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Author Topic: Blasphemy..... Solar power.  (Read 148512 times)

mikenash

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #255 on: November 29, 2017, 02:25:56 AM »
If our politicians had a brain cell each to rub together they would be making use of our abundant hydro-generated (and wind-boosted, because we are a narrow, windy pair of islands, and we overspill our hydro lakes when they get too full, and turn off our windmills when the lakes are high . . .) electricity, and be obliging governments and local bodies to buy electric cars.

Even if we had started that three or four years ago the "fleet roll-overs" would be appearing on the private market right now and there would be a big demand for them

IMHO there is just almost no downside to them - the energy they consume is generated "greenly" and, if they are government cars or commute-to-work folks' cars that sit in a parking garage most of the time during the day, attached to the charger, they would finally represent an electricity usage that's happening when solar is in a position to be making a contribution.

A few thousand of them introduced into the national fleet every year - instead of the ubiquitous Hyundai i30 or Toyota Corolla - would do good things for the environment, for the national transport fleet, and for our balance of payments; as we import the oil we burn, largely

Just vmy $0.02

BruceM

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #256 on: November 29, 2017, 03:07:41 AM »
Corporations only exist to profit shareholders, and CEO's have a fiduciary obligation to maximize those profits, lest they be fired by their boards.  They can ONLY be directed by profit incentives and only government can change the rules so that the desired actions are profitable.  Australia is not the only country to be struggling to come up with a carbon cap and trade system that works well, and the EU sustem has had bumps in that road as well as they adjust it to work better.  This is true for every complex endeavor of humans. 

Germany's program to phase out nuclear and coal plants involves reimbursing power companies for the remaining years of service those plants could have provided.  They have achieved 32% RE and their leadership really jump started the whole RE worldwide by their demand for PV and wind power and the resulting lowered cost for PV we now enjoy. They provided massive incentives for private and cooperative RE development.  There has been some backlash for the 50% increase in power bills (not as bad as that for the refugee program) but so far they have overall done an astonishing job of leading the world in RE. All this after footing the bill for bringing Eastern Germany out of severe poverty; a huge undertaking.  Change for the better is rarely cheap or easy. 

On algae- the problem seems to be lack of financial backing for the technically difficult and expensive large scale system development and refinement.  It would take government level backing.  Corporations can NOT do this because of the huge impact on near term profits.  Of the half dozen algae-oil studies I have read were pretty basic, low budget, university done, and were open and honest about potential problems and the need for more R&D.  Alas, any US congressman or senator who pushed a reasonable algae-oil research and  development program would find his opponents flooded with corporate coal, oil and gas money.  Both senators and congressmen are typically spending 3-4 hours a day, every working day,  soliciting funds for their next campaign. That's the way "democracy" works in the USA. 

Regarding superinsulation and trapped heat:
Before I built my home here I spent a fair amount time with a free thermal modeling program provided by an in-floor heat provider.  That helped me design for the best bang for my buck; you could change the wall, ceiling, floor, stem wall and window(s)  insulation values against your soil and air temperatures (day and night) and see what the BTU needs where for that room.  What I found was that typical homes are absolute crap if you don't want to piss away energy.  For construction details I did some on my own and stole a lot of ideas from Canadian designs. They have to be smart with their winter temperatures.

30C is only 85F.  That's mild enough that you have to be savy to get good bang for your insulation buck, especially with such a huge space to insulate (I vaguely recall your new place is roughly 5000 SF?) for a reasonable payback time.  My climate is much more extreme; 102 F is common in the day in June and early July (though nights are 40F cooler).

If you nights are cool,  the very large belt driving ceiling type, whole house ventilators can be very effective.  I can't tolerate the noise, among other problems, so just open my windows at night.  Since the house only gains 3 degrees F during the day,  that's all I have to loose. It works well, though cloudy nights which don't cool off (rare) mean the house will be a few degrees warmer the next day.

