|
|
Post by Orac on Nov 3, 2024 16:34:03 GMT
You are acknowledging the problem with what you are saying while not acknowledging it is a problem 'Beyond maintenance' is a very deceptive term ..that maintenance requires energy effort and resources, in the same way shoveling the next shovel full of coal. If wind and sun were genuinely 'free energy' we would all be rich because we all have all the energy we needed Actually the original estimates for maintenance were found to be much over estimated. Because of that wind energy is considerably cheaper than all fossil fuels (Not to mention climate change)  So, you can make the argument that it is cheaper, but not that it is 'free'. Collecting useful energy from nature will likely never be free - it will always be a pain the bum (a fixed reality like death and taxes). I think the economic force that will create a lot of the costs for renewables is land. The land you use for one purpose is a cost for everything else |
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on Nov 3, 2024 16:46:48 GMT
Actually the original estimates for maintenance were found to be much over estimated. Because of that wind energy is considerably cheaper than all fossil fuels (Not to mention climate change) So, you can make the argument that it is cheaper, but not that it is 'free'. Collecting useful energy from nature will likely never be free - it will always be a pain the bum (a fixed reality like death and taxes). I think the economic force that will create a lot of the costs for renewables is land. The land you use for one purpose is a cost for everything else It does not appear to be packed with people at the moment.
|
|
|
|
Post by Orac on Nov 3, 2024 16:54:34 GMT
So, you can make the argument that it is cheaper, but not that it is 'free'. Collecting useful energy from nature will likely never be free - it will always be a pain the bum (a fixed reality like death and taxes). I think the economic force that will create a lot of the costs for renewables is land. The land you use for one purpose is a cost for everything else It does not appear to be packed with people at the moment.
Nobody is going to build solar farm in a housing estate. That's not the whole issue though. The land that is convenient for it will get a raised price...as will surrounding land via the continuum. The problem is it uses a lot of land. |
|
|
|
Post by zanygame on Nov 3, 2024 16:56:15 GMT
Actually the original estimates for maintenance were found to be much over estimated. Because of that wind energy is considerably cheaper than all fossil fuels (Not to mention climate change) So, you can make the argument that it is cheaper, but not that it is 'free'. Collecting useful energy from nature will likely never be free - it will always be a pain the bum (a fixed reality like death and taxes). I think the economic force that will create a lot of the costs for renewables is land. The land you use for one purpose is a cost for everything else I'm pretty sure I've never claimed it was free, other than in the sense that the wind costs nothing. Collecting and delivering always costs money. The difference is you don't have to buy it off someone else as we well. We buy the gas and oil, then we pay maintenance on the power stations that turn it into electricity. |
|
|
|
Post by Orac on Nov 3, 2024 17:03:12 GMT
So, you can make the argument that it is cheaper, but not that it is 'free'. Collecting useful energy from nature will likely never be free - it will always be a pain the bum (a fixed reality like death and taxes). I think the economic force that will create a lot of the costs for renewables is land. The land you use for one purpose is a cost for everything else I'm pretty sure I've never claimed it was free, other than in the sense that the wind costs nothing. Collecting and delivering always costs money. The difference is you don't have to buy it off someone else as we well. We buy the gas and oil, then we pay maintenance on the power stations that turn it into electricity. Yo don't have to buy coal off someone else either - it's in nature. You can collect it for 'free' in the same sense. If you can't quite grock what i'm saying here I will leave it - it's not that vital |
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on Nov 3, 2024 17:14:40 GMT
It does not appear to be packed with people at the moment.
Nobody is going to build solar farm in a housing estate. That's not the whole issue though. The land that is convenient for it will get a raised price...as will surrounding land via the continuum. The problem is it uses a lot of land. You have not managed to bring the link up then. You will need to copy it then paste into the address bar as this forum can't do links with @ signs. |
|
|
|
Post by Orac on Nov 3, 2024 17:22:33 GMT
Nobody is going to build solar farm in a housing estate. That's not the whole issue though. The land that is convenient for it will get a raised price...as will surrounding land via the continuum. The problem is it uses a lot of land. You have not managed to bring the link up then. You will need to copy it then paste into the address bar as this forum can't do links with @ signs. I do not need to look at your link |
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on Nov 3, 2024 17:31:11 GMT
You have not managed to bring the link up then. You will need to copy it then paste into the address bar as this forum can't do links with @ signs. I do not need to look at your link How do you know if you have not seen where it is?
This is to do with gaining intelligence via observation.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pacifico on Nov 3, 2024 18:38:32 GMT
So, you can make the argument that it is cheaper, but not that it is 'free'. Collecting useful energy from nature will likely never be free - it will always be a pain the bum (a fixed reality like death and taxes). I think the economic force that will create a lot of the costs for renewables is land. The land you use for one purpose is a cost for everything else I'm pretty sure I've never claimed it was free, other than in the sense that the wind costs nothing. Collecting and delivering always costs money. The difference is you don't have to buy it off someone else as we well.
We buy the gas and oil, then we pay maintenance on the power stations that turn it into electricity. So what are you going to use to generate electricity when the wind is not blowing?. Currently wind power is providing 5% of our energy needs - if you treble the amount of installed wind capacity then it is still only generating 15% which is what we are currently importing from the rest of Europe. Gas on the other hand is supplying 55% of our energy. |
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on Nov 3, 2024 21:57:05 GMT
I'm pretty sure I've never claimed it was free, other than in the sense that the wind costs nothing. Collecting and delivering always costs money. The difference is you don't have to buy it off someone else as we well.
