Solar, yes or no, 100% no bullshit

>This tells me the expected lifetime of a solar installation is likely to be 25 years

Something that lasts 25 years and powers anything even at a decreasing capacity, is still better than throwing money into the ground to get limited resources out. To give you a better point of reference, imagine gas prices in 25 years due to supply and demand.

>Something that lasts 25 years and powers anything even at a decreasing capacity, is still better than throwing money into the ground to get limited resources out.
Better by what metric?

>To give you a better point of reference, imagine gas prices in 25 years due to supply and demand.
And? If you don't accurately account for the costs of solar this is meaningless. Which is why I'm asking.

OP I want to start some kind of Green Energy / Recycling company.

I am researching this very question now. In a bit I will post my findings here, no "bullshit", with sources and real life references.

Here is my public key so you guys know it's me:

0cb180af1047ceee47918034830de9f0543f177f13037fd082198388819ac992

spreading solar around in cities is fucking retarded

Do people buy and use their own small generators attached to the grid

I love the idea of solar, but I'd have to cut down all the forest on my lot to use it.

What now environmentalists?

go live in a desert instead.

Start here:
bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/
physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/

That first article is excellent, I just downloaded the paper mentioned in it. Thanks a lot, I'll get to the other articles after I finish with this paper.

It gets exactly to the point I was wondering about. Though the author shifts a bit to pushing for nuclear and I have heard veeeeeery similar claims made about nuclear power, that after factoring in costs of waste storage and transportation that nuclear is also not a panacea. How much of that is due to unreasonable levels of required "safety" I don't know.

Anyway, thanks.

>Do people buy and use their own small generators attached to the grid

Every single household I know of has their own gasoline powered, electric generator. Well some are diesel, some propane, and some are natural gas. Only a very few use them as every day power generation, usually on farms with free gas. The rest just use them when the power is out. Some have a grid tie so that when the electric goes out the generator kicks on instantly.

Of course this is a rural area, not a city. However, in the closest city tons and tons of people have these as well.

Use a pole or tower.

move to where you have a small stream on your property. This redneck invested $50 and runs his lights and tv and fridge.
youtu.be/ZmHY9DkD1Hw

>Scientist !!ThFjnJh4Ek
>pushing for nuclear

No fucking shit. All he posts is that bullshit. Yet, he knows literally nothing at all about it. He just shit posts over and over like the tripfag he is.

You can do the same thing with a VAWT. I like his setup. Too bad I can't sue something like that in my area. Flood stage is sometimes as high as 10 feet about normal stage. Sometimes cars are washed through.

>VAWT
I hear those things are loud though, like a truck idling.

I personally think the weapons proliferation angle is a bigger concern. Radiation release from reactor accidents is a concern, but IMO much more easily handled. Waste is a complete non-issue.

You think that you somehow disproved my arguments. I disagree. If you do manage to do so, then I'll stop posting those arguments.

>Waste is a complete non-issue.

Waste is the ONLY issue. Waste is the one and only thing that's preventing nuclear power from expanding.

That doesn't mean that waste *should* be an issue -- it only means that from a practical politic perspective, waste has turned out to be THE ONE issue.

I think you're mistaken. Waste is not the largest problem, politically or in practice. Waste takes up so little space and so few incidents have occured from modern waste storage leaks.

The biggest problems are:
Politically: fear of meltdown.
Pragmatically: Upfront cost and the cost of maintenance.

The upfront cost for nuclear is so undeniably high, but even with that factored in, energy production is pretty even with wind, solar, and CCS coal produciton per kWh.
The main problem in my opinion are the exorbitant maintence costs on reactors after 40 years. Short of a complete teardown and rebuild, these issues are why France is phasing out nuclear from its energy fleet (from 80% to a planned 50%). Nuclear is just very costly after a while (though, it does have a much longer effective lifespan than wind and especially solar).

