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The Simple Math of CO2 Reduction
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KWSN - MajorKong Send message Joined: 5 Jan 00 Posts: 2892 Credit: 1,499,890 RAC: 0 |
Guy, Did you see my remark about economy of scale? And the electric grid everywhere, not just California, is going to have to be improved. Edit: Besides, I was just refuting your statement that such cars did not exist, not seriously advocating everyone specifically get a Tesla (though I myself would love to have one). |
soft^spirit Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 6497 Credit: 34,134,168 RAC: 0 |
You assume I own my home Guy. I do own property, just not a house at the moment. You have no point. You do not run all those things 24/7. Dishwasher does have an energy saver mode. And when you are not running things excess energy gets sold back to the grid (usually at high usage rates). In our state the electric companies are forced to accept approved equipment hookups. This would qualify. And if you need more, buy more. For how long? As long as the sun shines. Sorry but I have done the math for people too many times that have no desire to learn. I feel that is the case here. If I am wrong, do your own math, but bring a sharper pencil. Janice |
KWSN - MajorKong Send message Joined: 5 Jan 00 Posts: 2892 Credit: 1,499,890 RAC: 0 |
I do not have time to go through all of this, but you are using about 20 year old techniques, and trying to store all the power locally. Large panels themselves run about 1.50 per watt. Batteries are eliminated by grid connection. You dropped something, somewhere Guy. I get about US$9,293,000,000,000. Again, installation and required infrastructure not included. Thats about 9.3 Trillion Dollars. 10,000 square miles * (5280 feet/mile)^2 * $200 / 6 square feet. |
soft^spirit Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 6497 Credit: 34,134,168 RAC: 0 |
I am pretty sure you can get a bulk discount for installing 100 miles square of solar panels. Honestly, The thermo solar might be a much more cost effective way to go on such an installation. For homes, solar panel are the key. And since my high end electric rates are over .29/kwh, ... things ccan pay off pretty quick. Janice |
soft^spirit Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 6497 Credit: 34,134,168 RAC: 0 |
my math comes up with 1 watt while the sun shines to be over 3KWH per year. Yes, your math is very much wrong. Janice |
ML1 Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 21241 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20 |
Wheee... There's a few apples and oranges being thrown around. I could come in with a push-bike for comparison... One chocolate bar gets you about 20km... More seriously: Photovoltaics (solar electric cells) are not the best of the 'alternative' energy sources available at the moment. Using a solar collector for the hot side of a Stirling engine can give better efficiency returns. For direct solar electric generation, there's some good work being done to improve the efficiencies but there's a way to go yet. There are a multitude of other 'alternative' energy sources that are effective depending on circumstances. The big 'gotcha' is that for the present oil-gas-coal operations, the raw resource is priced for no cost, and the pollution is permitted at no cost. Add in the total environmental costs and you get a very different overall story. Please take a look at the David Wasdell presentation. He was himself rather concerned for what he found, and he is certainly no Al Gore! There's a lot more to the story than just 'CO2'. However, we have to start somewhere. Hopefully, we can save our planet for ourselves before the politics get too desperate... Strangely, the greatest (medium term) tool to reduce man-made CO2 is (would be) to make good education freely available to all, worldwide, regardless of cultures... I just hope we have time and the political will to do that... It's our only planet, Martin See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) |
soft^spirit Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 6497 Credit: 34,134,168 RAC: 0 |
that is to supply all of the electricity in the united states. And then some. Approx oil import costs per YEAR 620,788,350,000, not including military spending. (source: CIA world fact book, current commodity prices/bbl 91.55) Plus the labor to maintain all the fossil fuel power plants. Is ANY of this getting through?? Janice |
soft^spirit Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 6497 Credit: 34,134,168 RAC: 0 |
ML1: For a large installation, especially in a warm climate I would agree with the stirling engine. For a home rooftop to offset expenses, the photo voltaic are the best bet. Also when thought through and not just slapped on they can substitute instead of roof tiles instead of being mounted through them. Windy areas: Wind turbines remain the cheapest. And over all the cheapest additional energy to add, PLUS no fuel expenses. Janice |
Iona Send message Joined: 12 Jul 07 Posts: 790 Credit: 22,438,118 RAC: 0 |
I hate to say this, but if you really want a car that has a tested range of less than half that used by the manufacturers (when it was working), by all means, buy a Tesla Roadster. Personally, I find that a car that does over 400 miles on a full tank, far more useful - step forward, my 1989 Honda Legend 2.7 (since I've had the car for 15 years - my carbon footprint is also somewhat lower than a Tesla owner!). A better bet for the future is surely, something along the lines of the Honda FCX Clarity. Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive! |
soft^spirit Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 6497 Credit: 34,134,168 RAC: 0 |
http://www.teslamotors.com/roadster/specs They have it limited in speed(until enthusiasts hack it) but 0-60 in 3.7seconds is not bad for this pocket rocket. This is not made for an economy car. The luxury sedan should be out in a few months, at about 1/2 the price. Janice |
