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MrYenko posted:But radiation is scary. And is also part of loving nature.  Cosmic Rays create something like 40 curies of Tritium a day. But oh god, Fukushima might release a 10th of that, plus some Radioactive Carbon-14!
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Oct 26, 2020 14:06
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CommieGIR posted:And is also part of loving nature. I can't hear you over the bulldozer I'm clearing joshua trees with
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Oct 26, 2020 14:24
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Pander posted:I can't hear you over the bulldozer I'm clearing joshua trees with Sorry, I can't understand you when my valley is being flooded for this giant hydro electric dam.
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Oct 26, 2020 15:09
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CommieGIR posted:And is also part of loving nature. I'm as big a fan of nuclear power as anyone but even I think representing concern about Fukushima as being about tritium and c-14, and not about dozens of megacuries of iodine and cesium is pushing it (by which I mean, "blatantly dishonest"). Mercury's natural, too, but we still don't want to find it in our fish.
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Oct 26, 2020 15:10
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Phanatic posted:I'm as big a fan of nuclear power as anyone but even I think representing concern about Fukushima as being about tritium and c-14, and not about dozens of megacuries of iodine and cesium is pushing it (by which I mean, "blatantly dishonest"). Mercury's natural, too, but we still don't want to find it in our fish. IAEA is also overseeing the release, and they haven't complained. So no, its not as CNN/Greenpeace is reporting "Going to change human DNA" which was a loving scaremonger article. That's what this response was about. And Radioactive Iodine and Cesium in the ocean is basically diluted to the point where even megacuries isn't really a major concern. And Mercury in fish, while some is present from normal organic forms, is largely found in excess caused by humans because we're morons that used it as a fuel additive. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Oct 26, 2020 |
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Oct 26, 2020 15:38
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CommieGIR posted:IAEA is also overseeing the release, and they haven't complained. The IAEA thinks radioisotope release from Fukushima is a matter of negligible concern? IAEA has not "complained" about Fukushima? Huh? quote:So no, its not as CNN/Greenpeace is reporting "Going to change human DNA" which was a loving scaremonger article. That's what this response was about. The correct response to ridiculous scaremongering is not turning into Dr. Pangloss. quote:And Mercury in fish, while some is present from normal organic forms, is largely found in excess caused by humans because we're morons that used it as a fuel additive. Enh? You're thinking of lead. Human emissions of mercury mainly come from burning coal. And yet, the amount of mercury emitted by burning coal is smaller than the amount of mercury emitted naturally from volcanic sources. The point is "It happens naturally!" is not an excuse for doing more of it. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Oct 26, 2020 |
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Oct 26, 2020 16:07
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Why the green party sucks and AOC is phenomenally good. https://twitter.com/HowieHawkins/status/1320368404746874880?s=20
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Oct 26, 2020 16:09
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Phanatic posted:The IAEA thinks radioisotope release from Fukushima is a matter of negligible concern? IAEA has not "complained" about Fukushima? Huh? You know what I meant, don't twist it. Also: LMAO Dr. Pangloss, right. Anybody correctly pointing out that radioisotopes in wastewater that's been heavily treated will be quickly diluted in the ocean is just the other contrarian. Phanatic posted:Enh? You're thinking of lead. Human emissions of mercury mainly come from burning coal. And yet, human emissions of mercury predominantly come from burning coal. And yet, the amount of mercury emitted by burning coal is smaller than the amount of mercury emitted naturally from volcanic sources. The point is "It happens naturally!" is not an excuse for doing more of it. True, I stand corrected there.
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Oct 26, 2020 16:13
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CommieGIR posted:Also: LMAO Dr. Pangloss, right. Anybody correctly pointing out that radioisotopes in wastewater that's been heavily treated will be quickly diluted in the ocean is just the other contrarian. Again: If people are concerned about the release dozens of millions of curies of fission fragments from Fukushima, the correct response to that is to point out that while this was a truly staggering releasing of these isotopes and they are definitely ones to be concerned with, this will be massively diluted in the ocean (eventually, that doesn't mean you want to go fishing right offshore at Fukushima when it was leaking a shitload of contaminated water) and have little effect on anything. It's not to strawman that objection and say "Idiots, cosmic rays create 40 curies of tritium per day."
