*Missing* being the operative word. Any article such as this one, showing electricity cooling towers appearing to emit black steam – by careful use of dusk shadowing – instantly announces itself as human-accusing climate propaganda, like all the others before it using the same camera trick. But as Star Trek’s Scotty used to say: ‘Ye canna change the laws of physics’, which climate dreamers tend to forget. Outlandish costs and highly inefficient methods are not going to work on an industrial scale either. In short, there’s a massive hole in their renewables-based bucket.
– – –
Governments and electric utilities are rapidly embracing the imperative to decarbonize energy use, says the Atlantic Council.

In the context of this effort, they have made substantial commitments to renewable energy generation and battery-based electricity storage through renewable portfolio standards and contractual commitments.

But while the costs of renewable energy generation have rapidly decreased, and their performance has improved, renewable generation is intermittent, and electric-system operators continue to rely on existing thermal resources, particularly natural gas generation, to fill in the gaps when renewable generation is not available.

Battery-based electricity storage is part of the solution, but storage timeframes are currently only on the order of hours.

In addition, the ability to draw on renewable resources varies dramatically by geography.

Baseload or “firm” zero-carbon generation resources, which are not necessarily intended to run all the time, but can be available at any time, will be needed to complement renewable resources in the future, without emitting the CO2 produced by today’s fossil energy system.

These resources might include, for example, fossil-fuel power plants with carbon capture, nuclear power plants with improved dispatchability, geothermal power, and bio-fueled generators.

But the path to developing, and certainly deploying, such resources has been slower and more fraught than for renewables; these “firm” electricity generation resources represent a missing link in the path towards a decarbonized electricity grid.

Continued here.

– – –
Note – the original article headline was:
“Searching for the missing link: Options for firm zero-carbon power”.

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop

https://ift.tt/3fWBtI4

July 24, 2020 at 01:03PM