Installed Solar Energy.

[Antice]

Yeah, it's really to bad we don't have any technology to store energy...

I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not.
but the fact is that we do not have any technology that scales up to the amount of storage needed to balance a solar dominated grid.
Nor a wind dominated on either.
turning excess electrical energy into somethign that is storable, like hydrogen and synfuel,introduces a lot of losses into the system. If you want fuel for a vehicle, then fine. this is how it would have to be done for a low impact switchover from fossil fuels in transport, but turning that back into electricity for lamps and other uses introduce yet another level of massive losses. in the end you end up with a system that is productive only 20% of the time, and that stores the excess at a system level efficiency of less than 10%. in other words. you are just wasting energy for almost no gain.
I havent even mentioned just how incredibly large the land areas that have to be set aside for generating power has to be under this method.

compare this to the nuclear option. where you can make plenty of electricy and/or high grade process heat in a single pretty small construct. electricity to cleanly power our cities and futuristic EV's and what have you's. use the excess heat to make synfuel, desalinate water etc. (provided we go the route of Gen IV tec like MSR's who run at high temps)
We could ease the transition pain by making synthetic fuels compatible with our existing vehicle fleets. either by dedicated high temp reactors (this is more energy efficient than converting to electricity first, since it skips a step)
We could if we went this way become entirely independent of fossil fuels and still enjoy the benefits of a high energy society.
So remind me again. why should we waste time on solar? or wind for that matter? expensive storage schemes?

[peteshimmon]

Most of the installed solar is on rooftops
which if you think carefully about, does
not require new land.

Utilities in various countries are in the
process of learning to use this energy. It
may be that special low tariffs for an hour
at a time is signaled to industry to take
advantage of good output times like sunny
days. Whatever, these solar cells are giving
energy out that will be more than was used in
manufacturing them.

[Antice]

Most of the installed solar is on rooftops
which if you think carefully about, does
not require new land.

Utilities in various countries are in the
process of learning to use this energy. It
may be that special low tariffs for an hour
at a time is signaled to industry to take
advantage of good output times like sunny
days. Whatever, these solar cells are giving
energy out that will be more than was used in
manufacturing them.

Heavy industry is dependant on a steady suply of power to their processes. it takes time to start up and shut down big industrial machinery. interuption to that suply both can and will cause massive losses in relation to productivity of these facilities.(it can even ruin large amounts of product) The owners of said industry will not under any circumstance allow themselves to be regulated in a way that will make them uneconomical like that. Not going to happen ever. they will pack up their machinery and leave for another country where their access to the power they need is better assured. or switch over to inhouse power production trough the use of fossil fuels like coal or gas.

controlling demand trough the use of smart grids has been touted as a solution for the solar/wind advocates for a long time now.
They do not take into account the fact that people will go into open revolt if they get cut off like this at bad times like during a heat wave or cold snap.
it's the same with EV charging and using those batteries for balancing the grid. I'd be realy pissed off if my car was suddenly out of juice when i needed to get to my workplace because the grid demand was a bit above average that day.

When you actually think the consequenses of using invasive control methods like this against people then one should quickly realize that we get a energy tyrany where some central entity is suposed to control who get's and who don't get any energy at any given time. this is not a bearable situation.

[Daffy]

So often I hear the argument against solar that it can't completely replace existing sources. So what? What's wrong with reducing demand? Several of my neighbors have installed solar systems and are now saving quite a bit of money, even though they are still customers of Edison. I'd do it myself, but I don't qualify for the loan.

[spjung]

In New Jersey, at least in my area, many telephone poles have small solar panels attached to them. It's part of a 200,000 panel-40MW project by the electric company. Coincidentally, the company installing them, Petra Solar, is across the parking lot from where I work.

[IsaacKuo]

So often I hear the argument against solar that it can't completely replace existing sources. So what? What's wrong with reducing demand? Several of my neighbors have installed solar systems and are now saving quite a bit of money, even though they are still customers of Edison. I'd do it myself, but I don't qualify for the loan.

The effect of reducing demand depends on the nature of the other power sources. If the other power sources include coal or natural gas, then reducing demand can help reduce operating costs. The operating costs of those power sources depend greatly on fuel costs, and those power sources are good at ramping up/down. So, solar can reduce those operating costs.

