SPS vs. solar/wind/hydrogen debate (Long Post)

"TangoMan" wrote ...

"Paul Blay" wrote in message
...
"TangoMan" wrote ...

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
The sci.* and specifically the sci.space.* folks generally are not so
accepting.

Really? I don't see any posts starting with proper salutations. The
absense
of such saluatations seems to me to be indicative of a laxer standard in
e-mail and usenet etiquette.

Try including a few "could of done" etc. in your posts and see what
happens.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what you mean. Will you explain in
more detail?

A certain local 'personality' is noted for unrepentant and repeated spelling and
grammar mistakes the centrepiece of which is his use of "could of", "would of"
instead of "could have" "would have" etc.

Most people don't care if you make the occasional mistake, but if you
continuously make the /same/ mistakes after they've been pointed out to
you ...

Am I still making the *same* spelling and gramatical mistake? I'm happy to
correct myself if you'll show me another instance of transgression.

Which puts you a step above a few posters here. Your earlier comment :

"My humble advice to you is not to be a "grammer ninny" and pester people
about their spelling and grammer mistakes, otherwise they may find you
annoying. Take the advice or leave it."

seemed to show a rather different attitude.

(Len Lekx) wrote in message news:3fc3cb50.1039562234@nntp...
employed for windmill bases.

time, it's no problem. Bear in mind a household averages a few KW, and
a car could produce 10s of KW.

Why not just use a generator...? Save the wear&tear on the car.
;-)

Certainly could, but if you're car already has one, you may not want
to fork out for a second one.

how Global warming could switch off the gulf stream and plunge Britain
into a Quebec type of climate. Could Ocean thermal have similar

Not that there's anything wrong with the climate in Quebec. (Bear
in mind that you're talking to a Canadian...)

There is if you have a British house - most struggle to stay warm if
the temperature goes below zero. I think climate as-is is never a
problem, but adapting to new climates is. Canada is prepared for cold
winters - you can spend a whole day shopping in Toronto without going
outside.

OTEC systems *do* require large volumes of water - that's one of
the selling points. Besides using the temperature-differential
between surface and deep-sea water, the minerals brought up could be
separated out and exported.

Have you read Jerry Pournelle's High Justice?

consequences? It's not a very rich energy source (a temperature
differerence of 15-25C) so huge volume flows are needed. Another

Are wind-turbines really that different...? You have to cover a
LOT of area to get any significant fraction of what a modern nuclear
generating station produces.

That's true, but they are being tested on a large scale.

concern could be that this would bring up sea bed methane deposits. If
these can be captured, great, if not, methane is a powerful greenhouse
gas.

So do deep-sea geological surveys before choosing a site for your
OTEC. If there's a hydrated methane deposit in the vicinity, you rule
the site out. There's a lot of ocean, even if you restrict yourself
to the areas between the tropics, where such a generator could be
placed.

"Dan DeLong" skrev i en meddelelse
om...

SPS hardly impacts on the environment at all.

Has anybody estimated the impact of adding that quantity of energy to
the planetary balance? Ground based solar electricity generation
converts insolation that hits the ground anyway. SPS adds the amount
that would otherwise zoom past the earth. I'm not saying it's a big
number or even a significant number, but it needs to be added to the
equation even if the only reason is to show that the homework was done
and found to not be a problem.

If you compare SPS waste heat to that from fossil or nuclear plants, SPS
wins big time. Converting heat to electricity has an efficiency of about
40%, ie. for every two watts of electricity, three watts are pumped out into
the river or the cooling towers as waste heat. Although in the county that
I live in, Denmark, much of that heat is piped to nearby homes and
businesses, at some reduction in electricity output. This makes economic
sense, since a kWh of electricity in Denmark is thrice as expensive as a kWh
of heat from, say, oil. Or waste heat from the coal fired plants.
The fossil plants add greenhouse gases to the equation, but even if we
stick with nuke plants, they will produce much more waste heat than SPS
rectennae.
As for waste heat from ground-based solar, I suppose PV will reduce the
local albedo of the ground, meaning that less sunlight is reflected back
into space and more is retained to heat the land locally. The impact of
*this* of course depends on the albedo of the local area before the PV
arrays were installed. If you cover a large area of light grey desert sand
with dark grey to black PV arrays, you will have a local heat island,
compared to the surrounding desert. I suppose that if you cover a large
area of more moist landscape with PV, then this heat, naturally causing a
column of rising air, will produce extra local cloud cover, just as South
Sea islands do.

