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Author Topic:   2014 was hotter than 1998. 2015 data in yet?
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(1)
Message 228 of 357 (777547)
02-03-2016 3:12 PM
Reply to: Message 227 by ringo
02-03-2016 2:20 PM


Re: What is scalability
Where would they go? How would the power be transmitted? Where would the power be accumulated for a rainy day?
You should get out of the library more often. Have you ever seen Saskatchewan? We could put every bodies solar panels there.
As far as I can tell, you need about 4m2/person of solar panels. For greater New York city with 25 million people that is about 100 km2. Not really all that big. The equivalent of 10 land fills the size of the one they have on Staten Island.
But we should be collecting our solar power up in space where the sun is always shining and beam it down with lasers or microwaves.

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 Message 227 by ringo, posted 02-03-2016 2:20 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 230 of 357 (777554)
02-03-2016 3:55 PM
Reply to: Message 229 by ringo
02-03-2016 3:32 PM


Re: What is scalability
I'm looking at it right now.
Yeah it was a joke. I didn't really think that we should collect sunshine in Sask to use in NYC.
And you didn't answer the other two questions that you quoted: How would the power be transmitted? Where would the power be accumulated for a rainy day?
Both questions are answered by the radical suggestion of collecting solar power where the sun is always shining and beaming it down to a land or sea based thermal generator that is located close to the end user. Sounds kind of wild but would it be any more difficult than building a nuclear reactor?
I think that others have said it but the important question is 'what is the cost of not doing it?'. What will it cost to protect Manhattan from 3m of sea rise?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 229 by ringo, posted 02-03-2016 3:32 PM ringo has replied

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 232 of 357 (777557)
02-03-2016 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 231 by ringo
02-03-2016 4:02 PM


Re: What is scalability
100 km2 is about 3% of NYC's area and it will cost less than not doing it.

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Replies to this message:
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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 234 of 357 (777559)
02-03-2016 4:47 PM
Reply to: Message 233 by Jon
02-03-2016 4:46 PM


Re: What is scalability
The area required to supply solar power to 25 million residents. Maybe double it to account for industry.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 233 by Jon, posted 02-03-2016 4:46 PM Jon has replied

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(1)
Message 237 of 357 (777568)
02-03-2016 7:21 PM
Reply to: Message 236 by LamarkNewAge
02-03-2016 6:33 PM


Re: Correction.
But solar is the future,
It seems to me that solar is all that there ever was. It is only a question of where we tap in to the cycle.
One alternative that has been sadly neglected is the thorium liquid fuel reactor. A technology that was suppressed due to a need for nuclear bombs. Apparently I could hold all the fuel that I would ever need in the palm of my hand...safely.

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 245 of 357 (777656)
02-05-2016 8:43 AM
Reply to: Message 242 by ringo
02-04-2016 11:02 AM


Re: What is scalability
I'm skeptical of your figures.
Yeah me too. Let's try a visual representation.
Taken from here.
Edited by ProtoTypical, : add source

This message is a reply to:
 Message 242 by ringo, posted 02-04-2016 11:02 AM ringo has replied

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(3)
Message 250 of 357 (777703)
02-06-2016 8:51 AM
Reply to: Message 248 by Jon
02-05-2016 8:23 PM


Re: What is scalability
Let me try some less wrong numbers.
How much electricity does NYC use?
The entire state of NY used 143,401 Gwh in 2013. http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/ksdata/ksah/energy/18ener7.pdf
You need about 16000m2/Gw of solar production at 20% efficiency. That comes to 2294km2 for the state. NYC has 42% of the state population so they need 963km2. The area of NYC is 789km2.
So say that you collect a quarter of the power right in the city in viable spaces and the rest within a couple hundred kms. It wouldn't even be hard. Give the US army a day off and you could pay for the whole thing.
Here is a good report

This message is a reply to:
 Message 248 by Jon, posted 02-05-2016 8:23 PM Jon has replied

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(4)
Message 262 of 357 (777835)
02-10-2016 8:41 AM
Reply to: Message 261 by Jon
02-08-2016 8:09 PM


