Renewable Power City

[Anonymous No.9699183]

How much longer until Solar, Hydro, and Wind Power become a Viable source of Energy, for our cities and home?

[Anonymous No.9699235]

>>9699183
Whenever fossil fuels stop being profitable.
We need to tear it all down and start over.

[Anonymous No.9699241]

>>9699183
Hydro has been viable for years and we can't build anymore. Solar shall consume all. It hungers

[Anonymous No.9699261]

>>9699183
They are not only viable but are already used extensively.

[Anonymous No.9699281]

>>9699183
The main problem is the materials they are made from. Those are finite. If every house has solar panels, it will seriously deplete the resource base for making solar panels. After every hurricane, tornado, wind storm, or general replacement the resources get further depleted. The same thing happens for the generators, alternators, and turbines, but at least the resources for those are massive. Extreme long term viability of all those technologies will depend on the amount of resources we have on Earth. Once those are too low, we'd need to switch to mining things in space.

FYI, it is viable right now and used extensively. The main problem is power storage. The cost of batteries is extremely high now while everything else in the system keeps dropping in price. That's because resources for batteries get used up and recycling them is rather inefficient simply due to how batteries work in the first place. Alternative energy storage is constantly being studied and tried. That's everything from pumping water uphill, to massive flywheels, to thermal storage of melted salts (used in megawatt solar power plants), to pumping air underwater.

There's another technology you can check out. It is called "biogas methane". You use organic wastes and turn it into biomethane and high nitrogen fertilizer. The biomethane can be used for heat, cooking, and electric generation. Microbes that digest everything are what makes the entire system extremely efficient.

>>9699241
>Hydro has been viable for years and we can't build anymore.

Look into micro hydro power plants like those used small streams with very low head. Specifically, ones like "vortex/vertical" types (see pic). They go by a few names, but "Gravitational Vortex Power Plant" should get you results to further research for yourself.

[Anonymous No.9699313]

>>9699183
We need a paradigm shift in the way we think act and build.

Cookie cutter suburbs are not built to be energy efficient and will never be sustainable, yet we cannot stop building them

[Anonymous No.9699322]

>>9699313
THIS.

[Anonymous No.9699330]

>>9699281
You should check out "power to gas". Storage really isn't that much of an issue.

Also, most PVs are mainly made out of sand, no rare ressources involved.

>>9699183
If you were okay with paying 50-100% more for your electricity bill it could be right now. If not, you have to wait until the prices further drop to a point where they undercut our current production methods (should happen in the late 2020s or 2030s).

[Anonymous No.9699331]

>>9699281
Until we all blow up like the town in The Preacher.

[Anonymous No.9699333]

>>9699183

I want to put up a two square meter solar panel to power a water sculpture in the corner of my garden, cost about $40

>The homeowner's association has a problem with that
>The county wants a construction permit that costs more than the solar panels and a design plan drawn up by certified engineers. They want their own engineers to do a site survey and report, cost borne by the person applying for the permit
>The electric company wants to deny it even though it is not connected to the grid
>The county board of commissioners wants to delay construction until it is brought up at the next board meeting in November (when the subject will be carried forward to the next board meeting)
>Regulations will require extensive underground piping, electrical wiring rated fifty times the capacity of what the solar panels will generate, and will last for 50 years or more even though the panels will degrade to almost nothing in 15 years

I live in America. In other countries, they would just build a wooden frame, install solar panels, wire them together, waterproof them, and serve tea.

[Anonymous No.9699340]

>>9699183
Um, now

[Anonymous No.9699343]

>>9699313
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_faAejRHvYA

[Anonymous No.9699347]

>>9699333
We have similar issues in Canada (especially ontario), not quite as bad, but enough that it is stopping people from moving forward

[Anonymous No.9699353]

>>9699343
I would argue the problem has persisted much longer than 40 years.

The UK acknowledged the problem of urban sprawl in the 17th century and did nothing about it,.
They also deforested their entire island twice.


Currently I am living in the GTA (greater toronto area). The 401 is the most congested highway in North America. I hate it, it's fucking grid lock every fucking day. I am leaving soon which is good because I would commit suicide if I was stuck here.

