from the delays-depleting-dead-dinosaur-deposits dept.
The modern era of solar electricity got under way in 1954 as Bell Laboratory scientists unveiled a “solar battery” made from silicon that was used to power a toy Ferris wheel and a radio. In recent years, solar has boomed as costs have declined and government policies have favored a renewable energy source that can help combat climate change.
California’s solar energy generation hit a record earlier this year, accounting for 6 percent of energy from the California Independent System Operator, which manages the bulk of the state’s flow of electricity. Last year’s growth in solar capacity was greater than all earlier years combined. The state backs solar through financial incentives and a law that requires utilities derive 33 percent of their energy from renewable energy sources by 2020.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024485104_losinggroundcaliforniasolarxml.html
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday September 12 2014, @10:03AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @11:34AM
from the linked wikipedia article, the crisis was also caused by delays in approval of new power plants and government-imposed price caps
you failed the lesson, sonny
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 12 2014, @10:05AM
This story has been up for a few hours now and while there aren't any positive comments, it's a refreshing change from that other site that the comments haven't already been jumped on by hordes of oil industry apologists, shills and useful idiots crying about how solar is too expensive(it isn't), how it isn't carbon negative when you account for manufacturing (a lie), that we could never go 100% solar because of baseload / intermittent sunlight (irrelevant) and all the rest of that bullshit.
From TFS it sounds as though that's 6% of over half of California's electricity (so I guess somewhere between 3% and 6% total ) which is commendable. Let's hop it continues to grow - after all, California has the climate for solar and I'm sure there's plenty more available roof area that could be covered in panels. I hope they achieve their 33% goal, reap the benefits and show all the doubters just what renewables can do.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Friday September 12 2014, @11:06AM
I don't want to give the wrong impression because I agree with you over all. I believe there is some truth to what the other side are saying, but they blow it way out of proportion.
Solar is expensive, but 1) it's coming down in price drastically every year and 2) it doesn't receive the same subsidies oil does. If it did, it'd be practically free to mount panels on your house.
I don't understand the term "carbon negative", manufacturing plants do require energy to manufacture solar cells and that energy most likely comes from a coal powered plant. But that's not to say it has to. Carbon negative to me means solar is actually reducing carbon in the atmosphere. While solar isn't adding to the problem, it isn't fixing the damage that's already done. That said oil and coal, on the other hand, are not only not helping, but they're making things worse.
100% solar, probably not going to happen. The sun doesn't shine everywhere all the time. Scotland, for example, is half sunny all the time (where golf was invented) and half raining all the time (quite literally). My dad was stationed there, on the rainy side for a couple years. The never ending cloud cover makes it a great place to have a military base because satellites can't see them. It was something like six days for an entire year it didn't rain. But combined with wind, tidal, nuclear and hamsters on wheels we could move to 100% renewable. Even when it's raining the wind is still blowing and waves and tides are still moving.
So basically the oil industry apologists, shills and useful idiots are not all 100% incorrect, but they're obviously missing the point are making hyperbolic arguments to make little things much worse than they actually are. What I find disturbing is they make those arguments as if solar and wind are worse than oil and coal. Take the story a few weeks ago about birds being cooked by a solar plant in California [soylentnews.org] or windmills interfering with weather stations [www.cbc.ca], comments are ridiculous and completely ignored the damage oil and coal do that's a thousand times worse and affects not just birds but all kinds of marine and terrestrial animals as well. The other side don't even want to entertain an idea that the problem with wind and solar might have a simple solution. They want the windmills and solar plants scrapped altogether. We didn't scrap oil rigs in the gulf of Mexico when BP had their oil spill two years ago that still isn't cleaned up or after the Odyssey tanker disaster or a dozen other large scale oil spills that took decades to clean up and killed hundreds of thousands of animals and destroyed countless habitats.
Some people are just resistant to change.
