Jed, Just a fact check. You don't know how many times I have heard that " a solar site 100 miles to the side in the Mohave could generate all of the power requirements for the US".
Some numbers based upon most efficient claimed CSP plant: (approx 2 to 3 times more efficient than PV but much more expensive) 370 MW Nominal generation requires 3500 acreas (largest, most efficient claimed US solar thermal plant being constructed) 350,000 mirrors (assuming they are clean) Generates power ~10 hours/day To cover peak US demand of 768,000 MW you would need 781 MILLION mirrors that only cover you 10 hours per day. The 110Mile x 110Mile plot is idle at night. With thermal storage you would need to more than double the area if you wanted to store during the day and generate at night, taking up > 60% of the Mohave. You can double this area for utility scale PV which, although cheaper is ~ half the efficiency of CSP/acre, in which case you would need a larger Mohave. You also need to develop weather technology to keep all clouds out of the desert... Also, your "Robots" will need to clean 781 million mirrors per month (monthly cleaning cycle) in the heat and sand of the desert. Plus where will you get the water to clean them or power for your army of hundreds of thousands of robots? If you cannot clean 781 MILLION mirrors per month you will need more, less efficient dirty mirrors and more space You will also pay 4 times more for this electricity than you are paying now. Also, from a strategic defense standpoint, it would be very easy for an enemy to blast one large nuke off over the desert and shatter all of those mirrors. I am OK with distributed PV on rooftops but get the crap out of the desert and give the BILLIONS to homeowners to subsidize installations. Solar City has a much better business model. I admire your creativity and regurgitating green fluff but I think you are drinking your own bath water and they are WASTING OUR MONEY On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 3:55 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Chemical Engineer <cheme...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> You mention projects that are advancing human civilization and many were >> great investments. Are you OK spending billions on green projects that >> have 1/100th or less the energy density/potential of existing fossil fuels >> . . . >> > > Which projects do you mean? I am not aware of anything like that. > > The energy density of uranium fission plants is not as good as existing > fossil fuels, because uranium ore density is so low, but I still prefer > uranium reactors to coal-fired plants. > > The power density of solar cells is low but as long as they are cheap it > does not matter. (Energy density is meaningless in a solar cell or wind > turbine; the energy will last for billions of years.) We are not running > out of space on the roofs of houses, or in the deserts of the southwest. A > solar array 100 miles to the side could generate all of energy in the U.S., > and there are hundreds of miles of empty land in places like Arizona and > North Africa. > > > >> Are you OK filling up the deserts with solar panels full of dust?. >> > > Better than building more coal fired plants and filling people's lungs > with dust. It is not problem keeping the panels clean with robots. It does > not take much water or overhead. > > Wind now supplies 2% of electricity. It could be increased to 20% with > today's distribution technology. That would displace half of coal fired > electricity. In North America, it would be way cheaper than adding that > much nuclear power (~100 reactors). > > > I guess you would recommend a Billion Dollar DOE investment in Rossi's >> company at this point? maybe a GigaCAT? >> > > Of course not. Anyway, Rossi will take any investment money from anyone. I > know several people with millions of dollars burning a hole in their > pockets. They are pounding on his door. He will not take one dollar from > them. He will not surrender any control over the product. > > - Jed > >
