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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

#141

Post by nitrogen »

jurjenh wrote: post #101
r00fus wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget supercondictivity, what about HVDC [1]? HVDC can be as efficient as 97%, compared with the US average of 93%. That 4% "inefficiency tax" would likely pay for long-haul HVDC connectors (as outlined in one of Obama's 2008 energy proposals) within years. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Adv...

New Zealand has had a 600V HVDC link from the South Island to the North Island for quite some years - most of the power is generated by the hydro lakes in the south, then delivered via a 610km link to a substation in the north, where it is fed into the normal high-voltage transmission grid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Inter-Island So it is a proven technology to have this as a long distance link (been in operat…

I'm curious where you get the "600V" number from -- is that 600 volts? According to the Wikipedia page you linked the system uses "+270kV and −350kV", which is in the range I would expect. Maybe you meant 620kV, the difference between +270kV and -350kV?

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

#142

Post by kragen »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #136
kragen wrote: post #133

The thing I'm puzzled about here is why saving silicon makes your solar cells cheaper. I mean, silicon is really cheap, right? Metallurgical-grade silicon is 77 cents a pound: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/silicon/sil... — and that works out to around a penny a watt. I tried to dig into this a few years ago. Evergreen Solar's 10-K for 2007 http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/947397/00009501350…

This isn't raw silicon, it's spun ingots. The cost is almost entirely from the process they undergo, not the raw materials. From Wikipedia: "A typical wafer is made out of extremely pure silicon that is grown into mono-crystalline cylindrical ingots (boules) up to 300 mm (slightly less than 12 inches) in diameter using the Czochralski process. These ingots are then sliced into wafers about 0.75 mm thick and polished…

Well, first of all, most solar cells are not made from monocrystalline boules; they're made from polycrystalline boules, which are cheaper and faster. Second, I don't think the Czochralski process costs US$400 per kilogram either.

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

#143

Post by blendergasket »

jacquesm wrote: post #122
stfu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's solar stimulus is highly questionable. Sure, it gets solar panels installed on a large scale, but government forced diffusion of an innovation is a questionable idea. Pumping money in a relatively narrow market and creating an artificial demand situation leads to a lot of side effects, i.e. Germany's quasi-stimulation of the Asian component manufacturing market.

Compared to pumping money into pointless wars I think pumping money into subsidized solar panels is an excellent use of money. Sure there are many other ways to spend that money, and some of them may even be better. But this is definitely long term thinking on their part. Already Germany is the current world leader when it comes to renewables as a percentage of total generating power. As the price of power goes up th…

I agree. And when people talk about the money required for solar being so much more than the money required for carbon based fuels they don't take into the costs of controlling the resources in the middle east, the costs to take care of the people with lung problems, the cost of cleaning up the gulf coast and all the problems related to that (not to mention the costs of similar problems worldwide, such as in Nigeria). I'm sure there are similar external costs to solar but I highly doubt they're nearly as much.

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

#144

Post by ajuc »

jacquesm wrote: post #122
stfu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's solar stimulus is highly questionable. Sure, it gets solar panels installed on a large scale, but government forced diffusion of an innovation is a questionable idea. Pumping money in a relatively narrow market and creating an artificial demand situation leads to a lot of side effects, i.e. Germany's quasi-stimulation of the Asian component manufacturing market.

Compared to pumping money into pointless wars I think pumping money into subsidized solar panels is an excellent use of money. Sure there are many other ways to spend that money, and some of them may even be better. But this is definitely long term thinking on their part. Already Germany is the current world leader when it comes to renewables as a percentage of total generating power. As the price of power goes up th…

Germany also shut down sth like 60% of their nuclear power plants in response to Fukushima hysteria, even thought in central Europe there are no tsunami, nor big earthquakes.

Then, January/February this year cold snap happened, and they had to buy power from neighborns that still have regular obsolete power plants, because they couldn't provide enough energy for themselves. Green energy means you hope for good weather or neighborns to have enough electricity.

Germany is now protesting Poland new nuclear power plant, when Poland is trying to change its dependence on fossil fuels (sth lik 96%, I don't remember exactly).

This isn't smart. This is hysteria-motivated energy policy.

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

#145

Post by DennisP »

pjscott wrote: post #131
m_for_monkey wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is that a nuclear power plant needs a staff of several hundred people. They can't travel 500 miles every day to work to the middle of a desert. Even if they wanted to relocate there, they would have to build a little town to serve these people and their families, and now we are back to the original problem.

Other problems with building nuclear plants (or any other type of plant that requires large steam turbines) in the desert include: * Difficulty cooling. If you build next to an ocean or river, you can just use some of that water to provide the cold end of the temperature differential that you're using to generate power. Deserts are trickier, and more expensive. * Transportation. If you build next to navigable waterwa…

Some of the GenIV designs don't require water cooling.

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

#146

Post by stromstad »

justincormack wrote: post #57
dmoo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Store electricity like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_Hill - pump the water uphill during daylight and let it flow down when needed.

Germany has a plan to use Norway as a huge energy store, adding pumping capacity to the hydroelectric plants.

Really? I would be very interested in reading more about this. Got any sources? (Preferably in English or Norwegian ;) )

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

#147

Post by zig »

bigiain wrote: post #126
onemoreact wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these systems both carry power and sit in a pool of coolant so they rarely experience such an 'energetic event'. AKA, if they lose power they don't need to keep things cool AND it usually takes a few hours for things to warm up anyway.

Not a superconducting cable, but this is a great read: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/

Thank you for the link - this was a great read =)

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

#148

Post by maxerickson »

kragen wrote: post #133

The thing I'm puzzled about here is why saving silicon makes your solar cells cheaper. I mean, silicon is really cheap, right? Metallurgical-grade silicon is 77 cents a pound: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/silicon/sil... — and that works out to around a penny a watt. I tried to dig into this a few years ago. Evergreen Solar's 10-K for 2007 http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/947397/00009501350…

If Evergreen is already fairly silicon efficient and doesn't have any labor costs associated with ingots and wafers, it seems hard to draw much information about the implications of this technology from them.

The PVinsights link suggests that wafers are a big chunk of the cost of cells. Depending on how much of current costs are ingot production and how good the relative efficiency of this cutting method is, the wafer could become a small part of the costs of cells. That doesn't justify claims of a 50% cost reduction, but it supports the notion of significant cost reductions.

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

#149

Post by jsilence »

ajuc wrote: post #144
jacquesm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to pumping money into pointless wars I think pumping money into subsidized solar panels is an excellent use of money. Sure there are many other ways to spend that money, and some of them may even be better. But this is definitely long term thinking on their part. Already Germany is the current world leader when it comes to renewables as a percentage of total generating power. As the price of power goes up th…

Germany also shut down sth like 60% of their nuclear power plants in response to Fukushima hysteria, even thought in central Europe there are no tsunami, nor big earthquakes. Then, January/February this year cold snap happened, and they had to buy power from neighborns that still have regular obsolete power plants, because they couldn't provide enough energy for themselves. Green energy means you hope for good weathe…

Sorry, but you are not correct. During the very cold days this winter it was very sunny. Because of this, Photovoltaic could compensate. It went through the local media, that even though most of the nukuhlar powerplants were shut down, we could still export (!) electricity to our neighours. For exmple to France, where they are heating a lot with electricity and had a shortage because of the cold.

Bazinga!

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

#150

Post by jsilence »

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…

I meant that it is nice in the coarse pattern. And yes, as said, we need ways to store energy and a flexible grid.
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