(04-29-2010 06:23 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  How come every time someone mentions electric cars they forget to mention they have to plug them into an existing electric grid to recharge them?

(04-27-2010 02:39 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042302220.html

Good read

(04-29-2010 06:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  The question is not what it can do today, but whether technological developments can make it more efficient and thus more useful in the future. Edison had a lot of failures before being successful. Newton spent practically every waking hour investigating the areas of science in which he contributed.
Hard to image wind farms becoming that efficient, but maybe. Solar seems like a better bet long term.

(04-30-2010 02:58 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-29-2010 06:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  The question is not what it can do today, but whether technological developments can make it more efficient and thus more useful in the future. Edison had a lot of failures before being successful. Newton spent practically every waking hour investigating the areas of science in which he contributed.
Hard to image wind farms becoming that efficient, but maybe. Solar seems like a better bet long term.

What's really hard to imagine is solar working at night or wind farms working when the wind is not blowing. What's equally hard to imagine is either one being useful without sufficient transmission capability to move the power from the wind/solar generating facility to where people need electricity.

Those are the problems that we have yet to solve.

(04-30-2010 02:58 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-29-2010 06:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  The question is not what it can do today, but whether technological developments can make it more efficient and thus more useful in the future. Edison had a lot of failures before being successful. Newton spent practically every waking hour investigating the areas of science in which he contributed.
Hard to image wind farms becoming that efficient, but maybe. Solar seems like a better bet long term.

What's really hard to imagine is solar working at night or wind farms working when the wind is not blowing. What's equally hard to imagine is either one being useful without sufficient transmission capability to move the power from the wind/solar generating facility to where people need electricity.

Those are the problems that we have yet to solve.

(04-30-2010 07:47 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(04-30-2010 02:58 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-29-2010 06:05 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  The question is not what it can do today, but whether technological developments can make it more efficient and thus more useful in the future. Edison had a lot of failures before being successful. Newton spent practically every waking hour investigating the areas of science in which he contributed.
Hard to image wind farms becoming that efficient, but maybe. Solar seems like a better bet long term.

What's really hard to imagine is solar working at night or wind farms working when the wind is not blowing. What's equally hard to imagine is either one being useful without sufficient transmission capability to move the power from the wind/solar generating facility to where people need electricity.

Those are the problems that we have yet to solve.

That's why I believe any impact will not be wind farms, but rather home use, multiplied up.

It's the same logic behind the SETI@home...lots of small capacities adding up to a big effect.

If each house in a windy area (say DuPage County, IL) had a windmill, then you'd cut down on the need for power plants. The infrastructure to get power to the need is already in place. And selling back to the grid apparently exists too.

This also has the advantage of cutting costs (no extra lines running to the grid) and allows citizens to see what the ROI is and break even point. You will have far fewer people clamoring for wind-power if they see first hand that there is no break even point.

Solar I see differently. First, the common perception is that photovoltaics are the answer. To me that shows the dishonesty of the news and science media that cover this issue. Photovoltaics have low efficiencies, are expensive to make, have limited lifetimes and use all sorts of nasty materials.

Solar thermal has much better efficiency, and is even now at a cost-competitive level. In this case I do think you have to hook up to the grid, which adds expense, but there is a break even point like any new power plant. You also have the limitations that this works only during daylight...but again this is the peak demand time and you will greatly ease the demands on the existing power plants.

Of course you can also use solar thermal at home...we just were at a local home show w/ vendors who installed these systems to heat water. I'm in favor of that but gov't subsidies* MUST go, or people will never recognize the true cost.

In the end, you aren't going to get rid of central power plants (I know you alrady know this) but there are ways to ease the demands put on them, using "green" energy.

*Do tax breaks count as subsidies? And are those legitimate incentives?

(04-30-2010 02:57 PM)jh Wrote:  I think it's too simplistic to talk about eliminating subsidies for green power. All of the power generating sources they are competing with are subsidized to various levels. Ideally, there wouldn't be subsidies for any of them, and I highly doubt that there is any kind of rational basis or balance for the existing subsidies. But the existing subsidies can and do distort the market, making the entry of new power sources more difficult.

I've also seen a proposal to store excess energy from large scale solar thermal plants in as compressed gas in undergroud salt domes, but it was more of a pie-in-the-sky deal than a nuts and bolts one.

(04-30-2010 12:22 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(04-30-2010 02:58 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  What's really hard to imagine is solar working at night or wind farms working when the wind is not blowing. What's equally hard to imagine is either one being useful without sufficient transmission capability to move the power from the wind/solar generating facility to where people need electricity.
Those are the problems that we have yet to solve.