Is anybody else feeling the squeeze?
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I am a big fan of solar power, my current thoughts are
- in the past, using solar energy together with storage didn't pay of, because e.g. an carbattery (100 Ah, 1.2 kWh, 500 load cycles, 100 EUR => 0.20 EUR/kWh) is too expensive (storage+cells+frequency changer+cables+installation costs >> current from the net), but now with this high costs with direction to 0.60...
- so I bought used solar cells and try to avoid energy storage by using it immediately
- in summer with much sun they could be used directly for 3D printing
- merging technologies would be interesting like coupling the heat of a fridge, using it to head up 3D printers or other round driving a stirling motor. Time for innovators
- worldwide solar cells would solve all energy problems, because there is sun at any time somewhere in the world. Silicon is 30% of the earth's crust. If only it weren't politics and other economic interests
In germany current discussion is decoupling gas price from current price, because the most expensive price (gas) is used as reference for all other sources.
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@joergs5 said in Is anybody else feeling the squeeze?:
- worldwide solar cells would solve all energy problems, because there is sun at any time somewhere in the world. Silicon is 30% of the earth's crust. If only it weren't politics and other economic interests
Perhaps. But global electricity demand is about 65 TerraWhrs per day. That's 65,000,000,000 KWHr. To keep the maths simple, let's assume that 1m^2 of solar panel could produce 1Kwhr of electricity in an average day with average sunlight. Then we'd need an area of about 65,000 km^2 of solar panels somewhere in sun at any time of the day. That's based on current demand and when we convert all fossil fuelled transport and heating to electricity, that figure will likely quadrupole. Assuming we could find somewhere to put them, that's an awful lot of solar panels and what will we do with them in 25 years when they reach the end of their life?
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@deckingman solar panels don't stop working after 25 years, they just generate a bit less electricity. The ones I have on order are guaranteed to generate 84.8% of their original power after 25 years. In fact the first 2% degradation happens in the first year, after that it's a maximum of 0.55% per year. Of course there will come a point at which it's worth replacing them.
I'm not in favour of covering vast areas of land with solar panels, however I don't see any reason why all large car parks can't have solar canopies. Also when our sheep farmers have been put out of business because of cheap imported low-welfare Australian lamb (courtesy of Brexit), there will be a lot of south facing hillsides not useful for much else.
The missing item in all this is electricity storage. We need much more of it! Wind and solar are far more useful with storage. The price of lithium ion phosphate batteries has been coming down and we have lithium in Cornwall; but we will probably have sodium ion batteries soon so we won't even need that. There are also storage technologies being demonstrated such as liquid air and gravitational storage.
Opening new North Sae gas fields or restarting fracking may be useful in the medium term, but it won't come onstream fast enough (I have read 2 years) to address the immediate problem. Also, the current government's free-market dogma would make it as expensive as other supplies, unless the volumes were large enough to make a big difference to supply.
Duet WiFi hardware designer and firmware engineer
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http://www.escher3d.com, https://miscsolutions.wordpress.com -
@deckingman, everything is so expensive these days that I am not sure if electricity stands out for me. Now that I work fully remotely we are seriously considering moving to a more reasonable state and already put the house on the market.
As for energy prices, as long as the public is afraid to call out the 'we will all die in 10 years unless..' fallacy of the cathastropic-man-made-global-warming activists we will have expensive and unreliable energy sources. I spent a lot of time in recent years, comparing past claims to current data on climate, sea level, food production, climate related deaths, storms, fires, and more, and generally speaking the past predictions failed miserably, and the fact that the activist don't admit it put their integrity in question.
If you want plentiful inexpensive and reliable energy, don't be afraid to speak up and vote accordingly.
You may want to watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6b7K1hjZk4 . They are much more extremist these days and wouldn't let him speak today.
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My politics are not towards the left, but I believe essential services (electricity and water, consumers can do without gas) should either be re-nationalised or non-profit (aside from the profit needed for repairs, maintenance and development).
