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Post by jeffolie on Jun 29, 2011 7:45:44 GMT -6
China fails: Moore's law to solar Do you know Moore's law ... technology in computing doubling every 18 months ? Did you think to apply an analogy of Moore's law to solar? The below piece makes the case for future solar costs to plummet and efficiency/productive electrical output of solar panels to increase. It compares solar to photography ... both used light, create a product based on light ... photographs history does compare with ".... He draws a parallel between photography and photovoltaics, both invented in 1839, both rely on sunlight acting on materials. In photography, people started off putting films on glass, then putting films on mylar, and running things continuously. Implying that in solar, we’re still on glass c. 1890....' Technology destroys ... 'creative destructionism' ... obsolescenceCreative Destructionism is one of my favorite themes in economics and politics ... it throws me nostalgically to my old favorite economist Kondratieff who was ripped off many times and many ways including the making of Creative Destructionism. The manufacturing of stuff changes with different, new, more practical methods, aka obsolescence in manufacturing. Technologoly today implies high tech electronics products. Solar panels melds the obsolescence of electronics products with the obsolescence of manufacturing methods ... low labor and ripped of solar manufacturing methods made China the leader in low cost solar panels. Obsolescence from new electronics and manufacturing may result in future solar manufacturing outside of China underpricing China current industries just as the Communists in the USSR could not tear down their heavy industries in now Russia nor adapt. Communist China may go the way of Communist USSR in solar manufacturing ... this is just my speculation. ================================== Will Crystalline Solar Kill Thin Film? A Conversation with Applied Material’s Solar Head Charlie Gay On June 23, 2011, in Blog, by Neal Dikeman .... By Neal Dikeman "... 5 years ago about Applied’s entry into solar, which was anchored with a highly touted and very aggressive strategy for turnkey large format amorphous silicon and tandem cell plants called SunFab .... for a simple reason, cost in the field for large scale solar farms is heavily about getting area costs down relative to power output. I was excited for another simple reason, when major capital equipment developers get involved, manufacturing maturity is not far behind, it forces everyone to rethink scale in different ways. '...So what I really wanted to talk to Charlie about was the future of PV manufacturing. He frames the future by drawing a mirrored parallel between photovoltaics and integrated circuit manufacturing, beyond just semiconductors: 1. In IC, dozens to hundreds of device architectures exist, but basically one material, silicon. 2. In PV, there is essentially one architecture: the diode, but dozens to hundreds of material choices. But silicon has been the mainstay material of PV for a number of reasons. So we got into one of my favorite topics, the manufacturing improvement potential in crystalline silicon. His version of Moore’s law for solar runs like this: the thickness of the solar cell decreases by half every 10 years. Today it’s 180 microns thick. The practical possibility exists to get down to about 40 microns, with some performance improvement by making it thinner, but we can’t go much below 40 without being too thin to absorb enough light. This fits with other conversations I’ve had suggesting that over the past couple of years most of the major crystalline solar manufacturers were working on paths to take an order of magnitude out of cell thickness. If this comes to fruition, crystalline can literally wipe the floor with the existing thin film technologies. Basically think sub $1 per watt modules with the performance of high grade crystalline modules today. And as cost per watt equalizes, that higher efficiency starts to really tell, as since Balance of Systems costs have fallen at 10-12% per doubling of installed fleet, compared to module costs falling at 18-20%, in a world where BOS increasingly matters, the old saw about lower area cost per unit of power installed starts to actually bite for once. Think ultra thin high performance low cost large format x-Si modules with fancy anti reflective coatings and snazzy high grade modules with on module inverters or DC optimizers mounted on highly automated, low cost durable trackers. Think solar farms approaching effective relative capacity factors of 2.5-3 mm kW Hours per year per MW on 25 year systems at $2-3 per Watt installed. Possibly the only thing on the planet that could match shale gas. In fact, the entire thesis of thin film as a business and venture capital prospect has been built on the premise that crystalline material costs were just too high to get to grid parity. "... a dozen different paths for enabling 40 micron cells ...currently operating in PV manufacturing today with the materials that were on the radar in the energy crisis from 1974-1980. That is changing in the lab and universities these days. And given time the results will surprise us... a parallel between photography and photovoltaics, both invented in 1839, both rely on sunlight acting on materials. In photography, people started off putting films on glass, then putting films on mylar, and running things continuously. Implying that in solar, we’re still on glass c. 1890.' "...we may look back and find that thin film, CdTe and First Solar were the stepping stones to 40 micron crystalline, not the other way around...' www.cleantechblog.com/2011/06/will-crystalline-solar-kill-thin-film-a-conversation-with-applied-materials-solar-head-charlie-gay.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cleantechblog%2Feqgi+%28Cleantech+Blog%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
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Post by waltc on Jun 29, 2011 11:17:29 GMT -6
The guy doesn't even have a prototype yet, this mean the new solar tech is just at the vaporware stage.
When they can produce prototypes people can actually look at and test, then they'll have something. Until then it's hot air.
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Post by fredorbob on Jun 29, 2011 18:29:44 GMT -6
The guy doesn't even have a prototype yet, this mean the new solar tech is just at the vaporware stage. When they can produce prototypes people can actually look at and test, then they'll have something. Until then it's hot air. Yeah, some of us older than 1 decade have seen this type of irrational futuristic optimism before. The only real innovation and technological advancement since WW2/WW1 has been in electronics and computing, and that's it.
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Post by jacquelope on Jul 2, 2011 13:33:13 GMT -6
The guy doesn't even have a prototype yet, this mean the new solar tech is just at the vaporware stage. When they can produce prototypes people can actually look at and test, then they'll have something. Until then it's hot air. Yeah, some of us older than 1 decade have seen this type of irrational futuristic optimism before. The only real innovation and technological advancement since WW2/WW1 has been in electronics and computing, and that's it. Corporations. They keep holding back innovation to protect their outdated industries. Inventions such as this new solar prototype can't get venture capital, as a result, so it languishes in oblivion. People like Charlie Gay won't get far without venture capital. R&D for cutting edge tech like crystalline solar needs big money to back it up in order to get to market. Innovation is being stifled by corporations. The alternative conclusion is that humans are running out of ways to innovate. Now that would be scary.
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Post by jeffolie on Jul 2, 2011 14:37:21 GMT -6
Yeah, some of us older than 1 decade have seen this type of irrational futuristic optimism before. The only real innovation and technological advancement since WW2/WW1 has been in electronics and computing, and that's it. Corporations. They keep holding back innovation to protect their outdated industries. Inventions such as this new solar prototype can't get venture capital, as a result, so it languishes in oblivion. People like Charlie Gay won't get far without venture capital. R&D for cutting edge tech like crystalline solar needs big money to back it up in order to get to market. Innovation is being stifled by corporations. The alternative conclusion is that humans are running out of ways to innovate. Now that would be scary. Yes, I agree. Huge money went to corporations within the status quo, world's biggest well established technology in solar panels maker. [from my post titled: "Small Solar vs Smallish Solar vs Big Solar"] First Solar Inc. (FSLR), the world’s largest maker of thin-film solar modules, won $4.5 billion in conditional loan guarantees from the U.S. Energy Department for three projects it’s developing in California. ... First Solar said construction on those approved today will add 1,400 jobs and that the more than 20 million cadmium telluride glass panels used in the projects will be manufactured at plants in Ohio and Arizona.
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Post by waltc on Jul 2, 2011 17:29:15 GMT -6
Green energy is awash in money. The problem is finding decent inventions worth the money. I'm sure if someone figured how to make Cold or Hot Fusion and economically viable they would have no problem getting money.
Also many inventions/new designs don't pan out.
As a rule you don't take any inventor of a new design seriously until they have functional prototypes that can be evaluated by 3rd parties, not simulations or some theoretical bullshit models.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 3, 2011 2:47:02 GMT -6
Corporations. They keep holding back innovation to protect their outdated industries. No they don't Nobody is going to invest in something that makes no profit, or less profit like in American workers.
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Post by jacquelope on Jul 3, 2011 4:30:58 GMT -6
Corporations. They keep holding back innovation to protect their outdated industries. No they don't You're saying that corporations don't fight innovation to protect their outdated industries? I worked in the tech industry, I watched Microsoft do just that. AT&T was another example. Fighting innovation is like a tradition with big business. Well there you have it. It makes less profit, just like American workers make less profit. If we go by that reasoning, we get to the conclusion that American workers are not useful.
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Post by graybeard on Jul 3, 2011 5:49:07 GMT -6
Most innovations come out of home garages.
Electronic Fuel Injection was invented by a guy in his garage in about 1952, when it was stolen by Bendix, and later licensed to Bosch, et al.
The heat seeking missile that is prevalent today was invented by a couple of guys in a garage.
Walt Disney started in a single car garage in the L.A. area.
The list of garage based inventors is long and illustrious.
Henry Ford built his first car in a storage room in 1896, and had to knock out a wall to get his Quadricycle out.
Sure, Bell Labs invented the transistor, supposedly. The technology progressed from germanium to silicon in a few years, and the rest is history.
What good is garage inventing today? The Chinese Communists will steal every good idea. Even I have come up with some innovative products recently, but won't even try to patent or market them. It's no use.
GB
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Post by waltc on Jul 3, 2011 12:28:26 GMT -6
Failure to stop China's chronic IP theft is going to kill innovation in this country.
But the rich and powerful don't care. They are already sitting on piles of money. Life is good for those at the top.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 3, 2011 20:50:59 GMT -6
You're saying that corporations don't fight innovation to protect their outdated industries? I worked in the tech industry, I watched Microsoft do just that. AT&T was another example. Fighting innovation is like a tradition with big business. So Microsoft and AT and T are outdated industries huh. Some of this Green crap makes no profit without subsidies, like photovoltaics.
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Post by jacquelope on Jul 3, 2011 21:14:07 GMT -6
So Microsoft and AT and T are outdated industries huh. AT&T versus Skype-type VOIP technologies, come on now, who do you think will win? When Wifi hotspots become as ubiquitous as 4G networks, 4G is screwed. Wifi enabled smart phones are trivial to make and some already exist on the market, like the iPhone. (Look up iSkoot.) All you need is a Wifi phone to connect to a free VOIP network like Ekiga and then connect to another Wifi smartphone. Bam, AT&T is ancient history, Verizon is outdated, Skype has 1 foot in the grave. If Ekiga can't do this now it will do it soon: it's a matter of software. Microsoft? I got one word for that: Linux. Microsoft is struggling to keep up with technology. All they do now is buy companies and call it "innovation". It's all over the news; Microsoft is losing its relevance. Also look up Microsoft's ill-fated patent war with Linux. Anti-trust activity, all that. Microsoft stifling innovation, losing relevance? You betcha. It happens all the time in capitalism. Profit is not the be all and end all of the world. The space program hasn't been profitable but many of our creature comforts today came from discoveries made there. We owe part of our standard of living to that unprofitable enterprise. Solar energy on millions of rooftops around America is expensive and it will not end all our energy problems, but you better believe if you lived in Phoenix Arizona this last weekend where the heat was 118 degrees and you were one of the 4000 houses that lost utility grid power, if you had solar power you thanked God on that day. Solar on your rooftop in Phoenix wasn't profitable to the utility companies but it sure was profitable to you. Solar power costs per kwh has been going down dramatically. I have faith in the power of innovation, especially when it is being done here and not in China.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 6, 2011 0:27:23 GMT -6
So Microsoft and AT and T are outdated industries huh. AT&T versus Skype-type VOIP technologies, come on now, who do you think will win? You're assertion is that "corporations" hold back innovation, in some sort of Green'ish way. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype#Historyen.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBaySays here Ebay is a public company, incorporated. I don't follow the geeky Microsoft Borg O.S. vs. Linux debate very well, sorry. And guess where the space program is today, still at square one. Not because of any market mechanisms, or if it's profitable not, but because chemical rocket engines invented by the Nazis in WW2 are pretty weak. Economics doesn't trump science, and it never will; and neither will economics trump God, never will. ...you didn't hear a single word I said, but hey that's life. And I do live in Phoenix, and it was more around 115, and photovoltaics on the roof will not have enough current to operate AC. At sundown it was around 100, no sun, how would that help if I had photovoltaics on the roof (assuming it would create enough juice at high-noon to run the AC for the entire house which it would NOT).
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Post by jacquelope on Jul 6, 2011 9:11:28 GMT -6
Night time is an obvious weakness for commercially available solar tech. However, night time solar is already being developed and I'm sure you've heard of the 26 hour day and night flight that one pilot took in a solar-powered plane, right?
You tell me that roof solar cannot operate air conditioning, well I have solar on my roof and it gives me enough juice to operate my AC here. I am walking the walk here, my money is where my mouth is.
As a matter of fact a quick Google shows links to solar powered central and room air conditioning options all over the place. When it gets hot we get into one room and direct the cooling there and shut off vents elsewhere. We do it a lot in the summer, it's doable. It's better than having nothing when the monsoon winds take down the power lines.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 6, 2011 14:31:56 GMT -6
Night time is an obvious weakness for commercially available solar tech. However, night time solar is already being developed and I'm sure you've heard of the 26 hour day and night flight that one pilot took in a solar-powered plane, right? So you're going to have a gigantic solar panel, on a gimble (so it points at the sun), and have it charge a bunch of large hydrogen fuel cells during the day so you have electricity during the night (which is usually when people get home cause they work all day). So you got several million dollars to piss down the drain huh, very green of you; there are people starving and in pain but golly at least you're going Green. Gosh I didn't know they came in a package. So you can only run a tiny wall AC unit, on a perfectly sunny day, close the doors, and you can't run anything else or you get a brownout. I bet it barely keeps one small room cool. AC compressors draw massive amounts of current, even tiny wall units, I seriously doubt you could get anything like what you are talking about working. What did you buy? What's the model number? Where do you live?
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 6, 2011 14:55:59 GMT -6
You know what would happen if 1 million Phoenix residents suddenly installed 10 or so meters of photovoltaics on each rooftop; dark, almost black, photovoltaics on their rooftops instead of light colored shingles? It would create an urban heat island of hellish proportions. During the day there would be a permanent thermal updraft adding to the ground windspeed before hitting the urban heat island creating nonstop dust storms from all the surrounding areas until there is no topsoil left. Then the Greens would whine about the dust storms and no topsoil.
The thermal updraft would permanently alter weather patterns and probably reach the jetstream. Then the Greens would then whine about altering the weather.
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Post by jacquelope on Jul 6, 2011 19:15:16 GMT -6
You know what would happen if 1 million Phoenix residents suddenly installed 10 or so meters of photovoltaics on each rooftop; dark, almost black, photovoltaics on their rooftops instead of light colored shingles? It would create an urban heat island of hellish proportions. During the day there would be a permanent thermal updraft adding to the ground windspeed before hitting the urban heat island creating nonstop dust storms from all the surrounding areas until there is no topsoil left. Then the Greens would whine about the dust storms and no topsoil. The thermal updraft would permanently alter weather patterns and probably reach the jetstream. Then the Greens would then whine about altering the weather. I'll answer one of your questions above: I'm in El Dorado Hills using a fairly recent SunChill / Unirac upgrade. Actually, the updraft theory and potential urban heat island problem is worth looking into.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 7, 2011 0:00:40 GMT -6
The 240 Watt per 1.6 square meters solar panel. Price $1,440.00 BUT WAIT! If you act now you will get a reduced price of $879.00 (wiring, inverter not included) 240 Watts. And that's in ideal conditions pointing directly at the sun. So in ideal conditions. 3500 watts Central Air Conditioner (2.5 tons) 14.6 (23 square meters of solar panel) 1440 watts Window unit AC, huge 6 (9.6 square meters of solar panel) 900 watts Window unit AC, medium 3.75 ......... 500 watts Tiny-ass window unit AC 2.1 .......... *opens up back of computer* 700 watt power supply on computer. I'd need 3 of those 1.6 square meter solar panels running at high noon to run this computer, and probably 4-5-6 of those 1.6 meter solar panels when it isn't high noon, unless I got those solar panels on a big gimble that turns with the sun. So how many of those solar panels would I need if I wanted to run the AC, computer, and a microwave simultaneously without browning out?
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 7, 2011 0:18:23 GMT -6
Batteries.
When I drove truck (6 car batteries in a battery pack), I could run my laptop for about 3 hours off an inverter (about 300 watt inverter) before getting a brownout and have to start engine to recharge batteries. So lets see, hmmm, if I wanted to run a 900 watt medium sized AC unit, I'd have to triple the number of batteries to 18 car batteries and be limited to running my AC, and only my AC, for 3 hours.
There is lots of energy loss in charging a battery, probably by like 25%. So I'd need about 1,200 watts of solar panel, about 9 extra square meters of solar panels just to recharge 18 car batteries to only be able to run medium wall sized AC for 3 hours when it's dark, and only the AC.
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Post by jacquelope on Jul 7, 2011 19:35:34 GMT -6
You make some good points fredorbob, and people who use or advocate solar are aware of (or should be aware of) these issues. We are in agreement on that. The world isn't ready yet to dump utility power totally and replace it with solar. It must be done gradually, with the help of residential subsidies and a continued reliance on grid power. There is also the option of biodiesel powered generators and filtered waste veggie oil. And batteries can always help, 25% energy loss or not.
But if your utility power goes out in the middle of the day at 118F, which did happen in your town, and you have solar on your roof and a battery bank, you have at least some air conditioning available. At worst, it's one room with a small room-type AC. But what options do you have when you rely on grid power and no solar, and you're one of the 4000 houses whose power went out? I'm not sure how the latter option is somehow better.
Also in 118F temperatures who would run the AC, the computer and the microwave? Wouldn't your primary concern be using the AC to avoid heat stroke? I thought that electric companies advise residents to use fewer appliances in situations like that. Wouldn't the utility power grid suffer a huge amount of strain when it's 118F and thousands of air conditioners are on while legions of microwaves and 700W PSU computers are running at the same time? I thought this was known to stress and even overwhelm power grids, especially if you are a customer of low grade companies like Pepco (Potomac Electric), which is infamous for its power outages. I worked at a data center until recently and I oversaw voluntarily shutdowns during the summer heat waves when it got over 110 (2005, IIRC). We had tons of advisories going around then, and that wasn't even during the rolling blackout Enron energy scam years.
After reading your post about urban heat islands, I went and called the guys who installed my solar and asked them about heat islands. There's a lot of debate on PV's and their contribution to urban heat islands, but they say solar thermal panels (which aren't the same as PV panels, and I've been trying to get my hands on thermal panels for half a year now) are more efficient than PV, are made of recyclable components (copper, aluminum, glass, etc.), they take just a year and a half to pay for themselves.... plus they apparently reduce urban heat island issues. However, the documentation to back these speculations up is not easily coming in online searches.
Oh and on a site note... 700W power supply. *shakes head* I have one of those, too. I used to have an 850. I am always looking for ways to get the same value out of lower wattage. It's not easy. Getting the same performance for less wattage is one field that society really needs to do more research and innovation into.
I'm sorry that the population control Malthusian regresso-greens hijacked the solar, alternative energy and energy efficiency debate. They've made the entire greater movement of conservation and green energy look bad with their antics and now we're all paying the price of their extremism. But when the monsoon winds take down your power lines, I just don't see how you have options to cool yourself down, and at 118F I certainly do not see any American power grid (much less anyone else's!) holding up if everyone's using AC + computers + microwaves.
Come back in 5 years and let's see how many watts a 1.6 square meter solar panel will produce.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 7, 2011 19:57:00 GMT -6
You make some good points fredorbob, and people who use or advocate solar are aware of (or should be aware of) these issues. We are in agreement on that. The world isn't ready yet to dump utility power totally and replace it with solar. It must be done gradually, with the help of residential subsidies and a continued reliance on grid power. There is also the option of biodiesel powered generators and filtered waste veggie oil. And batteries can always help, 25% energy loss or not. But if your utility power goes out in the middle of the day at 118F, which did happen in your town, and you have solar on your roof and a battery bank, you have at least some air conditioning available. At worst, it's one room with a small room-type AC. But what options do you have when you rely on grid power and no solar, and you're one of the 4000 houses whose power went out? I'm not sure how the latter option is somehow better. Also in 118F temperatures who would run the AC, the computer and the microwave? Wouldn't your primary concern be using the AC to avoid heat stroke? I thought that electric companies advise residents to use fewer appliances in situations like that. Wouldn't the utility power grid suffer a huge amount of strain when it's 118F and thousands of air conditioners are on while legions of microwaves and 700W PSU computers are running at the same time? I thought this was known to stress and even overwhelm power grids, especially if you are a customer of low grade companies like Pepco (Potomac Electric), which is infamous for its power outages. I worked at a data center until recently and I oversaw voluntarily shutdowns during the summer heat waves when it got over 110 (2005, IIRC). We had tons of advisories going around then, and that wasn't even during the rolling blackout Enron energy scam years. Voluntary shutdowns huh, in California too. Gee I wonder if the Green