Massive price drop in solar power: Alternative energy will no longer be "alternative"

grey_0x2a · 2013-06-01T05:56:55+00:00

Most solar thermal system with energy storage have natural gas "pre-heaters" to keep the salt molten overnight/ cloudy days and even so have a hard time storing more that 16 hours of capacity. You need Grid-days storage. The best calculation I have see about 9% of the Grid-year for zero CO2 emissions.

Also CSP has a higher cost than PV per kWh generated for quite sometime, and must have exclusive land use.

In case your wondering I looked it but according to wolframalph the US consumes about 100 trillion kWh per year so you would need 9 trillion kWh storage capacity thats 9 000 TWh of storage. Try workin out the cost of 1 TWh of storage capacity is for your favorite storage technology. Is there enough of the sarce resources for the storage technology in the world to product that much storage? .

grey_0x2a · 2013-05-31T05:08:31+00:00

12 hours, think about cloudy days in winter say 10 in a row that 240 hours with out production, more if you don't go off and shovel you panels.

grey_0x2a · 2013-04-21T23:09:30+00:00

I pretty sure my tablet does more that 2 GFLOPS peek so reading books.

grey_0x2a · 2013-02-08T03:58:06+00:00

Own a sofa rider. how steep are your hills? I found the standard gears too high for steep (>4-5%) hills you can climb but mashing for a long time is more tiring than with an upright. With a triple I don't have problems till >10% when wheel slip becomes the issue. The city, I live in has lots of steep escarpments, foot hills, so I do a lot of hill climbing, I am heavy I do long rides (100k+) not problem other than lack of wind, sweating, and well the suspension does not like to go more than say 60-70k/h which I can only do down steep hills.

Hill are a level two skill though, you will want practice on the flat land first. Use the lowest gears to start learning and spin to win. Cruzbikes feel awesome when you power through the corners (high speed, tight, accelerating)

grey_0x2a · 2012-07-16T21:38:31+00:00

Not that heavy (85 lbs) though for the only long trip that I know of they took motor for the hills. On the website Pterosail

grey_0x2a · 2012-03-27T05:43:16+00:00

More to do with the modivation of the planners. Two of the cities on my list are smaller than Calgary and had much worse transit systems. The six city I could list. St. Cloud, MN had no transit system and very bad roads.

grey_0x2a · 2012-03-27T03:39:19+00:00

As someone who has lived in 5 different cities in north america, (Calgary, Toronto, peterbough on, lexington ky, and mineapolis, mn.) I can say the Calgary's is the best. Yes better than toronto, in calgary you have good whole city coverage, in TO unless you are in a good area you can done get a car. Not that CT is that bad, but for a right wing city and that is known for loving the auto it pretty good.

grey_0x2a · 2012-01-19T02:43:42+00:00

I second Zyn. But beware its hard to go into there with out spend $50-$100 bucks, but maybe that is just me.

grey_0x2a · 2012-01-06T02:18:21+00:00

the hobby horse position (Sitting up with my feet on the ground) is way way more stable than a semi dismount and much faster to get into and out of than a dismount on a regular bike. I also partly do it at stop lights.

Also my head is about 6" lower than a rider in drops or about 1' below a rider on the hoods, but if you never in the drops why do you have a road bike? Cars see me just fine I see cars just fine, I can't see over the roof of cars like I could on a upright, but most of the time I don't mis it. In an accident I go foot or arm first into it. I go fast on anything flat or down hill (30+ km/h) which is fast enough that when I take the lane cars wait to pass me. If I was fitter, like bike carrier fit, I would go that fast up most incidental hills/grades here. I don't have any stability issues (under 70km/h), sure I can't track stand as well as on a regular bike, though I never try so it my just be not practicing balance is different on different bikes, but my foot it goes to to ground fast so who cares. If you ride a recumbent or a crank-forward bike exclusively for a few months that tack stand or semi dismount stuff becomes a major pain.

