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Post by pidgey on Oct 24, 2008 19:04:48 GMT
It tends to show the huge change that will be required to move away from fossil fuels. The huge change toward living as aboriginals. The adjustment wouldn't have to be too hard and too fast if all folks wouldn't try so hard to maintain what they think they have.
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Post by Acolyte on Oct 24, 2008 21:19:38 GMT
When we look at changing things within the current pardigm it seems an impossible task. So we need to change the paradigm.
What we need is perhaps to look at having every household producing power & feeding it back into the grid. That way the alternates become vastly more achievable.
Mandate that new houses must be as close to energy self-sufficient as we can get. Solar hot water & power, designed to use ambient heat & cooling to offset the need for heatingh & cooling from power-hungry machines, insulate them properly & design in the proper attention to the needs of a family.
Current housing should be 'fixed' with government assistance to modify them to be less wasteful of energy. Ban 'standby' modes in power appliances.
Water can be routed to help warm or cool as needed. We have a guy here who invented 'cells' that become walls, interlocking & allowing water flow through the cells - designed into the house properly, the heat from outside could be used to passively drive the flow, delivering hot water where needed & insulating the house at the same time. Revese the cycle in summer to provide hot water & cooling.
Apartment buildings could save even more - in Melbourne we have a 'clean' multyi-story building built to show what can be done. It wasn't more expensive than other buildings & is FAR cheaper to run - it is also not a 'sick' building - people report feeling good just walking into it. It has no airconditioning at all, heating or cooling comes from passive systems.
Redcue our consumption & get millions of sites producing what power they can & using the waste heat of normal processes to drive their internal systems & we'd have much mroe time to 'save the world.'
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Post by nautonnier on Oct 24, 2008 21:56:14 GMT
One of the simpler and most effective changes would be to move everyone to 12v LED lighting from the current domestic voltages. There really is no reason for most of the power levels that are used apart from its always been done that way. Then increase insulation of all houses by changing the housing codes in the way that Florida did after hurricane Andrew. See theultimaterenaissance.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/the-eco-house/ and www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4736102.ece I am not interested too much in 'carbon footprint' but the energy usage reduction is the important thing. If only governments would concentrate on the OUTPUT side of the equation more. The problem is though that they get taxes from the input side and lose them with reductions on the output.
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Post by ron on Oct 24, 2008 22:38:34 GMT
Ian,
There IS a solution to a huge part of our problems. Solar. Really.
Unfortunately my wife is staring at me from the office door demanding to be taken out to dinner. So in the spirit of keeping the local establishments in business, I will accede to my wife's wishes before drawing out the numbers for a giant solar commitment in the US. That and all-electric cars which, as you point out, are HUGELY more efficient than gasoline powered vehicles.
61 KilowattHours will get a midsize car about 300 miles, at a cost of $0.16 per kWh that comes to under $10. $0.16 is pretty much the highest normal retail price here in the US, in the Northeast.
The not-yet-available Chevy Volt will have a battery capacity of 16kWh, which they claim will be good for about 40 miles. I MUST IMAGINE that this claim is at the end of the battery life, at night with the headlights, and defroster and heat on, since they are at about 1/2 of the theoretical efficiency.
More later
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Post by nautonnier on Oct 24, 2008 23:00:02 GMT
Ian, There IS a solution to a huge part of our problems. Solar. Really. Unfortunately my wife is staring at me from the office door demanding to be taken out to dinner. So in the spirit of keeping the local establishments in business, I will accede to my wife's wishes before drawing out the numbers for a giant solar commitment in the US. That and all-electric cars which, as you point out, are HUGELY more efficient than gasoline powered vehicles. 61 KilowattHours will get a midsize car about 300 miles, at a cost of $0.16 per kWh that comes to under $10. $0.16 is pretty much the highest normal retail price here in the US, in the Northeast. The not-yet-available Chevy Volt will have a battery capacity of 16kWh, which they claim will be good for about 40 miles. I MUST IMAGINE that this claim is at the end of the battery life, at night with the headlights, and defroster and heat on, since they are at about 1/2 of the theoretical efficiency. More later I have a concern that the metals needed for all those batteries will not be available. We are already past 'peak lithium'. The same applies to the elements currently needed for photovoltaic cells. I have solar heating on the roof here - but standard hot water circulation - and being in Florida that makes sense. I would have had to cover twice the roof area with photovoltaic cells to get a very small amount of electrical power. For housing up further North and in Europe - as is normal with 'renewables' the heat and power would not be available in the long cold still winter nights. All you can do is insulate and hope.
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Post by Acolyte on Oct 24, 2008 23:43:19 GMT
In the 60's I lived in a coutnry town - we had a slow combustion stove for cooking that had, built-in, a hot water heater. We also had a gas stove & hot water. So in winter the stove was used to ehat & cook, and provided hot water as a side effect - in summer when it was too hot for the stove, we used the gas system.
Every little bit helps.
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qam1
New Member
Posts: 21
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Post by qam1 on Oct 25, 2008 0:34:23 GMT
What these calculations show is something else - if you take your lower estimate of 500 1GW Nuclear power stations, how many windmills and other 'renewable' power sources would be needed? It tends to show the huge change that will be required to move away from fossil fuels. This is Nevada One www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/7150 It is the largest solar plant in the USA and they "hope" that it will produce 134,000,000 kilowatt hours a year . This is the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/fort_calhoun.htmlIt already produces 4,170,000,000 kilowatt hours per year (and has for sometime now) It is the smallest nuclear power plant in the USA . Solar always over promises but under delivers but assuming Nevada One actually produces as much power as they hope it will, Fort Calhorn will still produce 31x more power!!! So if the smallest nuclear reactor produces 31x more power than the largest solar plant, can some one tell me why the hell are we wasting our time with solar? FYI, The largest nuclear power plant, Palo Verde www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/palo_verde.htmlproduces 26,782,391,000 Killowatt hours per year which is 200X more than this pitiful solar plant. Says it all doesn't it
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Post by Acolyte on Oct 25, 2008 0:46:08 GMT
On the other hand if we invested even a fraction of the oil profits in solar research we could come up with a way to turn every roof into a power supply. That would make Nevada one look a little pitiful in terms of area.
The other difference is nuclear requires ongoing supply of fissionable materials - this is not only expensive, it's hazardous in both acquisition & transport. Once solar is installed it's free to run.
We could be utilising much more of the ambient energy around us - wind & tide are both good sources & there's a whole range of geothermal options - but let's NOT drill into the nice little magma pocket under Yellowstone... OK? ;D
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Post by nautonnier on Oct 25, 2008 1:01:43 GMT
On the other hand if we invested even a fraction of the oil profits in solar research we could come up with a way to turn every roof into a power supply. That would make Nevada one look a little pitiful in terms of area. The other difference is nuclear requires ongoing supply of fissionable materials - this is not only expensive, it's hazardous in both acquisition & transport. Once solar is installed it's free to run. We could be utilising much more of the ambient energy around us - wind & tide are both good sources & there's a whole range of geothermal options - but let's NOT drill into the nice little magma pocket under Yellowstone... OK? ;D Well yes and no... As I said originally- the elements used in the current set of batteries and photovoltaic cells are in short supply. Calculate how many millions of tons of these you would need and see if sufficient reserves have even been identified let alone mined. Then there is another issue (old board discussion alert) that is if you take the wind energy out of the atmosphere - that has GOT to have an effect. I have seen no research on this apart from some ideas from about 60 years ago (the reason for the butterfly on the left) Von Neuman and his butterfly effect. Those windmills are quite large butterflies - they will have effects on wind flows and circulation - but nobody has bothered to quantify or assess them. Just think if they are sufficient to flip the chaotic atmospheric system into another stable state that is less friendly to our existence.
