Posted on 05/10/2009 11:59:52 AM PDT by neverdem
Look up the actual RESEARCH on solar thermal. It can and does achieve full reliability WITHOUT any other source of backup power. It does this by storing energy AS HEAT. And in the places where it will be installed, only needs 16 hours of storage capacity to achieve that performance. This is hard data from pilot plants, not fantasy spinning of hypothetical "problems" like you continue to do.
Like I said above, I would love to buy some more panels for $2/watt and would be ecstatic at $1. I think if Warthog looked into it a little deeper he would see the meddling fingers of government choosing winners and losers in the marketplace. Even though coal has been deemed a loser, it provides me my cheapest electricity especially in the summer when I need it for A/C. My highest monthly bill has been $50 for a 2000 sq ft house (I have Allegheny Power).
Thank God for dreamers like me, because we're the reason society advances technologically. Knee-jerk naysayers like you have been around since forever and were probably around saying thing like "fire will never catch on".
"They read some article by some professor (who have to keep writing articles to keep their jobs) or researcher who have a vested interested in exploring this crazy technology."
The techonogy articles I am referring to are published engineering studies by contractors to places like EPRI and NREL. They contain ENGINEERING DATA on such systems.
"But if it were really practical then somebody somewhere would have already implemented it. The US isn't the only country in the world."
Actually, you're right. And they HAVE (or are) being implemented. Solar thermal large scale plants have been built (for instance) in Spain. And guess what, that same Spanish contractor is in the bidding for several "hundreds of megawatts" scale plants to be built in the Southwest.
But trying to pound facts into the head of an idiot like you is a waste of time.
Cells for home-scale systems should be available from Nanosolar in a year or two. The plant to produce them is being built now.
"I think if Warthog looked into it a little deeper he would see the meddling fingers of government choosing winners and losers in the marketplace."
Yup, and Nanosolar is a case in point. It started as an SBIR Phase I grant to two professers ("dreamers" as "truthguy" calls them). Just like literally hundreds of technology projects in the past. Definitely the "meddling fingers of government"--and thank God for them.
I don’t argue with the government funding basic research, what I am arguing against is mandates that force ratepayers to subsidize politically correct power sources. There’s a big economic multiplier on the first type of spending, but the second is generally a drag on the economy. I also don’t see how nanosolar in particular has solved the fundamental problems with solar, namely diffuse energy, conversion inefficiency, and hooking up inefficient cells to build realistic power sources. Nor do they themselves have a solution for power storage (which is fine, but can’t be ignored when considering the economic benefits of their approach).
Nanosolar has raised HALF A BILLION DOLLARS of private captital. Some of the most astute venture capital firms are known to be investors. That sounds to me like investors ARE "falling over themselves to fund (this) project".
And yet you say you'd buy all you can. The "diffuse energy" argument is simply bogus. ALL energy other than nuclear is "diffuse". Look up the size of the "collector area" for hydroelectric plants--those are in the hundreds of THOUSANDS of square miles. Oil and coal were originally solar energy--the only difference is that "Mother Nature" built and operated the collector over very large areas and long periods of time.
If "inefficient" cells are cheap enough, you can afford to hook up a lot of them. Of course, Nanosolar's cells are right in the middle of the pack as regards conversion efficiency, so I don't see how you can call them "inefficient".
The more important parameter is QUALITY of energy. Electric power is the highest "quality" energy available. Get enough of it cheaply enough, you can convert it into any other form of energy. Who knows--in the future, we may be using solar electricity to make anti-matter, and shipping THAT around.
"Nor do they themselves have a solution for power storage (which is fine, but can’t be ignored when considering the economic benefits of their approach)."
I suspect that the hundreds of studies that consider $1/watt solar cells to be "cost effective" have included storage. Again, if you can get the cost of the electricity low enough, a lot of "impractical" things suddenly become practical.
The ability to "print" solar cells onto sheets of aluminum at hundreds (and potentially thousands) of feet per minute is, in my opinion, a game-changing breakthrough.
$1/watt cells would be cost effective for me because I can buy wholesale sealed batteries and stick them in my cool basement where they should last many years if I keep them adequately charged. But that won’t scale to a power plant, they will need some other way of storing power. The government should fund more basic research into capacitors instead of throwing billions into lithium for electric cars (we will run out of lithium after a few million cars). The government tends to misallocate scarce resources rather than cultivate new ones.
If you get over the mountains to the east, it's a frickin' desert. The sun shines there quite nicely. (FYI, I "live" in the Pacific Northwest). Just like every other "point" you have raised, you don't know your butt from a latrine.
But to actually answer your question, you build a solar thermal/fossil hybrid. Completely replacing fossil fuels across the southern US (where solar thermal is completely practical) frees up reserves that can be used elsewhere.
The "photovolataic option" in my opinion is NOT well suited to baseline electric generation, but it IS well suited to generating energy for transportation (either by battery or fuel cell vehicles).
Here is how I would implement a solar powered transportation system. Starting in California and going east and north along interstate highways, at 100 mile intervals, build an "easy-on, easy-off" ramp that parallels the highway for a mile. Offer incentives to companies that establish truck stops to run them. Install sufficient solar photovoltaic to run the truck stop and provide recharging stations for both battery powered cars and hydrogen refill stations for fuel cell cars. As more businesses open along the "strip", and as demand for more battery or hydrogen refilling capacity expands, install more solar along that mile-wide strip perpendicular to the highway.
This provides the necessary "baseline market" for solar cell companies to expand, and minimizes the disadvantages that hydrogen has (transmission over long distances), and storage. Sure, you need "some" storage, but not nearly the same as if you were generating baseline load.
And as the solar cells improve, you continue to build east and north as more efficient cells are developed (and they certainly will be---if I was in charge of R&D at Nanosolar, I'd be working my ass off to find a different "ink" that can be printed over the CIGS layer, but that works in a different region of the solar spectrum".
"The government should fund more basic research into capacitors instead of throwing billions into lithium for electric cars (we will run out of lithium after a few million cars). The government tends to misallocate scarce resources rather than cultivate new ones."
No, actually we won't "run out of lithium". Lithium is one of the more abundant elements on our planet. There are plenty of sources. And in the vehicular or central power storage market, recycling and recovery will be MUCH more effective than in the consumer market.
And based on my knowledge of the technology, capacitors stand ZERO chance of ever storing enough energy to drive a vehicle.
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