World population is growing 20 million people every 3 months

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Actually, your "Holy Grail" battery would be a game changer. It might not solve 100% of the problem but probably 90-95% of the problem.

The biggest thing holding back solar/wind is they are intermittent and often unpredictable. Probably worst is their peak output rarely matches peak demand (early evening around 5-6pm). As a result, they can never be stand alone power supplies and that's why you are seeing utilities react by building "peaker" plants that can quickly ramp up when wind or solar drop off. Much of this is driven by govt regulations that push solar/wind.

With your battery, you wouldn't need these "peaker" plants and suddenly solar/wind become drastically cheaper in reality.

Even for traditional plants like coal, there are advantages. You can set your coal fired plants to run at peak efficiency and leave them there. During low periods, the excess production goes into batteries and during peaks the batteries feed back in (very like a hybrid car).

Actually for large parts of the day, the grid is under utilized.Late night there are typically several hours where supply exceeds demand by 50% or more.

Put that energy into your batteries to power cars, trucking, heavy machinery, etc...

Of course, none of this happens because the "holy grail" of batteries does not exist and is unlikely to ever exist. Instead it's an economic supply & demand problem. As oil prices go up and solar/battery costs come down, you will see the selection shift. A clear example of this is boats (hey we haven't talked much about those on this thread). It's really hard to keep a moving boat connected to the grid, so supplying the house energy needs via a generator becomes expensive, especially if you only need small amounts. In that case a solar/battery system makes economic sense.

Yes!

But you need a "holy grail" battery to have an absolutely great one which solves most problems. We're already almost there, if we can just get energy density of batteries up one single order of magnitude. It's impossible to predict technological chance, but c'mon -- that's got to be doable in the fairly short term, considering the tens of billions being invested now in battery technology.

[a64pilot]

The storage is there for large scale generation, whether it be pumping water up hill or melting salt, the storage medium exists, the desire to store doesn't.
Just you make more money by not storing power is all.
It really is all about the money, it is not about what is best or most viable for the future or anything else.
Why do people keep buying 12 MPG SUV's?

I remember an Officers call I attended at Camp Doha Kuwait, the Commanding General was adamant about us understanding why we were there. He said we are here not to defend the American way of life or to bring Democracy to the Middle East, we are here because Soccer Mom doesn't want to pay $2 a gl to fill up her Surburban.


I do not say this to try to sound political, however I do believe firmly that things are done to enrich the lives of a very few.
If you desire to make large scale changes, you need to find a way so that those changes enrich those few and it will happen.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yes!

But you [edit: DON'T] need a "holy grail" battery to have an absolutely great one which solves most problems. We're already almost there, if we can just get energy density of batteries up one single order of magnitude. It's impossible to predict technological chance, but c'mon -- that's got to be doable in the fairly short term, considering the tens of billions being invested now in battery technology.

An order of magnitude more dense would be a good start but that probably needs to go with an order of magnitude cheaper to produce.

It may be possible but if it was as easy as saying we need to throw a few billion at the problem, it would have been done a long time ago.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

But you need a "holy grail" battery to have an absolutely great one which solves most problems. We're already almost there, if we can just get energy density of batteries up one single order of magnitude. It's impossible to predict technological chance, but c'mon -- that's got to be doable in the fairly short term, considering the tens of billions being invested now in battery technology.

Completely agree about the need and potential when the Next Great Battery Technology comes around. I’m sure we will get there … eventually. Interestingly though, it always seems the Next Great Battery is always almost there. Much like controlled fusion, we always seem to be within a few years of cracking the nut, yet the nut remains uncracked.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

The storage is there for large scale generation, whether it be pumping water up hill or melting salt, the storage medium exists, the desire to store doesn't.
Just you make more money by not storing power is all.
It really is all about the money, it is not about what is best or most viable for the future or anything else.
Why do people keep buying 12 MPG SUV's?

Money is just the way the market determines the most viable option.

