Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 02:27:00 +1000
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On 10/06/2025 8:20 pm, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
> Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:
> 
>> On 10/06/2025 7:30 am, chrisq wrote:
>>> On 6/9/25 15:25, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>> On 10/06/2025 12:14 am, Joe Gwinn wrote:
>>>>> On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 17:16:09 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, 08 Jun 2025 19:15:57 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout, Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street
>>>>>>> Journal, 3 June 2025 issue, page A13.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Here is a gift link.  No paywall, but they will insist on trying to
>>>>>>> persuade you to subscribe.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> .<https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-physics-behind-the-spanish-
>>>>>>> blackout-solar-and-wind-power-unstable-grid-8be54b2a?
>>>>>>> st=VUVUMR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Joe
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What's net zero is the line voltage. The issue is partly spinning
>>>>>> mass, but more important is gross gigawatts available on bad
>>>>>> afternoons.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Another time bomb is that (cheap) solar panels and inverters and
>>>>>> batteries don't last as long as is assumed in payback calculations. In
>>>>>> 10 or 15 years there will be an enormous disposal problem. And lots of
>>>>>> leaky roofs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yep.  And given the likely end of the mandates and subsidies,
>>>>> replacement may prove expensive, making the business case less
>>>>> attractive.
>>>>
>>>> Twaddle. Solar panels and wind turbines are the cheapest sources of
>>>> electricity available - certainly for Australia and Spain.
>>>>
>>>
>>> You really need to ease up on the Koolaid, tastes nice, but short
>>> term benefit.
>>
>> In the same way that burning lots of fossil carbon is a short term
>> solution to the problem of supplying electric power
>>
>>> Just how long do you think the battery farms will last under constant
>>> charge / discharge cycling, and how much will it cost to replace them ?
>>> Complete fools errand, but i''m sure the salesman must have been quite
>>> persuasive :-).
>>
>> Like everything else. batteries wear out under constant use, just like
>> the coal-fired generators that used to power our grid.
> 
> It's a lot easier to replace the bearings in a generator than to replace
> lithium batteries at that scale.

Coal fired power stations don't get new bearings when they start to wear 
out, they just get shut down.

The lithium batteries used in grid scale batteries seem to come off the 
same production lines that make batteries for electric cars. You just 
pull out the old units and replace them with mass-produced new parts.

The thing that people seem to miss about solar farms and grid scale 
batteries is just how modular they are. Wind farms are use bigger module 
- huge wind turbines - but they do use a lot of them and it's much 
easier to churn them out in volume that it is to produce the huge steam 
and gas turbines you find in power stations.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney