Solar variation ruled out in global warming

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:54 am

Realize I hate coal power too, so saying "it's better than coal" isn't exactly a killer argument. Even without the radiation in coal, it has every other pollutant known to man. I know we are the Saudi Arabia of coal, but the stuff is just toxic.

We have a lot of desert in California, and a lot of people living in that desert. The homes are not designed for the desert, though. They rely on AC to be liveable. That's a policy failure. There are designs for desert homes that require far less AC, in fact there are designs that require no AC at all, so why not make them mandatory? Why not make solar in the desert mandatory, and subsidized?

Flourescent lights work great now. That's all I have in my home, with the exception of two decorative pendants that I couldn't find a flourescent bulb to fit in. Why even have incandescent lights? Why have any appliances or devices that are not designed to be efficient?

If we went through our entire country and replaced all the junk burning unnecessary wattage, required fuel efficient cars, and darkened our cities at night, our energy needs would drop like a stone. It would take work and money, but less than trying to stabilize the Middle East, and it would be so worth it to have cleaner air, cleaner water, and no dependancy on the Middle East, not to mention potentially reversing global warming. Maybe we could even shut down our coal plants.

Grand Fromage · Post by **Grand Fromage** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 4:44 am

Well, the point is, what else are we comparing to? Coal is our main energy source. Wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, tidal, these are all nice and should be exploited when possible, but they aren't going to cut it. Neither is conservation. You have to have a primary generation system, and for now that means coal or nuclear fission. It doesn't mean we shouldn't make more efficient use of the energy we have and use solar cell roofs in the desert and all that, but you still have to have a grid that will produce power under any circumstances.

Like fusion, wide-scale solar usage is something for the future, if it can be made much more efficient than it is now. Right now solar cells are something like 12% efficient, which is pretty pathetic. The only reason they're useful in any way is that the sun is an effectively infinite source.

Super-efficient solar arrays in orbit sending down power by microwave beams would be pretty awesome though.

Post by **paazin** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:21 pm

Grand Fromage wrote:Super-efficient solar arrays in orbit sending down power by microwave beams would be pretty awesome though.

If they don't miss and melt down half a city

Jeppan · Post by **Jeppan** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:03 pm

Helios wrote:Thanks, this thread has been an eye opener for me.

Kudos Helios. Well done! Maybe there is a chance for a better world after all

Zakharra · Post by **Zakharra** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:10 pm

paazin wrote:
Grand Fromage wrote:Super-efficient solar arrays in orbit sending down power by microwave beams would be pretty awesome though.
If they don't miss and melt down half a city

That is easily preventable. If the solar/microwave array deviates from it's target point, then it would automatically shut down and have to be manually restarted. Of course something like this might need constant human supervision for the first few generatiosn of arrays until a efficient and protected computer can be made to run it with the least chance of being hacked.

Zakharra · Post by **Zakharra** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:18 pm

The only way we can get the power we need is through nuclear or caol burning plants. We need vast amounts of power. Mush more than what solar and wind will give. Coal plants can be made much cleaner and the US nuclear facilities, in spite of their age, are among the safest in the world.d If we could build new ones, with current technology, they'd be even safer.
Nothing is 100% safe, so if you use that for a basis of power generation, you will never have any power.

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:25 pm

Super-efficient solar arrays in orbit sending down power by microwave beams would be pretty awesome though.

Most importantly such arrays would finally constitute a weapon that can wipe out that meddling GI Joe once and for all.

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:31 pm

Actually, coal isn't our main energy source. Oil is.

Here’s a breakdown of the sources of energy in the United States:

Oil 39%
Natural gas 24%
Coal 23%
Nuclear 8%
Hydropower 3%
Other 3%

Now if you say "hydrocarbon" then you add oil, gas and coal to get 86%.

I don't even want to know what puncturing our atmosphere with massive microwave radiation would do. It can't be good, nor would it be terribly efficient given the energy loss at transfer.

Valnir268 · Post by **Valnir268** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 4:58 pm

reverting back to the talk about nuclear power. The recent earthquake in Japan raised some points in nuclear safety. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070717/ap_ ... apan_quake

Although this was just one of those days where things just went wrong for no reason, but it does bring to light that nuclear energy is still dangerous, and we should use caution when dealing with it. Not saying that we shouldn't use it, just a bit of caution

Mulu · Post by **Mulu** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:19 pm

Another point on solar, in California at least if your panels produce more energy than you use, the power company has to buy it from you. Your power meter is two way, and excess wattage goes into the grid, making every solar home part of a large, distributed and virally expanding powerplant. I'm sure you Netizens can appreciate that model.