I'm not sure where you are finding 12mpg SUV's. My old F250 4door long bed with V10 gets around 15mpg.

Pumped storage/molten salt are not new ideas. They are basically just a variation on the "peaker" plant. A hugely expensive project trying to mitigate the major limitations of solar/wind production.

Eliminating the need or making the storage drastically cheaper is needed to make solar/wind viable as stand alone power sources. The way they fit into the grid today once you get past 5-10%, they become hugely expensive to integrate. It's mostly a feel good program to say see how eco-friendly we are. Otherwise it has little impact on either cost or emissions.

[Tkeeth]

Originally Posted by Group9

Part of the reason for the out of control population growth, and this is going to sound cruel, is our modern propensity to make sure that people who are incapable of taking care of themselves or their families have everything they need to keep producing more kids they can't feed, house or clothe.

Noble, to be sure, but somewhat suicidal.

Harvey Danger said "Been around the world and found
That only stupid people are breeding
The cretins cloning and feeding
And I don't even own a TV"

I find this is a generally true statement. The poorer and less educated tend to have the most children. We have created through social programs and political correctness a reverse darwin scenario where the least fit survive at the rest struggle to keep up.

[a64pilot]

Toyota Sequoia gets 13 MPG city, claimed.
I drove the company F150 the other day and it got 12 MPG, that is where I got the number I guess.
Point I guess is people don't want to conserve, or they would do so, and they don't.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by weavis

The rest of the world disagrees...

Baghdad, Iraq - While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain.

On November 27, 38 months after Royal Dutch Shell announced its pursuit of a massive gas deal in southern Iraq, the oil giant had its contract signed for a $17bn flared gas deal.

Three days later, the US-based energy firm Emerson submitted a bid for a contract to operate at Iraq's giant Zubair oil field, which reportedly holds some eight million barrels of oil.

Earlier this year, Emerson was awarded a contract to provide crude oil metering systems and other technology for a new oil terminal in Basra, currently under construction in the Persian Gulf, and the company is installing control systems in the power stations in Hilla and Kerbala.

Iraq's supergiant Rumaila oil field is already being developed by BP, and the other supergiant reserve, Majnoon oil field, is being developed by Royal Dutch Shell. Both fields are in southern Iraq.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Iraq's oil reserves of 112 billion barrels ranks second in the world, only behind Saudi Arabia. The EIA also estimates that up to 90 per cent of the country remains unexplored, due to decades of US-led wars and economic sanctions.

"Prior to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, US and other western oil companies were all but completely shut out of Iraq's oil market," oil industry analyst Antonia Juhasz told Al Jazeera. "But thanks to the invasion and occupation, the companies are now back inside Iraq and producing oil there for the first time since being forced out of the country in 1973."

"The last thing the US cares about in the Middle East is democracy. It is about oil, full stop."

Not a single thing in your post, contradicts a single thing in mine. I did not say anything about WHY we invaded Iraq (what WERE we thinking? ), and I did not say that U.S. oil companies are not present in Iraq. I said that Iraqi oil is owned by the Iraqi state -- there has been no privatization. Second, oil field service agreements were awarded by auction, often with fierce bidding from the Russians, Chinese, Indonesians, and others. And that U.S. oil companies got a fairly modest share of the contracts, something which by the angers many Americans ("what were we fighting for?" ). These are pure facts, not contradicted by anything you have posted.

To see who pumps and sells Iraqi oil, there's a good table here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrol...dustry_in_Iraq

You'll see that the two biggest contracts are owned by BP and the Chinese. Petronas and Lukoil have a couple of big ones too.

The bidding was fierce for this contracts and I seriously doubt that anyone got any windfall. The challenges and risks of pumping oil in such a place, and with huge ongoing security problems to boot, are very significant. The Russians were bidding so hard that there was speculation that they were especially trying to undermine the American position. In the end, American oil companies only got 2 out of the 23 contracts.