Jon Lennart Beck.

On 26 Nov 2003 06:25:31 -0800, (Alex Terrell)
wrote:

Why not just use a generator...? Save the wear&tear on the car.
Certainly could, but if you're car already has one, you may not want
to fork out for a second one.

Eventually, you may decide that the cost of a second generator
could be lower than the cost of more frequent maintenance on the
car... :-)

in mind that you're talking to a Canadian...)
There is if you have a British house - most struggle to stay warm if
the temperature goes below zero. I think climate as-is is never a

Don't feel the need to insulate...? Then you shouldn't complain
about energy costs. ;-)

OTEC systems *do* require large volumes of water - that's one of
the selling points. Besides using the temperature-differential
Have you read Jerry Pournelle's High Justice?

Several times. Also 'The Millenial Project' by Marshall Savage. I
think Pournelles' laser-launcher is more practical than Savages',
mainly because the engineering is easier.

consequences? It's not a very rich energy source (a temperature
Are wind-turbines really that different...? You have to cover a
That's true, but they are being tested on a large scale.

Point. It's too bad that more research money isn't earmarked for
alternative energy sources... the more options we can explore, the
better.

"TangoMan" wrote in message
news:Gvywb.488131$pl3.137336@pd7tw3no...

"Len Lekx" wrote in message
news:3fc1dce8.912975032@nntp...
On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 21:24:49 -0800, Larry Gales
wrote:

Direct windpower is intermittent, although if the electricity is fed
from very dispersed sites it is less so. However, most scenarios don't
involve 100% reliance on windpower. Right now, Denmark gets 20% of all

Except that many in the 'environmental' movement are preaching 100%
reliance on solar and wind power.

Yeah. The practical problems are incredible. I'd say 25% - 35% is probably
the limit for solar/wind contribution. The rest has to be reliable
baseload
power.

Areas with lots of hydro power would like be able to better use solar and
wind
as the hydro power can act as a battery. Power producer have choice as to
when they send the water through the turbines.


windpower is usually considered one of several major energy forms in a
mix.

What else would be in that 'mix'...? Coal? Wood? Nuclear?

No, they are already closing those down as part of Kyoto requirements. The
*density* of power that each provides can't be met by solar or wind.


However, I have read that indirect windpower, in which wind generated
electicity is used to electrolize water, could produce hydrogen so that
the H2 equivalnet of a gallon of gasoline would cost $2.50 (this
includes

So we have to cover MORE area, in order to produce enough hydrogen
to cover the times when the wind isn't strong enough to power the
electrolysis plants...?

It becomes a vicious cycle that doesn't make sense but it appeals to
environmentalist visions of nirvana and living in balance with nature.

TangoMan

"Len Lekx" wrote in message
news:3fc27b83.953583964@nntp...
On 24 Nov 2003 09:58:38 -0800, (Alex Terrell)
wrote:

Not an insurmountable problem. Some illustrations...
1. Britain as a whole is pretty close. As long as you have the
capacity to shift electricity around.

Britain, perhaps... but what about North America? We're
having trouble interconnecting provinces and states, so
interconnecting the entire continent would be a tough nut to crack.
:-)

A snap provided it solely under the ownership of the public.
Power distribution is the perfect place for command and
control style management. Those who say otherwise
just serving the "Big Pigs" of this world.


