Change-over to enewable energy

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:24:12 -0700 (PDT), NT <meow2222@care2.com>
wrote:

On Sep 22, 4:54 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

What does this idiot think we'll do at night, or on cloudy winter
days, when the wind decides to die down? He doesn't mention how
storage would be accomplished. And of course part of his formula for
making all this stuff work is "reducing demand", another way of saying
it's uneconomic. Of course, he throws in a plan for wasting energy to
produce hydrogen.

His math is silly. Why produce tiny amounts of energy from expensive
wave and tidal sources? Just because it could maybe be done? The major
output from wave-power sources is scrap metal.

He casually suggests that we'd need better weather forcasting!

Fact is, there is lots of natural gas underground, more than anybody
imagined a few years ago. It's cheap and clean. Nuclear works, too, if
governments let it.

IEEE Spectrum is junk.

Why don't you post on topic, about electronics? Even better, DO some
electronics and post about that. You are trolling to find reasons to
argue and insult people, and you only dare to do it around off-topic
trash that can't be proven one way or another.

John


The article is lunacy.

I'll admit I cba to look up exact figures, but the following costings
should at least give a ballpark idea on the level of costs involved.


One scenario that Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson and I
developed, projecting to 2030, includes:

* 3.8 million wind turbines, 5 megawatts each, supplying 50 percent of the projected total global power demand

If we said vaguely 10p/peak W, thats about Ł1.9 trillion

* 49 000 solar thermal power plants, 300 MW each, supplying 20 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's Ł0.6 billion

* 40 000 solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants supplying 14 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's Ł0.4 billion

* 1.7 billion rooftop PV systems, 3 kilowatts each, supplying 6 percent

If we said Ł3000 per system, that's Ł5.1 trillion

* 5350 geothermal power plants, 100 MW each, supplying 4 percent

I've no idea on costs, but if theyre no cheaper than pv, 2p/peak watt
= Ł11 billion

* 900 hydroelectric power plants, 1300 MW each, of which 70 percent are already in place, supplying 4 percent

If 0.8p per peak watt, that's Ł2.8 billion

* 720 000 ocean-wave devices, 0.75 MW each, supplying 1 percent

again if 2p/pk watt, Ł10.8 billion

* 490 000 tidal turbines, 1 MW each, supplying 1 percent.

If 2p/pk watt, 9.8 billion.

So total generation install cost = ballpark Ł2 trillion for all but
the domestic PVs, plus 5 trillion for those.
I dont know what the rest of the system plus administration costs are,
but typically they at least double final end user cost, so say 2+2+5=
Ł9 trillion total.

That should wipe out the NHS budget, resulting in wholesale death.

I'm not claiming the figs are accurate, but hopefully near enough to
give a rough idea of the kind of damage such an approach would do.


NT

Chinese solar panels are selling for something like $1.25 per peak
watt. Your 2p is a tad optimistic.

You still have to install them, invert to AC, connect to the grid,
store energy somehow for when the sun sets, and clean up after wind
storms blow all the panels away.

The thing that disturbs me about residential solar is that the panels
are bolted right to roofs, over the shingles or whatever. Envision
leaks. Roof maintanance will now involve removing and replacing the
panels.

Efficiency is better if panels are kept clean. Imagine how many
homeowners are going to die falling off roofs, trying to wash solar
panels with soapy water.

John

 

[NT]

On Sep 22, 10:48 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 22, 11:24 pm, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:



On Sep 22, 4:54 pm, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

What does this idiot think we'll do at night, or on cloudy winter
days, when the wind decides to die down? He doesn't mention how
storage would be accomplished. And of course part of his formula for
making all this stuff work is "reducing demand", another way of saying
it's uneconomic. Of course, he throws in a plan for wasting energy to
produce hydrogen.

His math is silly. Why produce tiny amounts of energy from expensive
wave and tidal sources? Just because it could maybe be done? The major
output from wave-power sources is scrap metal.

He casually suggests that we'd need better weather forcasting!

Fact is, there is lots of natural gas underground, more than anybody
imagined a few years ago. It's cheap and clean. Nuclear works, too, if
governments let it.

IEEE Spectrum is junk.

Why don't you post on topic, about electronics? Even better, DO some
electronics and post about that. You are trolling to find reasons to
argue and insult people, and you only dare to do it around off-topic
trash that can't be proven one way or another.

The article is lunacy.

Wrong.

I'll admit I cba to look up exact figures, but the following costings
should at least give a ballpark idea on the level of costs involved.

Why not argue with the authors' serious publication?

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf

it gives the exact same figures


NT

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/DJEnPolicyPt2.pdf

snipped guesswork

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:33:53 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 22, 9:39 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:41:05 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman









bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sep 22, 5:56 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:23:35 +0100, Raveninghorde

raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

Super grids and energy security are incompatible.

