Somehow I missed that announcement - I like Far Niente a lot, so I’m 1) happy to hear that they were an early adopter and 2) disappointed that I failed to notice the floatovoltaics news.
Again, here’s hoping that the DWP (and/or whichever organization controls the California Aqueduct) pays attention this time around.
I’m not saying the Sahara has much cloud cover or rains a bunch or something, but out of every day there’s still at least 8 hours where the only light is going to come from the moon.
And the comment about the no sun in the winter was in regards to the main book, where he talks about the maximum power consumption. He first questions if its possible to have the solar panels in the UK, but quickly discounts that because they don’t provide enough power. I was not saying there would be no sun in the Sahara in the winter, only that the UK’s day where they have the most power usage was in the winter on cloud covered days with no wind blowing.
I believe that pumping water uphill to later flow to a turbine is currently the most cost effective method of storing large amounts of energy for later use… sure you might be able to use batteries… but you’d be covering the rest of Africa in Duracells…
So, four of them. But we also should eliminate all forms of incandescent lighting, insulate the living bejeezus out of every building and come up with better battery storage arrays.
Sounds good in theory, but I can’t really get behind the idea until there is a “Solar Frickin’ World Energy!!!” video on YouTube.
Solar Freakin’ Iraq! They don’t call 'em Sunni for nothing!
Well, shi’ite. I guess you’ve solved it.
I think the square-cube rule would rule out the possibility of battery footprint being larger than the actual mirrors or PV panels.
Ultimately the technology will be best managed by the knurds.
it’s the graphic from the desertec wikipedia page. i got there by just clicking the big X in the upper right of the image gallery to which the link went.
they claim in 2005 numbers: 105TWh/y
the US, nay, north america, needs a program like this. NOW
That was my mother… My niece found out after ma had a stroke and my niece moved into mom’s house
none. that’s what the transmission is for. and if you mean at night, that’s what liquid sodium melted by the solar collectors is for, stored on site at the plants
in 2010 ABB and Siemens built a HVDC transmission line carrying 6,400 MW of power over a distance of nearly 2,000 kilometers from Xiangjiaba to Shanghai:
it’s interesting how much people pontification on the feasibility of things they self-admittedly don’t understand.
most of the article is about solar concentrating molten sodium type generation, where the molten sodium stores can last through the night, generating power 24 hours a day at a much lower price than solar on today’s market.
I wonder if one day we’ll have giant, solar-powered cargo ships bringing giant blocks of charged graphene batteries to areas who still haven’t gotten alternative energy down pat.
I’m sure they’re used to it by now.
So it seems from comments this is out by a factor of 10. #Lazyjournalist …
It also seems from the comments that people don’t get (that even if it is too small by 10x) that this is merely a great way to visually demonstrate the scale needed relative to a small part of Africa.
IE Actual solar power should be installed at the point of load, right where it’s needed. Nobody rational would recommend putting all of it in one single location.
It does show that those Northern African countries could build up manufacturing industries along the coast, encouraged by access to solar panel arrays in the nearby desert. Aluminum smelting uses a Lot of electricity…
@arghanurism, your understanding of radioactivity is flawed. Please do some research on why the Linear No-Threshold model is invalidated by nuclear hormesis. The only reason that long-lived radio-isotopes are a storage problem is that misguided environmentalists have successfully held back implementation of reactor designs that are orders of magnitude more efficient which can burn all of that so-called “waste” to generate electricity. It truly is not waste, it is fuel. Besides, as half-life goes up, radioactivity goes down. The extremely-long-half-life radio-isotopes one can safely handle with one’s bare hands.
Here is a good starting point regarding Linear No-Threshold and Nuclear Hormesis: http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/radiation-the-no-safe-level-myth.html
I think you misread my argument and missed my point. I said nothing about the long-lived radio-isotopes–or their associated storage. And I’m not going to try and argue that point. Nor am I addressing the differences in waste contamination or the various types of radioactive matter and their relative degree of harm they might cause based on observed behavior. My example was that of a real world observation that is novel and previously unobserved–that of a highly radioactive forest observing substantial changes in decomposition rates. This is not a model–it is an observation of what occurs in reality, that is what modeling is then based on.
Jep. For the folks worried about imperialism, there’s a whole continent diving through the demographic transition right now that could mke plenty use of solar, wind, and desalination tech right in the middle of their most unpopulated wasteland. Both Mediterranean and equatorial African states could make use of this resource. If Europe doesn’t end up being a customer for this resource, the rest of Africa will.
The breeder fission industry you adore relies on very optimistic ideas about the future of reprocessing, including isotope separation. It isn’t possible to run a nuclear industry without giant centralized power production and giant centralized reprocessing, both of which have correspondingly giant economic incentives to manage power and waste badly.
This is all beside the point. This is about solar. Move your nuclear dreams to a new topic.
