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We're going to need a lot of solar panels

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

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

#641

Post by throwaway2037 »

tailsdog wrote: post #479
stewbrew wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a tiny detail. We live in a passivhaus. We hardly ever heat. Improving insulation of old houses is an important aspect here. Reducing energy consumption is as important as generating and storing energy.

The point is that in some situations it can be more cost effective to generate additional energy than implement energy saving measures such as insulation improvements. My house was built in the 1600's it's very difficult to insulate properly.

Real Question: I see posts like this often on HN. Why not tear down these houses and rebuild with energy efficient ones? I know... blah. blah. blah. historical this and that... but do you want to suffer from 40+C summers? This is the price of history! Think about it. Really really! Please start tearing down these horribly inefficient houses that are "historical". We already do it for office buildings!

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

#642

Post by chrsw »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #364
epistasis wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology and economics are there for renewables. The big barrier is political. There is deeply entrenched ideological opposition to renewable energy at some (but not all) utilities, all the way to the leadership. And just because an energy source is the cheapest, doesn't mean that it will be the one chosen by the entrenched monopolies that are our utilities. There are lots of bad incentives out there.

I don't buy the political argument. If it made financial sense you could just build it and take all your profits to lobby the politicians but obviously the economics are not very profitable yet. Edit: How did Tesla succeed is GM and the oil companies were supposedly going to use politics to keep the electric car from succeeding?

>How did Tesla succeed is GM and the oil companies were supposedly going to use politics to keep the electric car from succeeding?

Maybe a different way to ask the same sort of question is: What would the auto industry look like now if the political climate had been more favorable towards electric vehicles?

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

#643

Post by JohnHaugeland »

cinntaile wrote: post #580
JohnHaugeland wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes, a reaction. Can you show me this actually in use literally anywhere on earth for this job, 125 years later? Where would I go to buy some atmosphere derived gasoline? You're confusing that something could theoretically be done with that it's a real thing that can be relied on today at scale to save the planet If this was a real, practical thing, it would be in use. We fight wars over this stuff. If the thing…

Your claim was it wasn't real. Which is factually incorrect. If you mean something else you should properly articulate what you mean instead.

I mean what I said, thanks.

What we're discussing is people using search engines to identify mechanics. This is not a thing that has been built.

This is an idea, not a real thing.

You haven't shown any actual examples of this having been built.

We can see that Wikipedia page, sure, but there are lots of Wikipedia pages for things that were never built. Those are not real things. It has to have existed to be real.

It's kind of wild having to explain what the word "real" means.

If these devices are real, can you show me one that actually exists or existed, instead of Wikipedia pages talking about what they would be?

The page referenced does not mention any real ones.

It seems like you're making claims that they are real, to respond to someone asking for examples, and didn't give any examples

I have to admit, it's pretty exhausting how solar fans always end up relying on devices that have never been built to explain why they're the right choice

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

#644

Post by kortex »

ncmncm wrote: post #526
Terr_ wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wouldn't exsolation just be albedo and/or radiative cooling?

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

#645

Post by kortex »

zbrozek wrote: post #633
ben_w wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20.6 MT copper/year vs 64 MT aluminium/year, even using both that's still equivalent to about 17 years of current global production (which is a big but not impossible change over the timescales desired), but the price is still painful.

Aluminum has higher specific conductivity than copper by mass. So if you think you need 1 MT of copper conductivity, you can do the job with 0.5 MT of aluminum. Aluminum is also quite abundant. Rate limits will be political rather than production. That's not to say this is a realistic idea or that it's worth doing, just that it isn't unthinkable on a resource basis. https://www.anixter.com/en_us/resources/literature/…

Aluminum production is also tightly coupled to electricity production, so cheaper power could lead to cheaper aluminum in a positive feedback loop.

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

#646

Post by throwaway2037 »

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…

Your parents house was built in 1749. Do they pay the equivalent carbon tax to own a house like this? Unless it has been hyper-modernized, but the exterior remains old/ancient, I struggle to understand or support your argument.

More brutally: If you parents want to live in a house from 1749, should 1.5 billion people (probably more!) in South Asia be forced to live in unsustainable conditions (much high average annual temperatures) for the "history" of your parents' house? Absolutely not.

In contrast, if you support massive gov't subsidies and personal taxes to pay for the upgrade of these homes to 21st century energy standards, then... sure, no problem, they can live in a home from 3000 BC!

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

#647

Post by throwaways85989 »

rocqua wrote: post #564
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 st…

I think methanol is even a better storage candidate. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-holy-grail-catalysisturning-me...

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

#648

Post by formerkrogemp »

pfdietz wrote: post #565
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!"

Let's not forget the close ties between German politicians and Gazprom executives, among other issues..

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

#649

Post by marvin »

throw0101a wrote: post #637
illiac786 wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very interesting. I was told by some energy expert I could isolate 3 out of 4 outer walls and it would work fine. Do you have some documentation on the “moisture through heat transfer” issue?

> Do you have some documentation on the “moisture through heat transfer” issue? Warm/er air can hold more moisture than cold/cooler air. If part of the house is warm, and you happen to cook and/or shower in it, it will have a high moisture content. But water vapour diffuses through-out an enclosure. So that water in a gaseous phase will equally spread everywhere (eventually). When it reaches the uninsulated part/s of…

Adding to this -- climates that have cold winters and a tradition for building well-insulated homes have detailed construction customs for how to deal with this.

Today, it's generally solved by having an airtight sheet (plastic) between the insulation and the inner wall. Sometimes placed inside the insulation. This ensures a temperature gradient that will not cause condensation inside the house.

You'll generally put a sheet that's porous but not airtight outside the insulation, to reduce heat loss due to convection and also provide an extra layer of defense against moisture damage due to wind-blown rain.

This technique necessitates good ventilation (often powered) if it's used throughout the entire house. This is to avoid saturating the inside air with humidity due to breathing and other activity, itself leading to the condensation you're trying to avoid. It can sometimes be just on e.g. floors and ceilings. Then, the rest of the structure might still be leaky enough that mostly passive ventilation will do the trick.

Older houses handle the problem by just being so leaky that condensation won't be a problem.

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