The same can be said for fossil fuel powered generators.
Except that, with the exception of natural gas, you have a lot of other combustion products to deal with. CO2 emissions from cement production are the result of baking the carbon out of the calcium carbonate, and it's relatively pure and therefore easier to deal with.
There are also only ~100 cement plants in the US, versus thousands of fossil power plants.
Where does this number come from? All the articles I have seen put that number at 5% of world CO2 emissions.
-The US produces about 5,500 million metric tons per year of CO2. -Cement production releases about 1.25 tons CO2 per ton. -The US produces about 68 million tons (2011) of cement per year.
68*1.25 = 87.5 million tons CO2 per year for cement production. That's 1.5% of the total.
The 0.5 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour for hydro
Good job cherry picking the worst possible number instead of the one that actually applies. You even went out of your way to quote the article so carefully!
Small run-of-the-river plants emit between 0.01 and 0.03 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. Life-cycle emissions from large-scale hydroelectric plants built in semi-arid regions are also modest: approximately 0.06 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour.
The part you quoted is for tropical zones and peatlands. So how much of the US is in a tropical climate zone, exactly? Hawaii and a little bit of Florida? =Smidge=
CO2 generation isn't an impossible challenge. Since the concrete production is centralized, it can be sequestered on site, and concrete naturally re-absorbs that carbon over the decades. Even if you don't address the immediate emissions, since concrete production is a mere 1% or so of total CO2 output by the US and the entire lifecycle emissions (including construction, operation and decommissioning) for hydro is a tenth that of natural gas, you're still coming out way ahead.
It's called spinning reserve, and it's the reason electricity is often so much cheaper at night. Large thermal power plants can take days to shut down and restart, so they need to keep them running anyway.
The problem can be mitigated through various means; and as problems go this is a pretty good one to have.
Storage is the obvious solution. It doesn't even need to be high quality storage, but to reduce over-generation you just need a place to dump the excess energy. You could just dump this energy as heat but optimally you'd want to recover some of it. You don't even need enough storage to carry you through the night, just absorb the over generation and shave peak. Thermal storage would work fine for that, would be relatively inexpensive and could work with existing thermal power plants. Encouraging domestic battery storage, even a few kWh worth, would also help. Almost any existing hydro could be retrofitted for axillary pumped storage.
Less obvious is to tinker with the solar panels themselves, tuning the orientation so you are optimized for late afternoon capture rather than maximum kWh/day generation. That makes the "dip" in the graph shallower and lowers the slope of the ramp.
Retire old plants that are too inflexible to meet variable demand efficiently. In other words, ditch coal.
Add usage penalties (aka "demand charges") during the ramp-up period. There are already demand charges for peak power, but spreading the demand charge out would incentivize energy efficiency and time of use habits.
Basically, there is nothing here that can't be managed with existing technology, but commercial power producers are scared shitless they'll be out of a whole lot of money. Solar is a direct threat to baseline generation (coal and nuclear) as it pushes the usefulness of peak shaving generation (gas turbine) farther into the night hours and makes baseline generation all but obsolete. =Smidge=
More importantly, this strains the argument that green technologies threaten economic growth. That means dirtier fossil energy is a lot harder to justify, and renewable energy more appealing.
Could be the beginnings of a positive feedback loop. Here's hoping! =Smidge=
They get that money from the normal fees they charge for service.
They do not need to charge an additional fee to "stay in business"
They don't even need to increase their base price if they did away with the itemized fee, because their base price alone is more than enough to cover the cost of business and still make a healthy profit.
They do not have any money that does not come from their customers, therefore any additional tax or expense (such as the universal access fee) which they have to pay is passed on to their customers.
What?
The fees they normally charge are adequate to cover both the extra cost of the USF contributions *and* their operating costs *and* their investments *and still make a tidy profit.
They can clearly decide not to charge customers for it - which, again, they are not *required* to do which makes the GP a liar.
