Submission Statement

As OP notes, the project is “getting closer and closer to having something with a very stable output profile that we traditionally think of being what’s capable with a fuel-based generation power plant.”

It's an interesting question as to just how much storage a 100% renewables system would need to provide all the backup needed to supply continuous power.

A recent study that did this for Germany points out that the issue here is that most of the time that storage capacity would be small relative to total generating capacity, but that occasionally (concurrent long periods of low wind) there would be a need for very high storage reserves to be called upon.

It suggested batteries for the bulk of the normal storage requirements, and hydrogen stored in salt caverns for the rarer times much more storage needs to be called on.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh:

Submission Statement

As OP notes, the project is “getting closer and closer to having something with a very stable output profile that we traditionally think of being what’s capable with a fuel-based generation power plant.”

It's an interesting question as to just how much storage a 100% renewables system would need to provide all the backup needed to supply continuous power.

A recent study that did this for Germany points out that the issue here is that most of the time that storage capacity would be small relative to total generating capacity, but that occasionally (concurrent long periods of low wind) there would be a need for very high storage reserves to be called upon.

It suggested batteries for the bulk of the normal storage requirements, and hydrogen stored in salt caverns for the rarer times much more storage needs to be called on.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/xtrzq1/the_uss_largest_ever_combined_windsolarbattery/iqrg8z5/

Congratulations Oregon! Leading the way to the future

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This is great and all but it spans 7,850 acres. That's a whole lotta land. Reading their fact sheet, it seems odd that they'd highlight that they created 9 full time jobs with this project.

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Good. Now build more of them and then some more.

What - in principle - could stop us?

Nothing. It’s becoming clear that solar and wind will be cheaper, less complex, and faster to build than coal/gas/nuclear plants. The economic argument is becoming harder to ignore.

Energy storage capacity, fossil fuel companies sabotaging projects like they did with nuclear...

Oh and the fact this is a nearly 8000 acre site so you can't just slap them down everywhere.

> This is great and all but it spans 7,850 acres. That's a whole lotta land.

It's worth noting that the USA devotes 781 million acres entirely to cows. (That's pasture + land that grows other food for livestock).

You could fit 100,000 of these renewable plants into that amount of space.

But don't worry, that would never happen. If all US electricity was generated by plants like this one, you would only need (approx/ball park) 1,500 of them, thus only needing 1.5% of the land devoted to cows.

Note - based on total generation capacity by capacity load

Ahh so it will work until it doesn't work and for when it doesn't work we have this novel parallel generation system that is only for backup. It isn't practical for energy generation that's why it's the backup but it will work when we need it to. Can't see a single issue with that.

If you read the OPs supplemental post they are going to have an entirely redundant hydrogen gas turbine system waiting in the wings as back up. It's super practical I don't know why we don't do this everywhere.

The problem with this scheme and all renewables is storage capacity. This project does not solve it. There are no realistic solutions to the energy density issue that don't involve long chains of carbon.

Good answer.

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And the beauty of it is, a huge amount of that is just rangeland, which is basically unimproved land where the cows wander around eating the natural vegetation. The cows don't give a damn if there are some windmills scattered around so the land becomes dual-use and it has very little actual effect on their range.

This is almost certainly the case with most of the acreage used by this project. There's a whole lotta nothing in that area except cattle range and a few tiny farming communities.

So why bother with batteries at all? hydrogen storage, conversion between states, and gas delivery systems are all made exponentially trickier by the small size of the molecules. That's not to say it can't be done but it isn't done currently at scale.

That's a bit of a strawman arguement. I said nothing about cows or their land use. And including the land used to feed them is a bit misleading as they typically use byproducts we don't consume to feed them, but whatever. The reality is that projects like this are going to use undeveloped land instead of land occupied for agriculture, habitation or commercial.

