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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ธ.ค. 2021
- This episode is sponsored by Wren, a website where you calculate your carbon footprint. Sign up to make a monthly contribution to offset your carbon footprint or support rainforest protection projects: www.wren.co/start/scishow
Despite the rise of renewable energy, the backbone of the power grid is fossil fuels. Adapting the grid to green energy sources is more complicated than flipping a switch.
Hosted by: Hank Green
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This episode is sponsored by Wren, a website where you calculate your carbon footprint. Sign up to make a monthly contribution to offset your carbon footprint or support rainforest protection projects: www.wren.co/start/scishow
Stop accepting sponsors from wren. I enjoy your content but it is hypocritical and pushes the exact opposite of every argument we have in support for green energy and who truly is at fault.
Hold the corporations responsible for climate change to account instead of expecting people just living their lives to do so. Voting for those in public office who support good climate policy and voting out those who fail to is a far more effective method of enacting change than breaking your own bank over resolving comparatively negligible emissions. Support taxing the ones who got rich by causing the mess we’re in; don’t waste your money on wren.
Ending a climate change video by saying you're sponsored by Wren is like a bad punchline
Please stop accepting sponsorship from companies that blame individuals for the climate crisis. It's the billionaires and their industrial machine that need to sort it out.
"Personal carbon footprint" is a well-known scam meant to offload responsibility. Whatever intern was forced to type those words out, I feel for you. But you should have refused.
Tom Scott has a wonderful video on a UK power system that uses excess electricity to pump water to an uphill reservoir and when they need more power let the water flow down to create hydroelectric power. This is what Hank briefly mentions in this video and it's fascinating to watch in more detail.
Genius concept
Its called Pumped Hydro or Reversible Hydro... Some use that system Hank mentioned (just put it back into the same reservoir) others have another, on an way higher up place. Sometimes they pump water from places in the midway between the two(So the overall efficiency is better, since the gravitational gradient is lower than from the bottom, so less energy is used for that pumping, but then they use the full gravitational potential for the generation. Its the most used storage mechanism in Portugal . Its pretty expensive to implement since you have to excavate some huge tunnels for control rooms in the middle of the nearby mountains. but much more flexible and long term than solid batteries.
Mechanical batteries are amazing, they still lack in scale to make up for the efficiency, but to have all that potential energy available on demand in the middle of the day is totally what we need more of and more research into larger and more efficient system. 👍
problem is, you need to have proper geological features to accommodate for that otherwise it is just money wasted. Most pump hydro have already been developed, and the ones you could still build are not worth it
Or they could build more Nuclear plants.
The Shetland and Faroe islands have so much windpower they have to turn off alot of their wind turbines so they don't overwhelm their grid. They also use excess power to perform electrolysis and store hydrogen for later use.
I think you meant to type hydrogen instead of helium :-)
And they said the grid can barely function off wind power
8:58 One way i have seen this problem addressed is by phisically building inertia into the system through the use of so-called "flywheel energy storage" (FES). Its basically exactly what it says: giant heavy wheels spinning. This kind of storage is pretty old, but modern ones make use of modern technology such as being suspended magnetically in a vacuum, minimising drag. This acts as the kind of short term energy storage that can (potentially) replace the inertia in the turbines.
Ya these things are old tech that we've made crazy efficient, tons of spinning steel in a vacuum that encounters so little friction I can't imagine the time it'd take for it to come to a stop from full chap without being used to reconvert.
Sounds like someone forgot to make a clutch.
Unless I missed something.
I was thinking this too - intentionally inserting an analogue component into the digital system to create the graceful degradation effect to create the buffer.
That said, I'm now wondering if large stores of batteries across the network do not already do this? Taking our handheld batter powered devices, it seems it switches between charge and discharge almost immediately and seamlessly whenever we plug and unplug it from a power source; no observable fluctuation, no loss of temporary memory. This means the same effect can be achieved through sufficient capacitors functioning within the grid?
@@IHateUniqueUsernames There's good old fashioned relays too. The energy can also be used to boost the speed of a slower propeller to stabilize the grid so to speak if more focus went into it.
It needs more brainstorming but I see potential.
This technology is relatively new and obviously has some bugs to work out.
You can also use water by use of turbines pump water up and then get it back by running them through turbines
Thanks for the great video...Hank GREEN!!!
I see what you did there.
I was gonna write this )=
@@carlacastrodasilvasantana6960 ,,, AAAAAGGGHHH ,,, bummer .. Just think """ Great Minds think alike""" .. LOL Hope i got you to smile ...
@@jamesmueller8701 (=
That’s the science one right? Lol
Great video, Im currently writing my bachelor thesis about PV+ battery storage and battery storage system get alot cheaper, when you consider the value of the storage system on the grid, things like spinning reserve, frequency and voltage controll etc can be done by the battery storage, if big enough and can make regulatory fossil fuel plants unneccassary, saving money in the process. If these grid services are considered in the value calculation of the storage system, they become pretty cheap actually.
they are cheap as they will get under current tech.
Well kinda cheap, imports are getting more expensive or did, I think it fallen back down recently and China is really starting to hate the world which is where most manufactured stuff comes and also has the most rare earth minerals for solar systems. So it will be questionable in a few years
@@knightwolf3511 sad part is the west gave them the know how. and continue it. here is a knife stranger stab me.
@@victorhopper6774 can people on China stop calling UT the west it honestly gets really confusing if you mean America, Europe, North America, United Kingdom.
Basically from the point of China other then Australia and somewhat Russia. Everyone is west.
It made since when most people called America west but now I'm really getting confused. Since it basiccly everyone but for china
The power grid isn't ready for anything....period.
Especially in the US. The grid is near it's max capacity, its past the life time expectancy and it like every country in the world is not ready for a solar flare that likely will happen leaving people without electricity for possibly over 2 years.
Until the grid is fixed to where society is not at risk of collapsing idc what is powering it unless it helps us when society is reset
First Energy is investing billions every year. Massive upgrades to capacity and reliability. It is getting there.
Check out the South Australian grid, a gigawatt scale region that deals with the Inertia issue by using Synchronous Condensers and Interconnectors, enabling 95% renewable penetration periods. It does this with small support from peaking gas only, no nuclear or coal, and is leading the energy transition, proving these questions mostly answered.
