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Old 17-03-2011, 08:53 AM
casstony
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Solar cost to rival coal in 10 years

By extrapolating current trends this author suggests that solar cells will be sufficiently efficient and cheap that they can compete outright with coal in 10 years.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...res-2011-03-15


"In 14 and a half seconds, the sun provides as much energy to Earth as humanity uses in a day."

"What’s driving these changes? There are two factors. First, solar cell manufacturers are learning – much as computer chip manufacturers keep learning – how to reduce the cost to fabricate solar.
Second, the efficiency of solar cells – the fraction of the sun’s energy that strikes them that they capture – is continually improving. In the lab, researchers have achieved solar efficiencies of as high as 41 percent, an unheard of efficiency 30 years ago. Inexpensive thin-film methods have achieved laboratory efficiencies as high as 20 percent, still twice as high as most of the solar systems in deployment today"

"The cost of solar, in the average location in the U.S., will cross the current average retail electricity price of 12 cents per kilowatt hour in around 2020"
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Old 17-03-2011, 09:07 AM
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Of course.

I love a nuclear power plant for generating electricity as long as it stays 300000000 kilometers away.

Barry
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Old 17-03-2011, 09:14 AM
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How about fusion at say, a within a couple of hundred kilometers away ?

Cheers
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Old 17-03-2011, 09:17 AM
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10 years is a loooooong time... Lets hope the estimate is correct.
Because, it is all about money... and if nuclear is cheaper it will be an option (regardless of recent tragic events in Japan).
BTW, I lived 60 km away (downstream) from nuclear plant, from early '80-ties until early '90-ties.
This particular plant (built by Westinghouse) is still working with full capacity (Krsko, Slovenia) and for 30 years if its operation there was never a significant problem with it.
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Old 17-03-2011, 09:24 AM
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For me, the attraction to solar is it's simplicity, safety, the roof tops are ready and waiting, proximity of generation to consumer, and I get to make my own electricity.

Fusion would be great as a supplement to solar but solar should provide the bulk of our energy needs.
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Old 17-03-2011, 09:30 AM
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Originally Posted by bojan View Post
This particular plant (built by Westinghouse) is still working with full capacity (Krsko, Slovenia) and for 30 years if its operation there was never a significant problem with it.
But it depends on humans to maintain the safe operation of the reactor. I'll support nuclear power when they bother to develop the technology to the point where it is intrinsically safe - ie. the workers down tools at any time and the plant is not capable of having a meltdown.

That solar power will provide the bulk of our enegy needs at some point in the future seems obvious to me - the energy is already delivered to us, we just need to collect it.
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Old 17-03-2011, 09:46 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by casstony View Post
For me, the attraction to solar is it's simplicity, safety, the roof tops are ready and waiting, proximity of generation to consumer, and I get to make my own electricity.

Fusion would be great as a supplement to solar but solar should provide the bulk of our energy needs.
Just hope you never have a house fire during the day. The fire brigade can turn off the mains. They can not turn off your solar panels even if they can open the control switch or circuit breaker.
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Old 17-03-2011, 09:55 AM
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Just hope you never have a house fire during the day. The fire brigade can turn off the mains. They can not turn off your solar panels even if they can open the control switch or circuit breaker.
I imagine fuse/safety switches could be built into the supply to deal with such a problem. Worst case scenario - I lose a house. That's somewhat less troubling than the problems in Japan.
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Old 17-03-2011, 09:55 AM
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That solar power will provide the bulk of our enegy needs at some point in the future seems obvious to me - the energy is already delivered to us, we just need to collect it.
That is true..
But try the simple calculation, based on actual availability:
Solar constant is 1.4kW/m2, in space (above atmosphere).
Current commercial grade solar panel efficiency is 20%.
To generate enough power for domestic use this may be sufficient (and you don't have to cover the whole roof with solar panels) .. but the price is detrimental for wider use, even with government grant, which will stop one day - next financial year it will be decreased by 20%. (I am actually having it installed right now, $2.5k (after grant) for 1.5kW system is still sort of OK but $5k (next year) is definitely not).

For industrial use, solar power is completely different animal - and I doubt it will be viable very soon - you have to have it night and day, 24/7, reliably, and a lot of it (which means a huge areas covered with solar panels (useless for anything else) and huge batteries to store the energy for night or rainy days).
That is the very reason we have coal and nuclear and hydro power plants - the continuity of supply is a paramount.

