The Gaming Den

tzor wrote:The lover of irony in me is wondering if we won't be complaining about how CO2 unfriendly solar power is. Think about it for a minute, solar power systems prevent the sun from reaching plants below. Currently most plants are still far better at capturing solar energy so at best they are CO2 net emitters because they are preventing potentially large areas of CO2 sinks into the soil.

Yeah, you've really got to worry about all those plants.

in the sandy desert

...and on urban rooftops.

To be fair lots of these places are actually spinifex grass, but that's seriously 1 bush per meter if that.

North africa has similar very scrubby terrain.

I have no idea what Nervada is like.

Nevada is kind of like this:

It has plants in it. But not a whole lot of them. You can select areas that are essentially nothing but barren dirt or even naked rock if you wanted to.

In any case, accusing solar power of being CO2 unfriendly because of all the trees you have to cut down is sort of insane. Scratch that, is completely insane. Hell, you could put solar collectors in space or floating in open water, and the you wouldn't even be disturbing much in the way of micro organisms.

-Username17

Actually, Space Solar arrays are much much better than earth based ones, because no atmosphere gets in the way, and you can ignore things lik gravity when you are making giant ass arrays.

That's a much better method of Solar pick up than we currently have, and they are in fact working on designing various microwave emitters for the satellites + receivers for the earth stations.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Yeah, you've really got to worry about all those plants.

Yes, you do, well you will in 30 years when Carbon Ranching starts to expand to drier and drier areas. Through composting, and moderate watering you could extend this to dry areas to be able to pump CO2 into the soil for at least 30 years before the soil becomes carbon saturated.

The article is based on grasland (20"-35" rain/year) and normal desert conditions are < 10" rain/year. That is, from what I can gather still half the requirements for an average farm so it might go under the radar for salt problems inherent in mass irrigation of dessert for crop use.

Wait a minute... Did Tzor really just attempt to justify his bullshit claim that solar arrays in the middle of the stony desert were threatening enough of the non-existent plants to meaningfully damage out Carbon Sink abilities by saying that the land in the desert is land that we could theoretically terraform into something that had persistent plant life in it at some time in the indefinite future? That's so unbelievably stupid that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

But I think I finally figured out why Tzor is anti-abortion. Apparently making a decision about what you are going to do right now is equivalent to destroying everything else you could have made instead and murdering everyone else you could have been. Tzor is forgetting the "No Exit" axiom and advocating quantum temporal pacifism.

That explains why he doesn't want us to take action on global warming! It all makes sense! It's not that taking action now wouldn't have a clear and demonstrable effect in slowing down climate change and reducing extinction rates - it's that making a decision at all would collapse the wave form of quantum uncertainty and thereby be equivalent to murdering every single person in all the potential futures that we decided against moving into! It's not that Tzor's morals are evil, it's that they are completely insane.

-Username17

If you put mediocre solar panels atop every industrial roof in America, you'd produce more power than we currently consume.

And you'd reduce their solar island effect.

Just planting grass, like the stupid kind you need too much water for in lawns, would reduce the heating and cooling needs of those buildings by about... What was it? Half that amount. And once again, eliminate the solar island effect, helping nearby buildings as well.

Microwave transmission of power currently loses more due to attenuation than the atmosphere reduces solar generation. But it must be said that we've not tried very stable arrays like would be from space. (although on earth, we can make things more stable than that, no one has built a SLAB for testing this sort of thing over the distances needed. And in the open air, you're limited to what you might accidently fry...)

-Crissa

Crissa wrote:If you put mediocre solar panels atop every industrial roof in America, you'd produce more power than we currently consume.

You would also have a plethora of small highly unstable power sources. The technology is technically possible, but you need a complete redesign of the American power grid.

I'm guessing that you will get pretty good solar panels in about ten years that would even improve the costs / benefits of a highly distributed system even more, but the infrastructure costs will still be dsignificant.

FrankTrollman wrote:That explains why he doesn't want us to take action on global warming!

Now really Frank, what ever gave you the idea I want us to take no action. I just don't want to take your action.

I mean sure I drive a 2010 Prius, a high end luxory car that's a joy to drive 4 or 5 hours at a time, all while getting 50+ MPG, but that doesn't mean I can't dream of all electric cars, zipping the roads at the same highway speeds. (If we could only double the mileage or get more recharge stations I would buy one of these in a heartbeat.)

P.S. If I ever get one, I reserve the right to have a CD with the song "Yakety Sax" always on standby for any trip. I mean this car almost screams "Benny Hill" chase scene!

