Will Solar Power Outshine Oil in the Near Future?

[mfb]

The plan is to chill water bottles down to -40°F during sunlight hours, and put them in a secondary cooler, where all my perishables are.

The second freezer starts cold as well I guess?
If you plan to shut it off at some point, adding insulation will help. Adding more ice will help as well.

The -40°F number looks oddly specific, especially as most of the heat will go into melting the ice before the temperature goes above the freezing point.

 

[OmCheeto]

The second freezer starts cold as well I guess?
If you plan to shut it off at some point, adding insulation will help. Adding more ice will help as well.

The -40°F number looks oddly specific, especially as most of the heat will go into melting the ice before the temperature goes above the freezing point.

This is just a "progressing" idea for a prototype. The -40°F number comes from the fact that in the production model, you wouldn't use water, but something that stays liquid, as cold as possible. I simply used what I knew about cars: ethylene glycol(60%) and water. I left a margin of 10°F. Since water expands when it freezes, I didn't like the idea of daily work hardening mechanical stresses on the plumbing.

Of course, the sun doesn't always shine, so the production model would have dual, isolated power sources. The solar panels would power the -40°C compartment, which would have a charge time of between 4 and 6 hours. This would be distributed to the regular freezer and refrigerator for the rest of the day, via a modest battery supply. If the sun doesn't shine, the regular freezer and refrigerator would have a grid supplied source.

 

[Blank_Stare]

This is just a "progressing" idea for a prototype. The -40°F number comes from the fact that in the production model, you wouldn't use water, but something that stays liquid, as cold as possible. I simply used what I knew about cars: ethylene glycol(60%) and water. I left a margin of 10°F. Since water expands when it freezes, I didn't like the idea of daily work hardening mechanical stresses on the plumbing.

Of course, the sun doesn't always shine, so the production model would have dual, isolated power sources. The solar panels would power the -40°C compartment, which would have a charge time of between 4 and 6 hours. This would be distributed to the regular freezer and refrigerator for the rest of the day, via a modest battery supply. If the sun doesn't shine, the regular freezer and refrigerator would have a grid supplied source.

Wouldn't cutting ice on the local lake in January, and storing it in sawdust-lined holes in the ground be simpler, and a whole lot less expensive? Unless, of course, you live in the southern climes...

 

[mfb]

Well, freezing water will give you a huge boost in term of thermal capacitance. How much exactly depends on the temperature, but it will be something like a factor 3.

This might fit better in a separate thread.

 

[jbriggs444]

Cries of "Oh my god!", could be heard from everyone, taking their first warm shower, after bathing in a mountain creek, for many years.

Sun shower? 5 gallon black colored bag with hose and nozzle? Works great. It's not a "stand under the shower for ten minutes" technique, but you can do a lot of people with "spritz, suds, rinse".

 

[Physics_Kid]

You still didn't provide a reference for that 100 million years number. And you also didn't provide any argument or reference for the implicit claim that the production rate would have been constant all the time.Alternative hypothesis: It all worked smoothly because everyone put effort into fixing their software.The number depends on what exactly you want to calculate. Oil with the current facilities? Oil at the current market price? Oil at a higher market price? Oil with current technology? Oil we expect to get accessible in the future? Oil in total?
Only including oil that has been mapped out well, or including oil expected elsewhere?

You cannot just compare two numbers made with different assumptions and then complain that they differ, and therefore all estimates should be discarded (apparently apart from yours, which is based on several misconceptions). That is not how science works.How is all this related to solar power, by the way?

its related because if the diff is 10yrs or 300yrs before oil runs dry, solar may not be the right technology to look at now, etc. i myself belief hydrogen fuel is a better choice, it would be available in abundance 24x7, solar is not. solar is of course free energy from a far away place..

we cannot really predict future technologies, use, or pricing, so just take a snapshot of today. how long does oil supply last?

one of the other issues i see not being solved, oil is fairly constant, it feeds the needs, what does that look like on solar? when we switch will there be a major cutback in available energy (still energy there, but not at oil rates)? what about these nightime issues, oil doesn't care, solar does.