On the other hand, if the other power sources are mainly nuclear, then solar doesn't really help. Fuel costs aren't a big driver in nuclear costs. Ramping up/down nuclear doesn't really help reduce operating costs much. So, the primary effect of solar is to shift costs from those with solar panels/heating onto those who don't have solar. These increased rates make nuclear less competitive, relative to coal and gas etc. In other words, it's good for the people who buy solar but it's bad for those who don't, and bad for the nuclear power companies.

[aquitaine]

So often I hear the argument against solar that it can't completely replace existing sources. So what? What's wrong with reducing demand? Several of my neighbors have installed solar systems and are now saving quite a bit of money, even though they are still customers of Edison. I'd do it myself, but I don't qualify for the loan.

Growing economies always and everywhere require more energy. Contracting economies, namely those in recession, always use less. What you're talking about is a permanent recession and the goodies that permanently high unemployment brings.

[Ara Pacis]

I saw a better way to use solar might be passively for HVAC perhaps in concert with Solar Thermal and that would reduce then eed for Solar PV, allowing the lower efficiency of PV to better meet demand, which is consequently lower.

But, as NEOWatcher states above, it requires some rebuilding. In North America there's a lot of old homes that are very inefficient due to drafts, inadequate insulation, lack of proper fenestration and awnings and window dressings. So, a little remodeling could go a long ways.

[Ara Pacis]

I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not.
but the fact is that we do not have any technology that scales up to the amount of storage needed to balance a solar dominated grid.
Nor a wind dominated on either.

Hydro-reservoirs.

We could ease the transition pain by making synthetic fuels compatible with our existing vehicle fleets. either by dedicated high temp reactors (this is more energy efficient than converting to electricity first, since it skips a step)

Or alter the vehicle fleets. Using hybrid electrics with turbines powered by synfuels might be a better route than piston engines due to lower weight and greater range of fuels that can be burned.

We could if we went this way become entirely independent of fossil fuels and still enjoy the benefits of a high energy society.
So remind me again. why should we waste time on solar? or wind for that matter? expensive storage schemes?

Solar is good for individuals because it increases independence and reduces transmission losses and helps maintain a level of power, perhaps a critical level of power, during transmission outages during storms, etc. In concert with batteries, it can help maintain home-care life-support technologies in an aging population.

[aquitaine]

Hydro-reservoirs.

Doesnt that just exacerbate the biggest disadvantages they have, needing huge land areas and lack of economical competitiveness?

[Ara Pacis]

The effect of reducing demand depends on the nature of the other power sources. If the other power sources include coal or natural gas, then reducing demand can help reduce operating costs. The operating costs of those power sources depend greatly on fuel costs, and those power sources are good at ramping up/down. So, solar can reduce those operating costs.

On the other hand, if the other power sources are mainly nuclear, then solar doesn't really help. Fuel costs aren't a big driver in nuclear costs. Ramping up/down nuclear doesn't really help reduce operating costs much. So, the primary effect of solar is to shift costs from those with solar panels/heating onto those who don't have solar. These increased rates make nuclear less competitive, relative to coal and gas etc. In other words, it's good for the people who buy solar but it's bad for those who don't, and bad for the nuclear power companies.

Baseload is as baseload does. I doubt solar will be able to reduce the daytime baseload completely, although it's conceivable well designed housed might get close. Larger buildings and industry will still probably use a lot and multiple shifts may allow this to be constant, in addition to the night load from houses no longer producing from solar. I'm not familiar enough with the new generations of nuclear to say off the top of my head if any are throttle-able on a diurnal basis, although they might be on a seasonal basis. The difference between baseload and the peakload that is not satisfied by distributed generation might need to be satisfied with a throttle-able carbon-based fuel (fossil or synfuel, preferably). Alternately, tapping energy storage in the form of hydro-reservoirs where available or chemical energy storage (hydrogen or boron) might be used for the difference between base and peak loads. I'm not sure I care for a smart-grid, although I think we need a grid-management system that's smart. More importantly, I think, would be home batteries and a smart home that can designate certain circuits that must always have power and others that can be allowed to shut off at certain times of the day or if energy production is low.

