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We're going to need a lot of solar panels

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Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#171

Post by kragen »

thatcat wrote: post #148
kragen wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article we're commenting on is about a moderately efficient way to transport power from a very sunny place to another location where the loads are: you manufacture methane in the sunny place and then ship it to where the load is, either through a pipeline, through a liquefaction terminal, or after an additional process step such as hydroxylating it into methanol. This also provides long-term grid-scale energy sto…

Piping ch4 would lead to release from all the inevitable pipe line leaks and limit the reduction in carbon emission.

I think it would reduce the reduction in carbon emission by some percentage, but since we're talking about direct air capture rather than point-source capture, it wouldn't limit the reduction in carbon emission.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#172

Post by eternityforest »

pas wrote: post #108
adaml_623 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is that humanity has saved up a few trillion for emergencies. The bad news is that it's been saved up and hidden in tax havens. Pity

the problem is the allocation of the resources in the real economy. the copper production goes somewhere currently. if half of that suddenly would go to making these super long distance cables that would cause brutal inflation for a lot of things that depend on copper. (sure, eventually it would increase supply too.)

A lot of copper goes to nonelectrical uses that could probably go away.

Whenever I see something mechanical made of bronze or something it always looks like a real waste. New finishes and coatings look pretty good and composites are strong and corrosion resistant, and steel is cheaper.

Not everything can be replaced but some can.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#173

Post by thangalin »

flatline wrote: post #164
acidburnNSA wrote: post #144

You could satisfy the world current demand for energy by covering 0.08% of the Sahara Desert with nuclear power plants.

And my 11 year old daughter says that Jeff Bezos could solve world hunger if he just gave away part of his fortune. Unfortunately the world doesn’t work that way.

He did give away part of his fortune. Twice. As you implied, hunger remains unsolved.

* https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/20/media/van-jones-bezos-100-mil...

* https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/jeff-bezo...

I'm working on a sci-fi book wherein a young girl solves world hunger; alpha readers wanted (see profile).

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#174

Post by walrus01 »

kragen wrote: post #170
walrus01 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With bulk PV panels by the pallet already at something like $0.42 per STC watt the majority of a residential or small commercial install is already dominated by the cost of labor and other components. I could theoretically go out and buy a pallet load of twenty, 360W rated, 72 cell panels at something like $160 per piece, costing something like $3,200 + $400 LTL freight. But it's going to cost way more than that to p…

I think the situation is even more extreme than you say. https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preis... has €0.43 per watt peak (STC watt) only for high-efficiency panels, the kind you buy when you're tight on space (or the cost of your installation is dominated by the cost of labor, as you say). "Mainstream" is €0.33/Wp and "low cost" is €0.22/Wp. Also, these costs seem to be much higher as a result…

I was basing that off a fairly pessimistic cost of $0.42 USD/STC watt for a single pallet quantity. Going well beyond single pallet quantities the cost drops quite a lot.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#175

Post by dqpb »

oceanplexian wrote: post #13
walrus01 wrote: post #4

We're going to need a lot of solar panels and an efficient way to transport power from a very sunny place to another location where the loads are. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie The pacific DC intertie right now often ends up being used to transport power from hydroelectric dams in WA/OR to California. But there's nothing to say that something couldn't function the other way if there…

On one hand it’s an interesting engineering challenge, but I am always perplexed how covering hundreds of square km of an ecosystem with glass is “good for the environment”. It sounds like something future generations will shake their heads at while trying to dispose of all the toxic waste.

We’ve already desertified tens of thousands of square km of land into parking lots / heat sinks. We could start by shading those abominations with solar panels.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#176

Post by walrus01 »

lotharcable wrote: post #123
ben_w wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A global grid was my favourite solution until recently. The problem is that it needs the combined cables to have cross section in the order of a few (3?) square meters (at 640 kV), and that in turn is in the order of 52 years of global copper production (we make more aluminium than copper but Al is a worse conductor). Using even higher voltages makes everything much easier, and the cables’ combined cross sections may…

Money != Wealth You can go ahead and force every billionaire to sell off everything they own and hand it to the government and all you end up with is a one time boost to government tax receipts. That's it. One time boost. Next year those billionaires will be gone. There won't be new ones. And it won't create any more food. It won't solve shortages. It won't create more solar panels. It won't create 1 mile of copper l…

>Because when the government goes and says "I need 40 million acres of solar panels"... Who is going to do that? Where is that going to come from?

1) the empty arid land where we would put 40 million acres of solar panels is for the most part already owned by a state or national level government. go look at a map of how much of nevada is controlled by the BLM for instance.

2) governments already pay for electrical generation through nuclear power plants, building hydroelectric dams, etc. the question would be to apply that same money to building giant ground mount PV instead.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#177

Post by megablast »

oceanplexian wrote: post #13
walrus01 wrote: post #4

We're going to need a lot of solar panels and an efficient way to transport power from a very sunny place to another location where the loads are. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie The pacific DC intertie right now often ends up being used to transport power from hydroelectric dams in WA/OR to California. But there's nothing to say that something couldn't function the other way if there…

On one hand it’s an interesting engineering challenge, but I am always perplexed how covering hundreds of square km of an ecosystem with glass is “good for the environment”. It sounds like something future generations will shake their heads at while trying to dispose of all the toxic waste.

Wait until you hear about roads.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#178

Post by Aeolun »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #155
Retric wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is making the classic mistake of assuming exponential trends continue indefinitely. Solar installs are becoming dominated by non solar panel costs. Some of those can continue to get cheaper, but land costs for example aren’t dropping. As to long distance power transmission and solar, it’s less about local vs long distance transmission of power but redundancy of generation. Batteries you discharge nightly v…

Moore's law will eventually stop, too. But people have been predicting the end for 50 years and it still looks like it has at least another 10 to go. It seems quite clear that solar costs will continue to drop exponentially until the end of the decade, which is all the author's assumptions need. Land in a desert can cost as little as a few hundred dollars per acre, so it's far from being a dominant factor. And in oth…

I mean, it is our best/easiest bet for future power generation. I can totally see why more money keeps being pumped into it.

Either more efficient panels, cheaper panels, or simply a greater manufacturing capacity are all fine for securing the energy needs of the planet.

And we won’t have to worry about running out anytime in the next billion years or so.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#179

Post by tambourine_man »

It’s been a while since I’ve read something that made me feel as excited and optimistic. I hope it pans out.

It feels like early Intel days, seeing what costs would be if sales were orders of magnitude more than what they are and start selling at those prices now. A self-fulfilling prophecy of supply and demand.

Re: We're going to need a lot of solar panels

#180

Post by StevenWaterman »

osigurdson wrote: post #32

>> but the energy demands are astronomical Maybe not the best idea then.

If energy production is increasing exponentially, an astronomical demand very quickly becomes manageable and then trivial

The computation demands for a computer to beat humans at chess were astronomical, and then suddenly they were manageable (and it happened, quite publicly), and now Deep Blue loses to a Raspberry Pi

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