I have experimented with various schemes for cooling via cool water in the in-floor heating system.  The floor slab cooling approach has been proven by some New Mexico funded studies with real data for real homes and roof mounted collectors for night sky cooling, in a climate almost identical to mine.  I've built an 16 foot tall water cooling tower and collected data all night, trickled water down a 30 foot x 3 foot section of steel roof panel and collected data for a variety of night temperatures, wind and humidity, and measured well water and earth temperatures.  I've also helped my neighbor use his well pump to chill his floor, and collected water volume and temperature data to calculate BTUs.  I've also seriously studied direct ground source (63F year round at about 10 foot deep here) for the same cooling system.  My cooling needs are so infrequent and modest that I am reluctant to do it; my home only got to 80F for two days last summer, due to not being able to open up from wildfire smoke. 

In insulation, blown or sprayed attic insulation is often a bargain.  In an RE world, most inland locations should have requirements for R40 side walls and R70+ attics. Insulated foundation walls are also critical in many climates...heat DOES go down by convection!  We do a lot of dumb design like slab floors which touch the concrete foundation wall and then outside becomes concrete.  Or slabs which extend outside, exposed, at doors. That is a heat and cold wicking system like you can't believe as concrete is highly thermally conductive.  In my home, adding 4" of EPS foam board between slab edge and stem wall cut my modeled BTU requirement in half.  It was done with two 2 inch strips, one 8" tall, the other 16", and using 6" block for the upper stem wall coarse.  Peanuts in cost and not much effort either.

I used extra wide door sills to bridge over the 4 inches of foam which separates the slab from the stem wall.  Yes, doors are hell, thermally, as are windows.  To keep my total heat loss to 3 degrees F on winter nights (10-15F typical) I stuff the windows with Reflectrix-type material. That is a cheap way to have an R-8 window.   In my last home, I made folding insulating panels for glass patio doors and windows, with Astrofoil (aluminum faced bubble) material inserts.  In my current superinsulated home, I have only 1 outside door, and it leads to an small entry way that is an air lock and is kept about 8F cooler/warmer than the house.  The gas kitchen is in an outside corner of the house, is insulated (both walls and floor) from the house, is kept with cross-flow windows open all summer. Cooking does not heat the house, nor does the propane refrigerator.  The refrigerator heats the small gas kitchen adequately in the winter.  My 4' by 32' solar hot water panel and 800 gallon insulated storage tank heats the house in winter.  Last year I spent $50 on propane to run the backup propane water heaters from Dec. through Feb.  Most of that $50 is just stack loss for the cheap, no electronics,  low efficiency gas water heaters being on. 

I did the super insulation thing for my own benefit, for comfort and quiet, and to save operating costs.  I also wanted to leave an energy-responsible home behind when I'm gone for the long dirt nap.  I'm very, very pleased with the cost/benefit of super insulation.  It's like off grid PV-  once you do it you realize it was pretty easy and wish you'd done it long ago. 
























BruceM

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #257 on: November 29, 2017, 06:45:44 AM »
https://arena.gov.au/blog/energy-prices/

It seems that blaming RE for the huge Australian energy price hikes might not be the true story.  You've got a motherload of contributing factors...including enormous increases in  gas prices and corruption and manipulation by power and energy co.s and corruption of the power "regulatory" agencies (a problem here too).  Reminds me of what happened to some southern Californians after the big push to deregulate power in the US many years ago. (Nothing to do with RE.) Some folks bills quadrupled...energy co.s where playing games.

With just a bit better batteries, taking Sydney homes and small businesses off grid will be VERY popular unless gas prices can be stabilized. 




AdeV

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #258 on: November 29, 2017, 07:36:30 AM »
Hi Bruce,

Bloody FT - it's a pain in the proverbial. I don't subscribe to it, but for some reason it's let me view this story... normally it bumps me too.

