Battery Let MIT Solve The Energy Storage Issue

Big Katuna wrote:
The news is click-driven these days, magnified by politically oriented segments.

The big solvable problems like 60,000 dead on our highways that could be solved with better drivers ed and cell phones that don’t transmit while moving, etc don’t get mentioned.

While I agree with your first comment...US traffic deaths peaked back in 1972 at 54,000. There has been a downward trend since...currently in the mid 30,000 range.

Funny thing is if you track the economics of the country, the best thing you can do is kill the economy. 2008 & 2009 you had successive years with 10% reductions. Last couple years there was an increase. But that's mostly a correlation to vehicle miles of travel.

Expect to see an even faster reduction as automated driving features become standard (takes 15-20yrs to roll over the fleet and currently it's only starting to filter into the mid level cars).

I'm a little late to the conversation (due to family medical obligations and issues), but have you heard about the "gravity train" project? Drive the train uphill while the sun shines -- let it roll downhill when it doesn't:

Train

Natural gas is rather clean and it can be stack scrubber processed to make it even cleaner. The USA has reserves to last 1000+ years. The plant I visited in Antioch CA could be brought online in 45 minutes.

21 megawatts and change output. But every transmission line, distribution line and service line will have to be trebled or quadrupled in current capacity. A 120 Mw transformer 12 Kv to 750 Kv costs about 12 million dollars. To have a nationwide intertie is a trillion(s) dollars effort, including sub distribution. Realize the time and money in this. It takes about a month to construct the largest transmission transformers. The USA does not product the faintest shadow of that kind of manufacturing capacity. And it all has to be paid for -- every last tower strut.

I don't think we quite need 100% back up on renewables. Of course we need energy storage and better distribution. Never going to have absolutely no wind and no solar nation wide for even a few minutes. Distributed generation and distributed storage really does solve this issue.

Down here the thought of un-carboning energy is almost impossible.
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It's impossible everywhere unless we go max effort for nuke. Every single one of these techs: wind and solar, require 100% fossil plant backup. Meaning that for every MWe that they claim to produce they require a full time running fossil plant. That's so when they don't produce the fossil plant can jump in and take up the load.

I agree strongly with the point of fifty thousand deaths annually being absurd.
The problem is the penalties are not stiff enough. The welder on the Kelley II never hurt anyone but six DUI's in six years did not faze him. The seventh he ended up in prison for 18 months and almost lost his house.

My advice? If you own your own home is to invest in a roof of solar panels and manufacture your battery based recharging system. Yes it will cost a ton. And yes a person will miss a lot of divots when vehicle charging starts getting to be a real drain on the grid.

Lithium Charge Efficiency Ratio? I don't know -- never bothered to research it. The year the grid becomes taxed I will be feeding a tree. But for youngsters it will be a thought to muse. Down here the thought of un-carboning energy is almost impossible.

Go to Regina to the government offices, inhale deeply and suddenly all will be made all right. I was not joking that failed lawyers make up too large a segment of government.

The Federal government in Canada has said coal and gas electrical generation must cease in Canada by 2030. Saskatchewan has 3.7 megawatts of generation.

Unfortunately 1682 of that is coal, and 1547 of that is gas.

I can't see how that is going to be possible.

The news is click-driven these days, magnified by politically oriented segments.

The big solvable problems like 60,000 dead on our highways that could be solved with better drivers ed and cell phones that don’t transmit while moving, etc don’t get mentioned.

I disbelieve just about everything I read because of political motive and agenda.

Our media considers the fact that China is on the ropes financially, as being anti-conducive to the general political philosophy.

People who soak up information shouted at them on the evening news suddenly become experts. China has lost TRILLIONS or dollars in the Hangsen the Chinese stock market. 20% of it's value. Factories are CLOSING. Beijing is in deep doo-doo.

I am NOT politically oriented. But I am TRUTH oriented and the news as reported is disgustingly biased. Both sides.