 

[OmCheeto]

Sun shower? 5 gallon black colored bag with hose and nozzle? Works great. It's not a "stand under the shower for ten minutes" technique, but you can do a lot of people with "spritz, suds, rinse".

We're talking Oregon here. We have to chase the sunny spots, with all these stinking trees.


This is a pretty good example of what I go through, even on a 100% sunny day, to do solar panel experiments in my front yard.
(I estimate it would cost me $20,000 to pay for tree removal, from my three next door neighbors yards, with 100+ foot tall monster trees.)

Well, freezing water will give you a huge boost in term of thermal capacitance. How much exactly depends on the temperature, but it will be something like a factor 3.

This might fit better in a separate thread.

Agreed. Though, it does seem more on topic than "current natural oil production".
Though, that did inspire me to calculate how many cows I would need to run a methane powered "Combined Heat and Power(CHP)" system during the winter: 3
Unfortunately, feeding 3 cows costs more than even baseboard heating ($700). And then there were the capital costs! ($10,000?) And I think I would tire quickly of scooping cow poop every day, so I quickly discarded that idea. (Sorry to bring it up.)

I REALLY fell in love with the concept of CHP when I first heard about it. I was wondering, if like the Drakes Landing thermal system, solar pv could be used in the summer to split water, and convert that into methane (Sabatier reaction) , which could be stored until winter.

Haven't even started the maths on that yet. It probably also needs its own thread, if it doesn't already exist. Probably kind of expensive.

 

[gleem]

If the sun doesn't shine, the regular freezer and refrigerator would have a grid supplied source.

I thought the whole idea as to not use the grid.?

 

[OmCheeto]

I thought the whole idea as to not use the grid.?

"not use the grid"?

That's quite a few years off, as in NEVER, IMHO.
It actually doesn't even make sense to me.
Energy sources are VERY diverse when you look at different localities.
In the region where I live, we get gobs of rain, and therefore have gobs of hydroelectric power.
In my sister and Zoobs region, they are the exact opposite.
A grid makes total sense.

The game is, to see how little of the grid you can get by without, investing in odd solar things, without bankrupting yourself.

hmmmm...

Perhaps it's time to go back a year to the OP question; "do you believe solar power will over take oil?"

I don't see a mention of a grid there.
To me, the obvious answer to the question is "Yes".
The next question is "When?"

IMHO, it's all a matter of spare time, motivation, and money.

 

[gleem]

You started off with this:

I'll be "dry" tent camping with no access to grid electricity. I also plan on "zero" supplies to be locally available.

 

[PeterDonis]

i myself belief hydrogen fuel is a better choice

Hydrogen isn't a fuel in the sense you're using the term (a source of net energy) unless you are planning on mining it from Jupiter or someplace like that. The only way to make it from materials available on Earth is by endothermic chemical reactions (such as splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen), which cost more energy than you will get back when the hydrogen is burned.

 

[OmCheeto]

You started off with this:

I'm trying to get back "ON TOPIC!".

"Camping" is not "real world".

"The future of solar power" is dead, if you can only use it when you're camping.
Which is pretty much the only time I use my solar panels.
As I've mentioned, I live in a forest, and have no delusions of "PV" being a solution for everyone.
Hence: "Grid!"

ps. Just bought an old micro-refrigerator at a garage sale for $10 a few minutes ago,
on my way back from the store buying $100 worth of NON-PERISHABLE food items for the eclipse,
and it works.


Tc = -8°F
Tamb = 85°F
Volt amps = 165
Compressor temp = 137°F

pps. My 400 watt inverter will NOT start it. Stupid surge currents!
Argh! Now I need a solar battery charge controller, and a bigger inverter.
And maybe I'll have to invest in 8" of insulation.
(I did all my calculations with only 4" yesterday. Things seemed to come out correctly, for -40°C&F)
Double argh...

