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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.
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.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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.
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
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.
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.
I know it was just a joke. But I just wanted to point out that the US has a rather large desert area that rarely sees clouds.
So quit your US baaaad sheepspeak and get your head out of your ass, mmmmkay?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
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.