Solar Power vs. Fossil Fuels: Which Will Stand the Test of Time?

<...Solar power is theoretically an infinite resource...>

WALOOB. It only lasts as long as this star does.

Thats about what it is when no time reference is been given!

Anyway, most of the energy we use with the fossil fuels is solar.

Exactly. Coal, oil and gas are simply storage media.

What about night time? That makes it an intermittent resource, not an infinite one.

Ever heard of storage batteries?

Or Pumped Storage?

If the Sun goes out then I think we're done anyway, with available oil or not.

Fossil fuel is biochemically stored solar energy.

Fissionable material is also solar sourced. In a decade one fission power plant will almost fill a coke can sized container with waste which is easily and inexpensively returned directly to the sun.

I don't care which fuels people choose for themselves. I only object to some wanting to use the coercive power of government to prevent others from their respective free choice.

Convenience wise, definitely fossil liquid fuel. Next would be compressed gaseous fossil fuel. Next would come the solid fossil fuel, lignite, coal , or wood, the future fossil fuel. But all these are converted forms of solar energy. Only difference from actual solar energy is, that they are in a most convenient form, easily carried, and pack a large amount of power, while solar energy is quite a weak source per unit area, that too available in uncertain quantities, during specific period, though the total quantity is stupendous, almost 6000 times the energy needs of the earthlings. Since we cannot speed up the photosynthetic reaction to convert solar energy into sugars, carbohydrates and cellulose, the other alternative would be to provide artificial sunlight during the non-sunlit hours, so that the plants will have an extended sun fixing time, like working overtime. Second natural corollary would be to initiate research into converting Carbon dioxide of the air to elemental carbon, by using electricity from solar panels. Unfortunately, electricity has the shortest life span and cannot be stored as such, whether generated using solar or fossil fuels. Batteries use that much extra to make and usually involve toxic materials, such as lead, cadmium etching. It would be the best idea to use solar energy to electrolyse water to Hydrogen and Oxygen, use the hydrogen to burn, and produce heat and power, which in turn should be used for fixing it to static fossil fuel materials That time should not be far off.

How about pumped storage?

Is it possible to electrolyse Carbon Dioxide?

How about Cellulosic Ethanol? What happened to the process Verenium developed and then sold to BP?

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/verenium-closes-sale-of-cellulosic-biofuels-business-to-bp-102094058.html

They bought it so they could kill it. That's what every big oil company has ever done to all the cold fusion power, over-unity perpetual motion machines, carburetors that let cars get 4,000,000 miles per gallon, little blocks of unknown material that you bolt to your electrical panel that cuts your electric bill by 35%, . . .

the 4,000000 miles per gallon is a pure myth, it conked out after 3,8989 miles

Dear Sir Robin;

Well if the process was a bunch of hoke as you suggest - why did BP purchase not only the demonstration plants and the related Intellectual Property Rights for the tidy sum they did?

Obviously you didn't do your homework before commenting - matter of fact you didn't peruse the attached link - did you. To say nothing of reviewing BP's and Vereniums blurbs on the deal.

I am surprised that someone such as yourself can put cellulosic ethanol in the same box as 4,000,000 mile per gallon cars, little blocks of unknown material bolted to the electrical panel, or over unity schemes.

In any case I made a nice fat return on my Verenium stock that I think I held for a whole 3 or 4 days - turned around and bought some BP - then they had their little accident and while the suckers held on while BP tried to remember that cross-sectional area times flow velocity = volume rate - I bailed - turned around and bought some nice safe water company stocks that pay a fair 3 to 4 % dividend and show pretty good appreciated value so far.

By the way - just as a side note - In the US alone a 50 cent per gallon move in gasoline prices translates to about 188 million dollars A DAY at current consumption rates. Since gasoline has a very low short term demand/price elasticity a 50 cent spike in gasoline pulls about 1.88 BILLION dollars out of the US consumer market every 10 days.

