When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful!
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@Reinald There's real scarcity and artificial scarcity. I dare say that the whole digital/internet business is based on artificial scarcity, where we accept things like Digital Rights Management to keep the reality of abundance more or less a secret.
@jwildeboer I have tought for many years about the supposed abundance of digital goods, and one problem is that the situation is incorrectly stated. Digital goods are asymmetrical. They are aboundant after creation. But they don't pop into existence done. Creation relies on scarce resources (time/people). So the imbalance is what it makes it hard to deal with, and a pure capitalistic approach tries to extend that scarcity beyond creation, to make a profit.
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@Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk
Batteries come with their own set of problems, which is not to say these are insurmountable, specifically social and environmental costs in acquiring the raw materials.The real difficulty, as I see it, is that we can produce excess energy for half the year but consumption in the other half exceeds production. Can we run energy intensive industries for just half the year? Otherwise we need ways to store energy for the other half.
@OneInterestingFact @jwildeboer @openrisk
Raw material: same issue like any other raw material humans dig from earth. Can be handled.Lithium: there are other chemical partners, Natrium gets better, and for stationary use it is allready good to go.
Seasonal storage: don't forget wind and solar go together. When we have low solar harvest, we tend to have more wind. Seasonal storage is not yet solved, but there are quite some promising approaches.
Flow batteries don't deliver yet.
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When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Ummm, grids need to maintain specific frequencies, or else they start shutting down. That happens in both underloads & overloads. That's the "bad" thing, independent of any economic ideology - no "brainwashing" needed to comprehend - and the things that usually get shut down in those moments heading to overload are peakers running on natural gas, not the plants doing the baseline loads. So either battery capacity is there or not, and plenty of capitalists would be happy to sell more of that stuff too. What is missing is regulatory flexibility in many places, seems to me too many people are denied legal avenues if they want to just power part of their residence or business off- grid.
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@passwordsarehard4 @Reinald @jwildeboer I'm not trying to say capitalism is better than what it is. But I've seen what socialism can give and what the costs are, it doesn't work. Hell, it has all the flaws of capitalism and some more. I can compare, because I've seen both socialism and capitalism.
@ptesarik @passwordsarehard4 @Reinald @jwildeboer This is the false binary choice between socialism and capitalism that has been pushed upon us for and used by nefarious political actors for over a hundred years now.
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@Reinald There's real scarcity and artificial scarcity. I dare say that the whole digital/internet business is based on artificial scarcity, where we accept things like Digital Rights Management to keep the reality of abundance more or less a secret.
@jwildeboer @Reinald Artificial scarcity is what the Economics 101 crowd of supply and demand dogmatics fail to account for.
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(No need to reply with "not me!", I know you know better. I exaggerated with the inclusive "we" to make my point clear. The majority of people out there don't have thinking about a better, more decentralised and self-balancing grid to make electricity more of a flat rate commodity on their priority list.)
@jwildeboer afaik this is already happening in various places, for example on california, where they hooked up user's batteries to the grid (includong EV's), and the utility was able to pull into the grid at peak time to avoid blackouts. They also changed building code to require all new construction to have solar panels. The EU otoh is very behing on both central and distributed battery. And I see no mandates to install solar in the southern states where a crapton of energy could be made.
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@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Ummm, grids need to maintain specific frequencies, or else they start shutting down. That happens in both underloads & overloads. That's the "bad" thing, independent of any economic ideology - no "brainwashing" needed to comprehend - and the things that usually get shut down in those moments heading to overload are peakers running on natural gas, not the plants doing the baseline loads. So either battery capacity is there or not, and plenty of capitalists would be happy to sell more of that stuff too. What is missing is regulatory flexibility in many places, seems to me too many people are denied legal avenues if they want to just power part of their residence or business off- grid.
@sberson We already discussed that in many other replies here. For example https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/116430923318183567 and the replies before and after that.
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@jwildeboer afaik this is already happening in various places, for example on california, where they hooked up user's batteries to the grid (includong EV's), and the utility was able to pull into the grid at peak time to avoid blackouts. They also changed building code to require all new construction to have solar panels. The EU otoh is very behing on both central and distributed battery. And I see no mandates to install solar in the southern states where a crapton of energy could be made.
@simo5 France demands solar panels to cover any parking site with more than 80 parking spaces. EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) demands solar design as part of the permit process for new building. Things are changing. https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-efficiency/energy-performance-buildings/energy-performance-buildings-directive/solar-energy-buildings_en
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@ptesarik @passwordsarehard4 @Reinald @jwildeboer This is the false binary choice between socialism and capitalism that has been pushed upon us for and used by nefarious political actors for over a hundred years now.
@shsbxheb @passwordsarehard4 @Reinald @jwildeboer The main reason socialism failed is that it wasn't designed to work with actual human beings, their greed and other bad qualities.
So far, I have seen no system that would work well with real people. But hey, I'm open to new ideas. Please, give me a link to your proposed solution! -
@jwildeboer Not to speak of all the ways extra electricity could be used opportunistically. Thinking of scrap yards steel recycling for example.
