Why not have personal storage units per home? Why, 1 ton hoisted a mere 1.5km stores about 4KWHr, half a day's usage for most. If the mile-high tower's a problem, 100 tons hoisted just 15m will do. That's what, a mother-in-law + a house? (not necessarily in that order).
If people could be convinced to plug their electric cars in while the sun is shining you might have a way to pay for all that stuff in every house. The storage issue is not an easy one to beat.
Maybe a combination of nuclear (base demand), geothermal (night) and solar (day) would do it.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
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"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
I like it because I can do it, not watch it, and go really fast. I don't care to watch it on TV. And I'm not competitive about it. So it's only a semi-sport to me, maybe.
Skiing, and hiking, are the only vacations I can do that get my mind off work. If I lay on a beach or something passive like that, I'll think about circuits. Part of the thing about skiing is the huge, dynamic visual field, which maybe occupies the visual/spatial brain bits that also do electronics.
But I'm stuck in the cabin today, drawing schematics, while everybody else is off to Squaw. I have my vellum, my Berol F pencils, and my electric eraser handy. I guess I'll do the three 64 MHz ADC channels first.
Alpine got over 100 additional inches of snow in the last two days. Some houses up here are almost invisible under the snow. Last night the girls borrowed my beautiful flaming red Audi. Going up a hill, there was a truck stuck, blocking the road, so they tried to back down. Mo did a 360 and plowed into a snowbank. Some really nice people in a Humvee offered to tow her free; attempting that, they slid sideways and plowed into the Audi. Mo was mortified. The Humvee guy was mortified and wanted to pay for the damage, cash on the spot. In the light of day, there's a scuff mark on the front about the size of a toothpick, so I guess I'll keep her. And keep Mo, too.
What sports do you watch or do?
John
ps- I got one of those curvy snow shovels that somebody here recommended. It's fabulous on powder. When you have a really big scoop full, you can sort of lever it on your thigh and push *down* to give it a really good fling, without wrecking your back.
For storage you could use a giant thermal mass. That evens out the home heating / cooling load, handling the peak demand problem, it's cheap, and it doesn't wear out. No need to strip the Andes of all their lithium either--save that for cars.
That sounds like a decent mix for the power. On the other side of the equation, use sensible construction (passive solar, insulation, eaves, passive airflow, cool roofs, etc.) to minimize demand.
Those techniques vary dramatically from place to place. This means we'll need centralized planning. ;-)
Think there is room for some price reductions in PV? _______
"The lowest retail price for a multicrystalline silicon solar module is $1.85 per watt (?1.35 per watt) from an Asian retailer. The lowest retail price for a monocrystalline silicon module is also $2.29 per watt (?1.67 per watt), from a US retailer. Brand, technical attributes and certifications do matter. The lowest thin film module price is at $1.30 per watt (?0.95 per watt) from a United States-based retailer. As a general rule, it is typical to expect thin film modules to be at a price discount to crystalline silicon (for like module powers). This thin film price is represented by a 60 watt module.
The other types of module prices that are often talked about are factory gate (module manufacturer to wholesaler or large customer) and wholesale prices (wholesaler to dealer) - both of these are much lower prices than displayed on this page. Researching these prices is undertaken by Solarbuzz under a completely separate data sourcing methodology. _______
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Dirk
http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology
I understood. But, is it cheaper build a bigger better factory to make more cells that capture 10w of heat, to make 1w of electricity, to store in a storage yet to be devised, etc, or to avoid using that 1w in the first place?
By contrast, if you want heat, solar-thermal can capture more, cheaply.
No one said otherwise and you completely missed my reason for calling that particular one out. Its abstract and chapter content __supplements__ what one finds for the last one I mentioned, which was my main point in drawing any attention to the general "product line" of this author (which is worth reviewing, as well, to get the overall worldview in play.)
It was the last book I wanted to draw attention towards. The book places the author diametrically against what is probably the very most remarkable and successful science theory. That idea has, in fact, stood the test of time very, very well.
I think it's worth looking at an author's work product, John.
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