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We're going to need a lot of solar panels

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

#731

Post by kragen »

dhsysusbsjsi wrote: post #491
pawsforthought wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methane’s much higher global warming potential (versus carbon dioxide), implies that there’s a threshold of methane leaks above which the warming would be worse than if you did nothing at all.

Doing the math, methane is around 30x worse than CO2. So say you pulled down 30 units of CO2 and 1 unit of Methane leaked (3%), you’re back to square one. Not to mention the Methane will be burned into CO2 again so this closed cycle isn’t so closed. This study suggests up to 9% is leaked currently: https://news.stanford.edu/2022/03/24/methane-leaks-much-wors...

This is a good point: you need to get your methane leakage rate below 3% in order for synthetic methane to improve the climate-change situation rather than making it worse. Probably the easiest way to do that is to convert it into a liquid fuel, like methanol as I suggested upthread, kerosene as I suggested in a different comment, or ethanol.

At the point where you are doing enough direct air capture of CO₂ to supply a substantial fraction of the world fuel demand, you're also doing enough direct air capture to capture a substantial fraction of world CO₂ emissions. At that point you can just pump some of it into natural gas fields instead of converting it to CH₄.

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

#732

Post by bob29 »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #691
bob29 wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many chemical plants synthesizing chemicals in large quantities: ammonia, ethanol, etc. Until 10 years ago, the cheapest primary fuel was all fossil fuel based, so making synthetic fuels from fossil fuels is simply a loss in efficiency. Only in the last decade, for the first time, renewables are a cheaper form of primary energy, creating motivation for a fuel producing energy plant R&D. BTW: instead of ragi…

> There are many chemical plants synthesizing chemicals in large quantities: ammonia, ethanol, etc. There sure are. Zero of them, however, produce gasoline or kerosene from air. Many, many substances cannot be produced in chemical plants currently. . > Until 10 years ago, the cheapest primary fuel was all fossil fuel based It still is, by leagues. The only reason that isn't showing up in the market is a blend of tax…

I'm not one to argue etymology. Apparently nothing is real until it's realized. So "not being real" is meaningless and we should discuss whether something is "able to be realized".

Can fuels by synthesized at industrial scale? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol

I'm sure the goalposts just moved LOL

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

#733

Post by pawsforthought »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #666
pawsforthought wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That one image very powerfully captures the total and utter idiocy of car-centric development. Imagine if that thin sprinkling of actual buildings were reconfigured into one dense, car-free urban core…

That isn't car centric development, that is urban development in a city that fell into hard times. The whole area in the picture is about one square mile (i.e. it was the dense core of the city), and during boom times it was full of buildings. Many of the buildings were torn down when their owners could no longer afford to maintain them and they were replaced with parking lots because they look a lot better than over…

I suppose we have different standards for what constitutes car-centric development. Even if all those parking lots were built up, I see a whole lot of pavement and not a lot of pedestrian / cycling infrastructure nor greenery (I looked on street view). I mean, there are 18-wheeler semis on those streets!

Add to that urban freeways with enormous junctions ringing this supposedly dense core, cutting off surrounding areas from car-free access.

Yes, the city center has some tall buildings. The car is still dominant on its streets though.

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

#734

Post by M_bara »

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…

Just wondering, isn’t it viable to have Solar arrays in the Sahara/equator regions and have the power transmitted to temperate zones? Is the transmission the issue? Is it politics? Super conductors? I’d love to know why we can’t have a follow the sun global grid…

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

#735

Post by kkfx »

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…

I have a small 5kWp PV at home, with a small lithium storage (8kWh) just to cover my arse in case of outage, since here (French Alps) there is a very big day-night thermal delta it's very good in summer, where at night I just need the VMC in passive mode and A/C only during the day, for the rest it's enough for heating sanitary water almost ONLY from the Sun, winter included, and to run some appliances (dishwasher, washing machine etc) in self-consumption. Doing more is needed for trying to charge an EV from PV during the day, likely the double at minimum, but to heat the house in winter OR:

- I need a very expensive battery (60kWh/~30k€ at least just to avoid big daily deep discharge cycles) who might or might not last 10 years with an expensive geothermal heat-pump 15k€ at least;

- I need a giant insulated, probably underground for mere easiness of design, pool and PV plant (I do not know how to estimate but surely few swimming pools of water and enough PV to heat it) to store enough heat for the night.

Both options are ridiculously expensive especially since they still NOT give autonomy since they can support day-to-day winter IF the Sun shine enough, witch might but also might not happen. Perhaps in a future H₂ from hydrolysis will be on sale to offer a fuel-cell third option, but I imagine it will be even more expensive.

So far it's still FAR, FAR, FAR, cheaper using the grid + an emergency wood based heating. Long story short I might accept investing (I'm actually in the planning stage) a 15kWp or so PV for an EV charging (WFH so without daily car usage) but trying more is just money gifted to some company pocket. Oh BTW that's JUST for private homes. We also have public buildings AND industry...

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

#736

Post by kristianp »

M_bara wrote: post #734
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…

Just wondering, isn’t it viable to have Solar arrays in the Sahara/equator regions and have the power transmitted to temperate zones? Is the transmission the issue? Is it politics? Super conductors? I’d love to know why we can’t have a follow the sun global grid…

There is a plan afoot to cable electricity from an Australian solar farm to Singapore, so these things may be in the future: https://suncable.energy/

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

#737

Post by Terr_ »

danaris wrote: post #623
ncmncm wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would think "exsolation" would either be a) what the sun does or b) a potential (though IMO somewhat nutty) geoengineering project to simply reflect a bunch of sunlight back into space before it heats us up. What you're describing sounds like maybe "resolation"? (Though also sounds like it's increasing the total amount of insolation, and thus would accelerate climate change...it's actually very similar to the solet…

Hah, just re-read (or to be precise, re-audiobook-listened) to Komarr last week. I kind of want a side-novel following Auditor Vorthys now... although I imagine he's already something of a time-seasoned Leo Graf.

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

#738

Post by bufferoverflow »

lutorm wrote: post #683
bufferoverflow wrote: post #675

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...

Leaking methane rises, so it's not a huge problem. We have natural methane leaks all over.

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

#739

Post by jillesvangurp »

katkatkatkatket wrote: post #620
jillesvangurp wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20gwh is a nice start of course but like the solar growth is impressive, battery production capacity growth is also impressive. And of course there are many other forms of storage. I'm bringing this up because people seem to worry about intermittency of solar and wind without realizing just how much battery capacity there actually will be in a few years. I think we can safely expect some records to be broken on the b…

That's all wonderful. It's going to be fun watching how the economics of raw material mining vs battery recycling works out.

Just more engineering challenges. It's going to be fine.

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

#740

Post by brazzy »

betwixthewires wrote: post #707
brazzy wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, 26…

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