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/sci/ - Science & Math

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1658566 No.1658566 [Reply] [Original]

So, what do you guys think about solar panels and other alternative ways of energy?

>> No.1658576

>>1658566

I recently heard of a guy who wanted to replace all the roads in the United States with solar panels.

It was a cool concept, really, as long as you can work through logistics issues like friction.

>> No.1658582

A combination of solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power will sustain us until we invent fusion.

>> No.1658585

the future or renewable energy is in solar powered stirling engines

>> No.1658586

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/slideshow-origami-0408.html

Also this.

>> No.1658587

>>1658582

And reserve nuclear power for where the sun doesn't shine, and the wind does not blow, and the earth is not warm, and the water does not flow.

>> No.1658592

>>1658582
Geothermal alone can sustain us though... I mean it can be tapped ANYWHERE on the planet if you drill deep enough.

>> No.1658595

>>1658585
You really have no idea how inefficient stirling engines are do you...

>> No.1658596

It's nice if you can afford to stick them on your roof. I think it's rather silly though to think they could replace traditional power plants.

>> No.1658603

>>1658592
You are a natural born dumbass, aren't you?

>> No.1658606

>>1658596

Actually...

>> No.1658616

>>1658603
Explain.

I'm expecting something akin to why water is not wet.

>> No.1658617
File: 72 KB, 537x338, solar panel hous.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1658617

>>1658606


forgot pic lol

>> No.1658624

>>1658617
Wonderful in a sunny country...

>> No.1658627

>>1658624
With no snow or ice

>> No.1658628

>>1658582
Wind damages the ecosystem and kills innumerable birds daily by interrupting flight patterns.
Hydroelectric is great, if you don't mind the whole mess that comes from building dams everywhere.
Geothermal is good only in volcanic spots where lava is close to the earth. Yes, you could dig anywhere, but jesus fuck, do you no understand how expensive that would cost? Not to mention you can't transport the energy efficiently from a volcanic geothermal site to another place.
Solar isn't so bad with those panels Google made, but other than that, it's not cost efficient at all.

Nuclear is pretty much the best out of them all.
A combination of nuclear plants and solar panels would help any country a lot.

>> No.1658629

once they are efficient and cheap I'll consider it, until then let the early adopters (the suckers who finance technological progress with their compulsive:I want to newest thing NOW) do their thing.

>> No.1658630

>>1658616

Ideal geothermal stations are located above steaming vents. If you have to drill super deep to find heat, you'll probably also have to pump your own water down the hole, and the net energy gain in these cases is trivial.

>> No.1658641

We'll get alternative energy when energy companies learn to think beyond the short term.

>Orwell insation

>> No.1658644

>>1658595

i'll be damned if 5% of people can even explain entropy,let alone identify it,leave them to their dreams.

>> No.1658654

>>1658627
Or indeed nighttime.

>> No.1658656

>>1658595
Actually, despite the efficiency drop (high-end commercial solar panels are in the low-30's, high-20's; solar-thermal is in the high-teens, low-20s), solar thermal is actually superior in terms of cost per kWh. Photovoltaics uses some quite sophisticated manufacturing, and quite exotic materials, driving up costs, and its output degrades at a faster rate. Solar thermal energy, unlike photovoltaics, can potentially produce power below 10 cents / kWh, which is the only way to steal market share from coal and oil without some serious government intervention. Solar panels are way up at 15+ cents / kWh, although they're really the only viable option for a single detached residence.

>> No.1658660

>>1658617
I had a science teacher that lived in a Forrest in the middle of Washington. he makes a few grand every year off of selling his excess power he makes. im not saying it can work that efficiently everywhere or that its the only thing we need but It should be more popular.

>> No.1658664

>>1658656
(space grade panels, which can be seen on university solar cars, competition solar homes, and, obviously, spacecraft can be as high as 45%, but they're stupid expensive)

>> No.1658665

>>1658630
However drilling only part of initial set up and once the water is down there it's practically a closed system if you use a condensing/cooling tank and let gravity put it back down there.

Unless solid bedrock now leaks like a sieve of course.

