Well, by the time the pain hits rich first-world white people, I would think it'd be too late.
I don't really buy their dim view of human ingenuity, but I think it's funny, in a sad way, that almost no one wants to change current trends while trying to tech our way out of this problem - we want to keep all our toys and survive while consuming at the rate we are.
And this ignores the fact that we're probably going to experience the largest human population to ever exist in our lifetime (until we start colonizing space) before starting to decline by about a billion people or so. Which is the biggest change in trend possible.
Well, by the time the pain hits rich first-world white people, I would think it'd be too late.
I don't really buy their dim view of human ingenuity, but I think it's funny, in a sad way, that almost no one wants to change current trends while trying to tech our way out of this problem - we want to keep all our toys and survive while consuming at the rate we are.
And this ignores the fact that we're probably going to experience the largest human population to ever exist in our lifetime (until we start colonizing space) before starting to decline by about a billion people or so. Which is the biggest change in trend possible.
Cool. I have been thinking lately that people *have* to be driving less, with all this communication and diversion technology we have now, but all I see anywhere is doom and gloom. Thanks for the small glimmer of hope.
Where's agriculture supposed to be listed? Agriculture is a major source of energy consumption. Simply making fertilizer uses a large amount of natural gas on top of the energy use to convert it to something that can be used. Then it has to be transported to the fields (burning fossil fuels) and spread on the the fields (with machines that use fossil fuels). And then most of the crop we end up converting to ethanol (even more energy to do it, making that boondoggle even more CO2 producing in the end than just burning gasoline) or feeding to animals (one pound of beef requiring seven pounds of grain,) requiring even even more energy for their maintenance while they also spew methane (agriculture is responsible for about 1/5 of total greenhouse gas emissions). Then there's water pollution and land use and all those other problems on top of the energy consumption
So, one simple way to reduce your energy consumption, even if indirectly, is to cut back on the amount of meat you eat or at least eat less energy-intensive meats (chicken or fish* instead of pork or especially beef). I'm not saying that you must go full vegan (though if you want, go for it and the maximum benefits), but you don't need meat in every meal, every day, in huge quantities so that the meal is mostly meat plus some fixings on the side. Not saying you can't have a big slab of steak on occasion, but it's probably better for you (and definitely better for your pocketbook and environmental impact) to do it only once a month instead of once a week, you understand. Most of the world goes without eating a lot of meat and they can have a perfectly fine varied and interesting diet. It's not unending boring salads.
*Wild-caught fish can have their own share of problems but that's a topic for another thread.
It really bothers me that Skyrim (Germany) generates more solar power than we do. America needs to exploit its desert wastelands to show those dragon yelling germans what for.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
It really bothers me that Skyrim (Germany) generates more solar power than we do. America needs to exploit its desert wastelands to show those dragon yelling germans what for.
We actually produce MORE power via green methods, but they do it more per capita. However, we have far more capability to produce wind and solar than practically any country in the world due to our completely unique wind-swathed midwest that has, as far as I know, no foreign analogue. Although I haven't found anything solid, I find it hard to believe we couldn't potentially power the entire country with the amount of energy exerted through the force of wind, especially if we start using more efficient models of turbine and even elevating turbine heights where midwest winds are incredibly consistent and very, very fast (If I remember correctly the windspeeds at 150+ meters in the midwest and southern plains are frequently hurricane force).
It really bothers me that Skyrim (Germany) generates more solar power than we do. America needs to exploit its desert wastelands to show those dragon yelling germans what for.
Yep. And we need to stop pretending natural gas and clean coal aren't fucking the environment over, build better transmission infrastructure, and create an energy market where it is attractive to businesses. None of which we really have the political will to do, due to petro-lobbying, debt hawks, and green issues being seen as part of the liberal domain.
The technologies are things we can do, but the greater social changes required to institute it are a murkier question.
It really bothers me that Skyrim (Germany) generates more solar power than we do. America needs to exploit its desert wastelands to show those dragon yelling germans what for.
We actually produce MORE power via green methods, but they do it more per capita. However, we have far more capability to produce wind and solar than practically any country in the world due to our completely unique wind-swathed midwest that has, as far as I know, no foreign analogue. Although I haven't found anything solid, I find it hard to believe we couldn't potentially power the entire country with the amount of energy exerted through the force of wind, especially if we start using more efficient models of turbine and even elevating turbine heights where midwest winds are incredibly consistent and very, very fast (If I remember correctly the windspeeds at 150+ meters in the midwest and southern plains are frequently hurricane force).
The open Steppe? With fleet horses, falcons, and windswept hair.
Where's agriculture supposed to be listed? Agriculture is a major source of energy consumption. Simply making fertilizer uses a large amount of natural gas on top of the energy use to convert it to something that can be used. Then it has to be transported to the fields (burning fossil fuels) and spread on the the fields (with machines that use fossil fuels). And then most of the crop we end up converting to ethanol (even more energy to do it, making that boondoggle even more CO2 producing in the end than just burning gasoline) or feeding to animals (one pound of beef requiring seven pounds of grain,) requiring even even more energy for their maintenance while they also spew methane (agriculture is responsible for about 1/5 of total greenhouse gas emissions). Then there's water pollution and land use and all those other problems on top of the energy consumption
So, one simple way to reduce your energy consumption, even if indirectly, is to cut back on the amount of meat you eat or at least eat less energy-intensive meats (chicken or fish* instead of pork or especially beef). I'm not saying that you must go full vegan (though if you want, go for it and the maximum benefits), but you don't need meat in every meal, every day, in huge quantities so that the meal is mostly meat plus some fixings on the side. Not saying you can't have a big slab of steak on occasion, but it's probably better for you (and definitely better for your pocketbook and environmental impact) to do it only once a month instead of once a week, you understand. Most of the world goes without eating a lot of meat and they can have a perfectly fine varied and interesting diet. It's not unending boring salads.
