Sparko, John Reece: solar power not good enough! I: psss!

[Teallaura]

I have a ship. Generally they are at sea level. sheesh.

Then why do you need roads and how are they downhill?

[Sparko]

Then why do you need roads and how are they downhill?

Look Teal, it is classified. I am not going to give away my trade secrets so you can try to steal them from me again. I remember when you stole my idea for mace-filled bubblewrap.

[Sparko]

Well OK I will tell you but only because I know you don't have the skills to implement it.

You take a micro black hole and tie it to a pole that is attached to the car. The gravity will attract the car, as if it is going downhill. Yet as the car gets closer, the black hole moves away. So no matter where you go, you are going downhill. Just don't bump into anyone.

[Teallaura]

Look Teal, it is classified. I am not going to give away my trade secrets so you can try to steal them from me again. I remember when you stole my idea for mace-filled bubblewrap.

That wasn't me - I reported you and the real thief, Rogue. It wasn't so bad until you two got into a bubble wrap popping contest and picked up a couple sheets by mistake...

[Teallaura]

Well OK I will tell you but only because I know you don't have the skills to implement it.

You take a micro black hole and tie it to a pole that is attached to the car. The gravity will attract the car, as if it is going downhill. Yet as the car gets closer, the black hole moves away. So no matter where you go, you are going downhill. Just don't bump into anyone.

Oh for pity's sake - that was the same thing you tried with the perpetual motion air craft carrier - right until it 'bumped' into Hawaii. Took three months to fill in the resultant sink hole - good thing that volcano erupted when it did...

[Truthseeker]

I predict that you live in your mommy's basement.

Aha, poor memory. Did I not tell you before that Mama doesn't have a basement? Unless you insist that crawl space is attic or basement.

[Truthseeker]

Is it really? Oil has been going down. The problem is that political and technical factors interfere making it hard to gauge what is driving costs. At present, solar is not universally competitive and won't be in the foreseeable future.

I am not sure, but I think oil prices will move up. Too many companies gasping for breath. Some may die.

There's no good reason for me to accept that same assumption - nor would I. It might continue, stop or even improve - too many unknowns to make an educated guess on such a trend.

Is that meant for this assertion: "Solar is not universally competitive and won't be in the foreseeable future." If so, you are probably correct. However, the tide is running in.

Solar's better bet is to do what it has been doing - prove itself in the niches and continue working on improvements. Trying to go commercial now means subsidies - and that is a non-starter politically.

Have you forgotten that I said I do not want energy subsidies? Hmm, maybe I never did make that clear. My bad.

[Leonhard]

Found a better representation of oil prices. I am certainly no alarmist, and lately there's been some oscillations rather than a climb, however the long term trend across the decades is and upward climb. We're not going to be in trouble tomorrow, or next decade, but there's little doubt that at the end of the Century oil won't look very attractive at all at this rate.

Inflation_Adj_Oil_Prices_Chart_small.jpg

However its hard to predict precise, we have to resist the temptation of drawing a straight line on that graph and making estimations beyond a rough back-of-the-envelope. Projecting future oil costs depends on the rate of the discovery of easily extractable fields, as well as how other technologies develop that allows for oil extraction.

[Leonhard]

That's the problem, though. There's a big difference between 'looking into' - which most everyone here would support - and 'spending excessive amounts of money and resources to make the thing commercially viable only with support' - which is what the folks in this thread are really objecting to.

I agree, and I'm not saying we should make solar power 'commercially viable only with support', though whenever people scoff at the fact that in some states and countries solar power has been given tax breaks, they forget that the same is true of the coal and oil industry. I do wonder how cutting tax breaks for oil companies would affect prices (not saying we should do it).

And I disagree with you that its merely people thinking that solar power shouldn't receive massive unwarranted funds. There's some mistakes about solar power in this thread, and unwarranted pessimism, as well as a few myths about how much space it would take up etc... Its more those things I'm reacting to.

Personally I only support solar power in places where you can a company running on its own selling it. In Denmark a solar panel takes 15-20 years to earn itself home, that's enough that across its lifetime it'll pay for itself two or three times. However that's still not all that attractive, and between two and three times more expensive than coal and wind.

