Alternative Energy: Viable?

ScottyJack wrote

I support solar first as it is truly the most sustainable energy source after implementing the highest level of energy efficiency possible (insulation to the max).

And I thought you were smarted than that. You look at the real cost and total life cycle foot print (which includes all those nasty chemicals required to build the damn things) and you see it is way worse than fossil. We have been sold a bill of goods with electric cars, wind power and solar.

PeeTex wrote

And I thought you were smarted than that. You look at the real cost and total life cycle foot print (which includes all those nasty chemicals required to build the damn things) and you see it is way worse than fossil. We have been sold a bill of goods with electric cars, wind power and solar.

I think that's an oversimplification of the facts.  It has everything to do with the process used, the country they are produced in, and he amount of chemical "waste" that is recycled.  There are some nasty chemicals used in fracking (maybe, nobody knows it's a secret!) and they are pumped into the ground so reclaiming them isn't simple.

What is the source of your info?  How would you power humanity in a renewable way?

What does it matter. People will migrate to whatever is cheapest. It's the 70's all over. Renewable, insulation blah blah blah.  The towel heads got the picture and brought oil prices down to where it is the cheapest energy source again. We can't produce it that cheap but we will use it cause that's the American way. Things will be good gas/ heating fuel wise so people will give up on the alternatives, become dependent and start the process all over again.  The good thing that came out of the 70's was America insulating homes that's what is going to be the net positive 15 years from now . And that's all I gots to say about these

Cheap fossil fuel is like an addictive drug and OPEC is the dealer.  Or was the dealer. The one thing that's changed in the last decade is that we now have the ability to produce a much greater % of our own needs.  If the Saudis want to sell to us cheaper than our production costs, fine - we can save our resources for another day (or better yet, never need them at all).

PeeTex wrote

ScottyJack wrote

I support solar first as it is truly the most sustainable energy source after implementing the highest level of energy efficiency possible (insulation to the max).

And I thought you were smarted than that.

Exactly what is the problem with solar? Do the problems really negate the benefit of offsetting 20 years of electricity produced from fossil fuel?
All energy sources are a trade-off of one kind or another. IMO the most important thing is that we transition away from energy sources that are producing global warming.  That cycle has to be broken.  If wind, nuclear, solar, etc are a bridge of sorts in a transition from fossil fuel to an ultimately clean and sustainable energy source, then they are worth doing.  Bill McKibben got it right in this NY Times piece from 10 years ago, which dealt with the trade-offs associated with wind energy.  I also agree with SJ, the biggest gains are in non-sexy conservation and efficiency, which should be pursued first.
Yikes, major thread drift.

Here are a few articles which illustrate the point:
A 2014 article in National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/11/141111-solar-panel-manufacturing-sustainability-ranking/
And another credible source - IEEE: http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always-as-green-as-you-think
And one interesting article from a source that may or may not be credible:
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/03/the-ugly-side-o.html

Depending upon your outlook of what is worse - CO2 or toxic chemicals the "way worse" words I used could be considered as too dramatic, I'll admit that. People think a solar panel will last for 30 years, that's simply not true. All it takes is a single cell failure within an a section of an array to make a large percentage of the array useless. Arrays also degrade with time. When people look at arrays they forget about the inverters that go along with them, none of the articles stated above look at the cost and MTBF and environmental impact of the inverter. Then there is the fact that when you have a large percentage of solar on the grid there is a lot of time when you can't use the energy it produces, Germany has that problem now, here is a writeup that pokes at the issues (although again you could question the creditability: http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/germanys-solar-failure

Someday Solar may be viable, but we need to crack the energy storage problem, we need to increase the reliability and efficiency of the cells and the efficiency and cleanliness of the manufacturing process, and we need good recycling of old panels. Hydro in all it's forms is my first choice.  

PeeTex the article you quoted actually makes some of my points.  Better process is within reach:

"The next step, however—turning metallurgical-grade silicon into a purer form called polysilicon—creates the very toxic compound silicon tetrachloride. The refinement process involves combining hydrochloric acid with metallurgical-grade silicon to turn it into what are called trichlorosilanes. The trichlorosilanes then react with added hydrogen, producing polysilicon along with liquid silicon tetrachloride—three or four tons of silicon tetrachloride for every ton of polysilicon.