>> No.1658669

>>1658596

There are rebates available, also tax deductions depending on state. Local utilities want mass adoption of solar to happen as quickly as possible, so they will have subsidies for panels.

>> No.1658670

>>1658644

I was on a forum where this guy was modifying his car to run on water. He was spending thousands of dollars to do so. I tried to explain you are just draining your battery and the hydrogen is going to destroy the engine. But he called me stupid and said I work for Big Oil.

I wonder how poor he is now.

>> No.1658673

>>1658617
Most of humanity doesn't live in houses, and even those that do would have trouble affording something like that.

A real replacement to traditional power plants is what's needed, something like nuclear fusion.

>> No.1658685

>>1658670
Wouldn't really drain his battery or destroy the engine.
But you would end up with a decrease in fuel economy by installing one of those silly "HHO cells".

>> No.1658695

What kind of waste will a fusion reactor produce anyways?

>> No.1658705

>>1658685

Where do you think the energy to split the water molecules is coming from?

>> No.1658706

>>1658695
Helium?

>> No.1658708

>>1658695
This.

>> No.1658709

>>1658705
The alternator.

>> No.1658717

>>1658709

9/10

>> No.1658722

>>1658695

Waste electricity,nowt else,we wont know what to do with the stuff we will have so much

>>1658670

sigh,i feel lonlier every day,dont you?

>> No.1658723

Anyone want to take a bet on hippies protesting against radioactive helium?

Yes I know it won't be radioactive, but these are people that protest H2O.

>> No.1658725

meh

>> No.1658726

What about harvesting Helium-3 from the moon? If I'm not mistaken, China plans to begin this in the next 15 years.

>> No.1658730

>>1658706
The real question is if this helium will be the type that we have to bury in a salt mine for a thousand years

>> No.1658733

Thorium ?

>> No.1658739

>>1658730
Why would you need to? Just vent it to atmosphere, it doesn't stick around for long.

>> No.1658750

all of the current alternatives like solar and such will never sustain our infrastructure, they produce way too little for the cost. nuclear energy really needs to come back with a vengeance to save us and right now we are just sitting around with our thumbs up our asses while india and china build hundreds and more every year

>> No.1658753

the future of energy lies in perfecting water splitting. from a single olympic sized pool we can harvest about 46 TW of energy, which is more than enough to power the world now per year. We consume about 16-18 TW/year assuming all energy is conserved. Without conservation we consume about 40 TW/year.

Check out lectures by Nocera of MIT for more stuff on water splitting.

>> No.1658766

>>1658753
Uhh...No.

>> No.1658767

>>1658766

haha trust me. there are tons of labs working on the photocatalytic splitting of water. I was just at the national ACS meeting in Boston and saw many groups doing this research. why do you think nature itself splits water during photosynthesis?

>> No.1658776

>>1658767
Because plants don't directly harvest energy from photosynthesis...it's a process by which glucose is made from carbon dioxide.

>> No.1658777

>>1658766
This isn't the same bunch of guys telling you your car can run on water. This one isn't a violation of any physical laws. Water is just a medium, solar is the source of energy, and its cracked through biological means. Its quite interesting. Photo-biological hydrogen is similar; as produced by sulfur deficient algae.

The dude you're replying to just seems to be missing dozens of key words that separate real engineering and science from the bullshit.

>> No.1658781

>>1658767

You really do not know much about photosynthesis if you think it is even nearly an ideal energy system.

>> No.1658783

>>1658777
That makes more sense.

>> No.1658785

>>1658739
A good point, however if we simply let it fly off into space aren't we basically pulling the atmosphere apart?

>> No.1658829

>>1658630
>pump
>down
wat

>> No.1658847

>>1658628
Don't forget that solar energy is great to heat water! To produce electricity it is still too primitive but for heating it is cheap and great!

>> No.1658861

>>1658847
Good point, use mirrors to condense the sunlight and that shit gets hot fast. Use it to heat water instead of coal and holy fuck... now if only we had some decent way of storing lots of energy. That's our biggest problem really.

>> No.1658874

>>1658861

uh...no.

The heat is absorbed by the panels. You don't direct the sunlight.

>> No.1658891

>>1658874
Either way could work... the only question is whether direct sunlight to water heats it faster than transferring the heat from solar panels.

