Change-over to enewable energy

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 23, 8:11 pm, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:

On Sep 23, 7:09 pm, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:









On Sep 23, 8:50 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
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

Perhaps? If so, they need to state it, otherwise its just imagination.

$0.20, but the authors may know stuff that we don't about latest
generation of nano-structured solar cell materials

Or may be unwilling to do the numbers and understand the economic
implications. You cant build a realistic plan on unobtanium.

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

perfectly fair

and. More of their solar power - 20% of the capacity needed - is
thermal solar, which can store energy as heat.

yes, but at a cost

What do you think the cost would be Mr.Sloman, and the implications
of spending it?

It's Dr.Sloman, if you want the correct honorific and I'll refer you
to

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

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

better researched cost figures than I could possibly come up with.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 25, 2:31 pm, Sylvia Else <syl...@not.here.invalid> wrote:

On 23/09/2011 12:29 AM,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...

Where is the supply and load modelling?

In so far as it exists

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

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

Or is it, as I suspect, just a lot of hand waving?

It's fairly high-level hand-waving. Anything more authoratitive would
cost serious money to put together.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 24, 5:48 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:03:45 +0300, upsided...@downunder.com wrote:
On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:14:56 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

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

On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:49:59 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@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.

If the electric price is the same regardless of the day of the year
and hour of day and there are no extra charge e.g. for the peak power
consumed during the year or month, residential solar power does not
make much sense.

From the utility company point of view, a high peak-to-average load
ratio is problematic. Extra power generating capacity has to be
provided for the few peak hours, while most of the time they are idle.

To minimize capital costs, these are usually relative simple (and fast
starting) gas turbines with relatively low efficiency (no heat
exchanger). The natural gas is quite often an expensive fuel.

The price of natural gas has dropped dramatically in the USA in the
last couple of years. We have an enormous supply of it.

For the moment. You had an enormous supply of oil once, and now have
to import 65% of what you use.

 For this
reason, the cost of producing electricity with these peak load gas
turbines is significantly higher than with any nuclear, coal or
hydroelectric base load stations.  

At least in the European electric markets, the price for _all_
electricity on a specific time is determined by the most expensive
production method (e.g. gas turbines) at the time, after all cheaper
sources are already on line. Electric meters are being replaced with
new ones that are capable of measuring consumption by the hour or even
shorter periods. There is a risk that the electric price will vary by
the hour or even by the actual market price for a specific day at an
specific hour.

That is an artificial, politically driven pricing structure, which
forces the economics in favor of PV solar.

All pricing structures are artificial - a means of comparing apples
and pears. The unregulated free market may look natural, but it
wouldn't exist if we hadn't invented money, and it is prone to it's
own distortions, though some followers of flat-earth economic theories
insist - as a matter of faith - that the market is perfect and any
imperfections are the results of government intervention.

This particular pricing structure doesn't specifically encourage the
installation of photo-voltaic solar generating capacity - energy
demand peaks in the mornings and the late afternoon

http://www.mpoweruk.com/electricity_demand.htm

while sunlight peaks at midday.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Wanderer]

On Sep 25, 9:23 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 25, 2:31 pm, Sylvia Else <syl...@not.here.invalid> wrote:

On 23/09/2011 12:29 AM,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....

Where is the supply and load modelling?

In so far as it exists

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

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

Or is it, as I suspect, just a lot of hand waving?

It's fairly high-level hand-waving. Anything more authoratitive would
cost serious money to put together.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

It has a great deal of 'appeal to authority'. Pointing to other papers
written by people he agrees with. It does contain data and facts but
none of which support the central argument.

"We recognize that historically, changes to the energy system,
driven at least partly by market forces,have occurred more slowly
than we are envisioning here (e.g., Kramer and Haigh,2009).
However, our plan is for governments to implement policies to
mobilize infrastructure changes more rapidly than would occur if
development were left mainly to the private market."

The authors believe in a centralized planned government solution and
not in private market evolution of the energy infrastructure. They
present little or no arguments to support this assertion.

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:02:08 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 06:44:02 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

This particular pricing structure doesn't specifically encourage the
installation of photo-voltaic solar generating capacity - energy
demand peaks in the mornings and the late afternoon

http://www.mpoweruk.com/electricity_demand.htm

while sunlight peaks at midday.

The sunlight falling on a _horizontal_ surface peaks at midday.

At higher latitudes, the panels are always erected. If the peak demand
is in the afternoon, aim the panel to SW instead of S.