Attractive for individuals who want to front the capital for building them, sure, for large scale companies who have to try to sell electricity to a market? No. At least not until the price for solar has been beaten down by a factor of three.

You're taking this WAAY too seriously... I was being sardonic.

I know.

I thought I had worded it to include you Teal, as I consider you a very reasonable Christian and I know that you're not one of those screwball-worthy "Our Lord is returning in the next four decades, so I don't have to be responsible."-types, I don't know exactly how common those are, but you're not one of them.

Badly written paragraph.

[Littlejoe]

With the current system network we have, if we had enough hyrdoplants, they could supply the grid to cover for any droughts.

I don't believe that's true, do you have documentation? At it's peak, Texas Hydro power was in the high 40%, now it's down to about 5%. (Because of drought)

But my point was why invest in large scale solar electrical generation which is still experimental, expensive and inefficient, when we have proven technologies that we can just expand? Or other cheaper alternatives that we could develop (like Jed's tidal generators)? I think people like the solar idea because it sounds cool and high tech.

Yeah, IMO, the best tech we have is something Jed also mentioned, converting sewage to Methane to power a Generator. I advocated that in one of Glenn Morton's threads on the old Tweb. As Jed said, you will never run out of "fuel". I have a friend who's Civil Engineering Company has put several of these in. He reports they are VERY successful!

If they get solar power to be efficient enough, I think a better use would be for localized electrical generation, like a solar powered electric car.

Solar will always be a secondary source IMHO, because of the limiting factors, (sun doesn't shine all the time, winter sun much dimmer and daytime shorter, etc..) But I have a buddy in the Home insurance business who predicts that the coming trend will be metal roof's for houses with the built in (glued on?) Thin film solar panels. If every house had it installed, it would at least reduce the load on the grid...

[Leonhard]

Solar will always be a secondary source IMHO, because of the limiting factors, (sun doesn't shine all the time, winter sun much dimmer and daytime shorter, etc..) But I have a buddy in the Home insurance business who predicts that the coming trend will be metal roof's for houses with the built in (glued on?) Thin film solar panels. If every house had it installed, it would at least reduce the load on the grid...

I think I read an estimate that there's rooftop capacity for thirty percent of our electrical utilities.

[Truthseeker]

I think I read an estimate that there's rooftop capacity for thirty percent of our electrical utilities.

I think that means if each square meter of roof can practically (not necessarily commercially though) generate X watts (average over a year) then all the USA's roof acreage can generate enough power to replace 30% of the USA's conventional large-scale electric power generation. We probably need to have base-load power plants for many more years yet--fuel oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, etc.

That may be correct for many more years, unless there's a huge PV breakthrough efficiently converting solar energy to electricity. However, tall buildings (two or more floors above ground) can be designed with PV panels covering the south-facing wall, not just their roofs.

[Sparko]

Oh for pity's sake - that was the same thing you tried with the perpetual motion air craft carrier - right until it 'bumped' into Hawaii. Took three months to fill in the resultant sink hole - good thing that volcano erupted when it did...

Ha! you bought it! Now my evil plan can move forward, using static electricity and your cats.

[Sparko]

I don't believe that's true, do you have documentation? At it's peak, Texas Hydro power was in the high 40%, now it's down to about 5%. (Because of drought)
Yeah, IMO, the best tech we have is something Jed also mentioned, converting sewage to Methane to power a Generator. I advocated that in one of Glenn Morton's threads on the old Tweb. As Jed said, you will never run out of "fuel". I have a friend who's Civil Engineering Company has put several of these in. He reports they are VERY successful!


Solar will always be a secondary source IMHO, because of the limiting factors, (sun doesn't shine all the time, winter sun much dimmer and daytime shorter, etc..) But I have a buddy in the Home insurance business who predicts that the coming trend will be metal roof's for houses with the built in (glued on?) Thin film solar panels. If every house had it installed, it would at least reduce the load on the grid...

One thing people keep forgetting is how fragile solar cells are. They would not make a good roofing material.

[rogue06]

One thing people keep forgetting is how fragile solar cells are. They would not make a good roofing material.

Yeah, they kind of suck in regions prone to hail like here in Georgia.