[Ara Pacis]

Doesnt that just exacerbate the biggest disadvantages they have, needing huge land areas and lack of economical competitiveness?

Depends on topology and other uses for that submerged land. Some people like having recreational opportunities on that lake and also having the potential to use it for irrigation and drinking water and fishing. But that doesn't have to be a natural topological reservoir. Theoretically, you could build a large tank on a hill, which is how we get our water here.

[Daffy]

Growing economies always and everywhere require more energy. Contracting economies, namely those in recession, always use less. What you're talking about is a permanent recession and the goodies that permanently high unemployment brings.

I have no idea what you mean by that. If we find other sources of power we will cause permanently high unemployment? That makes no sense. Perhaps it would cause lower employment within current power companies/sources (I don't know that it would), but, if so, surely that would be offset by increased employment in companies with other sources. Not to mention a boost to the economy via more spendable income from lower energy bills.

[Antice]

Hydro-reservoirs.

Or alter the vehicle fleets. Using hybrid electrics with turbines powered by synfuels might be a better route than piston engines due to lower weight and greater range of fuels that can be burned.

Solar is good for individuals because it increases independence and reduces transmission losses and helps maintain a level of power, perhaps a critical level of power, during transmission outages during storms, etc. In concert with batteries, it can help maintain home-care life-support technologies in an aging population.

Using turbine generators is an interesting idea for road vehicles, but i do have one objection. they tend to be much more noisy than piston based engines. also. piston engines that are optimized for making electricity for electric drives are actually pretty efficient already. that is why we use diesel electric locomotives when not having an overhead powerpickup available.
As far as anything/electric goes. I'l just let the customers decide what they like the best. that is why i like synfuels. we can easily make both synthethic gasoline or diesel. it's a matter of production cost, and i guess the cheapest (for the end user) solution should sort itself out pretty quickly when crunchtime for fossil fuels come around.

Nobody is claiming that solar cannot and does not perform nicely in niche aplications. what some of us object to is trying to run the entire society on solar, it does not scale up enough to be viable. and just to have mentioned it. solar helping out during a storm? solar panels don't survive storms all that well. might as well just charge those emergency batteries from the grid. (or existing generators running on synfuel.) that way the emergency system works more reliably.

Adding pumping to existing hydro could make sense however when paired with nuclear. (for peaking purposes in areas that does not have a surplus of rain) since it reduces the load following stress on the baseload generators. (hydro is the number one load following generation of choice where available) but storing hundreds of GW/h of electricity in order to allow for more solar? No way. It becomes too much for all the current hydro reservoirs already in existense. the peak power is limited to what more or less existing hydro can already handle. unless one wants to start building gigantic artificial lakes to hold water. hydro is pretty much already maxed out on capacity in the industrialized part of the world. the remaining sites are either wildlife sanctuaries or somesuch... and we really shouldn't destroy those.
Quite a few of the existing Hydro dams are also used to regulate water flow in order to insure water availability for irrigation and flood prevention. can't use those for pumping uphill either.

[Antice]

I have no idea what you mean by that. If we find other sources of power we will cause permanently high unemployment? That makes no sense. Perhaps it would cause lower employment within current power companies/sources (I don't know that it would), but, if so, surely that would be offset by increased employment in companies with other sources. Not to mention a boost to the economy via more spendable income from lower energy bills.

It's simple: No power to run those factories? well tough luck. poof goes the factory jobs and all the employees are now unemployed. Anyone promoting a policy of energy scarcity is promoting a de facto reduction in economic activities. and with that comes all the joys of a diminished economy. like high unemployment rates. it can quickly become an ever worsening spiral where entire nations ends up bancrupt.

ETA: If this thread really were about alternate sources of power that actually could replace everything we have today, (like the almost mythical holy grail of practical fusion power)
then there would be no energy scarcity. and the economy would not suffer, but expensive solar and the even more expensive infrastructure it requires is not such a panachea for energy.

[TooMany]

On the other hand, if the other power sources are mainly nuclear, then solar doesn't really help. Fuel costs aren't a big driver in nuclear costs. Ramping up/down nuclear doesn't really help reduce operating costs much. So, the primary effect of solar is to shift costs from those with solar panels/heating onto those who don't have solar. These increased rates make nuclear less competitive, relative to coal and gas etc. In other words, it's good for the people who buy solar but it's bad for those who don't, and bad for the nuclear power companies.