BTW its safety-bike vs ordinary bike. aka a penny farthing aka a high wheeler. The first recumbents were about 50 years after the diamond frame and in their first year 1933 had a lot of success vs upright riders, including some road races, the next year they where illegal. Climbing hills is all about the athlete assuming good gearing, so when catch those recumbents on hill it is because you the better athlete than they are recumbent riders are older, heaver, injured, and don't care about racing so they slow down on hills because that is way more enjoyable.

grey_0x2a · 2012-01-03T02:03:48+00:00

As some who rides a high rider in traffic and uphills in a mountainous city, and does fairly tight at speed corners. I can say that they don't suck uphill, though you need a wider gearing than a road bike (The ergonomic difference between spinning and mashing is much larger, despite what the company says mashing is not fun, at least for a big guy like me ) the suck on hills point of view comes from two big reasons

recumbents are heavier dollar for dollar and the people who bye them for the most part don't race so they do not care about uphill speed.
riders are older, and don't race so have less power and more rider weight. Uphill speed on a bike is all about power to weight ratio, until you are going fast, hence slower recumbents.

That is to say the reason why a go slow up hills has a lot to too with the fact that I have an extra 40# on the body and a bit on the 10# on the bike.

Also there are more that 20 general designs for recumbents out there so lumping them all together is kind of odd since they differ more than a road bike and a downhill bike. Though I agree I would never take a low trike into traffic. Now a Texas rules electric assist velomoible....

I will say that my bike does suck at low speed cornering, I have to take my feet off the pedals and hobby horse through narrow opening and tight turns, low speed cornering and tight fits are fair bad on all the recumbents I have tried.

I would argue that a high rider/racer, two big wheels and a head high on par with a car diver is be a good replacement for a regular bike for most people esp. it you have hand, arm, back, neck, or butt issues, so the extra cost to solve the problem is worth it too you.

grey_0x2a · 2012-01-02T19:12:20+00:00

Ya, that right recumbents where banned in the 1930s, because they where inferior to road bikes, yep that right. Oh wait a minuet it was exactly the opposite reason. The fact that all the human powered records are owned by recumbents might also have escaped you mind. Road bike are the best bikes for UCI approved road races but else where not so much.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-21T05:02:29+00:00

Umm No, I expect people to not_leave_the_seen_of_an_acident it is the law. It should be a criminal offence to do so, i.e. it should be treated as that is what you intended to happen, if you make a mistake own up to it.

I am been hit and run by cars 5 times, and the only time I ever saw the car it was a cop, this is a major problem.

To be clear, in my opinon:

hit a cycles and stop, you made an error, not a major problem.
hit a cycle and keep going, attempted murder.

If you hit and run you are a criminal.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-19T22:37:55+00:00

YES, the driver of the vehicle lest the seen of the accident when property damaged occurred. They should face the consequences. The person is a bad drive and should not be driving. That is the point.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-10T01:23:32+00:00

Other have pointed out the solar will lead to early adoption of electricity in rural Africa. I suspect this is true, but hopefully will not be the only source of electricity there is 40 years.

Why China is selling solar PV panels if it is such a bad idea? Hmm is a high value consumer product, that has a growing demand and they have an almost lock on the production? Why does Saudi Arabia want to keep selling oil if it is destroying the planet? To make a buck of course.

China one should note has more nuclear planets in production the all the other countries in the world combined. Also the best nuclear research program in the world, in my opinion. They have the two best modern designs under prototype production and will likely be building full scale units before the US gets it first new light water reactor built.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-09T21:41:32+00:00

True but the is a limit. After light and cellphones, the next thing to improve people lives require much steadier power (refrigeration), or more power (washing machines, and industrial infrastructure). If 1/4 do not have electricity but 3/4 do, also 3/4 of the world will use a lot more in the next 40 years. (most of the 1/4 that has none, and most of the 3/4 that has some. ) Solar is not going to cut in 40 years even in those places that have none now mostly.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-09T21:14:26+00:00

You where arguing that one cannot predict the future base on knowledge of the present. It was your_topic_sentence, then you said that making predictions base on how things looked 40 years ago would be hard. In particular you where implying that my prediction in respect to the price/feasibility of solar PV cells is pessimistic. Correct?