Anyway, here's the text of the article:

Quote
ExxonMobil biofuel partnership makes oil from algae ‘breakthrough’
Collaboration with Craig Venter biotech doubles oil content to industrially useful level
 
"Algae can in principle produce seven times more energy per acre than corn-based ethanol, the main source of biofuel today"
JUNE 19, 2017 Clive Cookson, Science Editor

After eight years, a research collaboration between ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics to produce biofuels from algae has produced what the two US companies say is the first “breakthrough”.

Scientists at Synthetic Genomics, the biotech company founded by genomics pioneer Craig Venter, used advanced genetic engineering to double the oil content of their algal strain from 20 to 40 per cent, without inhibiting its growth. The findings are published in Nature Biotechnology on Monday.

“This key milestone in our advanced biofuels programme confirms our belief that algae can be incredibly productive as a renewable energy source without adverse impacts on climate, land and water,” said Vijay Swarup, vice-president for research and development at ExxonMobil, the US oil major. “Our work with Synthetic Genomics continues to be an important part of our broader research into lower-emission technologies to reduce the risk of climate change.”

The researchers identified a biological switch called ZnCys that regulates the conversion of carbon to oil in Nannochloropsis gaditana, an algal species that grows in seawater and is a leading candidate for biofuel production. Through genetic manipulation, they fine-tuned the process to double the proportion of lipid (oil) in the algal biomass.

Previous attempts to boost the oil concentration in algae — an important step in biofuel production — failed because the cells stopped growing when they were overloaded with lipid. The new genetic process maintains growth until 40 per cent of the biomass consists of lipid, an industrially useful level.

Although the energy industry has been investigating algae since the 1970s as a source of biodiesel to supplement petroleum-based fuels, the technical difficulties in developing fast-growing strains with a high oil content have proved far greater than the optimists imagined.

Several other companies abandoned the algal biofuel field but ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics, which originally announced a $600m 10-year partnership in 2009, have persevered. “We knew this research would take a long time,” said Mr Swarup. “We are pursuing a policy of aggressive patience.”

Algae can in principle produce seven times more energy per acre than corn-based ethanol, the main source of biofuel today. Other advantages include the ability of algae to grow in salt water and thrive in harsh environmental conditions — limiting the pressure on farmland and fresh water supplies. Algal oil could be processed in conventional refineries, producing fuel that can substitute directly for petrol or diesel.

But the technology is still several years from commercialisation. “More work needs to be done before algal biofuels can be scaled up from the lab to industrial production to compete with diesel at the pump,” said Oliver Fetzer, chief executive of Synthetic Genomics, which remains privately owned 12 years after its foundation

Cheers!
Ade.
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AdeV

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #259 on: November 29, 2017, 07:41:24 AM »
This link should lead to an article about the Japanese research which I was thinking of; or at least, some more research from his team.

Please excuse the greenwash website... it was just the first link I happened to click...
Cheers!
Ade.
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starfire

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #260 on: November 29, 2017, 08:02:19 AM »
Battery storage is the limiting factor with off grid. To build a cost effective system requires a big change for anyone used to an unlimited grid connection, and many cannot or will not make the compromises needed.

Storage requirement depends mainly on weather patterns. Electricity consumption needs to be factored around tomorrows and future sunshine hours.
Realistically, storage needs to adequately cover average non sunny periods... 1 day, 4 days, depending on location.
Storage can be dramatically reduced with a secondary immediate power source, ie diesel, to recharge batteries.

For us normal people, this is the best option, and is similar to the hydro/wind concept where one compliments the other.
Increasing daily useage , or living in a tropical environment increases the problem exponentially in cost.
This too is a function of battery "chemical efficiency" where around 30 percent of power replaced is lost in H/O production, ie gassing and other losses. Inverters are between 60 to 80 percent efficient depending on load.
Off  gridders learn this in the first  few days, usually the hard way.

Coupled to the requirement with lead acid to not too deeply cycle the bank for a reasonable life, the net efficiency is very poor, and is not appreciably improved with other battery technologies, other than the cycling can be deeper, ie with NiFe and Lithium for instance.
Here the cost per amp hour is similar, the actual physical size of the required storage is reduced, but the financial cost remains similar.  Even hydro, with the  line/distribution losses  equate to similar  low  efficiencies, but they can charge the consumer  for those.

