It is true that heat retention improves with scale linearly and delta T can be increased with scale, but the cost goes up with volume (linear scale^3).
One nice aspect of this system is that you might build it to last a few centuries in the below ground hardware so that the cost per unit
time is low. It is difficult though to arrange multi-generational financing of this duration so the first users have to carry the install costs.
PV scales as you say, but the cost comes down a lot with large scale manufaturing, and the cradle-to-cradle-to-cradle aspects of recycling the PV look
pretty positive so it carries reduced costs forward but in a way that spreads them without having to work out new finacial instruments. --
Low risk finance: Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
Thanks again for the reply. Things got tangled above. This kind of the point of the whole system. But, it is still putting out less power in the winter than in the summer
whereas this may not match the power consumption profile. If PV is also used (because roof space is available) then the mismatch becomes larger.
I wonder if shunting some ohmic heating of the thermal resevior might give a boost, especially to winter time delta T? With your pattern of heating
this might fit well since you can protect a high temperature core by reducing conduction away from it. If this seems like it might be feasable, you
might want to consider shaping the resevior even more so that it is somewhat spherical so that the volume-to-surface area ratio is maximized.
On algae, your suggestions seems like the third peice of the following puzzle: To get high production from algae, you want to have a concentrated
source of CO2, protection against competition from less productive strains together with contol of water evaportation, and temperature control. For now,
both the CO2 and the temperature control are envisioned to come from fossil fuel plants while greenhouses or clear tubes manage the other aspects http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html. Klaus Lackner's
CO2 separation from the air method http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/CO2hoover/ might replace the fossil fuel as a CO2 source, but it won't
do the temperature control. Here, you might be able use only marginally warmed ground heat for this purpose from around the edges of the resevoir I think.
Do you live in the southern hemisphere? In the north you want PV on the south side.
I agree with you that insulation is one of the best money investments most people can make it they have not already. Canadian building standards
have really concentrated on this to great benefit. --
In 41 US states you can rent grid-tied PV for what you already pay your utility: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html. Interstingly, the inverters are one per few panels and on the roof. This is done to help with modularity but now I wonder if many small inverters
are cheaper than one big inverter. What drives the cost of the panels down is the scale of maunfacturing.
The Canadian system looks like it would be about 2% efficient. So, you'd want a collecting area perhaps 6 times larger that roof area of the homes served. So, if it served a town it would need about that much land again. The big plus is power storage so I wonder if it could be tweaked more to
serve in the Winter and handle Summer/daytime with PV directly?
I replied incorrectly: You've got a pretty big roof if you can power the rest of the block. Many roofs have enough area to cover the power use in the home they cover, but not all. Probably most in Tucson. If you have Tucson Electric Power you can follow the links at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html to get solar without the big upfront cost.
Thanks. I'm looking for a number though. For a solar tower you might expect 0.5% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower but this project is
tweaked. If the heat is being stored, it is still solar power, but delta T may not be so favorable. For corn ethanol, the efficiency is about 0.06%.
At this level of efficiency for energy production/storage competes with food production so it is not all that feasable. But, algae get close to PV
efficiency http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html. So, in terms of land use, I'm trying to figure out where this falls.
I wonder how this would be for growing winter crops as well: is the ground warmed eough? And, if it is, what kind of losses might be expected owing
to water evaporation from soil?
I read though the site and found many calculations but I'm trying to figure out the actual efficiency of converting solar energy to electricity.
I don't mind if the hot water out gets counted at 100% but I'm guessing that per unit area this does not do as well as silicon PV at 15%. If there
is a table that gives this kind of comparison, can someone please point it out? Thanks. --
Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland looks a little bad for M$. X11 in not even a clone of Windoz, it follows a completely different
history. It is for networking first, it just happens to be graphical.
This looks like too a big job for M$. I suggest that they be broken up into 4 seperate businesses: 1) IE, 2) Windoz, 3) Word and 4) SCO. The division of
labor should be quite helpful to their success. Remember: Don't Scratch!
What is interesting to me is that the Milky Way has stars of this age which formed before the universe reionized. Obviously something had
to be happening for reionization to happen, but did the matter that formed the Milky Way have to be a part of it? More massive protogalaxies
might have done the job and stars for the Milky Way formed latter. A solid date like this says that even a smaller body like the protoMilky Way
was doing this kind of thing.
