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?
Sponsored IT training links:
Download the 640-816 study pack with latest 70-647 dumps and pass 650-568 exam on first try guaranteed.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
OceanTwo (08:19:26)
I’m not disagreeing here, but one thing you didn’t mention – and there is no workaround for this – is that subsidies typically correlate with if not directly cause inflationary pressures on whatever is being subsidized. Increased demand puts an upward pressure on prices after all.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for efficiency and energy efficient upgrades to homes, in particular, are probably the best use of money – it’s almost always cheaper to save 1 kWh of consumption vs. producing an additional kWh – but subsidy regimes rarely deliver good value for the money IMO
Dave Springer
Just for reference, transmission losses are usually estimated at 7-8% – those high voltage lines are surprisingly efficient.
Concentrating solar thermal can indeed continue to produce power at night – using storage: Abengoa is the company (world leader: Spanish). Spain is far ahead of the US in solar power.
Solar storage that releases power for about 7 hours after sundown is also being considered in California. Several contracts have been approved by the CPUC and contracts signed with PG&E and a SoCal utility: here’s one company – from ex rocket scientists in the US:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ex-united-technologies-rocket-scien-2009-11
Will the nuclear option be prohibited, as a source of energy, because its nuclear fuel could be eventually used by terrorists?
Re: Joe (05:20:02)
[Green Logic on]
I don’t see the problem. Ground is amazing for water filtration, anyone with a well and a septic tank system on the same property knows this. Besides, seawater is heavier than fresh water and those mines are rather deep. There would be layering, the water on top would have the least amount of stuff in it (salts, etc), could even qualify as equivalent to normal well water, which does vary in quality an annoyingly large amount. (As the well drillers put it, we’ll drill until we hit water, no guarantee as to the quality and drinkability of said water.) So you take a mine going down a half-mile or more from sea level, fill with seawater, and the wells around it could be drilled about only 400 feet deep from the surface (average-ish here in central Pennsylvania). Shouldn’t be an issue.
Re: Joe (05:32:25)
I just saw a figure here the other day, something like 97% of the water on this planet is salty. We won’t be draining off enough from the seas to disturb the saltwater lifeforms, and over time whatever liquid water eventually gets out of the mines will be somewhat filtered with less salinity, thus more usable by freshwater and land-dwelling life.
Oh, isn’t there a problem with collapsing old mines? Filling them with water, putting more pressure on the surfaces than air alone, should help with that.
So now we’re up to free electricity, helping with the sea level rise, and preventing mine collapses. Three scores at once, a hat trick!
[Green Logic off]
Susan Kraemer (09:52:17) :
“Spain is far ahead of the US in solar power.”
That is the perfect example of GREEN INSANITY with a record of unemployment caused as a consequence of the green passion of Spain’s leftist government. Spain is already reaching the same levels of deficit as Greece. A real perfect example.
kadaka (10:01:47) : There is something missing in Joe’s idea: It would be better to inject all that water in San Andreas’ fault, so you won’t wait for the Big One any more. Though it may spoil Baby Al’s beach property…hmmm
Re: Tucci (06:44:52)
I have commented here before about the similarity between #2 heating oil and road diesel, and there likely is a legal method to accomplish the intent of what you said. The state is interested in you paying road taxes for fuel used in vehicles on the road, so to duck them you file paperwork saying the fuel is for off-road only. This is a long-recognized exemption for farm equipment, often used to not have to pay road taxes for gasoline used in agriculture, and often involves having the fuel delivered to a tank on your property.
Plus there is an issue of possible additives in diesel to make it work better in an engine, as opposed to the rather tame conditions when #2 is burned in a furnace. If you have a new generator under warranty, best not to possibly void that warranty by using #2 if not specifically allowed in writing to use such.
“If you have solar panels don’t you already have DC to AC converters?
What about storage batteries? No one ever talks about the cost of these items. Just the cost of the panels.
