Solar Power

Drove by a new solar farm last weekend. It's in a great location. It's next to a interstate highway so noisy that no one in their right mind would develop it for housing and since it's no where near an exit, the retail potential is very limited. So it's good to see "unusable" land being useful.

However, this did remind me of how inefficient and uncompetitive solar power is. So what ideas can everyone come up with to encourage the development of solar power that can compete in a subsidy free manner. Some ideas that I've come up with:

1. Junk the current subsidies on solar power. They don't work and in this age of tight budgets we can get more bang for our buck elsewhere.

2. Fund a huge amount of research on battery technology. Frankly if renewables are to ever succeed, we need a fundamental breakthrough in battery technology. The sun doesn't always shine.

3. Solar power is actually competitive in remote areas with no grid and limited transportation available. So those uses should be promoted. Including expanding the charity option. There are a lot of area in Africa which meet this definition and we can learn a lot about practical real world use while at the same time providing a benefit.

biochem wrote:Drove by a new solar farm last weekend. It's in a great location. It's next to a interstate highway so noisy that no one in their right mind would develop it for housing and since it's no where near an exit, the retail potential is very limited. So it's good to see "unusable" land being useful.

However, this did remind me of how inefficient and uncompetitive solar power is. So what ideas can everyone come up with to encourage the development of solar power that can compete in a subsidy free manner. Some ideas that I've come up with:

1. Junk the current subsidies on solar power. They don't work and in this age of tight budgets we can get more bang for our buck elsewhere.

2. Fund a huge amount of research on battery technology. Frankly if renewables are to ever succeed, we need a fundamental breakthrough in battery technology. The sun doesn't always shine.

3. Solar power is actually competitive in remote areas with no grid and limited transportation available. So those uses should be promoted. Including expanding the charity option. There are a lot of area in Africa which meet this definition and we can learn a lot about practical real world use while at the same time providing a benefit.

The problem with renewables is that they arent being used effectively, or in sufficent proportion to encourage further usage and investment. Also, people need to link them together, instead of relying on only one. you should really have a solar panel with a wind turbine if possible.

point 1 is a reasonable carrot, but a carrot is often useless if the other carrots around are bigger (fossil fuels). You also need a stick to encourage usage of renewables, eg a tax on electrical companies, sized on how much renewable power as a percentage say. so the more renewables, the smaller the tax.

point 2 is good as well, and people are working on it, it just doesnt have enough researchers behind it as everyone is researching ways of making fossil fuels more efficent instead of looking at renewables. I bet 80% of the fuel research times for electrical company and car company scientists goes into research of fossil fuels. turn that into renewable fuel research, and we will get places much quicker.


point 3, solar power is actually viable in non remote area as well, people just assume it always has to be big. cities are huge sprawling areas, with large spaces on the roofs unused. Imagine how much power could be generated if you covered a cities currently under utilised roofs with solar panels.and as the power is generated close to the consumption point, there is no extra infrastructure required, and less likelyhood of a blackout from damged transmission lines.


I would also add a point 4: that individuals, not just companies need to realise they can help lower their power bills by using micro turbines and small area solar panels on their roof. Big steps are great, but several small steps can equal one big step.



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its not paranoia if its justified....
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I've had a 2.4kw domestic grid feedback system for 5 years now, and I calculate that it has just now paid for itself in cheques and no power bills over that time. During the day when the factories are working it provides my home power and exports any surplus back to the grid, and at night I import power while industry is sleeping. Works for me, the economy and the environment. From now on it is all free. Happy muchly.

Daryl wrote:I've had a 2.4kw domestic grid feedback system for 5 years now, and I calculate that it has just now paid for itself in cheques and no power bills over that time. During the day when the factories are working it provides my home power and exports any surplus back to the grid, and at night I import power while industry is sleeping. Works for me, the economy and the environment. From now on it is all free. Happy muchly.

Not just free. you should be 'making' money off it now, in terms of the lowered costs of your power bill being cumulatively greater then your intial outlay for the panels. and who doesnt like free money?