>> No.1658896

>>1658891

I'm like a billion percent sure every textbook model uses absorption not concentration.

>> No.1658909

>>1658576
if you do that roads will be stripped bare by enterprising raw materials scavengers

>> No.1658967

>>1658896
>textbook

Who said was I was citing a textbook?

You can have solar panels which make electricity from sunlight and collect heat to produce energy (either individually or by pooling their heat together to run a generator).

Or you can condense sunlight using mirrors to heat large quantities of water, which is of course then used to run turbines.

Or you can also use mirrors to gather sunlight unto a smaller number of panels then you would otherwise to reduce the cost somewhat.

Only question is which system yields the best results for the costs.

>> No.1659113
File: 77 KB, 500x437, 500px-Solarpipe-scheme.svg.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1659113

>>1658967
Give a look here!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy

>> No.1659121

>>1658896
>a billion percent sure
Primary/Elementary School is that way ---->

>> No.1659135

>>1658967
> Only question is which system yields the best results for the costs.
Even more important, perhaps, is which will yield best results for the costs when heavy production is in full swing. It might be worthwhile to spend a little extra on tech now for big savings down the road.

>> No.1659148
File: 103 KB, 800x600, 800px-Solar_panels,_Santorini.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1659148

>>1659135
To heat water for your house? I would use something like this.

To produce energy where you get a lot of direct sunlight (like a desert)? I would use this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Esolar_13.jpg

To produce electricity for your house? I would use solar cells.

>> No.1659150

>>1658967

listen butthurt

I cited textbook examples because they are probably the most efficient (duh, in a FUCKING TEXTBOOK).

Fucking tool, get off of /sci/ trying to convince your ego you are intelligent.

>mexcups patty

>> No.1659165
File: 95 KB, 500x310, 3262808904_51a2538143.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1659165

>>1659150

>> No.1659171

>>1659165

But I voted McCain.

>> No.1659187

solar panels are ridiculous

we have more than enough power available via traditional means. We have 500 years worth of coal, even counting exponential growth.

If we cannot invent a new power source (fusion, micro-black holes, ect) in that amount of time, then we probably dont deserve to live.

>> No.1659199

Now that you kids stopped fighting.

Reflectors are very good if you have a lot of direct sunlight and is doing it at large scale (like in a solar powerplant in a sunny area) Because they have to move during day to follow the Sun and don't work very well in cloudy days.

Solar painels to heat water is good to heat the water for your house because it works even with cloudy weather (not so well as with direct sun but it still works)

>> No.1659200

>>1659187
that depends very much on the exponent

>> No.1659206

>>1659187
Seriously, solar panels to heat water are great! They are cheap and works great! It's possible to heat water to the point of boiling just using a black panel with water passing inside it!

>> No.1659213

>>1659200
standard human growth rate, population doubles every 70 years

>> No.1659216

>>1659199

/sci/ : pretentious ass holes who

- Call everyone a kid
- Assume they are correct because they lurk /sci/

greaaaat

also, fuck you.

>you're blenwang

>> No.1659218

>>1659206
have you ever even used one of those? they are a maintenance nightmare. If the pump ever stops working, the water boils in the lines, which causes the pipes to burst. Its way more hassle then its worth.

>> No.1659241

>>1659213

That's an industrial way of viewing demographics. Post-industrial societies do not exponentially grow populations. In fact, they barely maintain keeping the population at an even keel. The Baby Boom was pretty anomalous in human history, made possible by the Green Revolution more than anything else.

>> No.1659249

>>1659241
Sooner or later the ones who are still breeding will be the dominant segment of the population, and the growth will continue unabated.

>> No.1659265

>>1659249

No, that isn't how this works at all. Simply put, post-industrial societies have vastly improved life expectancies and more importantly everybody works which hampers the likelihood of having a child. Freely available condoms and birth control pills also aid in this depressing of the population. While women labor is prevalent in industrial societies as well, because the life expectancy is lower and they have fewer luxuries such as birth control, children are born more often.

It is foolish to assume that the population will grow exponentially when the signs of it doing so are simply not there.

>> No.1659332

>>1659265
Stupid people do not use condoms.

If you do not use condoms you will become pregnant.

Stupidity is hereditary.

Therefore, on a long enough timeline people will become more stupid, stop using condoms, and have children in spite of changes to society.

>> No.1660652
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1660652

>>1659218
Not here! The solar panels we have here stay lower than the reservatoir so when the water heat it leaves the solar panel by convection! no pump needed!

Of course, we don't have any freezing winter here!

>> No.1660688
File: 16 KB, 450x413, solar-water-heating-system.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1660688

>>1660652
Fuck yeah!

Hot water! Little and easy maintenance and no need for pump!
http://en.howtopedia.org/wiki/How_to_Heat_Water_with_Sun_Power
http://www.energyrant.com/brisbane-solar-resources/brisbane-solar-hot-water/

It saves money! No need for fuel and doesn't produce polution!

>> No.1660695

solar thermal energy seems promising
But solar panels suck
They are great at powering calculators though

>> No.1660703

>>1658582
We may be able to sustain our electricty demands with solar, wind, hydro and geothermal. But there's no fucking way our economy can sustain the building and maintenance of the whole mess.

Consider that a nuclear reactor can have 80%+ uptime, compared to less than 50% for wind. Consider a 60-100 year lifetime for nuclear reactors compared to 10 for wind. Consider that a single modern nuclear reactor equals 2000-4000 wind plants and consider that 3000 wind plants will require an annual 150 000 000€ in maintenance costs.

I'm all for renewable power sources as long as they are sensible and not based upon a green hysteria which pushes for the standard enviromentalist goal of destroying our economy and society in favour of "saving the enviroment"(which is arbitrarily defined with no or questionable scientific backing)

>> No.1660995
File: 36 KB, 537x264, maglev2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1660995

In alternative energy there are some interesting ideas for future. If they will work perfectly I don't know but they sure are cool!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_wind_turbine#Maglev_wind_turbine

>> No.1661061

>>1660652
Always amazing how easy it is to solve most problems simply by using your fucking head. Bravo to where you live, bravo!


Also good to see mention of this.
>>1660995

And why no mention of this?
http://www.nanosolar.com/

>> No.1661088

I like this new thing called NUCLEAR POWER.

I'd be greatly satisfied if the goddamn government could stay with the motherfucking power plant instead of shitty windpower and horrible waterpower so the goddamn electric bill doesn't skyrocket by 400% in the winter.

Yes I mad.

>> No.1661098

>>1661088
Fundamental problem is that no one wants a Nuke plant near them since Chernobyl.

There's also that whole, nuclear waste problem ...

>> No.1661108

>>1661098
How about people get their ass around to investing in the whole Thorium nuclear waste plant then?

>> No.1661111

>>1661098
we should put a bunch of nuclear plants in the same places we tested those nukes a while back in the new mexican desert.

>> No.1661119

>>1660995
>powers 750 thousand homes

That before or after the parasitic loss from its own magnetic levitation?

>> No.1661120

>>1661108
Because fusion is a better investment as far as the atomic reactors go.

>> No.1661128

>>1661120

We don't have any working fusion designs. We do have working thorium designs. They'll serve for now.

>> No.1661146

>>1661128
>for now
That's the problem, they're too short term of a thing to be beneficial.

>> No.1661154

>>1661146

Our lack of fusion will not be a short-term thing.

>> No.1661158

Solar, nuclear and geothermal are the only alternative energy that exists today.

Because wave, wind and all those crap are just extension/waste result of solar.

Then again, some people don't really call nuclear "clean" energy. It's more like energy with a deadly byproduct terrorists can use

>> No.1661160

>>1661158
terrorists can use used nuclear fuel rods

idonthinksotim.jpg

>> No.1661164

>>1661158
>It's more like energy with a deadly byproduct terrorists can use

If we'd quit using reactors designed specifically for the purpose of breeding weapons-grade plutonium, this wouldn't be a problem. Thorium molten salt reactors have short-lived waste that is useless for making nukes.

>> No.1661173

Generation IV nuclear fission is gonna be awesome, specifically the supercritical water reactor (SCWR). My university is currently working on a component for this design.

>> No.1661178
File: 22 KB, 300x300, 1250206798037.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1661178

>>1661154
>No fusion in the next 50 years

>> No.1661179

>>1661119
Yep!
This design use more permanent magnets that use no electricity

>> No.1661188

>>1661178

Your groundless optimism is cute. Probably not even in the next 100.

>>1661179
>massive maglev with neodymium

derp

>> No.1661194
File: 87 KB, 469x428, 1249759109009.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1661194

>>1661188
>no fusion for more than 100 years

>> No.1661199

>>1661194

Yep. You know how they tell us it's maybe 10 years away? They said the same thing 50 years ago. You won't get a flying car, either.

>> No.1661215

>>1661199
>That thing people say is going to happen never will hurr durr

>> No.1661226

>>1661215

It'll happen eventually. Just not anytime soon.

>> No.1661228
File: 224 KB, 1200x761, Itaipu.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1661228

Since I'm Brazilian, I'm just wondering, /sci/:
Why not hydroelectrical?
More than 90% of Brazil's electricity comes from water; it may not be 100% environmentally friendly, but it's emission-free. Installed capacity: 75 GW. That's a lot of power. Itaipu alone generates 14 GW, powering 19% of Brazil and 90% of Paraguay. Since it's construction, in 1975, it has generated 95 TWh = 81 Megatons of energy.
You guys need more Hoover Dams.

>> No.1661232

The anwser is to be found in buckyballs

>> No.1661234

>>1661199
Flying car is feasible but is not desirable.

If we give flying cars to the public we would end with drunk morons hitting building everywhere! WTC every day!

>> No.1661240

>>1661234
Ssshhh! Don't tell anybody that cars will drive themselves in 10-20 years!

>> No.1661247

We could have fusion in 5 years, we could have it in 50. The one thing that's sure about fusion is that ITER and the similar massive waste of money projects won't be the ones that achive commercial fusion because they are too slow and too fucking expensive.

Lawrenceville plasma physics are working on a fusion device which could turn commercial even before 2020. Other groups are in the small scale fusion too. When you only need to pay the wages of the scientists plus a million or so for the prototype reactors which can fit in a garage you can try a lot more than the monstrous $15billion projects such as ITER.

>> No.1661254

>>1661228
I'm Brazilian too.

hydroelectrical is good and not much expensive but you can't put it anywhere.

Or you flood a canyon or you flood a huge plain.

>> No.1661259

>>1661240
Never understimate the power of a drunk moron to fuck up stuff

>> No.1661264

>>1661247
spending $15 billion on ITER <<<<<<< spending $3 trillion on the war on terror

>> No.1661267

>>1661228
>Since it's construction, in 1975, it has generated 95 TWh = 81 Megatons of energy.
samefag.
Sorry, 95 TWh was just 2008

>> No.1661280

>>1658861
>now if only we had some decent way of storing lots of energy. That's our biggest problem really.
>>1661254
>Or you flood a canyon or you flood a huge plain.
The reason why flooding is necessary is to have an energy reservoir. You can't expect rain every day, you know.

>> No.1661282

>>1661234
It's already been said that they will not be allowed until there is a system in place to remove the potential for human error or other such things. Of course this also removes the human responsibility part of travel so it's not a bad thing entirely.

The worse a drunk could do then is jump out of a flying vehicle.

>>1661228
Location, location, location.

>>1661247
You mean upscale test models instead of testing full scale or oversized shit? I agree that's a better use of resources

>> No.1661285

>>1661282
Or puke from the window on your head

>> No.1661295

>>1661282
>You mean upscale test models instead of testing full scale or oversized shit? I agree that's a better use of resources

Well, obviously if they scale it's a good thing, but i mean that it's actually possible to construct a garage size fusion reactor that's commercially viable, that is, you have 1MW of fusion energy pouring out of a garage sized building. It's fucking fusion, things don't need to be huge to give incredible energy yields.

One of the main differences is that ITER would try to achive a homogenous fusioning mass, whereas a lot of the smaller reactors instead use an approach where a millisecond pulse creates a fusion focus. The pulse is then repeated as fast as possible, several times a second, each pulse yielding some net energy.