http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html

Search for "Example #3" and start from there. It might help.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: May 20 2010, 05:49 PM

If you look at it that way. The way I see it, it's mostly to show how (relatively) economical it is to implement solar power as opposed to coal. Coal is cheap to invest in, which is why there's so many of them around. Solar is not.

I do agree it's an invalid comparison in the sense that the whole world could have built just one solar panel (never mind the cost), and it would still be "all the pv installations in the world". I didn't manage to drag up the numbers on how much solar power is generated world-wide, though.

Now that is just semantics. There's at least two reasons they named it "World Series Baseball":

From wikipedia:
The series were promoted and referred to as the "The Championship of the United States","World's Championship Series", or "World's Series" for short. As baseball outside of North America was not equal to that of North America at the time, the winners of the championships were by default the best baseball team in the world.

From wikianswers:
The MLB is the most prestigious league to play baseball. It is filled with the best players from all over the world from Asia, United States, Dominican Republic, and many other countries. Mlb scouts search for the best players around the world and offer them large contracts to join the club. When the playoffs are at the end there is nobody left except for two teams. This is called the world series because all that is left are two teams filled with the very best players form all over the world.

I find it strange that you'd base the meaning of "real world" off from World Series Baseball. I could just as well have the same issues with Buffalo Wings (which aren't wings and don't come from buffaloes) or Mountain Oysters (which DEFINITELY aren't oysters and don't come from a mountain).

Sure, lifeaftertheoilcrash.net is based in the US, so "real world" would have more of a US-based context. But that doesn't mean tha's a reason to doubt EVERY single definition of that word that is released from a US source. At least, not until we know its context.

But hey, English is a strange language. Waiting will have to be filled before it can be grokked in fullness.

ANYWAY, BACK TO THE MAIN ISSUE... (apologies for detracting)


True that.

This is from wikipedia again:
For the weather and latitudes of the United States and Europe, typical insolation ranges from 4kWh/m²/day in northern climes to 6.5 kWh/m²/day in the sunniest regions.
In the Sahara desert, with less cloud cover and a better solar angle, one can obtain closer to 8.3 kWh/m²/day.

There's no doubt that solar power would work better on the equator than anywhere else. If the 4 and 6.5 figures are based of the 20% efficiency mark, then 8.3 is slightly more than double that of 4 (which makes it about 40% efficiency) and about 33% more efficient than 6.5 (too lazy to figure that one out).

I'd wager our country would have somewhere between that 6.5 and 8.3 number range due to more... humane weather conditions.

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Added on May 21, 2010, 4:25 amWhich is why I believe the world will not end with a whimper, but with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: May 21 2010, 04:25 AM

Trust me, DON'T try the Mountain Oysters!!!

I don't doubt that either. I had a problem finding hard numbers regarding alternate energy sources online. So either no one has judged it important enough to research/collate the information regarding the differences in geographical location, it's not public information, or I'm just doing it wrong. The best I could do was that wikipedia entry with the 8.5 kWh number.

After scouring the other threads regarding energy, I find it shocking that absolutely no one has mentioned that plutonium and uranium are non-renewable themselves.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: May 25 2010, 06:11 AM

That is a dangerous assumption.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5060

Unless we can ramp up global uranium production, we'll see uranium shortages around 2013.


This is just as dangerous. We could easily "run out" of all conventional and non-conventional energy sources, and fusion still wouldn't have made any progress.

Wind turbines have the same problem as solar. High start-up costs, needs backup power station when there is no wind since there is no cheap and efficient way to store power, EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) values still lower than oil.

You'll need to scroll down to Figure 5 and Figure 6 to get world supply and demand figures. Demand was ~65,000 tons in 2005, while supply from mines worldwide was ~40,000 tons. Googling up on "annual uranium consumption (or supply)" will give you roughly the same amount.

Ramping up on mining production also takes time and money.

So I'd say it's a worldwide problem. And even if shortages were limited to the US, what makes you think they won't try to take it from someone else?

Are these two the one and the same?

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/05/russia-it...on-ignitor.html

Apart from this and ITER's one in France, I've not read about any new fusion reactor projects.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: May 26 2010, 05:40 PM

You're welcome.

Yes. They are called the steam engine and the internal combustion engine.

----I could be wrong from this point here----

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine#E...of_heat_engines

All these heat engines rely on some sort of working fluid to transfer heat from Point A to Point B. And the working fluid is almost always in the form of a gas or a liquid. Plus, it's only applied to systems with moving parts (so no plugging it in directly to a TV or XBOX).

Solid state forms aren't a good method of distributing the conversion of heat-to-energy throughout a system that has moving parts. Unless your car is as flat as a pancake.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: May 31 2010, 03:20 PM

Yes. But Malaysia hardly has any volcanoes...

Hot springs wouldn't give the same energy output as a volcano. Even less worth the time.

The reason we keep going back to oil and gas is despite the relatively high price, it's still cheaper to extract and they have a much higher EROEI (Energy returned to energy invested) ratio than anything else on Earth.

Sure, we definitely have the technology to move almost 100% of global energy consumption to renewable tech. But it'll bankrupt everyone in the process. (I have high doubts if we can even achieve this, considering that even renewable tech relies on a fossil-fuel based infrastructure to start up).



A lifestyle that's less power hungry means cutting down on consumption. No one would be willing to do that (And yes, not even me).

Didn't someone say "the American way of life is non-negotiable"? Well, that applies for pretty much everyone on Earth.

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Added on June 1, 2010, 1:17 pmLike Beastboy said. It'll just be delaying the problem. With increasing population growth, the benefits of such a move would be canceled out with everyone having a smaller piece of the pie.

Humans have never been able to kick off the habit of carrying out Jevon's Paradox.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: Jun 1 2010, 01:17 PM

Yes, but by the time the cost of conventional (i.e. oil and gas) energy is expensive enough to justify investing in other forms, it's too late. We MIGHT have had a chance to transition to a renewable form of powering civilization if we started decades ago. No way that is happening now with resource scarcity.

Actually, there's been quite a few people who's picked up on resource depletion and tried to warn others. M. King Hubbert was pretty much the first person to predict US oil production peaking by the 70's. Other who have also tried to sound the whistle (but sadly, will never be popular in the mainstream) are Richard Heinberg, Jared Diamond, Mike Ruppert and Julian Darley.

(Note: Because their surnames sound the same, I should not that M. King Hubbert is NOT related to L. Ron Hubbard, who is the father of Scientology.)


Because for one, it's expensive. And there's not that many places on earth which has the best of all three "weather conditions". Third, it's not efficient in terms of energy generation/infrastructure setup and maintenance.

I'd say that it's possible to pull this off in a few towns, maybe a city or two, but no way our country (or any country) can pull this off. It will be a financial and logistical nightmare.

Agreed. Though I see it as us being dragged, kicking an screaming down the Olduvai Gorge, wondering where the hell we went wrong.

Yes. It's only to supply hot water.

Note that these really aren't solar panels in the strictest sense.


Difference Between Photovoltaic Systems & Solar Water Heating
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5864535_differen...er-heating.html

This post has been edited by VMSmith: Jun 1 2010, 08:45 PM

There's algae fuel, which grabs CO2 and sunlight, then converts them to oxygen and biomass.

Very expensive tech though.

Breeder reactors won't be our savior anytime soon.

http://www.fissilematerials.org/blog/2010/...tus_of_fas.html

Too expensive to build and maintain. Breaks down easily. Takes too long to repair.

I'm watching development of thorium reactors with great interest. Not that I think it'll save civilization from collapsing, but it's the closest thing to a "magic bullet" that can mitigate our energy issues. Since India is the most progressive in developing thorium reactors, it might save their asses in a few decades or so (Assuming they have the capability and time to do so) while the rest of the world turns into fuedal, warring states.

Where did you get this figure from? Most sources quote 3 to 4 times.

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Added on June 3, 2010, 2:14 pmWell, you've pretty much answered your own question. Lots of answers, but they all pretty much boil down to denial.

This post has been edited by VMSmith: Jun 3 2010, 02:31 PM

Ah. I stand corrected on this one. Thanks for the info!

Does a coal-mine cause THAT much pollution? The closest coal-fired plant to KL is in Kapar. I always thought that too many cars on the road were more of a factor.

Ah. Duly noted.

I do have a couple of questions regarding PV cells maintenance though.

#1: Considering that it's easy for dust to gather on the glass surface and for it to be easily scratched, how often/expensive would it cost to replace it? (Not looking for a specific number, just an approximate figure)

#2: Does the silver paste for PV cells need to be replaced over a certain number of years as well?