Perpetual Innovation

Category: renewable

  • Make your own fuel, while air conditioning (HVAC). Carbon Capture.

    Imagine a great idea that is entirely possible with new technology coming down the pipeline from various sources. That is what an article in Scientific American by Richard Conniff envisions based on a paper published in the Nature Communications which proposes a partial remedy based on A/C units:  Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (or HVAC) systems move a lot of air. Dittmeyer, Klumpp, Kant and Ozin (2019) describe the idea of using renewable energy from solar, wind and water to produce immediate energy and also produce a portable fuel as the democratization of energy.

    Basically, the idea is to take excess energy from the A/C condenser unit (heat dissipation in cooling mode) and extract hydrogen and carbon from the air and produce a hydrocarbon fuel. Sounds cool enough. And surprisingly not way-out there futuristic because some of the basic technologies are already developed. This is a great application of Carbon Capture and Sequester (CCS) technologies. It is extremely local, and would create a local fuel that could be portable (hydrogen and/or synthetic oil).

    Personally, I like the fuel cell concept where the fuel cell uses hydrogen and can go basically instant-on, thereby serving as a backup generator. Energy (from any source) can be used to make hydrogen from air, water and other sources including methane and alcohol. As an example, a miniature fuel cell can be implanted into the human body with hydrogen as the fuel, and recharged through the skin (reversing the fuel cell process with hydrogen and oxygen on one side and water on the other); thereby creating a low toxic battery solution.

    Implied in this article is the idea of using centralized power plants and then at the point of use, home or business, creating a CCS which also creates a local, portable fuel. This brings us back to industrial solutions where the CCS is done at the plant where about half of all the energy produced is lost (heat from turbines) and CO2 is intense vs the 410 (to 900) parts per million in the atmosphere (and in buildings).

    Hidden in this whole discussion is that scenario that is here and now, not futuristic. Renewable energy is cheaper and massively cleaner than conventional energy, and it can be located anywhere. Storage, in some form, is really the bottleneck; and storage in the form of synthetic fuels is a really, really cool (partial) solution.

    References

    Dittmeyer, R., Klumpp,
    M., Kant, P., & Ozin, G. (2019, April 30). Crowd oil not crude oil. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09685-x

  • Wind n Sun are now cheaper/better than Coal, NatGas, etc

    By now you probably knew it was happening, but you probably didn’t realize how much and how fast. If you figure subsidies, Solar and Wind are a slam-dunk powerful option.
    Wind prices have been dropping fast and solar has been dripping like lead… Solar prices have dropped about 86% over the last 8 years.
    Check out the latest 2018 report by Lazard. Note that they also analyze renewables with storage (batteries).
    The Solar incentives make the solar option for most settings (especially in Sunny Florida) crazy profitable. For example, the investment of $100 for a rather serious system (much more than a home residence would need) would have a tax credit of 30%, plus 100% depreciation in the first year. So, if you had a 20% tax rate, your investment would look like this:
    $100k Investment
    -30k Tax Credit
    -20k Depreciation
    =50k Net investment. (Thant’s only 50% of the original investment.)

    Payback would be less than 8 years, maybe 5.
    The power company has historically increased prices by 3% (or more in Florida)… Not a problem if you are producing your own power.

    Return on investment would probably be 20% or greater after 20 years.
    Solar in sunny places like Florida is a pretty good investment; but with the tax benefits solar is a crazy profitable investment. Plus you are saving lots of other resources including water and carbon dioxide.
    We’re working on a few calculators. Solar and Renewable Energy. This is a positive investment that keeps on giving.

  • Babcock Ranch aims to be first solar-powered town in US | USA News | Al Jazeera

    Babcock Ranch aims to be first solar-powered town in US | USA News | Al Jazeera:

    This is in partnership with FPL (Nextera) for the power. The powerplant is already up and running that will support an almost 200,000 home community.  FPL has extended the solar to include 10 megawatts of battery, thus allowing the solar power plant to offer more flexibility to the power grid and on-demand peaking power.

