I leave the problems of power and focus as things that research will eventually solve.
Therefore hyper sonic missiles will eventually become obsolete. Until that time they will be effective. At that time better shielding may be invented to defeat the laser making them effective again.
There is a lag between the time the shell is fired and the time the shell hits. That requires leading the missile. If the incoming missile jinks the outgoing shell will miss. To hit would require in flight tracking and guidance and even then misses would be likely.
Laser
Lasers are also non instantaneous as hey need time to burn through the missile. This requires precise tracking and fast beam manipulation. If the hyper velocity missile jinks well enough the laser energy will spread out and be ineffective. Also hyper velocity missiles are hardened against heat caused by air friction. A little more shielding may defeat lasers as well.
A missile that can handle the heat of hyper velocity can probably handle a laser hit. It is also difficult to track and lock on to an object moving that fast. A hyper velocity missile with a little software to jink around may be able to evade the laser.
They may have difficulty hitting moving ships but port facilities and moored ships are vulnerable. Also, with a large enough warhead, say a small nuke, the hyper velocity missile only has to get close to put ships out of action. Ships are not the only target They can be used to take out command and control facilities, storage depots, staging areas, etc. If you can not stop the missiles front line troops may lose all support.
I just love the highly informative content of the message. What does "reasonable solar" mean? Take a look at page 16 of this document. Notice that in September 2011 the array generated 97,178 KWh while in January 2011 it generated 20,083 KWh. According to this the average Minnesotan electricity customer uses on average 802 kilowatt hours a month,. Taking the January low as the minimum the Minneapolis Convention Center could power 25 houses. That array has a 600KW capacity. To power one house with those numbers would require an array with a 24KW capacity. Approximately 10 Watts are produced per square foot of solar array which means that 2400 square feet of solar array would be needed to power the average house in Minnesota in January. I would not consider 2400 square feet of solar panel to be "reasonable".
Could it be that the company 'buying' the wind power also has a weather report? Could it be that that company now decides if it cranks up its coal plants or that it considers the sell offers on the spot market cheaper than burning expensive coal, and being forced to continue when it cranks down the plants later in 4 hours again (because you can not crank down the plant to sudden).
That is what I am trying to explain. Because solar does not come on at the right times of the day someone's base load must be used. Because it is expensive to turn on and off base load it is less expensive to use electricity from another country where they have the available base load. Yes it is an economic decision but one caused by the limitations of solar and wind power.
Why do you have the idiotic tendency to only conclude stuff from 'facts' which fits into your mind picture?
Because you have yet to present verifiable facts that contradict my mind picture.
as I'm not googling around but use stuff I have memorized:
And you could be wrong. I do not know you and do not trust anything you say without references. Would you take anything a nameless person said on the internet as fact?
what is so hard in grasping that those imports are based on economic decisions
They appear to be economic decisions but the economics are caused by the limitations of solar and wind power.
If I would follow your logic then there are obviously plenty of other countries buying german power because they can not produce it their own.
Don't put words in my mouth. Germany is different from the rest of Europe as it has gone the heaviest into wind and solar power and is ramping down nuclear. The other countries do not have those issue.
Lets go back to your original post:
First of all germany did not stop generating nuclear power, we still produce about 20% of our load with nuclear plants and secondly: no, we don't import french (nuclear) power. Bottom line France imports far more power from us then we do from them. (WTF Germany is exporting 20% of its total power production, sometimes more) And this is all easy to google... as all that stuff is mandatorily published.
The only verified fact in that post is that Germany still generates nuclear power. The issue is that they will be phasing that out. I have shown you proof that those other "facts" are untrue. Germany is a net importer from France and net exports much less than 20%.
The link you gave is BTW the PDF I meant. However without a page number I don't really know to which graphic in particular you refer:)
and you could not go back to the previous post to find the page number?
And certainly France is not keeping our grid stable, for keeping the grid stable you use gas turbines and pumped storage plants and to a lesser extend flowing water plants: not imported power, regardless by which means it is produced.
So what happens if there is no importable power and you can not ramp your generators fast enough? The result is an unstable grid.
To your questions.
what would France do if Germany would not buy the power?
They would ramp their production down.
Or why does France have a surplus at the moment where Germany is buying it?
