Using solar energy as a primary domestic source

Can't see how you could get away with this without guaranteed long periods of uninterrupted sun - and a lot of extra capacity to cover the range from full overhead sunlight to morning and evening sunlight - in which case there'd be a lot of wasted capacity. Without a battery to 'smooth things out', a few little clouds would have your system switching back and forth between solar and grid power every couple of minutes.

My study puts batteries at the heart of the modern age. Batteries Required. I think your septic tank ought to be a battery. The fresh stuff from portapotties would be good for making gas.

On or off Grid Solar, thermal or PV, batteries are required somewhere in the mix.

The electric age started and was founded on power from batteries, and batteries are the pivotal component of the modern integrated sustainable energy system.

In the future every Boy Scout will know how to make a battery from common materials strong enough to run his phone, computer, and some LEDs.

Earth battery for example but portability is lacking. How could an earth battery be applied to a solar power system as back up compared to lead acid bank?

I think this comes down to thinking a bit outside the box...

Solar energy can be stored as electricity (in batteries) as kinetic energy (in flywheels) as potential energy (in the form of a mass lifted against gravity - eg water pumped to a higher level) or as thermal energy (in a heat sink).

You can manage these variables and get pretty close to primary power. But obviously the costs become prohibitive.

Have a look at Drakes Landing Solar Community (google it) for a very clever solution to the thermal storage system. Basically all summer long a large group of houses send hot water from their own roofs into a community-wide insulated heat sink underground. (we're talking huge volume of earth heated to 80-90 C - hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up). Then all winter these houses have access to that heat. It is not hot enough to convert to steam (for electricity) but it is hot enough to use for hot water and domestic heating. So electricity is never made, but huge quantites of electricity are saved from being consumed by all those houses to heat their rooms and water.

So in effect they are off the grid for the whole year for their heating needs - which is the bulk of home electricity use.

In general we could cut our domestic energy use to close to zero by trapping solar energy in various forms - but at present the only economically sensible options at the single-house level are solar hot water and PV cells.

This will change...

Solar can be the primary source of power if you install a large enough system and have ample sunlight throughout the year. Most utility companies in the U.S. are required to "meter" for domestic alternative energy sources. When your system is producing enough energy to meet your consumption then your meter stops turning and you are then relying on pure solar energy. If your system produces more power than you consume, the meter actually runs backwards. This is the same for small wind systems. Net metering, as this is called, enables the consumer to produce excess power that is credited to you by the power company to be used later. For example, in most areas of the country, solar would produce an excess of power in the summer (again, depending on the size of the system) which would be credited by the power company. When winter comes, and there is much less sunlight to power your solar array, you would then be able to use the energy that has been credited. Your utility company acts like a battery.

Welcome Carwin.

Nice way of putting it WindGenMan.

I suppose net metering still doesn't represent a self-contained system like Carwin is asking about, but it is the sort of public utility business model that becomes very attractive the cheaper the purchase and set-up costs of the home-based solar generators become.

I use solar power and, until recently when the second model failed, wind power as my sole source of energy in my house in southern Spain.

The pv solar panels produce enough power (4-5 kWh per fully sunny day) to run the house, but all washing machine and other heavy-wattage appliances have to be used when the sun is shining brightly. The 12 battery 24v system stores the reserve for the night time.

Your answer would not work for me, since I am too far away in the high mountains of Andalucia to ever get mains electricity. However, I like the idea of storing the excess from the production in some form other than solely the batteries. Maybe as some heat or gravity converter.

As we write, tens of thousands of houses and apartment blocks are being built in Spain without any in-built provision for the capturing and storing of solar energy. This is deeply shocking to me, but when I think of how much my 4 panels, 12 batteries and associated electrical converters and connections actually cost (over $20,000) I realise that prices have to get a lot lower before use will be automatic.

In the end, it seems that only the pressure from oil prices will force down the price of capturing solar (and wind/wave) energy and make it an affordable and normal route for all new house builders and for conversion of existing homes.

The large commercial installations are increasing in Spain (both solar and wind farms). I suspect there will be little direct benefit in the short-term for normal home-owners because of the many years needed to recover set up costs for the companies involved. However, poor supply chains and high demand is driving up the cost of the solar units in the same way as it is doing with the off-shore wind farms in the UK.

We need to have some significant improvements in the relative cost-effectiveness of alternative power production methods/units before we will see the widespread use of "part-time" solar production.

As far as Carwin's question is concerned, I know of no means of producing continuous 24 hour power from solar alone. I personally know that the combination of wind (when I still had it!) and solar CAN work brilliantly on the rare days in the Spanish mountains when there is a sunny day and awindy night; but this is not that often in reality and certainly cannot be relied on if it was supplying hosptials, businesses, homes etc!

I tend to agree Trancendian's good answer about the essential use of batteries. Why is it, Carwin, that you want to consider a system without batteries? The pollution involved in their construction and disposal? Or is it just that they seem a cheat?

Hi Joe

I am currently living in the West Indies and we experience sunshine most days of the year. Unfortunately, our utility company does not support the process of reverse credits. While I am aware of the benefits of battery options, the inclusion of batteries seems to elevate the price of solar power to unprofitable limits. I am therefore looking at a system which reduces the electric cost during daylight hours. I am already using solar water heating and the thought of solar cooling is very desirable.

Carwin: Good luck with all that in sunny Jamaica. Keep us informed on how it goes.

I am not, generally, a proponent of solar as a viable alternative energy source. However, if one is willing to adjust one's livestyle appropriately, one should be able to develop a system totally solar powered, without batteries. This would involve cooking and bathing (assuming one requires hot water for bathing) only between the hours of, say, 11 and 3 (depending on latittude- further south, more hours available). One can run a computer on pure DC, and TV's, stereos, etc. One must limit one's use of modern facilities such as washing machines and clothes driers and irons. No air conditioning, and use more clothing, blankets, etc. in colder climates. Don't read books after sunset. Build your house according to the requirements of the local climate. Move the cows inside during the winter- it's amazing how much heat a cow can give off.

