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

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

#561

Post by bogdanu » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 11:55 AM UTC

dmitriid wrote: post #534

bogdanu wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not really "extremely cheap" and probably only refers to covering old buildings with external insulation. Most of the Soviet-era panel apartment blocks ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_building ) have extremely shitty internal insulation, too. So you end up heating your neighbors, the street, the elevator shafts, stairwells etc. You can't really fix that without extremely costly renovations. Khrusschchyovka…

I think having some insulation is better than having none. But yeah, if you want to do it properly, it would cost a lot more.

As for heating your neighbours, a lot of cities have city heating and is paid depending on how many people live in the apartment, so you don't care that much about it. Of course, some folks have gas boilers in their apartment (like me) but it won't make sense financially to insulate the inner walls.

I think it's the same for new buildings here too, if not worse. A lot of regulations aren't actually respected and because a lot of builders left for WE, there's a huge problem with finding skilled workers.

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

#562

Post by Kon5ole » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 11:57 AM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #377

It seems to me we need a lot of nuclear power. In the US, we need to close the fuel cycle, reprocessing all the existing spent fuel, and building a new class of reactors that can handle the resulting fuel mix. With this base energy supply in hand, our options are far more flexible for extracting carbon from the air, and either making fuels, or petrochemical feed stock from it.

I think new nuclear is a distraction from the best solution. Closing the fuel cycle is a good idea of course but we don't know how to do that yet. Current reprocessing doesn't remove the waste it just reduces it.

Reprocessing that can entirely get rid of the waste needs a scientific breakthrough that certainly might happen, but trying to make it happen will require research centers with highly qualified staff, very expensive machinery and will take a long time to set up.

Meanwhile just about anyone can put solar panels on their roof making it possible for the state to save fuels in central power plants for use during the night. This benefit is immediate, and because anyone can do it it's currently being deployed faster than even non-reprocessing nuclear power plants can be built.

So instead of aiming for new classes of reactors I think we should build already known classes of solar panel factories and hydrogen electrolysers. Hydrogen electrolysers are insanely simple, you can build one using stuff you are likely to have in your home already.

The main argument against it at grid-scale is the efficiency, but with enough solar panels efficiency becomes basically meaningless. When you are filling your "water bottle" from the Niagara you can spill a lot and it won't matter.

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

#563

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 11:58 AM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #505

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…

In north-west eu maybe, in south-west not so much; I have had solar for 20 years in different houses in the south and it covers more than enough all year round (we are off grid). During the days, summer and winter, you can switch on whatever as it will never run out; during the night it obviously depends on the amount and quality of batteries. I have had 1 moment without power and that was a rare event for that locat…

You're still seeing a large swing in insolation between summer and winter in SW Europe. You can tilt the PV arrays to increase winter production at the expense of summer (and at expense of overall production); did you do that?

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

#564

Post by rocqua » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 11:58 AM UTC

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…

What I found cool about the synthetic natural gas, is that Europe already has really good seasonal storage of natural gas. Hence the infrastructure is available for summer-time generation of gas using solar abundance that we use in winter for heating.

To my mind, it is seasonal load shifting that is Europe's long term energy problem. Winter energy demand has a bottom that needs to be met. We used to ensure this by stockpiling on seasonal scales. Without stockpiling, and with intermittent production, things will get hairy in winter.

Put differently, you can turn up a gas plant, but you can't turn up a windmill or a solar panel. That scares me.

Batteries and similar technologies are great for daily variation, but their cost per capacity does not allow for practical seasonal storage. For this I imagine we need cheap bulk storage, and can accept low efficiency because we can fill the stockpile with the cheapest excess power.

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

#565

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 12:02 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #528

robertlagrant wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 superv…

"Nuclear would have won if it weren't for you meddling kids!"

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

#566

Post by mustyoshi » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 12:06 PM UTC

Semaphor wrote: post #466

ekianjo wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> better insulation better insulation is not cheap and therefore not everyone can afford to do it. Also the same people who want renewables are usually opposed to building new housing so there's that.

> Also the same people who want renewables are usually opposed to building new housing so there's that. What? Why would you think that?

New housing lowers property demand.

Plus, people usually oppose nuclear which is an expensive but stable renewable option.

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

#567

Post by labawi » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

bitbang wrote: post #122

thatcherc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite high(ish)-concept energy storage proposals takes the "store heat in tanks of something that melts and stays hot for long periods of time" is the "sun in a box"[0] idea: use excess electricity to heat silicon up to an incandescent 4500 deg F. Later, when you want to extract the store energy, just shine some of that incandescent light into some super efficient multi-junction solar panels! Sounds pret…

Isn't this just a variant of what is already being done with molten salt solar towers?

I think those don't actually have any PV in them. I.e. concentrated solar to thermal then turbines for electricity.

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

#568

Post by smallerfish » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #546

robertlagrant wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not against them, but I think they should not be specially subsidised. Just pay what ever the market rate at the moment is. If it is not enough to cover investment too bad.

Surely they should be at least as equally subsidized as other energy sources, with the cost of external cleanup perhaps also factored in?

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

#569

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 12:12 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #483

Semaphor wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also the same people who want renewables are usually opposed to building new housing so there's that. What? Why would you think that?

Quoted post unavailable.

Lefties want new houses ? Thats a strange claim to make. The most left wing states in the US are the ones that build the least new buildings.

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

#570

Post by katkatkatkatket » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 12:14 PM 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…

>a company that is going to be importing 8GW of power to the UK from Morocco with high voltage dc cables

I found a press release - the company is "Xlinks". The project doesn't pass the sniff test - they casually mention a 20GWh battery as part of the plan, which would be 10x bigger than the world's current biggest battery storage (2000MWh, at Moss Landing, California. Ironically it's only just come back online after a several month outage due to another fire)