[Anonymous No.9699361]

>>9699333
Land of the free

[Anonymous No.9699364]

There’s really no reason to abandon something like natural gas to power stuff at this point in time, that’s why the renewable options are pretty spread thin. When companies are willing to install solar panels and charge $.60/kWh, then people will switch to solar

[Anonymous No.9699369]

>>9699364
Solar is on the verge of hitting 0.07/kWh, the problem is now eneryg storage because solar is an intermitent source.

Having to scale the output of gas/oil/coal up and down to deal with the constant changing demand lowers efficiency by a huge factor.

In the next 20 years, the energy storage industry is expected to be work ~20 trillion on the global scale.

[Anonymous No.9699377]

>>9699369
You need around 10% of your electricity production in storage capacity to meet peak demands. With an efficiency of roughly 50% for power-to-gas-to-power you only need to produce like 20% extra to keep storage capacities full. That's not a big issue.

[Anonymous No.9699378]

>>9699369
The only way solar will become a normal thing for people, at least in the US, is if power companies manage to build their plants around solar. Think Helios-1 from new Vegas, but realistic. The whole idea of people spending $3,000 on some solar panels and installing them, maintaining the, and managing their power consumption around them as a realistic idea is hilarious. Your best option for cheap, low emission power for the masses is nuclear.

[Anonymous No.9699380]

>>9699378
>Your best option for cheap, low emission power for the masses is nuclear.

[Anonymous No.9699385]

>>9699380
>>>/reddit/

[Anonymous No.9699386]

>>9699377
You are not considering all of the variables. It is far more complicated than you make it out to be.

Additionally power generation companies don't like change and pressure the government to keep things the way they are.

t. renewable energy scientist.

[Anonymous No.9699391]

>>9699385
/retard/

>>9699380
People fear nuclear power
plus, most countries are very irresponsible with nuclear power.

Japan - Hey let;'s build a plant on a fault line in a tsunami zone, what could go wrong

USA - Let's make producing weapons grade plutonium more important than safey.

Canada - Let's design and build the worlds safest reactors (CANDU) and watch nobody use them.

[Anonymous No.9699392]

>>9699378
The solar panels on the roof are still connected to the grid. There is no need for individual power consumption management.

And there is literally no maintaining involved that a normal roof wouldn't have.

[Anonymous No.9699398]

>>9699391
>plus, most countries are very irresponsible with nuclear power.
The Soviet Union and China weren't Irresponsible

[Anonymous No.9699402]

>>9699398
>the ussr wasn’t irresponsible

Yeah man Chernobyl wasn’t totally preventable

[Anonymous No.9699403]

>>9699386
Storage still isn't an issue. You can also synthesize hydrogen at home very easily, would probably still end up cheaper than buying batteries, and would be more reliable, too.

[Anonymous No.9699405]

>>9699183
Literally never

Combustion have no replacement, it powers up 85% of the total, with our exponential growth none of the so called renewable energy will be enough

[Anonymous No.9699412]

>>9699378
Look up the company called power ledger. They are Australian and are trying to incentivize green energy production by creating p2p energy sharing for everyday people.

[Anonymous No.9699416]

>>9699333
>I live in America. In other countries, they would just build a wooden frame, install solar panels, wire them together, waterproof them, and serve tea.
t. has never tried to build anything in Western Europe

[Anonymous No.9699417]

>>9699412
You mean like... a grid?

[Anonymous No.9699418]

>>9699403
Storage absolutely is an issue, in fact it is the biggest issue facing renewable energy.

Producing hydrogen via hydrolysis is not an efficient process, and getting power from it safely and efficiently is also expensive. Proton exchange membranes haven't gone anywhere in decades for a reason anon.

[Anonymous No.9699430]

>>9699183
Why does Geothermal get no love /sci/?

[Anonymous No.9699450]

>>9699418
You have giant gas grid lying around that you can easily use to store huge amounts of synthesized Methane and Hydrogen. Unlike batteries, the storage costs depends mainly on your electricity production cost. So if you produce at 10cent/Kwh, the cost of warranted Kwh will also be roughly that amount (assuming a 50% efficiency). Generally speaking, storing is not an issue, because you just need to produce a marginal amount more electricity than you consume, and then store it in the gas grid.