The Russkies shut off gas to parts of Europe every winter. Why would
anyone want to rely even more on power from unstable areas of the
world?

And without super grids ithe idea is a bust. Most of Northern Europe
was without wind last December. So 50% of energy gone in mid winter.
Lots of fun.

Super grids will have to reach halfway around the world to distribute
solar power.

Current solar thermal plant design envisages keeping a reservoir of
hot heat-transfer oil (or molten salt)to keep the generators running
overnight. Odd that your creative insights missed that one.

I've heard the concept. What's the efficiency of that?

It's probably not a very useful question. You need to have enough
stored heat to keep the generators running overnight. If there's no
phase change involved, a reservoir that stores twice as much heat as
required will halve its temperature overnight, and you've got to pump
twice as much water through at the end of the night as you did at
sunset to generate the same power, and you've got twice the steam
flow. It's going to be an interesting exercise optimising the size of
the energy storage against the size of the pipe-work carrying the
steam.

If you've got molten salt which you can allow to freeze, life gets a
bit more complicated.

I keep hearing greenie-idiots saying "efficiency doesn't matter since
sunlight is free!"

Or at least "too cheap to meter". Obviously efficiency matters, but
only in the context of getting the maximum power out for the minimum
capital investment and maintenance overhead.

Greenie idiots are quite as irritating as right-wing "there is no
gloabla warming idiots". In either case, they are failing to think
about what is - or will be - actually going on.

snipped irrelevant question

Yeah, electronics is irrelevant to you. It's too real.

John

 

[josephkk]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:28:24 GMT, nico@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

I've got news for you: all of the fossil fuel will get burned. Storing
CO2 is a very bad idea. A CO2 storage facility is much more dangerous
than a storage for nuclear waste. CO2 is a very toxic gas which will
stay dangerous forever.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Horseshit! If all the CO2 were removed from the atmosphere your body
would forget to breath and you would die. Not to mention the devastation
of plant life.

?-/

 

[Robert Baer]

Bill Sloman wrote:

IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power-for-the-world/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=092211

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
Theoretically, these sources are useful for local loads in

specialized situations.
Economically, they are disasters - the government involvement (read:
interference) is proof.

 

[Robert Baer]

John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:23:35 +0100, Raveninghorde
raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power-for-the-world/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=092211
Super grids and energy security are incompatible.

The Russkies shut off gas to parts of Europe every winter. Why would
anyone want to rely even more on power from unstable areas of the
world?

And without super grids ithe idea is a bust. Most of Northern Europe
was without wind last December. So 50% of energy gone in mid winter.
Lots of fun.

Super grids will have to reach halfway around the world to distribute
solar power.

John

Q#1: Which half?

Half-assed!

 

[NT]

On Sep 23, 1:21 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:24:12 -0700 (PDT), NT <meow2...@care2.com
wrote:



On Sep 22, 4:54 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power....

What does this idiot think we'll do at night, or on cloudy winter
days, when the wind decides to die down? He doesn't mention how
storage would be accomplished. And of course part of his formula for
making all this stuff work is "reducing demand", another way of saying
it's uneconomic. Of course, he throws in a plan for wasting energy to
produce hydrogen.

His math is silly. Why produce tiny amounts of energy from expensive
wave and tidal sources? Just because it could maybe be done? The major
output from wave-power sources is scrap metal.

He casually suggests that we'd need better weather forcasting!

Fact is, there is lots of natural gas underground, more than anybody
imagined a few years ago. It's cheap and clean. Nuclear works, too, if
governments let it.

IEEE Spectrum is junk.

Why don't you post on topic, about electronics? Even better, DO some
electronics and post about that. You are trolling to find reasons to
argue and insult people, and you only dare to do it around off-topic
trash that can't be proven one way or another.

John

The article is lunacy.

I'll admit I cba to look up exact figures, but the following costings
should at least give a ballpark idea on the level of costs involved.

One scenario that Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson and I
developed, projecting to 2030, includes:

   * 3.8 million wind turbines, 5 megawatts each, supplying 50 percent of the projected total global power demand

If we said vaguely 10p/peak W, thats about 1.9 trillion

   * 49 000 solar thermal power plants, 300 MW each, supplying 20 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's 0.6 billion

   * 40 000 solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants supplying 14 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's 0.4 billion

   * 1.7 billion rooftop PV systems, 3 kilowatts each, supplying 6 percent

If we said 3000 per system, that's 5.1 trillion

   * 5350 geothermal power plants, 100 MW each, supplying 4 percent

I've no idea on costs, but if theyre no cheaper than pv, 2p/peak watt
= 11 billion

   * 900 hydroelectric power plants, 1300 MW each, of which 70 percent are already in place, supplying 4 percent

If 0.8p per peak watt, that's 2.8 billion

   * 720 000 ocean-wave devices, 0.75 MW each, supplying 1 percent

again if 2p/pk watt, 10.8 billion

   * 490 000 tidal turbines, 1 MW each, supplying 1 percent.

If 2p/pk watt, 9.8 billion.

So total generation install cost = ballpark 2 trillion for all but
the domestic PVs, plus 5 trillion for those.
I dont know what the rest of the system plus administration costs are,
but typically they at least double final end user cost, so say 2+2+5> > 9 trillion total.

That should wipe out the NHS budget, resulting in wholesale death.

I'm not claiming the figs are accurate, but hopefully near enough to
give a rough idea of the kind of damage such an approach would do.

NT

Chinese solar panels are selling for something like $1.25 per peak
watt. Your 2p is a tad optimistic.

And whats that per mean watt, several times more.

You still have to install them, invert to AC, connect to the grid,
store energy somehow for when the sun sets, and clean up after wind
storms blow all the panels away.

The thing that disturbs me about residential solar is that the panels
are bolted right to roofs, over the shingles or whatever. Envision
leaks. Roof maintanance will now involve removing and replacing the
panels.

New build can do it better, by fabricating solar panels in shingle/
slate/tile form, but the vast number of retrofits are stuck with those
problems.

Efficiency is better if panels are kept clean. Imagine how many
homeowners are going to die falling off roofs, trying to wash solar
panels with soapy water.

John

And when all those other services we count on are cut due to lack of
funds, it'll be slaughter.


NT

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 23, 4:56 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:33:53 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman









bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sep 22, 9:39 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:41:05 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sep 22, 5:56 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:23:35 +0100, Raveninghorde

raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

Super grids and energy security are incompatible.

The Russkies shut off gas to parts of Europe every winter. Why would
anyone want to rely even more on power from unstable areas of the
world?

And without super grids ithe idea is a bust. Most of Northern Europe
was without wind last December. So 50% of energy gone in mid winter.
Lots of fun.

Super grids will have to reach halfway around the world to distribute
solar power.

Current solar thermal plant design envisages keeping a reservoir of
hot heat-transfer oil (or molten salt)to keep the generators running
overnight. Odd that your creative insights missed that one.

I've heard the concept. What's the efficiency of that?

It's probably not a very useful question. You need to have enough
stored heat to keep the generators running overnight. If there's no
phase change involved, a reservoir that stores twice as much heat as
required will halve its temperature overnight, and you've got to pump
twice as much water through at the end of the night as you did at
sunset to generate the same power, and you've got twice the steam
flow. It's going to be an interesting exercise optimising the size of
the energy storage against the size of the pipe-work carrying the
steam.

If you've got molten salt which you can allow to freeze, life gets a
bit more complicated.

I keep hearing greenie-idiots saying "efficiency doesn't matter since
sunlight is free!"

Or at least "too cheap to meter". Obviously efficiency matters, but
only in the context of getting the maximum power out for the minimum
capital investment and maintenance overhead.

Greenie idiots are quite as irritating as right-wing "there is no
gloabla warming idiots". In either case, they are failing to think
about what is - or will be - actually going on.

snipped irrelevant question

Yeah, electronics is irrelevant to you. It's too real.

That particular issue in electronics was (and is) irrelevant to the
question being discussed. You were just trying to be unpleasant, a
skill which you are definitely trying to master. Sadly, you aren't
Richard Steven Walz, merely an obnoxious jerk with a limited
imagination and a depressing tendency to recycle bad lines.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Raveninghorde]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:35:56 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 22, 5:23 pm, Raveninghorde <raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

Super grids and energy security are incompatible.

The Russkies shut off gas to parts of Europe every winter.  Why would
anyone want to rely even more on power from unstable areas of the
world?

And without super grids ithe idea is a bust. Most of Northern Europe
was without wind last December. So 50% of energy gone in mid winter.
Lots of fun.

If you were paying more attention, you might have noted that the
Desertec project envisages a super-grid coupling solar thermal plants
in the Sahara to Germany. A shortage of wind over northern Europe
could presumably be made up with electricity generated further south.

So we should rely on power distribution through Libya, Tunisia,
Algeria?

Which bit of energy security don't you understand?

Anyway there is plenty of shale gas out there who needs renewables?

Anybody with enough sense to understand the scientific case for not
burning much more fossil carbon. Not you, obviously.

Trolling again I see.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 23, 12:39 am, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sep 22, 9:28=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:
BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sep 22, 5:54=3DA0pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power> >...