 

[Physics_Kid]

Hydrogen isn't a fuel in the sense you're using the term (a source of net energy) unless you are planning on mining it from Jupiter or someplace like that. The only way to make it from materials available on Earth is by endothermic chemical reactions (such as splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen), which cost more energy than you will get back when the hydrogen is burned.

nuke power for 100yrs, split the water, distribute H, use energy. what am i missing.

this notion of having to jump into all solar because oil will run dry at some time in the future just doesn't make sense to me. from what i can see, we use some energy to mine uranium, and once in a reactor we get a big giant boat load of energy out, way way more than we put into get the uranium.

how does this equation work out in terms of energy units?

A vs B
build 20MW LWR nuke plant (with uranium harvesting) vs all the H you can get from running this LWR @100% duty cycle for ~20yrs.

i suspect A just a smidge > B because the uranium took no energy to create (its just there, like oil) and took very little energy to harvest, thus the system is nothing more than energy conversion, fission energy consumed to harvest H from water.

surely nuke can power the grid to some extent, so why attempt to get H? because a lot of energy that is distributed by the grid now needs another way for many things. take for example gasoline vehicles, they change to H fuel cells, which means H fuel stations everywhere instead of saying all vehicles will be electric, etc. you cannot distribute H via the electric grid, etc.

if Vegas has a bet going on H vs Solar in next 20-30yrs, whatever that bet is, my $$ is on H.now let's classify this nuke and H energy. its all surface energy. why not tap into deep Earth shell to get all the heat there, enough Earth energy for ~millions of years. why will all Earth energy run out, because consuming Earth energy only increases entropy of the universe.

 

[mfb]

nuke power for 100yrs, split the water, distribute H, use energy. what am i missing.

That you need nuclear power to make it work. The power source is nuclear power, not hydrogen, that just stores it (with a bad efficiency).
Nuclear power is a possible power source, of course. And one I support. But many countries don't like it.

build 20MW LWR nuke plant (with uranium harvesting) vs all the H you can get from running this LWR @100% duty cycle for ~20yrs.

You lose ~30% if you convert electricity to hydrogen and back. You have to mine uranium in both cases but that is negligible in the energy budget.

why not tap into deep Earth shell to get all the heat there, enough Earth energy for ~millions of years.

Geothermal power is only interesting in a few regions.

 

[Physics_Kid]

everything (EVERYTHING) on Earth is just a "battery" of energy, right? be it uranium, oil, hydro power, agree ??

i didnt say run a nuke (electric) to get H then back to electric as the general rule. you take H for heating (no more all electric homes), H for fuel cells in vehicles, and H for possibly other things, perhaps products that were once made using oil.

30% efficiency ? who cares, just means you either need to cut back on energy use, or harvest much more to meet the demand.

its about impossible to say "replace oil with this" and expect no changes in supply or demand on energy. my hypothesis is energy use will take a sharp decline when oil stops regardless of what new energy system we get next. so relatively speaking, demand will remain higher than supply (initially) and as such the worlds activities that use energy will slow way down. that means less building, less manufacturing, less watching TV, less cell phone use, slower expansion of communication networks, way less transportation, flying basically ceases to exist (no more Boeing, no more Airbus, better plan to move your $$ out of aircraft stock), etc etc etc.

why is going to solar bound to some energy consumption we have today where a bulk of that energy is supplied by oil. to survive we don't need to be energy hoarders, thus the replacement only needs to provide enough energy to survive, etc. everyone says we use too much energy, must cut back, use more non-fossil fuels. why? let fossil fuels run dry, it will automagically force people to cut back on energy use. your home electric bill will remain the same, but the amount delivered will be half ;)

 

[mfb]

everything (EVERYTHING) on Earth is just a "battery" of energy, right? be it uranium, oil, hydro power, agree ??

Uranium is easily available. You can use it to produce net electricity. Hydrogen is not, and the most efficient way to produce it (unless you want to use natural gas) is to use electricity.

you take H for heating (no more all electric homes)

That wastes about 30% of the energy. Even more if you compare it to thermal pumps. For cars that can be acceptable, but there you have the problem that storing hydrogen in small amounts is problematic.

30% efficiency ? who cares, just means you either need to cut back on energy use, or harvest much more to meet the demand.

70% (very optimistic). It means everything gets more expensive because you need more power than without the hydrogen detour.

why? let fossil fuels run dry, it will automagically force people to cut back on energy use.

