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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

#761

Post by kortilla »

pydry wrote: post #611
pclmulqdq wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, he sold it very, very slowly, over 20 years. The hypothetical I was responding to is suggesting that these billionaires' fortunes be liquidated within a year. Even so, you don't know how much higher the price of MSFT would be if not for Gates's selling. Other factors just drove the price up faster than he drove it down.

Yeah, fair point. Either way the meme of bezos's wealth being a fiction is comprehensively disproved.

Nobody said it’s a fiction. What is a fiction is pretending the current share price * number of shares is what the value is. That’s completely detached from how the stock market works.

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

#762

Post by cinntaile »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #758
cinntaile wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the 2013 Audi e-gas plant. It is now run by Kiwi AG, the CEO there is the previous boss at Audi e-fuels. So yes, please link what you mean. Also nobody is talking about making gasoline from air, just to clarify. The process is described in the linked article, it is the same process as the one that this entire topic is about and it is the one I just described.

> This is the 2013 Audi e-gas plant. As was already explained, no, that was in Dresden.

Go back to the start of this thread so that you can verify that you replied to " > The catch is that power-to-gas tech described in the article". e-gas is synthetic methane, this plant went online in 2013. The plant exists and it produces e-gas. Which was what was asked for, this settles the discussion.

Additionally I would like to point out that the Dresden plant started in 2014 (not 2013) and it produces e-diesel, this is not e-gas.

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

#763

Post by prawn »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #652
rocqua wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe, roof PV is actually making the grid worse off when residential areas become over-producers. The capacity is not available to move the peak solar power away from residential areas or between residential areas. The grid is apparently designed for top down generation.

I don't think overproduction will be as big an issue once BEVs and cheaper home storage (sodium ion or other means) hit the mainstream. Reverse metering is basically a shadow subsidy. And I'm not arguing that the grid doesn't need to be adapted or needs work, but if we have a lot of home generation, then we don't need to worry as much about increasing overall grid capacity to handle BEV home charging.

Do residential peaks coincide with A/C use (daytime, hot weather)? At these times, do you know what portion of energy use by ducted A/C might be covered by a 5-10kW home system?

Our council is currently promoting group buying discounts for solar and/or battery systems, and the state government had been running solar installation rebates/credits for several years.

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

#764

Post by alvah »

greenthrow wrote: post #121
goethes_kind wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you not believe in synthetic hydrocarbons? What else do you believe is a better alternative then?

Your questions are loaded. You're doing the religious person thing of "Well you don't believe in Jesus, so what do you believe in?" Just because I don't believe synthetic hydrocarbons are a good idea doesn't mean I have to have a replacement.

Synthetic hydrocarbons may be the stepping stone civilisation needs, until a better way of storing renewable energy at grid scale is invented. If you don't like them for unspecified reasons, and don't propose a viable alternative, you're not contributing to the debate.

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

#765

Post by sn9 »

kesor wrote: post #718

Isn't this what trees do already? And if trees don't do it "good enough", should we really replace the trees with technological mini-chemical-plants that will starve all of the CO2? I don't get it. Why do humans think their crazy ideas are better for nature, while at the same time it is obvious they are going to exterminate whole species when implemented.

He addresses this in the whitepaper.

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/02/03/terraform-indu...

Ctrl-f "Tree" to find the FAQ.

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

#766

Post by sn9 »

standardUser wrote: post #141
jtolmar wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a central planning committee trying to solve for the best outcome under physical constraints, nothing beats nuclear power and railroads. If you're living in an economic system where investment is primarily determined by rate of profit, then you need to identify a solution where everyone involved is making more money than they would be without you. So it's very important they're competing with oil on economi…

Maybe if natural gas was in short supply I could understand their angle. But it isn't, so I don't. Seems like a solution in search of a problem. Meanwhile, global warming, the paramount problem, needs fast solutions, not elaborate stopgap workarounds.

You're missing the part where this would displace fossil fuels with "electrofuels", meaning for every ton of this stuff made, that's more fossil fuels left in the ground. Replacing a fossil fuel with a carbon neutral fuel means a reduction in net carbon emissions.

The other part you're missing is that this decouples fuel production from locations with large fossil fuel sources (often run by governments with authoritarian rulers who use their exports as leverage). This means that you can spread production to anywhere the sun shines which means highly decentralized, local production of electrofuels.