Because Germany knows it will have a shortfall and asks France to ramp up production. The electricity companies do communicate across borders.
And why do you believe we buy nuclear power and not coal or wind power from France?
Because once electricity is put into the grid the source is obfuscated. There is no way to differentiate between electricity produced by nuclear, coal or wind. Since France uses all three kinds of production any one who imports electricity from France uses some portion of all three sources.
Why do you believe Germany could not produce its own power?
Because it doesn't
Anyway, we life in an European Community. Till mid 2012 one of the biggest german power companies was owned 60% by the french EDF, perhaps the imports you see are from long term trade contracts EDF made with its daughter?
Yet another speculation with no references.
All he numbers I mention ARE in that PDF already
From your post:
Nevertheless roughly 20% of the generated power is exported.
Where is that number in the report? I can't seem to find it.
And yes, most numbers are from my head, as I actually worked in that business for over ten years.
The previous five years where perhaps one single month, or perhaps two where germany imported more power than it exported.
According to this document (page 37 Figure 13) there has been 12 months of net import between 2008 and 2011. Where are you getting your numbers from?
Germany has no 'short falls' as you claim it.
I will even use the current Fraunhoffer Report that you keep referring to. Take a look at pages 76 and 77. Notice that when wind energy production is low electricity imports rise.
Sorry, I don't know to which graph you are reffering.
Look at page 52 of this. It is the graph for import/export to France. Note how much more dark green (exports) there are than light green (imoprts) with respect to France. The result is net imports from France.
Germany has no 'short falls' as you claim it.
Take a look at page 75. Notice that most imports are just before dawn and just after dusk. This is when solar power is coming on and going off.
The net export might have shrunken to 7%, no idea, did not check lately Nevertheless roughly 20% of the generated power is exported.
That net export is a record for Germany for all of 2013. Show me some references that support your claim that "roughly 20% of the generated power is exported". I don't think it exists.
That germany is a net importer regardless from which source
I never said Germany was a net importer. What I said is that it imports a lot of power from France and much of that power is produced by nuclear generators. Like I said net trade is not the issue periodic import to cover shortfalls is. The point is that even though Germany is phasing out nuclear generation plants they will still rely on nuclear generation plants in France to keep their grid stable.
I also find it interesting that you don't link any of the reports you refer to. It looks to me like you are pulling numbers out of the air. Repeating the same number over and over without references does not make it true.
The study of 106 possible sites for tidal turbines in the EU showed a total potential for power generation of about 50 TWh/year. If this resource is to be successfully utilized, the technology required could form the basis of a major new industry to produce clean power for the 21st century.
According to this Europe produced about 3200 TWh of electricity. The 50 TWh that could be replaced by ocean current power in Europe only amounts to 1.6%. That is not a significant number.
Bottom line France imports far more power from us then we do from them.
The statement was not about overall imports/exports it was about imports/exports to France. From the graph that statement is factually false. There is a falsehood in looking at grand totals. The cover up the main issue with wind and solar power; The inability to increase production on demand. This causes power to be required from neighboring countries to cover the shortfall. Power that comes from coal and nuclear plants that can be ramped to meet the demand. While a country may not produce dirty power it will just use the dirty power from a neighbour when needed.
By the way Germany produced a total of 479.4 TWh of electricity and exported a net of 31.4 TWh. That is a net export of 6.5%. Try using real numbers rather than meaningless relative statements. To me 6.5% export is not much and it does not compensate for having to import all that electricity due to the inability of solar and wind to deal with demand.
tke a look at this document. It is real data from the German electricity system. Look at the weekly charts starting on page 101. The green band is the wind generated power. Notice some days there is a lot (jan 3) while other days there is almost none (jan 12). Wind power is not consistent
From that same report Germany had 32.5GW of installed wind power and produced a total of 47.2 TWh of electricity. If the turbines produced 100% capacity they could have produced 284.7 TWh but they only produced 11% of that. Why the difference in capacity and production? Probably lack of wind.
Take a look at this graph. It is a graph of tidal levels over time. The slope of the graph is the rate of change of that tidal level which is also the tidal flow. Notice at high tide and low tide the line is horizontal. At those points the flow rate is 0. Yes there are places in the ocean where there is constant flow but that is associated with ocean currents like the Gulf stream or outflow from large rivers. Neither of those are tidal related.
