Reply To: The North Atlantic Current

[Brian H]

Breakable wrote: Regarding the global solar power, I dont think you believe that anyone would consider using KSA as their solar-powered energy source when they have their own. For example the plan for EU is:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/01/solar-power-sahara-europe-desertec#
And there is no problem with sandstorms as long as they are not global and there is extra capacity that is part of the grid.

Also take a look how much power USA has compared to EU:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t175/jcwinni/Sunbelt_Map_550x366.jpg

Actually, the figures used were specific to KSA because of the intensity and reliability of the sunshine. Moving to other locales carries an efficiency /output cost of up to 10X.

Solar may be convenient for hyper-local or hyper-isolated applications, but that’s about it. Without lossless storage, its usefulness is almost peripheral. In the artificial pay-back environment of having utilities buy excess and absorb the bumps and valleys of output of (e.g.) residential solar, it can look good, but only because the utility is paying/buying at the going rate, usually >10¢/kwh, which is about 40X the price of getting it from an FF generator. If the home solar rigs had to sell/value their output at 0.25¢/kwh, they wouldn’t look so self-supporting!

The Desertec project is a bit better, but the plant cost per W isn’t even hinted at, and the transmission requirements are the same. HVDC transmission is an improvement, but will need to go AC for transformers at the receiving end, of course.

As for the map, the US Southwest has already demonstrated that its “suitability” for solar is purely an illusion; those nasty shadowy panels disrupt the ecosystem too much even for Death Valley to tolerate them! It’s been proven in court! 😆 😆

Update: the cost per W of 15 existing and proposed CSP projects averages $3.35, or 67X FF. Downstream marginal costs of production are projected in the 3.2¢/kwh range (optimistically), which is about 13X FF.

More economic roadkill! :cheese: