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

Post by onemoreact » Tue, Mar 13, 2012, 7:28 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #71

onemoreact wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, as long as the tax is inline with the actual external costs it of other forms of energy generation it's not a bad thing. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality ) It's basically renaming a sin tax as a green subsidy but there is value in having that tax even if it's revenue is mostly wasted.

I agree in principle with the idea that carbon-based energy has a ton of negative externalities (megatons, in fact...), so there should exist a relative subsidy between it and green. The issue is that creates even distortion between the energy sector as a whole and the rest of the economy, since fossil fuels are already subsidized (through not pricing in the negative externality) and we're adding a separate subsidy t…

Post by jrwoodruff » Tue, Mar 13, 2012, 7:33 PM UTC

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…

Post by cgoddard » Tue, Mar 13, 2012, 7:48 PM UTC

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…

Post by SpiderX » Tue, Mar 13, 2012, 7:52 PM UTC

tomkinstinch wrote: post #54

ChuckMcM wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the particle accelerator is pretty cool, of course transporting power around the globe is not as easy as stringing a wire, for every mile of wire you lose power due to the resistance of the wire. This is the problem of 'power transmission'. This is the same reason you can't build nuclear power plants in the middle of a desert 500 miles from anywhere and ship the power out sadly. That being said, at .40/watt y…

We can build power plants in the middle of the desert and ship power out. The technology exists; we just haven't done it yet. Transmission losses are not a concern for superconducting cables (though maintaining the cryostat jacket is). Such cables are currently being proven before being used in larger grid connections. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/superconduc... http://www.htstriax.com/columbus.ht…

Post by nofinator » Tue, Mar 13, 2012, 7:55 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #41

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…

The idea that solar, wind and geothermal energy can replace nuclear power for electricity generation in my lifetime (the next 35 years) ignores the reality of how much electricity we consume and how it is currently generated. Here's a link to a graph created by the Lawrence Livermore Lab that quickly illustrates the miniscule impact of doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the three primary alternative energy sourc…