What does this idiot think we'll do at night, or on cloudy winter
days, when the wind decides to die down?

If you went to trouble of reading the article, you'd see that the
"idiots" expect to use a big and very extensive super-grid to average
out local variations in weather. The next generation of thermal solar
power plants are supposed to store heat during the day - as hot oil or
molten salt - so that they can sustain power generation over-night.

The concentrated solar power (CSP) at least makes some sense. Energy
can also be stored in large water reservoirs. The downside is that CSP
requires a lot of land and transportation over very large distances.
In Europe this means relying on North-African countries for energy.

He doesn't mention how storage would be accomplished.

And of course part of his formula for
making all this stuff work is "reducing demand", another way of saying
it's uneconomic.

It may not be as cheap as burning fossil carbon is now, until you
figure in the consequences of dumping even more CO2 into the
atmosphere. And there is the point that the stocks of fossil carbon
are finite, and we've extracted and burnt most of the stocks that were
easy to dig up, and consequently cheap. Fossil carbon is going to get
progressively more expensive, even before we get around to figuring in
the eventual cost of dumping even more CO2 into the atmosphere.

I've got news for you: all of the fossil fuel will get burned.

Probably not. Some of it is never going to be worth digging up, and a
lot of it is going to become chemical feedstock for more making more
interesting - and useful - moelcules than CO2.

Storing CO2 is a very bad idea.

Really? Oil fields have been doing it for millions of years

No, that is CxHy aka fossil fuel.

Wrong. Raw natural gas can contain up to 8% CO2, which is removed -
along with the other less-than-useful compnoents - before the methane,
ethane, propane and butane arefed into the distribution system.

http://www.naturalgas.org/overview/background.asp

A CO2 storage facility is much more dangerous
than a storage for nuclear waste.

Spontaneous and unexpected CO2 releases have killed people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos

This wasn't a CO2 storage facility, and it was lethal because Lake
Nyos could release the CO2  dissolved in its waters very quickly.

Underground CO2 storage doesn't offer the same capacity for rapid
release, and if you know it's down there you can check CO2 levels
remotely and automatically, and warn people long before CO2 levels
become dangerous.

And where do you want to send those people? Let me assure you that
evacuating a large city (or urban area) is impossible.

You can assure me all you like, and you will still be talking
nonsense. You can't evacuate a large city fast, but deep underground
CO2 leakage isn't fast. If the city threatened was big enough, and
valuable enough, the alternative approach would be to install a
shallow network of gas-porous pipes and pump them down well below
atmospheric pressure.

Barendrecht wouldn't be in that catagory, and 43,000 people could be
evacuated pretty quickly. The 1995 Rhine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barendrecht

The 1995 Rhine floods forced the evacuation of 250,000 people and
millions of farm animals in a couple of days.

http://geographyfieldwork.com/RhineEffects1.htm

CO2 is a very toxic gas which will stay dangerous forever.

It's not very toxic compared with - say CO or HCN. One of the
anxieties about pumping it underground is whether it will react with
olivine and similar silicates to turn them into carbonates, changing
the volume of rock involved and posibly producing local fracturing, so
it probably won't stay dangerous forever - unless you consider chalk
to be a dangerous mineral.

Local fracturing may sound dangerous, but this is all going on several
kilometers underground - if this happens we'll have years of advance
warning.

OK, its less toxic than extremely toxic materials.

No, it's toxic only in very high concentrations - 5% is disabling and
8% can eventually be fatal

But they're not
planning to store those underground under extremely high pressures.

Nor have they remained safely stored underground - under extremely
high presures - for millions of years in (some) natural gas fields.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 23, 6:40 am, Robert Baer <robertb...@localnet.com> wrote:

BillSlomanwrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

   Theoretically, these sources are useful for local loads in
specialized situations.

That's the current situation with solar panels. Mark Z.Jacobson and
Mark A.Delucchi are envisaging a thousand-fold larger market with the
consequent economies of scale.

Sufficiently large thermal solar plants seem to be close enough to
break-even that if we built enough of them to supplyu 20% of our total
energy needs.simple economy of scale would put them ahead of burning
fossil carbon (and that isn't going to stay cheap as we burn up all
the most easily extracted stuff and have to compete with the chineses
and the Indians for what's left).

   Economically, they are disasters - the government involvement (read:
interference) is proof.

And burning fossil carbon like there's no tomorrow isn't already a
disaster? Not as big a disaster as we'll have to cope with if we keep
at it until we've raised the global average temperatures by another
degree Celcius or two. We've already raised the temperature of the
Artic by some 3 to 4 degrees Celcius over the past century, and the
Greenland ice sheet is already sliding off into the ocean at an
alarming rate. There's six metres of sea level rise in the Greenland
ice sheet, and rebuilding every port around the world could be rather
expensive.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 23, 2:21 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:24:12 -0700 (PDT), NT <meow2...@care2.com
wrote:

On Sep 22, 4:54 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power....