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Post by ron on Oct 25, 2008 2:30:49 GMT
Not really, it kind of says facts. The US needs to build a large solar array in the desert southwest. The array will need to be approximately 10,000 square miles. I know that sounds like a lot and it is, but that is only a square 100 miles on a side. Nighttime darkness aside, an array of that size will be enough to theoretically shut down all of the coal electricity plants, and all of the nuclear electric plants, and all of the gas electricity plants. In other words it could supply the US with an amount equal to all of today's electricity needs. [There are many ways of storing excess energy for use overnight, but let's worry about getting the daytime electrical needs of say, Las Vegas and Los Angeles covered by the array before we start worrying about what to do with all the "extra" heat. Besides, in Vegas and LA and Phoenix the great need for air conditioning on brutally hot summer days will pretty much coincide perfectly with maximum output of the array, and California is starving for electricity.] I wrote an article about this somewhere around 3 years ago. Then in December I was at my dentists office and looked down at the cover of Scientific American and.... there was my plan, essentially. It even went one step beyond and claimed that for the price of a mere $450 billion, not only could the array be built, but a new 5,000 mile high voltage DC distribution backbone to stretch across the entire US. www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-planThe key part of the article is the costs and benefits: I emphasised the last phrase because I'm sure all of you would mention it anyway . While I am agnostic on AGW and MMGHG's impact, there are the financial reasons to do this. We would create new manufacturing industry in the country and especially in that region where the power will be, and we would stop sending our cashola out of this economy. We don't need to do the photovoltaic path, we could, perhaps should use direct heat methods, since they wouldn't need to be changed to use the stored heat for overnight/cloudy day hours. Doesn't matter; the 10,000 square miles don't need to be homogeneous! As we develop the market new technologies suitable for large scale installations will emerge. INSTEAD OF GIVING AWAY ANOTHER $150 BILLION DOLLAR "STIMULUS PAYMENT" so people can go down to Walmart and send it to China, how about we put a few of those billions into this project (and other infrastructure improvements/repairs) and make a REAL investment in our country??!!?? We can take this discussion to other places: What to do with the electricity, how to store it, how to distribute it, should we use it as the input energy required to produce ethanol to power fuel-based vehicles, to make a national priority to move heavy energy intensive manufacturing such as steel to nearby locations, whatever. We'll have a few decades to argue about all of that The key is to get started. Solar Electricity. The time is now. Let's build it!
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Post by Pooh on Oct 25, 2008 6:15:37 GMT
"For every complex problem there is a solution which is elegant, easy to understand and wrong". --attributed to H. L. Mencken ;D
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Post by nautonnier on Oct 25, 2008 10:49:50 GMT
Not really, it kind of says facts. The US needs to build a large solar array in the desert southwest. The array will need to be approximately 10,000 square miles. I know that sounds like a lot and it is, but that is only a square 100 miles on a side. Nighttime darkness aside, an array of that size will be enough to theoretically shut down all of the coal electricity plants, and all of the nuclear electric plants, and all of the gas electricity plants. In other words it could supply the US with an amount equal to all of today's electricity needs. Like France, the US needs to build nuclear reactors to replace much of the inefficient oil and gas fired electrical generation plants. The generators could be of the pebble bed reactor type that do not have the melt-down issues of conventional plants. Unlike attempts to scale up inefficient though renewable methods like Nevada One which uses LOTS of metals and glass all requiring huge amounts of energy to create and yet generates a very small amount, Nuclear power is relatively cheap to build and can produce industrial levels of electricity from a small area.
