Green Energy Revolution Megathread

[Zanza]

isn't it in Germany where some highways were converted to recharge electric cars as they drive?  Or was it only a plan for the future?

They are building prototype overhead power lines on two German autobahns in the next year for trucks. Long-distance 40 ton trucks are likely not possible to run on batteries for the foreseeable future as the weight of the batteries would limit the weight of cargo too much to be competitive with a engine running on fossile fuel. Those overhead lines will provide power to trucks similar to how it is done for trains.

[Zanza]

What about the batteries and the electricity necessary for electric cars? sure they are not an issue now when its an upper middle class trendy thing, but when all cars will have them? Those acid-laden batteries and all that extra electricity will have to be produced somewhere.

The electricity supply is probably not a big issue as electricity consumption in all industrialized countries is much lower during the night than during the day, but most people would likely recharge their car during the night. So the generation capacity that is currently idle at night could be used to charge car batteries.

However, a lot of charging solutions are based on direct current, not alternating current that is currently running on normal house networks. You need to adapt the electric infrastructure if you want direct current outlets in sufficient numbers. Either in your home or if you park your car on the road like many people do in urban regions, you need to have charging points on those roads.

The battery supply should be possible as making battery cells and battery packs is easily scalable. The "Tesla gigafactory" is not alone and others are building similar factories, especially Chinese companies. Not so sure about the raw materials as Lithium is not that rare, but mining is apparently not that easy.

[The Brain]

As long as the mines are in the Third World no hippie will give a fuck.

[Iormlund]

What about the batteries and the electricity necessary for electric cars? sure they are not an issue now when its an upper middle class trendy thing, but when all cars will have them? Those acid-laden batteries and all that extra electricity will have to be produced somewhere.

To add to what Zanza said about peak/valley hours, your typical internal combustion engine is rather inefficient. Larger scale generators at electric plants can generate the same amount of electricity with lower cost/emissions.

[Zanza]

Doesn't make much sense to compare internal combustion engines to other thermal ways to generate power as the car engines are not that much worse than big powerplants anymore. But Electric cars become attractive because there are ways to generate electric power without greenhouse gases and then the pure efficiency angle doesn't matter as much either as reducing emissions is a goal in itself. Mining the lithium and making the batteries apparently has a considerable emissions effect that offsets much of the gains from electric propulsion itself.

[Valmy]

Mining the lithium and making the batteries apparently has a considerable emissions effect that offsets much of the gains from electric propulsion itself.

What is the source of the emissions?

[HVC]

Iirc processing lithium requires a shitload of electricity, so it isn't the process directly that causes emissions, but the creation of energy needed.

[Valmy]

Iirc processing lithium requires a shitload of electricity, so it isn't the process directly that causes emissions, but the creation of energy needed.

Ah ok. Well that is an obstacle that can be overcome then.

[HVC]

Yeah, the mining of lithium is relatively ecologically friendly, as far as mining goes.  It's extracted from underground brine pits/wells. A tonn of it in the ocean too, but not economically extracted.

[The Brain]

Iirc processing lithium requires a shitload of electricity, so it isn't the process directly that causes emissions, but the creation of energy needed.

Ah ok. Well that is an obstacle that can be overcome then.

You just need more batteries.

[CountDeMoney]

My Big Trak took four D cells and a 9-volt.  I can only imagine the number of D cells for a Tesla.

[mongers]

My Big Trak took four D cells and a 9-volt.  I can only imagine the number of D cells for a Tesla.

I've a ghetto blaster that requires 10 C cells. 



edit:
wait, it might even have been 12?

Or maybe I'm getting old and it was 2 the other way ie 8 cells. 

[jimmy olsen]

Nice!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/huge-tunisian-solar-park-hopes-to-provide-saharan-power-to-europe

The plant would harness the power of the Saharan sun with towers up to 200m tall, similar to ones in Andalusia.

Solar power

Huge Tunisian solar park hopes to provide Saharan power to Europe

Developer TuNur has applied to build a 4.5GW plant in the Sahara and pipe enough electricity via submarine cables to power two million European homes

Arthur Neslen

Wednesday 6 September 2017 18.03 BST  Last modified on Thursday 7 September 2017 10.16 BST

An enormous solar park in the Sahara could soon be exporting electricity to Europe if Tunisia's government approves an energy company's request to build it.

The 4.5GW mega-project planned by TuNur would pipe electricity to Malta, Italy and France using submarine cables in the grandest energy export project since the abandoned Desertec initiative.

Kevin Sara, TuNur's chief executive said: "If European governments take the Paris accord seriously and want to meet the less than two degrees target for global warming, we need to start importing renewables."

"60% of Europe's primary energy is currently imported from Russia or the Middle East. Does the EU really want to be investing in infrastructure that lasts 50 years but which just enables more fossil fuel use?"

The EU is already considering awarding priority status to an underwater cable linking Tunisia with Italy, and TuNur expects construction work on a €5bn plant to begin by 2019 in southwest Tunisia.

"We would target delivering power to the European grid via Malta by 2021," Sara said. The following year, the first of two cables to Italy could be laid, with a French connection up and running by 2024, he added.

The resulting solar complex would sprawl over an area three times the size of Manhattan, harnessing the power of the Saharan sun with several towers up to 200m tall.

Hundreds of thousands of parabolic mirrors would reflect sunlight onto these towers, heating molten salts within them that would in turn broil water, generating enough steam to power turbines that could electrify 2m European homes.


Map of the planned TuNur solar project.

Up to 20,000 jobs could be created by the private sector initiative, which unites the London-based solar developer Nur Energie with Tunisian and Maltese developers.

But Chafik Ben Rouine, a spokesman for the Tunisian Economic Observatory, questioned whether the mega-project's gold would match its glitter.

"Our biggest concern is with TuNur's credibility as their website says they only have experience with two small solar projects," he said. "We have big concerns about their capacity to deliver this project and their financial ability to leverage it."

Four years ago, the €400bn Desertec initiative imploded, leaving dreams of a Saharan power battery for Europe in the dust – and a lasting regional wariness.

"It seems that a familiar 'colonial' scheme is being rolled out in front of our eyes," said Hamza Hamouchene, War on Want's North Africa and West Asia officer.

"Projects like TuNur deny local people control and access to their land, rob them of resources and concentrate the value created in the hands of domestic and foreign predatory elites and private companies."

TuNur says that it agreed to lease the project's land from a local tribe which remains "extremely positive" about the project.

Water usage will be restricted to wastewater from a local date tree plantation that would not otherwise be recycled, Sara said. The company also remains willing to supply electricity within Tunisia, which is itself facing power shortages.

[CountDeMoney]

Going to be kinda tough to do with bullet holes and IED shrapnel in them all the time.

[Ed Anger]

And Jawas stealing shit.