Also congratulations to California, here's hoping they meet their target and help pull the rest of the resistant world into a new age of energy production. It might not happen in my life time, but I can completely see a future where oil and coal mostly stay in the ground where it belongs.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: -1) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @11:45AM
solar is only expensive because coal is so cheap
if governments stopped subsidizing the coal power industry and grew the balls needed to actually make them pay for the valuable resources they are abusing (not only coal but fresh water), then the cost of coal power generation would skyrocket... problem is this approach would be political suicide so its never gunna happen
if solar generators were competing on an even playing field with the coal generators, instead of being sidelined by politicians dolling out our taxes to their campaign contributors, it would stand a much better chance.
solyndra was a public-relations disaster for solar energy, but was merely a failed attempt to play by the same rules as their smog-chugging opponents
(Score: 3, Informative) by Sir Garlon on Friday September 12 2014, @11:56AM
Well, TFS does say solar energy is subsidized in California and there's a regulatory mandate for power companies to adopt it (heavily) by 2020. And what do you know, solar energy production is surging. So I guess that goes to illustrate your point.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 13 2014, @02:14AM
Something your post doesn't mention:
Unlike the example of Scotland, above, much of California is sunny almost every day.
That sunshine also coincides with demand (air conditioning, the waking hours of humans, workers using electrical gadgets).
If that sunshine is captured before it strikes a rooftop, that further reduces the demand (less cooling required).
Powering future desalinization plants with this stuff is also a consideration.
There couldn't be a better idea than mandating solar energy in California.
Any place that emulates Germany's solar adoption is headed in the right direction IMO.
The fact that Arizona utilities are successfully fighting it in their state demonstrates how illogical and corrupt that state is.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3) by subs on Friday September 12 2014, @12:17PM
TFS smells like a fluff piece:
Brian Wong, a 63-year old-retiree, said he used to pay about $90 a month for electricity. But after installing solar panels earlier this year, he found his the utility owed him $5.86 for surplus power he fed back onto the grid during the month of April. [...] Wong says the $15,000 system will be paid off in seven years.
Either the good Mr. Wong doesn't know math or there's a bit missing in this story. 7 years at $100 of savings a month isn't $15000, not even close. Either he's missing a couple of years in there, or the good state of California chipped in with a hefty $7000 subsidy. And what happens when enough of his neighbors get in on the action so that during peak times the grid becomes overloaded and he'll get curtailed, which drastically impacts his production/consumption balance?
I'd also be interested in how you can claim with a straight face that the intermittency of solar is irrelevant, when in fact it's highly relevant. I hope you're not going to link to Amory Lovins' latest propaganda video where he modeled the ideal 1-week case and arbitrarily dispatched a large number of sources which are inherently undisapatchable. Average seasonal loading can easily vary by 3-5x or more and there are week-long periods, even in sunny California, where you get almost no Sun at all. What do you do for energy then?
(Score: 2) by quadrox on Friday September 12 2014, @12:56PM
Even if he doesn't make a profit, if he can reduce his costs for regular electricity he may still earn back his $15000. According to my calculation he needs to save $178 every month on electricity costs for that to happen. I don't pay anywhere close to that amount for electricity every month, but maybe Mr. Wong has a supercomputer setup, what do i know (didn't RTFA).
(Score: 2) by subs on Friday September 12 2014, @01:09PM
That's why I quoted the original article where he estimates his monthly electrical bills to be $90 before the solar system and now he was getting a $5 rebate (presumably not every month - depends on the weather). So I highballed it, called his monthly savings $100 and calculated how much that is over 7 years and it's nowhere near $15000. That's why I think we're not getting the full story here. He probably got a hefty a subsidy from the state for the system, either in direct payment or in tax credits or something.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 12 2014, @03:39PM
It is possible that Mr Wong, like many of us, read in the newspaper that his electrical rate will go up 10% in the next two years, and anticipates another 3 to 4% compounded annual increase after that.
