Which One is Better?

The gas plant I believe actually costs about the same as the solar PV install...and the solar plant is intermittent production and the gas plant is continuous....

https://www.power-technology.com/projects/500mw/

As long as all that hemp isn't smoked and the CO₂ returned to the atmosphere. Just sayin'.

No we make it into hempcrete and hemp lumber and build stylish tiny houses for the homeless...You can get hundreds of these on a single acre...

...and we make hemp plastic bodies for tiny cars, with hemp fabric interior and hemp soundproofing, and hemp plastic structural parts....

We'll have huge tiny cities in no time...

How did you get the 115 tons of CO2 per year ? its more like 500,000 metric tons per year emmited form the power station, are you off setting the carbon adsorbed by the hemp ?

116k tons per year....this would be a modern combined cycle plant with exhaust treatment...

...and advanced carbon capture is on the horizon...

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/Carbon%20Capture%20Opportunities%20for%20Natural%20Gas%20Fired%20Power%20Systems_0.pdf

Are you running the turbine on hemp seed biofuel?

Just for the tiny house on the farm....haha

..."Hemp seed has an oil content of 30 to 35% of its seed weight and yields approximately 511 gallons of oil per acre. Traditional diesel fuel is often blended with biodiesel at a ratio of 80% / 20%. Blends can range from 2% to 100% biodiesel, and any diesel vehicle can run on biodiesel without modification."...

https://purehempbotanicals.com/biofuel-energy-hemp/

CBD oil is what most hemp is grown for as it can yield as much as $50k an acre...CBD oil is made from the entire plant whereas hemp oil is made just from the seeds...2 different products...

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/hemp-seed-oil-vs-cbd-oil#hemp-seed-oil

Don't ever run a Mercedes-Benz Bluetec diesel with anything greater than 5% biodiesel.

https://www.mbusa.com/vcm/MB/DigitalAssets/pdfmb/serviceandparts/biodiesel_Brochure5.pdf

Even though M-B basically says 'avoid' anything greater than 5% biodiesel, others have much stronger opinions about Bluetec's and biodiesel.

http://www.stephensservice.com/bluetec-diesel-issuesproblems/

You can turn your crankcase oil into black jello if you do.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.9b02353

The issue is how M-B, VW and others do diesel particulate filter (DPF) regeneration by injecting excess fuel into the cylinders to increase the exhaust temperature high enough to burn off the carbon soot in the DPF. Some of the excess fuel gets by the rings and dilutes the crankcase oil. When biodiesel mixes with the lube oil, it turns to black goo.

The Cummins 6.7L ISB in my Freightliner injects diesel directly into the exhaust system to raise the exhaust temperature if active regeneration is required. These heavy engines are a lot more tolerant of biodiesel than the European high-revving light diesels.

https://driving.ca/mercedes-benz/auto-news/news/mercedes-says-goodbye-to-diesel-in-north-america

I had seen that too. Not sure though if the Sprinter vans will still be sold. That's a HUGE market. They've been sold under the Dodge and Freightliner badges as well.

Where do you get your $500,000 gas plant cost?

500 MW of used Jenbacher engines would probably cost you at least $3,000,000 alone, no shipping or anything else included. So that seems pretty darn low.

Anyways, I know which sounds more fun!

..."Power plants that utilize natural gas have been prime drivers for increased grid capacity in recent years, and 2015 was no exception. During 2015 a natural gas power plants added a total capacity of 6,549 MW. Natural gas power plant construction costs for the same year averaged $812/kw, for a total cost of $5,318,957 for 74 generators. There are three different types of technology that are utilized in natural gas power plants. Each different technology has a substantial impact on the total construction costs. The majority of capacity was added through combined cycle natural gas power plants (4,755 MW) and combustion turbine (1,553), while internal combustion engines accounted for only a small fraction of the capacity added (240). "....

500 MW = 500,000 kw x $812.00 = $406,000,000

https://proest.com/construction/cost-estimates/power-plants/

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11

Sounds like another reason to go nuclear. Nuclear makes lots of continuous power and leaves many acres for productive crops. Remember that fast nuclear has a lot less waste than the thermal nuclear we're familiar with.

Yes I agree, that would be the ideal solution...the safest lowest carbon source

Thirty years back efficiency renewables and carbon were slated to cut carbon.