PV may be getting cheaper, storage, despite economies of scale remains the same, or is slowly increasing. in cost, rare earth syndrome.

Those gridders who are contemplating cutting the ties, generally have no idea just how much effort every  home made kilowatt hour takes to make, store and carefully use, with an eye to that  rain cloud on the horizon.
It involves a close relationship with the power shed on almost a daily basis.... its almost like a marriage with a nagging wife, if ANYTHING is not quite right, you are gunna know real quick, and be punished..
Its easy to forget the huge infrastructure and the thousands of people who maintain the power supply from the grid, few contemplate this as they switch on the lights., and probably only a passing thought as they moan about the bill.
When generating your own, the responsibility of all this is now yours.
But, its fun.

I have many visitors asking me how they can do what I do.
Their big idea is only to save money.
I always tell them to go away and think about it, then get back to me.
They hardly ever do.
The passion just isnt there, they are just wasting my time.





LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #261 on: November 29, 2017, 12:24:55 PM »
Oh my Gosh,

I decided to get my mind tested.  You folks chat on, will you? 

I've also decided to apologize for my cheap shots.  I'm not sure on the timetable but I'm very sure it's coming. 

Best wishes,

Casey


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oldgoat

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #262 on: November 29, 2017, 01:15:33 PM »
Yes I remember how getting rid of the carbon tax here in Au was going to save us so much we would all be millionaires. Well I got a $6-00 refund from my electricity supplier who promptly jacked the price for service to my property by $8-00.  Net gain -$2-00 the price of my lpg never changed nor did the cost of steel and products by other energy intensive industries. The mining industry and others who were supposedly going down the drain because of this impost were able to find $30 million to finance the campaign to rescind the carbon tax legislation.
Getting rid of the carbon tax made absolutely no difference to my cost of living but probably improved the bottom line for large corporations.

LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #263 on: November 29, 2017, 05:36:13 PM »
Disobedience Handbook. Sol Olinsk
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BruceM

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #264 on: November 29, 2017, 05:44:33 PM »
Starfire- most of the newer 48V inverters are running at 94-98% efficiency; this is "marketing speak", since it is only the inverter loss and not battery and wiring, but still, your figures were much lower than what I'm familiar with in the Magnum Energy line, and every other 3KW+, 48V, name brand inverter I've seen.  At idle (no load), these inverters do eat some power and efficiency then sucks but in fair sized home systems it's negligible. They have come a long way and your figures are fair for some old systems. 12V systems did suffer badly from wiring battery resistance issues, also.

My own 120VDC 2nd prototype inverter checks out at 92% efficiency despite intentional slow, soft switching, (using less efficient transistors to handle that), and reworked, cheap stock toroidal transformers.  So I do tend to believe the published Magnum efficiency and the engineers who helped provide information on a filter project I was working on in a competent manner. They had to focus on efficiency at the expense of EMI because that is buyers and marketing types focus on. They couldn't dramatically reduce their emissions, but they knew just where and how to do it and shared that openly.  I like the best (10%) of humans,  they enjoy solving problems and sharing useful information.

I concur that battery ongoing replacement costs are the last hurdle for widespread off grid homes.  Most rural folks here new to off grid living seem to learn to moderate their consumption and timing of consumption pretty quickly after trashing their first set of batteries ($) in couple years.  Painfully expensive lessons seem to stick. Mostly, it's learning to be aware of weather, battery state of charge, and the impact of various appliances.  For suburban situations, a fuel cell system for charging batteries would be a marvelous backup that wouldn't pollute the air or make noise.