No, because you never ever relent regardless of the info and sources posted. You say no and then post the same shit over and over again like a flatearther. You've been doing that for years now. So, fuck you and your shilling, you are not worth the time.

Thats a nice Tapir you have there!

>use a pole or tower
If I were actually putting up a pole large enough to stand over the tree line, I'd be better off with some sort of horizontal wind solution instead. But if I were putting up something that big, I'd have to have the trees removed anyway. Servicing it would be relatively impossible compared to a ground level array.

He didn't even bring up nuclear take a fucking pill.

The stream is sadly about 5 houses down the road. Also a bit bigger than said redneck's stream. So it's a great idea but not one I can work with.

bump

>attempting to build a solar panel
>have professors speak as though they understand solar panels
>i speculate.

i have a b. board hooked up to some cells...i've also had a hard time finding credible information on solar. my next step is to book shop.

>>where are the open patents from elon musk!
>>i'd imagine they'd be useful.

>Is it a meme?
Lrn2meme fgt pls

Put up a bunch of masts, run cables between them, and suspend the panels on the cables, then build a bunch of monkey bars suspended from the cables so you can service it.
ezpz

He did in his "sources".

Wanted to thank you again for those three links, they are extremely informative.

I am a little depressed about how bad solar works out right now. I had in my mind some kind of sun-powered water pump to drive a small generator during off-sun times and the last link really fucking put me in my place.

This is nice and all but relying on water levels over time is pretty questionable. Sunny days are a lot more reliable than this, especially in areas that experience winters where such small flows (as in that video) would likely freeze.

>40 years
nigga, if we went full nuclear we'd run out of fissile uranium in like ~25 years

>sunny days are much more reliable
>especially in winter
nigga are you pretending to be retarded

It'd be a bit longer than that. There's a fracking method that is being studied that pulls it from the ground.

You still get energy on a cloudy day in winter, for PV. You don't get anything at all from a frozen waterway.

Assuming average solar panel generation of 200W/sq m and global power consumption 150 PWh per year. You would need about 85,000 square kilometers of solar panels to satisfy global demand - or about 10% the area of the Sahara desert.
Impossible? No.
Massively impractical given current global/political/economic situation? Yes.
Worth doing? Absolutely...

I suck dicks.
>1% the area of the Sahara Desert.

My problem is the resources needed for making, repairing, and replacing PVs.

In the desert it's likely you wouldn't use PV but anyway distributing power isn't simple, and you still have the problem that you aren't generating power at all the times you're using it which is at least three quarters of what this thread is about.

Obviously enough energy is released from the sun to power our gadgets. Since we're imagining we can imagine things might as well dream up a dream of a dyson swarm.

>hurr only costs 50 bucks
>just need 1k+ of free shit given to you!

>The upfront cost for nuclear is so undeniably high
It's no more expensive than any other form of power plant

Reduce
Reuse
Recycle

>youtu.be/ZmHY9DkD1Hw
You could do the same thing with nice new equipment and a 10x battery bank for $10,000. Or you could do it like he did and collect the free and fixable parts over time and spend money as needed. It's like you're mad at him for having the ability to haggle, find deals on craigslist, and have a few friends/buddy's. I know we look down upon rednecks here at Veeky Forums but I think this one outsmarted you.
If you live in a hilly/mountain area, sunlight is something you aren't going to get much of, especially in the winter.

Nuclear is far cheaper than most people realize. Nuclear is only expensive in certain countries because the governments have made it so.
euanmearns.com/nuclear-capital-costs-three-mile-island-and-chernobyl/

>Better by what metric?
Financial? Clearly you're not concerned with solar being an environmentally viable alternative to fossil fuels since you tried to make the case that producing panels causes more net pollution than an alternative. Which, by the way, the environmental resource cost of solar is immensely less less than that of coal and oil.