At high latitudes in the summer, the SW facing panel will produce
nearly as much as the south facing, but of course, in the winter, the
sun sets before reaching SW.

Slowman persists in depriving a needy village of its idiot assignment.

...Jim Thompson
--
[On the Road, in New York]

| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 06:44:02 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 24, 5:48 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:03:45 +0300, upsided...@downunder.com wrote:
On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:14:56 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

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

On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:49:59 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@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.

If the electric price is the same regardless of the day of the year
and hour of day and there are no extra charge e.g. for the peak power
consumed during the year or month, residential solar power does not
make much sense.

From the utility company point of view, a high peak-to-average load
ratio is problematic. Extra power generating capacity has to be
provided for the few peak hours, while most of the time they are idle.

To minimize capital costs, these are usually relative simple (and fast
starting) gas turbines with relatively low efficiency (no heat
exchanger). The natural gas is quite often an expensive fuel.

The price of natural gas has dropped dramatically in the USA in the
last couple of years. We have an enormous supply of it.

For the moment.

400 years is the estimate. But they keep finding more.

John

 

On Sep 25, 6:07 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 25, 5:17 am, "dcas...@krl.org" <dcas...@krl.org> wrote:

On Sep 24, 6:10 pm,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

The argument that anthropogenic global warming is going on isn't
"green", it is scientific. People who disagree with it are either
ignorant or paid-for members of the denialist propaganda machine.

And we  have a true believer.  Anyone that does not agree withBill
can expect to receive the full treatment.

The suggestion that they might read s the American Institute of
Physics web-pages on anthropogenic global warming?

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

It is a brutal assault, suggesting that the reader can't manage to
read popular physics, but John Larkin - amongst others - has managed
to shrug it off.

I particularly enjoyed the rarified scientific objectivity of the
section entitled "Talking Points."

--
Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Nico Coesel]

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

The argument that anthropogenic global warming is going on isn't
"green", it is scientific. People who disagree with it are either
ignorant or paid-for members of the denialist propaganda machine.

The most interesting part is that it really doesn't matter. It
happened several times before and mankind is still alive.

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

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Jim Thompson wrote:

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:02:08 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 06:44:02 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

This particular pricing structure doesn't specifically encourage the
installation of photo-voltaic solar generating capacity - energy
demand peaks in the mornings and the late afternoon

http://www.mpoweruk.com/electricity_demand.htm

while sunlight peaks at midday.

The sunlight falling on a _horizontal_ surface peaks at midday.

At higher latitudes, the panels are always erected. If the peak demand
is in the afternoon, aim the panel to SW instead of S.

At high latitudes in the summer, the SW facing panel will produce
nearly as much as the south facing, but of course, in the winter, the
sun sets before reaching SW.

Slowman persists in depriving a needy village of its idiot assignment.

A needy village? He has deprived the land of Oz for way too long,
but he's returning to his rightful position as that continent's idiot.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 25, 8:27 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Sep 25, 6:07 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:









On Sep 25, 5:17 am, "dcas...@krl.org" <dcas...@krl.org> wrote:

On Sep 24, 6:10 pm,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

The argument that anthropogenic global warming is going on isn't
"green", it is scientific. People who disagree with it are either
ignorant or paid-for members of the denialist propaganda machine.

And we  have a true believer.  Anyone that does not agree withBill
can expect to receive the full treatment.

The suggestion that they might read s the American Institute of
Physics web-pages on anthropogenic global warming?

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

It is a brutal assault, suggesting that the reader can't manage to
read popular physics, but John Larkin - amongst others - has managed
to shrug it off.

I particularly enjoyed the rarified scientific objectivity of the
section entitled "Talking Points."

The complete lable is "Conclusions: A Personal Note - Talking Points
(pdf)"

It is a bit odd of you to expect "rarified scientific objectivity" in
something indexed as a "personal note" - less odd for you to pretend
to expect "rarified scientific objectivity" and carefully omit the
"personal note" part of the title. Such little sleighs of hand are
part and parcel of your debating style.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[dcaster@krl.org]

On Sep 25, 5:06 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 25, 8:27 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:



On Sep 25, 6:07 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 25, 5:17 am, "dcas...@krl.org" <dcas...@krl.org> wrote:

On Sep 24, 6:10 pm,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

The argument that anthropogenic global warming is going on isn't
"green", it is scientific. People who disagree with it are either
ignorant or paid-for members of the denialist propaganda machine.

And we  have a true believer.  Anyone that does not agree withBill
can expect to receive the full treatment.