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Oct 26, 2020 16:57
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Phanatic posted:Again: If people are concerned about the release dozens of millions of curies of fission fragments from Fukushima, the correct response to that is to point out that while this was a truly staggering releasing of these isotopes and they are definitely ones to be concerned with, this will be massively diluted in the ocean (eventually, that doesn't mean you want to go fishing right offshore at Fukushima when it was leaking a shitload of contaminated water) and have little effect on anything. It's not to strawman that objection and say "Idiots, cosmic rays create 40 curies of tritium per day." And that's what we're doing: https://twitter.com/whatisnuclear/status/1320475416809754626?s=20
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Oct 26, 2020 17:02
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Owling Howl posted:It’s not that it’s not a valid point but we, as in society at large, have made our position quite clear: We do not care. I think you're way off-base here. I've never once heard a conservative bring up land use when talking about solar power. Rather, the same environmentally-minded people who care about all of the land use issues you mentioned (and more) recognize that bulldozing natural spaces for solar power is not being done out of necessity, but because it's more affordable than tapping into our mostly untapped urban and suburban surfaces. You are falsely accusing these individuals of not complaining about parking lots and suburban sprawl when they've already been loudly complaining about these issues for literally decades.
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Oct 26, 2020 20:18
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A big part of the "free real estate" thought when it comes to rooftop solar is that the land and buildings have already been developed and structurally set-up to support electrification, including the last mile to the place the power is being generated. That's not negligible. Bulldozing hills in the desert to build solar farms doesn't just require you to grade the hills and drive foundation piles for the mounting systems, it also means building roads and high voltage distribution lines and switching stations and industrial inverters to carry that power to where it's needed, potentially hundreds of miles away.
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Oct 26, 2020 21:11
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Infinite Karma posted:A big part of the "free real estate" thought when it comes to rooftop solar is that the land and buildings have already been developed and structurally set-up to support electrification, including the last mile to the place the power is being generated. That's not negligible. Yes it’s called building infrastructure.
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Oct 26, 2020 21:29
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Yes it’s called building infrastructure. Saving the planet by mowing down the wildlife for "infrastructure"
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Oct 26, 2020 21:42
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Yes it’s called building infrastructure. what's the point of this post? the dude above you was just clarifying an aspect that some people might not consider.
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Oct 26, 2020 21:42
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mediaphage posted:what's the point of this post? the dude above you was just clarifying an aspect that some people might not consider. sure it’s something to consider, but it shouldn’t be a hindrance to building infrastructure and new energy production.
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Oct 26, 2020 21:45
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GlassEye-Boy posted:sure it’s something to consider, but it shouldn’t be a hindrance to building infrastructure and new energy production. i disagree with you on this point but this is a better response than your snark above well, rather, i'd think it a concern rather than 'hindrance' but either way an important item. does anyone have data on the efficiencies of doing PE solar panels on cities vs trying to build one of those thermal solar plants, out of curiosity? i feel like panels are the better way to go these days but i haven't looked at that in forever
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Oct 26, 2020 21:47
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mediaphage posted:i disagree with you on this point but this is a better response than your snark above Didn’t mean for it to come by quite that snarky, but any project of that scale is going to require similar levels of build up, be it solar, wind, Coal, nuclear.
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Oct 26, 2020 21:50
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And the counterpoint is that it's tough to transport that much material and workers into existing cities. The transport apparatus is already sized to bring in the stuff the city needs and for the workers and inhabitants to get around. In other words, there are also bottlenecks to simply putting solar panels on the top of every building. And then maintaining them and replacing them as they fail. Maybe you'll wind up building additional housing units in the city for all those workers.