>And If you don't accurately account for the costs of solar this is meaningless. Which is why I'm asking.
What? You can't actually think that the cost of solar energy is more than that of conventional fuels over the course of 25 years. I feel like your fishing for scholars to find you alternative opinions on the sensible, congruent understanding of renewable energy. Something that is virtually infinite > something that is not virtually infinite, regardless of initial startup cost to get the world on board.

>since you tried to make the case that producing panels causes more net pollution than an alternative
I made no such case.

>You can't actually think that the cost of solar energy is more than that of conventional fuels over the course of 25 years.
Why not?

>Something that is virtually infinite > something that is not virtually infinite, regardless of initial startup cost to get the world on board.
But it's not just a startup cost. It's a constant, ongoing process to constantly recycle and remanufacture the solar cells and batteries. It's a never-ending drain on the economy, and the intrinsic manufacture costs are so high compared to the energy outputs that it's not sustainable.

>Battery lifetime and solar panel lifetime has to be accounted for. I've seen power output datasheets that indicate solar setups lose something like 50% of their net output over ten years. This tells me the expected lifetime of a solar
installation is likely to be 25 years, then you have to pollute more to get more batteries and dispose of your old ones (how?) and possibly newer panels, too.
Implying batteries aren't getting more efficient and battery recycling won't be a thing ever. The cost of that is negligible compared to what drilling does to the land as well as the air and seas with its pollution.

>Why not?
This has to be a meme. Gas prices in the past 25 years have nearly tripled. Now some of that was due to the war in Iraq but for america, the prices have stabilized again. And like I said before, supply and demand. As the available resource of nonrenewable energy goes down, cost goes up. As far as environmental cost for solar, btw, the only real issue is shading large areas for solar fields which might negatively impact wildlife. But these solar fields would be in arid, sunny climates to begin with and power could always be routed back to a city's grid. ive never seen anyone idiotic enough to say that solar's cost (either financial or any other cost) is higher than that of fossil fuels.

Economists and ecologists disagree but my guess is you're both of those so I'll leave this thread now.

>The cost of that is negligible compared to what drilling does to the land as well as the air and seas with its pollution.
Because materials in batteries don't come from the earth?

> As the available resource of nonrenewable energy goes down, cost goes up.
This is not under dispute from me. But you're refusing to count the fact that a lot of non-renewable shit goes into solar, too, for reasons I find utterly mysterious. You're basically just playing tumblrite "I don't have time to educate you" which is fine, but then just don't post in the thread.

alberta canada is going with wind power. 10% is now produced by wind and that is only 900 wind mills. wind is the future my friend. and ocean waves.

Solar is a joke
Want hot water? welp all I can do is this mild water
Need your apliances running? welp, it isnt sunny now boy
Batteries then? Oh right, it requires you to be rich
Nice

maybe solar is a joke if a lavish lifestyle is needed, but for living in general...i don't see why it would be a bad option

>inB4 the above

Neither a meme nor the answer.

It will help us lengthen the time we have to either
1) Adapt to a life without economic sources of fossil fuel ( think 19th century standard of living) or
2) Come up with an alternative fuel supply that carries the same or greater utility of fossil fuel.

As a fuel source itself it will never replace the utility of fossil fuel, which essentially is solar power but highly condescended into a form which requires no batteries, and which took 100's of millions of years to create. (Think every time you go on a road trip you are burning though the solar power equivalent of thousands of years of sunlight falling on a big patch of ground )

The greatest disadvantage of solar power is the requirement of batteries to store it which is still expensive, despite declining costs inefficient and the production of which also comes from non-renewable sources and at an environmental cost.

However for uses that tap into as an immediate use or near immediate use its a useful substitute to be used INSTEAD of fossil fuel, along with wind power and other such alternatives.

TL;DR. Its buying us a little extra time, that's all.