Anyone who does that $15k investment should factor in that the resource not being spent rises in cost. Even if you get less money back when incentives expire, savings do keep increasing because you don't consume.
(Score: 2) by subs on Friday September 12 2014, @04:08PM
At the same time, the value of the rig depreciates with inflation, so if you really want to factor it in in an honest fashion, you need to consider that inflation will devalue your investment. 10 years down the line, a $15000 investment will have effectively become a $19000 investment (at an inflation rate of 2.5% pa).
What's more questionable, though, is the macroeconomic perspective. Why are the energy bills expected to go up? Could it have something to do with reducing demand due to people going for rooftop solar? If so, then it's quite possible that it's people like Mr. Wong who is causing higher bills for his neighbors. Also, what part does policy play here - grid operators are frequently required, by law, to take home solar generation at hugely inflated above-market-value prices and then sell it to the neighbors at artificially inflated rates.
I'm seriously interested in why the prediction is for higher energy prices.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by bob_super on Friday September 12 2014, @04:25PM
> I'm seriously interested in why the prediction is for higher energy prices.
I'll throw in a few:
- New regulations for Nuclear post-Fukushima
- Greed
- New regulations for coal
- Dividends
- Instability in important oil/gas areas driving worldwide prices ever higher
- Quarterly bonus
- (Apparently) shorter lifespan than advertised for fracking well threatening gas prices
- Investment funds requirement to drive stock up 10% per year
- Regulatory financing of renewables above market price
- Inflation
- Corruption of regulators to allow price increases beyond inflation
- Terrorist attack prevention costs
- Repairs on the neglected and insufficiently redundant grid
- P/E ratio
Keep adding...
The only thing preventing local monopolies from tripling prices tomorrow is some antiquated laws designed to protect customers (and local competitivity). With electronics getting more efficient and industry moving to cheaper deregulated countries, demand should go down. Companies will grease enough paws to compensate, by jacking up the price under $reason_du_jour
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Sunday September 14 2014, @09:07AM
This isn't something you need to speculate about... You can find the recorded profits of energy companies in the public record quite easily, and point out specific examples of growing and excess profits, if you can find them.
In fact, I'll give you a start...
http://www.google.com/finance?cid=30825 [google.com]
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ANWN [google.com]
To (over-simplified I know) compare with inflation, click the "S&P 500" box to show the two side-by-side. Expand it out to 10+ years, and show me where this big spike in profitability (far in excess of inflation) is for the energy company... And you can check all those "related" companies linked just below, if you think some others might be more sinister...
By all means, let me know when you find something significant.
And more to the point, natural gas prices absolutely have been falling, with only a few brief spikes when the aging and inadequate pipelines can't handle sudden huge demand:
http://www.indmin.com/Article/3241297/Is-fracking-affecting-natural-gas-prices.html [indmin.com]
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 12 2014, @01:18PM
[quote] Either the good Mr. Wong doesn't know math or there's a bit missing in this story. 7 years at $100 of savings a month isn't $15000, not even close. Either he's missing a couple of years in there, or the good state of California chipped in with a hefty $7000 subsidy.[/quote]
I dunno, you're probably right about the subsidy. He might also be factoring in the rising price of of grid energy - by 2020 we can expect it to cost a lot more than it does now.
[quote] I'd also be interested in how you can claim with a straight face that the intermittency of solar is irrelevant, when in fact it's highly relevant.[/quote]
What is irrelevant is the fact that we could never go 100% solar. Dinoguzzlers will sit there and say that because we can never have 100% solar, we shouldn't even bother installing any solar at all. If we could achieve just 5%, 10% or 20% solar, that would represent a huge downturn in emissions. Add in some more from wind & tidal and maybe we could actually slow down the current climate change trend.
They also ignore the fact that a lot of progress is being made in energy storage - if electric cars can bring down the price of large batteries enough, maybe one day it will be affordable for each solar-powered home to have a big battery in the basement / roofspace to collect any surplus power.