Most manufacturers recycle this waste to make more polysilicon. Capturing silicon from silicon tetrachloride requires less energy than obtaining it from raw silica, so recycling this waste can save manufacturers money. But the reprocessing equipment can cost tens of millions of dollars. So some operations have just thrown away the by-product. If exposed to water—and that’s hard to prevent if it’s casually dumped—the silicon tetrachloride releases hydrochloric acid, acidifying the soil and emitting harmful fumes."

...and...

"This problem could completely go away in the future. Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., are looking for ways to make polysilicon with ethanol instead of chlorine-based chemicals, thereby avoiding the creation of silicon tetrachloride altogether."

Maybe this is the beginning of your idea:

http://energy.gov/eere/articles/innovative-wave-power-device-starts-producing-clean-power-hawaii

TJ - cost... it depends on how you figure it.  In the short run it's always cheaper to trash the environment.

I'm for anything/everything but giving up.

Giving up is not an option. This is a moon shot problem and we never made it to the moon by wasting a lot of resources on junk science - and today we have a lot of junk science. Universities and academics are not what they were 55 years ago when we started the space program. Everybody just wants to make a buck.

Big solar farms in the SW where they need the power to offset the AC demand make sense.  I doubt that the solar installation in VT going up will pay off.  Most of the cell making has moved to China where I sure the environmental costs are not added to the price.

The biggest thing people don't understand is that there is no way to store electric power.  It has to be when it is produced plus it's transmission time .  The grid is not a battery it's just wires to move it around.

LED lighting should be mandated now that the costs have come way down.  

Nat Gas should be widely made available in truck stops so it could become the standard for long haul trucking.  We have so much gas in the US now but that won't be pushed until Obama is gone due to the anti fracking crowd that make up his support base.

Coach Z wrote

Big solar farms in the SW where they need the power to offset the AC demand make sense.  I doubt that the solar installation in VT going up will pay off.  Most of the cell making has moved to China where I sure the environmental costs are not added to the price.

The biggest thing people don't understand is that there is no way to store electric power.  It has to be when it is produced plus it's transmission time .  The grid is not a battery it's just wires to move it around.

LED lighting should be mandated now that the costs have come way down.  

Nat Gas should be widely made available in truck stops so it could become the standard for long haul trucking.  We have so much gas in the US now but that won't be pushed until Obama is gone due to the anti fracking crowd that make up his support base.

And again - you got snookered. LED bulbs when taken over their entire life cycle cost twice as much to own and to operate, they typically are 8x the cost of CFLs but have only 3X the life and are only about 15% more efficient. CFLs do contain mercury but compared to the chemicals used in manufacturing LEDs its pretty much an environmental wash, that is, if you carefully recycle your CFLs. You could say that the 15% energy savings is worth it but I would argue that churning the economy by an effective 2X causes an overall increase in energy consumption elsewhere.

As an example, if I pay you twice what you make now are you going to bury that money in a hole somewhere. You will most likely increase your consumption, buy more shit, travel more, etc. You will put some in the bank where it gets dumped back into the economy so others can buy more shit. Looking at the cost of something is also a good way of judging its total environmental impact. Basically - if we had no economy there would be a hell of a lot less of us and we would all be nomadic herders living off the land and having very little effect on the environment. My point - follow the money, sometimes (not always) higher price means more environmental impact when you look at the whole picture.

I have a friend who is doing nicely with panels on his roof.  He has a perfect setup, roof angle, not trees causing shade etc. They are old now (so new ones are better I assume), he paid them off in 8 years. Actually paid them off in 3 but he had a conservation subsidy, 8 years would have been the payoff if he had paid market rates.

We put one expensive LED ($25 I think) bulb in a light fixture that is really hard to reach (need to bring a ladder to the second floor) because the electrician said it would last 10 years.  Should be interesting to see how long it really lasts. Been 3 years so far.

I agree with Coach, eviro costs aren't added to energy prices. Fossil fuels is the prime example.

Energy storage is advancing, in part due to the demand created by cell phones. Tesla is making big strides too.

PeeTex wrote

As an example, if I pay you twice what you make now are you going to bury that money in a hole somewhere. You will most likely increase your consumption, buy more shit, travel more, etc.

Not everyone is like this.  This is kind of backwards but we were saving 30% of our income before the shit hit the fan in 2008.  When that happened my pay got cut 20% and we continued to live the same (basically) except we cut our savings rate down to maybe 10-12%.  As of last year my pay is back where it was (minus inflation) and we've been raising our savings rate.  Can't help you with what the bank/stock market does with our money, that's baked into the system.

Yea, there's a lot of negative info concerning green power floating around. Much of it is no doubt akin to the naysayers who distracted from the Wright brothers and many, many others.