*Wild-caught fish can have their own share of problems but that's a topic for another thread.
Industrial. Aside from the transportation related aspects you were referring to, which would be in transportation. Here's the actual EIA report (pdf) if you're interested.
Is there any way to install the automotive equivalent of 3rd rails in a street without electrocuting inattentive jaywalkers?
Some streetcars do (either using a trench that only a looped coil can really reach, or some new ones are trying magnetic induction) but it's a lot more expensive and prone to issues than basic catenary. DC is going to do it for their proposed streetcar in the monumental core, because apparently visible wires are the devil and will ruin the aesthetic of our beautiful capital city. Unlike, say, Vienna which is a piece of shit from a butt in comparison and so all those wires makes sense.
Here's what I can think of off the top of my head:
-Natural Gas is currently in a massive boom due to breakthroughs in fracking technology; this has been hailed as both a way to take a step away from coal - natural gas being the lesser of two evils - while still satisfying energy needs for the foreseeable future.
-Battery Technology is improving rapidly; metal-sulfur chemistry will double battery capacity, and metal-air chemistry will reach ten times the capacity of current batteries. Unless I'm mistaken, timelines put sulfur chemistry about five years out, and metal-air ten to fifteen years out. The advent of these batteries will mean electric vehicles will be far more feasible than they are even now (particularly cost-wise), and could very well displace cars with combustion engines entirely.
-Solar: price is falling like a rock and efficiency is steadily climbing; a possible endgame is having solar be so cheap it doesn't make sense to not include it in building projects.
-Nuclear: solid and ever-improving technology especially with regards to safety, but too many people are afraid of it.
-Fusion: ITER is still fifteen to twenty years out, but a Lockheed Martin skunkworks project is going to attempt a 100 Megawatt test in 2017 with a different design that they have found promising in laboratory testing. According to that press release, if successful they would be able to begin selling said reactors in 2022.
-Orbital Solar: I believe some test plants are planned for testing within a decade, but nothing really large-scale.
1) Fracking, like all mining operations, leads to significant changes in the environment.
2) Only if these technologies pan out.
3) Current generation silicon solar cells have more than bottomed out in price due to competition from China. Some of the major manufacturers of silicon solar cells are going out of business because they've been dumping on the American and other markets for so long. It is my opinion that the price will rise quite a bit in the next year or two.
4) Only Americans and Japanese are that fearful of nuclear power. Western Europe uses it extensively and continues development. Nuclear power won't grow globally, however, because of international fears of nuclear weapons developments growing from nuclear power generation.
5) Again, only if the technologies pan out.
6) Not even up to the point of near-future technological breakthroughs required.
Geez, if we're going to be that pessimistic we might as well just give up now. I can tell everyone here right now: there will be no having cake and eating it too in this with respect to getting off of fossil fuels. The only reason any economy will ever choose to shift from fossil fuels is if the alternative is cheaper or there are no fossil fuels left. Until such a time as this occurs, fossil fuels will be the dominant source of energy on Earth. Not even realistic legislation among first world countries will stop this from being the case, as export markets will still exist to the third world.
edit - oh, and on 4) you forgot about Germany
edit^2 - for clarity
I am pessimistic. Every US President for the past 40 years has promised to develop energy independence. It still hasn't happened. And when someone tells me that in ten years, batteries will have ten times the capacity, I take it with a grain of salt. It's not that I don't believe that batteries will become more efficient, but that an order of magnitude improvement is rather extreme. It depends on a major breakthrough to make the metal-air batteries viable, and not incremental development which is more predictable.
4) I consider Germany to be part of Western Europe. Both from the WWII/Cold War perspective (West Germany) and from the modern industrial perspective.
It really bothers me that Skyrim (Germany) generates more solar power than we do. America needs to exploit its desert wastelands to show those dragon yelling germans what for.
We actually produce MORE power via green methods, but they do it more per capita. However, we have far more capability to produce wind and solar than practically any country in the world due to our completely unique wind-swathed midwest that has, as far as I know, no foreign analogue. Although I haven't found anything solid, I find it hard to believe we couldn't potentially power the entire country with the amount of energy exerted through the force of wind, especially if we start using more efficient models of turbine and even elevating turbine heights where midwest winds are incredibly consistent and very, very fast (If I remember correctly the windspeeds at 150+ meters in the midwest and southern plains are frequently hurricane force).
The open Steppe? With fleet horses, falcons, and windswept hair.
Is there any way to install the automotive equivalent of 3rd rails in a street without electrocuting inattentive jaywalkers?
Some streetcars do (either using a trench that only a looped coil can really reach, or some new ones are trying magnetic induction) but it's a lot more expensive and prone to issues than basic catenary. DC is going to do it for their proposed streetcar in the monumental core, because apparently visible wires are the devil and will ruin the aesthetic of our beautiful capital city. Unlike, say, Vienna which is a piece of shit from a butt in comparison and so all those wires makes sense.
