Big breakthrough on solar power?
posted at 6:20 pm on August 1, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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A research team at MIT claims they have discovered a process that will make solar power practical for mass production of energy, even when the sun doesn’t shine. Using photosynthesis as a guide, the team believes it has discovered the “nirvana” of exploiting the sun’s power to generate a reliable, stable, and safe source for electricity:
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today’s announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.
Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. “This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.”
Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun’s energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.
I’ve been through the cold-fusion roller coaster before, so color me skeptical at the moment. The study got published yesterday, and Nocera and Kanan will have to endure the scrutiny of their peers. However, if this works and is as cheap as people believe, it could revolutionize energy production, at least for certain applications.
Solar energy’s drawback has always been storage. Solar cells produce electricity with good efficiency when the sun shines, but at night or under overcast conditions, production becomes unreliable. The same is true for other environmental-based alternatives such as wind power, hydro, and other “boutique” offerings, as the article calls them. Fuel cells work well, but the big problem is in generating the hydrogen cheaply and efficiently. Current electrolyzers were either too expensive or used dangerous and damaging materials.
This solution combines the best of both worlds. When the sun shines, the photovoltaic energy can produce enough electricity to power a house or a car as well as photosynthesize the elements of a fuel cell. Instead of storing electrical energy in a battery, the fuel cell retains the elements needed to provide power when the solar panels or wind turbines drop production rates.
If this pans out, it could decentralize electrical production and allow each household to run independently from the grid, or even sell excess power back to the grid as some do now. Electric vehicles would become much more practical with fuel cells rather than massive batteries, and distribution of fuel-cell hydrogen would no longer be required. It could spell an end to most emissions problems and make the US completely independent of all foreign oil sources in a short period of time.
That is, of course, a mighty big if. It could also be cold fusion. We need to continue drilling oil in the near term to ensure energy security and protect our economy. But it’s worth watching.
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Even if we make the wild assumption that this discovery turns out to be anywhere near as as significant as the hype claims it to be, it really has nothing to do with solar power at all.
It’s all about mass storage of electricity. And, since nuclear reactors run 24/7, storing a tiny fraction of the power from a nuclear reactor can smooth out the demand curve, so you don’t need as much backup generation from “evil” carbon-generating coal and oil plants.
But, even beyond that, the whole thing is completely ridiculous. If energy storage were the only problem with solar energy, Al Gore would be giving speeches about how “big sun” is the greatest evil facing the world today.
We’ve always had the capability to store massive amounts of energy: just pump water to a cistern at the top of a hill and let it run back down through a turbine. That’s about 90% efficient, and it’s a thousand times cheaper than storing gigantic amounts of hydrogen gas.
logis on August 2, 2008 at 7:18 PM
Depending on the isotope, however, the half-life can be quite long.
MrLynn on August 2, 2008 at 7:38 PM
You folks are now quoting “wiki”… whilst previously; actually attacking the bonifides of a Prof at MIT?
You all… must be from Florida State!
No doubt! ;)
J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 7:41 PM
Been there, done that, here’s how. It’s not 90% efficient either. The plant featured in the link has a slightly greater capacity than Hoover dam. Oh, and for all you folks out there worring about hydrogen being so dangerous. Did you know that most modern generators use hydrogen under pressure as a cooling medium. Lots of it.
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 8:12 PM
I forgot to add, just for any enviro-weenies lurking around here, when a power plant shuts down for maintenance the hydrogen in those generators is purged out…with carbon dioxide! Lots of it straight out into the sky! Then when it’s time to gas up the generator again the carbon dioxide is purged with hydrogen so it’s a double dipper. In the course of my career I’ve pumped more carbon into the atmosphere than all the cars in LA!
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 8:27 PM
[logis on August 2, 2008 at 7:18 PM]
Agreed. I may have brought it a little off topic with concentrating on the solar power aspect, not the energy storage aspect, but the story inextricably linked the two. Aside from the fact that there is no practical reason to build a solar power plant, I was trying to point out why in the heck we would want to use a terribly inefficient method of energy production to create the energy stored.
This storage breakthrough doesn’t help solar at all, except maybe on the isolated, independent, residential level. On the commercial level or power generation industry level, why fluctuate the solar when you can fluctuate the gas, diesel or coal power. So, on other than the residential level, why put a battery anywhere near an inefficient solar collector array much less one that doesn’t really produce an excess to begin with.