I live in Sol Cal so I have to disagree. It's not all about fuel costs. We are getting close to the point where solar power generation is competitive with the grid. Home roof-top solar has the advantages that transmission lines aren't involved, fuel costs are zero and so is pollution, subsequent to manufacture. Home solar has the effect of distributing the load when it is worst, on hot sunny days. This reduces the need for surplus generating capacity.

The problem of capital investment by the home owners has been addressed by enterprising companies like SolarCity who pay for your solar installation and charge you on a monthly basis for the solar electricity that you use. Any that you don't use goes into the grid. Right now this works and reduces electric bills for families with fairly large electric bills. I'm seeing more and more of these installations in my neighborhood. I'm not sure why you claim that this is bad for the people who don't have solar. Perhaps it's fair to say at this point that the people with solar get something in return for the subsidies and people without don't. That's a great incentive.

Eventually if the cost per installed watt and maintenance are low enough, while the lifetime of the collectors is long, it will make enough economic sense that we will see it on most roof tops including commercial ones. There is a hotel a few miles from me that has a hillside installation that is larger than the entire sun facing area of the building. The electric lines and generating stations will still be needed and will eventually sell electricity for a prices substantially higher than solar. Everyone will still need the grid until (if ever) someone finds a way to store the energy over long periods. The cost of grid electricity will depend less on the amount consumed (e.g. the fuel) and more on just having it available, like a phone.

All that said, I'm a big proponent of nuclear for at least the next several decades. Unfortunately, the public is ridiculously fearful of nuclear even though it's proven by far the safest over the last few decades.

[TooMany]

Heavy industry is dependant on a steady suply of power to their processes. it takes time to start up and shut down big industrial machinery. interuption to that suply both can and will cause massive losses in relation to productivity of these facilities.(it can even ruin large amounts of product) The owners of said industry will not under any circumstance allow themselves to be regulated in a way that will make them uneconomical like that. Not going to happen ever. they will pack up their machinery and leave for another country where their access to the power they need is better assured. or switch over to inhouse power production trough the use of fossil fuels like coal or gas.

controlling demand trough the use of smart grids has been touted as a solution for the solar/wind advocates for a long time now.
They do not take into account the fact that people will go into open revolt if they get cut off like this at bad times like during a heat wave or cold snap.
it's the same with EV charging and using those batteries for balancing the grid. I'd be realy pissed off if my car was suddenly out of juice when i needed to get to my workplace because the grid demand was a bit above average that day.

When you actually think the consequenses of using invasive control methods like this against people then one should quickly realize that we get a energy tyrany where some central entity is suposed to control who get's and who don't get any energy at any given time. this is not a bearable situation.

That scenario is entirely unrealistic. We cannot fully depend on an intermittent source without storage, period. It simply won't happen. What will happen (at least in some parts) is that solar will reduce peak loads on hot sunny days and perhaps support an important fraction of the total load. That will result is less fuel being mined and burned. It's a win even if it is intermittent. It cannot be a replacement without some new storage technology.

[Antice]

Solar has it's uses in some areas. places where the sun shines practically every day. but everyone does not live in sunny California. actually, I'd say most of us didn't last i checked. People tend to live mostly in areas that are quite far from good/excelent solar locations.

It's not a freebie with the subsidies no matter how you try to spin it. that money has to come from somehwere. be it taxes or by increasing everyone elses electricity rate.
In essense. taking money from the have not's and giving it to the have's.


The scenario i showed upthread was to show just how far one would have to go to have a significant fraction of energy comming from renewable sources like solar.
Thing is. If we go the nuclear route. (as i think everyone is probably aware of that I think we should) then we don't need solar. nor wind. they get relegated back to their old niche uses like powering weather stations out in the wilderness and stuff like that. Nuclear coupled with synfuels and the existing hydro can without any further technological develpoment replace fossil fuels already. it would take some time to build all of those powerplants we would need. but not more so that it would take to try to build the same capacity worth of renewables. I actually think we could do it way faster this way if people would stop protesting this buildout based on unfounded fear.