(a) it is bad for the climate, (b) it is bad for the air quality, (c) the harder the exit the more it will hurt.

your home electric bill will remain the same, but the amount delivered will be half ;)

You will not be able to simply cut your demand by 50% without any problems. Otherwise you would do that today already and save half the electricity bill. It gets even worse for transportation and industrial processes. They are highly optimized already. You can't magically make them twice as efficient.

 

[Physics_Kid]

cant cut use by 50%? sure we can, just need to do without. and as i mentioned, no oil and no real replacement will force this onto everyone, etc.
what problems would there be? less UPS trucks to my house, less road trips for me, less keeping my house at 74F in summer, less food ? humans will adapt on the downfall just as we did on the rise of oil ;)

 

[NTL2009]

cant cut use by 50%? sure we can, just need to do without... humans will adapt on the downfall just as we did on the rise of oil ;)

But only if we have to. I try to conserve, but I will maintain a certain standard if I can.

 

[Physics_Kid]

But only if we have to. I try to conserve, but I will maintain a certain standard if I can.

in reality you have very little control to maintain any use of energy. if its not there then you just can't have it. you get to use/hoard it because its available. when its not available its not available.

 

[Bandersnatch]

nuke power for 100yrs, split the water, distribute H, use energy

Can you explain in detail why would you want to do this, and not do the following instead?
'nuke power for 100yrs, use energy'

 

[mfb]

cant cut use by 50%? sure we can, just need to do without. and as i mentioned, no oil and no real replacement will force this onto everyone, etc.
what problems would there be? less UPS trucks to my house, less road trips for me, less keeping my house at 74F in summer, less food ? humans will adapt on the downfall just as we did on the rise of oil ;)

The idea is to keep this "downfall" as small as possible. Or maybe eliminate it completely by switching to other energy sources soon enough. That is better for the climate as well.
There are many possible future outcomes, and not everyone is indifferent between them.

 

[NTL2009]

in reality you have very little control to maintain any use of energy. if its not there then you just can't have it. you get to use/hoard it because its available. when its not available its not available.

To say that I can't use energy if I can't get it is tautological - what does this add to the discussion?

I thought you were saying we should conserve now, in order to stretch our supplies of oil, and (you didn't say this but it fits the thread), maybe use that oil to supplement solar while we develop some storage methods for solar/wind.

Conservation is maybe better discussed in the other thread on solving the energy crisis, I think the topic of this thread is solar, more efficient panels, better storage methods, etc. OK, the first post did discuss solar versus oil, so I guess conservation of oil fits.

But if your saying a 'solution' to the limited and intermittent energy that solar might provide is to use less energy, and don't use it when it's not available, that's a twisted viewpoint, I think. That's a bit like saying that range on an electric car isn't an issue, just never drive longer than its range. It doesn't 'solve' anything, it just redefines the problem, which could be redefined for any energy source.

So what are you saying?

 

[nitsuj]

Hydrogen isn't a fuel in the sense you're using the term (a source of net energy) unless you are planning on mining it from Jupiter or someplace like that. The only way to make it from materials available on Earth is by endothermic chemical reactions (such as splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen), which cost more energy than you will get back when the hydrogen is burned.

It's the matter of storage, a concept being pursued is "mining" using sunshine energy, to produce a "clean fuel" such as oxygen or hydrogen. Losses are also opportunities for better efficiency.

The word fuel doesn't at all refer to or imply any kinda of system efficiency.

 

[Physics_Kid]

NTL2009, you said you are trying to keep a standard. a standard use of energy i presumed. if that's your thought then you'll be in for a shock when oil dies, your standard will be forcibly changed for you, etc. that was my point.

the notion of advocating to conserve is nothing new and obviously does not work. oil will be consumed at crazy rates until it dies no matter how much you advocate conservation. a govt could perhaps control your energy use by mandates.

from what i can see, no matter how you transition, there will be a decline in energy use, no way around that.

my bet is on harvesting hydrogen and it will be the staple source of energy to be consumed by humans when oil begins to dwindle.
anything tied to lithium batts is also a losing bet. batt cars will waiver in favor of H cars, its already happening. the rush to push lithium batt vehicles and massive lithium batt manufacturing is a hype tactic to obtain some $$, its all a short lived adventure, but heck, if you can make $20T in a very short time then so be it, but the solution to the problem is still not solved.