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Oct 26, 2020 21:53
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Phanatic posted:And the counterpoint is that it's tough to transport that much material and workers into existing cities. The transport apparatus is already sized to bring in the stuff the city needs and for the workers and inhabitants to get around. In other words, there are also bottlenecks to simply putting solar panels on the top of every building. And then maintaining them and replacing them as they fail. Maybe you'll wind up building additional housing units in the city for all those workers. But at some point it seems we have to admit that there is no getting around it. Either invest into the tech and commit to significant work or we end up with endless talk about what could be the perfect solution.
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Oct 26, 2020 22:01
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Phanatic posted:And the counterpoint is that it's tough to transport that much material and workers into existing cities. The transport apparatus is already sized to bring in the stuff the city needs and for the workers and inhabitants to get around. In other words, there are also bottlenecks to simply putting solar panels on the top of every building. And then maintaining them and replacing them as they fail. Maybe you'll wind up building additional housing units in the city for all those workers. An issue I was considering recently is that so many houses have ridiculous decorative rooflines and eaves and gables that absolutely destroy the ability to place an effective solar system on them. And almost every flat roof commercial building has preposterous distributions of equipment on the roof in random locations that prohibit simple rooftop solar there as well. Just changing permitting guidelines to make new construction solar-friendly would massively, massively decrease costs and increase performance.
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Oct 26, 2020 22:09
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Infinite Karma posted:Solar panels are really pretty space-efficient for how long they last. Given that they last ~30 years, working on roughly 3% of the solar capacity in a city in any given year isn't a huge ask in terms of infrastructure-supporting-infrastructure. Would legislation which mandates that all new built homes in solar efficient regions must have solar pre installed be at all possible in the current Us political climate?
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Oct 26, 2020 22:13
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Infinite Karma posted:And almost every flat roof commercial building has preposterous distributions of equipment on the roof in random locations that prohibit simple rooftop solar there as well. Just changing permitting guidelines to make new construction solar-friendly would massively, massively decrease costs and increase performance. Why do you think that stuff is placed on the roof? It's not just random. Perhaps putting it in other places would be more expensive? GlassEye-Boy posted:Would legislation which mandates that all new built homes in solar efficient regions must have solar pre installed be at all possible in the current Us political climate? I don't think "do even more stuff that prices homes out of the reach of poor people" should go over well in any political climate.
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Oct 26, 2020 22:16
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Phanatic posted:Why do you think that stuff is placed on the roof? It's not just random. Perhaps putting it in other places would be more expensive? It's not random - but there has also generally not been any thought given to optimizing for solar either. It's possible to build things slightly different, without adding much (if any) to the costs, and "unlock" a lot more solar as a result of it. The ROI on doing that is IMO worth it. Phanatic posted:I don't think "do even more stuff that prices homes out of the reach of poor people" should go over well in any political climate. Never not gently caress people with $5/Watt solar on new construction like they do in California because the developers can get away with it.
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Oct 26, 2020 22:24
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Would legislation which mandates that all new built homes in solar efficient regions must have solar pre installed be at all possible in the current Us political climate? Phanatic posted:Why do you think that stuff is placed on the roof? It's not just random. Perhaps putting it in other places would be more expensive?
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Oct 26, 2020 22:31
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Phanatic posted:Why do you think that stuff is placed on the roof? It's not just random. Perhaps putting it in other places would be more expensive? climate change will do more to price homes out of the reach of poor people than sensible regulations ever could and in the regions where PV makes any sense (e.g. the American southwest) PV makes homes more affordable, not less - assuming the owner plans to use electricity
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Oct 26, 2020 23:56
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mediaphage posted:does anyone have data on the efficiencies of doing PE solar panels on cities vs trying to build one of those thermal solar plants, out of curiosity? i feel like panels are the better way to go these days but i haven't looked at that in forever I think Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy study is probably about the best you're going to find. Looks like utility-scale PV solar currently clocks in at $29-$42 per MWh, whereas rooftop solar ranges from $74-$180 for Commercial/Industrial and $150-$227 for residential. Concentrating solar with storage is at $126-$156. This is modelling current prices and practices, undoubtedly things will shift over time but I would be very surprised if utility-scale solar loses its dramatic advantage in our lifetimes. e: PV solar under current policy makes homes cheaper on the whole, but it does increase upfront costs (in exchange for savings down the road) and that will price some folks out of the market. FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Oct 27, 2020 |
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Oct 27, 2020 00:10
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FreeKillB posted:I think Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy study is probably about the best you're going to find. Looks like utility-scale PV solar currently clocks in at $29-$42 per MWh, whereas rooftop solar ranges from $74-$180 for Commercial/Industrial and $150-$227 for residential. Concentrating solar with storage is at $126-$156. cheers for this. honestly they're way closer than i imagined (for non-utilities, that is) but it's not like i'm going to go home to the farm and build a molten salt thermal power plant. christ i don't think i realized grid-scale solar was that cheap already.
