For the naysayers-Germany sets solar power record

[mhaze]

I....The refrigerator I mentioned already exists. The building that requires no heating or cooling already exists......

Well, then we don't need solar or windmills.

 

[mhaze]

To continue in the same vein as Quarky...
Is it the opinion of those here pooh-poohing everything that GW is just "green propaganda"? That the consensus statements of the scientific community on this are nonsense or worse, some sort of cabal against fossil fuel?
Or, that there's simply nothing to be done? That GW....

Wrong questions. The discussion is about a specific solar energy program in Germany. Whether THAT is "green" or not and so forth. Whether public statements about THAT program are "green propaganda".

 

[mhaze]

.... Given the fact that nuclear can provide that at a much lower price tag, using less resources and space, it simply becomes a stupid thing to do in the long run. And no, i'm not talking about the current reactor design, but instead of LFTR and TWR reactors. Imagine if just half the money they spent on wind and solar here in Germany would have been used to develop "production ready" LFTR or TWR reactors. ....

Well, the 200B euros would have bought about 62 reactors, using a typical cost (in USA) of $4B per unit. Add that to the 17 you had, that is 79. Calculate consumption, and you'll see a fantastic export in energy, and a balance of payments that would make people in Germany quite wealthy.

It's this way every time one looks at the effect of a nation producing energy internally, or having to import it, or being able to export it.

 

[Roboramma]

Well, then we don't need solar or windmills.

I believe that's basically quarky's point: that we spend so much time discussing how we're going to maintain and even grow our energy production capacity without fossil fuels when, in his view, we don't need our current level of energy production: we can just use what we produce more efficiently and live with high quality of life on a fraction of that energy.

I have no idea if he's right. As I said, even with energy efficient technology there's an imbedded energy cost in the production of those technologies. A house that doesn't require heating/cooling may save energy long term, but likely requires more energy to build that one that has those day to day losses.

At least, I suspect that's the trend, but maybe I'm wrong?

And while quarky suggests that the lifestyle changes necessary to make huge advances in efficiency will actually improve quality of life... well, I can actually see that argument, but I think there's massive cultural inertia to get over before most people will agree.

Then again, I lived for a year in india doing all my own washing by hand, and I have to say I enjoy my washing machine.

To quarky: start the tread. What you're talking about here is something that has interested me for a long time, not just with respect to energy, but with respect to happiness. I remember after seeing the new star wars films, my dad said "When Lucas was constrained by budget he was forced to make creative decisions that improved the quality of his films, when he had all the money he needed, look what he produced." And I suspect something similar is true of life in general: having too much can actually lead to laziness and unhappiness.
Maybe.

 

[Reality Check]

I stated my point of view, I have flown extensively over the USA. I have not seen any solar farms on "old airbases", and your presentation of evidence of one is not very convincing.

You have not seen every solar power plant in the world!
You have neglected to do the basic research that will show that your USA experience does not mean that there are no solar power plants on "old airbases" in the world.

Did you see Nellis Solar Power Plant at the working Nellis Air Force Base during your flights (not an example of "old airbases" use)?

The fact remains that several solar power plant with a capacity of over 25 MW were constructed on military land.
See List of photovoltaic power stations, for example Waldpolenz Solar Park

Waldpolenz Solar Park, which was the world’s largest thin-film photovoltaic (PV) power system at that time, was built by German developer and operator Juwi at a former military air base to the east of Leipzig in Germany.

Brandenburg-Briest Solarpark: "Brandenburg-Briest Solarpark is located at the former Brandenburg-Briest Airfield, in Brandenburg, Germany"
Köthen Solar Park: "The PV project is built on a former military airfield in Köthen on 116 hectares (290 acres)."
Ralsko Solar Park: "It was built in a former military area."
Cottbus-Drewitz Solarpark: "located on a former military airfield"
Solarpark Heideblick: "The PV project is built on a former military training field"

P.S. An example I came across of mixed use is Sant'Alberto Solar Park, "On the property are 1000 to 1400 sheep, which produce about 180 thousand liters of milk, which is made into cheese".

In any case, what you appeared to be asserting was that "old airbases or military training areas" were somehow not optimum utilization of those properties.

You are wrong - I made no such assertion.
I noted that some solar power plants are built on old airbases or military training areas. That is a fact not an assertion.

 

[mhaze]

I believe that's basically quarky's point: that we spend so much time discussing how we're going to maintain and even grow our energy production capacity without fossil fuels when, in his view, we don't need our current level of energy production: we can just use what we produce more efficiently and live with high quality of life on a fraction of that energy.

I have no idea if he's right. As I said, even with energy efficient technology there's an imbedded energy cost in the production of those technologies. A house that doesn't require heating/cooling may save energy long term, but likely requires more energy to build that one that has those day to day losses.

At least, I suspect that's the trend, but maybe I'm wrong?....

I do, and he's wrong. I've got a pretty good library on passive and active cooling and heating of houses, etc. Similar with refrigeration concepts. You know, there is a reason we have things like "SEER ratings", and they range for commercial products from 10-17 or so. A claim that fridges exist that are 100x more efficient will violate the laws of physics which as embodied in reciprocating or scroll pumps, cannot have greater than certain inefficiencies. Freon is compressed, then expanded. And it takes a computational amount of energy to do that.

Homes that are passively heated and cooled are a different matter, there are a number of issues there. For example, WHERE? I certainly don't need someone in Santa Monica, CA making this kind of claim about Tuscon, Arizona....that's a false claim. Basically, you look at the number of "degree days" based on the lat/long and from that can calculate what advantages may be from passive heating or cooling concepts. Broad brush, glib statements will always be false.

Having said this, I agree completely with his suggestion as to the approach, that instead of green sources of energy, green uses of energy. Here's concrete example: Someone in 1999 seeks to join the community of green idiots, he installs windmills and solar to power his .... incandescent bulbs. If he had waited 10 years, LED bulbs would have been available, and he actually could have done something interesting.

 

[quarky]

Well, then we don't need solar or windmills.

Sure we do. Lights; music; computers; all sorts of stuff.
You're wrong about the refrigerator. You're even more wrong about passive solar structures and where they can work. The transportation system is so nuts, I don't have the stomach to argue in favor of a more sophisticated system.

To Roboramma,

It feels significant (to me) to emphasize the point that a Renaissance in design will be the opposite of a sacrifice. Steve Jobs understood this. For instance, suppose a municipal sewage system produced fuel and compost, instead of polluting water and breeding flies. Well, no one would even have to notice.
It wouldn't effect the lifestyle. It would produce energy and valuable by-product. Smart lights, that weren't on where you weren't, would not be a noticeable sacrifice. Houses of the sort that I've built which don't need heat or a.c. (in Pa. U.S., btw) are less expensive to build than conventional homes, and have the added advantage of never freezing if you go away in the winter. No freezing pipes; none of that hassle. They also don't get eaten by termites; rot in a flood; blow away in a hurricane,,,this is the opposite of sacrifice.

Water usage is another similar issue. Is it a big bummer to flush a toilet with rain water? Not so far. Yet, it does imply a decent drainage system, which is a good idea regardless. A swimming pool can be a net energy gain.
A foundation can be had with 1/000th the mass of a conventional foundation, and yet be vastly superior.

We're stuck in the cubicle era, and its infected our thinking.
We're driving around, mindlessly, bitching about the traffic and the cost of gas, and not even enjoying the drive. Carpooling is almost too radical to embrace, so we all pay car insurance to enable our boredom and loneliness.

Our food requires at least 10 calories for every one we consume. What we get for that silliness is crappy food; malnutrition, and the need for a huge freezer to keep our micro-wavable swill and its plastic containers.

Most of our technology is stuck in the dark ages, though some of it is amazingly sophisticated. Imagine a roadway that simply couldn't allow collisions, and you could sleep during the trip. Would that be a step into the stone age? Or would it make life better, despite the massive energy savings?