agenda had something to do with it. Instead of spending a hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars per resident for what-if-the-power-goes-out scenario, turning every resident into their own power generating station, it would be better to not let rolling blackouts happen in the first place. We, the non-Californian's-of-America don't have rolling blackouts. Like they'd know anything about it. Oh god. It's a matter of physics. It's really quite simple, no need to get all technical. Look at a satellite photo of an area, a darker color will absorb more thermal radiation, a lighter color will reflect more. Any type of solar will absorb 100% of thermal radiation and not reflect it back into space or atmosphere, and anyone pro-solar Green worth their salt knows that the amount of thermal radiation hitting every square meter of earth is significant. Moore's law includes the theoretical limit, just like the internal combustion engine has a theoretical limit. Moore's law states that processing power doubles every 2 years, solar panels output have not doubled every 2 years, they haven't even doubled in 20 years.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 7, 2011 20:22:56 GMT -6
A perfect reflector of visible light is a mirror (white colors are close) A perfect absorber of visible light is black color Metals reflect infrared Pretty much anything absorbs infrared (colors don't matter) That graph may look like there is more infrared radiation than visible light but it's not true. Higher wavelength photons have more energy than lower wavelength photons, so visible light is pretty much high up there on the totem pole on solar irradiance importance which is why the Global Warmists are so comical. If Global Warming were to truly be a serious threat all we would have to do is paint the ground white. If an ice age were to truly be a serious threat, fly a few 747's over Antartica with a bunch of black coal dust and paint the ground black.
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Post by graybeard on Jul 7, 2011 21:19:47 GMT -6
What is your source for battery charge/discharge efficiency you quoted, FOB?
Paint the ground white? Yeh, sure. Where you gonna' get the paint to cover just the 3.5 Million square miles of CONUS?
Part of the GW problem is the ice melting off the permafrost and revealing vegetation that absorbs more heat.
It would be better to plant bamboo and kudzu and other fast growing greenery to absorb more CO2. We should also stop subsidizing things like cotton that take water from the aquifers and give us nothing in return.
GB
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Post by waltc on Jul 7, 2011 22:38:03 GMT -6
I've been waiting since Carter put Solar panels on the White House for them to be economically viable on their own.
They haven't even met that goal in 35 years despite billions poured into them. They still need massive taxpayer subsidizes for people to buy them.
Here's what a do it yourself home solar kit costs via Lowes:
1300 Watt system: $8025.00
Most people couldn't install it own their own, so factor in a contractor - another $2+ k.
You could run a swamp cooler(cools 800 sq ft.) and the fridge. But that's it. It's good for a bungalo or apartment. And when nightfall happens, you're screwed.
Even as a backup system it's only marginally good since it only works in daytime.
You'd still need a back up generator for night say a Briggs and Stratton system with transfer switch, etc. And it will run you around $3-4k.
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Post by jacquelope on Jul 8, 2011 0:34:03 GMT -6
First, I don't think Moore's Law applies to solar. A different, less dramatic law of exponential improvements applies to solar. But it is exponential, and it does follow a log curve. Instead of spending a hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars per resident for what-if-the-power-goes-out scenario, turning every resident into their own power generating station, it would be better to not let rolling blackouts happen in the first place. True. So how did that work out for the 4000 Phoenix residents whose power went out when they needed it the most? Uhhh, really? I'm not saying non-Californians have more rolling blackouts than California, but to say they don't have rolling blackouts is untrue. I'm not sure if the Department of Energy is in on the green movement or not, but the DOE says that solar efficiency has more than doubled in 20 years, a 7 percent reduction in cost per kwh per year. In fact, it is on an exponential curve. The costs to residents are also going down as a result, including installation. The DoE projects solar energy may be as cheap as today's fossil fuel power prices by 2020, and twice as cheap by 2030. The current log curves over the last 30 years support that. We do not, of course, know when the law of diminishing returns will be triggered, and who knows what the cost of poly-silicon will do, during that time? It was the poly-silicon market that caused the recent speed bump in solar efficiency gains; this was made up for, and then some, after 2008. Still, see the information and graphs in this link: www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=smaller-cheaper-faster-does-moores-2011-03-15I don't think this would show up in SciAm if it were BS, much less spouted by the Department of Energy. If the Greens hadn't epic failed and made all solar advocacy look bad I think more people would have gotten behind it, given its exponential