Electric power transmission system
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2 episodes with hvdc
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3 episodes with hvdc
3 episodes with hvdc
2 episodes with hvdc
2 episodes with hvdc
2 episodes with hvdc
2 episodes with hvdc
There's been a great deal of excitement and curiosity surrounding the idea of a Transatlantic Interconnector. So, as co-founders, Laurent Segalen, Gerard Reid and Simon Ludlam have decided to release a special episode to bring our listeners up to speed on where things currently stand.While we can't dive into our discussions with governments and system operators—those are protected by NDAs—rest assured, those conversations are very much underway, as you might expect. To put this episode together, we have brought in a range of perspectives:First, you'll hear an excerpt from a conversation with John Pettigrew, CEO of National Grid, on the Aurora Unplugged podcast last October, where he discusses the potential of ultra-long interconnectors.Next, we feature an interview with Laurent on the Jolts podcast from this February.That's followed by a deep dive into the technical aspects with Cornelis Plet, Global Head of HVDC at DNV.We then explore the legal landscape with Silke Goldberg, partner at Herbert Smith Freehills and one of the world's foremost legal experts in this area.And finally, we wrap up with a conversation between the three co-founders, where Simon Ludlam lays out the key steps ahead in the coming months and Gerard engages with investors.We hope this gives you a clearer picture of what has been accomplished so far—and what lies ahead on this ambitious journey.A lot of information, reports and data are available on www.nato-l.org
Data centers are pursuing a mixture of renewable energy, gas, and nuclear power to ensure they have a supply of sustainable, reliable and affordable power, in a microcosm of the energy trilemmaA 2,600-kilometer submarine HVDC line has been proposed to link New Zealand and Australia - with huge arbitrage potential across demand peaks over a 2-hour timezone distance.Europe's leadership has proposed a $100 billion clean manufacturing fund - is this enough to finally shore up domestic manufacturing in the face of China and the US' Inflation Reduction Act?
Laura Fleming and Alfredo Parres from Hitachi Energy dive into the critical challenges of integrating renewable energy, particularly offshore wind power, into the UK grid. They explore innovative solutions, including HVDC technology and digital advancements, that are driving efficient, reliable energy distribution and shaping the future of the global energy landscape. With Laura's over 25 years of experience in the energy sector and Alfredo's long history in renewables, the two give insights into how Hitachi is making the energy transition possible. Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Allen Hall: With power grids adapting to accommodate growing renewable energy, the challenges of integration had never been more critical. This week, we speak with Alfredo Parres group, senior Vice President and head of Renewables at Hitachi Energy. And Laura Fleming, country managing director at Hitachi Energy UK and Ireland. Together, they explain how Hitachi's technology is enabling efficient, reliable connections between massive wind farms and our existing electrical infrastructure. This is a great interview. Stay tuned. Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind Energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress. Powering tomorrow. Allen Hall: Laura and Alfredo, welcome to the podcast. Laura Flemming: Glad to be here. Alfredo Parres: Hey, huh. Allen Hall: How are you? Laura, let's start with you because I've watched a number of your interviews on YouTube and there's just a lot happening within Hitachi. What are some of the main challenges in the UK facing sort of the renewable energy grid and all of the particularly wind power, which is what we're focused on. There's a lot of wind power offshore being deployed in the UK at the minute. How is a Hitachi trying to handle that and distribute that energy? Laura Flemming: Yeah. Thank you for the question. And uh, it's a super exciting time, as you're saying in in the uk energy space. And maybe just to explain briefly what is going on the UK. At the moment, it's very hard at work to decarbonize the electricity grid. It's actually planning to be fully carbon zero by 2030. That's only in five years time now. And that's obviously a very big job. What we're doing in order to reach that as a country is switching away from from carbon sources. And so about six weeks ago. We switched off our last coal-fired power station, for example. But of course we still need energy and we still need a lot of electricity. So what we're doing instead is building out a lot of renewable energy predominantly offshore wind because that allows us to produce vast amounts of electricity quickly cheaply and sustainably. The result of all of that is that actually we're producing electricity in very different places than that we used to. So offshore wind, obviously produced in the sea, mainly in the north of Scotland particularly in Scotland. But the demand centers are all in the s of the country, predominantly around London and Birmingham areas. So we needing to transport this electricity around the system in a very different way. And all of that is triggering lots of grid reinforcements requiring to be done as well. So, and obviously without that grid, we can't move around this this new electricity from the generation source to the to the demand centers in a very efficient and also in a reliable way. And also making sure that we don't have too many losses on the system. So this is a huge task.
ROMA (ITALPRESS) - Passi avanti verso la realizzazione del Tyrrhenian Link, infrastruttura elettrica che prevede un investimento complessivo di circa 3,7 miliardi di euro da parte di Terna, azienda guidata da Giuseppina Di Foggia. È stata avviata a Fiumetorto, nel Comune di Termini Imerese, in provincia di Palermo, la prima fase della posa del cavo sottomarino del ramo est, finanziato con 500 milioni di euro, che collegherà Sicilia e Campania. Il Tyrrhenian Link prevede la realizzazione di due linee elettriche sottomarine in corrente continua a 500 chilovolt, per un totale di 970 chilometri di cavo e una capacità di trasporto di 1.000 MegaWatt per ciascuna tratta. La produzione e la posa del cavo sottomarino lungo la Termini Imerese-Battipaglia, effettuata con la nave Leonardo da Vinci, sono affidate a Prysmian, che nel 2021 si è aggiudicata il contratto quadro per la progettazione, la fornitura, l'installazione e il collaudo di oltre 1.500 chilometri di cavi, prodotti nello stabilimento di Arco Felice, Napoli. Per la prima volta un cavo HVDC verrà posato a 2.150 metri di profondità, fissando nuovi standard di mercato. L'intero progetto sarà operativo nel 2028.fsc/gtr
ROMA (ITALPRESS) - Passi avanti verso la realizzazione del Tyrrhenian Link, infrastruttura elettrica che prevede un investimento complessivo di circa 3,7 miliardi di euro da parte di Terna, azienda guidata da Giuseppina Di Foggia. È stata avviata a Fiumetorto, nel Comune di Termini Imerese, in provincia di Palermo, la prima fase della posa del cavo sottomarino del ramo est, finanziato con 500 milioni di euro, che collegherà Sicilia e Campania. Il Tyrrhenian Link prevede la realizzazione di due linee elettriche sottomarine in corrente continua a 500 chilovolt, per un totale di 970 chilometri di cavo e una capacità di trasporto di 1.000 MegaWatt per ciascuna tratta. La produzione e la posa del cavo sottomarino lungo la Termini Imerese-Battipaglia, effettuata con la nave Leonardo da Vinci, sono affidate a Prysmian, che nel 2021 si è aggiudicata il contratto quadro per la progettazione, la fornitura, l'installazione e il collaudo di oltre 1.500 chilometri di cavi, prodotti nello stabilimento di Arco Felice, Napoli. Per la prima volta un cavo HVDC verrà posato a 2.150 metri di profondità, fissando nuovi standard di mercato. L'intero progetto sarà operativo nel 2028.fsc/gtr
ROMA (ITALPRESS) - Passi avanti verso la realizzazione del Tyrrhenian Link, infrastruttura elettrica che prevede un investimento complessivo di circa 3,7 miliardi di euro da parte di Terna, azienda guidata da Giuseppina Di Foggia. È stata avviata a Fiumetorto, nel Comune di Termini Imerese, in provincia di Palermo, la prima fase della posa del cavo sottomarino del ramo est, finanziato con 500 milioni di euro, che collegherà Sicilia e Campania. Il Tyrrhenian Link prevede la realizzazione di due linee elettriche sottomarine in corrente continua a 500 chilovolt, per un totale di 970 chilometri di cavo e una capacità di trasporto di 1.000 MegaWatt per ciascuna tratta. La produzione e la posa del cavo sottomarino lungo la Termini Imerese-Battipaglia, effettuata con la nave Leonardo da Vinci, sono affidate a Prysmian, che nel 2021 si è aggiudicata il contratto quadro per la progettazione, la fornitura, l'installazione e il collaudo di oltre 1.500 chilometri di cavi, prodotti nello stabilimento di Arco Felice, Napoli. Per la prima volta un cavo HVDC verrà posato a 2.150 metri di profondità, fissando nuovi standard di mercato. L'intero progetto sarà operativo nel 2028.fsc/gtr
The Trump Administration has quit the Paris Accords as is clearly opposed to wind power. But if the Administration doesn't support renewables, corporates will, as data centers add ever more load to the grid. The solar industry continues to post record manufacturing scale, demand, and low prices simultaneously - with Indian and US reshoring as the only dynamic stories alongside perovskite Comparing the capex costs between China and the West across different energy projects, it's clear that the bigger the project, the steeper the difference in investment cost - with HVDC lines, nuclear power, and offshore wind the most comparatively expensive in the West.
Michael Barnard concludes his conversation with John Fitzgerald, CEO of Supernode. They explore the game-changing potential of superconducting transmission technology. Superconductors, capable of carrying electricity with zero resistance at extremely low temperatures, are already used in applications like MRI machines and are now poised to revolutionize urban power distribution.Fitzgerald highlights advances in cryogenic systems, such as smooth bore cryostats, which allow cables to run three times longer between cooling stations, reducing infrastructure needs and enhancing efficiency. The episode spotlights projects like Munich's upcoming 12-15 km superconducting power cable, which will transfer more power using less space, offering a cost-competitive solution for urban energy demands. Fitzgerald also underscores the importance of developing a European super grid and anticipatory investments in high-capacity power corridors to address growing renewable energy integration and reduce curtailment. He contrasts Europe's efforts with rapid grid advancements in India and China, emphasizing the need for proactive planning and investment.Looking ahead, Supernode aims to commercialize its technology by the end of the decade. Fitzgerald calls on policymakers, utilities, and system operators to bridge gaps in energy infrastructure, establish partnerships, and secure funding to promote innovative transmission solutions for a sustainable future.
Michael Barnard invites John Fitzgerald, the CEO of Supernode. John delves into the transformative potential of energy transmission technologies and the critical role of interconnectors in shaping the future of renewable energy. Drawing from his extensive background in engineering and utility management, Fitzgerald recounts his journey in the energy sector, which includes developing power stations, trading over interconnectors, and spearheading the East West Interconnector project between Ireland and the UK. His leadership at Supernode reflects his commitment to advancing superconducting transmission technology as a solution to modern energy challenges.Fitzgerald discusses the inherent limitations of alternating current (AC) transmission, particularly for underground and underwater cables, and highlights the advantages of direct current (DC) technology for long-distance energy distribution. He explains the technical intricacies of DC systems, including their capacity to manage inertia and integrate non-synchronous renewable energy. Throughout the episode, Fitzgerald emphasizes the need to address public consultation challenges in infrastructure projects to ensure the successful deployment of energy transmission networks.A central theme of the conversation is the evolving role of interconnectors. Once primarily used to exploit price differences between energy markets, interconnectors are now crucial for balancing variable renewable energy across regions. Fitzgerald explores the immense potential of continental-scale grids in Europe and advocates for tripling grid capacity to meet future energy demands. He also highlights groundbreaking projects like Sun Cable, which aims to connect Australia to Singapore, and the NATO-L project, which envisions transatlantic power transmission, underscoring the benefits of intercontinental energy connectivity for enhancing energy security.The episode concludes with a forward-looking perspective on the energy transition. Fitzgerald calls for greater investment in HVDC technology, praises China's advancements in this area, and urges listeners to stay informed about opportunities to integrate renewables through interconnectors. By fostering interconnected grids, he argues, the global energy landscape can achieve greater efficiency, resilience, and sustainability.
In this week's episode , the Rethink Energy team discusses: ClearVue's Building-Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) glass, and the startup's latest agreement with Alu-Tec WLL to foster distribution of its products through the MENA region. Illinois has introduced a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) incentive - not steep enough to close the gap with jet fuel, but another step toward the new industrial segment. NREL's latest offshore wind transmission research, which includes a description of a $100 billion intra-regional HVDC backbone stretching from North Carolina to New Hampshire - going far beyond the limited approach of connecting each project to the shore piecemeal.
In this episode of "Redefining Energy Tech," host Michael Barnard continues and concludes his conversation with Cornelis Plet, DNV's VP for Power Systems Advisory in North America. They delve into high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission, focusing on the contrast between Line Commutated Converters (LCC) and Voltage Source Converters (VSC). Cornelis explains LCC's suitability for stable grid connections and VSC's advantages in control and reduced harmonics, also noting the prominence of MMC-VSC technology in modern HVDC systems.The discussion then shifts to HVDC's role in efficiently connecting asynchronous AC grids, highlighting China's significant advancements in this field. Cornelis and Michael examine China's HVDC infrastructure, acknowledging its global leadership with the longest operational lines and ultra-high voltage projects. They also touch upon challenges related to China's HVDC systems' reliability and its aspirations to export this technology amidst cybersecurity and political concerns.Additionally, the podcast explores the varied governance frameworks in HVDC project development across different regions. They compare China's streamlined approach to the more complex scenarios in Europe and North America, where diverse stakeholders and policies often slow down progress.The episode concludes with reflections on the future of HVDC technology, emphasizing its critical role in the energy transition and the need for clear communication in the sector. This discussion offers valuable insights into the evolving world of energy transmission and the emerging technologies shaping our sustainable future.
Statkraft plans to invest 1 billion euros in wind energy in Norway. TPI Composites expands its supply agreements with Nordex to manufacture blades in Turkey. Siemens transferred an additional 8% stake in Siemens Energy to its pension fund. What does this mean for the industry? Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: I'm Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and I'm here with the founder and CEO of IntelStor, Phil Totaro, and the chief commercial officer of Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. And this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our friends at IntelStor. If you need actionable information about renewable projects or technologies, check out IntelStor at intelstor.com. Norwegian utility Statkraft has announced a 1 billion euro investment in new and existing onshore wind farms in Norway. The goal is to double Statkraft's annual wind production to 2, 500 gigawatt hours. The wind investment is part of a larger 6 billion euro plan for Statkraft's operation in Norway. Phil, why does every new investment start with a B as in billion? This is a lot of money moving around on onshore wind at the moment. Philip Totaro: It is, and they want the power, and they're taking it seriously, and it's, interesting because, we talk about, challenges and like the U S offshore wind market and whatever. And then, you go over to Norway and you got a big utility company plunking down a billion Euro to double their, wind output. They obviously get it and they care and they're moving forward. They're going to be, in good stead for, a while. Joel Saxum: One of the big things here too, to know is that Norway runs mostly all on renewable energy already, and they're, flush, as an electrified society. So I believe that a lot of this, if there's new, production that will be going. They're gonna take advantage of some of these HVDC, subsea lines that are heading to mainland Europe and over to the UK to sell a lot of this power, into those other markets. So some of this is less of a, let's electrify Norway, it's more of a, let's take advantage of Norway's natural resources and sell it to other parts in, In the UK and Europe. Philip Totaro: They also have, not just this desire for offtake, but they're electrifying a lot of the vehicles like Norway is the number one place in the world for, electric vehicle sales as a percentage of, all sales or a percentage of population. And, you're right, Joel, because they can take this power. And, pipe it into a broader European market where, you know, different countries, it's, thankfully prices have come down in this winter wasn't so bad. But we're, only back to 2021 levels in, in terms of prices, average prices in throughout Europe at this point. Because we've stabilized the situation now with, Russia and Ukraine, but things can change. Things can escalate. He who hath the power is going to be able to, use it and to sell it. Allen Hall: TPI Composites has expanded its supply agreements with wind turbine maker, Nordex in Turkey. TPI will add two new wind blade manufacturing lines, bringing its total capacity with Nordex in Turkey to eight lines. The agreements are going to run through 2026 with up to three additional years. The expansion builds upon a 10 year relationship between Nordex and TPI in Turkey. This is interesting because you don't really hear too much about Nordex in the United States at the moment.
In this episode of the podcast, host Michael Barnard welcomes Cornelis Plet, Vice President for Power Systems Advisory at DNV North America. Cornelis, nicknamed 'Case', shares his journey from the Netherlands to studying electrical engineering in Germany and London, and his involvement in offshore wind projects with Shell.He further discusses his Ph.D. in inverter-controlled resources in distribution grids and his role in HVDC transmission projects at DNV, particularly the Promotion project aimed at developing an HVDC network in the North Sea.The podcast then delves into DNV's expansion from classifying seagoing vessels to diverse sectors including energy systems, where they provide independent engineering services and technical advice for renewable and storage plants.Cornelis and Michael discuss the competitive landscape of the industry, highlighting DNV's position against firms like Black & Veatch, WSP, and Lloyd's Register. A significant part of the conversation focuses on the advantages of HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) over HVAC (High Voltage Alternating Current) for long-distance energy transmission.They explore the technical challenges and cost implications of HVDC technology, including the development of DC circuit breakers and the integration challenges between different vendors' systems.
In case you missed it, here's our most popular episode of 2023 - our chat with the one and only Michael Barnard.Back in October, we talked about IEA's World Energy Outlook, COP28, Hydrogen hopium, CCUS, predatory delay, HVDC, electrification, LDES, Michael Liebreich, and MPs "with the STEM background of illiterate newts"Subscribe to our newsletter at news.wickedproblems.uk, and get new #climatetech conversations first with co-hosts Richard Delevan and Claire Brady.Michael Barnard is a Forbes and Cleantechnica contributor, chief strategist at The Future is Electric, and climate futurist advising global corporates and financial institutions on decarbonisation scenarios with 80-year horizons. And woe be unto you if you turn up in his LinkedIn comments without receipts. This week the IEA released its 2023 World Energy Outlook, an updated Michael Liebreich Hydrogen Ladder 5.0, and #COP28 is only a month away - making it the perfect time to check in with the most unfiltered energy and climate tech strategists around. He comprehensively out-nerds host Richard Delevan in this episode of the Wicked Problems Podcast. Michael's Catalysts: Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rummelt - a key for understanding Barnard's ruthless focus on what's real.Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy by Kishore Mambabani - The Eminence Grise behind Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew Co-hosts Claire Brady (LinkedIn) and Richard Delevan will be back soon with another epsiode. For ad-free listening, subscribe at news.wickedproblems.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this podcast David Ledesma talks to Aliaksei Patonia and Veronika Lenivova about Hydrogen pipelines and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines and how Hydrogen pipelines offer the advantage of transporting larger energy volumes, but existing projects are dwarfed by the vast networks of HVDC transmission lines. The podcast discusses how advocates for hydrogen pipelines […] The post OIES Podcast – Hydrogen pipelines vs. HVDC lines appeared first on Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
IEA's World Energy Outlook, COP28, Hydrogen hopium, CCUS, predatory delay, HVDC, electrification, LDES, Michael Liebreich, and MPs "with the STEM background of illiterate newts"Subscribe to our newsletter at news.wickedproblems.uk, and get new #climatetech conversations first with co-hosts Richard Delevan and Claire Brady.Michael Barnard is a Forbes and Cleantechnica contributor, chief strategist at The Future is Electric, and climate futurist advising global corporates and financial institutions on decarbonisation scenarios with 80-year horizons. And woe be unto you if you turn up in his LinkedIn comments without receipts. This week the IEA released its 2023 World Energy Outlook, an updated Michael Liebreich Hydrogen Ladder 5.0, and #COP28 is only a month away - making it the perfect time to check in with the most unfiltered energy and climate tech strategists around. He comprehensively out-nerds host Richard Delevan in this episode of the Wicked Problems Podcast. Michael's Catalysts: Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rummelt - a key for understanding Barnard's ruthless focus on what's real.Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy by Kishore Mambabani - The Eminence Grise behind Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew Co-hosts Claire Brady (LinkedIn) and Richard Delevan will be back soon with another epsiode. Send your feedback and ideas for guests and topics at info@wickedproblems.uk and subscribe at news.wickedproblems.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
LG Chem has entered LMFP manufacturing with a 50,000-ton cathode factory in Morocco. The UK threatens to be the weak link in a mooted UK-German hydrogen partnership. A new study has found 36 HVDC transmission lines which would begin construction across the U, serving 187 GW of renewables, if the policy environment was more favorable.
