The Energy Thread

[Moliere]

Fuel Mix

I'm not sure if this page link will work, or maybe it's updated every day, but it's amazing to me what Texas has done in regard to alternative energy sources. For most of this summer, during peak day times (9am to 6pm) Texas is generating about 1/3 of its power from solar energy. There have been times when solar was over 50% of the energy produced. It's really quite amazing and seems a bit ironic given the levels of oil and gas produced in the Permian basin.

What's also pretty cool is that Texas has also figured out, to a point, how to alleviate the sudden drop off in solar power when the sun goes down. You can see in the chart the amount of power discharged from batteries (which were charged when solar was generating its peak amount of energy) basically fills in most of that gap until the power needs decline. All of this an my power bill has, for the most part, stayed fairly consistent year over year.

[Moliere]

In other news, the UAE has left OPEC. This is a pretty big deal in oil and gas sectors and the consensus seems to be that this will ultimately lead to a general reduction in oil prices as the emirates ramps up production they kept down due to the cartel. UAE was pretty much the only other swing capacity producer in OPEC other than Saudi Arabia.

[Moliere]

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has filed applications for their fusion power plant to be located in and generate power for Northern Virginia, with plans to be generating power in the “early 2030’s.”

https://cfs.energy/chesterfield/overview

Fusion is now always only ten years away.

Maybe it can power all those data centers in Virginia…in ten years

[All-American]

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has filed applications for their fusion power plant to be located in and generate power for Northern Virginia, with plans to be generating power in the “early 2030’s.”

https://cfs.energy/chesterfield/overview

Fusion is now always only ten years away.

[Northwestcoug]

That is very cool.

Japan recently opened an "osmotic power plant". Basically, the put highly saline water and fresh water together and use the resulting pressure differential to generated power. Won't generate much power, but kind of cool.

https://www.renewableinstitute.org/j...-clean-energy/

Hadn't heard of that either.

Osmosis, is there anything it can't do?

[Green Monstah]

My personal favorite storage technique is to use green energy to pump water up a mountain, then at night/when the wind doesn’t blow, flow the water down the mountain, turning turbines that generate electricity. Not sure how efficient it is, but for whatever reason, I enjoy the simplicity of the concept.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I have never heard of a sand battery. A company in Finland is using it to store energy produced from renewable resources:

https://newatlas.com/energy/largest-sand-battery-finland-pornainen/

tldr: When the demand for renewable energy sources is low it gets converted to heat to 'charge' a sand battery, which can capture and hold the heat for long periods of time. That heat can then be used to power things like turbines to provide energy.

That is very cool.

Japan recently opened an "osmotic power plant". Basically, the put highly saline water and fresh water together and use the resulting pressure differential to generated power. Won't generate much power, but kind of cool.

https://www.renewableinstitute.org/japans-first-osmotic-power-plant-what-it-means-for-clean-energy/

[Northwestcoug]

I have never heard of a sand battery. A company in Finland is using it to store energy produced from renewable resources:

https://newatlas.com/energy/largest-sand-battery-finland-pornainen/

tldr: When the demand for renewable energy sources is low it gets converted to heat to 'charge' a sand battery, which can capture and hold the heat for long periods of time. That heat can then be used to power things like turbines to provide energy.

[Northwestcoug]

It lives!!!!

By 2019, separate teams of scientists were ready to say that while cold fusion had started off as a notorious flop, there were interesting scientific questions at the heart of the story that merited further study.

Now one of those teams has revealed that they can reliably demonstrate an enhanced version of nuclear fusion at temperatures far below those at which reactors typically operate, which they say opens the door to new advances.

Not yet ready for the Nobel Prize though:

To be clear, Dr. Berlinguette added, there is no immediate “energy miracle” associated with the result. The Thunderbird reactor – named after the UBC mascot, a mythical creature in Indigenous lore – only produces about one-billionth of a watt of power for every 15 watts needed to run it.

But when applied as a tool for examining a curious and elusive electrochemical effect, there remains the possibility that it could lead to something more.

good enough for a Nature paper apparently.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/science/article-ubc-experiment-cold-fusion-thunderbird-reactor/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky

[Applejack]

First fusion power plant under construction with goal to provide power by 2028.

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/world-first-fusion-power-plant-helion

That seems way ahead of realistic to me, but wouldn’t that be something.

The U was so far ahead of its time!

[All-American]

First fusion power plant under construction with goal to provide power by 2028.

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/world-first-fusion-power-plant-helion

That seems way ahead of realistic to me, but wouldn’t that be something.

[All-American]

Commonwealth Fusion Systems announces plans to build first commercial fusion power plant in Virginia, expected to come online "in the early 2030's." Fusion power now only always ten years away.

https://news.mit.edu/2024/commonwealth-fusion-systems-unveils-worlds-first-fusion-power-plant-1217

[Uncle Ted]

All that AI processing need energy...

Three Mile Island nuclear plant to restart, power Microsoft data centers

Microsoft and Constellation Energy just unveiled a power purchase deal that would enable a restart of a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
[...]

https://www.axios.com/2024/09/20/thr...rosoft-ai-deal

And our AI overlords need electricity even when the sun isn't shinning.

[All-American]

NIF repeats its achievement from late last year, with slightly greater energy gains.

https://fortune.com/2023/08/06/nuclear-fusion-ignition-breakthrough-repeated-by-lab/amp/

[Bo Diddley]

Rigged readouts of driving range in Teslas.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge, a source told Reuters. The automaker last year became so inundated with driving-range complaints that it created a special team to cancel owners’ service appointments.