I will grant that this is still good news. It is possible in 100 or 200 years the tech will be at such an advanced state that we will be all solar. I’m just not interested in seeing it be part of our energy generation policy at any time in the next 50 years.
Dusty on August 2, 2008 at 8:30 PM
So Oldnuke, despite all the hubris and guffaws heard well ‘round here…I’m not either a chemical engineer or a biologist but; this new approach to the storage of latent energy and efficient recovery seems totally plausible.
There it was in plain view, a natural sequence of both storage and utilization. It required the genius and common sense of a brilliant research team to first; understand it’s potential and finally define and refine it’s practical application with respect to the trillions of BTU’s that rain down upon us earthlings daily!
Ten, even twenty years is the blink of an eye in nature’s cycle.
Drive on !
J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 8:34 PM
[J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 7:41 PM]
Sorry, Son, not quite sure where I attacked a Prof, or attacked anyone else.
Maybe you could quote my “attack”?
I do stand by the point of my first post: Solar power is all too often sold as “this box makes 100 watts (in full sun)” then that is compared to a “box” that makes 100 watts 24/7. Bad comparison.
I have not said anything about electrolysis or hydrogen storage.
But I’ll venture a comment on full cells:
The only commercially available (I mean a retail package, not an OEM component) FC I’ve seen (but it was 4 or 5 years ago, so maybe it’s all better now) produced 1KW from very pure H, had a predicted lifetime of 1500 hours and cost about $5K.
Oh, if anyone wonders why I care about the solar debate: I live off-grid. This post was solar powered.
The next poor bugger who says: “The Sun makes FREE power” is gonna pay me $50K to make my solar power “free”.
I’d share my real opinion of solar with you all, but this is somewhat family-friendly blog, so I’d better not…
Rodent on August 2, 2008 at 8:43 PM
If you’re talking about the Bath pumped storage plant it was just the most cost effective solution to a real industry problem. Nukes don’t load follow very well they need to run at full capacity steady state all the time. We had four large nukes that we wanted to run all the time. The problem was what to do with all that power. The answer was pump water up a hill and then let it back down again. Bath is in effect a very large aqueous electrical storage system. It pretty much all boiled down to money and how to make the most of it.
Why, personal preference or location?
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 8:55 PM
Despite even the eternal pessimists conception of new reality…
Dusty olde boye, I’m a geezer at six score and nine. My family has been attempting to integrate alternative sources of energy into our lives since 1980 when we built our earthsheltered, passively solar heated home on a south facing slope in southwestern, Wisconsin.
Since that day we have been in a diligent search of ever better or newer concepts to integrate and utilize Mother Nature’s veritable cornucopia of available energy into both our lives and those of our friends and neighbors.
This new conceptual approach for storage and utilization of latent energy from MIT may easily rival and even eclipse any revolution mankind has ever experienced.
J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 8:57 PM
If this pans out, it could theoretically end up being part of a minor step on the road to a hydrogen-based energy economy – in something like the timeline you suggest.
But, again, my point is that this has absolutely NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with solar power.
And I thought you were agreeing with that:
logis on August 2, 2008 at 8:58 PM
[Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 8:12 PM]
Both points spot-on.
If, say 120 years ago, someone had told me that we were going to build an infrastructure based on refining, transporting, dispensing and worst of all storing, inside a hundred million carriage-houses, billions of gallons of gasoline, well, I’d have had them committed. Everyone already knew the dangers of a kerosene lamp, and kerosene (today known as jet fuel) is ever so much tamer than gasoline.
Rodent on August 2, 2008 at 8:59 PM
You do realize that six score and 9 is 129 right?
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 9:00 PM
Oldnuke, I believe your issue was with, “logis”..?
J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 9:08 PM
It’s an olde soldier’s thing between me and Abraham.
J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 9:10 PM
[Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 8:55 PM]
Location.
And ignorance. (Now somewhat rectified.)
Thought I’d buy a nice place away from it all, fix it up, wait to retire to really move there, maybe by then the power lines would be closer, or, gee, maybe I could put in a few of those spiffy PV panels. Wellll, first thing I found out was scummy thieves mean you can’t just set aside a retirement place. So I moved way early. Then I started finding out just how much fun solar really is.
The only thing in my favor is a background in electrical engineering, and a fair hand with mechanical engineering, so I haven’t had to pay contractors to install stuff.
