For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 7:55 pm Post subject: Re: Will renewable energy become more competitive as fossil
I believe the the implied context of your question (especially of the term 'competitive') is economic, though I would suggest the more archaic meaning may be relevant.
I would restate it thus: Will those with access to useful solar technologies (wind, water, PVC, and solar thermal) be more secure in the future?
My answer: only those with appropriate, and renewable weaponry. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:27 pm Post subject: Re: Will renewable energy become more competitive as fossil
funzone36 wrote:
My question is economic.
Then (as you may have surmised from my signature) I would have to answer no, as per the 'Law of Receding Horizons.' The materials and energy to build the solar economy are pegged to the price of petroleum.
This would be contradicted if you were able to put into place (jump start) an entire infrastructure powered by that renewable energy. Then the two energy economics would unhitch and be free to vacillate within their own separate regimes. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Joined: Dec 11, 2005 Posts: 430 Location: albuquerque
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:49 pm Post subject: Re: Will renewable energy become more competitive as fossil
Quote:
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday.
Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the state.
The grid operator went directly to the second stage of an emergency plan at 6:41 PM CST (0041 GMT), ERCOT said in a statement.
System operators curtailed power to interruptible customers to shave 1,100 megawatts of demand within 10 minutes, ERCOT said. Interruptible customers are generally large industrial customers who are paid to reduce power use when emergencies occur.
Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:09 pm Post subject: Re: Will renewable energy become more competitive as fossil
There's still at least a decade or two to switch to renewables after peak oil wakes everyone up to the reality that we are facing. Remember, a Great Depression improves national productivity. The Hoover Dam, the Triborough Bridge and the Empire State Building were all built during the Great Depression because of cheaper labour. When a depression occurs after peak oil and labour gets cheaper, national productivity will increase and a lot of energy will be directed towards building many more renewables like solar thermal.
Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 4415 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: Re: Will renewable energy become more competitive as fossil
Renewable Energy will absolutely become more competitive as fossil fuel prices increase.
Look at the cost of solar power over time. Steady downward movement in price. Steady upward movement in terms of quality, efficiency, and durability.
Look at wind power. Despite a massive increase in energy costs, wind power costs are essentially flat between 2000 and 2006. Costs fell until 2004 when waiting lists started growing for buying new wind turbines, pushing up prices. But this is good news, it means that new investment in capacity is on the way.
Dept. of Energy Report on Wind Power _________________ "www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3432 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: Will renewable energy become more competitive as fossil
Tyler_JC wrote:
Renewable Energy will absolutely become more competitive as fossil fuel prices increase.
Look at the cost of solar power over time. Steady downward movement in price. Steady upward movement in terms of quality, efficiency, and durability.
Look at wind power. Despite a massive increase in energy costs, wind power costs are essentially flat between 2000 and 2006. Costs fell until 2004 when waiting lists started growing for buying new wind turbines, pushing up prices. But this is good news, it means that new investment in capacity is on the way.
Dept. of Energy Report on Wind Power
Not to burst your bubble Tyler, but every technology goes through invention followed by evolution. At some point, due to the law of diminishing returns, the evolutionary changes slow to a crawl. After that a revolutionary change has to take place before you get large returns on investing in improvements.
Take the internal combustion four cycle Diesel engine. For a very long time the basic diesel engine has been undergoing incremental improvements from the original model. Steps like exhaust driven turbochargers to pre compress intake air and electronically powered fuel pumps replacing the original mechanical fuel pumps and glow plugs were all evolutionary improvements. Each did a part to increase the efficiency and durability of the original diesel four cycle engine.
Then a revolution took place. Instead of four strokes someone came up with a whole new idea, the one stroke engine aka power stroke. The four cycle engine would compress, ignite, draw power, exhaust, draw in fresh air, compress etc etc etc in a four pass cycle. The power stroke engine is different, it compresses and ignites, draws power on the down stroke, exhausts at the bottom of the power stroke, compresses. The intake air is presured by a turbocharger and in the instant the cylender hit bottom dead center the exhaust valve at the top and the intake valve at the bottom both open allowing the fresh intake air to flood the chamber and force the exhaust out the top. The cylender then compresses the frsh air which is used to burn fuel when it reaches top dead center. Instead of going up and down four times to get the energy out of the fuel a power stroke does it twice, making it much more efficient.
Another example are heavier than air craft. You started with wood and canvas biplanes powered by a glorified lawnmower engine and able to fly at speed of 50 mph. Forty years later you reached the pinnacle of piston engine aircraft with prestressed aluminum monoplanes capable of flying at 450 mph. They had hit the wall, propellor driven aircraft have a harder and harder time accelerating past 300 mph. By 1943 they were at the theoretical limits of what propellors could do, the blade tips were aproaching the speed of sound even at high altitude. Then Frank Whittle's invention, the jet engine, demonstrated that you didn't need a propellor to produce thrust. Within 10 years of the end of World War Two, jet aircraft in routine production were able to exceed the speed of sound and some had exceeded 900 mph, twice the late WW II speed. From 1945 to 1995 jet engines underwent continuos improvements leading to more than double the fuel efficiency. Now we are aproaching the end of what you can do without a revolutionary change, fuel efficency is barely going up from year to year with each minor tweak improvement.
OK so what about Solar (thermal or PV) and Wind? Well they were invented a few decades ago at this point, but their improvements have not been a constant stream of evolution because they have not drawn a high level of interest on a continuing scale until the mid 1990's. There have been a lot of improvements over the last 10 years because R&D money has been spent to make them more efficient and cheaper. Is there still room for improvement? Oh yes, a lot of room left to improve efficiencies in both these technologies. If we spend a lot of money will those improvements happen soon? Based on the evolution of other technologies yes, we are still in the rapid evolution phase, but if we invest a lot of money we will soon (relatively speaking 10-15 years) be aproaching theoretical maximums for these technologies.
Great, so prices will keep falling, at an evolutionary fast but slowing rate, for a decade, two decades at the most. Will that make them cheaper than all other alternatives when externalities are figured into the equation? _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
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