fergyflyer

This is a response that I gave to a guy that feels solar power won't be viable till there are improvements in batteries. You guys near Mojave know all about this place.




They actually have come up with a way to store energy from the sun. Instead of using photovoltic cells to generate energy, they use collectors that focus the enegy of the sun. These are basically U shaped mirored panels. Those panels focus the suns energy onto a tube that has a synthetic oil in it. The oil can reach temperatures as high as 600 degrees. The oil is then used to generate steam. As the night progresses, output is diminished, but they can produce large amounts of power 24/7.

There is currently a facility outside of Mojave CA that is using this technology to generate power. It is able to generate 310 Megawatts from 2000 acres. This is enough power to provide electricity for a city of a little bit larger than 100,000 people.

2000 acres is just over 3 square miles. To generate enough power for 260 million people, you would need to cover 5,200,000 acres. At 640 acres per square mile, that means you would need to cover 8125 square miles of land to generate enough power for the US. Nevada has a land area of 109,000 square miles. Cover a bit less than 10% of the land area of the Nevada desert and you have all the energy the US needs.

Here's a link for you.
FPL Energy - Solar Facts

JohnC

I like it. How high will oil need to get before such a plan is economically viable? 200$ a barrell? 300$? 400$? I have no idea but I'm sure there's a point where the cost of a watt of delivered energy generated from oil will exceed the cost of a watt of delivered energy from your solar farm. I can assure you that it will not be developed while that watt of delivered energy from oil is less expensive and that may be for quite some time. There's still a hell of a lot of oil out there. We need to get our own oil locally to bring the price down instead of buying it from the rag heads who use their profits to build indoor ski resorts in 100 degree climates. When we run out of our own we conquer Canada, make it the 51'st state, and turn that into an oil field.

JohnC


John

Wing_Nut

Who's gonna clean the freakin mirrors? That's a $hitload of Windex!

How many delicate lizard species are you gonna wipe out with this scheme?

Is that oil biodegradeable?

What about the fish?

What will this do to relations with the Saudi's?

No, another poorly thought out scheme.

fergyflyer

Illegal immigrants and all the squegee guys that got ran out of NYC.

None, they like to sun themselves on the mirrors and they screw underneath in the shade, there will actually be more lizards.

It's the desert silly, there are no fish.

This means Akbars new Ferrari will be his last for a long time. It will also destroy the economy of Italy, but that's not much to speak of anyway. Plus they'll just elect another prostitute to their Senate and drink some wine and life will be good.

No scheme here, you have this confused with the Global Warming scheme that Al Gore is selling carbon credits based off of.

fergyflyer

Your off a bit on the costs John. This plant in the Mojave produces electricity at a cost of 12 cents per kwh and is profitable at that rate. The average cost per kwh in the US for all electricty is 9.32.The company Solel that produces most of the Thermal/Solar electricity in the world believes that in 10 years it can have the cost down to 6 cents per kwh.

The country of Israel already gets a large portion of their power from this and has a goal of generating all its power from the Negev desert by 2012. In 2007 the ratio that the Israelis used was 1.12 times the cost of oil/gas generating costs. They believe that the cost is equal now with the increase in oil prices this year. Also they would rather not purchase oil from people that are arming the terrorists so even if it costs more the long term benefits to their country are worth it.

Wing_Nut

Here, I'll add another technology that's readily available right now.

Geothermal.

When we moved to PA, all of the builders were using heat pumps. Being a New England native, I went into a panic. I'll be damned if I would depend on anything remotely related to electricity for heat. You'd have to be nuts.

I immediately started researching heat pumps and stumbled directly into geothermal discussions. It turns out that geothermal works great at a certain size. Say above about 3,500 sq ft. Just right for those thousands of McMansions in foreclosure right now.

Seriously, I became a zealot. Why wasn't the government subsidizing this very mundane technology for new construction and replacement systems? All the equipment and knowledge already exists. It won't eliminate fossil fuel usage but it's way more efficient than burning dinosaur guts. It's more expensive up front but the payback is reasonable now. With some investment and scale, I'm sure the cost / payback could be improved.

The bottom line is that there are tons of things we could do that we aren't doing. CFL light bulbs, small diesels, mass transit, solar, geothermal. Maybe all of it together lowers consumption by 33%. Better than nothing.

Of course we won't even go near hydro.