Thread: Climate Change and our Land of Fire, Flood and Drought.

Did QuantumScape solve a 40 year old battery problem?

QuantumScape’s battery cell is about the size and thickness of a playing card. Its cathode, or positive terminal, is made of nickel manganese cobalt oxide, or NMC, a common chemistry in EV batteries today. Its negative electrode, or anode, is made from pure lithium metal—but it's more accurate to say that it doesn’t have an anode at all, since it’s manufactured without one. When the battery discharges during use, all of the lithium flows from the anode to the cathode. The vacancy left on the anode side—thinner than a human hair—is temporarily compressed like an accordion. The process reverses when the battery is charged, and the lithium ions flood into the anode space again.




Did QuantumScape Just Solve a 40-Year-Old Battery Problem? | WIRED

Sounds interesting.

800 charges isn’t much before hitting 80%. Still a fair way to go.

For me that would wipe out a vehicle to 80% in under 14 months. By 18 months it would be useless.

The Australian Energy Market Operator is to model even faster paths to net zero emissions, with a new “Export Superpower” scenario to assume Australia will reach net zero emissions in the early 2040s, and the electricity grid will lead the way and achieve even more rapid emissions cuts.

AEMO – whose job is primarily to keep the lights on in Australia’s main grids – broke new ground earlier this year with the release of the second version of its Integrated System Plan, a 20-year blueprint that included a “step change” scenario that assumed 94 per cent renewables share by 2040 as technology costs fell and the world woke from its climate slumber to take decisive action.

A new 180 page document – its 2021 Draft Inputs Assumptions and Scenarios report – goes even further, and suggests new scenarios that include Australia reaching net zero emissions as early as 2040, with the electricity sector – where emission cuts are seen as more readily achievable – delivering even more rapid reductions. The plunging cost of green hydrogen will play an important role.

These assumptions will have some significance – not just for AEMO’s next planning document – but also in a country which has a federal Coalition government that refuses to set a timeline for net zero emissions beyond a vague promise to deliver it some time this century.

However, all Australia’s state governments – and most of Australia’s major trading partners – have a 2050 deadline for net zero emissions and if the world is to meet its 1.5°C target, emission cuts will have to be a lot faster than that.

Despite the political bluster, there are signs that Australia’s Coalition government is quietly preparing the path for faster emissions cuts than it might admit to the Murdoch media and its conservative rump.

Export superpower: AEMO to model even faster paths to net zero emissions | RenewEconomy

Plans to build Australia’s first renewable hydrogen demonstration plant in a remote power system in Denham, Western Australia, are on track to get underway in the second half of 2021, after the appointment of local engineering outfit Hybrid Systems Australia to build the project

Australia’s first remote, renewable hydrogen microgrid to be built at Denham | RenewEconomy

Originally Posted by PhilipA

No it is not.
Australia is a net CO2 sink because of our small population and large areas of forest, which are growing more vigorously because of the CO2 generated in the NORTHERN hemisphere.

So our output is balanced more than 100% by our input.

Surely the net output is the important thing unless of course there is apolitical imperative to say "we'll all be runed"
Regards PhilipA

At first glance things might look that way, but this article explains why, basically a mature forest can be cleared and replaced with saplings, or thinned down to 20% and it is still counted as 100% tree cover!

Land clearing in Australia: How does your state (or territory) compare? - ABC News

Liddell unit 3 out till perhaps March 2021 after transformer incident (serious injury to one person)


Liddell unit 3 out till perhaps March 2021 after transformer incident (serious injury to one person) – WattClarity

Increasing the transparency and correctness of intermittent generation availability information to AEMO – WattClarity

Semi-scheduled generation (large-scale wind and solar) is “intermittent” by nature. Its energy availability is variable and is forecast for the dispatch, pre-dispatch and PASA processes in the NEM. Critical to an effective energy availability forecast is accurate provision of plant availability information – as first you need to know any limitations on the equipment before you can consider the wind or solar conditions. Earlier this year I wrote an article which includes some background on the relevant terminology and the forecasting processes.

Liddell unit out for summer after transformer failure injures worker, triggers RERT | RenewEconomy