What does this idiot think we'll do at night, or on cloudy winter
days, when the wind decides to die down? He doesn't mention how
storage would be accomplished. And of course part of his formula for
making all this stuff work is "reducing demand", another way of saying
it's uneconomic. Of course, he throws in a plan for wasting energy to
produce hydrogen.

His math is silly. Why produce tiny amounts of energy from expensive
wave and tidal sources? Just because it could maybe be done? The major
output from wave-power sources is scrap metal.

He casually suggests that we'd need better weather forcasting!

Fact is, there is lots of natural gas underground, more than anybody
imagined a few years ago. It's cheap and clean. Nuclear works, too, if
governments let it.

IEEE Spectrum is junk.

Why don't you post on topic, about electronics? Even better, DO some
electronics and post about that. You are trolling to find reasons to
argue and insult people, and you only dare to do it around off-topic
trash that can't be proven one way or another.

John

The article is lunacy.

I'll admit I cba to look up exact figures, but the following costings
should at least give a ballpark idea on the level of costs involved.

One scenario that Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson and I
developed, projecting to 2030, includes:

   * 3.8 million wind turbines, 5 megawatts each, supplying 50 percent of the projected total global power demand

If we said vaguely 10p/peak W, thats about Ł1.9 trillion

   * 49 000 solar thermal power plants, 300 MW each, supplying 20 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's Ł0.6 billion

   * 40 000 solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants supplying 14 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's Ł0.4 billion

   * 1.7 billion rooftop PV systems, 3 kilowatts each, supplying 6 percent

If we said Ł3000 per system, that's Ł5.1 trillion

   * 5350 geothermal power plants, 100 MW each, supplying 4 percent

I've no idea on costs, but if theyre no cheaper than pv, 2p/peak watt
= Ł11 billion

   * 900 hydroelectric power plants, 1300 MW each, of which 70 percent are already in place, supplying 4 percent

If 0.8p per peak watt, that's Ł2.8 billion

   * 720 000 ocean-wave devices, 0.75 MW each, supplying 1 percent

again if 2p/pk watt, Ł10.8 billion

   * 490 000 tidal turbines, 1 MW each, supplying 1 percent.

If 2p/pk watt, 9.8 billion.

So total generation install cost = ballpark Ł2 trillion for all but
the domestic PVs, plus 5 trillion for those.
I dont know what the rest of the system plus administration costs are,
but typically they at least double final end user cost, so say 2+2+5> >Ł9 trillion total.

That should wipe out the NHS budget, resulting in wholesale death.

I'm not claiming the figs are accurate, but hopefully near enough to
give a rough idea of the kind of damage such an approach would do.

NT

Chinese solar panels are selling for something like $1.25 per peak
watt. Your 2p is a tad optimistic.

It isn't mine, it's Mark Z.Jacobson and Mark A.Delucchi's figure.

Perhaps they are figuring economies of scale for a thousandfold larger
market; typically these the halve price for each factor of ten
increase in production, which would only get your figure down to
$0.20, but the authors may know stuff that we don't about latest
generation of nano-structured solar cell materials

You still have to install them, invert to AC, connect to the grid,
store energy somehow for when the sun sets,

Mark Z.Jacobson and Mark A.Delucchido seem to set a lot of store in
the capacity of hydroelectric power to fill in when the sun is down
and. More of their solar power - 20% of the capacity needed - is
thermal solar, which can store energy as heat. Solar panels are listed
as supplying 14% of the energy budget, possibly just to drive air-
conditioning systems.

and clean up after wind storms blow all the panels away.

We've been able to build structures that don't get blown away by
anything short of a tornado for a century or so now. Tornados haven't
made the US mid-west uninhabitable, so it does seem to be a risk that
we can live with.

The thing that disturbs me about residential solar is that the panels
are bolted right to roofs, over the shingles or whatever. Envision
leaks. Roof maintanance will now involve removing and replacing the
panels.

Big deal.

Efficiency is better if panels are kept clean. Imagine how many
homeowners are going to die falling off roofs, trying to wash solar
panels with soapy water.

Imagine hown many entrepreneurs are going to invest in cherry-picker
style panel-cleanig rigs once there are enough solar panels to provide
a steady flow of business. You shouldn't have to try too hard - it's
all Adam Smith's invisible hand of the free market.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 23, 10:48 am, Raveninghorde <raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:35:56 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sep 22, 5:23 pm, Raveninghorde <raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power....