Edited: too avoid double posting.

[TooMany]

Solar has it's uses in some areas. places where the sun shines practically every day. but everyone does not live in sunny California. actually, I'd say most of us didn't last i checked. People tend to live mostly in areas that are quite far from good/excelent solar locations.

It's not a freebie with the subsidies no matter how you try to spin it. that money has to come from somehwere. be it taxes or by increasing everyone elses electricity rate.
In essense. taking money from the have not's and giving it to the have's.


The scenario i showed upthread was to show just how far one would have to go to have a significant fraction of energy comming from renewable sources like solar.
Thing is. If we go the nuclear route. (as i think everyone is probably aware of that I think we should) then we don't need solar. nor wind. they get relegated back to their old niche uses like powering weather stations out in the wilderness and stuff like that. Nuclear coupled with synfuels and the existing hydro can without any further technological develpoment replace fossil fuels already. it would take some time to build all of those powerplants we would need. but not more so that it would take to try to build the same capacity worth of renewables. I actually think we could do it way faster this way if people would stop protesting this buildout based on unfounded fear.

Edited: too avoid double posting.

Although I don't agree that solar will be confined to a wilderness niche (when it becomes economical), I can't really argue with the nuclear option. I think it may be our only option, unless we want to tear up the country and submerge our coastal cities (where most of the world population lives).
These things are not controlled by scientist or even sense; they are controlled by powerful self-interests. I can't see the political situation changing enough to do something sensible. So probably future generations will pay.

[Van Rijn]

So often I hear the argument against solar that it can't completely replace existing sources. So what? What's wrong with reducing demand?

Pointing out the limitatons of solar is not arguing against solar. I support solar where it is a practical option. Adding a few percent of variable electricity production, and reducing the need for peakers in sunny climates with hot summers, looks pretty good. But it gets a lot more difficult if you want it to supply twenty percent or more of the total electrical supply, and there would need to be huge development of power storage to deal with the variability.

[Antice]

Although I don't agree that solar will be confined to a wilderness niche (when it becomes economical), I can't really argue with the nuclear option. I think it may be our only option, unless we want to tear up the country and submerge our coastal cities (where most of the world population lives).
These things are not controlled by scientist or even sense; they are controlled by powerful self-interests. I can't see the political situation changing enough to do something sensible. So probably future generations will pay.

Well. with some imagination one could probably find some more cool uses for this technology. I just don't think it's wise to toss so much money at it as is being done.
It all boils down to public oponion tho. The real task is to inform that opinion of the real options they have to choose between. something that is not always easy.
Things like solar is popular because it has some of that magical "Free energy" apearance going for it. The public at large does not know of all the minutae of generating energy, if they did they would not swallow the image of solar so easily.

[aquitaine]

Depends on topology and other uses for that submerged land. Some people like having recreational opportunities on that lake and also having the potential to use it for irrigation and drinking water and fishing. But that doesn't have to be a natural topological reservoir. Theoretically, you could build a large tank on a hill, which is how we get our water here.

Given the amount of power we're talking about storing you would need considerably more than a large tank on a hill, probably that lake you mentioned. The problem is, lakes are expensive. Let's get some perspective here. The Bonneville dam cost, in adjusted 2012 dollars about $4.5 billion to build and has a generating capacity of about 1.1 GW. Now, in and of itself that's a pretty good deal, but in this case we're not talking about daming an existing river but rather storing energy generated elsewhere. To be extremely generous I'm going to assume we're using some sort of natural topography, if I wasn't so generous the cost would be many billions higher. Now add to that to the already very high capital costs of a 1 GW wind or solar farm. So, does a system like this make any sense?

I have no idea what you mean by that. If we find other sources of power we will cause permanently high unemployment? That makes no sense. Perhaps it would cause lower employment within current power companies/sources (I don't know that it would), but, if so, surely that would be offset by increased employment in companies with other sources. Not to mention a boost to the economy via more spendable income from lower energy bills.

If energy costs go lower it gets used more. Energy is the lifeblood of our civilization, without it our industry would grind to a halt. The only way to reduce demand is to destroy it, which is what going green would do by making it significantly more expensive. It's not really a matter of finding other sources of power, it's a matter of finding other sources of power that are economical, which sadly solar, wind, tidal and wave are not.

