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(Solar) Power to the Masses
D3 writes "This report on a solar power tower (pdf) looks extremely interesting. Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world? How cool would that be?" The NY Times has a good article on solar power in Japan.
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Visualize the world of wine
...a use for global warming :-)
--This isn't a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.
Discover Magazine just did a story on something like this. Unfortunately the full story is only available in dead tree format. If you wait until next month the older article will be available. You can probably check it out at your Dentist's office like I did if you feel like getting a filling.
EnergyInovations is working on a small version. From the Discover article it discusses how they refined the stirling engine with the best tradeoffs of manufacturing costs to effiency. IIRC they are also making this small enough to make it fit on a roof top.
Geek fact of the day: A stirling engine is an external combustion engine that runs off the pressure created when one side of its engine gets very hot while the other side stays cool. The greater the temperature difference, the greater the pressure, the greater the energy generated.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
Damn those countries with so much son,.. is there a way for us to replicate thier sun over our heads in washington,.. we seem to be missing it for a good portion of every year.
then more power to 'em!
Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world?
Great idea, but power simply can't be distributed over that great a distance.
To make up for losses due to resistance in wires, they up the voltage to absurd levels -- decreasing the current level, and, in the process, the voltage drop over a long distance. However, this can only be taken so far, and towers supplying electricity to the rest of the planet is way too far.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that the continental US is too wide for coast-to-coast power sharing (that is, power generated in, say, New York, can only be "shipped" as far west as Indiana, or so).
On the other hand, replace today's wires with some kind of high-current, high-temperature superconductor, and you're golden.
...the US would takeover those sunny countries.
I don't know the percentages, but if you were to transfer power from say Mexico to Canada under this scenario, your energy losses would be huge.
This idea of sharing power throughout countries has already somewhat taken off, for example if England has any excess power, France uses England's power, and visa versa.
And of course it would be lovely for more renewable energy sources to be used!
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Will the sunshine nations (OSEC) collude to create artificial shortages and drive up prices in the sunless nations. Rolling blackouts, $700 power bills. The best part will be when they say its the fault of the sunless nations for having draconian environmental laws.
I'm really not this bitter in person.
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
it'd be really easy to blow up.
diesel fuel and fertilizer anyone?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The sun would never set on the American Empire!
I miss it already.
If governemnts subsidized people to install these instead of new shingles, this would severely cut down energy concerns.
Of course electric companies would complain, but they will still be needed, solar power won't provide enough power.
hmm...actually then my electric company would just charge more for less so they don't lose profits...damn
Gibble: Descriptive of an emotional state in which one's mind is scrabbling for some purchase on reality
ok so these people have a 17% electricity bill drop (from what to what in Japan?) after buying an 1100 sq. ft. home that has solar panels...
How much did having the solar panels on the home add to the price of an already expesive home? How much will the 17% save over the life of the home?
Are electric rates in Japan like they are here? 17% of my last electric bill (mind you, it's the summer and I have the A/C on at least 8 hours a day and a box fan in the bedroom on at least 10 hours a day) is $4.20 (granted my apt. is 720 sq. ft. instead of 1100).
International Power Sharing/Leasing/Selling is all well and good. However, I truely doubt that the large scale implied by the poster would ever happen. All cables are lossy. Pushing power along cables has energy lost, dependent mostly on how far you're pumping the juice. (Also, voltage, current, resistance of the wire, local EMFs, and all sorts of minor things too)
While it would rock to have clean energy finally adopted... Carting it across long distances still sucks.
Gimme Wind, Gimme Solar, hell, I'll even take Geothermal, just make it clean, unobtrusive, and if you'd like, I can sell you some good land in my back yard. *me mutters about pretentions NIMBY asses*
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Same old story I've been hearing for decades, solar power gonna be the salvation of man's energy problems ... Wake me when it happens
I'm sorry, I can't help but smirk and snicker when I think about the Japanese and their
"Solah Powah Towahs!"
*smile*
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
For the masses? Screw that, where is my solar power?
We don't really need lines carrying solar power from sunny areas to the rest of the world. There are plenty of environment-friendly ways to generate power; solar in the sunny areas, hydro-electric in areas with lots of waterfalls, etc, windmills in the plains...
Availability of methods isn't slowing down alternative fule sources; people just see no reason to invest the necessary capital to change over, when burning dead dinosaurs is working quite happily.
Thomas Galvin
...we already have countries which trade carbon dioxide, so why not countries which trade sunlight? They're both equally impalpable, but at least light is more beneficial for the environment than the millions of tonnes of CO2 which countries exchange for cash every day. How do they get away with trading something like greenhouse gases anyway? An international distribution system for exchanging light could only be a good thing.
Bash script for FP whores
just enterl ar.pdf
http://www.sandia.gov/awards/images/R&D/So
into Here
to read the pdf report. i'd post the report but its 15 pages long.
OK, we'll let Grapple build it, but if any Decepticons ask if they can help, just say NO.
Remember that guy in Superman IV that was like, solar-powered or something?
He's CAPTAIN PLANET, defender of Gaia!!
There is no way anyone in Seattle right now would say that. It's about 90 here and painfully bright out.
Why not wind power, and hydroelectric power, then put them all into one grid.. surely there could eventually be enough power for all of these "natural" power sources to provide enough power for the US and other countries.
That was only a small part of Superman III. Of all of them, THAT ONE WAS THE WORST. Then again, I only like the 1st one (and the evil chick from the second one ).
I feel that the key to future demands for power will be more readily met by people praticing self-suffciency than by technologies such as solar, geothermal or fusion. It should be easier for people to purchase and operate a hybrid solar/biofuel generator than to implement large scale non-fossil fuel/non nuclear fission solutions.
Yes, but he wouldn't know because he has been in his parents's basement for the past 3 months.
It requires a complete re-think of the utilities infrastructure and removal of idiots that run them.
If a normal neighborhood had 2 stationary panels on each home's roof pointed south that backfed to the utility power and they did the storage, it could be a reality right now.
but it's easier to keep that 1929 Coal plant running and those power commisioners that have no fricking clue or care outside their pocket or circle of power than to change to current technology.
Anyone here can easily reduce their power consumption to 1/10th of what they use now. Couple that with a city wide solar network with some wind plants like in Macinaw city or out west and you can easily have clean power.
it's changing government, and the wasteful companies (running 1500 horse power pumps from 1955-1957 instead of buying noew high efficency pumps) that will be nearly impossible...
Changing to non polluting power will be more difficult than getting bill gates to embrace and use linux.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Would it be worth the cost covering subequatorial deserts with solar panels and ship the electricity to the rest of the world? Of course we would lose a lot of electricity because of the transport, we would have to replace the broken panels every once in a while, but wouldn't this still be cheaper than all the petrol, natural gas, uranium we are using for our computers and our cars?
I suppose that we can build solar panels for significantly cheaper if we are going to cover a whole desert with them. Training people to operate the plants in the sahara can't be that expensive. New cars could progressivly be built to use the cheap electric energy. Could this be done or am I talking nonsense?
Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
I'd think it's obvious by now that the world doesn't really work that way. You could just as easily be saying, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if countries with all these rich oil resources could share it with countries who don't have any oil?" But multi-billion dollar wars are fought over those countries if they don't get into the market with the rest of the players.
So I figure if you had a nice sunny country all to yourself and had a huge suply of clean energy, you'd be looking at the "liberation" of your people by a world superpower in no time. No one is going to tolerate cheap energy these days.
Another obvious stirling use is as part of your home heating plant.
British Gas to launch individual CHP boiler for homes
British Gas has announced that it is developing a household boiler that generates both heat and electricity, which will increase energy efficiency and cut costs for customers, allowing them to sell excess electricity back to the Grid.
The new combined heat and power (CHP) boilers, developed by MicroGen Energy
Think about it. You burn gas to stay warm. (if you don't have a heating season....then you don't) Why not burn the gas to do work? You still get your heat. And the work can make electricity.
As he always used to say, a penny saved is a penny earned! (He invented electricity, you know.)
Very cool, very nice, but since it will cut the oil companies out of the loop, it won't happen any time soon. At least not while the current U.S. administration has anything to say about it. And given lobbying rules, not while the next adminstration has anything to say about it. And the administration after next...
