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A Fully Distributed Power Grid?
rleyton writes "There's an interesting and topical black-out article on an "internet inspired" hydrogen powered energy network. The premise is homes, cars, factories and offices store up hydrogen when energy is available, and supply it into the new energy network when it's not. Certainly an intriguing idea, with some interesting comments on future power management. Feasible in the next "three decades"? Perhaps."
The hydrogen wasn't the problem, it was the fact that the skin was made of solid rocket fuel. It was actually the skin that was burning, since hydrogen burns so hot you can't see the flames.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I'm sorry, but the above poster is a moron. Hydrogen is not plentiful as an energy source. Hydrogen is an energy storage system.
Now - some basic physics: you get hydrogen from water. Then you burn hydrogen with air, and get water back. The amount of energy it took to get the hydrogen from the water is equal to the amount you got, minus the loss from inefficiency (which is substantial).
Therefore, using hydrogen as an energy source is like changing money to two different fixed currencies as a revenue source - you don't make anything, and you end up losing things to the middlemen conversion industries.
Unless you can find pure, elemental hydrogen naturally, the hydrogen/water power system is a storage vessel only - a well-compressed but inefficient energy storage system.
Anyone who believes otherwise either has not taken basic science (grade 10 should cover it) or hasn't thought it through and is just a loudmouthed idiot. Either way, shouldn't be discussing issues they have no knowledge of.
How much would said "photovoltaic" cells cost, and how durable are they? Can they withstand high winds, impact from softball-sized hail, treelimbs, leaves, etc? What's the maintainence on them like? I live in an area where we get hail, high winds (even tornadoes), ice storms in the winter, etc. How well will these work in those conditions? And when they (and everything does eventually) break, how easily can you replace them? At what expense? As it stands now, with "typical" shingles, they last a long time, take quite a bit of abuse, and if they get blown off in a windstorm, well, you're looking at what, $30-40 to replace them? With labor?
:)
I'm not saying it can't be done, nor that it shouldn't be done, and I have no idea what the state of of "solar power" is these days, but those were concerns in the 90's and they may still be concerns today. Of course, if someone would pour 1% of the total energy revenues into Solar energy, I'm sure research would accelerate.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Approximately $2.85 / watt in bulk; $7 - $10 /watt installed with power electronics, etc.
Yes, actually, they are tested with an ice launcher at NIST and other standards-testing labs; we're talking tempered architectural glass frames, generally speaking. I have seen people waste some time hitting PowerLight modules with an aluminum baseball bat to no discernible effect. The skylight-type panels mounted to the roof in a fairly nontrivial manner, using standard hardware. The shingles (From Uni-Solar) come off as often as normal shingles do;
Maintenance: wiping down the panels if they get pollen or dust covered, possibly replacing the inverter every ca. 10 years.
Replacement: you should have a licensed installer do it, and again, replacement costs as above, though overall system costs have been declining by about 5% compounding annually for quite a while, and that may be accelerating shortly.
As someone who works at PowerLight, I'm not sure that I'd *want* to hit one of our panels with a baseball bat- but I'm impressed if you've really seen one stand up to a dedicated whack like that.
In the end, though, you're right - the point remains that the newer modules will stand up to at least as much as most roofs, and, in the case of PowerGuard will often protect the roof, allowing for *less* maintainance of the roofing system rather than more. Solar installations must be tested at extremely high wind speeds (think 150mph+), which varies depending upon their placement (area of the country, height, etc.), so if a tornado takes them off, chances are a substantial portion of the building will go with them.
People may be thinking of the old thin-film panels (like the ones in a calculator), which, because they weren't tempered, would break after getting sneezed on. As you say, the newer panels are very hardy, and Unisolar (because it doesn't have glass that can shatter) are incredibly durable, if relatively inefficient.
And yep, you're certainly right about the costs dropping - one of the coolest things about investing in solar is that you're not only paying a reasonably competitive rate (depending upon your power rates), you're helping to bring the volume up, which will quickly get the cost down to levels that will cause mass adoption.
Grrr...the other persistent canard. = ) As of 1999, it was down to something like 4 years, in an exceedingly conservative and comprehensive calculation:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf
And the panels themselves are usually output-waranteed out past 20 years (30 years being a safe bet lifetime for most.) Though I suspect that since we're seeing steadily more automation in the newer plants (and less silicon per watt, and better per-square-meter efficiencies, that this has even gotten better recently.
Photon International goes over these issues in some detail...