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

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

#61

Post by Scoundreller » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

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?

Probably going to be the last thing to decarbonize.

Might be able to run off biodiesel or similar. Even if biofuel is double the cost of current dino juice, fuel makes up 20-40% of major airline’s opex, so it’s not like crude-free flying will kill the industry.

Might even be made up with increased aircraft efficiency, more intermediate stop operations (saving 15-30% in fuel by flying 2x medium haul instead of 1x long haul) and better load factors (“revenue management”).

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

#62

Post by greenthrow » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:34 PM UTC

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…

It makes a lot more sense to transport the energy to the water than vice versa.

I don't agree with their plan to make synthetic hydrocarbons, but they are right about solar. In 50 years solar will be so ubiquitous and cheap that people will be horrified that we kept burning fossil fuels and building nuclear plants for so long.

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

#63

Post by thejarren » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:34 PM UTC

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…

Just to add to this conversation a bit, did you know Singapore is running power wires to gather solar from Australia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link

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

#64

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

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?

Density is almost irrelevant, all that matters here is cost.

And one order of magnitude is more than enough. But yeah, besides planes and rockets, hydrocarbons are important in several industrial processes. Besides, we don't want to replace all of the cars, trucks and ships in a single decade.

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

#65

Post by jjk166 » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #23

dangerlibrary wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

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…

Pumped reservoir storage is horrifically inefficient, environmentally terrible for the local ecosystem, and not scalable. You can't just go and build a reservoir anywhere you like.

Chemical energy storage is simple, scalable, and allows for the easy movement of vast amounts of energy over great distances to be used anywhere with minimal changes to existing infrastructure.

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

#66

Post by user-one1 » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:37 PM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #40

If we forget about where the power is coming from for the moment, wasn't the US Navy experimenting with fuel synthesis? Did that go anywhere? A nuclear powered carrier has no use for fuel itself, it only stores fuel for aircraft operations. Having the ability to make fuel on site with all the excess cheap electricity seems to be a game changer. Wondering what happened to it. That is the latest I can find: https://www…

You should check out Prometheus Fuels: https://prometheusfuels.com/

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

#67

Post by beambot » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:37 PM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #40

If we forget about where the power is coming from for the moment, wasn't the US Navy experimenting with fuel synthesis? Did that go anywhere? A nuclear powered carrier has no use for fuel itself, it only stores fuel for aircraft operations. Having the ability to make fuel on site with all the excess cheap electricity seems to be a game changer. Wondering what happened to it. That is the latest I can find: https://www…

A project related to the Navy project was "Project Foghorn" at GoogleX: https://x.company/projects/foghorn/

A better technology is currently being scaled up at Prometheus Fuels: https://www.science.org/content/article/former-playwright-ai...

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

#68

Post by jjk166 » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #61

dangerlibrary wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Probably going to be the last thing to decarbonize. Might be able to run off biodiesel or similar. Even if biofuel is double the cost of current dino juice, fuel makes up 20-40% of major airline’s opex, so it’s not like crude-free flying will kill the industry. Might even be made up with increased aircraft efficiency, more intermediate stop operations (saving 15-30% in fuel by flying 2x medium haul instead of 1x long…

Biodiesel is just hydrocarbon fuels produced via solar energy with extra steps

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

#69

Post by gibolt » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

greenthrow wrote: post #62

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…

It makes a lot more sense to transport the energy to the water than vice versa. I don't agree with their plan to make synthetic hydrocarbons, but they are right about solar. In 50 years solar will be so ubiquitous and cheap that people will be horrified that we kept burning fossil fuels and building nuclear plants for so long.

Solar is already extremely cheap, when costed out over it's minimal lifetime. At grid scale, it has dipped down to crazy levels.

As you said, this trend will keep on going.

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

#70

Post by akira2501 » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 10:39 PM UTC

gregschlom wrote: post #46

akira2501 wrote: post #39

A monoculture of generation and distribution technologies is not a desirable outcome from an engineering perspective. Your goal shouldn't be to put PV everywhere and then just "solve the distribution problem." You're almost certainly going to make things worse that way. Also.. if you have excess residential electrical supplies, I'd think a good goal would be to get electricity to the people that don't have it first,…

It sounds like you didn't read the article. They aren't talking about putting solar panels everywhere, they're talking about using massive amounts of solar panel in a specific location and use the energy to convert the CO2 in the air into methane.

This is such an odd way to address an argument. From the article:

"Substituting solar power into our electrical grid and atmospheric CO2-derived hydrocarbons into our fuel supply chain is just the beginning. We want to support a future of abundance and wealth, while avoiding starvation even as legacy climate damage shifts rainfall patterns and causes extreme weather."

Seems pretty one-track to me.

Also, there are no manufacturing processes with infinite scalability. And the article fails to make clear their large scale intentions. They go back and forth between some Sarahan style plant, and the total amount of PV available and the current planned excess power due to this and never offer a solid plan as far as I can tell.

Aside from that.. it's a back of the envelope analysis that just projects trend lines on charts and makes no thoughts for emergent phenomenon due to the massive market swings it projects.