We discuss a NREL report prescribing three times the transmission infrastructure in place today, in order to achieve 100% clean energy, with WSP SVP-Energy Mike Case. For pictures and more info, visit http://www.energy-cast.com/170-wsp.html
Rosemary is back in action to discuss Suzlon's new 3MW machine and SGRE designing a 4MW turbine for the US. It's good to see new turbines and new orders! Scotland is concerned about floating turbines being dragged to Rotterdam for repairs, and discussions are underway for an offshore HVDC cable between Canada and the US. The Gode 1 wind turbine was amazingly back in service 24 hours after being hit by a cargo ship - Joel does a back of the envelope calculation. The new Lisheen III Wind Farm in Ireland is our Wind Farm of the Week! Visit Pardalote Consulting at https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWind Power LAB - https://windpowerlab.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! 168 Allen Hall: We just got back from New Orleans and we spent a little time on the road after New Orleans. Just checking out the general area. I have never been to Mobile, Alabama. I haven't been to Pensacola in a long time. Boy, the Gulf of Mexico is a nice place to hang out. Uh, some parts of America are really cool. Yeah, Joel Saxum: you know, it, uh, my better half and I, Kayla, we always talk about traveling. Oh, let's travel here. Let's go to, we want to go, you know, south of Spain, we want to check this, we're gonna go to India, check this up. And like, man, the US is so big and it's so beautiful in all corners of it. Like you could spend a lifetime traveling around just these freaking 48 lower states even and not see it all. Allen Hall: Yeah, that was amazing. And, and we. Did enjoy New Orleans quite a bit. We had some really good food in, in fact, Joel, you're the one who took us to this really great restaurant. I don't know if we would've found it otherwise, but we had a, a great time there. Hopefully everybody else is recovering from ACP 2023. There's gonna be an offshore, uh, wind conference in London, and about a week from when this episode releases, that's gonna be a huge deal that that one's a, a, a big one. So these wind conferences are getting to be massive and. Just like this week's episode, this is a massive episode cause we have so much, uh, good news about wind. Denmark has a massive tender for offshore wind, like it's gonna put America to shame. This, this thing is huge. And, and Rosemary and Joel talk about the implications. Uh, In Denmark and the surrounding, uh, countries, and also what it means for America, uh, because there's a lot of activities is happening in Europe on offshore wind. Then Sulan down in India has a new three megawatt machine, and they are attracting orders right now, and it's, and they're. Turning a profit, their stock is up. Really good things happening in India with Sulan and Siemens. Ka Mesa has announced a new megawatt turbine for the US for some sort of US weather conditions, and we're not sure what that is. Joel talks about what possible wind situations exist in the US that don't exist elsewhere, but. Ira Bill is playing a lot into that Siemens S Sch Mesa decision. Yeah, absolutely. Joel Saxum: And as we are always talking about what's going on in the new, in the industry, we're gonna be visiting one of the, uh, oldest floating. Wind farms. There's a Scottish turbine up by Aberdeen that actually gets tow, is being towed to Rotterdam for some repairs. Um, which is kind of odd, but, we'll, we'll jump into that one. And then also, uh, Rosemary lends some, some, some really good insights to a proposed US Canadian transmission corridor. So the, there's a.
Every Sunday, Gerard and Laurent debrief last week's news in the Energy Transition.On the menu:- Mining, despite being critical for the Energy Transition, has an HR problem- Finally, some investments in transmission (Terna, Grid United)- The success of Germany's home batteries (+60% yoy)- In the US, Renewables overtake coal and nuke
In this episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast, Jessica Oh – strategic partnerships director in the sustainability and public health office within the Minnesota Department of Transportation – discusses the “next generation highway” her agency is studying.EPISODE NOTESThe Ray and consulting firm NGI released the NextGen Highways Feasibility Study for Minnesota DOT in April; a study that examined strategies for “co-locating” electric and communications infrastructure in highway rights-of-way or ROWs.The study focused on the potential deployment of buried, high-voltage/direct current or HVDC transmission lines within Minnesota interstate and highway ROWs – an effort that offers broader implications for highway ROW strategies in other states.In April 2021, the Federal Highway Administration released guidance clarifying the highway ROW “can be leveraged by state DOTs for pressing public needs relating to climate change, equitable communications access, and energy reliability.”Projects listed include renewable energy generation, electrical transmission and distribution projects, broadband projects, vegetation management, inductive charging in travel lanes, and alternative fueling facilities, among others.“At the heart of this study is the need to examine the energy transmission infrastructure we will need in order to electrify our transportation network; part of a broader effort to decarbonize the U.S. economy,” Oh explained during the podcast.“The concept we're evaluating looked specifically at burying [electric power] transmission lines in the highway ROW,” she noted. “Only three states allow for that now. Yet the use of existing distributed ROW could contain the visual impact of expanding our electric grid while lessening the need to acquire more land to support more transmission.”Building transmission capacity in existing highway ROW could also reduce project-siting timelines by seven to 10 years, Oh added, while reducing the need to work with hundreds of landowners on a project down to dealing with a single state department of transportation.“There is a great benefit for communities if they allow transmission capacity to be built in the highway ROW,” she emphasized.Other partners on the project include, Satterfield Consulting, Great Plains Institute, 5 Lakes Energy and Tracy Warren.
The Ray and consulting firm NGI released the NextGen Highways Feasibility Study for the Minnesota DOT in April; a study that examined strategies for “co-locating” electric and communications infrastructure in highway right-of-ways or ROWs.The study focused on the potential deployment of buried, high-voltage/direct current or HVDC transmission lines within Minnesota interstate and highway ROWs – an effort that offers broader implications for highway ROW strategies in other states.In April 2021, the Federal Highway Administration released guidance clarifying the highway ROW “can be leveraged by state DOTs for pressing public needs relating to climate change, equitable communications access, and energy reliability.”Projects listed include renewable energy generation, electrical transmission and distribution projects, broadband projects, vegetation management, inductive charging in travel lanes, and alternative fueling facilities, among others.“At the heart of this study is the need to examine the energy transmission infrastructure we will need in order to electrify our transportation network; part of a broader effort to decarbonize the U.S. economy,” Oh explained during the podcast.“The concept we're evaluating looked specifically at burying [electric power] transmission lines in the highway ROW,” she noted. “Only three states allow for that now. Yet the use of existing distributed ROW could contain the visual impact of expanding our electric grid while lessening the need to acquire more land to support more transmission.”Building transmission capacity in existing highway ROW could also reduce project-siting timelines by seven to 10 years, Oh added, while reducing the need to work with hundreds of landowners on a project down to dealing with a single state department of transportation.“There is a great benefit for communities if they allow transmission capacity to be built in the highway ROW,” she emphasized.
The entire infrastructure of our economy depends on a reliable grid. And the work we are doing to decarbonize will only increase demands on the grid moving forward.So, how do we look into the future? What are we doing to upgrade the grid? To make it stronger and more adaptable? And most importantly, how do we get solar and wind energy facilities connected to the grid in a timely manner?Jay Caspary serves as Vice President at Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm based in Washington, DC. With 40 years' experience in transmission planning and renewables integration, Jay provides policy makers, grid planners and utilities with the sound engineering analyses they need to transform our grid for the evolving resource mix.On this episode of Clean Power Hour, Jay joins Tim to discuss his top three priorities for building a more robust but clean grid, describing his vision for a national macrogrid that makes use of existing infrastructure and grid-enhancing technologies. Jay explains the benefits of high-voltage direct current systems, exploring why it makes sense to put HVDC infrastructure underground and why we're slow to adopt the technology here in the US.Listen in to understand what's behind the moratorium on solar at PJM and learn what FERC is doing to reform the transmission planning process and accelerate the decarbonization of the grid.Key TakeawaysJay's career in transmission planning and wind integrationJay's top 3 priorities for building a more robust but clean grid1. Shared vision of national macrogrid2. Take advantage of aging infrastructure3. Deploy grid-enhancing technologiesThe goals of the DOE's Building a Better Grid Initiative The benefits of high-voltage direct current systemsWhy we're slow to adopt HVDC here in the USWhat's behind the moratorium on solar at PJMHow FERC is reforming the transmission planning processWhy it makes sense to put HVDC infrastructure undergroundConnect with JayGrid StrategiesEmail jcaspary@gridstrategiesllc.comConnect with Tim Clean Power Hour Clean Power Hour on YouTubeTim on TwitterTim on LinkedIn Email tgmontague@gmail.com Review Clean Power Hour on Apple PodcastsResources‘Advanced Conductors on Existing Transmission Corridors to Accelerate Low Cost Decarbonization' by Jay Caspary and Jesse SchneiderPJM Solar MoratoriumFERC Order No. 888FERC NOPR on Transmission Planning & Cost AllocationClean DisruptCorporate sponsors who share our mission to speed the energy transition are invited to check out https://www.cleanpowerhour.com/support/ Twice a week we highlight the tools, technologies and innovators that are making the clean energy transition a reality - on Apple,
Michael Barnard of The Future Is Electric discusses his shift from tech to climate solutions, advising on sustainable investments. He emphasizes scalable solutions like wind, solar, and storage over nuclear power. Highlighting HVDC's potential for efficient electricity transmission, he criticizes US political constraints on infrastructure. On hydrogen, Barnard points out inefficiencies in production and storage, advocating for battery technology advancements and innovations in battery recycling to meet future energy needs.
Jigar Shah has had an exceptional career as a commercializer of energy decarbonization solutions, from founding solar developer SunEdison, to putting his money where his mouth is with the original Clean Feet Investors fund, to co-founding the Carbon War Room with Richard Branson. Now he's running the US Department of Energy's Loans Program Office and has $40B of authority within manufacturing, innovative project finance, and tribal energy. In this broad and animated discussion, he asserts the value of the $504 million hydrogen storage and generation project in Utah the program funded, why he's bullish on small modular reactors as well as wind and solar, and why HVDC is a big part of the USA's energy transmission future but isn't a slam dunk.
Jigar Shah has had an exceptional career as a commercializer of energy decarbonization solutions, from founding solar developer SunEdison, to putting his money where his mouth is with the original Clean Feet Investors fund, to co-founding the Carbon War Room with Richard Branson. Now he's running the US Department of Energy's Loans Program Office and has $40B of authority within manufacturing, innovative project finance, and tribal energy. In this broad and animated discussion, he asserts the value of the $504 million hydrogen storage and generation project in Utah the program funded, why he's bullish on small modular reactors as well as wind and solar, and why HVDC is a big part of the USA's energy transmission future but isn't a slam dunk.
Jigar Shah has had an exceptional career as a commercializer of energy decarbonization solutions, from founding solar developer SunEdison, to putting his money where his mouth is with the original Clean Feet Investors fund, to co-founding the Carbon War Room with Richard Branson. Now he's running the US Department of Energy's Loans Program Office and has $40B of authority within manufacturing, innovative project finance, and tribal energy. In this broad and animated discussion, he asserts the value of the $504 million hydrogen storage and generation project in Utah the program funded, why he's bullish on small modular reactors as well as wind and solar, and why HVDC is a big part of the USA's energy transmission future but isn't a slam dunk.
Jigar Shah has had an exceptional career as a commercializer of energy decarbonization solutions, from founding solar developer SunEdison, to putting his money where his mouth is with the original Clean Feet Investors fund, to co-founding the Carbon War Room with Richard Branson. Now he's running the US Department of Energy's Loans Program Office and has $40B of authority within manufacturing, innovative project finance, and tribal energy. In this broad and animated discussion, he asserts the value of the $504 million hydrogen storage and generation project in Utah the program funded, why he's bullish on small modular reactors as well as wind and solar, and why HVDC is a big part of the USA's energy transmission future but isn't a slam dunk.
Subsea interconnectors are a very discreet sector, it entails decade-long developments…but are developing fast and have become critical to increasing renewables penetration and enhancing energy security. They were originally developed around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea by TSO (Transmission System Operators) but have now caught the interest of large private infrastructure investors. Those HVDC cables, running for hundreds of kms under the seabed, can carry (in both ways) power equivalent to a nuclear plant.How are those projects being developed? What are their revenue models? What are the technical options? What does the future look like as pharaonic projects liking continents are now being considered? Gerard and Laurent provide an in-depth view into the beauty and sophistication of those projects with the “captain Nemo” of interconnectors, Simon Ludlam. Simon, a former investment banker, is the founding partner of Etchea Energy which currently provides the Management Team to the Irish MaresConnect interconnector project. Etchea Energy previously provided Project Director services to the €500m Greenlink Interconnector where it was successful in introducing Cap & Floor regulation in Ireland, securing PCI status for the project, and raising equity finance for the construction phase. Prior to Greenlink, Simon originated and led the development of the €600m ElecLink interconnector project through the Channel Tunnel.We thank our friend and partner Aquila Capital for supporting the show
Simon Morrish is the CEO and founder of Xlinks, CEO of Ground Control and Partner at Levitate Capital.Simon is a serial entrepreneur (he is the founder of amongst others, Xlinks, Future Motors and Skysports) who has invested in and worked with companies such as Excel IT, Solar Ventus, CQC, Survey Roofing and Litter Boss. Simon started out at Morgan Stanley as a Derivatives Analyst, he then worked at McKinsey & Company. With his wife, he co-founded and directed How-Smart Ltd which was successfully sold to a larger competitor.Simon holds a Master's degree with Distinction in Economics, Engineering and Management from Oxford University and a Master of Business Administration degree with Honors from Harvard Business School. Simon was a recipient of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ award for Transformational Leadership in 2018 and was the recipient of the British Business Excellence Awards LDC Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2021.
The latest Infra Dig podcast seen the focus turn on Xlinks – a fascinating renewable energy development in Morocco that will transmit electricity through an HVDC link to the UK.Simon Morrish, founder and chief executive of Xlinks, talks to IJGlobal editorial director Angus Leslie Melville about his company's plans for a truly ambitious project that reaches a landmark stage this month.He runs the through Xlink's strategy for solar plants and wind farms in southern Morocco (with associated battery energy storage systems) before discussing XLCC – the company that will be creating the 15,200km of HVDC cable in the UK. And then there is the cable-laying ship which will be fuelled by hydrogen to maintain green credentials throughout and will be the biggest such vessel in the world.Then discussion moves on to plans to project finance the £18 billion transaction… and so much more.
Anders Peterson started working in the cannabis industry fifteen years ago. Today, he's a cell molecular biologist, and 30 years old, his obsession with the science behind the plants drives his career. Today, Peterson is a Cannabis Operations Specialist at Inspire Transpiration Solutions. Inspire specializes in integrated HVDC systems for proper temperature, humidity, and airflow for indoor plant environments, specifically with indoor cannabis cultivation facilities or controlled environment agriculture (CEA).Cornell defines CEA as “an advanced and intensive form of hydroponically-based agriculture where plants grow within a controlled environment to optimize horticultural practices.” UC Davis frames CEA as agriculture that “encompasses a variety of systems that take a technology-based approach to farming.” The most advanced CEA systems are “fully automated, closed-loop systems with controlled lighting, water, and ventilation, from simple shade structures to greenhouses or vertical farms.”“The cannabis HVAC world is an interesting one,” said Peterson, “I'm obsessed with the science of growing plants inside.” As the industry becomes legal from state to state, there's been an influx of investors building grow facilities rapidly. “A lot of investors getting into the space forget at the end of the day that this is farming. Farming is not a get-rich-quick scheme,” said Peterson. However, if investors are researching and engineering their space correctly, the opportunity for long-term income is there. “Invest in the right systems upfront, and you'll have an asset that will continually make you money for 15 plus years,” Peterson explained.Podcast host, Greg Crumpton, chimed in that his interest in the cannabis industry stems from (no pun intended). “I want to be able to understand the evaporation of water from a plant. Going back to the science. Going back to the facts.” What happens to the plant after he fits out the environment is not his business. “My point is to give it a healthy environment,” said Crumpton.The cannabis industry is rapidly growing, and legalization from state to state shows promise of federal legalization on the horizon. Peterson has seen exponential growth in cannabis knowledge and industry standards. He points out that new career botanists are spoiled with accessible information and research. He spent hours digging into forums and online discussions to research and find legitimate answers compared to when he started. “The best way to legitimize the industry is transparency. The industry has evolved at an exponential pace, and you either have to adapt, or you're left behind,” said Peterson.Peterson predicts that when federal laws lift the sanctions on the state-to-state trading, growing will become consolidated and cheap growers will be weeded out (again, no pun intended). For cannabis growing, hyper controllable HVDC systems engineer an ideal CEA.In this unique application, Peterson parallels the plants to little humidifiers. “They are drinking water through their roots. When the lights are on, the vapor pressure deficit is driving the water through the plant and out of its leaves,” said Peterson. After 12 hours, the space has a dramatic shift to combat after the lights are off. The humidity will create a swamp if not adequately drawn out, and temperatures drop by 12-15 degrees. HVAC controls help balance spikes that would otherwise damage the plants. Growers controlled these spikes with plant care products, fans, and other implementations in the past. “But now, your HVAC system is the best risk mitigation tool,” explained Peterson.
Interconnectors are shooting up the news agenda as markets increasingly seek to achieve energy security and today's Infra Dig podcast turns the focus on a sector where understanding needs to ramp up significantly.In a new style of podcast – presented by IJGlobal editorial director Angus Leslie Melville – the mission is to explain “how it works”… and to that end we introduce Niklas Persson, managing director of the Hitachi Energy unit grid integration business, who has deep history in the interconnector space.This style of podcast – explaining how things work before looking at the wider market – is driven by an established belief that many people who lend to projects or acquire assets often have paper-thin understanding of how the underlying asset actually works.To this end, Niklas runs through his sector, explaining what interconnectors are and how they work, before moving on to HVDC and the key role it plays in transmitting energy over long distances. Conversation then moves on to the wider market, briefly discussing some projects that Hitachi Energy is delivering.