2. Even a single offshore site comes pretty close to constant wind,
unlike on shore sites.

Not every country has access to sufficient offshore sites.
How many wind turbines could be placed off the coast of Newfoundland
before the environmental movement starts screaming that we're
displacing fish habitats...?

Actually offshore wind turbines are praised by environmentalists
(those not suffer from NIMBY) as they make it harder for
large fishing trawlers. Which is no skin off my nose since they
nearly all foreign anyway.



dishwasher decides to run my hybrid car's battery charges up. If
there's no wind, or if demand is very high, my car's feul cell will
start up, and start pumping electricity into the network.

...And when you drive out of town on business, the dishes
don't get done...? ;-)

A fancy answer isn't it? Funny answer also. Many ....nearly all
house need to be better insulated. Old houses often have huge
power bills of three or four hundred dollars when a truly well
built houses should not have power bills much beyond 100 dollars
in the dead of winter in Montana. R-30 walls, R-60 ceilings,
triple pane high e windows, air to air heat exchangers, insulated
basements, etc. In some climates, even such old fashion technologies
such as the swamp cooler less electric power than air conditioners
can be a good choice. Point being is that we need a new infrastructure of
efficient dwellings not just fancy add-ons. Insulation requirements of the
code are too low.


If we move to a hydrogen economy with wind power generating hydrogen,
then we have full storability and there's no longer an issue.

If we're going to go offshore for our energy resources, I
think Ocean Thermal generation might be the way to go.

(Len Lekx) wrote in message news:3fc541b8.1135424430@nntp...
On 26 Nov 2003 06:25:31 -0800, (Alex Terrell)
wrote:

Why not just use a generator...? Save the wear&tear on the car.
Certainly could, but if you're car already has one, you may not want
to fork out for a second one.

Eventually, you may decide that the cost of a second generator
could be lower than the cost of more frequent maintenance on the
car... :-)

in mind that you're talking to a Canadian...)
There is if you have a British house - most struggle to stay warm if
the temperature goes below zero. I think climate as-is is never a

Don't feel the need to insulate...? Then you shouldn't complain
about energy costs. ;-)

I don't. Heating feul is subsidised relative top other goods, and is
too cheap. It doesn't cover the full environmental cost. Therefore
houses are much less insulated than they should be, even for Britain's
temperate climate. They also use far fewer, or no energy saving
techniques.

OK, I can't resist saying it: You can't succeed in solar power if you
have a bad latitude.

I Like It! Have you placed it into the public domain? I'd like to use it
in the future.

Anybody: feel free, and don't bother attributing it. It may be a good
sound bite, but there are some high latitude sites that get a lot of
sun.

You are missing a factor here. Most PV arrays are not steered. Adding
the cosine loss drops the terrestrial output another factor of two.

Yes, but . . . The data I was using was for a flat plate facing south,
adjusted for the latitude of the site. Wouldn't this already incorporate the
loss from the lack of tracking? I'd hope so because if you have to cut the
numbers by a half then they're really looking pretty discouraging.

OK, I rescind my comment. I did not see that factor in your
calculations.


Another reason wind/solar won't be a mainstay of the system has to do with
the intermitancy of the power generation. Supply and demand are very dynamic
and they must be balanced. If there is a large imbalance then the generators
either speed up or slow down causing a frequency shift and if the frequency
falls out of an acceptable range, then some of the demand or supply must be
shed. The intermitant supply from wind/solar plays havoc with this balancing
act and to rely on it from a massively decentralized system is just looking
for trouble. Denmark is facing this very issue because they are so far ahead
of most other regions in promoting wind/solar.

I expect the Danes to either solve the problem or determine the
maximum "lumpy" power that the grid can absorb. Then the US and the
rest of the world can learn from that.


Barstow is being set up with molten salt storage for all night production.

Do you have a link for this? Sounds interesting.

Within the past few weeks there was an announcement of the project.
I'm still looking for the reference.

