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.
It's not a big deal, but solar power in Alberta is quite viable.
If it's so viable (I'm not doubting you), I find it weird that he wouldn't have persevered and bought more panels or whatever to finish what he started. I know running in wires cost a small fortune, so I kind of doubt it was a cost thing. Screw it, I'm emailing him. I'll get back to you guys.
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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 was checking more into this and I think I was thinking something else. Pretty interesting how large solar sites in the following places could replace most of the world's energy (theoretically).
If it's so viable (I'm not doubting you), I find it weird that he wouldn't have persevered and bought more panels or whatever to finish what he started. I know running in wires cost a small fortune, so I kind of doubt it was a cost thing. Screw it, I'm emailing him. I'll get back to you guys.
It could easily still have been cheaper to put in a power line (depending on the size of house we're talking about). It cost more to put in solar systems 10 years ago than it does now, plus energy efficient light bulbs, appliances, etc, were harder and more expensive to come by.
I was checking more into this and I think I was thinking something else. Pretty interesting how large solar sites in the following places could replace most of the world's energy (theoretically).
Wow! Thanks for this link! I'm going to post the picture anyway...
I'm out of thankses, so...thanks!
The black dots represent an area that if covered in Solar farms could supply the world's energy. The wiki link says assuming 8% efficiency, which given the location and the technology as it exists today I have little doubt is more than attainable.
It could easily still have been cheaper to put in a power line (depending on the size of house we're talking about). It cost more to put in solar systems 10 years ago than it does now, plus energy efficient light bulbs, appliances, etc, were harder and more expensive to come by.
They spent a lot of money on the most efficient appliances, had compact florescents, sensors that turn lights off when you leave the room, etc. They put a lot of money and thought into making a really efficient home (aside from it being pretty large). If they put in lines right out of the gates that would be one thing, but it just seems like they had all their ducks in a row to be on solar, and abandoned the mission at the finish line. I did email him, so hopefully he gives a satisfying answer...
I should mention they still have this place. I'll be out there for Easter so I'll snoop around a bit and if all the solar stuff is still there I'll see if I can get some photos of the storage batteries, etc. for you guys since you're interested.
They spent a lot of money on the most efficient appliances, had compact florescents, sensors that turn lights off when you leave the room, etc. They put a lot of money and thought into making a really efficient home (aside from it being pretty large). If they put in lines right out of the gates that would be one thing, but it just seems like they had all their ducks in a row to be on solar, and abandoned the mission at the finish line. I did email him, so hopefully he gives a satisfying answer...
I'm guessing it was just a matter of the system not being big enough. It's not too hard, once you work out the amounts, to figure out how big a system you will need.
A system design to the right size, and installed well shouldn't have any problems, and should be able to supply power from the batteries without a sunny day for a week or so in the winter.
To be completely off grid, the energy system could cost a decent percentage of the house costs.
Did they just have solar for power, or did they have have it for heat as well?
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It's pretty curious that they would put up solar panels for electricity, but not use solar water heat for heat. Solar water heat is the cheapest way to add solar energy solutions to a house. From what I've read, you can pay off a system in as little as 2 years or so.
Especially when they are just using radiant floor heating anyway. For the cost of running a gas line, they could probably have purchased most of the solar collectors required.
Perhaps the technology wasn't as advanced 10 years ago? I don't know.
Wow! Thanks for this link! I'm going to post the picture anyway...
I'm out of thankses, so...thanks!
The black dots represent an area that if covered in Solar farms could supply the world's energy. The wiki link says assuming 8% efficiency, which given the location and the technology as it exists today I have little doubt is more than attainable.
The energy is there, but getting it, storing it, and moving it are all challenges that solar (or other variable sources) haven't yet met IMO.
On a small scale it keeps getting better and better, and as a supplementary source it's great, but as a primary source I'm not so sure.
For example the Solar Two tower generates 10 MW. To do so reliably it has a molten salt store to store the energy. Molten salt is nasty stuff and they store it extremely hot, so there is a factor of risk there. Fortunately it's not flammable.