KWSN - MajorKong Send message Joined: 5 Jan 00 Posts: 2892 Credit: 1,499,890 RAC: 0 |
ML1: For a large installation, especially in a warm climate I would agree with the stirling engine. For a home rooftop to offset expenses, the photo voltaic are the best bet. Also when thought through and not just slapped on they can substitute instead of roof tiles instead of being mounted through them. Here in Texas, we had one 'oil man' to have seen reason in a big way. T. Boone Pickins. He proposed and financed a HUGE wind-farm out in west Texas. It would have been one of the world's largest. 4,000 MW. Enough to power 1 million homes. It failed. Why? The danged Government wouldn't give him the required permits to build the transmission line to get the power from the farm to a city where it could be used. He has since fallen back to projects using natural gas. While natural gas has a better carbon emission profile than oil or coal, it is still far from ideal. Wind would have been super. And yes, solar-thermal power driving a heat engine is way more efficient than solar-photovoltaic cells. The thermal scheme is much better for larger generation plants. But the PV cells have their uses in the small scale. But, under most circumstances, wind is better in windy areas. The wind frequently blows all day and night. Solar, obviously, only functions during daylight hours, and even then only for part of the day at maximum output. |
soft^spirit Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 6497 Credit: 34,134,168 RAC: 0 |
so.. Several hundred wind turbines? There are a lot of turbines across the country now. Of course in windy areas. If someone has a few acres, they make some nice 5-40KW turbines. I did see a 15KW at a ranger station in fact. They have a strange beauty to them. But personally I think they are designed wrong. I hope to play with that idea someday. I will need some room and to learn how to work with metal. Janice |
Blurf Send message Joined: 2 Sep 06 Posts: 8964 Credit: 12,678,685 RAC: 0 |
Near us to the South there's a ton of Windmills---also in Salt Lake City headed out of the valley there's a line of them that is an awesome site. |
keith Send message Joined: 18 Dec 10 Posts: 454 Credit: 9,054 RAC: 0 |
This thread has gone in about 500 different directions. I can't respond to it all. Wind and solar will never meet baseload. Not to mention, wind and solar are built in China and wind requires the use of rare earth metals, something China is about to cut the rest of the world off from, unless you want to start mining it here which will drive the envirowhackos bats**t. http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2009/08/wind-world-faces-hi-tech-crunch-as.html http://seekingalpha.com/article/159155-chinese-rare-earth-rationing-shouldn-t-sink-wind-power-sector Plus, you would need an area the size of California to power us fully on solar panels and wind. Not gonna happen. Not a chance. Burning sh*t from farm or Mcdonalds vegetable oil? Again, not a chance. Focus on natural gas or coal which at least we have plenty of, or nuclear. France has reprocessed uranium and plutonium successfully for four decades and all of its waste from nuclear fits inside the space of 3 large high school gymnasiums. About 70% of their power comes from nuclear with very low co2 emissions if "that's your thing". But the tree huggers don't want nuclear, thanks to a piss-poor decision by Carter almost 40 years ago. What to do? http://theweek.com/article/index/98230/Frances_nuclear_solution Yea, let's just keep jumping on the "oil is bad" because it promotes terrorism bandwagon. A little clue. There's not enough oil in the world to satisfy all needs today because of lack of exploration and drilling and if we gave it all up, the rest of the world would suck it all up and continue to use it. Would you rather have it burned in a modern U.S. emissions controlled vehicle here or a 50 year old Russian LADA plowing through the streets of Cairo? Yes, Cairo, Egypt, where the locals replace brake pads every two months because local labor is less than cheap brake pads and where they drive at night without lights on to save the car's electrical system (facepalm). Would you rather have us run on a low priced fuel for our everyday needs and manufacturing or have the rest of the world run on it while we pick the most expensive way we possibly can to power ourselves, just so the Sierra Clubbers can feel good about themselves? We don't even have the distribution system to put a significant percentage of the population in electric vehicles today if we wanted, not to mention all the nasty chemicals created in manufacturing of batteries. It's gonna take a while folks. In the meantime, there's OIL, it's plentiful and we can get at it right here at home. Seriously, get this fact through your heads: We already can't compete in the global economy because of our expense. There's no need to make us look worse on the balance sheet with more regulation, corporate taxes and job killing feel good gubment policy. What more would you like to do to unilaterally hobble us economically whilst whining that more jobs are going overseas and the rest of the world looks out for itself? Have you heard about China locking up oil contracts around the world left and right while the EPA bureaucrats wear their tinfoil hats? How do you expect that to affect us 20 years from now when resources REALLY get scarce? You haven't seen anything yet. Start getting a clue of the multitude of economic challenges we face and not just your idealogical "green is awesome at all cost" thought. Just look at the BRIC countries (our future competition) and get real. Start reading something a little more diverse than just Mother Jones, the Nation and High Times. I get absolutely incensed at the cluelessness of the modern left. |
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