Can the US go 100% solar energy?

No, I don't think we can do it just because the technology will never be at a level in which I can afford it. Granted, something could happen and my financial situation could change but in general, the poor will never be able to afford it.

I am working on solar hot water, solar heat and passive cooling but power generation is squarly out of my reach right now.

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Dahc.

Here is one in Nevada,look in the comments about Stirling energy
http://www.physorg.com/news10762.html

About Stirlings plans
http://www.abqjournal.com/AED/379626outlook08-11-05.htm

Pictures of solar collectors,pretty simple eh?
http://www.powerfromthesun.net/chapter1/Chapter1.htm

Kramer junction/Barstow plants
Nice picture here
http://www.flagsol.com/SEGS_tech.htm

http://www.eere.energy.gov/troughnet...er_calexpr.pdf
http://www.solargenix.com/pdf/CSPDOEJUNE2003.pdf

And remember not just the mojave,our deserts are right upthe middle of the state.
Then there is Oregon,New Mexico,Arizona,Utah,Nevada.

Will they cost money,yep.Will they produce power at current prices,yep.Will they be secure sources of power,yep.Are they safe producers of power,yep.Will they provide American jobs,yep.Are they safe from ever rising fuel costs,yes to a large degree.

BooBoo

I had the good fortune of being at a wedding recently and was seated, for the reception at a table where all were strangers to me. (DH was unable to attend). As fate would have it, I was seated next to a cost engineer specialized in alternate energy for one of the regional electric companies up in the Rocky Mts. (I was sorry my engineer DH wasn't there to pull more info out of him.) Anyways, I picked his brain for about 30 minutes (poor guy!). He was telling me that there is technology that is in final development phases in solar that is a quantum leap from existing solar. The application has a large scale focus (he didn't even care what individual homeowners are doing. His focus is for powering entire communities and regions). He was familiar with the Mojave scenerio and smiled, saying simply, "it could be done although I doubt it will." His comment was one I have oft heard - it's a matter of economics and control.

I asked him why it has taken so long for solar to become "of age." His comment was that (sorry what I'm going to say next, however this is exactly what he said), up until now only tinkerers have worked on solar energy. Now that oil is becoming an issue, not so much due to the current cost of oil as security drivers, energy engineering experts are focussing on solar research and development. In other words, a matter of motivation for the energy research community -- both academic and business.
Again, he just smiled and said, watch what's coming. When I asked him "when", he said 2-3 years out. (He even advised me to wait until then to purchase a solar panels/collectors because I will regret even the best I could buy in 2006.)

Running calculations using existing home solar panel numbers for a Mojave scenerio probably doesn't present anything close to an accurate picture.
BW

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BeckyW. "on the sunrise side of the everlasting hills"

The 10 mile by 10 mile PV pannel system sounds nice but stop to think about the distrubution of that monster............

How ya gonna get the monster load that new yuck city uses to them ... ??

And nyc's load demand starts long before the sun is up in the desert......

It sounds good ........but........

yes you can afford,if you are currently on grid and can afford fossil fuel power,you can afford large scale renewable power.Wind and solar plants are cost competitive now.Have been even before the latest fuel run ups.

Just need to get them built,and that isnt happening fast enough.But it IS happening where state governments have demanded it,like California,Nevada and New Mexico.

Why dont power companies want them?
They arent just power manufacturers,they are also energy companies,involved in coal,natural gas and transportation,ie pipelines.Why would they want to make their investments worth less in those segments,they dont.They will ONLY do it if its required or they have no other choice if their fossil fuels were to be depleted.

The tech for renewable energy is sound,no doubt about that,its the money structure of the power companies that is the roadblock,that and enviro claims.

Back to we need the political will to get it done.

BooBoo

Jim-Mi is right,solar isnt the total answer,but renewables are a big part of the answer if we demand them

BooBoo

what I find so ironic (and I'm sure it all comes back to $$, as thats all most people concern themselves with) is even the companies that try alternatives have so much negative to say about it.

for example, my father works at our local utility company. They just spent tons of money a few years back on setting up solar/wind systems to perform a feisability (sp?) study. Now they are saying that it will take over 100 years to break even on the system they setup. Something sounds fishy there.

Then again. They also purchased 1 15w solar panel for the bus stops around town at a cost of (get this) 20k each.. Now I've seen these and they're nothing much to write home about. same ones you and I can get for 3-400.. So maybe they just weren't smart enough to shop around, but my guess is they're slanting the numbers..

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"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." Rumi

It looks like the Kramer Junction plant is roughly one square mile (my metric - english conversion is rusty). So, the hypothetical 100 square mile plant would produce 35,400 Mw. That would still be short for California's recent peak. I still think conservation is part of the answer. Millions upon millions of A/C units have a gigantic draw on the grid.

We would probably install the pannel ourselves. The city, OTOH, probably has to hire professional installers, solar consultants, purchase a maintenance agreement, and insure against theft. Commercial pannels are also constructed sturdier than the ones we might purchase.

We got a lot more land than 10 miles by 10 miles,what am I missing on your point? Not being sarcastic,am I missing something?

And yes,look at refrigerators and what ridiculous energy hogs they are.Conservation doesnt mean doing without,it means going to better tech,I dont think a lot of folks really get that point.CF bulbs,great example.Why dont we send every household 10 CF bulbs with their tax refunds,lots of energy savings right there.

House design another excellent point.I was in a house built in the early 1900's from cement.A cool comfortable home on a sizzling day.Another example of proper use,or non use,of energy.

BTW,arent those Kramer plants beauties? Go by them a lot,really really awesome.

BooBoo

Say,I was up at I believe Whiskey Lake in NorCal,they had regular Big Lights on towers in the parking Areas powered by solar panels.Dont know the cost,but they worked like any other parking lot lights.

Looked like 2 panels,couldnt tell what size output,they were too high up to really determine by size.

BooBoo

What your missing is BeckW claim that this was enough area to power the whole country.

California's average hour consumption for 2003 was 27,250 megawatts.
Calculated from http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity...city_2003.html

At 33mw a square mile it would take 826 square miles to power California if you could keep them running at full capacity all day long.

The 33 Mw figure is for one section of the power plant. According to one of the websites that mightybooboo posted, the watage figure is roughly 345 Mw / square mile, so the figure would actually be closer to 82.6 square miles.

why dismiss the technology just because it cannot completely replace the current fossil fuel setup? What if it can replace 30 or 40 or 50% of fossil fuel use? That seems worth it to me. And as several people pointed out, there is more to this than just replacing energy sources. We need to make fundamental changes in the way we live. Better housing design, more energy efficient appliances, lightbulbs, etc. Mass transit, telecommuting.

I have always wondered how much electricity we would save if all those car lots would turn off their lights when they are closed. Why light up the lots like daytime at 3am. Not to mention the general light pollution.

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Ultra Lord is not afraid of chickens!

Just North of Dagget you have a swath easily 10 miles east west by 30 miles North south.
Thats 300 square miles easily of flat unutilized empty desert.Just in that one spot.
Easily.

Am I wrong Californians?

We are missing the boat bigtime not utilizing it.
Oh well someday we may have to,then we will see it.

Interesting stuff out there on storage of the daytime energy produced,but nothing but studies have been done.I believe they tried it a bit in Barstow but that concept they used flopped.Seems there is promising tech on that front too.

BooBoo

If there is ready access to water, then hydrogen might be one means of storage. I have also heard of compressed air being researched as a storage medium. Exess power is used to run an efficient compressor for large pressure tanks. The tanks, in turn, would operate turbines when needed.

Water pumped uphill during the day,runs downhill through generator at night.
Superheated rocks,liquid high temp salts,and yes,even batteries.
Hydrogen has pressure storage problems,as do the heated rocks and expanding pressure containers(high PSI problems with large containers),salt solidifies if it cools.

Lots on the storage front,but lots to be worked out too.And not much really being done to explore it as it isnt that attractive financially.

Why we are better with mixed power sources doing what they do best,like windmills still function after dark,hydro still flows at night,solar during daytime high use,that sort of thing.

Surely we can do a lot to reduce fossil fuel power generation,like suggested by caberjim,so what if its 30-40- or 50%,thats big help too.

BooBoo

In the late 1990's GM had the best electric car available. It was called the EV1 and it could go 140 miles on a charge. GM just didn't pull out of the electric car market, there was a lack of buyer interest. GM spent $1 billion developing this car and less than 800 people signed up for them.

Perhaps the low turnout was because GM would only lease the cars and not sell them. GM took this approach so if the sales were low they wouldn't be on the hook for maintaining them later on. When the leases ran out, only about 100 people wanted to buy their cars but GM refused and they will probably wind up in the crusher or in museums.

The consensus of GM and Toyota is that the market for a car you have to plug in is just not there.

Hydrogen powered fuel cells is the future.

Pretty hard to sale cars you dont build.1500 people still on the waiting list to lease when they gathered them up.
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We see famous celebrities like Mel Gibson (Wonderful man,one of my favorites.....BooBoo) and Peter Horton talking about the difficulties they experienced just trying to lease a car. I can attest to this from personal experience. I also tried to lease an EV1 and was flatly turned down by GM. To paraphrase Chelsea Sexton, former GM EV1 Specialist, as she talks about the barriers to leasing put up by GM, "A Technical Support Manager from Beverly Hills didn’t stand a chance."