They are living on borrowed time. You would need to produce enough surplus hydrogen (using sustainable energy sources) to supply you with enough fuel to cover you for the several years (at a minimum) where you would have insufficient solar energy during the next volcanic winter. In fact you would need even more if you want to keep producing food as that will require heated greenhouses and LED lighting on a huge scale. If you don't do this you will cruise along patting yourself on the back for being a good little greenie until boom the next big eruption happens without warning and then it starts to get very cold and dim, your food supplies run low and then chaos breaks out as people fight over the remaining food and energy options. It is the big existential threat that is actually most likely, but the least often talked about. It really is just a matter of time.
@@DanielSMatthews The scenario you're describing impacts more than just solar energy use. The traditional energy sources is also a matter of time. They're doing well at the moment, but you're making an assumption they aren't continuously assessing energy needs.
@@julesverneinoz You have no idea what I have or have not assumed. Let me spell the facts out for you, if you don't run your civilisation on nuclear power, or have years of surplus hydrogen storage then you will not survive a volcanic winter and therefore there is _nothing_ sustainable about your civilisation.
@@DanielSMatthews I say bring it on. SA's only volcano, Mt. Gambier, is due to explode sometime in the next 4000-5000 years. We'll see if SA is still limited to the current energy mix and technology actually have not improved by 6021.
@@DanielSMatthews Nuclear don't work if you don't have cooling water.
Thank you so much for making this video! I learned so much and this is all so important
Please lern more from other sources. This was totally missleading if your interest is trully to preseve the ecosystem.
@@BresciGaetano and you just drop a comment with nothing further to back it up? You work for Exxon or what?
@@august1871 hahahahaha. I work and study for myself in biocompatibile building since i was a school kid.
Is this greenbulshit that is working for corporations.
The only solution is to waste less energy for dumb things.
My grandpa was an OG programmer. His job at a hydroelectric plant was to make the program that would calculate how much water to pump up at night so there would be energy the next day.
Thank you! That was really interesting and informative.
Science is massively under-funded.
I wonder what Mr.Beast has to say to that.
I dont have Twitter myself, but how about this idea: Let's ask him. Someone should.
Yooo! Hank!! Looking good my man! I want that NASA coat so bad. Giving us the good stuff and looking good while doing it!
Most people have no idea about the tsunami of battery storage that is slated to come online in the coming years as patents expire for abundant and low cost LFP chemistries.
Batteries can delay the need to upgrade transmission lines and simulate inertia in the system.
As far as I can understand one of the best ways to handle problems like this can be understood from small homesteaders.
Just as small homesteaders can recycle all of the garbage, waste, and sewage they produce - so also whole neighborhoods & businesses.
Homesteaders, Businesses, and whole Neighborhoods can also produce their own fuel such as biogas & biodiesel.
Thank you for sharing helpful and informative videos!
There are problems when applying to large scale operations (whole city) vs just a single home. I doubt that a single home in suburbia would even be able to do such a thing and produce their own energy. Even with homes utilizing solar energy it's still supported by the power grid from plants.
Homesteading technologies require large amounts of land to be effective. Even the population densities of small towns quickly make homesteading very inefficient and a lot of resources are spent duplicating tools. A comfortable homestead is about 3 acres per person in a household including the children. It also doesn't agree with conservationism as you are trying to maximize production and recovery times of resources so you get a lot of softer trees and corn. 1920 is about as far as homesteading could get us before we had to specialize and mechanize everything which took more electricity and fuel but less food.
I would love to eliminate the cans from the vegetables that I eat, but growing and cooking all of those plants is far too much for me to do. I'm glad to let a company do that for me. What we need is alternative packaging.
@@d3m0n54in7
I do not understand your criticism. Where do you get these findings?
It does take households, neighborhoods, and small farms adequately dedicated to recycling everything and producing their own fuel & food. It does take adequate planning.
There are some Homesteaders which can be found through TH-cam who demonstrate how they are recycling everything , producing their own fuel, and growing their own food. Admittedly some homesteaders are distracted.
Admittedly some waste and garbage is not easy to recycle. Solar panels that have to be thrown out probably should be stored until they can be properly recycled. Solar panels usually contain toxins.
Homesteaders, businesses, neighborhoods, and even households can conceivably produce Biogas.
How are the artificial suburbs and urban dwellings adequately self sufficient and sustainable?
@@dandavatsdasa8345 to your last question - they aren't with the proposed model of everyone producing their own power. We live in reality and thus the pipe dream of everyone being homesteaders isn't possible. We did that in human history and we, by and large, migrated from that model out of necessity.
We have large populations that must be sustained.
I would like a look at alternatives to Gas power plants in the role of peaker plants. Nuclear, coal, and geothermal have very stable output, while wind and solar have erratic outputs. Only gas has a controllable variable output, unless there is something else?
Once you get serious about eliminating co2 emissions you need storage to replace gas peaker plants. Pumped hydro if you're lucky enough to have a suitable location. Hydrogen or ammonia can be generated from green electricity in times of excess, stored in tanks, then put through a fuel cell to generate electricity when needed. Li ion batteries are too expensive for this but other cheaper types of battery are being developed.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 Gas plants should be pushed into serve immediately to displace coal and oil. With their quick repay time you could quickly reduce emissions economically. Then they can be relegated to peaker plants and RNG used compared to traditional gas.
Um, most* windmills produce unregulated AC which is converted to DC then back to AC for the grid.
edit: *added 'most'
I always have felt our battery technology seemed strangely behind in some way. I can only wonder how much power we generate just kinda vanishes into the ether because it isn't being used in the places it's going. Is that a thing?
But yeah. Sure, we can think of really clever workarounds and that's great, possibly even better, but the more I learn about the problems we face the more I realize that, man, it feels like our knowledge of material science is *really* far behind our physics. Feels like we have a lot of problems where we know the answer but not how to get there physically...
Technology of "battery" isnt "strangely behind" - the one property of this universe - ever increasing entropy - goes directly against concept of a battery.
This universe wants to spread energy within any volume as equally as possible.
the more energy you try to dump into smaller volume the more all laws of physics go against you and more energy the storage itself costs. /akka it gets more expensive/
you can only store portion of energy if you steal it from the flow of gradient.
