Here is what the acolytes of solar power don't want you to know...

self | July 15, 2003 | Boot Hill

[logic]

What about Bio-diesel. It seems to me that a great way to remove our dependence on foriegn oil would be to power cars with fuel made from vegetable oil. We have more than enough farm land to produce the vegetable oil, could be done by the farmers that are being paid to not produce. It's much more environmentally friendly, and diesels are much more efficient if the engine is kept small (compacts, not trucks & SUV's) all we have to do is figure out how to make a decent deisel engine (send spys to the vw plant?!?)

What am I overlooking, because this seems too simple to me so someone else much smarter than me should have worked it out some time ago....

[Boot Hill]

DB contends:   "You also show the plants capital expenses to build the plant but not the actual fuel costs over the life of the plant."

Incorrect, I covered that in the third paragraph of "Here is an example" and the interest costs of the very expensive solar power plants would exceed the actual fuel costs over the life of the plant. The interest costs of a 30 year, 10 billion dollar loan at 5.3% would be $9 billion dollars greater for a 1000 MW solar plant than for a conventional power plant. The cost of the natural gas for the conventional plant during that same 30 year period would be $8.9 billion dollars. This presumes $1/W for conventional and $10/W for solar. The real cost of a solar power plant would be greater than the $10/W figure I quoted and conventional plants are closer to $0.75/W.

--Boot Hill

[Wonder Warthog]

Sheer crapola. I haven't seen so may lies and half-truths in one place since Clinton wagged his finger.

[The Red Zone]

I've heard it sure smells good. Like French Freedom fries.

But, it is hard on fuel systems. You know the golden crud you get on oven utensils after greasing them and baking something? Which is difficult to scrub off? That's what happens to veggie oil in engines.

[The Red Zone]

So you get them within hollering distance. That's actually better than I'd expect.

[taxed2death]

On my last 'pooter, before it crashed I had bookmarked a study that one college in the midwest did on a 12 valve Cummins diesel engine, these power 3/4 and 1 ton pickups as well as busses / 45 foot boats........anyway, they ran this engine for months on end on pure veg oil, only stopping forcrank case oil changes etc. and discovered no additional wear / tear versus running on conventional diesel fuel.

It is entirely do-able. The biggest stumbling block is that veg oil gels up and cakes up in sub 40 degree weather.

If you do a web search you'll discover there's quite a few home hobbyists running 100% veg oil in their diesels.....not just the 90 /10 % diesel / bio fuel mixture.

[Boot Hill]

logic asks:   "What about Bio-diesel?"

Transportation accounts for the consumption of about 26 million, billion BTU's annually. Does it sound feasible to extract that much from our nation's soils? (Just a question, not a statement.)

--Boot Hill

[Growler]

Let's do it! What else is New Mexico good for, anyway?

[Radioactive]

Just say

COAL.

[Boot Hill]

Don't be shy, WW...

--Boot Hill

[Lee'sGhost]

Here's a twist on solar power I read recently (I think it was in Discover).

Sorry, I don't have the referenced material handy, so forgive the vague details.

There's some guy with a long track record of successful ventures (not a nut) who says that silicon is not the way to pursue solar power. He has develped working prototypes of focused multi-mirror Stirling engine powered generators. These apparently are self-contained critters about 9 to 12 feet across. He is working to refine the technology and make them yet smaller. Wish I could give you specs on output, etc. The proto-types are pretty expensive, but as with most new technology it will become very affordable once you stop building each one from scratch and put into mass production.

I'm not a scientist but the whole thing sounded very doable. And while Discover isn't a peer-review type publication, they don't print trash science either.

[Boot Hill]

It is actually far worse than that. I wanted to be as fair as possible with the cost comparison and cut solar some pretty big breaks with those figures.

--Boot Hill

[logic]

There is a process where lots of oil, small amount of methanol and a tiny amount of something else (Lye? it's in the book, just can't remember yet. just starting my latte!) that produces a substance that is almost exactly diesel fuel and doesn't have that 'caking' problem. However it is hard on rubber fuel lines, they must be replaced with synthetic rubber (modern diesels already have this from the factory so no upgrade needed)

Or you can heat the pure oil and then run it directly into the engine without problems but you have to switch back to diesel fuel for a couple minutes to purge the injectors before shutdown and when starting. That would require significant 're-engineering.' Just the sort of thing that gets me excited, constantly tinkering with something so I can be late for work every third day or so :) (does that make me a masochist or is there something else required?)

I am blaming my cat for all my errors too, just because he's at home and I'm at work is irrelevant! It's the thought that counts right?

[DB]

So you're saying that natural gas costs are 3.4 cents a kilowatt-hour?

Why am I paying about 12+ cents a kilowatt-hour?

[FreedomPoster]

>>Just say -- COAL.

I'd prefer to just say "nuclear fission". It releases a lot less radioactivity into the general environment, not to mention all the other pollutants. And it can be done very cost effectively.

[Boot Hill]

They have hot air balloon races, Sandia, Los Alamos, real interesting geology, Trinity site...

But on the other hand, New Mexico also is home to one of Ted Turner's bigger ranches.

--Boot Hill

[Boot Hill]

Why would I say that?

--Boot Hill

[Gorjus]

[I]t could offer clean energy . .

Actually, no. It might be cleaner than other sources, but there are some pretty toxic processes involved in making solar cells. When one considers the environmental cost of making the cells (takes fuel, and mining for materials, etc.) and eventual disposal of the cells they are far from clean. Think of all the lead in car batteries. Yes, the materials could be reclaimed, but that just doubles the processing on already-toxic materials, and takes yet more fuel.

It's analogous to electric cars, which don't burn any gasoline as they hum along but require more total fuel to be used than gasoline cars, since conversion and transmission from the power plants is less efficient than burning the fuel at the point of use. Only by ignoring the upstream cost (in the case of electric cars, the generation of the power at the plant; in the case of solar cells, the environmental impact of producing the cells) do they make sense.

Let the marketplace decide. If it turns out to be cost effective, then people will use it. If not (and subsidies don't count) then they won't. The only 'bad' answer is forcing a false answer. And among the false ones is the claim that solar power is truly clean.

[FreedomPoster]

That's a fuel cost only. You have to build, finance, and maintain a powerplant to burn the gas, a transmission and distribution system to get the electricity to your house, pay for overhead, etc. Also, as a residential customer, you're locked in, unlike many large industrial customers, so you don't exactly get the best rate.

[Boot Hill]

Because the stockholders would be offended if the power company gave away the power with out profit.

--Boot Hill