First, let me say I’m a fan of solar power when done correctly and without financial carrots hung out for electricity generation that entice abuse of the system. I put solar on my own home.
Bishop Hill points out that some solar power installations in Spain were producing power at night.
He writes of what was thought to be a joke:
…The prices paid for green energy were so high that it appeared to be profitable to generate that energy by shining conventionally fuelled arclights on the solar panels.
But finds truth to be stranger than fiction:
Although the exact details are slightly different there is now an intriguing report of the scam in practice. The text is based on a machine translation of the original German text:
After press reports, it was established during inspections that several solar power plants were generating current and feeding it into the net at night. To simulate a larger installation capacity, the operators connected diesel generators.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said one industry expert to the newspaper “El Mundo”, which brought the scandal to light. If solar systems apparently produce current in the dark, will be noticed sooner or later. However, if electricity generators were connected during daytime, the swindle would hardly be noticed.
As I said last time around, this is the insanity of greenery.
Here is the Google Translation of the article.
You too can generate energy with your solar system at night, all you need is an 850 million candlepower WWII era searchlight, now available for rent.
Hey, it’s not crazy. There are so many fees, taxes, add ons, etc to power bills here in California now it is actually cheaper to generate your own electricity running a diesel generator than it is to buy it from PG&E. Anyone have a used diesel-electric locomotive I can buy?
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More “two birds, one stone” Green Logic:
New hydroelectric solution: Dump seawater into old mines.
We have very deep old mines below relative sea level. We just need a pipeline to get the water to a mine, where it will flow through a water turbine and generate power. The pipeline can run over land, just need to “prime the pump” to start the flow, have the discharge at a lower level than the intake, and a normal siphon effect will take care of the rest.
Free electricity, and it will help out on that pesky sea level rise problem. Win-win!
kadaka (05:05:37) :
What chu try’n to do man?
That there’s my drink’n water you’re pollut’n.
There are a lot of states that now offer some form of “net metering” so that residential solar installations can sell excess power back to the grid. Each state program stipulates the total amount of power that a single residential customer can sell back to the grid and whether the power company must pay the retail or wholesale price, etc. In this area, New Jersey is considered to be the most progressive net metering state because enrollment is unlimited and the total individual generating limit is 2 MW (which seems quite reasonable!):
http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=NJ03R&state=NJ
Another interesting thing about New Jersey is that it has some of the cheapest fuel prices in the nation:
http://gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx
I haven’t done the math on this because I don’t know how much the wholesale electricity rates are in NJ but it would be interesting to figure out if an efficient diesel (or natural gas burning) generator could make a profit under NJ’s net metering scheme. The only major drawback to this idea is that you’d have to live in New Jersey.
kadaka (05:05:37) :
You don’t think a trillion gallons a day enough to get out of the eco-system?
Bottled, bagged, canned and producing products, along with pumping it into the ground for oil. Millions of miles of trapped water in pipes and towers along with pools with sludge on top to hinder evaporation.
Is it a wonder that predicting weather is so difficult when we change our own environment around us that used to be swampland?
Another law of unintended consequence here is that these government programs have essentially ensured prices will remain high for solar panels and there is little (no?) incentive for the manufacturer’s to improve efficiency.
Richard111
Most new solar installations are what they call grid-tied. The panels tie into an inverter which hook into the grid – no batteries required. You can still have batteries in a system like this as a UPS, but you can do that without the solar panels. The only time you have to have batteries with solar now is for a home not connected to the grid.
My father bought old generators from drilling rigs. He ran his on natural gas as part of agreement to drill on his property was free NG from the well. I don’t think they ever expected him to use generators. He never pushed power back to the grid, and had to keep a few things running on the meter.
******
13 04 2010
GregO (19:18:55) :
Diesel powered solar panels – what’s next; coal fired wind turbines?
******
That might not be so far-fetched. While traveling during late summer in W Pennsylvania on the PA turnpike, we stopped on the road very near a wind-farm. There wasn’t a breath of wind. Most of the pinwheels weren’t turning, but a couple were turning merrily around.