Like even sun does its best to slowly radiate away the energy that releases from its gravity trying to crush it. Its also just a limited gravity based battery.
And material science - well there is a certain limitation - we only have about 190 elements to relliably work with. universe did not give us more. And they have finite set of properties. Dont expect miracles from material science. (especially since lot and lot of combinations have been tried and found useless)
like " hydrogen storage" is supposedly just an engeniering problem for more then a century... and the solutions now arent actually much better then then.
hydrogen atoms and molecules are simply so small that they difund (and chemicaly destroy) any known material to humanity fairly quickly. (so - having a hydrogen distribution system comparable to natural gas one is going to be quite expensive as the tubing needs to be stronger, and it will have to be replaced more often...
(and well to deliver same volume of energy - higher pressures since hydrogen is nice per kilogram but abbysmal per volume... so you have to increase pressure - dangerous...)
in essence - with what universe provided us - there may not exist a real solution to the problem. its like asking for a square root of negative one...
Oh my god it all makes sense now! That’s why AC/DC have a lightning bolt in their band logo! I never knew where the name came from before
Molten salt reactors for the win.
Are there any commercially viable MSRs yet?
Not viable yet and even if viable couldn't be build fast enough to be of much help in the climate crisis.
Is nobody going to mention Hank's sick ass jacket?
The CURRENT development in energy generation seems positive.
no ... just no
Strange how El Nino isn't really mentioned anymore.
nope, and that is a hard NOPE.
We are currently paying 5-8 times as much for our power in sweden right now thanks to the gov shutting down nuclear before the grid is anywhere close to being able to store and use the majority of the green energy.
Nuclear isn't even that bad though! Why'd they shut it down so early?
@@Guru_1092 They had promised their voting base that they would, and the plant needed repairs, so instead of repairing it, they just shut it down.
Now were buying coal power from poland and gas from russia to cover the most immediate needs of the country, and its going to get colder up here so more heating=even more demand.
I luckily signed a 5year contract on my energy price, so i'm fine. But the poor bastards who didn't have to pay ALOT now.
Wind is not blowing all the time, the water power can't be stored and transfered properly to the south of sweden so that's all wasted. But yeah, "Go green" has really not worked out so far up here.
You need more nuclear not less (as I'm sure you agree) - hopefully, you'll be getting some SMRs and other Gen IV reactors soon.
@@LFTRnow We can only hope, they have based ALL of this on the fact that "We don't really know what we are going to do with the nuclear waste.. it could be dangerous!"
As hundreds of people die every year in work accidents involving renewables.
I'm on the nuclear train myself yes, even the people who hate nuclear have to have seen this comming.
There's so much focus on the toxic waste that nuclear creates, and its half-life. Do you know what the half-life of arsenic is? Or the other toxic stuff that's released with the other forms of energy? Trick question: they don't have half-lives at all. They remain toxic for eternity. Who cares if nuclear waste has a half-life of a couple million years?
Note that Hydro can also store power by stopping water flow allowing water to build up in the reservoir. As I've heard it told the hydro plants at Niagara Falls can in principle turn off Niagara Falls to store up water in the reservoir. This kind of "storage" (delayed production/consumption) has very high efficiency versus any kind of active storage.
Note there are power grids in the world that rely exclusively or almost exclusively on hydroelectric generation. Several Canadian provinces have power utilities whose original main source of power was hydroelectricity thus the electricity utility is known as the hydro company, even when as in Ontario a substantial amount of power comes from nuclear and natural gas (and used to not so long a go come from coal). Some provinces such as Quebec and Newfoundland generate almost all their power from Hydro, other provinces generate none of their power from Hydro.
I think the way Hank pronounces Turbine sounds like Turban and I can't help but find it a little jarring.
Actually, it takes quite some effort so sync wind turbines to feed the grid! You might need to revisit that one ;)
but they're doing it every day?
@@ValeriePallaoro yes, but it is not as easy as it sounds and is very intermittent.
Wind blows too irregular and you have to "tune" it continuously by breaking the turbine.
Wind turbines do what they can. The difference is made up by gas usually. Easier to regulate
@@chucknorris277 you don't know what you are talking about.
You need to spin the turbine at certain speeds to sync then with the grid, there is no other way and they do not "just" work.
@@sjoervanderploeg4340 Modern wind turbines adjust the angle of their blades nowadays.
Also, there are plans to use offshore windpower for H2 generation. The idea is to supply steel plants, chemical plants and other industries with H2. today they get the H2 from refineries generated from natural gas or propane. that is meant to be replaced. caverns in salt domes (cylinders of up to 70 x 500m) will be used as buffer at app 200 bars and in time of need the surplus H2 can be used in Gas turbines. The caverns are now used for crude oil, diesel etc. Some are empty and available. The energy storage capacity is a magnitude bigger than all the hydroelectric plants together. Yes, it costs, but is cheaper than power from a newbuilt nuclear power plant f.e. that in Hinckley. Studies say the cost will drop to about the cost of today power plants from coal. Not sure about that. There are calculations for transport via pipeline or liquified per ship or maybe in form of ammonia.
"In 1888, Charles Brush, an Ohio-based engineer, built a 60-foot tower with a 56-foot rotor to generate up to about 12kW of electricity."
Dang, I had no idea. He also got his PhD from one of the universities that eventually merged into my alma mater. Not even 30 seconds into this video and I've already learned something new.
I wish everyone could see this, understand it and have the will to take appropriate action. It is SO SAD that we are so divided and so poorly trained to think critically to make informed decisions that are in the best interest of all of us
Voltage is the speed of the river, current is how wide/deep the river is, resistance is the rocks along the bottom and water mills
Nope. Current is the speed of the river. Resistance is the width/depth and also the rocks. Voltage is the source, the headwaters, the gravitational force (potential really) from all that water at a higher elevation.
@@matthewevans7703 you're right! Voltage is the potential
Does "that town in Colorado" have a name? I would like to know.
Guessing you live in CO and are wondering there homes are too?
@@VariantAEC No.
There are three really important points that you missed. 1) Load sharing characteristics and limitations are a huge problem. 2) Compensating for demand peaking in a distributed system is really difficult with renewables. 3) The cost of refitting existing residential areas for microgrids is really expensive.