Which is the only reason I mention the land usage. If my math is correct.. annual consumption of mwh in my county is ~6,990,000 so we would need ~3 of these plants operating at 350mwh output 24/7. That's 23,550 acres of undeveloped land we do not have unless we start encroaching on wildlife preserves and state parks. My county has approximately 2k undeveloped land (if I'm reading the census correctly) that is not allocated to parks and preserves. None of the other land here is for agricultural use. This would not be an uncommon issue for more densely populated areas, so more rural areas would end up completely transformed by this. While people in densely populated areas might be okay with that, but people living in these rural areas where they'll likely end up may not be too pleased with that transformation. None of this is taking into consideration the areas that are even suitable or ideal for different types of renewable energy production, I'm not even sure where to look at what that number would be.

Renewables are great and we should find ways to incorporate them into our current infrastructure as much as possible but, I just don't see current land use being repurposed before I see them clear cut new areas for plants like this.

Edit: are you seriously citing Wikipedia?

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Yeah I think that operations on the grid aren't microsecond time sensitive. There is absolutely no way to predict usage with that granularity. Even then if that is what you are looking for it would make more sense for the batteries to back stop the hydrogen plant rather than the windmills.

Talk about a strawman, it's like you think they built a huge fence around 8000 acres with "no trespassing" signs.

There's a reason this project was built where it was and that's because there's a metric fuckton of mostly empty, undeveloped land. I say mostly empty because a lot of that undeveloped land is used for something and I'd be udderly shocked if you couldn't guess what it is.

What you don't seem to be aware of is that while windfarms take a lot of acreage overall, they're low density, meaning the land can usually be used for other things at the same time. Like, say, grazing cattle or even farming. The land's owner can even get a bit of supplemental income from each little square they lease out.

Will this kind of thing work everywhere? No, of course not, but there are huge areas in the western US where none of the things you've brought up are a problem and it's nothing but win-win.

But wHaT aBoUt NuClEaR?!!! It's totally carbon free, only emits skittles and baby farts, and would solve ALL the worlds problems if not for government red tape and over-regulation. Anyone who disagrees with this is ignorant, a communist, anti-American, and/or poorly educated. Oh yeah - molten salt and thorium reactors will do all this and get you a girlfriend who's a super model, fix your baldness, ED, and bring Jesus back. /s as if you didn't know.

It's getting there fast and it is capable of doing all that fossil fuels can do - grid wise. Remember fossil fuels has a 140 year head start, my friend.

edit; extra word

culture wars and corruption.

it's already happening elsewhere.

Really? I wait with bated breath. The plant in this post clearly can't do what a gas turbine plant can.

This might explain why. It's a good little article and explains well the nuances of hydrogen. Hydrogen It's a short read, but highly informative.

Right so back to my original point.

you pretty much described today's electricity grids.

... because the hydrogen economy doesn't exist right now.

Not really peaker plants use tried and true generation techniques and are just as efficient as main load plants. Our current grid provides reliable, consistent, and constant electricity.

Does anyone know if they post power output generation for this facility? I would be more interested in seeing how the numbers look since they've been in operation since 2014 with wind and Spring 2022 with solar.

I wonder why the hydrogen economy doesn't exist? Hydrogen wasn't just invented.

Not everyone is going to be okay with these things dotting the landscape or being installed in their "backyards". There have been both wind and solar projects rejected in my state because the communities just don't want them nearby. This is largely a very pro renewable and progressive state. The whole NIMBY thing. And to think it's okay to just push it on out to the midwest/rural areas is both short sighted and selfish. That being said, acceptance of these types of projects in a community are a consideration. Because denser areas do not have the real estate, so their power needs to be addressed somewhere right?

If the farmer wants to lease his land then sure, it makes sense, never said it didn't. From what I can see it doesn't look like they get much in the way of payment for the land they're giving up.

A few points with mentioning for non pasture acreage:

-The turbine themselves plus the access roads and support infrastructure take up space and reduce the amount of farmland available to be farmed.

-The turbines, access roads and support infrastructure create obstructions in the fields making it more difficult to farm that field.

-They limit some farming practices (aerial application) and others

-The installation of the turbines creates soil compaction and can damage tile, drainage ditches, etc.

-The money stream may not go to the farmer and may not be as steady as everyone thinks.

