In no way does this mean the end of #AWE. Makani was just one concept of one company. There are many other players and approaches. I've always been partial to solutions with a generator on the ground. So not Makani but e.g. @AmpyxPower or @_Kitepower. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
For me the whole concept of putting up a tower to reach high altitude wind seems heavy handed and wasteful in terms of needed resources compared to letting up a kite on a string (here a graph of average wind power vs altitude from my Dutch book from 2010)zenmo.com/wp-content/upl…
Progress SEEMS slow but AWE started for real ~2005.
Commercial PV has a ~70 yr head start.
Wind started B.C. and turbines went from ~50 kW in 1985 to 15 MW in 2021. So a >~20 years head start.
So yes, AWE could use an @elonmusk type, but it only SEEMS to be going slow.
I've always believed the solutions of @_Kitepower and @AmpyxPower (who put the generator on the ground) where the way to go. So Makani giving up does not diminish my enthusiasm for them at all and I look forward to exploring their options within NEONresearch.nl
And there's a silver lining: Makani was partly killed by the immense success of regular wind energy.
Wind (esp. offshore!) has become cheaper so fast (thanks to the efforts of people like @Sustainable2050 and @Vision23) that it was increasingly hard to compete against.
I'm not saying I'm sure #AWE will take over wind turbines. And commercialisation could easily take 5-10 more years.
But I'm sure they could deliver us large scale wind energy with the fraction of the resources that are needed for regular wind. And that potential is nice!
/end
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GEOTHERMAL
Just saw a fascinating webinar and you should too if geothermal interests you.
It explains how techniques from fracking are creating a game-changer in the last few years that can reduce the cost of energy systems without fossil fuels.
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The webinar by prof. Roland Horne from @Stanford is about Enhanced Geothermal Systems or EGS that he defines as using fracking to make the area between the infusion and extraction well permeable for water.
He focuses on @fervoenergy, a company founded by two @Stanford alumni (one from his program) that has for the first time in history used the horizontal boring technique from fracking in geothermal.
This eviscerates the last credibility of @Toyota regarding EVs.
They (esp. Gill Pratt) have been pushing the story we should buy their hybrids instead of full EVs because lithium batteries are and will stay the bottleneck
Grid congestion is THE bottleneck for economic growth and sustainability in the Netherlands.
But it doesn't have to be!
When we combine Dynamic Line Rating with Peak Shaving we could move three times more electricity with the current grid!
🧵
What is Peak Shaving?
Peak shaving means that you take measures to lower the peaks in electricity usage. Peaks are what limits use of a power line. In the example graph below you can see the demand is too high a few yours per week. But there is more than enough capacity overall
Adjusting only the 2.5% of electricity demand that causes the biggest peaks adds 25% of capacity.
Removing 17% of energy from the peaks (e.g. with dynamic pricing, batteries, smart charging, etc. etc.) provides 50% more capacity.