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Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

extremetech.com

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Re: Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

#31

Post by TeMPOraL »

jsilence wrote: post #9
ck2 wrote: post #4

That is some amazing technology right there, almost fun to read because it sounds like science fiction but it's real. And privately designed/built/owned particle accelerators? It's definitely a new era. What if one day the other side of the globe getting sunlight powered the grid for the other half? Of course this would require very peaceful nations on each continent, so even if we had the cost-effective technology n…

Transportation of electricity around the globe is not neccessary. Electricity usage is considerably lower during nighttime. Thus solar and wind fit in with our natural rhythm quite nicely. And it is also produced near the place there it is being consumed. Another plus. But still the author is right, we need ways to store electricity and we will also need a much more flexible grid than the one we have today. The neo l…

> Thus solar and wind fit in with our natural rhythm quite nicely.

It's not that nice, because power output from wind/solar plants is random (depends on things like cloud cover or wind strength) and it causes problems in power grid, where power demand must meet the supply exactly, or bad things will happen.

"Without Hot Air"[1] covers this, and other renewable-related issues quite nicely and with real data. I recommend it, it's a good read. It has some good ideas on how to solve power supply/demand problems.

On TED2012 there was a talk about a new kind of batteries designed to solve those kind of problems in the power grid; the video from the talk is not yet up, though (but I think it should be soon, at [2]).

[1] - http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/

[2] - http://www.ted.com/talks?lang=en&event=2012&duration...

Re: Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

#32

Post by white_devil »

nextparadigms wrote: post #23

This is why I welcomed the backlash and even some of the sensationalism regarding the nuclear explosion in Japan. Even if I realize that nuclear energy could be safe and it's good to have an alternative that is cheap enough to compete with coal, I'd still wish we'd spend all those billions switching from nuclear and putting most of them into renewable energy technologies, which should be the future. The arguments aga…

> if the energy industry changed focus to solar panels and other renewable energy technologies, we would get there a lot faster

This is probably true. But as always, the problem is money. More specifically, the money that entrenched interests possess (and throw around).

I'd love for solar energy to happen as soon as possible too. It shows great promise. But it might not happen for a while.

> Nuclear technology will probably never be gone, or at least not within the next century.

100 years is a mighty long time. Who knows, nuclear reactors might be completely replaced by renewable energy sources within the next fifty years. Let's hope for the best.

Re: Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

#33

Post by TeMPOraL »

I highly recommend reading "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air"[1] to anyone interested in topic of energy sources and use. It covers lots of things mentioned in comments, like storing energy in pump storages or car batteries in order to make solar/wind plants able to provide a big contribution to power grid without breaking it.

What is important, this books talks about those ideas using real data and carefully estimates what's really feasible to do (like, how many pumped storages you'd need if you'd like to switch 50% of your energy sources to solar).

[1] - http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/

Re: Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

#34

Post by ctdonath »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #31
jsilence wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transportation of electricity around the globe is not neccessary. Electricity usage is considerably lower during nighttime. Thus solar and wind fit in with our natural rhythm quite nicely. And it is also produced near the place there it is being consumed. Another plus. But still the author is right, we need ways to store electricity and we will also need a much more flexible grid than the one we have today. The neo l…

> Thus solar and wind fit in with our natural rhythm quite nicely. It's not that nice, because power output from wind/solar plants is random (depends on things like cloud cover or wind strength) and it causes problems in power grid, where power demand must meet the supply exactly, or bad things will happen. "Without Hot Air"[1] covers this, and other renewable-related issues quite nicely and with real data. I recomme…

power output from wind/solar plants is random (depends on things like cloud cover ...) and it causes problems in power grid, where power demand must meet the supply exactly

The biggest power cost for us in warmer climates is cooling. When the sun is out, we need lots of power; when it's not, not so much. Solar power sufficient to run A/C from rooftop panels costing less than grid electricity would be wonderful, lining up perfectly with the inconsistencies of available sunlight.

Re: Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

#36

Post by TeMPOraL »

ctdonath wrote: post #34
TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thus solar and wind fit in with our natural rhythm quite nicely. It's not that nice, because power output from wind/solar plants is random (depends on things like cloud cover or wind strength) and it causes problems in power grid, where power demand must meet the supply exactly, or bad things will happen. "Without Hot Air"[1] covers this, and other renewable-related issues quite nicely and with real data. I recomme…

power output from wind/solar plants is random (depends on things like cloud cover ...) and it causes problems in power grid, where power demand must meet the supply exactly The biggest power cost for us in warmer climates is cooling. When the sun is out, we need lots of power; when it's not, not so much. Solar power sufficient to run A/C from rooftop panels costing less than grid electricity would be wonderful, linin…

Especially if one would switch to heat pumps, which can do both heating and cooling, providing/removing 3 to 5 times more heat than electricity they use up to do so. Amazing technology, by the way :).

Re: Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

#38

Post by ahi »

skittles wrote: post #35

Is there a mistake in the 40 cents per watt cost reported in the article? I work for an energy company and our wind-farm energy is around 4.5 cents per kilowatt .

I suspect your wind-farm energy is around 4.5 cents per kilowatt-hour

edit: napkin math: .40 * 1000 watts = $400/kw Assuming 4380 hours of optimum sunlight per year and lifetime of 10 years ~= .01/kwh Should be competitive even when my ridiculous assumption meets reality.

Re: Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

#39

Post by ender7 »

drucken wrote: post #37

It is not clear if glass as a protective cover is still used or required for final production of solar cells made with this process. Does anyone know?

Almost certainly. You could use another material, such as some clear plastic or epoxy, but the idea is still the same (and glass has the most desirable transmittance properties I believe).

Re: Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

#40

Post by icebraining »

polshaw wrote: post #26
saalweachter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or only burning coal at night. Once solar is significantly cheaper than coal and demand pricing kicks in, a lot of time-shifting of energy use could occur. Right now, night-time electricity is cheaper because demand is lower at night, but if the supply of daylight electricity increases dramatically, any activity which currently benefits from cheap nighttime electricity could be shifted back to the daylight hours. Dat…

To be clear-- the reason energy is cheap at night is not JUST because it is used less-- it is also because there are certain continuous energy sources. Nuclear power, geothermal, tidal, wave and wind power are all producing energy round the clock and if you don't harvest it, it's lost. We are not heading towards a world where we have a single power source (solar), and most of our power uses cannot be rescheduled. As…

You can still store extra energy to buffer those gaps. Where I live, pumped-storage hydroelectricity has probably a great future. Thermal storage seems to reasonably efficient too, although I'm not quite sure how much of what I've seen is a little "too enthusiastic".
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