We've barely begun to tap into the possibilities, though we know how to.
What could be more interesting than creating sane, integrated systems that reduce environmental damage while affording us a better lifestyle?

 

[Bikewer]

Actually, I posted the "OP" article and don't give a moment's concern about the economics of power production in Germany.
It simply served to illustrate that "alternative" power sources may provide a viable and do-able means of providing a substantial percentage of our needs.
And that's the point. We have the fossil-fuel industry types saying flatly that alternative sources are pie-in-the-sky and can't possibly provide any realistic segment of our energy needs.
Germany's nascent efforts would seem to prove that view wrong, and the percentage can only rise and become cheaper with continued development.

 

[shadron]

I have too much to say on this subject. The sacrifices we make are in the realm of retarded technology. Sitting in traffic jams, paying bills for power that enables absurdity.

The refrigerator I mentioned already exists. The building that requires no heating or cooling already exists. The transportation system; all of it...already exists. This isn't like traveling to Mars. No sacrifice is implied. Life gets better as we address our idiocy.

I'm game, I'm willing to be surprised, and I think I have the flexibility to handle it. Can you get specific about one item (say, the 100x fridge or the 1000mpg car that drives itself while I sleep) - in your new thread, anyway?

Projections of energy useage are based on pathetic technology and absurd lifestyle fetishes.

I'm an engineer; we're supposed to make things better. You imply, since I can't clearly see your solutions, that I'm a failure at what I do. I have the feeling the stuff you're talking about is dreamy, as in, "If we only had a metal as light and malleable as aluminum, but strong as steel and transparent, then we could..." emphemeral. This summer, out on the prairie, I could sure use a cheap refrigerator that needs minimal energy. I've been looking into gas, but the appliances are anything but cheap. So what am I missing? Dig a root cellar in the ground? Is that the level of thing you're talking? Or is it that I just can't see this because I drive an F350 diesel and my mind is thus on the wrong wavelength?

Its odd to be the voice from the wilderness on this stuff. It should be exciting; right up our alley. Has our imagination run dry? Are we selling power? Will we reject a vehicle that gets 2000 mpg, just because we still love our fuel-injected 427 hemi, because chicks dig it?

I think I'll start a new thread. This one is polluted by engineers that have evidently gone dry.

All right, I guess it doesn't take a 2x4. I'll go find someone else to be skeptical at. But I'll be waiting to hear what I'm missing out on, as well. Hoping to be surprised.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

But since you seem a bit stubborn, here ya go. The true cost of power delivered to Long Island residents since the closure of Shoreham would simply be , for any household

C = ((total kwh * price per kwh) + (payment on Shoreham disaster))/total kwh

Thank you.

Here's your original again,

The right way to figure the cost of electricity is not the price per kwh, but the price per kwh delivered to date, divided by the 70% of lost sunk costs

Quite different from the formula you are now presenting, isn't it?

 

[BenBurch]

How strange; MHaze's favorite source of unquestioned and unquestionable "truth" is telling people it's time to do residential solar; http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/05/29/how-to-make-switch-to-solar-electricity/

 

[quarky]

I'm game, I'm willing to be surprised, and I think I have the flexibility to handle it. Can you get specific about one item (say, the 100x fridge or the 1000mpg car that drives itself while I sleep) - in your new thread, anyway?



I'm an engineer; we're supposed to make things better. You imply, since I can't clearly see your solutions, that I'm a failure at what I do. I have the feeling the stuff you're talking about is dreamy, as in, "If we only had a metal as light and malleable as aluminum, but strong as steel and transparent, then we could..." emphemeral. This summer, out on the prairie, I could sure use a cheap refrigerator that needs minimal energy. I've been looking into gas, but the appliances are anything but cheap. So what am I missing? Dig a root cellar in the ground? Is that the level of thing you're talking? Or is it that I just can't see this because I drive an F350 diesel and my mind is thus on the wrong wavelength?