Australia is building big convection towers. They are just a big (big!) greenhouse sloping up in the center, so the hot air runs up what amounts to a chimney there, and drives a big windmill -- really, a bunch of them -- in the chimney. It has only a few moving parts, and is easy to build with mature technology.
Simple might not help employ physicists, but it's the right way to build.
all those who want to cut pollution should use greenmountain energy. All those in states where there is no greenmountain should tell them to come to your state.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
..is that solar power plants to produce environment friendly hydrogen or similar fuel
could be placed in sunny countries along the
coasts. Sahara is just one example, there are a
lot of sunny countries out there.
Then one could ship the "power" to environment friendly factories to produce electricity around the globe. At least in countries that does not
have that much sun.
Sure it might be expensive at first but think of
it.
You can today run cars on hydrogen, the
trucks/boats etc that ship the fuel can run on the same fuel you use for producing electricity.
hydrogen+oxygen=water=No pollution= We will be
able to keep the earth a while longer.
For shorter distances you can use pipelines to
ship the fuel.
This has to be a global project though and I doubt
that rich countries will simply give this away to
poor countries. But maybee, who knows.
I really HAD another userid
How short our memories are.. When we get all that solar power the machines will start a war. We'll have to destroy the skies and move the survivors underground to Zion.
Trolling is a art,
The South Pole is a very dry place. Not much new snow forms. There is a lot of sunlight there.
Question: Can you put a solar farm in the South Pole?
I am not a EE, but having a power Co-Op as a major client I know there is a significant line loss (power loss) associated with transmitting power over long distances. There are also major financial, political and citizen factors to overcome when building new transmission lines. The technology looks cool. I think getting the power from a to b will be a bigger issue.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
http://www.eere.energy.gov/csp/csp_tech.html Sandia actually did quite a bit of research on solar power towers. When Bush got into power, alot of the funding was taken away. Israel's Weizmann institute actually has a working power tower that is more advanced than the ones made at Sandia. http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/site/EN/weizman.a sp?pi=420&doc_id=731
all i'm asking is for some prudence and a reality check before ecstatically proclaiming "Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world?"
;-)
i think those sunny countries would rather exist than become giant solar panel farm fields for wasteful cloudy northerners
current power demands versus current solar technology efficiency: wouldn't that necessitate something like covering the whole sahara desert with solar panels?
nevermind the gargantuan investment in time and money to build the infrastructure to set this up... and wouldn't covering vast areas of the earth in solar panels have it's own environmental down side?
i mean, don't get me wrong, hydro/ wind/ solar is wonderful, but isn't the power output from these technolgies miniscule compared to burning hydrocarbons, as environmentally unfriendly as that is?
we need fusion man, pronto. i want my mr. fusion damnit!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You know, the author of the article would have more crediblity if he quit using phrases like "Berlin Wall of Solar Power" in the article.
Also buried in the article is the fact that this rig is so freakin' expensive to set up and so uneconomic to run, that only nations with massive subsidy programs are the ones looking at it. They are targeting Spain because they signed Kyoto and so the government (read taxpayer) is willing to underwrite the whole thing.
So, who wants to take bets on how long before environmentalists scream that we are destroying the planet by planting hundreds of thousands of square miles of mirrors across the Southwestern desert?
Have they figured in the cost of replacing sandblasted mirrors and the cost of trucking water in to clean the mirrors?
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Technically, Superman is solar powered as well...it's just he stores the solar energy in him like a battery with massive amounts reserves whereas that guy in Superman 4 was more like a solar man.
Technically, if you read it correctly...he's not really even tough skinned so much as that solar energy creates a barrier around him that protects him.
There are issues that are supposed to take place in the future where Enviornmental damage has done so much to the atmosphere, Superman can really only leap great distances and his power is greatly reduced. There were also issues like the Doomsday one where his continual exertion over the course of the day drives him down so much he starts getting cut by Doomsday because his solar reserves are depleted..
Now I know why I'm still single...I'm a friggen geek.
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
the missing concept behind solar power is that it doens't have to be distributed. As it is, power distribution system lose a bulk of their power on the way to your house. This is why solar panels are sucha good idea: the power loss is minimal when traveling from your roof to your AC inverter in the basement.
The major problem with solar power is that it isn't economical to buy a solar power system: the cost of the solar cells, inverters, and batteries is too much compared to what the power company would charge you (unless you live in rural areas where power hasn't been connected to your house).
-n
distributed power generation. let's work for that.
harmonious design
A system like this could really help equatorial regions that get lots of sunshine, and they wouldnt have nasty environmental damage... but places like Canada (ie where I'm writing from) which receive less sunlight in the winter would find it more difficult to implement this system (ie lower returns).
OR you could just do was Nova Scotia Power does, take the Natural Gas they're pumping out of the sea floor off the coast and export it to the States, then continue burning coal locally and tell everyone how much you're helping by keeping the electricity costs low. Take THAT environment!
I always wondered what that facility out in the middle of Kirkland Air Base was. It's quite visible when flying into Albuquerque. I thought that they were exerimenting with a way to shoot down terrorist planes using sunlight. (Imagine burning up a terrorist's plane over New York by training all the mirrored windows of the skyscrapers on it.)
Of course, burning up airplanes wouldn't work well at night.
I enjoyed driving past the Dagget generator and even stopped by for more information, but it was shut down just before the California power crisis a couple of years ago. Can someone direct me to the full story about why it was decommissioned?
Damn those countries with so much son,.. is there a way for us to replicate thier sun over our heads in washington,..
Yes we can, it take a really big parabolic mirror... but we will have to test the focus first on a city in your state... will Redmond do as a test target?
This post brough to you by the Linux for solar mirrors of doom in space council...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"The yellow face! It burnsssssss! It burnssssssss!
After reading the article, this plan to use sun-tracking mirrors to melt salt sounds a little more complicated than this Australian plan. Not only that, but the Australian plan scores more points in the coolness department as the project intends to build the world's tallest structure -- a tower 1 kilometer high. BTW, IANAA (I am not an australian)
MARE POWER!
That's SOOO much more fun!
We'll all need solar panel hats to power PSP's anyway.
http://www.powersat.com -- solar power arrays in space (no attentuation by atmosphere or weather) beaming power back to Earth using microwaves. SF author Jerry Pournelle (http://www.jerrypournelle.com) has been advocating these for years.
Brian
Remember Lexington Green!
....then why can't we? I mean they were robots bent on distruction and they used renewable sources....we're just people that want to watch TV. Shouldn't be that hard.
I believe we all have the ultimate solor collectors in our yards already. The grass in the other foilage.
I've seen articles about bio-batteries that use bacteria to break down organic matter, and make electricity.
I'm guessing in about ten years there will be a product that takes yard clippings, and leaves, and other foilage, and produces energy. Fertilizer will be a biproduct.
In the future we would grow our energy supply. We already use fossil fules. They were grown millions of years ago.
Does anyone else think that this is eventually going to end up as an imaginative way of killing James Bond? The villain will incarcerate Bond in the salt-melting room, give him a long, detailed lecture about his plans for world domination, make a sub-Bond witticism and then go away, explaining that Bond has until sunrise to live. Of course Bond will escape (using some sand-powered laser which Q has fortunately given to him) and the fat guy, sans cat we hope, will end up taking a bath in molten sand. Or is it just me who thinks like this?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Remember those articles that talked about a space elevator with a long cable extending to outerspace? What about if we put solar panels in space (LOTS OF THEM) on the backside of earth, still in range to pickup light that didn't fall on the earth.
Even if you ignore the high costs of solar power, and the efficiency limits of solar panels, the amount of energy you can get this way is not much.
The sun's energy is VERY VERY DILUTE.
Plus, they greatly reduce fire risk, termite risk, and wind damage risk.
Now, if you combine solar with ICF, you end up with a house that would require very little power from the grid.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
There is the environmental effects about this as well, however that wouldn't be the big selling point. Being in Arizona, I would think that this would almost be a great selling point, and an awesome location to have a solar powered house.
I am going to see how much it would cost to do my roof....
"Stupidity is like neclear energy; it can be used for good or evil, and you don't want any on you."
Spolier Alert YO!
I know I shouldn't expect realism in a movie like this but the whole Ebola thing did it for me. Ebola turns a human into a blood exploding hand gernade. Blood flows out of every orfice including the eyes and sometimes even the pores on the skin.