(Pardon to all HA for the personal data-dump…)
Rodent on August 2, 2008 at 9:11 PM
No, there wasn’t any problem. I was just clarifying why Bath was built. It was in reply to your comment.
We never really considered it the result of a brilliant research team, although it was, we just had a problem and we fixed it. Sorry if I came across as having an issue, didn’t mean it that way.
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 9:17 PM
OK, who are you arguing with now? Did someone accuse you of not being a senile, numerically illiterate crackpot?
Dude, give it a rest. Trust me: your reputation is safe.
logis on August 2, 2008 at 9:18 PM
:-) Uh, Ok but I’d have thought Methuselah at 129!
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 9:20 PM
Yeow! How much can you power on solar? Can’t be a lot. I guess a diesel generator wouldn’t be cost effective. You can sometimes talk the utility into running a line out to you.
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 9:27 PM
Rodent I salute you!
Off the Grid!
WOW!
Ultimate nirvana!
50K baby, piece of cake!
Our dearly beloved “govmint” has subsidized the nuclear power industry in our great country to the tune of billions of dollars.
First: All the water use and land rights.
Second: All the insurance liability… to any number of billions!
Third: Where are we the people today…Oh Yeah, the owners are millionaires!
Forth: We get their nuclear poop in our backyards!
How much better to spend the trillions if necessary… [Think the War in Iraq] on the individual users ‘off the grid” with solar and wind… then feeding the billionaires with thousands of lobbyists who haven’t got a clue and will never solve the problem of energy independence, for either you or my family!
J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 9:32 PM
[J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 8:57 PM]
Not eternal pessimist, J. I realist. That is why I note, not once but twice, residential use aside. It is also why, I have optimistic expectations for solar in the future and am not confining what I can envision in ways, a CEO of IBM might, when he suggests that powerful computers the size of rooms will never fit on one’s lap.
And even while you note you make this effort in a passive hobbit hill, please tell me on what timeframe you suggest we convert the 100M wood frame homes to those nice energy efficient things you have? Ten years so we can match the wildly optimistic solar and battery storage tech development curve?
Yes, this is a harbinger of a possible revolution. I’m saying it’s advent is about 100 years. I must say however I admire your Patrick Henry like devotion to it. It’s great to be reminded of exactly what free independent initiative can do.
I’m curious, what’s your return on investment been like?
Dusty on August 2, 2008 at 9:42 PM
My commet below was in respect to the new approach precieved and advanced by the folks at MIT.
She who must be obeyed often cajoles me…
How was that again, what were you referring too?
I must apologize for being so obtuse!
I further thank you for your patience.
J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 9:46 PM
I was, expect as I noted, the story seemed to be inextricably linked to solar power. I was showing, and noted in that comment that it shouldn’t be. That’s why indicated that, at this point, there’s no reason to put a battery (or H2-O2 tanks) anywhere near a solar power array.
Dusty on August 2, 2008 at 9:46 PM
I didn’t get the idea that Rodent was exactly thrilled about being off the grid. He may not share your idea of nirvana, but I could be wrong.
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 9:48 PM
Damn, I’m in typo mode now.
Dusty on August 2, 2008 at 9:53 PM
OK, you’re talking about solar power again? You do realize that in 100 years we will (hopefully) be using ten times as much power as we’re using now – right?
Let’s assume the Hobbit is right, and we can magically get 100% efficiency from solar power by then. There are moonbats crying themselves to sleep every night over the thought of a measly few thousand acres of harmless strip mining. What’s going to happen when that turns into tens of thousands of square miles of ecology utterly deprived of sunlight?
Even SANE people would complain about the worldwide ecological collapse that would result from that.
logis on August 2, 2008 at 9:54 PM
And here I thought you were a reasonable fella. You know you are channeling a guy whose name I will not mention which starts with a, ends with e and has lphi in between. :-)
Dusty on August 2, 2008 at 9:57 PM
[Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 9:27 PM]
Heh. About 2Kw in bright sun with cloud-bounce. Happens 5 minutes per month. Call it 1.5Kw full sun, average year-round to maybe 300 or 400 watts 24/7, and that’s with the panels on trackers.
So if you see a late night post from me, yes, I’m writing to the purr of Mr. Diesel’s fabulous invention. Burn anywhere from 10 to 50 gallons/month in make-up power, and that is with turning the ‘fridge off at sundown, and having the inverters drop offline at some point every night.
Last year I had the littlest genset (tiny 3KW, 48DC) set up to run from 0100-0200 every night. I had inventory that could not power down, so I just had to bite the fuel bill.
Yes, Sir, I have 60 acres out front: Bring. It. Here.
Hot, please.
I’ll build the worlds biggest RTG, and run a wet dual-loop out for winter heat. (I’m only half kidding, too.)
Rodent on August 2, 2008 at 9:59 PM
[logis on August 2, 2008 at 9:54 PM]
I am going to change my nome de plume to Solarlogis just to irk you!
Question. Why would you hope for using more power in the future. As much of our efforts in history have been to conserve energy as they have been to use more. The thing is not only has our conservation improved rapidly, but so has our use of it to make our live better and more comfortable. The bottom line is why you would not think that at some point the conservation curve (which could also be consider an efficiency curve) won’t cross over our life improvement curve?
Second question. My home has blocked the sun from hitting the ground for some 80 years. Why would you think the tech will require us to block out more ground? I don’t know what solar tech will look like in 100 years, but I suspect it will gravitate towards adapting it to existing structures, because it is the most reasonable approach.
Dusty on August 2, 2008 at 10:10 PM
You can get a gas fridge (propane) that will cut your electricity requirement.
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 10:12 PM
Energy is energy can’t generate it only change it. In other words you can only get out what the sun puts there. Even if your house is as big as John Edwards’ the sunlight that hits your roof in 24 hours is not enough energy to run an average household even if you could somehow magically achieve 100% conversion to electricity. Consider a tree. Very energy efficient, lots of solar panels (leaves) Big old oak tree 75 feet tall. How long did it take to get that big? Well it’s stored solar energy. Cut it down burn it in your wood stove. How long will it last? The 50 years it took it to grow to 75 feet. Nope maybe a couple of weeks. Solar is not a good way to go.
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 10:20 PM
[Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 10:12 PM]
You can get a gas fridge (propane)…
Oh, I’ve had ‘em. Still do have a small one down at the old cabin. It’s very close, the $$ for a good gas fridge or the extra KWH. Even a good gas unit does not really move many BTU. So a heavy load (think warm beer) just overwhelms them. (As always, I add the “This is my experience, YMMV” disclaimer.) Also had one leak, waking up to ammonia (and H2) in the house is not fun. But that was a one-in-a-million.
That Bath storage plant looks neat. Really a very good solution, given the excess power was already there. (Right?)
I’ve thought of doing that here, have a few hundred feet up right out the back door, but water is tight here, too, so it’d have to be a somewhat closed system. Then there are practical questions about turbines and efficiency.
Rodent on August 2, 2008 at 10:29 PM
Finally~ Global Warming pays off!
profitsbeard on August 2, 2008 at 10:36 PM
Dusty, with respect ROI, for us that’s a little difficult to calculate, off the top of the olde bean.
Ferinstance…
I took a course on “Earth Sheltered Housing design at the UW, Madison for 24 weeks. I don’t recall the cost. The course study text was from the University of Minnesota. I think it was 24 bucks at the bookstore?
We designed the entire structure ourselves, using suggestions from a relative who was a “stick-built” home contractor who suggested. “Keep all the corners square, curving; ellipses cost a lot more money”!
We acted as our own general contractor and sublet: foundation and side wall concrete pouring, “Span Crete” roof installation, bentonite waterproofing, insulation, backfilling, grading, finish carpentry, cabinetry, etc.
“She who must be obeyed” and I did all of the original staining and finishing on the interior walls and trim.
I’ll have to get back to you…
J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 10:37 PM
Yep, the power margin was there. Bath allowed us to base load our nukes and run them full power all the time and it was worth the money. This concept probably wouldn’t work for you since you don’t really have any excess power. Based on your numbers if you’re averaging about 300 to 400 watts solar that’s only about 3 amps if you’re running 120vac. That’s not much power.
Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 10:54 PM
Sounds like you started with a better plan than I did.
I planned out the house to meet construction constraints; nothing (except concrete delivery) I couldn’t move with the machinery on hand, stick and sheet because I could build it single handed (yes, with some help from “She who must be obeyed”, lol).
Got a nice, but not very solar-friendly rectangle. Wish I had just ripped out a bigger chunk of hill and built a south facing crescent of rooms with a north hallway.
