8.9 Magnitude quake hits offshore Japan

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by kirant

Basically, yeah.

Oh, and here's a pretty good summary of what is being described by the update (which photon seems to have covered pretty well):

I remember watching a documentary on Chernobyl where German's in a nuclear power plant couldn't get past the radiation detectors to get to their jobs because of the spread of radiation from Chernobyl, because nobody knew about the accident at the time, the German plant went into shutdown because they thought they were leaking.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

That is changing for the better day by day. I would go so far as to argue that any residential dwelling under 5000 sq ft can operate on solar panels and batteries. The install would cost 20-30K, and would pay for itself in under 10 years. And the system would work for 50 years.

Commerical and industrial is another matter.

My inlaws installed solar panels at their house on a quarter section by Sundre. The house is probably 3000 square feet. The panels were high-end and tilted and swiveled to track the sun. They also had a windmill.

It was a total disaster...they ended up having to bulldoze a path in through a forest to run conventional power lines. There's a reason people aren't using this technology in any sort of widespread way around here.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

That is changing for the better day by day. I would go so far as to argue that any residential dwelling under 5000 sq ft can operate on solar panels and batteries. The install would cost 20-30K, and would pay for itself in under 10 years. And the system would work for 50 years.

Commerical and industrial is another matter.

I agree. I would like to see all the roofs in north america carpeted in solar panels. It'll help cut down the electric costs, and it would work. The only thing is that it would cost quite a bit at the start, but it would be fine once things got started.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

What is the risk of using Solar panels?

The biggest downside to using solar power in more than just individual homes (say, pushing it to the next level and powering entire cities on it) is the space needed. You're inevitably going to need a gigantic piece of land to be covered with black solar panels. You know the environmentalists won't like that.

Putting it on houses is all fine and dandy, if there are no problems. It's not a simple matter of set and forget, and some locations aren't viable for installing solar power, period. For every example of a successful situation, there's another where they could never get the full potential out of the panels, or they would break.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

The biggest downside to using solar power in more than just individual homes (say, pushing it to the next level and powering entire cities on it) is the space needed. You're inevitably going to need a gigantic piece of land to be covered with black solar panels. You know the environmentalists won't like that.

Putting it on houses is all fine and dandy, if there are no problems. It's not a simple matter of set and forget, and some locations aren't viable for installing solar power, period. For every example of a successful situation, there's another where they could never get the full potential out of the panels, or they would break.

If the USA covered just 1/4 of their most barren desert wasteland in solar panels they wouldn't need any other form of generation.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Sliver

My inlaws installed solar panels at their house on a quarter section by Sundre. The house is probably 3000 square feet. The panels were high-end and tilted and swiveled to track the sun. They also had a windmill.

It was a total disaster...they ended up having to bulldoze a path in through a forest to run conventional power lines. There's a reason people aren't using this technology in any sort of widespread way around here.

Who was the installer? I'm seriously curious...

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I remember watching a documentary on Chernobyl where German's in a nuclear power plant couldn't get past the radiation detectors to get to their jobs because of the spread of radiation from Chernobyl, because nobody knew about the accident at the time, the German plant went into shutdown because they thought they were leaking.

It wasn't in Germany, it was in Sweden, where a workers couldn't enter the plant because he kept setting off the detectors.

Originally Posted by wikipedia

The initial evidence that a major release of radioactive material was affecting other countries came not from Soviet sources, but from Sweden, where on the morning of 28 April[65] workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant (approximately 1,100 km (680 mi) from the Chernobyl site) were found to have radioactive particles on their clothes.[66] It was Sweden's search for the source of radioactivity, after they had determined there was no leak at the Swedish plant, that at noon on 28 April led to the first hint of a serious nuclear problem in the western Soviet Union.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

If the USA covered just 1/4 of their most barren desert wasteland in solar panels they wouldn't need any other form of generation.

Yeah? So why aren't they doing it?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

Who was the installer? I'm seriously curious...

I'm not sure...I'll ask my wife if she knows. Would have been late 90s.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Yeah? So why aren't they doing it?

Your guess is as good as mine.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

Who was the installer? I'm seriously curious...

yeah, me too.

If they had to cut down trees to get the power lines in, did they cut down trees around the solar panels in the first place? How much power was the system designed to create? Did they have enough battery capacity?

There are many houses in Alberta that run perfectly fine on solar power, many that have no means of tilting and panning solar panels.

[RedJester]

^

In Hawaii, a lot of houses have solar panels on them as well, because it's so expensive to ship coal to burn at the power plants there.

The technology has improved quite a bit over the years.

[You Need a Thneed]

Double post

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

If the USA covered just 1/4 of their most barren desert wasteland in solar panels they wouldn't need any other form of generation.

I believe something like that was attempted and thwarted by environmentalists.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Sliver

My inlaws installed solar panels at their house on a quarter section by Sundre. The house is probably 3000 square feet. The panels were high-end and tilted and swiveled to track the sun. They also had a windmill.

It was a total disaster...they ended up having to bulldoze a path in through a forest to run conventional power lines. There's a reason people aren't using this technology in any sort of widespread way around here.

Out of curiousity, what made it a disaster

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

yeah, me too.

If they had to cut down trees to get the power lines in, did they cut down trees around the solar panels in the first place?

Their house is on top of a hill and there aren't any trees around the actual house. They had to cut trees between their house and the power lines. The property is a quarter section (640 acres) so it's quite large.

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

How much power was the system designed to create? Did they have enough battery capacity?

There are many houses in Alberta that run perfectly fine on solar power, many that have no means of tilting and panning solar panels.

Well, I don't know much about the technology, but in all honestly it didn't look like they had enough panels. They did have a cabin they ran completely off of solar electricity before the house, so this wasn't their first foray into solar. I would think he knew what he was doing, but obviously something went wrong.

I don't know if I really want to grill my father-in-law about his failed energy experiment too much, but the next time I see him I'll ask what went wrong. You guys are asking super fair questions and I did bring it up, so I'll see what I can come up with for answers. You have me curious now, too.

[Traditional_Ale]

^ I'm especially very curious about this. I sell the equipment but don't currently have a relationship with a reputable installer, so I need to know who to avoid (if they're still around that is). Also, late 90's to 2011 is like going from TOS to DS9.

[CaptainCrunch]

So what your saying is that the late 90's stuff is better and makes more sense?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Out of curiousity, what made it a disaster

After they finally faced facts that solar wasn't going to give them the energy they needed, they had to use a gasoline generator while they waited for the power lines to be run from the grid. For a year, they filled it up with gas a couple of times a day and spent a fortune having a loud, smelly thing outside their house. Then they had the power lines run in, which was expensive and cut into the forest, which was one of the things they wanted to avoid in the first place (chopping down trees).

The solar/wind plan was expensive and ultimately didn't work...maybe not a Japan-scale disaster, but it was a long, drawn-out, crappy experience for them.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

So what your saying is that the late 90's stuff is better and makes more sense?

As soon as I posted that I thought to myself, "I wonder how CC is gonna spin that..."