Amazing. There wasn’t a breath of wind on the ground very near them. A few low clouds above were almost stationary. I can’t say for certain, but it seemed these were actually motoring — drawing electricity to turn.
The Solar/Green Experiment in Spain has been a huge BUST!
Read….
Study Finds That Every “Green Job” Created In Spain Resulted In 2.2 Other Jobs Being Destroyed
“The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices,” Dr., Calzada said recently in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Ironically, as noted recently by the Institute for Energy Research, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has calculated that Spain’s annual emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by nearly 50 percent since the launch of the subsidized “green jobs” program.
“The price of a comprehensive energy rate, paid by the end consumer in Spain, would have to be increased 31 percent to begin to repay the historic debt generated by this rate deficit mainly produced by the subsidies to renewables, according to Spain’s energy regulator. Spanish citizens must therefore cope with either an increase of electricity rates or increased taxes (and public deficit), as will the U.S. if it follows Spain’s model,” the study found.
Read more:
http://www.westernroundtable.net/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=2100037119.11869.40&gen=1
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf
Is this what we want for our country????
JT
Man mandated intervention. The fires in the cane fields before the sugar cane harvest cracks me up. It must get nasty in the head of a greenie weenie to see all the smoke before the clear ethanol is produced. The burnings are part of the calculation of emissions by ethanol whether they want to ignore them or not.
Anthony,
Once again, you make mention of your novel approach to solar power. Clearly you have uncovered some secret that DOE and, more to the point, all known energy/utility companies have failed to address. May I suggest that you produce a manifesto that can be shared with the ignorant masses? Clearly, you are sitting on knowledge which could be both personally and professionally rewarding.
I ask this of you because I am one of the “nitwits” falling prey to the “industry scheme” of “Green Logic”. That is, I pay a premium of ~$8.00 a month and in return my electricity comes from the renewable sector. This is primarily wind, but has also been geothermal and hydroelectric when I lived out West.
Leaving CO2 out of the equation, coal is still the dirtiest fuel known to mankind. The mercury emitted alone is reason enough for me to seek out alternative energy. Coal is the primary source of energy in the country for because it’s cheap. End of story. Coal-fired power plants are paid off and generating 100% profit.
“Lowell (22:58:40) :Also I was wondering a while back about the compressed air idea except using pipelines instead of abandoned mines. (. . .) What if you used pipelines instead? Could you generate enough air pressure and volume to run a generator hundreds of miles away instead of using high voltage lines. At least pipelines are out of sight for the most part. Not to mention that hot air ballooning would be a lot safer..
Can anybody here do that math?”
To determine the pressure drop of compressed air, there is a formula here:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/pressure-drop-compressed-air-pipes-d_852.html
You will need to know the initial pressure, air volume flow, length of pipe, and inside diameter of pipe. There is an online calculator at the above site (for both metric and imperial units).
There is a caveat for any formula such as this, though. It probably assumes that the air is a certain temperature and humidity, which can change your throughput. Summer and winter will probably see different throughputs.
Remember, any energy transfer, whether it be over distance or through mechanical means, will see a loss. It is that silly first law of thermodynamics, raising its ugly head. That is the precise reason why we have gasoline-powered cars. Gasoline is a very dense energy source (lots of carbon packed into a small space). Gasoline is easily transported and contained (unlike hydrogen, which seeps out of everything it is put into). Gasoline is quite efficient for the size it takes (unlike batteries, which are heavy and take a lot of space).
—
I don’t know if anyone has yet made this observation, but Diesel fuel is essentially the same as home heating oil – except for a red coloring agent added by law to the latter.
With less taxation imposed upon home heating oil, the relative cost of that fuel is much, much lower than the cost of Diesel at the pump. Inspections of commercial Diesel trucks regularly check the fuel tanks for the presence of the red coloring agent, with dire consequences in terms of penalties if this is discovered.
But if you want to run a stationary Diesel generator, and you have access to #2 home heating oil, it’s doubtful that any inspector is going to be checking the fuel tank of your device.