Tides produce oscillating currents known as tidal streams. The moment that the tidal current ceases is called slack water or slack tide. The tide then reverses direction and is said to be turning. Slack water usually occurs near high water and low water. But there are locations where the moments of slack tide differ significantly from those of high and low water.
When there is no tidal current there is not tidal power.
This is an example of a false model of how the grid works. It appears that you believe that no matter where the electricity is injected into the grid it is immediately available to all users of the grid. This is the lake model of the grid. No matter where on the lake the electricity is injected it can be extracted anywhere else. This is a an inaccurate model. Am more accurate model is a canal system where the transmission lines are the waterways. Electricity can be injected into the canals but it has to be switched and transported through transmission lines. These lines have load limits and line loss. If there is a major storm in Norther Europe and the closest working turbines are in Spain the transmission line between Spain and Germany have to have the capacity to transmit all that power. Right now they do not and it is very expensive to put in such high capacity lines.
Geothermal requires two things to be together; heat and water. If you drill deep enough heat is everywhere. The water is a bigger issue. The water has to be quite pure as impurities will gum up the works. Diverting massive amounts of potable water to generating electricity is a non-starter as we already have potable water shortages. Depth may also be an issue as the further you go down the further the water has to come back and it will cool on the way. Those are some of the reasons why geothermal is only viable in certain areas.
Do you even know anything about these technologies?
Wind works 24/7
Wind varies from 0% capacity to 100% capacity minute by minute. It is not constant. There is also an upper limit to wind speed as turbines have to be stopped to prevent damage.
Solar thermal collectors would work well in the US and are 24/7 with constant,
They work well in the US south west. Most of the world does not have those kind of condition including the weather and ample free area. Sure the Sahara is similar but there seems to be some geopolitical issues with building there right now. Where are those conditions anywhere near China?
Tidal is 24/7.
While predictable tidal is not 24/7. Output from tidal generators follows a sinusoidal curve where there are two times a day when the tide is turning (slack tide) zero energy is produced.
Green energy is much more complex that you seem to think.
They now just import the nuclear generated electricity from France. This is another example of merely moving the issue and creating a false sound bite.
Due to the rapid variability of output generated by wind and solar coal and nuclear can now no longer keep up with the fluctuations.
or to put it more succinctly
Coal and nuclear is not viable because it can not cover for the flaws of wind and solar
So what other technology would you suggest to take on this role? The system works now because the generators are very predictable as is demand. This decreases the need for rapid ramping. What rapid ramping that needs to be done is dealt with by for different kinds of reserves. Adding a lot of unpredictable, highly variable generators into the system is the cause of the issue. Perhaps a better idea would be to not cause the problem in the first place by designing wind and solar generators to be less variable. Instead of relying on the grid to compensate for generator variability the generation stations should be compensating for those variations.
The issue as I see it is that the wind and solar breaks the old system by causing too much variability. Throwing away the old, working system before a new working system is created is fundamentally flawed.
Go ahead and try to think of a way to compare a person's design with all the patents out there and decide if it infringes or not. Sorry but DRM is currently used to prevent use of unlicensed software or copying of copyright content. It has nothing to do with creating new content that is a copy. For example, anyone can record a copy-written song and distribute it. There is no DRM that can prevent that. That is exactly the same as creating a new design that happens to infringe on an existing patent.
I was using the "have the ability to" as the definition of "can" where you seem to be using "am allowed to by law" as the definition. For example, I "can" steal a car but I am "not allowed to by law".
3D printing may also threaten intellectual property rights. 'IP will be ignored and it will be impossible or impractical to enforce. Everything will change when you can make anything.' said John Hornick, an IP attorney."
Until we get devices like the Star Trek replicator, and there are materials even it can not produce, we will be restricted by the materials available to 3d printing. Try 3d printing a working CPU. It will be a very long time before we "can make anything".
There are very few cases where introducing a non-native species into the wild has turned out to be a good thing. There are hundreds of examples of things going wrong. Just look up invasive species. Our track record is not good.
Slashdot Mirror
I leave the problems of power and focus as things that research will eventually solve.
Therefore hyper sonic missiles will eventually become obsolete. Until that time they will be effective. At that time better shielding may be invented to defeat the laser making them effective again.
