On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Blaze Spinnaker
wrote:
I also have this weird fear that we might create a drag that slows the spin
> of the earth's rotation. :D
>
If we could work out a global windmill installation that could accomplish
that, I think our energy problems would be solved for a wh
Yeah, good points all. The implicit insurance subsidy for Nuclear is
pretty massive.
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
> Blaze Spinnaker wrote:
>
>
>> We need to be installing these solar panels without subsidies (and
>> including all install costs, labor etc) and still pay
Blaze Spinnaker wrote:
> We need to be installing these solar panels without subsidies (and
> including all install costs, labor etc) and still paying less than general
> utility fees over 10 years or so.
>
I would agree to the no subsidy plan, but only after we level the playing
field:
1. We
Individually it's an interesting story, but on a mass scale it doesn't
quite add up - yet.
We need to be installing these solar panels without subsidies (and
including all install costs, labor etc) and still paying less than general
utility fees over 10 years or so.
When that happens, install gro
The way I look this is a little different. I was the first house in my
community of 50k to have PV. When I go to sell my house (which I plan to
do next year), if the solar power is the feature that attracts the customer
that buys my house, then it was paid back in that one instant.
It has been i
It is about 440 square feet on top of my flat patio roof. It is 2 strings
of 15 in parallel for a total of 30 panels. The total installed cost was
$35k, but I got back $20k from the state of FL (an incentive for growing a
solar business in FL) and then I got back about $2500 in tax credits. So
t
I wrote:
> In 2012, total installed nameplate capacity was 60 GW. With a capacity
> factor of 30% that's ~18 GW. It produced 3% of U.S. electricity.
>
Ah ha. It is more than 3% now. That was with 2011 end-of-year capacity. See:
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/pdfs/2012_annual_wind_market_rep
Chris Zell wrote:
It is always difficult for me to accept that the living world constantly
> needs our intervention, as if the whole of adaptive evolution never took
> place - including dramatic catastrophes.
>
Well, natural catastrophes wiped out entire species. We don't want that to
happen be
It is always difficult for me to accept that the living world constantly needs
our intervention, as if the whole of adaptive evolution never took place -
including dramatic catastrophes. Rupert Sheldrake once claimed that some small
birds learned to attack products delivered by the milkman- cle
Blaze Spinnaker wrote:
>
> Sure, but if the rate of windmill capacity doubled 7 more times or so, I
> wouldn't want to be a bird.
>
This really is not a problem. Birds are evolved to avoid whacking into
large, opaque moving objects. Such as pine trees waving in the wind. In
high winds, pine tree
I wrote:
> At the rate wind is expanding it will not take centuries to catch up with
> nuclear power. It is increasing at around 13 GW nameplate per year, or
> about 4 nukes.
>
In other words, at this rate, wind will catch up to nukes and produce ~20%
of our electricity in about 20 years.
It ha
"It kills thousands of times fewer birds than coal smoke does, and steam
from power generator cooling towers do. It kills fewer birds than
reflective glass buildings do. If we could replace all coal with wind
today, it would save far more birds than it kills. It would also save
roughly 20,000 human
Blaze Spinnaker wrote:
Wind is terrific as well, however it's pretty hard to improve the tech all
> that rapidly like solar.
>
It is still moving ahead pretty quickly. Especially offshore installations.
In Northern Europe North Sea offshore installations could produce 4 times
more electricity th
There's a company called Solar City and what they do is install panels on
your house and then sell the electricity back to you at a lower rate than
what you pay your utility.
These are the sort of innovative things that are happening.
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 1:44 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
> Blaz
Wind is terrific as well, however it's pretty hard to improve the tech all
that rapidly like solar. It also kills birds, ruins sight lines, etc.
But yes, wind is good.
I love this article in the economist:
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21587782-europes-electricity-providers-face-exist
Blaze Spinnaker wrote:
> Maybe, but the present amount of capacity has doubled 4 times over the
> last 10 years.
>
Sure. It has great potential.
I would be wary of projecting that kind of growth into the future, because
there may be problems integrating it into the net. Could there be problems
Wind power is much larger than PV solar at present. That does not mean the
future capacity is more, it means wind has been developed longer. See:
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_installed_capacity.asp#yearly
It is fun to watch the changing graphic map chart at the top right of this
page.
"Total U.S. generator capacity is roughly 1,000 GW. So it would take 1,700
years to replace that with solar at the present rate of installation."
Maybe, but the present amount of capacity has doubled 4 times over the last
10 years. If it becomes significantly profitable to install solar over
our
Here is all kinds of great information about electric power generation:
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/
http://www.eia.gov/energy_in_brief/article/renewable_electricity.cfm
Bob Higgins wrote:
To get kWH/day from peak kW in PV, you multiply by the average full power
> equivalent hours per day. In FL, this is 4 hours (mostly due to clouds).
> In NM the number is 5. In the continental US as a whole, the number is
> probably about 3.5-4.
>
3.5 hours out of 24 is 14.5
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 3:41 PM, Bob Higgins wrote:
> It works great.
>
>
Is it cost effective?
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/Information-SolarFolder/SunHoursUSMap.html
I'm in Zone 6. :(
On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Bob Higgins wrote:
> To get kWH/day from peak kW in PV, you multiply by the average full power
> equivalent hours per day. In FL, this is 4 hours (mostly due to clouds)
Bob Higgins wrote:
> I have a 5.3 kW peak fixed PV system that provides most of the power for
> my house.
>
Wow! How many square feet is that? How much did it cost?
- Jed
To get kWH/day from peak kW in PV, you multiply by the average full power
equivalent hours per day. In FL, this is 4 hours (mostly due to clouds).
In NM the number is 5. In the continental US as a whole, the number is
probably about 3.5-4. This is for a fixed (not tracking) array. This
number i
Here is a graph of U.S. PV solar installations per quarter since 2010. It
shows rapid growth:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/12/more-records-for-quarterly-us-solar-installations
It shows "930 MW in the July-September" quarter. That means 930 MW peak
output from the sola
Blaze Spinnaker wrote:
I think the folks of Shanghai might disagree with that one.
>
Why Shanghai? What's the news from Shanghai?
- Jed
This could actually work to the utilities advantage if they embraced the
idea. Prices are higher because demand is higher. With the right pricing
structure, such arbitraging could prevent the construction of generating
facilities to meet peak demand.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 10:34 PM, Blaze Spin
I think the folks of Shanghai might disagree with that one. The only real
use of Solar is to replace fossil fuels.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 8:30 PM, Eric Walker wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
>
> There is a lot to be said for PV solar, but it cannot meet 100% of
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
There is a lot to be said for PV solar, but it cannot meet 100% of our
> energy needs unless an improved battery comes along.
>
I think if we found ready sources of energy, demand would increase and we'd
find new ways of using it. Similar dev
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/breaking-the-logjam-on-10mw-of-california-solar-storage-projects
"Since this spring, those utilities have been requiring any net-metered
solar power projects that include batteries to go through a lengthy and
expensive process to prove their batteries ar
It's actually interesting, but PV batteries are getting so good some
utilities are disallowing systems which feedback energy into the grid via
these batteries because homeowners are actually arbitraging. They're
actually charging their batteries off the grid and then selling back into
it when pri
There is a lot to be said for PV solar, but it cannot meet 100% of our
energy needs unless an improved battery comes along. Because the sun goes
away at night.
It can meet a large fraction of our needs, especially in places such as
Nevada, where peak demand occurs when the sun is brightest and air
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