They do not *need* to, either, since they can still make bank even if they didn't. This is obvious because their *profit* is an order of magnitude greater than their USF contributions. That, consequently, makes you a liar as well. =Smidge=
The idea that the extra they tack onto the bill is the only thing allowing them to "stay in business" is absolutely laughable.
Of course, had companies actually been proactive in developing the infrastructure, a lot of the costs associated with that program would be negated. =Smidge=
The access charge is not mandated by the FCC and the universal service charge is not required to be passed on to you (telcos do it because the FCC can't stop them.)
Conventional HDDs (and other magnetic storage) can suffer from random loss of magnetization. Any permanent magnet will slowly weaken over time, and the nature of magnetic media - especially high density - means neighboring domains can alter a weakened bit more easily.
The solution in both cases: Rewrite the data periodically to keep it "fresh" and include error correction to help mitigate minor losses. =Smidge=
pushed into building artificial worlds because making in the real one is hampered by a perfect storm of regulation and fear under the umbrella of crony capitalism.
...because the only thing preventing children from building sky cities, gigantic castles, sea bases and portals to other dimensions is government regulations. =Smidge=
How fast is traditional manufacturing? Sure, once you get your tooling set up and dedicate an entire warehouse to production and assembly, you can crank out ten thousand widgets a day... but it takes months and lots of money to get to that level of production.
Meanwhile, if a part can be 3D printed, you press a button and the next morning you have it in your hand. Client/customer needs some customization? No problem, a day or so of computer time and press the button...
can you 3D print in a moving truck?
Probably. Depends on the printing method. It's not completely certain it would be necessary to print on the go to make this work, though.
is a 3D print product pretty? flexible? neon colors, black, and white are what you have, assuming you are not slinging molten metal or concrete, the other two mediums in use. not flexible.
Full color printers have been available since before most people knew 3D printing was even a thing. Flexible? Could be, with the right materials. Just about anything you can reduce to a fine powder could conceivably be used.
The relatively cheap filament-based machines that are all the rage now are far from the pinnacle of additive manufacturing. 3D printing is 30+ years old at this point....All that said, though, I think Amazon's idea is kinda dumb. It's amazing what some people would rather have than money, though. =Smidge=
And what regulations were relaxed that were holding the telephone industry back, again?
When regulated as a public utility, the company is to some extent protected from competition
The "regulation" means they can't gouge their customers. Also, there is actual, historical precedent that runs counter to your claim.
ISPs are, in many areas, a monopoly or duopoly at best. There is zero competition, and as a result we get the worst service-for-the-buck on the planet. Why is it that ISPs in other countries, which are regulated, are able to provide better service than currently unregulated US companies? =Smidge=
It's not coincidence that prices started to fall and service improve shortly after the industry monopoly was dismantled. This has always been the result since the trust-busting in the early 20th century and there is sound reasoning behind why it works: Competing companies will lower prices and improve services in an effort to make them more attractive to potential customers compared to their rivals. Monopolies have no incentive to keep prices low or to really innovate new and better services or products.
You, on the other hand, will have to cite what regulations could possibly have been preventing Ma Bell from providing better service when it was clearly possible to do so all along. =Smidge=
That's what happened to telephone service in the 1980s. There was something of a golden age where everyone and their dog was offering cutthroat long-distance telephone service. Prices fell and service improved.
Power utilities are another example. Chances are, you are under no obligation to buy electricity specifically from your utility - some areas allow you to buy your electricity from third parties, and your utility just acts as a middleman and collects a connection fee to maintain the wires, which they do anyway.
Natural gas is the same way, though you might need to be a major consumer to get that kind of deal.
Now imagine if the internet follows that path: The company that owns and maintains the last-mile infrastructure need not be the same company that actually provides the connection to the main networks. =Smidge=
first, diesel is maybe 10-15% more energy rich than gasoline.
Mea culpa - I got KWH confused with BTUs since I'm more used to using BTUs for diesel equivalents. Yes, it's about 15% more.