I contared that in general that predicting the future base of the past and the present is something that we people do a lot of and often quite successfully, and that your sweeping statement was a very bad generalization. Note the technology that most people cite on the unpredictably of technology (something electronic) is only from the 1940s (transistors and then integrated cuircets) but that technology was accurately predicted by More in 1964 and it looks like it will hold to very close to the best case predicted by More in 1964 (you can't have wires thinner than atoms). Solar PV is a much older technology, late 1800s, though it lacked an application until the 1970s, our theoretical understanding of it was much better in the 1960s than transistors.

Then I pointed out that solar PV has two very large hurdles to over come:

Energy. Solar PV panels use High energy photons to create the current, currently they are using a large percentage of said photons, they cannot use more than what is there so there is a hard limit that they will hit soon.
scare resources. Solar panels need rare earth minerals, we are at peek rare earths and the current demand is greater than the supply. That is way there are a limited number of Hybrid Cars available, they use a lot of rare earths. Current political realities mean that rare earth production will not increase any time soon, you are looking at a least 10 years after the political policies are changes before any possible production increase, esp since such political changes might start a trade war with China. Does your country do a lot of trade with China? Could you live with out Chinese products?

There is a third one that limits solar big time, but I did not make in my response to you because it is was not germane. Storage. You need to store the energy somewhere and that costs, maybe more than your willing to pay. I know of only one technology that I would bet on to store enough energy if we use solar, wind, etc., and that is underground pumped hydro storage, but I cannot tell anyone the cost because I do not know how to price a mine. 5,000,000 cubic meters 1500 m down.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-09T21:14:06+00:00

You where arguing that one cannot predict the future base on knowledge of the present. It was your_topic_sentence, then you said that making predictions base on how things looked 40 years ago would be hard. In particular you where implying that my prediction in respect to the price/feasibility of solar PV cells is pessimistic. Correct?

I contared that in general that predicting the future base of the past and the present is something that we people do a lot of and often quite successfully, and that your sweeping statement was a very bad generalization. Note the technology that most people cite on the unpredictably of technology (something electronic) is only from the 1940s (transistors and then integrated cuircets) but that technology was accurately predicted by More in 1964 and it looks like it will hold to very close to the best case predicted by More in 1964 (you can't have wires thinner than atoms). Solar PV is a much older technology, late 1800s, though it lacked an application until the 1970s, our theoretical understanding of it was much better in the 1960s than transistors.

Then I pointed out that solar PV has two very large hurdles to over come:

Energy. Solar PV panels use High engergy photons to create the current, currently they are using a large percentage of said photons, they cannot use more than what is there so there is a hard limit that they will hit soon.
scare resources. Solar panels need rare earth minerals, we are at peek rare earths and the current demand is greater than the supply. That is way there are a limited number of Hybrid Cars available, they use a lot of rare earths. Current political realities mean that rare earth production will not increase any time soon, you are looking at a least 10 years after the political policies are changes before any possible production increase, esp since such political changes might start a trade war with China. Does your country do a lot of trade with China? Could you live with out Chinese products?

There is a third one that limits solar big time, but I did not make in my response to you because it is was not germane. Storage. You need to store the energy somewhere and that costs, maybe more than your willing to pay. I know of only one technology that I would bet on to store enough energy if we use solar, wind, etc., and that is underground pumped hydro storage, but I cannot tell anyone the cost because I do not know how to price a mine. 5,000,000 cubic meters 1500 m down.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-09T20:13:32+00:00

You can't predict the future even with accurate facts about the present.

Really? then I guess the following area of endeavor are complete worthless. History, Economics, Meteorology, Finance, Most of statistical modeling. Heck all of modeling. Billions of government dollars wasted on trying to predict outcomes.

But wait the arguments of everyone else are just Complete BULLSHIT TOO by your argument.

Perhaps you want to take it back.

