Trying to store green energy in a battery does more harm to the environment than good, according to a new study by the University of Texas Energy Institute.
Storing solar energy in batteries for nighttime use actually increases both energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the study found. Researchers concluded that homes which used battery storage ended up consuming between 8 percent and 14 percent more electricity than homes that didn’t.
“The researchers also found that adding storage indirectly increases overall emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide based on today’s Texas grid mix, which is primarily made up of fossil fuels,” reads a summary of the research. “Because storage affects what time of day a household draws electricity from the grid, it also influences emissions in that way.”
Burning natural gas for electricity will generally result in lower pollution and fewer CO2 emissions than trying to store green energy in batteries — largely because batteries waste a lot of power charging themselves.
It turns out that when electrons combine with the lithium ions in a battery, they distort the electronic structure of the device, essentially trapping unused energy in the battery, causing it to degrade rapidly. This means that it may be inherently impossible to store large amounts of electricity cost effectively in a battery.
“Fundamentally, when you have a battery, every time you use it, it starts to die a little bit,” Dr. Sarbajit Banerjee, a chemistry professor at Texas A&M, wrote in a press statement. “The more you use it, the more it dies. Eventually, it becomes unusable. Theoretically speaking, you expect a certain performance from a battery, and you rarely ever get there. People have been at a loss to understand all the factors that contribute to this lack of full capacity.”
Without large-scale energy storage, the power grid needs demand for energy to exactly match supply to function properly. Power demand is relatively predictable, and conventional power plants, like nuclear plants and plants using natural gas, can adjust output accordingly. Solar and wind power, however, can’t easily adjust output and provide power unpredictably relative to conventional power sources.
The power they do provide generally doesn’t coincide with the times when power is most needed either, which is why storage is required. Peak energy demand also occurs in the evenings, when solar power is going offline. Without about 150 times more capacity to store power for later use, wind and solar simply won’t work.
America has less than 1 percent of the energy storage capacity necessary for wind and solar to meet the green goal of “100 percent green energy,” according to an analysis of federal data published last June by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
This article originally appeared in The Daily Caller
How am I not surprised. Like I said, AGW temperature data is bogus:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html?utm_content=bufferdb7f6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
That David Rose disinformation was refuted ,0000007 ms after it was released.
http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday-article-on-karl-et-al.html?m=1
http://variable-variability.blogspot.ie/2017/02/david-roses-alternative-reality-noaa-Karl.html
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-mail-sundays-astonishing-evidence-global-temperature-rise
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-mail-sundays-astonishing-evidence-global-temperature-rise
Precious
Best
D
Andy was caught cherry-picking in this article. Probably a mistake to reprint it, no?
Best.
D
Why do you never read an article? Can you refute the description of battery degradation over time and the perminant loss of useable energy? Stop using your greenie Marxist cribsheet and show just a little of your own thinking?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/news/a27039/tesla-battery-emissions-study-fake-news/
What a load of bollocks. He cites articles he wrote himself, cherrypicks facts, and when he’s done with that – he suggests that the natural lifecycle of batteries should be magically different from everything else. When I turn on my TV, it’s one day closer to it not turning on any more. When I jump on a plane somewhere, that plane is one day closer to retirement. What is your fucking point here?
In the press release given by the study author, he says that solar without storage is better than solar with storage, which is better than no solar. Once utilities set up a program where all of the batteries on their grid are able to soak up excess energy when it’s there and release it when it’s not, the grid will get a lot cleaner. This is not a case of bad technology, but incomplete implementations.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/news/a27039/tesla-battery-emissions-study-fake-news/
This is COMPLETE BULLSHIT and FAKE NEWS.