1) That's what electrical engineering is made for.
2) That's what microgrids are useful for, plus new tech in development.
3) That's what is called *investment.*
And, when the cost of keeping the fossil fuel matrix is the future of our offspring and the life of the planet, the best we can do is to find solutions to the problems/collaborate with any initiative that change the current energy matrix/vote for every politician who has the replacement of the current energy matrix as a goal... instead of just enumerating the problems.
Also, in case you haven't noticed, a fatal flaw of the fossil fuel matrix is it isn't renewable. Even without the climate crisis, the same we have to change to renewable sources, sooner or later. Sooner is less expensive.
@@MariaMartinez-researcher Thank you for your information. However, if we don't enumerate the problems, how do we find solutions together? The best thing is providing the problems and solutions together for discussion, but asking what we are concerned about also is a good way to open our minds to make the world better. The worst thing is having some problems we do not know or someone knows but does not point out until it happens. If enumerating the problems is to stop thinking, it is not what I proposed.
@@MariaMartinez-researcher On point 1, I think innovation is the word you're looking for. Electrical engineers have known about and dealt with load sharing for as long as the electrical distribution has been a thing. Investment in renewable generation will do nothing to alleviate the problem because its a characteristic of a transmission/distribution system. On point 2, microgrids have nothing to do with demand peaking unless they incorporate batteries or some other form of energy storage - a point the video also made quite clearly. On point 3 - whose investment? You're talking tens of thousands of dollars per home. Are you going to requite the property owner to pony up the money to make the changes? Are you going to fund it through taxes? I don't think you understand the magnitude of the cost involved. Plus, each group/subdivision of houses will have to install microgrid infrastructure. That's millions of dollars per neighborhood. For the overwhelmingly vast majority of houses and for every neighborhood. You talk about investment, what about investment in spent nuclear fuel recovery instead of just burying it? You should look into the manufacture and disposal of solar panels. Strip mining in Asia and mostly dumped in landfills after a couple of years. On the other hand, there are low emission alternatives like natural gas, ICGG coal, and next gen nuclear plants that are available, viable, and effective.
Flywheel batteries for every solar farm to give that mechanical inertia back to the grid that you were mentioning there? I dunno, would that work Hank? 🤔
Short term, sure. But it would be very very expensive.
I was thinking about capacitors, as they work kind of like an electronic version of a flywheel.
How about adding large capacitors and ...yes...large flywheels for "smoothing" electrical storage?
Flywheels would work to add the inertia solar lacks, and too control frequency. Doesn't really work for long term storage.
The power grid in it's current state isn't even ready for regular fossil fuel energy.
This is so hopelessly wrong that if it has to be explained (and it clearly needs to be explained to you), then already lost any arguments about how you think the grid isn't made to work via fossil fuels.
Good job!
@@VariantAEC you misunderstand. Carlos *doesn't* mean that it wasn't built with fossil fuels in mind. Carlos means that the grid in his area is designed so poorly that even with reliance on fossil fuels it still fails to function correctly.
I had solar city come to my house in Pennsylvania, where they presented a bunch of #s to me about how solar panels will reduce my electric bill to $0. After they left I worked through their #s. They made some pretty ambitious claims. Like they didnt really take nighttime into account. They also suggested that the panels would operate at 100% of their efficiency 100% of the time, ignoring the fact that in winter, the sun is only out for around 9 hrs a day and it's very low in the sky. They ignored April and May, where it rains nearly every day. In the end I determined that it would take around 60 to 80 years for the solar panels to pay for themselves. But they only last for 20 to 25! Solar panels are great in a desert on the equator, not so much in the artic.
Since when is Pennsylvania in the arctic?
@@denisedenise2231 ot gets dark at 5pm I'm illinois right now..
PV Sales Reps - the used car salesmen of the 21st century.
@@knightwolf3511 in Michigan too. Still hardly the arctic.
This is precisely why I did a hard pass when they tried rolling out solar in northern Ontario 15 years ago. Sure, when the sun is shining in the summer it's great, but the weather could be pretty hostile where I was at the time (-40ºC in the winter, +40ºC in the summer wasn't unheard of), the days are pretty short in the winter when I'd really need the power (electric heat suuuuucks), and at the time 15 years was pretty optimistic for the lifespan of the panel at the best of times. Essentially, payback would be never.
That jacket is awesome
Inverters can provide virtual inertia. Most of the critism about what inverters can't do actually stems from some pretty short term thinking with respect to creating legislation regarding interconnection of inverters to the grid. Most of the early legislation assumed that all advanced grid functions would continue to be provided by traditional rotating assets hence all that inverters were allowed to do was export watts.
Luckily all of this is now changing as legislation is being rewritten around the realization that the grid of the future will require all renewable assets to participate in providing advanced grid functions and services.
Virtual inertia? Yeah, no.
I am surprised about that microgrid city, absolutely brilliant and this in the US where supposedly much anti-science reigns. In Europe however, governments will think twice before allowing microgrids since there is a tax on energy when one buys it from the big producers. Perhaps producing it yourself could be taxed too. They will find a good reason.
That's already happening
In Germany you pay taxes on solar energy produced and used your home.
@@Way2Death I don't have them but here in Belgium people with solar panels are unhappy too. First the government gives certain long term advantages for the owners who install them. Now suddenly the rules change..
@@Way2Death Science is massively under-funded.
I wonder what Mr.Beast has to say to that.
I dont have Twitter myself, but how about this idea: Let's ask him. Someone should.
EXCELLENT JACKET
This. Is. Why. We. Need. The. Infrastructure bill! We're long due on upgrading!
Replace all coal burners with molten salt reactors, microgrid your rural towns.
We can fix this.
Smoke another one for me bruh
mOlTeN sAlT rEaCtOrS
Coal is not perfect either, in Australia at the moment every day there is a good chance that at least one generator is down for repairs somewhere on the grid, and it tends to be a lot of capacity lost.
Even if green energy requires a smart (and updated) grid, I feel like renewable energy should still be used for processes that don't require a set time, like training machine learning algorithms.
Charging cars, heating cooling. The key is prices should be low when there is plenty, and high when there isn't enough, but to do that, your meter has to be able to measure when you are using. Mine can't.
