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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

#421

Post by JohnHaugeland »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #347
dmitriid wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With all due respect, looking at your numbers my hunch is that you need better insulation. With all due respect these are the kinds of "tiny" details that renewable enthusiasts conveniently forget. Yes, this person's house needs better insulation. As does everybody else's . You can't just wave this away with "your math is wrong". These numbers reflect reality, not wishful thinking.

I wish you would expand and clarify the point you are trying to make. Currently it sounds like you are angry at a group of enthusiasts. I think for me and the OP it’s quite clear that optimizations can be made on production and consumption side. And in their circumstances financial reality says that increasing production is much cheaper, while possibly providing extra cash that would enable investment for reducing co…

No post body was provided.

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

#422

Post by betwixthewires »

MildlySerious wrote: post #396
betwixthewires wrote: post #360

All that gas and oil was once a massive biological solar panel, covering much of the ocean, absorbing sunlight, storing it, reproducing, growing only to get subducted and stored for us, like a battery. For a billion years. When I hear people talk about building solar panels to convert water and CO2 into methane gas for its explosive energy potential to meet our needs, mining pits in the ground all over the world, raz…

The problem is more nuanced than that and just throwing out "Population control." is completely meaningless. You could cull three billion people of the lowest emitters and it would have as much of an effect as halving the CO2 emissions of the top 1% of emitters.[1] And considering that to avoid the worst of the climate crisis we need action immediately or as close to it as possible, waiting for people to die away wil…

It's not feasible, because our population is only currently possible due to the availability of energy. We can't have global supply chains, food and medicine moving across the world, much less being produced, without oil and gas. You simply don't reduce energy consumption beyond making TV illegal without starving more than half of the people alive today.

It is by no means a solution, that's kind of my point. There is no solution. We are made of the stuff that is causing this. Something like 68% of the bioavailable nitrogen in your body was produced via the Haber Bosch process. Most of the carbon in your body was produced as a result of fossil fuel extraction.

I didn't use the phrase "population control" because it's disingenuous. What I'm talking about is culling. No matter how you dice it, reducing energy availability, paving vast parts of the world to make up for what little energy we truly need, you're talking about killing billions of people and destroying a significant portion of the living surface of the earth. These are not options. And even if they were, the environmental destruction would be worse, it wouldn't even solve anything.

It doesn't derail the conversation, it is the conversation. I'm not arguing for population control, I think the idea is disgusting. I'm pointing out simply that all these pretty ideas people keep talking about, when you look at the magnitude of the problem, they're not viable solutions. If they're not viable then a conversation talking about them should be derailed because it isn't the conversation we should be having.

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

#423

Post by JohnHaugeland »

beebeepka wrote: post #400
dmitriid wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish you would expand and clarify the point you are trying to make. The problem with people enthusiastically proposing renewables as the cheap solution to our energy needs is the thousand "little" details like the one above. Whose only mention is in the comments like "your math is wrong, invest in insulation". No. The math isn't wrong. Bo, the consumption is correct and shouldn't "should be lower". Because it's d…

Venting is fine but but is there a point you are trying to make? Besides the "some people blah blah" strawman? I shouldn't put solar panels on my roof because it would not fix someone else's problems? What kind of logic is that?

No post body was provided.

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

#424

Post by JohnHaugeland »

stewbrew wrote: post #355
dmitriid wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With all due respect, looking at your numbers my hunch is that you need better insulation. With all due respect these are the kinds of "tiny" details that renewable enthusiasts conveniently forget. Yes, this person's house needs better insulation. As does everybody else's . You can't just wave this away with "your math is wrong". These numbers reflect reality, not wishful thinking.

How is this a tiny detail. We live in a passivhaus. We hardly ever heat. Improving insulation of old houses is an important aspect here. Reducing energy consumption is as important as generating and storing energy.

No post body was provided.

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

#425

Post by ncmncm »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #41
walrus01 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the article, I disagree with the concept of using PV to generate artificial hydrocarbon fuels in general, as not a great business plan. It's not the best use of the technology when we should be bypassing that entirely. Go use excess PV to pump water uphill back into a reservoir or something if you need energy storage, not drive a complicated process to make artificial hydrocarbons to store in a tank and burn i…

Until energy density of batteries improves by a couple orders of magnitude, we're at least going to need hydrocarbons to fly planes, no?

