The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

Turks posted:

^^^^

I'm not sure exactly how to parse your post here, but if you wanted 6000 square miles of PVs surely it would be more cost effective and easy from an engineering standpoint to just cover buildings with them?

Without considering the actual power generation, a centralized location would be easier and more cost effective. The maintenance problems are easily located, diagnosed, and fixed along with everything related to that being built on site. Not only would maint be harder, but every building you installed it on would have to have equipment to let power both flow in when it needs more and out when it's generating excess. We would also have to overhaul the grid because I don't think it could survive a wide scale implementation of that on that order of magnitude.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2012 03:22

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:43

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

jigokuman posted:

Isn't lifespan another major issue with solar panels? The numbers I have seen indicate around 30 years of service, which is good, but not quite enough to say, put on your roof when you first purchase a home and then forget about electricity bills for the rest of your life, which is what I, at least, imagined when I looked into them.

The average solar panel has a lifespan of 20-30 years. However as they age their voltage drops and the voltage loss accelerates as the panel ages. It's all dependant on the specifics of the solar panel though (type/location/manufacturing/etc)

# ¿ Sep 5, 2012 03:28

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

QuarkJets posted:

Would the efficiency reduction be that large? I was under the impression that wind contained several orders of magnitude more energy than what a vast array of wind turbines could ever extract, do you have any numbers?

Yes, wind turbines generate very large wakes and of course extract energy from the air, slowing wind speed to turbines in rows behind.

Here's a paper on it.

Fun graph:

Cool picture:

Winks fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Sep 6, 2012

# ¿ Sep 6, 2012 05:19

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

I'm confused how solar energy being cleaner is non-obvious. What am I missing here?

# ¿ Sep 10, 2012 03:19

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

There's also no real impetus to somehow force it, it will happen naturally as old things break.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2012 22:55

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

Cartoon posted:

Unfortunately new appliances commonly bring another inefficiency with them. http://standby.lbl.gov/faq.html

Standby isn't really a problem. In fact I would wager that it takes many more modern devices to add up to one older device like a 90s era VCR. Low Power standby has advanced by great margins in the past couple decades and will continue to decrease.

The appliances with the potential for greatest efficiency gains are things like refrigerators, CRT televisions, HVAC, etc. In other words the large electricity uses.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2012 01:41

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

Struensee posted:

I'm pretty sure all cars have vastly improved fuel efficiency. It's just that americans used the fuel efficiency to build bigger cars, not save on fuel costs.

The Honda Civic of the 1980s had mpg in the lower 30s. The modern Honda Civic also gets mpg in the lower 30s despite huge efficiency and aerodynamic improvements. Part of it is that it's slightly heavier because it's slightly larger (~10 cubic feet), but almost all of the rest of the efficiency gains are eliminated by modern safety design and pollution controls.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2012 17:05

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

Install Gentoo posted:

I'd certainly prefer to err on the side of pollution controls rather than pure fuel efficiency, personally.

Also is that "fuel economy in the lower thirties" for city, highway, or mix? And is that comparing both using the new EPA formula or comparing the 80s car with the old EPA formula for efficency to the new one with the new formula?

I'm not arguing against it, I'm just stating why mpg hasn't really increased over the past couple decades.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2012 17:56

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

spankmeister posted:

Joking aside, the middle of a hot, arid desert is a bad location for a nuclear plant because of the lack of cooling water.

Tell that to the Palo Verde nuke plant in Arizona.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station

It uses reclaimed water for cooling.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2012 19:29

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:43

Winks: Feb 16, 2009; Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

Hobo Erotica posted:

... Right, that doesn't answer my question though. Where do they get the fuel, and what do they do with the waste?

The fuel is mined, and Palo Verde has enough storage space on site to store 60 years of fuel, which is the expected life of the plant.

And yeah, Yucca Mountain would be ideal, but you'd likely need Harry Reid to no longer be in office before that happens.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2012 02:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges