Domain: energymatters.com.au
Stories and comments across the archive that link to energymatters.com.au.
Comments · 8
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Re: Somebody is confusing AI with robotics
They wouldn't need to land - solar powered UAVs are already in use - just add an energy based weapon that recharges via surplus solar power. This one has a 5 year flight time & 30kg payload:
http://www.energymatters.com.a... -
Quite a logistical taskIf they plan to use PowerPack 2, they will need about 1430 units for 300MWh.
(source: http://www.energymatters.com.au/commercial-solar/battery-energy-storage/tesla-powerpack/)
The weight of a unit is 1622 kg for the battery and another 1200 kg for the inverter. If one inverter is needed per battery, the total weight will be about 4000 tons.
Boeing 747 400F max payload is around 123 tons
(source: https://www.aircraftcompare.com/helicopter-airplane/Boeing-747-400F/3),
so only about 33 flights will be necessary.
If they are scheduled one per day that is 33 days.
Doable.
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Re:Electric farm machinery; organic fertilizers
you mean like these eletric tractors?
http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3847
or if you want a commercial company.
http://www.electrictractor.com/
12 million 1MW wind turbines would be needed to power the US ((25,776 TWh / (365 days) / 1MW) * 4) (25% capacity factor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Current_consumption
With the area of the US being 9,826,675 km . Your looking at 1.5 wind turbines/km^2
Solar ((25,776 TWh / (4 hours * 365)) / 250 watts) * 1640mm * 992mm = 114,888.928 km^2 or about 1% of the us area.
Your nuclear example
3.3 gigawatts * 1300 * 365days = 37,580.4 terawatt hours
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Re:Current generation is still good
With a larger view than just your project, doubling the efficiency MAY make a HUGE difference to the solar market as a whole.
But You can't tell from just the output side of the equation, you also need the cost side.
For fun, lets assume it can be brought in with mass production for the same 10,000 to cover the same area you installed.
Maybe you get all your summer cooling for free. Maybe you charge your battery operated car.That's where I see the big advantage. If we can start getting a significant portion of our automotive power, for simply the capital investment costs, no continuing consumables, we are way ahead. In Australia, a survey found most people willing to make Solar roofs mandatory in new construction.
Its the same equations you are working on your project taken to a grand scale. Solar is already cost effective in some places, marginally cost effective in many more places, With with twice the efficiency it becomes phenomenally more cost effective in huge sections of the world.
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Re:The problem with this
I should have included a caveat about living in a solar friendly environment. 115F is 46C - it get's that hot here and believe me it sucks. We will get weeks of over 40C in summer. Although this year the weather has been completely fscked up/strange. I suspect that baseball sized hail would badly damage/destroy our panels. I have been toying with the idea of putting some old garage roll-a-doors in place so that the panels could be covered in an extreme event.
Don't take this the wrong way as I am not attacking your engineering skills but(OMG here's the but) to home build an inverter like ours would be quite a feat and if you could pull it off you are a talented person. Here is a link to the inverter manual if you are interested in seeing what the unit itself does/manages. -
Re:The problem with this
We live completely off the grid. Solar powered with diesel backup and gel battery storage. The system has been running for eight years and the generator has run a total of 900 hours over that time (mostly just monthly/weekly battery maintenance cycles). We have an array of 24 2V 600mah Sonnenschein batteries and not one of them has shown any measurable variation in performance over eight years. We are still some time from break even(BE) on initial investment but as I watch supplied energy costs rising BE gets closer daily. Although, if we take into account the initial government subsidy received on purchase BE on our personal outlay is only a few years away.
IMHO people holding off due to cost of initial investment, BE being a long wait, etcetera are doing themselves a disservice. Once BE becomes the major dot point of the sales pitch then the queues will be long, unobtainium rarer and more expensive, no more government subsidies, and increased sales taxes on alternate energy systems will be required to help bail out those poor bottom line affected and suffering power companies. -
Re:solar hot water
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Re:Math for scaleup...
Except after the initial outlay for the winbelt, you never need to crank again. Any man would pay $125 for indefinite free cranking.
Let me put it another way. For $109 you can buy a 5 watt solar panel. Now do you really want to pay $125 to get 1 watt from a winbelt, when you could pay less and get 5 watts from a solar panel? Winbelts are too expensive, they cost 5 times as much as a solar panel.