ONLY when solar panels become cheaper than what we have now, they will be widely used (but I doubt they will ever replace conventional ways completely).
For now, they are just , well, curiosity for most (I know that I just opened the Pandora's box).

Last edited by bojan; 17-03-2011 at 10:06 AM.
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Old 17-03-2011, 10:06 AM
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ONLY when solar panels become cheaper than what we have now, they will be widely used.
For now, they are just , well, curiosity for most (I know that I just opened the Pandora's box).
I agree with you 100% Bojan. The current subsidy for solar installation is a waste of taxpayers money. That cash could be put towards accelerating solar cell research so we can achieve mass installation of competitive solar power.

The fact is new cheaper/more efficient technologies are in development and it's reasonable to expect that the goal of competitive solar power will be achieved - it's a matter of when?
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Old 17-03-2011, 10:09 AM
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Yes.. but even then, I do not see the replacement of conventional power generation (including nuclear) as a real alternative.
Remember, 24/7...
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Old 17-03-2011, 10:31 AM
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This issue is one of scale.

Its just like trying to understand some part of the universe when someone else only has the scale of the Solar System in their minds.

The disparate views seem to arise around the difference in views of the scale of the problem.

Some time kicking around the scale concept, might loosen up some firmly held views on both side of the fence.

My 2 cents/kilowatt-hour's worth.

Cheers
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Old 17-03-2011, 10:32 AM
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Yes.. but even then, I do not see the replacement of conventional power generation (including nuclear) as a real alternative.
Remember, 24/7...
I think solar can make a very large contribution. Some night time load can be shifted to the day, hydro dams can be re-filled in the day for use at night, we can reduce power needs for town lighting; natural gas can bridge the gap to fusion or safer forms of current nuclear reactors. Getting past vested interests and political nearsightedness is the biggest challenge.
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Old 17-03-2011, 10:42 AM
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Originally Posted by casstony View Post
I imagine fuse/safety switches could be built into the supply to deal with such a problem. Worst case scenario - I lose a house. That's somewhat less troubling than the problems in Japan.
Tony has a good point there ... I agree with him.

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Old 17-03-2011, 10:43 AM
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i only see large scale solar power as engineering problems, which are usually overcome if enough money is spent on it, and if there is political will and political/national stability.

storage mechanisms for energy are in development and under testing. is it viable now? maybe, maybe not but if we spent the dollars on it it probably would become viable in the short to medium term.

widespread solar collectors (or whatever you want to call them) and distributed power generation that overcome the issue of long-term cloud? well, that would be possible in Australia since we are a stable country but maybe not in some african or middle-eastern regions.



i often feel that the debate about solar always revolves around the problems but rarely do we hear discussion about solutions. We just need to make the decision to go for it in a meaningful way rather than only discuss why it is not possible (which is also my feeling about the public transport debate in melbourne).
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Old 17-03-2011, 10:50 AM
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. We just need to make the decision to go for it in a meaningful way rather than only discuss why it is not possible ).
That's right - we need the 'Jeff Kennet can do' attitude, get the job done, then make up what we need to from other power sources (whether that's fossil fuel, nuclear, matter/anti-matter or whatever).
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Old 17-03-2011, 11:02 AM
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It wouldn't matter what way you generated power, the environmental movement would find some fault with it and protest against it. Then you'd have people scared of another viable energy source.
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Old 17-03-2011, 11:24 AM
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It wouldn't matter what way you generated power, the environmental movement would find some fault with it and protest against it. Then you'd have people scared of another viable energy source.
well, yes, probably true to some extent however, i am fairly certain that the outcry by said groups would be far less for solar than for, let's say, nuclear or coal...

(BTW, I like the use of bold text )
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Old 17-03-2011, 11:28 AM
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BTW, I lived 60 km away (downstream) from nuclear plant, from early '80-ties until early '90-ties.
I've lived for the last 30 years, and still live, 23 kilometers away from a nuclear reactor!
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Old 17-03-2011, 11:32 AM
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Quote:
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well, yes, probably true to some extent however, i am fairly certain that the outcry by said groups would be far less for solar than for, let's say, nuclear or coal...

(BTW, I like the use of bold text )
There's already a hullabaloo over a solar plant in CA with env' concerns, because it will take up 2500 acres in an area with some rarish animals and plants. It doesn't matter where they put them, the environmentalist will always find something to go off about...some rare animal and/or plant
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