    The 440 acres for the power plant (now with about 350,000 PV panels) were donated to FPL at the Babcock Ranch. The whole town is 100% electric with electric trolley and charging stations. They even have SolarTrees(tm) for you to charge your phone or laptop in the park and demonstrate how solar works.

    This city is west of LaBelle on the way toward Ft Meyers. Very sustainable. Now has several developers building and each home has the “option” to have solar installed.

    Here’s another take with a human touch from FoxNews. Talking about the first people to move into the “city” and the first baby to be born in Babcock Ranch.

    This is a very cool example of how a city can be built from the ground up as sustainable — zero carbon footprint, as it pertains to electricity. There is the obvious question, however, of urban sprawl to suburbia, that has had suburban sprawl.

    In a city, with lots and lots of impermeable surfaces (roofs and parking lots), it would be very possible to retrofit the sustainability solutions.

    Way to go FPL. Within five years (2023), FPL plans to produce more from solar than from coal+NatGas combined. Additionally, FPL’s sister company FPL Energy is the largest wind producer in the US, and 2nd largest in the world. !:-)  … NextEra is the publicly ~$75B market cap holding company (NEE).

    FPL does have some nuclear, with plans and approval for expansion. The Turkey Point plant has been problematic and has its own set of issues. Leaks in the cooling canals, and no real plan for ways to store nuclear waste, has the Sierra Club (a group that should generally be friendly to nuclear) up in arms.  They also don’t like some of the sweet-heart deals for FPL that have been approved (rubber-stamped) by the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC). The sneaky and deceptive amendment on the Florida ballet last year — a move designed to kill solar — by the southern power companies (in which FPL donated $8m) is still fresh in the minds of Floridians.

    Nuclear in general has issues in the future energy mix. Nuclear is wonderful for base load, but not great as a peaking power source. If/when we move seriously and definitively toward solar in Florida, there should be high renewable energy at various times throughout the day, and none during rain or at night, so nuclear continues to be less effective. See how California is planning the retirement of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and looking for other forms of peaking power as more and more power comes from renewables. Nuclear plants seem to have no plan, of any kind, as to what to do with nuclear wast; the only plan seems to be to hold on-site forever.

    At some point the power monopolies need to deal with the reality that every home and every business can and will generate part or all of their electricity. This means that the future of the grid is connecting power creators with power consumers using a smart grid and dynamic pricing. Part of the day I may be a net producer, part of the night I may be a net consumer. One analogy of this type of Smart Grid is to think of it like the Internet. Sometimes I’m uploading content, sometimes I’m downloading. The Internet directs from where power is produced, to where it is needed. The Smart Grid power company will be more like the Internet Service Provider (ISP) of old by providing power as needed, where needed. The internet of things (IoT), but with power, is essentially what we’re talking about. Maybe the Energy of Everything (EoE)?:-)

    Power companies need a new business model (currently the model is based on ROE with the PSC assuring prices that justify a good return on investment). Producing and selling more and more electricity to make more and more money is a broken model. Building bigger and grander centralized power plants is horribly inefficient; about 60% of energy is lost in the production (steam) and distribution.

    We are really glad to see FPL’s effort into solar. Florida, and NextEra, could do more. Time for the power monopolies to make the change before they get overrun. The power model is changing… Trying to block this massive change is a little like stacking rocks in front of a glacier …

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  • California Becomes First State to Mandate Solar on New Homes – Bloomberg

    California Becomes First State to Mandate Solar on New Homes – Bloomberg:

    California is 1/3 of the US economy and probably 1/3 of the US housing market. So, when California voted today to have mandatory solar on most new construction houses, this blows the top off of the non-solar rooftop.

    Headlines read that the CA house will now cost about an additional $10,000 to build with the energy efficiency and solar roof mandates. This Bloomberg article says that the savings will be about twice the increase in building costs.

    True, it costs more to build, but the operating costs are dramatically less.

    This is related to new houses, so the decision is easier than for an existing house.