Main reason I was looking at in-ground is because I'd like to see something that could be applied to personal and commercial vehicles, as well as mass transit.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
I think high speed third rail systems would be better on highways, both for travel time, traffic control, and oil reduction.
I think high speed third rail systems would be better on highways, both for travel time, traffic control, and oil reduction.
They'd be pretty much required. You could make an overhead system that could accommodate a commercial truck (13'6" minimum clearance, not counting oversize loads), but I wouldn't want to see the rig that allowed a regular car to link up to something that far off the ground. I certainly wouldn't want to see one on a windy day.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
- John Stuart Mill
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
Actually people were already switching in droves. The federal law is just to make the switch 100% because there's no reason to coddle the holdouts.
Here's what I can think of off the top of my head:
-Natural Gas is currently in a massive boom due to breakthroughs in fracking technology; this has been hailed as both a way to take a step away from coal - natural gas being the lesser of two evils - while still satisfying energy needs for the foreseeable future.
-Battery Technology is improving rapidly; metal-sulfur chemistry will double battery capacity, and metal-air chemistry will reach ten times the capacity of current batteries. Unless I'm mistaken, timelines put sulfur chemistry about five years out, and metal-air ten to fifteen years out. The advent of these batteries will mean electric vehicles will be far more feasible than they are even now (particularly cost-wise), and could very well displace cars with combustion engines entirely.
-Solar: price is falling like a rock and efficiency is steadily climbing; a possible endgame is having solar be so cheap it doesn't make sense to not include it in building projects.
-Nuclear: solid and ever-improving technology especially with regards to safety, but too many people are afraid of it.
-Fusion: ITER is still fifteen to twenty years out, but a Lockheed Martin skunkworks project is going to attempt a 100 Megawatt test in 2017 with a different design that they have found promising in laboratory testing. According to that press release, if successful they would be able to begin selling said reactors in 2022.
-Orbital Solar: I believe some test plants are planned for testing within a decade, but nothing really large-scale.
1) Fracking, like all mining operations, leads to significant changes in the environment.
2) Only if these technologies pan out.
3) Current generation silicon solar cells have more than bottomed out in price due to competition from China. Some of the major manufacturers of silicon solar cells are going out of business because they've been dumping on the American and other markets for so long. It is my opinion that the price will rise quite a bit in the next year or two.
4) Only Americans and Japanese are that fearful of nuclear power. Western Europe uses it extensively and continues development. Nuclear power won't grow globally, however, because of international fears of nuclear weapons developments growing from nuclear power generation.
5) Again, only if the technologies pan out.
6) Not even up to the point of near-future technological breakthroughs required.
Geez, if we're going to be that pessimistic we might as well just give up now. I can tell everyone here right now: there will be no having cake and eating it too in this with respect to getting off of fossil fuels. The only reason any economy will ever choose to shift from fossil fuels is if the alternative is cheaper or there are no fossil fuels left. Until such a time as this occurs, fossil fuels will be the dominant source of energy on Earth. Not even realistic legislation among first world countries will stop this from being the case, as export markets will still exist to the third world.
edit - oh, and on 4) you forgot about Germany
edit^2 - for clarity
I am pessimistic. Every US President for the past 40 years has promised to develop energy independence. It still hasn't happened. And when someone tells me that in ten years, batteries will have ten times the capacity, I take it with a grain of salt. It's not that I don't believe that batteries will become more efficient, but that an order of magnitude improvement is rather extreme. It depends on a major breakthrough to make the metal-air batteries viable, and not incremental development which is more predictable.
4) I consider Germany to be part of Western Europe. Both from the WWII/Cold War perspective (West Germany) and from the modern industrial perspective.
The jump from primarily NiMH systems to Lithium Ion was a doubling in capacity, and Lithium Sulfur is already entering demonstration runs on things like solar aircraft (application that needs very high energy density to fly long-range). Development of new batteries and new battery chemistries is a given based on multiple major economic sectors' demand, and will not abate until hard physical limitations are encountered. And again, you missed the bit where Germany - a Western European country - decided to permanently shut down all of their nuclear plants after the Fukushima disaster by 2022.
Is there any way to install the automotive equivalent of 3rd rails in a street without electrocuting inattentive jaywalkers?
Some streetcars do (either using a trench that only a looped coil can really reach, or some new ones are trying magnetic induction) but it's a lot more expensive and prone to issues than basic catenary. DC is going to do it for their proposed streetcar in the monumental core, because apparently visible wires are the devil and will ruin the aesthetic of our beautiful capital city. Unlike, say, Vienna which is a piece of shit from a butt in comparison and so all those wires makes sense.
Seattle has a whole fleet of electric buses that run on overhead lines. It's really not that big a deal and shouldn't be that big of a deal in places that have overhead power lines anyway for their houses and businesses.
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
Except that's not what the law did. It just said you need x efficient(which was also achieved via incandescent means), kinda like fuel efficiency standards for cars, emmisions standards for cars and power plants, and antipollution standards for factories and refineries.
*shrug* we can and will force people when pure economics don't, and thankfully companies like selling cars in California.
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
This is actually just an example of human stupidity and short-shortsightedness.
Florescent are actually more cost effective than incandescent even though the up-front cost may be greater.
People need to be taught to look at the total-cost-of-ownership of absolutely everything they buy, rather than just the up-front cost. Most people only look at the up-front costs.
Again, teaching people about TCO and encouraging people to buy smart is not good for those who make $Texas off of dumb consumers in our disposable consumer culture.