The big issue still is production cost. As soon as they hit competetive prices, transition to renewables will happen really fast.

[Anonymous No.9699453]

>>9699417
Basically they work with electric companies which agree to act as an exchange between users of green energy using their platform. Mostly solar energy but they have plans on carbon trading too and some other things if you go on their website.

[Anonymous No.9699470]

>>9699450
You don't know anything about gas handling if you think that the natural gas pipelines are suitable for hydrogen.

Hydrogen is incredible at permeating materials, including steel. We would have to build an entirely new pipeline system to do what you are proposing and in North America this simply isn't practical.

If you are interested in the hydrogen economy pay attention to Japan. They are putting billions into it in response to their latest nuclear disaster. The size of the island and population density makes it much more practical.

[Anonymous No.9699491]

>>9699183
When battery technology becomes cheaper and denser

[Anonymous No.9699501]

>>9699491

This is only one possible outcome.
Like I said earlier, energy storage is going to become a 20 trillion dollar global industry within 20 years or so.

There is your investment tip of the day

t. physical chemist

[Anonymous No.9699504]

>>9699470
You wouldn't store the hydrogen purely, you would mix it with the gas you are still going to consume anyways, and that's literally it. As I said, storing with power to gas will not cost much more than the electrcity production cost for the lost energy during synthesis, but those costs are marginal. You don't need to build a completely new infrastructe or billions of batteries. So yeah, storing will not drive up prices much higher. When we hit price ranges where renewables will overtake everything, the storing costs will be so minimal they will not make a difference anymore, thanks to the gas grid that is already laying around.

[Anonymous No.9699523]

>>9699504
That is going to lower the efficiency and raise the cost considerably.

Start with ultra pure nitrogen and add hydrogen to it?
You can't have oxygen in there.

I'm sorry bud, but you don't understand the whole system.

Just for context, i'm a scientist who has attended well over 100 lectures by leading scientists and engineers in renewable energy. I've also listened to talks by the STO of the largest energy company in the world (Saudi Aramco)

[Anonymous No.9699539]

>>9699523
Like 90% of the gas in the gas grid is methane, so yeah blending in hydrogen is not a big issue. Also, you wouldn't only blend in hydrogen, but also methane, so the exact same gas that is in there anyways. So yeah, storing cost will be marginal. Something like spending trillions on a storing infrastructure (be it lots of batteries or some sort of gravity-force-power-plants) is not needed and will not happen.

Batteries though will still be relevant, just not for grid storage.

[Anonymous No.9699549]

>>9699539
You still don't understand how hydrogen behaves.

Even if you mix it you are just slowing down the effect of hydrogen permeation.

[Anonymous No.9699591]

>>9699549
The level of which hydrogen can be blended into the grid is generally given with 5-10%, but even if it happens to be 0%, you will just go with methane instead which almost the same efficiency.

[Anonymous No.9699607]

>>9699591
So your answer is

drive renewable energy
with non renewable products such as methane?

dude

[Anonymous No.9699633]

>>9699607
You don't need to go 100% renewable, the earth can take and store a lot of CO2. To completely stop the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere you would need to drop our emissions by "only" 80-90%. So having some methane is not so bad, since methane burns very cleanly, little CO2 and close to no nitrogen oxides.

Also, alternative methods (hydroplants, mass-mining rare earths to mass-produce batteries,etc.) destroy huge amounts of local biospheres, so those aren't 100% environmentally friendly, either.

[Anonymous No.9699635]

>>9699183
it's viable for years now, people just don't want to understand, they just refuse to accept progress

[Anonymous No.9699651]

>>9699281
>The main problem is the materials they are made from. Those are finite. If every house has solar panels, it will seriously deplete the resource base for making solar panels. After every hurricane, tornado, wind storm, or general replacement the resources get further depleted. The same thing happens for the generators, alternators, and turbines, but at least the resources for those are massive. Extreme long term viability of all those technologies will depend on the amount of resources we have on Earth. Once those are too low, we'd need to switch to mining things in space.
We have plenty compared to the amount of fossil fuel we have between increasing efficiencies and recycling.