    However, that decision should be really simple as well for a house with good sun exposure. There are tax credits and ways to finance that will allow the homeowner to pay for the solar system out of the savings in power, until the whole solar system is paid off in 15-20 years and then it is a perpetuity of savings!…

    So, a $40,000 system in Florida is $28,000 after a 30% federal tax credit. The payment on the loan would be equal to, or less than the payments for electricity, on average. And, after you pay off the system in, say, 15 years, you have about $250 worth of net savings per month for a long, long time. That’s $3,000 per year in year 15; as a perpetuity, at 5% interest, the net present value is about $29,000 positive.

    Wait a minute. That is more, net present value-wise, then the entire out-of-pocket cost of the system if you had paid cash up front (less the tax credit). But you may not have paid any cash up front for it and paid all loan/lease payments from the savings on the electric bill!

    So, if the same math applies for a $300,000 home in California (cause everything’s far more expensive in California), which is now increased to $310,000. The additionally $10k can be separately financed; probably, with terms of nothing down and loan payments that are less than the electric bill. That is, from day one, the cash flows from operations are as good or better than paying full electric bills.

    Once you pay off the PV loan, you now have free electricity, for a long time.

    Plus, it is good for the environment and reduces CO2 emissions, and significantly reduces the reliance on centralized energy production form your favorite power utility.

    The net present value of the cash flows may be $10-$20,000 positive.

    A couple important factors: Power companies have traditionally increased costs by more than the level of inflation (inflation at about 2% and rising). Inflation and interest rates should rise significantly with full employment. PV technology reduces very slightly over time (0.5% per year).

    The private PV power system protects against the rising costs of power.
    ….
    So, the headlines might more accurately read:

    New CA Solar Mandate will increase home costs by about $10,000 but offset by about twice from the reduced of operating costs. 


    Another win, win, win of sustainability.

    This should not be a hard decision to make, in any sunny state. The mandate should not be necessary. Consumers should be making this decision as a smart decision, not just a green decision.
    Being Green, and making Green too.

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  • Tesla Solar Roofs. Better, Cheaper, Stronger, Longer

    Tesla Solar | Tesla:

    Here is the information to order your roof from Tesla (that has now merged with SolarCity).

    The tempered glass tiles are much stronger, much cheaper and last long (lifetime of the house or infinity warranty, whichever comes first).

    Oh, and then there’s the PV electricity generation, above that. It is 30-years warranty on the PV, it seems.

    This is something that is called an “irrefusable” value proposition. Especially if the house (building) is new, or an older roof that should be replaced within a few years.

    Here’s how it works. Most of the roof tiles are not PV. Only 30% to 40% of the roof would be in prime solar view.  The PV panels are about $40 sq ft, but the averages should be about $22. That also depends on the sizing of the system, no need to over produce in most cases (states).

    Here’s Tesal’s Specs and Sizing Calculator.

    Apparently, from the street, you can’t tell the difference between regular and PV tiles. Top view (helicopter) view you can, although it should be far less conspicuous than the usual PV panels.

    Also, remember those 5 GigaFactories for batteries and cars going up around the worlds. Well, couple in US and next one in Europe (?UK?).

    The pricing for preorder that started in May 2017, includes an installed 14kWh Powerwall  2 system. With battery backup, they entire building could go off grid, assuming the local power company and state law allow it. A generator (fuel cell) would do the trick.

    Of course, hooking to the grid provides the opportunity to sell back to the grid and assist with peaking. This type of building can help twice with peaking.  The excess electricity during peak times (heat of the day, usually) can be sold back. The batteries can be used as well at peak. They can be replenished in off times by the PV system or during low-load off-hours by the power company.
    This idea of battery pack backup can also apply to your favorite EV car as well. Dare I say Tesla or Bold. If the car will not be used today, why not use it to help with peaking loads, if needed, as needed?

    For an existing home/building, you will want to do an energy audit and reduce the energy usage first, then size and install the roof (with power system).

    Very cool.

    This appears to be a game changer.

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