All right, I guess it doesn't take a 2x4. I'll go find someone else to be skeptical at. But I'll be waiting to hear what I'm missing out on, as well. Hoping to be surprised.

I apologize for my snark. I certainly didn't mean to get personal about it.

The 'pie in the sky' aspect of what I hinting at, is that it will take some time and energy to recreate our technologies. Smart roads and light cars will improve travel efficiencies enormously. Trains already do. Consider that Sam Whittington has managed 83 mph on his own power, on a flat hiway with no wind. On a monorail, he could have gone much faster, because he wouldn't need to balance, steer, or even watch where he was going. His vehicle is obviously radical, but there are lessons to be learned from these efforts.

Look at your refrigerator. How much insulation does it have? Almost none?
Is it able to tap into the outside temp? If you live somewhere that is cold half the year, how much power should you need to keep things cold?

Earth sheltered homes are obvious.

Check out the work of Amory Lovins and Paul Hawking, for a start. Watch some TED talks about new architecture and smart buildings.

I've got to go. I'll find some links when I get back.

 

[Christian Klippel]

Here's a free downloadable book called Sustainable energy without the hot air by David Mackay. He's worked out the numbers, and worked out that for the UK, renewables just can't meet our energy requirements. Sadly for some I fear the facts will only sink home after they've sat shivering in the dark for a winter or two.

Thanks for that link, just finished reading it. Very useful stuff. Finally something that accounts for most of the requirements that come with renewables, like, for example, the space required to install them.

Obviously it is not a "real study" and instead generalizes and simplifies a lot of things, it still is very clear cut and "close enough" to the important things. Best of all, his results for some given quantity of wind/solar, requirements for storage, etc., are pretty much in the same ballpark of the numbers i came up with on myself a year or two ago, when i did some rough calculations just for fun.

I can only recommend that people read that book. It does indeed show that while pretty much anything is possible in theory, a lot of things are just not that feasible in the scales required, but instead can only contribute a certain part of the overall solution.

Again, thanks for sharing the link.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[mhaze]

....Look at your refrigerator. How much insulation does it have? Almost none? Is it able to tap into the outside temp? If you live somewhere that is cold half the year, how much power should you need to keep things cold?

Earth sheltered homes are obvious.

Check out the work of Amory Lovins and Paul Hawking, for a start. Watch some TED talks about new architecture and smart buildings.

I've got to go. I'll find some links when I get back.

You may not have understood, so let me repeat it: There are in engineering, known upper limits to the efficiency of various devices. Electric motors, piston reciprocating engines, pumps, etc. That is from where I noted that you will not have a fridge 100x as efficient as today's equipment. Does not matter what you would like or think tomorrow might bring.

The efficiency of a fridge is based on the principle, of moving heat from one place to another by gas expansion and compression in the two places.

If you like, keep the mojo secret, because if you post how to do this, we'll all go out and make fortunes.

 

[CapelDodger]

But you are gambling with the livelihoods of other people. You are advocating that others risk their and their loved ones' lives so that you may have more disposable income at the end of the month.

I think LTC8K6 is defending a principle - that everyone be free to do as they wish and with what's theirs. The frontier spirit and all that. It's not about the money.

I could be wrong, of course.

 

[CapelDodger]

Actually, I posted the "OP" article and don't give a moment's concern about the economics of power production in Germany.
It simply served to illustrate that "alternative" power sources may provide a viable and do-able means of providing a substantial percentage of our needs.

The economics reaches into the German manufacturing sector as well, and into finance (which is reasonably well-corralled in Germany). The substructure of companies necessary for the future industry is coming together, relationships are being established, centres of excellence are coalescing. And to a great extent this is financed by money moving around within the German sconomy.

It's really not about cents per kWhr, it's about the long-view and making the best you can of what you've got. Very much the German policy since the 19thCE, and a very successful one it has been too.

And that's the point. We have the fossil-fuel industry types saying flatly that alternative sources are pie-in-the-sky and can't possibly provide any realistic segment of our energy needs.
Germany's nascent efforts would seem to prove that view wrong, and the percentage can only rise and become cheaper with continued development.

