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Wow! A steel mill on solar!!Evraz, of Pueblo, Colorado is running a steel mill on solar. That includes the arc furnaces. There are many ways to store electrical energy at grid scale. Some already in use include pumped hydro and batteries. They are presently considering a pumped hydro near Goldendale, Washington, that could power 500,000 homes for 12 hours. These are far cheaper to build and maintain than gas peaker plants.
There are many types of batteries now, like the LFP batteries Tesla is using in most of it's vehicles, that use no cobalt. And you are a hypocrite in any case. Cobalt has long been used for alloys, before batteries, but you never said a word about that.My bad. It's cobalt mining -- required for lithium ion batteries -- that uses child labor.
The Hidden Risks of Batteries: Child Labor, Modern Slavery, and Weakened Land and Water Rights
Exposed: Child labour behind smart phone and electric car batteries
Was up in Yellowknife in 1975 and experienced that. Awesome. The reason that steel mill went to solar was cost and dependability. The Evraz mill in Portland, Oregon, has a direct line to Bonneville Dam. It is considered a National Security installation as it is the only rolling mill on the West Coast that can roll armor plate and titanium. And is owned now by a Russian company, and rolls armor plate for Israel. LOLWow! A steel mill on solar!!
That wipes out all the opposition and naysaying!
Hydro is huge in B.c., Canada as you probably already know. And solar is very econimically viable even in the far north. It seems to escape a lot of people that there's a season where there is 24 hour sunlight.
Those batteries are completely recyclable. And they leave no pollutants in the air, land, and water as does coal. The Horndale battery and wind farm in Australia have proven the worth of the batteries.
blog.adafruit.com
LOL Your ignorance is again showing. We have enough lithium in the US for all of our needs, with spare to export. And it is far less dirty to mine than coal, and less polluting than natural gas.
Those batteries are completely recyclable. And they leave no pollutants in the air, land, and water as does coal
One of the major aces in the hole for solar power is the much lessened need for power during the dark hours. That came with our switch to LED lighting that consumes about 1/10 of most other lighting. And of course the industrial power consumption being much lower during the dark hours.
Is Las Vegas switched over to LED lighting yet?
Even Alaska and Canada's north is benefitting from solar, with their longer daylight hours!
The jury's in folks!
Those 7100 AA size batteries in an EV AND your grid scale fantasy that equivalent to 17,000 TESLAs for a puny 3 hr back-up of essentially one Cali county - are gonna destroy the enviro and make solar at least 3 times as expensive as it is NOW once you have to recycle or dispose of that MASSIVE RECURRING waste stream.
Battery Armageddon dude. It's worst than environmental terrorists.
Neither did you. And since you support battery production for your electric nirvana, you're okay with child labor.There are many types of batteries now, like the LFP batteries Tesla is using in most of it's vehicles, that use no cobalt. And you are a hypocrite in any case. Cobalt has long been used for alloys, before batteries, but you never said a word about that.
That sounds very environmentally friendly! Don't you think so, Old Rocks?They are NOT easily recycled. They are built in geometric arrangements of really tiny cells. There's 50 times the surrounding material to 0.1 oz of lithium. And the REFUSE will saturated and coated in lithium and heavy metals.
Not watching your stupid propaganda - I'm trying to ACTUALLY SAVE the environment and the UNPRECEDENTED WASTE of money and resources on "patching up" the GROSS unreliability of solar. (and wind) .
Here's the MAJOR enviro and dollar cost issue. Recycling those MEGATONNES of batteries may be a "money loser". In fact, it's LIKELY to be a money loser and not an investment that anyone wants to make. THEN, not only the dollar/enviro cost of all that LIMITED worldwide mining of the components comes in -- But special operations will be needed to govt RUN any major recycling efforts FAR AWAY from where folks live.. Want a 500,000 Tonne battery recycler in YOUR TOWN?
The World Needs to Crack Battery Recycling, Fast
Battery recycling is already confusing and inconvenient — and it’s about to get a lot worse. Read more from WIRED UK. It’s the year 2035 and electric cars are taking over the roads. Pet…
Petrol and diesel cars will soon be a thing of the past, the European Union has banned their sales in order to speed up the switch to cleaner mobility and mitigate climate change. Indeed, electric vehicles don’t emit any carbon dioxide when being driven, but their rechargeable batteries are causing environmental and social concerns of their own. They contain scarce and expensive metals. And once the batteries are past their prime, they are tough to recycle.
Ordinary lithium-ion batteries are made up of many individual cells and weigh hundreds of kilos. The battery pack used in the Nissan Leaf contains 192 pouch cells, that of the Tesla Model S contains 7,104 cylindrical cells, all bundled into modules that are screwed, welded and glued together to be controlled as one unit. As batteries start to pile up, carmakers, battery companies and researchers are trying to save them from ending up in landfills.