The suggestion that they might read s the American Institute of
Physics web-pages on anthropogenic global warming?

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

It is a brutal assault, suggesting that the reader can't manage to
read popular physics, but John Larkin - amongst others - has managed
to shrug it off.

I particularly enjoyed the rarified scientific objectivity of the
section entitled "Talking Points."

The complete lable is "Conclusions: A Personal Note - Talking Points
(pdf)"

It is a bit odd of you to expect "rarified scientific objectivity" in
something indexed as a "personal note" - less odd for you to pretend
to expect "rarified scientific objectivity" and carefully omit the
"personal note" part of the title. Such little sleighs of hand are
part and parcel of your debating style.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

I expect objectivity in conclusions. Are you saying that you do not
expect objectivity in the conclusions?

Dan

 

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 14:43:27 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 25, 3:51 pm, Wanderer <wande...@dialup4less.com> wrote:
On Sep 25, 9:23 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:









On Sep 25, 2:31 pm, Sylvia Else <syl...@not.here.invalid> wrote:

On 23/09/2011 12:29 AM,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...

Where is the supply and load modelling?

In so far as it exists

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

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

Or is it, as I suspect, just a lot of hand waving?

It's fairly high-level hand-waving. Anything more authoratitive would
cost serious money to put together.

--
BillSloman, Nijmegen

It has a great deal of 'appeal to authority'. Pointing to other papers
written by people he agrees with. It does contain data and facts but
none of which support the central argument.

"We recognize that historically, changes to the energy system,
driven at least partly by market forces,have occurred more slowly
than we are envisioning here (e.g., Kramer and Haigh,2009).
However, our plan is for governments to implement policies to
mobilize infrastructure changes more rapidly than would occur if
development were left mainly to the private market."

The authors believe in a centralized planned government solution and
not in private market evolution of the energy infrastructure. They
present little or no arguments to support this assertion.

Private markets evolve to make more money in the short term. Exxon-
Mobil's response to the discovery of anthropogenic global warming was
to spend a lot of money on persuading the public that anthopogenic
global warming wasn't actually happening.

Central government can - under sufficient pressure from the voters -
be persuaded to take a rather longer-term view. If they can, we have a
chance to do something about anthropogenic global warming before the
progressing change in climate starts eating into our capacity to move
over to renewable and sustainable energy sources.

The authors don't need to present any arguments to support this
proposition. It's perfectly obvious that if central government can't
be persuaded to take the initiative, our current industrialised
civilisation is doomed, and very few of our great-grandchildren will
live long enough to reproduce, though rather more may last long enough
to curse their irresponsible great-grandparents.

Are you seriously suggesting that AGW will kill off the great majority
of the population of the planet in 40 years or so?

Insane.

John

 

[Rich Grise]

dcaster@krl.org wrote:

On Sep 24, 6:10 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

The argument that anthropogenic global warming is going on isn't
"green", it is scientific. People who disagree with it are either
ignorant or paid-for members of the denialist propaganda machine.

And we have a true believer. Anyone that does not agree with Bill
can expect to receive the full treatment.

Every time I hear the likes of Sloman chant "Scientific!" I think of

The Scientific People from "The Stars My Destination," by Alfred Bester.

"Quant Suff! Quant Suff!"

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 25, 3:51 pm, Wanderer <wande...@dialup4less.com> wrote:

On Sep 25, 9:23 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:









On Sep 25, 2:31 pm, Sylvia Else <syl...@not.here.invalid> wrote:

On 23/09/2011 12:29 AM,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...

Where is the supply and load modelling?

In so far as it exists

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

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

Or is it, as I suspect, just a lot of hand waving?

It's fairly high-level hand-waving. Anything more authoratitive would
cost serious money to put together.

--
BillSloman, Nijmegen

It has a great deal of 'appeal to authority'. Pointing to other papers
written by people he agrees with. It does contain data and facts but
none of which support the central argument.

"We recognize that historically, changes to the energy system,
driven at least partly by market forces,have occurred more slowly
than we are envisioning here (e.g., Kramer and Haigh,2009).
However, our plan is for governments to implement policies to
mobilize infrastructure changes more rapidly than would occur if
development were left mainly to the private market."

The authors believe in a centralized planned government solution and
not in private market evolution of the energy infrastructure. They
present little or no arguments to support this assertion.

Private markets evolve to make more money in the short term. Exxon-
Mobil's response to the discovery of anthropogenic global warming was
to spend a lot of money on persuading the public that anthopogenic
global warming wasn't actually happening.