That lame shit where the guy coughs up a tiny bit of blood and then dies was so stupid I hated the movie from then on.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
One other thing that's going on right now is that a New York based environmentalist group has started the NY Energy Challenge. Basically, they're challenging people to pledge to consume less energy by replacing incandescent bulbs with compact flourescent bulbs, air dry dishes in dishwashers, replacing inefficient appliances with more efficient models, or by installing renewable energy systems in their homes.
The primary goal is to show that New York doesn't need the 2,000Mw of energy that is generated by Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant.
While those people have their own reasons for energy conservation and people may agree or disagree with it, the overall goal of reducing our dependency on using non-renewable power sources is a very good one.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
--Home on Lagrange (The L5 Song)
(c) 1978 by William S. Higgins and Barry D. Gehm
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Possibly the best do it yourselfer magazine I have ever read is dedicated to renewable energy and guerrilla solar.
Home Power Magazine
Wax on, wax off baby!
But countries that have lots of sunshine already DO provide much of the world's power... OIL.
...even it's feasable. Why? Because some of the most powerful entities on the planet are the current energy brokers, and they will use every last ounce of that power to keep it. This has been one of the most well documented facts in history.
Unless they can use it to make even more money, it will be thwarted at every turn of the implementation process, politically and scientifically.
We go to wars over oil, we define regions over oil, we assassinate leaders over oil... believe me, this will not see the "light of day". Heh.
When the most powerful entities in the world have the market cornered on the most sought after product in the world, things like the betterment of humanity play second fiddle. We are shown this over and over...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
If I EVER meept Ben Fucking Franklin, I WILL KICK HIS ASS!!!!
We would cut unemployment by 90%, crime by 50% and create electricity.
Everyone happy.
More (pertinent)lyrics
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
get together in an undeveloped area, far outside the limits of the nearest city, and build something like this from the ground up? Not only will we have a working example of a radically different electric power structure, but think of the implications of a whole town populated with /. readers!
...
Umm... wait. Nevermind. Don't think of that.
Do not read this sig.
so assuming we can work out the super-conductor issues - we will still be dependent on the middle east for our power - i.e. who has large deserted areas with lots of sunshine days / year?
Real SUV's don't have cupholders
It's 5:42 A.M., do you know where your stack pointer is?
I pity the birds that attempt to fly too near to the focus of that thing. Instant rotisserie birdie. YUM!
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
wind power is more efficient, less costly, and most importantly has acutal commerically viablity.
If only the lamers in California would not complain about windmills harming birds...
They can't have it both ways, cheap clean energy with zero environmental cost.
Oh wait, logical thinking and emotional liberalism don't mix.
It may never be cheaper to use solar power than old fashioned middle eastern oil.
> all the countries with lots of sunshine provide
> power to the rest of the world?
Thought we already got all our power from the countries with lots of sunshine.
Why spend the effort building trans oceanic power lines from Saudi Arabia when you already have liquified natural gas tankers doing it for a lot cheaper? Why build multi billion dollar solar arrays in the desert when oil already bubbles to the surface for free?
Solar insolation is about 1kW/m^2.. Well, except for the earths rotation. Assuming a non-tracking system, we have to divide by a factor of pi, so thats 300 W/m^2.. Well, except that the average efficiency of solar cells is under 15%, so thats 45W/m^2. Now, the average home has what? 2 people in it, and the per-capita electrical usage, averaged over the course of a year is 1kW. So, you need 2kW for that home, and only get 45W/m^2. So, you need 50 square meters of solar cell, correctly angled south. And this is the best case.
Now account for clouds and dirty cells. Unless you clean the cells every few days and pressure wash them biweekly, better increase the square meters of solar cells another 50%. So, thats 60-80 square meters of cell/house..
Now the next question. Where do you store all the energy you'll use at night? If you don't store it, where does it come from? Fancy burying a few ton flywheel in your backyard? How about aa closet filled with lead and sulpheric acid batteries? If you're going to use hydrogen to store it, better double or triple the square meters of solar cell for those inefficiencies.
The same problem applies to 'Solar 2'. You need about 1000 of them to equal the average energy of a nuclear power plant. And another 299000 to equal the mean energy used by the US. To replace all energy used in the US requires about a million Solar 2's.
Sun shines around here just fine for my solar needs. I just don't have the money for it. My power needs are meager (thanks to an energy star kick last year), and I could cover them with about $7500 in solar shingles and a further $2500 in batteries. $10k seems like it'd be worth it pay basically nothing for power...but we don't plan on staying in our house for more than another 5 years. Solar cells, believe it or not, do not add a lot of value to your house...most people don't care and if they find out about the maintenance (cells dry out, need to be replaced often, etc), they aren't willing to pay for them.
It's a shame -- if the solar industry were subsidized...but alas, solar isn't a cash cow so it doesn't have lobbiests like coal, gas, nuclear, or even hydro.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
So what your saying is that Mexico could become a world power selling electricity to the US.
Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world? How cool would that be?
About as cool as being being dependent on the middle east for oil. Give me locally generated nuclear power anyday.
an ill wind that blows no good
I =/= 1337 h4x0r!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
The really clever -which means obvious- thing about this is the way they store the heat, using tanks of basically salty water. What happens though if the tempurature in the "cold" tank falls below 220 degrees. It solidifies - what then, use conventional power to heat it up?
Semper ubi sub ubi
With all the computers I have running at my house, I could use one of those to power my systems. Oh, and the air conditioning too :-)
No matter where you go... there you are.
so true
Ironically, since the Sahara is one of the sunniest places on earth, Saudi Arabia would still have a monopoly on fuel.
Because of the fact that Japan imports all of their fossil fuels, energy costs there are VERY high.
It doesn't help that a significant portion of Japan's nuclear reactors were shut down for safety reasons. (They're working on reopening them, but last I heard Japan was going to be facing a major energy crisis this summer.)
I'm guessing you don't live in California, where solar power is becoming quite popular due to astronomical electricity costs. 17% for you might only be $4.20, but 17% in some states might be ten times that, even for a small apartment.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
They have a clue and have been moving production to nuclear as fast as they can. Even single reactor plants designed in the 70's from late 60's technology are viable down to a wholesale electric price of about 2 cents/kWH. Only gas is cheaper or safer and gas is only ocasionally cheaper.
For compairison purposes, the nice 10 to 400MWe towers from Sandia have only managed to get their costs down to 5 cents/kWH, way cheaper than photovoltaics. That's impressive, but not there yet. 400MWe is as big as some of the first nuke plants, but those have grown to 1GW minimum.
People in the generating business will be happy to replace coal plants with solar just as soon as it's cheaper. Turkeys like Jack Welch don't like to waste money on anything but themselves. Do you think someone who begrudges his ex-wife anything would waste money on someone without enough sense to replace an outmoded pump? Get real.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world?
On the other hand, replace today's wires with some kind of high-current, high-temperature superconductor, and you're golden.
A hight-temperature superconductor would/could be a power line. So you are both right.
One of the safest, most efficient, and cost-effective ways of capturing solar energy in desert regions and distributing it to the industrialized nations is via hydrogen. That's the real motivation behind a "hydrogen economy". In fact, since deserts are where much of the oil is anyway, not that much would have to change, although a number of additional regions could become energy producers.
Hydrogen can be produced from solar energy either via electricity, using microorganisms, or directly using heat.
The problem is not and never has been generating the power, the problem is storing the power. The power companies barely buy power from individuals; It costs several thousand dollars for the required hardware, and even then they pay you much less than you pay them for power.
So, how do I cheaply, safely, and non-annoyingly store electrical energy (in some form) and how do I get it back to being usable electrical power later? It's trivial to build wind generators using automotive generators, and build solar panels out of broken solar cells, and for that matter to build your own gas generators using alternators. They kick out 12V which is useful on its own, and you can always use inverters to spit out 110VAC or what have you.
If you get slightly more uppity you can build your own three phase alternators and use them to drive three phase motors, which are commonly used in machine shop equipment.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
are you that guy that sells comic books on the simpsons? ;)
I somehow doubt they could afford the high prices. These would be the countries with people that can afford to eat "real meat" (fast food) only once a week.
Ok some quick estimates using the article. Someone check my math :)
The article claims it can produce 1MW per 10 acres. Assuming year round, 24hour production. 1e6 J/s *(365*24*3600 sec/year)/10 acres=31.5e11 Joules/year/acre.