For our March 2022 Line Life Podcast, Field Editor Amy Fischbach talks with Jeff Laninga, live-line and electrical effect section head at Manitoba Hydro, about ongoing research on flashovers on HVDC lines. Linemen worked with a vendor to install monitoring equipment on the towers, and the company is working on studying the flashovers in its high-voltage laboratory.
For our March 2022 Line Life Podcast, Field Editor Amy Fischbach talks with Jeff Laninga, live-line and electrical effect section head at Manitoba Hydro, about ongoing research on flashovers on HVDC lines. Linemen worked with a vendor to install monitoring equipment on the towers, and the company is working on studying the flashovers in its high-voltage laboratory.
In episode 5, Mary-Jane Lintin meets with Torsten Neidig from Hitachi Energy to discuss the NordLink HVDC Interconnector. This project won a “Sustainability Award” for Hitachi's largest internal awards programme – in this episode we find out what made the project so special! Music by Jago Thornton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Welcome to 2022, the year of the Terawatt! That's right, this year will cross the trillion watt mark! 2022 will be remembered as the year that humanity reached the magic number of 1 trillion watts, aka 1 terawatt or 1TW of solar installed since the beginning of time. We do not have to take into consideration the amount of solar taken out of service, since that is so low, it probably will be replaced in less than a month, so that means we will hit the milestone of installed 1TW since 1 million BC and we will also have 1TW that is installed and working every day. 1TW = 1000GW = a million megawatts! According to a July 2021 article titles "Solar continues to break installation records, on track for Terawatt scale by 2022" by Solar Power Europe, Earth will hit 900 GW in 2021, 1.1 TW in 2022, 1.3 TW in 2023, 1.6 TW in 2023, and 1.8 TW in 2025. At a world population of 7.9 Billion, we are close to hitting another milestone too. To put a trillion watts into context, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl was 1GW, so the power output of 1000 Chernobyls is about equal to the power output of solar on Earth sometime in 2022. There are a little over 2TW of coal plants operating in the world right now, so we are not there yet. I also do not want to fool you and have to mention that coal and nuclear do work at night, so we need more solar to make up for that, along with energy storage and high voltage DC lines across time zones, which is more easily engineered physically than politically. Can you imagine Middle America allowing the East and West Coasts sharing daylight electricity via power lines through their states? Perhaps we will have to stick to energy storage right now. I once saw a presentation by Dr. Shi who was the founder of Suntech in China, where he pointed out that we could have high voltage dc (HVDC) power lines that circle the globe. The pathway would be from South Africa, up to Eurasia and then across the Bering Straits to Alaska and down to Argentina. Once climate change hits, perhaps we can also have an HVDC extension to the green pastures of Antartica! To put HVDC into context and using 1 million volts as an example, we would be able to carry a MW with 1 Amp! We would be able to carry a GW, which is all of the power that Chernobyl could produce with 1000A. There are many homes that are wired for 100A and many buildings that are wired for well over 1000A. Depending on your source, the largest PV project in the world is about 1GW, so now putting that into wire sizing terms, you can easily transport a GW using wire tables in the NEC (utilities do not have to follow the NEC and can size their wires smaller). The reason that HVDC is the perfect way to carry large amounts of power over long distances, is because Voltage x Current = Power, so with high voltage, you need much less current for the same amount of power and current is what heats up a wire, not voltage. The reason that we do not use high voltage in our houses is because high voltage is sparky. Go to www.SolarSEAN.com to find out more!
I det 60:e avsnittet av podden gästas vi av Per Eckemark. Genom sin roll som chef för Nät på Svenska kraftnät är han ansvarig för underhåll och utbyggnation av det svenska stamnätet. Avsnittet blev lite av det stora elnätsavsnittet där vi både får en genomgång av tekniken i sig — om för- och nackdelar med att föra över el med växelström och likström — och historiken, framtiden och statusen idag för det svenska elnätet. Vi går även in i detaljerna för hur ledtider för nya elnätprojekt kan sänkas i den mån som krävs för att möjliggöra energiomställningen. Avslutningsvis får vi höra om Pers erfarenheter av sitt tidigare jobb som chef för högspänd likström (HVDC) på ABB — och vi får höra hur det faktiskt går till att bygga de gigantiska undervattenskablarna som i allt större grad binder ihop Europas elsystem.
There's a new social media platform to stop climate chaos - "We don't have time" by Ingmar RentzhogUnions getting behind Biden's jobs act plansSolar+wind powered hydrogen space rockets in AustraliaWorld's largest ocean turbine - that looks like a Starwars X-Wing fighterConnecting solar from Morocco to the UK at 6.7 cents per kWh - Epic HVDC**Please subscribe to the channel**Likes, shares and comments are awesome - do it! **Hit that bell for the energy transitionLet's grow solar! -Tim Montague, host & creator, @TGMontague on TwitterEP 42 - April 27, 2021Today on the Solar Podcast Ep. 42 (Apr. 28, 2021)New social media for good… we don't have time https://www.wedonthavetime.org/ ***World's largest water turbine - looks like a spaceship from Star Warshttp://www.emec.org.uk/about-us/our-tidal-clients/orbital-marine-power/***Project of the week - first solar power project in New Bedford historical region. Black panels, internal wiring, nothing visible from street levelhttps://twitter.com/SolarInMASS/status/1385452264098238465***Hydrogen-powered space rockets are coming to Queenslandhttps://reneweconomy.com.au/hydrogen-powered-space-rockets-are-coming-to-queensland/***Submarine cable to connect 10.5 GW wind-solar complex in Morocco to the UK grid“Xlinks is planning to inject power into the UK for a CfD price of around £0.048 ($0.067)/kWh, which would be a bit more than around £0.040/kWh for current off-shore wind tenders and much less than the £0.0925/kWh for the controversial Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant”https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/22/submarine-cable-to-connect-10-5-gw-wind-solar-complex-in-morocco-to-the-uk-grid/***FirstEnergy used customer money to bribe politicians to screw over customers.https://twitter.com/EnergyandPolicy/status/1385663056001306625***Volvo Group Q1 2021 sold fully Electric Vehicles:https://twitter.com/MagnusKarlstrom/status/1385128680222040064***A tweet from the Ohio AFLCIO union showing support for Biden's clean energy plans. Other unions have said similarly - this is cool.https://twitter.com/ohioaflcio/status/1385189479946887169Fraunhofer ISE achieves 35.9% efficiency for III-V triple-junction solar cell based on siliconhttps://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/23/fraunhofer-ise-achieves-35-9-efficiency-for-iii-v-triple-junction-solar-cell-based-on-silicon/History tweet -Happy birthday silicon solar cells!Bell Labs unveiled the world's 1st practical silicon solar cell, developed by Fuller, Chapin & Pearson #OTD 1954. This first PV cell was only 4% efficient & cost $286/W. https://twitter.com/paulcoxon/status/989112588800700416Plus cool video that shows scientists hand manufacturing solar cells:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I1JhyOahIwBIPV solar panel - interesting part is where they offer the standard 30 year power production warranty, but offer a 50 year building material warrantyhttps://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/23/hevel-solar-unveils-22-3-efficient-heterojunction-bipv-solar-module/Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled legislation that would invest $25 billion to convert the nation's fleet of gasoline- and diesel-powered school buses to electric vehicles, building on a component of President Joe Biden's $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan to improve children's health.https://www.kxan.com/news/political-news/dems-push-25b-to-electrify-school-buses-a-biden-priority/** www.CESnrg.com/podcast** www.CESnrg.com/eventsThe Clean Power Hour is produced and created by Tim Montague, Solar Expert. Please like, comment and subscribe to our channel. Thank you for watching! Please post comments and suggestion for future shows on the channel or contact Tim Montague tmontague@cesnrg.com | @tgmontague on Twitter - follow me!
Xlinks is seeking to harnass African solar energy and transport it across the ocean via submerged HVDC cables. The project is ambitious and holds tremendous promise for the UK energy industry and internationally. In this interview, Simon describes the project and its potential for taking renewables to the next level.
Mark Z Jacobson's roadmap is cited by politicians like AOC, Bernie Sanders, and many others as an article of faith that a 100% renewables system is achievable and desirable. With great power comes great responsibility, and it is essential that those in the political class wrestling with climate change are well-informed about the consequences of their policy decisions. Enter Michael Conley and Tim Mahoney, who in their book "Roadmap to Nowhere" work through the implications of Mark Jacobson's plan. This includes a massive parallel HVDC transmission system to connect far-flung wind and solar installations to load centres, and a "fuel-less" system that matches supply and demand with very little reserve, predicated on a weather modeling system designed by Mr. Jacobson himself. Lastly, the plan calls for a dramatic increase in hydro involving increasing current capacity by 13x, which would result in discharges that would regularly dwarf historic 100-year floods and wash away population centres on America's major river systems. Rather than quaint scenes of small-scale, localized, democratically controlled infrastructure, the plan calls for industrialization of America's countrysides with almost 500,000 wind turbines 35 stories high and 14.5 billion square meters of utility solar panels. When Jacobson's plan was criticized in the academic community, rather than defending his ideas in scientific journals, he responded with a 10 million SLAPP lawsuit alleging defamation. This lawsuit was subsequently thrown out, and Jacobson has been ordered to pay the defendants' costs. It's time for policymakers to devote themselves to energy literacy, understand the studies that they reference, and make informed decisions to guide us through something as consequential as an energy transition.
Kerala is scheduled to go to the polls in May. Politically, it has largely been bi-polar, with power alternating between the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front and the Congress led United Democratic Front. While the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government has praised for having delivered welfare schemes efficiently during the Kerala Floods of 2018, it's recent mishandling of the COVID pandemic and also the spate of scams has cast a shadow on its performance. In the UDF, the Congress' decline politically has mirrored the rise of the Muslim League who are now a more assertive ally, causing tensions between various allied demographics. The Kerala Congress (Mani) split, with K M Mani's son Jose K Mani, allying with the LDF has made matters grave. Meanwhile, the BJP has seen a groundswell of support in recent times led by Prime Minister Modi's own popularity; he has inaugurated multiple infrastructure projects in the State, recently, including the 2,000-MW Pugalur-Thrissur high voltage direct current (HVDC) power transmission corridor. On this episode, we are joined by political experts and commentators, Ananth Krishna Subhalakshmy and Rohit Jayaraman for a deep dive analysis of what factors could influence the results of this upcoming election. This podcast is available on YouTube, Apple, Google, Spotify, Breaker, Stitcher, and other popular platforms.If you like this episode, then please like, subscribe and share! For more information, do check out www.bharatvaarta.in.
Kerala is scheduled to go to the polls in May. Politically, it has largely been bi-polar, with power alternating between the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front and the Congress led United Democratic Front. While the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government has praised for having delivered welfare schemes efficiently during the Kerala Floods of 2018, it's recent mishandling of the COVID pandemic and also the spate of scams has cast a shadow on its performance. In the UDF, the Congress' decline politically has mirrored the rise of the Muslim League who are now a more assertive ally, causing tensions between various allied demographics. The Kerala Congress (Mani) split, with K M Mani's son Jose K Mani, allying with the LDF has made matters grave. Meanwhile, the BJP has seen a groundswell of support in recent times led by Prime Minister Modi's own popularity; he has inaugurated multiple infrastructure projects in the State, recently, including the 2,000-MW Pugalur-Thrissur high voltage direct current (HVDC) power transmission corridor. On this episode, we are joined by political experts and commentators, Ananth Krishna Subhalakshmy and Rohit Jayaraman for a deep dive analysis of what factors could influence the results of this upcoming election. This podcast is available on YouTube, Apple, Google, Spotify, Breaker, Stitcher, and other popular platforms.If you like this episode, then please like, subscribe and share! For more information, do check out www.bharatvaarta.in.
Today, we look at a few final ideas to boost the performance of the existing transmission grid: storage-as-transmission and converting AC lines to HVDC. (If you don't want to read, you can listen!) Get full access to Volts at www.volts.wtf/subscribe
Today we examine a clever idea to bypass conventional transmission siting hassles by running HVDC power lines along rail & roads. One company's actually doing it! (If you don't want to read, you can listen.) Get full access to Volts at www.volts.wtf/subscribe
Today Joe interviewed Stephan Schwab - Director, Offshore Wind Substation at WSP. As an Engineer, Stephan possesses a strong background in the energy space, including HVDC and Offshore Wind. His key strengths lie in outstanding communication, developing strategy, executing plans, and delivering on business objectives within multi-billion-dollar corporations. He is adept at global coordination and multi-cultural team management. Stephan has directed $200MM+, high-profile projects, managing scope, budget, resource allocation, materials, and scheduling with a strong ability to develop policies, procedures, and performance standards and actively promote and ensure safe and compliant work environments. He has a keen ability to optimize technical operations through enhancements, upgrades, and modifications containing costs and mitigating risk through effective financial management and contractor qualification. He enjoys coaching employees and direct reports through challenges, providing professional development opportunities, and motivating excellent performance. http://InnerGeniusPodcast.com
The Rethink Team discusses new innovation coming out of the Russian solar sector, along with the potential for the hydrogen sector to trickle $12 trillion through the global economy up to 2050. It's also been a quarter of contrasts for the wind sector, with an upsurge in offshore wind presenting one of many opportunities for HVDC transmission.
Você sabia que quando se necessita transmitir grandes quantidades de energia em longas distâncias, normalmente em mais de 1000km, as linhas de transmissão são em Corrente Contínua? No final do curso de engenharia elétrica a Camila estava buscando sobre temas diferentes para o seu TCC e decidiu estudar sobre os bipolos construídos nessas subestações das linhas de transmissão em alta tensão corrente contínua (HVDC). Na época o único bipolo existente no Brasil era da linha que conectava Itaipu ao sudeste no Brasil. Entre as coincidências da vida, quando já estava no mestrado pensando em seguir vida acadêmica, recebeu uma proposta para ir para Rondônia trabalhar na construção do segundo bipolo do Brasil, que levaria energia das usinas de Santo Antônio e Jirau também para o sudeste, onde está o centro consumidor. Sem pensar muito, a Camila largou o mestrado e desde então participou da construção desse e também do terceiro bipolo construído no Brasil, para a linha de transmissão em 800kV HVDC da usina de Belo Monte no Pará. Esse episódio está cheio de curiosidades sobre as particularidades da transmissão em HVDC, e um pouco sobre a vida e o trabalho em grandes obras como essas. Links úteis do episódio: Linkedin da Camila: www.linkedin.com/in/milamaciel/ Instagram do Elas de Botina: www.instagram.com/elasdebotina/ SIGA O MULHERES DA ENGENHARIA NO INSTAGRAM! www.instagram.com/mulheresdaengenharia/ Meu Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ariana-adratt-8b5a7821/
In episode 10, Allen and Dan discuss new nickel cobalt wind turbine leading edge protection tiles that can be retrofitted onto blades to enhance their leading edge durability. Leading edge erosion of wind turbine blades is a huge, industry-wide problem that is yet to be solved...is this new application of airplane propeller technology able to fix it? Also discussed was HVDC (high voltage direct current) and it's potential to replace HVAC (high voltage alternating current) as the top transmitter of power from offshore wind farms to the power grid. Learn more about Weather Guard Lightning Tech’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. Have a question we can answer on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast? Email us! Read articles on nickel cobalt tiles here: https://www.windpowerengineering.com/new-research-brings-aerospace-blade-protection-to-the-wind-industry/ and here: https://www.tdworld.com/renewables/article/20972636/getting-offshore-wind-power-on-the-grid EP10 - Nickel Cobalt Leading Edge Protection & HVDC Power: Full Episode Transcript Check out our YouTube video version here: https://youtu.be/a8vHHqEmG98 https://youtu.be/a8vHHqEmG98 At Weather Guard Lightning tech, we make wind turbine lightning protection easy. If you're a wind farm operator, stop settling for damaged turbine blades and constant downtime. Get your uptime back with our StrikeTape lightning protection system. Welcome back. I'm Allen Hall. I'm Dan Blewett and this is the Uptime Podcast where we talk about wind energy engineering, lightning protection, and ways to keep your wind turbines running. Allen, episode 10 of the Uptime Podcast. How, how do you feel about this double digit. It's exciting, isn't it? Yeah. Two two digits. Yeah. We've made it. We're big time now. We've got a long way to go get to get to three digits. That's the problem. That's a big gap. It's, yeah, and then we get the four digits as it's like we'll both be dead. We'll both be dead by that point. It's exponential. A long time. Yeah. We need to get to where we can count it. Well, are we at a w? No, we don't have any exponents yet. We've got to get some, have an exponent. Well, 10 to the second, 10 to the second, and we're tend to the zero. Is that where it, no, 10 zero would be one 10 to the first. Wouldn't tend to the zero B zero I liked under the zeros one. Hmm. I could be wrong. Isn't major in math, so it's fine. We're good? Yeah, we're good. So Corona virus week, like 97 Oh one minute recap. We're starting to come out of a self isolation there. They're opening up. Thinks this week, which means I think next we'll kind of thing. It's just like taco bell or taco bell. That's the critical as the critical one. Whenever taco bell opens up where it's like safe to slither out of our holes, let's just, let's just be, let's let you be known that talk about never closed. They were over the whole time. Yes. Well, yeah, they've been there. They've always been essential in all of America's hearts and stomachs. Yes. Thank you, taco bell for all you do of us staying open for us. Yes. But, uh, next week is, uh, all the barber shops and sorta that kind of nail salons and all of those things open up. So it's sort of a big milestone, I think. Yeah. Which I think is fine. I mean, that's fine. It's a small, tiny, yeah. You have a couple couple people. No big deal. Right? Well, maybe it's a big deal, but you have to be seen, I guess so. I'm just wondering how they're going to work at all. It sounds like it's one person at a time into the place and that's all fine, right? Yeah. I mean, the logistics of a lot of it, just like the empty seats, it just throws in the question like in an airplane. Okay, all every other seats empty. How does that affect, I mean, it just like, it's. All these metrics of how they build the business out and how many seats they have to sell to be profitable.
Rajendra Iyer is managing director of Grid Integration Solutions, a business within the renewables energy business of GE that makes and deploys high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission solutions that can be used to either augment existing AC transmission lines and make them run much better with load balancing and other features, or can be deployed anywhere new transmission infrastructure is needed. His vision of the future includes deploying this technology to improve grid operations everywhere but we also talked about how the optimized grid could enhance transactional electricity, the idea of prosumers generating and selling power from homes and businesses and even just removing the cost of electricity entirely from end users.