Richard111 (22:52:34) :”
Inverter for Grid-Tie purposes $3000 + (converts DC to AC)
Charge Controller $100 + (charges the batteries)
Batteries (6V deep cycle) $400 +/each. Number of batteries depend on the voltage system you use.
I live off grid. I have 18 x 195 watt hi voltage panels at $900 dollars each. 2 passive trackers at $7500 each. 2 MPPT charge controllers at $700 dollars each (one charge controller per 9 panel array). One 48V inverter $4500. 3 banks of 8 batteries/bank @ur momisugly $400 per battery. (The more banks of batteries the longer their lifespan). Expensive yes, but would have cost me two to three times that amount to bring electric lines to my property.) Finally don’t forget that you have to do monthly maintenance on the batteries.
wsbriggs (08:38:05) :
Sounds awfully expensive per kilowatt. I have a 20 Kw Cummings Onan backup generator that cost $0.50 per Kw.
beng (05:55:53) :
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.
This is a fairly common occurrence. Wind turbines are of necessity tied into the power grid and are equipped to disconnect when they stop producing usable power, but from what I’ve seen these disconnects are one of the more common failures of the many that wind systems seem to be prone to. If you have any doubts about what you are observing, turbines that are motoring will be rotating backwards.
” NickB. (08:50:22) :
[…]
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.”
A trend towards microgeneration as it is called is already being recognized by energy research institutes at universities; it is estimated that in about 5 or 10 years large numbers of microgeneration installations will be rolled out. Japan is subsidizing fuell cells for microcogeneration (heat + electricity for a household) to develop a product for the international market, 5000 of these things are installed already. BBC reported.
So it’s not as anarchistic as some might think; big industry is already developing products for this market. The Bloom box is another one. Of course it sails under the banner of reducing CO2.
Here’s a report:
http://www.ciobinternational.org/news/view/1720
enneagram (09:58:39) :
Will the nuclear option be prohibited, as a source of energy, because its nuclear fuel could be eventually used by terrorists?
Check out the Union of Concerned Scientists (yup, the same club Bill Nye is in) site for the background on this. Nuclear power is not their complaint when it comes to proliferation – they have plenty of other objections, see here – the proliferation concern is around “reprocessing”
Note: they don’t call it “recycling”, which it is, because “recycling” is good and “reprocessing” is bad:
Dangerous Nuclear Reprocessing Plan Curtailed
Solid UCS research and the involvement of thousands of UCS activists helped strike a major blow to the Bush administration proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program, an ill-advised plan to reprocess spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. UCS strongly opposes reprocessing, which separates plutonium from other nuclear waste, since separated plutonium can be used to make nuclear weapons. Reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials, and for nations to develop nuclear weapon programs.
Over the last several years, we have helped convince Congress to provide significantly less funding for the program than requested by the Administration. As a result, construction on a proposed large-scale reprocessing facility and a nuclear reactor of a new, unproven design has not begun. In April, 2008, the Administration announced that the decision to proceed with the program would be left to the next administration.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/successes/
Thanks to Jimmy Carter (ref) we stopped all our nuclear recycling in the mid 70’s and started storing it locally at the power plants.
For the current style of nuclear reactors (there are posts in here discussing other types in development) reprocessing results in left-over plutonium and “would add the risk of nuclear materials being stolen to build nuclear weapons” (Ref).
NickB. (12:12:30) : Thanks for the link. I was asking about it because perhaps what there is behind all that “serious concern” it is not other than the “undesired consequence” (for their purposes) of cheap and wide energy availability, which would go against their Malthusian and Brave New World Paradise, chosen by them to be OUR FUTURE.
chemman (10:44:23) :
Expensive yes, but would have cost me two to three times that amount to bring electric lines to my property.) Finally don’t forget that you have to do monthly maintenance on the batteries.
Definitely a situation where solar (maybe even a wind turbine) DO make sense!