[Anonymous No.9699658]

>>9699380
Retard

[Anonymous No.9699661]

>>9699430
Its pretty unreasonable most of the time and has low interest generally. Seems to be a great idea where viable to do.

[Anonymous No.9699663]

>>9699430
Strong geographical limitations.

Australia should be 100% geothermal, but oil companies own most of that land.

[Anonymous No.9699969]

>>9699663
>Australia should be 100% geothermal, but oil companies own most of that land.

What are the odds!

[Anonymous No.9699980]

>>9699333
>the absolute state of "land of the free" murica
meanwhile in my country the government literally pays you for surplus renewable energy

[Anonymous No.9700033]

>>9699333
Lucky you, in Germany it would be 10 times harder.

[Anonymous No.9700049]

Solar and wind aren't very dense.

[Anonymous No.9700503]

Cold fusion.
it is sustainable, does not require any storage so long as you have a unit that can produce slightly more than max demand.
All you need is a constant high potential plasma discharge tho utilise the energy released by rebounding hydrogen and oxygen into h2o

[Anonymous No.9700505]

>>9700049
we just need to put them everywhere

[Anonymous No.9700637]

>>9700503

[Anonymous No.9700856]

>>9699183
How would space colonization work if not for Renewable energy?

[Anonymous No.9700881]

>>9700049
d e c e n t r a l i z e d p o w e r g e n e r a t i o n
suburbs are a waste of space, we can make them useful by turning that blue space on your pic into a place where people life, red space farmland, easy shit, get it together

[Anonymous No.9700918]

>>9699398
Are you seriously this stupid?

[Anonymous No.9700921]

>>9699391
Canada does a lot of scientific shit bro
We even into space

[Anonymous No.9700932]

>>9699391
>thinks CANDU is useless
slow down there cowboy, where the fuck do you think all those medical isotopes are coming from?

[Anonymous No.9701208]

>>9700637
At least I'm not the only one who understands that the energy released from bonding atoms is far more than splitting them.
care to share any more info?

[Anonymous No.9701394]

>>9699183
When Oil Runs out.

[Anonymous No.9701427]

>>9699183
New Zealand is 75% renewable energy and has been for a while. The Tiwai Aluminium smelter uses 13% of power generated so it's not outlandish to think that with a few more renewable energy power plants built we could eliminate fossil fuel based power plants entirely

[Anonymous No.9701431]

>>9700049
The nuclear power plant doesn't run on wind and light, it needs uranium for that, so for a fair comparison, you would need to calculate the amount of lands that are being turned into wastelands by uranium mines.

[Anonymous No.9701521]

>>9701431
>The nuclear power plant doesn't run on wind and light,

[Anonymous No.9701816]

>>9701427
Isn't the same with the Danish?

[Anonymous No.9701890]

>>9701431
Plus, the amount of land rendered useless because you need it as a nuclear waste deposit.

[Anonymous No.9703282]

>>9701890
explain

[Anonymous No.9704021]

>>9701208
It really depends on the binding energy..

[Anonymous No.9704277]

>>9701816
No

[Anonymous No.9704304]

>>9699635

>solar panels acting as shades for parked cars

That's actually genius.

[Anonymous No.9704307]

>>9699663
>>9699969

If geothermal is so profitable why don't geothermal companies own most of the land?

[Anonymous No.9705392]

>>9699281
Neat concepts. Look into using trains for gravitational energy storage, it's more efficient than hydropower storage schemes and there's no loss during storage. The ARES facility in Nevada is the only example that I know of

[Anonymous No.9705447]

>>9701890
>Plus, the amount of land rendered useless because you need it as a nuclear waste deposit.
Go on. Elaborate. Because it sounds like you are speaking from a very poor understanding of nuclear energy.

[Anonymous No.9705473]

>>9699281
>vortex power plant
Lol, it's VORTEX TECHNOLOGY!!!!

snake oil

[Anonymous No.9705475]

>>9699380
but muh laughing aliumsx all run off solar and warm farts

[Anonymous No.9706231]

>>9701521
What did he mean by this.