P.S. Those cars are from Meyers Motors The two passinger version will be out next year.

tzor wrote:

Crissa wrote:If you put mediocre solar panels atop every industrial roof in America, you'd produce more power than we currently consume.

You would also have a plethora of small highly unstable power sources. The technology is technically possible, but you need a complete redesign of the American power grid.

I'm guessing that you will get pretty good solar panels in about ten years that would even improve the costs / benefits of a highly distributed system even more, but the infrastructure costs will still be dsignificant.

People with solar panels of their houses get payed to pump electricity into the power grid right now.

tzor wrote: Through composting, and moderate watering you could extend this to dry areas to be able to pump CO2 into the soil for at least 30 years before the soil becomes carbon saturated.

The article is based on grasland (20"-35" rain/year) and normal desert conditions are < 10" rain/year. That is, from what I can gather still half the requirements for an average farm so it might go under the radar for salt problems inherent in mass irrigation of dessert for crop use.

Yes, given that all our models of climate charge predict expansion of arid zones, we'll be capable of using our extra supplies of water (?!?!) to extend ranching into increasingly marginal arid zones?

Are you completely nuts?

tzor wrote:The technology is technically possible, but you need a complete redesign of the American power grid.

No, you don't.

The American power grid is built around many small, unstable power sources. As sources fade out, they kick in more power from long-lines or generators, some big, some small.

Most large towns have one or more power generation stations which just sit there, idle 90% of the time to kick in when they're not being fed from the large sources, or to cover for a long line or short line being shorted.

This is why we don't have blackouts.

Solar panels are just like the opposite of turning on a light bulb. You've just argued that our power grid isn't robust enough to stand people flicking on and off the lights in their homes.

Holiday lighting shows that you're totally and absolutely wrong.

-Crissa

Crissa wrote:You've just argued that our power grid isn't robust enough to stand people flicking on and off the lights in their homes.

Didn't the Mythbusters pretty solidly debunk that idea? That the mythical start-up surge is only equal to the amount of power used by a couple of seconds at most for incandescent lighting, and about half a minute at most for fluorescent? And that flicking the bulbs on and off continuously would take them two weeks to burn out?

I mean, are people still telling each other that one quick on-off flick uses as much power as ten minutes on constant use?

Maxus wrote:

Crissa wrote:You've just argued that our power grid isn't robust enough to stand people flicking on and off the lights in their homes.

Didn't the Mythbusters pretty solidly debunk that idea? That the mythical start-up surge is only equal to the amount of power used by a couple of seconds at most for incandescent lighting, and about half a minute at most for fluorescent? And that flicking the bulbs on and off continuously would take them two weeks to burn out?

I mean, are people still telling each other that one quick on-off flick uses as much power as ten minutes on constant use?

That's not what she said though.

Tzor said that the power grid could not handle people pumping power into the grid when the sun shines and not pumping power into the grid in times of darkness.

And yet, as Crissa eloquently pointed out, the grid does not collapse when people pump power out of the grid at random times. So Tzor's point is manifestly wrong. Variable power draw is variable power draw. If turning lights off (which reduces power draw) doesn't make the grid collapse, then having a solar cell activate (which reduces power draw) also will not make the grid collapse.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:the grid does not collapse when people pump power out of the grid at random times.

Actually it sort of does.

I mean you had those big blackouts in the US. So did New Zealand, so did Victoria and South Australia.

Those blackouts were generally associated with excessive power being pumped out (for air conditioning). Thing is that draw was predict and could, SHOULD have been accounted for.

So it is important to note that was never the primary cause, just a contributing factor.

Typically those events were ALSO triggered because a power plant (a big one) went offline at peak demand. Triggering a chain reaction that knocked out basically every plant on the grid. Then they took forever to restart because the "startup" plants and procedures were all mysteriously screwed up.

And even THAT, in all cases, required the additional contributing factors of.

1) Badly maintained electrical grids, due to privatization.
2) Badly maintained plants, and lack of on hand spare parts, due to privatization.
3) Bad emergency shut down and start up procedures, due to privatization.
4) Lack of skilled staff, due to privatization.56) Lack of sufficient new power plants because private industry refuses to build them
6) Deliberate sabotage of the power supply for profit, due to privatization

But here is the big kicker on this one.

If those networks had significant solar power they wouldn't have dropped out like that. Because when the biggest draw of all hits them (air conditioning), the solar power kicks in at the same time.

The experts have looked into it and agree. Solar power is a near perfect match for the big summer heat wave draws from air conditioning.

Also in other news, right wing lunatics privatizing the power supply contributed much much more to the major mass blackouts in western countries in recent years than ANY amount of people flicking their air conditioning on and off.

But anyway, even in NSW where they only ever prepared to privatize the power plants the "corporatised" management dismantled and sold one of the two emergency back up "start up" generators at the state emergency start up plant. Yay for privatized efficiency, we don't need a back up in case the only start up generator in the state that has no spare parts and hasn't been run in 15 years fails on start up... Yay!

CatharzGodfoot wrote:People with solar panels of their houses get payed to pump electricity into the power grid right now.

The key is that there are not many people with solar panels. The overall power supply is not significant and also ironically happens during peak load hours (because people with electric solar panels live in areas where air conditioning is a major power demand). Even with solar panels the grid is mostly a top down structure. Yes there is significant wiggle room for adding solar energy to the existing grid, but there comes a point where the generated power sources (which all have to be balanced into the grid) exceed the local demand and therefore has to be load balanced into the larger grid for trasmission elsewhere. (Electrical power generation is a load balancing act; you can't just store excess power in the system; you need to use that power immediately.)

There is another problem with breaking the top down model; fortunately I don't have to deal with that problem. In a simple top down model of sources (specific power plants) to sinks (houses and offices) you always know in which direction the power comes from. Throw a breaker and one side of the line is dark (and thus safe to work on). When there are enough sources comming from previously known sinks, that model breaks down and you have to start engineering breakers on both sides of the power grid in order to do maintenance work on the lines.

Crissa wrote:Most large towns have one or more power generation stations which just sit there, idle 90% of the time to kick in when they're not being fed from the large sources, or to cover for a long line or short line being shorted.

This is what I call a BINGO moment. In order to be able to micromanage load balancing demand on the current grid, you need "spinning reserves." These reserves are either natural gas or coal but the point remains, you need constantly running CO2 emitters to be able to pick up the load at any minute.

A Smart Grid Solution at Copenhagen (not the best but I'm not going to bug my boss, whose wife actually works for National Grid on large scale alternate energy power sources, for better quotes to use in this post).

Most forms of renewables are inherently variable or intermittent.As electric grids must be in balance, a sudden drop in generation from renewables requires the utility to maintain balance by adjusting other generation sources, storage or consumption itself to keep the system in balance.

Today, this is typically accomplished by adding spinning reserves like gas-powered peaking plants or by operating coal plants at less than peak capacity (which allows operators to quickly increase load, but results in a less efficient coal plant operation and thus higher carbon output per megawatt produced).For example, to achieve the European 2020 targets (20 percent renewables, 20 percent reduction in CO2 by 2020), the United Kingdom estimates that short term reserve requirements such as these would double to almost triple (see: House of Lord Select Committee on Economic Affairs, “The Economics of Renewable Energy”, November 2008 at 35).

Remember this was Crissa's original quote.

Crissa wrote:If you put mediocre solar panels atop every industrial roof in America, you'd produce more power than we currently consume.

Once again, that's a major problem in two ways. The first is that you need that spinning reserve with the old system and the second is that you can't produce more power than you consume; you unbalance the grid in a bad way. Baring the redesign of the grid or the implementation of local storage devices that can keep significant solar power generation from going to the grid in the first place, you can't create more power than current demand minus spinning reserve.

And you still haven't solved the problem that you still need CO2 emitting sources at night when the sun doesn't shine. Fortunately that is not a peak time and the spinning reserves could cover that (with additional soruces that can come on line in an emergancy) but they are still CO2 emitting which you are trying to say is a bad thing.

If only there were some sort of controller or regulator that could be installed in these systems that would prevent them from pumping excess power into the grid. God, that would be great.

Also, you're totally correct that if we can't reduce CO2 emissions to zero, then we shouldn't bother reducing them at all. Cause nobody likes a slack-ass that only goes halfway.

Violence, I never stated that. I stated that if you want to go all the way you need radical redesigns of the existing systems. If only a few people do this without radically redesigning the system you are golden. (Every time I pass “Windy Acres” farm and see the wind blowing but their wind generator still I silently curse the inability of the grid to really handle even the simple cases effectively.) If you start getting whole neighborhoods into the act you will need minor conversions. (Those conversions are generally not considered a part of the cost of the process and are assumed by the power companies who generally fight you tooth and nail to ensure that they don’t have to pay the cost to turn their consumers into producers.) If you go beyond that you need even more changes to the system. Without the ability for large scale transmission of power from the sunny areas to the not so sunny areas, such solutions would be at best only regional solutions.

tzor wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:People with solar panels of their houses get payed to pump electricity into the power grid right now.