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Oct 27, 2020 00:51
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For cities solar panel windows could be a convenient option if the dimming isn't an issue. They wouldn't be much more work than installing normal windows, just some extra cabling.
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Oct 27, 2020 03:01
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Saukkis posted:For cities solar panel windows could be a convenient option if the dimming isn't an issue. They wouldn't be much more work than installing normal windows, just some extra cabling. Yes it's better than reflecting window tinting, but even if the PV part was free, it seems unlikely that the extra cost and complexity to install DC wiring throughout all the walls connecting the windows, and all of the safety concerns associated make it worthwhile compared to dedicated PV panels on non-transparent surfaces.
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Oct 27, 2020 03:14
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Infinite Karma posted:Transparent solar panels are kind of moronic, since the whole point of solar panels is absorbing as much sunlight as possible instead of letting it pass through like glass does. Most of the light emitted by the sun is outside of the visible spectrum. So it's really like you're preventing a lot of additional heat from passing through the window, because the photons in those wavelengths became DC current instead. Not very cost effective but the principle is sound
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Oct 27, 2020 05:42
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Infinite Karma posted:Transparent solar panels are kind of moronic, since the whole point of solar panels is absorbing as much sunlight as possible instead of letting it pass through like glass does. i think you're suffering from a little failure of imagination here, which happens to all of us, sometimes. transparent solar is super cool, and it's not like you're likely going to be replacing all of your home's windows with it. but as construction (especially in urban cores) happens, whether new or to-the-studs refurbs, it would be easy to build in, and no more dangerous than your standard wiring jobs that push 230V+ through walls. there's a good overview - if kool-aid stained - on some of the options here https://solarmagazine.com/solar-panels/transparent-solar-panels/ i really want to laugh at the solar blinds, though an ideal max of 100W isn't too shabby tbh. mediaphage fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Oct 27, 2020 |
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Oct 27, 2020 19:03
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Infinite Karma posted:Transparent solar panels are kind of moronic, since the whole point of solar panels is absorbing as much sunlight as possible instead of letting it pass through like glass does. For smaller housing rooftop solar is better option unless you don't want the structure on your roof. But for highrises and especially glass-facade highrises transparent solar would be good option.
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Oct 27, 2020 19:15
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Ars writeup of the most recent EIA report on utility scale batteries: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/us-grid-battery-costs-dropped-70-over-3-years/quote:Between 2015 and 2018, average project costs decreased from $2,152 per kilowatt-hour of storage to $625. Costs will need to drop much more for grid batteries to scale, but that’s a huge improvement in a short period of time. As I’ve noted earlier EIA also trends more conservative on price declines and deployment rates than actually bears out. Also the point that “grid services” is a complex category where batteries can better serve some needs than large thermal plants: quote:Batteries aren’t just used to soak up solar generation during the afternoon and release it in the evening. They can provide a number of unique grid-stability services, which is what a number of these early projects were built for. By quickly varying its charge or discharge rate, a battery can help regulate frequency for a section of the grid. In a similar buffering role, batteries can act as a sort of waiting room on busy transmission connections, storing electricity until capacity opens to send it down the line. Both of these services prioritize power (watts) over energy (watt-hours).