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Post by ron on Oct 25, 2008 17:36:14 GMT
Unlike attempts to scale up inefficient though renewable methods like Nevada One which uses LOTS of metals and glass all requiring huge amounts of energy to create and yet generates a very small amount, Nuclear power is relatively cheap to build and can produce industrial levels of electricity from a small area. First off, the assumption was that area of land isn't an issue. The land is there, available, owned by the Federal Government and isn't suitable to do much more. Perhaps a nuke (or 20) could be built alongside them to take up some of the nighttime slack . (A million rooftops with photocells might be cool if we could improve that technology, is that a small area or a large one? ) Secondly, Nukes takes billions and billions of dollars to build, take a decade to get through the legal process and a half dozen years to build. If it costs $4 billion to build 1 nuke, then we could have 100 of them for the same $400 billion, but no infrastructure improvements, no fuel and no maintenance. Building nukes is done by the most expensive companies (big and bureaucratic) while the solar project could be done by bid by hundreds of small companies over the years, and I'm sure this would spark innovation in the field on any number of fronts. I believe it will take a minimum of a decade to get a watt of electricity from any nuke proposed today, and I'm being conservative in my estimation. I live near Seabrook NH and saw the years-long battles to open that plant after it was constructed. (I wonder how the nuke protesters feel now that AGW is the big issue? Would they protest again or would they be in favor? Has anyone done a poll yet? Not that would matter once the media got involved. Perhaps we ought to poll the media and the communications professors how they feel about nukes now.) Perhaps you ought to look at the numbers a little more closely. I haven't. BUT I'll bet a lobster dinner that a heat-based solar collection and electricity generation system costs less per kWh to build, costs less in both energy, carbon (do you know how bad concrete in terms of it's energy and carbon footprint??) and "metals" if you wanna include enriched and spent Uranium in your mix, and probably costs less than a nuke over their individual lifetimes (or shall we just fix that at 30 years? 40?). Hey, I'm not saying we shouldn't have some nukes, maybe they have a place along with some gas plants and hydro plants and wind and whatever, we need a mix. But the basis ought to include a ton of solar IMHO. It's there, the land is there and the initial customers are there as well. PS Look around that solar plant. See any room for expansion? PPS I have worries about a large concentration of solar collection as well; how will it affect the local environment, how that will affect others downstream. How changing the albedo of that area affects things. Let's start building and studying it.
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Post by ron on Oct 25, 2008 17:58:30 GMT
We can take this discussion to other places: What to do with the electricity, how to store it, how to distribute it, should we use it as the input energy required to produce ethanol to power fuel-based vehicles, to make a national priority to move heavy energy intensive manufacturing such as steel to nearby locations, whatever. We'll have a few decades to argue about all of that The key is to get started. Solar Electricity. The time is now. Let's build it!I don't know how I left it out since it was in "my" original plan, but one very real possibility is to use "the excess" to hydrolize sea water and generate huge quantities of hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cells are still way ineficient but if we have all of this excess electricity just bouncing off the sand... This turns the day on/ night off electricity that I believed to be stuck in the southwest due to lack of viable distribution options into a portable fuel that could be shipped around the country. It also obviates the arguments about rare metals' availability. Another possible use for the energy is if the AGWs turn out to be right we could even use this electricity to power atmospheric CO2 scrubbers. But now I'm really stretching it.
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Post by Acolyte on Oct 25, 2008 21:39:57 GMT
If the agw'ers are correct, we NEED those solar panels, covering vast areas. They'd soak up energy (& to address a point above) shouldn't be altering the albedo of an area too much as (depending on the model) the light focusses in to a close point. If you're getting scattered reflection you're wasting power & if you're getting much heat above the array you're also wasting energy. Maybe a combination of power generation & heating water to maximise the output? I'd imagine Nevada One would produce a lot of steam if you had black water pipes behind the solar cell collectors? Another possibility is tidal & wave generation. Removes a lot of the other problems - for wave generators you've got a floating platform with parts inside moving up & down - shouldn't even be too many moving parts to maintain. Only reasonable effect I can se emight be a slight reduction in wave effects on beaches. That's a bugger for surfers I guess... Tidal is like wind power but under water. I'm not sure about possible coastal effects as I can't quite picture how anything is going to stop the moon moving - placing something in the way of a tide isn't going to stop the tide that I can see.
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