Efficiency and renewables worked, Nuclear never happened, may never pay.

https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2021/04/no-future-for-new-nuclear.html

I fear that the Hydrogen Hype is another jam tomorrow tech when we know that for home heat electric heat pumps and air conditioners work fine, power or thermal heat tank batteries are OK overnight, and we can do longer duration power storage with Hydro etc.

Where are we going to install new hydro? All the best pumped storage locations have already been built. We would build a dam across the Yosemite Valley.

I think your news source is a little biased....

..."Around 10% of the world's electricity is generated by about 440 nuclear power reactors. About 50 more reactors are under construction, equivalent to approximately 15% of existing capacity.

In 2019 nuclear plants supplied 2657 TWh of electricity, up from 2563 TWh in 2018. This is the seventh consecutive year that global nuclear generation has risen, with output 311 TWh higher than in 2012."...

https://www.powermag.com/innovative-steel-bricks-design-expected-to-reduce-time-cost-of-smr-construction/

Reducing the birth rate trumps all those...

"We're all doomed! Doomed!"

Don't worry we've got our best guy's on it....things will be right as rain in no time....

We hired this guy....

Right as indoor rain.

It does sound as though the "business as usual" flag is a-fluttering...

I think anyone would agree that building more and more solar pv farms with no storage in place, and eliminating reliable base load facilities, is leading to catastrophic failure of the grid system....and more than likely at times when it will be critically needed, like arctic cold snaps, blizzards and heat waves...

Now if you want to compare apples to apples you must include the cost of storage with solar pv, or wind for that matter....and I'm not talking about a couple of hours worth of backup peaker storage, I'm talking several days to a couple weeks....

Anybody care to price out 500MW of battery storage for 5 days?

Here is a chart showing cost of around $300 per kwh for a 4 hour peaker system....

1 megawatt is equal to 1,000 kilowatts ....500 MW = 500,000 kW ....1.5 mil $ per hour...one 24 hr period = $36 mil ....times 5 days = $180 mil ....this would be just for the batteries....probably triple that for electrical components and materials...and you can see we're approaching an additional $600 mil...

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73222.pdf

.....you can add to that the infrastructure necessary to install this facility, and we have exceeded $1 bil for a power plant that only produces 280 MW....and occupies an area of around 5 Central Parks put together...

Driving at 50 mph it would take half an hour to drive around it....

I agree. I think this passion for PV and wind power is worthless for large scale energy needs. If you truly want to eliminate fossil fuels then nuclear is the only viable option. I, personally, don't see the angst over natural gas because I don't see CO₂ as something that needs to be avoided. The current level of CO₂ is in the 400 ppm range, there have been times in the geological past that CO₂ was close to 10,000 ppm (1%).

Since satellites have been around they've recorded a greening of the earth. Plants need CO₂ and do all kinds of good things for all of us. No CO₂, plants suffer, they need it for photosynthesis. Remember, in the past the Sarah dessert wasn't a dessert and had people and agriculture, now it's a dessert and no people and no agriculture. So climate changes and there is little we can do about it.

In closing, PV panels have to be replaced about every 20 years and as for wind power has it's own replacement cost and it seems to do a better job as a bird cuisinart! So, you have to choose; birds/wind-power?? I'm just saying...

Funny thing guys, its being done and its profitable despite what you think you know.

Yes there are those that are profiting from wind and solar, but mostly at the expense of the people...they are made possible with subsidies, produce unrecyclable waste, and make the grid unreliable...Madoff made a lot of money as well, I guess he was ok according to your line of reasoning....they cite installed capacity as if it were actual output, when we all know that isn't the case, solar only produces when the sun is out and wind only generates when the wind is blowing at just the right speed... it's totally random...add battery back-up and you more than double the cost, and generate more unrecycled toxic waste for the landfills....but the landfills will probably also make more money, so I guess you think it's alright then...

Go safe clean carbon free nuclear...

Coal is dead. Oil is dead. Natural Gas is great for fast response peaker plants. Nuclear is a great source but hard to sell to the neighbors. Solar and Wind are far more acceptable in the immediate future which is where we need to make the biggest changes.

You have to be able to envision much farther into the future than our generation is used to. We are the folks that can't see past the next three months and what a mess of things we've made with our shortsightedness. Time to retire and let the younglings run things. They are much better equipped to handle this world today than us children of the 40's and 50's.

As Jacinda Adern Of New Zealand famously said to shut down a grey hair pining for the good old days, "Okay Boomer".

You want to talk future, we are at the beginning of a new ice age...a slow slide of falling global temperatures over the next 100k years...

