 299.980 GWh to be exact) for the same load. BTW that 230 doesn't include any power lost getting it to your house, so that number would be much higher in real life.

But anyway thats enough ranting.

[Noize]

My original post was not in defense of the the solar roadways every well educated self educated person knew it was bull. You have wind turbines developing  energy at night but you can't develop any more because no can use it. Of course their will be heat losses, but I'm sure he has worked it out, from the start, from theoretical to the experimental to see if it feasible. Yeah an eminent and extremely inspirational teaching professor gives an inspirational speech about a solution about a problem with renewables and to think he didn't take into account heat losses even though he is one of the worlds greatest electro-chemists. I respectively say fuckoff. With all due respect.

[JoeO]

In a university it is NOT about solving problems, it is about getting rich through research grants.  He knows it won't work but he is hoping no one else figures it out.

Everyone who invests in his pipe dream, deserves what he gets, or doesn't get.

[Noize]

Quote from: JoeO on Today at 01:30:12 AM

In a university it is NOT about solving problems, it is about getting rich through research grants.  He knows it won't work but he is hoping no one else figures it out.

Everyone who invests in his pipe dream, deserves what he gets, or doesn't get.

edit his quote ends my reply stats
Prove that it is a pipedream. Surely this fully "tenured" professor would offer himself up to ridicule missed by other thousands of specialists in the field of electrochemistry which he is a world leader. Come on

[mtdoc]

In a university it is NOT about solving problems, it is about getting rich through research grants. 

Ridiculous assertion. No one gets rich from research grants.  Any successful academic researcher who cares about wealth bails to take a job in private industry or forms a start up.

Been there, done that..

[miguelvp]

In a university it is NOT about solving problems, it is about getting rich through research grants. 

Ridiculous assertion. No one gets rich from research grants.  Any successful academic researcher who cares about wealth bails to take a job in private industry or forms a start up.

Been there, done that..

The university gets rich from research grants, or at least it keeps them relevant to the grantors
But their football team usually brings more money than all the research done with less employees/students

[mtdoc]

Agreed about the football teams.

But universities don't get rich from research grants either. They get rich from inflated student tuitions made possible (at least in the USA) by the student loan Ponzi scheme.

A select few universities also get rich from their endowments.

Some also get a large amount of income from lucrative licensing of IP.  Any researcher working at a university must sign away all rights to IP derived from their research or employment.

[miguelvp]

I meant more as an extra source of income for research, equipment and overhead funds, they are in the multimillion range.
Not rich but hey it does help quite a bit.

Edit: Also, because the lower overhead compared to private research, it does attract tax deductible grants for research from big private corporations.

[AlfBaz]

With regards to energy storage, there was a great deal of talk about the "emerging" super-conductor technology back in the 80's/90's and being able to store energy in a magnetic super-conducting coil. Did that all come to nothing?

[JoeO]

In a university it is NOT about solving problems, it is about getting rich through research grants. 

Ridiculous assertion. No one gets rich from research grants.  Any successful academic researcher who cares about wealth bails to take a job in private industry or forms a start up.

Been there, done that..

I worked for a large computer company.  We had PhDs come into work.  THEY WERE USELESS. 
It took them 1 to 2 years to learn how little they knew and they quickly went back into academia.