Re: What is scalability
It doesn't quite work that way. It won't be an even point for point distribution across the state because NYC, being a very dense city with high energy efficiency, doesn't use as much energy in proportion to its percentage of the state's population.
42% of the 143,401 Gwh that NY state used is 60,228 Gwh.
Based on the analysis I did with Topaz, you can get about 33,500 Mwh/year of power per km2 of solar panels in New York. That's 33.5 Gwh/year/km2.
Ok but according to the National Renewable Energy Labratory you only need about 4 acres of panels to collect a Gwh. Its on page 6 of this report. If NYC used 60,000 Gwh that is 971,040,000 m2. That is 971.04 km2.
And again, just solving the space issue for the panels doesn't solve the space issue for the storage or the technical problems of the storage.
How do we overcome those hurdles?
We overcome those hurdles by deciding that we have to. The same way that we overcome the hurdles of building a Hoover Dam or mapping out the human genome or landing a probe on a comet. The most difficult hurdle is getting the right people to agree that we have to change how we do things.
Essentially all that we have to do is change the energy from kinetic to potential. So batteries, capacitors, thermal mass, wind up a spring, pump water up a hill, compress a gas, liberate hydrogen from water. I am sure that the list goes on.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 261 by Jon, posted 02-08-2016 8:09 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 263 by Jon, posted 02-10-2016 12:40 PM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(1)
Message 264 of 357 (777853)
02-10-2016 3:31 PM
Reply to: Message 263 by Jon
02-10-2016 12:40 PM


Re: What is scalability
I am not aware of any current technologies that would offer the kind of cheap and massive power storage required for our communities to run on renewable energy alone.
The thing is that we have decided that any new technologies have to be profitable before we introduce them. For the most part this makes good sense but with regard to AGW we are not inputting the real cost of continuing to burn oil and coal. It is a simple matter of accounting and most of the accountants work for the same people who are selling you gasoline.
The fact that we don't have any municipal sized energy storage systems in place has nothing to say about the difficulty of building them. Take a 1000 tonnes of concrete and use your off peak power production to lift it off the ground using hydraulics. Then let it drive a generator while it falls slowly back down when you need the power.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 263 by Jon, posted 02-10-2016 12:40 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 266 by Jon, posted 02-10-2016 4:38 PM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(1)
Message 267 of 357 (777863)
02-10-2016 7:52 PM
Reply to: Message 266 by Jon
02-10-2016 4:38 PM


Re: What is scalability
And the reality of it is that humans today are far better off burning huge amounts of fossil fuels than before we started burning them (the comparison holds even when looking at modern societies that do vs don't burn large amounts of fossil fuels).
We are better off because we have figured out beneficial ways of using energy. The dirty cheap fuel that we used only looks cheap. We are now beginning to see the real cost of 200 yrs worth of burning fossil fuels.
...the enormous benefits of cheap and reliable energy far outweigh the costs of using fossil fuels to generate that energy.
Only when you defer and redirect the real costs of a global economy fueled by oil. Pollution related health care costs, environmental degradation, air quality, armed conflict for control of resources, sea level rise and population displacement. How do these things figure into your $2/gal gas?
Everything's easier from an armchair.
Ergo I remain thoroughly ensconced.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 266 by Jon, posted 02-10-2016 4:38 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 271 by Jon, posted 02-10-2016 9:11 PM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(4)
Message 272 of 357 (777872)
02-11-2016 7:14 AM
Reply to: Message 271 by Jon
02-10-2016 9:11 PM


Re: What is scalability
So we don't have to worry about whether we can separate out the parts, because we're measuring the whole. And on the whole, we're better off now than we used to be. And where we're at now is almost entirely because we burn a lot of fossil fuels.
We are better off because we have pipes to move our water around when compared to not having pipes. Making our water pipes out of lead is very cheap and easy to do and the pipes work very well. Why would we every want to spend more resources on making our water pipes out of copper?
We are better off because we have gasoline to move our vehicles around. Burning gasoline is cheap and easy. Why would we want to spend more resources to move our cars with electricity?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 271 by Jon, posted 02-10-2016 9:11 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 273 by Jon, posted 02-11-2016 11:53 AM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 281 of 357 (777919)
02-12-2016 9:54 AM
Reply to: Message 278 by New Cat's Eye
02-11-2016 7:50 PM