(Score: 2) by subs on Friday September 12 2014, @01:45PM
He might also be factoring in the rising price of of grid energy
Possible, but in case you're doing that, you also need to factor in the inflation on the devaluation of the rig. For example, $15000 spent today would be equivalent to over $19000 in 10 years (at 2.5% inflation). This contributes to a problem in the electricity sector called the death spiral where reduction in grid power demand rises prices for everybody, which then motivates more people to go to net-metered solar, which further reduces demand and jacks up the price, etc. People then think "good riddance for grid electricity", but they completely ignore that it didn't have to be that way. Had we not all gone to home-production (assuming it's even possible), we might have enjoyed lower prices due to the effects of economies of scale, where a few concentrated highly efficient plants and a unified power distribution grid are much more efficient in terms of prices than small-scale home-generation and lots of ad-hoc solutions. This of course needs to be weighed carefully against forming monopolies, but that's already been mostly averted through the regulation of public utilities via rate commissions (so your local utility can't just change the price on you, knowing you can't leave).
Dinoguzzlers
:D Good one, I'll remember that.
If we could achieve just 5%, 10% or 20% solar, that would represent a huge downturn in emissions
It would be important, but by no means "huge". Electricity is only about 1/3 of CO2 emissions, so while we should certainly pursue any and all options for dealing with climate change, let's keep our feet firmly on the ground. As for wind filling in, I'm gonna have to disagree here, because it's also an intermittent source and you can't back up one intermittent source with another, or else when they're both unavailable at the same time (week-long wind lulls do happen and those include the night), we're kinda left scratching our heads what to do. Tidal, is quite a small drop in the bucket - very low efficiency, incredibly expensive and highly geographically dependent. For backup, I'd go for hard zero-CO2 sources. That would be your nuclear, hydro and some pumped hydro thrown in to capture to the peaking load. Maybe a bunch of molten salt storage would also work in arid areas where hydro and pumped hydro are unavailable (think: middle east, parts of Africa).
maybe one day it will be affordable for each solar-powered home to have a big battery in the basement
Maybe, but then don't forget that residential usage only accounts for about 1/3 of electrical use. The rest is industry and the commercial sector. Those guys are typically highly energy-dense, so solar collection for them is awfully impractical, unless you've got a lot of cheap available land around you (which is difficult if you're near or in a city). Lots of people also live in multi-story apartment buildings - there solar is also utterly impractical (think: Tokyo [japanpropertycentral.com], Hong Kong [property-report.com] etc.). Rooftop solar is really only practical in places where urban sprawl is already endemic. Also, if we want to avoid CO2 emissions from heating fuel use and transportation, we'll probably need to switch a lot of that over to electrical as well (heat pumps, EVs), so we'll need to probably more than double our electrical production to really get down to near zero CO2 emissions. Overall, the problem is a lot bigger than most people intuitively grasp. I encourage you to run the numbers on societal energy use - it's a sobering exercise.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday September 12 2014, @02:44PM
The other part of the story is really targeting conservation, which nobody has thought was cool since the late 1970's oil crisis. For example, for home heating, the biggest bang for the buck would probably be improving insulation and windows in particular - if you cut the need to heat your home by 30%, you cut your CO2 emissions to do it by at least 30%.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 12 2014, @02:56PM
> The other part of the story is really targeting conservation, which nobody has thought was cool since the late 1970's oil crisis.
Really? Insulation is a big thing here (UK). The government has been subsidising roof insulation and cavity insulation for years. Also, those shiny foam things that go behind your radiators. When you sell your house you have to assess and report its energy efficiency. Adverts on TV are constantly telling you how much money you can save with better double glazing.
Maybe it's different where you live. Are you on the other side of the pond by any chance?
Oh wait...