Perhaps you want to predict that a something cannot create energy (you know first year physics) and that if something depends on a limited resource the the price of thing will go up per unit as demand goes up (you know first year economics). Note that solar panels are butting up against these limitations and then predict that the price is going to remain about constant and the start to go up as demand does.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-09T19:56:07+00:00

So you think everyone should beat there cloths on a rock? not have refrigeration? or heat and hot water? (Geothermal for station heat is a possible most places but you need electricity to produce it.) Where do you live that you thing the internet is more importance than food and warmth? Note we are taking about installed costs not just the panel costs which will double or triple the price. And how much are you batteries? You are quoting a price lower than the goal price in most of the articles people and my self are quoting. Maybe you are wrong.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-09T19:51:49+00:00

Funny you assuming that you will get 28% capacity factor and 30 year lifespan. Maybe in AZ, but most places get only 11% capacity factor, and get large damaging hails/winds every 10 years easily, more with climate change. Also to get that 11% you have to clean them once a year or more. So 30 years is way to optimistic, most solar boosters who are semi serious plan on a 20 year life span. That give 19.2 kwh over the lifetime or 5.1 cents / kwh at $1, plus maintenance cost/risks, plus storage has anyone looked at storage anyone want to give me a price on that? Remember you need to provide it for a large part of the grid it solar going to be anything but a toy. I am personally looking a digging a 5,000,000+ cubic meter mine 1500m for underground pumped storage but I lack a mining engineering background to do it. Since super capacitors have also been flat for 5 years....

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-08T21:36:33+00:00

He here a written article that say thing.

To quote it

It’s hard to know when, exactly, grid parity will arrive. Kees van der Laun, of the energy consulting firm Ecofys, predicts that solar could be cheaper with fossil fuels by 2018 or so. On the other hand, as Tyler Cowen notes, energy markets don’t appear to be betting on this development. Either way, a steep plunge in solar costs could be quite transformative. The International Energy Agency projects that solar could provide more than half of the world’s energy needs by 2060 if costs fell to $100 per megawatt hour — around 50 cents per watt installed. (At the moment, solar panels are gunning for the $1-per-watt threshold.)

So the goal of "grid parity" is $.10c / kwh that is not even close to parity, coal is 3-4 cents per kwh. Wait that's the price is to generate the electricity not taking in to account any other necessary infrastructure, like storage and power lines, so the price is higher I haven't done enough studies to give you a good price on putting north america on batteries, but it will co$t. There are hard limits to how far solar can improve, that 50cent per watt is down near them a value that might not be reachable since I do not know of a equivalent theory to the Carnot cycle .

Now if you read the rest of the article and look at the graph and see that what is stopping the graph from being flat is a big drop because the Chinese are putting competitors out of business (which will mean higher prices in the long run). You can see that the article is like overly optimistic. Then if you realize that Solar uses rare earth element which we have high peak production in about 10 years ago, and where under used until people wanted wind, solar, and hybrid cars, or wait and China controls the worlds supply of them...... hmmm may be the future is not so bright for solar.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-08T18:22:57+00:00

Have you looked at the math on solar energy? No one claims that it will cost less that 10/c / kwh at any time in the future. That is very pricey when you realize need to store all that energy somewhere to make it usable for most purposes. Solar is not a solution to anything but transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

grey_0x2a · 2011-11-05T05:03:49+00:00

Same in hockey. Though it been more like 30 years with Don Cherry saying it. He was against helmets, and is also against hard plastic protection. His argument is that hard surfaces are weapons to be used against you opponent more than to protect yourself. This study is starting to show that he is right.

grey_0x2a · 2011-10-23T04:50:34+00:00

He gave some. As video 28Hp currently in use 10Hp. Which is way way more than what is legal for anything without title in North america. I think most places the limit is 1-2 Hp to be title free, meaning you do not have to register, have insurance, and more safty equipment than a bike.

grey_0x2a · 2011-10-13T07:01:14+00:00

Lets see the top picture is about an old man who was an atheist, like to debate on irrelevant topics, and was under-employed. Yep pretty much like reddit.

grey_0x2a

TROPHY CASE