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Can solar costs keep shrinking?

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#561

Post by bobthepanda »

svnt wrote: post #275
pseudosavant wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a curious assertion for sure, but the next wave of AI will be throttled by a few factors: chip fab capacity, water supply to cool data centers, and electricity to power the chips/servers. Look at what is happening with xAI in Memphis where they are illegally running a dozen turbine generators to power their new AI data center since they can't get enough supply off the grid.

It may be throttled by energy supply and water supply at a desirable site, but not by country-level energy costs and water costs, which is all this blog post is looking at.

Depending on where you are this is a national level problem; Ireland and the Netherlands are not approving new data centers

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#562

Post by caymanjim »

vondur wrote: post #551
caymanjim wrote: post #204

I spend four months of the year traveling in an RV. Two years ago, I budgeted over $6000 for my desired solar setup (at least 1200Ah of battery, at least 2400W of solar, plus various controllers and other components). It was expensive enough for me to hold off, and more importantly, I didn't have the space on my current RV for the solar panels. In just the two years since then, prices on batteries and panels have dro…

Wow, that's a heck of a lot of solar in an RV. Do you have a video tour of it, I'd love to see that!

It's all just a plan right now. I started buying components this summer, but I only have the RV's stock 100W panel so far, and an extra lead-acid battery to supplement the one it came with.

I had planned to start by putting 4x200W panels on the roof, until I get a large 5th wheel. Now I'm going to put 4-6x 400W on the current trailer for next summer. The price and size of 400W panels dropped enough to make that viable.

I'm generally too lazy to do a writeup/photos of my projects, but I might when I get it installed. There are a lot of writeups out there already though. People are squeezing lots of solar onto vams and small RVs these days.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#563

Post by lanstin »

hibikir wrote: post #378
caymanjim wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived like that. I lived in the Mission in San Francisco with four of my closest friends (all from NJ) within walking distance. It was great being able to meet up for lunch or drinks or go out clubbing, it was always a pleasant surprise to run into them randomly on the street or in a park. I lived in midtown Manhattan and I loved being able to go out at 3am in the middle of the winter and find a fresh produce st…

There is only a small window when old is just old enough that you shouldn't be afraid of what happens when you need fast, acute medical help. I have seen many a relatively far flung retirement plan get into trouble when the first health scare makes the retiree want a hospital within half an hour.

Not just age but anything unexpected. Having people nearby that you can count on for casual help makes many worse case scenarios much better.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#564

Post by caymanjim »

Damogran6 wrote: post #501
caymanjim wrote: post #204

I spend four months of the year traveling in an RV. Two years ago, I budgeted over $6000 for my desired solar setup (at least 1200Ah of battery, at least 2400W of solar, plus various controllers and other components). It was expensive enough for me to hold off, and more importantly, I didn't have the space on my current RV for the solar panels. In just the two years since then, prices on batteries and panels have dro…

Three years ago I performed the phase one update on our trailer (38foot 5th wheeler) I put in a Victron converter/inverter, shunt, Cerbo (HMI) and 4 100ah LiFePO4 batteries. The trailer has a 5500 generator and 3 ACs. I wanted 2.5 days of power, not including AC, as I'd run the Jenny when needing AC Solar is (was) coming at a future date with something in the 1200 watt range. What I found was that we were boondocking…

I've got a generator now, which can recharge my tiny battery in about an hour. The generator can run the AC, microwave, whatever I need. It's loud, and I often camp in primitive-but-not-remote sites which either have limited generator hours or where it would be rude to run one. That's a big reason I want maximum solar and battery. Even if I'm boondocking far from people, I don't want to listen to a generator all day. You're right about the energy density. I can run my 3000W generator for about eight hours on one 2.5 gallon tank of gas, depending on how much power I use. I've run the AC for a few hours that way.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#565

Post by vkou »

davidw wrote: post #542
willvarfar wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know realistic property prices and acreages in Cochise county? A quick google image search shows a very hot Arizona. As someone who enjoys following a lot of youtube self-builders around the world I get the impression that most channels I follow have to thread their way through some pretty convoluted and not-self-build nor budget-friendly rules :( Do you know of any other places in the US that have similar eas…

Places with water (and therefore trees) tend to be already spoken for in most of the US. Alaska, maybe? But that's not temperate at all, and is not great for the solar aspect.

Alaska is pretty great if you'd like to live in a place where mosquitos make up ~90% of the animal biomass.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#566

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

trashtester wrote: post #427
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nuclear isn't dispatch-able for a different reason: you don't turn it off. Nuclear is relatively expensive, and those expenses are roughly 100% capex cost, so if you consider a reactor with a 10 billion construction cost and a 50 year lifespan, every hour you turn off the reactor costs at least ~$25k (or more if you assume the reactor was intending to do better than break-even.

If by dispatch-able you mean something that can cheaply fill the gaps when wind/solar is not producing, then nuclear is not dispatch-able. For that purpose, we really only have fossil plants (and hydro in a few areas) But if you compare the predictability of nuclear to that of wind/solar, nuclear is a lot easier to plan, and also requires way less (if any) contribution from other sources. Also, I would argue that the…

> and also requires way less (if any) contribution from other sources.