Rodent on August 2, 2008 at 10:55 PM
No, it’s not. But better storage would help. With a minor improvement in day output, we really could have excess to carry a minimal load thru the night. Our load is (well, because it has to be) very peaked.
I have a serious problem with dropping another $4K into lead-acid technology. Another area where we find out that 420AH in sales-speak is not what it is in engineer-speak, and “deep-cycle” means 20%.
Rodent on August 2, 2008 at 11:06 PM
[J_Gocht on August 2, 2008 at 10:37 PM]
That’s cool. It’s not too tough to compare if you have overall costs. There are ways to adjust standard home construction for comparison — GC costs are a usual percentage anyway, and factors for reduction based on various levels of interior completion by owner. Total SF and % of window area would probably be enough for me to get the standard home construction and heating/cooling costs.
Dusty on August 2, 2008 at 11:06 PM
[Oldnuke on August 2, 2008 at 10:20 PM]
Okay, you have me curious. I’ve already said I’m only a thumbnail sketcher on M/E tech and I know very little about solar. Tell me, if you have a 30×30 south facing hip roof, that gives you 450 sf of solar panel roof. If you use your criteria, i.e., 100% efficiency and 24 hours a day peak collection, how much energy is stored per day and what how much constant power over 24 hours would one have? Just so ya know ahead of time, my electric bill was for 450kwh last month How much will I still need from the power company?
Dusty on August 2, 2008 at 11:24 PM
What I hope is that we’ll continue to make progress. Conservation isn’t a wonderful boon to mankind; it’s making the best of a bad situation: i.e., inordinately expensive energy. There is no statute of limitations on the law of supply and demand. If we make energy less costly, then we can develop many, many more uses for it.
Of course all else being equal more efficient is better than less efficient. But it’s silly to concentrate on only one side of the equation. If you’re going to do that, then why talk about solar energy at all – or cold fusion, or anything else for that matter? Assuming we create no additional uses for energy, but that we devote all our efforts to gaining infinite efficiency, then eventually it won’t matter how we generate power. ANYTHING will be a sustainable resource; Our grandchildren can burn spotted owls if they feel like it, and they’ll always have enough.
logis on August 2, 2008 at 11:44 PM
I think Rodent can give you a much better idea about this since he’s actually using solar panels that track the sun. He has to shut his fridge down at night. But if you used the 100 % criteria then for 500 sq ft you could probably get around 1500Kwh in a month. Rough calcs and that number is highly suspect since it doesn’t match up with some real data.
Nevada Solar One generates about 64 megawatts. It has 300 acres of solar collectors. It’s not direct conversion and I don’t know what the efficiency is but 300 acres for that small amount of power is a little excessive. If you used that technology then your 450 sq ft would get you about 650kwh per month. That’s why I say that 1500 number is highly suspect. The Nevada plant cost close to 300 million dollars.
Oldnuke on August 3, 2008 at 12:36 AM
[logis on August 2, 2008 at 11:44 PM]
Logis, I sympathize with your POV, but it hardly helps your case or mine when you write in a manner that denies everything in furtherance of your preferences. Solar power is not cold fusion and your using the comparison makes you sound grumpy that someone doesn’t express himself exactly to your liking.
As for your view of conservation, I know you are speaking wrt to government purposely creating a burden via artificial increasing energy costs. So I won’t bore you with an optimistic take on conservation since the dawn of history that shows it to be a considerable boon to mankind and the constant search for making things more efficient is just as important to making energy cheaper as just producing more of that which provides the energy we use.
I’m not sure why you seem to feel society is, or I am, concentrating on just one side of the equation or, maybe, just solar or just efficiency. I talk about nuclear a lot, and have advocated drilling for oil everywhere. I happen to be talking about solar here for the reason I’ve stated a few times already. I’m talking about efficiency because that is one of the critical issues wrt solar. This is just one post on one announcement on a specific subject. There will be another on a different subject tomorrow or the next day. In fact, there is a post on oil here too today, where, I talked about another side of the many faceted equation you mention.
Dusty on August 3, 2008 at 12:54 AM
[Oldnuke on August 3, 2008 at 12:36 AM]
That looks to be about 1.5 kwh/month/sf. Of course that’s based on optimum clear skies which is just a little better than what we get here in Western NY. :-)
Thanks for running the numbers for me.