Yes, it is possible to live off solar only. The question is, what sacrifices are you willing to make to achieve this goal? I have actually encountered situations where a solar livestyle is BETTER than existing conditions...But, for most of us, such conditions would not meet our minimum requirements. If you want to use alternative energy, what sacrifices are you willing to make?

So it would appear to me that you recommend batteries since without them the PV or whatever DC electric power would not be 24-7. Imagine a Student at 12 to 24 who will need to have power for a computer, some bit of light, radio and a phone.

Imagine the powerpack he or she gets to keep them going during that time frame.

Now when I was young the only thing we got after nightfall was firelight and a battery radio, or the crystal set, and vodka and orangejuice and the stars, and whatever we did typical of passionate youth.

my typewriter was a mechanical thing and I had to give paper to the printer, or send things out by way of envelopes with stamps on them.

Still somehow I never really lived with a cow.

I did notice that people in Maine lived with their cows.

I myself do not want to live with cows.

Therefore I need black hoses on my NC roof and some batteries that recharge from the grid or a solar panel, and shit gas barrels.

What?

Air Conditioning! I can't live without Air Conditioning! I'll get a cow to run from methane the fire that runs the motor for the Air Conditioning!

Solar power is flawed. Except for at the poles where the sun shines too much. Since the winds blow too much. etc. What?

Transcendian

When you say "solar is flawed" are you saying anything more substantive than that most (if not all) power sources are flawed?

I wonder what power source you think does not have flaws. Or as you simply saying that solar IS flawed whilst other power sources HAVE flaws.

If you are saying the latter, then I wonder whether you have ever lived in a house using solar power?

Sometimes there are hidden benefits from walking in the sandals of the sandal-wearer!

Whether or not solar power stacks up financially against traditional coal, oil, nuclear etc supplied sources or whether solar power can ever meaningfully supply all the power requirements of the average person in the forthcoming decades are not the only considerations. The sun shines everyday. It seems wasteful and unimaginative not to use it to generate electricity. And, in some places like my mountain retreat in Spain) there are no other alternative methods apart from running a diesel or petrol generator all day or not relying on electricity at all.

cwarner7/11:

Super lateral response.

You are still talking about using batteries, though, to get the DC (converted to AC?) for the computers etc?

We have lived in a caravan in Devon UK without any electricity (or running water for that matter) for over a year while fighting for planning permission to rebuild an ancient cob and thatch cottage on our 35 acre small-holding. You are quite right - it is totally possible to live without electricity. If we had had the benefit of solar power during that time (even if only during the daylight) it would have been the height of luxury.

However, we didn't actually miss electricity much. People think they are much more dependent on it than they really are in order to have a high sense of well-being. We actually enjoyed our use of candles at night and the pleasure of getting warm by working during the day. All heating, washing and cooking was possible via a wood-fired Rayburn.

Given the acceptance of a "lower" standard of living (and suggest along with cwarner7/11 that it is "different" rather than necessarily "lower"), many of us could have perfectly manageable lives without ANY electricity; having SOME electricity via solar would be, as I suggested, an added luxury.

Whether or not any of my limited past experiences of living without any electricity (search google for wunjopress for my wife's book on this life-style: Shoestring Warrior, if you are interested in knowing what it is REALLY like!) and my present experiences of spending half my year with only solar- (and a bit of petrol-) generated power, I think it is quite possible to accept a change of lifestyle to accommodate the implementation of solar power. As I said elsewhere, this does not, though, fulfil the needs of hospitals, businesses and modern life as we know it.

And a final consideration: there is something very satisfying about knowing that your power is being generated in your own house. It gives another aspect to life and makes you much more aware of the weather, on the one hand, and of the actual power you use, on the other. Both aspects make for a much more interesting and involved lifestyle than the largely automatic and uninvolved way many of us live our lives in relation to the power we need and use.

Why between 11 and 3? If you heat enough water and send it to an insulated tank, You can have hot water all night. Why on earth is someone in Panama of all places so negative about solar? The main thing about solar energy is that people get wired on the idea of converting light to electricity even though it almost always is more practical to convert light to hot water. So the first thing people do when they mention solar is ignore 80% of the practical stuff.

I do not intend to sound totally negative on solar. In fact, I am a strong promoter of solar water heaters here in Panama. I also recommend and install solar electric in remote, low power applications (i.e., remote radio stations, irrigation pumps, etc.), very successfully. By the way, in many parts of Panama, one can go a couple of months at a time with inadequate solar insolation due to heavy cloud cover (imagine 10 days of constant downpour...)

One issue totally ignored by the solar crowd is that the solar energy is currently being used by the biosphere. When humans extract the quantities necessary to power, say, a small city (such as the installation I saw in Southern California a few years ago, with several acres covered by solar collectors), that energy is denied to the biosphere- nothing grows under a collector. No plants = no animals.

Furthermore, I recently did a cost analysis for a customer here in Panama to supply all his power needs off grid. At the rate being charged in Panama for electricity, the payback period was on the order of 50 years, on a system that was projected to have a life of something like 20 years. This particular customer wanted to maintain his rather wasteful lifestyle for free. When he saw the numbers, he asked, what about wind? I was ready for that question, with an estimate of how many windmills he would have to install, and he was not willing to sacrifice his garden for wind mills. He is still living on the grid, with his diesel-powered backup generator.

çs

Solar is a good technology for appropriate applications. Trying to replace fossil fuels with direct solar would be, in my opinion, much more detrimental to the environment. Alternatives I find attractive here in Panama are tidal and wave energy sources, but, for now, these are not available to the small home owner due to costs...

"One issue totally ignored by the solar crowd is that the solar energy is currently being used by the biosphere". I do know that agricultural land often gets too much solar and suffers from evaporation and drought. So medium density might even improve plant growth in lots of instances. I would be really surprised if in a desert situation there were no animals taking shelter under the instalations in the heat of the day. And some plants would, i imagine appreciate the shade. Also, your comment on wind power? I have seen cows grazing happily under turbines in Holland.