I also think nuclear power is the best option for generating electricity, as it it probably the cleanest and most environmentally friendly - we just need to learn some safety and disposal lessons. As I understand it, there is already ultra clean nuclear power that has significantly reduced the amount of hazardous waste.
[sit's behind sandbags, waiting for fallout...]
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There is one other thing that bothers me - a lot...
Fuel prices have dropped a bit, but we will get used to paying these prices - and will have to because they will never drop back to the rates they were before. I'm old enough to remember the uproar when petrol went over £1 per gallon in the late 70's, but the price didn't settle back down then, and it recently topped £2 per litre! (for those in the UK who don't remember gallons, £2/litre is about £9 /gallon).
Few things are more dangerous than taking the advice of someone who thinks he knows what he's doing.
I'm still on my learning curve, so take everything I say with caution!RatRig 1075, Duet3 MB6HC, Sorotec SFM 1000 PV-ER milling motor, Hobbyist
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@dc42 We'll have to disagree about the lamb thing - although I do agree that the powers that be are hell bent on putting all farmers out of business. Just look at what happened in Sri Lanka and yet Mark Rutte and Justine Trudeau are doing exactly the same thing in the Netherlands and Canada. But I have vivid memories of shops being full of New Zealand Lamb prior to us joining the EU, which all stopped because we joined the EU. Have you seen the price of a leg of lamb lately - Welsh or otherwise? Our local butcher wants £45 for one. We've had to stop eating it because it's simply too expensive. Roll on cheaper Australian or New Zealand Lamb is all I can say to that.
Ref Solar and storage - I agree that it's good for those that can afford it. Personally I don't have a spare £10k nor do I live in a house with enough roof area to fit the necessary panels. As ever, it's always the poorest that suffer the most.
In fact, the now defunct feed in tariff was even worse. Those who live in big enough houses and with a spare £10k plus got paid an extremely generous amount of money for every KWHr they produced - even if they used it themselves. This feed in tariff was (and still is) paid by part of the green levies that are put on everyone's bill. Two of my past customers installed solar in the feed in tariff era. Both pay nothing for their electricity and both get a cheque from their electricity "supplier" once or twice a year (paid for by the green levies the rest of us have to pay). One of them spends most of his time on luxury world cruises, the other has two new Aston Martins in his garage. So it's a definite case of robbing the poor to pay the rich.
Anyway, enjoy your solar- I can only look on in envy because I live in a small house and don't have a spare £10k, not could I afford the repayments if I borrowed the money.
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@nightowl In Australia where my daughter lives, there was outrage when it got to 2AUD a litre (about £1.17). The government halved the tax from about 40 cents to 20 cents. The price has dropped significantly and the government is about to put the fuel duty back up. Which will mean a litre a petrol will cost about AUD 1.4 ( roughly £0.82). We're just being robbed...........
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@deckingman
Well, our government is talking about removing fuel duty, but I'm not going to hold my breath! I don't envy the successful Prime Minister candidate, because they will have a lot to sort out, not least the unions that are, or threatening to, strike over pay! -
@deckingman Wouldn't you be able to afford the loan payments based on the savings from the electric bill? That's how it is generally structured here in the US.
Personally - 100% of our household electricity usage is covered by solar, most of which I installed myself. Had a company do some panels on the roof, while I put panels on a shed and terrace myself. 9kw total, and $9,000 total cost to install, after tax credits. It'll break even after 7 years, and the parts are warrantied for 30.
Big fan of residential rooftop solar. No transmission losses, helps the grid not to be overloaded - in the afternoons, I generate enough to cover one or two of my neighbors, thereby reducing the strain on the feeder lines. Then at night I draw from the grid, but that's when the grid is most unloaded anyway.
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@elmoret I'm fast approaching 70 years of age - nobody is going to give me a 10 year loan. But aside from that, my small house is oriented the wrong way in relation to the sun azimuth. Also 30% of the roof is flat roof which won't take any kind of weight. I don't have outside space for a ground based array either.