improvements and the potential for more American jobs.For an economic populist like me, it's the potential for more American jobs that matters the most. I've been waiting since Carter put Solar panels on the White House for them to be economically viable on their own. They haven't even met that goal in 35 years despite billions poured into them. They still need massive taxpayer subsidizes for people to buy them. Uhm, you pay for subsidies for the energy industry, too. Take oil-based power, for starters. You pay for that. Consider, on first glance, the cost of the military we pay to protect our oil interests. Our war on terror, all of that, nothing but a big scheme to protect our access to oil. That's all taxpayer funded subsidies. Then there are Government subsidies for coal, too. Big subsidies, mounting into the billions. I don't get why people refer to fossil fuel power as cheap. Take coal for instance. Many of the tangible, measurable costs are not tallied on your electric bill: acid rain, damage to water supplies... and when was the last time you visited the store and saw salmon sold without a mercury warning? You can thank coal for that. With coal, a lot of the price you pay isn't tallied on your bill. And clean coal? TVA in 2008, anyone? The issue with solar is you pay almost all, if not absolutely all of the costs of solar based electricity up front, aka front-loading. The costs of coal power and oil power are not all factored into your gasoline pump prices or your coal powered electric bill. If the subsidies for coal and oil alone were removed your bill would be WAY higher. In the future, the only real contest is solar vs nuclear. Oh and one other telltale thing about solar: solar panels increase the value of a home. By the cost of the solar system, or greater.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 8, 2011 7:56:12 GMT -6
What is your source for battery charge/discharge efficiency you quoted, FOB? Paint the ground white? Yeh, sure. Where you gonna' get the paint to cover just the 3.5 Million square miles of CONUS? Part of the GW problem is the ice melting off the permafrost and revealing vegetation that absorbs more heat. It would be better to plant bamboo and kudzu and other fast growing greenery to absorb more CO2. We should also stop subsidizing things like cotton that take water from the aquifers and give us nothing in return. GB First of all there is no global warming, second, it would be cheaper to paint 3.5 million square miles white than to do what these eco-terrorists are suggesting.
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 8, 2011 8:26:29 GMT -6
First, I don't think Moore's Law applies to solar. A different, less dramatic law of exponential improvements applies to solar. But it is exponential, and it does follow a log curve. Actually the opposite is happening, it's an inverse log curve, a very flat inverse log curve. Efficiency is flattening out and tapering off (hitting the theoretical limits). 4.1 million people live in the Phoenix area. 1 out of 1,000 people lost power for a few hours, are you going to bankrupt the whole city so 1 out of 1,000 don't lose power for a few hours? The DOE is damaged goods, full of Green liberals, it doesn't matter what they say. So what, a small percentage loss doesn't make up for the huge cost.
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Post by graybeard on Jul 8, 2011 8:35:40 GMT -6
Again, what is your source for battery charge/discharge efficiency you quoted, FOB?
GB
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Post by jacquelope on Jul 8, 2011 19:33:53 GMT -6
Uh, Fred, that link you posted that says PV cells are made using mercury and lead also says "The researchers found that producing electricity from solar cells reduces air pollutants by about 90 percent in comparison to using conventional fossil fuel technologies." And the TVA does build/manage more than hydroelectric dams. It also runs supposedly "clean coal" power plants. There was a big sludge spill from one of their "clean coal" plants in 2008. The Kingston plant, at the time the largest coal power plant in the world, spilled a billion gallons of sequestered toxic wet coal ash (the sequestering is why they call it "clean coal") into the river. So far a billion dollars has been marked to be flushed down the drain to clean that up. How many solar disasters have you heard of? If you discredit the Department of Energy as a credible source of facts then I really don't know what to say. What authority do you count as credible? And how is this solar PV cost curve in any way flattening out? www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/blog/Image/naam-solar-moore_s-law-2.jpg
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Post by fredorbob on Jul 8, 2011 20:36:14 GMT -6
Again, what is your source for battery charge/discharge efficiency you quoted, FOB? GB Wow, my wild random guess was closer to the mark then I thought. www.futurepundit.com/archives/006554.htmlI guessed 25%, how about the real number of 26% for Lithium-Ion batteries on the Tesla Roadster. I must have read something like 10 years ago about battery efficiency and remembered 1/4th. Now for regular lead acid batteries which are probably more inefficient. I'd guess they take 33% more energy to charge then you can get out of them....hmmmm let me look that up. unlawflcombatnt.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=oil&thread=9257&page=1
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