Bright Future for Solar Energy?

[Admiral Yi]

Both the coal people and the solar/wind people are in denial.  The only people with all the answers are the natural gas folks. 

[viper37]

Yes, solar seems sort of newfangled and hippieish and so on and has often been dismissed as an impractical pipe-dream.
[...]
What's your take on solar power?

It depends where.  Good luck using solar power in Quebec.  You'll be able to manage air conditionning, maybe, in the 2 months of summer we have.  Forget about using it for heating, it requires too much energy for the sun we have in winter, you'd require massive solar panels, or a massavie solar power plant accompanied by another reliable source of energy.

I see the same problem as wind turbines: they are not made for everywhere, they can not be depended upon for stable energy supply, but combined with other source of energy (hydro power plant) they can reduce the size requirements for those (a few wind turbines can let us build hydro dams 25% smaller than without them, as an example).

In some desert areas of the US, I can see the appeal of solar power.  Maybe even in BC, but in most other place, it is a pipe dream.  The size of the panels required to produce enough energy just make them too big to be convenient.

[Malthus]

The article mentioned that the mass installation of batteries to store excess power was a very likely next step, essentially allowing households (and businesses) using solar power to move off the grid almost entirely. The grid issue, then, may prove to be less of an issue in the end.

US households average just under 30 kWh per day.  If you assume that ~half of that would need to be stored each day (meaning on cloudy, rainy or winter days you'd still probably have to draw off the grid) that's 15 kWh of storage.  At the moment Lead Acid batteries are the cheapest bulk option, and it's about 25 kg per kWh of storage.  Which means our house would need 375 kg of batteries to be mostly off the grid in the sunny days of summer.  To cover a 4-5 day span with little or no sun you'd probably need 10 times that or 3750 kg.  Let's not get into the maintenance that that amount of Lead Acid batteries would require.  This article estimates that ongoing costs of battery storage would be about $0.30 per kWh, which puts the average American family's electricity storage bill at $270 per month.

At the moment mass storage is still far too expensive to be that practical.

Batteries, yes. Still too inefficient.

What about other methods of energy storage - like using solar or wind, when available, to pump water uphill into a reserve, then using hydro from the reserve as needed?

[Jacob]

Batteries, yes. Still too inefficient.

What about other methods of energy storage - like using solar or wind, when available, to pump water uphill into a reserve, then using hydro from the reserve as needed?

That'd still keep you on the grid, wouldn't it? Or are you suggesting that uphill water pumping is suitable as a household level solution?

[Iormlund]

What about other methods of energy storage - like using solar or wind, when available, to pump water uphill into a reserve, then using hydro from the reserve as needed?

That's massively expensive for the amount of energy stored, which explains why it hasn't taken off despite having had the technology for a century. Plus it's heavily dependant on geography.


The Holy Grail of renewable energy storage would be the advent of the electric car. If we could get a revolutionary design that made battery charge cycles a non-issue, we could leverage all the cars parked at work or home as a distributed grid regulation unit.

[Admiral Yi]

In other words, if people only needed their cars at night?

[Valmy]

But we would ruin OPEC and end European reliance on Natural Gas and....oh I get it now.  Sorry Norway.

[Malthus]

Batteries, yes. Still too inefficient.

What about other methods of energy storage - like using solar or wind, when available, to pump water uphill into a reserve, then using hydro from the reserve as needed?

That'd still keep you on the grid, wouldn't it? Or are you suggesting that uphill water pumping is suitable as a household level solution?

An "on the grid" solution, I suspect.

[frunk]

Batteries, yes. Still too inefficient.

What about other methods of energy storage - like using solar or wind, when available, to pump water uphill into a reserve, then using hydro from the reserve as needed?

The article I linked talks about home energy storage options, including gravity based. For individual houses it's completely impractical (In the idealized case to get 30 minutes of typical household running time requires raising a bedroom sized volume of water 10 meters straight up).  It's also relatively inefficient, although if you have tons of excess energy during the day that may not matter.

[Iormlund]

In other words, if people only needed their cars at night?

Solar is not the only renewable energy source. Wind, for example, works also at night, when demand is lowest.

The biggest impact would be simply to be able to "smooth out" the output of variable sources such as these.

[Malthus]

Batteries, yes. Still too inefficient.

What about other methods of energy storage - like using solar or wind, when available, to pump water uphill into a reserve, then using hydro from the reserve as needed?

The article I linked talks about home energy storage options, including gravity based. For individual houses it's completely impractical (In the idealized case to get 30 minutes of typical household running time requires raising a bedroom sized volume of water 10 meters straight up).  It's also relatively inefficient, although if you have tons of excess energy during the day that may not matter.

Certainly, it is impractical in your bedroom. Not so bad if you are raising the level of, say, a major lake somewhere. It isn't very efficient, but again, that's maybe not so important. 

[Malthus]

Also, add "coal rolling" to the list of stupid things I would never have believed anyone would actually do.

[grumbler]

Also, add "coal rolling" to the list of stupid things I would never have believed anyone would actually do.

Agreed.  Wow.  I'd never heard of this before, but it is an amazingly stupid thing to do.  You damage your own vehicle, purely so that you can damage your environment.

Hopefully, there will be a major crackdown on this.  Stupidity is its own reward, but with enough fines, it can be a reward for the rest of us, as well.

[garbon]

Also, add "coal rolling" to the list of stupid things I would never have believed anyone would actually do.

Agreed.  Wow.  I'd never heard of this before, but it is an amazingly stupid thing to do.  You damage your own vehicle, purely so that you can damage your environment.

Hopefully, there will be a major crackdown on this.  Stupidity is its own reward, but with enough fines, it can be a reward for the rest of us, as well.

Yeah same. Never heard of it and it should be punished.

[The Larch]

What is coal rolling exactly?