But I do have a plan for heating. I get free logs delivered like this.........
....and this..........
which, with the aid of my chainsaw and hydraulic splitter I turn into this......
That's about 5 cubic metres of the 8 cubic metres I have in total which have been drying nicely in the sun all summer. So I'll be able to keep my wood burning stove going all winter without the need to burn much gas. Now I just need to figure out a way to cook on the wood burner
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@deckingman nah, what you need is to work out how to make a wood burning 3d printer!
In all seriousness, I guess this may be one where smaller printers (thinking Voron V0 etc) have the edge as most parts we print don't use the full bed...
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@deckingman said in Is anybody else feeling the squeeze?:
But I do have a plan for heating. I get free logs delivered like this.........
Nice decks you have Deckingman.
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@zapta said in Is anybody else feeling the squeeze?:
Nice decks you have Deckingman.
Thanks - they are quite few years old now and in need of some oil. I have to say that when I started stacking all those logs, I was a bit concerned about the weight that I was putting on my deck. Apparently, a cubic metre of hardwood weighs about a metric tonne when it's dry. When it's "green" and unseasoned, it's about half as much again. It certainly felt like when I was cutting and splitting it.
So that 5 cubic metres you see there is about 7.5 metric tonnes or about 16,530 pounds US. Roughly the weight of 3 large SUVs or 5 mid size family cars. But the deck hasn't sagged or cracked so I must have built it right. -
@deckingman said in Is anybody else feeling the squeeze?:
Then we'd need an area of about 65,000 km^2 of solar panels somewhere in sun at any time of the day
I thought of deserts (Gobi 1.3 Mio km², Sahara 9.2, Patagonia 0.6, west Australia, Arabia desert 0.2 => they will do it) with the added benefit for shadows and potentionally plants below the solar cells.
Instead of throwing energy away when there is too much wind or solar, I would use the excess for H20 to H, or filtering water, or recycling, splitting non-biodegradable platics to the molecules etc. This requires intelligent processes, this is what I meant with "we need innovators".
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A voice from the past
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@joergs5 Sandstorms might be wreak havoc, and servicing/ maintenance could be in issue in such remote and inhospitable locations. But however you look at it, it's an awful lot of solar panels which will take decades to produce, transport, and install and won't help the immediate problem. Imo, that problem has been bought about by short sighted governments and their obsession with their headlong dash to achieve net zero without having a reliable alternative energy source available. I'm sick and fed up with the global elite telling us we must all use less energy, and forcing us to do so by making it unaffordable, while they fly around the world in their private jets and 80 car motorcades. Our prime minister has told us that this is the price we must pay for the war the Ukraine, yet he won't be paying that price. We the taxpayer have to pay his energy bills along with the energy bills for every politician's second home which they claim on expenses.
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@deckingman the deserts were an example to reply that we have too few spaces. Spanish "desert" may be far better, without political problems and sandstorms.
I agree to most of your or the other user's comments about elite etc. However, I personally don't want to be sort of paralysed by this bad feeling and try to find or think about solutions - if nothing else helps, without the "elites".
I don't think the term elite is ideal because there are different aspects of it, for example wealth/power or intelligence. IMO we need much more intelligence elite. -
@joergs5 Maybe. But putting solar in urban areas such as roof tops and car parks makes more sense if there is enough room, because most of the infrastructure is already in place and access would be easier. Personally I think nuclear would be a better option because it's reliable 24/7 regardless of whether the sun shines. Fusion would solve the waste problem but that's decades away.
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@joergs5 said in Is anybody else feeling the squeeze?:
I don't think the term elite is ideal because there are different aspects of it, for example wealth/power or intelligence. IMO we need much more intelligence elite.
I believe that 'elite' is more about being in a position of power rather than about intelligence. I know many intelligent populists.
As for technical solutions, I think it misses the point. The problem is political rather than technological, misprioritizing virtue signaling related to the cathastrophic-man-made-global-warming narrative over the wellness of the populous. The solution is to remember it next time we vote.