Central government can - under sufficient pressure from the voters -
be persuaded to take a rather longer-term view. If they can, we have a
chance to do something about anthropogenic global warming before the
progressing change in climate starts eating into our capacity to move
over to renewable and sustainable energy sources.

The authors don't need to present any arguments to support this
proposition. It's perfectly obvious that if central government can't
be persuaded to take the initiative, our current industrialised
civilisation is doomed, and very few of our great-grandchildren will
live long enough to reproduce, though rather more may last long enough
to curse their irresponsible great-grandparents.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 25, 3:22 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:31:53 +1000, Sylvia Else <syl...@not.here.invalid
wrote:

On 23/09/2011 12:29 AM,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....

Where is the supply and load modelling?

Or is it, as I suspect, just a lot of hand waving?

Sylvia.

That seems to be Slowman's latest buzz phrase, "rather better placed".  What?
With their heads up their asses ?

That may be how red-neck hillbillys do their research - though the
necks in question would then be brown, rather than red.

The authors involved - Mark Z.Jacobson and, Mark A.Delucchi - are at
Stanford in - respectively -

the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the
Institute of Transportation Studies.

They've got access to better libraries than I have, and presumably
more in the way of research staff.

Slowman seems to be trying out for President of the NIP's... Narcissistic
Ignorant Pansies.

Jim would be something of an expert in ignorance - granting his huge
personal collection of misconceptions - and can thus be forgiven for
not knowing that I'm nowhere near enough of a narcissist or an
ignoramus to be in the running for that position. My sexual
orientation is also a bit too conventional to qualify me as a
candidate, but that's not going to matter to Jim, who imagines that
the world conforms to his prejudices.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 25, 7:54 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:02:08 +0300, upsided...@downunder.com wrote:
On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 06:44:02 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

This particular pricing structure doesn't specifically encourage the
installation of photo-voltaic solar generating capacity -  energy
demand peaks in the mornings and the late afternoon

http://www.mpoweruk.com/electricity_demand.htm

while sunlight peaks at midday.

The sunlight falling on a _horizontal_ surface peaks at midday.

At higher latitudes, the panels are always erected. If the peak demand
is in the afternoon, aim the panel to SW instead of S.

At high latitudes in the summer, the SW facing panel will produce
nearly as much as the south facing, but of course, in the winter, the
sun sets before reaching SW.

Slowman persists in depriving a needy village of its idiot assignment.

And Jim can't even learn to spell my name right.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Sep 25, 8:25 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sun, 25 Sep 2011 06:44:02 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman









bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Sep 24, 5:48 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:03:45 +0300, upsided...@downunder.com wrote:
On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:14:56 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

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

On Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:49:59 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@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.

If the electric price is the same regardless of the day of the year
and hour of day and there are no extra charge e.g. for the peak power
consumed during the year or month, residential solar power does not
make much sense.

From the utility company point of view, a high peak-to-average load
ratio is problematic. Extra power generating capacity has to be
provided for the few peak hours, while most of the time they are idle..

To minimize capital costs, these are usually relative simple (and fast
starting) gas turbines with relatively low efficiency (no heat
exchanger). The natural gas is quite often an expensive fuel.

The price of natural gas has dropped dramatically in the USA in the
last couple of years. We have an enormous supply of it.

For the moment.

400 years is the estimate. But they keep finding more.

So that's what happened to those guys that used to work for Royal
Dutch Shell, estimating their reserves, until someone checked their
work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6544057.stm

And you'll work out new ways to use up what's actually there - as
opposed to what the oil and gas company executives tell their share-
holders is there.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[NT]

On Sep 25, 11:07 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 25, 9:25 am, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:



On Sep 24, 11:10 pm,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 24, 8:14 pm, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:

On Sep 24, 9:57 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 24, 7:38 am, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:

On Sep 24, 5:12 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 24, 2:05 am, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:

On Sep 23, 8:50 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

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.

yes, global warming will cost us all money one way or another. But
what it would take to avoid it, if thats even possible,  would cost us
enormously more. That is the massivest flaw of the whole green agenda

Think about the Younger Dryas, which was a hiccup in the thawing
process that ended the last Ice Age

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

Basically, the Gulf Stream turned off for 1300 years, probably due to
massive amounts of fresh water being dumped in the North Atlantic when
the Laurentian ice sheet slid off into the ocean. The Greenland ice
sheet isn't as big, and doesn't show any immediate signs of sliding
off into the ocean as a single lump, but it might be able to do as
well. Do you want to find out if it is big enough and unstable enough
by seeing it happen?