Honestly significantly upping costs on same-day freight would be a good way to reduce petroleum use, though it would utterly fuck my business.
You know what might solve that issue for you? Shifting your business into
THERMAL DEPOLYMERIZATION!
Alchemy works?
It does indeed.
The company that patented TDP went out of business because they gambled (poorly) on a shitty feedstock setup and the locals hated the plant because it smelled like, well, an oil refinery and an offal field on top of each other, which is basically what it was. If instead of running the whole damn thing on turkey guts (which they assumed they'd be able to get cheaply because they thought it was about to be banned as animal feed due to mad cow scares - like I said, they gambled poorly) you put up a TDP plant instead of a municipal waste incinerator, you'd generate enough Texas Light Sweet Crude to turn the US from a net importer to a net exporter.
Terrible for the environment, though.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
This is actually just an example of human stupidity and short-shortsightedness.
Florescent are actually more cost effective than incandescent even though the up-front cost may be greater.
People need to be taught to look at the total-cost-of-ownership of absolutely everything they buy, rather than just the up-front cost. Most people only look at the up-front costs.
Again, teaching people about TCO and encouraging people to buy smart is not good for those who make $Texas off of dumb consumers in our disposable consumer culture.
Good luck with that. I think the better course is to find ways to make things cheaper. Making switching as painless as possible us the best way to get people to do it, I think.
And cost isn't enough. I know I could save money if I bought a car with a smaller engine that takes regular and gets better gas mileage. But my concern in buying a car is not fuel costs, its having a car that is fun to drive. That's why the first alternative energy car I considered was the Tesla. But that car is way too impractical.
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
This is actually just an example of human stupidity and short-shortsightedness.
Florescent are actually more cost effective than incandescent even though the up-front cost may be greater.
People need to be taught to look at the total-cost-of-ownership of absolutely everything they buy, rather than just the up-front cost. Most people only look at the up-front costs.
Again, teaching people about TCO and encouraging people to buy smart is not good for those who make $Texas off of dumb consumers in our disposable consumer culture.
Good luck with that. I think the better course is to find ways to make things cheaper. Making switching as painless as possible us the best way to get people to do it, I think.
And cost isn't enough. I know I could save money if I bought a car with a smaller engine that takes regular and gets better gas mileage. But my concern in buying a car is not fuel costs, its having a car that is fun to drive. That's why the first alternative energy car I considered was the Tesla. But that car is way too impractical.
Well, you've underscored the core of our problem as a species - our inability to grow up and be responsible, to see beyond the tips of our noses.
The nice thing about climate change, probably the only nice thing, is that it will cause us to take a long, hard look at ourselves.
People wanting to drive "fun," inefficient cars is a part of the problem. Just like people wanting beef any time, all the time is a part of the problem. People wanting to buy cheap, wasteful products is a part of the problem. Stupid human desires, instilled in us by consumer culture, by the media, are part of the problem. Most people's inability to put long-term benefit over instant gratification is part of the problem.
If all we want is cheap fun, we'll always find a way to destroy ourselves no matter what energy source we're using.
You can say "good luck with that" all you want, and I'll say "good luck" with keeping your upper class lifestyle intact throughout the time of food shortages and mass migrations and water shortages. How's that for fun?
It really bothers me that Skyrim (Germany) generates more solar power than we do. America needs to exploit its desert wastelands to show those dragon yelling germans what for.
As I understand it, the problem is that sandy/dusty areas are actually really bad locations for solar power plants, not only because of their remoteness but because the sand/dust scratches the shit out of the solar panels. Can anyone confirm this is true? If so, the optimal spot for a solar plant would be somewhere with a lot of sun but fairly humid, with no extreme whether conditions like hail or strong winds that might blow debris around. Germany's actually not bad by those metrics; not so much sun but no dust and fairly stable weather.
I am pessimistic. Every US President for the past 40 years has promised to develop energy independence. It still hasn't happened.
You are suggesting that the energy policies of Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Greater, Clinton, Bush the Lesser, and Obama are indistinguishable because they used the same label. That is more than a little problematic. It also ignores a significant amount of advances that have occurred in the past 40 years simply because they have been incremental rather than revolutionary.
I appreciate that they didn't just use the last two real data points to project out the future cost of solar generation, but man couldn't they have spelled "electricity" correctly?
I am pessimistic. Every US President for the past 40 years has promised to develop energy independence. It still hasn't happened.
You are suggesting that the energy policies of Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Greater, Clinton, Bush the Lesser, and Obama are indistinguishable because they used the same label. That is more than a little problematic. It also ignores a significant amount of advances that have occurred in the past 40 years simply because they have been incremental rather than revolutionary.
As someone who would have a vested interest in solar PV taking off for career reasons, it isn't really the answer to anything in a base-load context without significantly better transmission technology.
It's great to say that in theory (ignoring environmental impacts, etc) that you could power the entire US by covering a sub-100 square mile area of the desert southwest, but we would need some serious advances to get that power out to the east coast in a useful fashion.
Isn't there an issue with solar (and even wind) not only of base load power but the actual quality of the power being delivered?
Like in terms of power factor, frequency, quality of the electrical signal, that type of stuff (I am not an electrical engineer).
From what I have heard, Germany's conversion to mass solar/wind power has caused many problems for industrial electricity users as the quality of the electricity is lacking.