No seriusly, solar is good, quick, relatively cheap, low manteinance and easy to get done, but if you need a lot of power or you live in a fairly cloudy environment then you get to pay a fortune, then you will have to pay it again 20-30 years later and replace some panels and batteries in the meanwhile.
I'll say the key in solar is high concentration PV
I've been researching myself for a project and it's truly the future of solar plants with conversion efficiency up to 46% in much smaller areas, but it's expensive enough just o be affordable for mass production.
Anyways, now that on-grid energy storage seems not to be a problem, any kind of intermitent renewable energy production is viable.

>Anyways, now that on-grid energy storage seems not to be a problem
What is the color of the sky in your delusional world?

Yea, some do, like frauds and liars like Mark Jacobson. Mark Jacobson is arguably the most respected and renowned expert in the green community, and the guy is a liar and a fraud. If they promote such a person to their most respected position, then it's clear that the entire Green movement is nothing but a sham, filled with liars, frauds, and true-believers.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I live in a high concentration redneck area. Most are dumb as bricks as you'd expect. However, some are not, but act like most other rednecks except they do stuff like in the vid Thus, I surmise that the rest of humanity is about the same minus the accent and love for country music.

>then it's clear that the entire Green movement is nothing but a sham, filled with liars, frauds, and true-believers.

Just like nucleartards, amirite, kid?

I love that guys accent, combined with his pretty genius repurposing of an alternator and his frugal engineering, it puts Veeky Forums to shame. Free power bill!

perhaps I'm just tetarted

>but i dnt understand where the majority of the cost from a solar set up comes from; slightly damages cells are avail online for a fair price

I fully agree. It makes me want to get more parts together for a VAWT system after this year's initial farming setup when things are dull.

Most people don't know how to things nor have the tools or inspiration to do so. I think I'd start with freecycle and craigslist for free, full-sized, broken PV panels. Those are usually pretty easy to fix. Then move onto buying damaged cells if needed.

>Just like nucleartards, amirite, kid?
That's the best argument that you can do? "I know you are but what am I?" / "You too!".

>say stupid things
>get called out for it
>get butt blasted

Very adult of you.

>get mad at one of the few actual contributors to this thread
fictional actual Piper Harron detected

I thought Breeder reactors could increase the amount of uranium?

kys moron

Reminder: Scientist is effectively a human spambot pushing for nuclear power and against anything competing with it, mostly by posting and reposting the same garbage links. He's mentally ill and unemployable, so doing this makes him feel like he's still contributing to society. He's too emotionally invested to ever be able to acknowledge problems in the arguments he spams, since that would mean facing the reality that he's been at best wasting his time, and more realistically, spreading confusion and misinformation.

Breeder reactors are plutonium reactors that are cased in U238 (depleted uranium). Hence "breeder" - more fuel is produced during the reaction.

Apparently there's ~200 years' worth of economically available uranium at current usage (~10% total energy production) so 20 years is reasonable.
Of course "economically available" is a loaded term, of the oil fields we know of, only a small percentage of the total oil in the ground is "economically available" - as the value grows the business case to extract more of it with different methods grows (hence fracking...).
There are also other potential nuclear fuels available.

Since plutonium is created as a fission product of uranium, and plutonium can be created in plutonium breeder reactors...we can safely assume we'll have fission power generation for some time to come.

Also asteroid mining - uranium is rare on Earth because it's a heavy element. Most of the planet's supply is deep in the mantle, only a small amount is brought to the surface by volcanic events and asteroid impacts.
It would be reasonable to assume that uranium is more common in rocky asteroids.

>i don't see why it would be a bad option
When a generation has to live like their grandparents did, they consider it completely intolerable. A "depression." Actually, the great depression. You may be prepared to manage, but history has shown Commissar Cletus and Commissar Jamal will not be, and they won't be satisfied until they have deprived you.

>taking your trip off to shitpost further

>nuclear tard spam troll in yet another solar thread

How original.

Without getting into a long-winded explanation, Southern Alberta (where the vast majority of those wind farms are) also has vastly more wind than the average locale. If you set up those windmills nearly anywhere else, their energy output would go directly into the shitter.

