Re: if you were president

On 13 May 2007 08:35:00 -0700, $Zero <zero@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 11, 11:11 pm, Josh Hill <userepl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 10 May 2007 12:34:23 -0700, $Zero <z...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 10, 1:42?am, Josh Hill <userepl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 9 May 2007 13:09:09 -0700, $Zero <z...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 8, 10:55?pm, Josh Hill <userepl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 7 May 2007 21:22:47 -0700, $Zero <z...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]


my oh my, the cost of power is quite cumulative innit.

My well-considered response to that is it don't mean shit.
You have a positive EROEI or you don't bother.

or you look ahead and realize that a positive EROEI is inevitable.

that's how genius differs from regular thought.

Nah. Anybody with half a brain can see that we'll eventually have
solar cells with a positive EROEI.

yikes.

Many are working towards that goal right now.

not you.

"You have a positive EROEI or you don't bother."

I didn't say "you don't bother improving solar cells so that you do."

because a huge windfarm in the middle of nowhere during an unusually
high windstorm can be used to create solar panels that we can use in
the city -- any old time we want to -- during sunny days, anyway.

Solar power is just as intermittent as wind.

well, so is fossil fuels, when you think ahead.

after all, it takes quite a lot of time to create a fossil fuel.

and there's a limited supply!

Yeah, but that doesn't add much to the costs, except insofar as brain
dead conservatives impede the necessary transition to new power
sources.

compare:

"You have a positive EROEI or you don't bother."

"Anybody with half a brain can see that we'll eventually have
solar cells with a positive EROEI."

You should have taken that as a clue that you were misinterpreting the
first statement!

Hydroelectric storage is efficient and
economical -- it's already being used to store power generated during
off-peak periods -- but hydroelectric resources are limited by
geography, geology, and other practical factors. Compressed air
storage works pretty well, but it's also dependent on geology, and so
has very limited applicability. Electrolyzers and fuel cells are too
expensive and inefficient. Flow batteries are still a question mark.
Conventional batteries are still too expensive and inefficient, and
may do environmental harm. So far, I haven't been able to find
anything that seems really promising, which is a damn shame, because
if we had something, we'd be home free -- we could use wind for
everything.

and/or water. and/or gravity (maybe). and/or SOLAR!

Water is limited, gravity won't work, and economical solar panels
aren't here yet, although there is some promising work on concentrated
solar.

Dude, if the solar panels take more power to make than they create
over their lifetimes, there's no reason.

but they don't.

Says who?

"Anybody with half a brain can see that we'll eventually have
solar cells with a positive EROEI."

Right. Present and future -- where's the conflict? Anyway, the info I
dug up suggests that the EROEI may be positive after all. Which
reduces the problem to one of cost -- the reason why I didn't bother
looking into EROEI in the first place.

And if they're more expensive
than other sources, there's no possibility.

Gawd.

what things cost is 99% dependent on hype and illusion.

No, Zero, it isn't.

you've never operated a business, have you?

yikes.

Actually, for better or worse, I have. And I think I see the source of
your confusion, because yes, in the typical business, that's partly
the case /in terms of what the customer pays./ But in engineering, one
is concerned with the cost of actually making something. And that's
what I'm concerned with here. A restaurant may charge more or less for
an entree, but if it goes heavy on the truffles, it ain't gonna
compete with Burger King.

or maybe solar panels designed to be used as the surface of roads and
parking lots and whatnot.

Good luck.

well, sure, that would be quite the design project, no doubt.

but if solved, what a solution, aye?

given the nature of roads and how they all connect to eachother.

not to mention driveways.

Actually, they all suck. Why? Because they get dirty and scratched and
pounded on, they're in the shade of cars and buildings, and even when
they do have a reasonably good exposure they don't face the sun at the
right angle for maximum output.

"well, sure, that would be quite the design project, no doubt."

If you like designing fabulously expensive things that don't work and
nobody wants, sure.

or as the exterior walls of homes, and schools, and bowling alleys.

They need to face the sun or they lose efficiency. Roofs are usually
best. (Well, tracking is best.)

sometimes there are advantages to overkill.

one would assume that the panels would last longer if they weren't all
operating at the limits of their operation.

Check out solar installations: you will see that they're all designed
to face the sun to the maximum extent possible. That's sort of Solar
Installation 101, actually. You'd be throwing away money if you did
anything else.

"sometimes there are advantages to overkill."

"one would assume that the panels would last longer if they
weren't all operating at the limits of their operation."