The key is that there are not many people with solar panels. The overall power supply is not significant and also ironically happens during peak load hours (because people with electric solar panels live in areas where air conditioning is a major power demand). Even with solar panels the grid is mostly a top down structure. Yes there is significant wiggle room for adding solar energy to the existing grid, but there comes a point where the generated power sources (which all have to be balanced into the grid) exceed the local demand and therefore has to be load balanced into the larger grid for trasmission elsewhere. (Electrical power generation is a load balancing act; you can't just store excess power in the system; you need to use that power immediately.)

tzor wrote:

Crissa wrote:Most large towns have one or more power generation stations which just sit there, idle 90% of the time to kick in when they're not being fed from the large sources, or to cover for a long line or short line being shorted.

This is what I call a BINGO moment. In order to be able to micromanage load balancing demand on the current grid, you need "spinning reserves." These reserves are either natural gas or coal but the point remains, you need constantly running CO2 emitters to be able to pick up the load at any minute.

Or you could, ya know, perform electrolysis with all that excess power coming out of all of the solar cells which are apparently already reducing energy consumption by more than half, and run your generator off of hydrogen fuel cells. But getting to the point that you're worried about the pollution from backup generators is a fine goal.

tzor wrote:There is another problem with breaking the top down model; fortunately I don't have to deal with that problem. In a simple top down model of sources (specific power plants) to sinks (houses and offices) you always know in which direction the power comes from. Throw a breaker and one side of the line is dark (and thus safe to work on). When there are enough sources comming from previously known sinks, that model breaks down and you have to start engineering breakers on both sides of the power grid in order to do maintenance work on the lines.

I honestly don't give a shit. They'll just have to remember to throw the breaker where the house is pumping energy into the grid--do you really think that's a serious argument for using fossil fuel over solar power?

Take two water reservoirs, one set a hundred meter higher than the other. When you have excess power pump the water into the upper basin, when you need more power generate it from the downstream. Damn, storing excess energy is hard. Of course you could also use some new-fangled mechanismostron, like batteries. That is, if you even need them at all, because, as Crissa pointed out, solar power gets generated when you need it the most. How come you skipped that point, Tzor?

By the way, how come you consider any solution that does not seamlessly blend into the utter clusterfuck that is the US electrical system to be impossible? We won't get anywhere using only piddly bullshit like the smart grid you linked. ("may save up to 3 to 5%"? That's marketing speak for "1%, 2% tops".) We need to cut down by at least half and 90% would be better. If that means dismantling inefficient and corrupt private monopolies so be it.

And now for something completely different:

An Octopus and its Coconuts

Smartgrids are just ways for the electric company to save money by turning off your AC when it's 107F outside.

They are not a solution to global warming.

-Crissa

Murtak wrote:Take two water reservoirs, one set a hundred meter higher than the other.

OK, I'll take them if you got them. Do you have them? I thought you didn't.

Crissa wrote:They are not a solution to global warming.

I never said they were; I said that massive use of low scale distributed power sources and massive use of solar and wind power even from central power systems will require a significant investment in upgrading the electric infrastructure in the United States. This will require a technology upgrade as well. "Smartgrids" is more of a trademark gimick, but the fact is that we can't go into the 21st century with a 20th century power grid.

tzor wrote:(Those conversions are generally not considered a part of the cost of the process and are assumed by the power companies who generally fight you tooth and nail to ensure that they don’t have to pay the cost to turn their consumers into producers.)

See, there's a really simple answer, it's just that capitalist whores* don't like it: un-privatise them. I'm even for the governments just outright taking everything from the electricity, water, telephone and gas companies, at gunpoint, and saying "Yeah, well, suck my dick. You brought it on yourselves." But presumably a more realistic and reasonable scenario is they buy it back in a "Sale is mandatory. Decide on a deal with us by X or we're taking it for (small amount)." situation.

*I don't mean that in the literal sense. I mean, I'm not sure where prostitutes fit in if we're talking communism. Ideas, Frank? PL?

You know what requires a massive upscale in development in the US?

Building new houses.

You know something else? Most of the houses occupied were built in the last twenty years.

So it's a bunch of bull that energy producers have to pay anything extra on the grid. Because they pay that already, every day, to keep up with demand. Industrial buildings already have small substations and big generators in them.

There's nothing they really need to do to the grid to accept small producers. Because the grid was designed that way. Yes, if you're talking down to apartments? My apartment doesn't have the wiring for it, nor can I have an electric car. But none of those wires are owned by a utility!

Same goes for broadband. They don't expand it because there's no profit in it.

-Crissa