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

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

#521

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:33 AM UTC

Nice article, but one sentence annoyed me:

> At current rates of production growth, the supply/demand mismatch will see a 10 year backlog between the time when local solar powered synthetic fuel production reaches cost parity with fossil sources, and when solar supply will be available to meet that demand.

I hate this use of "at current rates", it's basically a lie if you don't follow up with some kind of lower bound to go with that upper bound and people believing this is not possible, or too costly, or too late is one of the main problems.

He called out the hairy back prediction graph further up and then did basically the same thing with words.

But overall a good summary.

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

#522

Post by AnonymousPlanet » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:35 AM UTC

midasuni wrote: post #450

illiac786 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what this person meant is the renewable enthusiasts treat insulation as something easily done whereas it will take 100 years to insulate the majority of houses in Europe in my view…

You can usually improve insulation by popping down to the local DIY store and buying some rolls for your loft making a big difference. Of course you can only do that once. And if you’re a landlord why would you pay your money to insulate when you wont save any money as your tenants are the ones paying the bills.

Have you ever heard of mould? Moisture in the walls? Caused by shifting dew points. Your "just pop down to the hardware store" DIY insulation will do a lot of damage.

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

#523

Post by Kon5ole » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:36 AM UTC

wheelerof4te wrote: post #464

What people don't realize is that solar power is not enough to support industrial production. Neither is hydro and wind power. To have enough solar energy, you would need huge fields of panels where the sun shines bright. Panels block the sunlight beneath, so you can't plant anything where the panels are. On the other hand, you need space for agriculture. So, you see where the problem is. Large wind turbines also nee…

>What people don't realize is that solar power is not enough to support industrial production. Neither is hydro and wind power.

You need energy storage as well, people have realized this and it's being built in most countries. Hydro however is enough on it's own, and is in fact also one of the best forms of energy storage. If you have enough hydro to cover half your needs, adding "half your needs" from wind and solar lets you save hydro for the other half (This is a huge simplification but essentially true)

>Panels block the sunlight beneath, so you can't plant anything where the panels are. On the other hand, you need space for agriculture. So, you see where the problem is.

I don't see where the problem is. You seem to postulate that a solar power plant needs to be built like a nuclear power plant and take up a huge area of new land. It doesn't. You can put solar where you are already doing other things.

In fact, we could just build solar roofs on existing parking lots! Shade is very nice for parked cars and the area currently used by parking lots is enough in most countries.

Also, parking lots are not used for agriculture.

I think the real thing people don't realize is just how great a solution solar power really is, because it's new and has enormous implications. So far most of the development has been done on a basically amateur level.

Distributed energy generation and decimated price of electricity will disrupt a lot of powerful incumbents, so there's bound to be some propaganda against it from many sources.

If the claims in the story are true, anyone using IEA as a source would be lead to believe that solar has no future, for example. But the actual solar developments have surpassed IEAs 20-year estimates within 1 year, 13 years in a row.

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

#524

Post by bogdanu » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:39 AM UTC

illiac786 wrote: post #455

yayachiken wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you are just illustrating an opinion and not meaning it literally, but I want to stress how ridiculous your number of 100 years is in reality. The expected economic lifetime of a building in Germany is approximately 100 years. Which means that on average, the house will be torn down and rebuilt after at most 100 years, because additional upkeep would not make economic sense. This means that if you do not chang…

>The expected economic lifetime of a building in Germany is approximately 100 years Source? Counter examples: my house is built 1908. Lots of other houses built around the same time in the area I live in. My parents live in a house from 1749. The entire village where they live is made of houses built 200+ years ago, it's written on the house in general, hence easy to check. Hence I very much stand by my prediction it…

Europe is a big continent, even EU is so diverse.

A lot of people in Eastern Europe live in apartments and houses that can be insulated extremely cheap. There are even EU or government programs that make it affordable.

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

#525

Post by ncmncm » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:40 AM UTC

topkai22 wrote: post #310

laurencerowe wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rooftop solar is now far more expensive than utility scale solar. As a renter who subsidies this through my electricity bills I don’t understand why I should be subsidising more artisanal scale generation for homeowners at 3x the price of utility scale solar.

Mostly because it gets it installed. I’m vaguely attached to a utility scale deal trying to happen. The land owners are interested, the utility is interested, and there isn’t much around the site. Still the details might kill the deal- they can’t agree where the HV lines will run, the utility wants a bit more land than the owners want to lease, access details and liability concerns are coming up, etc… Utility scale s…

Maybe you can help steer the project toward a dual use of a reservoir or pasture.

When you don't have to pay rent on land, you don't need to pack the panels cheek by jowl. Pasture doesn't normally generate much revenue, per acre, and it tends to be all at once, so something producing year-round is a welcome buffer. The livestock keep down weeds and benefit from shelter, so are healthier.

On water, the panels are kept cool and therefore both notably more efficient, but also last much longer. Nobody knows yet how much longer. They cut evaporation and biofouling.

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

#526

Post by ncmncm » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:43 AM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #294

oneoff786 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow shoutout to insolation being an amazing word

I get the feeling that one could shorten it to "solation" and it would still have the same meaning, etymologically-speaking. Like inflammable/flammable.

Exsolation might find a use. Big mirrors at L2 to reflect sunlight to solar farms at night? They would need to focus very precisely, from a million miles off.

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

#527

Post by Helmut10001 » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:44 AM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #458

Helmut10001 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely - the house is a pretty big country side house from 1925, not uncommon in Germany. But (almost) impossible to insulate efficiently. My estimates where €150k to €200k, just for the insulation, windows, and renewed heaters. In comparison, an 'oversized' 70 kWp PV only costs €100k, and also returns some income when not all of the power is used. The parameters widely differ between country and city: In th…

That estimate seems insane. Was that a “we’re too busy, go away” estimate? How big is the house?

It is quite a standard 2-generations house (at that 1925 time), 250 m² and two apartments, + a base level with an office. I am not saying that this is the universal standard - but it is _a_ standard that I do see quite often here, especially if you look outside cities, where the turnaround for reconstructon of houses is slower.

.. and this was quite thoroughly calculated. I can tear down the house and build a new one, but apart from the waste of resources - building a new one will also cost minimum €200k - so I thought, why not 'oversize' PV, if it only costs €100k and can heat the house without improving on insulation?

To emphasize, this conclusion will likely not apply to the majority of people (especially here on HN) because as many have said here, parameters and contexts differ widely.

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

#528

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:47 AM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #515

midasuni wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the U.K. the people who want renewables tend to be under 40s that can’t afford to buy a house. Those that actively don’t want renewables tend to own their own home and may have a couple the let out.

Pretty much no-one actively doesn't want renewables. They might not want them built very near them, but that's different.

There's a very obvious paper trail of people not wanting renewables.

As the article notes this price decline was predictable decades ago, but you can't really blame people for being dubious about predictions. Maybe the people who got it right were just lucky.

But since real actual installed wind and solar became cheaper a while ago, the people still openly arguing against renewables slide ever close to cartoon supervillain status.

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

#529

Post by otikik » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:48 AM UTC

Helmut10001 wrote: post #336

jnsaff2 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, looking at your numbers my hunch is that you need better insulation. I know a person who has about 10kWp installed on a passivhaus here in latitude 59N and says that having a heat pump is overkill for them.

Yes, absolutely - the house is a pretty big country side house from 1925, not uncommon in Germany. But (almost) impossible to insulate efficiently. My estimates where €150k to €200k, just for the insulation, windows, and renewed heaters. In comparison, an 'oversized' 70 kWp PV only costs €100k, and also returns some income when not all of the power is used. The parameters widely differ between country and city: In th…

Wow that sounds too high. Maybe insulate only the parts you frequently use, perhaps?

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

#530

Post by ncmncm » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 10:49 AM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #452

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…

Or storage. Like this article is essentially about replacing fossil fuels with synthetic fuel. There are many alternatives to that of course. But the mind boggling economics of synthetic fuels becoming cheaper than fossil fuels at some point are what is interesting here. I listened to a podcast a while ago with a person involved with a company that is going to be importing 8GW of power to the UK from Morocco with hig…

Germany cancelled projects in Africa with HVDC cables up-continent when solar panel cost dropped to the point that they can just buy enough local panels to meet power needs.

Siting panels in the desert is kind of stupid. The high temperatures make them less efficient, and degrade quicker. They would better be floated on reservoirs, constructed for the occasion if necessary. Nobody doesn't like more reservoirs, or shade for the reservoirs they have. The reservoirs could be kept full by desalinating water when power demand is lower.