I found an article that says the US produces 71.6 quadrillion BTUs/year. 71.6e15*1055 J/BTU=75e18 Joules/year.
So we need (75e18 Joules/year) / (31.5e11 Joules/year/acre) = 24e6 acres. Only 1/7th the total area of Texas. Not too shabby!!
I don't know much about microwaves, but this story at ABC News seems like a pretty amazing idea (Summary: cover swaths of the moon with solar panels and beam the energy back to Earth via microwaves). What's 150 billion in the grand scheme of things?
There'll still be the idealists who scream about defacing the surface of the moon, but it would be relatively low maitenance (no elements to damage the panels, except for the occasional meteorite) and wouldn't take up precious space here on Earth, where things can grow or live. As romantic as some of us can be, the moon is still just a big chunk of lifeless mafic rock.
Anybody actually have an idea how well this would work?
Middle East has everything we'd want. Oil, wmd, sunshine.
Clicked on the link, and it opens up in Konqueror..
Get a nice picture of a pylon, ( get really excited after seing such a juicy picture) and then twelve blank pages with a kind of tan, silky background texture. (excitement recedes somewhat!)
I couldnt help but laugh ! Must have been some sort of joke.
But then, I read on to discover that I must be the only one in the world who experienced this strangety. I must be a weirdo. Or maybe my pdf viewer is incapable of displaying invisible text !
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
That, and they don't get to build a new plant and they have to fire a few people, like me. That's OK as it's better to have someone like me working on something productive. In the mean time, I think you were refering to something like this for roofs?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
- At 1MW per 10 acres
- Sahara Desert = 9,150,000 sq. km.
The total would be 226.101 terawatts. However, total human power consumption is 381.85 TW, but it's a good start.Want sources? Google.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Hydrogen pipelines are nearly lossless, also hydrogen allows you to timeshift your production and use of electricity.
Hydrogen fuel cells are being oversold by many people, but this is one thing that they would be great for.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Am I the only one who likes getting my electricity from a large, unfriendly, wasteful, polluting, bureaucratic multi-national corporation? What's wrong with you people?
Sheesh!
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
Even if technically feasible (others here think it is not, but cheap 'hot' supraconductors could appear tomorrow), rich countries have enough problems securing their oil supply, to add another dependency with power! It would be "logical" to put solar panels in Sahara to 'feed' Europe, but then Algeria, Lybia & so on would have the power to 'switch off' whole countries. I suppose the US would be solar-self-sufficient anyway, and Japan and Europe could put panels on the sea.
There is enough solar power, and wind power and geothermy, and tidal power, and nuclear (even oil or coal), even in winter, for each continent to provide its own energy. If only we REALLY wanted.
Christophe (Don't hesitate to point out my spelling and grammar mistakes, I want to learn - Thanks).
Just wait until the oil companies catch wind of this. They'll buy up all the patents just like they've done with previous solar technology.
I have no idea how much it costs to build the 400 MW version, though it can't be too bad if they are planning to sell power at 0.15 US $ per kW Hour (document says "Price is proprietary" - huh? - why I'm I reading it on /. then?). Nor was I able to figure out how much land is required (but I've only skimmed the document). But given that estimates of our future energy needs are on the order of 30 TW, does it seem feasible to build 75,000 of these across the world?
Then all that is required is to solve the energy transportation problem. High power super conducting cables were discussed here earlier and the document mentions that it isn't outrageous to consider the production of hydrogen directly from heat and bypassing the electrical stage (is there any research on this I wonder?).
The most interesting point they really stress is the cost effective, energy efficient storage that you get by using such a large amount of molten salt. No other solar system works as well in this regard. A good reason not to locate solar investment at the residence. (of course there are other advantages to solar roofs).
Interesting times ahead I hope.
Dara
Small is Profitable by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute is about the benefits of generating your electricity using small, modular power systems where you need them. It turns out that grid infrastructure is often well over 50% of the cost of providing power, and that if you simply install systems like microturbines or small-scale combined wind/solar installations (explained below), you can significantly outperform the grid in terms of end-user price and capital requirement.
That's not a big deal here, where we already have a grid, but it's a huge, huge deal in the third world.
The combined solar/wind thing works like this. Electricity demands have a thing called a "load shape" - basically demand graphed against time. It turns out that solar energy supplies match the load shape of things like air conditioners pretty well, but when the clouds come out, your solar supply goes to hell.
However, wind systems work best when there's a sudden change in temperature, causing new low or high pressure areas, so usually cloudy days have ample wind. If you combine local solar and wind systems in a single "local area grid" you get a hybrid system which produces power in almost exactly the same loadshape as your actual demand, reducing expensive overcapacity, and with excellent availability in all weather conditions.
Renewable energy requires a lot more smarts than "this is a huge factory which produces megawatts a day" - you don't see nearly the full benefit unless you actually take advantages of the full range of renewable solutions, using factors like their modularity, size, loadshape matching, low capital requirements, grid independence and many other subtle factors.
Small is Profitable is a hard read: about 400 pages of really densely argued financial and technical analysis, but it's pretty much the definitive work in the area. If you want to know more, it's the book to get.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Seriously. What in FUCK are you talking about?
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Georgetown University has a building that claims to be entirely self-powered, through solar panels on its sloping front. Anybody know about this? I've heard this sort of thing refered to as a 'Green Building'.
Just looking at this, it would be interesting to use today. Using salt ganerator for power, would allow any type of heat to be collected. In particular, I am thinking that nuclear, wind, and even coal plants routinely dump power at night. If Boeing was to develop a small to medium size plant that could go on a acre to a couple of acres of land these could then be scattered around a country. Upon demand, they could then generate electricity. Nice way to decentralize and match the needs to useage of the power grid. It would also allow us to make any country less suspectable to outside interference (wether the US from terrorist or a country from some other). BTW, it would also allow for easy development of alternative energy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I did it. I lived in a backwoods area of Maine that had no power lines run to it, so myself and my family built our own power system. We had a bank of 12 6V batteries hooked in series and then parallel so it was equivalent to a bank of 6 12 Volters, but with more amperage. The bank fed to a Prosine inverter that converted the DC voltage in the batteries to standard house current. We had tried other inverters, but for running devices like computers and a few other more sensitive ones we needed a true-wave inverter. The AC wave created by the majority of the inverters was blocky, but still usable for most general household devices (TV's, Radios, etc.). The battery bank was connected to a panel that monitored and controlled the power going into and coming out of the bank. This panel was also connected to a set of 6 Siemens (sp?) solar panels mounted on a varying-angle tower that we built to be adjustable for three different positions, one for spring/fall equinox time areas, one for the summer solstice area and one for the winter solstice time period, thus getting optimum power from the panels year round. We also constructed a 50 foot tower that held up a windmill. I dont remember which brand it was (maybe Whisper, but I'm not sure), but it added an extra boost to the bank on those not-so-sunny days. Overall the system worked quite well until I got tired of living in the middle of no-where and moved back into the suburbs. If I did it again, I would use 24 batteries, 8 panels, and the next size up Windmill.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
Sounds just like what the oil countries do now, except they get to screw the other countries.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Did anyone else read about large tanks of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrite and think "enormous bomb waiting for a primer charge"?
Seriously though, this sounds quite promising, I just wouldn't want to live next door.
What are you talking about? I'm in Redmond, WA right now, and it's almost 90 degrees outside. You need to get away from your computer and go outside for a change.
Gimme Wind, Gimme Solar, hell, I'll even take Geothermal, just make it clean, unobtrusive, and if you'd like, I can sell you some good land in my back yard.
What's "clean" and "unobtrusive" about renewable energy?
Wind: Those big windmills are noisy. You do NOT want to live near one. They chop up raptors and migrating birds wholesale, because the birds aren't able to recognize the need to dodge the blade coming at them at a significant fraction of the speed of sound. When they have a mechanical failure they often drop molten metal on the ground, starting a grass fire. (Windy areas tend to be VERY fire-prone and a wind farm has a LOT of mills, so it doesn't take a very high incidence of failure to create a high incidence of fires.)
Solar: BIG drop in albedo - grab maybe 15% of the incoming solar energy but absorb nearly ALL of it, in an area that USED to reflect well over half. LOTS of warming. And don't forget to count the energy and pollution costs of making the equipment.