Im curious, why is the focus on PV when thermal seems to have better efficiencies and can operate throughout the day too
Dunno. I don't know enough about how thermal works to say for sure. PV is kinda weird in that one of the big benefits is the fact that it would allow you to decentralize your generation capability, but you still need economies of scale to make it affordable and de-centralizing it dramatically increases the number of adverse variables you have to deal with.
Isn't there an issue with solar (and even wind) not only of base load power but the actual quality of the power being delivered?
Like in terms of power factor, frequency, quality of the electrical signal, that type of stuff (I am not an electrical engineer).
From what I have heard, Germany's conversion to mass solar/wind power has caused many problems for industrial electricity users as the quality of the electricity is lacking.
I am a EE, but I'm not a power guy so I can't really give you a good answer on that. As an engineer, my biased guess would be that accountants made them use cheap power delivery parts that don't really meet their requirements (:P), but I'm sure there is a solution to it. But that's really all I can guess at without knowing more about how Germany has their PV stuff setup. Using PV at those latitudes is a sub-optimal solution anyway.
All I can say is that the output of the panels will be at some set DC voltage (based on the number of cells in the panel) with a variable current based on the current insolation (once you control for everything else like the cell efficiency, packaging losses, etc). Getting it onto the grid requires a bunch of stuff I never studied because I think power electronics are really, really boring :P
a5ehren on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
This is actually just an example of human stupidity and short-shortsightedness.
Florescent are actually more cost effective than incandescent even though the up-front cost may be greater.
People need to be taught to look at the total-cost-of-ownership of absolutely everything they buy, rather than just the up-front cost. Most people only look at the up-front costs.
Again, teaching people about TCO and encouraging people to buy smart is not good for those who make $Texas off of dumb consumers in our disposable consumer culture.
Good luck with that. I think the better course is to find ways to make things cheaper. Making switching as painless as possible us the best way to get people to do it, I think.
And cost isn't enough. I know I could save money if I bought a car with a smaller engine that takes regular and gets better gas mileage. But my concern in buying a car is not fuel costs, its having a car that is fun to drive. That's why the first alternative energy car I considered was the Tesla. But that car is way too impractical.
Well, you've underscored the core of our problem as a species - our inability to grow up and be responsible, to see beyond the tips of our noses.
The nice thing about climate change, probably the only nice thing, is that it will cause us to take a long, hard look at ourselves.
People wanting to drive "fun," inefficient cars is a part of the problem. Just like people wanting beef any time, all the time is a part of the problem. People wanting to buy cheap, wasteful products is a part of the problem. Stupid human desires, instilled in us by consumer culture, by the media, are part of the problem. Most people's inability to put long-term benefit over instant gratification is part of the problem.
If all we want is cheap fun, we'll always find a way to destroy ourselves no matter what energy source we're using.
You can say "good luck with that" all you want, and I'll say "good luck" with keeping your upper class lifestyle intact throughout the time of food shortages and mass migrations and water shortages. How's that for fun?
You are assuming that the costs will actually be visitors on the people making choices now. I am pretty confident that regardless of what car I or others drive or what we eat, none of the doomsday scenarios you outlined will impact me or my children. And I am a believer in science, and so fully expect that we will find ways to maintain our basic lifestyles all these sacrifices and without apocalypse. I mean, my next car may well have a 4 cyl engine, because that is what BMW has largely moved to. But these 4 cyl engines don't make you give up driving experience. They just made smaller, more efficient engines fun.
Im curious, why is the focus on PV when thermal seems to have better efficiencies and can operate throughout the day too
From what I can tell, you need a sophisticated system to turn the mirrors so they are in peak position at all times and that has only really been possible in the last decade, so even compared to PV Solar Thermal is still very young.
PV can also be put in places a Thermal plant can not, like on residential buildings, so getting them more efficient so we can put them on more areas will allow even greater surface area used.
Solar thermal though is the way I would go for large scale plants. Until a hacker turns one of them into a heat beam to shoot down satellites.
So, what about that Nuclear Power? Pretty awesome! New plants are even more safe! It will never happen in the US...
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
This is actually just an example of human stupidity and short-shortsightedness.
Florescent are actually more cost effective than incandescent even though the up-front cost may be greater.
People need to be taught to look at the total-cost-of-ownership of absolutely everything they buy, rather than just the up-front cost. Most people only look at the up-front costs.
Again, teaching people about TCO and encouraging people to buy smart is not good for those who make $Texas off of dumb consumers in our disposable consumer culture.
Good luck with that. I think the better course is to find ways to make things cheaper. Making switching as painless as possible us the best way to get people to do it, I think.
And cost isn't enough. I know I could save money if I bought a car with a smaller engine that takes regular and gets better gas mileage. But my concern in buying a car is not fuel costs, its having a car that is fun to drive. That's why the first alternative energy car I considered was the Tesla. But that car is way too impractical.
Well, you've underscored the core of our problem as a species - our inability to grow up and be responsible, to see beyond the tips of our noses.
The nice thing about climate change, probably the only nice thing, is that it will cause us to take a long, hard look at ourselves.
People wanting to drive "fun," inefficient cars is a part of the problem. Just like people wanting beef any time, all the time is a part of the problem. People wanting to buy cheap, wasteful products is a part of the problem. Stupid human desires, instilled in us by consumer culture, by the media, are part of the problem. Most people's inability to put long-term benefit over instant gratification is part of the problem.