@KarlHeinzHasliP @jwildeboer Or more prosaically my putting my washing machine or dishwasher onto a cleaning cycle. When I get around to it, my fridge freezer will turn its thermostat down a bit and then let the temperature coast back up when power is more fossily (typically during the "evening peak").
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@sberson We already discussed that in many other replies here. For example https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/116430923318183567 and the replies before and after that.
@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
A "design choice" that was the only pragmatic way to implement grids in the early 20th century, which then expanded from there, and that to change to a new "design choice" would involve tons of new infrastructures being put into place (which require lots of energy & materials to create, thus running counter to the supposed green goals in this). Anyhoo - I am all for better local & distributed battery capacities for electric generation, for where & when it makes sense to put in.
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@KarlHeinzHasliP @jwildeboer Or more prosaically my putting my washing machine or dishwasher onto a cleaning cycle. When I get around to it, my fridge freezer will turn its thermostat down a bit and then let the temperature coast back up when power is more fossily (typically during the "evening peak").
@tim @jwildeboer Yes, especially to the cooling as storage! Cold storage warehouses could freeze up huge ice blocks with excess and then use those during peak demand time, too.
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@jwildeboer @openrisk yes and no. Ending Scarcity is not in the interest of big companies in that area. And the Technologie is allready there - batteries work (even commercially), H2 electrolysis not yet, seasonal cycles not yet. For short term stabilizing even flywheels work.
@Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk large scale desalination that cycles up during peak hours. If that’s not enough we take that water and use solar powered pumps to take it to the polar caps. We can always use up energy if we don’t care who profits.
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@shsbxheb @passwordsarehard4 @Reinald @jwildeboer The main reason socialism failed is that it wasn't designed to work with actual human beings, their greed and other bad qualities.
So far, I have seen no system that would work well with real people. But hey, I'm open to new ideas. Please, give me a link to your proposed solution!@ptesarik @shsbxheb @passwordsarehard4 @jwildeboer the main reason the major "socialism" experiments (USSR and associated states) didn't work out is - they have been a disguised capitalism. Individual to sociopathic greed is to be dealt with in every economic system, since it contributes to failure no matter what.
But being capitalism-critical is enough to make you enemy of the state these days, so alternative system design is rare to find. But it does exist.
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@ptesarik @shsbxheb @passwordsarehard4 @jwildeboer the main reason the major "socialism" experiments (USSR and associated states) didn't work out is - they have been a disguised capitalism. Individual to sociopathic greed is to be dealt with in every economic system, since it contributes to failure no matter what.
But being capitalism-critical is enough to make you enemy of the state these days, so alternative system design is rare to find. But it does exist.
@Reinald As this discussion is moving far away from my original topic (excess electricity in the grid due to renewables) can I ask you all to take my handle out of this discussion? Thanks! @ptesarik @shsbxheb @passwordsarehard4
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@ptesarik @shsbxheb @passwordsarehard4 @jwildeboer the main reason the major "socialism" experiments (USSR and associated states) didn't work out is - they have been a disguised capitalism. Individual to sociopathic greed is to be dealt with in every economic system, since it contributes to failure no matter what.
But being capitalism-critical is enough to make you enemy of the state these days, so alternative system design is rare to find. But it does exist.
@Reinald @shsbxheb @passwordsarehard4 Where? Your toots are too generic for me. Provide some resources, please!
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@Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk large scale desalination that cycles up during peak hours. If that’s not enough we take that water and use solar powered pumps to take it to the polar caps. We can always use up energy if we don’t care who profits.
@passwordsarehard4 @jwildeboer @openrisk local heat storage seems to be more feasible than global water pumping.
There are other concepts with temperatures up to several 100 (500? 600?) °C as well heating up sand oder ceramic rubble.
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When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
Multiple forms of solar energy and the tech to utilize it are now available to all around the world. Yet, because "where's the money in that", we still tear up the Earth instead.
Millions of homes sit empty while millions are homeless. Stores throw "out of date" food into the garbage.
If only there was somewhere we could mine sanity, huh?
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@passwordsarehard4 @jwildeboer @openrisk local heat storage seems to be more feasible than global water pumping.
There are other concepts with temperatures up to several 100 (500? 600?) °C as well heating up sand oder ceramic rubble.
@Reinald given the overabundance of solar and the countless possible energy transformations there are also endless possibilities.
The problem is that there is an unspoken constraint: the "killer battery" must have the energy properties of fossil fuels so that nobody has to change behavior, none of the flawed design choices of modernity get invalidated.
This strategy may or may not work in the short/mid term, but it will definitely not work in the longer term.
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@simo5 France demands solar panels to cover any parking site with more than 80 parking spaces. EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) demands solar design as part of the permit process for new building. Things are changing. https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-efficiency/energy-performance-buildings/energy-performance-buildings-directive/solar-energy-buildings_en
@jwildeboer Excellent, I hope the oil crisis will make it roll faster.