But just to give an idea, Solar Two has 63 cubic meters of molten salt. That's 63,000L, that's 2-3 tanker trucks worth. But that's for 10MW. To scale that up, the US needs 1,000GW of generation. So we have to scale that up by 100,000! 2-300,000 tanker trucks worth. 6.3 billion L, those big cylindrical storage tanks you see around hold a few million L, so you'd need thousands and thousands of them, and the equipment to withdraw the energy when needed, which has to be duplicated thousands of times over based on how much each can handle.
And the infrastructure for it all. And molten salt is probably the most space efficient that I can think of.
That's so you can supply power when there's a cloud or overnight, Solar Two has 40 hours of reserve with that, if the solar farm gets cloudy for longer than that you're toast.
Not to mention transmission, losses from transmission are huge, and with a single solar farm you have to transmit everywhere from a single source.
I don't think these problems are insurmountable, we already do engineering on this scale, it would just be all in one place rather than spread throughout the country (like having every oil refinery in the US in one place rather than spread throughout).
Run superconducting cable to major distribution nodes could help with that, but cooling superconductors with liquid nitrogen takes part of the savings of energy and nitrogen isn't a renewable resource either.
All that said, I'm still a fan of solar and I think eventually we will get there, the sun's giving us all the energy we need. I just don't think we can replace coal fast enough with it and that we'll need an intermittent step of nuclear.
I made a solar panel for about $50. Charges a regular 12 volt battery quite well. If your not picky you can find "chipped" solar cells on eBay for dirt cheap. I think I picked up 44 3X6 for $40 or something. I had to tab them myself but you can get ones already tabbed for like $10 more... Fun project.
Okay, I heard back from my wife's dad regarding solar electricity at their house:
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They worked well, we were off grid for 3 years. [with supplemental power from the generator]
There is one big issue here. Dec, Jan, Feb, there is no sun and no wind [they also have a windmill]. And short days. To get power you have to have clear skies.
When deregulation came in, the cost of power dropped 65% and we had it run in.
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Originally Posted by photon
Run superconducting cable to major distribution nodes could help with that, but cooling superconductors with liquid nitrogen takes part of the savings of energy and nitrogen isn't a renewable resource either.
That's pretty much the most irrelevant thing I've ever heard.
Fistly, I don't think anyone has ever seriously proposed building electrical transmission lines out of superconductors. It's just logistically ridiculous to cool that large of a system.
Secondly, how the heck is nitrogen not being a renewable resource relevant? It's probalby the most abundant resource readily available to us, the atmosphere is 80% nitrogen. And how is that not renewable for the purpose you're talking about? The losses for liquid nitrogen from cooling colling superconductors will just end up back in the atmosphere, were we can just grab it again, it's not like it disappears.
I'm not saying you're other points are valid, just that adding this one seemed pretty silly.
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That's pretty much the most irrelevant thing I've ever heard.
Fistly, I don't think anyone has ever seriously proposed building electrical transmission lines out of superconductors. It's just logistically ridiculous to cool that large of a system.
As for proposing there has been some proposals involving liquid hydrogen pipelines with superconducting cores from hydrogen energy economy proponents.
But that's kind of my point with having a single solar generation field powering an entire continent; you have to get the electricity from the field to everywhere else, and regular transmission gets worse the further you have to transmit it. I was trying to make the point of a single solar field being a huge engineering challenge.
But point taken and I agree with you, overcoming transmission loss with superconducting cables is definitely non-trivial.
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Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz
Secondly, how the heck is nitrogen not being a renewable resource relevant?
You are right of course, for some reason I was talking about liquid nitrogen but I was thinking about liquid helium.
That was one of the scariest ones yet - especially the folks at the end who figured they were safe so far from the shoreline.
Not in English, but this person here documented the first four hours of news coverage of the quake on the national broadcaster NHK. Insane to see the earthquake warning alert, and then 30 seconds later the government, capital and everything else starting to shake. About 30 minutes in (episode 3 or 4), the whole scale starts to become apparent.
^So sad. A lot of people never made it out of there. I've seen a few other similar vids where people are just walking towards a hill like that, I don't think they realized how fast the tsunami was moving or how much volume there was. Or like Commodore said, many thought they were safe being a few kilometers inland.
I guess they thought they were safe...terrible to watch. You can see at the end of the video some people trying to pull out someone and nearly getting sucked in themselves.
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