 

[NTL2009]

NTL2009, you said you are trying to keep a standard. a standard use of energy i presumed. ...

No, I'd like to maintain/enhance my standard of living. I hope to conserve energy as I do that, wherever feasible. IOW, if I could live well on net zero energy, fantastic!

if that's your thought then you'll be in for a shock when oil dies, your standard will be forcibly changed for you, etc. that was my point. ...

When is oil going to 'die'? Seems like many thought > $100/bbl and > $4.00/gallon gasoline was permanent, it wasn't.

my bet is on harvesting hydrogen and it will be the staple source of energy to be consumed by humans when oil begins to dwindle. ...

I though this was explained to you. Or maybe start a new thread so as not to further dilute this one. There is essential no hydrogen available to us to 'harvest' to be used as a "source of energy". We can only use it to store/transport energy we create at this time. And there are significant losses associated with that.

If you are thinking in terms of hydrogen as a fuel for cars, I think we may have better luck with refining oil produced by algae. Solar energy and absorbed CO2 becomes a hydrocarbon. Even airplanes could use that.

 

[mfb]

oil will be consumed at crazy rates until it dies no matter how much you advocate conservation.

Oil consumption in Germany is falling
Oil consumption in France is falling
Oil consumption in Italy is falling rapidly
Oil consumption in Spain is falling
Oil consumption in Portugal is falling
Oil consumption in the UK is falling slightly
Oil consumption in Denmark is falling
Oil consumption in the Netherlands has leveled off
The overall European oil consumption starts to fall
North American consumption has stabilized
Many countries reduce their oil consumption now already. The worldwide consumption still goes up, sure, but the increase is slowing down as well.

from what i can see, no matter how you transition, there will be a decline in energy use, no way around that.

Unless we find suitable alternatives first. That's the point of solar, nuclear, wind and so on.

my bet is on harvesting hydrogen and it will be the staple source of energy to be consumed by humans when oil begins to dwindle.

There is no hydrogen to harvest, stop repeating this nonsense please.
You can produce it, but then you get a very inefficient resource that you cannot store in large quantities either. Storing hydrogen is expensive. For cars with a storage of a few days that might work, but if you try to propose "produce hydrogen now, use it in 30 years": that doesn't work.

batt cars will waiver in favor of H cars, its already happening

Where? The number of electric cars increases by ~70%/year, in 2016 (January probably) we had 1.3 million. Here is a graph.
Meanwhile, predictions estimate a total of ~350,000 hydrogen vehicles produced from now to 2027. Even today, every year more new electric cars enter the streets than hydrogen cars will be produced in the next 10 years. In 2018, Tesla alone estimates to produce more electric cars every year than the worldwide production of hydrogen cars in the next 10 years.

Seriously: Please stop make factually wrong claims. It is annoying, and it is against the forum rules.

 

[Physics_Kid]

perhaps i am confused.
solar is an energy source, H is not?? coal is a energy source, H is not?? makes no sense.
they are all just carriers of energy. coal does nothing by itself, solar does nothing by itself, nothing does anything by itself ? some process has to convert that energy into usable energy. or, one must build a process that does work of whatever the input is (electric from batts, H, goop, whatever).

how efficient solar vs H doesn't really matter, you need to find something that we can consume, and water is a source and it has H for us to extract (aka harvest), ...

whats so hard about the word "harvest", its the same as "organ harvesting", as in "to go in and extract". to harvest H means to go into the water and get H out.

