Fully renewable: biogas + wind + solar

Biopact has this story: scientists of the University of Kassel in Germany prove that the entire country can be powered by renewables only. They connected biogas, wind and solar power in a distributed way and show it can deliver both baseloads and peakloads.

Check more at:

http://biopact.com/2007/12/germany-is-doing-it-reliable.html

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• renewables
• biogas
• biomass
• bioenergy
• wind
• solar

[Bioeconomy]

The only problem I see with the concept is that neither wind nor solar can go carbon-negative (biomass can, by coupling its use to CCS). And that's what we need to make a truly climate fighting system.

[KarlFeuerbach]

The germans have it sussed. thing is they will do it, while the rest of us talk about it and continue sucking oil and fighting neocon wars. Really shines a light on juts how stupid Bush's thinking really is.

[arlindbosh]

very impressive!!!

[LeithMusic]

That biomass is grown in competition with food and if not grown organically will harm the nitrogen cycle. Much of the wind tubine's efficiency is lost for the sake of converting mechanical energy into electrical energy, and lost further when that electrical energy is converted again for use.

[mciceteade]

@originalrhombus these water reservoir are lakes like schwarzenbachtalsperre you can wiki them pretty big they hold a lot of water and they are used to store the overproduced wind energy during nighthours as example. or solar power in the morning hours when there is no need for it. the production of the biogas is continues but the genset is not running unless it is peaktime the gas is stored until needed.

[originalrhombus]

@simouny It will happen sooner, or it will never happen. The Germans are proving it's possible, so the only real obstacle is policy. The biogas is only there to manage supply -- you use it for peak demand, or to fill supply troughs.

[originalrhombus]

@hachicontrol There are a number of ways to deal with this. You can use pump reservoirs, like the ones shown in this video. You could, in theory, use the excess to drive electrolysis to produce hydrogen for storage and later combustion, which is less efficient but might be easier to arrange than a lot of pump reservoirs. Finally, you can disconnect turbines from the grid and lock them.

[vox1philippines]

very very nice....

[ejnewkes]

What a delight to see a whole stream of intelligent comments, with nary a climate troll in sight. Perhaps there's hope for Youtube yet.