Another mass extinction event, and if we're not careful we'll be included.

Then the world will be a better place without us.

Did you notice the bit ringed in red which kind of indicates that there will be a break in the cycle? That's why people are panicking and making all sorts of panicked decisions.

That said, on the whole I agree that growing carbon capture crops is a better way to control CO₂ in the atmosphere.

You made a point about the size of the solar facility (five time central park): that is frightening when you're talking about solar panels, but, if your talking about the same acreage of hemp then there are dozens of countries which could easily accommodate thousands of such "farms".

Just out of interest, how did you choose your forum name?

Ancient Indian folklore....

I agree that nuclear should be a large part of the mix but it is only suitable for base load as it is not capable of quickly changing output to cope with peaks. I am frustrated with the UK government for not supporting tidal lagoons. We are in the fortunate position of being an island with some of the highest tide ranges in the world and with just six lagoons would be able to generate 30Twh or 20% of our current electrical demand using tidal. There is a time difference of 4¼ hours between high tides in the Bristol Channel and the Solway Firth so a series of six tidal lagoons, each with up to 30 turbines, dotted along the English west coast generating on both the rise and fall will provide electricity spread over 18 hours per day. Extending north into the Scottish west coast lochs or the English east coast would further increase the generating capacity and extend this to 24 hours per day. Unlike nuclear, using penstock valves, it is possible to select how many turbines are generating at any one time so the output is instantly variable to cope with peaks in demand. As a spin off we would lead the world in marine turbine technology giving us both green high tech. jobs and export opportunities.

Nothing lasts long in the ocean...it's a very corrosive environment...

That is where lagoons score over turbines set on the sea floor. The turbines are mounted in the barrier wall of the lagoon with top access and hoists to raise and lower for easy maintenance. Effectively they are onshore.

So you would haul them up every year, sandblast them and recoat like the bottom of a boat...which has to be done every year(ask me how I know)...

Yeah everything gets covered in barnacles and algae....

Unless you paint them with ablative paints with lots of powdered copper in it.

Then you only have to repaint them once a year and saves the sandblasting.

My boss had a sailboat that he had to repaint with copper paint every year but he said the government was going to make it illegal because the copper was considered. an environmental hazard. Whether that is the case or not I don't know. I just know at the time the paint cost $125.00/gal. He said the definition of a sailboat was "a hole in the water that you threw money into"...

It's been a while for me, but I don't think you can purchase the copper bottom paint anymore.

Copper paints are still used extensively, though there are restricted area's....you know like California which just bans anything that might harm the environment in any way, whether it does or not...except the naturally occurring toxic substances which do the most harm...like Serpentine with its veins of asbestos, so plentiful it's the state rock....haha

https://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/Top-Ten-Antifouling-Paint-Buying-Questions

...." Coatings formulated with cuprous oxide have been around for at least 100 years, and are applied to an estimated 90% of the world’s vessels whose hulls are protected with biofouling control coatings. Historically, copper has been repeatedly challenged and subsequently reviewed for its risk and effectiveness, and is arguably the most researched substance for toxicity in the marine environment. Likewise, copper-based antifouling paint has been repeatedly tested for efficacy in hundreds of coatings formulations by multiple manufacturers. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to characterize copper-based antifouling coatings as proven technology.

Yet, the sale and use of copper-based antifouling paints formulated to protect recreational boat hulls in the United States is under closer scrutiny than ever before. Recent proposals submitted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) have expanded the focus of restricting the use of copper, while such restrictions have heretofore been confined to the states of Washington and California, and a handful of municipalities in the United States. This trend, should it continue, threatens the use of proven antifouling technology on recreational boats—posing larger economic questions not only for the boating public whose vessels require effective antifouling bottom paint to curtail higher fuel consumption and hull maintenance costs linked to friction and drag as the result of biofouling accumulation—but also for port districts, municipalities, and marinas that must bear the cost of containing invasive species."...

https://www.paint.org/coatingstech-magazine/articles/use-copper-based-antifouling-paint-u-s-regulatory-update/

I just ASSumed it would have been illegal to use by now.

Nothing lasts long in the ocean. Except plastic. I understand the environmental folks are having a terrible time with the amount of plastic that gets to the oceans. It would be neat (& profitable) if someone would develop a way to make all (maybe just most!) plastic recyclable.

The majority of the ocean plastic (80%-ish) comes from developing nations.

I recommend recycling plastic the old-fashioned way. Burn it to release the latent solar energy and generate electricity.

Sobering to say the least! The plastic waste could be useful to make a wood replacement and use it for building material. Using it for a fuel would seem to be problematic because of the poisonous gas' released, really bad stuff.

Thanks for the video.

Take care

Plastics can be burned such that they do not release poisonous gases. There have been waste to energy plants operating in the U.S. for decades.

https://www.wtienergy.com/plant-locations

Thanks, I was unaware of that fact. I would think the filtration necessary to eliminate the offending gases must be rather involved.

I believe it has more to do with controlling the combustion temperatures. In these waste to energy plants, keeping the combustion temperatures higher helps break down the plastic molecules into smaller simpler chains that will fully combine with the oxygen producing primarily CO2 and H2O.

The polystyrene's are nasty when burning at lower temperatures with insufficient oxygen. Styrene is a derivative of benzene. There is a section on Incineration near the bottom of the Wiki page in the link below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polystyrene

Other plastics like polyethylene and polypropylene have molecular structures similar to paraffin wax which is a type of alkane. Polyethylene burns fairly cleanly without much trouble.

Chlorinated plastics burn particularly nasty if not done properly. One of the by-products of burning PVC (Poly-Vinyl Chloride) is HCl or hydrochloric acid. Which of course is the acid produced by our stomachs. This is why in buildings you cannot use a PVC insulated wire or cable within plenums. Same reason why the U.S. Navy won't use PVC wiring on-board ships or submarines.

However, in these high temperature incinerators, one of the by-products of high combustion temperatures is the creation of nitrates of oxygen or NOx. This has been an issue with internal combustion engines for a long time. EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) is one way engine makers use to help keep combustion chamber temperatures lower. But to keep the plastics burning cleanly, the temperature has to be higher. (Pick your poison )

We of course have to trade off the options of landfilling much higher volumes of waste, or deal with some of the by-products of incineration. In the environment, eventually the NOx becomes nitrates, which interestingly enough is fertilizer for plants. But before it gets there it contributes to smog and acid rain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx

..."Abstract: Single-use plastics impose an enormous environmental threat, but their recycling, especially of polyolefins, has been proven challenging. We report a direct method to selectively convert polyolefins to branched, liquid fuels including diesel, jet, and gasoline-range hydrocarbons, with high yield up to 85% over Pt/WO3/ZrO2 and HY zeolite in hydrogen at temperatures as low as 225°C. The process proceeds via tandem catalysis with initial activation of the polymer primarily over Pt, with subsequent cracking over the acid sites of WO3/ZrO2 and HY zeolite, isomerization over WO3/ZrO2 sites, and hydrogenation of olefin intermediates over Pt. The process can be tuned to convert different common plastic wastes, including low- and high-density polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, everyday polyethylene bottles and bags, and composite plastics to desirable fuels and light lubricants."....

So platinum and zeolite catalysts at elevated temp and pressure breaks down the plastics cheaply....but removing the food waste is still a problem...maybe you could hold them in salt water ponds and let the microbes eat the biological materials...

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/scientists-turn-plastic-into-oil

I'll say this much, I've learned a lot more about recycling plastics in this forum than I ever knew before. Interesting article, I never heard of zeolite as a catalyst. Chemistry is a long way behind me so maybe I should invest in a new chemistry book...

Plastic waste has been used for many years to make plastic pipe in Honduras(Central America).

This is an impressive approach and it hadn't occurred to me they could recycle plastic that, for all intents and purposes, was co-mingled and would have to be separated from the other garbage they collected.

Regarding the main topic I thought this presentation was very informative.

https://www.prageru.com/video/why-are-utilities-so-expensive/

Anyone who starts the conversation by misleading you is not to be trusted in my experience. PragerU

IS NOT a University.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragerU

Yes the video is short and very informative, nicely done...and very true....

Recyclability is not the challenge; capturing it for recycling is the challenge.

<...Anybody care to price out 500MW of...storage for 5 days?...>

Here's what 15% of that looks like:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

Frankly I don't have a preference between gas, wind and solar....Based on my own research I think people are being misled, and I'm pointing that out...Everybody here should know by now that I think nuclear is the way to go....This thread was a little tongue in cheek to begin with...