-To reiterate, not everyone enjoys the aesthetics of wind turbines in their backyard

Alternatively, its money for no effort on their part if they don't mind them being on the land.

And I'm not sure where NPR got its numbers from but the 2017 census (couldn't find a more recent one) is a little over half of the number they gave for permanent pastures.

https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2019/2017Census_Farms_Farmland.pdf

I'm not against this application of technology, but there are two sides to a viewpoint. It's either going to take up land people occupy or will be taking up new undeveloped land. People tend to be supportive of something until the ugly side of it directly impacts them.

🙄

today's grids contain large amounts of capacity that's seldom used. this includes peaker plants, which have terrible efficiency.

I would argue the excess capacity is exclusively made up of peaker plants. I'd be interested in where you got the terrible efficiency data from.

Because much of the infrastructure isn't there or it hasn't been modified to support hydrogen. There will definitely be a hydrogen economy in the future, but that's still in the future.

Renewables need to be funded and built, investments need to be redirected into emerging technologies necessary for the production, transportation and use of hydrogen, e.g., electrolyzers, hydrogen turbines, fuel cells, hydrogen storage, subsidies and policies need to be created to make hydrogen appealing to hard-to-decarbonise industries.

I think everyone understands that a hydrogen economy will have to emerge very soon, but this is a thing with a lot of moving parts, so it's going to take a lot of effort (& money) to make it happen. There are also uses, for which hydrogen will simply not be feasible anytime soon, so other approaches will have to be pursued (e.g. heating and light vehicles).

Oh well if everyone understands it I feel like a real dunce. Keep dreaming you dreams little buddy.

Yeah, the whole NIMBY thing is a problem and it pisses me off that there are a lot of self-described progressives that hypocritically oppose these projects in their own areas.

I actually live in a mostly rural area that also has a lot of windfarms. That doesn't give me any special insights as I don't work in either industry, but I have observed them both.

> -The turbine themselves plus the access roads and support infrastructure take up space and reduce the amount of farmland available to be farmed. > > -The turbines, access roads and support infrastructure create obstructions in the fields making it more difficult to farm that field.

There are already access roads all around the farmland because semi-trucks are used to haul the produce from the fields. And while the windmills are huge, their footprint is actually pretty small as it's just a giant post at the ground. Maybe around a fifth of an acre each so they don't actually take up very much of the land. They're usually placed on the edges so they don't even create much obstruction.

> -They limit some farming practices (aerial application) and others

True, but crop dusting is expensive so it's really only used on the truly massive farms (around here, at least). The couple of dusters I know make very good livings.

> -The installation of the turbines creates soil compaction and can damage tile, drainage ditches, etc.

It would be minor relative to the day-to-day operations on the farm (semis, massive tractors, etc).

> -The money stream may not go to the farmer and may not be as steady as everyone thinks.

The actual amount of space leased is tiny so, yeah, not really super lucrative, but as you said, it's almost free money for them.

> -To reiterate, not everyone enjoys the aesthetics of wind turbines in their backyard

Rural areas like mine tend to be highly conservative and other than some initial whining about the "stupid environmentalist shit" no one cares anymore. If they'd just force a few on the NIMBYs, they wouldn't either.

you forgot the greens and greta thunberg.

yes, instead of running peaker plants you can just release power using these things to even out power supplies.

350 is nothing what comparison are they using? Most gas plants are 700 plus, Nucs are close to 4k. Sounds like a feel good story but not close.