Geothermal: Minimal amount available. Major drilling. Turning resort areas into plumbing farms. (Look at "the geysers" area in California - once a major resort, now a tiny power station with big pipes where the geysers used to be.) Pollution from releasing toxic minerals. Possible effects on earthquakes - including a potential for a major increase as a result of deep-well water injection.
Hydroelectric: We all know about the environmental impact of dams - both on fish and whatever lived in those nice valleys that got flooded.
The only minimally-polluting "renewable" energy source I know of would be space-solar. (And even there I'd wear my tinfoil hat and jumpsuit whenever I was within a few miles of the rectenna site. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is a very cool technology. The array of mirrors in Albequerque was smaller than most shopping malls. I hope this technology doesn't die on the vine.
Has anybody been to see the Solar Two setup in Daggett, California? It's five or six miles east of Barstow, about 50 miles north of San Bernardino. Here are some pictures: http://images.google.com/images?q=%22solar+two%22
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
I envision a future where PV homeowners can share their extra power with their neighbors through a P2P system... of course, the local energy company will call it "stealing" and attempt to sue those homeowners who are engaging in the theft from honest, hardworking oil companies.
www.homepower.com is a great site That always offer their current magazine as a free PDF download. Most issues will show several complete setups including diagrams, results, and pictures of several different types of setups. Just in the past I've seen solar, hydroelectric, thermal water heating, and recipies for making bio-diesal from waste cooking oil.
Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
Well, I guess that means that Britian doesn't have anything to worry about then! No wonder Blair keeps cheering us on!
Uh... it's not an "article". It's some kind of contest submission. Nice reading comprehension skills, boss.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Let's see. The article talks about 200 MW plant. At 1kW/m^2 and 17% efficiency this means we need about 300 acres of mirrors. Seems real practical.
You're missing the important point here. It's not that solar power is going to save the Japanese a lot of money. They're desperate to ween themselves off nuclear power using any means necessary. After all, if you had to contend with these three smashing your reactors on a yearly basis, wouldn't you be damn anxious to do something -- anything -- to stop relying on nuclear power?
GMD
watch this
Even more ironic is the fact that the Sahara is a desert in North Africa, not Saudi Arabia.
The salt they use to store the heat is 60%
sodium nitrate, 40% potassium nitrate. This is
the oxidizer used in gunpower. Sure, alone, it's
not flammable. But put *any* fuel whatsoever in
contact with it at those temperatures and you've
got an explosion. This isn't a joke.
Look, here's a simplification of how the energy market works:
On any given day, suppliers decide whether to fire up their generators based on demand, and offer their energy for sale on the open market.
Greenmountain guarantees that they will purchase a minimum percentage of "green" energy. This is easier than it sounds because most areas Greenmountain works with have ample supplies of hydroelectric power. And because the hydro power is extremely cheap, it is almost always one of the first used power sources.
Greenmountain "buys" the hydro power that would have been bought by any other energy broker, and also buys a few percent of it's total power from more expensive wind and solar to look good for the customers.
In the end, you pay more for the same electrons and mostly the same generation sources, but you feel less guilty!
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Intro blah blah blah...corporations and patents...blah
9. PRODUCT'S PRIMARY FUNCTION The primary function of a solar power tower is to produce clean electricity for the world's electricity grids. Solar power towers:
Dispatch electricity to the grid when needed--even at night or around-the-clock,
Are unique among solar electric technologies in their ability to efficiently store solar energy,
Are non-polluting and do not release greenhouse gases, and
Will be the lowest-cost solar electricity. The concept is simple: A few thousand heliostats (mirrors that continuously track the sun) concentrate sunlight onto a central receiver (a high-tech heat exchanger) that sits atop a tower. The central receiver heats molten salt at 290C, pumped from a "cold" storage tank, to 565C, where it flows to a "hot" tank for storage. When the grid load dispatcher decides electricity is needed from the plant, hot salt is pumped to a steam generating system that produces superheated steam for a turbine/generator. The salt then is returned to the cold tank, where it is stored and eventually reheated in the receiver to complete the cycle.
The salt storage medium is a common fertilizer, a mixture of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate. It melts at 220C and is always molten in the "cold" storage tank. Molten salt is used because it is inexpensive and provides for efficient storage (99%); it is liquid at atmospheric pressure and its "hot" operating temperature perfectly matches the needs of today's high-pressure and high-temperature steam turbines. The molten salt is safe since it is nonflammable and nontoxic.
The collector field, salt storage capacity, and the receiver are optimally sized for the needs of the utility. In a typical installation, solar energy collection occurs at a rate that exceeds the maximum rate of energy consumption by the turbine. Storage tanks can be designed with enough capacity to power a turbine at nearly full output for 24 hours per day and up to 70% of the total hours in a year--as compared to 24% if electricity were only generated when the sun shines.
The readiness of power tower technology is illustrated by the successful completion of the Solar Two project in 1999 (see Appendix for Aug. 30, 1999 press release). Solar Two was a partnership between government and private parties to complete the development of solar power towers. Solar Two was the world's largest power tower, producing 10 MW of electricity with enough thermal storage to operate the turbine for three hours at full capacity.
Solar Two has mitigated the risk associated with the first commercial power tower plants now being offered for sale in four countries by proving that the technology is practical on a large scale. Solar power towers in the 10-400 MWe range can now be built--and indeed, design of the first plant in Spain is now underway.
10A. PRODUCT'S COMPETITORS (by manufacturer, brand name, and model number) The nearest solar competitor to solar power towers is solar trough technology [e.g., Solel (Israel) and Pilkington Solar (Germany)]. However, troughs do not have cost-effective thermal storage. Other grid-connected renewable energy competitors are photovoltaics, wind, hydro-electric, and biomass. We also compete with all conventional, intermediate load, and grid-connected electricity generating technologies including coal, gas, and nuclear. However, unlike our competitors, power towers do not emit pollution.
(table explaining effectiveness)
COST EFFECTIVENESS PERFORMANCE Electricity cost of 200 MW plant Installed cost of energy storage for 200 MW plant Lifetime of storage system (years) Annual roundtrip storage efficiency Maximum capacity factor of optimized system Annual solar to electric efficiency POWER TOWER SYNTHETIC OIL PARABOLIC TROUGH PHOTOVOLTAICS WITH BATTERY STORAGE $0.06/kWhr $23/kWhre 30 99 percent 70 percent 17 percent $0.12/kWhr $200/kWhre 30 95 percent 24 percent** 13 percent $0.25/kWhr $650/kWhre * 7.5 76 percent 24 percent** 10 percent (a
Looking at our electrical bills over the last year averaging between $100 and $150 a month, I decided to look into putting in solar panels and here is what I found out.
For 7K out of pocket (after tax credits, rebates, etc.), I can get a 2KW solar panel system with grid tie installed. This would give me, conservatively, about 496 KW hours a month in production. This would cut my usage by 2/3s. For 12K out of pocket, I can get a 3KW system which would give me about 720 KW hours a month in production and would completely clear my needs.
With a grid tie system, I run my meter backwards when my production is greater than my demand. This means that any electricity that I generate is credited against my bill at the rate in play (I believe you also get peak pricing withi this setup) at the time I generate it.
Bottom line, is that for a 12K investment, I can clear an average bill of $150 a month. This means that in a little over 6 1/2 years I have paid off the system. Or you can think of this as giving me an annual return of 12.5% on my initial investment. That is pretty damn good!
www.geni.orgc al_artic les/transmission/IntlGridandEnvironment.html
it was conceptualized by Buckminster Fuller.
For those that saya: Oh but we won't have sun on the dark side of the planet and the losses from power lines will be too great:
http://www.geni.org/energy/library/techni
http://www.geni.org/energy/library/technical_artic les/transmission/IntlGridandEnvironment.html
The fundamental issue you appear to be missing is that you aren't going from A to F. You're going from A to B to C to D to E to F.
Power CAN AND IS being distributed over that great a distance NOW (it just isn't happening in one great big step)
That nice guy Bob Block has an article entitled How to build your own Stirling Engine -- powered by a votive candle! It sounds cheap, easy, and fun; just like me.