I live in Sol Cal so I have to disagree. It's not all about fuel costs. We are getting close to the point where solar power generation is competitive with the grid. Home roof-top solar has the advantages that transmission lines aren't involved, fuel costs are zero and so is pollution, subsequent to manufacture. Home solar has the effect of distributing the load when it is worst, on hot sunny days. This reduces the need for surplus generating capacity.

I'll take that statement, bolded by me, a lot more seriously when these go away. A 30% subsidy is rather substantial.

[Ara Pacis]

Using turbine generators is an interesting idea for road vehicles, but i do have one objection. they tend to be much more noisy than piston based engines. also. piston engines that are optimized for making electricity for electric drives are actually pretty efficient already. that is why we use diesel electric locomotives when not having an overhead powerpickup available.

Turbines can have about the same efficiency as diesel, IIRC, however, their advantages are that they are lighter, use multiple types of fuel and may also be smaller when paired with an electric drivetrain (compared to the previous turbine-powered cars)

As far as anything/electric goes. I'l just let the customers decide what they like the best. that is why i like synfuels. we can easily make both synthethic gasoline or diesel. it's a matter of production cost, and i guess the cheapest (for the end user) solution should sort itself out pretty quickly when crunchtime for fossil fuels come around.

That's why a turbine would be better, the operator can choose whatever fuel they want at the time of driving, a decisionwhich can happen a couple times a week, instead of at the time of purchasing the vehicle, a decision which can only happen every few years under current models of vehicle ownership.

Nobody is claiming that solar cannot and does not perform nicely in niche aplications. what some of us object to is trying to run the entire society on solar, it does not scale up enough to be viable.

I'm not talking about niche applications but Distributed Generation. That is, home/building-owners providing their own power and thereby reducing their demand on the grid.

and just to have mentioned it. solar helping out during a storm? solar panels don't survive storms all that well. might as well just charge those emergency batteries from the grid. (or existing generators running on synfuel.) that way the emergency system works more reliably.

The news is reporting tonight that local severe storms knocked out power to 20,000 customers. I can't be sure, but I suspect that it was not caused by 20,000 trees in 20,000 yards falling on 20,000 roofs and disconnecting 20,000 drops in a way that would also damage solar panels if they had been so emplaced. What generally happens is that the electrical distribution networks use a branching topology so that a failure in one location can result in outages for everyone downstream. If you're worried about hail, don't be. However, be aware that other things can result in power outages, such as: automotive collision with a utility pole, blown transformer due to temperature, plant accident and shutdown, solar CME, Hacker attack on network, terrorist attack of generator facility, and global thermonuclear war.

...unless one wants to start building gigantic artificial lakes to hold water.

That's what I'm suggesting. But it's not a new idea. The TVA has been doing it for over 30 years.

[aquitaine]

That's what I'm suggesting. But it's not a new idea. The TVA has been doing it for over 30 years.

How much did it cost?

[Daffy]

Pointing out the limitatons of solar is not arguing against solar. I support solar where it is a practical option. Adding a few percent of variable electricity production, and reducing the need for peakers in sunny climates with hot summers, looks pretty good. But it gets a lot more difficult if you want it to supply twenty percent or more of the total electrical supply, and there would need to be huge development of power storage to deal with the variability.

That may be true---but that does not seem to be Antice's point in #45. He is suggesting that any use of solar will cause permanent unemployment. Although he does contradict that in #48.

[Antice]

That may be true---but that does not seem to be Antice's point in #45. He is suggesting that any use of solar will cause permanent unemployment. Although he does contradict that in #48.

I think you are miscomprehending what was said in post 45. it is a clarification of why going with an overly expensive energy alternative will cause am economic recession.
several posters have tried to clarify this for you. we have almost a page full of diferent ways to explain this phenomena of how tied to energy suply our economy is.
I'l try to clarify it in more detail here.

to the rest of the readers. skip this if you are familiar with the concept of ecomics as they relate to energy availablity. this will boore you to tears.