Gauss cannon
There is a lag between the time the shell is fired and the time the shell hits. That requires leading the missile. If the incoming missile jinks the outgoing shell will miss. To hit would require in flight tracking and guidance and even then misses would be likely.
Laser
Lasers are also non instantaneous as hey need time to burn through the missile. This requires precise tracking and fast beam manipulation. If the hyper velocity missile jinks well enough the laser energy will spread out and be ineffective. Also hyper velocity missiles are hardened against heat caused by air friction. A little more shielding may defeat lasers as well.
A missile that can handle the heat of hyper velocity can probably handle a laser hit. It is also difficult to track and lock on to an object moving that fast. A hyper velocity missile with a little software to jink around may be able to evade the laser.
They may have difficulty hitting moving ships but port facilities and moored ships are vulnerable. Also, with a large enough warhead, say a small nuke, the hyper velocity missile only has to get close to put ships out of action. Ships are not the only target They can be used to take out command and control facilities, storage depots, staging areas, etc. If you can not stop the missiles front line troops may lose all support.
I just love the highly informative content of the message. What does "reasonable solar" mean? Take a look at page 16 of this document. Notice that in September 2011 the array generated 97,178 KWh while in January 2011 it generated 20,083 KWh. According to this the average Minnesotan electricity customer uses on average 802 kilowatt hours a month,. Taking the January low as the minimum the Minneapolis Convention Center could power 25 houses. That array has a 600KW capacity. To power one house with those numbers would require an array with a 24KW capacity. Approximately 10 Watts are produced per square foot of solar array which means that 2400 square feet of solar array would be needed to power the average house in Minnesota in January. I would not consider 2400 square feet of solar panel to be "reasonable".
That is a plan and does not exist yet.
Could it be that the company 'buying' the wind power also has a weather report? Could it be that that company now decides if it cranks up its coal plants or that it considers the sell offers on the spot market cheaper than burning expensive coal, and being forced to continue when it cranks down the plants later in 4 hours again (because you can not crank down the plant to sudden).
That is what I am trying to explain. Because solar does not come on at the right times of the day someone's base load must be used. Because it is expensive to turn on and off base load it is less expensive to use electricity from another country where they have the available base load. Yes it is an economic decision but one caused by the limitations of solar and wind power.
Why do you have the idiotic tendency to only conclude stuff from 'facts' which fits into your mind picture?
Because you have yet to present verifiable facts that contradict my mind picture.
as I'm not googling around but use stuff I have memorized:
And you could be wrong. I do not know you and do not trust anything you say without references. Would you take anything a nameless person said on the internet as fact?
what is so hard in grasping that those imports are based on economic decisions
They appear to be economic decisions but the economics are caused by the limitations of solar and wind power.
If I would follow your logic then there are obviously plenty of other countries buying german power because they can not produce it their own.
Don't put words in my mouth. Germany is different from the rest of Europe as it has gone the heaviest into wind and solar power and is ramping down nuclear. The other countries do not have those issue.
Lets go back to your original post:
First of all germany did not stop generating nuclear power, we still produce about 20% of our load with nuclear plants and secondly: no, we don't import french (nuclear) power. Bottom line France imports far more power from us then we do from them. (WTF Germany is exporting 20% of its total power production, sometimes more) ... as all that stuff is mandatorily published.
And this is all easy to google
The only verified fact in that post is that Germany still generates nuclear power. The issue is that they will be phasing that out. I have shown you proof that those other "facts" are untrue. Germany is a net importer from France and net exports much less than 20%.
The link you gave is BTW the PDF I meant. However without a page number I don't really know to which graphic in particular you refer :)
and you could not go back to the previous post to find the page number?
And certainly France is not keeping our grid stable, for keeping the grid stable you use gas turbines and pumped storage plants and to a lesser extend flowing water plants: not imported power, regardless by which means it is produced.
So what happens if there is no importable power and you can not ramp your generators fast enough? The result is an unstable grid.
To your questions.
what would France do if Germany would not buy the power?
They would ramp their production down.
Or why does France have a surplus at the moment where Germany is buying it?
Because Germany knows it will have a shortfall and asks France to ramp up production. The electricity companies do communicate across borders.
And why do you believe we buy nuclear power and not coal or wind power from France?
Because once electricity is put into the grid the source is obfuscated. There is no way to differentiate between electricity produced by nuclear, coal or wind. Since France uses all three kinds of production any one who imports electricity from France uses some portion of all three sources.
Why do you believe Germany could not produce its own power?
Because it doesn't
Anyway, we life in an European Community. Till mid 2012 one of the biggest german power companies was owned 60% by the french EDF, perhaps the imports you see are from long term trade contracts EDF made with its daughter?
Yet another speculation with no references.
All he numbers I mention ARE in that PDF already
From your post:
Nevertheless roughly 20% of the generated power is exported.
Where is that number in the report? I can't seem to find it.
And yes, most numbers are from my head, as I actually worked in that business for over ten years.
In what capacity?
The previous five years where perhaps one single month, or perhaps two where germany imported more power than it exported.
According to this document (page 37 Figure 13) there has been 12 months of net import between 2008 and 2011. Where are you getting your numbers from?
Germany has no 'short falls' as you claim it.
I will even use the current Fraunhoffer Report that you keep referring to. Take a look at pages 76 and 77. Notice that when wind energy production is low electricity imports rise.
Sorry, I don't know to which graph you are reffering.
Look at page 52 of this. It is the graph for import/export to France. Note how much more dark green (exports) there are than light green (imoprts) with respect to France. The result is net imports from France.
Germany has no 'short falls' as you claim it.
Take a look at page 75. Notice that most imports are just before dawn and just after dusk. This is when solar power is coming on and going off.
The net export might have shrunken to 7%, no idea, did not check lately Nevertheless roughly 20% of the generated power is exported.
That net export is a record for Germany for all of 2013. Show me some references that support your claim that "roughly 20% of the generated power is exported". I don't think it exists.
That germany is a net importer regardless from which source
I never said Germany was a net importer. What I said is that it imports a lot of power from France and much of that power is produced by nuclear generators. Like I said net trade is not the issue periodic import to cover shortfalls is. The point is that even though Germany is phasing out nuclear generation plants they will still rely on nuclear generation plants in France to keep their grid stable.
I also find it interesting that you don't link any of the reports you refer to. It looks to me like you are pulling numbers out of the air. Repeating the same number over and over without references does not make it true.
reference? I can find some proposed projects but no current producing installations.
According to this:
The study of 106 possible sites for tidal turbines in the EU showed a total potential for power generation of about 50 TWh/year. If this resource is to be successfully utilized, the technology required could form the basis of a major new industry to produce clean power for the 21st century.
According to this Europe produced about 3200 TWh of electricity. The 50 TWh that could be replaced by ocean current power in Europe only amounts to 1.6%. That is not a significant number.
I was responding to this quote:
Bottom line France imports far more power from us then we do from them.
The statement was not about overall imports/exports it was about imports/exports to France. From the graph that statement is factually false. There is a falsehood in looking at grand totals. The cover up the main issue with wind and solar power; The inability to increase production on demand. This causes power to be required from neighboring countries to cover the shortfall. Power that comes from coal and nuclear plants that can be ramped to meet the demand. While a country may not produce dirty power it will just use the dirty power from a neighbour when needed.
By the way Germany produced a total of 479.4 TWh of electricity and exported a net of 31.4 TWh. That is a net export of 6.5%. Try using real numbers rather than meaningless relative statements. To me 6.5% export is not much and it does not compensate for having to import all that electricity due to the inability of solar and wind to deal with demand.
take a look at this document. Look at the first graph on page 52. All that dark green is electricity imported from France.
I did my research and have documents to back up what I say.
tke a look at this document. It is real data from the German electricity system. Look at the weekly charts starting on page 101. The green band is the wind generated power. Notice some days there is a lot (jan 3) while other days there is almost none (jan 12). Wind power is not consistent
From that same report Germany had 32.5GW of installed wind power and produced a total of 47.2 TWh of electricity. If the turbines produced 100% capacity they could have produced 284.7 TWh but they only produced 11% of that. Why the difference in capacity and production? Probably lack of wind.
Take a look at this graph. It is a graph of tidal levels over time. The slope of the graph is the rate of change of that tidal level which is also the tidal flow. Notice at high tide and low tide the line is horizontal. At those points the flow rate is 0. Yes there are places in the ocean where there is constant flow but that is associated with ocean currents like the Gulf stream or outflow from large rivers. Neither of those are tidal related.
