Windfarms are POINTLESS!

[KrazyHorse]

You also had two other mistakes. The 281 billion figure was for the month of June alone. The total for the year was 3.6 trillion kWh

The other mistake was simple arithmetic. You dropped a zero somewhere.

86,461,538,461,540 sq ft = 3.1 million sq miles, not 310,000 sq miles

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by BlackCat




But if I were you I would reduce it to 2920 - the sun doesn't shine much during the night

We already divided max power by 4 to get average power. I'm assuming Oerdin's rule of thumb covers night-time

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Doddler


Nuclear would not work. Hydro is much more expensive than coal or oil.

Please give some sort of rational explination why nuclear would not work. It is completely scalable, it's cost per unit of electrical output is cost competitive, and unlike fossil fuels it doesn't produce green house gases nor pollute the air. It's simply the best choice out there today.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Reducing 310,139 sq miles of solar panels by the number of daylight hours/year (8760/2 = 4380) equals 70.8 square miles.

Multiply by ~130 for other errors to get true figure

[Dinner]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


We already divided max power by 4 to get average power. I'm assuming Oerdin's rule of thumb covers night-time

Not sure. I do know that they never produce max power even under ideal conditions. If we really wanted to do this correctly we'd have to get figures for the total amount of elecity produced in a year then divide it by the number of hours in a year (or days if we wanted an average daily output).

[Kuciwalker]

Not sure. I do know that they never produce max power even under ideal conditions.

Think about that for a second.

[Dinner]

I mean for an extended period of time. In any event I suspect that it is a theoretical max much like Chevy would claim their engines produced 500 HP in the 1970's yet when people actually measured it the rating was only around 400 HP. The extra 100 HP was simply invented by the advertising department.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Oerdin
... nor pollute the air. ...

--except for that little Chernobyl thingie.

[Solly]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Please give some sort of rational explination why nuclear would not work. It is completely scalable, it's cost per unit of electrical output is cost competitive, and unlike fossil fuels it doesn't produce green house gases nor pollute the air. It's simply the best choice out there today.

Nuclear output is baseload - it takes a long time to "warm up". It wouldn't be able to respond to the daily demand profile of a nation.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Doddler


Nuclear output is baseload - it takes a long time to "warm up". It wouldn't be able to respond to the daily demand profile of a nation.

So? Right now a lot of places use oil fired generators for much of their baseload. Nuclear can serve as baseload (a large percentage or even majority of power utilisation) while natural-gas fired serves as peak production.

"Green" sources are generally less flexible than carbon sources, but that doesn't mean there isn't a place for them

[Odin]

Originally posted by Doddler

You need nuclear.

Fixed.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


We already divided max power by 4 to get average power. I'm assuming Oerdin's rule of thumb covers night-time

Actually, there are way too many uncertainities in the calculations. Solar panels are pretty inefficient compared to the amount of energy available pr sqm. The 25 % eficiency Oerdin are using are quite normal, but that is based on the max possible effect (and that is when they are active - that is the sun is shining). Accoeding to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell there should be some 1000 W/sqm available, so if the kyoceras only deliver 130, it seems reasonable to assume that those 130 are the real value and therefore shouldn't be reduced. Still, that is only in peak hours - that is the sun is high, not early morning/evening. Some eight hours of max efficiency is probably a good guesstimate.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Even if we assume, quite foolishly, that some how the cost will come down to just 1/1000th of its current cost then we're still looking at more money then the total US GNP for the next 100 years. It's just not going to happen.

The foolish part is that you assume it always will have to be current generation solar panels, or even solar panels at all. We already have more efficient methods of harnessing solar power... and on top of ignoring that, you are suggesting that related technology will not advance at all... ever.

For large scale power at an affordable price our choice is either fossil fuels or nuclear power. Sure, we can have some niche applications of solar, wind, and geothermal but they're going to remain a tiny percentage. For real massive amounts of electricity solar will never be a serious part of the equation.

Well, it's going to be a decent percentage relatively soon. 20% is already mandated in California by 2017. Not exactly a tiny percentage.

Eventually it seems fusion may be the answer, though there might be problems with that that we haven't found out about yet. It may or may not happen.

The sun though... it gives out such massive amounts of energy that we'd have to be foolish not to continue to advance our ability to harness it, at least until we've found some other (virtually) unlimited, clean, safe, and renewable energy source. Someday we could very well have orbital solar installations transmitting electricity back to earth.

"Never" is an awfully difficult thing to justify. "Solar" is not limited by your scope of (tunnel) vision.

[Solly]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


So? Right now a lot of places use oil fired generators for much of their baseload. Nuclear can serve as baseload (a large percentage or even majority of power utilisation) while natural-gas fired serves as peak production.

"Green" sources are generally less flexible than carbon sources, but that doesn't mean there isn't a place for them

That lack of flexibility (and predictability) puts quite a large dent in the long-term value of their output.

[KrazyHorse]

He stated the 25% number as being a comparison of 130 to what is actually provided on average.

In other words, you're arguing for a 1/3 reduction instead of the 1/4 I used.

Just don't add in another factor of 3, please.