[Anonymous No.9706249]

>>9699391
>Japan - Hey let;'s build a plant on a fault line in a tsunami zone, what could go wrong
Nothing would if nips didn't try to make a weapon grade uranium there.

[Anonymous No.9706885]

>>9706249
Not an argument

[Anonymous No.9707150]

>>9699635
>it's viable for years now
as a supplement to fossil fuels, not as sole or primary energy source

[Anonymous No.9707154]

>>9700503
>Cold fusion.
Might as well have said "perpetual motion"

[Anonymous No.9707358]

>>9707154
Why

[Anonymous No.9707549]

>>9701890

That actually takes a trivial amount of space, compared to things like tailings ponds and the waste put out by heavy metals and it's nothing.

[Anonymous No.9707562]

>>9707549
Oh yeah what about all the metal the thing is built out of? What's the ecological footprint of a nuke?

[Anonymous No.9707573]

>>9700503
oh no our solar windmill has broken down, tell the rest of western europe to stay indoors for a week and not eat sheep for years

[Anonymous No.9707576]

>>9699183
Grid problems and political/business resistance will delay things until its too late. sadly people like to keep electing people they know lie as it is an easy out from the responsibility of change

[Anonymous No.9707585]

>>9699183
I say use bio energy. Fuel cells with hydrogen, glucose batteries, and so on...

[The Lord No.9707590]

>>9699183
>How much longer

>JWT
>J+W
>Jew
>Jew, duh

[Anonymous No.9707721]

>>9707562
>What's the ecological footprint of a nuke
Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Really it depends

[Anonymous No.9708659]

>>9707585
Won't happen. Onions energy though, is possible.

[Anonymous No.9708691]

>>9699392
>And there is literally no maintaining involved that a normal roof wouldn't have.

Wrong.
Solar is already stacking inefficiency on inefficiency per its design. It hits hard limitations that can not be overcome within that technology. It's inefficient trash with a few niche applications. It's in no way shape or form a viable replacement of any real significance.

>>9699378
This

>>9699369
>Solar is on the verge of hitting 0.07/kWh

Stop right there, what panel, what price, under what conditions, at what locations on earth?

I call bull.

[Anonymous No.9708708]

>>9708691
>Solar is already stacking inefficiency on inefficiency per its design. It hits hard limitations that can not be overcome within that technology. It's inefficient trash with a few niche applications. It's in no way shape or form a viable replacement of any real significance.

You seem to live in the 70s still. Spain is already producing a quarter of its electricity with sunlight and PV modules are dropping in price so hard we are 2 years away from panels on virtually every roof being efficient enough to pay for themselves. There is a reason why the Chinks are building up the industry capacities, solar is going to be a huge business and they want to dominate it.

[Anonymous No.9708715]

>>9699633
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
>30-38% full cycle efficiency
Doesn't seem marginal to me.

[Anonymous No.9708716]

>>9708708
The plants who reflect the sunlight onto molten salts are promising for countries like Spain, as well as new material advances allowing the heat to be used but pv panels can use such a minute fraction of the em spectrum to drain an artificially created material with diminishing returns over a lifetime of 20 years. It's a technology that inherently sucks. People buy into it even-though they will only break even on their original investment at best, and that is with artificially high energy prices which consist of about 70% taxes in the first place.

In addition a lot of these projects only find sufficient funding through subsidies and only because countries use it as a way to meet climate agreements, not because the technology is actually a better alternative.

It's an unsustainable charade that floats on shell, bp, exxon and goverment funding, the former want to own their enemies because they can, the latter is just concerned with making an mutually agreed upon imaginary arbitrary and irrelevant goal.

The funding would be far better spent in fusion research, material sciences, GMO's and terraforming of deserts.

[Anonymous No.9708722]

>>9708716
You don't seem to understand. We are a few years away from being able to call a solar installation firm, tell them to fill your roof with them, connect them to the grid, and you making money out of it by selling the electricity. Absoluetely everyone will do it and demand for solar will explode. It's the next big business. There is a reason why the american government is panicking over the small american solar industry and are trying to last-minute grow it to a more competetive size.