This part is wrong. Electricity demand is varies about 50% over the course of the day and about 50% over the course of a year, so a 100% nuclear grid would only be operating at ~50% capacity which would double the costs.

On a local scale, renewables aren't predictable, but over large areas (e.g. US/EU), almost all of the variability cancels out (especially since wind and solar are anti-correlated with each other). Both nuclear and solar/wind grids (or a combination of both) will require some amount of over-capacity/hydro storage/battery storage/gas-peaker plants to economically provide consistent power. My guess is that we'll settle on some combination of over-provisioned solar/wind for seasonal variation combined with hydro/gas for daily and battery for hourly and faster variation. (and possibly using demand side shaping like desalination/water heating to use excess energy).

I find it somewhat hard to believe that nuclear plants could easily be made dramatically cheaper and easier to build if regulation wasn't a problem because if that were the case, we would expect to see China and India building lots of nuclear reactors cheaply. There's obviously further room for reactor design optimization, but I don't think it's as simple as just blaming regulation.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#567

Post by Iulioh »

MarkusQ wrote: post #544
Iulioh wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot the part when we used 100W bulbs and now we use 10W led lights. Efficency in the use of energy ti generate the same amount of lumens, because it would be REALLY fun to have a 100W led lamp in my bathroom mirror (my parents still have 2 of these traditional lights ). I mean...energy conversion to lumen is fine but i think it's a little pedantic

GP didn't "forget" it; that 10x improvement in efficiency is the reason we can use 10W bulbs to do the job that used to require a 100W bulb. Looking at energy conversion to lumens isn't "pedantic," it's "correct".

You can be correct and pedantic at the same time, like in this case.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#568

Post by the8472 »

rtkwe wrote: post #210
the8472 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the range matters so much as the floor. The huge blank in the lower-right corner. No such thing as a rich, energy-poor country.

The articles argument is about the US moving inside the range band we see though not about the US having a 100 fold reduction in the power generated that would be required to drop us into the lower right. I did the math on the data elsewhere in this thread [0] and in an outcome that should surprise no one there's a transition around 1970 where the ratio between power used and gdp created per capita changes drasticall…

There's some wiggle room, but if you want another OOM of advancement then it appears that you also need to move an OOM up, unless you started out at the upper end of the band. And even then the next one would definitely need more.

Of course this only tells us about the current state of things, but there are lots of things that would seem ludicrous today that would be feasible if we had a lot more cheap energy. Mass desalation, carbon drawdown, synthetic fuels, electric arc furnaces etc. will all needs loads of energy.

The signum is wrong. In the long term you want it to be one, not zero.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#569

Post by zhynn »

caymanjim wrote: post #204

I spend four months of the year traveling in an RV. Two years ago, I budgeted over $6000 for my desired solar setup (at least 1200Ah of battery, at least 2400W of solar, plus various controllers and other components). It was expensive enough for me to hold off, and more importantly, I didn't have the space on my current RV for the solar panels. In just the two years since then, prices on batteries and panels have dro…

Please come to Vermont, there is a lot of undeveloped land, ample water, and we need people.

Re: Can solar costs keep shrinking?

#570

Post by _DeadFred_ »

caymanjim wrote: post #306
lanstin wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this fascinating. It really does take a variety of people to make up a culture. My ideal living situation includes being able to see someone I know every time I walk out side my home, being able to walk to a bagel shop, a grocery store, a post office, a train station, and ideally a library and bike shop and parks. It would be boring if we were all like me and clumped together.

I've lived like that. I lived in the Mission in San Francisco with four of my closest friends (all from NJ) within walking distance. It was great being able to meet up for lunch or drinks or go out clubbing, it was always a pleasant surprise to run into them randomly on the street or in a park. I lived in midtown Manhattan and I loved being able to go out at 3am in the middle of the winter and find a fresh produce st…

Being older you need to factor in healthcare. I didn't when I moved remote, and it was a big mistake. I firmly believe my mother died of cancer because I convinced her to move to a rural local that didn't have the quality of cancer care that she would have had access to if she stayed in Santa Cruz. My advice is pick a touristy area that has enough money/population moving through to have a bit better medical system than your average remote area. Definitely buy a lifeflight.org membership every year if you go the Montana/Rocky Mountain West area.

I also recommend finding a town that caters to rich tech people who want to live this remote fantasy, there are quite a few of them. It's so much more enjoyable than the actual remote living towns that no one wants to be in so they're just an aging population of dead enders and people hooked on drugs. Or at least an area with a University nearby so that you can go somewhere with some energy/vibrance and the latest cool trendy food. The realities of dead end small town/no town america can be pretty soul crushing.

Disney style curated small town america catering to the wealthy can be a pretty great place to live and have energy/vibrancy. Plus you'll have a good revolving supply of new people cycling through thinking they want to live the lifestyle (before the realities set in) bringing in the latest trends, starting food places, etc. Just make sure they aren't the 'escaping from California' types blathering about how great it is to be in a 'free' state and be away from commie land. That toxicity can overload a small community quick. You can get away with 'individualists' in a larger community where their actual freeloading on society is subsidized by normal people, but with too big a ratio basic civilian institutions get paralyzed for years until people remember/relearn society requires a social component.

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