All solar energy striking the earths surface and retained is being utilized to maintain the earths energy balance (heat being part of that equation), or is being stored in the biosphere (or buried biological compounds). Only the reflected light (or an EM) that escapes the atmosphere is lost.

It is a bit of an over simplification of the facts to claim that agriculture suffers from evaporation, and drought has no direct relationship to direct local solar energy levels. Agriculture may on average receive more solar energy than it needs over a long period, but the energy is utilized during the growth of plants. ET is part of the process by which plants uptake nutrients and is driven by the passive effects of evaporation from the leaves, this is a temperature dependant effect, so they actually benefit from the ET effects. However, there are limits to the temperature that cells can effectively operate within, so plants have a temperature regime that is beneficial, Light on the other hand, at the levels we encounter on earth is always beneficial to the mojority of our food crops (more light is better, not necessarily more heat though). Excessive losses of water are really an issue of poor plant/water management. The water is not targeted efficiently to the plant for uptake.

With proper applications of water and crop densities, inefficient losses due to mismanagement of the water do not occur. Losses in between crop growth cycles are associated with preparation of the fields for planting. So the implication that we could constantly reduce the solar energy reaching the ground level and be as productive is nonsense. Now now is not necessarily due to excess solar energy, but a effect due to rainfall. It kind of sounds like you are focusing more on recovery of the marginal to very poor deserts to be productive for agriculture, and this has consequences to the environment in erosion and a further decline in soil quality.

Agriculture increases evaporation because spring plowing causes the black earth to absorb much more heat than the leafy dry ground cover that it would have had. Agriculture is also a major major water user, both river water and groundwater. If you draw down the level of groundwater, you necessarly cause drought. There is no water balance, ground water levels are going down down down everywhere in the world. There really are times when plants benefit from shade because the transpiration rates are reduced. There is only so much water. California diverts water from hundreds of sq miles for agricultural use. What of the drought caused in that non agricultural land? Out of sight out of mind? Light is not generally the limiting factor for growth, usually water and nutrients is. It follows that there are instances where you can reduce the light levels somewhat for some crops and benefit from the reduced water costs. People seem to think productive means maximum yield. Maximum benifit might be achieved with moderate yield, greatly reduced water consumption and the production of some solar energy.

Marcot-

I agree that solar water heating is a good option, although some of the commercial equipment prices are still a bit out of line. I have had good experiences installing solar water heaters here in Panama. An appropriate application of the technology.

With regards to impact on the environment, every living thing that I am aware of extracts resources from the environment and discharges wastes therein. Population dynamics of every species of which I am aware are such that, left unmolested, the species would quickly extract all of the available necessary resources and poison it's environment to the point where it would be uninhabitable. One would hope that humans would be wise enough to recognize this natural catastrophe, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

Whatever issue you care to discuss, whether it is the energy "crisis", global warming, air pollution, the water crisis- the ultimate solution rests with individuals adapting their lifestyles to accommodate a changing environment. I think one can say with confidence that the environment can be expected to change, no matter what we do.

Interesting point you've come up with, there. Here we are, sitting at the top of the food chain, with the only "predators" being viruses etc. and our fellow human beings.

Somehow, a balance has to be found - or it will find itself.

Don't any of you take this to mean I'm suggesting that we start enforcing population control - there are obvious precedents for this being an unworkable route - but can anyone suggest where this balance can be found?

Yes, it seems that humans are acting just like other species. We try to take over as much as we can and don't care about the rest of nature. It has worked well for nature in the last few millions of years because of the limited energy available to each species. That prevented them from causing too much damages even if it has happened that certain plant or animals expanded to the point of destroying their environment and themselves in the process. Nature normally responds to these wit a good disease , more predators or starvation. Human have made themselves mostly immune to those up to now.

The problem with human expansion is that we have found sources of energy that allowed us to go beyond the expansion that would normally have destroyed a species. We can survive and continue to expand in the environment we destroyed or simply move somewhere else. This has never been seen in nature as most species have relatively limited mobility. The ones that migrate on large distances do it at a large expense of their own energy.

Now, are we continue to act like unlimited wild animals or wise up and reduce our impact?

It also stores carbon out of the biosphere. Check the history of the Eocene period for what we might be in for. Also Humans might not be able to survive if CO2 levels go very high, quite apart from global warming is CO2 toxicity. 5000 PPM for a healthy human. I think it was higher than that in the dinosaur days. People are trying to claim that recent climate change is due to the sun warming up. That is rubbish. The sun has been gradually increasing its intensity since before the time of the dinosaurs. So if the sun was cooler then why was it hotter on earth? Isn't a more powerful CO2 blanket a reasonable candidate? And the dinosaurs were not digging up carboniferous coal to fuel their economys. So what do we have going for us? We are adding Carbon to the biosphere. They didn't. And we have a warmer sun. We can so easily cause a runaway greenhouse effect and wipe ourselves out.

Yeah and so what?

We need to design a means by which the CO2 will be extracted from the atmosphere to maintain appropriate levels and re-encapsulate the CO2 inside organic matter.

That is exactly what nature does in a daily basis. The problem is that we, human are harvesting life from the sea, cutting trees, creating various natural deserts in our cities. All this corresponds to billions of tons of life that was built using the CO2 from in the atmosphere. When we consume or burn them or simply let them rot, some of the CO2, methane and others compounds they are made of return to the atmosphere. When the total mass of life on earth (biomass) decreases, the carbon that living things are made of returns to the environment.

If we want to reduce the CO2, we simply need to let life build up its biomass again. Stop the massive extinctions. Stop eating...

Plant trees.

Why not just entrap the CO² into a form of sedimentary deposit, since this is actually where most of the Carbon on earth resides now anyways.

That is exactly what was done by million of years of animal and plants accumulating carbon. When they died and were consumed, the left over were buried in the sediments being washed away by rivers. Also dead plankton and fish settling down at the bottom of the sea were major contributors to carbon sequestration. Now that we are eliminating life on earth, we are destroying this carbon removal system.

All we need to do is to let life do its work and things will return to "normal" in a few thousands of years...

Anyway, this will happen one way or the other. If we continue this way, human life will be eliminated or greatly reduces to the point where the rest of the species will thrive again. Nature always find a way to get rid of pest. We are just a particularly tenacious one but my money is on Mother nature. A million of years is nothing for nature, just be patient...

Why bother, if we all do our best to plant trees and shrubs, especially fast growing ones, we can convert a large portion of the CO2 into Bio Mass.....

"if we all do our best to plant trees and shrubs" You are correct. The problem is that not enough of us are doing it to replace the millions of tons of fish that we remove from the oceans or the hundred of millions of tons of life we destroy with pollution every year.

I am a fervent supporter of tree planting, doing it myself on a regular basis. I also use some of my designs to reduce industrial and municipal pollution. The problem is that I feel that the forces against us are too strong. The majority of people will not accept to make the required compromises until it is too late.

Actually, in a way fish and other animals that breath Oxygen and breathe out CO2 are in that respect the same as us!!!

I fully agree with conservation of all stocks, but they actually contribute negatively to the amount of CO2 around!!!

As far as I am aware, only (some) plants have the ability in nature to convert CO2 to Oxygen as part of photosynthesis.....I could be wrong, my Biology lessens are more than 40 years ago and I do not remember everything!!!!

You are right that (almost) only plants (land base or phyto-plankton) transform CO2 to O2 and use the C in their body. Animal do exhale some of CO2 when we digest the plants at the base of the food chain. But not all the C gets converted ans some go literally to waste and will be buried in sediments. A lot of this C will stay fixed in the body of living animals and be removed from the atmosphere. Each ton of living thing accumulate many Kg of C. Some of this C will "float" around for a long before being released to the atmosphere or simply being buried in sediments when the animal / plant dies and decomposes.

If you are worried about CO2, get the various industries to stop burning the wast gas from their process in those big flares you see when driving by a refinery. I have seen thousands of those uselessly burning tons of fuel a day just because it is cheaper to do it this way. It takes thousands of trees to consume the CO2 produced by one of these flares.

Personally, CO2 does not worry me too much. It is simply a big political scam. It is easy to blame everything on it. Remember acid rain? This was going to destroy everything in the 70's-80's. We don't ear about it anymore. It is not "hot" anymore. The problem is still there. Fortunately, we have developed various technologies to greatly reduced the NOx emissions. The problem is that NOx is "passe" the money is not easily available anymore to install the cleaning equipment. Every body is concentrating on CO2. In twenty years, we will have developed a suitable technology to sequestrate carbon but the politico and medias will have found another crisis to scare us with and get our attention.

History repeats itself.

Yes there is a finite quantity of CO2 contained within earths atmosphere period. We can not add to or subtract from this quantity within the earth's atmosphere.

I do believe also that we should reduce our CO2 production drastically, actually doing it is not easy as the average person still wants electricity, hot water etc etc....

Sequestering it would probably produce a further amount of CO2 with the processes needed.

What we really need is to find out which plants convert it quickly AND are in themselves useful and EVERYONE should be required by law to have such plants (hopefully pretty ones!), depending upon your location of course, to "use up" the amount of CO2 that each family produces.......or as close to as possible......

I am sure every crop producing farmer will be miles ahead of most people and need not take part per se!!!

People in apartment blocks could have plants on their balconies and roofs......it would make our cities a little more attractive too.....

I do realize that I have drastically over simplified the fix, but something along those lines would be great!!! But from someone speaking with his tongue firmly in his cheek, who can then get away with a lot more than simple commonsense!!

Does anyone have details of what plant types grow the quickest and in so doing, use up a lot of CO2?

How much CO2 does a tree (of some specific type/size/weight) need per day?

A few tips would certainly help here, thanks in advance.

Does anyone have details of what plant types grow the quickest and in so doing, use up a lot of CO2?

NASA did a study about using plants as part of a space station air purification system one of the top CO2 suckers was the 'spider plant', its exchange of CO2 / O2 was very high but other more attractive plants are available too.

There may have been an event in the oceans in the past where it went anoxic. There was still life there but it was photosynthetic sulphur bacteria. Producing H2S in vast quantitys. This was one of the mass extinctions. Perhaps we should reconcider killing all the fish?

Actually, I believe 2 of the largest mass extinctions occurred because the oceans and atmosphere became too saturated with oxygen also, and not enough carbon dioxide and methane were remaining, but those were oxygen levels well below current levels of course. The planet froze solid over, the surface, for hundreds of thousands of years. So we should also be careful not to plant too many plants, as i would prefer the temperature rise 3 degrees rather than drop 3 degrees.

I would suspect that a analysis of the carbon stored on this planet would indicate there is more stored in geologic formations and sea water then the atmosphere and all the life on the planet. Possible more in just geologic formations than all the others. Trees and plants represent a short-term cycling process for the carbon. Biomass captures some carbon, but also decays to release that carbon (in some initial precursor that are much more effective for trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO₂). If you bury them very deep in reductive conditions you get a longer term sequestration as oil or coal, but you lose all the energy value stored in the carbon bonds. If it gets trapped as limestone, marble, dolomite, calcareous shales, etc.. you start getting sequestrations on the order of 100s million yr easily. Think of how much limestone there is on the planet alone. One exception is the production of cement which releases the sequestered carbon in the limestone to create silicates. The formation of carbonate sedimentary rocks can be accomplished by biologicals, but is also a geologic process exclusive of biologicals, calcium/magnesium/iron carbonates precipitates fairly easily. So we could trap the CO₂ as carbonates, as long as we have a reactant cation available that will readily precipitate with it. Calcium may not be the best choice, since we obtain it by degenerating existing limestone or calcium carbonates. Iron might be good since we obtain it from iron oxide minerals (preferrably not from iron sulfide minerals, since the release of sulfates would be worse than CO₂), and we have a lot of wasted iron that ould be used to generate ferric carbonates and then flush the slurried down a deep hole in the ground.

