Jacobsen is a CIVIL engineer... dirt and rocks. We get a civil when we need soil samples taken for a tower foundation. That should be as close to electricity as a Civil Engineer should be allowed by law.
The apparent need for replacement of fossil fuels by more expensive and less reliable renewables is based upon an application of the Fallacy of Misplaced Concretenesss by the argument that is made by a climate model under which an "abstract" event of the future for Earth's climate system is mistaken for a "concrete" event of the future where an "abstract" event of the future is "abstracted" (removed) from a location in space and time whereas a "concrete" event of the future has such a location. For a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), this mistake has the beauty.of weakening the United States against attack on it by the CCP. The CCP avoids weakening itself in this way by building coal plants instead of renewable sources of energy.
A couple of other things Jacobson isn’t aware of, or at least isn’t including. First the battery loading and unloading is far from 100% efficient. 85% is the number that comes to mind. So there goes another chunk of his energy output compared to DC. Second is the short life of the batteries, probably ten-twelve years at 250 annual cycles. Go 700 annual cycles and that will drop to 4 years tops. DC keeps trucking at nameplate capacity.
Finally, batteries have a disturbing tendency to go off line, permanently and instantaneously and spectacularly. A wag could track the MW of battery fires and compare this to DC. It cwill probably take about ten years to match it.
Stanford is on my naughty list these days. So it should be expected that this joker has been spouting curious nonsense for 20 years or so. That is when I tuned him out. I think he was at Cornell at the time.
It's even worse than that. It takes ~200 barrels of oil to make a battery which can only output ~180 barrels of oil. It's more efficient to just use the oil to move the motor directly.
I'm confident a similar loss occurs with solar cells (and perhaps wind turbines), once you figure in all the energy inputs needed for their manufacture.
Hydrocarbons, nuclear, and maybe (really maybe) tidal energy makes sense. Absent a huge increase in battery technology/solar, renewables will only *increase* our need for hydrocarbons/nuclear to meet current energy usage.
There is just so much wrong with Jacobson's fairy tale, I wish I had a spare day to take it all apart. Starting with the solar/wind/battery/gas and it is all 4 of those together, no matter what delusion Jacobson believes in. And it doesn't compete with baseload nuclear it competes with gas peaker plants. Problem is the gas peaker plants make their money on capacity payments which in turn are there because of all the unreliable, intermittent, seasonal wind & solar. So since you have to pay the gas peakers to be on standby for when the wind/solar craps out IN ADDITION to their normal function of backing up a transmission line or major power plant outage. The only real cost of running the gas peaker plants for is fuel cost and that's all the batteries can do, replace some NG fuel @ 2 cents/kwh if on piped gas. No way wind/solar/batteries can even come close to beating that cost. Since the wind + solar often craps out for periods longer than a full day, you need to maintain all existing infrastructure and add all that high capital cost wind + solar + batteries infrastructure + expensive peaking transmission to connect all of that to the existing grid. Not even remotely close to practical.
And his 15,000 cycles or 15yr batteries which ever come first are warrantied @ 65% of initial capacity at 15k cycles. So you need 50% more initial capacity to still get rated capacity @ 15yrs. And that warranty only applies if the company isn't closed and the battery system must be internet monitored and you must use only qualified installers to remove the batteries, and reinstall replacement batteries and you pay their cost, which ain't cheap, probably $100/hr or more. And those batteries have an 82% round-trip efficiency so you actually need to store 22% more than what Jacobson claims.
Keep in mind a NPP runs for 60-100yrs so all the batteries would need to be replaced at least 4-7 times during that lifespan. Along with the solar panels 3-4 times and the wind turbines 4-5 times.
And his home battery system for an avg US household consumption of 30kwh/day requires 3 of Sonnen's 12kwh battery packs which cost $36K each not including the (certified) installation cost. You pay for what you get.
And his 4 of 4hr charge cycles per day is a pipe dream. In areas like California which are unusual in general in that they have fairly reliable solar power. So you get your one 4hr charge in mid-day which you can use to supply part of the evening peak. That's about it. One cycle per day. Now wind is much more intermittent and unreliable as well as seasonal, very low in Dec & Jan typically in California. If it's in the daytime it is useless because you have excess solar to charge the batteries. If it happens at night you might manage one cycle worth which you can possibly utilize for the 6-9am load, if the wind isn't strong already at that time. And very often the wind will be missing and you must keep those gas peakers running which also are supposed to be available if a transmission line or big power plant trips IN ADDITION to replacing missing wind or solar. Playing more capacity chicken with the grid.
So the reality is he ain't going to get his 4 cycles per day, he will maybe average at best 2 full cycles per day, 1/2 the total energy/yr he claims.
And BTW, his Tesla Megapack utility batteries have raised their price by 60% in 2022 over 2021 and have a 2 yr backlog of orders.
“Distribution shifts of nem’s can effect transmission systems market for whioleslae prices and The sudden appearance of previously masked load results in supply and demand imbalances, and the reliability impacts take several forms that the CAISO must address immediately. These impacts 4 I.e. exporting generation with onsite load, such as NEM customers. Exporting generation with minimal onsite load, such as station power, does not create the load masking issues discussed herein. 5 Proposed Decision, p. 18 (citing PG&E Opening Comments to November Ruling at 2). 4 include frequency excursions, line loading, and voltage impacts, but also can include exacerbating contingencies, disrupting load forecast assumptions, causing outages, and drawing upon operating reserves that did not contemplate the masked loads. Additionally, lack of visibility into large non-exporting resources can impact transmission planning for local areas. Without data on the magnitude of generation serving customer load, it is difficult for the CAISO to model local demand accurately in areas with high resource penetration, impacting the CAISO’s assessments of transmission and resource capabilities needed to maintain reliability in local areas. Question 3) If there are identifiable operational challenges impacting grid reliability and safety, can these impacts be mitigated through providing greater visibility of non-export system operations? What data points are required and at what frequency”....
Jacobsen is a CIVIL engineer... dirt and rocks. We get a civil when we need soil samples taken for a tower foundation. That should be as close to electricity as a Civil Engineer should be allowed by law.
The apparent need for replacement of fossil fuels by more expensive and less reliable renewables is based upon an application of the Fallacy of Misplaced Concretenesss by the argument that is made by a climate model under which an "abstract" event of the future for Earth's climate system is mistaken for a "concrete" event of the future where an "abstract" event of the future is "abstracted" (removed) from a location in space and time whereas a "concrete" event of the future has such a location. For a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), this mistake has the beauty.of weakening the United States against attack on it by the CCP. The CCP avoids weakening itself in this way by building coal plants instead of renewable sources of energy.
A couple of other things Jacobson isn’t aware of, or at least isn’t including. First the battery loading and unloading is far from 100% efficient. 85% is the number that comes to mind. So there goes another chunk of his energy output compared to DC. Second is the short life of the batteries, probably ten-twelve years at 250 annual cycles. Go 700 annual cycles and that will drop to 4 years tops. DC keeps trucking at nameplate capacity.
Finally, batteries have a disturbing tendency to go off line, permanently and instantaneously and spectacularly. A wag could track the MW of battery fires and compare this to DC. It cwill probably take about ten years to match it.
Stanford is on my naughty list these days. So it should be expected that this joker has been spouting curious nonsense for 20 years or so. That is when I tuned him out. I think he was at Cornell at the time.
It's even worse than that. It takes ~200 barrels of oil to make a battery which can only output ~180 barrels of oil. It's more efficient to just use the oil to move the motor directly.
I'm confident a similar loss occurs with solar cells (and perhaps wind turbines), once you figure in all the energy inputs needed for their manufacture.
Hydrocarbons, nuclear, and maybe (really maybe) tidal energy makes sense. Absent a huge increase in battery technology/solar, renewables will only *increase* our need for hydrocarbons/nuclear to meet current energy usage.
