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Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

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Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#71

Post by Schroedingersat »

kdbeall_ wrote: post #70
Schroedingersat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're fifteen years out of date. A 2022 PERC cell has an EBPT of about 3-6 months and can be recycled after 30 years into a slightly worse cell which will last another 30 years. Only wind comes close.

> A 2022 PERC cell has an EBPT of about 3-6 months Okay, so there's a new solar cell that is slightly better and perhaps can be manufactured a little cheaper. Great! So what? You have failed to take into account the burden of energy storage. The capacity factor for solar is an abysmal ~20% if not ~10% in some localities. Wind can have a superior capacity factor of up to ~50%. Energy storage is the constraint.

Renewables can provide about 30% of world electricity with no storage. Cheap storage like thermal (so the cheapest sand) and concentrating solar (even better EROI, comes with 12hr storage and is getting close to the price of gas) can make it provide another 20% of electricity and the 20-30% of primary energy that is low grade heat.

PWRs can provide about 30% of world electricity and that same low grade heat and then you run out of Uranium. It also requires overprovision or storage for fluctuating demand and planned downtime and has correlated failures on the order of weeks or months. A capacity factor of Even with current storage technologies the nuclear option costs more than adding enough storage to cover the next 30% with renewables.

Also your initial conceit was putting a solar panel on a 1 week battery to suppliment its input by a few miles a day. The constraint here is efficiency, daily mileage, travel velocity and area. You're welcome to keep bringing up boring predictable reactionary lies (I'm guessing something about density while ignoring the difference between fertile and fissile is next, then MOX, then breeders, then sea mining, then lies about mining), but this point has been fully addressed.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#72

Post by kdbeall_ »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #71
kdbeall_ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A 2022 PERC cell has an EBPT of about 3-6 months Okay, so there's a new solar cell that is slightly better and perhaps can be manufactured a little cheaper. Great! So what? You have failed to take into account the burden of energy storage. The capacity factor for solar is an abysmal ~20% if not ~10% in some localities. Wind can have a superior capacity factor of up to ~50%. Energy storage is the constraint.

Renewables can provide about 30% of world electricity with no storage. Cheap storage like thermal (so the cheapest sand) and concentrating solar (even better EROI, comes with 12hr storage and is getting close to the price of gas) can make it provide another 20% of electricity and the 20-30% of primary energy that is low grade heat. PWRs can provide about 30% of world electricity and that same low grade heat and then…

> then you run out of uranium

Won't happen anytime soon. There's a lot. We have a century's worth, and the uranium price could easily be three times higher, without hardly an impact to utilities, and unlock more reserves and exploration.

> capacity factor of This not an indictment of nuclear power as a whole. American nuclear reactors have a ~90% capacity factor.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/data-and-statist...

> Cheap storage like thermal (so the cheapest sand)

Won't be effective for producing electricity. Might only be ~30% efficient.

> far worse than new offshore wind

Wind is reasonable but don't forget that reactors can last a ridiculously long time ~75 years. Wind turbines might only last ~20 years in a corrosive environment.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#73

Post by Schroedingersat »

kdbeall_ wrote: post #72
Schroedingersat wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables can provide about 30% of world electricity with no storage. Cheap storage like thermal (so the cheapest sand) and concentrating solar (even better EROI, comes with 12hr storage and is getting close to the price of gas) can make it provide another 20% of electricity and the 20-30% of primary energy that is low grade heat. PWRs can provide about 30% of world electricity and that same low grade heat and then…

> then you run out of uranium Won't happen anytime soon. There's a lot. We have a century's worth, and the uranium price could easily be three times higher, without hardly an impact to utilities, and unlock more reserves and exploration. > capacity factor of This not an indictment of nuclear power as a whole. American nuclear reactors have a ~90% capacity factor. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/data-and-s…

Oh we're doing the thing where you lie about things that have already been addressed

> Won't happen anytime soon. There's a lot. We have a century's worth, and the uranium price could easily be three times higher, without hardly an impact to utilities, and unlock more reserves and exploration.

A century at 300GW. Quadruple that and it's 25 years. Replace 2/3rds of electricity and it's under 20. And those are reserves at a price 3 times higher. New lower level reserves will be even more expensive to the point where the LCOE of solar is around the raw uranium price.

> Won't be effective for producing electricity. Might only be ~30% efficient.

...Which is why I suggested it for the 20-30% of primary energy that is low grade heat where it is 100% efficient.

> This not an indictment of nuclear power as a whole. American nuclear reactors have a ~90% capacity factor.

If you want the anomalous US reliability, then you can't pretend you're going to pay historic french or japanese prices. Also what's the capacity factor of US nuclear reactors where construction started this century?

> Wind is reasonable but don't forget that reactors can last a ridiculously long time ~75 years. Wind turbines might only last ~20 years in a corrosive environment.

When individual unplanned repairs, or regular planned maintenance for a decade, or mid life refurbs cost more than an entire new wind turbine, this is a massive downside, not an upside. Pre-paying for 75 years worth of electricity rather than 25 means you can only build out a third of the capacity (or a twelfth given the much higher user facing cost per kWh even if you can find the cash to keep hiding the larger hidden costs)

But before you can start gaslighting about the economics you have to demonstrate that it's physically possible. Which you have not done.

Nuclear can make a small contribution, but it cannot meet the scale of renewables.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#74

Post by kdbeall_ »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #73
kdbeall_ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then you run out of uranium Won't happen anytime soon. There's a lot. We have a century's worth, and the uranium price could easily be three times higher, without hardly an impact to utilities, and unlock more reserves and exploration. > capacity factor of This not an indictment of nuclear power as a whole. American nuclear reactors have a ~90% capacity factor. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/data-and-s…

Oh we're doing the thing where you lie about things that have already been addressed > Won't happen anytime soon. There's a lot. We have a century's worth, and the uranium price could easily be three times higher, without hardly an impact to utilities, and unlock more reserves and exploration. A century at 300GW. Quadruple that and it's 25 years. Replace 2/3rds of electricity and it's under 20. And those are reserves…

> New lower level reserves will be even more expensive to the point where the LCOE of solar is around the raw uranium price.

No. From the World Nuclear Association, "doubling the uranium price (say from $25 to $50 per lb U3O8) takes the fuel cost up from 0.50 to 0.62 ¢/kWh, an increase of one-quarter, and the expected cost of generation of the best US plants from 1.3 ¢/kWh to 1.42 ¢/kWh (an increase of almost 10%)."

Uranium could easily be $300/lb and nuclear will still be competitive.

> Pre-paying for 75 years worth of electricity rather than 25

Yeah, "electricity" which is intermittent and currently requires Russian and Qatari natgas to load balance... or perhaps you can re-open some coal mines. Pick your poison.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#75

Post by Schroedingersat »

kdbeall_ wrote: post #74
Schroedingersat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh we're doing the thing where you lie about things that have already been addressed > Won't happen anytime soon. There's a lot. We have a century's worth, and the uranium price could easily be three times higher, without hardly an impact to utilities, and unlock more reserves and exploration. A century at 300GW. Quadruple that and it's 25 years. Replace 2/3rds of electricity and it's under 20. And those are reserves…

> New lower level reserves will be even more expensive to the point where the LCOE of solar is around the raw uranium price. No. From the World Nuclear Association, "doubling the uranium price (say from $25 to $50 per lb U3O8) takes the fuel cost up from 0.50 to 0.62 ¢/kWh, an increase of one-quarter, and the expected cost of generation of the best US plants from 1.3 ¢/kWh to 1.42 ¢/kWh (an increase of almost 10%)."…

Uranium is already over $50/lb. Doubling (which isn't even historic highs which were >$120/lb) would add 0.2c/kWh in the best reactors or 0.3-0.4c in the current fleet which is around 15-25% of a solar or good wind project's LCOE. The historic high happened when there was a small shortfall in production in two mines, and you're talking about quadrupling production overnight (because you need around 6 years of fuel to switch it on) just to meet the current pace of renewables.

> Uranium could easily be $300/lb and nuclear will still be competitive.

$300/lb is $14/MWh which would put it precisely a dollar above the PPA price of recent indian and mexican solar projects in the current fleet, or $10/MWh which is projected 2025 prices in a high burnup reactor. Ie. Raw Uranium alone would cost more than renewables total cost whilst still only making up a quarter of the marginal costs and a tenth of the total cost.

> Yeah, "electricity" which is intermittent and currently requires Russian and Qatari natgas to load balance... or perhaps you can re-open some coal mines. Pick your poison.

