Solar cell

Give me a break! ...Jim Thompson

Sahara desert IIRC.

Europe.

that live there ;-)

That's why Spain is the ideal location.

Back when I lived on a acre, out in the boonies, I calculated that I could run my own mirror-heated steam plant using only about 1/4 acre with only one axis tracking mirrors... day-time power only, but that would have knocked down my power bill dramatically.

Also would have rid the area of lots of birds :-) ...Jim Thompson

funds.

machines.)

Shoreham was "economic" until it was *intentionally* started, then immediately shut down by the NY politicians. Of course ConEd wanted it started so it was officially "on-line" and they could write it off (someone else pays), and the politicians wanted it shut down because of a bimbo in the movies. Both got what they wanted, a mess.

??

Unless I misread the web page, the plant uses molten salt as a heat transfer medium. Could be a drag if it ever solidified again, no?

If not, why not?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

funds.

machines.)

No, just anti-idiot. I worry that PWRs are too dangerous to be put into the hands of the kind of people who could stand the boredom of the other 99.99% of the job.

BWRs, gas cooled, CANDU, etc are much much safer--you have a lot more time to react, call in experts, etc., etc.

In the long run, nuclear is the only thing with remotely enough energy density to support a technological society.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

l funds.

ysis.

W peak

a new

(The

id

hines.)

other

foot

esnel

he energy

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0...Jim Thompson

it

is

ave

Are you sure about that Jim? Just about all these solar projects are about the subsidies, and little else.

If solar were economic, 'greedy' capitalists would capitalize on it in droves, benefiting everyone. That's the beauty of free markets.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

funds.

machines.)

So the fact that installed capacity is doubling every 2 years and just about everyone is scrambling to produce them is evidence that only govts are buying them? 8 more doublings will equal the entire installed generating capacity from every other source.

funds.

machines.)

CAPACITY might be doubling every two years, but that just reflects the state of the art of government subsidies, not solar power. Eight more doublings will likely bankrupt every country on the planet.

Most are already bankrupt.

See!

What kind of battery ? For instance the AAA NiMh cell capacity might be about 1000 mAh.

The sensor short circuit current is up to 100 uA for the 4 V device and 50 uA for the 8 V device.

Trying to charge three AAA cells with the sensor takes about 10000 hours or several years of natural sun light.

Possibly usable to compensate for the NiMh cell self discharge :-)

(...)

But just think of the onsite storage costs for spent photons!

--Winston

Sahara desert IIRC.

Europe.

that live there ;-)

The Desertec plan and the existing stations in Spain and US are based on concentrated solar thermal power, not PV cells, apparently for economical reasons.

In solar thermal plants, the sun heats a fluid which then drives a conventional gas or steam turbine. It would make even more economical sense, if the excess heat available on the "cold" end of the turbine could be used for something useful, such as running absorbtion chillers or desalination plants.

PV panels on individual houses will make economical sense only in hot countries if the cost of energy changes on an hour or shorter bases. During hot sunny afternoons, the electric consumption will reach the annual peak due to air conditioning.

Much of the power during those hours needs to be produced with simple cheap gas turbines (used only a limited number of hours each year), but the overall efficiency is low and they need to use more expensive fuels such as natural gas or oil.

If this extra cost during summer day hours is charged from the consumers, it would make sense for the consumer to use individual PV panels for running the air conditioning, thus avoiding buying expensive peak electricity from the power company. In such cases there would be less need to have an expensive inverter to feed power back to the grid.

Of course, simple thermal collectors could be used to drive an absorbtion cooler, even if the cooler efficiency is lower than a compressor cooler, this avoids the low efficiency light to electricity conversion in PV cells.

Interesting...any link?

About my first post, any suggestion? Thanks

The problem with concentrated systems is that you have to track the sun. This would not be an issue, if the panel could be operated in a protected environment, such as indoors :-). Unfortunately strong winds, sand, dust, snow and ice require quite strong tracking motors and possibly some security mechanism for parking it in a safe position during extreme conditions (horizontally in high winds, but this would not be a good idea, if much snow is expected).

Especially in desert areas the dust/sand storms can deposit much dirt on the panel, so these panels will have to be cleaned quite often. For manual cleaning, the elements should have a limited size, in order to avoid building special fixtures just for cleaning.

The good thing about fixed non-concentrating panels is that sturdy mounts can be used, but due to the lower annual collection capability, the PV cell price should drop by one or two orders of magnitude, to be truly economically viable.

Direct government subsidies (paid by taxes) or feed in tariffs (paid by users of electricity produced in a different way) are possible only for means of production with a low market share.

A government would be stupid, if it guaranties that it is going to pay say 10x the market price for any _new_ installations started between today and 2050.

It is a different thing than guarantees that a certain price will be paid for the next ten years for systems started this year. Each year, the market share should be evaluated, if new applicants are accepted into the program. This market share criterion should be stated when such programs are started.

Well, for starters, solar cells can output around 1.3V with a reasonable load - a lot more that "millivolt output". Secondly, the current capability of those Clare "cells" is a bit miserly. To be fair tho, that is expected with such dinky arrays.

It is those clouds that made the JFET "photocells" work like JFETS..