Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!

[Radioheart]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Look up, for example, energy density per square meter in new hampshire - and you will find that voltaic cells will *never* be relevent in northern climes.

Which for example, is what field studies confirmed.

Solar can be made quite relevant in Northern climates if corresponding investments are made to the transmission technology and the power grid.

I remember hearing something along the lines of a 50 mile by 50 mile patch of Nevada desert has the energy output with present photo-voltaic technology to power the entire country.

Of course, the Eisenhower era power grid couldn't transmit a fraction of that to anywhere relevant. Given some investment in both transmission technology and the power grid, its not so hard to imagine a solar farm in Nevada supplying power to the Pacific Northwest, for example. Washington State, hardly a candidate for solar installations, could realistically be powered entirely by solar energy.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Radioheart

Solar can be made quite relevant in Northern climates if corresponding investments are made to the transmission technology and the power grid.

I remember hearing something along the lines of a 50 mile by 50 mile patch of Nevada desert has the energy output with present photo-voltaic technology to power the entire country.

Of course, the Eisenhower era power grid couldn't transmit a fraction of that to anywhere relevant. Given some investment in both transmission technology and the power grid, its not so hard to imagine a solar farm in Nevada supplying power to the Pacific Northwest, for example. Washington State, hardly a candidate for solar installations, could realistically be powered entirely by solar energy.

Thank you for beating me to it, I've been following the development of large scale PV technology applications for over a decade now.

Obviously, since daylight is only half the day (at equator, more or less otherwise depending on season), transmission is not exactly the primary hurdle. Consistency is. Which is simple to address, however, through the utilization of some of this energy to perform hydrolosis, and create liquid hydrogen. This can then be burned at night, and/or shipped to other locations for use off the grid, and for eventual vehicular use. The technology for all of that is a few years behind where I'd like it, but only because the funding has always dragged at a minimum.

[chrispedersen]

The ability to transmit power will affect *any* power technology.

Generally speaking, the amount of power received *insolation* is about 1KW/m2, in full sunlight. New Hampshire, and other places, only get that for about 25% of the time. The conversion efficiency is 10-20%, although kyocera has gotten up to 40% in the lab.

So, photovoltaic cells covering 3.28 feet by 3.28 feet on your roof, will generate enough power (after conversion to AC) to power *one* lightbulb.

I have a 2400 sq ft house - call it 250 meters squared. I live in florida - great spot for solar, right? So I could generate roughly 25kW of power, roughly 150kW per day. if I totally cover my house in solar panels. Cost of doing that - after state and local subsidies last time I checked was $28,000 with an expected life of 10 years. Total cost was probably 40,000 but I didn't actually have access to the amount of benefit given.

Only problem is - my yearly consumption of power runs about $1800. Which is why, even in florida people are not rushing out to buy solar panels.

Which is why I stand by my assertion that photovoltaics will never make a significant dent in northern climes.

The fact that you can transmit power, means you can transmit power generated by other mechanisms as well.

[krpeters]

Since we're talking about global warming *and* solar power... let's take it to the next level. Parabolic Space Mirrors. Too cold for you in New Hampshire? *sizzle* Just bake the whole state using a 100-mile wide orbiting mirror. Instant weather control too, fry those clouds as they come in. You might not want to aim one at the eye of a hurricane, though.

Getting back to reality... the most readily available alternative energy source is CONSERVATION. It's a whole lot easier to cut our energy use by 20% (just stop buying SUVs!) than it is to increase the supply by 20%.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Actually thejeff will say he doesn't have a clue how or if the chemical composition of oil and TDP fuel differs.

He will also say that it's more than a semantic quibble though, since both the environmental and geopolitical consequences of the two are so different.*snip*

Okay, thanks for explaining.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

@llamabeast, about non-increasing carbon content from "biofuels" (which I assume includes TDP),

I agree, and that's one of the interesting side-benefits to TDP. Radioheart's statement, though, was not about about carbon ("We are gonna have to stop using fossil fuels eventually. Finite supply after all. Might as well get a headstart.") and neither was thejeff's ("They are not, in any sense of the term, 'fossil fuels'."), so I would still like to understand thejeff's claim.

-Max

[AdmiralZhao]

Oh man, I can't believe I've missed out on this discussion for the last few weeks. All this time I kept seeing it on the front page, and thinking "Wow, how long can they talk about a little snow?"

Ok, time for my data point. I work for an oil company, and while I'm not exactly management material, I have managed to attend two conferences for company big-wigs. Both have had talks on global warming, and the position presented is that man-made GW is real, and if unchecked, runs a significant risk of an OMG-BBQ-Apocalypse scenario. I'm not sure what the marketing and PR departments are saying/promoting with their share of the revenue, but at least internally to the company it is considered a real danger. Fortunately, there is a solution to global warming. By using carbon capture technology, liquefied C02 can be pumped back into underground reservoirs, preventing it from afflicting our atmosphere. Essentially, after paying oil companies for 100 years to pump the carbon out of the earth, people would pay oil companies for the next 100 years to pump the carbon back into the earth. I encourage you all to write your senators in support of this technology, since A) it will do wonders for my job security, and B) I would find this scenario hilarious.

[Omnirizon]

or we could make a lifestyle change.

but as i mentioned before that seems to be a non-option for a certain sector of the crowd in here.

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm. Interesting assertion. I can't find any numbers for Nevada insolation, but here's a San Francisco table: http://www.sfog.us/solar/sfsolar.htm

At 6.47E9 square meters (2500 square miles), that gives about 10^13 Kilowatt-hours per year (10 trillion). Wikipedia claims that U.S. energy consumption is 29000 TWh per year (2.9E13 kWhs). So I'd say Radiohead's figure looks like it's in the right ballpark.

-Max

Edit: sorry, Radioheart. Wrong name, my bad.

[Executor]

You are all talking about alternative power sources now, but those aren't going to happen on a larger scale until most oil reserves and alike forms of power sources are spent.