Re: Solar Power in Hawai'i
The People can be trained to know when and when not to have a heavy load on the system.
In Ontario there are now 3 different rates for power. Peak, mid and off peak. $0.175/kwh, .0.128/kwh and $.083/kwh respectively. In the last year or so we have personally managed to use 67% of our power during off peak hours 7pm to 7am.
edit; Another program available is to install a smart thermostat that is controllable by the utility company. They can raise the temperature setting of your AC during peak hours to reduce overall load. I wouldn't go for this as it seems a little too big brotherish.
Edited by ProtoTypical, : No reason given.

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 282 of 357 (777921)
02-12-2016 10:53 AM
Reply to: Message 273 by Jon
02-11-2016 11:53 AM


Re: What is scalability
Hence the challenge I've laid out repeatedly, here and elsewhere: Demonstrate the existence of those alternatives and show they are capable of providing the power we need.
All the evidence needed lies in the fact that the sun dumps about a kw on every m2 of the earth every day. The fact that we are only beginning to collect it at low efficiencies doesn't support the idea that we shouldn't be doing it.
Again it is the contrived economics of the thing that are forcing the calculations. It wouldn't take much of a price on carbon to change the results.
What transition?
The grid is the only way.
The future doesn't involve me making my own clothes; building my own cars; growing my own food; spinning my own dishes; forging my own silverware; chiseling my own pencils.
And it doesn't involve me generating my own electricity.
Why not? Everybody gets a replicator and a solar panel.
A grid with many more points of power generation will be better in every way. More robust and lower transmission costs. Outages could only be local and it would serve as a giant battery itself.

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 Message 273 by Jon, posted 02-11-2016 11:53 AM Jon has replied

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(1)
Message 290 of 357 (777994)
02-14-2016 5:39 AM
Reply to: Message 289 by Jon
02-13-2016 10:38 PM


Re: Solar Power in Hawai'i
If you reschedule the 'major power consuming portions', you've only moved the peak, not eliminated them.
If we move the peak into the valley then it is no longer a peak.
Why the hell does it even matter? The same amount of energy is used regardless.
A balanced load requires less generating capacity to satisfy. A 1 kw generator will supply 24 kwh in a day running at it's designed capacity. If you want 18 of those kw during 12 hrs of the day then you need a 1.5 kw generator that is running at reduced efficiency for the other 12 hrs. So it ends up costing more for the same amount of power. It is the same as the difference between hwy and city mileage in your car.
There is nothing silly about believing that people in free societies should be able to wash their hair as they please.
Actually, it is kind of silly to be washing our hair so much that the phosphate run off is endangering our drinking water. Maybe even worse than silly.
I agree that maximum freedom should be the goal but unlimited consumption is not sustainable. Not even for the few of us that have the option.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 289 by Jon, posted 02-13-2016 10:38 PM Jon has replied

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(1)
Message 306 of 357 (778078)
02-15-2016 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 305 by Jon
02-15-2016 8:35 PM


Re: Solar Power in Hawai'i
I personally do not see chemical batteries as being the answer to the storage problem. I'd be interested in ProtoTypical going further into depth on his concrete-lifting battery idea.
Armchair proclamations are often best left unexamined.
The storage capacity of a 1000 tonnes is not dense enough at reasonable heights to be very useful. You might store enough for 3 or 4 homes and it would take up 400 m3. On the other hand it would probably last a long time.
The Ludington Pumped Storage power plant stores enough power for 1.65 million homes by using off peak power from a nuclear plant. It covers about 3 sq miles.
quote:
This process was designed to level the load of nearby nuclear power plants on the grid. It also replaces the need to build natural gas peak power plants used only during high demand.
Edit Flywheels would probably be a better idea.
Edited by ProtoTypical, : No reason given.

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