IOW: avoiding Installation 101b

Dude, people go out of their way to orient solar panels /towards/ the
sun, even installing trackers, for the simple reason that it would
cost a fortune not to. Solar is already too expensive as things are!

or on the roofs of automobiles, and Mack trucks, and motorcycle
chrome.

Not enough power -- particularly if you want to drive at night!

electrical storage alert!

Unobtainium. We can't even produce reliable batteries that take the
family car 40 miles yet.

"yet"

paging engineer Popeye the Sailor man.

white courtesy courage phone.

Doesn't work that way. We've been working on battery technology for
over 100 years. Improvements are ongoing but slow. The next step is
the plug-in hybrid, which will go maybe 40 miles on the battery before
the engine has to kick in -- enough to get most people to and from
work.

still, i'll bet that the real cost of creating solar panels is
seriously over-estimated.

I don't know. They're certainly costly.

what's the biggest cost?

The silicon wafers, I suppose.

how much does it cost per panel?

Don't remember. Several dollars a Watt. Do a search.

why does it cost several dollars a watt?

what are the variables?

As I said, don't know. I'm sure the info is out there, if you want to
do a search.

focus on the relevant variables is the key to solving their
innefficiencies.

i doubt that you disagree with that.

If you're talking about optimizing current designs, sure. If you're
talking about new paradigm technologies like quantum dots, it's less
about trades and more about research.

and what is it about making same that can't be made much much cheaper?

Dunno. Polysilicon is expensive, particularly since there's a
shortage. Do a search.

You could try researching it yourself.

yep.

you too.

Sure, but as I said, it doesn't interest me that much. Too many
roadblocks to offer a short-term solution, and the long-term stuff,
while cool, is anything but certain.

you might as well be named George W. Bush.

Bullshit.

this doesn't sound EXACTLY like Georgie to you?

No. Because unlike Bush, I believe there are short-term solutions, I
believe that we need them now, and I believe that the government has a
critical role to play in getting them out there. I just happen to know
that today's /solar cells/ can't play a major role in that. They're
way too expensive. Using solar cells would be like buying a Rolls
Royce when a Ford would do. In fact, solar cells are /hurting/ the
environment, because every dollar that's spent on buying or
subsidizing them could do a lot more if it were spent on a more
economical technology like wind.

"Sure, but as I said, it doesn't interest me that much.
Too many roadblocks to offer a short-term solution,
and the long-term stuff, while cool, is anything but certain."

whoa.


If I were president,

you'd initially be poo pooing the solar panel contingent.

but unlike Georgie, you'd later admit that you had rushed to silly
judgements.

Nope. I'd say that I've spent some time researching this. You haven't.
So while I may of course be wrong about this or that -- technology is
never completely predictable and I haven't read everything that's been
written by a long shot -- I'm less likely to be wrong than you.

Besides, last time we had this argument, you were all in favor of
wind.

"Anybody with half a brain can see that we'll eventually have
solar cells with a positive EROEI."


we'd be on the road to energy
self-sufficiency within 10 or 15 years, and we'd be doing what we have
to to avoid the dire consequences of global warming. I can say that
because I've researched the technologies and have a pretty fair idea
of what we can realistically hope to accomplish.

Sal's cite about already existing positive EROREI on solar panels must
have come as a shock to you, then, huh?

No, because it was /my/ cite. You'll remember that I said from the
beginning that I hadn't researched it myself, but that someone who was
usually but not always reliable had made that claim. And then a lot of
people started arguing, with nary a one doing any research, which is
to say, their opinions weren't worth squat. Then I went and found that
paper, which said that the EROEI matter was controversial. Didn't
bother reading further, because it doesn't really matter much.

or was she just playing around with language?

Well, that too. I didn't trouble myself about it one way or another,
because what she quoted wasn't engineering data, it was just opinion.
One would have to have to do a fair amount of homework into
assumptions to evaluate the various studies, and even then, the
results would be all over the place. You never have certainty in these
things -- just estimates.

In that scenario,
silicon solar cells are also rans. For one thing, there's little they
can do that wind turbines can't do much more economically.

harnessing the free (and otherwise wasted) energy from the sun is
hardly a little thing.

especially when there is no wind around a certain area.

like in space, for instance.

There is wind in space.

not a little thing, space.

...

not to mention moon bases and whatnot.

and of course, all of those often wind-free tropical paradises.

The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind. Wind could, in theory,
supply all our energy needs several times over. Better yet, the best
wind sites tend to be offshore or in plains and agricultural areas
where no one is going to be bothered by the turbines.

--
Josh

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths,
and how many, what day it?s going to happen, and
how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean,
it?s, it?s not relevant. So, why should I waste my
beautiful mind on something like that?" - Barbara Bush
.

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