Replacing 50% of electricity and 30% of primary energy without any electrical storage at all is still double what is possible with nuclear which will require that gas and coal to be running 24/7. 4 hour storage and more variable loads (like replacing fossil ammonia) can push this up to quadruple the maximum physically possible contribution from PWRs.

Also before you start gaslighting about storage you need to demonstrate that PWRs can do better than renewables with no storage if the PWR has 0 capex or build time, or that nuclear doesn't need 4 hour storage for meeting variable loads. Which you haven't.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#76

Post by Schroedingersat »

Grim-444 wrote: post #47
andrewmutz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a $30K car with a range of 190 miles and can charge itself 40 miles a day in optimal conditions. I live in southern california and I drive about 20 miles a day under normal conditions. Today I have solar panels on my house and a plug-in electric car, but I think the value proposition of a $30K car that I never need to plug in or refuel (during normal conditions) is pretty compelling. The solar panels on my home c…

"can charge itself 40 miles a day in optimal conditions." Using random numbers from Google for a Tesla 3 for an example, it has a 50kWh battery and 305 miles of range. That's 164Wh per mile. 40 miles would require 6,560Wh. Assuming you leave the car in perfect sunlight for a full 8 hours every day, and there's no cloud, and you get 100% sunlight for the entire 8 hours, then you'd need enough panels to produce 6560Wh…

The aptera has 750W of solar panels, so you're pretty close.

It also has about 40% less Cd, half the frontal area, much less powerful motors nd a fraction of the weight. Which is how you get from 8 hours of sunlight to 5.

Real world it's probbably more like 20-30mi

The most likely reason it won't become common is it's legally a motorcycle to get the weight down to something sensible (or has no legal category in some areas) because cars are a regulatory captured nightmare and we're literally not even allowed to have a sane sized vehicle.

The lightyear and sion are much closer to vaporware and their marketing departments are doing the concept a great disservice, but they have over a kW of panels and you could reasonably expect them to be mostly self charging if your commute is short or it's just for errands.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#77

Post by Schroedingersat »

dougmwne wrote: post #28
andrewmutz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a $30K car with a range of 190 miles and can charge itself 40 miles a day in optimal conditions. I live in southern california and I drive about 20 miles a day under normal conditions. Today I have solar panels on my house and a plug-in electric car, but I think the value proposition of a $30K car that I never need to plug in or refuel (during normal conditions) is pretty compelling. The solar panels on my home c…

Outside of the geeky cool factor, what precisely is the value proposition? You say you have solar on your house. So is it that you don't have to remember to plug in? Is that a big deal for most people? What if there was some kind of auto-connect when you pulled into your parking spot? Would that be better than carrying around solar panels that don't point at the sun? I read through the absolute technical limits of so…

Technical limits change. The marketing is kinda dishonest (picking perfect conditions during high latitude mid summer), but 10-20mi/day is achievable in many areas/times.

The main value proposition I see is an urban renter or someone with only outdoor parking (who also drives less than a suburbanite) only needing to seek out a charger once a month (or maybe not at all during summer). It also lowers grid load from this demographic that would otherwise charge over short durations by 30-80%.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#78

Post by Schroedingersat »

dougmwne wrote: post #50
porphyra wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well electricity in the Bay Area costs about $0.50 per kWh (or $0.25 per kWh at night using the ev2-a plan, though it makes everything else more expensive). Having a car that can gradually recharge itself over the day can actually save hundreds of dollars per month (my last bill was like $600), without having to deal with the hassle of installing rooftop solar and having to pay extra money just for having solar insta…

Right but what's the problem with plugging into the solar panels that stay in place?

Renters aren't allowed to put the stationary ones up.

Re: Solar car just toured the US, and will start production next year

#80

Post by FitBoy »

andrewmutz wrote: post #23
snickerer wrote: post #6

Solar cars are scam. They are designed to get funding out of investors with poor understanding of technology. Do some basic math. The electric energy harvested with the solar panels is negligible for transportation. And why should we want to move around solar power plants? It makes much more sense to have them stationary. And to connect them to the power grid to sell the energy to others when the sun shines but the b…

Its a $30K car with a range of 190 miles and can charge itself 40 miles a day in optimal conditions. I live in southern california and I drive about 20 miles a day under normal conditions. Today I have solar panels on my house and a plug-in electric car, but I think the value proposition of a $30K car that I never need to plug in or refuel (during normal conditions) is pretty compelling. The solar panels on my home c…

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