Re: The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout

On 10/06/2025 16:16, Bill Sloman wrote:

On 10/06/2025 5:21 pm, David Brown wrote:

On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:

On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
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On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:

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OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their
technology.  Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.

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Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of burning carbon.

 Nuclear fission waste is mixture of isotopes. Some of them are very radioactive and decay fast, and keeping them safe until they've mostly decayed is technically demanding. The less radioactive isotopes are easier to handle, but some of them stay dangerously radioactive for upwards of 100,000 years, and keeping them safely isolated for that length of time is an as yet unsolved problem
 

We all know that, I believe.  There are two ways to handle the waste - bury it deep enough, or use reprocessing/recycling to reduce the worst of the waste.  (Of course a better idea is to use more advanced nuclear reactors that produce more electricity for less waste.)
Handling nuclear waste is technically and economically feasible - though it is difficult and expensive.  That does not mean countries (other than Finland) are willing to spend money on it - governments much prefer to kick the can down the road to future generations.  But there can be no doubt that handling nuclear waste is far easier and cheaper than dealing with the consequences of all the CO₂ and other greenhouse gases that we have released.

Politically, ignoring or denying the consequences of burning carbon is many orders of magnitude easier than doing anything at all.

 Until the climate gets warmer, sea levels rise, and tropical cyclones get more energetic. People are getting spooked by the changes they've seen over the last thirty years, and politicians are finding them harder to ignore.
 

The climate /is/ getting warmer, sea levels /are/ rising, extreme weather /is/ getting more extreme.  The consequences are real and obvious.  Yes, people (at least educated people) are getting steadily more concerned about it.  Yes, politicians are finding it harder to ignore.  And yet it is still politically easier to ignore the problem, make token efforts, or blame someone else.  Florida could be wiped out by hurricanes and New York flooded by rising sea levels, and Trump would say it is because of trans people and/or China, and that would satisfy his brainwashed followers.

Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.

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Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.

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That's why you need pumped hydro storage and grid scale batteries.

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It's the same as pretty much any other problem with hardware - add some big capacitors, and it will all be much more stable.

 Only if you do it right.

Sure.  Why would anyone want to do it wrong?

 

That's exactly why South Australia installed the first ever grid scale battery in November 2017, and half of it's capacity was immediately devoted to short term (within cycle) frequency control. They had a lot of solar cell generation, and their quick-start gas-turbine unit had failed to start when it was needed, so they went shopping for a better solution. Search for the Hornsdale Power Reserve.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve

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Grid storage is a major part of the way forward in electricity distribution (the other component is high voltage DC lines).  But lithium batteries like that one are no more than a stop-gap.  Lithium is expensive, dangerous, a limited resource, and mining it is an environmental disaster (albeit much more localised than the disaster of burning carbon).  The main battery type for grid storage should be sodium ion batteries.

 Lithium isn't particularly rare. Stars have been making it for the past 13 billion years. You don't have to wait for a supernova.  We haven't put as much effort into finding lithium rich ores as we have put into finding copper, gold and silver, which are all heavier than iron.
 

What an idiotic thing to say.  It is totally irrelevant where the lithium - or any other element - came from.  What matters is the availability /now/, here on Earth, and the costs (of all kinds) of extracting it in appropriate quantities.
Lithium is a limited resource.  That does not mean that the universe does not contain much lithium, it means that the commercially extractable lithium sources are limited.

Mining is always an environmental disaster if you don't keep a sharp eye on the miners.
 

Lithium mining (I am using the term "mining" very generally, including metal extraction from lithium brine) is a massive environmental impact. You don't get to say that other mining is bad if done badly, therefore lithium mining is okay.  Alternatives that can be used in batteries - or will hopefully become usable in batteries - include sodium, aluminium and iron, all of which have vastly smaller environmental impact in their extraction.

There are a variety of of opinions about what battery type would be best for grid storage. Vanadium flow batteries have their fans.

Yes, vanadium flow batteries have their advantages.  And if someone comes up with a better basis for flow batteries that doesn't need a relatively rare, expensive and toxic liquid, that would be great.  And yes, there are many other ways to store energy.  Sodium ion batteries are currently the most direct comparison to lithium ion.

In so far as lithium is dangerous, sodium is even more dangerous (and potassium is even worse). Cheapskates who cut corners can extract a disaster from the most innocuous materials.

I think you are missing some key understandings about what makes batteries "safe" or "unsafe".  Yes, a lump of pure sodium metal is more reactive than a lump of pure lithium metal.  No, that is not the issue in battery safety.

 Most of the "lithium is dangerous" propaganda comes from the fossil carbon extraction industry, who wants to keep on selling gasoline to be burnt in  internal combustion engines.
 

I am not interested in propaganda, but facts.  And I am in no way pro-petrol or a denier of climate change or its causes.
I see the current lithium-ion based electric cars as a necessary stepping-stone to a good, safe, sustainable and environmentally positive solution for electrification.  We would not have better alternatives like sodium ion or aluminium ion batteries, or other up-and-coming technologies without the investment that has been made possible by the current electric car ecosystem.  Lithium ion batteries have been the only option for cars that can give the required energy and power densities at an acceptable cost.  But the sooner they are replaced by something better, the better it will be for the world.  And for non-mobile applications such as grid storage, there are already better alternatives.
Lithium /is/ dangerous - the extraction is environmentally costly, it is a limited resource, and lithium ion batteries are very much a safety concern.  That does /not/ mean that petrol is safe or environmentally sound - far from it.  It means we can and must do better.