We buy the gas and oil, then we pay maintenance on the power stations that turn it into electricity. So what are you going to use to generate electricity when the wind is not blowing?. Currently wind power is providing 5% of our energy needs - if you treble the amount of installed wind capacity then it is still only generating 15% which is what we are currently importing from the rest of Europe. Gas on the other hand is supplying 55% of our energy. Have you seen how cheap lithium batteries are now? For a 5kWh battery power pack you are looking at 220 quid. So for domestic purposes, you could easily stack up enough cells for smoothing out your energy supply to give it 24hr. Industry takes more, but the biggest consumption of all is electric heating such as glass furnaces. The current solution here is to store the energy as heat. |
|
|
|
Post by Pacifico on Nov 3, 2024 22:30:05 GMT
So what are you going to use to generate electricity when the wind is not blowing?. Currently wind power is providing 5% of our energy needs - if you treble the amount of installed wind capacity then it is still only generating 15% which is what we are currently importing from the rest of Europe. Gas on the other hand is supplying 55% of our energy. Have you seen how cheap lithium batteries are now? For a 5kWh battery power pack you are looking at 220 quid. So for domestic purposes, you could easily stack up enough cells for smoothing out your energy supply to give it 24hr. Industry takes more, but the biggest consumption of all is electric heating such as glass furnaces. The current solution here is to store the energy as heat. Thats nonsense Baron - Battery storage (like most renewable energy schemes) are simply uneconomic due to the vast cost. |
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on Nov 3, 2024 23:10:33 GMT
Have you seen how cheap lithium batteries are now? For a 5kWh battery power pack you are looking at 220 quid. So for domestic purposes, you could easily stack up enough cells for smoothing out your energy supply to give it 24hr. Industry takes more, but the biggest consumption of all is electric heating such as glass furnaces. The current solution here is to store the energy as heat. Thats nonsense Baron - Battery storage (like most renewable energy schemes) are simply uneconomic due to the vast cost. Well our leccy is 22p - 26p a unit. Make that an average of say 24p. Octopus are offering 12p off peak tariff, so for every unit you store you save 12p. The battery is rated at 6000 cycles @50% so one unit of battery storage will cost you 200 quid in batteries and about 200 for a charger and inverter for a 3kw supply. After 6000 cycles you chuck the batteries away, (-200 quid), but save 720. This is like putting 200 quid into an investment and ending up with 500 minus the depreciation on the other 200. The thing is if you had put that money into a savings account you would have probably ended up with about the same, maybe a little less as your savings are guaranteed.
So all in all you neither do much better or worse. The leccy is at what they would say a rational market rate. You can scale those numbers up by multiplying by the number of units you use in peak times(17-18/24 hrs), and you will save a bit on economy of scale. The 320 A batteries are more than double the value for money as the 100A ones.
I expect in the next few years the price per unit storage will fall dramatically when sodium are mass produced and perfected. It is certainly doable.
|
|
|
|
Post by zanygame on Nov 4, 2024 7:27:27 GMT
I'm pretty sure I've never claimed it was free, other than in the sense that the wind costs nothing. Collecting and delivering always costs money. The difference is you don't have to buy it off someone else as we well. We buy the gas and oil, then we pay maintenance on the power stations that turn it into electricity. Yo don't have to buy coal off someone else either - it's in nature. You can collect it for 'free' in the same sense. If you can't quite grock what i'm saying here I will leave it - it's not that vital No you can't. You have to dig a very deep hole to get coal and we don't have much left so we do have to buy it off someone else. Probably all been said. Renewables are better than fossils in so many ways now, cheaper, local, clean. |
|
|
|
Post by zanygame on Nov 4, 2024 7:35:41 GMT
I'm pretty sure I've never claimed it was free, other than in the sense that the wind costs nothing. Collecting and delivering always costs money. The difference is you don't have to buy it off someone else as we well.
We buy the gas and oil, then we pay maintenance on the power stations that turn it into electricity. So what are you going to use to generate electricity when the wind is not blowing?. Currently wind power is providing 5% of our energy needs - if you treble the amount of installed wind capacity then it is still only generating 15% which is what we are currently importing from the rest of Europe. Gas on the other hand is supplying 55% of our energy. Where did you get the 5% from. Last year only 27% came from fossil fuels Generation by type Fossil fuels 27.9 Renewables 38.1 Other sources 21.9 |
|
|
|
Post by jonksy on Nov 4, 2024 7:42:32 GMT
Silicon solar power typically comes in at about 23% currently. There is a theoretical upper limit of 35% for any silicon solar cell. This limit is known as the Shockley–Queisser limit.
The definition of this term is listed in Wiki as
I mention this because the Spanish research has found a junction that can achieve a 60% Shockley–Queisser limit. The way you do this is you don't use silicon. They spent 15 years trying anything they could think of and recently they struck gold. It so happens that a titanium-gallium junction is the magic combination. The experimental cells are not suitable for production though, and one reason for this is they use gold in the substrate. I mean gallium and titanium are expensive enough, but using gold would be taking the piss! The good news is using gold is not an essential requirement and some substitute could be used, they think. They also claim the amount of titanium and gallium needed is small that we are still in the ballpark of affordability, although there is a lot of work to convert this to a manufacturable product. Who knows how long it will take, but their work proves 60% is possible.
That's bloody good Baron, but I think the costs will always outweigh the benefits as sunlight is plentiful and space not restricted. If you want to spend money on solar energy stick them in orbit and laser the energy down to earth. Or just build more fire powered generating stations... |
|