Money talks Mr. Brave Sir Robin; in some cases loud enough to encourage investing and holding competitive technologies; and sometimes even the little guys like me get to make a little money on the deal.

Lighten up Clarence. Obviously you missed the dripping sarcasm pointed at all the conspiracy folks who believe Big Oil is responsible for killing all things energy efficient.

My intent was not to disparage the grassy fuel.

Cheers !

Honda supposedly has, or had, a Demo system out that involves a roadside Solar powered Hydrogen-from-water converter, that then allows you refill a Hydrogen power cell for a Honda car. Don't know if it ever went into production or not....

They had trouble storing an acre of solar panels in the trunk of the car

Origami?

"written by Jesse L., article writer for Bob Heinmiller Solar."

Not exactly an unbiased blog. No wonder there's no mention of potential more productive power sources such as fuel cells and upcoming nuclear technology.

Just the same old "fossil fuel is evil, solar is the saviour".

This stuff just drives me crazy.

Hooker <-- sorry for the rant

Can you get enough energy out of a solar array to pay for another one? Consider the smelting, mining, tech education and pay, background development, maintenance, paint, glass, shipping! and everything which used heat to melt stuff.

If not, then it is not sustainable. If yes, then it IS sustainable.

Next question. Associated with the first. When all the above are figured in, do you use more or less fossil fuel to create an electrical output than if you used, say a natural gas electrical generation plant?

If yes, then great. IF no, then why bother?

Don't bother googling this, there is so much money invested that you will get a hundred answers, all partisan. But those questions are the first of many.

Yusef,

"Profit" needs to be included in your list of necessities for sustainability. There's no way an industry should be sustained by gov't subsidies as it is now.

I'm tired of the fed's picking my pocket.

Hooker

Subsidies have a limited, but necessary role in any development. A saying in India bears reference now. "One can give the initial lift to a person trying to get up a Palm tree. No one can help the person to climb all the way" Renewable energy needs some sinking of funds, be it by the government, industry as money spent on R & D, or individuals by shelling out more money, etc. it is the ultimate result that matters. If earth has to be handed over to the next generation in tact, some measures are needed and the important one is to switch over to solar power directly.

In theory I agree with you.

Unfortunately, in the US, green power subsidies have been primarily used as crony capitalism tools and for political fundraising.

All you have to do (in the US, at least) is look at the hundreds of millions of US dollars that have been "invested" in green power generation and compare that with the success/failure rate of the companies involved, and look at where the public officials end up when they leave government service.

We've had a Department of Energy in place since 1975 whose stated goal is to make the US energy independent. Nearly 30 years later we are further from that goal than ever.

Hooker

the important one is to switch over to solar power directly.

No, not in my opinion. The several green powers can't provide enough capacity to replace the energy that we "need." I think we're going to have to go to fast nuclear power generation--NOT thermal nuclear. Fast nuclear is much, much better.

Despite chernobyls, Japan's nuclear plant disasters, about which continue to get alarming reports, how people support nuclear plants, whether fission, fusion, fast or whatever, is beyond my comprehension. When I say direct Sun power, I mean direct sun power! thermal or photo. Whether we have access for a short period or transient, solar will have to be accepted as the sole source. Then and then only, we can expect earth to be handed over in a relatively good condition, unspoiled by more carbon emissions.

Not so effective in places like jolly ol'England or in any of the higher latitudes.

Solar is THE source of much of our energy as clearly pointed out in earlier posts. It just happens to take different forms depending on how one wishes to harvest the energy.

What about geothermal power? There are locations on our earth where they make ample use of heat from below our crust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Iceland

Unspoiled by carbon emissions? Who is going the feed the plants if we stop all carbon emissions? When mother nature strikes lightning to a dry forest and thousands of square miles of trees go up in smoke, does the world end? Not hardly.