If all we want is cheap fun, we'll always find a way to destroy ourselves no matter what energy source we're using.
You can say "good luck with that" all you want, and I'll say "good luck" with keeping your upper class lifestyle intact throughout the time of food shortages and mass migrations and water shortages. How's that for fun?
You are assuming that the costs will actually be visitors on the people making choices now. I am pretty confident that regardless of what car I or others drive or what we eat, none of the doomsday scenarios you outlined will impact me or my children. And I am a believer in science, and so fully expect that we will find ways to maintain our basic lifestyles all these sacrifices and without apocalypse. I mean, my next car may well have a 4 cyl engine, because that is what BMW has largely moved to. But these 4 cyl engines don't make you give up driving experience. They just made smaller, more efficient engines fun.
You, maybe not. Your children? Probably when theyre older and your grandchildren definitely. If the trends continue, 30-50 years down the road we could see significant changes
Im curious, why is the focus on PV when thermal seems to have better efficiencies and can operate throughout the day too
From what I can tell, you need a sophisticated system to turn the mirrors so they are in peak position at all times and that has only really been possible in the last decade, so even compared to PV Solar Thermal is still very young.
PV can also be put in places a Thermal plant can not, like on residential buildings, so getting them more efficient so we can put them on more areas will allow even greater surface area used.
Solar thermal though is the way I would go for large scale plants. Until a hacker turns one of them into a heat beam to shoot down satellites.
So, what about that Nuclear Power? Pretty awesome! New plants are even more safe! It will never happen in the US...
PV solar is interesting because it can be more residential-focused, but I expect long-term maintenance or replacement costs to be a problem. They last for a good time, but not forever. On residences, youll inevitably end up with people who just dont have the money to replace their old panels. It will also increase repair costs if they get damaged due to the not-so-nice weather in large parts of the world
Get guys. We have these great new lightbulbs. They last a really long time and save you money on energy. But they look different than you're used to, need to warm up, and don't work with dimmers.
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
This is actually just an example of human stupidity and short-shortsightedness.
Florescent are actually more cost effective than incandescent even though the up-front cost may be greater.
People need to be taught to look at the total-cost-of-ownership of absolutely everything they buy, rather than just the up-front cost. Most people only look at the up-front costs.
Again, teaching people about TCO and encouraging people to buy smart is not good for those who make $Texas off of dumb consumers in our disposable consumer culture.
Good luck with that. I think the better course is to find ways to make things cheaper. Making switching as painless as possible us the best way to get people to do it, I think.
And cost isn't enough. I know I could save money if I bought a car with a smaller engine that takes regular and gets better gas mileage. But my concern in buying a car is not fuel costs, its having a car that is fun to drive. That's why the first alternative energy car I considered was the Tesla. But that car is way too impractical.
Well, you've underscored the core of our problem as a species - our inability to grow up and be responsible, to see beyond the tips of our noses.
The nice thing about climate change, probably the only nice thing, is that it will cause us to take a long, hard look at ourselves.
People wanting to drive "fun," inefficient cars is a part of the problem. Just like people wanting beef any time, all the time is a part of the problem. People wanting to buy cheap, wasteful products is a part of the problem. Stupid human desires, instilled in us by consumer culture, by the media, are part of the problem. Most people's inability to put long-term benefit over instant gratification is part of the problem.
If all we want is cheap fun, we'll always find a way to destroy ourselves no matter what energy source we're using.
You can say "good luck with that" all you want, and I'll say "good luck" with keeping your upper class lifestyle intact throughout the time of food shortages and mass migrations and water shortages. How's that for fun?
You are assuming that the costs will actually be visitors on the people making choices now. I am pretty confident that regardless of what car I or others drive or what we eat, none of the doomsday scenarios you outlined will impact me or my children. And I am a believer in science, and so fully expect that we will find ways to maintain our basic lifestyles all these sacrifices and without apocalypse. I mean, my next car may well have a 4 cyl engine, because that is what BMW has largely moved to. But these 4 cyl engines don't make you give up driving experience. They just made smaller, more efficient engines fun.
You, maybe not. Your children? Probably when theyre older and your grandchildren definitely. If the trends continue, 30-50 years down the road we could see significant changes
Of what type? The science keeps making our old lifestyle more ecofriendly, instead of demanding sacrifices.
I would expect a permanent temperature increase and increased aridity in certain areas (particularly in the US), more water shortages exacerbated by things like growing grass in the desert and an increase in storms from the temperature increase
Posts
Trend lines already are changing.
And this ignores the fact that we're probably going to experience the largest human population to ever exist in our lifetime (until we start colonizing space) before starting to decline by about a billion people or so. Which is the biggest change in trend possible.
Running gags do. Now I just need to reference Cradle to Cradle at some point.
Oh wait...
Cool. I have been thinking lately that people *have* to be driving less, with all this communication and diversion technology we have now, but all I see anywhere is doom and gloom. Thanks for the small glimmer of hope.