Considering that a computer CPU might cost $300 but perhaps use $15 per year in electricity, it is a waste of resources to idle computer processes to utilize only renewable energy.
The term for that is called demand management. It's definitely part of the solution for renewable intermittency. Peak electricity pricing is one form of it. On the consumer side, heat pumps, A/C units, and car chargers are the low hanging fruit for it. It's fairly common for utilities to have programs to tweak your smart thermostat to help cut down the power use or to give you lower rates to charge your car at night with cheap electricity. There's definitely more that can be done, though.
I say this not looking at consumer prices. Rather, I'm looking at the impact on the environment, and companies that design around renewable energy for that same reason--not costs.
@@Erik-pu4mj This seems like another example of having a system that is supposed to weigh all factors by putting them in terms of a common unit of so-called currency, and then ignoring the results of that evaluation, by advocating other solutions for special reasons: "impact on environment", "water usage", "energy usage", "social welfare", etc. Rather than pleading special circumstances, I think it would be better served to investigate where the current evaluation has unaccounted for externalities.
Fun fact: the National Power Grid in the UK would ring ITV to find out precisely when the ad breaks were scheduled in Coronation Street. Because everyone got up and put the kettle on!
Whenever the title is a question, the answer to that question is always No
This can and will be done. First, batteries can provide synthetic inertia. The tools are transmission, load shifting(like charging your car when there is plenty), storage, and overproduction. If wind and solar are cheaper than storage, build more, and curtail it if you have too much, at least until somebody comes along that is willing to take the excess for cheap.
Load shifting sounds an awful lot like rationing. I'm not sure how well that will play in developed countries.
@@glynnec2008It isn't. Think of it like power goes on sale sometimes. Other times, you have to pay full price. I can set my car to charge any time I want. Right now, I don't have a meter that knows when I charge, but I should. Now if I chose to charge when power is cheap, I make more available when it isn't. Imagine California, with great solar resources. Set the thermostat to cool the house 2 degrees extra, and when the sun goes down, and you have the evening peak, turn it up 4 degrees, and save money with your smart thermostat.
@@glynnec2008 Load sharring works when implemented with variable prices. i.e. If it cost $50 to charge your EV at peak times (not much renewables), but $5 at off-peak (when renewables abundant), when would you honestly rather charge your EV (or hot water tank etc) especially if done automatically by pricing software linked to maybe your diary/weekly travel history when you may need your car or hot water etc.
Wind turbans, my favourite
Why not use flywheel batteries for wind and solar to smooth out the supply?
Science is massively under-funded.
I wonder what Mr.Beast has to say to that.
I dont have Twitter myself, but how about this idea: Let's ask him. Someone should.
Honestly, having a battery in every home is a good thing, but there's a better battery out there.
Water reservoirs.
Seriously. Pump water upstream into a reservoir when there's excess power and reduced demand, and let it out through some turbines when you need more power.
He did mention pumped hydro storage. But it's expensive to build and can't be build everywhere storage is needed.
Also people won't have to buy batteries for their home of they have an electric car. With vehicle to grid or vehicle to home the car can effectively act as a house battery.
@@ooooneeee I mean, they kinda... don't... have to buy batteries for their home if they have an electric car. The car itself has a massive battery, which in THEORY could work as a battery for the home, but not without some broad refitting. There is some theory being tossed around about using electric cars plugged into the grid for load balancing, i.e. using EVERYONE'S electric car to keep the entire grid balanced during load dips, but that would require everyone being onboard with potentially reducing their vehicle range without warning, which presents a safety issue. It'd also need a lot more electric cars, which the grid isn't set up for yet in a lot of places, whether it be multi-family structures, or just areas of cities where the grid is just... old. Which is more places than you wanna think about, especially in America. Seriously, it's amazing we can keep the grid running at all.
We've got a Ton of ways to store power, and even with "unpredictable" power sources, there are ways to balance that load at the transmission level. The biggest issue we have is getting it places where it needs to be, as we could build massive solar farms in desert country where there are no people, but the problem is that there are... you know... no people, and by the time you've run that electricity to where there ARE people, you've gone through a lot of loss. One of the strongest contenders is windmills on coastlines, as a HUGE amount of major cities are within a couple hundred miles of major coastal areas, and wind turbines are geared and spread in large numbers, which means that yes, they can be load-balanced as well. Only trick that comes in at that point is making sure you can keep flight lines clear for incoming aircraft, but that shouldn't be a HUGE issue.
Well this video was pretty cool
I'm blessed and lucky to live in the province of Québec. Ninety-four percent of Québec's electricity generation comes from hydroelectric resources. Québec's electricity rates are among the lowest in North America.
Thanks for the juice down here in new england
@@chucknorris277 Hey man, anytime. We, Québécois, always like to lend a helping hand. You guys helped us a lot back in the 1998's freezing rain catastrophy we went through!!!! What goes around comes around! Many tks for that!
Physical rotating inertia isn’t needed to sync up the grid. It just needs a primary source that everyone uses as the reference frequency… it’s 2021, not 1901. Then generating sources can lead the phase angle by the amount needed to push the current out, and everything will remain in sync.
The argument for physical rotating inertia is that it arrests the immediate frequency drop following the loss of a generator (and yes, governor and load response also play a part before AGC and contingency reserves correct the problem)…..you can research the problem of declining frequency response if you would like to know more
cool story bro.
sick jacket hank
i may have missed it being mentioned, but too much wind is also a problem for wind turbines.
Fun fact; AC/DC Headaches is their best album.
SciShow, y’all should’ve mentioned geothermal energy. There’s new geothermal methods that can produce base load power w/ inertia anywhere on Earth’s surface using existing drilling technology. That’s a much better replacement for coal and gas than nuclear or hydro.
Geothermal is great but more expensive than nuclear and hydro in geographic locations that dont have geo. heat close to the surface.
@@simonloncaric7967 look up EGS and AGS, the newest geothermal technologies. They can create geothermal sources anywhere on earth and have fewer environmental impacts. Unlike nuclear, the only policy change needed is to put the environmental review requirements for EGS/AGS on par with fracking instead of regular geothermal.
Have you ever traveled from Chicago to Indy on I-65? If no, do it at dusk. The wind farms stretch as far as the eye can see, in every direction for at least two repeats of Adele's current hit on the local FM station. It is ridiculously beautiful and gets bigger every year.
And surprisingly the wind power produced there is only a fraction of that produced in the further western parts of the US…..the wind farms you are referring to are likely Fowler and Meadow Lake
I think the real question is, is green energy ready for the power grid!
You guys should do an episode on idahos power grid. We have 70% of our power from renewables. They want to be 100% renewable by 2045.
Energy potatoes
perfect explanation for one if not the most practical topic we all uses everyday.
At 8:15, there has been a problem with AC/DC headaches going on 50 years now....
Wind turbans are very popular in India. All the Sikhs wear them. Elsewhere we have wind turbines.
I work in the wind industry and it's pretty crazy how it works
I like that jacket.
I like his jacket 😄
One of the big problems is the “Not in my backyard” crybabies
Wind and Solar take up far too much land, materials, time, etc compared to what they bring in. It's good for small scale and private operations. Trying to supply a whole city off wind and solar with current tech is a losing game. Thorium Reactors can provide insane amounts of power with low risk and using up a small chunk of land
BANANA - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything
I would be in this box, I have no issue with a nuclear plant as long as it's not within 100 km of where I live or commute to.
Many people misunderstood risk. Low risk just means the chance of happening is low, but no indication to when. Something can be low risk but the 'worst case scenario' can happen any time from tomorrow to never. Low risk can also mean low risk in the short term. Something that's low risk is generally unlikely to happen soon after something is implemented but as time goes by, people take maintenance for granted and while entropy always exists, the risk increases. Low risk is not equal no risk.
I have less issue with wind farms or solar farms because they're less likely to contaminate large areas for decades when something terribly wrong happens. I may change my mind when we invented force fields that get activated around the perimeter of the nuclear plants whenever there's an alarm, so any potential damage is contained.
Snowy Hydro Scheme 2.0, water + hydro power + pumped gravity battery.
My brother listens to "Back in Black" too loudly. That's my ACDC headache.
Yay!
A rather simple analysis and one that skips over some of the difficult problems of incorporating renewable generation into the system.
Essentially renewables are not ready for the grid and are unlikely to be given their inherent technical deficiencies.
Intermittency is obvious and batteries will not overcome that, as the capacity required is far too great. Existing batteries are for frequency support not intermittency.
Asynchronous which means they do not support grid frequency. Frequency is the most important factor in running a grid as it is the indicator that shows that supply is matching demand.
No inertia, as the video mentioned for solar but failed to say that wind generators have no inertia either.
Reduced fault current levels which are required to ensure a reliable protection system to minimise the extent of any grid faults.
They cannot generate reactive power required to keep voltage stable. Some systems are resorting to adding synchronous condensers to the grid for this reason, essentially genertors coupled to the grid but motor driven do not contribute power but modify system power factor.
Any high power electronics such as inverters have a very low threshold to overcurrent and subsequently have extremely sensitive and relatively low trip settings, which is a reliability factor. Conventional systems can endure higher fault levels and for longer. Faults are a regular and common occurence with grid systems and the ability to handle faults with minimal disruption is essential.
In practice there is a limit to how much renewables can be fed into a grid and remain stable and reliable.The U.K. is pretty close to that limit now.
All of this sounds more like the grid was designed for fossil power and isn't ready for renewables. Many of those problems can be addressed, e.g. inertia can be provided by flywheels. Oversupply and Overdemand could be addressed by more long distance powerlines. Storage could be made more feasible with next generation batteries specifically designed for grid storage (less energy density, but keeping the energy for longer)
@@ooooneeee
Have you evver seen a large turbo alternator and seen it's physical size?
It's infeasible to remove conventional generators (where the inertia is free, and also has the potential energy from the steam or dam to also boost output)
No you cannot balance a grid by increasing the length of transmission.
There will never be enough battery storage to overcome intermittency, do a few simple sums and see how many gigawatt hours capacity is required. Even for a small grid like the U.K. it is in the hundreds of giga watt hours capacity.
After everybody finished having their fun with these unrealistic sources of energy they have to switch to the only realistic yet clean solution, i.e., nuclear power plants. Or just people can use less energy but that won't happen.
One of the largest issues we're not talking about is the electrical grids security, even now we get hacked all the time and a more sensitive energy grid is a recipe for disaster if security is not ensured
We absolutely do not get hacked all the time. The SCADA systems that actually control power flow aren’t even capable of being accessed remotely (ie the internet). You must be using an on-site intranet to even access the devices.
@@titleloanman and yeah like it's impossible to use something on site. I'm sure that totally would never ever possibly ever be an issue because some dildo said it wasn't on TH-cam
@@titleloanman th-cam.com/video/pL9q2lOZ1Fw/w-d-xo.html
@@thedigitallabrat They still didn't get access to the SCADA systems in that, homie.
In the netherlands they burn and restore ironpowder to function as battery for the electricity net
Use the batteries we already use: coal. We can essentially turn CO2 into gasoline, where we can burn it later, then resequester it into gasoline later.
That's where the term "net 0 carbon emissions" comes from. The total is zero.
I want that jacket 🥺
You should talk about Terrapowers Natrium nuclear plant that has come
Ip with a solution to this intermittency in the form of a big vat of molten salt.
Hey SciShow, Where is the hydro facility shown @ 4:08?
Replace city sidewalks with mats that use the friction of people walking over them and turns it into electricity the same can be done on sections of the busiest streets using the friction of cars driving over it, we can start farming our sewage by making a multiple tank system that connect near the top so that each tank always has some older sewage fermenting and making methane which we could collect and use to cook and maybe offset the use of coal in power plants.
With sidewalks, you're talking about a pittance. With roads, you're just causing the vehicles to expend more energy, which if electric vehicles, taxes the grid more, and if ICE vehicles, increases CO2 emissions.
This will not make a car expend more energy its not like it'll be driving thru a pit of sand the mats will be seamless, and how can it possibly be a pittance on sidewalks they can also have brick or cobblestone texturing to add beauty to the city, and as for your tax comment I don't think so I think it will be a good way for large cities to share energy with its smaller surrounding community's, I think some ones mad that they didn't think of this themselves.
@Potholer54 mentioned in one of his latest videos that using chemical batteries has been very successful in South Australia.