DirkH (11:29:27) :
Distributed generation is a cool deal. Don’t take my comments about the efficiency of the grid too literally, I think the distributed stuff can be really interesting but typically only makes sense for situations like chemman’s. New developments in this space are coming which may change that – over here I think they’re usually referred to by the relatively generic label of “Combined Heat and Power” (CHP). More info here
BTW – if you’re into cool building technology this place is great: http://www.toolbase.org/
It’s geared toward the US but a lot of this stuff should be available for you too.
Cheers!
Using cheap electricity to produce expensive electricity is the equivilant of a “renewable energy carry trade”
here’s another small scale generation scheme from natural gas using ceramic fuel cells
http://www.cfcl.com.au/BlueGen/
I like solar and wind power. I love america and oppose the expensive power which in Spain’s case gives then 22% unemployment. I see many can’t learn from the spanish fiasco.
Florida Power and Light just put its DeSoto photoelectricic solar plant on-line.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/10/26/highest-cost-generating-plant-comes-on-line-in-florida-to-obama-fanfare/
It cost 152 million dollars to construct and provides daytime electrical power too all of aproximately 3,000 homes and businesses.
That is a bit more than $50,000 per each home and business.
One engineer and 6 groundskeepers are employed full time, the engineer to trouble shoot and the groundskeepers to keep the grass trimmed and keep animals away . . . oh my, the “green jobs” provided.
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
AGW’s Weather (AGW): Hope and Fear.
Al wants to know which way is Northeast.
The answer:
“eastward from the Dakotas. Instead it will take the long way, traveling northwest to central Canada, then will dive southeastward to the New England coast.”
Wants to know if “Snow” will be runned in Boston Mareathon.
Al says, after all, Boston is Teddy’s seat.
…-
“Snow Is Possible for Part of Northeast Saturday
A storm set to begin as rain in the Northeast late Thursday into Friday may bring accumulating snow to parts of the region Friday night into Saturday.”
“The storm will not be swinging up from the Gulf of Mexico or plow due eastward from the Dakotas. Instead it will take the long way, traveling northwest to central Canada, then will dive southeastward to the New England coast.”
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/27449/snow-is-possible-for-part-of-n.asp
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi
While a little bit of knowledge may make some one dangerous, in the hands of a lecturing PhD (to the young, mold-able and undiscerning minds of undergrad students) I think it can be wielded with a deadliness heretofore unmatched in human history …
What do you think the term ‘grid’ connotes anyway?
‘Lumped’ (antithesis of connection within a grid)’?
> James Sexton (20:29:02) :
> And that still doesn’t mention the ability to even store
> such power. It’s not like we’ve a giant battery that we
> can stick in the ground. No such mechanism exists!!!
Actually, for $25 million, you CAN get a BOB (Big Old Battery) that’ll output 32 megawatt-hours (4 megawatts for 8 hours). See article about the NaS (Sodium Sulpher) battery at… http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/texas-town-turns-monster-battery-backup-power Note… this thing is *NOT* merely a theory, it’s actually implemented and running. The article also says…
> Such a battery could also serve as a test bed for utility
> companies to see how the devices can help with energy
> storage regarding renewable energy, such as wind power
> or solar power.
Stuff like this could overcome the flakey nature of wind and solar power.
@geo (20:42:08) : It is all well and good if you don’t mine some “economic weirdness” with your money. But the substudies you are talking about cost me money. I have no tolerance what so ever for economic weirdness with my money. You want to pay for it go right ahead, but do so with your money not mine.
Neutral; that’s the “neutral” wire. In a properly loaded 3-phase system _no_ current flows in the neutral wire … incidentally it is most often also grounded as well (for safety of both the system and personnel; anything exposed to atmospheric processes e.g. thunderstorm production of static potentials and eventual lightning requires a ‘grounding’ to control the effects of both displacement currents as well as induced currents.)
Note: The the ‘neutral’ wire in a home or office _will_ be carrying current, unless, you’ve got a 3-phase (or in the US a 240V) appliance connected …
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power
.
.