There is just so much wrong with Jacobson's fairy tale, I wish I had a spare day to take it all apart. Starting with the solar/wind/battery/gas and it is all 4 of those together, no matter what delusion Jacobson believes in. And it doesn't compete with baseload nuclear it competes with gas peaker plants. Problem is the gas peaker plants make their money on capacity payments which in turn are there because of all the unreliable, intermittent, seasonal wind & solar. So since you have to pay the gas peakers to be on standby for when the wind/solar craps out IN ADDITION to their normal function of backing up a transmission line or major power plant outage. The only real cost of running the gas peaker plants for is fuel cost and that's all the batteries can do, replace some NG fuel @ 2 cents/kwh if on piped gas. No way wind/solar/batteries can even come close to beating that cost. Since the wind + solar often craps out for periods longer than a full day, you need to maintain all existing infrastructure and add all that high capital cost wind + solar + batteries infrastructure + expensive peaking transmission to connect all of that to the existing grid. Not even remotely close to practical.
And his 15,000 cycles or 15yr batteries which ever come first are warrantied @ 65% of initial capacity at 15k cycles. So you need 50% more initial capacity to still get rated capacity @ 15yrs. And that warranty only applies if the company isn't closed and the battery system must be internet monitored and you must use only qualified installers to remove the batteries, and reinstall replacement batteries and you pay their cost, which ain't cheap, probably $100/hr or more. And those batteries have an 82% round-trip efficiency so you actually need to store 22% more than what Jacobson claims.
Keep in mind a NPP runs for 60-100yrs so all the batteries would need to be replaced at least 4-7 times during that lifespan. Along with the solar panels 3-4 times and the wind turbines 4-5 times.
And his home battery system for an avg US household consumption of 30kwh/day requires 3 of Sonnen's 12kwh battery packs which cost $36K each not including the (certified) installation cost. You pay for what you get.
And his 4 of 4hr charge cycles per day is a pipe dream. In areas like California which are unusual in general in that they have fairly reliable solar power. So you get your one 4hr charge in mid-day which you can use to supply part of the evening peak. That's about it. One cycle per day. Now wind is much more intermittent and unreliable as well as seasonal, very low in Dec & Jan typically in California. If it's in the daytime it is useless because you have excess solar to charge the batteries. If it happens at night you might manage one cycle worth which you can possibly utilize for the 6-9am load, if the wind isn't strong already at that time. And very often the wind will be missing and you must keep those gas peakers running which also are supposed to be available if a transmission line or big power plant trips IN ADDITION to replacing missing wind or solar. Playing more capacity chicken with the grid.
So the reality is he ain't going to get his 4 cycles per day, he will maybe average at best 2 full cycles per day, 1/2 the total energy/yr he claims.
And BTW, his Tesla Megapack utility batteries have raised their price by 60% in 2022 over 2021 and have a 2 yr backlog of orders.
Can't wait for Dr. Jacobson's "expert" advise/comment on masked loads that are making it harder to keep the grid up:
http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Mar3-2023-OpeningComments-ALJRulingSeekingResponses-Questions-LoadMaskingWorkshop-NetEnergyMetering-R11-09-011.pdf
“Distribution shifts of nem’s can effect transmission systems market for whioleslae prices and The sudden appearance of previously masked load results in supply and demand imbalances, and the reliability impacts take several forms that the CAISO must address immediately. These impacts 4 I.e. exporting generation with onsite load, such as NEM customers. Exporting generation with minimal onsite load, such as station power, does not create the load masking issues discussed herein. 5 Proposed Decision, p. 18 (citing PG&E Opening Comments to November Ruling at 2). 4 include frequency excursions, line loading, and voltage impacts, but also can include exacerbating contingencies, disrupting load forecast assumptions, causing outages, and drawing upon operating reserves that did not contemplate the masked loads. Additionally, lack of visibility into large non-exporting resources can impact transmission planning for local areas. Without data on the magnitude of generation serving customer load, it is difficult for the CAISO to model local demand accurately in areas with high resource penetration, impacting the CAISO’s assessments of transmission and resource capabilities needed to maintain reliability in local areas. Question 3) If there are identifiable operational challenges impacting grid reliability and safety, can these impacts be mitigated through providing greater visibility of non-export system operations? What data points are required and at what frequency”....