A Solar Energy Solution the Global Warming Chicken Littles Will Not Consider . . .

Cool Earth Solar ^ | Solar Power 2006 Presentation | Eric Cummings

[Vigilanteman]

Three years ago our top scientists and Nobel Prize winners met in Washington in search of a solution to energy-related Global Warming. Four points came from the meeting:

- there is no solution available
- yet we must implement one by 2050
- the only power source that presents a viable solution is solar
- but solar energy is currently far too expensive.

Cool Earth was formed to solve this problem. Now. With currently available technology. We are working to reduce the cost of solar electricity by a factor of 25, making it cheaper to produce than energy from coal or other non-renewable sources. By developing a solution from minimal, low-cost materials, we aim to make solar generation as profitable as today's best investment options.

This extreme goal has led us to exactly one real and viable solution: a solar farming approach, based on concentrated photovoltaic collectors, constructed from inexpensive, widely-available plastic films.

Here's how the system works:

[Vigilanteman]

I met the founder of this company at a gathering two weeks ago. Even though his writing style indicates that he spends too much time with environmental moonbats, he is positively brilliant. He is an engineer and has a PhD from a well-respected university in this state.

While there simply aren't the details available on the website to answer all my questions, I'd like to hear everyone's take on it.

[mvpel]

Nuclear energy is a viable solution, if it weren’t for the moonbats.

[ClearCase_guy]

Define "viable".

Nuclear, solar, and methane hydrates are all worth exploring as viable alternatives to petroleum.

[DaveyB]

Forget global climate change, if he can generate electrical power cheaper than the current fossil fuel methods, he has a viable enterprise for profit. Let the chicken little kooks worry about the falling sky - proving power cheaper is a benefit to all and will no doubt reap a tidy profit.

[Jeff Chandler]

if he can generate electrical power cheaper than the current fossil fuel methods, he has a viable enterprise for profit.

Bingo!

[PEACE ENFORCER]

“We are working to reduce the cost of solar electricity by a factor of 25”
.
Didn’t know these guys had access to a “Magic Wand” ....shazaam ITS CHEAPER....done. Amazing, what’s stopping them from aiming their wand at THE SUN ?????? You Know that BIG FIREBALL in the sky that provides some of the best weather (I prefer warmth) the planet has ever seen since the dawn of man????

[Always Right]

What rules out nuclear power???? These experts are idiots.

[expatpat]

The power demand for the USA is somewhere around 1015 watts . The amount of energy available from the sun is around 103 watts per sq. meter. So you would need around 1012 sq. meters for your solar farms. That is more or less a million sq. miles -- an area 1000milesx1000miles square. Good luck......

[RC2]

25 times less expensive? Last I checked, it would cost me about $30,000 to power a 2000 sq foot house. I’d like to see comparable costs. Anyone seen these?

[expatpat]

The power demand for the USA is somewhere around 10 to the 15 watts. The amount of energy available from the sun is around 1000 watts per sq. meter. So you would need around 10 to the 12 sq. meters for your solar farms. That is more or less a million sq. miles — an area 1000milesx1000miles square. Good luck......

[NeilGus]

My brother is in the power business. Every time someone talks with him about solar power he points out that solar is in DECLINE.

In the 50’s everyone hung the laundry out to dry on a clothes line. Now almost no one does. He asks if they hang their cloths on the clothes line to dry and when they say they don’t, he asks why they don’t support solar power.

[Spktyr]

If you put the panels in orbit and beamed the power down, it would work a lot better, but nooooooooo.....

[ari-freedom]

NIMBY. You have no problem putting gas in your car but I think you’d have a pretty big problem with a nuclear reactor next door.

[norwaypinesavage]

"A Solar Energy Solution"

Before you can have a solution, you must define the problem. There are several: Reliance on Arab countries for energy; Conventional pollution such as acid rain, particulates, & nitrous oxides; Gases that are said to produce global warming; Increasing demand for energy; Running out of oil; etc. Each of these problems has different solutions. The resistance to most solutions is political, not technical. I generally find these one size fits all solutions to be not as helpful as advertised.

[Always Right]

NIMBY. You have no problem putting gas in your car but I think you’d have a pretty big problem with a nuclear reactor next door.

Bull crap. I would love to have one nearby. My dad lives fairly close to one and they get huge tax breaks. There is nothing wrong with nuclear power.

[GreenAccord]

NIMBY. You have no problem putting gas in your car but I think you’d have a pretty big problem with a nuclear reactor next door.

Let's be realistic. When it comes to backyards, none of us wants ANY power generation facility in it. Solar, wind, nuclear, all/any of it.

As for a nuclear facility, I'm perfectly fine with one built a short distance from the city center, as long as it is located predominantly downwind from the main population area. That would be common sense, right?

[Vigilanteman]

People: We realy need to read the entire article, including the presentation link before commenting. I'm neither a scientist nor an engineer, though I work with both.

Dr. Cumming's key concept is abandoning the traditional flat solar panels. You get a lot more surface area out of a balloon rather than the traditional two-dimensional model. I don't think the guy is stupid. He may actually be on to something.

All I'm asking is that people read the article, including the presentation link, before they comment. Fair enough?

[Vigilanteman]

In the 50’s everyone hung the laundry out to dry on a clothes line. Now almost no one does.

You can actually save a bit of money with a clothes line. Air dried clothes also smell a lot nicer. We did it when we lived in Japan until we got rich enough to afford a clothes dryer. Mrs. Vigilanteman quit because of the greater convenience offered by the clothes dryer. We still have a lot of clothesline strung in the basement-- as much for storage purposes as for drying purposes.

A lot of people in the United States don't have that choice due to nazi homeowner associations who don't think clotheslines look nice.

[JamesP81]

The only way solar is really going to work is to put the panels in a high orbit so that they always face the sun. Our atmosphere filters out most of the sun’s energy before it reaches the ground. Not a problem with orbital collectors.

[ari-freedom]

really, you would have no problem if there is an accident or terror attack?

[Kirkwood]

“In the 50’s everyone hung the laundry out to dry on a clothes line. “

In the 50s there were housewives who worked taking care of the home during the day.

[King David]

Another company, First Solar, is already making solar panels that are being used by multiple countries to create energy. They went public around the last week of Nov., 2006 @ $24/share. Just last week, the stock was trading at $123 before the market began making a correction, lowering the FSLR stock to about $100. Even so... over 300% ROI in 8 months is not too damn bad.

The founder of Cool Solar is probably just trying to get in on the bandwagon, but he’s not the first one to come up with the idea.

His suggestion that they can produce energy at the costs he indicated are probably still many years off before it becomes a reality.

[Ditto]

While there simply aren't the details available on the website to answer all my questions, I'd like to hear everyone's take on it.

There are no details on the web site. Just a vague idea from what I can see.

There isn't much to discuss.

[chimera]

I looked at the slide show. He still doesn’t say what you do when the sun goes down, which in my area of the world it tends to do once each day.

[SlowBoat407]

He still doesn’t say what you do when the sun goes down, which in my area of the world it tends to do once each day.

Move...

Constantly.

[Boiler Plate]

Did you mean 1015 GigaWatts?

[Lee'sGhost]

I’m for that.

[ckilmer]

This fall the cost of photo voltaics will drop in half or more as new plants come online.

Within 5 years the cost of retail photovoltaics to produce electric power at home will the be same as the cost of wholesale coal powered electrical generation.

[expatpat]

No, I meant 10 exp 15 or a billion Megawatts. That includes all energy required for transportation and household uses.

[narby]

really, you would have no problem if there is an accident or terror attack?

Nuclear pebble bed reactors that are likely to be built in the future are about as safe as anything can get. It's just a hunking pile of pool que ball sized balls in a tank. Turn off the cooling. No problem, it just gets a bit hot. Blow it up, and you've got a yard full of balls that you scoop up. No problem.

Pebble bed reactors were some of the first type proposed 50 years ago, but because steam turbine reactors put out more energy that's what we ended up with. So what. Build more of them. They are literally safer than hydrocarbon electric plants, because they don't put out flue gases of any kind.

[Mesogen]

Nuclear fuel requires coal or something else to produce it. But once it's produced, it goes a long way.

But solar will be getting cheaper very soon.http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i31/8531notw4.html (might need subscription)

Solar Energy Advances

New technology should lead to increased supplies ...

Using new technology, Wacker Chemie plans to build a solar-grade granular polysilicon production facility at its site in Burghausen, Germany. The 650-metric-ton-per-year plant should come on-line at the end of 2008 and will manufacture the polysilicon used to make solar wafers in a continuous fluidized-bed process.

The firm first announced two years ago that it had developed the process as an alternative to the batch production procedure now more widely used to make polysilicon for both semiconductors and solar cells. ...

Along with the investment, Q-Cells committed to supplying Solaria with enough cells to generate 1.35 gigawatts of power over the next 10 years. Using its "cell multiplication technology," Solaria will double the output of cells it obtains by slicing them into thin strips and reassembling them to double the surface area they cover. The technology includes packaging the cells under an optical concentrator to focus more sunlight on them.

[Edward Watson]

Well, depends. What is the cost/watt and per kwh? What kind of support infrastructure is needed? What is the learning/technology curve? How much will a turnkey system come out to, say a 100 MW plant?

Lots of questions and the website is very unhelpful.

Still, I hope the project is viable - I really want to go into energy production when the price falls a bit more and when the technology isn’t so complicated.

[Duke Phelan]

Here is a nice little solar company that is trying to get the cost per Kilowatt down to 5 cents. They do this by inkjet printing solar conductive ink onto metal roofing.

Need a new roof? Install a metal one with a small extra cost for the solar ink and BADA BOOM, solar powered home that turns your utility meter backwards during the day while you are at work.

Building a new house, industrial facility, warehouse? Metal standing seam metal roof with printed solar panel.

You can get federal tax breaks for up to $2,500 towards the cost of a solar system. Some States offer their own solar tax rebates that can end up giving you back 30% of the installation cost in tax deductions.

http://www.nanosolar.com/index.html

What some people don’t know is, the best way to take advantage of solar energy and save utility bills is to install a solar water heater on your roof. Free heated water during the day. If you have a pool go with a solar pool water heater and save even more in utility bills while still getting a tax deduction.

http://www.solreliant.com/

http://www.suntreksolar.com/solarPoolSystems/

Al Gore should use the solar pool heater instead of the gas heated system he has. What a waste of money to heat all that water with gas when it could be done for free every day by the sun.

Have ventilation problems with your attic being too hot? Solar attic vent that works during the day when the sun is out. No batteries or electrical connections needed.

http://www.hotattic.com/

Or save electricity from light use with LED lights or Solar Tubes.

http://solatube.com/homeowner/index.php

http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx

I personally like the solar tubes. They are the easiest solution to adding bright light to a dark kitchen, hallway, bathroom, office building, or warehouse without even using any electricity for lighting during the day.

There are lots of ways to reduce energy use without the government mandating it.

[Colorado Doug]

bump for later

[Boiler Plate]

That seems to be high for power consumption (ie kW). Are you sure you don’t mean yearly energy consumption (ie kW/Hr)?

[Boiler Plate]

That seems to be high for power consumption (ie kW). Are you sure you don’t mean yearly energy consumption (ie kW/Hr)?

[expatpat]

In 1979, the total energy consumption was estimated as about 10^20 J/year, and it’s grown quite a bit since then. Let’s say about 10^18 J/day nowadays.
According to my calculations, there are about 3x10^4 seconds of useful daylight in the winter (ah, I think I blew an order of magnitude on that one), so we need about 3x10^13 watts.

I made an error in my BOTE calculation, so its 30 million megawatts, not a billion. Still a lot of energy, and a lot of square miles full of light-collectors!

[WOSG]

- there is no solution available
YES THERE IS. NUCLEAR ENERGY.

- yet we must implement one by 2050
BUILD 20 PLANTS A YEAR. IN 20 YEARS YOU HAVE 400 PLANTS, ENOUGH TO REPLACE ALL OUR COAL PLANTS. CO2 GENERATION IS CUT IN HALF, GLOBAL WARMING SOLVED.

- the only power source that presents a viable solution is solar
WRONG. NUCLEAR POWER IS SAFE, ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND, AND COST-EFFECTIVE.

- but solar energy is currently far too expensive.
SO DON’T USE IT. USE NUCLEAR POWER FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS.

[curiosity]

I'd much rather have a nuke plant next door to me than a coal plant or gas powered plant. I'd rather have a nuke plant next door than a hydro plant in the nearest river blocking the salmon runs and ruining the fishing. I'd rather have a nuke plant next door than the countryside cluttered with eyssores, otherwise known as solar panels and windmills.

[Mesogen]

Nuclear Power still has its problems. The fuel production process is energy intesive (but you get way more energy out than you put in). And then there is the ultimate disposal problem. Nobody wants radioactive waste stored in their backyard.This page explains the whole cycle.

So nuclear power is something that can be used for a long time, but there is only so much U-235 in the world. But maybe by the time we run out, we'll have figured out sustained fusion power.

[WOSG]

“The fuel production process is energy intesive (but you get way more energy out than you put in).”

There is so much more energy per Kg for nuclear fuel than other kinds of fuel that the amount of energy to mine and process a particular Joule of nuclear fuel is a lot *less* than with any other fuel source. Compare how much energy it takes to make a hydro plant or a wind plant or get coal out of the ground - nuclear is the MOST EFFICIENT in terms of energy inputs versus outputs. So your statement

In the end the key question is cost - nuclear fuel cost is a very small part of nuclear costs overall.

“And then there is the ultimate disposal problem. Nobody wants radioactive waste stored in their backyard.”

Which is why of course that is *NOT* what is being done. nuclear fuel is a safely stored on site at nuclear power plants, and can be safely stored for eons at remote sites underground. Yucca Mountain is an extremely over-engineered solution. But even that is unnecessary as the spent fuel (ie ‘nuclear waste’) is not realyl waste at all, but is fuel that in a most environmentally sound application would be recycled, just like aluminum cans are recycled. Recycling spent nuclear fuel is not done today because of the economics - nuclear fuel is so cost-effective and cheap, its hard for recycling to compete. But wait 100 years and ‘spent nuclear fuel’ loses 99.999% of its radioactivity while retaining all of its actinides, ready for reuse; so it can be reused and extended by a factor of 60 or more in ‘actinide-burning’ reactors.

In the end, the real fuel cycle will not end up in a ‘repository’ but all the fuel will get recycled until it is all used up. The remaining radioactive ‘products’ are dangerous for much shorter half lives (max 300 years), and the amount of waste for the whole country would be smaller than a single football field.

“So nuclear power is something that can be used for a long time, but there is only so much U-235 in the world.”
We have practically unlimited supplies considering the true geological abundances, not just uranium but thorium, can be used for fuel. When used in a ‘breeder/burner’ fashion, where all the U-238, Th-232 etc is used properly, it could last (even at 10X current use rates) for a million years!
Yes, I somehow expect that fusion power will be worked out well before we ever run out of nuclear fuel.