> thought was cool since
I see what you did there.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday September 12 2014, @03:21PM
Yes, I am stuck in the Second World nation across the pond, separated from the UK by a common language and uncommon levels of stupidity (even compared with the Scottish separatists). And around here, the last political leader to actually push conservation of any kind was Jimmy Carter, and he was ridiculed for it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by subs on Friday September 12 2014, @03:33PM
Even in the best case of conservation, I'd hazard a guess our electrical use is actually not going to decline (assuming we go for electrical in a big way). Then there's of course the case of the third world nations getting to hell out of poverty and increasing their energy use. It's really nicely summarized by Bill Gates in his TED talk Innovating to zero! [youtube.com] - conservation alone just won't cut it, even given highly optimistic predictions on what can be saved. Even fairly rosy-eyed but still realistic proponents of conservation tend to estimate that at best we could shave maybe 1/3 to 1/2 off of developed nations' overall energy demand and those gains will probably be completely obliterated by the rest of the world.
That is not to say that efficiency shouldn't be pursued for its own sake - obviously it should! I'm an engineer and saying you've improved the efficiency of a large system by 50% is almost enough to give me a trouser accident. However, we must set our sights firmly on the goal (CO2 emissions reduction) and take the fastest and most assured paths to get there (it's okay to try multiple approaches, that's what progress is all about).
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 12 2014, @04:08PM
> $15000 spent today would be equivalent to over $19000 in 10 years (at 2.5% inflation).
Isn't that a good thing? That solar thing I bought 10 years ago for 15k is doing the job of something it would cost me 19k to install today? So that when I sell my house with the solar panels still attached, I can add $19000 to the price...
> Had we not all gone to home-production (assuming it's even possible), we might have enjoyed lower prices due to the effects of
> economies of scale, where a few concentrated highly efficient plants and a unified power distribution grid are much more efficient
> in terms of prices
That's a big "might". We've been waiting for years for someone to come along and invest loads of money in new, efficient power technologies (be it nuclear, desert solar farms, molten salt or whatever) but for the most part the energy companies and governments seem happier to just keep buying more oil and coal (and fighting expensive wars for same) and to continue patching up those shitty, crumbling, 50-year old nuclear plants. Why invest money in efficiency when you can just pay more and pass the cost on to the consumer? That's why the public have taken it upon themselves to generate their own green power. Maybe this will be the kick up the arse the big money needs to finally invest in some neat new engineering. If they want to introduce great new power projects to lure us back on to the grid then I say let them try. However I won't be holding my breath.
Of course, the efficiency of centralised power has to be really good to overcome the inefficiency of grid transmission. I'll happily retract that statement when somebody comes up with a realistic plan for a superconductor grid.
Don't get me wrong though, I've nothing against large-scale renewables. If I was king of the world, first thing on my energy agenda would be to put up some massive solar installations in the middle of the desert in the US, Africa, Australia and the middle east - be they photovoltaic, one of those mirror-molten-salt arrangements or those giant warm-air tower things, or a mixture of all. Someone needs to just invest the money and make it happen! (FWIW, 2nd item on the agenda would be getting a bunch of boffins together to come up with a design for a new generation of nuclear power stations - with emphasis on safe, clean, cheap. A solar panel on every roof would be item number 3.)
Also, this isn't necessarily an argument about prices, but about carbon emissions. I, and many others, would happily pay a bit more if it meant saving the planet. (Currently most of us are stuck paying more to the very people intent on fucking up the planet, but I digress) Of course the fact that you don't have to pay more - in fact you can even pay less with solar - is a nice bonus.
>As for wind filling in, I'm gonna have to disagree here, because it's also an intermittent source and you can't back up one
> intermittent source with another
Well, you probably could if you had decent energy storage. You know, those big batteries I was talking about. Or molten salt and pumped hydro, as you suggested, are also excellent alternatives. The solution to this is going to be a mix of technologies, since no single one can fix everything on its own. As I said upthread, we just need a company or government prepared to invest big-boy money into energy projects.
