Coal plant? Who mentioned coal plants? Are you under the impression that when you run your solar panels, you're reducing the consumption of coal?
Where did I say it was halved?
The reduction in efficiency is a result of a choice of a different kind of generation plant. The different choice arises because of the lower utilisation, which shifts the optimum economics towards using more fuel, but with less capital expenditure.
OK, at what point does this actually produce more CO2?
Where is your DATA comparing 2 different sized power stations.
What ratio of size difference in power station will there be until they do a bait-and-switch and swap to using those unearthly inefficient smaller power stations that churn out X times CO2 due to inefficiency of scale?
You reduce power requirements by 50% and CO2 emmission goes up?
You can get energy out of the ocean, but it takes so much infrastructure to get so little energy that it simply makes no economic sense. Which is why no one is using it as a serious energy supply.
Indeed, why go to the ocean. Connect up a bunch of microphones, and just collect energy from the outside ambient noise.
Economic. That's the word you need to remember. It's not sufficient for something to be physically possible. It has to be economic before it will be used in the mainstream.
if you are worrying about "emissions" I guess you should also worry about whether or not the solar panels provide a slippery surface that could be a safety issue for when Santa lands his sleigh on the roof at Christmas. This is a far more real concern.
and
Now that is more sensible and critical concern. The likely future price of power should also be taken into account when doing calculations.
It gives people te idea that that capacity is usable in that time and it isn't. Low cost batteries need time to charge and discharge. OTOH, capacitors. The devil in all your schemes are the conversion rates and the losses there in, i.e the practical bits.
whether or not the solar panels provide a slippery surface that could be a safety issue for when Santa lands his sleigh on the roof at Christmas. This is a far more real concern.
I'm not, particularly, but clearly some people are. It would be annoying in the extreme if I'm having pay more for electricity because people are implementing alleged CO2 reducing technologies that don't actually work.
It's not that they're different sized in terms of power output, it's that they are constructed differently.
The basic principle is this:
Capital investment incurs a cost - it's the money that could have been earnt using the capital if it hadn't been invested in the particular way. That cost continues day by day whether or not the generation plant is running.
Running a generation plant incurs a cost - it's the money used to provide it with fuel (and maintenance and other minor elements, but mainly fuel). But unlike the capital cost, the running cost is only incurred when the plant is running.
So for a given power capacity, there's a compromise to be made between the capital cost and the running cost. The more capital you spend, the more efficient you can make the plant, and the less fuel it will consume. But the less the plant runs, the less you gain from the extra capital. Beyond a certain point, additional capital doesn't pay for itself in terms of reduced fuel consumption. Where that point lies depends on the percentage utilisation.
Solar panels on roofs will reduce the time that other generation plant is running. Essentially, the plant that would be running during the day in the absence of solar panels will only be running when the sun isn't shining. When it comes time to replace or build that plant, the decision will be made that it's not sensible to spend so much capital on making it efficient. So, for a given energy output, it will consume more fuel, and therefore produce more CO2.
That's a qualititive analysis. I don't have the data for a quantitive one.
Ohh, for a moment there I thought you were Doctor No :-) Ok so we might be able to do the electric bit, for the water I don't profess to be an expert on all this but if there is the will, usually there is a way.
all of this discussion is about research using known technologies or derivations, what is needed and will happen someday, is some genius thinking completely out of the square that comes up with something totally different. the main problem with this is that it has the potential to completely alter economies and send the world in a spin, so the genius had better be careful. :)
On Sat, 07 Jul 2012 14:37:20 +1000, the following appeared in sci.skeptic, posted by terryc :
I live in Arizona, in the desert. Our nominally 6.45kW solar photovoltaic system faces south (optimum for the US) and usually generates a net peak of approximately 5.6-5.8kW, at solar noon, during May when the combination of sun angle and temperature provides the best results. The total power generated on average in May is approximately 42kWh/day, or less than 2kWh/h averaged over 24 hours. And although this could be improved with the addition of solar tracking panels (a rather expensive custom proposition for residential use), at best it could provide around 60-70kWh/day.
And like all home photovoltaic systems I know of, it supplies zero if grid power is lost, since the inverter has no internal frequency generator and is required to "lock" to the incoming line frequency in order to function.
--
Bob C.
"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless
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