Not to mention that these sorts of things can be a real danger to birds in the area. Imagine that one of these stations is placed in an area where an endangered bird lives. Now what happens to that bird if it flies between the mirrors and the tower some time close to noon? I happen to live close enough to have seen Solar Two on several occasions, and I know for fact that the concentrated sunlight around the tower is enough to create two free foating bright spots in the sky (actually, I would guess that it is a ring but you can only see the spots which are orthagonal to you). These things are going to kill endangered birds by the hundreds.
Moreover, by placing masses of these mirrors across the planet it will raise the albedo of the planet and will create massive global cooling. We will slip into a new ice age, crops will be destroyed, large areas of the planet will become uninhabitable. Mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together!
For those that have reached this point but failed to realize it, this is intended as a joke, laugh. Afterall, I'm sure the enviromental lobby will think up some better reason to ban these things.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
But of course it is all far too late. If realistic predictions are anything to go by, world oil production will peak in the next decade and then begin to fall at about 2 percent per year soon afterwards. Even if the US started building wind turbines (the most promising renewable energy source) at a rate of 20,000 a year right now, there would still be major problems. As it is, it looks like everyone is going to carry on as usual until the energy shortages begin, at which point there will not be enough spare energy available to undertake a massive renewable energy building program. Given that more than 4 billion of the worlds 6 billion people are only alive because of the energy subsidy of fossil fuels, which allows chemical fertilizers and mechanised agriculture, the resulting resource wars and famines are likely to be very bad.
Did anybody else notice that? Solar power at night... now that's a real trick.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
And now they have to deal with being slashdotted, life isn't fair.
You're forgetting that there are fixed 'service' costs on the bill irrespective of the kWh used. Given Japan's high labor and infrastructure costs these are probably steep.
Also, their kWh usage was probably low in the first place. This is a reasonable assumption given their small home (only 1100 sq. ft.), smaller appliances, and the comparatively frugal (energy-conscious) Japanese lifestyle.
They say they saved 17% on their electric bill and that 'most' (minimum > 50%) of their kWh came from solar. Since solar only affects the kWh used, you could have a case where at most 34% of their (old) bill was kWh and the rest - at least 66% - was fixed 'overhead' service fees.
Anyone from Japan care to comment?
- dvd_tude
Before you get any wild ideas, I meant to title it "17 percent savings could be 'most' of the kWh. derr...
- dvd_tude
Let's assume that it was as easy as he suggests. This ultimately becomes no different than the situation we have for oil now. Countries near the equator would generate more power and be able to have control over the northern climates.
:)
Now, granted, the poorer countries tend to be nearer to the equator, which you'd think would give them a leg up, but it wouldn't. If you look at oil and other resource based economies, it is good for making the powerful wealthy, but since they are not labor intensive, that wealth doesn't get shared amongst the people.
So, bad idea. Try again
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I always feel they should invest more in tidal power. It seems to me solar and wind power have inherent unreliability. Maybe they have made them so efficient that they can store up enough energy to make up for cloudy or windless days, but I wouldn't know.
Tidal power, on the other hand, is twenty-four seven, unless the moon gets blown up.
I always wonder though, if tidal power harnesses gravitational energy, then by conservation of energy wouldn't that do something to the moon's orbit?
It maybe very small, but would it be a significant effect over long period of time?
Ok, you need a link1 3/142217&mode=thread&tid=134
Start here
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Slashdot becomes a NY Times mirror.
This will make your payback short enough that solar panels are a good deal (that, and the state/federal tax credits, and in CA the rebate from the state energy commission).
Eat Lamb, 1 million coyotes can't be wrong
"No Blood For Sunlight"
"US forces secure African sunbelt, restore stability"
You don't seem to know what you're talking about.
I live a couple miles away from a big windfarm. There's no detectable noise, and the turbines turn very slowly-- maybe once every couple of seconds. It's actually quite relaxing to just sit and watch them spin.
As for birds, I admit that I'm no ornithologist, and I haven't done a population survey. But I've never seen a bird get hit by a turbine, even when they're flying around in big flocks. They don't even go near the things, unless they're cruising around near ground level to look for food.
There have been a few turbine failures since the windfarm was built, but never a grass fire. The one failure I witnessed looked pretty spectacular, with a bright flash like a shorted transformer, but no parts fell off. I have never seen nor heard of molten metal flying out of the things. (Perhaps you're confusing the term "windmill" with "iron foundry.")
Doesn't anyone get it? Forget what the submitter tossed in, and the sunny-country factor, this tech is potentially the real deal for one reason:
STORAGE
That is, the plant they describe makes it possible to generate electricity any time, day or night, rain or shine. The only limit is that you can't run more than 13 hours without sun at one go.
This means you can throttle it up and down according to need like a real power plant.
According to their numbers (which aren't explained, but I assume are based on the 4 years they've been running the prototype plant) they can produce at $.05/kWh, which is below the retail price of electricity in the US, and probably much cheaper than in oil-hungry places like Japan. Also, since those costs are largely (wholly local) construction, land, and maintenance, sunny countries with low labor costs and some desert (India, Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, etc.) would realize an even better price.
Then there are circumstances they don't mention working in their favor, like:
World oil production is levelling off and may decrease if more easy reserves aren't found.
Natural gas supplies aren't as plentiful as hoped.
No one is building power plants at anything like the rate needed to keep up with demand, and
Nuclear is still politically untouchable.
Throw it all together, and a new plant that can produce at that price is a steal.
Now, if they could float the mirrors around an offshore platform, even the land costs would disappear...
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
bash-2.05$ fortune
We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter.
20 Hydrogen Myths paper covers a lot of the issues wrt. hydrogen pipelines.
There are upsides, and there are downsides.
There's also an interesting blog entry about the relationship between information and energy by Joi Ito. Puts the whole thing in a certain kind of perspective.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Big business and government is only interested in what they can take over, control, tax, profiteer, extort, underserve, and otherwise ... (that *x* word) ... =o
Big solar / wind farms, Suez and Panama channels, Eurotunnels, raising dams on the gulf stream, etc., all are perfect scams, perfectly to their liking.
The European electrical energy grid already directly "exchanges" and "sends" from one end of Europe to the other (including Eastern Europe), plus parts of North Africa. The same holds true for most of South America.
If it were processed and send as "matter", in pipelines, why, of course it could be sent from the equator to the arctic circle. Not to mention just beaming it up, over, and back down again.
Lossy ? Sure. But, when you don't have any, anything is something. And economy never really worried about the real inefficiency of things - just about how much comes off the "entrepreneur's" own expense sheet x how much they can profit from it.
And, if by some miracle, the body of insolated third world countries actually go their own way regarding solar energy - ignoring centuries of connivent subservience. Then, they'll just get liberated, militarily, economically or culturally - plus more modern options.
If, by an even greater and even more incredibly unbelievable miracle, no takeover occurs, the big players might simply put "sun-catchers" in orbit over the equator, leave them shivering in the dark, and beam everything to where they want it.
The local elites will probably be eager to help, for a small cut of 2nd class light and heat, for themselves, plus a share of 4th class L&H they can dole out to their clienteles. Countries and continents have been ramsacked before. And the spineless lickspittle scum rises to the top, as usual. Nothing new to it.
The RIAAs are just the tip of the iceberg.
Enjoy.
Obviously, that isn't going to happen now, tomorrow or ever.
At the same time, using fossil fuels is clearly destructive and a Very Bad Idea.
So, we have to look at other non-carbon producing energy sources. Nuculer?
We could run breeder reactors that generate their own fuel - plutonium. Unfortunately, plutonium is also very handy for making really nastly bombs, and given the number of assholes in the world, this makes breeder reactors politically unfeasible for universal implmentation.
So, then regular nuke plants? There's only so much Uranium on the planet and it is a fairly limited resource. I saw someone on Frontline say that if we converted over to nukes for 100% of the world's power, we'd run out of Uranium in less than 30 years.
I'd also point out that we'd then be saddled with tons of nasty toxic crap that no one would want anywhere near them, and this nasty toxic crap will likely remain nasty toxic crap until sometime well after the next ice age. So, nuculer isn't going to do it to it.
But we still have to power up 15 or 16 terawatts of Mr Coffee machines, hair curlers, computers, and all kinds o' junk and useless nonsense we clutter our lives with. So WHERE is the juice going to come from?