> (week-long wind lulls do happen and those include the night)
There are places with reliable wind. Down my way there is a big NIMBY movement against an offshore wind installation that would be barely visible from the shore and generate loads of clean power for the region. Idiots.
Point is, as a species we understand weather and climate pretty well, and we are also very good at statistics. With some way of storing the power, it doesn't matter so much whether the wind is blowing right now, it just becomes a question of "About how much wind goes through this area per year? Is that worth the cost of putting up some blades?"
> Maybe, but then don't forget that residential usage only accounts for about 1/3 of electrical use.
Right, so if we could get residential up to 33% renewable micro-generation (as per the californian plan)... that's a third of a third... let's call it a ten percent cut in CO2 emissions. I'll grant you that it's not huge, but it's pretty bloody good, and ought to buy us a few more years before Kevin Costner has to start drinking his own wee.
But you talk as though renewables for commerical / industrial is somehow not possible...
> Maybe, but then don't forget that residential usage only accounts for about 1/3 of electrical use. The rest is industry and the
> commercial sector.
What, and they don't like saving money? Factories have big rooves! Fill them with solar, put a big battery in the basement, job done. OK, some industries are using way more power than they could generate locally, but they should do as much as they can.
> Lots of people also live in multi-story apartment buildings - there solar is also utterly impractical
You seem to be heading down the "all or nothing" route. So some people will produce less electricity than they consume, because they have less roof space. Doesn't mean they shouldn't contribute what little they can. Other buildings will produce more than they consume, because they have lots of roof space over a largely empty interior -Think supermarkets and big-box stores, fuel stations, schools, religious buildings... And again, while 100% renewables is a nice dream, that doesn't mean that it has to be the only acceptable result. Any progress we can achieve toward that figure is good.
>Also, if we want to avoid CO2 emissions from heating fuel use and transportation, we'll probably need to switch a lot of that over to
> electrical as well (heat pumps, EVs), so we'll need to probably more than double our electrical production to really get down to
> near zero CO2 emissions.
Yes. No doubt you've also seen the suggestions that EV batteries could be used to store peak renewable energy and put it back into the grid as necessary, balancing the demand and supply. There are some obvious difficulties with that (what do you mean, I put it on to charge six hours ago and there's less juice in it now than before?) but who knows, maybe with clever engineering they could be overcome. There are people out there far cleverer than me, and quite possibly cleverer than you too.
(Score: 2) by subs on Friday September 12 2014, @05:04PM
Isn't that a good thing?
No, you've got inflation backwards. It means, the $15000 you spent 10 years ago would now be worth $19000 had you spent it on something the value of which rose with inflation or more (say, your savings account). By spending it 10 years ago and recouping its value over time it means that you need to recover more than was originally spent, because the dollars you're spending today are worth far less than they were 10 years ago.
If they want to introduce great new power projects to lure us back on to the grid then I say let them try.
I completely understand where you're coming from, however, you need to keep in mind that the grid is a collective resource that gets cheaper the more people use it. It's kinda like insurance. If everybody has private insurance and the prices are sky high because the negotiating power of an individual with a large corporation is small, then whatever voluntary insurance program the government creates, if it has few people in it, will still have only tiny negotiating power and thus likely remain expensive. To break such a system, heavy government intervention is needed. In fact, that's what's happening now with rooftop solar, as governments are heavily subsidizing it (your feed-in-tariffs, production tax credits, investment tax credits, green credits - those are all government subsidies).
Of course, the efficiency of centralised power has to be really good to overcome the inefficiency of grid transmission. I'll happily retract that statement when somebody comes up with a realistic plan for a superconductor grid.
Actually, the transmission losses for most cases are only 5-6%, except for really long transmission lines and those are few and far between. Coincidentally, they get worse for intermittent wind, since that's often even farther away from consumers than your typical power plant (e.g. the windy midwest trying to supply either coast - good luck with that).