In this episode we are discussing with Mario about HVDC electricity transportation starting from the electricity war between AC and DC and moving around the topics a lot trying to explain all of it in a understandable manner. Hopefully it was easy to follow, surely it was interesting for us to discuss and learn about! PS Mario had a youtube channel so go and check it! As always come to talk @STG_podcast and share this episode around! Find us also on PocketCasts, iTunes, Spotify and probably in your favorite podcast service! Podcast music by: Punch Deck
This episode dives into the formation of the power grid and its unique and inspiring history. Craig Stiegemeier, Retired Expert Services Product Manager for Transformers at ABB, takes us through the evolution of the grid, how we got to where we are today and what we can expect in the next 30 years.
In this episode, Ben Moore is joined by the UK's leading business leaders and researchers in the renewable energy world. They address a mysterious subject, something that is invisible to us, works for us every second of the day and is, for most people, intangible and unknowable: it is the National Grid. And the Grid faces the biggest challenge in its history…how much can it take? Alex Hunter is Managing Director at Sherwood Power (www.sherwoodpower.co.uk), which provides energy storage solutions to industrial, commercial and governmental clients. Before leading the team at Sherwood, he held directorships in publishing, remote industrial equipment monitoring, and sub-micron filtration companies. Dr Michael Smailes is Electrical Infrastructures Research Engineer at ORE Catapult. He took his Master's degree in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh and gained his doctorate in Offshore Renewable Engineering from IDCORE with a focus on HVDC power transformers. Ravneet Kaur is Innovation Manager at ORE Catapult with a brief to enable high-potential SMEs to enter and grow in the renewable energy sector. She also leads the enterprise and academic engagement for the eGrid project. Ravneet brings more than a decade of hands-on business development to her role and holds an MSc International Marketing and PG in Renewable Energy, Enterprise and Management from Newcastle University and an MBA from Nagpur University. Ben Moore is Marketing Manager at ORE Catapult's flagship centre in Blyth for advancing wind, wave and tidal energy. He studied Business Management at York St John University before taking his postgraduate degree in Renewable Energy, Enterprise and Management at the University of Newcastle. He is an active STEM ambassador working in local schools in the North East.
微信"siemensfm1847"，加入听友群，发现更多精彩！咨询西门子业务，请拨打400-616-2020主持人：西门子调频1847的听众朋友们，大家好！欢迎收听本期《科技不怕问》。可能许多人都跑过马拉松，不管是半马还是全马，反正我是真心佩服那些能在长跑中坚持下来的同学们。我记得当初我跑个800米就已经是痛不欲生了……几十公里的长跑已经是在挑战体能极限，如果一口气跑3000公里呢？今天咱们就来聊聊能一口气跑3000公里的高压直流输电，也就是HVDC。为此，我们特别请到了西门子中国油气与电力集团广州西门子变压器有限公司高压直流输电大客户经理肖璧田来节目做客。璧田，你好！肖璧田：主持人好，各位听众好！非常荣幸能与大家分享什么是高压直流输电。主持人：好的，既然咱们要聊高压直流输电，不妨就从最最基础的概念聊起。不知道能不能请璧田先跟我们讲讲什么是高压直流输电，它又为什么会出现呢？肖璧田：高压直流输电是将三相交流电通过换流站整流成直流电，然后通过直流输电线路送往另外一个换流站，再逆变成三相交流电的输电方式。高压直流输电线路基本上由两个换流站和直流输电线路组成，两个换流站与两端的交流系统相连接。高压直流输电系统可以通过架空线或海底电缆远距离输送电能。同时，在一些不适合使用传统交流连接的场合，它也可以用于独立电力系统间的连接。应用高压直流输电系统，电能等级和方向均能得到快速、精确的控制。高压直流输电系统用于远距离和超远距离输电，是因为它相对于传统的交流输电更经济。如果从投资的角度上来看，在输电系统中，对变电和线路两部分的投资所占的比重是非常大的。在直流输电系统中，对换流站的投资比重比较大，而在交流输电系统中，对输电线路的投资比重会比较大。那么，在同样的输电距离下，怎样去评估到底是用直流输电还是用交流输电呢？这个是工程在做初步预算和调研的时候需要去评估的。在超过一定距离时，采用直流输电会更经济，而当小于一定距离时，采用交流输电会更有利。通常我们在业内有一个认识，当输电距离超过600到800公里时，用直流输电就会比较经济，而如果线路长度只有40到60公里，或100到200公里的时候，交流输电相对就会更经济。除了输电距离与投资成本外，输送功率也是要考核的一个重要因素。当输送功率非常大时，交流输电往往会采用增加回路的方法。其实，如果大家去数一数路边铁塔上面挂的电线的数量，基本上在一股里面有四根线的，一般都是500千伏输电，两根线的就是220千伏输电，而通常110千伏输电都是一根线。对交流输电来说，输送功率大了，除了要增加很多回路外，还要同时增加很多电气设备，代价昂贵。而直流输电则是采用提高电压以及加大导线面积的方法。我们以前学物理的时候应该了解过，导线的横截面积越大时，它能传输的功率就越大。那么，可能有人就会问，在什么样的功率下，我们会采用直流输电，而在什么情况下，我们会采用交流输电呢？一般来说，在国内，当功率低于1000兆伏安时，我们经常会采用交流输电。而如果功率高于1000兆伏安，比如在我们与国家电网和南方电网等客户的合作项目中，功率达到8000兆伏安到10000兆伏安，甚至有时在国家电网的项目中输电功率达到12000兆伏安的时候，通常就会采用直流输电。另外一个需要考量的因素可能会比较专业一点，那就是直流输电没有相位和功角，也因此无需考虑稳定性的问题。这也是直流输电的一个非常大的优势。主持人：明白了。您刚刚提到了高压直流输电线路，我想到了一些咱们平时在生活中能看到的场景。我记得如果我们到山里应该能看到一些高压直流输电线路的杆塔。它们有各种各样的形状。比如说，有的是“干”字型的，有的像猫的脑袋，还有别的形状。我比较好奇，为什么杆塔要设计成现在这个样子，这里面有没有什么技术上的考量呢？肖璧田：这个问题问得非常好。通常，换流站作为国家的重要设备和设施，基本上是不大允许普通人进去参观的。但是，我们平常在开车或是散步的时候，经常能看到那种铁塔，对吧？我们在行业内也把那个叫作杆塔。其实，这种铁塔有很多种型号。我们看到的有猫头型、有“干”字型，其实还有酒杯型、“上”字型，还有桶型的。在选择铁塔的形式时，首先需要满足安全要求，同时还要符合输电线路的电压等级，包括我刚刚说的回路数，此外还要考虑地形情况、地质条件，之后再结合实际情况，选择某一个工程需要什么形式的铁塔。通过完成经济上和技术上的比较，选择一个最合理的铁塔形式。电压等级越高的输电线路，它的绝缘要求以及它对地距离的要求就越大。你可以看到，电压等级越高的，它的铁塔的高度就越高，承受的导线的重量就越大，塔头的尺寸也越大。所以说，我们能看到的无论是酒杯型的、猫头型的还是“上”字型的铁塔，它的外形主要是由它的电压等级和传输容量来决定的。另外一个在建铁塔时需要考虑的因素——也是在全世界都存在的一个共性的问题——就是周边区域的经济情况。通常来说，在经济发达的地区，征地费用是非常贵的。这就会影响整条线路的投资。因此，在经济发达的地方，建设铁塔时就会选择尽可能缩小线路走廊。我们把线路下方的空间称为“线路走廊”。因为在规划土地使用时，很多时候国家有要求，比如说在线路走廊的40到60米之内是不能有农作物的。不能有树，不能有房子。那么，这一块土地的费用你就需要付给土地所有者。因此，你需要尽可能缩小线路的宽度。打个比方，当我们的线路采用垂直排列的铁塔型的时候，线路的经济性就要高于那种水平排列的。但时，这个最终也还是要取决于电压和电功率，也就是容量的情况。另外还有一个会考虑的因素是线路经过的区域的气候以及地形和地貌情况。比如说，在中国西北部，风速非常大。又比如说，在有些地方，浮冰厚度非常大。我觉得大家肯定有印象，2008年冰灾的时候，有很多线路、铁塔都结冰、倒塌了。我们国家后来使用了除冰装置，通过加热除冰。那么，在那种情况下，对铁塔的要求就很高。铁塔要能够承受更大的重量。还有一个就是要考虑沿线的交通运输状况，这也往往决定了铁塔的材质。很多我们看到的铁塔都建在山上。铁塔要怎么上去呢？是拆成一段一段以后，由我们的施工队、工作人员或是聘请一些当地人员运送。有的是用骡子或马拖上去的，因为那种高山是不大适合大型机械设备上去的。大家都是把铁塔一段一段拖上去，在那个地方再组装，所以说施工难度是非常大的。主持人：明白了，这里真的有很多以前不知道的知识点。我们一直在说“高压”直流输电，不知道高压究竟能高到什么程度呢？肖璧田：我们家里的生活用电一般是220伏，是吧？可能接入小区的电源有的会到380伏，甚至到10千伏。我们小时候或者可能身边的朋友有过触电的情况。220伏的电压就可以让人触电了。那么对于10千伏我们就认为是高压了对吧？那已经是非常高的电压了。但其实对我们行业来说，我们定的高压输电以前往往是110千伏或220千伏这种。现在，我们一般是这样定义的，对110千伏和220千伏，我们现在也叫高电压。但是，我们只是叫它高压输电。现在也有330千伏，主要在我们国家的一些西部地区，比如青海。现在西部高原地带主要采用的是330千伏和750千伏。在中国内地，包括南方，多半都采用的是550千伏。针对330千伏、550千伏和750千伏，我们称为超高压输电线路。而特高压输电线路则指的是交流输电在1000千伏，直流输电在±800千伏以上的情况。包括最近刚刚投运的从昌吉到古泉的输电线路就是±1100千伏。这些都称为特高压输电线路。但是，一般来说，输电线路的电压越高，对设备外绝缘的要求也越高，系统主接线的结构就越复杂，导致输电设备的整体制造难度就越大。那么，对架空线路的建设和对各种材料的要求就非常严格，造价也就会非常高。主持人：明白了。因为您刚刚提到了±1100千伏的昌吉—古泉高压直流输电线路，不知道您能不能再给我们简单介绍一下，在这里面西门子有没有什么贡献呢？肖璧田：在昌吉—古泉这条线上，西门子承担了接受端，也就是安徽古泉的±1100千伏直流换流变压器的相关工作，从研发到物料的供应，西门子在里面做了非常卓越的贡献。±1100千伏直流换流变压器的研发是在德国纽伦堡进行的，西门子也是全世界第一个通过±1100千伏直流换流变压器实验的公司。广州西门子变压器有限公司跟纽伦堡方面也是紧密合作。广州西门子承担了在国内第一台±1100千伏直流换流变压器的生产与制造工作。所有相关试验都非常顺利，都是一次性通过。来自国家电网的客户还有社会上的反响都非常好，也为未来的1100千伏奠定了非常良好的基础。主持人：不知道这个项目现在是什么状态呢？肖璧田：现在，整个昌吉到古泉换流站已经通过了投运前的168小时的带电运行，目前正式已经挂网启动了。主持人：我再问一个稍微有点偏的问题。像1100千伏这么高的电压，为什么小鸟落在电线上不会触电呢？肖璧田：这个场景是我们小时候经常看到的。我们觉得电压这么高，站上去肯定得触电，是吧？但是，实际上你能发现站在电线上的小鸟，它都站在同一根线上。电线不是有电阻吗？我们小时候学物理，说功率等于电压乘以电流，电阻等于电压除以电流。其实，只有当你身上的功率大于承受能力的时候，我们才会触电，也就是电压乘以电流达到一定程度以后才会导致触电。这里其实用到的是变压器的基本原理，也就是功率一等于功率二，功率一等于电压一乘以电流一，等于电压二乘以电流二，小鸟这个也是一样的道理。小鸟站在同一根电线上，那么这根线相当于把小鸟的两条腿短接了。小鸟相当于串了一个大的电阻在电线上面。 而相对来说，电线上的电阻几乎等于零。所以电流不会从小鸟身上走过，而还是走导线。因此，虽然我们看到小鸟落到电线上，但对小鸟本身来说，它的电位是零，电流也是零，所以小鸟不会有事。但是，有一种情况，我们小时候也看过鸟触电，那它是怎么触电的呢？其实是因为它落到两根电线上了，或者说小鸟在电线上用嘴在不绝缘的电杆上磨嘴巴。这些情况下，因为它已经不是零电位，是有电流通过了，那么这时候它是有可能会触电的。主持人：那咱们说完了小鸟再说说人。我们普通人如果路过这种输电杆塔的话，有没有什么需要特别注意的地方呢？肖璧田：其实所有的输电铁塔在设计和现场安装时，就已经考虑到了这些，也就是正常的人也好、动物也好在经过铁塔的时候会出现什么问题。我现在就正对着一个铁塔。大家可以留意一下，铁塔跟电线连接的时候，它不是有很多一圈一圈的东西吗？我们管那个叫瓷柱绝缘子。这种绝缘子就是用来避免线路跟铁塔间有电流连接的。因为线路很高，你可能接触不到，但铁塔不是在旁边吗？所以线路跟铁塔之间就有绝缘，目的是要保证铁塔本身是没有电的。因此，在经过铁塔的时候，你现在触摸铁塔基本上都不会有太大问题。但是，还是不建议大家做这个事情。另外，2008年的冰灾就给大家提了一个醒，当铁塔承受的负荷过重的时候，铁塔也是会倒塌的。所以说在碰到恶劣天气时，比如说刮大风、下大雨的时候，或是有冰灾的情况下，我们还是尽量避开铁塔，以防铁塔倒塌。主持人：好的，最后我想再问问您，根据您的了解，西门子有没有一些比较有意思的高压直流输电的案例呢？比如说咱们的杆塔布在非常特殊的环境里，或者说项目本身有比较重要的社会意义？肖璧田：其实我们的换流站都是把电能从资源丰富的区域，比如说中国云南，它有大量的水电，把清洁能源从云南输送到，比如说广东，这种相对来说经济比较发达的地方。都是这样的案例。西门子从1989年开始在中国做第一个高压直流输电项目，到现在已经30年过去了。所得到的巨大的成果就是，首先，西门子本身在技术上得到了长足的进步。因为无论是800千伏也好，1100千伏也好，要做这些项目必须得有一个前提条件，那就是这个国家必须地大物博，而中国正好符合这样的条件。其实，在德国，它的输电线路很多都是500千伏或者400千伏的，而在中国则是有800千伏、1000千伏，因此西门子自己本身的技术就得到了一个非常好的实践的机会。而对我们中国的伙伴们来说，这是“双赢”。到目前，在中国的HVDC的案例中，几十条线路里基本都有西门子的参与，这里可讲的事情就非常多。比如说之前提到的昌吉—古泉±1100千伏特高压直流输电线路里的直流换流变压器，它在正式投运前需要完成一个耐压试验，我们可能行业里会它叫局放试验。这个试验要做一个小时，当它做到59分59秒的时候，当时客户的高层领导在现场，西门子的高层领导也都在，大家就盯着这个时间。当这个全世界独一无二的工程一次性通过试验的时候，你可以想想，为这个工程奋斗的几万人的心情是什么样的，是非常非常激动的。主持人：好的，特别感谢璧田今天来做客我们的节目。相信大家经过今天的节目，应该对HVDC有了一个基本的了解，也欢迎大家在评论区和我们分享你的感想或者看法。好了，今天的节目就到这里，我们下期再见！肖璧田：再见！
微信"siemensfm1847"，加入听友群，发现更多精彩！咨询西门子业务，请拨打400-616-2020主持人：西门子调频1847的听众朋友们，大家好！欢迎收听本期《科技不怕问》。可能许多人都跑过马拉松，不管是半马还是全马，反正我是真心佩服那些能在长跑中坚持下来的同学们。我记得当初我跑个800米就已经是痛不欲生了……几十公里的长跑已经是在挑战体能极限，如果一口气跑3000公里呢？今天咱们就来聊聊能一口气跑3000公里的高压直流输电，也就是HVDC。为此，我们特别请到了西门子中国油气与电力集团广州西门子变压器有限公司高压直流输电大客户经理肖璧田来节目做客。璧田，你好！肖璧田：主持人好，各位听众好！非常荣幸能与大家分享什么是高压直流输电。主持人：好的，既然咱们要聊高压直流输电，不妨就从最最基础的概念聊起。不知道能不能请璧田先跟我们讲讲什么是高压直流输电，它又为什么会出现呢？肖璧田：高压直流输电是将三相交流电通过换流站整流成直流电，然后通过直流输电线路送往另外一个换流站，再逆变成三相交流电的输电方式。高压直流输电线路基本上由两个换流站和直流输电线路组成，两个换流站与两端的交流系统相连接。高压直流输电系统可以通过架空线或海底电缆远距离输送电能。同时，在一些不适合使用传统交流连接的场合，它也可以用于独立电力系统间的连接。应用高压直流输电系统，电能等级和方向均能得到快速、精确的控制。高压直流输电系统用于远距离和超远距离输电，是因为它相对于传统的交流输电更经济。如果从投资的角度上来看，在输电系统中，对变电和线路两部分的投资所占的比重是非常大的。在直流输电系统中，对换流站的投资比重比较大，而在交流输电系统中，对输电线路的投资比重会比较大。那么，在同样的输电距离下，怎样去评估到底是用直流输电还是用交流输电呢？这个是工程在做初步预算和调研的时候需要去评估的。在超过一定距离时，采用直流输电会更经济，而当小于一定距离时，采用交流输电会更有利。通常我们在业内有一个认识，当输电距离超过600到800公里时，用直流输电就会比较经济，而如果线路长度只有40到60公里，或100到200公里的时候，交流输电相对就会更经济。除了输电距离与投资成本外，输送功率也是要考核的一个重要因素。当输送功率非常大时，交流输电往往会采用增加回路的方法。其实，如果大家去数一数路边铁塔上面挂的电线的数量，基本上在一股里面有四根线的，一般都是500千伏输电，两根线的就是220千伏输电，而通常110千伏输电都是一根线。对交流输电来说，输送功率大了，除了要增加很多回路外，还要同时增加很多电气设备，代价昂贵。而直流输电则是采用提高电压以及加大导线面积的方法。我们以前学物理的时候应该了解过，导线的横截面积越大时，它能传输的功率就越大。那么，可能有人就会问，在什么样的功率下，我们会采用直流输电，而在什么情况下，我们会采用交流输电呢？一般来说，在国内，当功率低于1000兆伏安时，我们经常会采用交流输电。而如果功率高于1000兆伏安，比如在我们与国家电网和南方电网等客户的合作项目中，功率达到8000兆伏安到10000兆伏安，甚至有时在国家电网的项目中输电功率达到12000兆伏安的时候，通常就会采用直流输电。另外一个需要考量的因素可能会比较专业一点，那就是直流输电没有相位和功角，也因此无需考虑稳定性的问题。这也是直流输电的一个非常大的优势。主持人：明白了。您刚刚提到了高压直流输电线路，我想到了一些咱们平时在生活中能看到的场景。我记得如果我们到山里应该能看到一些高压直流输电线路的杆塔。它们有各种各样的形状。比如说，有的是“干”字型的，有的像猫的脑袋，还有别的形状。我比较好奇，为什么杆塔要设计成现在这个样子，这里面有没有什么技术上的考量呢？肖璧田：这个问题问得非常好。通常，换流站作为国家的重要设备和设施，基本上是不大允许普通人进去参观的。但是，我们平常在开车或是散步的时候，经常能看到那种铁塔，对吧？我们在行业内也把那个叫作杆塔。其实，这种铁塔有很多种型号。我们看到的有猫头型、有“干”字型，其实还有酒杯型、“上”字型，还有桶型的。在选择铁塔的形式时，首先需要满足安全要求，同时还要符合输电线路的电压等级，包括我刚刚说的回路数，此外还要考虑地形情况、地质条件，之后再结合实际情况，选择某一个工程需要什么形式的铁塔。通过完成经济上和技术上的比较，选择一个最合理的铁塔形式。电压等级越高的输电线路，它的绝缘要求以及它对地距离的要求就越大。你可以看到，电压等级越高的，它的铁塔的高度就越高，承受的导线的重量就越大，塔头的尺寸也越大。所以说，我们能看到的无论是酒杯型的、猫头型的还是“上”字型的铁塔，它的外形主要是由它的电压等级和传输容量来决定的。另外一个在建铁塔时需要考虑的因素——也是在全世界都存在的一个共性的问题——就是周边区域的经济情况。通常来说，在经济发达的地区，征地费用是非常贵的。这就会影响整条线路的投资。因此，在经济发达的地方，建设铁塔时就会选择尽可能缩小线路走廊。我们把线路下方的空间称为“线路走廊”。因为在规划土地使用时，很多时候国家有要求，比如说在线路走廊的40到60米之内是不能有农作物的。不能有树，不能有房子。那么，这一块土地的费用你就需要付给土地所有者。因此，你需要尽可能缩小线路的宽度。打个比方，当我们的线路采用垂直排列的铁塔型的时候，线路的经济性就要高于那种水平排列的。但时，这个最终也还是要取决于电压和电功率，也就是容量的情况。另外还有一个会考虑的因素是线路经过的区域的气候以及地形和地貌情况。比如说，在中国西北部，风速非常大。又比如说，在有些地方，浮冰厚度非常大。我觉得大家肯定有印象，2008年冰灾的时候，有很多线路、铁塔都结冰、倒塌了。我们国家后来使用了除冰装置，通过加热除冰。那么，在那种情况下，对铁塔的要求就很高。铁塔要能够承受更大的重量。还有一个就是要考虑沿线的交通运输状况，这也往往决定了铁塔的材质。很多我们看到的铁塔都建在山上。铁塔要怎么上去呢？是拆成一段一段以后，由我们的施工队、工作人员或是聘请一些当地人员运送。有的是用骡子或马拖上去的，因为那种高山是不大适合大型机械设备上去的。大家都是把铁塔一段一段拖上去，在那个地方再组装，所以说施工难度是非常大的。主持人：明白了，这里真的有很多以前不知道的知识点。我们一直在说“高压”直流输电，不知道高压究竟能高到什么程度呢？肖璧田：我们家里的生活用电一般是220伏，是吧？可能接入小区的电源有的会到380伏，甚至到10千伏。我们小时候或者可能身边的朋友有过触电的情况。220伏的电压就可以让人触电了。那么对于10千伏我们就认为是高压了对吧？那已经是非常高的电压了。但其实对我们行业来说，我们定的高压输电以前往往是110千伏或220千伏这种。现在，我们一般是这样定义的，对110千伏和220千伏，我们现在也叫高电压。但是，我们只是叫它高压输电。现在也有330千伏，主要在我们国家的一些西部地区，比如青海。现在西部高原地带主要采用的是330千伏和750千伏。在中国内地，包括南方，多半都采用的是550千伏。针对330千伏、550千伏和750千伏，我们称为超高压输电线路。而特高压输电线路则指的是交流输电在1000千伏，直流输电在±800千伏以上的情况。包括最近刚刚投运的从昌吉到古泉的输电线路就是±1100千伏。这些都称为特高压输电线路。但是，一般来说，输电线路的电压越高，对设备外绝缘的要求也越高，系统主接线的结构就越复杂，导致输电设备的整体制造难度就越大。那么，对架空线路的建设和对各种材料的要求就非常严格，造价也就会非常高。主持人：明白了。因为您刚刚提到了±1100千伏的昌吉—古泉高压直流输电线路，不知道您能不能再给我们简单介绍一下，在这里面西门子有没有什么贡献呢？肖璧田：在昌吉—古泉这条线上，西门子承担了接受端，也就是安徽古泉的±1100千伏直流换流变压器的相关工作，从研发到物料的供应，西门子在里面做了非常卓越的贡献。±1100千伏直流换流变压器的研发是在德国纽伦堡进行的，西门子也是全世界第一个通过±1100千伏直流换流变压器实验的公司。广州西门子变压器有限公司跟纽伦堡方面也是紧密合作。广州西门子承担了在国内第一台±1100千伏直流换流变压器的生产与制造工作。所有相关试验都非常顺利，都是一次性通过。来自国家电网的客户还有社会上的反响都非常好，也为未来的1100千伏奠定了非常良好的基础。主持人：不知道这个项目现在是什么状态呢？肖璧田：现在，整个昌吉到古泉换流站已经通过了投运前的168小时的带电运行，目前正式已经挂网启动了。主持人：我再问一个稍微有点偏的问题。像1100千伏这么高的电压，为什么小鸟落在电线上不会触电呢？肖璧田：这个场景是我们小时候经常看到的。我们觉得电压这么高，站上去肯定得触电，是吧？但是，实际上你能发现站在电线上的小鸟，它都站在同一根线上。电线不是有电阻吗？我们小时候学物理，说功率等于电压乘以电流，电阻等于电压除以电流。其实，只有当你身上的功率大于承受能力的时候，我们才会触电，也就是电压乘以电流达到一定程度以后才会导致触电。这里其实用到的是变压器的基本原理，也就是功率一等于功率二，功率一等于电压一乘以电流一，等于电压二乘以电流二，小鸟这个也是一样的道理。小鸟站在同一根电线上，那么这根线相当于把小鸟的两条腿短接了。小鸟相当于串了一个大的电阻在电线上面。 而相对来说，电线上的电阻几乎等于零。所以电流不会从小鸟身上走过，而还是走导线。因此，虽然我们看到小鸟落到电线上，但对小鸟本身来说，它的电位是零，电流也是零，所以小鸟不会有事。但是，有一种情况，我们小时候也看过鸟触电，那它是怎么触电的呢？其实是因为它落到两根电线上了，或者说小鸟在电线上用嘴在不绝缘的电杆上磨嘴巴。这些情况下，因为它已经不是零电位，是有电流通过了，那么这时候它是有可能会触电的。主持人：那咱们说完了小鸟再说说人。我们普通人如果路过这种输电杆塔的话，有没有什么需要特别注意的地方呢？肖璧田：其实所有的输电铁塔在设计和现场安装时，就已经考虑到了这些，也就是正常的人也好、动物也好在经过铁塔的时候会出现什么问题。我现在就正对着一个铁塔。大家可以留意一下，铁塔跟电线连接的时候，它不是有很多一圈一圈的东西吗？我们管那个叫瓷柱绝缘子。这种绝缘子就是用来避免线路跟铁塔间有电流连接的。因为线路很高，你可能接触不到，但铁塔不是在旁边吗？所以线路跟铁塔之间就有绝缘，目的是要保证铁塔本身是没有电的。因此，在经过铁塔的时候，你现在触摸铁塔基本上都不会有太大问题。但是，还是不建议大家做这个事情。另外，2008年的冰灾就给大家提了一个醒，当铁塔承受的负荷过重的时候，铁塔也是会倒塌的。所以说在碰到恶劣天气时，比如说刮大风、下大雨的时候，或是有冰灾的情况下，我们还是尽量避开铁塔，以防铁塔倒塌。主持人：好的，最后我想再问问您，根据您的了解，西门子有没有一些比较有意思的高压直流输电的案例呢？比如说咱们的杆塔布在非常特殊的环境里，或者说项目本身有比较重要的社会意义？肖璧田：其实我们的换流站都是把电能从资源丰富的区域，比如说中国云南，它有大量的水电，把清洁能源从云南输送到，比如说广东，这种相对来说经济比较发达的地方。都是这样的案例。西门子从1989年开始在中国做第一个高压直流输电项目，到现在已经30年过去了。所得到的巨大的成果就是，首先，西门子本身在技术上得到了长足的进步。因为无论是800千伏也好，1100千伏也好，要做这些项目必须得有一个前提条件，那就是这个国家必须地大物博，而中国正好符合这样的条件。其实，在德国，它的输电线路很多都是500千伏或者400千伏的，而在中国则是有800千伏、1000千伏，因此西门子自己本身的技术就得到了一个非常好的实践的机会。而对我们中国的伙伴们来说，这是“双赢”。到目前，在中国的HVDC的案例中，几十条线路里基本都有西门子的参与，这里可讲的事情就非常多。比如说之前提到的昌吉—古泉±1100千伏特高压直流输电线路里的直流换流变压器，它在正式投运前需要完成一个耐压试验，我们可能行业里会它叫局放试验。这个试验要做一个小时，当它做到59分59秒的时候，当时客户的高层领导在现场，西门子的高层领导也都在，大家就盯着这个时间。当这个全世界独一无二的工程一次性通过试验的时候，你可以想想，为这个工程奋斗的几万人的心情是什么样的，是非常非常激动的。主持人：好的，特别感谢璧田今天来做客我们的节目。相信大家经过今天的节目，应该对HVDC有了一个基本的了解，也欢迎大家在评论区和我们分享你的感想或者看法。好了，今天的节目就到这里，我们下期再见！肖璧田：再见！