One thing for sure, things have to change.

Yep - things have to change, but let's make smart choices, not stupid ones.
As a research consultant I am paid to be a skeptic, to look at every angle and not eat the BS people dish out. Most of what people are selling is BS. People who say the cost to the environment is not baked into the cost of fossil fuels are correct (although that cost is hard to measure), however these are usually the same people who are neglecting the environmental cost of building and maintaining the systems to harvest renewables. If your going to tell me we should all be driving Hydrogen powered cars I want to see how you produced the hydrogen, how you compressed it into a form it could be stored and how you transported it. By the way - that's what sank the "Hydrogen Economy" 10 years ago, it was a stupid idea then and it still is.

Invest in Algae farms that pump down CO2 and produce oil - the ultimate in renewable solar: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kunshan_Gao/publication/226500139_Use_of_macroalgae_for_marine_biomass_production_and_CO2_remediation_a_review/links/542f1eec0cf277d58e91ee4e.pdf
 Chevron has been investing in this area, it isn't sexy high tech like solar or LEDs - it's nature and we always win when we follow nature.
 

peetex Have you looked at the prices of led blubs lately?  They have come crashing down.  Home Depot has a two pack of 60w replacement blubs for under 5 bucks.  At that cost which will likely continue to go down the economics work.  

Harv while smal battery technology is improving its a whole different deal to talk about storing energy on a mass grid scale.

Coach Z wrote

peetex Have you looked at the prices of led blubs lately?  They have come crashing down.  Home Depot has a two pack of 60w replacement blubs for under 5 bucks.  At that cost which will likely continue to go down the economics work.  

Harv while smal battery technology is improving its a whole different deal to talk about storing energy on a mass grid scale.

Had not seen that low a price before but on closer inspection, look at the life expectancy, only 10k hours which is about what you get with a CFL, you can get an 8 pack for $8.80. Snookered again. For LEDs I would buy Cree, their life expectancy is over 25k hours. Cree is the leader in LED technology.

Coach Z wrote

Harv while smal battery technology is improving its a whole different deal to talk about storing energy on a mass grid scale.

They're not on the market yet, but it looks like the Tesla Powerwall will be a breakthrough in terms of affordable battery storage for home solar energy.  I've got to believe that solar panels on my roof plus a couple Powerwalls would be a big net win for the environment even after taking into account all of the nasty chemical by-products of the manufacturing process. Maybe I've drank too much enviro Kool Aid, but I can't see how solar could be a bad thing for the Earth (and thanks for the links P-Tex). Solar (and other alternatives) may not be perfect, but we don't have time to wait for perfect.

PeeTex wrote

Snookered again.

But regardless of whether it's 8 CFLs for $8.80 or 2 LEDs for $5, both choices are a win for the environment over incandescents, no?  Again, perfect no, incremental improvement (and a significant one at that) yes.

Totally agree Jeff. This:

Adk Jeff wrote

They're not on the market yet, but it looks like the Tesla Powerwall will be a breakthrough in terms of affordable battery storage for home solar energy.

is what I was referring to:

Harvey wrote

Energy storage is advancing, in part due to the demand created by cell phones. Tesla is making big strides too.

Tesla is really a battery company not a car company.  At the press conference when he introduced the Powerwall, Elon Musk the CEO said... "this battery is five times better than any battery we've made and half as good as it needs to be to change the world.

Batteries are the key. If you can store the energy you produce, third world countries can skip the grid.

Adk Jeff wrote

 But regardless of whether it's 8 CFLs for $8.80 or 2 LEDs for $5, both choices are a win for the environment over incandescents, no?  Again, perfect no, incremental improvement (and a significant one at that) yes.

Exactly. Take that Snook.

Adk Jeff wrote

But regardless of whether it's 8 CFLs for $8.80 or 2 LEDs for $5, both choices are a win for the environment over incandescents, no?  Again, perfect no, incremental improvement (and a significant one at that) yes.

CFLs yes, LEDs not so much. At 25K hours life and $3 each - LEDs yes.

Batteries are getting better, but not there yet. If you were going to buy into the great Solar Snooker then get a battery system to go with it. Watch residential micro CHP particularly in the NE - combined with a good storage system and this can make a real difference. As residential fuel cells become viable - they just get better, recips & sterlings can be used until that time.

Quite a few homes in my neighborhood are installing solar panels.. My neighbor put in solar and bought a Telsa..A bit extreme in my opinion..
After doing a little research , the ROI on solar is still poor..