The invasion and war were criminal -- I hate that we did it. But there is no evidence that we just went in to just steal the oil. It doesn't work that way, since at least the 19th century. It makes a good story, which any idiot can understand, but it's not what happened. We went in for geopolitical reasons -- fantastically ill-conceived ones -- which backfired on us in epic proportions. Instead of big boost in our geopolitical position, we got massive destruction of our geopolitical position. It was possibly the stupidest thing we've ever done in foreign policy.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

An order of magnitude more dense would be a good start but that probably needs to go with an order of magnitude cheaper to produce.

It may be possible but if it was as easy as saying we need to throw a few billion at the problem, it would have been done a long time ago.

The world is already throwing 10s of billions of dollars at it, primarily private investment. There's no guaranty the nut will be cracked, but tens of billions a year are being bet on the proposition that it will indeed be cracked, and within the investment horizons of real investors.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Completely agree about the need and potential when the Next Great Battery Technology comes around. I’m sure we will get there … eventually. Interestingly though, it always seems the Next Great Battery is always almost there. Much like controlled fusion, we always seem to be within a few years of cracking the nut, yet the nut remains uncracked.

I think controlled fusion will also be cracked. God knows when. But when it is, it will change the world.

But the market shows that a lot of investors believe that battery technology can be brought forward in reasonably short time frames, and are willing to be money on it.

[UAEguy]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

In the modern world, where kids are not financially productive until they are adults, they represent anti-wealth. Doesn't matter if you are rich or not, more kids makes it harder to maintain the same level of wealth.

I agree with you completely...if it didn't come out in my statement, this is what I intended. But it is the 1st world living that has caused this situation.

[UAEguy]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Oil will be as quaintly irrelevant as whale oil, soon enough (and the sooner the better). The only thing standing between us and total irrelevancy of oil for transportation, for example, is a little breakthrough in battery technology, which might appear any day now.

Resources are not ends in themselves, and are not wealth, in and of themselves. They are all replaceable with something else,

Petroleum and it's related products are impossible to replace in modern society due to their critical use as feedstocks in the production of plastic, rubber, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.

Good luck finding replacements for those ingredients using batteries, solar or even nuclear.

When petroleum runs out, we return to the stone age.

[UAEguy]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

We went in for geopolitical reasons -- fantastically ill-conceived ones -- which backfired on us in epic proportions. Instead of big boost in our geopolitical position, we got massive destruction of our geopolitical position. It was possibly the stupidest thing we've ever done in foreign policy.

GEOPOLITICAL REASONS - Break that statement down and you'll understand that geopolitical is all about resources.

WW2 and the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor was all about oil.

Dig into the history of Oil and WW2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_ca...f_World_War_II


Now, ask yourself why we give a sh*t about what is happening in Syria? It is all about oil and gas pipeline access to the Med.

The Oil-Gas War Over Syria (In 4 Maps) | Zero Hedge

Also read a bit about the history of the "Friendship Pipeline"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq-Syria_pipeline

[Kenomac]

We just signed a second solar array agreement for our home and business which will make us just over 100% energy independent in the US at 15kw. Our boat runs off 300-400 gallons of diesel per six months.

Most of the hand-wringing contributors on this thread probably can't claim the same, but never the less... the apocalyptic hand wringing continues.

Meanwhile... solar along with diesel and a 450amp storage bank of basically Trogan golf cart batteries sustain us.

[UAEguy]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

We just signed a second solar array agreement for our home and business which will make us just over 100% energy independent in the US at 15kw. Our boat runs off 300-400 gallons of diesel per six months.

Most of the hand-wringing contributors on this thread probably can't claim the same, but never the less... the apocalyptic hand wringing continues.

Meanwhile... solar along with diesel and a 450amp storage bank of basically Trogan golf cart batteries sustain us.

And you think the solar panels, glass, batteries, plastic, copper wire, and aluminum are made from wild soybeans?