Dusty on August 3, 2008 at 1:04 AM
There’s only one criterion that can be used to know if these “MIT scientists” are any good. If Al Gore agrees with it, we KNOW it’s garbage.
freevillage on August 3, 2008 at 1:51 AM
[quote]http://www.water4gas.com[/quote]
There is some progress with “backyard experimenters” doing this (improves fuel mileage, but doesn’t replace gasoline), but the above site is just a ripoff… build it as shown and you have a nice potential bomb!
See http://tinyurl.com/5jhgpw for a start if you really want some free & reliable info – you can even download (for free) the worthless plans sold at sites like the one above.
Note: Unless you’re the tinkerer/builder/experimenter/amateur scientist type, this “booster” stuff isn’t for you.
electric-rascal on August 3, 2008 at 5:12 AM
I think that’s a safe bet. Only we “evil conservatives” are opposed to cheap, clean energy.
College students and their professors know where their bread is buttered. This 10,000th Discovery of the Century may or may not be of any practical application whatsoever, but that is of no concern to the government. The school put the word “solar power” in their press release. That means they’re going to get funding – even though their experiment had no more to actually do with solar power than with Arctic Tern nesting habits.
logis on August 3, 2008 at 8:42 AM
Hey rascal, could you check the “link” you posted. [http://tinyurl.com/5jhgpw]
It doesn’t work for me?
Maybe that’s the point you were trying to make?
J_Gocht on August 3, 2008 at 9:50 AM
Your govmint tax dollars at work. Take advantage of it.
Hydrogen
Wind and hydro
Solar
The secret to alternate energy is to hybridize, combine all the various elements to make a complete integrated system.
Takes some planning and ingenuity…
J_Gocht on August 3, 2008 at 10:24 AM
Agreed. If only all scientific journals weren’t controlled by the jooos
Black Racists, you could write a peer-reviewed paper debunking their science.freevillage on August 3, 2008 at 10:29 AM
Agreed. If only all scientific journals weren’t controlled by the
jooosBlack Racists, you could write a peer-reviewed paper debunking their science.freevillage on August 3, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Hey freevil_, you ought a spend a little more time listening to the Lumbering Leviathan from Palm Beach.
You need an attitude adjustment…He’d “buck you up”!
J_Gocht on August 3, 2008 at 11:25 AM
Hey if you’re looking for incentives in your state for solar, check this out.
Need a solar calculator even you can use, try this.
J_Gocht on August 3, 2008 at 12:39 PM
And isn’t that really what the government is best at?
logis on August 3, 2008 at 12:53 PM
Thanks for the link J_, I used it. What it showed me is that solar is not a good idea for me and most homeowners in the U.S. To take care of one half of my electrical needs I’d need 1000 sqft of solar panels, which would cost me about 1/3 of my home value. It would pay for itself in about 40 years though. Given that the site is pushing solar I’d say that those estimates are slightly overstated and I’d end up with much less production than they claim and it’d cost more and take longer to break even. Maybe someday but today solar is not viable for most folks.
Oldnuke on August 3, 2008 at 2:06 PM
All energy is a problem of storage.
Conversion and transmission and boosting and every other technical trick to coax volts to our uses is a delay, or small “storage”.
This MIT breakthrough sounds as simply brilliant as the equation-changing work going for over a year at Penn State, where their researchers have developed a unique, creative bacteria which excretes hydrogen [digestive waste] after devouring any organic material (corn cobs, sawdust, brewery dregs, municipal muck, etc.).
A similar technique for “storing power” (the hydrogen latent in garbage) more efficiently (which always translates as savings) by removing the (currently-expensive and energy-wasting) H2O “cracking” step done by electrolysis.
And primordial hydrogen the key in both fields.
May each breakthrough be another nail in the comfy coffin of the smug, inspipid Saudis.
profitsbeard on August 3, 2008 at 3:01 PM
profitsbeard on August 3, 2008 at 3:05 PM
Precisely my dear Oldnuke…
That’s why the MIT breakthrough, the initial impetus for Ed’s post is so significant; both scientifically and as a practical efficient alternative to the present state of the art.
Keep a stiff upper lip and anything else that’s appropriate, Oldnuke!
Drive on!
J_Gocht on August 3, 2008 at 3:33 PM
This is the reason I am going into power systems for my specialty at school. Not in general, mind, but this idea specifically! I find this whole thing VERY exciting, not the least because I have an idea that runs along almost exactly the same lines but lack the education and training to flesh out (yet, that is. Graduation will happen…).