Recyclers are primarily interested in extracting the valuable metals and minerals in the cells. Getting to these materials is complex and dangerous: After removing the steel casing, the battery pack needs to be unbundled into cells carefully, to avoid puncturing any hazardous materials. The electrolyte, a liquid whose job it is to move lithium ions between the cathode and anode, can catch fire or even explode if heated. Only once the pack has been dismantled, recyclers can safely extract the conductive lithium, nickel, copper, and cobalt.
Used in the cathode, cobalt is the most sought-after material used in batteries. In its raw form, the rare, bluish-grey metal is predominantly sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where miners work in perilous conditions. The world’s major electric car manufacturers are already moving away from cobalt, deterred by the human rights abuses, shortages in the supply chain, and fluctuating prices.
That raises the question of whether recyclers will still find it worthwhile to dismantle newer battery types lacking the most valuable ingredients. “When you move to more sustainable materials, and lower cost materials, the incentive to recycle and recover them diminishes,” says Jenny Baker, an energy storage expert at Swansea University. She likens this to a dilemma in consumer electronics: It is often cheaper to buy a new mobile phone than to get it fixed or recycled.
In a first step, recyclers typically shred the cathode and anode materials of spent batteries into a powdery mixture, the so-called black mass. In the board game analogy, this would be the first slide down on a snake, Harper explains. The black mass can then be processed in one of two ways to extract its valuable components. One method, called pyrometallurgy, involves smelting the black mass in a furnace powered with fossil fuels. It’s a relatively cheap method but a lot of lithium, aluminium, graphite and manganese is lost in the process.
Another method, hydrometallurgy, leaches the metals out of the black mass by dissolving it in acids and other solvents. This method, Harper says, would correspond to a shorter snake in the board game, because more material can be recovered: you fall back, but not by as many squares as when using pyrometallurgy. The process, however, consumes a lot of energy and produces toxic gases and wastewater.
Around the end of June the north at the polar circle and above experience 24 hours of sunlight. That's not twilightWhat's this outrageous BS about longer daylight hours in Alaska and Canada. I hear this crap all the time. SCIENTIFICALLY in the WINTER what YOU call daylight -- it's really close to twilight. And operating away from their peak outputs -- solar panels dont do FUCK in twilight.
I don't think you have anything new to tell me about efficiency of incandescent lighting. But true enough that they were very inefficent lighting and generate quite a bit of heat close to the ceiling in most cases.BTW -- BECAUSE of LEDs -- in the cold months when your HVAC is set to heat -- you are burning MORE natgas/oil/electricity to make up that "waste heat" from the old incandescents. It added a considerable amount to the heat in your home. And therefore was NEVER WASTED many months of the year. In the north maybe MOST of the year.
I didn't say they did but I really don't understand what you mean by that. I have suggested that LEDS are saving a lot on lighting in commercial applications. Maybe you would care to clarify your meaning?Dont know the logic fault in your argument is WORTH pointing out -- but LED bulbs don't really save anything SOLAR at night.
Agreed on the time of peak consumption and that the sun is not shining in some areas of the world at 2200.You might want to check your assumptions here. The power company designs for generation capacity to meet DAYTIME PEAKS. The consumption at 10PM is about 80% of daytime peak and sun IS NOT SHINING to provide any solar.
Why in the fuck do I need to point out the obvious here?
insideclimatenews.org
At the polar circle, the sun just touches the horizon at its lowest point. There is no usable solar energy to harvest for several hours around that point.Around the end of June the north at the polar circle and above experience 24 hours of sunlight. That's not twilight
Particulate's block downwelling solar radiation...Air quality? How does that affect sunshine
Do you have any concept of the ANGLE OF INCIDENCE? The further that solar energy has to go through the atmosphere the less hits the surface where your solar panels are... BY the way, during the winter it is almost perpetual night. There is very little energy that makes it to the surface.Around the end of June the north at the polar circle and above experience 24 hours of sunlight. That's not twilight
I don't think you have anything new to tell me about efficiency of incandescent lighting. But true enough that they were very inefficent lighting and generate quite a bit of heat close to the ceiling in most cases.
I didn't say they did but I really don't understand what you mean by that. I have suggested that LEDS are saving a lot on lighting in commercial applications. Maybe you would care to clarify your meaning?
Agreed on the time of peak consumption and that the sun is not shining in some areas of the world at 2200.
I have no idea what you think you've pointed out to me? We're in agreement on nearly everything you've said, except that the sun isn't shining at 10p.m.
On Vancouver island in late June, the sun shines until about 9:30 if you're in a flat area or on top of a mountain.
I'll find a chart that shows the hours of sunlight in almost any area of the world again. edit: on second thought why bother?
Around the end of June the north at the polar circle and above experience 24 hours of sunlight. That's not twilight
I don't think you have anything new to tell me about efficiency of incandescent lighting. But true enough that they were very inefficent lighting and generate quite a bit of heat close to the ceiling in most cases.
I didn't say they did but I really don't understand what you mean by that. I have suggested that LEDS are saving a lot on lighting in commercial applications. Maybe you would care to clarify your meaning?
