From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Fri Sep 08 2000 - 09:04:27 MDT
Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
>
> I have to break in on this topic with a reminder. Solar is something I am
> 100% for, however, what will liberate solar and wind, or rather ignite it,
> will be the conversion of photovoltaic and wind energy into fuel for fuel
> cells or perhaps, flywheels. Storage for evening or dark day times is the
> key. All weather solar power and wind power are another issue. If we just
> listen to the blathers about solar being merely a sunbelt energy, it will
> never take off. Fusion looks plausible, but directionless, and therefore
> gut-shot.
Actually, no. Sorry. The primary resistance to both solar and wind (outside of
cost effectiveness) is NIMBY. Some people try to convince themselves that a
hillside full of windmills is a beautiful thing, but all they do is demonstrate
how foolish they are willing to be to perpetuate a meme. There are actually very
few sites that are cost effective to place wind generators, and the percent wind
contributes to the grid will always be in the single digits. Cheap low
efficiency solar shingles will become popular in sunny climes. As its cost per
kWh drops (i.e. as manufacturing base and output expands), use will migrate to
less sunny climes. All weather solar power is not possible.
The solution to the daily variance in solar and wind power at any given point is
of course to have a worldwide grid of such generators. Thus far, there is no
such grid. While North America is pretty will integrated electrically, as is
Europe and asia and south america are getting there, tying all these together
will be required to remove the problem of storage. Choke points for the grid
will become prime brokers in the power industry: Panama, the Bering Straits,
Sinai, Yemen, Gibraltar, and Indonesia.
Beyond this, while some call for Tesla's dream of radio transmission of power,
such an idea runs smack dab into paranoia about EM radiation and NIMBY
attitudes. Governments may try to institute it, but will run into widespread
protest, greater than anti-nuke protests of the 80's, that will be well financed
by industry.
How things will fall out is that by 2030 solar power sats will start getting
built, and an orbital network of MASER power transmission systems will transport
energy to key sites on each continent. Prime location for the power sats will be
at the Sun-earth L2 point, where the sats will also act to reduce total flux
reaching earth, thus helping to offset any global warming effects whether they
be a result of pollution or Malenkovich Cycles.
Fossil fuels will continue to be used for transportation beyond this point, but
not for static uses, although work will be done on using reverse fuel cells to
produce natural gas from electricity. Hydrogen will NOT be the fuel of choice,
due to its corrosive properties and low density.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:30:52 MST