Super grids and energy security are incompatible.

The Russkies shut off gas to parts of Europe every winter. Why would
anyone want to rely even more on power from unstable areas of the
world?

And without super grids ithe idea is a bust. Most of Northern Europe
was without wind last December. So 50% of energy gone in mid winter.
Lots of fun.

If you were paying more attention, you might have noted that the
Desertec project envisages a super-grid coupling solar thermal plants
in the Sahara to Germany. A shortage of wind over northern Europe
could presumably be made up with electricity generated further south.

So we should rely on power distribution through Libya, Tunisia,
Algeria?

We haven't got a lot of choice. Since the Arab Spring there does seem
to be some prospect of stable demoncratic government in these areas -
oil companies do seem to like military dictatorships, despite their
unfortunate habit of coming apart when the dictator gets past it, or
just greedy, as happened with Saddam Hussein.

Which bit of energy security don't you understand?

The bit that says our current arrangements are "secure".

Anyway there is plenty of shale gas out there who needs renewables?

Anybody with enough sense to understand the scientific case for not
burning much more fossil carbon. Not you, obviously.

Trolling again I see.

Simple statement of fact. You've made it perfectly obvious that you
don't understand the scientific case. You do have enough sense to
follow the denialist trolls that are published from time to time, but
not enough sense to work out that that their arguments aren't remotely
persuasive.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 23, 1:11 am, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:

On Sep 22, 10:48 pm,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:









On Sep 22, 11:24 pm, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:

On Sep 22, 4:54 pm, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

What does this idiot think we'll do at night, or on cloudy winter
days, when the wind decides to die down? He doesn't mention how
storage would be accomplished. And of course part of his formula for
making all this stuff work is "reducing demand", another way of saying
it's uneconomic. Of course, he throws in a plan for wasting energy to
produce hydrogen.

His math is silly. Why produce tiny amounts of energy from expensive
wave and tidal sources? Just because it could maybe be done? The major
output from wave-power sources is scrap metal.

He casually suggests that we'd need better weather forcasting!

Fact is, there is lots of natural gas underground, more than anybody
imagined a few years ago. It's cheap and clean. Nuclear works, too, if
governments let it.

IEEE Spectrum is junk.

Why don't you post on topic, about electronics? Even better, DO some
electronics and post about that. You are trolling to find reasons to
argue and insult people, and you only dare to do it around off-topic
trash that can't be proven one way or another.

The article is lunacy.

Wrong.

I'll admit I cba to look up exact figures, but the following costings
should at least give a ballpark idea on the level of costs involved.

Why not argue with the authors' serious publication?

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf

it gives the exact same figures

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/DJEnPolicyPt2.pdf

And they were good enough to get published in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal. Are yours?

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Nico Coesel]

josephkk <joseph_barrett@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:28:24 GMT, nico@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:


I've got news for you: all of the fossil fuel will get burned. Storing
CO2 is a very bad idea. A CO2 storage facility is much more dangerous
than a storage for nuclear waste. CO2 is a very toxic gas which will
stay dangerous forever.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Horseshit! If all the CO2 were removed from the atmosphere your body
would forget to breath and you would die. Not to mention the devastation
of plant life.

Do you have any idea about the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere?
Let me give you some numbers: its about 0.04%. Dangerous concentration
is 5%. But you'll feel to start the effects at 1%.

If you lock someone up in a closed room that person will not be killed
due to the lack of oxygen but due to a toxic level of CO2.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Ken S. Tucker]

On Sep 22, 5:21 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:24:12 -0700 (PDT), NT <meow2...@care2.com
wrote:



On Sep 22, 4:54 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power....

What does this idiot think we'll do at night, or on cloudy winter
days, when the wind decides to die down? He doesn't mention how
storage would be accomplished. And of course part of his formula for
making all this stuff work is "reducing demand", another way of saying
it's uneconomic. Of course, he throws in a plan for wasting energy to
produce hydrogen.

His math is silly. Why produce tiny amounts of energy from expensive
wave and tidal sources? Just because it could maybe be done? The major
output from wave-power sources is scrap metal.

He casually suggests that we'd need better weather forcasting!

Fact is, there is lots of natural gas underground, more than anybody
imagined a few years ago. It's cheap and clean. Nuclear works, too, if
governments let it.

IEEE Spectrum is junk.

Why don't you post on topic, about electronics? Even better, DO some
electronics and post about that. You are trolling to find reasons to
argue and insult people, and you only dare to do it around off-topic
trash that can't be proven one way or another.

John

The article is lunacy.

I'll admit I cba to look up exact figures, but the following costings
should at least give a ballpark idea on the level of costs involved.