The actual amount of energy was however many billion gallons per year, the space requried was however many square kilometers. isn't that exactly was I said?
The closest you come is stating insolation as joules per square meter but at no point did you bring total energy required or total area required in your original post. It took you several hours before someone prompted you to actually go back and do that.
Basically you only managed to be relevant in hindsight after you got dogpiled. =Smidge=
Well "Shared economy" implies sharing, not selling or bartering. I know that some people are perfectly happy to form community ties around electric vehicles and share - at no cost - each other's power outlets. It's not the least bit farfetched an idea. =Smidge=
The point is, the article says that this bionic leave can be used to create fuel.
And that's exactly what it does.
What I'm arguing is that fuel requires so much energy that there's no way the bionic leaf capturing energy from the sun could produce enough fuel to meet our needs, using practical assumptions.
But at no point did you include how much energy we'd actually need, nor did you account for how much space in total we'd need to dedicate to harvesting in order to meet that demand. Only after including those factors could you argue that the bionic leaf could not meet our needs...
The honest truth is there is a ridiculous amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline.
About 36 KWHr. That's pretty tame; a gallon of diesel has about four times as much... Maybe you have a strange concept of "ridiculous" amounts of energy, though.
And while liquid hydrocarbons are fairly good in terms of specific energy, they are horribly inefficient compared to alternatives. I suppose it's good that you can easily carry that much energy around with you when you will inevitably piss 80% of it away as waste.
And I'm pretty sure "god's fuel" would be hydrogen, used in the form of nuclear fusion. That literally powers the universe and is the source of all complex matter that we know of. =Smidge=
Well, the difference is that the cost-per mile electric driving is a fraction of the cost of gasoline.
A gallon of gasoline will get you ~40 miles in a good car. A gallon of gasoline is also ~36KWHr of energy. 36 KWHr of electric charge will get you over 108 miles in a mediocre electric vehicle.
A gallon of gasoline right now, in my area, is roughly $2.40. A kilowatt-hour of electricity, including all taxes and surcharges, is roughly $0.20. So fully charging an electric car will cost about $5 while fully refueling a normal car will cost about $25.
And as others pointed out; it needn't be for free. But at a maximum of $5 per visitor it needn't be cash either. Hell, bring a box of good cookies and I'll let you charge at my place for a few hours...
And if it's an emergency type situation, maybe a couple bucks to help someone get home isn't that bad a gesture in and of itself. =Smidge=
so you're saying that even though the methods are roundabout, the conclusion is sound. I agree!
No, I'm saying your conclusion has nothing to do with your opening premise.
I already said there's nothing wrong with your math.... it's simply irrelevant to your opening premise and unrelated to the topic at hand.
You start by stating that the energy balance doesn't work. Nothing you said demonstrates that it doesn't work, and the assumptions you make (e.g. gasoline, efficiency) have nothing to do with the main article. =Smidge=
But the approximation makes no sense since it has zero applicability to the topic at hand. It's like estimating the number of piano tuners in Chicago by starting with the number of cab drivers in New York and concluding that light rail public transit isn't viable in rural Iowa.
Just because the math works doesn't mean it's apropos of anything. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
The same can be said for fossil fuel powered generators.
Except that, with the exception of natural gas, you have a lot of other combustion products to deal with. CO2 emissions from cement production are the result of baking the carbon out of the calcium carbonate, and it's relatively pure and therefore easier to deal with.
There are also only ~100 cement plants in the US, versus thousands of fossil power plants.
Where does this number come from? All the articles I have seen put that number at 5% of world CO2 emissions.
-The US produces about 5,500 million metric tons per year of CO2.
-Cement production releases about 1.25 tons CO2 per ton.
-The US produces about 68 million tons (2011) of cement per year.
68*1.25 = 87.5 million tons CO2 per year for cement production. That's 1.5% of the total.
How much does it absorb and what consequences?
33-57% of that which is released during production.