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its not paranoia if its justified...
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You also need a stick to encourage usage of renewables, eg a tax on electrical companies, sized on how much renewable power as a percentage say. so the more renewables, the smaller the tax.

The problem with the stick is that it adds costs to businesses and negatively impacts jobs. The current world economy is doing so poorly now that doing anything to negatively impact jobs is a bad idea. This is the kind of thing that can cause minor pain during economic growth but cause major pain during a recession. But you could put a tax in place and link it to the unemployment rate such that when the unemployment rate is below 5% on January 1st of each year the tax is present and when the unemployment is greater than 5% on January 1st the tax is absent.

biochem wrote:Drove by a new solar farm last weekend. It's in a great location. It's next to a interstate highway so noisy that no one in their right mind would develop it for housing and since it's no where near an exit, the retail potential is very limited. So it's good to see "unusable" land being useful.

However, this did remind me of how inefficient and uncompetitive solar power is. So what ideas can everyone come up with to encourage the development of solar power that can compete in a subsidy free manner. Some ideas that I've come up with:

1. Junk the current subsidies on solar power. They don't work and in this age of tight budgets we can get more bang for our buck elsewhere.

2. Fund a huge amount of research on battery technology. Frankly if renewables are to ever succeed, we need a fundamental breakthrough in battery technology. The sun doesn't always shine.

3. Solar power is actually competitive in remote areas with no grid and limited transportation available. So those uses should be promoted. Including expanding the charity option. There are a lot of area in Africa which meet this definition and we can learn a lot about practical real world use while at the same time providing a benefit.

#1 is an excellent idea, as long as we do the same thing across the board. That means that if a company wants to lease land for fracking or mineral rights, they pay substantially higher costs. If they want a right of way for an oil pipeline, the price goes up. If they want tax deductions for building oil wells beyond the usual business expense structure every other corporation uses, too bad. Finally, the next time someone says, "This war will pay for itself" regarding an oil-rich nation, they need to be treated as mentally retarded and incapable of caring for themselves as an adult.

Regarding #2, I do believe we've tried that. It didn't work out so hot. Power storage solutions are always going to have fairly high inefficiencies, and current and next-generation batteries have serious lifetime limitations that are prohibitive in an infrastructure setting. America sucks at maintaining infrastructure. We built a giant, state of the art highway system in the 50's and forgot that we need to actually keep those roads paved- or even take a page from the Germans' book and build for a thousand years like brother Adolf did on the Autobahns. The man was an evil monster, but he did know how to hire good civil engineers. And let's not even get started on the power grid. If we're going to do anything serious with power storage, it has to be something with a shelf-life longer than five or even fifteen years.

Regarding #3, unraveling the subsidies and penalties provided to all forms of energy production, whether in international relationships, military budgets, generous land usage leases, tax breaks, outright subsidies and grants, and legal red tape or lack thereof would take longer than anyone here has. Until that happens and everyone can agree on a single set of criteria, measuring precisely how much all forms of energy production cost is going to lead to results about as fictional as anything by RFC himself. What we *do* know is that after all those things have been done, solar is actually competitive in certain areas of the US. In places like Alaska, it's a really bad idea. Hawaii, California and most of the rest of the Southwest clear back to Texas, it's already there.

The really fun part is that solar power is just now, finally, after decades of R&D and economies of scale increases, beginning to hit its stride. Efficiencies have been going up. Manufacturing costs are going down. The combination has intriguing possibilities over the next ten years, especially if the economies of scale and manufacturing technologies continue to grow.

Something that's equally intriguing is the Chinese response to solar power. It's essentially rare earth metals all over again. Germany is particularly pissed off. If you're not familiar with that market, do some Googling and grab your blood pressure medications. The question is, how stupid should be we be this time?

Geothermal is the most cost efficient currently.

2 types of Geothermal
1) Hot ground water to either water(steam) or Ammonia turbine
1a) Develop a stirling engine that is cheap to build use

2) Heat Pump. EVERYONE can use these. Except those in the tropics or pretty much anyone below 30 degrees North/South. Ground temperature is too close to the air temperature. Anyways, everyone else can. Cuts my heating/hot water costs by 300-500%.

