[sudo-discuss] Power grid: part one: was Re: Sudo room should be about creating

Tue Mar 26 16:44:17 PDT 2013

Relevant design questions:
How much power generation / storage / transmission capacity exists at
various scales?
How much of each should exist at each scale if taking advantage of
currently little-used technologies to improve overall system goals
(efficiency, resilience, ...)?
I claim a promising answer to the second set of questions is more
generation and storage at smaller scales (village / neighborhood / city
mainly with some at home), with a corresponding reduction in that at the
larger scales, not inconsistently with any of the things you pointed out.
Involving a very broad range of options including such as growing crops for
fuel to burn alongside waste at small scales.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Anon195714 <anon195714 at sbcglobal.net>wrote:

>
> Here I'll have to differ, speaking from experience a) having worked on a
> couple of household solar installations, and b) having worked on design
> engineering and business planning for wind farms of 49 MW and 250 MW rated
> capacity, and c) from knowledge gained from folks at the nation's oldest
> regional solar contractor, that has been a client of mine for the better
> part of a decade.
>
> Decentralized power generation as compared with major power plants, is
> like desktop computers as compared with mainframes or server farms.  The
> value of a desktop computer or a hand-held device is not only in what it
> can do by itself: the value of it increases radically when it's networked
> with other devices.
>
> If you want to "cut the wires," be prepared to spend thousands of dollars
> for a battery bank at your home, to store the solar power from your roof.
> This represents not only large cost, but a large commitment of material
> resources used in an ecologically and economically wasteful manner.
>
> But when your household solar is connected to the grid, you can "upload"
> power you don't need at the moment, and "download" power when you do.  You
> can optionally have a small backup battery that's sufficient for night-time
> power for essentials (a couple of lights, telecoms, and fridge) if the grid
> goes down in an earthquake.  Economically and ecologically it's a winner.
> "Grid-tied solar" is the business model that has been so successful that
> nationwide solar firms have sprouted to provide solar leasing to the
> public.
>
> The same case applies to wind, and here, basic physics and arithmetic
> prove the point.  The efficiency of a wind generator is proportional to the
> swept blade circle, based on the relationship between the diameter and the
> area of the circle.  Home-sized wind generators are insufficient to power
> homes except in Class 4 and 5 (high wind) areas.  Wind generators only
> begin to become efficient in the range of 250 KW and up; the largest ones
> today are in the 5 MW range.
>
> Wind is subject to intermittency, so it requires either storage or
> integration with other power sources.  The ideal case is to use water as
> the storage medium, for example by teaming up a new wind farm with an
> existing hydroelectric dam.  New-design "micro reactors" or "nuclear
> batteries" using intrinsically safe fission technology are also viable in
> this role, and lastly, natural gas turbine "peaker plants" can be used
> (they are the cleanest carbon-based option and acceptable in conjunction
> with renewables).
>
> It may be that at some point, a new type of solar, fission, fusion, or
> advanced-physics technology, becomes feasible for household use.  But even
> then: interconnecting homes and other buildings, provides backup for times
> when you have to take your machine off-line for maintenance, or if it
> malfunctions and has to be replaced.
>
> More about a better model, "the internet of electricity," in my next
> posting...
>
> -G.
>
>
> =====
>
>
> On 13-03-26-Tue 3:41 PM, Anthony Di Franco wrote:
>
>  Production of alternative energy can be and for most reasons probably
> should be much less centralized, equivalently, smaller-scale, than
> production of energy mostly is now. (Off-grid, as you mention, but very
> literally.)
> Large-scale up front + large, complex distribution networks is revealed as
> an obsolete architecture; large scale distribution networks become
> relatively less important, so even if the answer to your question is no,
> which it probably isn't given crowdfunding and other disintermediated
> finance gaining momentum, it's moot, or at least of much less relative
> importance.
> Put another way, when the most important goal is maximum efficiency rather
> than maximum centralization, large upfront capital investment + large,
> complex distribution network is stupid; proper accounting<https://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com/>of all costs and benefits in a global rather than piecewise local sense
> reveals this now for agriculture, manufacturing, energy, ...
> Even now, buffering between supply and demand is a constraint on grid
> architecture leading to great economic demand within the current paradigm
> for distributed storage / production of energy according to someone who
> came through sudo room whose name escapes me.
> This loosely-drafted email brought to you by the slogan<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/11/eaas-non-rival-goods-vs-rival-goods.html>,
> "localize production, virtualize everything else"<http://www.miiu.org/wiki/Resilient_Things_by_Top-Level_Category> and
> the acronym STEMI <http://www.accelerationwatch.com/mest.html> compression<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/11/stemi.html>
> .
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 3:17 PM, Romy Ilano <romy at snowyla.com> wrote:
>
>> Is it possible to create alternative energy distribution networks
>> (biofuels/solar/ wind etc) that replace mainstream petrol and natural gas
>> based energy without a large financial sector?
>>
>>  the vc system that funds these alternative energy start-ups piggy backs
>> off the investment banks, etc. and big private equity and institutional
>> investment funds. vcs are like a fly on the @ss of a financial hippo.
>>
>>  I haven't heard people discuss off-grid that much in the tech talks
>> I've been to( which are excellent). Is there a conversation here that would
>> show how off grid is a viable alternative, even if it's not a big money
>> solution?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:56 PM, <hol at gaskill.com> wrote:
>>
>>> this talk about imports and exports always reminds me of energy flow
>>>
>>> compare 2011
>>>
>>> https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2012/Oct/images/25306_LLNLUSEnergy2011650.jpg
>>>
>>>
>>> with 2002
>>> http://www.hubbertpeak.com/us/images/us_energyflow2002.jpg
>>>
>>> fascinating
>>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
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>
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