Once hydrogen-powered aircraft move into a route, kerosene craft will be wholly unable to compete, and will be pushed out to less profitable routes.

The hydrogen will be electrolysed from water and liquified right at the airport, from power delivered by HVDC lines.

I expect the LH2 tankage will be in under-wing nacelles alongside the engines. Probably existing airframes can be retrofitted.

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

#426

Post by JohnHaugeland »

hgomersall wrote: post #351
dmitriid wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With all due respect, looking at your numbers my hunch is that you need better insulation. With all due respect these are the kinds of "tiny" details that renewable enthusiasts conveniently forget. Yes, this person's house needs better insulation. As does everybody else's . You can't just wave this away with "your math is wrong". These numbers reflect reality, not wishful thinking.

Well yes, but generally renewable enthusiasts are also saying "we need to improve our housing stock". That's another of the opportunities to improve people's lives that will come through necessary change.

No post body was provided.

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

#427

Post by belorn »

isoprophlex wrote: post #349
Helmut10001 wrote: post #320

People both underestimate and overestimate what PV can do. In summer and around noon, here in western Europe, there is so much PV-electricity produced that it is _almost_ enough to fulfill all demands. In winter, the amount is like a drop in the desert. I have built a 30 kWp PV at home 2 years ago - you would think this is quite big, for a private plant. It is not enough. If I want to power a heat pump (with drilled…

The catch is that power-to-gas tech described in the article will allow you to store the power produced in summer. Produce excess methane gas in summer, store with existing infrastructure, burn it for baseload/winter.

The whole article is basically about the question if solar power will continue to drop in price and if power-to-gas tech can have a similar drop in price. If those two are true then power-to-gas will become economical viable to the point where people could use it to store power produced in the summer to be burned for baseload/winter. It will also mean that pure hydrogen and pure oxygen, in compressed storage, will be is expected to reach a point where they are too cheap the meter.

Of course we are not there now. 2030 maybe? 2040?

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

#428

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #183
walrus01 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government owned, government built, government run regional monopoly electricity generators in North America are already the absolute cheapest dollars per kilowatt hour in the continent. It's not communism. I am referring to hydro quebec, and to the hydroelectric dams in central Washington State. Would you claim that if we had let the free market build those hydroelectric dams using private capital instead, that we w…

I read recently that Mexico was nationalizing part of its electric grid and user prices were expected to rise as a result.

Found it:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexico-energy-cfe-obrador-11655...

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

#429

Post by betwixthewires »

brazzy wrote: post #415
betwixthewires wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I don't, and I'll tell you why. The amount of energy hitting the surface of the earth is constant, assuming that the luminosity of the sun is constant. Photosynthesis as cyanobacteria/chloroplasts/chlorella perform it might be less efficient than a modern solar panel at converting the entirety of the spectrum to energy, but they did it and produced this fuel for hundreds of millions of years. Even if you get 10 ti…

>Let's say I'm off (in your favor) by a whopping order of magnitude. No, let's say that you are off by three or four orders of magnitude. Because your first estimate really is that bad, and without it, your entire "argument" falls apart.

So draw me a picture then. Let's say I'm off by 3 or 4 orders of magnitude, photosynthesis is .001% efficient or whatever. Show me how you create enough energy, the equivalent of a billion years worth of solar energy shining down on three quarters of the surface of the earth, every 200 years. 2000 years. 200,000 years. Without unfathomable environmental destruction. Or how you reduce the energy consumption of 8 billion people to a point where it is manageable without killing most of them. Give me more than one sentence.

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

#430

Post by spaniard89277 »

benevol wrote: post #407
Helmut10001 wrote: post #320

People both underestimate and overestimate what PV can do. In summer and around noon, here in western Europe, there is so much PV-electricity produced that it is _almost_ enough to fulfill all demands. In winter, the amount is like a drop in the desert. I have built a 30 kWp PV at home 2 years ago - you would think this is quite big, for a private plant. It is not enough. If I want to power a heat pump (with drilled…

Have you considered https://www.KryonEngine.org ?

What im looking at?
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