Britain's future power shortage could spill over on Ireland

[Dios]

I see I was wrong to engage with this Dios fella, I thought he was interested in science whereas he's just another hypersensitive bickerer. I trust the less flighty appreciate the numbers I've supplied and the realities of developments in this area for our energy future.

You haven't engaged me though, just ignored all the points I've raised.

Solar does have a strong future, for the third time, just not in Ireland, in the same way that hydro doesn't have a great outlook in Saudi Arabia. As soon as we have proven carbon nanotube electrical grid systems and 40% efficient (rather than 15%) solar panels, we can talk practical realities, but there are no guarantees either of those goals will be achieved on a wide scale in our lifetimes.

This is materials science you're talking here, progress isn't always linear, especially when you're talking power - Moore's law demonstrably doesn't apply.

And lining road and rail networks with solar panels will always come up against massive distribution problems any way you cut it.

If you have a legitimate objection to any of these points, I'd be happy to discuss them with you.

[sparkey321]

. As soon as we have proven carbon nanotube electrical grid systems and 40% efficient (rather than 15%) solar panels, we can talk practical realities, but there are no guarantees either of those goals will be achieved on a wide scale in our lifetimes.

Equally applicable to the SOI proposal and wind

Look at current achievable load factors in Ireland for installed wind farms and those used by SOI in their arguments.

Look at the size of the proposed reservoirs and the claimed energy independence.

Then talk about practical realities.

[sparkey321]

Sparkey
What about the facts that you don't want to deal with, I quoted you a figure of €700 million last week as a the figure for gas subsidy in Ireland, and your only comment is to say that in some perverse way that this a subsidy for wind, this is paid to the owners of gas power stations, not to wind farms. You have yet to reply to the queries I posted on the future availability of gas at reasonable prices.

Those plants were commissioned and built with one purpose. As a back up to wind generation. They can only supply power when the wind generation capacity drops off. They Are a back up only and as such cannot compete on an open market.

No company in their right mind would build a plant under those conditions. So these plants built to back up wind had to be subsidised, not by the wind power producers but by the taxpayer.

The entire ridiculous scheme is their for one purpose and one purpose only. To back up wind power. So yes it is a subsidy for wind not gas.

There are many many gas plants in Ireland that are allowed to compete on the open market with no subsidy and generate a profit so claiming gas generation is subsidised is nonsense.

You might notice that I no longer reply defensively to your comments on wind, this is because the research is all coming together at S of I, and I am very confident that a very respectable business case will be presented in mid September.

I look forward to finally getting some actual defined verifiable costings, and figures but based on past experience with SOI I will not hold my breath.

[Dios]

Look at current achievable load factors in Ireland for installed wind farms and those used by SOI in their arguments.

Look at the size of the proposed reservoirs and the claimed energy independence.

Then talk about practical realities.

You've a nasty habit of completely ignoring any facts laid before you, repeating the same tired old arguments about twenty minutes after they have been disproven, otherwise known as dogma, so its really not worth the effort to do it all again.

Thankfully you have zero influence on the real work being done and its chances of success or failure, so the rest of us will be getting on with things and putting the best foot forward for the country.

[sparkey321]

You've a nasty habit of completely ignoring any facts laid before you, repeating the same tired old arguments about twenty minutes after they have been disproven, otherwise known as dogma, so its really not worth the effort to do it all again.

Thankfully you have zero influence on the real work being done and its chances of success or failure, so the rest of us will be getting on with things and putting the best foot forward for the country.

The only dogma is yours. I asked a question which you refused to address so instead you respond with waffle.

In case you missed the point waffle is not proof, facts are and you are chronically short on facts.

[Dios]

The only dogma is yours. I asked a question which you refused to address so instead you respond with waffle.

In case you missed the point waffle is not proof, facts are and you are chronically short on facts.

As pointed out to the libertarian lads, sooner or later you are going to wind up talking to yourself, and the silence doesn't mean you've won. Energy expended > return.

[Civic_critic2]

Well for one thing the annual average insolation in ireland is 2.5kw/h/m2, that is the measured amount averaged over the course of a year. Conversion efficiencies for solar cells are increasing so rapidly across all types of cells even I can't keep up. Google is full of information on this, such as:
concentrator multi-junction solar cells - efficiency 44.3%: achieved
Sanyo HIT solar cell, lower production costs - efficiency 22%: achieved
Low cost floatzone silicon wafers - efficiency 17.4%: achieved
Sanyo beats its own record - efficiency 23%: achieved
Thin-film panchromatic solar panel - efficiency achieved: 11%, theoretical limt thus far 15%
Flexible thin-film plastic solar cell - efficiency 14%: achieved
and so on and so on.

As for the cost of carbon nanotubes, while $1500 per gram may have been true 4 or 5 years ago as of today you can buy them over the net and have them shipped to you for as low as $4 per gram. Which just goes to show the pace of developments in this area and the rapid price decreases as production facilities come online. And while you're at it you can get your quantum dots here.

Even if we were to use todays relatively crappy silicon cells to line the cork-dublin railway at an efficiency of 18% and a cost of $1 per watt that would equal 220,000 x 2500 x 0.18 = 99MW for 99 million dollars. So a 600MW system would cost more or less 600 million dollars. In 2003 a 600MW gas-fired powerplant was built in the north at a cost of 300 million dollars. If we can get the low cost thin film solar panel above, with an efficiency of 14% already achieved, to be produced at a cost of 20 cents per watt which is perfectly conceivable even at the present time, then that would equal (220,000 x 2500 x 0.14) x $0.2 = 77MW for 15.4 million dollars. That means that the same system scaled up to 600MW would cost 120 million dollars, or less than half what a gas-fired plant producing the same capacity cost just 6 years ago.

There is one company that is aiming to produce solar generated electricty for just 5 cents in the near future.

[Dios]

Well for one thing the annual average insolation in ireland is 2.5kw/h/m2, that is the measured amount averaged over the course of a year.

Okay, and thanks for the links, but lets look at it in a realistic fashion here. If one man in a room has ten loaves of bread and the other nine men have none, they have on average one loaf of bread each. Nine men will still starve to death, but the average is there.

Can you provide a link to your average insolation figure, explaining whether that is daylight hours, midwinter periods, or what. Maximum efficiency will not be achieved in any case with overcast skies, which we get more often than not in Ireland.

concentrator multi-junction solar cells - efficiency 44.3%: achieved

Years away from a prototype, according to the article, and no mention of the costs, which will almost certainly be high. The lowest cost solar panels these days are typically factory castoffs, with high failure rates.

Sanyo HIT solar cell, lower production costs - efficiency 22%: achieved
Low cost floatzone silicon wafers - efficiency 17.4%: achieved

Also at research level. How much for how much, is the question.

Sanyo beats its own record - efficiency 23%: achieved

Again not priced and not in production. If you can make a 50% efficient solar panel but it costs as much as ten 10% efficient panels, its not much use.

Thin-film panchromatic solar panel - efficiency achieved: 11%, theoretical limt thus far 15%
Flexible thin-film plastic solar cell - efficiency 14%: achieved
and so on and so on.
And so on

But where are they for sale? Also 14% isn't much use, the form factor is your main advantage there.

As for the cost of carbon nanotubes, while $1500 per gram may have been true 4 or 5 years ago as of today you can buy them over the net and have them shipped to you for as low as $4 per gram.

Is that in an organised cable or just a jumble of laboratory castoffs? Theres no grid to be seen here.

Even if we were to use todays relatively crappy silicon cells to line the cork-dublin railway at an efficiency of 18% and a cost of $1 per watt that would equal 220,000 x 2500 x 0.18 = 99MW for 99 million dollars.

Link to your insolation figure. Regardless of that however, you don't get solar power at night, so add capacitor banks all around the place to the cost. And distribution cannot be ignored, which is what you are doing.

There is one company that is aiming to produce solar generated electricty for just 5 cents in the near future.

Thats great, theres another company aiming to produce supercaps which have a higher energy to weight ratio than petrol, but until they do, its more vapourware.

You didn't respond before, are you living in Ireland? I ask because I find it hard to believe anyone with a knowledge of local conditions could credibly claim solar as an alternative. Wind on the other hand, well, as I mentioned, I have horizontal onions.

[sparkey321]

I find it hard to believe anyone with a knowledge of local conditions could credibly claim solar as an alternative. Wind on the other hand, well, as I mentioned, I have horizontal onions.

A yes... the scientific onion leaning over wind load factor calculation.

You are very free at asking questions but very slow to provide answers.

Can you provide the load factor for wind-farms currently connected to the Irish grid averaged over 12 months.

Can you also provide the installed cost for 1MW of wind.

Please and thank you.

[Civic_critic2]

What a bickering person you are. I sense that you have so much invested in wind that a change in that paradigm may promote a nervous episode and so is to be guarded against. As it happens I have nothing against wind, I'm in 2 minds on the topic. The high altitude wind generators I saw mentioned recently on here look interesting but as regards the economics and physics of solar the figures are there, the track record is there and the developmental trajectory of both over the next 2 decades is clear.

As for the distribution issue a couple of things strike me. This electricty can be delivered locally along its whole length. Secondly the rapid developments in science across all fields will apply equally to transmission technologies. This is a problem to be overcome just like all the other problems which are clearly being surmounted, if indeed it is a problem in economic terms. It is not an immutable law of physics.