flacaltenn
Diamond Member
Not gonna happen,.. would be an enviro disaster if it did. You have no concept of what it takes to store DAYS of electricity when the wind don't blow. You can't power a steel mill from batteries for a day or a city of 40,000 for more than a couple hours.
Do the math. Do the economics.. You're listening to the dying gasps of an industry that has been overhyped and over-sold..
Oh those with no imagination and willful ignorance, in a word, conservative, ought to do some research before they broadcast foolishly. See:
Scientists Store Solar Energy in Desert Sand - The Green Optimistic
Keep in mind, the first cars need a crank to start (I hope that's not too abstract for the conservative set).
Would be nice to see the environmental impact statement of making 100 acres of desert glow red for a few hours every day.. Wouldn't it?
What you DON'T know --- is that the CSP (concentrated solar or "death ray" technology) that would USE this approach is already failing to produce anywhere close to modeling and estimates. There has a been a fair trial of this solar variant and the results are dismal. .Look up IvanPah for instance. You HAVE NO excess to store in the sand --- if your actual generation is 40% of what folks paid for..
And "sand storage" does NOT couple well with the majority of solar generation which is PV panels. Wouldn't work to convert electricity to heat and back again.
So there you are ---- BARELY paying attention to the details, and telling tech folks like myself that I just need more childish OPTIMISM and HOPE. When YOU --- have no freakin' idea how any of this works or is related.
How many efforts failed in the development of heavier than air vehicles? How many rockets blew up on the launching pad before we went men to the moon?
Nawww.. We are WAY past those analogies with solar and wind. We have MUCH BETTER solar panels on the Mars Rovers. FAR superior to what's used for commercial power. WE KNOW how to make better panels. In this case -- you'd have to mine every ARSENIC resource on the planet to provide enough GA-Arsenside to produce them. And leftist enviros would PROBABLY excuse that. But even then -- the cost would 4 or 5 times more than Silicon panels.
Rockets STILL blow up on the pads. It's not a measure of tech development. And there are DETAILS to the tech that greenies have no clues about. Like making the sand glow for 4 hours a day.
THere are no ALTERNATIVES on the list. Just a bunch of supplements. And we could push those supplements in BETTER DIRECTIONS --- than by forcing them to replace reliable 24/7/365 power generation. Things like renewable powered desalinization and hydrogen fuel production --- where the STORAGE is inherent in the process itself..
So, you're an expert (?) and yet solar and renewable energy exists, and is providing power throughout our nation. Maybe you ought to spend some time educating all those engineers and entrepreneurs wasting their time and money - instead of playing the expert on the Internet.
I "exist" --- therefore I "am".. Very deep !!!! LOL
Lot of space between existing and being an "alternative" to anything..
We are wasting too much time and money right now on wind/solar and in general. There will always be a solar biz of SOME size, but it's not a major market. Check out the 20 year solar ETFunds on the stock market -- don't listen to me.. Looks like a dead cat bounce..
Those engineers should be educating YOU.. On grid solar will never supply more than 3.5% of total grid energy -- and will only do that at mid-day peak and only in certain geographical areas. It's what's called a "peaker" source. Where does that come from you ask? Simple. Daytime summer PEAK on grid is about 20% higher than at 10PM at night. So allowing for safety margins it can cause a DISPLACEMENT of the PRIMARY generators for about 4 hours a day. 4/24 * 20% = 3.4%
Note that the PRIMARY capacity still has to BE THERE to back it up when the sun don't shine. Somebody's gonna pay for IDLING the primary source during that time and the inefficiencies of throttling it up and down.
Wind is so entirely sketchy that if they took it off the massive Govt Nipple it would die tomorrow. That IS an entire waste of time and money when used ON GRID. There are uses for it OFF GRID.