Worldwide Solar Energy

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_formula_for_calculation_of_line_loss

milo

Super conductivity at high temperature could be a solution for it but I do not think the concept as realistic. It could generate too much dependency and some are reluctant to it.

You have high hopes on solar energy it seems. Is there a sigle country in the world which could hrness 100% electricity for all range needs including HT lines? Petty uses like lighting, solar pumps etc can not answer the total need for electrical energy.

Your idea seems great, but even for the day hours no one could feed 100% solar power for internal needs and how come lending to neighbours?

Solar will always remain a lucarative theoritical option and what is best achieved by us, is the exploitation for agriculture.

If you mean using biomass produced by agriculture to produce electricity, there's not enough land to produce that much biomass. If every biomass on the face of the earth was burned to produce electricity, in six years there would be no more biomass.

Welcome to Easter Island!

milo

.....carved a nietzsche niche for themselves did they?............

T Funny!

I can just see the guy saying "We need to cut this last tree down so we can erect this statue to bring bad juju on the valley tribe. Then we will prosper."

milo

Hey........I've got similar type tribe living next door to me. Anticipating onset of cannibalism anyday now. Recipes, anyone?

Natural solar power absorbtion by plants and crops[photosynthesis] is the use I mentioned. without which we all shall perish without food.

Good idea but getting your countries on board is another thing. I am all for doing what we can to harness more electricty and have it coming from a never ending supplier.

I think we should come together and find the way to harness Lightning strikes, as you see below it would more than likely supply the whole world with some left over, but some say there is not much energy in lightning to make it worth while to harness.

I would think there would be plenty, but again how could you store enough for future use?

In the atmospheric electrical discharge, a leader of a bolt of lightning can travel at speeds of 60,000 m/s, and can reach temperatures approaching 30,000°C (54,000°F), hot enough to fuse soil or sand into glass channels. There are over 16 million lightning storms every year.

An average bolt of negative lightning carries an electric current of 30 kiloamperes (kA), and transfers a charge of five coulombs and 500 MJ of energy. Large bolts of lightning can carry up to 120 kA and 350 coulombs.^[13] The voltage is proportional to the length of the bolt.

An average bolt of positive lightning carries an electric current of 300 kA or about 10 times that of negative lightning.

This map is of the frequency of strikes in different area's;

^jhunter

The link you gave brings a very interesting information: a AA battery has 2890 mAh and this is equivalent to 10,404 C. Now I do not know if the "," is european or american (which makes a ratio of 1000), let us assume it is "european" then a simple battery contains about 2x5 C thus 2x a strike charge! We need a LOT of AA to power a small house and a double lot of strikes. There have been trials to harvest strikes energy with metallic nets and capacitors + lead batteries (it was long ago, nothing new under the sun) but results were not satisfactory. the problem is double on one side the high voltage differences and on the other the very short time. May be in some future it will be possible with technology advances.

Very informative...thanks!

I had an interesting discussion with two physics professors about lightning, and they claimed that nearly all lightning strikes originate from the ground. Observing lightning in the sky does not seem to justify that argument. Since you appear to be interested in this topic, would you give your opinion?

Its kind of like missiles. Surface to air, air to air, and air to land or air to ship; in the cas of lightning, Cloud to ground, ground to cloud, and cloud to cloud.

Heres a nice link with good underlying references:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/lightning6.htm

There are some other descriptions too like ball lightning but I gave you the main taxonomy.

You are indeed a Scienceprof as you are accepting your observations of cloud to cloud lightning to test the professors broad generalization.

If there is onl yone type of lightning, your observations disuade their theory. But if there can be more than one kind of lightning, then your observations and their theories are describing 2 diffeent phenomena.

This is the fun part of Science. thanksfor the query.

milo

I believe both happen frequently, 'air to ground' and 'ground to air'.

For starters Dan Breed, NCAR Meoscale and Microscale Meterology, says that lightning detectors show an average of about 20 million cloud-to-ground flashes per year across the United States. Now my question is, does these detectors actually prove rock solid that the lightning originated in the clouds? In the past we would take long exposures of the sky during storms and they seemed quit a bit to start in the clouds and then start there descent to the ground.

NOAA seems to agree, they believe the following;

GROUND FLASHES
There are two categories of ground flashes: natural (those that occur because of normal electrification in the environment), and artificially initiated or triggered. Artificially initiated lightning includes strikes to very tall structures, airplanes, rockets and towers on mountains. Triggered lightning goes from ground to cloud, while "natural" lightning is cloud to ground.

Terms used to describe ground flashes include forked lightning, which shows branching to the ground from a nearly vertical channel; ribbon lightning, when the horizontal displacement of the channel by the wind appears as a series of ribbons; and bead lightning, when the decaying channel of a ground flash will sometimes break into a series of bright and dark spots. Ball lightning is a luminous sphere whose physics is not well understood.

GROUND FLASHES
Natural	Triggered

Cloud-to-ground lightning (CG's)
A channel of negative charge, called a step leader, will zigzag downward in roughly 50-yard segments in a forked pattern. This step leader is invisible to the human eye, and shoots to the ground in less time than it takes to blink. As it nears the ground, the negatively charged step leader is attracted to a channel of positive charge reaching up, a streamer, normally through something tall, such as a tree, house, or telephone pole. When the oppositely-charged leader and streamer connect, a powerful electrical current begins flowing. A return stroke of bright luminosity travels about 60,000 miles per second back towards the cloud. A flash consists of one or perhaps as many as 20 return strokes. We see lightning flicker when the process rapidly repeats itself several times along the same path. The actual diameter of a lightning channel is one-to two inches.

larger image

A typical cloud-to-ground flash is a negative stepped leader that travels downward through the cloud, followed by an upward traveling return stroke. The net effect of this flash is to lower negative charge from the cloud to the ground. Less common, a downward traveling positive leader followed by an upward return stroke will lower positive charge to earth. These positive ground flashes now appear to be linked to certain severe storms and are the focus of intense research by scientists

So the answer is both I believe, Cloud-to-ground lightning comes from the sky down, but the part you see comes from the ground up. A typical cloud-to-ground flash lowers a path of negative electricity (that we cannot see) towards the ground in a series of steps. Objects on the ground generally have a positive charge. Since opposites attract, an upward streamer is sent out from the object about to be struck. When these two paths meet, a return stroke zips back up to the sky. It is the return stroke that produces the visible flash, but it all happens so fast - in about one-millionth of a second - so the human eye doesn't see the actual formation of the stroke.

Take a look at this model;

By the way the pic you have in your response has 3 very distinctive things about them other than they are all 3 vertical, each has a very different chemistry makeup; Oil Rig Tower (metals), the Tornado (organic matter) and the Lightning Strike (energy).

jhunter

If you're a lightning researcher, you probably have already seen:

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/02/gallery-lightning/

Originating from here:

http://www.ztresearch.com/

The guy's from my alma mater. Sometimes big (or really cool) things happen in out-of-the-way places.

If you haven't already seen his work, you're welcome!

Thank you very much for these links, very cool indeed.

jhunter

Lightning, being caused by static build-up in the atmoshpere, is a derivative of solar energy. In fact, it's a close relative of wind. Just sayin'...

But that leads me to suggest that lightning/static should be harvested by wind turbines. If the designers of those things are smart, they've already covered this in some way. Windmills are the tallest structures around, parts of them certainly conduct electricity and they probably generate significant static themselves.

My very shallow understanding of electrical engineering tells me that a capacitor is the only device that can "instantly" capture electrical energy, and that you'd need one big-ass capacitor.

I happened to hear Patrick Kennedy on the radio last night, addressing green energy. He's a politician and activist, so his assertions include the usual "spin."

http://kcpw.org/blog/local-news/2010-03-31/kennedy-outlines-impediments-to-green-energy-economy/

I'm firewalled from listening, but I recall him asserting that the sun pours enough energy into a slice of the Sahara desert to power the Earth and that there's enough wind in Texas plus the northern Plains states of the US to meet America's energy needs.

The problem is the grid, and the distorted market in the US and other applicable places. We can't transmit the power from windmills in farm fields or solar panels in deserts to cities hundreds of miles away. Kennedy said (I think) that we subsidize oil companies over $1T per year. Not just in the US but to some extent every developed country, our entire infrastructure is finely tuned for coal and oil, and we need to rewire it.

I know what you mean by Kennedy and the spin, but there are bits and pieces of somthings that are the truth and have value to them from time to time.

The comment,

" I recall him asserting that the sun pours enough energy into a slice of the Sahara desert to power the Earth and that there's enough wind in Texas plus the northern Plains states of the US to meet America's energy needs."

is interesting and I will see what I can find out about it and see where this info was come up with and by whom.

Thanks for the link and info.

jhunter

You could do much worse than start with this.

http://www.amazon.com/Direct-Suns-Energy-Farrington-Daniels/dp/B000H6PKMU
Its an oldie but goodie.

Dr Daniels said that there is enough incident solar energy (actually he said insolation)falling on the roof of a house in north america to meet that home's energy needs. Every day. Even the cloudy ones.

Our problem is economics to migrate to a non combustion solution.

Our grid is based on large quantities being added and none stored, solar energy and wind are smaller quantities and require storage.

I have a friend whose earth sheltered house in Michigan has been off grid since the 1980's. he built to a different spec than the majority of us have.

milo

Two informations:

-several European companies start a project with huge solar power harvest in the sahara which will (it is expected) cover 15% of whole Europe in about 20 years.

- according to different sources the requirements for advance countries as USA is about 10..11 KW per person (all consumers private and industrial together). The sun "pours " about 1.74 10^14 kW on earth and the needs are about 10^4 times less! The growth is estimated at about 2%/year which means it will double every 35 years. As you see it still some reserves so that it will not be necessary to compromise the crop grow areas. In fact due to many reasons as absorption in the atmosphere and clouds only about 45% reach the surface but even in this situation there is enough.

I rather suspect when you look at the worldwide energy consumption and then the watts/m² of sunlight, you can't get there from here. Unless of course the whole world becomes Amish.

To generate enough electricity to power the US, for example, a single solar farm would need to be larger than that state of Ohio.

Now, I live in Ohio and am not opposed to shutting the whole state down and covering it with solar panels, but I think a couple people might be.

The problem is large scale solar farms, or wind farms for that matter, have a huge NIMBY value so you have to break them up into smaller scales and spread them across the land.

Your idea has a sound base, but my proposed revision to your idea is rather than invest the time and money in building solar farms with today's technology, take those resources and invest a sincere effort into advancing solar cell technology.

You see, we have plenty of solar farm real-estate that is not being used right now. Also, converting this existing real-estate into solar panel use has a negligible NIMBY effect... existing roof-tops. The problem however, is today's solar panel technology does not allow us to take advantage of this existing space for many reasons, just a few are:

Cost - Solar panels are not cheap and the individual owners of those structures would not be willing to foot the bill, so who is going to pay for it? Plus, most structures are owned by individuals or companies not in the electrical generation/distribution business. I mean how would you react even if the local electric company said, hey were going to install some solar panels on your roof. We'll pay for it, we'll do the work, and we'll even maintain them... there is no cost to you. How would you react? What would you say? Would you let them? Would you charge them? I mean you own the property and now someone else wants to use your property to generate a billable commodity. I would think that as soon as the first person tried to make a buck off of it, then everyone will.

Weight - Solar panels that have a high enough electricity to surface area ratio to make them viable are not light and most structures are not designed to accept this extra weight without additional support required.

Storage/Distribution - Most structures are designed to be points of end use, not put electricity into the grid. Granted, most of us on this forum know how to make the needed changes to adapt our current dwelling in order to allow it to put electricity back into the grid, but we are the minority.

So, if we can tackle these three main points... the roof top become a viable location to install solar panels and there are A LOT of roof tops across the world.

So... what about investing in solar panel technology and material science to develop a light weight, easy to install, cheap solar panel, maybe even make it a flexible tarp-like system that you drape over your roof and tac down? Or solar panel shingles. When it comes time to re-shingle your roof, use the latest and greatest solar panel shingle... the specifically design roofing tacs act as interconnects.

Make it cheap enough so that the individual owners get a 3 to 5 year payback, light enough so no structural changes are required, and the electric company provides the installing of the devices needed to distribute back to the grid so that all the owner has to do is buy, install, and plug in.

And the best part, the electricity generated by the panels is not coming from a Utility company owned solar farm but rather individual building owners, and that's where the profits go... back to the people.

Renewable Energy and Consumer Economic Stimulus... win-win... just need the technology to develop a consumer-friendly roof-top solar collection system.

Bottom line is if you make renewable energy consumer friendly and direct the profits of it's generation to the general public, you will overcome most of the socially induced hindrances to its implementation.

JavaHead

http://www.buildingonline.com/news/viewnews.pl?id=9080

http://investor.shareholder.com/ovonics/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=455954

With many small distributed sources, we need a smarter grid. and distributed storage.

milo

Thanks for the links, didn't even know that technology was out there. And, I certainly agree with your statement about the grid. But what better way to spur those changes then through demand? I guess it comes down to determining which is the cart and which is the horse

Isn't that called "agriculture"?