" ...we have a lot of wasted iron that could be used..." - any idea if there's anywhere near enough to make an impact on a global scale?

wasted iron?

Overall, I would not know the amount to make an estimate. I know that for something like reacting with carbonic acid, you could use iron slag finely ground, and other junk, it would not be a very fast reaction though. I know that about 6 % of our MSW we landfill is ferrous metals that we do not bother to recover (even though it can be easily recovered with magnets). We generate more than 250 million tons of MSW each year. We just need to make an effort to recover all those paperclips and ball point pen tips. Plus there might be some cost to consider for proceessing the iron to react quicker with the carbonic acid. I do kind of wonder if the iron carbonate would crystalize into a strong enough structure to use as a concrete substitute for backfilling and sealing old oil wells, and how long it would take realtie to size fraction of iron used. Obviously we would probably get a lot of rust out of the process also, which would be a inert waste in the process.

I am a bit "rusty" in chemistry, but fine iron would rust first I believe (using up Oxygen) before it would combine with carbon.......unless of course you use energy to enhance the process, which is of course self defeating!!!

If oxygen in the fluid was readily available. It should not require any energy to operate the treatment in a oxygen depleted system, of course you might get ferrous carbonates. So you would have to degas the treatment fluids to remove oxygen. Iron in water that is depleted of oxygen reduces into iron carbonates and sulfides commonly in nature, this is one of the main causes of the black coloration in reduced soils/organic matter (manganese being the other).

Cos you got to expend energy to do this? The whole deal with taking fossil carbon out of the ground is to grab the energy. If it is then necessary to bundle it with energy again, whats the point of taking out of the ground in the first place?

Very good point!

That is why using a life form to act as a solar captor to absorb CO2 would be a good idea. It would probably be the lowest cost solution for the overall system.

We need to invent some kind of life form that will be happy to live in a sun bathed environment, reproduce like crazy, and die to eventually form lime stone or the equivalent. These little guys will need to be happy to live there and serve as food so that they won't invade the rest of the planet.

That just sound like the description of phyto-plankton. It looks like nature already had this idea millions of years ago. Are we trying to re-invent the wheel just to compensate for our lack of discipline?

Still requires similar energy inputs, and a huge amount of land. You need to heat/cool the environments, pump in water, pump in air to be stripped, etc.. Also, you would need to regularly take the life and transfer it into a storage facility once it had trapped sufficient carbon, to stop decay and the release of CO₂ or CH₄, ideally pumping this slurry of algae or something down a deep well filling the old void space previously occupied by oil. Then need to compress out the water once in place. This would eventually turn back into oil i guess, but the carbon would be sequestered for a few 10,000 years.

This great machine and process already exists. It is called an ocean.

I am not sure that we want to turn the ocean into a huge slurry of algae with a slightly acidified pH. Plus the ocean is already at its peak equilibrium performance for absorbing CO₂, and we are adding more than it absorbs. Therefore we would need more fluid surface area in contact with the atmosphere (or stripping the exhaust sources) to absorb the CO₂ for the algae to use. Admittedly increasing the algae in the ocean would reduce the CO₂ in the Ocean driving equilibrium towards absorbing more CO₂, but what are the environmental impacts beyond just addressing our CO2 emissions (the ocean is a huge biosystem that contains more than algae). In addition, there are no environmental controls on things like temperature, so you get huge die offs of algae when there are temperature changes. These mats of dead algae decay and generate CO2 or CH4, this would not encapsulate the algae in a static form (CH4 would be way worse than CO2). The algae would need to be buried deep to encapsulate it, and sequester the carbon away from the atmosphere.

Actually you should have to expend minimal energy, since the formation of carbonates is favored in the natural environment. The energy waste would be required in preparation of materials that we already waste and landfill. One major hurdle that has always been a problem in the US is the futures/stocks involvement in energy. There is no futures market for recovery of our waste, this is why we use food quality produce to make ethanol instead of the waste from food production, there is no futures investment market for garbage (thus no means for the stock markets and banks, all major contributors to every presidential candidate, to parasitize production at the materials source). Thus such ideas would lead to consideration of the use of raw steel instead, as there is a futures market for produced raw metals, and the price would be to expensive and wasteful of the energy input into making steel. also, recovered junk metals have regulatory hurdles to address in the removal process, and is a variable source of materials.

The dirt is red-brown partly because it contains a lot of iron oxide. Could we simply mix dirth with the carbonic acid?

Yes, since all the primary minerals in dirt react slowly also to form secondary sedimentary carbonate minerals, but is would be very slow. Could improve the reaction by grinding the soil down to very fine particles, increase the surface to mass ratio and thereby increase the reaction kinetic. Fluidize the whole thing with carbonic acid. Would need to be on a pressure tank to maintain enough CO2 entrained in the solution.

How do yo produce the carbonic acid? Could we get it easily from a refinery smoke stack?

cabonic acid is generated by stripping smokestacks, it is just an equilibrium that occurs between the gas in contact with water and the water. So yes you get it from stripping exhaust. This is part of the carbonation in soda. The problem is management of the fluids after stripping, since they degas the carbon dioxide when the fluid is exposed to the regular atmosphere (much like opening a soda can). You would have to have some energy inputs to pump the water, but most facilities already do, or are in the process of installing scubbers to remove the other pollutants in their exhaust (they just need to contain the fluid after the gas is captured and react it with something before it is pumped drained outside to storage ponds. So you have an additional close treatment process after the scrubbing. Admittedly this would not work on vehicles.

We do work with a company that manufactures scrubbers. For the moment, they seem to concentrate on NOx reduction using ozone injection. Coupled with the water, it turns the NOx into nitric acid.