Don't get me wrong though, I've nothing against large-scale renewables. If I was king of the world, first thing on my energy agenda would be to put up some massive solar installations in the middle of the desert in the US, Africa, Australia and the middle east - be they photovoltaic, one of those mirror-molten-salt arrangements or those giant warm-air tower things, or a mixture of all. Someone needs to just invest the money and make it happen! (FWIW, 2nd item on the agenda would be getting a bunch of boffins together to come up with a design for a new generation of nuclear power stations - with emphasis on safe, clean, cheap. A solar panel on every roof would be item number 3.)
GreatAuntAnesthesia for world president! :)
Well, you probably could if you had decent energy storage. You know, those big batteries I was talking about.
Yeah, but even so you'll need at least one to two week's worth of it and there just isn't anything at these scales yet, not even close (pumped hydro is cheapest ATM, but even that tops out at around 6-12 hours and its environmental impact is huge, being NIMBYd anywhere there's a new project proposal).
But you talk as though renewables for commerical / industrial is somehow not possible...
The rooms for improvement and deployment are far more restricted. Your typical arc furnace easily eats 100MW, as much as a mid-sized town of 100000 people, but these things tend to be fairly small, so not a lot these guys can do for energy farming, plus it's not the point of their business - I mean, should we all grow our own food? Self-sufficiency, right?
What, and they don't like saving money? Factories have big rooves! Fill them with solar, put a big battery in the basement, job done.
Oh they'll happily take it if it saves them money, but without hefty subsidies, this is presently a very shaky proposal. Moreover, it destabilizes the grid even further and they themselves would still rely on it. That's why I think collectively chipping in and improving our already built common infrastructure is better, rather than reinventing the wheel.
what do you mean, I put it on to charge six hours ago and there's less juice in it now than before?
Exactly. :) Even so, the amount of battery storage capacity in cars is relatively limited. I saw one estimate that if Germany provide only 75% of their wind production in 2011 (5GW average) and provide it as a hard-dispatchable EV battery-backed power source, they'd need to about double or triple their current total vehicle count from ~40 million to over 80 million. It's really not hard to see why. 5GW in 7 days (realistic minimum on storage requirements) is 840GWh, which at your typical 24kWh Nissan Leaf battery comes to around 35 million vehicles (they actually did a fit on real-time data taking solar into account, so they probably needed more than 7 days due to some two-and-a-half week-long wind lull in the winter of 2011). Realistically, that is just not practical.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 12 2014, @05:41PM
To chime in with you--Germany is already producing 23% of its electricity needs from installed wind and solar. Keep in mind that it has about the same number of sunny days as Seattle and lies further north than the continental US. So, if they can manage that percentage there, California, with its lower latitude and far greater insolation (solar potential) certainly ought to be able to at least equal them.
The discerning consumer ought also consider the volatility of fossil fuel prices. Every time, say, Russia messes with Ukraine and disrupts world fossil fuel markets, people here feel it. Every time ISIS captures another oil field, people here feel it. I also spoke three days ago to a friend who works for one of the big NE energy utilities who said that gas recovery from their fracking operations has plummeted, so there's supply shocks lurking there too.
If you, however, install solar panels and wind to meet your household electricity needs, you have a much more constant set of returns to reckon with. And, with the increasing frequency and scale of weather events disrupting centralized utilities, it might not be a bad thing to be able to fend for yourself.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by subs on Monday September 15 2014, @12:24AM
Germany is already producing 23% of its electricity needs from installed wind and solar
Don't know where you got that number from, but it ain't from factual data [fraunhofer.de] (see page 5) - it's actually 16% for 2013 and about 17% for the first half of 2014. You're looking at the wrong figure, you're quoting overall renewables, which includes about 3% hydro and 5-6% biomass.
Keep in mind that it has about the same number of sunny days as Seattle and lies further north than the continental US.
Curious factoid, overall Germany's solar deployments are only getting around 9.5% CF, which is pretty poor. That means you'll need to build about 10x the capacity to cover the same capacity provided by a coal or nuclear power plant. So whenever I read fluff pieces saying things like "Germany installed 35 nuclear reactor's worth of solar!!!111", I always mentally divide that by 10x to get the actual number.
Every time, say, Russia messes with Ukraine and disrupts world fossil fuel markets, people here feel it. [...] If you, however, install solar panels and wind to meet your household electricity needs, you have a much more constant set of returns to reckon with.
Interesting that you're talking about Russian gas in the previous paragraph, forgetting to note its price only impacts the overall electrical generation mix fairly little (only about 9% and falling). The price volatility of gas isn't doing much to your electrical bill. What it is doing is impacting your heating bills, as its the heating fuel of choice (displacing coal). While I'm all for going for more electrical heating, it just isn't the case today [euanmearns.com].
And, with the increasing frequency and scale of weather events disrupting centralized utilities, it might not be a bad thing to be able to fend for yourself.
What kind of crazy reasoning is this? You'd rather not have power provided to you by a centralized enclosed and hardened plant running over quite sturdy high-tension lines, but instead you want to depend on a power source (solar) that is 100% dependent on the weather being agreeable? Go ahead, cut the cord and we'll talk in December about the awesome power you're getting out your solar rig [shell.com]. Oh and before you go and say "but, but, wind will balance it out!" - that's centralized production and as you can see on weeks 46 & 47, it won't do that either. So you either better have 2 week's worth of batteries, or it's back to fossil fuels again. When the rubber really hits the road, guess which one it's going to be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @03:01PM
I've had panels on my house in Florida for 2 years and the payback is looking like 6-8 years (variance will mostly depend on energy costs). This is after a $25K expense (includes installation, permits, etc.), a $10K federal subsidy, and an $8K subsidy from the energy company. The story reported here is very likely reporting post-subsidy costs.
(Score: 2) by subs on Friday September 12 2014, @04:40PM
Then if $15000 is post subsidy, his numbers simply don't add up. 7 years at $100 savings a month is not $15000. Even if I take another posters suggestion that in the next two years a price hike of 10% is to be expected and after that a rise of 3% every year, when you measure this against inflation (2.5% pa), the return would at best be ~14 years. I did a number of quick calculations based on these (and your) numbers and this is what I find:
1) at $100 savings a month and a rig cost of $7000, your 6-8 year return estimate is spot on [imgur.com].
2) unsubsidized, though, your rig doesn't return on itself within its useful lifetime [imgur.com], even assuming rising energy prices.
3) the $15K from the article doesn't return in 7 years even assuming rising energy prices. It's more than 14 years actually [imgur.com] (double what's in the article).
4) if the inflation rate doesn't stay at 2.5%pa, but goes to, say 3.5%pa, the ROI extends to over 16 years [imgur.com].
All of these numbers are excluding any O&M costs and potential need for component replacement (inverter after 10 years, etc.), though those can be expected to be fairly low.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Friday September 12 2014, @02:52PM
The crippling drought and possible desertification of one of the most lush agricultural area in the world, which might within a decade cripple our economy with food prices and risk global hunger, sure is good for solar power!
I'm all in favor of solar energy, but this is a bit like having your house flooded out and being glad you don't have to water your lawn for awhile. The fact that solar is so viable right now in California is kind of a problem....
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 12 2014, @03:43PM
I hear you, and I will address the problem with the proper priority.
My rain generator will be being mounted on my roof as soon as the neighbors stop threatening me with bodily harm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @03:59PM
You know what they say about making lemonade.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Friday September 12 2014, @06:14PM
That you can't make any if all the citrus groves dry up and there's no water to be had?
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday September 12 2014, @09:20PM
Solar power would still be viable in California. Lots of the state is desert and not used for agriculture. A lot of the rest of the state is urban land where you can slap solar panels on the side of a building again without impact to agriculture. This has nothing to do with the drought.