...and there's lots of it. how you get it is the same problem like how to get electric from solar, or how to get gas from fracking, or how do you make a motor drive a wheel using electric w/o any cords. you still need a intermediate process to be able to use any energy. for electric cars its a battery, for say home heating and cars H can be used.

so now its Musk vs Toyota and others. if H is so dead then why does Toyota make a Mirai that can be recharged in 5min and go ~315mi on one tank? that's very comparable to Tesla Model3. the Mirai will go longer distance, but if you needed to say drive 400mi the Mirai will be there much much sooner than the Model3 ! Mirai and Model3 both carry relatively dangerous materials, Lithium vs H, but Lithium eventually becomes an environmental nightmare, H does not. Mirai base vs Model3 base is way more $$, but H types are just coming into maturity.

none of the Tesla/Musk hype seems to show A-Z for each process. follow every step, including mining lithium and making batts. the starting line is sun rays and water, the finish line is two cars crossing that 300mi stripe. all of the in-between needs energy just to make the vehicle go.

where is "get lithium" and "make battery" in this chart ?

just because you may have access to a form of energy that is plentiful that doesn't mean its very useful if you have to wait 8hrs after every 10min of use (exaggeration to make a point).

so let me ask, Toyota and others are building H cars because why? for the fun of it? if batt based vehicles are the future then i simply don't understand why anyone would be building H cars.

and yes, i see a ton of article bashing H, here's one

“Producing the hydrogen to power FCVs can generate GHGs, depending on the production method, but much less than that emitted by conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles.”

yet nothing about the pollution a lithium harvesting and batt making process does ?

is lithium a viable source of material to carry charge??

here, do the math.

Telsa 85 kWh battery pack weighs 1,200 lb
3.6V nominal 2 Ah 18650 cell = 7.2 Wh =~ 0.6 gram of Lithium
~46g per 18650 package
According to USGS, Bolivia's Uyuni Desert has 5.4 million tonnes of lithium. In the United States, lithium is recovered from brine pools in Nevada. However, half the world's known reserves are located in Bolivia along the central eastern slope of the Andes.

The US publisher Ward's, estimates that as of 2010 there were 1.015 billion motor vehicles in use in the world.

is that enough lithium?.
1.015billion x ~16.744lbs = ?
you'll need way more than 16lbs(lithium):1200lb batt to power UPS and FredX trucks

take trip issue with lithium.

4k mi trip, H and Tesla can go 400mi per tank. H takes 5min to fill, lithium take 8hrs. same speed.
4k/400 = 10 tanks
10*8hrs = 3.333 days !
10*5min = less than 1hr

so to make the trip you must have ~3.5 days of downtime to use your lithium. to me, this is not so efficient, now is it.

so if UPS uses lithium and FredX uses H, UPS goes chap 11.so how wonderful solar can make electric, and even if it powers the grid, looks like other problems will make all electric things not very useful. nice to have 1x10^63636363 kVA waiting to be used, but if you can't use it, what's the point?

where you get energy and how efficient that harvest is, is only half the problem.

 

[PeterDonis]

perhaps i am confused.

Yes, you are.

solar is an energy source, H is not?? coal is a energy source, H is not??

Correct.

they are all just carriers of energy

In one sense, yes. But that is not relevant to whether or not they are energy sources in the sense you're using the term. See below.

H is a source, and there's lots of it.

No, there isn't. There is no hydrogen sitting around on Earth the way natural gas or coal or oil is just sitting in the ground, or the way sunshine is just coming in for free. There are chemical compounds that contain hydrogen, but getting hydrogen from those compounds costs more energy than you get back when you use the hydrogen as fuel.

how you get it is the same problem like how to get electric from solar, or how to get gas from fracking

No, H is not the same as all these other things. When you get electric from solar, or gas from fracking, or coal from mining, or oil from a well,, the energy you get out (electric from solar or by burning the natural gas) is more than the energy it cost you to get it (to make the solar cell or frack the gas or mine the coal or pump the oil). When you get hydrogen on Earth from any process, whether it's splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen or getting it via some other chemical reaction from natural gas, the energy you get from the hydrogen is less than the energy it took to obtain the hydrogen. That is why hydrogen (on Earth, at least) is not an energy source the way solar or natural gas is.

Of course, if you don't care about that because you have a cheap, plentiful source of energy, then hydrogen can be used as an energy storage medium (similar to a battery, which is basically what it's shown as competing with in the chart you give). But energy storage is not the same as "energy source" in the sense of having energy just sitting there "free" for the taking. It still costs more energy to make the hydrogen than the energy you get by burning the hydrogen. Just as it costs more energy to make and charge a battery than the energy you get out when you discharge it.