We don't know what could happen if we let global temperatures rise by
another degree Celcius or so, and we probably shouldn't indulge our
curiousity by waiting to see what does happen. If the final state of
the planet is incompatible with the advanced industrial civilisation
we've got at the moment, inaction will cost us everything we've got.
That the massive flaw in the denialist argument.

Suggesting that 'the final state of the planet is incompatible with
the advanced industrial civilisation' is a massively flawed claim.

Alright. It is a wrst case argument so,

"If the final state of the planet were incompatible with the advanced
industrial civilisation we've got at the moment, inaction would cost
us everything we've got. That the massive flaw in the denialist
argument."

I don't think you can argue with that.

It's bonkers.

That's not an argument.

no. none was needed.

can't predict the detailed effects of anthropogenic global warming
with enough precision to absolutely justify doing anything to stop it,
but the flip side of that argument is that we can't predict the kinds
of things that have happened during warming episode - like runaway
methane release as during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum - and
should be correspondingly cautious.

it makes more sense to look at both approaches, evalute, and pick the
one with better survival figures.

Evaluate? How in heavens name do we evaluate the sort of non-linear
process that turned off the Gulf-stream during the Younger Dryas? The

Then lets start with what we can model, at least approximately. If you
slot your figures into my other post, we'll see where we stand.

IPCC won't even consider that kind of risk, because they can't model
them, which strikes me as downright irresponsible.

We need to recognise that turning the global thermostat up a few
degrees may have unexpected consequences, and chicken out.

That isnt the green option.

Please specify what you think the "green" option actually is.

A sizeable price hike on energy, due mainly to reduction in use of
fossil fuels, and an assortment of fiddling legislation that only
serves to make most areas of life take longer and cost more.

You've missed the bit about a substantial investment in renewable
energy generation, and the observation that economies of scale will
probably undo most - if not all - of the "sizeable price hike".

No, I havent missed it. It reduces the cost per amount of plant, but
its still a vast investment, and any investment of money has to be
paid for by end users.


NT

 

[NT]

On Sep 25, 10:55 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 25, 9:13 am, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:



On Sep 24, 11:17 pm,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 23, 7:54 pm, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:

On Sep 23, 10:10 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

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?

With respect that doesn't require an article to add up. Read some of
the psych articles published if you doubt that.

What has psychology got to do with this discussion? Peer-review isn't
a guarantee of quality, but having cleared that hurdle, their stuff is
more credible than yours.

The point is that publishing doesnt make a paper valid. The bar is too
low to be of any use. Thus this line is a red herring.

Mine were intended to be tweaked where needed, so anyone can see what
the problem is

In other words you embedded your assumptions in the way you set up the
problem.

Youre welcome to provide your own figures if you prefer, then suggest
what services could be cut back by how much to meet the cost,

In the US situation, the obvious service to cut would be the corporate
welfare in the defence budget. At the moment you spend some $700
billion on defence, when you two closest rivals - France and China -
spend, in combination, some $175 billion, which - historically
speaking, is all that you need to spend.

This leaves some $525 billion a year that you could spend on making
your energy generation more renewable.

and give
some idea what the death toll would be. Perhaps that way we might find
some common ground.

Granting that the Defence Budget is being spent - in part - on
building and developing stuff to kill people, this diversion of
resources might be seen as a potential life-saver.

The trouble with this is its getting into a second area of politics,
which I'm not really willing to get into.


NT

 

[NT]

On Sep 25, 2:21 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sep 23, 8:11 pm, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:



On Sep 23, 7:09 pm, NT <meow2...@care2.com> wrote:

On Sep 23, 8:50 am,BillSloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
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

Perhaps? If so, they need to state it, otherwise its just imagination..

$0.20, but the authors may know stuff that we don't about latest
generation of nano-structured solar cell materials

Or may be unwilling to do the numbers and understand the economic
implications. You cant build a realistic plan on unobtanium.

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

perfectly fair

and. More of their solar power - 20% of the capacity needed - is
thermal solar, which can store energy as heat.

yes, but at a cost

What do you think the cost would be Mr.Sloman, and the implications
of spending it?

It's Dr.Sloman, if you want the correct honorific and I'll refer you
to

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

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

better researched cost figures than I could possibly come up with.

Hmm, I couldnt find a total cost figure anywhere in those pdfs. Do you
have one?


NT