We're going to need a lot of solar panels • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:02 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #152

WalterBright wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High taxes always drive capital away into unproductive tax havens. Reagan's achievement was to eliminate tax shelters in exchange for lower tax rates. This pulled the investment out of those unproductive shelters into productive activities, leading to the prosperity of the 80s.

Prosperity of the 80s? You mean the era that signalled the end of the post-war golden age of capitalism and brought about hyper-financialisation (which led us to the 2008 catastrophe from which we still haven't recovered) and the decline of tax progressiveness and public services (which supercharged wealth inequality back to gilded age levels)? Many of our current problems can be traced back to changes which occurred…

Decline of public services? Government social spending has increased enormously since the 80s.

I'm amused you're blaming 2008 on Reagan.

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

#192

Post by maerF0x0 » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

The amount of solar panes we need was first impressed upon my by David Mackay's "Without Hot Air"[1]. I personally think solar is a useful tool for certain applications, but powering all of humanity with it feels like a step backwards paradigmatically.

Really roughly speak we can think of solar as a step forward in human compatible photosynthesis.

Humanity went to another tier of energy when we started to harness fire with steam and later internal combustion engines.

Electrical transmission is definitely more convenient than moving bags of rice (stored photosynthesis), pipelines of oil and gas (also stored photosynthesis). This electrical grid can also store its energy through various "batteries"(used loosely) with various entropy.

But nuclear power really seems to be the paradigm shift. Instead of being many steps down the chain from solar nuclear to capturing a minuscule portion, we can capture far far more (the majority?) of it for our uses. I feel like we're just so new at it, we're like early mankind using fire burning ourselves, choking on smoke, and generally unsophisticated comparatively to the incredible control and harness of the power one sees in, say, a racing motorcycle -- firing 14k times per second with perfectly controlled, atomized gasoline and air mixture, compressed to exact ratios...

Such a good article, as someone else mentioned it really is an inspiring subject.

[1]: Chapter on solar: https://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml

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

#193

Post by dqpb » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:06 AM UTC

acyou wrote: post #137

In general, increasing the concentration of any product in a closed system requires net energy input across the system boundary. Larger increases in concentration need more energy input than smaller increases of concentration. Concentrating atmospheric CO2 involves increasing the concentration from approx. 400 ppm, to a higher target concentration. That's 0.04%. There is no way around the energy input requirement wit…

Electro-swing absorption works efficiently at ambient levels:

https://verdox.com/technology

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

#194

Post by zbrozek » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:12 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #187

toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. California alone is curtailing enormous amounts of renewables, hundreds of thousands of MWh/month (depending on the season). That is literally clean energy being thrown away (which, depending on system design, is variably tolerable; you're balancing cost, transmission congestion, and renewables offsetting fossil combustion). More transmission, more batteries, more storage, more load shifting (both tempora…

California's oversupply problem is caused by, allow me to guess, fixed 24/7 electricity rates. These fixed rates remove all incentive for load shifting. Make electricity cheap when the sun shines, and expensive at night, and the market will shift demand. There are lots of cheap and easy ways to shift demand, I've outlined several on HN.

In most of California (served by PG&E) it's really expensive during the day, blisteringly expensive in the evening, and really expensive at night.

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

#195

Post by edrxty » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:14 AM UTC

mgerdts wrote: post #60

There's a lot of optimism in this article. Perhaps too much as it seems to gloss over some important details. > Our process works by using solar power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, concentrating CO2 from the atmosphere, then combining CO2 and hydrogen to form natural gas. Then later it talks about how much desert there is, implying it's a great place for low-impact solar. How do the electricity and power c…

Tangential but hits on google isn't really a metric for...anything at all.

For instance, "potatoes cause cancer" give us 14,900,000 results. Potatoes do not cause cancer.

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

#196

Post by defrost » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:17 AM UTC

rektide wrote: post #75

oceanplexian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It'a really weird but there's a surprisingly growing base of farming amid a solar farm, where apparently many plants just cant stand the pure sun & benefit from some periodic shade during the day. I dont know how much I believe it but combined agriculture/solar use seems perhaps legit to be a thing. Also, solar panels dont seem that difficult to recycle. There's already a decent & growing reclaimation market. Giant s…

Solar panels up high can coexist with livestock and feed grass quite well it seems:

> ABC (Australia) RURAL [π]

> Solar farm trial shows improved fleece on merino sheep grazed under panels

> Sheep grazing under solar panels at farms in NSW's Central West have produced better wool and more of it in the four years since the projects began, according to growers.

> Local graziers have labelled the set-up a "complete win-win", with the sheep helping to keep grass and weeds down so as not to obscure the panels.

> In turn, the panels provided shade for the sheep and grass, and helped prevent the soil from drying out.

[π] https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-05-30/solar-farm-graz...

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

#197

Post by amelius » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:18 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #153

The trouble with our current system is that the answer to environmental catastrophe is to make more stuff. And the entities that make the stuff have an incentive to pursue models that see them continue to make that stuff and sell it. Creating a solar panel that never needs to be replaced is a business failure. Selling the same number of electric cars next year, instead of more, is a business failure. Not consuming mo…

Ban advertising, and let the world go back to yellow pages.

A good first step towards solving the overconsumption problem.

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

#198

Post by Hammershaft » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:20 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #147

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

High taxes always drive capital away into unproductive tax havens. Reagan's achievement was to eliminate tax shelters in exchange for lower tax rates. This pulled the investment out of those unproductive shelters into productive activities, leading to the prosperity of the 80s.

Reagan created and governed on unprecedented peacetime deficits caused by his military spending and tax changes. If his policy had any meaningful influence over the economy of the 80s it's likely the massive deficit spending.

That said, the link between presidential policy & short term economic changes is universally overstated. The government can cut down basic research funding and the effects won't be felt for a half century.

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

#199

Post by ChadNauseam » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:20 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #153

The trouble with our current system is that the answer to environmental catastrophe is to make more stuff. And the entities that make the stuff have an incentive to pursue models that see them continue to make that stuff and sell it. Creating a solar panel that never needs to be replaced is a business failure. Selling the same number of electric cars next year, instead of more, is a business failure. Not consuming mo…

> Creating a solar panel that never needs to be replaced is a business failure.

Creating a solar panel that never needed to be replaced and could be manufactured at the same price as less-durable alternatives would make you very rich. Why would anyone buy from your competitors when they can get a more durable panel for the same cost from you?

> Human population is predicted to decline in many parts of the world and this is seen as a massive economic risk, not a boon for the planet. It’s a risk because we’ve all gotten comfy with the guarantee that property we buy will always become worth more over time. Less humans to buy stuff? Unthinkable.

It’s much less sinister than that. Many modern societies are structured under the assumption that there’s many more young people than old people, so the young people can share the load of caring for the elderly who are no longer able to work. When you have a sudden in fertility rates, the ratio of young:old goes down, and each young person has to contribute a larger percentage of their effort into caring for the elderly. That’s not necessarily a pleasant responsibility to put on young people, or a position I’d want to be put in as an older person

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

#200

Post by Willish42 » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 1:21 AM UTC

Wow, this is the most hopeful thing I've read about renewable energy in ... years, maybe ever?

Even ignoring whether the fuel-from-air thing will pan out, the idea posed here that solar will get so cheap that excess energy can be used for stuff like this is insane.

Not only did they explain the implications, but the author does a decent job at showing the math behind all of the insanely optimistic graphs. Thank you for sharing this OP! This is why I come to HN