Actually, the CNO cycle happens at higer energies. The proton-proton chain runs at lower energies. The CNO cycle is favored at high energies
because the proton-carbon fusion goes at a faster rate at higher energies than proton-proton fusion despite carbon being rare compared to protons.
The CNO cycle does not increase the abundance of these elements. They are relatively more common owing to He fusion wich happens after the hydrogen
fuel is exhausted. --
Get proton-proton chain fusion now! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
Most of the helium in the universe was produced as the universe expanded and cooled from a very hot state, so hot and dense that is is thought that
the forces of nature had similar strengths (physics was quite different). Once the universe has cooled enough to form deuterium and have it stick
around for a little rather than breaking apart again then nucleosynthesis could proceed. The universe is cooling and rapidly so the neutrons are
coming from an equilibrium state of about equal to the the protons but they have not had 14 minutes to decay. With all those neutrons around, He3 was turned into He4 and tritium-duetrium fusion also produced He4. There is a d+d->He4 reaction as well but it has a low branching ratio, though, owing to its particular symmetry, it may play a role in cold fusion. This page http://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlights/BBN_ phys/index.html has some diagrams.
This mode of fusion is quite different from the way that stars do fusion because free neutrons are not available. Fusion in stars starts with proton-proton fusion (rare in the big band) or in more massive stars, carbon acts as a catalyst, something that never happened in the big bang. --
Get fusion now: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html
Slashdot Mirror
In the interview he claims to have sent them on to congress.
Here is a set of concentrators that run on a single motor. This might reduce PV cost by half though I'd worry about using this where there is snow and ice: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18718/. This is coming to market this year. They are also working on a 2-D array.s -selling-solar.html
--
Get afforadable solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
It is true that heat retention improves with scale linearly and delta T can be increased with scale, but the cost goes up with volume (linear scale^3). One nice aspect of this system is that you might build it to last a few centuries in the below ground hardware so that the cost per unit time is low. It is difficult though to arrange multi-generational financing of this duration so the first users have to carry the install costs.
s -selling-solar.html
PV scales as you say, but the cost comes down a lot with large scale manufaturing, and the cradle-to-cradle-to-cradle aspects of recycling the PV look pretty positive so it carries reduced costs forward but in a way that spreads them without having to work out new finacial instruments.
--
Low risk finance: Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
On algae, your suggestions seems like the third peice of the following puzzle: To get high production from algae, you want to have a concentrated source of CO2, protection against competition from less productive strains together with contol of water evaportation, and temperature control. For now, both the CO2 and the temperature control are envisioned to come from fossil fuel plants while greenhouses or clear tubes manage the other aspects http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesi
Do you live in the southern hemisphere? In the north you want PV on the south side.
s -selling-solar.html. Interstingly, the inverters are one per few panels and on the roof. This is done to help with modularity but now I wonder if many small inverters
are cheaper than one big inverter. What drives the cost of the panels down is the scale of maunfacturing.
I agree with you that insulation is one of the best money investments most people can make it they have not already. Canadian building standards have really concentrated on this to great benefit.
--
In 41 US states you can rent grid-tied PV for what you already pay your utility: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
The Canadian system looks like it would be about 2% efficient. So, you'd want a collecting area perhaps 6 times larger that roof area of the homes served. So, if it served a town it would need about that much land again. The big plus is power storage so I wonder if it could be tweaked more to serve in the Winter and handle Summer/daytime with PV directly?
I replied incorrectly: You've got a pretty big roof if you can power the rest of the block. Many roofs have enough area to cover the power use in the home they cover, but not all. Probably most in Tucson. If you have Tucson Electric Power you can follow the links at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html to get solar without the big upfront cost.
Sorry, I replied to the wrong one. Can you skip down one? Thanks.
Thanks. I'm looking for a number though. For a solar tower you might expect 0.5% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower but this project is tweaked. If the heat is being stored, it is still solar power, but delta T may not be so favorable. For corn ethanol, the efficiency is about 0.06%. At this level of efficiency for energy production/storage competes with food production so it is not all that feasable. But, algae get close to PV efficiency http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html. So, in terms of land use, I'm trying to figure out where this falls.