1. by changing the needs base. removing automobiles from the fossil feul food chain by cracking water with solar energy to make hydrogen for hypercars will extend the life of fossil fuel energy production, and by reducing the demand for it, reduce its price.
2. by maximising efficiency of use. devices that use less juice will be at a great advantage in the market place when:
3. Energy markets are opened up to speculators who greedily distort energy prices to their own advantage, driving the need for greater efficiency to reduce dependency on the vampiric rat bastards.
4. Homes are made to be energy self sufficient. Getting people off the grid is the most important thing we can do to reduce energy consumption. when people have to pay for their own power and have to live on an energy budget, they will wildly seek out hyper efficient appliances, and this will encourage non-fossil fuel devices. It will also encourge people to sell energy back to the vampiric grid.
5. population reduction. We need to get rid of people. Gently and gradually. If we had one tenth the number of people roaming this shattered little planet, light use of carbon fuels (wood, methane, etc.) would even be permissible.
So, that's what needs to be done if we ever expect to have a sustainble future that includes something resembling an industrial civilisation. Get rid of people, make energy expensive, and make people responsible for their energy consumption.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
We'll give you the energy and you give us the water, ok? :)
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
- a "typical" residential system (2.4kW AC peak output) is going to run $9000-12000 after the state rebate
- there's also a 15% state tax credit
- the utility buyback of power is called "net metering" and they actually pay the retail price for the power (i.e. they credit you for power you produce at the same rate they charge you for what you use)
As to one of the original, unaswered questions: if you don't have batteries (and you don't need them if you are grid connected), the only maintenance required is hosing off the panels a couple of times a year. The panels are warranteed for 25 years, and generally good for much longer.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
just hope they don't ever need to come to the surface?
For lots of good solar news and information, check out my employer's website.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
I noticed the system uses huge quantities of molten salt at 290-565 degrees C. The salt is a mix of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate. Am I the only one thinking.... BOOOOM..... I wonder what'll happen if the pumping system breaks down, or if someone get's the mix wrong.
I think alot of people are getting lossed with these schemes of replacing all power with solar. Instead you should think of all renewable energy sources as a way to keep the environment clean and to extend the life of existing fuels buying time for more and more scientific discoveries to increase the efficiencies of the renewable systems until they can truely replace fossils fuels.
You would also probably want some regional Nuclear plants to keep the power grid at the right conditions and what not.
Solar and wind power in a decentralized form has some efficiencies like less energy loss during transmission due to much shorter cables (backyard and roof to house has to be waaay more efficient than nearest power plant to house)
Diablo Canyon produces about 2GW continously (about 1000 Solar 2's). If solar is to replace it for baseload, where does the power company store 12 hours worth of energy, 86,400,000,000,000 J worth? To put this in scale, California's usage oscillates between 20GW and 45GW.
Thats enough to lift a million tons of mass (about a dozen skyscraper, the typical small city's downtown) 8km straight up, or to send a 90,000 ton US aircraft carrier to mach 3.
Converted into gasoline terms, thats 2 million kg, or just shy of a million gallons. Thats a lot of juice to store. Pray tell me how it gets stored, while paying attention to safety concerns. A more interesting is who pays to have it stored?
Look at the CAISO power graph yourself. The summer peak occurs at about 4PM, when solar is beginning to fade, and the peak is only twice the mean. All you need is a hot CLOUDY day for disaster. The air conditioners continue to run, but solar produces a fraction of its normal power. Where does the make-up power come from? Or rather, who pays for that make-up power.
Thats why, I expect that solar sold 'to the grid' will be worth about squat, because it will cost the power companies big bux to store it, and it won't reduce capital costs in generation equipment; if we want reliable power (and we do) the power company still has to buy backup for unreliable erratic solar.
Right now, these unrecouped subsidies of solar are hidden and almost lost in the line noise. That'll be mostly true until it grows to maybe 10% of generation. At that point the problems of unreliable solar generation will effect the whole grid. 'Net Metering' is a subsidy.
I'm all for Solar; if someone wants to live with unreliable power, more power to them. When they destabalize the grid and make my power more unreliable, I draw the line.
"Maybe one day we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world? How cool would that be?"
You mean Saudi Arabia and Iraq? Damn, they have all the energy!
Opinions change daily as new information arrives. Stay tuned.
Come on, get real. It'll cost just as much as it does now whatever the source.
Nah. The Pacific DC Intertie runs between northern Oregon and Los Angeles, carrying about a 1.4GW load at 800K VDC. It was built to essentially carry fission-plant power north and hydro power south depending on the season, and has worked very well at that since 1970 or something.
It would be capable of up to 3GW at 1M VDC if the rectifiers at both ends are upgraded from mercury-arc tubes to solid state resistors. That doesn't appear likely to happen, emphasis will go towards additional links, which makes sense. It is a lot harder to find intertie information on Federal web sites than it was a couple years ago, for all the obvious reasons, I guess.
So long-distance transmission has been solved for over 30 years. The fundamental problem with PV and wind (for more-than-secondary use) is peak capacity; it's gonna take take a big fscking flywheel to store enough energy to handle windless/cloudy days.
A cool thing the OP forgot to point out about convection towers: not only do you generate power when hot air rises to turn the turbines, but you also get a bit of power from the cool air sinking back past the turbines when the sun goes down. Sweet, eh?
The foot of the tower is a big black plastic dome from memory, a greenhouse optimised for heat only rather than heat + plant-friendly light.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Punt the liquid salt crap and install a Sterling engine with the hot end of the engine at the conjunction of the reflected light beams. Use excess power to pump water into an elevated storage tank. During energy shortfalls, drain the tank across a conventional turbine for power generation.
;)
Advantages: safer, cheaper, quicker to build (better, cheaper, faster: choose three)
I think ours is on the way http://www.enviromission.com.au/index1.htm
Where ever I go, there I am
I live a couple miles away from a big windfarm. There's no detectable noise, and the turbines turn very slowly-- maybe once every couple of seconds. It's actually quite relaxing to just sit and watch them spin.
Try standing directly downwind of one. An N-bladed mill throws a big pressure differencial as each blade comes by, resulting in a big N*rpm cycles-per-minute subsonic "noise". It can shake apart a house, and at certain frequencies has very nasty effects on your nervous system and/or musculature. (NASA abandoned their work on 'em because of that.)
Smaller personal-size windmills are often quite noisy, too, especially under high wind conditions. Not nice to your neighbors - or yourself. Noise level is a major selection criterion.
Note also that the manuals all warn you NEVER to mount one on your house, because of the much higher levels of mechanical noise conducted down the mast. And always to get an odd-number-of-blades (i.e. 3) mill to prevent a nasty vibration effect.
As for birds, I admit that I'm no ornithologist, and I haven't done a population survey. But I've never seen a bird get hit by a turbine, even when they're flying around in big flocks. They don't even go near the things, unless they're cruising around near ground level to look for food.
Which raptors do all the time.
The damage to bird populations has been a news item intermittently - though I haven't seen any numbers on whether it's a minor or major problem. But it's apparently a big enough problem that new mills are having their characteristics tweaked to be more visible to birds rather than optimized for efficiency.
Meanwhile, filling the low spot in the coastal range on the flyway with a few thousand mills is just ideal for chopping up non-trivial numbers of migrating birds. B-(
There have been a few turbine failures since the windfarm was built, but never a grass fire. The one failure I witnessed looked pretty spectacular, with a bright flash like a shorted transformer, but no parts fell off. I have never seen nor heard of molten metal flying out of the things. (Perhaps you're confusing the term "windmill" with "iron foundry.")
Check out the fires in the Altamont Pass area of California.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Isaac Assimov wrote about the idea of using 50 satelites with sun collector to feed a country by electricity transmited by microwaves.
Thhe there is some strange russian satelite that uses to open a big shinny umbrella over some industrial city to give sunlight during their nights to save energy. But, is it possible that the original russian idea was to build the previous array of suncollectors that Assimov wrote about?
Is it nowadays, possible to transmit microwaves with electricity, like Tessla spoke half a century ago?
Rwe obliged 2 save our future by choosing:O3 hole-greenhouse effect instead of accepting everydays gossip-nonsense chat?