Solar and other intermittent power sources are unfit for delivering cheap reliable energy.
using an unfit technology leads to increased energy costs. this is so because you have to add expensive normaly un-needed facilities like excessive amount of surplus capacity in the form of backup generators and storage. this aspect is not really up for debate. solar wind and other intermittent generators have added costs that other more common forms of energy generation do not have.
Energy producers refuse to sell energy at an economic loss to themselves. so they won't deliver from these sources until the market prices are high enough to make them economic. this is a policy of scarcity. this makes energy prises go up.
High energy prices makes industry costs go up because energy is what actually performs the work that allows the production of products.
for products where you have a captive customer base this is not a big issue. they will just pass the cost on to consumers. the food industry generally does this.
Not all industry has a captive customer base however. things we can buy less of, like clothes, cars, luxury foods etc will get into a position where customers do buy less, since a bigger share of their income get's used on necesities like food and energy. that is. the economic buying power of the end consumers is set by the sum of all the consumers income.
Less buying = less money cirulating in the economy. thus we say that the economy contracts. (it's measured in wealth excange after all) this is the metric we use to see if the economy is healthy or not.
The biggest issue tho, is what hapens with those industries that no longer manage to sell enough of their product to pay their bills. they go bancrupt, and everyone working there is now unemployed.
unemployment leads to destruction of the populations buying power since a subset of the population now get less money than before.
this has a downward spiraling effect, since the net sum of the customer base now have even less money to spend. ot feeds back into making times even harder for industries and services that are already under a lot of economic pressure due to high energy costs in the first place. more bancrupsies may follow.
I hope this makes the concept more clear for you Daffy, and anyone else who feels that this is confusing.
All of those car manufacturers that went belly up? well that was energy costs. during the prior time period oil got more expensive. much more expensive. people bought less vehicles because they suddenly found that their money didn't reach as far as it used to do. this also caused a lot of people to not be able to repay their debt. if too many people default on their debt then the banks get into trouble. (the banks lend out money they themselves have borrowed from the customers savings accounts)
There are all manner of complex interactions between different parts of the economy, but history has shown that energy prices are one of the most important factors when deciding if there is going to be growth or recession.

[Ivan Viehoff]

Depends on topology and other uses for that submerged land. Some people like having recreational opportunities on that lake and also having the potential to use it for irrigation and drinking water and fishing. But that doesn't have to be a natural topological reservoir. Theoretically, you could build a large tank on a hill, which is how we get our water here.

There's this excellent site which does order of magnitude calculations on energy, http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/ somewhere on there he does some order of magnitude with hydro storage, and demonstrates that expecting to get a large fraction of our storage requirements from hydro is unrealistic, the available opportunities are just too small. Unfortunately just 1 unit of electricity, 1kWh, for which you'd pay 15 cents or something, is equivalent to 1 tonne of water raised 360m (at 100% efficiency of conversion), so quite enormous amounts of water have to be raised a long way to store much electricity. Many inhabited parts of the world just don't have the topography for it.

Nevertheless in locations where there is substantial installed hydro capacity (in comparison to local requirements), typically it can act as virtual storage for solar - when the solar is on you stop running the hydro, and then run the hydro when the solar is on. Now a few lucky countries, like Norway and Chile and the like, have a lot of hydro capacity in comparison to their overall energy requirements, so this is excellent. In fact Norway is expanding is grid links to further south, because it can be used as virtual storage for excess PV from further south, but in the context of a country the size of Germany its hydro quantity starts to look less overwhelmingly huge. But most countries don't have this huge hydro resource that can be used as virtual storage.

[Daffy]

I think you are miscomprehending what was said in post 45. it is a clarification of why going with an overly expensive energy alternative will cause am economic recession.
several posters have tried to clarify this for you. we have almost a page full of diferent ways to explain this phenomena of how tied to energy suply our economy is.
I'l try to clarify it in more detail here.

to the rest of the readers. skip this if you are familiar with the concept of ecomics as they relate to energy availablity. this will boore you to tears.