The third part you're missing is how this increases demand for solar panels and carbon sequestration technology which has an amazing feedback loop that makes these cheaper and more efficient over the decades, meaning that as hydrocarbon demand declines over time as other technologies take over (e.g., electric cars reducing demand from the transportation sector), this built up intellectual capital and infrastructure can be used to just sequester carbon for long-term storage, which would be net negative instead of just carbon neutral.

There's probably more you're missing but I'd just recommend reading more of the blog where he explains everything.

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

#767

Post by mikewarot »

Kon5ole wrote: post #562
mikewarot wrote: post #377

It seems to me we need a lot of nuclear power. In the US, we need to close the fuel cycle, reprocessing all the existing spent fuel, and building a new class of reactors that can handle the resulting fuel mix. With this base energy supply in hand, our options are far more flexible for extracting carbon from the air, and either making fuels, or petrochemical feed stock from it.

I think new nuclear is a distraction from the best solution. Closing the fuel cycle is a good idea of course but we don't know how to do that yet. Current reprocessing doesn't remove the waste it just reduces it. Reprocessing that can entirely get rid of the waste needs a scientific breakthrough that certainly might happen, but trying to make it happen will require research centers with highly qualified staff, very e…

Many of the issues you site about nuclear power have been solved. Here's a quote from an answer by acidburnNSA [1] who works in the industry, to a different story here on HN.

"Anyway let's just do fission you guys. It's way easier. It has been working fine since the 1950s. It's zero carbon. Waste problem is solved (see Onkalo, and reprocessing). It net saves millions of lives by displacing air pollution. It runs 24/7 on a tiny land and material footprint. We have enough uranium and thorium to run the whole world for 4 billion (with a b) years using breeder reactors (demonstrated in 1952 in Idaho). Get the Koreans over here to build some ARP1400s or the Chinese to build some Hualong Ones until we figure out how to project manage again and then call it good."

  [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32208505

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

#768

Post by adrianN »

jshen wrote: post #679
adrianN wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to do the cheapest thing that reduces CO2 emissions. Currently I believe that's building more renewables and electrifying more sectors.

We also need to avoid a monoculture of energy source. Having all our eggs in one or two baskets is very risky.

What's the risk? It's not like we run out of wind and sunshine anytime soon. Please don't answer that sometimes neither the sun shines nor the wind blows, because we already know that we'll need storage for a carbon free system.

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

#769

Post by ncmncm »

Retric wrote: post #624
ncmncm wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no need to buy land to put solar on. So, land cost may be exactly zero. Solar coexists synergetically with many other uses, most particularly reservoirs and canals, where it cuts evaporation and biofouling and runs cooler, thus more efficiently (up to 2x vs desert); and pasture, where it also cuts evaporation, and the livestock can duck under to get out of sun and rain, and keep weeds down; and cr…

There is no free lunch here. Worker safety, installation costs, maintenance, etc seriously favor installing solar on cheap land rather than as part of mixed use. It’s not just about people falling off roofs, the kW people can install per hour goes down. Similarly you rarely stick solar trackers on roofs and can’t on simple floating platforms while the majority of grid installs use at least single axis tracking which…

Nobody uses solar trackers anymore. And "falling off" is not a thing anybody does out in a field.

So, you are concern trolling, and badly. That is unwelcome here.

Too, anybody not already handy with putting up fencing is no farmer.

Finally, sunshine really is as free as anything ever, and the buckets are cheap and getting cheaper.

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

#770

Post by ncmncm »

phtrivier wrote: post #612
nl wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Australia (where it gets pretty hot) a bunch of places have started putting solar panels over carparks. They are great because they shade the cars, and often the installation cost is $0 because the installer will sign a X year agreement with the occupier to provide electricity at Y cost for a number of years.

And here in France, local environmental NGOs are starting to prevent any solar project installed on fields (even with the crops still growing underneath), on the ground "officially", that is ruins the countryside view ; and, "innofficiallt", on the grounds that it's corporations that are installing the panels, ergo it's bad. https://www.revolution-energetique.com/pourquoi-ces-habitant...

The French need to process ideas more, but they do get there in the end. Panels will be cheaper when they do.
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