Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 7:43 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
Bas wrote:
smallpoxgirl wrote:
The EREOI for solar panels sucks, so I sure wouldn't look to them as any sort of peak oil solution.
They, like biofuels, are a feel-good, green wash, pseudo-solution. Liberals are willing to pay a lot of money to anyone that will help them pretend that their lifestyle is sustainable.
I disagree, the EROEI has been economical for some time and while not as economical as coal yet, and maybe will never get quite there (unless we run out of coal) it will get close to the EROEI of coal (the EROEI of coal now subsidized by oil)
And don't forget, the current EROEI for coal is for "dirty" coal - you know - the kind that is killing us all slowly. Sustainable, clean coal, the kind that we DON'T have but is actually what is needed, will be quite a bit more expensive (lower EROEI).
Admittedly, photovoltaic manufacturing is not perfectly "clean" either, but I think the gap is larger with coal (just my opinion).
SolarDave _________________ Posted from a Solar/Pedal Powered Computer
Joined: Mar 26, 2005 Posts: 3776 Location: over here
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 7:47 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
SolarDave wrote:
And don't forget, the current EROEI for coal is for "dirty" coal - you know - the kind that is killing us all slowly. Sustainable, clean coal, the kind that we DON'T have but is actually what is needed, will be quite a bit more expensive (lower EROEI).
Admittedly, photovoltaic manufacturing is not perfectly "clean" either, but I think the gap is larger with coal (just my opinion).
SolarDave
yes, I should have said that coal power is more reliant on oil than solar and I challenge anyone to disprove that.
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 10:32 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
The problem is a lack of non-renewable liquid fuel and not a lack of electricity. Installing solar panels to power appliances in your home doesn't cut down on the amount of crude oil used. The problem in America is that homes are usually miles away from where people work, people can only cut down on driving so much, higher prices and still a record amount of crude oil being consumed.
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 10:42 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
PV is not as eco-friendly as one would think. Especially thin-film. I was in r&d as a tech at a thin-film company/lab, and also at a leading glass manufacturer. Thin film uses float glass and a very hazardous material to actually generate the electrical energy. The ff generated electricity used in the process of manufacturing the PV panels is enormous. I would say the eroi is very poor. The process for manufacturing the float glass used to encapsulate the hazardous material in thin-film PV uses an amazing amount of natural gas. Mind boggling really. Poor eroi there as well. As ff costs rise and supply peaks, wellll... I will say, that as ff supply dwindles, pv as part of the future energy mix is desirable, but alone won't solve future energy supply problems. And thin film panels in the environment is kinda scarey. An array in the tornado belt would be insane. The haz-mat cleanup would be quite involved.
Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 4542 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:06 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
peak wrote:
Tyler_JC wrote:
The answer should be obvious.
Who owns the solar panels and who owns the coal plant?
There is no one answer to that question. In the United States, mostly companies own coal power plants. The reason why there are few major power plant facilities is because it is not economically feasible to build solar power plants because energy from coal or dams is cheaper.
And the average American doesn't want to shovel coal or build a nuclear power plant to power their single house so thats why "big companies" do it instead.
Tyler_JC wrote:
Solar panels are the logical extent of American Individualism. We each get to own and create our own energy source, what could be more America?
Coal plants, on the other hand, are largely owned by massive utility companies 8 towns over. There is no personal connection or personal control over the coal plant for the end user.
If you distrust big business and big government, wouldn't having the ability to create at least some of your own energy help to alleviate your fear?
I can't make sense of your reasoning, you give me the impression that power from coal is dominant because the "big business and big government" all don't want people to be individualistic but the same. If you want to spend (waste) a lot of money to power your home using solar panels then go ahead.
You asked the question, "Why are solar panels popular?"
I answered the question.
Economics is important but does not equate to popularity.
Jeans from Wal*Mart are much cheaper than jeans from American Eagle...but which one is more "popular"?
The reason that individual Americans like solar power is that solar power is clean and decentralized.
I wasn't saying that solar power is cheaper than coal, I was saying that it was more "popular". _________________ "www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
Joined: Mar 26, 2005 Posts: 3776 Location: over here
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:13 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
slinky wrote:
PV is not as eco-friendly as one would think. Especially thin-film. I was in r&d as a tech at a thin-film company/lab, and also at a leading glass manufacturer. Thin film uses float glass and a very hazardous material to actually generate the electrical energy. The ff generated electricity used in the process of manufacturing the PV panels is enormous. I would say the eroi is very poor. The process for manufacturing the float glass used to encapsulate the hazardous material in thin-film PV uses an amazing amount of natural gas. Mind boggling really. Poor eroi there as well. As ff costs rise and supply peaks, wellll... I will say, that as ff supply dwindles, pv as part of the future energy mix is desirable, but alone won't solve future energy supply problems. And thin film panels in the environment is kinda scarey. An array in the tornado belt would be insane. The haz-mat cleanup would be quite involved.
Jeff
Welcome Jeff!
I hope to hear more about solar from you, it's what all my hopes for "civilization" are riding on :S
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:49 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
Tyler_JC wrote:
You asked the question, "Why are solar panels popular?"
I answered the question.
Economics is important but does not equate to popularity.
Jeans from Wal*Mart are much cheaper than jeans from American Eagle...but which one is more "popular"?
The reason that individual Americans like solar power is that solar power is clean and decentralized.
I wasn't saying that solar power is cheaper than coal, I was saying that it was more "popular".
I think the subject to my thread is misleading, I meant why are solar panels seem to be a popular solution to the peak oil problem (below hydrogen and ethanol)? I very rarely see solar panels on top the roofs of houses where I live and clouds don't come by to often where I live, but I see some on here talking about solar panels as part of a solution to peak oil.
Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 12:06 am Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
Bas wrote:
ah come on, we got PV's much more efficient than plants' 7% effeciency.
EROEI
Plants don't require ANY input energy. Unless you seriously screw up the system somehow, they will just grow on their own. The only energy input is you walking yourself over and eating them. In the case of wood, you do have some input energy to cut the tree and transport the wood from the forest to your stove, but it's pretty tiny compared to all that energy that the tree sat there and stored up for twenty years without you having to do anything.
The capture efficiency is way less important than the embodied energy to build the capture device. Solar hot water, e.g. requires basically a piece of black pipe, a box, and a piece of glass. It's an energy winner because the embodied energy of the capture device is miniscule. Photovoltaics have huge embodied energy, so the EROEI sucks. _________________ "So while you sit and whistle Dixie with your money and your power.
I can hear the flowers a-growin in the rubble of the towers.
I hear leaders quit their lying
I hear babies quit their crying.
I hear soldiers quit their dying, one and all." - OCMS
Joined: Mar 26, 2005 Posts: 3776 Location: over here
Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 12:10 am Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
smallpoxgirl wrote:
Bas wrote:
ah come on, we got PV's much more efficient than plants' 7% effeciency.
EROEI
Plants don't require ANY input energy. Unless you seriously screw up the system somehow, they will just grow on their own. The only energy input is you walking yourself over and eating them. In the case of wood, you do have some input energy to cut the tree and transport the wood from the forest to your stove, but it's pretty tiny compared to all that energy that the tree sat there and stored up for twenty years without you having to do anything.
The capture efficiency is way less important than the embodied energy to build the capture device. Solar hot water, e.g. requires basically a piece of black pipe, a box, and a piece of glass. It's an energy winner because the embodied energy of the capture device is miniscule. Photovoltaics have huge embodied energy, so the EROEI sucks.
huge emodied energy...hmmm , maybe not so much over 20 years. you don't have to plant and harvest PV's every year, let alone process them into something you can use.
Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 12:33 am Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
Bas wrote:
huge emodied energy...hmmm , maybe not so much over 20 years. you don't have to plant and harvest PV's every year, let alone process them into something you can use.
Planting and harvesting annuals is a quite an inefficient way of using plants, and yes biofuels have an EROEI that in just as bad as photovoltaics if that's what you're getting at. _________________ "So while you sit and whistle Dixie with your money and your power.
I can hear the flowers a-growin in the rubble of the towers.
I hear leaders quit their lying
I hear babies quit their crying.
I hear soldiers quit their dying, one and all." - OCMS
Joined: Mar 26, 2005 Posts: 3776 Location: over here
Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 12:48 am Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
smallpoxgirl wrote:
Bas wrote:
huge emodied energy...hmmm , maybe not so much over 20 years. you don't have to plant and harvest PV's every year, let alone process them into something you can use.
Planting and harvesting annuals is a quite an inefficient way of using plants, and yes biofuels have an EROEI that in just as bad as photovoltaics if that's what you're getting at.
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:58 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
peak wrote:
I was trying to find out how much natural gas / oil is used to create solar panels, couldn't find the information anywhere.
I can't quote exact figure's, that would be impossible. The bills are sub'ed. It's a lot though. We regularly blew the power out in the building during test runs. All that watt per panel stuff is all candy coated bull. The funds investing in that place don't have a clue, they figure if the figures posted were'nt true, they wouldn't post them. Yeah, OK keep believing that. And' you see, float glass is used to encapsulate the CdTe that responds to light. The plant that manufactures that glass spends 5 fig.s per month in NG. Sure, spread out over per-pane, it may not appear to be much on the invoice, but man, you aught to see the number of panes that get chucked into the garbage...more than what stays as "good".
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 8:50 pm Post subject: Re: whats with solar panels being popular?
I see solar panels, and I mean the polysilicon ones, as an essential part of my three S plan. Solar, silver and shotgun.
Right now I am charging my i-pod on pv solar. I know, it only makes a miniscule amount of power, but we have it rigged so that we would only need a small amount of power. We listen to the radio, CD's, charge cell phones and have LED backup lights that all run off the solar. If our power goes off, or becomes too expensive to keep, we are going to be ok with solar as our power source.
The batteries are the only thing that needs to be replaced every 10 years or so. Solar panels from the 70's are still working fine. I don't care about the EROEI, I just care that we have the panels when the grid crashes.
Solar panels are a backup electrical system in case the lights go out, just as silver is a backup money if our money goes to crap, and a shotgun is a backup way to defend ourselves if the police can't.
In my mind it's cheap insurance. _________________ Deep in the mud and slime of things, even there, something sings.
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