Uranium prices are rock bottom, talking about "uranium reserves" when noone is even looking for them or mining existing known reserves is nonsense

Not me.

>Implying he isn't anti nuclear trying to make Veeky Forums look bad

>oh boy a solar energy thread
>can't wait to discuss passive and active solar systems and their advantages, disadvantages, and personal experiences with them
>*click on thread to read posts*
>*read read*
>discussion devolves into nuclear bullshit
>summoning an angry chin

•••Every•••God•••Damn•••Fucking•••Time•••

Make your own fucking thread.

>Waste is the one and only thing that's preventing nuclear power from expanding.

Wrong.

>what is a breeder reactor?
>what is seawater extraction?

Thanks for your contribution to the topic.

This is my post:

I'm surprised I don't see more passive solar on youtube, especially people trying to go 100% off the grid. Seems like a really practical way to keep their homes at the right temperature. Is it too difficult for a person and his three best friends to do right? They just don't know about it? Materials too expensive for minimalists?

solar has only one application were it makes itself $$ , space.
on earth open to environment, it breaks down constantly.
they tell you 20 years b4 replacement, its a lie.
you will replace or scrap in less then 5.

>you will replace or scrap in less then 5.
This seems very unlikely to me, where are you getting this info?

>I'm surprised I don't see more passive solar on youtube
My terminology is wrong. I meant what wiki has a page on as "seasonal thermal energy storage." It seems to me to be a very straightforward process to build an insulated water bed. I guess the real estate required and the amount of earth to move might be prohibitive for amateurs.

Germany has 7% of its energy be solar power. It might be impractical for home owners but when you make those very large fields of solar panels a country starts seeing its energy prices decrease quickly.

It is exceedingly simple and not very expensive. There are many applications. Check out "solar evacuated tubes" for the store-bought stuff. Lots of people do diy stuff, but usually not when it comes to energy for some reason. Parts for something like this image are really cheap or even free if you have a salvage source. You just need to have the skills and tools to do it.

The only passive solar wiki I know of is the one for solar cooking:

solarcooking.wikia.com/

There does need to be more of this stuff online in wiki form.

appropedia.org/Category:Passive_solar
appropedia.org/Passive_solar_design
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_chimney
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design

My cousin has had the same solar panel for his power backup system for about 15 years now without problems for the panel itself. The main thing is keeping it clean of dust, leaves, and snow.

Its the contrary, very large fields of solar are useless (only there for political reasons) as they run against the concept of dezentralised, autonomous grid systems where lots of high-voltage distribution and transformation and ground cable installation and maintainance is no longer needed.

Solar power is a blessing for libertarian, off-grid people and a curse to collectivists and big industry, if only it was more efficient, which will surely come with time...

>7% of its energy be solar power

7% of its ELECTRICITY, which is less than a half of the total energy consumption.

If you look at the total energy (including transportation and heating), solar is below 2%.

>It might be impractical for home owners but when you make those very large fields of solar panels a country starts seeing its energy prices decrease quickly.
It is extremely rare that something impractical to do on a small scale becomes more practical on a large scale. In fact I cannot think of a single instance of this phenomenon you appear to think is universal.

???
Germany has way high electricity prices, precisely because of solar and wind, as opposed to France, which has relatively cheap electricity prices, because of nuclear. Ditto for CO2 emissions, because Germany uses a lot of coal instead of nuclear.

Also:
energyfromthorium.com/cubic-meter/

>oh they are talking about solar again!
>better post NUCLEAR NUCLEAR NUCLEAR NUCLEAR NUCLEAR

>production of energy from other sources doesn't impact solar energy
you dum

Keep in mind solar is marketed to the hipsters charging their phones with meme solar chargers to save muh gaia.
It's basically scheme to use these retards as leverage and leech fat government money. Selling products directly to them is merely a nice bonus.