[ExI] Wind, solar could provide 99.9% of ALL POWER by 2030

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 07:14:48AM +0100, Tomasz Rola wrote:

> About guerilla guys - I don't want to sink your expectations, but AFAIK 
> they don't scale up. There are no guerilla governments, corporations or 

What I meant is that that people will start using cheap <kWp installations,
and plug them directly into wall sockets, thus reducing their rising
power bills. And making life of electricians and grid operators
a lot harder.

> other high level organisations. I am sure the micro/nano grids will 

I personally will do a parallel insular 12 V installation, probably
this spring.

> deliver, but I'm not so sure how they will do after connecting into big 
> system. Perhaps some nasty factor will grow exponentially with size. Even 
> quadratic growth can stop it.
> 
> > > excess energy from green in power grid (which in this use is supposed 
> > > to act as huge capacitor).
> > 
> > You don't need storage until some quite ridiculous fraction of total 
> > contribution (Germany had 21.9% renewable of total electricity in 2012, 
> > after 20.3% in 2011 and 16.4% in 2010). Ordinarily, 25% would have been 
> > expected, but wind was anomalously low in December.
> > 
> > Total demand declined 1.4%, and net export was highest ever with 23 TWh.
> 
> Remarkable. I like the attitude but I guess the rate of renewable adoption 
> is going to be limited by some of factors. For example, I can see one type 
> of solar cells require cadmium telluride - tellurium is very rare, and 

There's no need for a particular substrate for PV. Scarcity doesn't apply,
the EROEI is a lot more limiting factor.

> cadmium is toxic. As they write here:
> 

....
 
> [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium#Production ]
> 
> Now, it is said with current tech a panel lives for about 20 years, 35 
> max. So after we make 5-7TW, whole production needs to be turned into 
> replacement units.

Yes, you need to recycle the scarcer elements. You wouldn't
bother with carbon or silicon.
 
> Based on the above, I can see that we are not going to reach a goal of 
> saving humanity from eating itself. At least not with (current) solar 
> alone.

We need 3 TWp/year deployment rate, for the next 40 years. We're
a factor of 100 too low. Yes, a number of people are going to die.
That's the price you pay by wasting the last 40 years. 
 
> And there are going to be mutually exclusive demands for various elements 
> coming from various sectors of industry - for example, we need indium to 
> make LCDs too.

Technology changes more quickly now. 
 
> Also, I doubt very much it is possible to reach 1TW even in 10 years - 
> from what I have seen it would require almost doubling panel production 
> every year from current levels, about 24GW-worth of panels worldwide in 

It was about 31 GW last year. Far too low, yes.

> 2010:
> 
> [
>  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_photovoltaics_production
> 
> ]
> 
> The problem is, it's rather easy to go from one manufacturing plant to 
> two, even 16. But 64? With 1024-fold increase, we could grow out from 16TW 
> footprint, but I guess this is impossible to do in ten years. It's not 

Yes, this is anti-Moore.

> about just setting up plants, they will require some additional 
> infrastructure and other plants to sustain their production.
> 
> Something's got to change to make this equation more plausible. I assume 
> efficiency of solar cell could be doubled, but again, this will take time 

It will probably take the next 20 years to push to 40%. I would
consider efficiency to be effectively a constant.

> and if there are plants built, they will have to reorient themselves.
> 
> Industrial planning is a mess and I am an ignorant, so if I just 
> reinvented the wheel or if my wheel is triangle, I'd like to know :-).
> 
> > > There is also the related political problem - like a possible German 
> > > dependency on Russian energy and raw materials exports. This includes 
> > > not
> > 
> > Monseigneur Sabatier would like to have a word with ???????? ?????.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
> > 
> > Energy independency is quite feasible for high-density industrial 
> > nations. The math does check out.
> 
> Yes, it is doable. But does the math take a safety into account? I think 
> it is more like dynamic game theory, with variables changing over time and 
> changing the equations in effect. This is not static. I mean, what would 
> gospodin P's reaction be? In what ways applying of Sabatier reaction into 

He wouldn't care, because he would be still able to sell everything
he can produce.

> real life can be sabotaged? Think of overall effect of antinuc sentiment. 

You cannot sabotage decentral, local processes. 

> I hear it is clean, mostly safe, other than few mishaps. And yet lots of 

It's all 100% propaganda.

> people does not want it, even go to claims that coal energy is safer (with 

We no longer have any options. Humanity will now attempt to burn anything
with a borderline useful EROEI, and some even not, out of sheer desperation.

> possibly more radioactivity released from huge coal plant a year than from 
> all nuc plants combined - and now compare treatment of ash with treatment 
> of nuc waste).
> 
> [...]
> > > from what I have heard once, Soviets liked to finance green parties. 
> > > They
> > 
> > Pics, or it didn't happen.
> 
> If I had the pics, man, if I only had the pics... (well, maybe not, why 
> would I want to have such pics, nothing pretty there to see). Otherwise, 
> the hypothesis (or speculation, if you prefer) seems quite plausible. 
> Anti-nuc demonstrations I remember from mid-80-ties were very much in 
> accord with Soviet foreign policy, AFAICT. It would surprise me if I could 
> verify they were not involved in instigating.

The Greens have been a part of the corrupt, conservative establishment 
here for the last 10-15 years. They've stopped being left somewhere 
in 1990s. 

> 
> > > really liked this (but I guess if Soviets had ever won, greens would 
> > > have
> > 
> > One evil empire down, one's still to go. And just what are we gonna do 
> > after? Pax americana is drawing to an end. Things do look murky and 
> > (a)murrkier.

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