[Anonymous No.9708736]

>>9708722
>There is a reason why the american government is panicking over the small american solar industry

Oh yes, trembling I'm sure, good joke.
What sort of ideological indoctrinated fairytale "fuck capitalism" publication has convinced you of this?

You understand that the efficiency of solar panels is very dependent on a lot of factors in the environment right?
Solar intensity and therefor latitude, %cloud cover, it's not just something you can put everywhere willy nilly and expect to make a profit.

[Anonymous No.9708744]

>>9708722
Germans are already doing that, and the power companies are already complaining about it, because they have to pay for it, and it's not worth it. Whatever you do, we still need the grid, and we still need to pay for it.
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

And "making money out of it" is meaningless without the mention of efficiency and ROI.

[Anonymous No.9708765]

>>9708736
The difference between putting a solar panel on the roof between Toronto and Miami isn't actually so big. In Miami, it would generate roughly 20% more electricity.

If you have a 25m2 roof solar module, you are going to produce roughly 3.000KWh a year for 20 years. That's 60.000KWh, at 10 cents per KWh you would generate 6.000$. Installation cost of such a module is 6000-8000$ at the moment. So right now, depending on where you are and what kind of roof you have, you can barely break even. But as soon as it drops to 4.000-5.000$ it is profitable on virtually every roof. We are pretty close to an exploding demand for solar panels.

[Anonymous No.9708776]

>>9708765
It's not something that can drop much further if you understand how a solar panel actually works.

>isn't actually so big
>20%

If you make a coating that can achieve even 2% improved efficiency for pv panels at competitive cost you'd be rich.

[Anonymous No.9708794]

>>9708776
It doesn't need to drop much further, only by 30% or so. At that price point it would be literally retarded to not put them on any roof available, because you would be literally losing money.

This can also be demonstrated by the german subsidies. In germany, 20 years ago you were able to sell the electricity from your roof for 50 cents per KWh (most of that being paid by the german government obviously). 20 years ago, this was the bare minimum to make a solar roof profitable. This subsidy got adjusted over time, always being as high as needed to make a solar roof profitable. In 2018 it dropped to 12,5 cents, not far away from normal market prices (8-10 cents). So the installation costs don't need to drop by a whole lot more, and you could turn a profit on them without any government help.

[Anonymous No.9708802]

>>9708794
>only by 30% or so
>only
>30%

Want to know how I know you are not an engineer?

>normal market prices (8-10 cents

Which is made up of 60-80% tax depending on what country.

[Anonymous No.9708805]

I'm 100% sure all the solar panel memeing is funded by chinese REE interests.
There is no doubt in my mind.

[Anonymous No.9708811]

>>9708802
Just so I'm getting you right, you think after the prices having dropped by almost 80%, a further 30% drop from their current price is impossible? Meaning that, compared to 2000, they would need to drop another 5%.

Want to know how I know you are retarded?

[Anonymous No.9708824]

>>9708811
I very much doubt you understand how a pv panel actually works at this point, if you knew how they work, how their efficiency declines over time and what inherent limitations are in play.

You just expect it to reach that point because of what exactly? Moore's law?

[Anonymous No.9708829]

>>9708802
>Which is made up of 60-80% tax depending on what country

Lol, no. You're probably mixing up tax on gas with tax on electricity.

[Anonymous No.9708837]

>>9708824
Yeah, the price drop will magically stop just short of becoming cheap enough to put them on any roof, just so you can win an argument on the internet. Sounds very reasonable.

You probably also voted Trump because COAL IS THE FUTURE.

[Anonymous No.9708984]

>>9708837
Confirmed popsci dilletant who doesn't know SHIT about actual solar panels.

I literally made coatings for them.
Can you answer my questions instead of assuming?

[Anonymous No.9708991]

>>9707562
>Oh yeah what about all the metal the thing is built out of? What's the ecological footprint of a nuke?

Zirconium and iron are not heavy metals, he means things like cadmium and lead which are component metals and by products of solar panels and wind farm infrastructure.