It'll be interesting to watch how that develops over the next decade, and whether it has the slightest impact on existing nay-sayers.

 

[CapelDodger]

Most of our technology is stuck in the dark ages, though some of it is amazingly sophisticated. Imagine a roadway that simply couldn't allow collisions, and you could sleep during the trip. Would that be a step into the stone age? Or would it make life better, despite the massive energy savings?

Wouldn't it be a train?

We've barely begun to tap into the possibilities, though we know how to.
What could be more interesting than creating sane, integrated systems that reduce environmental damage while affording us a better lifestyle?

Why do so few people work online from home most days? The inertia of the established office-work model is proving to be even more enormous than I expected thirty years ago.

 

[CapelDodger]

I can only recommend that people read that book. It does indeed show that while pretty much anything is possible in theory, a lot of things are just not that feasible in the scales required, but instead can only contribute a certain part of the overall solution.

That's really the point, given that it will be a piecemeal solution There isn't going to be a great pre-planned project in the old Soviet mode, obviously;
there will be a general strategy and there will be guidance and incentives along the way, some better-judged than others, no doubt.

Problems will be solved one way or another because they have to be - a fossil-fueled future is just a gradually degrading past, and I really don't want to watch the world wind itself backwards in my fading years. Far too boring.

 

[Christian Klippel]

The economics reaches into the German manufacturing sector as well, and into finance (which is reasonably well-corralled in Germany). The substructure of companies necessary for the future industry is coming together, relationships are being established, centres of excellence are coalescing. And to a great extent this is financed by money moving around within the German sconomy.

Unfortunately, that advantage is decreasing. For example, PV producers in Germany face a rather rapid decline in business, since China is now producing the panels much cheaper. By 2011, German manufacturers' global market share went down to 21% from 50%. With the accelerated degression in feed-in tariffs for PV electricity, many people in Germany lost interest in installing new panels. At least one of the German manufacturers is in rather bad shape now (I think it was either First-Solar who recently had to close a fab, but i'm not sure, have to look it up again). The BMWi made a report in 2012 about the situation, you can find it here (but it's in German, so be aware...)

In 2008, German PV panel/module manufacturers had about 60% market share in Germany, by the first half of 2011 it went down to 15%.


Manufacturer of Wind energy systems are still a bit better of currently, but that can change as well, especially if China decides to decrease Neodym exports even more.

Another effect is that the way EE's are subsidized currently, the cost for electricity is going up and up, which causes more and more companies to relocate production into other countries. The government tries to counter that, for example by allowing that fees for grid usage have to be paid only by private customers, but not by commercial customers, or that the "EEG-Umlage" (a fee that people pay per kWh that goes directly into subsidizing EE) has to be paid only by private customers and not commercial ones.

Which is kind of crazy, considering that commercial customers impose a far bigger load on the grid than private ones, and that, for example, companies who profit heavily from the EEG are themselves exempt to pay their share (however, that EEG exemption applies to all commercial/industrial customers).

Plus the general (i guess worldwide trend) to relocate production into low-income countries anyways, to make the shareholders happy...

While there was quite a boom with regards to renewables (i mean companies producing that stuff), it is definitely declining now, so it's not that sure at all that we will profit from the switch to renewables commercially (export, etc.).

Greetings,

Chris

 

[CapelDodger]

What could be more interesting than creating sane, integrated systems that reduce environmental damage while affording us a better lifestyle?

This is in tune with the way the zeitgeist seems to be going, from my own observation and judgement. There's a nagging uncertainty about our dependence on distant, centrally-sourced necessities such as food and electricity and sound long-term investments for your retirement.

If you have PV generation on your roof you have something other than the monetary value : you have first call on it. You can't really put a price on that. And putting your money into PV does provide something concrete and productive (as well as local jobs), while the retirement-industry brochures have lost a lot of their gloss.

What would life be without the zeitgeist to predict and place bets on?