We are taken through some of the corporate antics used to block the spread of EVs, such as dummy citizens groups set up by the oil companies to block the installation of charging infrastructure, and the antics at the CARB hearing where the automobile manufacturers were given all the time they wanted to present their case against EVs, while EV advocates were given just a few minutes or not allowed to testify at all.

We were also shown Automobile executives such as GM Communications spokesman Dave Barthmuss and John R Wallace, former Director of the Ford Th!nk Program, who presented the view of electric vehicles from the automobile manufacturers standpoint.

The most shocking part of the film is the scenes showing the conclusion of the protest at a GM lot in Burbank in March, 2005. The protestors had decided to put their money where there mouths were and offered GM the residual value for each of 78 EV1s that were being stored there, in the form of a check for over one point eight million dollars. GM’s response was to load the EV1s, tires squealing, onto transporters and haul them away. Protester Alexandra Paul tried to block the trucks with her RAV4 EV and was arrested. The final destination was the GM proving grounds in Mesa Arizona and a date with the crusher. My wife is still mumbling "how could they do that" under her breath.

In a particularly poignant moment the camera follows Chelsea Sexton as she is taken into the bowls of the Petersen Automotive Museum to see an EV1 that was donated to them by GM. "They’re my babies" she tells us. We find out that it is car #99 which was originally leased by Chris Trexler, and that it was disabled by GM before they sent it to the Petersen.

Like any good mystery, in the final moments the film goes through the various suspects and picks out the guilty party. I won’t spoil things by telling you who is innocent and who is guilty, I will just say that this movie pays homage to the Agatha Christy novel "Murder on the Orient Express" where each protagonist takes it in turn to stick the knife into the victim.

The film did leave the hope that perhaps plug in vehicles may not be totally dead as they talked about the current movement for plug in hybrids. EV fans should also watch for a very brief look at the new offering from Tesla Motors, an electric sports car that looked very like a Lotus Elise.

Chris Paine has crafted a marvelous film that accurately documents the rise and final destruction of the EV1 in an entertaining and enlightening way. For GM Shareholders, those who are interested in Electric Vehicles, have questions or concerns about global warming, dependence on foreign oil, air pollution or the environment, this is a must see film. Who Killed the Electric Car opens in Cinemas in Los Angeles and New York on June 28, 2006 and in theaters across the country shortly after.

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jim stack:
The new EVs made by top innovative companies like AC Propulsion are putting the automakers electrics to shame. Ranges of 300 miles on lithium batteries are becoming available. Efficiency in light , aero dynamic vehicles will surpass any of the older attempts.

I for one think we are better off. Options like plugin huybrids are bringing us closer to the ultimate EV. Options like biofuels are making it so EVeryone can come along and enjoy the ride.
16/Jun/2006
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Allen Helton:
Maybe I'm just impatient. But with Toshiba, A123 and others claiming to have batteries available now that are safe, many times more powerful than than lead acid, a fraction of the weight, with recharge times measured in minutes, and with carbon fiber technology available that could cut the weight of cars in half without sacrificing safety, what the heck are we waiting for? Vehicles with 300 mile ranges should be available yesterday and EV dealerships should be springing up everywhere.
16/Jun/2006
[25669]
Kenneth Quinty:
Let's face it. The reason we don't have EVs on the market now is because we need the major auto companies to make them and they have chosen not to make them yet. The smaller innovative companies can demonstrate 300-mile range technology, but that must be packaged in a real car with a real warranty and a real manufacturer behind it. The miriad of engineering details like windshield wipers that work, doors that don't leak, safety compliance (instead of low volume exemptions) are the things that make or break a car in the marketplace. The small volume innovators are just not equiped to deliver these things at an affordable price.
17/Jun/2006
[25691]
Hugh Webber:
I'm trying to get a local art-film theater to book this film before its scheduled showing August 11 in Winter Park, Florida. I'm reserving my 8/11 ticket now, because by then I'll bet that the showing will be sold out. EV advocates should prepare for the widespread public interest in EVs that WKtEC? will inspire, and be ready to guide the growing consumer movement that is already demanding mass production and sales of EVs.
17/Jun/2006
[25712]
Eric Gorodetzky:
Great Review! Thanks!
While I read you saying "what the heck are we waiting for? Vehicles with 300 mile ranges should be available yesterday and EV dealerships should be springing up everywhere." I dare say that if we even TRIED to open a single "dealership," as opposed to just manufacturing, like Tesla Motors and Tzero have done, we would find more legal and discrete political and industrial forces against us that Dr. Tesla himself would have relented to Mr. Edison, and we would be writing the same using DC! I am still waiting to buy a mainstream EV, and building our own here in ATL until such a day. I do not think any of us is honestly addressing the political and powerful industry that we are up against-and that gives us all the more reason to watch them fall in time like Edison's DC and GM's sales! Go EV!
17/Jun/2006
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