Just a little tip to help make life in California perhaps a bit more bearable for those poor bastards who are represented in the U.S. Senate by Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
—
>>>>A 90 year old man who spent most of his life studying told me that he had the solution: Pump water up hill using solar or other non-fossil fuels in the day, release it during the night to regenerate the power and release it to the grid.<<<<
I'm only 48, but… but I have to say… why not use solar power to pump water up into a water tower… not to convert back to electricity… but for the actual application of a water tower… you know, to store water for personal or municipal use and create water pressure for your plumbing…
In other words use solar power for applications where it makes sense to use it, not for mass consumpution in power grids.
Just remember,
The largest most modern solar farm sits on 82 acres of land. I produces 800 mega watts of power. This is just enough energy to run the newest mega computer designed to study climate change with.
We live in strange times.
Whenever you have an economic system that pays a producer above market rates, you have the potential for this kind of abuse. Heck, you actually guarantee it.
In the UK, the Feed In Tariff that became operational on 1st April, pays anyone who installs a solar panel on their roof, 45 pence per KhH of electricity fed back into the grid. Those that have bothered to profit by this always buy the cheap electricity from the grid and sell back 100% of their own at the much higher price.
Yet, I can see an even better scam. Why be content to sell the miserly amount of power that they are able to generate from their solar panels? Wouldn’t it be even better to hook up a diesel generator in parallel with their panels and sell even more elecricity to the hapless consumer?
Al Gore’s Weather (AGW): Ah invented “rumbling” “Rivers” and “the insanity” and “the Eyjafjallajokull glacier could erupt soon, “.
“Rivers near the glacier have already risen, reports stated.”
…-
“Rumbling Iceland Volcano Forces Evacuation Of Hundreds
Reykjavik, Iceland (AHN) – Authorities in Iceland evacuated approximately 800 people Wednesday because a volcano near the Eyjafjallajokull glacier could erupt soon, according to reports from emergency personnel.
Crews began evacuating around 2 a.m. (10 p.m. ET Tuesday), reports from the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management stated.
Chief Inspector of the agency, Rognvaldur Olafsson, said they found the fissure erupting beneath the surface of the glacier. Scientists were surveying the area by air for more details, the inspector reported.
The eruption so far has created a large crevice in the glacier. Flooding, not lava, is the biggest concern right now in the area.
Rivers near the glacier have already risen, reports stated.”
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7018395876
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi
Re: rbateman (20:58:26)
Even better is the approach of Bellows Falls (VT) Light & Power in the 1930s with their Grandpa’s Knob wind generator. They simply shut the sluice gates on their hydro plant when the wind was blowing and allowed the head to rise in the impoundment. Mother Nature did the rest. Why bother pumping the water uphill? When the wind died down they had all that energy stored that they could use to make electricity with vanishingly small costs to acquire it.
C. the C.
Not counting fixed service availability charge I pay about $0.11/kwh. If I generate more electricity than I use and feed it back into the grid I get paid $0.035/kwh. I don’t use much electricity and it’s mostly not during the peak generating hours for solar. The cost of the electronics for a grid interconnect is obscene but without it I’d need a bank of batteries to store power for night-time and to see me through cloudy days. That’s so expensive it’s not worth thinking about and lead-acid batteries have a limited lifetime of a few years so a grid interconnect is the only option. I’m in south central Texas which has excellent conditions for solar panels. If Obummer was serious about this he’d turn one of the automakers we now own into a producer of solar panels and grid interconnects so we get some good old fashioned economy of scale going and congress would make a law that all electric companies must accept excess generation and pay for it at the same rate they charge, or at least something more reasonable than 33%. I can see some small offset for delivery charge being fair but in fairness any electricity I generate will be taken up by my neighbors within a few hundred feet of me so it’s not like my juice is going through fifty miles of wire back to the power plant. If these things were done it would be a decent investment. I might even be tempted to invest in a small electric vehicle for all my short distance driving (which is most of my driving) if something along the same lines were done to get some economy of scale in those hideously expensive things.
These are things I was hoping would change when my ill-advised countrymen decided to put the socialist party in power. So far all they’ve done is taken over some large industries and put them on a track to become even less efficient.
Rbateman
Ah….But how many deisel powered trucks, will it require, to build the hill (here on the Fens) to pump the water up?