Solar in W. Washington is a joke at current panel prices. Payback period is around 30 years. E. Washington, solar payback period is 15 years. S. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas; solar payback is 5 years.

A major breakthrough would be solar panels that can be used at roofing. Same with siding.

PS. Without an efficient energy storage, renewables will only be a niche, very SMALL niche market and application.
PPS. Maybe with the advent of solar embedded in concrete roadways... This would require a fundamental change in materials science and say panels made from silicon doped with iron.

Relax wrote:A major breakthrough would be solar panels that can be used at roofing. Same with siding.

What's you take on thin-film solar? It's not going to be a primary energy source for a long, long time (if ever), but cost and cost/watt are already low enough that solar shingles have potential.

Thin film is currently at best 10% efficient. Meaning Dead high noon, no cloud cover, above 5000 feet ASL where the air is thinner, in Arizona. So over all we are talking about 3-4% efficient per area covered for approx 12 hours a day in ARIZONA. OUCH! Yea, the film is cheaper, but the cost of solar is the labor and all the other components to hook it up to the grid. Likewise the thin film must be under glass otherwise hail will destroy it in quick order, same with ice/snow sliding on the roof. Glass is not cheap.

If you see someone selling "thin film" shingles that do not have glass over them, be prepared to replace them all due to weather in a few years... So much for payback period... Screw over period is more like it.

INL(Idaho National Laboratories[Think nuclear research historically]) had a "breakthrough" going on 7 years ago for thin film to be all of 12% efficient, but it degrades due to sunlight... So, with expensive UV filter coated glass its doable...

Better off with investing in Geothermal and wind even though Wind is an eyesore on the environment and likewise are few places near a population center to actually be worthwhile to build. One of the ones that is a good spot is in Ted Kennedy's backyard, but all the rich snoots have lots of Lawyers so NIMBY lawyer up and the toothfairy will deli ever their electricity.

While we are on the subject of power, should put forth through congress to somehow get our nation on natural gas as a vehichle power source. Between the USA and Canada we have oodles and oodles of NG that isn't going away any time soon. Have more NG than the rest of the world by a very large margin. The real bottle neck for NG is storing it. Every underground storage site we currently have is stuffed to the max and finding other spots to store it in regional centers across the country are not exactly dime a dozen(old salt mines not filled with water etc)

PS. In summer use Solar for heat pump for heating/cooling. Can likewise use it in winter too. This will "generate" far more "electricity" than even the best solar panels. What is sad is that they aren't covering everyone's house. Not expensive either. But due to idiot regulations requiring insane COP values and the need for non idiot Joe 6 pack HVAC guy to install them, few get installed.

RandomGraysuit wrote:

Relax wrote:A major breakthrough would be solar panels that can be used at roofing. Same with siding.

What's you take on thin-film solar? It's not going to be a primary energy source for a long, long time (if ever), but cost and cost/watt are already low enough that solar shingles have potential.

You're spot on with the efficiency, but glass on thin-film? Traditional, even thin-profile sure needs it, but membrane integrated thin-film is into applications as small and rugged as electronics-charging backpacks. Drag that stuff through the dirt, bang it around, spray it clean when you're done and it still works. If you do choose to use glass-covered panels, you can get efficiency over 20%.

You either get relatively cheap manufacturing costs and low efficiencies, or you get high efficiencies and higher costs. Thin-film's advantage is that while it's only generating a trickle charge, it can take a hailstorm and shrug it off.

Edit: My personal take on energy is "All of the above". Solar, in whatever form has the lowest long-term costs, in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas and Nevada. Tidal in Maine, Washington and Oregon, and look hard in other coastal states. Hydro all over the Rockies and Appalachian mountains. Geothermal up north. Wind in the flyover states. There's no one-stop miracle cure, but there *are* lots of potential solutions that are as cost-effective as fossil fuels and don't have that annoying state terrorism-funding aftertaste.