Gallery, Projects and General > Neat Stuff
Solar power
Fergus OMore:
I can understand all this water power thing. After all, Lord Armstrong of Cragside, Northumberland and 'Armstrongs Factory' had the first home to be lit by hydro-electricity.
However, there wasn't a sycamore tree- or any other tree at Nelly's Moss Lakes where the water came from. The works were not bunged up. Maybe now with the first rhododendrons which the daft man( on this occasion) imported from the top of Everest- or very nearly.
Where we come in still the hard nosed approach to things by saying- how much per unit has to be costed in for - voluntary labour.
A note of sheer frustration enters now. I have a forest- well, a lot of sycamores and horse chestnut trees around the baronial 'pile' here. I'm fed up being an unpaid, aged volunteer involved in clearing them- Any bright- and I mean bright ideas to utilise them and 'the oaks and the ash and the bonny birk trees in my bit of the North Countrie'?
Just a hint, fellas. I'm getting a new tee shirt for Christmas :scratch:
philf:
--- Quote from: Fergus OMore on December 22, 2012, 12:24:31 PM ---
Where we come in still the hard nosed approach to things by saying- how much per unit has to be costed in for - voluntary labour.
--- End quote ---
Norman,
It doesn't work if you try to cost in the volunteer's time. There are at least two professors and two doctors from Manchester University, a local councillor and several retired engineers from various fields amongst us.
Profits will be fed back into the local community. The investors aren't in it for the money!
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think they're still generating their own electricity at Cragside. A pity - some other National Trust properties have installed new hydro schemes.
Armstrong was a remarkable man - I recently read his biography. As well as his hydro scheme he installed a hydraulic lift for his servants.
Cheers.
Phil.
Rob.Wilson:
Hi Phil
Is this your hydro project ? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-17552817
Rob
Fergus OMore:
I was discussing 'what went on' rather than today- which is, of course, National Trust.
Lord Armstrong- for a non engineer was more than talented in engineering as we know.
I never 'made' Armstrong College or much else but I studied my 'trade'- across the road.
Oddly, I took top marks in cost accountancy- the reason,perhaps for a jaundiced view.
However, my pension still arrives from a rather large electricity supply industry.
Funny old world.
Norman
Lew_Merrick_PE:
Let me make some things clear, I am all for using truly renewable energy. The large (450 kW, I believe) wind turbines sold by Siemans & GE are something I developed for the (US) Department of Energy (DoE) back in the 1980's. (The story is complicated, but I saved the U.S. Windpower project from cancellation, put together a consortium of small companies, and built and delivered 987 units to DoE for less than (McDonnell-)Douglas Energy Systems' proposed tooling budget.) I also have designed, built, and installed wind turbine systems in the arctic and North Dakota. I have designed and built solar ovens for 3rd world usage, solar forges (concept demonstration & testing), and solar water heaters that have provided 65% of year-round 180°F water in Albany, NY. I have also participated in 3 PowerSat design & development projects. The potential is huge.
The problem is that the costs can also be huge if things are improperly designed or implemented. As noted previously, one of the companies for which I do design/engineering and development work is a (US, Swedish, & UK) government subsidized producer of amorphous silicon PV systems. They run about 12% efficient on average meaning that, at full tropical solar flux (i.e. 1 kW/mē) input, they produce about 120 W/mē of output. They cost close to $1500/mē to produce and have a lifespan currently running in the 10-year range. They also require (shall we say) not inexpensive power conditioning before their output can be used in standard AC applications. On a bright sunny summer's day here in Washington State, a good output from them will run in the 50 W/mē range. If you let them sit uncleaned here in the Puget Sound region of Washington State for six months, their efficiency drops from 12% into the 4% range.
There is a technology under development in Japan that, as of about a year-and-a-half ago when I sat through a meeting on their progress, is reputed to reach somewhat above 40% efficient in PV conversion. The manufactured cost for this unit was (at the time of the meeting) running about $12,000/mē with a lifespan reported to be 3 years. The costs will eventually be reduced and lifespans increased, but that was the state of the art the last I knew.
In terms of solar forge (i.e. power tower) technology, the problems still to be overcome are far from trivial. There was a really kewl approach being tried in the early-/mid-70's that still appeals to me -- there was a variation on a sun-flower developed that was reputed to be more than 80% efficient in terms of reflecting infrared (IR) wavelengths. The flower itself tracked the sun based on UV wavelengths, so a UV hologram properly positioned could keep the IR focus of the flowers on the thermal collector. The flowers themselves would close-up at night and self-clean their reflective surfaces. I have no idea what happened to that program. It was based in one of the Persian Gulf states and got "moderate" (i.e. you had to dig for it) coverage for several months and then disappeared from sight.
The world's energy consumption in 2008 averaged (about) 10 TW-hr/hr (10,000,000,000,000 W-hr/hr). That implies that peak energy consumption ran somewhere in the 30 TW-hr/hr range. If we assume that we can ultimately develop a system that is 50% efficient (the best you can do under the Laws of Thermodynamics) and that we are working with an input of 1000 W/mē that is available for an average of 12 hours/day. That implies that, to meet our total energy needs, we would dedicate 2*2*30,000,000,000,000/1000 = 120,000,000,000 mē (or 120,000 kmē) to that generation. That is a square (roughly) 350 km on a side -- and then you have to distribute this power.
To use a rather obscure analogy, rail transport is (approximately) 50X more fuel efficient than truck transport and (approximately) 200X more fuel efficient than air transport. Here in the U.S. about 20% of our railbed system is out of service due to lack of maintenance. Americans spend more than 300X the tax-dollars subsidizing truck transport and nearly 10,000X the tax-dollars subsidizing airlines as we spend subsidizing rail service. Add onto this burden the (well-publicized) hucksters (such as Solyndra) who have "fed" at the tax-dollar trough of alternative energy subsidies, and you start to see the real nature of the problem.
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