- John Stuart Mill
Where's agriculture supposed to be listed? Agriculture is a major source of energy consumption. Simply making fertilizer uses a large amount of natural gas on top of the energy use to convert it to something that can be used. Then it has to be transported to the fields (burning fossil fuels) and spread on the the fields (with machines that use fossil fuels). And then most of the crop we end up converting to ethanol (even more energy to do it, making that boondoggle even more CO2 producing in the end than just burning gasoline) or feeding to animals (one pound of beef requiring seven pounds of grain,) requiring even even more energy for their maintenance while they also spew methane (agriculture is responsible for about 1/5 of total greenhouse gas emissions). Then there's water pollution and land use and all those other problems on top of the energy consumption
So, one simple way to reduce your energy consumption, even if indirectly, is to cut back on the amount of meat you eat or at least eat less energy-intensive meats (chicken or fish* instead of pork or especially beef). I'm not saying that you must go full vegan (though if you want, go for it and the maximum benefits), but you don't need meat in every meal, every day, in huge quantities so that the meal is mostly meat plus some fixings on the side. Not saying you can't have a big slab of steak on occasion, but it's probably better for you (and definitely better for your pocketbook and environmental impact) to do it only once a month instead of once a week, you understand. Most of the world goes without eating a lot of meat and they can have a perfectly fine varied and interesting diet. It's not unending boring salads.
*Wild-caught fish can have their own share of problems but that's a topic for another thread.
We actually produce MORE power via green methods, but they do it more per capita. However, we have far more capability to produce wind and solar than practically any country in the world due to our completely unique wind-swathed midwest that has, as far as I know, no foreign analogue. Although I haven't found anything solid, I find it hard to believe we couldn't potentially power the entire country with the amount of energy exerted through the force of wind, especially if we start using more efficient models of turbine and even elevating turbine heights where midwest winds are incredibly consistent and very, very fast (If I remember correctly the windspeeds at 150+ meters in the midwest and southern plains are frequently hurricane force).
Yep. And we need to stop pretending natural gas and clean coal aren't fucking the environment over, build better transmission infrastructure, and create an energy market where it is attractive to businesses. None of which we really have the political will to do, due to petro-lobbying, debt hawks, and green issues being seen as part of the liberal domain.
The technologies are things we can do, but the greater social changes required to institute it are a murkier question.
The open Steppe? With fleet horses, falcons, and windswept hair.
Industrial. Aside from the transportation related aspects you were referring to, which would be in transportation. Here's the actual EIA report (pdf) if you're interested.
Some streetcars do (either using a trench that only a looped coil can really reach, or some new ones are trying magnetic induction) but it's a lot more expensive and prone to issues than basic catenary. DC is going to do it for their proposed streetcar in the monumental core, because apparently visible wires are the devil and will ruin the aesthetic of our beautiful capital city. Unlike, say, Vienna which is a piece of shit from a butt in comparison and so all those wires makes sense.
I am pessimistic. Every US President for the past 40 years has promised to develop energy independence. It still hasn't happened. And when someone tells me that in ten years, batteries will have ten times the capacity, I take it with a grain of salt. It's not that I don't believe that batteries will become more efficient, but that an order of magnitude improvement is rather extreme. It depends on a major breakthrough to make the metal-air batteries viable, and not incremental development which is more predictable.
4) I consider Germany to be part of Western Europe. Both from the WWII/Cold War perspective (West Germany) and from the modern industrial perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-Jm-tH706qw
Main reason I was looking at in-ground is because I'd like to see something that could be applied to personal and commercial vehicles, as well as mass transit.
- John Stuart Mill
They'd be pretty much required. You could make an overhead system that could accommodate a commercial truck (13'6" minimum clearance, not counting oversize loads), but I wouldn't want to see the rig that allowed a regular car to link up to something that far off the ground. I certainly wouldn't want to see one on a windy day.
- John Stuart Mill
*crickets*
Hey guys, we took those lightbulbs and made them look like normal lightbulbs and turn on instantly and work with dimmers, but they're still more expensive.
*shrug*
It took a federal law eliminating incandescent bulbs to get people to switch. And that law kept getting pushed back further and further. If you want people to use more responsible products, you need to make those products better than the current products and be cost competitive. I don't think that lamenting people's choices is productive at all. It's on the people moving for change to make people desire their products.
Actually people were already switching in droves. The federal law is just to make the switch 100% because there's no reason to coddle the holdouts.
It's not for anything outside of highways, but yeah it's being investigated.
The jump from primarily NiMH systems to Lithium Ion was a doubling in capacity, and Lithium Sulfur is already entering demonstration runs on things like solar aircraft (application that needs very high energy density to fly long-range). Development of new batteries and new battery chemistries is a given based on multiple major economic sectors' demand, and will not abate until hard physical limitations are encountered. And again, you missed the bit where Germany - a Western European country - decided to permanently shut down all of their nuclear plants after the Fukushima disaster by 2022.
Seattle has a whole fleet of electric buses that run on overhead lines. It's really not that big a deal and shouldn't be that big of a deal in places that have overhead power lines anyway for their houses and businesses.
Except that's not what the law did. It just said you need x efficient(which was also achieved via incandescent means), kinda like fuel efficiency standards for cars, emmisions standards for cars and power plants, and antipollution standards for factories and refineries.
*shrug* we can and will force people when pure economics don't, and thankfully companies like selling cars in California.
make better electric cars
actually do these things
problem solved
This is actually just an example of human stupidity and short-shortsightedness.
Florescent are actually more cost effective than incandescent even though the up-front cost may be greater.
People need to be taught to look at the total-cost-of-ownership of absolutely everything they buy, rather than just the up-front cost. Most people only look at the up-front costs.
Again, teaching people about TCO and encouraging people to buy smart is not good for those who make $Texas off of dumb consumers in our disposable consumer culture.
It does indeed.
The company that patented TDP went out of business because they gambled (poorly) on a shitty feedstock setup and the locals hated the plant because it smelled like, well, an oil refinery and an offal field on top of each other, which is basically what it was. If instead of running the whole damn thing on turkey guts (which they assumed they'd be able to get cheaply because they thought it was about to be banned as animal feed due to mad cow scares - like I said, they gambled poorly) you put up a TDP plant instead of a municipal waste incinerator, you'd generate enough Texas Light Sweet Crude to turn the US from a net importer to a net exporter.
Terrible for the environment, though.
Good luck with that. I think the better course is to find ways to make things cheaper. Making switching as painless as possible us the best way to get people to do it, I think.
And cost isn't enough. I know I could save money if I bought a car with a smaller engine that takes regular and gets better gas mileage. But my concern in buying a car is not fuel costs, its having a car that is fun to drive. That's why the first alternative energy car I considered was the Tesla. But that car is way too impractical.
Well, you've underscored the core of our problem as a species - our inability to grow up and be responsible, to see beyond the tips of our noses.
The nice thing about climate change, probably the only nice thing, is that it will cause us to take a long, hard look at ourselves.
People wanting to drive "fun," inefficient cars is a part of the problem. Just like people wanting beef any time, all the time is a part of the problem. People wanting to buy cheap, wasteful products is a part of the problem. Stupid human desires, instilled in us by consumer culture, by the media, are part of the problem. Most people's inability to put long-term benefit over instant gratification is part of the problem.
If all we want is cheap fun, we'll always find a way to destroy ourselves no matter what energy source we're using.
You can say "good luck with that" all you want, and I'll say "good luck" with keeping your upper class lifestyle intact throughout the time of food shortages and mass migrations and water shortages. How's that for fun?
As I understand it, the problem is that sandy/dusty areas are actually really bad locations for solar power plants, not only because of their remoteness but because the sand/dust scratches the shit out of the solar panels. Can anyone confirm this is true? If so, the optimal spot for a solar plant would be somewhere with a lot of sun but fairly humid, with no extreme whether conditions like hail or strong winds that might blow debris around. Germany's actually not bad by those metrics; not so much sun but no dust and fairly stable weather.
You are suggesting that the energy policies of Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Greater, Clinton, Bush the Lesser, and Obama are indistinguishable because they used the same label. That is more than a little problematic. It also ignores a significant amount of advances that have occurred in the past 40 years simply because they have been incremental rather than revolutionary.
As someone who would have a vested interest in solar PV taking off for career reasons, it isn't really the answer to anything in a base-load context without significantly better transmission technology.
It's great to say that in theory (ignoring environmental impacts, etc) that you could power the entire US by covering a sub-100 square mile area of the desert southwest, but we would need some serious advances to get that power out to the east coast in a useful fashion.
Like in terms of power factor, frequency, quality of the electrical signal, that type of stuff (I am not an electrical engineer).
From what I have heard, Germany's conversion to mass solar/wind power has caused many problems for industrial electricity users as the quality of the electricity is lacking.
Dunno. I don't know enough about how thermal works to say for sure. PV is kinda weird in that one of the big benefits is the fact that it would allow you to decentralize your generation capability, but you still need economies of scale to make it affordable and de-centralizing it dramatically increases the number of adverse variables you have to deal with.
I am a EE, but I'm not a power guy so I can't really give you a good answer on that. As an engineer, my biased guess would be that accountants made them use cheap power delivery parts that don't really meet their requirements (:P), but I'm sure there is a solution to it. But that's really all I can guess at without knowing more about how Germany has their PV stuff setup. Using PV at those latitudes is a sub-optimal solution anyway.
All I can say is that the output of the panels will be at some set DC voltage (based on the number of cells in the panel) with a variable current based on the current insolation (once you control for everything else like the cell efficiency, packaging losses, etc). Getting it onto the grid requires a bunch of stuff I never studied because I think power electronics are really, really boring :P
You are assuming that the costs will actually be visitors on the people making choices now. I am pretty confident that regardless of what car I or others drive or what we eat, none of the doomsday scenarios you outlined will impact me or my children. And I am a believer in science, and so fully expect that we will find ways to maintain our basic lifestyles all these sacrifices and without apocalypse. I mean, my next car may well have a 4 cyl engine, because that is what BMW has largely moved to. But these 4 cyl engines don't make you give up driving experience. They just made smaller, more efficient engines fun.
From what I can tell, you need a sophisticated system to turn the mirrors so they are in peak position at all times and that has only really been possible in the last decade, so even compared to PV Solar Thermal is still very young.
PV can also be put in places a Thermal plant can not, like on residential buildings, so getting them more efficient so we can put them on more areas will allow even greater surface area used.
Solar thermal though is the way I would go for large scale plants. Until a hacker turns one of them into a heat beam to shoot down satellites.
So, what about that Nuclear Power? Pretty awesome! New plants are even more safe! It will never happen in the US...
You, maybe not. Your children? Probably when theyre older and your grandchildren definitely. If the trends continue, 30-50 years down the road we could see significant changes
PV solar is interesting because it can be more residential-focused, but I expect long-term maintenance or replacement costs to be a problem. They last for a good time, but not forever. On residences, youll inevitably end up with people who just dont have the money to replace their old panels. It will also increase repair costs if they get damaged due to the not-so-nice weather in large parts of the world
Of what type? The science keeps making our old lifestyle more ecofriendly, instead of demanding sacrifices.