By a stroke of pen, we cannot stop burning of carbon containing materials, whether wood, or fossil fuels, or as you put it, natural forest fires. What is to be prevented is the emission of carbon dioxide by forcible burning of these for producing electricity. If the scientists agree upon the maximum carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, we have to stick to those levels, and try our best to keep them from varying too much. As far as nuclear power is concerned, whatever best precautions are taken, it remains a threat to mankind and should be contained.

As far as nuclear power is concerned, whatever best precautions are taken, it remains a threat to mankind and should be contained.

Some people are adamant that nuclear power is a threat, but it need not be. The newer nuclear reactors, the IFR in my opinion, makes huge improvements over the thermal nuclear power that most people are familiar with.

The trick is not to use MORE fossil fuel. The carbon in the air, water and forests now can burn happily away without adding any more carbon to the carbon cycle which fuels the global warming effects. As you pointed out, whole forests can burn without much effect to the global warming effect because it does not add extra carbon to the atmosphere except on a very short duration. Such would be the value of alternative fuels. Forests cannot store much carbon (contrary to a lot of popular belief), but I am certain that fields of hemp and corn would! Usefull plants those!

Seaweed is the current carbon sump...and the carbon dioxide ends up as frozen methane on the bottom of the ocean. Wait for the water to warm up a couple of degrees and see what happens. We should think about harvesting that stuff! But then, it really IS a fossil fuel.

Myself, I prefer Methane from cow poop. It seems much more pleasant (or is that peasant!) than fracking natural gas out of the rock or digging it out of the ocean floor. And it is remarkably easy to make and distribute.

Also, there is a lot of energy in wood pellets. The fuel of the future, that is! They can be manufactured out of straw, wood, branches, leaves, old newspapers, and with a little effort, food waste....you name it. And they burn in a very controllable fashion with almost no dirt or mess. Bacteria is killed by the manufacturing process. The reduction of landfill sites alone as you divert paper waste to the pelletizer has its own impact.

Really! So many options. I wonder why more are not being impliemented. It seems like a good business opportunity to ME!

Yusef;

Why all the focus on gas emissions and so little on repairing and preserving our planet's capability to support an adequate rate of photosynthesis?

The ability of Earth's Land and Ocean to support photosynthesis is fundamental to maintaining Earth's equilibrium temperature within the quite narrow temperate band that supports such a diversity of life.

Believing we can somehow preserve Earth's long term atmospheric chemistry (read - equilibrium temperature) without addressing deforestation and ocean health is nothing less than delusional.

I wonder how far out of whack the CO2 cycle can get before atmospheric O2 concentrations begin to be significantly altered?

I think that is what I was saying. Forests don't sequester much carbon....fields of hemp and corn do.

The blogs and warnings about peak oil have proved to be false. Not hoaxes...but just false. There seems to be plenty of fossil fuel. But I think fossil fuel as we use it now results in skewing the carbon cycle. It might result in global warming, though it MAY result in global cooling. Not really sure your one person commute to work is worth the ice age which is coming.

How would YOU increase photosynthis? Me, I would plant hemp wholesale. It would provide a nice cash crop of rope and cordage. Moreover, with plastic resin, it can make body panels for cars and houses. Its seeds are a source of antioxidants, and are tasty besides. If you dig the unwanted parts (leaves) into the soil, they form a good green manure. At present, the ditches and unused land are planted with everything from vetch to timothy hay. Lots to be said for Timothy Hay. Horses find it very tasty. I don't find it useful, and it is rarely harvested.

I personally think we need to start using the fast nuclear reactor--I favor the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR.) It won't continue to put out CO2 as combustion power generation does. Then the CO2 levels should gradually come back into balance. Many say that nuclear has too many bad features, but the fast nuclear reactors are a vast improvement over the thermal reactors that most people are familiar with.

good luck selling that idea.

Yusef;

You stated - "Forests don't sequester much carbon....fields of hemp and corn do."

As you can see from the following - there is some disagreement here. This indicates that forest are the largest processor of CO2.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/0715/Study-Forests-absorb-much-more-greenhouse-gas-than-previously-known

"Earth's forests, it turns out, play a dominant role in absorbing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, acting like a giant sponge and soaking up on average about 8.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, the new study led by the US Forest Service shows - or about one-third of fossil fuel emissions annually during the 1990-2007 study period. In the end, about 2.4 billion tons of solid carbon were locked away in wood fiber each year over that period - a surprise to scientists."

Always new information....this was a positive one. I like the link. I remember somebody asking me a couple of years ago..."So how do you stop global warming. Plant some trees?" A snarky question at the time, but you know, there is a lot to be said for that. The problem is that trees grow so slowly that their carbon sequestering takes years as opposed to the speed of some of the other crops. I selected corn and hemp. I wish I had not since corn is such an annoying plant due to Monsanto intervention. Prehaps barley would have been a better choice for my rant. Some poeple don't like canola oil, but this Canadian product produces oil which can burn in diesel engines without expensive modifications.

Because of rot on the forest floor, a LOT of CO2 is given off. They are the largest processors simply because they ARE the largest. Considering a quarter of the globe is still covered in forests, I cannot argue about it being the largest. It is helpful to check on who sponsored the study...the US Forest Service has a justified vested interest in this!

I don't think this is a disagreement. Fields of corn and Hemp also use up fossil fuel, particularly in the harvesting. But acre for acre, they are twenty times more efficient than a stand of trees.

Using distributed power generation does in fact reduce much of the parasitic losses and that is something to cheer about. Now, here comes the laws of unintended (or unknown) consequences: Grid Stability.

Large percentages of intermittent power generation will make our grid appear as though we live in third world country unless we take concrete measures to mitigate the problems.

Natural gas plants are supplanting many older coal plants. Methane of course produces less CO2 per kWhr than coal and the plant operators don't have all the headaches that go along with the scrubbers required for coal plants. Now that NG is getting to be so cheap, the watt makers have few alternatives to stay competitive.

We have to be very careful when solar arrays begin to comprise a significant portion of the generating base. Grid stability will be seriously at risk. Wind farms can pose similar risks to the stability of the grid. Take a look at this potential future scenario:

http://tdworld.com/generation-renewables/solar-will-shine-brighter-smarter-inverters

If you look at the slew rate requirements on the base load generation (the RED line), you can run into serious trouble. Gas peaking units are able to handle this quite well because the speed in which they can be brought on and off line.

Here are some other articles alluding the potential problems that lie ahead. 99.999% of the public have no clue. Neither do our politicians whose only mental nourishment comes from sound bites by those screaming the loudest.

http://tdworld.com/generation-renewables/grid-friendly-utility-scale-pv-plants

http://tdworld.com/generation-renewables/can-smart-solar-keep-sun-shining-pv

Wind has its problems too, but at least it has rotating inertia in its favor, which solar has none. Much of our grid stability depends upon the energy stored in synchronous rotating machines.

http://tdworld.com/generation-renewables/wind-power-making-it-play-nice-no-breeze?page=1

So the ironic thing is that those gas generating units you disdain, are the very thing that will help us use more wind and solar generated power.

Cheers !!

Superb links Robin! Thanks.

Dear Sir Robin;

Can pumped storage be used to enhance grid stability?

Can it be done economically if the reservoirs can be muti-purposed; IE aqua culture - irrigation - etc.?

It appears there are Giga-watt plants operating through a gravitational potential of less than 150 meters. What does this say for the potential of using this technology for grid stability and energy storage?

Pumped storage is an excellent way to stabilize the grid because it can easily be cranked up to handle peak loads. The problem is the most effective pumped storage systems use water, and unfortunately, there are not a lot of suitable locations to efficiently pump water up to a storage pond. Niagara has quite a nice set up.