MorbidKate · Post by **MorbidKate** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:45 pm

Mulu wrote:Another point on solar, in California at least if your panels produce more energy than you use, the power company has to buy it from you. Your power meter is two way, and excess wattage goes into the grid, making every solar home part of a large, distributed and virally expanding powerplant. I'm sure you Netizens can appreciate that model.

What I find interesting is that not a single nuclear facility has started new construction since January, 1977. 30 years. The political blowback from the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 has made building new plants almost impossible. It took 24 years to bring the last reactor online in 1996. On top of that, the last oil refinery built in the US was 31 years ago, back in 1976. One has to ask why given the blow to alternative energy like nuclear just 3 years later.

US Population in 1976: 218 Million

US Population in 2006: 300 Million

As for space-based solar I just can't imagine it being safe, reliable or feasible.

Kate

Post by **ayergo** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:11 pm

Mulu wrote:Another point on solar, in California at least if your panels produce more energy than you use, the power company has to buy it from you. Your power meter is two way, and excess wattage goes into the grid, making every solar home part of a large, distributed and virally expanding powerplant. I'm sure you Netizens can appreciate that model.

As someone who's run the numbers on this (in California), its REALLY hard to end up with a net gain right now. This is something i've done a substantial amount of research on, and can share some insight:

There's a few really big holdbacks in the numbers. The first is that with surface area being limited for a home, you have to use dense panels (80 Watts +). Then the problem is making sure you get at least partial sun exposure. You can do a lot of fancy sun tracking stuff, but it costs extra and is rarely worth the increased output and loss of surface area.

Solar panels are also tough to come by. Manufacturing process isn't anywhere close to demand. Rumor is that Germany has snatched up the bulk of them, but basically these can't be churned out in quantity or reliability yet. Much more research has to go in here before its commercially or industrially viable. This demand has increased prices to a point where they are prohibitive.

The other is in the way many of our systems are set up. A lot of our heat/cooling systems are horribly inefficient. Many even use electricity for heating! Yikes!

On top of this, like many things left in the sun, panels do degrade over time. The degradation rate means that they have to be replaced around 7 years in their lifespan, and currently you don't get enough net gain from the sale of electricity on that unless you have a farmland full of 120 Watt Panels (which is actually the case at one place here in Davis).

Despite this i'm doing some experimentation currently. I managed to get an 80 Watt used panel off Craigslist. I could go into my little project ideas in another post if folks are interested in the nuts and bolts of it. Essentially it involves combing several commonly used things to reduce the effects of "phatom loads", etc.

P.S. As i was typing this, my boss put a small 1.5 Watt Solar panel on my desk. LOL

Burt · Post by **Burt** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:11 pm

Another point on solar, in California at least if your panels produce more energy than you use, the power company has to buy it from you.

Wtf.

*moves to Cali and sets up nuclear generator in his basement*

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:12 pm

Valnir268 wrote:reverting back to the talk about nuclear power. The recent earthquake in Japan raised some points in nuclear safety. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070717/ap_ ... apan_quake

Although this was just one of those days where things just went wrong for no reason, but it does bring to light that nuclear energy is still dangerous, and we should use caution when dealing with it. Not saying that we shouldn't use it, just a bit of caution

Just wait for the Yellowstone Park mega volcano to go off. I wonder how many nuclear power stations would be in the blast and earthquake range of that...

As for the damage nuclear waste does, the radiation from Chernobyl made it as far as Wales. It rained on some farmland and a lot of sheep got contaminated by the radioactive grass. Because the farmers were no longer allowed to sell their sheep they couldn't make any money so all they could afford to eat... were their own sheep. I worked with a couple of Welsh men in London (they commuted to London from Wales during the week and went home in the weekend). They lived in farmland and a lot of their neighbours were dying of cancer. That was in 2000. Can't say I've heard any similar stories about coal.

NickD · Post by **NickD** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:25 pm

Mulu wrote:Another point on solar, in California at least if your panels produce more energy than you use, the power company has to buy it from you. Your power meter is two way, and excess wattage goes into the grid, making every solar home part of a large, distributed and virally expanding powerplant. I'm sure you Netizens can appreciate that model.

This has been the case in the Netherlands for years with windmills. While, as several people in this thread have mentioned, solar energy is not yet efficient enough, given time and people actually investing in it with this 2 way model as a false incentive it will eventually get to the point where the South can actually generate enough power for the entire country with power companies acting more as infrastructure providers with few electricity farms instead of being the main electricity generators.