I drove through Illinois not too long ago and saw the wind turbines along the highway there. It was a lot of farmland so I can't imagine anyone purchased the land recently for a "view" and got stuck with the wind turbines but I personally wouldn't care to see them everyday. I just know from personal experience that there are progressive areas/people content with volunteering someone else (aka rural/poor/blue collar/conservative) to take on the burden of whatever great idea they have. A personal example of that; my county has a number of psychiatrists on "staff" (they still have private practices) for like 250k (tax dollars) annually a pop to provide "mental health" services to people who cant afford it and may need it based on arbitrary criteria (basically noone who needs to use it can take advantage of it). The county executive and elected officials all reside in a very "well to do" area and made it a point to relocate the homeless into lower income areas of the county and provide these shelters and services there. It just strikes me as them looking down their noses at the "poors" as they provide "services" out of the kindness of their hearts. The reality is, many of the services we would really want nearby are all located in their community, the not so great ones are pushed out to the other not as affluent neighborhoods. And they could be full of shit, but I'm constantly being hassled by homeless outside of convenience stores asking for money so they can stay at one of the shelters nearby. Shit, our county executives salary is 350k. A flippin civil servant. Anyway, I digress. I'm basically just bitching about my community now. And no, I'm not in California lol

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Thats great! you should mention that to nerds for humanity and the forward party

This is the explanation of how nerds for humanity and the forward party met at texas and everything was completely serendipitous but came together at the end

Nah. I’ll take nuclear any day out west. Put these mega-acre things back East.

Then invest your life savings in a nuclear project.

What's that? You don't what to risk losing your money if the project goes bad, and don't want to or can't afford to wait for a decade plus to see any returns if it does come online?

Gee, wonder why other people aren't doing what you aren't willing to.

You also need to consider the capacity factor, which tops out around 30-35% for wind and 20-25% for solar. So with 300 MW wind and 50 MW solar nameplate capacity the best we can expect is average output of around 120 MW.

Nuclear has a capacity factor of >90% since it only ever stops for maintenance, so a single 1.1 GW reactor (eg an AP1000) is like 8x this plant.

But at least in the US we have plenty of otherwise useless windy land and it's incredibly expensive to build a nuclear plant, so maybe this is the way to go.

>Idk why ppl are so afraid of nuclear power.

because of this:

>Sure, they cost a good bit up front,

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- The world electricity consumption is only 22% of the world total energy consumption. The building of more solar and wind farms won't result in the required level of reduction in emissions over the long run unless we figure out a low-cost way to use solar and wind energy to make steel, concrete, chemicals, and the creation of highly dense energy for long-distance transportation. The only source that can fulfil the high energy and heat needs necessary to address these aforementioned problems is nuclear power.

- The majority of solar cells and high level batteries are made within China, with questionable labour standards. We have already learned in the recent Ukraine war on how damaging it is to rely on another state with world view's that are highly contradiction to ours.

- The world uses equivalent to 140,000 TWH of total energy each year. In order to produce this much energy we need about 1,363,154km2 of land mass dedicated purely to solar energy production. This is twice as large as the total landmass of Turkey, and France, and almost the size of Iran. These solar cells and batteries need to be replaced every twenty to thirty year's, and contain a plethora of dangerous elements with no foreseeable recycling option.

Little short sighted. It pays off over the life of the reactor. Sometimes you need to make sort term sacrifice for long term gain.

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Nothing except the right wing conspiracy nuts in my hometown who banned turbines and solar panels to protect their “country landscape views”.

>Unless we discover a way to make steel, concrete, chemicals, and the generation and storage of high level energy for aircraft, long-distance transport.

This isn't even a sentence.

And "renewables can't power planes therefore the solution is nuclear" seems to have a pretty big logic leap, unless you are suggesting sticking a couple nuclear reactors in a commercial plane.

>I'd be interested in where you got the terrible efficiency data from.

most peaker plants use single cycle gas turbines, which have fairly low efficiency. it's usually in the low 30s for newer plants depending if the plant has heat exchangers to cool the incoming air.

there are also peaker plants that use reciprocating engines, these ones have even worse efficiency.

standard combined cycle gas thermal plants have a second cycle that uses the waste heat from the first cycle to increase the efficiency; in this case it's between 40% and 60%.

I don't know why someone downvoted you, because you're not wrong. This plant can't - yet. Things are progressing quickly and large capital interests are really just now turning to alt-fuel technologies for investments. This is a new thing and a turning point - even with this new investment, policy and regulation roadblocks continue to be erected by fossil fuel financial interests although they are beginning to wane slightly.