I have no problem with subsidies – but subsidies of a very specific type:
* subsidise the end user, or as close to the end user as possible;
* the subsidy has no ‘cost’ associated with it.
On the first point, the ‘end user’ usage means there is limited capacity for scamming (oh, it’ll exist – you can never get rid of it). The enduser benefits directly and is two fold: you get the supossed benefit of the subsidized item, plus you get the subsidy.
On the second point, if the subsidized item is truly a desirable thing people will use it and take advantage of the subsidy. If it’s a white elephant, then no-one takes advantage of the subsidy.
An example is high efficiency windows, or housing construction techniques. These ‘things’ are useful and advantageous to the end user, but are relatively expensive. However, if you use them, as the end user, you gain a rebate for purchasing them to offset your taxes, for example. The tax rebate is your ‘subsidy’ (caveat is that you never get more back than you put in, however).
A lot of people see these as ‘loopholes’ for the rich, or favors the rich: nothing could be further from the truth (poor people should not be spending $10K on replacing windows in their house). Additionally, the economics effect occurs – as rich people spend money, that money is quite naturally spread to other people.
(I could probably go on further with this idea – but I’ve found a lot of people get locked into the ‘it’s not fair you are giving stuff to rich people’ mode or the ‘it’s not fair why I can’t have that’ mode, or the ‘you just hate poor people’ mode. Even though I’m currently one of those ‘poor’ people by their measure, yet am able to reduce my consumption/impact, even at my own initial expense and without any kind of subsidy, and still afford all (most) of the things of comfort).
Here in Michigan, ultra-lib Gov. Granholm has installed a law that requires 10% of electricity be from renewable sources. As a practical matter, this means wind and solar. Nuclear would qualify, but high costs and long lead times rule it out because the law takes effect in just a few short years.
To ramp up, Michigan power companies are letting 10-year contracts to buy solar and wind produced power at rates 5-8 times that currently charged to consumers. This cost is calculated at the source and does not include the cost of transmission to the grid.
Even at the optimum scenario, 10% of power at 5 times normal yields a net increase of 40% in overall electricity costs, paid either in higher rates or in taxes to the State to be paid in subsidy.
And you wonder why the economy of Michigan is in the tank.
Marginally OT, but a Northridge, CA company – Capstone Energy makes a nifty little gas turbine generator which will run on methane, nat gas, biofuel, diesel, or propane/butane – $2K/KW with a 30KW minimum. Being in TX, I’m thinking gas well and off the grid for ever!
Tucci (06:44:52) :
But if you want to run a stationary Diesel generator, and you have access to #2 home heating oil, it’s doubtful that any inspector is going to be checking the fuel tank of your device.
Wow – haha, another efficiency in action moment… aka law of unintended consequences… aka people will find a loophole and exploit it.
I’d love to do the numbers on this sometime, just to see how much self-generated electricity using subsidized heating oil vs. electricity from the grid might cost.
I guess it would also make sense to know what kind of laws one might be breaking by doing this too 🙂
John from CA (20:21:53) :
The loons are attempting to use wind to compress air in old mines.
What? Did Al Gore visit an old mine?
r (07:12:10) :
Just remember,
The largest most modern solar farm sits on 82 acres of land. I produces 800 mega watts of power. This is just enough energy to run the newest computer designed to study climate change with.
That one soundspretty efficient land wise. This one was just built. Apparently we have a lot of extra land here in Kansas!
Smoky Hills Phase I >
Project Location:
West of Salina, Kansas about 20 miles, and just north of Interstate 70 on both sides of Highway 14. The project is located in both Lincoln and Ellsworth Counties.
Project Interconnection:
Midwest Energy 230 kV transmission line in Ellsworth, County.
Project Size (Phase I):
100.8 MW (Phase II is an additional 150 MWs)
Project Turbines:
1.8 MW V80 turbines manufactured by Vestas, with an 80-meter hub height and 80-meter blade diameter.
Landowners and Acreage Involved:
Over 30 landowners and 12,000 acres are involved in the project.
Commercial Operation:
February 2008.