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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

#491

Post by dhsysusbsjsi »

pawsforthought wrote: post #435
kragen wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Methane’s much higher global warming potential (versus carbon dioxide), implies that there’s a threshold of methane leaks above which the warming would be worse than if you did nothing at all.

Doing the math, methane is around 30x worse than CO2.

So say you pulled down 30 units of CO2 and 1 unit of Methane leaked (3%), you’re back to square one. Not to mention the Methane will be burned into CO2 again so this closed cycle isn’t so closed.

This study suggests up to 9% is leaked currently:

https://news.stanford.edu/2022/03/24/methane-leaks-much-wors...

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

#492

Post by jillesvangurp »

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…

This comes up a lot when desalination is mentioned. Think of the pacific as a bucket of water. And desalinating all the water we ever need adds up to tiny fraction of a drop of water in comparison. Now the brine is an even tinier fraction of that drop that goes back in the bucket. What does it do to ppm counts of things like salt? Absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Yes, dumping concentrated brine in shallow waters causes issues for the local wild life. Simple solution: don't dump it there. For example, if you pump it out to deeper waters, you are not going to affect ppm counts of salt and other minerals in any meaningful or even measurable way. You couldn't even if you wanted to. It's just way too much water.

There's a reason why surfers in LA wear wet suits: the water there is cold because it has no chance to heat up by much. That's because the coast there isn't very shallow. About 1-2 miles from the coast, the bottom already drops to hundreds of feet. And there are some powerful currents that constantly mix things up. Ideal place to get rid of a relatively tiny amount of brine.

Brine disposal is a simple engineering problem. Probably you and I could come up with a dozen different ways to do it that would be perfectly acceptable. Of course there's a cost attached to those things. That's actually the main challenge. Pipes and pumps cost money.

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

#493

Post by badpun »

intrasight wrote: post #272
dhritzkiv wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I quite understand this idea, but why road and not rail, or something more purpose built? High production locales and high demand ones are most likely to be spread across long distances

Rail is indeed appropriate too. In fact better and we should have more of it. But I say no to "special purpose" and thus to transmission lines too. They are ugly and inefficient and we'd need to invest trillions, as these analysts are saying. Just makes no sense when we can instead use rail and road. Invest those trillions in better rail and road. And people in those "high production locales" I'm sure would rather ha…

I'd MUCH rather have transmission lines behind my window than a busy rail or road, generating noise, pollution, congestion and danger.

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

#494

Post by Bombthecat »

the8472 wrote: post #485
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…

> I calculated I would need about 70 to 80 kWp (optimized for winter sun angle, e.g. pretty steep modules at 60° or 70° that relatively produce less in summer, but more in winter). I know there are sun-following installations but those need expensive mechanics and control systems. Aren't there middle-ground solutions that can be manually adjusted twice a year?

If 70 to 80 is enough in winter,I would assume that it is enough in summer?

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

#495

Post by bryanlarsen »

laurencerowe wrote: post #371
bryanlarsen wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transmission costs exceed production costs in many jurisdictions. Rooftop solar can often eliminate the need for very costly distribution upgrades.

Certainly not in California where the transmission cost savings from rooftop solar are less than 1% per kWh vs the 200% increase in costs vs utility scale solar. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-03-28/solar-rooft...

Your article says that production is 7 to 9 cents and that distribution is 10 to 20 cents.

The problem is that rooftop solar is not lowering those distribution costs in any substantial fashion.

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

#496

Post by nl »

ncmncm wrote: post #398
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…

There is absolutely no need to buy land to put solar on. So, land cost may be exactly zero. Solar coexists synergetically with many other uses, most particularly reservoirs and canals, where it cuts evaporation and biofouling and runs cooler, thus more efficiently (up to 2x vs desert); and pasture, where it also cuts evaporation, and the livestock can duck under to get out of sun and rain, and keep weeds down; and cr…

Here in Australia (where it gets pretty hot) a bunch of places have started putting solar panels over carparks.

They are great because they shade the cars, and often the installation cost is $0 because the installer will sign a X year agreement with the occupier to provide electricity at Y cost for a number of years.

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

#497

Post by pydry »

chroma wrote: post #143
walrus01 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe , but it's also a national embarrassment that most of the major population centers in the US Northeast seemingly cannot be connected by 350 km/h high speed rail such as what China has very rapidly built since 2010. Flights of 1-2 hour duration between many locations in North America should be replaced with rail in most scenarios. either the political will or budget to do this apparently does not exist. https://…

It's clear that the US cannot build high speed rail. Since 2009, California has spent tens of billions on HSR and has nothing to show for it. There are too many hurdles to overcome. Existing rail lines have turns that are too sharp for HSR, so the government must use eminent domain to take people's property. Construction is delayed by environmental reviews. There are issues with noise. You have to build train station…

HSR in America is a victim of American oligarchy's obsession with de-taxing land.

Same reason why a 2 bed in SF is so absurdly priced.

Higher taxes on land will reduce its value - making land purchases cheaper. This will bring American HSR costs more in line with China's.

China also reduces land acquisition costs by building a lot of elevated HSR and reduces overall HSR costs through economies of scale - something that doesnt work when you limit HSR to one area.

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

#498

Post by pclmulqdq »

pydry wrote: post #212
pclmulqdq wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would become a lot less real too. The wealth of people who mostly get it from stock ownership is a complete fiction, driven by the scarcity of shares on the open market. If Jeff Bezos dumped his entire holding in AMZN shares, the whole company would be worth a lot less. Not due to any sort of magical effect of Jeff Bezos, but due to the market being flooded with supply.

I guess this means if a hypothetical Bill Gates sold off the vast majority of the 45% of Microsoft stock he owned then the company would then be worth a lot less? It really is weird how frequently I see the view you espouse and how nobody who repeats it seems to consider the clearest, most obvious counterexample that so completely disproves it.

In 2020, as I understand it, Bill gates sold less than 1% of MSFT on the open market there: his holding went from a bit over 2% to a bit over 1%. He had been steadily selling over the last two decades.

Contrast that with Jeff Bezos, who owns 10% of Amazon, or Elon Musk who owns over 20% of Tesla. Half of Gates's holding is nothing in comparison to half of Bezos's.

When you sell large share blocks like Gates did, you do it very slowly to avoid market impact. Elon Musk couldn't sell slowly enough to avoid an impact when he sold shares to buy Twitter.

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

#500

Post by badpun »

toolz wrote: post #236
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…

> The sooner we show some humility and realize that we’re the problem Why do people just love to hate on their own existence? How many extinction events have there been that just wiped out the vast majority of species far before humans even existed? If earth is to flourish, grow and continue it's trend of supporting ever more complex forms of life - it will be humans that can make that happen. In the absence of human…

> In the absence of humans, earth is just awaiting another mass extinction event

Spoiler: the next mass extinction event is already happening, and it's caused by humans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

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