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Oct 27, 2020 20:37
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QuarkJets posted:Most of the light emitted by the sun is outside of the visible spectrum. So it's really like you're preventing a lot of additional heat from passing through the window, because the photons in those wavelengths became DC current instead. Not very cost effective but the principle is sound While most of the light emitted by the sun is outside the visible spectrum, most of the light that reaches the ground (and is usable for solar power, thus excluding radio waves) IS in the visible spectrum. Evolution would, after all, favor designs that were good at detecting the light that reaches the ground.
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Oct 27, 2020 21:04
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Realistically batteries have yet to be installed for storage in any quantity. I feel safe in saying the vast majority of battery capacity installation has been towards stabilizing services discussed above. Even the 100WM installation in South Australia bought at the height of lack of capacity panic was actually bought for stabilizing the increasing amounts of wind on that grid.
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Oct 27, 2020 21:17
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Nitrousoxide posted:While most of the light emitted by the sun is outside the visible spectrum, most of the light that reaches the ground (and is usable for solar power, thus excluding radio waves) IS in the visible spectrum. Evolution would, after all, favor designs that were good at detecting the light that reaches the ground. this is incorrect. at the earth's surface, 52 - 55% of the sun's energy is infrared. 42 - 45% is within the visible spectrum, and 3 - 5% is UV.
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Oct 27, 2020 21:28
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Electric Wrigglies posted:Realistically batteries have yet to be installed for storage in any quantity. I feel safe in saying the vast majority of battery capacity installation has been towards stabilizing services discussed above. Even the 100WM installation in South Australia bought at the height of lack of capacity panic was actually bought for stabilizing the increasing amounts of wind on that grid. A gigawatt / a gigawatt-hour of storage in 4 years seems like “any quantity” to me. Places it up there with nuclear in the US  And besides, frequency stabilization or stabilizing renewables is a perfectly viable use for batteries, as we’ve seen by the rapid rise of PPAs for solar/wind+batteries. The future grid will involve a lot more of these synergistic interactions instead of a old model of one single large thermal plant providing all the services (and hoping it doesn’t trip).
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Oct 27, 2020 21:29
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mediaphage posted:this is incorrect. at the earth's surface, 52 - 55% of the sun's energy is infrared. 42 - 45% is within the visible spectrum, and 3 - 5% is UV. Current photovoltaics are designed to operate from around 400 nanometers to 1000 nm. That is in the visible light spectrum and a small amount of infrared, and that short range of wavelengths is half of the light energy that reaches the ground. If you want to capture light energy in the infrared spectrum then you need to get materials that can work from 750 all the way up to 2,500 nanometers. There are also absorption lines in that huge range that give you next to no light reaching the ground, making engineering for those frequencies extremely inefficient. There's a good reason why most eyes do not operate outside of the visible spectrum, and when they do they only go slightly outside of what we can see. The rest of the wavelengths just require materials that can work on a wide range of frequencies which isn't really technically feasible and very expensive if you do accomplish it. Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Oct 27, 2020 |
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Oct 27, 2020 21:40
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Nitrousoxide posted:While most of the light emitted by the sun is outside the visible spectrum, most of the light that reaches the ground (and is usable for solar power, thus excluding radio waves) IS in the visible spectrum. Evolution would, after all, favor designs that were good at detecting the light that reaches the ground. That's not true.  The answer lies in the area under the shaded curve; the area under the visible fraction of the curve is smaller than the area under the rest of the curve (by a ratio of about 2:3). The human eye is not optimized to absorb as many photons as possible, it's optimized around maximizing contrast with as few photons as possible while also trying to maximize resolution. The photovoltaic effect does not care about contrast or the diffraction limit so it's fine to absorb those SWIR photons, but in the human eye this would hamper our ability to perceive detail. We see this problem in astronomy all the time (source: I am an astronomer and I work in blue to LWIR wavebands)  On the UV side, our eyes are capable of picking up UV but humans and other long-lived mammals evolved a lens that blocks those higher-energy photons, probably because they're more trouble than they're worth (e.g. cellular damage caused by UV light leads to selection pressure favoring individuals who evolved this lens).
QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Oct 27, 2020 |
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Oct 27, 2020 21:46
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