1500 - The Energy Problem - Doing our Bit

[kreynolds]

The energy problem, when it comes to wind and solar electric is you have to use it the instant it's made. To bridge production and demand differences, the world needs cheaper energy storage. So many times the problem with implanting greater renewable energy sources, is often met with how to increase energy storage or change energy demand.

[farmingfromscratch]

Nice video, another question is how much power could people realistically live on, just by changing their use habits, when we went off grid, we cut our electrical energy use by well over half!!!! Cheers

[Gwydion]

Hi Luke,
nice observation and calculation.👍
I also did it from time to time for my region, now even using an app for it. Calculates the CO2 footprint of the locally available energy. Quite handy.
And some governmental page of my federal state (Bavaria, Germany) provides a map with every registered power plant, including energy source and power output. Nice to revisit over times, so I also can see the growth of our sustainable neighborhood (personally, I own a 3kWp off-grid pv solar system, being self-sufficient from March to October).

Your slip with the units (mixing power with energy) was already mentioned, so no big deal. Could happen (also did to me and even to Rob IIRC). 😉

Again, many thanks and let's keep on heading to renewables! ♻️🔆🌬🌊⚡♨️🌱😃👍

[elizabethmckinney]

People aren't going to curb their power usage until they are responsible for generating their own power.

[offgridwanabe]

When more people use renewable / install their own we will see a difference as they will become informed on how much energy we actually consume. All those commercial sites are needed but are profit based utilities I see some designs even allow farming under the raised panels. Thanks for the video did you find any tidal renewable projects as you live near the sea. Cheers I love my solar it is awesome.

[ianmac]

As advised by another comment, the relevant figures are not the wattage the farm is able produce but the wattage per unit of time. A farm producing 100 kilowatt hours per year is ten times as productive as one producing 10 kilowatt hours per year. Both could have the same kilowatt output but one gets ten times the cloud as the other and therefore produces 10 times less power per year.

[WarGrade]

Another solar farm near us between Whitfield & Dover just off the A2, Also having Solar panels fitted on my place next week.

[nwflboypowell]

Great presentation, you are getting better at it. Near me they are building 150 acre solar farm. It is being built by our County, but will be sold to the power company. How much savings or benefit it will be remains yet to be seen. As we know they are only 20% efficient. Another thing to consider though is the CO 2 generation from removal of the plant life - less plants less conversion of CO 2 to Oxygen as the feed on CO 2. The Wind farms here, (as I have previously stated), in the USA are being removed due to environmental concerns due to leeching of oil, grease, off gases of construction materials, and altering the magnetic fields of migratory species. Additionally, the costs of labor and parts for repairs - therefore, at the end of their life cycle or should they fall in disrepair they are being removed altogether and not replaced.

[stevetobias]

We have a ton of wind farms around us but it's not only the large scale operations that matter. We each have a responsibility to attempt to generate at least 10% (conservatively) of our own use. Even if it's a few solar panels feeding batteries which feed an inverter to run appliances on all day, such as a fridge etc..

[colleenforrest]

I like the solarponics concept of growing food under solar panels. There are a lot of "forgotten" food plants that like shade and have a short growth height--like miner's letuce--that could be grown in stacks under the panels. Probably a good place to grow mushrooms too.

[bkeepr]

Actually, there is another way to generate power, part of the water division mentioned here, but instead of kinetic hydropower, such as falling water or high temperature - pressure, there is entropic - pressure power generation. When a fresh water stream (low entropy) enters seawater it mixes and becomes high entropy with considerable energy released, equivalent to kinetic dropping of 700 ft if I recall correctly. This is why reverse osmosis to purify seawater to drinking water takes so much energy... you are moving water from a highly chaotic state to a highly ordered state of being fresh water.
Take a fixed volume of seawater and allow fresh water to enter that fixed volume via a semipermeable membrane and the fresh water will be drawn in with emmense force. A fixed volume with an increasing density equals high pressure... release that via a turbine.
The ideal location for this sort of plant is where flowing fresh water is about to enter seawater. No need for a giant dam or high hills. So long as your fresh water doesn't dry up in summer you have a base power production, ie, it doesn't suddenly stop producing when the sun goes down or when wind stops blowing. An engineer in Norway built such a plant. The membranes are the expensive limitation but with rising clean power demand and cost, I'm surprised I hear nothing about any R&D in this field.

[lowrads]

People aren't thinking about grid interconnection, probably because most aren't familiar with Metcalfe's law, which concerns the network effect. Despite this, it is probably the most significant factor needed to accelerate reliance upon intermittent power production. The major advantage of grid interconnection is that it doesn't require rare materials, as most forms of battery storage do.

[robertchristensen]

Another type of renewable is charcoal gasification, it can be produced from just about anything, and when created in the presence of water produces h2 and co2. If done right you can feed that to a greenhouse so that the h20 waters your plants, and the co2 increases plant growth.

[toddratson]

Luke, I may be wrong but I am confused by the units of energy you used in this video. My local solar farm lists it's output in Megawatt hours, not Megawatts. One Watt is one Joule/second. Thus by my tally, the math in your video is out by a factor of 3600. Am I correct or do I need another lesson? Keep up the good videos!

[robertlamont]

No offence intended to your clear enthusiasm, but you missed the elephant in the room which was last recognised in the UK before the HMG focus switched focus before you were even born - 60 years ago HMG changed from how can we best nationally conserve energy to how far can we best screw energy consumers in the UK.
The most efficient power generation is that which is not wasted.
Alternative electrical power sources have become increasingly viable over the last 30 years, yet the elephant in the room was always HMG energy conservation policy. The UK imports ca 20% of it's energy from Europe, yet few ask why that needs be so.

eg - My total annual gas and power bill for a 100m2 house close to Ukraine with -20 winters and +45 summers is now ca 600 quid - Unlike the UK, Europe DOES actually actually rely on piped Russian Gas rather than kid on that it does to play with the minds of consumers - PS Our prices went up in October, and for clarity our domestic rates per kWh are not so different to the the UK. The government here interceded to buffer the hit to consumers rather than push a take it or take it loan.

When the intercession is removed, in reality I doubt I'll notice - All it took me was some extra insulation to more than HALVE gas consumption on a modern insulated and double glazed house - Although I fully expect in 2023 to breach 60% savings on the original 2016 gas demand, it's an irrelevance compared to the woes of UK Consumers.

Now let's just muse on half the UK homes achieving at least a 50% saving, what of that 20% would actually need to be imported, and why exactly would HMG be so upset to see it gone ?

[docink]

I charge my battery banks while driving each day and charge my phones, run my lights and usb fans off those over night, Im working on a small solar powered battery bank and using all usb led lighting and mostly usb style fans

[fritanke]

We in the west realy have to wake up and take a hard look at how we use energy. If everyone does contribute we can easily reduce our consumption overnight. But it requires focus and change of habits. Unfortunately that is the two things most people have a really hard time doing.

[danrawson]

Hi Luke what about a large water tank with a syphon with turbines inside the pipe then return the water to the original tank with a ram pump???

[craignehring]

A little bit of this and a little bit of that, solar gain provides the biggest bang for the dollar/pound

[R.-.]

IMO we should avoid wasting good agricultural land with solar panels. They should go on low grade / hilly / boggy land, on roofs, floating on lakes / bays / esturies etc.