I wonder how this would be for growing winter crops as well: is the ground warmed eough? And, if it is, what kind of losses might be expected owing to water evaporation from soil?
I read though the site and found many calculations but I'm trying to figure out the actual efficiency of converting solar energy to electricity. I don't mind if the hot water out gets counted at 100% but I'm guessing that per unit area this does not do as well as silicon PV at 15%. If there is a table that gives this kind of comparison, can someone please point it out? Thanks.s -selling-solar.html
--
Rent solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Death by a thousand cuts!
Here is one: http://news.com.com/Investor+outlines+SCO-Microsof t+link/2100-7344_3-6124125.html.
Hum... So, the courts say you can't even copyright it and expect to mess with people but a patent is OK? Apple needs to up its settlment then.
This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland looks a little bad for M$. X11 in not even a clone of Windoz, it follows a completely different history. It is for networking first, it just happens to be graphical.
This looks like too a big job for M$. I suggest that they be broken up into 4 seperate businesses: 1) IE, 2) Windoz, 3) Word and 4) SCO. The division of labor should be quite helpful to their success. Remember: Don't Scratch!
As M$ so frequently points out, linux just isn't professional software. If it's in linux, it must be obvious. DON'T SCRATCH!
I think that the discovery period should reveal that. REMEBER DON'T SCRATCH!
I once has 235 itches too. Remember: DON'T SCRATCH!
What is interesting to me is that the Milky Way has stars of this age which formed before the universe reionized. Obviously something had to be happening for reionization to happen, but did the matter that formed the Milky Way have to be a part of it? More massive protogalaxies might have done the job and stars for the Milky Way formed latter. A solid date like this says that even a smaller body like the protoMilky Way was doing this kind of thing.
There was a slashdot conversation on fusion started by this thread: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23438 3&cid=19088821 wondering
about why deuterium-deuterium->He4 fusion is not usually considered since there is more He4 than He3 in the universe. These three wiki links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton-proton_chain_r eaction were cited in the discussion. All of these are clear and informative but the most relevant link within the two stellar process links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis#Big_B ang_nucleosynthesis does not give detailed
reaction chains. So, the answer had to come from a more pedegogical site. There is uneven quality in the wiki that means it is sometimes useful and
sometimes less so. As it evolves things will continue to improve. s -selling-solar.html
--
Get proton-proton fusion on your roof: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Actually, the CNO cycle happens at higer energies. The proton-proton chain runs at lower energies. The CNO cycle is favored at high energies because the proton-carbon fusion goes at a faster rate at higher energies than proton-proton fusion despite carbon being rare compared to protons. The CNO cycle does not increase the abundance of these elements. They are relatively more common owing to He fusion wich happens after the hydrogen fuel is exhausted.s -selling-solar.html
--
Get proton-proton chain fusion now! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Most of the helium in the universe was produced as the universe expanded and cooled from a very hot state, so hot and dense that is is thought that the forces of nature had similar strengths (physics was quite different). Once the universe has cooled enough to form deuterium and have it stick around for a little rather than breaking apart again then nucleosynthesis could proceed. The universe is cooling and rapidly so the neutrons are coming from an equilibrium state of about equal to the the protons but they have not had 14 minutes to decay. With all those neutrons around, He3 was turned into He4 and tritium-duetrium fusion also produced He4. There is a d+d->He4 reaction as well but it has a low branching ratio, though, owing to its particular symmetry, it may play a role in cold fusion. This page http://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlights/BBN_ phys/index.html has some diagrams.
s -selling-solar.html
This mode of fusion is quite different from the way that stars do fusion because free neutrons are not available. Fusion in stars starts with proton-proton fusion (rare in the big band) or in more massive stars, carbon acts as a catalyst, something that never happened in the big bang.
--
Get fusion now: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
[Checking for invitation on caller's machine]
So they really do leave the west behind? That knocks me out.
Better luck in the future.
Funny, I just rebutted an oil drum article using rabbits and goats: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/05/scrooge.html. Goats can do the job quite well, but you've got to have time to take care of them. I grew up partly on goat's milk and consider it superior to cow's milk. The deer here don't seem to be a systematic as goats, so I still mow.s -selling-solar.html
--
Get solar power to control global warming: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user