The lcoe that is referenced according to installed price is misleading in that they don't differentiate between installed capacity with solar, wind and other types of electrical generation that are not intermittent....and the fact that they don't have any battery storage system priced in leading to lack of energy on demand....and the comparison of footprint required for the actual output realized...all they talk about is the falling cost of solar panels, which is a small part of the system compared to all the other infrastructure required...they never mention that these alternative energy systems drive the price of electricity higher, and the more the percentage of the grid relies on this type of intermittent generation the less reliable the grid becomes and all the problems that come along with an unreliable grid....

Energy is the oxygen for society, if you needed oxygen to stay alive and I offered you two choices and one source was a few cents per liter cheaper but was intermittent and unreliable, which would you choose....The same with a car, if I had two cars and one was absolutely reliable and the other one ran sometimes and sometimes it didn't but was a few hundred dollars cheaper, which would you choose....

Capital costs[edit]

For power generation capacity capital costs are often expressed as overnight cost per watt. Estimated costs are:

• gas/oil combined cycle power plant - $1000/kW (2019)^[9]
• combustion turbine - $710/kW (2020)^[9]
• onshore wind - $1600/kW (2019)^[9]
• offshore wind - $6500/kW (2019)^[9]
• solar PV (fixed) - $1060/kW (utility),^[10] $1800/kW (2019)^[9]
• solar PV (tracking)- $1130/kW (utility)^[10] $2000/kW (2019)^[9]
• battery storage power - $1380/kW (2020)^[9]
• conventional hydropower - $2752/kW (2020)^[9]
• geothermal - $2800/kW (2019)^[9]
• coal (with SO2 and NOx controls)- $3500–3800/kW^[11]
• advanced nuclear - $6000/kW (2019)^[9]
• fuel cells - $7200/kW (2019)^[9]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#:~:text=The%20levelized%20cost%20of%20energy,the%20lifetime%20of%20the%20project.}

Those are some suspect numbers bro.

If you buy into the idea that CO₂ is actually a pollutant, well... I have some oceanfront property in Arizona I'd like to sell.

If you want reliable energy, go with gas.

The peak solar output is likely to coincide with peak A/C loads, and the PV could shade a car park. No gas to buy, no methane to leak from new gas fields hotting the earth up.

No, peak solar output does not coincide with electrical peak loads...Peak demand is around 5 - 6pm all across the country....

It is not necessary to devote land solely to solar panels. They can actually make farms more productive while simultaneously providing more income to farmers:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/crops-under-solar-panels-can-be-a-win-win/

https://grist.org/food/cash-strapped-farms-are-growing-a-new-crop-solar-panels/

I am reminded of the quote by George Bernard Shaw, among others:

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

This looks like a good idea, but does nothing to improve the reliability....and the solar panels would seem to do little to protect the crops from storms, insects, and frost, like an enclosure would....

https://www.harnois.com/en/blog/greenhouses-en/why-grow-greenhouse/

For what this guy spent on pv panels and infrastructure, he could have erected a greenhouse and turned that 24 acres into a multimillion dollar farming operation...

https://www.rimolgreenhouses.com/blog/5-ridiculously-profitable-plants-to-grow-in-your-greenhouse

I find your figures interesting to say the least. 500MW but for how long, only when the sun is shining with no clouds and you are really optimistic allowing 280MW net power.

The data I have from my weather station says that the theoretical w/m2 is 700 but that only occurs at mid day, while the actual theoretical valus start from 0 at 06:00 and falls back to 0 at 18:00, however over the last week with cloudy skies the actual w/m2 never got above 400 and most times languished around 250w/m2.

Factor in night time and the average w/m2 for a 24 period would be maybe 125MW. The thing that bugs me is the oft quoted MW which has nothing to do with MWHr.

Sure 500MW for an hour around midday weather permitting zero for 12Hrs of night. Show me a battery bank that can sustain 500MW for 12Hrs or 6000MWHrs.

Now one generator where I once worked could provide 450MW for 24 hours 365/366 days per year. When is all this flummery about how good PV is going to produce some real data not brochureware.

I always get suspicious when the terms get vague and the generalizations are long and wide...haha

As shown by the numerous responses, comments ..

- All the details presented in this hypothetical question are not agreed upon.

- The technical details of are changing, dramatically, daily

- The economic/environmental specifics of any one area/region for either choice.. are not applicable to all regions

- The strategic / moral issues (the long view) in this hypothetical choice have little to do with economics.

Rephrased:

- the devil is in the details.

- few questions in life are wisely answered in purely economic terms.

Exactly, there is no right or wrong answer because the answer would be site and application specific....This is the danger of politicizing science and engineering...debating both sides, reveals the truth...