
Researchers propose ways to avoid blackouts with renewable energy (2018) - perfunctory
https://news.stanford.edu/2018/02/08/avoiding-blackouts-100-renewable-energy/
======
sien
Mark Jacobson, the author of the study, files libel suits against people who
disagree with him.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/11/01/stanford-professor-files-libel-suit-against-leading-
scientific-journal-over-clean-energy-claims/?utm_term=.204f291431f6)

~~~
Dylan16807
So at the core of it, the previous paper depended on adding a _lot_ more
turbines into existing dams so that they could be burstier, and didn't provide
justification for, or even really mention the need for, the ability to add
that many turbines.

This got called a "modeling error", which among other things made him mad
enough to sue for libel.

Well, quality of legal decisions aside, one of the main points of the new
paper is that it's "suggesting several different solutions for stabilizing
energy produced with 100 percent clean, renewable sources, including solutions
with no added hydropower turbines and no storage in water, ice or rocks."

~~~
pfdietz
While that may be problematic, it's not nearly as bad as a video that's been
making the rounds of a talk that purports to show that nuclear is cheaper than
using renewables for 100% CO2-free power.

What the talk actually claims is that nuclear is cheaper than renewables +
short term storage (batteries, for example) for 100% CO2-free power. Long term
storage, like hydrogen, changes this greatly, as the cost of the short term
storage solution is dominated by foolishly using batteries for seasonal load
leveling/very rare prolonged outages. It's fascinating to watch the guy in the
talk dance around this.

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probablypower
This is one of those rare posts on hacker news that I'm qualified to reply to
(I normally lurk - had to make an account). I work as an expert in power
system operations for a national grid.

So with that disclaimer out of the way, I want to say that this research is
incredibly misleading, particularly when it is presented as 'ways to avoid
blackouts'.

What they present is an 'adequacy' model. That means, essentially running an
accounting simulation of energy in and energy out. It is what power system
engineers refer to as 'copper plate' model, in that it replaces the entire
transmission and distribution network with a hypothetical infinite conductor
where everything connects to everything else. Such a copper plate would never
have a 'blackout' as long as Energy In = Energy Out.

Therein lies the bullshit. Blackouts don't occur just because Energy In =/=
Energy out. They are incredibly complicated and nuanced, and often result from
multiple minor events cascading into something larger [0].

You need, at a minimum, a steady-state power flow simulation to be able to
analyse power system security. Particularly when assessing low inertia power
systems (such as the systems proposed in this paper). The fact that the word
inertia is not mentioned in a paper advocating high-penetration of wind and
solar is a massive red flag (I'm talking, Moroccan palace style large).

I laughed out loud when I read "LOADMATCH runs quickly (e.g., ~2.6 min for a
5-year, 5.3 milliontime-step, simulation on a single Nehalem 5580 3.2 GHz
processor)" knowing that it takes around that time to simulate a load flow on
the pan-european grid, or around that long to do a basic security assessment
on a single country's grid.

I worry that policy makers will be 'informed' by this research and will
unknowingly sweep a lot of complexity under the rug until blackouts become
more common.

[0] -
[https://www.entsoe.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/_library/publica...](https://www.entsoe.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/_library/publications/ce/otherreports/Final-
Report-20070130.pdf)

------
spodek
Reading the Do The Math blog
[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu) and Low Tech Magazine
[http://lowtechmagazine.com](http://lowtechmagazine.com), the obvious starting
point is to consume drastically less.

My experience tells me that reducing consumption from the average American
amounts by 50% to 90% is hard for the first 5% because you have to learn new
ways of doing things, but then improves quality of life for the next 45% to
85%.

A negligible fraction of Americans have looked past that first 5%, let alone
acted on it, but those who have keep finding more ways to improve their lives
by reducing more.

~~~
agumonkey
Not American but I'm slightly moving toward less car. Walking takes time, but
it's a systemic relationship, not a linear one.

I wake up earlier: walk or jog twice a day. It's quite relaxing if you have a
park nearby, you breath better air, eat less, sleep better, and do more.

comical bonus point: saving the gym membership money.

We should invent an hybrid of modern and vintage. Go back to a lot of crafting
(because it is ultra satisfying for your body and mind to have such skills),
just no to primitivetechnology levels (not that I have anything against it
personally). Keep a bit of modern but do more ourselves and in groups.

------
JeanMarcS
« a remaining challenge of implementing their roadmaps is that they require
coordination across political boundaries »

Maybe it’s the main one ?

~~~
neilwilson
Indeed. Energy is like currency. It has to be under the control of a political
authority with complete control over it. At the moment that structure is still
the nation state. Once you step outside the nation state you need sufficient
geopolitical diversity of supply between nations that you can abandon one if
necessary.

As ever you need highly cohesive units, loosely coupled if you want them to be
responsive to change.

~~~
roenxi
> Energy ... has to be under the control of a political authority with
> complete control over it.

Energy has been harvested by plants for millions of years before nation states
were a thing. It is nothing like currency, which requires advanced political
and technological development to exist as we have it today as a form of
electronic credit. The only link at all is we can agree that both energy and
currency have measurable value.

The only reason political authorities get involved in energy is to secure it
for their own people, or for Safety/Environmental reasons. How energy gets
used is a somewhat political question - but only in the sense that literally
everything humans do is a somewhat political question. I could harvest and use
energy for myself with very little state involvement, for example.

------
lumberjack
From the paper, the proposed technologies are:

"Key elements of the solution applicable to different cases are to (1) produce
heat directly from solar and geothermal heat resources and from electricity;
(2) store electricity as heat after current electricity demand is satisfied
and electricity storage is full; (3) if thermal energy storage is used, store
excess heat in water and underground rocks when current heat demand is
satisfied; (4) if thermal energy storage is used, produce cold directly from
electricity and store excess cold in water and ice; (5) produce hydrogen from
excess electricity after all electricity and heat storage are full, and store
excess hydrogen; (6) store excess CSP electricity in a phase-change material
and remaining excess electricity either in pumped-hydro storage, as heat in
underground rocks, or as hydrogen; (7) increase the maximum discharge rates of
CSP, the number of batteries, or the maximum discharge rate of hydropower
(while keeping its annual energy production constant) to help meet peaks in
demand; (8) use heat pumps for cold and low-temperature heat loads wherever
possible; and (9) use demand response for some loads to reduce peaks in load."

------
tamizhar
The actual paper is
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014811...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148118301526)

------
Toine
None of this will save us.