Solar and other intermittent power sources are unfit for delivering cheap reliable energy.
using an unfit technology leads to increased energy costs. this is so because you have to add expensive normaly un-needed facilities like excessive amount of surplus capacity in the form of backup generators and storage. this aspect is not really up for debate. solar wind and other intermittent generators have added costs that other more common forms of energy generation do not have.
Energy producers refuse to sell energy at an economic loss to themselves. so they won't deliver from these sources until the market prices are high enough to make them economic. this is a policy of scarcity. this makes energy prises go up.
High energy prices makes industry costs go up because energy is what actually performs the work that allows the production of products.
for products where you have a captive customer base this is not a big issue. they will just pass the cost on to consumers. the food industry generally does this.
Not all industry has a captive customer base however. things we can buy less of, like clothes, cars, luxury foods etc will get into a position where customers do buy less, since a bigger share of their income get's used on necesities like food and energy. that is. the economic buying power of the end consumers is set by the sum of all the consumers income.
Less buying = less money cirulating in the economy. thus we say that the economy contracts. (it's measured in wealth excange after all) this is the metric we use to see if the economy is healthy or not.
The biggest issue tho, is what hapens with those industries that no longer manage to sell enough of their product to pay their bills. they go bancrupt, and everyone working there is now unemployed.
unemployment leads to destruction of the populations buying power since a subset of the population now get less money than before.
this has a downward spiraling effect, since the net sum of the customer base now have even less money to spend. ot feeds back into making times even harder for industries and services that are already under a lot of economic pressure due to high energy costs in the first place. more bancrupsies may follow.
I hope this makes the concept more clear for you Daffy, and anyone else who feels that this is confusing.
All of those car manufacturers that went belly up? well that was energy costs. during the prior time period oil got more expensive. much more expensive. people bought less vehicles because they suddenly found that their money didn't reach as far as it used to do. this also caused a lot of people to not be able to repay their debt. if too many people default on their debt then the banks get into trouble. (the banks lend out money they themselves have borrowed from the customers savings accounts)
There are all manner of complex interactions between different parts of the economy, but history has shown that energy prices are one of the most important factors when deciding if there is going to be growth or recession.

Ignoring the condescension, your point seems to be that we can't try new energy sources because it will bankrupt the existing power companies. Yet you yourself said that solar will never be a viable alternative to the existing power supplies. Sorry, but as a consumer, it's basic supply and demand---if someone comes along that can provide me energy at a cheaper price, that's where I'll go. That's how supply and demand works. And since solar can never seriously threaten---by your argument---the major power companies, then there is no reason why i shouldn't do that. I imagine the suppliers of animal labor used arguments similar to yours when the Industrial Revolution started.

[noncryptic]

I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not.
but the fact is that we do not have any technology that scales up to the amount of storage needed to balance a solar dominated grid.
Nor a wind dominated on either.
turning excess electrical energy into somethign that is storable, like hydrogen and synfuel

Try salt:

"The Andasol power plant in Spain is the first commercial solar thermal power plant to utilize molten salt for heat storage and nighttime generation. It came online March 2009.[67] On July 4, 2011, a company in Spain celebrated an historic moment for the solar industry: Torresol’s 19.9 MW concentrating solar power plant became the first ever to generate uninterrupted electricity for 24 hours straight. It achieved this using a molten salt heat storage design.[68]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_t...n_salt_storage


Energy Storage Industry Grows To Integrate Wind, Solar
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/...ate-wind-solar
"“We still hear people say storage isn’t ready for primetime, but that isn’t the case because we already have 20-MW storage plants being built all over the country,” said Brad Roberts, executive director of the Electricity Storage Association (ESA)."

[aquitaine]

Ignoring the condescension, your point seems to be that we can't try new energy sources because it will bankrupt the existing power companies. Yet you yourself said that solar will never be a viable alternative to the existing power supplies. Sorry, but as a consumer, it's basic supply and demand---if someone comes along that can provide me energy at a cheaper price, that's where I'll go. That's how supply and demand works. And since solar can never seriously threaten---by your argument---the major power companies, then there is no reason why i shouldn't do that. I imagine the suppliers of animal labor used arguments similar to yours when the Industrial Revolution started.

You completely missed one very important point: Solar, even by itself without energy storage, is not economical. If it were, then would we really be having laws requiring utilities to use it? Would there be big government subsidies? Would we have so called "green quotas" that favor solar and wind? I somehow doubt it. Adding energy storage simply makes an uneconomical system that much more uneconomical, regardless of how inexensive the system itself actually is.