Keep in mind that some people are advocating decentralization. If they have
to rely on a gas pipeline, that puts them under the same thumb as if they
had to rely on a electric transmission grid.

Advocating decentralization is a fine thing. Achieving some
decentralization is probably a good thing, and might even happen.
Complete decentralization isn't going to happen in my lifetime or
yours. This reminds me of one of the reasons for the push to develop
internal combustion engines as being small enough compared to steam
engines that industry could go back to homes (cottage industry)and
away from large factories. Nice thought.

Shouldn't SPS be an environmentalist's dream leading to the
perfect vision of a pure hydrogen economy?

Until somebody points out the greenhouse effects of leaking 0.1% into
the atmosphere of the total hydrogen used in this putative future.

You mean like this article?
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/...110613-ap.html

Yes

The global PV market has
outstripped the IC scrap source, and the costs are falling. New
techniques use continuously cast ribbons, vapor deposited thin films,
and some are not silicon-based at all.

I'm always happy to get more current data. Any links?

Look through the archives at www.solarbuzz.com

The economics of SPS is its achilles heel. This is one of the unknowns that
I'm thoroughly unqualified to speculate upon.

When SPS can be shown to be cost competitive, it will happen. Until
then, the trick is to promote experiments and demonstrations to get
better numbers on the economic and technical aspects. Truly R&D of the
finest sort.

Has anybody estimated the impact of adding that quantity of energy to
the planetary balance?

I read the replies. Thanks. Should have figured it out myself, though.
Maybe that's because I treat these discussions as "relaxation" rather
than "work" where I think harder before opening my mouth.


I think an energy policy should cap solar/wind to about 20%-30%. After that
we need to squarely address the issue of reliable baseload power.

Firmly disagree. If the market can figure out how to make it work at
40% or 50% or 100%, the regulators should *not* dictate an arbitrary
percentage. Less government is better.

Dan DeLong

"Dan DeLong" wrote in message
om...

I think an energy policy should cap solar/wind to about 20%-30%. After
that
we need to squarely address the issue of reliable baseload power.

Firmly disagree. If the market can figure out how to make it work at
40% or 50% or 100%, the regulators should *not* dictate an arbitrary
percentage. Less government is better.

My bad. Muddled thinking on my part. I didn't mean *policy* as wisdom from
on high from a regulator divorced from reality.

I based my estimate on the diificulties Denmark is already experiencing with
intermittent power from solar and wind. The policy would be set at each
utility because to go for a higher percentage of solar would cause more
problems for *that* utility. They would set it themselves.

But, now that you mentioned a regulator, there may be a role for one. When a
utility is connected to the grid and is selling power wholesale its
performance is going to impact on other utilities. Intermittancy is going to
cause havoc beyond the local region. Stability is the name of the game, not
setting quotas. Liability law may take care of a utility that is the source
of intermittancy. Maybe a regulator can play cop.

I'm not sure how a utility can participate in the wholesale market if it is
*primarily* a solar or wind operation. How can it sell day-ahead or
hour-ahead power through the Independent Electricity Market Operator when
the wind may stop gusting at any moment? How will the System Marginal Price
be set when you can't rely on the power that's being marketed? Perhaps two
prices, one for reliable power, and a steep discount for catch-as-you-can,
get -it-while-it's-hot, buyer-assumes-all-risk power.

TangoMan

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 02:37:16 -0800, "William A. Noyes"
wrote:

A snap provided it solely under the ownership of the public.
Power distribution is the perfect place for command and
control style management. Those who say otherwise
just serving the "Big Pigs" of this world.

Not necessarily. Even under the guise of 'public power', we here
in Ontario had a little group of empire-builders... who not only ran
up a corporate debt in the billions of dollars, but squandered
taxpayers' money on buying rainforest land in Brazil. That's NOT what
I expect my electricity bill to go into.

Public servants can be just as greedy and carefree with money as
the "Big Pigs" of the world. Sometimes even moreso, since they don't
have to account for their spending.