One scenario that Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson and I
developed, projecting to 2030, includes:

* 3.8 million wind turbines, 5 megawatts each, supplying 50 percent of the projected total global power demand

If we said vaguely 10p/peak W, thats about Ł1.9 trillion

* 49 000 solar thermal power plants, 300 MW each, supplying 20 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's Ł0.6 billion

* 40 000 solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants supplying 14 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's Ł0.4 billion

* 1.7 billion rooftop PV systems, 3 kilowatts each, supplying 6 percent

If we said Ł3000 per system, that's Ł5.1 trillion

* 5350 geothermal power plants, 100 MW each, supplying 4 percent

I've no idea on costs, but if theyre no cheaper than pv, 2p/peak watt
= Ł11 billion

* 900 hydroelectric power plants, 1300 MW each, of which 70 percent are already in place, supplying 4 percent

If 0.8p per peak watt, that's Ł2.8 billion

* 720 000 ocean-wave devices, 0.75 MW each, supplying 1 percent

again if 2p/pk watt, Ł10.8 billion

* 490 000 tidal turbines, 1 MW each, supplying 1 percent.

If 2p/pk watt, 9.8 billion.

So total generation install cost = ballpark Ł2 trillion for all but
the domestic PVs, plus 5 trillion for those.
I dont know what the rest of the system plus administration costs are,
but typically they at least double final end user cost, so say 2+2+5> >Ł9 trillion total.

That should wipe out the NHS budget, resulting in wholesale death.

I'm not claiming the figs are accurate, but hopefully near enough to
give a rough idea of the kind of damage such an approach would do.

NT

Chinese solar panels are selling for something like $1.25 per peak
watt. Your 2p is a tad optimistic.

You still have to install them, invert to AC, connect to the grid,
store energy somehow for when the sun sets, and clean up after wind
storms blow all the panels away.

The thing that disturbs me about residential solar is that the panels
are bolted right to roofs, over the shingles or whatever. Envision
leaks. Roof maintanance will now involve removing and replacing the
panels.

Efficiency is better if panels are kept clean. Imagine how many
homeowners are going to die falling off roofs, trying to wash solar
panels with soapy water.
John

The asylum doors open and the exiting lame brains become politicians
for a
green utopia.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/pentictonwesternnews/news/129907533.html
The extra solar provision ONLY cost an extra $500, that's BS, I design
and
build houses.

I have an experimental building, with a flat roof (partly for solar),
but it doesn't make economic sense yet.
The bottle neck is in the energy storage, that's improving with
higher power density batteries.
Another is lifetime, how long will solar cells and batteries last.
Ken

 

[Raveninghorde]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:07:42 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 23, 10:48 am, Raveninghorde <raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:35:56 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sep 22, 5:23 pm, Raveninghorde <raveninghorde@invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

Super grids and energy security are incompatible.

The Russkies shut off gas to parts of Europe every winter. Why would
anyone want to rely even more on power from unstable areas of the
world?

And without super grids ithe idea is a bust. Most of Northern Europe
was without wind last December. So 50% of energy gone in mid winter.
Lots of fun.

If you were paying more attention, you might have noted that the
Desertec project envisages a super-grid coupling solar thermal plants
in the Sahara to Germany. A shortage of wind over northern Europe
could presumably be made up with electricity generated further south.

So we should rely on power distribution through Libya, Tunisia,
Algeria?

We haven't got a lot of choice. Since the Arab Spring there does seem
to be some prospect of stable demoncratic government in these areas -
oil companies do seem to like military dictatorships, despite their
unfortunate habit of coming apart when the dictator gets past it, or
just greedy, as happened with Saddam Hussein.

Which bit of energy security don't you understand?

The bit that says our current arrangements are "secure".

Well the UK was fine until the AGW nuts came along. Plenty of coal to
keep things running and plenty of shale.

Of course those stupid enough to rely on foreign supplies of gas have
regular problems.

Anyway there is plenty of shale gas out there who needs renewables?

Anybody with enough sense to understand the scientific case for not
burning much more fossil carbon. Not you, obviously.

Trolling again I see.

Simple statement of fact. You've made it perfectly obvious that you
don't understand the scientific case. You do have enough sense to
follow the denialist trolls that are published from time to time, but
not enough sense to work out that that their arguments aren't remotely
persuasive.

John said it quite well: " You are trolling to find reasons to
argue and insult people".

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:35:27 -0700 (PDT), "Ken S. Tucker"
<dynamics@vianet.on.ca> wrote:

On Sep 22, 5:21 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:24:12 -0700 (PDT), NT <meow2...@care2.com
wrote:



On Sep 22, 4:54 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:29:07 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
IEEE Spectrum seems to have some people who share my enthusiasm for
the change-over, and are rather better placed to calculate the
implications

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-water-and-solar-power...