Do you think that could be the solution, in general? Or is there something particular about that state that we can't have elsewhere?
@tmnt9001 - Try checking how much electricity you use in mid-winter, overnight, when there's a stationary high pressure weather system where you live - and then figure out how big a battery you'd need to keep you going until the sun comes up. Even more so if you live as far north as I do - in the Midlands of England, north of the 53rd Parallel!
It's not just a matter of keeping the lights on; heat, washing machine, dryer, cooker, fridge, freezer - and don't forget the electric car charger!
how about another Carrington event? have you seen the sun lately
Being renewable or not is not the main factor in the reliability of sources of electricity. There are many forms of renewable energy with very different strengths and weaknesses -- those that depend on heat and generators have similar reliability characteristics to fossil fuels. Note that feeding a large coal plant is no small engineering feat either -- it requires massive amounts of coal being extracted in dangerous ways and transported long distances, and stockpiled by the kiloton, which is even before you make any attempt to make it a little less unbelievably harmful to the environment. And our traditional energy grids are inefficient and prone to unstable interactions that cause cascading blackouts. There are challenges no matter your fuel sources, we are far from solving our century-old challenges and the new ones are not necessarily harder to fix.
Solar has the advantage of being most available at the times the most air conditioning is used, so it makes a good natural supplement. But as pointed out it is not feasible to use as your only energy source without some way to store a huge amount of this energy at a manageable long-term cost (lithium iron phosphate is way to expensive to be a good answer but there are other options). Wind is one of the most cost-effective renewables but also requires some kind of storage system if it is to be your primary energy source.
The fossil fuels are not all equal either -- natural gas is the cleanest, easier to get where it's needed, and currently the least costly, so there is no good reason to use coal to generate electricity in the long term. And natural gas is also fairly easy to make from many renewable sources, so conversion to those is fairly straightforward.
Note that hydrogen is not a meaningful fuel source. It is a way of storing energy that can be used in a fuel cell or burned. But it is hard to work with and hard to store, so don't think of it as the answer to clean energy, just one possible second-to-last hop among several others.
The bottom line here is that not all energy sources have the same characteristics, and this is a good thing if we mix them intelligently.
How bout, instead of 1 big battery,
you have a separate battery per thing that needs electricity?
Like, a light-switch that powers 1 light, that has a place for a battery.
Each light-switch would have it's own battery.
Each plugin would have it's own battery.
yeah, more things could have batteries. Like desktop computers could have batteries just like laptops. When there's a shortage it would use the battery. TVs and other stuff too.
Some stuff could store energy in other ways.
A fridge could make ice when there's plenty of renewables. When there's a shortage the ice is used to keep it cool. Same thing for AC, make ice when there's plenty of renewables. Use the ice to cool when there's a shortage.
Electric water heaters can store energy in a tank.
Would be more economical to have one battery per home, also much cheaper to install.
@@ooooneeee
With one battery you turn AC into DC to charge the battery, then you turn that DC into AC power. The TV(or whatever) then turn the AC back to DC. All these extra steps need hardware that cost extra, and it also make it less efficient.
The TV already have the hardware to turn AC into DC. Just need a charge controller and the battery.
I have noticed a recent surge in videos about the electricity grid. Very important topic. What is the reason all of these videos are coming out in the last two months, though?
Because we're seeing power grids in Texas and CA being stressed and failing. Our energy demand is increasing and we're relying on decades old technology to provide it and that's not sustainable.
OMG I have that same NASA jacket. The collar might be a little different but yea
NUCLEAR ENERGY is green energy - far more than wind turbines or other costly, environment-damaging sources. In France 70% of our energy in nuclear energy and I am proud of that 😄
your right and wrong at the same time^^
Nuclear is scary though so...
@@SterbsMcGurbs not really. The govt makes it seem scary bc they needed nuclear waste to make bombs.
There are way safer methods that do not release much radiation.
Look up nuclear accidents in the US and you’ll see that there isn’t anything too scary.
Nuclear is the green energy source worthy of the 21st century. Everything else is unreliable, expensive nonsense. Smaller modern reactors are very safe and green.
@@d3734 for real, intermittency kills wind, solar, and hydro
Our windfarms supply between 0% and 155% of Danmarks total needs for electricity.
Still we have 99.996% stability in total supply.
I believe that's some kind of world record.
That said, we are so lucky having powerful connections to our neighboring countries. Especially Norway and their Hydroelektrisk power.
And Sweden and France with their nuclear power. And for all that, Denmark still ends up having the second most expensive energy in Europe, right after Germany I believe, but I may have that backwards.
@@williamsmith1741 Actually no. Denmark has some of the cheapest cost prices on electric energy in Europe.
It's taxes that raise the price.
And we have no high power connections to France.
Sweden has hardly any nuclear power left.
@@JohnJohansen2 I don't know about tax regimes in Denmark vs. other European states, but I would have assumed that 1) tax regimes on energy in across Europe wouldn't vary that much, and 2) if Denmark was getting so much of its energy from renewables and wanted to, it wouldn't be layering significant taxes on renewable energy, since that seems counter productive.
But, per Eurostat, the Euro governing body's clearinghouse for European statistics, in Germany and Denmark, the average electricity prices (including taxes) for household consumers for the first half of 2021 were 0.3193 EUR per kWh and 0.29 EUR per kWh, respectively, which is 37.5% and 24.9% higher than the European average price of 0.2322 EUR per kWh, and 65.2% and 50.0% higher, respectively, than France's average electricity price of 0.1933 EUR per kWh.
Sweden has 3 operational nuclear power plants with 6 operational nuclear reactors which produce ~40% of the country's total electricity. Sweden used to have a phase-out plan for its nuclear power plants, but that was effectively eliminated in early 2009. Sweden, along with France and 11 other European countries, is currently trying to have nuclear power qualified as green sustainable power through the European commission as it produces no CO2 and we've got more than enough fuel to last millennia. Germany, on the other hand, is trying to have natural gas qualified as a green and sustainable fuel.
Ask Flint Michigan how our infrastructure's doin.