The need for energy innovation has never been more urgent. To effectively reduce climate change, we need to implement new technologies at scale quickly. Yet, the politics and regulations that dictate the energy industry make it incredibly difficult to put new ideas into practice. Despite the challenges around change, the use of solar energy continues to grow as production becomes more and more affordable. So, how do we navigate public policy and continue to innovate in a space where brilliant ideas can take a decade to adopt on a large scale? Connor Birkeland is research fellow working with Seattle City Light through the US Department of Energy Solar Technology Office. He is passionate about creating more effective environmental and energy policy by way of creative thinking and data-driven analysis. Connor has 10 years of hands-on experience working in renewable energy, and he earned his Master’s in Public Policy and Governance from the University of Washington Evans School. Connor has a specific interest in policy analysis, economic modeling and utility management. Today, Connor joins Ross, Christophe and Paul to explore the lay of the land in solar energy. He covers the main drivers of cost in solar, explaining why the industry has been able to scale exponentially in recent years. Connor shares his frustration in working with a public utility, walking us through the pros and cons of regulating the space and the challenges of innovating in such an entrenched industry. Listen in for Connor’s insight around the environmental impact of hydroelectric power and learn how the blockchain might play a central role in energy innovation! Resources Element 8 Itek Energy The Solar Foundation US Energy Information Administration Georgetown, TX UL 1741 Edward Abbey John Muir Clean Line Energy ASU Decision Theater Order No. 1000 Electric Rule 21 IEEE 1547 Connect with Ross & Christophe Nori Nori on Facebook Nori on Twitter Nori on Medium Nori on YouTube Nori on GitHub Email hello@nori.com Nori White Paper Subscribe on iTunes Key Takeaways [2:12] Connor’s path to reversing climate change Undergrad in astrophysics (NASA satellites) Solar installations in Colorado Master’s in renewable energy policy [4:24] The current overview of solar energy Drastic changes in last 10 years (price drop) Able to scale exponentially [7:32] The main drivers of cost in solar Soft costs (permitting, customer acquisition, interconnection) Cost reduction of aluminum, glass and PV backsheet [11:35] The life cycle of a solar panel 25-year warranty, rated to last much longer Annual cell degradation rate of 0.5% [14:30] Connor’s frustration with working at a utility Apathy of employees nearing retirement [15:49] The environmental impact of hydroelectric power Decomposition of trees releases CO2 Dams cause flooding, canyons underwater Prevents breeding and flow of fish [19:58] The challenges around innovating in the energy space 8-10 years for utilities to adopt ideas on large scale None of Clean Line’s HVDC lines built after 10 years Must navigate policy, politics and regulations [26:02] The pros and cons of regulating utilities Mitigate moral hazard of quasi-monopolies Causes lack of innovation in space [28:09] The blockchain’s role in energy innovation Facilitates use of tech (i.e.: smart solar inverter) Provides secure communication structure [31:23] Connor’s take on the future of energy Shift to renewables in light of high risk (e.g.: CA fires)
There are tradeoffs to everything in energy. So why not put those tradeoffs to a test?We recently crowdsourced some "would you rather" scenarios from our listeners. On this week's Interchange podcast, we'll choose our favorites and debate the scenarios.Here are the scenarios:Would you rather have $10 billion in renewable deployment funding, startup funding, or R&D? (Bryan Birsic, CEO of Wunder Capital)Would you rather see oil suddenly go to $20/bbl or $200/bbl? (Eric Hittinger, professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology)Would you rather have perfect load forecasting capabilities or perfect wind + solar forecasting algorithms? (Elizabeth Buechler, PhD student at Stanford)Would you rather have a national HVDC overlay grid or ready-to-go next generation nuclear plants with excellent ramping capability? (Michael Noble, CEO of Fresh Energy)Would you rather have an Electric @Ford F-150 or $15,000 EV? (Matt-Stephens Rich, electric vehicle specialist at Electrification coalition)Would you rather have shared autonomous fleet or more mass transit coverage in cities? (Brinda Thomas, engineering and public policy at Stitch Fix)Support for this podcast comes from Wunder Capital. Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Click here to find out how Wunder Capital can help you finance your next commercial solar project.We're also supported by Shoals Technologies Group, the gold standard for solar and storage balance-of-systems solutions. Learn more about how Shoals can make your project operate at the highest level.Subscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you find your audio content. Or integrate our RSS feed into the app of your choice.
Elon Musk recently laid out his plan for a government on Mars in one tweet: “Direct democracy by the people. Laws must be short, as there is trickery in length. Automatic expiration of rules to prevent death by bureaucracy. Any rule can be removed by 40% of people to overcome inertia. Freedom.”That got us thinking. Could we craft an ideal U.S. energy policy in less than 280 characters? On this week's podcast, take up the challenge.Stephen and Shayle will each lay out their overall approach to policy and then argue each one.Stephen's policy: Price climate pollution and send the money back to citizens or local governments. Put an end to supporting energy with the tax code. Establish fair and open access for all technologies on the grid. Electrify everything. Don't dogmatize renewable energy. Double ARPA-E's budget. Shayle's policy: Remain in Paris Accord. Retain CPP but increase targets. Resume and increase CAFE standards. Introduce federal green bank. Triple R&D on clean energy enabling tech. Federal push for HVDC transmission. Major infrastructure investment in public transit system. Freedom.We want to hear from you. Craft your energy policy, take a screenshot and tweet it out to @InterchangeShow. Make sure to tag #energypolicyinatweet.This podcast is supported by Wunder Capital, the easiest way to invest in large-scale solar energy projects across the U.S. With Wunder, you can help finance renewable energy projects while earning up to 7.5 percent annually. Get started here to diversify your portfolio and support American solar projects.This podcast is brought to you by Shoals, the gold standard for solar and storage balance-of-systems solutions. Learn more about how Shoals can make your project operate at the highest level.
Vassell “George” O'Gilvie BSW MSW LCSW-R PC founder and CEO of Hudson Valley Dynamic Counseling (HVDC) at 224 Church Street Poughkeepsie, NY 12601. The mission of HVDC is to provide mental health counseling/ psychotherapy to individuals and families in need of emotional and psychological services related to, stress, trauma, depression, anxiety disorders, anger management, grief and domestic abuse.Vasselle has over 25 years of experience in the field of social work ,which includes program administration, leadership, team building, conflict resolution, Cognitive Behavioral therapy (CBT), psycho-education, and stress/anger management. Expertise in child welfare and Foster Cares services.George is also a Seminar field instructor for Fordham University and received his Psychotherapy license from the NYS State Education Department .Vassell is a provider for the (OASAS) Office of Alcoholism Substance Abuse Services,New York State. Phyllis Pascal, born in Grenada and lived in Canada.. She's a mother and a survivor of domestic violence. For15yrs Phyllis worked in the social service sector, with youth and familes who faced educational, economical and social barriers. This May 2017,she celebrated her 3rd year of victory, her survival of a vicious knife attack by the father of her child. Phyllis now speaks publicly about her experience because she believe that she is alive today to bring awareness to issues of domestic violence against women. To also bring to the forefront how volatile relationships affects not only the victims but also the children, family and the community.
What combination of power generators on the U.S. grid produces reliable power at the lowest cost? Or, what's the most renewable energy that can be deployed at a given grid power cost, and what kind of transmission capacity is needed to support it? How would the U.S. grid be different if it were one, unified grid with more high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission capacity? What's the most productive design for a wind farm? How might weather and a changing climate affect future electricity production from wind and solar farms? And how much renewable power is really feasible on the U.S. grid? These have been devilishly difficult questions to answer, but now advanced mathematical simulations are beginning to make it possible to answer them much more quickly…and if quantum computing becomes a reality, we could answer them instantly. In an homage to Comedy Central's Drunk History, this episode features a conversation conducted over several pints of IPA with a mathematician who recently developed such a simulator while he was working at NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in Boulder, CO. His insights on how the grid of the future might actually function are fascinating, and will likely shatter some of your pre-existing beliefs. It also contains a few nuggets for the serious math geeks out there.
First supercomputer in U.S. that uses solar and HVDC launched by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (Japan), NTT FACILITIES, INC., and the University of Texas at Austin.
