energy question: is it possible, i mean, IS THERE ENOUGH sun/wind, that if..

[zanejohnson]

money wasn't an issue, could we put in place, enough solar/wind power facilities that we could produce the amount of power we need to run this country? and if not, can we improve these technologies so that they could?


and if they can, WHY THE HELL ARENT WE DOING THIS.. i mean we know this now, oil WILL RUN OUT, maybe not in 50 years, maybe not 100, but it will.. i just heard on cspan that the last year we discovered more oil, than was produced, was 1984, so since then we've been refining more oil a year, than we've found.. so we're def. running out...

i mean seriously this is the kinda crap that will RUIN US. developing renewable resource energy, this should be TOP PRIORITY. why is it not? is it just money/power stopping it?

 

[SSSnail]

Today's episode - Deep thoughts, by Zanejohnson.

 

[Soundmanred]

Could we put in place enough solar/wind power facilities that we could produce the amount of power we need to run this country?

No.

 

[TheLonelyPhoenix]

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

SimCity says its only like 20 years away, no sweat.

 

[zanejohnson]

No.

so there's just not enough sun/wind?

 

[darkxshade]

because money IS an issue

 

[darkxshade]

oh and the night pretty much stopping you too

 

[lxskllr]

so there's just not enough sun/wind?

Sure, there's plenty of sun and wind. We don't have an efficient way of collecting/storing it at this time.

 

[rudeguy]

Sure, there's plenty of sun and wind. We don't have an efficient way of collecting/storing it at this time.

sure we do

 

[zanejohnson]

Sure, there's plenty of sun and wind. We don't have an efficient way of collecting/storing it at this time.

so we need to improve this technology, how hard can it be?

 

[zanejohnson]

oh and the night pretty much stopping you too

surely there's gotta be a way to store this power...

 

[zanejohnson]

because money IS an issue

but this would obviously pay for itself...

its like buying a home vs renting.

 

[CycloWizard]

so we need to improve this technology, how hard can it be?

*facepalm* See second quote in my sig.

 

[zanejohnson]

*facepalm* See second quote in my sig.

dont give me that, we didnt have electricity a hundred years ago... we got large hadron colliders but storing powers impossible? come on now.

 

[lxskllr]

so we need to improve this technology, how hard can it be?

I'd say extraordinarily difficult If it were easy, we'd be doing it.

 

[PottedMeat]

dont give me that, we didnt have electricity a hundred years ago... we got large hadron colliders but storing powers impossible? come on now.

apply second quote again :awe:

 

[zanejohnson]

apply second quote again :awe:

Im watching cspan right now, Daniel Weiss senior fellow and director of climate change just said there are a number of European countries now deriving THE MAJORITY of there power from concentrated solar plants and off coast wind projects????

 

[zanejohnson]

I'd say extraordinarily difficult If it were easy, we'd be doing it.

or is that big oil's in bed with our government??

 

[BUTCH1]

Wind/solar could be used as a supplement to traditional methods of generating electricity but once the sun goes down, that's it for the day, same with wind it's not going to reliably blow so one could count on it to power the grid 24/7. It would be nice though to use these to generate at least some of the power we use so fossil fuel usage could be cut considerably.

 

[Minjin]

dont give me that, we didnt have electricity a hundred years ago... we got large hadron colliders but storing powers impossible? come on now.

dont give me that, we doubled the average human lifespan in the past two hundred years... we got advanced healthcares but immortality impossible? come on now.

 

[Modelworks]

Solar is the most widely available but it is not economical at all. For me it would cost $60K to use solar and my return on that investment would not happen for 30 + years .

Wind is great but doesn't work everywhere. Wind farms can be built in prime locations and then route that power to where it is needed but there is a loss due to transmission lines that makes it less economical the further you go . One way around this might be to construct new transmission lines that are super cooled to lower the resistance. Tesla proposed this system in the early 1900's but for different reasons. He filed a patent that involved placing hollow copper piping inside boxes in the ground that would then be filled with water. Inside the pipe would circulate refrigerant freezing the water which makes it an excellent insulator for electricity and using AC power on the pipes to carry the current needed. Drop the temps low enough and you cut resistance and can send the power longer distances.

Any of this cost money though and that is something nobody has now.

My solution to a lot of the home power issues is human power ! We have a lot of overweight , poor health , no exercise people so lets put them to work. An exercise bike can more than power a tv or home theater if connected to an alternator. Let people start to pedal their way to more power !

 

[zanejohnson]

Wind/solar could be used as a supplement to traditional methods of generating electricity but once the sun goes down, that's it for the day, same with wind it's not going to reliably blow so one could count on it to power the grid 24/7. It would be nice though to use these to generate at least some of the power we use so fossil fuel usage could be cut considerably.

so really, we just gotta figure out how to store it...

so what if we had solar all over the world, i mean, we have daylight somewhere always, so theoretically, we could have solar power.. but that's not feasible..at least currently

we just gotta store it, there's gotta be a way...

 

[zanejohnson]

dont give me that, we doubled the average human lifespan in the past two hundred years... we got advanced healthcares but immortality impossible? come on now.

so whats to say we can't double it again in the next two hundred years... makes immortality start looking alot more possible like that huh?

 

[zanejohnson]

okay okay, so what do you guys think we'll be our number one energy source in 200 years?

nuclear would work.... i mean, i understand nuclear is definitely the best source we have right now, i still think we should take advantage of what we have here naturally though, with no chance of radiation poisoning (wind, solar)

 

[Modelworks]

dont give me that, we didnt have electricity a hundred years ago... we got large hadron colliders but storing powers impossible? come on now.

We can store power. It is done with large capacitor banks. There are several companies that produce them now. They look like semi-trailers. Inside there are banks of capacitors that can store power for about 8 hours. The issue though is that is all DC power and needs to be converted back to AC and you can only do that with about 90% or so efficiency.

What might need to happen is the USA supporting more DC power in the home. It is a lot easier to deal with when actually using the electricity. DC is used on just about everything in the home except heating and motors.
Some examples.

PC power supplies take in AC output DC 12V,5V,3V, etc , even though just about everything in the pc only uses 1.8V or lower voltages. There is a few conversion steps there that can be cut out to save power . If the supply is 85% efficient then it has to be converted again by the hardware that is 85% efficient that is quite a bit of loss. A single 3VDC jack to power devices would eliminate a lot of loss.

LCD tv and monitors take in AC output DC 12V, 22V, and convert the 12VDC back to 200VAC to power the back lighting. Again the circuitry only uses 3V or less , another unnecessary loss in conversion.

Just about everything in the home that uses a microprocessor converts power to 3V or less so why not supply it that to begin with.