The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[oil pan 4]

China and Russia are pretty much planing to own thorium reactor technology.
The US abandoned the technology in the late 60s and early 70s for political reasons (thorium reactors can't make Pu239 nuclear bombs)
Remember thorium reactors are nothing like current reactors. They can't melt down and they only produce 1 long lived nuclear waste isotope. That 1 long lived isotope Pu238 is highly sought after to power deep space probes and is useless for making nuclear weapons.

[sendler]

There are many numbers flying around about the declining price of solar panels. But are they true? Let’s look at an example of a state of the art solar farm in Calfornia. The Desert Sunlight farm in Cali is one of the newest and was completed in 2014 using thin film cells and is doing 26.7% of the 550MW nameplate. NY installations are predicated at 13%.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert...ght_Solar_Farm
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The stated loan guarantees are $1.47 Billion but I don't know if that even tells us all that was spent to complete the project. Were there any government rebates ot tax incentives? But that is the only number published so we will run with it. So the cost per namepkate capacity is $2.67/ Watt. The cost per actual output is $10 / Watt when you factor the actuall output versus the nameplate capacity that is always talked about in the media.. And this includes no storage. Which Tesla power is quoting at $0.40 / Wh for grid modules. So to store only 12 hours of the average would add another $0.7 Billion. Let’s say the first time installation of the batteries was free while doing the other work. Which will smooth the output for 1 day. Total initial install costs of $15 / Watt? with 12 hours storage? If it rains for a day the batteries will run out overnight and you will get nothing. 1 day of rain. Nothing. Please wake up people. We are in a solar trance of misinformation.
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Distrubuted + storage is fine to help with personal needs. If you have the solar area. But most people will live in appartment buildings. The baseload consumption for infrastucture of society is immense. Way too much for rooftop to even make a dent. 3 TeraWatt continous average just for electricity. Which is 20,500 of these solar farms. 10 TerraWatt average for all energy would triple that. Which is forecast to double by 2050. Solar plus storage cannot do any small portion of this by then. Storage becomes the big issue when you try to commit to a solar baseload grid.
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Over a 25 year service life if they don't spend another penny, The solar farm divides out to 8.5c/ kWh. With no storage. The final consumer of solar farm energy will pay an additional 1.3 times that for distibution, fees and taxes and some profit. That is without the storage. Lets say the storage batteries will very optimistically last 3000 cycles. 8 years. you will go through at least 3 sets of batteries in 25 years. Let's say the first set was installed for no additional cost. $0.7 Billion The next 2 sets will have installation costs. 0.1 Billion each? Who knows? So $2.3 Billion to store 12 hours of average output for 25 years. Total system price of $3.8 Billion for 25 years. 35.4c/ kWh with 12 hours of storage. Cost. Not distributed. Your home mounted system would be a bit more due to the smaller size and increased share of the cost as installation. 37.4c / kWh? with storage over it's 25 year life.

[freebeard]

Wall O'text. I ran it through Mac OS Summarize for everyone's convenience. At text at 5%:

The stated loan guarantees are $1.47 Billion but I don't know if that even tells us all that was spent to complete the project. ... The cost per actual output is $10 / Watt when you factor the actuall output versus the nameplate capacity that is always talked about in the media.. ... If it rains for a day the batteries will run out overnight and you will get nothing. 1 day of rain.

...Over a 25 year service life if they don't spend another penny, The solar farm divides out to 8.5c/ kWh. ... Lets say the storage batteries will very optimistically last 3000 cycles. 8 years. you will go through at least 3 sets of batteries in 25 years. ... So $2.3 Billion to store 12 hours of average output for 25 years.

As paragraphs at 1%

The stated loan guarantees are $1.47 Billion but I don't know if that even tells us all that was spent to complete the project. Were there any government rebates ot tax incentives? But that is the only number published so we will run with it. So the cost per namepkate capacity is $2.67/ Watt. The cost per actual output is $10 / Watt when you factor the actuall output versus the nameplate capacity that is always talked about in the media.. And this includes no storage. Which Tesla power is quoting at $0.40 / Wh for grid modules. So to store only 12 hours of the average would add another $0.7 Billion. Let’s say the first time installation of the batteries was free while doing the other work. Which will smooth the output for 1 day. Total initial install costs of $15 / Watt? with 12 hours storage? If it rains for a day the batteries will run out overnight and you will get nothing. 1 day of rain. Nothing. Please wake up people. We are in a solar trance of misinformation.

Just trying to help.

[sendler]

I have a big problem with those parties that deliberately present "nameplate" ratings in system reports, news releases, media presentations, and even official comparisons to other generation technologies ( power and financial data). That is plain , deliberate deception.
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Fortunately there are a few of us now that have taken the time to study the published facts objectively to find the truth. Let's all spread the word so that general public can start making informed opinions regarding our energy future. As renewables go past 20% of the supply and try to do more than just cover the afternoon peak, storage becomes the big issue. It is several times the cost of the generation methods.

[freebeard]

I understand. Kind of like selling cars based on their top speed.

[sendler]

As an example, the Three Gorges and the Itaipu dams each make more energy in a year than 12 nuclear plants.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_Dam
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[Xist]

Freebeard, why is the 1% paragraph longer than the 5% one? Do you use this feature with my posts?

Sendler, obviously they need to make larger nuclear reactors!

[oil pan 4]

To build anything like a 3 gorges dam in the US cities would have to be relocated.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

To build anything like a 3 gorges dam in the US cities would have to be relocated.

We've got a head start with Houston.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Xist

Freebeard, why....

5% of the total text and 1% of the number of paragraphs.

redpoint5 — Houston's not going anywhere:
justacarguy:2 years ago in May, all the freeways in Houston were flooded. If Texas can't fix this, then they might as well give up all self respect and become a part of Arkansas. No one thinks much of Arkansas that doesn't live there, from the reputation and bad publicity they earned a 100 damn years ago