"Clean Coal" Claims that Solar can't handle Baseload power demands!

[ai_vin]

Also anybody who says 'solar can't handle baseload power' because the sun doesn't shine at night hasn't thought too deeply about it. Electricity is hard to store in very large amounts but heat is less hard to store. There are already solar thermal power plants online that can keep running after the sun goes down because they store heat in big tanks of salt.

There's also the idea of solar updraft towers, which can run at night. Inhabitat » Solar Updraft Towers to Generate Food and Energy
And if you think it would never work guess what; they built one in Spain back in the 1980s. Video Explains How A Solar Tower Works : TreeHugger

If you need more info; Solar updraft tower - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[MadisonMPG]

The Earth has a temperature...

Anyway...

I like the idea of nuke/wind/solar, all three seem good.

[Christ]

I love the updraft towers... there is a guy in Aussie land experimenting with one that's supposed to be some 80 stories tall, or nearly 1,000 Feet (about 270 meters)

[Frank Lee]

I find the concept of always "needing" more more more power generation capacity disturbing.

As a practical matter, many things on this planet are finite.

If people would get their replicating under control (and they will be forced to at some point) and get their energy use under control (and they will be forced to at some point) then this "need" for more more more more generating capacity and infrastructure will evaporate.

I can think of one reason I hate coal; that is they aren't planning on generating the power near where they dig the coal out; they want to ship it by train halfway across the country.

While I think trains are underutilized and really should displace much inefficient trucking, I loathe the idea of more trains, especially for something like this. They run them bastids right through farms and towns and otherwise nice places that become less nice after trains are there.

[Christ]

I can agree with limited reproduction. If each couple were limited to 2 children, regardless of mortality, population should settle. I don't feel that the earth is currently "over populated", as it were, but I do believe that too many people use too many resources to keep going the way we are. Of course, instead of bowling for pedestrians, we should fix it so that (this time around), we don't have to deal with perceptibly finite resources.

Obviously, the sun will go out some day. When that happens, as the world cools, the wind will stop blowing. We're still fighting time, but lets let nature decide when time runs out, rather than continuously eating the numbers off the clock with our current ways.

[Frank Lee]

Seems like everyone in the county wants to build their **** right next to my house. I selected my property outside of city limits because it was within bicycling distance to work, yet reasonably quiet and secluded.

That was some years ago. Since then, within a 1 mile radius, these things have been built: WalMart SuperCenter, Clinic, two sets of apartments, three sets of elderly apartments, gas station, countless spec houses and condos (many on new cul-de-sacs), bridge over a river, r.r. underpass connecting to new bridge (coming soon), oil change bidness, tire bidness, chiropractor bidness, bank bidness, motels (two new, one rennovated), elementary school (ALL have to be bussed out there now that the neighborhood schools have been shuttered), auto parts store, two strip malls, lumberyard, church... geez, that's enough, I know I'm forgetting some things too. 1 mile radius. Yup. The scary part is, I live in Bum**** Egypt- out in the middle of nowhere.

There is no quiet here. None. I listen to heavy construction equipment 3 seasons out of 4 for the last 15 years; the fourth season I listen to heavy snow removal equipment with the backup beepers and **** at 4 a.m. working on all the gigantic new parking lots. If we use 4:30 a.m. as the starting point for the day, that is when the *first* trains blast all the crossings, the commuters start stirring soon after, I can clearly hear the regional airline do their run-up and take off every day at 6 a.m., at some point after that the rednecks with dual straight pipe mud trucks get up to put on about 200 miles/day running around town, then the FedEx, UPS, SpeeDee, and Schwan's trucks with their straight pipes and rattley*** roll-up doors crash about all day... I kid you not, that clinic generates a vehicle on the move every 20 seconds- after too many of them couldn't figure out how a stop sign works they had to add a 4-way stoplight. I now have a little experiment that goes: I can walk out to the street at any given point in time, turn to the left and turn to the right; I WILL see a vehicle on the street. I WILL. It's inevitable. I've had a pet run over- indications are the jack*** aimed FOR it, not away. The place is nuts. Sometimes it sounds like a re-run of The Dukes of Hazzard out there. Here. In the middle of nowhere.

It has gotten to where I run a table fan 2 feet away from my head on the nightstand, so I can stand it.

I'd leave, but where to? And I'd have to give my house away as pre-owned houses aren't good enough for all the yuppies; they need about 5000 sq ft McMansions on the ever-expanding "edge" of town.

I see the same thing everywhere in this state.

And yet we continue to pay people to breed. Breeders get extra income tax deductions. They don't have to pay for schools either. Anyone with health insurance for damn sure is subsidizing those with kids.

I am starting to hate people and there are way too many of them.

Oh, I almost forgot, there is an upside to all this: If at 2 a.m. on Sunday I suddenly decide I need a gallon jar of jalepenos, now I can get it.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

If people would get their replicating under control (and they will be forced to at some point) and get their energy use under control (and they will be forced to at some point) then this "need" for more more more more generating capacity and infrastructure will evaporate.

They are, it's just that these things take time.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I can think of one reason I hate coal; that is they aren't planning on generating the power near where they dig the coal out; they want to ship it by train halfway across the country.

While I think trains are underutilized and really should displace much inefficient trucking, I loathe the idea of more trains, especially for something like this. They run them bastids right through farms and towns and otherwise nice places that become less nice after trains are there.

If coal is going to survive w/ higher oil prices I think it'll need something like HVDC from the mine instead of lugging it across the country. Course, if we're setting up HVDC lines for coal, we might as well just go w/ wind for baseload power.

[bestclimb]

Originally Posted by Christ

I can agree with limited reproduction. If each couple were limited to 2 children...

I don't want government that far up my bedroom.

The real trick is that as resources become more scarce, and pollution becomes more of a problem (so limiting emissions becomes more expensive) each KW will cost more. All resources will be doing this not just electricity. We will learn to limit consumption without the help of an edict from on high. Economics will (already is) get folks to limit their consumption and do it willingly.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by ai_vin

Electricity is hard to store in very large amounts but heat is less hard to store. There are already solar thermal power plants online that can keep running after the sun goes down because they store heat in big tanks of salt.

At what cost in efficiency, though? I've always suspected that the people selling this kind of plant are banking on the fact that very few investors are familiar with thermodynamics.

Then consider their other disadvantages, such as their voracious need for land (which the promoters seem to get pretty much free from the government - and might not that be the intention?) and other scarce resources, locations far from point of use, requiring long transmission lines, etc.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

At what cost in efficiency, though? I've always suspected that the people selling this kind of plant are banking on the fact that very few investors are familiar with thermodynamics.

Then consider their other disadvantages, such as their voracious need for land (which the promoters seem to get pretty much free from the government - and might not that be the intention?) and other scarce resources, locations far from point of use, requiring long transmission lines, etc.

The towers have heated surface area equivalent to it's entire structure. Much more surface area than just the few hundred sqft that it takes up on the ground. They're also basically clear, that I've seen, with a turbine on top. All the heat that rises must pass the turbine, which is connected to a generator. They don't lose efficiency from being hot, like solar panels do. In fact, the hotter they get, the better. The heat rising draws in cooler air from the bottom, repeating the process. Best of all, they don't really need the sun directly shining on them. As long as there is a temp differential, they will still produce something.