From this page;
Tides produce oscillating currents known as tidal streams. The moment that the tidal current ceases is called slack water or slack tide. The tide then reverses direction and is said to be turning. Slack water usually occurs near high water and low water. But there are locations where the moments of slack tide differ significantly from those of high and low water.
When there is no tidal current there is not tidal power.
This is an example of a false model of how the grid works. It appears that you believe that no matter where the electricity is injected into the grid it is immediately available to all users of the grid. This is the lake model of the grid. No matter where on the lake the electricity is injected it can be extracted anywhere else. This is a an inaccurate model. Am more accurate model is a canal system where the transmission lines are the waterways. Electricity can be injected into the canals but it has to be switched and transported through transmission lines. These lines have load limits and line loss. If there is a major storm in Norther Europe and the closest working turbines are in Spain the transmission line between Spain and Germany have to have the capacity to transmit all that power. Right now they do not and it is very expensive to put in such high capacity lines.
Geothermal requires two things to be together; heat and water. If you drill deep enough heat is everywhere. The water is a bigger issue. The water has to be quite pure as impurities will gum up the works. Diverting massive amounts of potable water to generating electricity is a non-starter as we already have potable water shortages. Depth may also be an issue as the further you go down the further the water has to come back and it will cool on the way. Those are some of the reasons why geothermal is only viable in certain areas.
Do you even know anything about these technologies?
Wind works 24/7
Wind varies from 0% capacity to 100% capacity minute by minute. It is not constant. There is also an upper limit to wind speed as turbines have to be stopped to prevent damage.
Solar thermal collectors would work well in the US and are 24/7 with constant,
They work well in the US south west. Most of the world does not have those kind of condition including the weather and ample free area. Sure the Sahara is similar but there seems to be some geopolitical issues with building there right now. Where are those conditions anywhere near China?
Tidal is 24/7.
While predictable tidal is not 24/7. Output from tidal generators follows a sinusoidal curve where there are two times a day when the tide is turning (slack tide) zero energy is produced.
Green energy is much more complex that you seem to think.
In Germany, they have stopped generating nuclear,
They now just import the nuclear generated electricity from France. This is another example of merely moving the issue and creating a false sound bite.
to paraphrase your statement.
Due to the rapid variability of output generated by wind and solar coal and nuclear can now no longer keep up with the fluctuations.
or to put it more succinctly
Coal and nuclear is not viable because it can not cover for the flaws of wind and solar
So what other technology would you suggest to take on this role? The system works now because the generators are very predictable as is demand. This decreases the need for rapid ramping. What rapid ramping that needs to be done is dealt with by for different kinds of reserves. Adding a lot of unpredictable, highly variable generators into the system is the cause of the issue. Perhaps a better idea would be to not cause the problem in the first place by designing wind and solar generators to be less variable. Instead of relying on the grid to compensate for generator variability the generation stations should be compensating for those variations.
The issue as I see it is that the wind and solar breaks the old system by causing too much variability. Throwing away the old, working system before a new working system is created is fundamentally flawed.
The AFL-CIO, and any other union for that matter, is a non-profit organization with a lot of pull.
Go ahead and try to think of a way to compare a person's design with all the patents out there and decide if it infringes or not. Sorry but DRM is currently used to prevent use of unlicensed software or copying of copyright content. It has nothing to do with creating new content that is a copy. For example, anyone can record a copy-written song and distribute it. There is no DRM that can prevent that. That is exactly the same as creating a new design that happens to infringe on an existing patent.
I was using the "have the ability to" as the definition of "can" where you seem to be using "am allowed to by law" as the definition. For example, I "can" steal a car but I am "not allowed to by law".
3D printing may also threaten intellectual property rights. 'IP will be ignored and it will be impossible or impractical to enforce. Everything will change when you can make anything.' said John Hornick, an IP attorney."
Until we get devices like the Star Trek replicator, and there are materials even it can not produce, we will be restricted by the materials available to 3d printing. Try 3d printing a working CPU. It will be a very long time before we "can make anything".
There are very few cases where introducing a non-native species into the wild has turned out to be a good thing. There are hundreds of examples of things going wrong. Just look up invasive species. Our track record is not good.