Stanford professor Mark Jacobson is a specialist in climate modeling and alternative energy and has spent much of his career trying to understand, and find solutions to, global warming. He thinks the US is now equipped with the necessary technology and economic means to get off of fossil fuels. He and colleagues, including UC Berkeley researcher Mark Delucchi, have created 100% clean, renewable energy all-sector energy plans for all 50 United States and 139 countries worldwide that include how each can achieve such a transition by 2050. To solve the problem of political will, he co-founded The Solutions Project -- with actor Mark Ruffalo, businessman Marco Krapels, and activist Josh Fox -- to engage policymakers, business leaders, and the public to try to put the 50-state plan into action. An interactive map summarizing the plans for each state is available on The Solutions Project website.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. You're listening to method to the madness. I Biweekly Public Affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. I'm Lisa Keifer and we're taking a field trip down to Stanford today to interview the clean energy mastermind. Professor Mark Jacobson. What do you do here at Stanford? Speaker 2:Well, I teach and do research and I study clean and renewable energy systems and air pollution [00:00:30] and climate problems and how to solve them through clean and renewable energy. Speaker 3:I read about you recently in the new republic. Bill McKibben has written a really thoughtful article saying that our current climate crisis, what we need to do, he likens it to what we did in World War II to gear up to fight the Nazis and the Japanese. And he mentioned you in the work that you're doing. He talks about the solutions you have that are ready right now for all 50 states in the United States. What is that project? Speaker 2:Well, we do research on developing [00:01:00] plans for states and countries and we've completed plans for all 50 states and also now working on 139 countries around the world using all renewables and yeah, the idea of the plan is to electrify all energy sectors. That's transportation, heating and cooling industry, agriculture, forestry and fishing and provide that electricity with clean and renewable energies such as wind and water and solar power, but combined with some energy storage combined with energy efficiency and some additional transmission. When did you come up [00:01:30] with this plan? Well, our first plan was in 2009 it was really a world plan, just gross numbers to see if it was possible to power the world entirely 100% with wind and water and solar power for all purposes. And it wasn't broken down into countries, but from a on a worldwide scale, if we're just looking at the raw numbers, there was possible because there's enough wind resource, there's enough solar resource and existing water resource. And also we looked at the materials required, we looked at the costs or we looked at the land use required and we found that all these are within reason and [00:02:00] then potentially possible to do. Speaker 3:How many years did it take you to come up with these very specific plans? [inaudible] right. Speaker 2:So then, uh, after that there was in 2009, and then subsequently we started working in 2011 on a state plans specifically for New York state that you got completed in 2013. So that took, why did you choose New York first? Well, I started working with some people, activists in New York, probably people who are fighting against natural gas, fracking. Hydrofracking they had wanted some alternative. What's [00:02:30] their, you know, what else can we do besides natural gas in the state of New York? And in this group was mark refollow, who's, I'm also an actor and a Marco cripples who is, um, he's a business person who lives actually in California and Josh Fox, who is a documentarian. And we kind of brainstormed and thought, well, why don't we take our energy plan for the world and squish it down to a state level answer. That's right. I did with some help with Mark Delucci, who's a doctor researcher at UC Berkeley. Speaker 2:Right. And also eventually got some students involved [00:03:00] and Reese Chris down a plan for New York, got some new data and uh, it took a while to get all the information we needed. But by 2013, we had a New York energy plan from 13 to now you've rolled out the rest of the 50 states plus 127 countries in the world. We're, we will correct the Xero since then. In the middle of completing the New York plan, we started a California energy plan. We thought, well, we have one for New York. Why not apply to another state? So we got more experience improving the plans as we went along. And we did one for Washington state [00:03:30] long at the same time. Uh, I thought, well, why not just do all 50 states? We can not about ties the process simultaneously. So we did that and we completed those plans in 2015 for all 50 states and then at the same time as we were completing that and we started working on thought, well, why not go to the world and go to all individual countries as many as we could. Speaker 2:And so we found data for 139 countries and that's what we're working on right now and try to complete that. Okay. How many people are on this team who had crunching the numbers? Well, going out into [00:04:00] the field since 2009 we've had about 80 scientists and students working on these energy plans, although there's kind of a core group of people who are doing most of the work. The group I talked about initially with Mark Ruffalo and Josh Fox and Marco Cripples, we started a nonprofit together. It's called the solutions project. And the idea of this was, well, why not take these energy plans that were developing these scientific science-based plans, but then we try to take those plans and educate the public and policy makers about them and do outreach [00:04:30] and try to reach communities that might not normally be engaged in the sense to me when I read this article in then new republic, I thought, wow, they probably been working on this for years and yet it took this long to hear about it. Speaker 2:That must be the biggest challenge. Getting this information out to the lay person so that we can make political decisions in our communities to support it. Correct. I mean that's my opinion is that, you know, getting information out to large numbers of people. I mean keep in mind there are 7.3 billion people in [00:05:00] the world and you know, as a scientist I might reach a few hundred to a few thousand at most. And you know, even with a good outreach you might reach 100,000 or something like that. But we really need to reach hundreds of millions of people to have an impact worldwide. And so, so are you capitalizing on some of your successes? Like for instance, what are some states who are doing this right now and how do we find out about that? Yeah, we've actually had some really good success and feedback. So the states [00:05:30] of both New York and California have basically adopted a portion of our plans. We proposed 80% conversion to wind water and solar by 2030 and all energy sectors and 100% by 2050. California in New York have adopted a 50% conversion for the electricity sector, which is only one of those sectors by 2030. And they've also adopted some other energy efficiency goals. But part of that is because we publish these papers for those states. We, uh, talked with the staff members of the governors [00:06:00] and so they are right, they're aware of these plans and that it was possible. And so that enabled them to push the envelope into what policies, Speaker 3:but they're still not pushing it as far as you say they should. Correct. They're not at, what's the downside of that? Speaker 2:There is downside because it means we'll have climate problems that are persist for longer period of time and we'll have air pollution problems that will persist for longer. So we're still trying to inform them about the necessity of getting to 80% by 2030 in all sectors. Uh, so there was, there was a ways to go but um, we are making in roads I should say there is a house resolution [00:06:30] now based on our work, based on our 50 state plans, a house resolution five 40, which is calls for the United States to go to 100% clean renewable energy for all sectors by 2050. So that actually, well it's just a resolution, but if it did pass, if subsequent bills were passed to support it, it would actually get to the end goal that we proposed. I think it has 44 46 co-sponsors, including Nancy Pelosi as one of the co-sponsors. Speaker 2:All three Democratic presidential candidates actually supported a a hundred percent goals by 2050 [00:07:00] and Bernie Sanders had our maps on his website. Hillary Clinton, we have a video tape of her supporting 100% clean renewable energy by 2050 and Martin O'Malley was the first one to go out there with 100% by 2050. There were also three senators I've mentioned they were going to propose 100% renewable energy by 2050. I should also mention that the a hundred percent idea has galvanized lots of nonprofits, dozens and dozens of nonprofits that are no, uh, centered around this goal. And they've actually been also helped to convince cities [00:07:30] in many cities want to go to 100% clean renewable energy, including, you know, several in the United States into southern Canada and companies as well. There are at least 60 to 70 companies, including many of the major ones that want to go to 100% renewable energy, have committed to go to 100%. For example, Walmart today, apple and Starbucks, Johnson and Johnson, there are many of the top companies Speaker 3:on the ride over here. I was in horrible traffic and I couldn't help but thinking about how are you going to convince consumers to [00:08:00] buy electric cars? How will they afford it? Number one, are we going to have to have subsidy programs along with a national grid or community redundant grids? Where does that all fit into this? Speaker 2:Well, I think electric cars, I mean most people, once I drive an electric car, they never want to go back Speaker 3:of course, but how can they afford it? Like in let's talk about outside of the coast, well Speaker 2:there are many electric car companies now that are selling commodity cars and so and there is a $7,500 tax credit. So that basically [00:08:30] brings the price of an electric car, even a low cost electric car into the same cost as an equivalent gasoline car. So I think that the costs are equivalent and it's actually, it's a lot cheaper to actually drive an electric car because the cost of the fuel is one fourth to one fifth the cost of gasoline per mile driven. So over the life of a car, if you drive a car 15,000 miles per year for 15 years, you will save $20,000 in fuel cost. The main thing that people have been concerned about is range. And so many of these electric cars now [00:09:00] actually have longer range. I mean, of course the Tesla, which is the model s, it's 275 miles a range. Um, but the, you know, even the new lower cost Tesla, which hasn't been public yet, but as people have taken orders for it, it's the thing, it's over 200 mile range. Speaker 2:And then even the, the leaf I think is over a hundred, 125 miles. Right? And so that's the limiting factor for most comedians. 95% of commutes or all the electric cars are within range. And you can charge them in your home if you have just a regular electric plug outlet or, or a special [00:09:30] charger that can be put in your home. So that's an advantage. Another advantage of electric cars is you can charge them in your house or in your garage or just a gasoline car. You can't, you know the disadvantages of course it's, it takes longer to refuel and there when you're, when you're out on the road, there's currently fewer charging stations, but there are a lot of charging stations out there now and there are a lot more coming and there is a plan to roll out many more. Yeah, there really has to, if we want to do this on a large scale, we need a lot more charging stations. But the electric grid is there, is there, it's really a question of hooking up new charging stations to the [00:10:00] grid and these charging stations don't take up much space. Speaker 3:We're doing this planning state by state. Are you also, are you setting up redundant grid systems in each state so that, you know there is a national grid, but are they going to be able to, let's say there's a climate catastrophe in one part of the country, will the other pieces of that grid be able to pick up the difference? Speaker 2:Yeah. Well the grid is interconnected already across the United States. So there the actual flow of electricity is limited by the size of the transmission lines. So we would need, we've got to 100% we will need [00:10:30] to expansion of the transmission grid or at least increasing the capacity of the grid so that you can send more electricity long distances. For example, we will have a lot of wind turbines in the great plains or we already do, but we'd have more and we might want to transfer more of that electricity to the east coast because the electricity is so cheap. The generation is so cheap and the great plains, it's, it's 2 cents a kilowatt hour now with the subsidy and in three and a half without a subsidy and that compares to natural gas, which is five to 6 cents a kilowatt hour as the actual cost of energy. Wind is the cheapest form [00:11:00] of electricity in the U s but a lot of it is in places that are far away and so transmission would be beneficial. Speaker 2:It also helps because if the wind's not blowing in one place, it is usually pulling somewhere else or having a more interconnected transmission system would actually make things more efficient. Same thing with solar. I mean it's not always sunny in some places because you're all in the clouds and the u s there are some long distance where it's called high voltage direct current or HVDC long distance transmission lines going up. I mean there's like what's called the clean power line or it's a company that has [00:11:30] proposals for several long distance corridors across the u s and I think they've had one or two of them already approved in that. They may even be building, but I can't say for sure what stage they're out. Yeah, Speaker 3:kind of controversially have left off nuclear power in your renewables. Can you tell me why you've taken that stance? Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because the other people who are supportive of nuclear power just say, you know, I'm biased against nuclear, but you know, this is all based on a scientific research that while nuclear is, is better than a lot of energy [00:12:00] technologies such as coal, gas and oil. For the most part, it's not as good as clean renewable energy such as wind, water and solar. And that's just a scientific conclusion. I mean, aside from the fact that it, it takes so long to put up a nuclear plant between 10 and 19 years between planning and operation and we don't have the time. It's the same two to five years is typical for a wind or solar farm. So not only do we delay getting that energy, but it also, right now it costs, uh, about four times more than onshore wind. So it's 12 and a half cents a kilowatt hour [00:12:30] for the unsubsidized cost of nuclear versus the unsubsidized costs of onshore wind is three and a half cents a kilowatt hour subsidizes 2 cents. Speaker 2:So we're talking one fourth of the cost. So not only do you have to wait three times longer to get the nuclear up, but you also have to pay four times more for the same power. And that's the only at the beginning. The other problems are, some people say even more severe, I mean there's a meltdown risk. 1.5% of all nuclear reactors ever built up, melted down to some degree. Nuclear weapons proliferation risk. How many intergovernmental panel on climate change says there's, [00:13:00] there's robust evidence. And high agreement that a nuclear energy proliferation leads to nuclear weapons proliferation. And this is because several countries of the world who have developed weapons secretly under the guise of civilian nuclear energy programs, there's waste issues. We haven't figured out what to do with all the waste that accumulates and you have to store it for 300,000 years and that takes a lot of energy. Speaker 2:That's in costs of storing out that don't, aren't even accounted for in the cost of energy today of the nuclear. Yeah, and then there's a, the carbon dioxide emissions, people say that, oh, nuclear is a zero carbon. Well, it's not [00:13:30] zero carbon whatsoever. I mean you have to, when you're using the uranium and you have to mine the uranium that takes fossil fuels, then you have to refine it. It's a very energy intensive process to refine uranium and you have to do that throughout the life of the reactor. Fossil fuel, carbon dioxide emissions, and there are other air pollutant emissions. And the fact that it takes so long to put up a nuclear plant, the difference in the time it takes to put up the nuclear plant versus the wind or solar plant, you're running the irregular electric power grid. And so you have to assign those emissions to the nuclear as well. Speaker 2:And so we're talking when you [00:14:00] actually add everything up, it's between six and 24 times more carbon and air pollution per kilowatt hour compared to wind energy. So no brainer. Yes, it's not just one problem. If you, you can't just solve one problem and say, oh, nuclear is good. You really have to solve instead of 5% idea. I mean, I can remember reading in the 90s that thought that had to be a part of the mix to put a little people in the world. So I met a lot of people, nuclear supporters think that nuclear is necessary because it's uh, it's very high energy density. So you can, you can, you can provide a lot of power [00:14:30] in a small area. But the fact is it has so many side effects that, um, you know, it's just not as good at this point. If nothing else worked, then yeah, maybe try that. Speaker 2:You've, you're up against a massive opponent and that's the carbon industry. I'm surprised they're not pushing back more. I mean, I get more pushback from nuclear people, different philosophy people. They know that they have enough power and control the, you know, they don't have to respond to, you know, studies or other people will think about them. They can just, just keep doing what they're doing. And they, you know, they find that they don't really need to respond. [00:15:00] But if we get a congress that will pass this plan, well yeah, no, our plans would have them completely phased out and they would be eliminated. So they should be worried. But you know, on the other hand, there's, most of the energy is still produced by fossil fuels by far most of the energy worldwide. And so it's such a, such a large penetration still the, you know, they haven't felt any risk it of, of disappearing. Speaker 2:But you know the writing is on the wall and they will eventually disappears. It's a question of time. I was reading that Washington [00:15:30] State is actually the farthest along in terms of percentage of renewables toward that goal of 100% in 2050 it is, but it's because of hydroelectric power that's existing hydroelectric in the states. You won't be building more dams. You're going to make present dams more efficient. Right. Our plans call for no new conventional hydroelectric dams and just making existing dams more efficient. I should point out that there are, in the United States there are 80,000 dams and only I think 10,000 produce electricity. [00:16:00] So there most of the dams in the U s are non power dams and so in theory you could power some of those without actually creating a new dam just to create power from them. And you could also like, cause a lot of people want to remove dams and so there are literally 70,000 dams available to remove without reading moving. Speaker 2:For example, the powering dams. The reason hydroelectric power is so useful in the solution is that a hydroelectric reservoirs basically a big battery and when you need like the windows and all this blow in the centers and all the shine. [00:16:30] And so when, when you, let's say you have no way to know sunlight texted, very valuable to have hydroelectric power cause you can, you can basically turn it off and on instantaneously. Uh, and then allowing it to provide the power when you need it to fill in gaps and supply. What's your plan for say Louisiana? We just experienced horrible rains like the thousand year rains and flooding. What would a state like that look like with your plan? The South in general, it was pretty a very weak winds except off shore. Um, but they have good solar radiation, [00:17:00] although it's not as good as the south west, which has more clear skies because there are more cloudy skies in the southeast, but there's a lot of sunlight in Louisiana. Speaker 2:So solar is a major part. Then they have offshore wind as well. So those are offshore platforms? Yeah, they've offshore platforms, but offshore wind and solar are the two major sources there might be advantageous Tulsa to have transmission into the state from other states that have much greater wind to the west. What is the most challenging state or country that you've had to come [00:17:30] up with a plan for so far? I would say Singapore basically it's a very small country that is very high population density so it's population really covers most of the land so there's not a lot of room to put clean renewable energy. You have rooftops and the rooftops aren't sufficient enough but there is offshore wind as well. Um, so we might have to go to off shore floating solar. In fact, I should point out though that that's only if we decided the Singapore had to be powered entirely with its own energy. Speaker 2:It could actually just transmit energy [00:18:00] from nearby. There is a solution to that problem too, just from transmitting from outside of it. But if you're just wanting to have it provided its own energy, these kinds of, some of these smaller countries like Gibraltar has a similar issue, but there is a solution to everything. If you add transmission, people complained that the sun isn't shining, but if you do have batteries you can then provide more reliable electricity either either back to the greater for your own use in your home. So basically if you have batteries and solar on your roof, you know you're a power plant and you can provide, uh, you have the ability to [00:18:30] smooth out like the rest of the grid. Tesla bought solar city and so they want to really, Tulsa wants to become a battery storage company as well as a motor company. Speaker 2:And so the idea is to take the solar panels on the roof and then use batteries to store that electricity. So integrate the batteries with the solar panels on the roof a lot more and even make roofing material that has solar panels in them, which is a great thing to do to integrate batteries with rooftop solar. But are there technologies on the horizon that wouldn't [00:19:00] be called batteries that they're a whole different kind of, yeah, actually. Well we look when we developed plans for all 50 states a, we did a study where we said can we keep the grid reliable over the continental United States? It's 48 states and we found that we can, if we combine generation of wind and solar, which are what are called intermittent or does wind, does nose blow and the sun doesn't always shine with low cost heat and cold storage and electricity storage. Speaker 2:I should point out that first of all, if you electrify all sectors, if you electrify heating, cooling [00:19:30] industry transportation, you make it easier to match power demand on the grid because there are a lot more low, what are call loads of energy require more energy requirements that are what are called flexible. You don't have to hook a wind turbine up to your car to drive the car, your battery. So you can charge the car anytime of day or night by electrifying all sectors. And then you use low cost heat and cold storage. So, for example, ice, you can have an ice cube under a building in fact at Stanford has had an ice cube in our building since 1998 and during the night when electricity [00:20:00] prices low, it produced the ice. And then during the day instead of using high cost electricity for air conditioning during the day, you would run the water through the ice. Speaker 2:And so you basically, by using cold storage in ice, you eliminate electricity use in the afternoon and during the peak. And you can do the same thing with hot water and cold water. Uh, you can store, yeah, you can store heat and uh, in water and store cold and water as well. But then there's another, I mean there's a community in Canada, Oca, Tokes Canada, which is an hour south of Calgary that [00:20:30] they have 52 homes that have 'em on there. The garage roofs have the solar collectors that collect sunlight in the summer in a glycol solution, that glycol solution gets transferred through pipes to a building where it passes by water, heats the water, the water then gets piped underground to heat rocks that stored underground. The rocks got heated up to 80 degrees Celsius until wintertime. They're insulated around them and in winter the whole thing is run in reverse and provides 100% of our winter time heating when snow is on the ground and you can't even tell this facility's [00:21:00] there because the rocks are under a park. Speaker 2:Well, yes, it's a, yeah, it's called seasonal heat storage, so it's a way you can actually store heat over the season and it's so inexpensive. I made a battery. Battery. Electricity is $300 a kilowatt hour. Rock energy is $1 a kilowatt hour, so it's cheaper in fact that the ice is $30 a kilowatt hour, $38 a kilowatt hour. Same with hot and cold water. They're all like one 10th the cost of batteries. There's also what's called pumped hydro electric power. When [00:21:30] you, you have two reservoirs, a and when you have excess electricity, you pump water up the hill. When you need electricity, you let the water drain down the hill. And so you basically, you don't lose water that way. And it's not a dam necessarily, but a reservoir. And it could, one of the reservoirs could be the ocean or a lake. And then, uh, there's concentrated solar power where you in the deserts where, because normally with photovoltaic tags, unless you have batteries, it's hard to store the electricity. Speaker 2:But if you have what's called concentrated solar power, you focus light off of mirrors onto the central tower, the tower as a fluid, molten nitrate [00:22:00] salt for example, that heats up and that fluid can be stored and used at night to generate electricity. By the past, the hot fluid by water creates steam from the water. The steam runs a steam turbine to generate electricity. So that's called concentrated solar power storage. And if you do this on a large scale, that's a lot of solar energy that can be stored batteries. Yeah. And you can use it at night or with when it's cloudy. And that's also one 10th the cost of batteries for electricity storage. It sounds like there's going to be a lot of potential solutions in the [00:22:30] future that you could incorporate into these 50 plans. Yeah, well these are all existing solutions but they're not on a large scale so we just need to scale them up to huge scale. Speaker 2:I read about your organization that you actually give grants out the solutions project. It's a nonprofit that um, I mean the goal is to take energy plans and educate the public and policymakers about them and try to engage the public. But part of their mission right now is to give out small grants to groups that mostly non profits [00:23:00] that have creative ideas of how to get information out better, how to make more effective change. I wanted to ask you about how this idea came into fruition. Yeah. Well, I mean, my whole career I've been, I started at Stanford as a professor in 1994 but you know, it was way back when I was a teenager and my goal was to try to solve, understand and solve air pollution problems and soon after climate problems. This was back in the 19 early 1980s in Los Altos. [00:23:30] So I've always had that goal and passion to try to understand and solve large scale pollution and climate problems. Speaker 2:But when I first started doing research at Stanford, I focused on the problems and understanding them, but I then did a lot of inner comparisons of energy technologies and their impacts on health and climate. Late 1990 started looking at wind energy in particular as a potential solution to some of these problems. And so did studies on the analysis of wind energy was with students as well. But then in around 2008 [00:24:00] I decided I had enough information, I wanted to start comparing different proposed energy solutions to climate and air pollution. So I did an inter comparison study value of what are the best technologies and that's when I came up with the conclusion that it was wind and water and solar power that were the best on nuclear and coal. With carbon capture, we're kind of more mediocre and then things like, you know, natural gas and biofuels were the worst in terms of health and climate and water supply and and land use and catastrophic risk and things like that. Speaker 2:But then the [00:24:30] next question was, well, if you have wind and water and solar is the best of technologies, can you actually then power the world with all the, with these technologies given, you know, resource limitations, land use limitations. And we did a study, that's why I started partnering with Mark Delucci at UC Berkeley and we concluded that it is possible. It's technically and economically possible, but there are social and political barriers. And we said, well, it's even technically possible by 2030 but for social and political reasons it's unlikely we can get to 100% until 2015 that really once we did a paper on that, [00:25:00] that was a global paper that's, you know, nobody controls the whole globe. So we eventually had to go down to state levels and country levels to see if it was possible to do a practical plan. Do you really think based on what's happened so far that will reach the goal of 100% by 2050 based on what you've done already? Speaker 2:I think there is a, there's a growing, I mean we're a lot further now than even two years ago. I mean I think people's mindset any more people are talking about getting to 100% so that in itself is growing exponentially in terms of how people were talking and thinking [00:25:30] about that catastrophic weather that's pushing this kind of attitude. Yeah, well it's a combination of problems are getting worse. The climate problems are getting worse and more people are saying we need to solve the problem. The insurance companies are saying it's an Oh my God issue. Yeah. So are there more people on board? But it's also fortunate that the costs of especially wind and solar and batteries, even batteries and in electric cars are coming down, especially the, when the electric power sector, people are suddenly thinking, wow, we could actually, we could have a high penetration of wind and solar because it's [00:26:00] so cheap that we can really ramp it up. Speaker 2:So it's kind of a combination of more people being aware of it and wanting to solve the problem. And simultaneously costs have come down and there've been technology improvements and existing technologies that are needed. So all the problems. So a lot of things are coming together, but there's still also growth, especially in many countries like you know, even though China for example, is putting in a lot of renewable energy, it's also putting in a lot of coal still. And that's troubling. And, but there are other countries in the world also growing and the pollution, the [00:26:30] emissions are still going up and a lot of places, although they're coming down and some other places, but you do see trends in several countries in Europe. So you can see their admissions are going down already. Uh, but not as fast as we need them to. We are going to experience some pretty wild weather. Speaker 2:Even we were on a hundred percent renewables today. By definition, I mean climate is the average of all weather events and so weather is very variable in the first place. But we do get more extreme weather with higher average temperatures. Yeah. On average, I mean this'll probably be one of the warmers if not the warmest year on record and an individual months [00:27:00] as well. But climate, again, you have to average over a long period look at the trends relevant, the actual value in a given year. It's really the trend that matters. Definitely the trend. It is everything is warming up and there were temperatures are over one degree Celsius higher than, uh, in the 18 hundreds. And you know, that's, that's significant on the rate of change. The temperature today is faster than any time, even since deglaciation from the last ice age. So the Paris agreement that, you know, there, they agreed to try to avoid two degrees Celsius, but it's really [00:27:30] one and a half degrees that a lot of people wanted, um, to avoid. And we're already at one degree, so we're only half a degree away from that. How many parts per million are we had already? We want, we should be at three 50 and where are we? Where are we today for a little over 400 parts per million. Yeah. Speaker 3:And so this is significant. I mean, I think sometimes we don't scare the public enough about what's coming down yet Speaker 2:in 50 years and oh yeah, no, the problem is actually much worse than most people think because half of the warming in the atmosphere is being [00:28:00] hidden by pollution and air pollution particles because they're both reflective in general and the enhanced cloudiness. So if you actually just cleaned up air pollution particles, which you want to do because they'd cause 90% of the air pollution health problems, which killed four to 7 million people every year as you clean up that air pollution, you actually make the warming worse because of the masking that's going on. And so that is another reason it's so urgent to not only eliminate the particles from a health point of view, but also the greenhouse [00:28:30] gases from a climate point of view simultaneously. And the only way you can simultaneously eliminate greenhouse gases and the particles is by changing the energy infrastructure by electrifying everything and producing that electricity from clean and renewable wind, water and solar power. There is a solution to this problem and that's changing the energy infrastructure of cities, states, countries in the world change your own home to the extent you can by electrifying everything. And if you can put solar on the roof, then you can provide that electricity from your own power. You can even add some batteries to [00:29:00] store it so you don't have to pay for the remaining power that you do use. If you do use it, you know, try to select policymakers who are more supportive of clean and renewable. Speaker 3:And here we are coming up on an election cycle and that's to me is extremely important and especially a congress that will pass something like this. Do you have a website that people can go to if they want to find out more about this project solutions project? Speaker 2:There's two websites that solutions project.org [00:29:30] that's one word. Then one hundred.org the number one hundred.org so that's a subgroup of the solutions project, which is basically the idea is to bring 100% clean and renewable energy to 100% of the people 100% Speaker 1:of the time. I really appreciate you being on method to the madness, so thank you very much. I thank you for having me on. Speaker 4:Okay. Speaker 1:You've been listening to method to the madness by weekly public fair show. Katie l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Eric Sorensen is CEO & Founder of award-winning Carbon Roots International, whose mission is to encourage and enable the adoption of sustainable green charcoal in Haiti & the broader developing world to reduce deforestation, create jobs, & improve lives.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. You're listening to method to the madness. I Biweekly Public Affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. I'm Lisa Keifer and we're taking a field trip down to Stanford today to interview the clean energy mastermind. Professor Mark Jacobson. What do you do here at Stanford? Speaker 2:Well, I teach and do research and I study clean and renewable energy systems and air pollution [00:00:30] and climate problems and how to solve them through clean and renewable energy. Speaker 3:I read about you recently in the new republic. Bill McKibben has written a really thoughtful article saying that our current climate crisis, what we need to do, he likens it to what we did in World War II to gear up to fight the Nazis and the Japanese. And he mentioned you in the work that you're doing. He talks about the solutions you have that are ready right now for all 50 states in the United States. What is that project? Speaker 2:Well, we do research on developing [00:01:00] plans for states and countries and we've completed plans for all 50 states and also now working on 139 countries around the world using all renewables and yeah, the idea of the plan is to electrify all energy sectors. That's transportation, heating and cooling industry, agriculture, forestry and fishing and provide that electricity with clean and renewable energies such as wind and water and solar power, but combined with some energy storage combined with energy efficiency and some additional transmission. When did you come up [00:01:30] with this plan? Well, our first plan was in 2009 it was really a world plan, just gross numbers to see if it was possible to power the world entirely 100% with wind and water and solar power for all purposes. And it wasn't broken down into countries, but from a on a worldwide scale, if we're just looking at the raw numbers, there was possible because there's enough wind resource, there's enough solar resource and existing water resource. And also we looked at the materials required, we looked at the costs or we looked at the land use required and we found that all these are within reason and [00:02:00] then potentially possible to do. Speaker 3:How many years did it take you to come up with these very specific plans? [inaudible] right. Speaker 2:So then, uh, after that there was in 2009, and then subsequently we started working in 2011 on a state plans specifically for New York state that you got completed in 2013. So that took, why did you choose New York first? Well, I started working with some people, activists in New York, probably people who are fighting against natural gas, fracking. Hydrofracking they had wanted some alternative. What's [00:02:30] their, you know, what else can we do besides natural gas in the state of New York? And in this group was mark refollow, who's, I'm also an actor and a Marco cripples who is, um, he's a business person who lives actually in California and Josh Fox, who is a documentarian. And we kind of brainstormed and thought, well, why don't we take our energy plan for the world and squish it down to a state level answer. That's right. I did with some help with Mark Delucci, who's a doctor researcher at UC Berkeley. Speaker 2:Right. And also eventually got some students involved [00:03:00] and Reese Chris down a plan for New York, got some new data and uh, it took a while to get all the information we needed. But by 2013, we had a New York energy plan from 13 to now you've rolled out the rest of the 50 states plus 127 countries in the world. We're, we will correct the Xero since then. In the middle of completing the New York plan, we started a California energy plan. We thought, well, we have one for New York. Why not apply to another state? So we got more experience improving the plans as we went along. And we did one for Washington state [00:03:30] long at the same time. Uh, I thought, well, why not just do all 50 states? We can not about ties the process simultaneously. So we did that and we completed those plans in 2015 for all 50 states and then at the same time as we were completing that and we started working on thought, well, why not go to the world and go to all individual countries as many as we could. Speaker 2:And so we found data for 139 countries and that's what we're working on right now and try to complete that. Okay. How many people are on this team who had crunching the numbers? Well, going out into [00:04:00] the field since 2009 we've had about 80 scientists and students working on these energy plans, although there's kind of a core group of people who are doing most of the work. The group I talked about initially with Mark Ruffalo and Josh Fox and Marco Cripples, we started a nonprofit together. It's called the solutions project. And the idea of this was, well, why not take these energy plans that were developing these scientific science-based plans, but then we try to take those plans and educate the public and policy makers about them and do outreach [00:04:30] and try to reach communities that might not normally be engaged in the sense to me when I read this article in then new republic, I thought, wow, they probably been working on this for years and yet it took this long to hear about it. Speaker 2:That must be the biggest challenge. Getting this information out to the lay person so that we can make political decisions in our communities to support it. Correct. I mean that's my opinion is that, you know, getting information out to large numbers of people. I mean keep in mind there are 7.3 billion people in [00:05:00] the world and you know, as a scientist I might reach a few hundred to a few thousand at most. And you know, even with a good outreach you might reach 100,000 or something like that. But we really need to reach hundreds of millions of people to have an impact worldwide. And so, so are you capitalizing on some of your successes? Like for instance, what are some states who are doing this right now and how do we find out about that? Yeah, we've actually had some really good success and feedback. So the states [00:05:30] of both New York and California have basically adopted a portion of our plans. We proposed 80% conversion to wind water and solar by 2030 and all energy sectors and 100% by 2050. California in New York have adopted a 50% conversion for the electricity sector, which is only one of those sectors by 2030. And they've also adopted some other energy efficiency goals. But part of that is because we publish these papers for those states. We, uh, talked with the staff members of the governors [00:06:00] and so they are right, they're aware of these plans and that it was possible. And so that enabled them to push the envelope into what policies, Speaker 3:but they're still not pushing it as far as you say they should. Correct. They're not at, what's the downside of that? Speaker 2:There is downside because it means we'll have climate problems that are persist for longer period of time and we'll have air pollution problems that will persist for longer. So we're still trying to inform them about the necessity of getting to 80% by 2030 in all sectors. Uh, so there was, there was a ways to go but um, we are making in roads I should say there is a house resolution [00:06:30] now based on our work, based on our 50 state plans, a house resolution five 40, which is calls for the United States to go to 100% clean renewable energy for all sectors by 2050. So that actually, well it's just a resolution, but if it did pass, if subsequent bills were passed to support it, it would actually get to the end goal that we proposed. I think it has 44 46 co-sponsors, including Nancy Pelosi as one of the co-sponsors. Speaker 2:All three Democratic presidential candidates actually supported a a hundred percent goals by 2050 [00:07:00] and Bernie Sanders had our maps on his website. Hillary Clinton, we have a video tape of her supporting 100% clean renewable energy by 2050 and Martin O'Malley was the first one to go out there with 100% by 2050. There were also three senators I've mentioned they were going to propose 100% renewable energy by 2050. I should also mention that the a hundred percent idea has galvanized lots of nonprofits, dozens and dozens of nonprofits that are no, uh, centered around this goal. And they've actually been also helped to convince cities [00:07:30] in many cities want to go to 100% clean renewable energy, including, you know, several in the United States into southern Canada and companies as well. There are at least 60 to 70 companies, including many of the major ones that want to go to 100% renewable energy, have committed to go to 100%. For example, Walmart today, apple and Starbucks, Johnson and Johnson, there are many of the top companies Speaker 3:on the ride over here. I was in horrible traffic and I couldn't help but thinking about how are you going to convince consumers to [00:08:00] buy electric cars? How will they afford it? Number one, are we going to have to have subsidy programs along with a national grid or community redundant grids? Where does that all fit into this? Speaker 2:Well, I think electric cars, I mean most people, once I drive an electric car, they never want to go back Speaker 3:of course, but how can they afford it? Like in let's talk about outside of the coast, well Speaker 2:there are many electric car companies now that are selling commodity cars and so and there is a $7,500 tax credit. So that basically [00:08:30] brings the price of an electric car, even a low cost electric car into the same cost as an equivalent gasoline car. So I think that the costs are equivalent and it's actually, it's a lot cheaper to actually drive an electric car because the cost of the fuel is one fourth to one fifth the cost of gasoline per mile driven. So over the life of a car, if you drive a car 15,000 miles per year for 15 years, you will save $20,000 in fuel cost. The main thing that people have been concerned about is range. And so many of these electric cars now [00:09:00] actually have longer range. I mean, of course the Tesla, which is the model s, it's 275 miles a range. Um, but the, you know, even the new lower cost Tesla, which hasn't been public yet, but as people have taken orders for it, it's the thing, it's over 200 mile range. Speaker 2:And then even the, the leaf I think is over a hundred, 125 miles. Right? And so that's the limiting factor for most comedians. 95% of commutes or all the electric cars are within range. And you can charge them in your home if you have just a regular electric plug outlet or, or a special [00:09:30] charger that can be put in your home. So that's an advantage. Another advantage of electric cars is you can charge them in your house or in your garage or just a gasoline car. You can't, you know the disadvantages of course it's, it takes longer to refuel and there when you're, when you're out on the road, there's currently fewer charging stations, but there are a lot of charging stations out there now and there are a lot more coming and there is a plan to roll out many more. Yeah, there really has to, if we want to do this on a large scale, we need a lot more charging stations. But the electric grid is there, is there, it's really a question of hooking up new charging stations to the [00:10:00] grid and these charging stations don't take up much space. Speaker 3:We're doing this planning state by state. Are you also, are you setting up redundant grid systems in each state so that, you know there is a national grid, but are they going to be able to, let's say there's a climate catastrophe in one part of the country, will the other pieces of that grid be able to pick up the difference? Speaker 2:Yeah. Well the grid is interconnected already across the United States. So there the actual flow of electricity is limited by the size of the transmission lines. So we would need, we've got to 100% we will need [00:10:30] to expansion of the transmission grid or at least increasing the capacity of the grid so that you can send more electricity long distances. For example, we will have a lot of wind turbines in the great plains or we already do, but we'd have more and we might want to transfer more of that electricity to the east coast because the electricity is so cheap. The generation is so cheap and the great plains, it's, it's 2 cents a kilowatt hour now with the subsidy and in three and a half without a subsidy and that compares to natural gas, which is five to 6 cents a kilowatt hour as the actual cost of energy. Wind is the cheapest form [00:11:00] of electricity in the U s but a lot of it is in places that are far away and so transmission would be beneficial. Speaker 2:It also helps because if the wind's not blowing in one place, it is usually pulling somewhere else or having a more interconnected transmission system would actually make things more efficient. Same thing with solar. I mean it's not always sunny in some places because you're all in the clouds and the u s there are some long distance where it's called high voltage direct current or HVDC long distance transmission lines going up. I mean there's like what's called the clean power line or it's a company that has [00:11:30] proposals for several long distance corridors across the u s and I think they've had one or two of them already approved in that. They may even be building, but I can't say for sure what stage they're out. Yeah, Speaker 3:kind of controversially have left off nuclear power in your renewables. Can you tell me why you've taken that stance? Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because the other people who are supportive of nuclear power just say, you know, I'm biased against nuclear, but you know, this is all based on a scientific research that while nuclear is, is better than a lot of energy [00:12:00] technologies such as coal, gas and oil. For the most part, it's not as good as clean renewable energy such as wind, water and solar. And that's just a scientific conclusion. I mean, aside from the fact that it, it takes so long to put up a nuclear plant between 10 and 19 years between planning and operation and we don't have the time. It's the same two to five years is typical for a wind or solar farm. So not only do we delay getting that energy, but it also, right now it costs, uh, about four times more than onshore wind. So it's 12 and a half cents a kilowatt hour [00:12:30] for the unsubsidized cost of nuclear versus the unsubsidized costs of onshore wind is three and a half cents a kilowatt hour subsidizes 2 cents. Speaker 2:So we're talking one fourth of the cost. So not only do you have to wait three times longer to get the nuclear up, but you also have to pay four times more for the same power. And that's the only at the beginning. The other problems are, some people say even more severe, I mean there's a meltdown risk. 1.5% of all nuclear reactors ever built up, melted down to some degree. Nuclear weapons proliferation risk. How many intergovernmental panel on climate change says there's, [00:13:00] there's robust evidence. And high agreement that a nuclear energy proliferation leads to nuclear weapons proliferation. And this is because several countries of the world who have developed weapons secretly under the guise of civilian nuclear energy programs, there's waste issues. We haven't figured out what to do with all the waste that accumulates and you have to store it for 300,000 years and that takes a lot of energy. Speaker 2:That's in costs of storing out that don't, aren't even accounted for in the cost of energy today of the nuclear. Yeah, and then there's a, the carbon dioxide emissions, people say that, oh, nuclear is a zero carbon. Well, it's not [00:13:30] zero carbon whatsoever. I mean you have to, when you're using the uranium and you have to mine the uranium that takes fossil fuels, then you have to refine it. It's a very energy intensive process to refine uranium and you have to do that throughout the life of the reactor. Fossil fuel, carbon dioxide emissions, and there are other air pollutant emissions. And the fact that it takes so long to put up a nuclear plant, the difference in the time it takes to put up the nuclear plant versus the wind or solar plant, you're running the irregular electric power grid. And so you have to assign those emissions to the nuclear as well. Speaker 2:And so we're talking when you [00:14:00] actually add everything up, it's between six and 24 times more carbon and air pollution per kilowatt hour compared to wind energy. So no brainer. Yes, it's not just one problem. If you, you can't just solve one problem and say, oh, nuclear is good. You really have to solve instead of 5% idea. I mean, I can remember reading in the 90s that thought that had to be a part of the mix to put a little people in the world. So I met a lot of people, nuclear supporters think that nuclear is necessary because it's uh, it's very high energy density. So you can, you can, you can provide a lot of power [00:14:30] in a small area. But the fact is it has so many side effects that, um, you know, it's just not as good at this point. If nothing else worked, then yeah, maybe try that. Speaker 2:You've, you're up against a massive opponent and that's the carbon industry. I'm surprised they're not pushing back more. I mean, I get more pushback from nuclear people, different philosophy people. They know that they have enough power and control the, you know, they don't have to respond to, you know, studies or other people will think about them. They can just, just keep doing what they're doing. And they, you know, they find that they don't really need to respond. [00:15:00] But if we get a congress that will pass this plan, well yeah, no, our plans would have them completely phased out and they would be eliminated. So they should be worried. But you know, on the other hand, there's, most of the energy is still produced by fossil fuels by far most of the energy worldwide. And so it's such a, such a large penetration still the, you know, they haven't felt any risk it of, of disappearing. Speaker 2:But you know the writing is on the wall and they will eventually disappears. It's a question of time. I was reading that Washington [00:15:30] State is actually the farthest along in terms of percentage of renewables toward that goal of 100% in 2050 it is, but it's because of hydroelectric power that's existing hydroelectric in the states. You won't be building more dams. You're going to make present dams more efficient. Right. Our plans call for no new conventional hydroelectric dams and just making existing dams more efficient. I should point out that there are, in the United States there are 80,000 dams and only I think 10,000 produce electricity. [00:16:00] So there most of the dams in the U s are non power dams and so in theory you could power some of those without actually creating a new dam just to create power from them. And you could also like, cause a lot of people want to remove dams and so there are literally 70,000 dams available to remove without reading moving. Speaker 2:For example, the powering dams. The reason hydroelectric power is so useful in the solution is that a hydroelectric reservoirs basically a big battery and when you need like the windows and all this blow in the centers and all the shine. [00:16:30] And so when, when you, let's say you have no way to know sunlight texted, very valuable to have hydroelectric power cause you can, you can basically turn it off and on instantaneously. Uh, and then allowing it to provide the power when you need it to fill in gaps and supply. What's your plan for say Louisiana? We just experienced horrible rains like the thousand year rains and flooding. What would a state like that look like with your plan? The South in general, it was pretty a very weak winds except off shore. Um, but they have good solar radiation, [00:17:00] although it's not as good as the south west, which has more clear skies because there are more cloudy skies in the southeast, but there's a lot of sunlight in Louisiana. Speaker 2:So solar is a major part. Then they have offshore wind as well. So those are offshore platforms? Yeah, they've offshore platforms, but offshore wind and solar are the two major sources there might be advantageous Tulsa to have transmission into the state from other states that have much greater wind to the west. What is the most challenging state or country that you've had to come [00:17:30] up with a plan for so far? I would say Singapore basically it's a very small country that is very high population density so it's population really covers most of the land so there's not a lot of room to put clean renewable energy. You have rooftops and the rooftops aren't sufficient enough but there is offshore wind as well. Um, so we might have to go to off shore floating solar. In fact, I should point out though that that's only if we decided the Singapore had to be powered entirely with its own energy. Speaker 2:It could actually just transmit energy [00:18:00] from nearby. There is a solution to that problem too, just from transmitting from outside of it. But if you're just wanting to have it provided its own energy, these kinds of, some of these smaller countries like Gibraltar has a similar issue, but there is a solution to everything. If you add transmission, people complained that the sun isn't shining, but if you do have batteries you can then provide more reliable electricity either either back to the greater for your own use in your home. So basically if you have batteries and solar on your roof, you know you're a power plant and you can provide, uh, you have the ability to [00:18:30] smooth out like the rest of the grid. Tesla bought solar city and so they want to really, Tulsa wants to become a battery storage company as well as a motor company. Speaker 2:And so the idea is to take the solar panels on the roof and then use batteries to store that electricity. So integrate the batteries with the solar panels on the roof a lot more and even make roofing material that has solar panels in them, which is a great thing to do to integrate batteries with rooftop solar. But are there technologies on the horizon that wouldn't [00:19:00] be called batteries that they're a whole different kind of, yeah, actually. Well we look when we developed plans for all 50 states a, we did a study where we said can we keep the grid reliable over the continental United States? It's 48 states and we found that we can, if we combine generation of wind and solar, which are what are called intermittent or does wind, does nose blow and the sun doesn't always shine with low cost heat and cold storage and electricity storage. Speaker 2:I should point out that first of all, if you electrify all sectors, if you electrify heating, cooling [00:19:30] industry transportation, you make it easier to match power demand on the grid because there are a lot more low, what are call loads of energy require more energy requirements that are what are called flexible. You don't have to hook a wind turbine up to your car to drive the car, your battery. So you can charge the car anytime of day or night by electrifying all sectors. And then you use low cost heat and cold storage. So, for example, ice, you can have an ice cube under a building in fact at Stanford has had an ice cube in our building since 1998 and during the night when electricity [00:20:00] prices low, it produced the ice. And then during the day instead of using high cost electricity for air conditioning during the day, you would run the water through the ice. Speaker 2:And so you basically, by using cold storage in ice, you eliminate electricity use in the afternoon and during the peak. And you can do the same thing with hot water and cold water. Uh, you can store, yeah, you can store heat and uh, in water and store cold and water as well. But then there's another, I mean there's a community in Canada, Oca, Tokes Canada, which is an hour south of Calgary that [00:20:30] they have 52 homes that have 'em on there. The garage roofs have the solar collectors that collect sunlight in the summer in a glycol solution, that glycol solution gets transferred through pipes to a building where it passes by water, heats the water, the water then gets piped underground to heat rocks that stored underground. The rocks got heated up to 80 degrees Celsius until wintertime. They're insulated around them and in winter the whole thing is run in reverse and provides 100% of our winter time heating when snow is on the ground and you can't even tell this facility's [00:21:00] there because the rocks are under a park. Speaker 2:Well, yes, it's a, yeah, it's called seasonal heat storage, so it's a way you can actually store heat over the season and it's so inexpensive. I made a battery. Battery. Electricity is $300 a kilowatt hour. Rock energy is $1 a kilowatt hour, so it's cheaper in fact that the ice is $30 a kilowatt hour, $38 a kilowatt hour. Same with hot and cold water. They're all like one 10th the cost of batteries. There's also what's called pumped hydro electric power. When [00:21:30] you, you have two reservoirs, a and when you have excess electricity, you pump water up the hill. When you need electricity, you let the water drain down the hill. And so you basically, you don't lose water that way. And it's not a dam necessarily, but a reservoir. And it could, one of the reservoirs could be the ocean or a lake. And then, uh, there's concentrated solar power where you in the deserts where, because normally with photovoltaic tags, unless you have batteries, it's hard to store the electricity. Speaker 2:But if you have what's called concentrated solar power, you focus light off of mirrors onto the central tower, the tower as a fluid, molten nitrate [00:22:00] salt for example, that heats up and that fluid can be stored and used at night to generate electricity. By the past, the hot fluid by water creates steam from the water. The steam runs a steam turbine to generate electricity. So that's called concentrated solar power storage. And if you do this on a large scale, that's a lot of solar energy that can be stored batteries. Yeah. And you can use it at night or with when it's cloudy. And that's also one 10th the cost of batteries for electricity storage. It sounds like there's going to be a lot of potential solutions in the [00:22:30] future that you could incorporate into these 50 plans. Yeah, well these are all existing solutions but they're not on a large scale so we just need to scale them up to huge scale. Speaker 2:I read about your organization that you actually give grants out the solutions project. It's a nonprofit that um, I mean the goal is to take energy plans and educate the public and policymakers about them and try to engage the public. But part of their mission right now is to give out small grants to groups that mostly non profits [00:23:00] that have creative ideas of how to get information out better, how to make more effective change. I wanted to ask you about how this idea came into fruition. Yeah. Well, I mean, my whole career I've been, I started at Stanford as a professor in 1994 but you know, it was way back when I was a teenager and my goal was to try to solve, understand and solve air pollution problems and soon after climate problems. This was back in the 19 early 1980s in Los Altos. [00:23:30] So I've always had that goal and passion to try to understand and solve large scale pollution and climate problems. Speaker 2:But when I first started doing research at Stanford, I focused on the problems and understanding them, but I then did a lot of inner comparisons of energy technologies and their impacts on health and climate. Late 1990 started looking at wind energy in particular as a potential solution to some of these problems. And so did studies on the analysis of wind energy was with students as well. But then in around 2008 [00:24:00] I decided I had enough information, I wanted to start comparing different proposed energy solutions to climate and air pollution. So I did an inter comparison study value of what are the best technologies and that's when I came up with the conclusion that it was wind and water and solar power that were the best on nuclear and coal. With carbon capture, we're kind of more mediocre and then things like, you know, natural gas and biofuels were the worst in terms of health and climate and water supply and and land use and catastrophic risk and things like that. Speaker 2:But then the [00:24:30] next question was, well, if you have wind and water and solar is the best of technologies, can you actually then power the world with all the, with these technologies given, you know, resource limitations, land use limitations. And we did a study, that's why I started partnering with Mark Delucci at UC Berkeley and we concluded that it is possible. It's technically and economically possible, but there are social and political barriers. And we said, well, it's even technically possible by 2030 but for social and political reasons it's unlikely we can get to 100% until 2015 that really once we did a paper on that, [00:25:00] that was a global paper that's, you know, nobody controls the whole globe. So we eventually had to go down to state levels and country levels to see if it was possible to do a practical plan. Do you really think based on what's happened so far that will reach the goal of 100% by 2050 based on what you've done already? Speaker 2:I think there is a, there's a growing, I mean we're a lot further now than even two years ago. I mean I think people's mindset any more people are talking about getting to 100% so that in itself is growing exponentially in terms of how people were talking and thinking [00:25:30] about that catastrophic weather that's pushing this kind of attitude. Yeah, well it's a combination of problems are getting worse. The climate problems are getting worse and more people are saying we need to solve the problem. The insurance companies are saying it's an Oh my God issue. Yeah. So are there more people on board? But it's also fortunate that the costs of especially wind and solar and batteries, even batteries and in electric cars are coming down, especially the, when the electric power sector, people are suddenly thinking, wow, we could actually, we could have a high penetration of wind and solar because it's [00:26:00] so cheap that we can really ramp it up. Speaker 2:So it's kind of a combination of more people being aware of it and wanting to solve the problem. And simultaneously costs have come down and there've been technology improvements and existing technologies that are needed. So all the problems. So a lot of things are coming together, but there's still also growth, especially in many countries like you know, even though China for example, is putting in a lot of renewable energy, it's also putting in a lot of coal still. And that's troubling. And, but there are other countries in the world also growing and the pollution, the [00:26:30] emissions are still going up and a lot of places, although they're coming down and some other places, but you do see trends in several countries in Europe. So you can see their admissions are going down already. Uh, but not as fast as we need them to. We are going to experience some pretty wild weather. Speaker 2:Even we were on a hundred percent renewables today. By definition, I mean climate is the average of all weather events and so weather is very variable in the first place. But we do get more extreme weather with higher average temperatures. Yeah. On average, I mean this'll probably be one of the warmers if not the warmest year on record and an individual months [00:27:00] as well. But climate, again, you have to average over a long period look at the trends relevant, the actual value in a given year. It's really the trend that matters. Definitely the trend. It is everything is warming up and there were temperatures are over one degree Celsius higher than, uh, in the 18 hundreds. And you know, that's, that's significant on the rate of change. The temperature today is faster than any time, even since deglaciation from the last ice age. So the Paris agreement that, you know, there, they agreed to try to avoid two degrees Celsius, but it's really [00:27:30] one and a half degrees that a lot of people wanted, um, to avoid. And we're already at one degree, so we're only half a degree away from that. How many parts per million are we had already? We want, we should be at three 50 and where are we? Where are we today for a little over 400 parts per million. Yeah. Speaker 3:And so this is significant. I mean, I think sometimes we don't scare the public enough about what's coming down yet Speaker 2:in 50 years and oh yeah, no, the problem is actually much worse than most people think because half of the warming in the atmosphere is being [00:28:00] hidden by pollution and air pollution particles because they're both reflective in general and the enhanced cloudiness. So if you actually just cleaned up air pollution particles, which you want to do because they'd cause 90% of the air pollution health problems, which killed four to 7 million people every year as you clean up that air pollution, you actually make the warming worse because of the masking that's going on. And so that is another reason it's so urgent to not only eliminate the particles from a health point of view, but also the greenhouse [00:28:30] gases from a climate point of view simultaneously. And the only way you can simultaneously eliminate greenhouse gases and the particles is by changing the energy infrastructure by electrifying everything and producing that electricity from clean and renewable wind, water and solar power. There is a solution to this problem and that's changing the energy infrastructure of cities, states, countries in the world change your own home to the extent you can by electrifying everything. And if you can put solar on the roof, then you can provide that electricity from your own power. You can even add some batteries to [00:29:00] store it so you don't have to pay for the remaining power that you do use. If you do use it, you know, try to select policymakers who are more supportive of clean and renewable. Speaker 3:And here we are coming up on an election cycle and that's to me is extremely important and especially a congress that will pass something like this. Do you have a website that people can go to if they want to find out more about this project solutions project? Speaker 2:There's two websites that solutions project.org [00:29:30] that's one word. Then one hundred.org the number one hundred.org so that's a subgroup of the solutions project, which is basically the idea is to bring 100% clean and renewable energy to 100% of the people 100% Speaker 1:of the time. I really appreciate you being on method to the madness, so thank you very much. I thank you for having me on. Speaker 4:Okay. Speaker 1:You've been listening to method to the madness by weekly public fair show. Katie l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
For Cleantech Talk #18, Matthew, Kyle, and I talked about the Tesla buying experience and "Tesla dealerships," the planned Chrysler plug-in hybrid electric minivan, and a 1 GW Quebec-to-Vermont HVDC interconnection (as well as the transmission network and renewable energy integration, in general).
The offshore converter platform enables low-loss HVDC power transmission from offshore wind farms to the mainland. The completion of the BorWin2 offshore platform marks the successful completion of a significant stage in German grid access projects. One of the most exciting moments was the installation of the topside.Learn more: http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/energy-topics/energy-stories/offshore-converter-platform.htm
New developments in high-voltage DC electronics could herald an epic shift in energy delivery." By Peter Fairley.
New developments in high-voltage DC electronics could herald an epic shift in energy delivery." By Peter Fairley.
View the corresponding slide show here! Abstract: Improvements to the existing electric power grid infrastructure, whose design dates back nearly a century, have been identified as a key aspect of the current U.S. strategy to improve energy efficiency, grid reliability, and power security. In order to effectively and economically implement the necessary improvements and expansions of the power grid infrastructure to meet the emerging needs of smart grid implementation, renewable energy integration, and energy storage applications, increased development and applications of advanced power electronics based technologies, such as High Voltage and Medium Voltage DC Systems (HVDC and MVDC) and Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS), must take place. An overview of current HVDC, MVDC, and FACTS technologies will be provided, along with a discussion of new developments and emerging needs for future transmission and distribution system applications. In addition, an interesting historical perspective will be provided on the AC vs. DC controversy dating back to the days of Westinghouse, Tesla, and Edison - and why that battle is being renewed today. Biography: Dr. Gregory Reed is the Director of the Electric Power Initiative in the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, Associate Director of the University’s Center for Energy, and Associate Professor of Electric Power Engineering in the Swanson School’s Electrical & Computer Engineering Department. He is also the Director of the newly established Grid Technologies Collaborative of the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory's Regional University Alliance; and an inaugural member of the National Academies of Science and Engineering's Energy Ambassador Program. His research interests, teaching activities, and related pursuits include advanced electric power and energy generation, transmission, and distribution system technologies; power electronics and control technologies (FACTS, HVDC, and MVDC systems); renewable energy systems and integration; smart grid technologies and applications; and energy storage. Dr. Reed has over 27 years of combined industry and academic experience in the electric power and energy arena, including engineering, research & development, and executive management positions throughout his career with the Consolidated Edison of New York, ABB Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., and DNV-KEMA Inc. He has authored or co-authored more than 75 papers and technical articles in the areas of electric power system analysis, the applications of advanced power systems and power electronics technologies, and power engineering education. He is an active member of the IEEE Power & Energy Society and the American Society of Engineering Education. Dr. Reed earned his Ph.D, in electric power engineering from the University of Pittsburgh (1997), M.Eng. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1986), and B.S. from Gannon University (1985). Web: www.power.pitt.edu ; http://www.energy.pitt.edu/About/Reed.asp Recorded at the Carnegie Science Center, Pittsburgh, PA. Monday, April 8th, 2013.
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