What does this idiot think we'll do at night, or on cloudy winter
days, when the wind decides to die down? He doesn't mention how
storage would be accomplished. And of course part of his formula for
making all this stuff work is "reducing demand", another way of saying
it's uneconomic. Of course, he throws in a plan for wasting energy to
produce hydrogen.

His math is silly. Why produce tiny amounts of energy from expensive
wave and tidal sources? Just because it could maybe be done? The major
output from wave-power sources is scrap metal.

He casually suggests that we'd need better weather forcasting!

Fact is, there is lots of natural gas underground, more than anybody
imagined a few years ago. It's cheap and clean. Nuclear works, too, if
governments let it.

IEEE Spectrum is junk.

Why don't you post on topic, about electronics? Even better, DO some
electronics and post about that. You are trolling to find reasons to
argue and insult people, and you only dare to do it around off-topic
trash that can't be proven one way or another.

John

The article is lunacy.

I'll admit I cba to look up exact figures, but the following costings
should at least give a ballpark idea on the level of costs involved.

One scenario that Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson and I
developed, projecting to 2030, includes:

* 3.8 million wind turbines, 5 megawatts each, supplying 50 percent of the projected total global power demand

If we said vaguely 10p/peak W, thats about Ł1.9 trillion

* 49 000 solar thermal power plants, 300 MW each, supplying 20 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's Ł0.6 billion

* 40 000 solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants supplying 14 percent

If we said vaguely 2p per peak watt, that's Ł0.4 billion

* 1.7 billion rooftop PV systems, 3 kilowatts each, supplying 6 percent

If we said Ł3000 per system, that's Ł5.1 trillion

* 5350 geothermal power plants, 100 MW each, supplying 4 percent

I've no idea on costs, but if theyre no cheaper than pv, 2p/peak watt
= Ł11 billion

* 900 hydroelectric power plants, 1300 MW each, of which 70 percent are already in place, supplying 4 percent

If 0.8p per peak watt, that's Ł2.8 billion

* 720 000 ocean-wave devices, 0.75 MW each, supplying 1 percent

again if 2p/pk watt, Ł10.8 billion

* 490 000 tidal turbines, 1 MW each, supplying 1 percent.

If 2p/pk watt, 9.8 billion.

So total generation install cost = ballpark Ł2 trillion for all but
the domestic PVs, plus 5 trillion for those.
I dont know what the rest of the system plus administration costs are,
but typically they at least double final end user cost, so say 2+2+5=
Ł9 trillion total.

That should wipe out the NHS budget, resulting in wholesale death.

I'm not claiming the figs are accurate, but hopefully near enough to
give a rough idea of the kind of damage such an approach would do.

NT

Chinese solar panels are selling for something like $1.25 per peak
watt. Your 2p is a tad optimistic.

You still have to install them, invert to AC, connect to the grid,
store energy somehow for when the sun sets, and clean up after wind
storms blow all the panels away.

The thing that disturbs me about residential solar is that the panels
are bolted right to roofs, over the shingles or whatever. Envision
leaks. Roof maintanance will now involve removing and replacing the
panels.

Efficiency is better if panels are kept clean. Imagine how many
homeowners are going to die falling off roofs, trying to wash solar
panels with soapy water.
John

The asylum doors open and the exiting lame brains become politicians
for a
green utopia.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/pentictonwesternnews/news/129907533.html
The extra solar provision ONLY cost an extra $500, that's BS, I design
and
build houses.

I have an experimental building, with a flat roof (partly for solar),
but it doesn't make economic sense yet.
The bottle neck is in the energy storage, that's improving with
higher power density batteries.
Another is lifetime, how long will solar cells and batteries last.
Ken

Residential solar doesn't make sense to me. The economy of scale is
all wrong. Solar water heating makes sense in some climates.

John

 

On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:49:59 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

Residential solar doesn't make sense to me. The economy of scale is
all wrong. Solar water heating makes sense in some climates.

Running air conditioning with solar power makes sense, since during
high cooling demand, the power production is also high at the same
time, thus no energy storage is needed. It also reduces the peak power
demand from centralized power stations and reduces the distribution
network peak power levels.

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:58:35 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:49:59 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:


Residential solar doesn't make sense to me. The economy of scale is
all wrong. Solar water heating makes sense in some climates.

Running air conditioning with solar power makes sense, since during
high cooling demand, the power production is also high at the same
time, thus no energy storage is needed. It also reduces the peak power
demand from centralized power stations and reduces the distribution
network peak power levels.

The only reason there is a residential PV solar market in the USA is
because of heavy subsidies. Which means that the economics is, with
current technology, silly.

John