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2004-11-25 Home Front: Tech

Sun catchers tuned to crank out the juice

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Posted by tipper 2004-11-25 03:28|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 A hell of a lot more likely than turkey gut/biomass/ethanol/other panacea.

Posted by Shipman 2004-11-25 8:41:06 AM|| 2004-11-25 8:41:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 The enviro-whackos will keep any large-scale implementation tied up in the courts 'til doomsday, if they can. "We must preserve this waterless, lifeless, barren expanse of desert or Gaia will be upset!"

Posted by PBMcL 2004-11-25 10:02:27 AM|| 2004-11-25 10:02:27 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Wack a luddite? That is one solution to obstruction.I don't intend to move into a cave with no light or heat.

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-11-25 11:23:50 AM|| [http://www.slhess.com] 2004-11-25 11:23:50 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 they've got a farm of these in the mojave desert, I-395 south of red mountain....

Posted by Frank G 2004-11-25 11:29:48 AM|| 2004-11-25 11:29:48 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 I've read you can use a Stirling Engine to generate power from modest temperatur differentials, such as between surface sea water and water thirty feet down. Otherwise the article glosses over the hard problem, which is you need a truly massive storage infrastructure for when the sun don't shine and until you solve that problem you will not replace a single oil fired power station (although you may reduce its oil consumption).

Posted by phil_b 2004-11-25 3:55:33 PM|| 2004-11-25 3:55:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Go solar. I keep hoping against hope that some whiz-bang invention will make solar energy a workable reality. No more unsightly than a field of oil wells. Sure, there are infrastructure problems, but there are with petroleum as well.

Posted by gromky 2004-11-25 10:33:16 PM|| 2004-11-25 10:33:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I would dearly love for this stuff to work, but the elephant in the room is an electricty production system has to be on-demand. And anyone who has spent time in countries where it's not, knows how disasterous it is to have a power system that cannot cope with demand.

Not only is the storage infrastructure untried technology and of unknown but certainly very large cost, it is unlikely to get beyond a 30% efficiency. So the article's power at a comparable cost, immediately becomes hugely more expensive (multiply the cost by 0.3 and add the cost of the storage). Perhaps in 20 years they might get it down to 5 times more expensive, I personally doubt they will ever get it below 10 or 15 times more expensive.

This is just an exercise in wishful thinking.

Posted by phil_b 2004-11-25 10:58:25 PM|| 2004-11-25 10:58:25 PM|| Front Page Top

00:22 lex
00:02 2b
00:02 Zhang Fei
23:46 lex
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23:38 PBMcL
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23:27 mjh
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23:03 Frank G
22:58 phil_b
22:54 Frank G
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22:42 Verlaine
22:37 Mitch H.
22:34 Mark Z.
22:33 gromky
22:27 Verlaine
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22:27 lex