Ken Fabian
Registered Member
Writing from a home running mostly on solar electricity, at night too, that exports 2 to 3 times more electricity than it consumes. It isn't all the way there; no deep cold Winter here to deal with and we still use locally sourced wood for heating supplemented by some reverse cycle aircon (daytime use to pre-warm). Would need about 3X the batteries to switch over fully to reverse aircon (air source heat pump) heating and more solar would be good too. Right now solar leaves enough left over (sent to grid) for (potentially) a small EV for our modest needs.
EV's. Apparently the most pressing current issue with EV's is China is making them too cheap and will flood the car market with them if allowed to continue. Can't make stuff like this up. The market being flooded most with them so far is... China.
Battery costs are hitting new lows, hitting new capacity for weight levels, giving more driving distance (and or lighter vehicles).
In response to demand for high durability batteries for Chinese battery swap businesses CATL put effort into filling that need. "No battery degradation for 5 years" is the result - not just for battery swapping. Buying batteries to go with our solar would be cheaper now - we might get a lot close to managing our heating (ie all our needs) entirely from solar power if we spent the same now.
They aren't all lithium based. BYD is building a dedicated sodium ion battery factory for EV's, avoiding those high cost materials Li-Ion depend on.
Heat pumps. We have a hot water system as well as the reversible aircon - it runs on a timer to heat up water during the middle of the day. Our demands are (for Australians) frugal but 2- 3 hrs at 500W in warm weather and up to 5 hrs in mid winter isn't much. The costs beat old style rooftop solar water heaters but are still a bit expensive and durability will make or break this technology anywhere sunny; having more solar panels and just doing the much cheaper to buy standard electric water heater could undercut them on overall costs.
Air source heat pump heating now works effectively down to well below freezing; at least one company (in Maine?) offers a full refund and removal guarantee of reduced heating costs.
Ground source heat pumps for large building and district heating using boreholes is getting serious new players that can do retrofits much more cost effectively - they can drill deeper (less boreholes) and feed the sleeve in one continuous piece without the stops and starts. One such company is reducing costs a lot just by amassing a database on ground conditions from as many sources as possible, to much better estimate conditions and drilling costs. State of the art equipment can give running update of conditions at the drill head, allowing better control. They offer guarantees of thermal performance.
Solar PV is heading into Zeno's race levels of diminishing returns as it approaches but can never quite reach zero. It is cheap enough now and it is the stuff that goes with it where the costs are coming down more slowly. The IEA predicts Solar PV production will reach 1TW per year by the end of next year - a doubling on current production. In GWhr (at 20% capacity factor) terms that will be like adding 200 1 GW nuclear plants per year. Look to rates of investment in solar factories rather than what is currently installed and we see where it is heading. Battery factory investment is beating solar factory investment.
The rate of growth of solar and wind is on the cusp of (or may already be) the fastest growth in new energy production ever achieved.
Iron smelting with molten oxide electrolysis is looking feasible - unlike DRI it needs no hydrogen, just electricity, unlike DRI it doesn't need high grade iron ores, the spoils heaps at mines and smelters will do to start. It sounds like the stumbling block was electrodes that can survive the high temperatures and extreme conditions - and the solution (a new alloy) sounds similar to how jet turbine blades use materials that form a higher melting point oxide coating to prevent them eroding away. The electrodes are still consumed, but slow enough that the process works cost effectively.
For all that there remains some real cause for worry that efforts on climate change will fail - stubbornly fierce support for fossil fuels going to the highest levels of governments remains incredibly influential - there are real things happening that are making a difference.
EV's. Apparently the most pressing current issue with EV's is China is making them too cheap and will flood the car market with them if allowed to continue. Can't make stuff like this up. The market being flooded most with them so far is... China.
Battery costs are hitting new lows, hitting new capacity for weight levels, giving more driving distance (and or lighter vehicles).
In response to demand for high durability batteries for Chinese battery swap businesses CATL put effort into filling that need. "No battery degradation for 5 years" is the result - not just for battery swapping. Buying batteries to go with our solar would be cheaper now - we might get a lot close to managing our heating (ie all our needs) entirely from solar power if we spent the same now.
They aren't all lithium based. BYD is building a dedicated sodium ion battery factory for EV's, avoiding those high cost materials Li-Ion depend on.
Heat pumps. We have a hot water system as well as the reversible aircon - it runs on a timer to heat up water during the middle of the day. Our demands are (for Australians) frugal but 2- 3 hrs at 500W in warm weather and up to 5 hrs in mid winter isn't much. The costs beat old style rooftop solar water heaters but are still a bit expensive and durability will make or break this technology anywhere sunny; having more solar panels and just doing the much cheaper to buy standard electric water heater could undercut them on overall costs.
Air source heat pump heating now works effectively down to well below freezing; at least one company (in Maine?) offers a full refund and removal guarantee of reduced heating costs.
Ground source heat pumps for large building and district heating using boreholes is getting serious new players that can do retrofits much more cost effectively - they can drill deeper (less boreholes) and feed the sleeve in one continuous piece without the stops and starts. One such company is reducing costs a lot just by amassing a database on ground conditions from as many sources as possible, to much better estimate conditions and drilling costs. State of the art equipment can give running update of conditions at the drill head, allowing better control. They offer guarantees of thermal performance.
Solar PV is heading into Zeno's race levels of diminishing returns as it approaches but can never quite reach zero. It is cheap enough now and it is the stuff that goes with it where the costs are coming down more slowly. The IEA predicts Solar PV production will reach 1TW per year by the end of next year - a doubling on current production. In GWhr (at 20% capacity factor) terms that will be like adding 200 1 GW nuclear plants per year. Look to rates of investment in solar factories rather than what is currently installed and we see where it is heading. Battery factory investment is beating solar factory investment.
The rate of growth of solar and wind is on the cusp of (or may already be) the fastest growth in new energy production ever achieved.
Iron smelting with molten oxide electrolysis is looking feasible - unlike DRI it needs no hydrogen, just electricity, unlike DRI it doesn't need high grade iron ores, the spoils heaps at mines and smelters will do to start. It sounds like the stumbling block was electrodes that can survive the high temperatures and extreme conditions - and the solution (a new alloy) sounds similar to how jet turbine blades use materials that form a higher melting point oxide coating to prevent them eroding away. The electrodes are still consumed, but slow enough that the process works cost effectively.
For all that there remains some real cause for worry that efforts on climate change will fail - stubbornly fierce support for fossil fuels going to the highest levels of governments remains incredibly influential - there are real things happening that are making a difference.