Militant Bibliophile on August 3, 2008 at 3:55 PM
Now there after all; that’s the rub.
Never the less, the simple storage of ephemeral energy, whether in the form solar, wind or hydro has always remained the nut to be cracked.
That oh bearded one, may be an advance greater than the industrial revolution, itself!
J_Gocht on August 3, 2008 at 4:15 PM
Good plan: If at people think you’re an idiot, just use more psychotic hyperbole!
That’ll show ‘em.
logis on August 3, 2008 at 4:28 PM
Oh yeah of little faith and scientific circumstance.
J_Gocht on August 3, 2008 at 4:41 PM
I got a chuckle out of that. I’d take it a step farther though “Everything is just a problem waiting to be solved”.
This mystified me. I read it about 4 times and still don’t get what you’re saying.
We could drive the Saudis into the
dustsand right now if we could just get our government out of the way.Oldnuke on August 3, 2008 at 6:21 PM
Amen.
Long rodent day, so just a few quick hits.
Dusty, yes, your 450sf will certainly power a normal house, even at current conversion efficiencies, unless you live in Seattle or London (constant clouds) or Manhattan (concrete clouds).
We still run into storage problems: Batteries suck, flywheels have a lot of issues ($$$), pumping water, compressing a gas, or electrolysis all involve lots of equipment and/or (as of now) pretty poor efficiency. I do hope new technology improves the whole situation.
Another storage issue is time, by which I mean max rate of conversion. I know that normal electrolysis cells have limits on the current flow before you start boiling the water, thus turning your nice pure H2 into a H2-O bomb.
Does little good to get 50KW peak for a sunny three hours, if you can only feed 1KW into your storage device.
If I had a storage device with an infinite charge rate, I’d be running a pole up into the thunderstorm overhead.
On payback time for a PV system:
Every time I run those numbers I get infinity.
If I put $20k into the bank at 3%, instead of into PVs, mounts, copper, batteries, charge controllers and inverters, the interest pays for buying the same KWH from the pole, forever.
Of course that does assume pole power stays at $0.10 KWH forever, a stunningly bad assumption today. YMMV.
Rodent on August 3, 2008 at 8:14 PM
If liberals had been in charge of the world 10,000 years ago (instead of volunteering to act as “human shields” on mastodon hunts), we’d still be huddling in caves worrying ourselves sick over the impending flint shortage and the perennially threatening global catastrophy we brought upon ourselves by offending the Earth Goddess with our greed.
And the really ironic thing is that if we’d listened to the idiots back then, they’d actually have been right – because all of their prophesies are self-fulfilling. If we don’t exploit the holy living Hell out of our resources as fast as humanly possible, then we eventually WILL run out of everything we rely on for our survival.
logis on August 4, 2008 at 1:21 AM
Dusty, with respect to ROI,I found some old paper and receipts from 1980…
Earthsheltered home: ~1600 sq. ft. $24K cash/savings, $40K mortgage = $64K
Glazing:~150 sq. ft., all south facing, double thermo-pane with E-glass, all doors and windows.
Sidewalls: 10 inch, poured reinforced concrete, all [east, north and south] bermed earth, with 2 inches of blue Styrofoam on outside of all buried walls. Outside insulation allows the giant mass of poured concrete to take on the temperature of the surrounding earth, approximately 55 degrees in SW Wisconsin. The mass then acts as a thermo flywheel storing internal heat gain during the summer and releasing it back into the home during the winter.
Roof:8 inch, “Spancrete” panels, terraced on two levels, with 4 inches of blue Styrofoam on outside with 6 to 12 inches of earth covering the entire structure.
Heating equipment and fuel requirements:One 30K BTU, Vermont Castings propane free standing stove, direct vented. Requires approx. 300 gallons of propane, for 6 months from October through March when it drops below zero we fire up the Vermont Castings wood burner. There’s absolutely nothing like the radiant heat from a woodstove when the “hawk is screaming” outside!
Electricity requirements:[Still on-grid] ~$85 per month for water pumping and heating, lighting, refrigeration, fan cooling etc.
We’re planning a phased approach to first reducing and eventually eliminating our reliance “on the grid”…!
J_Gocht on August 4, 2008 at 9:32 AM
Correction;
Sidewalls: 10 inch, poured reinforced concrete, all [east, north and west] bermed earth…
J_Gocht on August 4, 2008 at 9:57 AM
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