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We're going to need a lot of solar panels

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

701–710 of 842 posts

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

#701

As I pointed out to Casey on Twitter as well, this strategy works really well with Nuclear as well. Largely because the production of fuel rather than electricity means you can transport it over great distances without the losses generated by heat or radiation. My suggestion was setting up a 3GW nuclear plant in the middle of the Nevada Test site (an area that would not suffer in the extremely unlikely event there wa…

I suspect the voters of Nevada would say, "Nimby". Maybe the DoE should make a reactor like this and put it in DC, where the voters are not allowed to say "Nimby". Anti-democracry to save the day.

As a former Nevada resident, and someone who has worked at the Test Site, I can assure you that it would be unusual if the folks living in Nevada objected. :-)

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

#702
post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use vast amounts of seawater, storing the leftover brine, or crystallized salt in huge quantities will become a problem. Existing medium sizee drinking water desalination plants already create a huge amount of brine.

Why would you store it, instead of mixing it back in the sea? I guess you would need some pipes and pumps to move it away from your inlets, but that seems comparatively cheap.

because shoving all that brine back into the sea in the general area of the desalination plant causes a localized ecological disaster and dead zone of marine life

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

#703
post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Largely because the production of fuel rather than electricity means you can transport it over great distances without the losses generated by heat or radiation. I very much doubt you can get higher efficiency by going electricity -> fuel -> pipeline -> generator than by going electricity -> wires -> And even if you just use it for heating (so you skip the last part) - it wouldn't be worth it. In particular big tur…

Back when I had a class in power engineering as part of my EE program there was about a week discussing transmission line loss. The example we worked on was Hoover Dam which sends its electricity 266 miles over transmission lines to LA where the University was. It was remarkable how much energy was lost both in what are called "i2r" (I squared R) losses (that is just the transmission wires losing energy as heat) and…

> The U.S. grid loses about 5 percent of all the electricity generated through transmission and distribution [1]

Compared to losing over 70% of energy by converting it to methane (optimistic bound, I vaguely remember seeing 14% efficiency somewhere but can't find it quickly so I doubled it and ignored other loses which are probably also over 50% combined). I think it's pretty clear it makes no sense to do this for predictable baseload powerplants like nuclear. The main advantage is storage for unpredictable, time-dependent solar energy.

[1] https://www.nrdc.org/experts/jennifer-chen/lost-transmission...

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

#704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the cost of the hardware has, many factors still apply such as efficiency and thusly the total area of solar required. You're right though that the book is not up to date, and getting long in the tooth in some aspects.

Efficiency has almost doubled since 2008 but more importantly efficiency at non optimal angles has improved even more. Put together he's off by about an order of magnitude in the amount of land required. The other factor that is missed is that solar panels are proving to be surprisingly non exclusive in their land usage.

Efficiency may have doubled, but the book used a very optimistic 30% efficiency, which afaik is still quite a bit higher than even current rates.

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

#705
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…

Solar fans really want to cover entire countries in panels, instead of just building nuclear power

"We just need the political will to destroy another nation" is what you just said. Look carefully.

We can't reliably move power on America' three grids, but you want the world wired up

Peaks aren't local. If Germany is peaking, so is all of Europe. There isn't a bunch of other stuff to draw from.

People start by assuming that the rest of the world can cope, but that is not how Europe works today. Look into why Germany keeps having to sell power for negative prices.

It's like believing that in a heavy rain storm, you can just give your excess water to your neighbors. But you can't: they have excess water too. During a drought, they have nothing to share.

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

#706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean what I said, thanks. You said "isn't real", that's literally all you said. It's good that you have since clarified what you meant, but next time define what you mean from the start. Either way the plant in Germany is still operational, the one Audi had. It's operated by Kiwi AG and it's located in Werlte. > I have to to admit, it's pretty exhausting how solar fans always end up relying on devices that have n…

> You said "isn't real", that's literally all you said. Until you can show me one that's been built, that remains correct. . > Either way the plant in Germany is still operational, the one Audi had. It's operated by Kiwi AG and it's located in Werlte. That's a different plant doing different work in a different city, which was built by different people and never owned by Audi. That plant produces hydrogen from water,…

Can you link to the plant you refer to?

This plant is in Wertle and it produces e-gas by splitting water into H2 and O2 and in the next step the H2 reacts with CO2 to give CH4. https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/press-releases/new-audi-...

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

#707
post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, so I'm off by how many orders of magnitude then? 4? Or 20? If I'm off by 3 or 4, whatever the reason, my previous comment applies, and the amount of energy you need is still off by orders of magnitude! So how many am I wrong by? wind power takes up surface area too . In fact, wind is just solar energy. The amount of energy you can get on earth from any source besides nuclear, fossil fuels and geothermal is h…

> So how many am I wrong by? Doesn't matter at all because, as I pointed out, the whole approach is ridiculously wrong-headed. We know how much energy we actually need, and it has nothing to do with how much is in the ground and how it got there. > wind power takes up surface area too. However, that can even be the same surface area you've already put solar panels on. > The amount of energy you can get on earth from…

300TW is 1.2% of 26000TW, not 0.12%.

Where do we get this 300TW number from? Does this include heating in winter, cooling in summer, fuel for moving goods and people in cars, trains, ships, airplanes, agriculture future energy consumption, and the energy needed to remove CO2 that has been created as per the proposal in the article at the top of this thread?

So the sun shone, for a billion years, to keep it simple, 26000 TW per year, and the photosynthesis on the surface of the ocean only saved what, projected oil reserves another 100 years, 60k TW at best? That puts photosyntheses of the ocean surface chloroplasts converted into oil at 0.0000001% efficiency. Either that or there's triple digits orders of magnitude more oil under the surface we don't know about. You believe that?

And suppose that is true. That would mean the amount of carbon coming from it is absolutely miniscule. Think of the number of tons of carbon dioxide that could've been in the atmosphere when the photosynthesis started, subtract out what would've been locked up to store this miniscule amount of energy, that's what you get, hardly anything. We know that's not true, so we can safely guess that the energy from photosynthesis that was stored was significantly more efficient than 0.0000001%, if it weren't you wouldn't have a climate crisis, which means humans use much more than 300TW. And that's just currently.

Wherever you're getting these consumption numbers from, they're just simply not possible. The carbon that has been produced in the last 100 years outweighs the amount that would be released from oil during that time if it were constant 300TW yearly, let alone with the comparatively small amount 100 years ago.

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

#708
post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the calculation stay the same looking decades ahead? I'd have guessed that 200k to rip it down & build a new house that has great insulation - or even to just retrofit insulation and other upgrades to the existing building - would be expected to last longer before costing the same amount against to replace (and/or pricey maintenance/insurance of the more expensive PV, aircon etc.). And might therefore work out c…

Yes, it is difficult and I don't think it is possible to come up with a solution that fits all. What limited I can say: Insurance for the PV is cheaper than insurance for the insulation. That is because more problems with insulation can appear (e.g. fire damage, moisture) than with PV. Insulation of old houses is also far more complex than PV (someone pointed that our here). .. it was mentioned somewhere here, too: F…

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

#709

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…

Wasn't the article exactly about this need for a massive over capacity of installed PV, and that it still is possible to do?

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

#710
post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methanol is very nasty though. If it leaks, it leaves you blind or dead.

Leaking natural gas tends to leave you exploded, too...

There are natural gas leaks on a regular basis here in Europe. It only explodes with a fire source. People smell the gas leak and inform the fire station.
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