The 0.5 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour for hydro
Good job cherry picking the worst possible number instead of the one that actually applies. You even went out of your way to quote the article so carefully!
Small run-of-the-river plants emit between 0.01 and 0.03 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. Life-cycle emissions from large-scale hydroelectric plants built in semi-arid regions are also modest: approximately 0.06 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour.
The part you quoted is for tropical zones and peatlands. So how much of the US is in a tropical climate zone, exactly? Hawaii and a little bit of Florida?
=Smidge=
The total US Hydro generation capacity is ~80GW. 12GW more would be an increase of 15%. I ball parked it at a conservative "at least 10%."
A relative handful of plants produce the majority of that power, but that doesn't change the numbers.
=Smidge=
CO2 generation isn't an impossible challenge. Since the concrete production is centralized, it can be sequestered on site, and concrete naturally re-absorbs that carbon over the decades. Even if you don't address the immediate emissions, since concrete production is a mere 1% or so of total CO2 output by the US and the entire lifecycle emissions (including construction, operation and decommissioning) for hydro is a tenth that of natural gas, you're still coming out way ahead.
=Smidge=
To US Energy Dept. estimated, in 2012, that there is ~12GW worth of power that could be tapped from existing, non-power-producing dams. That's handily 10% more hydro than what we've got now.
That same report estimates a potential for 65GW of new hydro power installations (85GW if you allow trampling of federal protected lands).
The reason hydro isn't talked about is because of uninformed people like you who think there's no additional capacity.
=Smidge=
It's called spinning reserve, and it's the reason electricity is often so much cheaper at night. Large thermal power plants can take days to shut down and restart, so they need to keep them running anyway.
The problem can be mitigated through various means; and as problems go this is a pretty good one to have.
Storage is the obvious solution. It doesn't even need to be high quality storage, but to reduce over-generation you just need a place to dump the excess energy. You could just dump this energy as heat but optimally you'd want to recover some of it. You don't even need enough storage to carry you through the night, just absorb the over generation and shave peak. Thermal storage would work fine for that, would be relatively inexpensive and could work with existing thermal power plants. Encouraging domestic battery storage, even a few kWh worth, would also help. Almost any existing hydro could be retrofitted for axillary pumped storage.
Less obvious is to tinker with the solar panels themselves, tuning the orientation so you are optimized for late afternoon capture rather than maximum kWh/day generation. That makes the "dip" in the graph shallower and lowers the slope of the ramp.
Retire old plants that are too inflexible to meet variable demand efficiently. In other words, ditch coal.
Add usage penalties (aka "demand charges") during the ramp-up period. There are already demand charges for peak power, but spreading the demand charge out would incentivize energy efficiency and time of use habits.
Basically, there is nothing here that can't be managed with existing technology, but commercial power producers are scared shitless they'll be out of a whole lot of money. Solar is a direct threat to baseline generation (coal and nuclear) as it pushes the usefulness of peak shaving generation (gas turbine) farther into the night hours and makes baseline generation all but obsolete.
=Smidge=
More importantly, this strains the argument that green technologies threaten economic growth. That means dirtier fossil energy is a lot harder to justify, and renewable energy more appealing.
Could be the beginnings of a positive feedback loop. Here's hoping!
=Smidge=
They get that money from the normal fees they charge for service.
They do not need to charge an additional fee to "stay in business"
They don't even need to increase their base price if they did away with the itemized fee, because their base price alone is more than enough to cover the cost of business and still make a healthy profit.
How hard is this to understand?
=Smidge=
They do not have any money that does not come from their customers, therefore any additional tax or expense (such as the universal access fee) which they have to pay is passed on to their customers.
What?
The fees they normally charge are adequate to cover both the extra cost of the USF contributions *and* their operating costs *and* their investments *and still make a tidy profit.
They can clearly decide not to charge customers for it - which, again, they are not *required* to do which makes the GP a liar.
