It’s no wonder why science is under attack. Far too many assume scientists are just sitting around milking it. Ugghh…we’re doomed.
Yes, the thirty year timeline has been repeated ad nauseum for decades. It’s almost like Musk has been the PR guy for fusion energy…but wait!
Seems like the dude isn’t a fan. He probably doesn’t realize that fusion rockets are needed to make his colonizing Mars dreams come true.
Are you suggesting that the Manhattan Project scientists sat on the atomic bomb until the war was ended by the atomic bomb? Weird stuff.
There are multitudes of companies pursuing fusion energy. There are multiple technologies being researched. With the recentish net positive breakthrough…we’re not that far off commercial fusion energy production. Definitely sooner than 20 years out.
No, I get his point. But solar is impractical in many locales for much of the year. He’s overlooking that, for the most part (though I suspect if you asked him directly, he’d acknowledge what I said). Disperse generation is best because of transmission limitations, but have fun getting enough solar in Buffalo to support that city.
Maybe. But there’s probably a practical location within a few hundred, or maximum a thousand, miles. Then you simply use … long wires … to move it. We already move electric power that way constantly, because nt every locale has a power plant.
Also, for some reason, on this issue (and on many others), every conversation ends up with someone taking the maximal position on one, the other, or both sides of the argument. Nobody really claims that ALL power should come from the sun, even if their language might imply that, any thinking person doesn’t really mean that. The general point is that the sun pours down so much energy each day, and we waste 99.99+% of it, that we should be using that energy as much as possible over other forms of energy, especially the forms that burn stuff. And doubly especially if there is a chance that we may run out of stuff to burn someday in the future.
That’s very problematic. I won’t invoke equations, but the losses for that sort of transmission can be very high. They usually use 3-phase power to alleviate that (again, equations), but the end user (you and me) use single phase. They have to transform it for our consumption. Which is why there is local generation almost everywhere you go. Usually within a couple hundred miles. Certainly not thousands of miles. The losses would be tremendous.
I totally agree with that. As I said, I have solar on my roof right now. I’m a big believer in it for any situation where it is appropriate. Several companies have it installed on their roofs locally, and one grocery store I’m aware of has panels acting as covered parking.
We definitely should be harvesting the sun more than we are. Some situations are less conducive to solar than others.
There are so many conversions going into the transmission of power, the DC output of solar panels is great for local battery storage, but to go any distance or even for household use it must be covered to an alternating voltage/current, single or multiphase, then again down converted at the other end.. Every stage involves losses. Wind power at least avoids some of the conversions, AFAIK, but transmissions still includes losses..
We don’t have the loads to make solar tempting so far, some family members have been using solar for yers now, drive EVs, even get checks from the local utility from time to time…
But large scale, I think it just isn’t in the cards for the more Northern states, we’re in the middle, Sonoma County of CA, pretty moderate as we’re close the coast… My Southern roof square footage might be a break even, including my shop, but is it worth all the hassle, at my age? Don’t think so…
As of 1980, the longest cost-effective distance for DC transmission was 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles). For AC it was 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles), though US transmission lines are substantially shorter.
Paris, L.; Zini, G.; Valtorta, M.; Manzoni, G.; Invernizzi, A.; De Franco, N.; Vian, A. (1984). “Present Limits of Very Long Distance Transmission Systems” (PDF). CIGRE International Conference on Large High Voltage Electric Systems, 1984 Session, 29 August – 6 September. Global Energy Network Institute.
And…
The 2,543km-long Belo Monte-Rio de Janeiro transmission line in Brazil is an 800kV ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) line that transmits electricity from the 11.2GW Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant located in Para to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The (2,385 km) Rio Madeira transmission link in Brazil is a 600kV high-voltage direct current (HVDC) bipolar line commissioned in November 2013. It is capable of transmitting 7.1GW of power.
Not that many. My brother in Massachusetts has it, it produces more energy than he can use in his 3,000+ sq ft home, and he’s sitting on a $3K credit he’s accumulated over time. (And his original set up is now paid for, so everything from here on is free.)
Western Mass. Plenty of snow. Lots of cloudy days. Solar still works. In fact, he’s planning on changing ICE cars to EVs, and just added a second set of panels over his garage. Yes, he pays a grid connect charge because he’s able to use the utility as his “battery”, but he’s pretty far north, and it still works fine.
Cool. Grid-tie is the way to go, if you can do it. As you say, it acts as the battery.
Even on cloudy days, there is some generation. If the panels are covered with snow, there will be almost none. But he can always go clear them (you folks back east have to shovel snow off your roof, anyway, yes?).
How large is his system? Given enough panels, sure…you can generate an arbitrary amount of power. We have a 5KW system that chops about $100/mo off our bill (may be more now…I calculated that at time of install, but energy prices have gone up while our generation has not degraded yet). It’s a bit variable. I charted it for the first few years to see how it was going. I’m guessing he has a lot more than 5KW to give those numbers in MA.
Payback will be longer if your generation per panel is less, but eventually it will pay for itself in most circumstances. Whether it is cost-effective I think does depend on the weather, and the efficiency of the panels. And, of course, the cost of the panels. I haven’t priced them recently, but when we installed they were rather expensive (brought down for a utility rebate and a tax credit).
Talked to him today. The original system was 33 panels @ 350w ea, bifacial. He is net-positive for 9 months of the year, net negative Dec-Jan-Feb, and overall enough to have a positive balance which they allow him to carry, apparently forever. (In fact he is allowed to transfer it to anyone in their service area, which he is considering doing for a niece who lives in the Boston area. He’s in Western Mass.)
He recently added 8 more panels @450w ea. on his garage. Also Bifacial (but pretty useless because they are fairly tight to the roof.) That turned out to be a hassle because the power company wanted to void his original net-zero “sell back” agreement before its time and of course he wanted to keep it (even at the cost of not adding the new panels to it.) Anyway, it took months to get all the requisite permissions and install, but it happened about a month ago and it’s running.
He’s talking about getting an EV, so the extra power will be put to use.
Other things he said: He uses about 800kw/mo on average for his 3200 sq ft home.
He produces 0.7kw/day in winter, about 1.8kw/day in summer.
The Massachusetts “Smart Program” pays him (or rebates, or however it works) $1000/yr for 10 years. Massachusetts is heavily dependent on imported power, so they care about incentivizing production however they can.
And finally he does pay a ‘grid charge”, but it’s only $10/mo, which is a pittance, obviously.
And that’s it, that’s all my notes - but it rather puts a lie to the idea that you can’t have a decent solar system in Northern latitudes. (He did mention that he’s produced practically nothing for the past couple days: the panels are covered with snow. He waits for it to melt, as clearing it atop a steep 2nd story roof is dangerous in person, and even using one of those snow rakes risks damaging the panels, so he just waits it out.)
I watched a terrific show on CSPAN yesterday. Two well spoken pundits talking about “technology today” or some sort.
One of them said that Musk’s statement about colonizing Mars is idiotic. Paraphrasing his words:
There is no level of stupid where this makes sense. You could have the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit the earth again, and Earth would still be a better place than Mars. You could set off every nuclear weapon in every stockpile at the same time and Earth would still be a better place to colonize. You could release every pathogen in every lab and earth would still be a better place to colonize.
One word: Oxygen. Mars doesn’t have it. Earth does.
I’ll add: Water. Mars doesn’t have it. Earth does. Mars doesn’t even have a strong enough magnetic field to keep oxygen or water from being blown off by the solar wind even if you could produce it, which you can’t.
Now you can terraform a world, I suppose, if you have a million years and planetary forces large enough to matter. And you can put a couple/few exploratory beings on the planet if you spend a trillion dollars and like a couple bags of Martian sand enough to pay for it.
But colonizing it? With a million people? Don’t make me laugh.
Plus…renal failure. I read a paper within the past year or two. Apparently, if we were to send people to Mars, many of them would be ill by the time they got there. A return mission would be out of the question because they’d all be dead by the time they got back here. Evidently, the kidneys are particularly susceptible to radiation, and microgravity also affects them adversely (though, in principle, you could spin a module on the ship to create gravity).
In “The Expanse”, humanity creates the Epstein Drive, which allows for very long duration burns to create continuous acceleration. This allows a ship to accelerate at 1G continuously for the entire trip, thus creating gravity. Half way to destination they flip the ship around and decelerate at 1G - again, creating the sense of gravity. You can travel to the outer planets in reasonable time durations in this manner as well.
According to Perplexity, the closest approach trip to Mars would take 1.5 days, hitting a maximum velocity of .6% the speed of light. Yowzers!
January and February are always my worst months for bill from National Grid, my energy provider. As I stated in an earlier Email, the snow total for the Month of February was 43 inches. So, I knew my bill was going to be substantial. Fortunately, I had a credit and I knew that some more of that would be wiped out. At the end of January, my credit shrunk down to $2082.24 . Come at the end of February; my credit has been whittled down to $2079.13. Yup, that's correct. I paid virtually nothing in February for my electricity. So far this month, I've consumed 172 Kwh and produced 202.6Kwh. It only get better from here on out..
Sure, Solar isn’t practical up north.
His production will be over the top for the remainder of the year. He’s even added a few panels to the existing set-up in anticipation of buying an EV this year. His provider only allows enough production to be approximately equal to his consumption, and when the original set went up it did that, but with the advent of EVs they’re allowing a modest increase.