From time to time I go "huh" while watching a Sci Show video... and yes, this one is one of them... The writers seem to forget the fact that a) the USA is not the whole world and b) things are bot always the same where ever one is. I live on a island in Europe and most of our energy come from our rivers. The part of the country where I live is on the American plate... In this case it is fun watching a record of how things are in USA. Just please remember some supporters, subscribers and watchers do live outside of the USA.
Batteries, lots and lots of double-As everywhere... :P
I have solar. Cheap as hell these days. I have 4 air to air heat pumps (mini split air conditioners). Cheap as hell them too.
Trying to not use grid because is too expensive right now: not a thing.
Samuel O. I live in N.E.Washington state ... i won't see "sunlight" for 5-6 months ... and the only wind just blows in a different kind of storm ... LOL It is now Dec. so i can get ,,, rain ,, or lots of rain,, and as it cools i get sleet, or lots of sleet, then it turns to "light" snow, then it turns to lots of "light" snow then we go to the "heavy" snow .. (yes Arizona there is actually a difference) and it turns to of course lots of "heavy" snow... watch some TV : Repeat as needed ,,, LOL is it a good thing if i live less than 5 miles from a generating plant ???
@@jamesmueller8701
Shhh! Let's let Samuel learn what happens when his power generation isn't available during the coldest winters and hottest summers.
None of that really works in many countries due to the lack of sun. The last month I've seen the sun shine 2 times. That's not going to power anything in the real world.
@@VariantAEC There is grid mentioned. And backup wood pellet furnace for THOSE days. Also there are months of drought in Eastern Europe lately. Like...too much sun, no rain, no snow.....rationed tap water in some villages for this reason. We didn't need AC 10 years ago. It was hot for some part of July and that was it. Now it's different. Desertification I think it's called.
@@samuelolteanu oh yeah burn down the forests, that's green.
Cheap energy storage would have a bigger impact on nuclear power. Nuclear is like the complete opposite of renewables, with the former being too consistent (producing the same amount of power with limited ability to vary output) while the latter is as inconsistent as the weather (climate change much?).
Nuclear, which has one of the lowest LCOE's of any energy source, operates at almost full capacity almost all the time, meaning power it produces in the middle of the night or at noon when renewables are just gushing power at zero marginal cost onto the grid, that power is just wasted, as there's likely not the same level of demand for the plant's power at 2am as there is at 6pm. Cheap energy storage would allow nuclear plants to bank all the power it produces and release it almost directly in-line with demand, i.e. load follow. That would let a given nuclear plant serve more people, as you'd have a lot more energy available at any given time, and at an even lower average cost, as you wouldn't have to price your electricity so that the income from electricity produced at 6pm would offset losses from electricity produced at 2am.
Additionally, energy storage can really only help renewables spread the energy they produce over a day or two, making the power generated over a small window available over a longer span of time (there's no storage method that can store that amount of power, enough to provide a city, for example, with power for a day or two, but one day there probably will be (assume we don't all die before that method is developed)). However, even in that fantastic future where we can store significant amounts of electricity for a couple days, that dream energy storage method STILL won't do anything to address issues like the wind drought northern Europe is currently going through or if you've got cloudy weather for weeks or months (like in the fall or winter). If you go weeks to months without significant wind or sun exposure, even with fantasy batteries, you're still boned. Nuclear, on the other hand, is ALWAYS producing and would thus always accrue the benefits provided by cheap energy storage.
I could continue talking about how much more sense nuclear makes than renewables, but I'm going to stop because I support any POTENTIAL energy source that could possibly replace baseload power from coal or nat. gas, AND! be as cheap OR cheaper than fossil fuels. I support nuclear because it, with a median LCOE of $69 USD/MWh, already does both, and cheap energy storage and Gen 4 reactors will make it STUPID cheap & efficient. Renewables, outside hydro, don't do either if you eliminate the mountains of subsidies they get. HOWEVER, with a cheap and effective storage method, like Ambri's liquid metal batteries :), they might be able to make a material contribution to a non-fossil fuel grid. I only get confrontational on renewables because of anti-nuclear Greens who, like Nero, seem content to sing about renewables and how great they will be some day, all the while the world burns around them.
No it is not, even we here in the Netherlands are warned for coming outages. Because of transition. Big reset, don't adapt, but try to change nature. Yeah the best solution.
One thing to consider about renewables are their surprisingly large environmental impacts. Solar requires a lot of land, which destroys habitat. The same cold be said of many wind farms, not to mention the toll they take on migratory birds. Hydro power can disrupt entire river basins. Therefore, we need nuclear.
Not to mention nuclear energy provides a steady supply of power, so no need to overhaul the grid.
"But the birds!!!!" lol get out.
Why didn't you mention synthetic inertia from batteries?
💯
Big shout-out to Hank Green and the sideshow team community for putting out a steady stream of great content. I'm a long-time viewer short time member. I love your channels and have being inspired to do my part in renewable energy. I have designed and built a thermal capacitor that can utilize the phase change of different kinds of Wax. The cheapest and most locally-sourced wax available to me currently was beeswax which just so happens to have the melting Point most desirable for the application I want to use it for. Beeswax melts at 60 degrees C which is a very usable temperature for space Heating if it is used correctly. Utilizing phase-change materials as a means of storing energy is not a new idea. People have been grappling with the idea of utilizing wax as a means of storing thermal energy. The problem that people keep running into when trying to use wax for thermal storage arises when you try to extract the Heat stored in the wax. The solution I have come up with and I'm trying to prove is in the design of the heat exchanger used to extract the Heat. The concept is simple instead of trying to use a small efficient heat exchanger you use a large inefficient heat exchanger that will allow the heat to be extracted slowly enough and more evenly throughout the wax preventing it from solidifying and becoming a thermal insulator around the heat exchanger. If you are reading this comment please share any thoughts that you may have to improve and develop this concept.
Off topic here but I like the nasa suit jacket! Where do I get one?!
Large hamsters with wheels is all grid needs.
8:17 But the begin of the Highway to Hell?
〰🎵🎶Highwaaaaay 〰 toooo 〰Heeeeeeell🎵
What if we have stationary generator bikes people can have in their homes and gyms and producing more will reduce your energy bill or get you some credits. I think it would be win-win, though still different than that black mirror episode.
I think we should try to do it but we should try to experiment on how it can improve on how much money we use on electricity so there won't be any power outages in the future.🤔🤑