AdeV- Thanks for the text and link for the algae story. 40% oil for their strain is impressive but it's very frustrating that this RE field has been kept at the concept study/lab level for over 30 years.  No surprise that Exxon is very happy to keep it there while claiming RE innovation.  Every large city sewage treatment plant in the US except in the NE (likely too cold) could be making algae oil (this needs fresh water algae), plus in US there's the huge Salton Sea area, close enough to LA.  We need pilot plant data and experience...preferably publicly funded so it isn't all proprietary.  There are natural strains of algae with 30% oil, so I would say proceed there and get the systems sorted out.  You can always twiddle with strains for different environments later.  I wish we could establish a new civilian branch of DARPA and turn them loose.  A sustained, long term  R&D effort to develop and improve RE would reap huge benefits. 




LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #265 on: November 29, 2017, 06:07:09 PM »
glort is correct for 2012.

https://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised

We should be out of there any day now. 
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BruceM

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #266 on: November 29, 2017, 07:21:10 PM »
Following up on AdeV's post on algae development, I found this small pilot project in S. Australia.  Only a couple acres of ponds.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/algae-oil-test-facility-launched-south-australia-25027/

Still looking for bigger projects.




AdeV

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #267 on: November 29, 2017, 07:50:31 PM »
Quote
ExxonMobil biofuel partnership makes oil from algae ‘breakthrough’
Collaboration with Craig Venter biotech doubles oil content to industrially useful level

The thing that always makes me suspicious of articles/ reports like that is when they specify percentages and not Qtys. Every time I have seen that and found the actual numbers, it's been a crock  that they have been trying to gloss over and hype up.

Algae makes X times more oil/ fuel than corn.
While since I looked into it but as I recall, corn is a pretty poor base stock to work from and the reality was it is only used to offset the subsidized over supply in the US. In other places they prefer higher yielding feed stocks like Sugar can and barley.  For oil it's Canola, sunflower and some beans.

What I want to know to put credibility on the research is how much Oil they are getting or think they can get per acre.
If they are getting 100L per acre, well it's pretty easy to work out that they will have to cover the oceans with algae to meet current oil demand alone and clearly the idea is not practical..... which is my guess on the situation.
To me, with out a specific yield number, all the talk of percentages is meaningless.

These people get paid to do research not to succeed in what they are doing.
I worked out years ago that to really have a hope in hell of offsetting fossil fuel world demand you are going to need something that produces about
 10,000L  of oil per acre to begin to be in the running.

Most people can't even begin to fathom the amount of oil we burn through a day on a global scale and that's what makes replacing oil such a big ask.

From the article: "The new genetic process maintains growth until 40 per cent of the biomass consists of lipid"; i.e. for every 350kg of mature(?) algae, the max harvest assuming no losses is around 140kg, or 1 barrel of oil (hehe, I wonder how that came out so handy  8)) .

Anyway, current(ish) consumption is estimated at around 35 billion barrels per year, so to completely replace oil with algal oil (assuming it's suitable for ALL oil products that we currently use, and that's glossed over completely in all the articles I've seen), that means maturing 12.25 billion tons of algae per year. That seems like quite an ask...

Fascinating article here from 2008 about why algae really isn't the second coming....: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/04/algae-fuel-biof.html From one of my favourite sources too, a little bit greenwashy from time to time, but a lot of what he writes makes sense.

Also interesting that, on further googling, people are claiming anything up to 50% or even 70% oil by volume of biomass. Makes you wonder what the real story is...
Cheers!
Ade.
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BruceM

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #268 on: November 29, 2017, 08:38:41 PM »
Great "dose of reality" article, AdeV.  Thanks!  The author suggests PV and large scale energy conservation instead.  The latter seems about as easy to accomplish as population control.









LowGear

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Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« Reply #269 on: November 30, 2017, 04:13:28 PM »
Thanks glort.  Canada, consider yourself warned by the agent in Australia.

Of course I'm still in favor of low impact and sustainable energy sources but even more frustrated and bewildered with our need to war. Profit is a formidable force.

Line crowding and staying alive are kind of different strategies.  So when my ancestors came to North America it was to stay alive and when the newbies arrive it's because they're line crowders.  If the answers were easy or simple they'd be answered.
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