Toyota and others are building H cars

Yes, because they don't care whether hydrogen is an energy source, what they care about is whether it might end up being a better energy storage medium than batteries, all things considered. The only way to find out is to try and build them both in a competitive environment and see which one wins.

 

[Physics_Kid]

PeterDonis, please keep answering/address all my points made in #552.
i like the rebuttal.

 

[NTL2009]

perhaps i am confused.
solar is an energy source, H is not?? coal is a energy source, H is not?? ...

As @PeterDonis pointed out so well, yes, you are, and seem to continue to be confused, or are just not accepting what is being explained to you (or possibly not serious about any of this at all?). I'm a simple person, allow me to try to explain in a simple way:

Imagine you walk up to a 10 story building with two pulleys at the top, each with a long rope and bucket of water attached. One bucket of water was earlier raised to the top by someone and the rope tied off, the other bucket is on the ground. I think you understand that the bucket at the top has potential energy that could be calculated knowing the height, mass, and gravitational constant. If you simply apply a tiny bit of energy to cut or loosen the rope, you can 'harvest' that energy. But you can't do that with the bucket on the ground, there is no stored energy for you to use.

The bucket at the top is like oil, NG, or wood to burn. The potential energy was already put there before we got there, and is easy for us to release. To get energy out of the bucket on the ground, you have to put the energy in. And some of your energy is wasted by friction in the process. So just use your energy directly.

Solar? OK, you can set a reflector and a black pot out on a bright summer day, and obtain enough heat to cook a meal. But if I give you a pot of water (which contains Hydrogen in the H2O molecule), you can't cook a meal with it. It just sits there. You need to put energy into it. You can't just get energy out of the hydrogen that is in water, without putting more energy into it.

What isn't understood there (and I do think this should be in another thread about why Hydrogen isn't an energy source like other fuels)?emphasis mine:

... so how wonderful solar can make electric, and even if it powers the grid, looks like other problems will make all electric things not very useful. nice to have 1x10^63636363 kVA waiting to be used, but if you can't use it, what's the point? ...

If you understand this for electrical storage, why don't you understand it for Hydrogen storage?

...where you get energy and how efficient that harvest is, is only half the problem.

It's more than half the problem with Hydrogen, it's not even a starter - since there is no energy to 'harvest'.

There is an expression I heard recently, probably on this forum - "That's not even wrong.". Meaning, it is so far off base, that it is even hard to discuss the right/wrong about it. You need to go back and work on understanding the basics of energy - preferably in another thread, so this one can be about advances in solar power, not on and on about your misunderstandings of Hydrogen and energy. Sorry if that comes across as terse, but I am running out of patience with this subject diverting from the main subject.

I tried, that's all can do.

 

[PeterDonis]

yet nothing about the pollution a lithium harvesting and batt making process does ?

There's certainly plenty of bashing on all sides, but I have seen reasonable analyses that take into account the full life cycle costs of different energy sources--including harvesting, manufacturing, usage, and disposal. My sense from what I've seen is that batteries in general are not significantly different from other technologies as far as pollution is concerned.

4k mi trip, H and Tesla can go 400mi per tank. H takes 5min to fill, lithium take 8hrs. same speed.

Yes, recharge time is the key downside of battery technology as it currently stands. As I understand it, Tesla's solution to that problem, long term, is to swap the batteries instead of recharging them. In other words, you pull into a "filling station", an automated system slides the old battery pack out of your car and slides a new, freshly charged one in. Time required similar to the time to fill a gas or hydrogen tank.

Again, the only way to know for sure is to let companies try building all of these technologies in a competitive environment and see which one wins. I don't think crunching numbers based on estimates is going to tell us much at this point beyond "well, all of them are probably worth trying", which we already knew anyway.

 

[mheslep]

As I understand it, Tesla's solution to that problem, long term, is to swap the batteries instead of recharging them.

Apparently not. Tesla built exactly one swap station for owners, and sent a couple hundred invitations to use it. A half dozen accepted, and each used the station once. It has since been closed.