For utility installation, you need capitalizations of at most $2000/kW (comparable to hydro and nuclear power plant capital investment requirements) - wind is there now, but solar has some distance to go to be usable as a utility power source. Currently solar photovoltaic systems go for about $2.00/PEAK Watt at best; given night time, solar angle, weather effects etc. and costs beyond the PV cells themselves, that translates to a $8000 to $10,000/kW capitalization requirement right now. PV systems have been dropping in price by about a factor of 2 every decade lately, so we have likely 30 years more development before they will be competitive at the utility installation level.
A lot of this information is available from the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.
On the other hand, if the cost of putting stuff in space was low enough, you would get peak watts all the time with a solar power satellite, so in principle that could be a feasible utility option in the near future.
Energy: time to change the picture.
hmm why not just leave it in the original form in the first place. Truck and train the coal where its neaded and supply the rest with the grid... Seems like a plan.... Anyhow I think I will let the market worry about it.
I guess they've been working on this tech for quite a while. I remember seeing such a system on 321-contact or something like that when I was a little kid
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Israel is one of the world leaders in solar power research and the magazine Ecologic Investor reports that Israel is preparing to build a 500 MegaWatt solar power station in the Negev desert. The station is projected to be operational by 2012.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
"we can have international power lines where all the countries with lots of sunshine provide power to the rest of the world? How cool would that be?"
"Cool", another good reason to occupy countries with lots of shunshine. Just to provide power (to the most power consuming) rest of the world. US should run the sunhine-wells too. Just to make life happier. Wake up!
If you're interested, there's a similiar setup in Spain.
Here's the link to a PDF, that describes their system.
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
...so then you would either have an OPEC-type situation, where the sunny countries dictate the economics of the rest of the world (and ensure that the riches go to their families, and not the general citizenry), because they control the supply of its energy, or the flip side, where the economicly powerful countries manipulate the economics to maximally benefit them while keeping the providing countries as neutralized as possible.
I just want to own stock in the company that controls the futures market...
Yeah, I think this will work...
Might as well build a pipeline from the Columbia River to SoCal/Las Vegas/Phoenix while you're at it. Billions of gallons of fresh water "wasted" a day...while the economic powerhouses struggle to have water for their golf courses and those damned hay farmers in the middle of the flippin' desert get the bulk of the allotments from the Colorado River...
Wait, didn't the shunting of water flowing into the Aral Sea cause a shitload of problems in that area?
What about wind power? Would large-scale use of wind power not change local climate by altering wind patterns? Remember the "butterfly effect?"
Stick Men
...but for the sun that the US attacked Iraq. Now it all makes sense to me..
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
And perhaps, just perhaps, there are people who will find a hole in whatever is proposed?
I'll volunteer space in my yard. It can be rented for free electricity. Put up one wind-generation tower. It's not noisy, and though the blades do produce noise, though not quite as has been.... sugguested... that sort of low frequency noise, being created by a very low power source, would barely travel a meter before giving out most of it's energy.
I'll rate these concerns as (-1, uninformed) because I really don't think UGL is trying to troll. He might just work in oil. : )
Anyway, back on point. What's clean and unobtrusive about natural energy sources? Would you rather have an oil or coal plant just upwind of you? I imagine the soot alone could weigh down your house rather "nastily" in very short order (yeah, I know they filter most of it anymore). Regardless, a bit of saftey, an area coated in pebbles below the turbine, and we're good to go.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Well, you guys talked about all things except the solar appliances. OK. Solar produces DC. All our appliances are designed to run on 120 VAC. The converters represent a loss of 10% ( ?? ) and the production of energy is down by that much. What about tooling appliance production to DC? The industrial costs would be staggering, the motors and stuff would have to be redesigned....
Well, There's always a chance someone on Slashdot doesn't know this, but... Global Warming / Cooling is junk science. The proponents have blocked appropriate measures of earth's temperatures, which involve measuring the ocean's aggregate temperature, and have done so for about a decade now. The measurement would have involved a solitary underwater explosion, and the sound wave would determine the ocean's temperature (although salinity has an effect, it is far from a trivial science). This would be a tremendous mass of ocean water.
The "Save the whales" crowd resurfaced decrying the untold damage to aquatic life by doing this, which is ridiculous compared to doing nothing to find out what is happening to our planet.
Air temperature measurements are a waste of time, especially in urban areas, which have an elevated measure of heat because of the asphalt roofs, roads, etc. Measuring the ice caps is also silly, because their size changes seasonally, like with weather cycles. Everyone remembers the Halloween blizzard in Minnesota. And the 65 degree day in late December 15 years later. The only useful measurement would be of a volume of water (not a tiny pocket of air) the size of the ocean, at the equator. But that's being blocked bye environmental activists; they must have something to hide; what's a few deaf gray whales if it will save the planet?
Did you bother to mention that the various "greenhouse gasses" are mere precursors to tropospheric ozone, which is the hazardous smog that is discussed at the Weather Underground ? All of the sudden, ozone is bad and good.
I read a statistic once that in order to be entirely solar with our power, we would cover the earth 11% over with the dumb cells. Considering the nasty chemicals involved in the manufacture of solar cells, and that solar cells are not simply recycled, and fail in a decade or so (fragile materials), I can't imagine why any earth-first crowd would want yet another major source of toxic waste.
I have long thought that the only solar cells of any use on our planet (since the stuff in space is pretty handy, I'll admit) are the green ones in my lawn and garden. They produce oxygen, which every living animal needs. If you live in a newly developed neighborhood (like in suburban USA), the best thing you can do for your environment is plant plenty of trees on your lawn. Sure, it means raking, but in my neighborhood, I have 100+ year-old oak trees, and they are positively enchanting. They keep the sun off my lawn so I don't have to water, and they keep the sun off my roof (remember, these are mature oak trees) which reduces my AC costs. McDonalds passes out seedling trees on Earth Day, so it really doesn't cost you anything. Sure, it'd make more sense if they passed them out on Arbor Day, but no one remembers when that is, despite it being the more venerable day of commemoration by a good century or more.
Make that 'thyristors'. I visited the Dalles Dam facility a few years ago - quite impressive. Note that the system consists of two conductors, one at +750kV, the other at -750kV with respect to ground. This doubles the power transferred without having to have insulators that stand up to the full 1.5MV.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
superconductor power
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
*Blush*. The "resistors" line was clearly typed utterly unencumbered by the thought process. :-)
I'll volunteer space in my yard. It can be rented for free electricity. Put up one wind-generation tower. It's not noisy, and though the blades do produce noise, though not quite as has been.... sugguested... that sort of low frequency noise, being created by a very low power source, would barely travel a meter before giving out most of it's energy.
Sorry, wrong.
Low frequency sound carries long distances. It's high-frequency that self-attenuates. (Think of distant thunder versus the all-frequency crack of nearby lightning.)
And there's a LOT of energy in that low-frequency sound. An appreciable percentage of the energy that was extracted from the wind and converted to rotational energy by the blades.
I'll rate these concerns as (-1, uninformed) because I really don't think UGL is trying to troll. He might just work in oil. : )
Sorry, never touched the stuff. (Closes I came was a stint programming for the auto industry, twenty years ago. Engine control, emissions control measurement, energy management (saved over a megabuck per year at one plant during the energy crisis), airbag testing.)
As to "uninformed" - sorry, but these issues are quite personal - because I'm going to be putting up a wind generator and solar on my OWN place shortly and am having a bit of trouble picking a quiet one. B-) (Fortunately there's a place up near Cloverdale that has a demo yard - if I can hit it on a windy day.)
What's clean and unobtrusive about natural energy sources? Would you rather have an oil or coal plant just upwind of you?
Been there, did that. Not too bad, even in those days before major emission control add-ons. But not my preferred neighbor either.
Don't forget natural gas. Expensive but MUCH cleaner.
My point was just that, when you're comparing energy sources, there are environmental costs to "renewable", too, and they're often even worse than those of non-renewable sources. Let's not ignore them just because "renewable" is politically correct, fossil and nuclear are not, and space-solar is off the radar screen.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Fair enough, didn't know you had such a personal stake in it. I'd still take the problems listed of the wind/solar/X power over current soloutions... But then again, I don't really mind nuclear power either. $Comment_About_Growing_Up_Near_One_Here. I did grow up near a Nuke plant, and the cheap energy was *wonderful*. Ah well, guess I'm just weird : )
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
I have no idea how it got here.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
Very well.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun