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CrimeDad

@ CrimeDad @lemmy.crimedad.work

Posts
11
Comments
78
Joined
3 yr. ago

Father; husband; mechanical engineer. Posting from my self-hosted Lemmy instance here in beautiful New Jersey. I also post from my Pixelfed instance.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • … to make you realize how difficult it would be to run everything purely on solar and wind …

    Who said anything about running everything purely on solar and wind?

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • Yours is the third reply to me that makes a Factorio reference over the past month. I didn't realize it was a game until yesterday. I guess I should give it a try.

    You're correct that intermittent power from wind and photovoltaic solar needs to be managed somehow. There are certain energy intensive, productive processes that can be conveniently ramped up or slowed down to meet this requirement. I just think such a system would be more responsible and less exploitative than building these massive battery facilities for speculating on the electricity supply.

    Your half-joking idea of converting excess electricity to steam makes sense because steam is itself a useful product that's needed for heating buildings as well as various industrial processes. Converting it back into electricity isn't ideal, but that's all you can do with a chemical battery in comparison.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • I would prefer to use energy rather than store it, but yes, pressure vessels are preferable to chemical batteries.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • Start with policies requiring technology companies to use computational work as a sink for excess electricity, compelling grid operators to prioritize sharing of intermittent renewable power, and mandating rooftop solar. That will hold us over while we start shutting down fossil fuel power plants and ramp up production of emissions free thermal alternatives and productive power sinks like electrolysis and desalination plants. Small back up power systems can be installed as needed at sensitive sites (similar to what we already do) and the roof top solar requirement will facilitate that. We would never expect PV solar plants to run at night. We'd just reduce computations or hydrogen and fresh water production as the PV solar output falls off.

    I've never played the games you mentioned. Are there mods for automatic productive power sinks?

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • The solution is to make sure the electricity supply always exceeds demand even during spikes.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • It's complicated, but in terms of direct kills, hydro power takes the cake. If you're also considering indirect kills, fossil fuel power is far and away the worst offender and I think that's before you even account for climate change deaths:

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • Hydroelectric dams have also claimed more human lives than any other type of power plant.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • A little bit of authoritarianism is what we need now to mitigate climate change and avoid the much worse kind of authoritarianism we will be in for as climate change gets worse. There's no hippy la-la conscious capitalism way out of this situation.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • Sometimes you have to intentionally burn some stuff to create a firebreak and save a lot more other stuff.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • I do not understand how climate change is analogous to a leaky faucet with respect to anything.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • What do you mean by "convert it back"? Convert it back to electricity for the grid? No. We need the hydrogen for important things, like making steel and fertilizer.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • As I've already explained, we need hydrogen. We need it not for energy storage, but as a useful, important product. Electrolysis of water is pretty much the only way to get it without emitting greenhouse gases. Therefore, the efficiency of it doesn't really matter, especially if the energy to do it would otherwise go to some dangerous, battery based buy low/sell high scheme.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • Back to energy storage: if you’ve got some brilliant solution - get to it. We’re waiting.

    No to storing joules in environmentally questionable batteries. Use the energy immediately to produce useful, necessary stuff like fresh water and hydrogen.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • I'm not sure what you mean. Natural fresh water supplies are stressed in many regions. We need hydrogen to fuel vehicles and for the production GHG-free steel and fertilizer. Oxygen of course is necessary for medical and industrial applications. Safely handling hydrogen and oxygen is a solved problem and these gases are not polluting if you have to vent to atmosphere. It only makes sense from a wasteful, financially extractive perspective to store extra electricity by environmentally questionable means instead of actually using that energy right away.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • I don't think they should be operating at all.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • If we build out our GHG-free power capacity beyond our electricity demand, efficiency isn't an issue. We need fresh water. We need hydrogen and oxygen. I'm sure there are other convenient things to produce whenever electricity demand falls off. These energy storage and reselling schemes are just destroying value.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • Well, I don't know how we're supposed to fix the climate while playing nice with bourgeois interests.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • There’s also avoiding (or minimizing) the need for storage at all, with “demand shaping”. Basically, we radically overbuild solar, wind, wave, tidal, etc. Normally, that would tank energy prices and be unprofitable, but we also build out some massive, flexible demand to buy this excess power. Because they are extremely overbuilt, the minimal output from these sources during suboptimal conditions is more than enough to meet normal demands; we just shut off the flexible additional demand we added.

    Bingo.

  • Vistra's battery storage facility goes up in flames, spurs evacuation orders

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  • There's no IRL data for the specific model I've described, but I'm not sure what you mean by "feelings based". Using otherwise excess energy instead of storing it is a considered, rational strategy.