The carbonic acid degassing that you described above could explain the large amount of foam they were producing when the system was commissioned. I don't know what they did but it is gone now. I will send a link to this discussion to them. They probably know all of this but maybe they can turn this into a plus for their system.

Carbonic Acid will degass when the atmosphere in contact with the water drops in pressure, the partial pressure of CO₂ in the atmosphere drops, or the pH decreases, orthe temperature decreases. It is in equilibrium with bicarbonate/carbonate and the CO₂ gas absorbed in the water. So it usually just looks like a soda effect with the bubbles forming, it should not foam, but it may be the force that draives the formation of foam bubbles (There is probably some other agent like a sulfonate that is responsible for the foam materials). The specfic treatment with O₃ wont particularly entrap any CO₂, but the gas being at a much higher partial pressure inside the stack will reach equilibrium with the water by dissolving into the water to forma carbonates and carbonic acid. A low pH solution from nitric or sulfuric acids would limit the absorption of CO₂ though. This is really an everyday passive effect that happens everywhere, it is one of the reasons why we degas water when testing for iron in solutions. You can really just bubble the gas through water at increased pressure and it is entrained like a soda, this increased concrentration in solution increases the reactivity with cations and therefore the reaction kinetics, which is really what we what increased reaction kinetics to keep pace with the rate of generation.

Plant trees.

Actually there is something in place already! If you go to the following website you can look into it, instead of me trying to explain it to you here....

http://www.citizenre.com

Vito

The Flaw of Solar Power is the Focus on Solar Panels, which are inefficient. The focused mirror fresnel systems offer Grid Power. What you need is a battery pack for off grid minimums and then interface when you generate more than you use. The prepared Boy Scout, Explorer, Girl Scout will have a battery pack with AC inverter, from the age of 11 on. Of course the charges need to be coming from the Solar panel which will provide a good trickle charge. Good gas is available from the latrine.

So it goes. Happy Days.

Carrboro, end of the earth.

We have to look at the future of electrical power consumption. Because AC power was so easy to convert from one voltage to another, it won over the DC power as the main source available in the households and the industry. Over the years, every appliances has been made compatible to the locally available AC power sources. But the table is turning. These days, almost everything use DC as the basic source of power. We still add an AC to DC converter to connect it to the house grid but it is an un-necessary expense.

We currently have the technology for an all DC house and gadgets operation. Here is a list of the appliances that do an AC to DC conversion just because DC is not available:

Neon light fixtures with electronics ballasts (include light bulbs replacement). The new high efficient LED lights are DC powered.

Most new washing machines, dish washers, high performance Air conditioners and refrigerators, have a brushless DC motor with associated electronic drives.

TV, sound systems, computers and gadgets.

All we need is enough demand and the industry could produce all of these with a 48VDC supply. Having many car manufacturers moving to this voltage in a few years will increase the disponibility of these devices. Sub KW DC to DC converters are presently cheaper and smaller than similar performance AC to DC supplies.

Once most of the loads in the house are DC powered, it will be easy and less expensive to integrate solar, wind, and batteries together. This will reduce the payback period and eventually make it commercially desirable for the masses.

Even the power utility company could switch to DC power distribution (higher than 48V). They already use some DC segments between states and countries to eliminate the problems of synchronizing their networks. The technology is there, all we have to do is to renew the infra-structure.

Are you ready for the big change?

Because AC power was so easy to convert from one voltage to another, it won over the DC power as the main source available in the households and the industry.

Were it not that A/C were so much easier to regulate?

Your statement is difficult to quantify.

But usually, for fine control up to 20 years or so ago, DC was the prime source.....made by an AC motor driving a DC Generator if need be.....

With the availability of high voltage electronic AC control systems (of which I have had almost nothing to do with!!), this seems to have changed dramatically....but relatively recently only......

AC was preferred for years as one could transmit at high voltage over thinner wires and transform down to the required voltage at the other end.....

Andy, you are right. I am one of these power electronics engineer who design AC/DC/AC conversion products. We now do it easily up to the megawatts.

AC sources have always been more difficult to regulate and connect in parallel than DC sources because you have to control both the real and reactive power.

The reason AC took over is as you mention, the ease of step-up and down through transformers but also the relatively small arcing when being switched. AC naturally returns to zero twice per cycle helping extinguishing the arc in the switch. DC keeps going and can draw very large arcs. Have you ever seen the original Frankenstein movie? Remember the large switches and arcs he was getting? While this movie is not documentary or early electrical systems, it was representative of the type of switchgear that was needed to handle DC power. These scary arcs have pushed DC power out of the market at the beginning of the century.

Today's switching technology has solved most of these problems and we could return to DC power with a good gain in efficiency.

One interesting development is that at the beginning of the century, electric cars (DC) were better than internal combustion engine or steam and Edison was promoting DC electrical distribution. Later, the internal combustion engine and the AC power won most of the battle for about one hundred years. It looks as if we are going to return to electric cars and DC power distribution in a near future. Talk about returning to our former loves...

GA

Andy Germany:

I agree with you. I stated the subject incorrectly. I used the term regulate but meant measurement of supply for municipal billing purposes.

No problem as Alf would say.....

Dear Marcot,

I have looked up DC powered appliances intended for Solar Systems. The web is great, but when Sears puts these things in their stores things will actually happen. We need to be able to touch things in real stores. I am afraid Wal Mart will start selling energy systems and appliances before Sears.

It is the integration of systems to provide a standard product that is vital. Far as I know. I like the 48 Volt DC standard because it is used in Forklift Batteries.

It is good for independents that the major corporations are so ossified with vested interests and habits. Still standardization is a big deal for common usage to make what is environmentally advised, affordable.

A cheap inverter controller will be the heart of homes of the future.

The Tata motorcar model of having the dealership assemble the auto is brilliant, as was Heathkit.

The energy pack componet system will be like the component stereo systems we all bought as teens when I was such a thing in 1971, just graduated from High School and going to Canada. (I ended up in Rochdale College, a particularly radical place in Toronto.)

I really only know AC power well enough to have made my living providing it to sets. The standards are simple.

I am aware that the Thread Initiation was about Solar as Primary, sans batteries, but feel I am on topic as far as the evolution of the discussion.

The internet is the model for the integrated power grid of on and off grid if you integrate the SW radio prospects of a parrallel communications grid.

(anti spy laws prevented the SW Radio from being the Internet, as we have it.

-However it would be wise for us to be able to access through the SW our email, as we all need back up off grid power for modern urban life, which is past the tipping point for the majority.

I've worked with 120 and 220, and 480, from many boxes and generators. I really didn't have to know much, and that is the key to successful systems and standards.

My determination after working with Garthh on the Better Government Thread was that Technocrats ought to have status in the World Government, which is International Law, more now than the UN.

I would recommend to youth a major or minor of International Law & Engineering Degree these days.

Once Universal standards become common and understood in the streets, we will have better hope of getting through the bottleneck in a more advanced state, than as a backslide bunch of failures waiting for extinction.

What use to us as far as energy production is it if it doesn't run our machines, and ought we not make our machines run from what we find in our drawers?

We find batteries in our drawers.

Standards DC that are universal are defacto, but sort of obscure. Possibly Ohms Law ought to be printed on every electrical device, as are warnings on cigarette packs. Possibly the schematic and ingredients of every battery should be on it.

What cost would it be to just put coils of Black garden hose all over your roof, fill them, and then drain the hot water when you needed it for a hot shower? Simple systems from common materials, like garden hoses and their valving would move the salvation of science onward.

I didn't go through the whole thread, so I might repeat what has been said already:

You can use the electricity provided by solar cells to dividing destilled water into hydrogen and oxygen. Store the hydrogen in a tank for bad times. Burn the rest to power up a generator, and to power your (hydrogen) compressor.

This is not cost effective (the total setup will cost more than the energy you will get from it), is dangerous (there are laws restricting the amount of gasoline you can store at home. Imagine the more volatile H2) and difficult (H2 is very hard to store in large quantity) to do in large quantity. It is OK for a lab demonstration but is not commercially viable. We are looking for something simpler, something that is already there or almost but that we haven't yet recognized.

I think the fuel what ever form it takes could be produced or the production there of should precipitate the need of it. In other words when you turn the key instead of hearing a buzz fro the fuel pump you would first activate the fuel generator which would then allow then engine to fire.

Solar power can be 24/7 365 days it only requires a change in thinking.

Firstly the Steam turbine is a highly inefficient means of creating electricity.

Example citing Queensland Australia's biggest power producer Tarong Power Station.

Its 350 megawatt Steam turbine requires 550C of heat to obtain 160 Bar drive pressure.

Hydrogen requires 15C of produce the same drive pressure. That 15C must be 15C hotter than the gas in its cool state.

This means thirty times less Solar or other heating is required.

Domestic power generation requires a heat source of 5C increase.

Heat sinks are allready with us and replace the need for batteries.

The entire system contains no mechanical or electrical part aside a fully recycling Hydro turbine connected to a generator.

The box size of a 2.5 megawatt DaS generator is one meter by one meter.

It wires directly into household without adaption, and with grid connection as required under local law.

You need to study your thermodynamic. There are very good reasons why steam is so often used as a carrier for energy. The most important one is that the phase change between liquid and gas absorbs and transports much more energy than the equivalent temperature change in a gas. That translates into much smaller equipments to do the same work.

Energy density is the key factor in making a technology viable. Solar energy is not dense in its natural form. This is why we need large surfaces to capture it on an industrial scale. Wind and waves are a more concentrated form of solar energy with better production prospects. That being said, a few solar thermal panels on the roof in a simple system might be just what we need to make a small difference.

You are correct in that there is a limited available flux of solar energy to the earths surface, and it would probably never be suifficient to wupply all the worlds needs. Though the capture efficiency of solar systems is still fairly poor (currently i believe they are about 25% in some new cells, used to be below about 10%). You can increase the energy output just by increasing the conversion efficiency also, photoelectric systems have almost tripled in efficiency in 20 years. so you can now get about 3 times the electricity from the same surface area. If the research keeps working on it, the efficiency will just improve (it stalled in the 80s when the funding for research dried up as we transitioned from fueld efficiency to soccer moms SUVs)

Seems you are much the expert here in this Thread, and I am curious about the statement by one that batteries are not needed due to heat sink, which I don't easily accept. How did you see that?

I certainly appreciated your lines about energy density, since I was unfamiliar with the phrase. Typically from my aviation days I think in terms of BTUs.

When thinking of energy systems, I think of them as either On Grid, or Off Grid as primary categories with similarities and differences.

I have read of the molten sodium for heat storage, but can't yet see this as semi portable, and think it more for applications with the Fresnel mirror systems intended for the Grid.

It is terrible I am a bit fuzzy on the Company Global Spec profiled Masura? Asura? that was reported to be able through Solar mirrors and Fresnel lens to increase the density of the solar as to practically make 90 percent of Grid Power.

As far as my anti nuclear agenda of Transcendia, I am sad that this is not being touted for my suspicion is that regardless of the possible benefits of Nuclear Power Plants, their downside is constant threat of Atomic Bombs.

Spy Vs. Spy in Mad Magazine made clear that sometimes my spy wins, and sometimes your spy wins.

I understand that the Sun is not exactly a Nuclear Bomb, but it seems enough like it, and powerful enough to be adapted for Grid Power, especially if the recent Fresnel mirror system claims are true.

It was Eistein who said the problem with being a genius is your surrounded by mediocre minds.

Hydro turbines are connected to a generator, making them a electro-mechanical device, joining them together still keeps them seperate but forming only moving part.

You run liquid through the turbine not the generator.

Hydro turbine power is a measurement calculated 1 litre flow at 9 bar pressure per second 720 watts. Increasing pressure or flow rate increases watts.

Dont want to keep you from Kindy but sometime you might want to look up what your talking about.

Cheers

Peter

ΔpQ is would give you the hydraulic power available (using p in terms of Pascal, and Q in terms of m³/s gives a straight forward answer in watts, and 1 pascal=1x10^-5 bar)So how much water flow and at what pressure drop across the turbine, are you going to need to have 2.5 MW of power input to the turbine? Obviously there will be some efficiency losses in the turbine as it is mechanical and must have friction, as well as the transfer system and the generator, but discount those for the moment. My calculations appear to indicate that for a 261 psi (18 bar) pressure drop across the turbine (which seems like a lot for a turbine, since you we are not talking about the gauge pressure in the system but the drop across the turbine, and gauge pressure would be much higher, but for calculation example..), you would need 1,389 l/s of flow rate to achieve 2.5 MW of hydraulic power. Now as 80% to 90% efficiency would be very high, we might assume 85% just for estimation. You would then need 1,634 l/s to get 2.5 MW of electricity generated, or 25,899 gpm. That seems like a lot of flow for 1 m²

Hello RCE,

I not being educated may not be able to sufficiently answer your question, however the working used are those applied in the refrigeration process, though applied using different means and for different outcome.

I am reliant upon web search Wikipedia Co2 phase diagram and American University 80% efficient turbine at 9 bar pressure 1 litre per second 720 watts.

Higher bar pressure halves the flow rate each doubling of pressure.

90 bar pressure 1 ltre per second = 72 Kw. 35 litres per second 2.5 megawatts.

Pressure reduction is by cooling, firstly to liquid Co2 then depressurising that liquid to dry ice.

The Co2 never leaves the turbine but instead goes through its three physicical states with the turbine replacing that done in an absorption fridge workings re boiling to vapour then reducing back to liquid.

The turbine in situ also alows the Co2 liquid to turn to dy ice.

Cheers,

Peter

Wow, 90 bar pressure is more than 1300 psi. That is a lot of pressure, way over what most standard steel pipes are rated for, let alone copper of other metals. And this is just the pressure drop across the turbine. Since you must have some pressure on the effluent side of the turbine, the influent side would be equal to the outflow side plus the 1300 psi. You will need some pretty sturdy materials for piping, plus some serious seals for the mechanical components if you want to move a 1 l/s flow rate. Be mindful also that as you increase the pressure there is a loss in turbine efficiency as more mass leaks past the turbine without effectively transferring energy.

Hello RCE,

Autoclave material provides for pressure up to 9,000 bar.

90 bar is a lot of pressure but can be reduced by increasing the litre flow per second by larger turbine or greater RPM. The same power output can be acheived at 9 bar pressure 3473 litres per second.

720 watts at 9 bar pressure 1 litre per second minimum is output of existing turbines.

The only seal is that upon the turbine shaft.

Aside vapour and liquid Co2 movement within the turbine, the turbine itself is the only moving part.

Please note no liquid or vapour enters or exits the turbine but remains sealed inside.

Cheers

Peter

Yeah I guess you could increase the pipe thicknesses, go to non-standard materials, and reinforce the coupling/joints, or reduce the pressure to increase the flow. But then the question is with all that how do you fit inside 1 square meter? Increasing the flow would lead to much larger components, and greater pressures substantially increases the thickness of materials (oh and you should not use anything organic when using high pressure CO2, thus limiting to metals).

Stay away from pig iron, and move into the 21st Centruary is another way to overcome the prolem of fitting all into a 1 metre cube.

Lucky a lot of home owners dont want 2.5 megawatts but would prefer 10Kw.

A minimum of 9 bar pressure and 1 litre flow is required to spin the turbine 720 watts.

More spin more power.

Keep in mind that is 9 bar pressure drop across the turbine, not 9 bar pressure in the system ( i don't think you will have 0 gauge pressure on the exhaust side of the turbine). Dont really know about pig iron fittings, I mostly deal with steel pressure pipe systems for pressurized flows. these types of systems are usually rated for about 1/2 or less operational pressure below the failure pressure for the pipe, need some safety factors for transient pressure spikes. Actually, I am not sure where they would still use iron pipe fittings in the US. I guess many countries abroad still utilize such piping systems. However, strnger materials or thicker materials, it all raises capital cost. Usually thicker materials are cheaper than specialized stronger materials, and since every maufacturer want the cheapest materials cost per unit it is unlikely they are going to want anything that is very expensive. I guess you could manufacture in China or India, and utilize a much lower FS than would be acceptable in other countries, then try to sneak it through US customs without significant scrutiny. It would probably last a while, you fight a few cases of injury and damages lawsuits. You could probably get away with that for at least 10 years. Tobacco companies got away with selling a dangerous product without disclosure for 30 years, before they would admit any risk from their product and the government made them disclose the risk, and they still sell the product. Just need to sell alot and build up a war chest, use that war chest to buy senators, and it'll all work.

GA RCE.

And how big is the 25MW electrical generator producing 50 or 60Hz? Last time I checked, similar industrial units were the size of a large minivan.

How is DAS fitting the generator, the turbine, the controls, the heat exchangers in a 1m3 box? He needs at least 1Km3 box.

Carwin,

Your on the money, currently mains power is backed up by Solar and Diesel.

A switch flicks and your power is being generated at a different source.

Solar power is already stored in the very air we breath its called heat.

Co2 is a excellant gas for heating by air, replaces water and tonnes of coal.

Unless the air temperature dropped below your turbine generator settings, mains power would never cut in.

Cheers

Peter

Why would you think CO2 is better than water for energy storage and transfer? Doesn't water store more energy per unit mass or volume, and can't you get substantially more energy storage capacity from using the phase transition in water? Isn't the mass density greater for water? Also, isn't water much less compressible in a liquid state and therefore less energy is lost? finally, isn't water a much more readily available resource that requires less energy to produce/manufacture?

Regarding the stored energy in the air, wouldn't there be more stored energy in a solid surface or liquid than a gas of same volume, and isn't the energy transfer more efficient for solids and liquids than a gas?