[Swap is ]clearly not very popular," Musk said.

Even though Tesla has since invited all Model S owners in California to try the battery swap program, Musk expects the entire customer base will behave similarly to the initial sample group.

"People don't care about pack swap," Musk said. "The superchargers are fast enough. Based on what we're seeing here, it's unlikely to be something that's worth expanding in the future unless something changes

http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas-battery-swap-is-dead/

Since that 2015 statement there have been increasing complaints about crowded charging stations, especially when a small queue means a wait of 1 to 2 hours. Tesla has also said it does not expect to raise the the charging power of stations. This makes sense given the 10% power as heat rejection and battery life impact above 1.5C charge.

I agree with your initial assessment, that charging time is the most serious problem for BEVS, especially for mass adoption.

 

[Bandersnatch]

oil is in the ground, it has potential energy. H is in water, it has potential energy. its nothing more than energy conversion. the efficiency of each end-to-end can be whatever you say, as in solar >>> H, or solar >>>>>>>> H. but so what, efficiency is a technical problem, not a source problem.

H in H2O does not have usable potential energy* - it is already bound in a low energy state configuration. All the chemical potential energy it had was was emitted when it reacted with oxygen (aka burned) to make water.

The proper comparison is not between oil (refined or otherwise) and H2O, but with what you get from burning oil and H2O. You wanting to use H from H2O for power is like wanting to use CO2 and H2O (from burning hydrocarbons) to make oil and O2 so that you can then burn them again.
The point everyone has been making here is that it takes more energy to make the fuel than you then recover. In the most perfect ideal conditions you can only get exactly as much from burning it as you put into making it. It's not a matter of technical efficiency, it's a matter of basic chemistry.

In fact, if it were possible to extract nett energy from splitting H2O, then it'd be possible to make perpetual motion machines. You'd use X energy to split H2O into H2 and O, then allow these products to burn and obtain X+Y in the process of making H2O again. You'd then feed X energy back into the reaction to split the H2O, for nett gain of Y energy per reaction.
In the real world you can only ever hope to approach obtaining X energy from burning as your efficiency approaches 100%. You'll never go over unity to extract the additional Y.*unless you burn it in fluorine, but I hope nobody thinks that's a good idea.

 

[OmCheeto]

...
I REALLY fell in love with the concept of CHP when I first heard about it. I was wondering, if like the Drakes Landing thermal system, solar pv could be used in the summer to split water, and convert that into methane (Sabatier reaction) , which could be stored until winter.

Haven't even started the maths on that yet. It probably also needs its own thread, if it doesn't already exist. Probably kind of expensive.

Oh my god. After 8 hours of research, and walls of maths, I've decided that this is a problem laden idea.
Based on my sister's use in San Diego, she would need a 7 kw solar array to generate enough methane to replace her natural gas line.
She would also need to store 175 kg of methane, which I think would need to be liquified.
And since the system is already at the break even point financially*, I decided it was time to give up.

*Definite maybe here. Prices for CO₂ vary from $10 to $1000 per ton for "atmospheric" extraction, depending on who you listen to. And nowhere could I determine where any of these people came up with those prices.

ps. I'm so bad at chemistry, at one point, I resorted to determining the cost to generate H₂ via electrolysis: $1.44E-26/H₂ molecule.
pps. I did the maths, as I saw that Richard Branson was offering $25,000,000 to anyone who could do this. So, even though I failed, I thought it was worth the effort. (Actually, he just wanted a viable air capture CO₂ extractor design. But CO₂ cost was the bug my system, so I figured he'd divvy up, if I solved an extra problem.)
ppps. Fun problem!

 

[Dr Transport]

Not to poke this gorilla, but my apartment complex in Fort Worth Texas (yes, Texas, where some of the biggest oil producers are) is entirely run on renewable power via the company https://www.greenmountainenergy.com/, I am all for it, it might cost a tad bit more, but my weekend power is free... Renewable energy is being used in spits and spurts all over, problem is that it is in percentage points of the total...

My oldest kid who is a newly minted environmental engineer can't wait to come to visit and find out about this company.