A fisison plant is not a nuclear bomb, retard. A fission plant physically cannot produce a runaway nuclear chain reaction like a nuclear bomb is designed to do. All nuclear power plant explosions have been STEAM explosions because the reactor cores got too hot, and the containment vessels were not strong enough to force the water to remain liquid. This problem only persists because we're using a technology meant for submarines but scaled up 10x where thermal regulation cannot be passively guaranteed using liquid water moderator. We already know of many different designs that would eliminate this issue and make nuclear power essentially idiot proof.

Also all nuclear waste ever produced would form a slab three meters tall and the size of a football field. Nuclear fuel contains millions of times as much energy as an equivalent mass of fossil fuels, so even though the Bruce power plant in Ontario produced almost 48,000 gigawatt-hours of power in 2015, it only produced several metric tons of waste, all of which is safely contained in dry cask storage.

[Anonymous No.9709005]

>>9708811
>you think after the prices having dropped by almost 80%, a further 30% drop from their current price is impossible?

You sound like my uncle who goes on about how the oil companies have been going around stifling internal combustion engine efficiency breakthroughs for the past four decades because cars were getting a few percent better gas mileage every year, then suddenly stopped making significant progress.
Like you, he also fails to understand that technology follows an S curve in terms of efficiency, where you start off with shoddy prototypes, fiddle around for a while making small improvements, then get serious and fix all the major issues resulting in a very well performing machine, but then have nothing to do except make little adjustments and tweaks to get another percent here and there.

Solar panels will NEVER EVER get another 30% efficiency stacked on top of what they already have today. Limits of thermodynamics and real world physical processes and so forth.

[Anonymous No.9709230]

>>9699183
They will NEVER be viable. Total solar irradiance is 1200 W/m^2. Libtards believe this will magically become an infinite energy source. If they understood basic physics, they would not be liberals.

[Anonymous No.9709239]

>>9709005
>>9708984
You sure as fuck sound clueless for somebody who so loudly tries to establish himself as the "expert authority". There is absoluetely no reason to assume the price drop won't continue, since they all came from increasing economies of scale. As demand rises, so does the scale of production, and so the prices will keep falling.

Btw, in a lot of sunny areas it is already profitable to have a solar roof. In the sun belt states most private homes could put a profitable PV module on their roofs. They don't though because the payback period is pretty long, and because Americans are retards.

[Anonymous No.9709242]

>>9709230
Is this text from 1995? You can produce electricity at 10 cents per KWh in solar farms.

[Anonymous No.9709260]

>>9709239
>Btw, in a lot of sunny areas it is already profitable to have a solar roof.
source?

[Anonymous No.9709304]

>>9709260
Try "Google Project Sunroof".

[Anonymous No.9709314]

>>9709304
That just shows savings over 20 years. try posting an actual study.

[Anonymous No.9709439]

>>9709314
There is no "actual study" needed. If you can produce 10.000$ worth of electricity on your roof, than you will make a profit if installation + insurance + maintenance is lower than that.

[Anonymous No.9709465]

>>9709439
>if the electricity you produce is sold for more than the costs you will make a profit
yeah no shit, that's fucking tautological
i'm asking you to prove that this is a thing that currently happens

[Anonymous No.9709521]

>>9709465
It's called net metering, you sell your electricity to your local grid when demand is high and your PV is in full efficiency. This way with 4000KWh/year (so in the sun belt for an average production over the life span of 20 years thats ~32m2) you can make roughly 400$ a year. So basically, if installation + maintenance + insurance cost is less than that you are making a profit, and this is the case very often in the south. A typical all-inclusive installation of that size would cost 7.000-8000$. Since profits are pretty small not so many people do it. Residential solar has still grown by a factor of 20 since 2010. The more the profit margins grow, the more people will do it. Profit margins will always be pretty small though.

[Anonymous No.9709726]

>>9709521
>still no source
literally the one thing I asked for

[Anonymous No.9709730]

>>9699183
Hydro already is, brainlet

[Anonymous No.9709736]

>>9699313
>Cookie cutter suburbs
god do you have those in america? They are awfull

[Anonymous No.9710307]

>>9709736
What are you a communist

[Anonymous No.9710419]

>>9709726
Well, we do have a PV module on our roof (Germany), we are not selling anything to the grid though, because electricity prices here in germany are so high (~30 €-cents per KWh) that it pays off to just have a battery and use the electricity yourself. The whole module including a 12KWh battery (with 20 years of guarantee and a scheduled replacement after 10 years) cost us roughly 15.000€. So basically we are paying 750€ a year for our electricity instead of buying the same amount from the grid for ~850€. However, I also increased my house insurance to cover the module which costs me 89€ a year. So I'm essentially breaking even. Not included yet is the fact that after 20 years you can either continue to use the PV modules or sell them to a recycler for ~1.000€.

Germany has unusually high electricity prices, but also we have less sunlight than other regions. So I could definetely see that for a sunnier area it could still pay off even if electricity prices are considerably lower. I'd say the bigger cost issue right now are the batteries, those either need to drop considerably in price, or politics need to change so that the margin between selling and buying from the grid is smaller. In Germany, we sell at 12,5 cents, but pay more than twice that for buying from them, absolute madness. If that margin shrank considerably (like sell for 20 cents, buy for 25 cents) you could skip the whole battery part and just sell and buy from the grid and still turn a profit.

[Anonymous No.9710920]

>>9699183
Why don't we just use the Earth's core to power our society?

[Anonymous No.9710926]

>>9699235
this guy gets it.

[Anonymous No.9710952]

>>9699281
graphene pv's will solve resource issues

[Anonymous No.9710959]

>>9710952
Most pvs are made out of sand. There is no rare ressources involved.

[Anonymous No.9711010]

>>9710419
you just don't get it

[Anonymous No.9712079]

>>9711010
I do. it's you who doesn't get it

[Anonymous No.9712446]

>>9699183
never

[Anonymous No.9712475]

>>9709242
Whoa. A 4chan .jpg is being dishonest?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Calhoun_Nuclear_Generating_Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency

[Anonymous No.9713058]

>>9712475
not an argument

[Anonymous No.9713306]

>>9699333
Should've just done it. People wouldn't even notice it.

[Anonymous No.9713319]

>>9704307
If peasants are so agriculturally productive, why do the feudal lords own the land?

[Anonymous No.9713346]

>>9699405
Until we run out of fossil fuels

[Anonymous No.9713354]

>>9710419
Solar generates an accounting profit in Germany because the government subsidizes it, not because it's, as of yet, actually economically rational to install solar on people's houses.

[Anonymous No.9713804]

>>9713354
The government subsidizes the credit to finance it, which I didn't take out, and it subsidizes the price you can sell the electricity to the grid, which I don't do. This is all 100% free market prices. I paid roughly 5.600€ for the modules and 7.000€ for the batteries (this battery gets replaced in 10 years, each was 3.500€). So by now, batteries are the much bigger cost point actually (the rest of the cost was inverter, installation, etc.).

Also, a neighbour of mine installed his PV module in 1992, so 26 years ago, and it is still producing at more than 70% efficiency. I have the exact same module from the exact same producer, so I expect at least a few years of "free" electricity after 20 years.

[Anonymous No.9714846]

>>9713804
Not an argument

[Anonymous No.9714857]

>>9714846
Not an argument

[Anonymous No.9714868]

>>9699183
hydro is already viable, problem is that not every city has a nearby river. the problem becomes on transporting the energy without losing alot of energy

[Anonymous No.9714902]

>>9713804
>70% efficiency

Why lie on the internet anon

[Anonymous No.9714922]

>>9714902
He probably means 70% of design efficiency

[Anonymous No.9714940]

PV is actually fucking cheap now and would totally be worth it if the cunt suppliers would buy it back at a reasonable price. Since they do not my only option is batteries and they are just not cheap enough yet, if they halve the price on them then I'll be giving the power companies the middle finger and so will many other people.

[Anonymous No.9715741]

>>9714940
why lie?

[Anonymous No.9715762]

>>9715741
>t. big coal

[Anonymous No.9715821]

>>9714902
See >>9714922

[Anonymous No.9716987]

>>9715762
Nothing wrong with big Coal.

[Anonymous No.9718175]

>>9716987
This. Better than the alternative.

[Anonymous No.9718390]

>>9714868
>transporting the energy without losing alot of energy
High-voltage direct current is the solution.