They do not *need* to, either, since they can still make bank even if they didn't. This is obvious because their *profit* is an order of magnitude greater than their USF contributions. That, consequently, makes you a liar as well.
=Smidge=
From their billions of dollars in profits?
The idea that the extra they tack onto the bill is the only thing allowing them to "stay in business" is absolutely laughable.
Of course, had companies actually been proactive in developing the infrastructure, a lot of the costs associated with that program would be negated.
=Smidge=
The universal service charge is required to be passed on to you if the telcos want to stay in business.
That's bullshit and you know it.
=Smidge=
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/unde...
The access charge is not mandated by the FCC and the universal service charge is not required to be passed on to you (telcos do it because the FCC can't stop them.)
So... stop lying, basically.
=Smidge=
Conventional HDDs (and other magnetic storage) can suffer from random loss of magnetization. Any permanent magnet will slowly weaken over time, and the nature of magnetic media - especially high density - means neighboring domains can alter a weakened bit more easily.
The solution in both cases: Rewrite the data periodically to keep it "fresh" and include error correction to help mitigate minor losses.
=Smidge=
pushed into building artificial worlds because making in the real one is hampered by a perfect storm of regulation and fear under the umbrella of crony capitalism.
...because the only thing preventing children from building sky cities, gigantic castles, sea bases and portals to other dimensions is government regulations.
=Smidge=
...are you sure you intended to reply to me?
Other than the choice of words, we seem to be agreeing.
=Smidge=
how fast is 3D printing?
How fast is traditional manufacturing? Sure, once you get your tooling set up and dedicate an entire warehouse to production and assembly, you can crank out ten thousand widgets a day... but it takes months and lots of money to get to that level of production.
Meanwhile, if a part can be 3D printed, you press a button and the next morning you have it in your hand. Client/customer needs some customization? No problem, a day or so of computer time and press the button...
can you 3D print in a moving truck?
Probably. Depends on the printing method. It's not completely certain it would be necessary to print on the go to make this work, though.
is a 3D print product pretty? flexible? neon colors, black, and white are what you have, assuming you are not slinging molten metal or concrete, the other two mediums in use. not flexible.
Full color printers have been available since before most people knew 3D printing was even a thing. Flexible? Could be, with the right materials. Just about anything you can reduce to a fine powder could conceivably be used.
The relatively cheap filament-based machines that are all the rage now are far from the pinnacle of additive manufacturing. 3D printing is 30+ years old at this point. ...All that said, though, I think Amazon's idea is kinda dumb. It's amazing what some people would rather have than money, though.
=Smidge=
regulations prevent innovation directly
How?
And what regulations were relaxed that were holding the telephone industry back, again?
When regulated as a public utility, the company is to some extent protected from competition
The "regulation" means they can't gouge their customers. Also, there is actual, historical precedent that runs counter to your claim.
ISPs are, in many areas, a monopoly or duopoly at best. There is zero competition, and as a result we get the worst service-for-the-buck on the planet. Why is it that ISPs in other countries, which are regulated, are able to provide better service than currently unregulated US companies?
=Smidge=
Cite these deregulations, please.
It's not coincidence that prices started to fall and service improve shortly after the industry monopoly was dismantled. This has always been the result since the trust-busting in the early 20th century and there is sound reasoning behind why it works: Competing companies will lower prices and improve services in an effort to make them more attractive to potential customers compared to their rivals. Monopolies have no incentive to keep prices low or to really innovate new and better services or products.
You, on the other hand, will have to cite what regulations could possibly have been preventing Ma Bell from providing better service when it was clearly possible to do so all along.
=Smidge=
That's what happened to telephone service in the 1980s. There was something of a golden age where everyone and their dog was offering cutthroat long-distance telephone service. Prices fell and service improved.
Power utilities are another example. Chances are, you are under no obligation to buy electricity specifically from your utility - some areas allow you to buy your electricity from third parties, and your utility just acts as a middleman and collects a connection fee to maintain the wires, which they do anyway.
Natural gas is the same way, though you might need to be a major consumer to get that kind of deal.
Now imagine if the internet follows that path: The company that owns and maintains the last-mile infrastructure need not be the same company that actually provides the connection to the main networks.
=Smidge=
Yes, amazingly if you use numbers that are strongly in favor of gasoline vehicles, gasoline vehicles come out looking pretty good. Go figure.
To use harder real-world-average numbers, adjust the math for 29MPG, 3.5 miles/KWHr and $0.12/KWHr.
=Smidge=
first, diesel is maybe 10-15% more energy rich than gasoline.
Mea culpa - I got KWH confused with BTUs since I'm more used to using BTUs for diesel equivalents. Yes, it's about 15% more.
The actual amount of energy was however many billion gallons per year, the space requried was however many square kilometers. isn't that exactly was I said?
The closest you come is stating insolation as joules per square meter but at no point did you bring total energy required or total area required in your original post. It took you several hours before someone prompted you to actually go back and do that.
Basically you only managed to be relevant in hindsight after you got dogpiled.
=Smidge=
Well "Shared economy" implies sharing, not selling or bartering. I know that some people are perfectly happy to form community ties around electric vehicles and share - at no cost - each other's power outlets. It's not the least bit farfetched an idea.
=Smidge=
The point is, the article says that this bionic leave can be used to create fuel.
And that's exactly what it does.
What I'm arguing is that fuel requires so much energy that there's no way the bionic leaf capturing energy from the sun could produce enough fuel to meet our needs, using practical assumptions.
But at no point did you include how much energy we'd actually need, nor did you account for how much space in total we'd need to dedicate to harvesting in order to meet that demand. Only after including those factors could you argue that the bionic leaf could not meet our needs...
The honest truth is there is a ridiculous amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline.
About 36 KWHr. That's pretty tame; a gallon of diesel has about four times as much... Maybe you have a strange concept of "ridiculous" amounts of energy, though.
And while liquid hydrocarbons are fairly good in terms of specific energy, they are horribly inefficient compared to alternatives. I suppose it's good that you can easily carry that much energy around with you when you will inevitably piss 80% of it away as waste.
And I'm pretty sure "god's fuel" would be hydrogen, used in the form of nuclear fusion. That literally powers the universe and is the source of all complex matter that we know of.
=Smidge=
Well, the difference is that the cost-per mile electric driving is a fraction of the cost of gasoline.
A gallon of gasoline will get you ~40 miles in a good car. A gallon of gasoline is also ~36KWHr of energy. 36 KWHr of electric charge will get you over 108 miles in a mediocre electric vehicle.
A gallon of gasoline right now, in my area, is roughly $2.40. A kilowatt-hour of electricity, including all taxes and surcharges, is roughly $0.20. So fully charging an electric car will cost about $5 while fully refueling a normal car will cost about $25.
And as others pointed out; it needn't be for free. But at a maximum of $5 per visitor it needn't be cash either. Hell, bring a box of good cookies and I'll let you charge at my place for a few hours...
And if it's an emergency type situation, maybe a couple bucks to help someone get home isn't that bad a gesture in and of itself.
=Smidge=
so you're saying that even though the methods are roundabout, the conclusion is sound. I agree!
No, I'm saying your conclusion has nothing to do with your opening premise.
I already said there's nothing wrong with your math.... it's simply irrelevant to your opening premise and unrelated to the topic at hand.
You start by stating that the energy balance doesn't work. Nothing you said demonstrates that it doesn't work, and the assumptions you make (e.g. gasoline, efficiency) have nothing to do with the main article.
=Smidge=
But the approximation makes no sense since it has zero applicability to the topic at hand. It's like estimating the number of piano tuners in Chicago by starting with the number of cab drivers in New York and concluding that light rail public transit isn't viable in rural Iowa.
Just because the math works doesn't mean it's apropos of anything.
=Smidge=