 | TOD POLL: Where will crude oil close 1 year from now (12/31/2008)? | The Oil Drum | 2007 - The Year in Review |  |
257 comments on DrumBeat: December 31, 2007
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257 comments on DrumBeat: December 31, 2007
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Peak Indium and the Solar Power Industry
Indium, which is used by Nanosolar for instance, is expected to run out in 10 years (according to the following article). The article talks about research on a possible substitute, graphene.
New Material Promises to Save LCD, Solar Power Industry
One more rare material looks to be replaced by one of the most common, carbon.
As I've been saying for a while, when our needs can be satisfied with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen (the CHON elements), there will be effectively no barrier to indefinite sustainability of technological civilization as long as the sun shines.
So when is it that all our needs will be satisfied by CHON? Might want to hurry that one a little. Within ten years, if not sooner, climate tipping points may make sustainability a word of the past. That is, if it isn't already. That is, if the combination of technology and sustainability isn't the biggest oxymoron of all times to begin with.
Can we have a guarantee the CHON paradise will be established before 2018? If not, never mind, we've got more important things to do.
The production ramp will be fast. There is a lot of money to be made in converting the lifeblood of our economy from oil to ingenuity.
But, it will take time to ramp production and refine techniques.
The largest delay will come from de-monopolizing power generation and transportation. These are regulated monopolies with monolithic distribution rules. Most innovations profit by preempting waste with distributed collaborative distribution (Internet like). Innovations break the rules.
The technology and manufacturing can be addressed, maybe not without real hardship. Regulatory approval to innovate is a more desperate issue.
Regulatory approval to innovate is a more desperate issue.
Ya know - I used to think that but its a lot more cloudy then just deregulation - powerful groups have a mutual assured destruction pact with each other. The EV1 (flawed example I know but stay with me) altered a market too much for the vested markets (auto parts supply, oil change shops, oil companys ect...) for it to be accepted. The vested market alliance kept with the relationships it knew.
One of the reasons that IBM fell in influence was due to the desire for the mass market to want to have th evil empire to fall - it was a social background that created the realizations that empowered the market to move beyond the mainframe modal.
Even with innovations the ground is littered with the bodies of companys that had the right idea but fell because people did not have a connection that the innovators success was tied to there own destiny.
I guess what I am trying to say is the regulators are simply one part of a puzzle - a social realization that ones own prosperity is connected to the success of a new market configuration and then the new market needs to create products that capture the passion of the consumer in a non rational way - involve yourself in this market and you will prosper, do not and you will personally fall.
All the deregulation in the world cant ignite that passion within a person - and all of the digital theorizing in the universe amounts to a rain dance for a non existent reality.
I am still hopeful - but looks like we do not have too much time.
No, you can't have any guarantees. As they said in my High School Natural History class, 'The only thing constant is change.' But even without a contract written in granite, don't you think we should be looking into the many things we're discovering we can do with carbon? Hydrocarbons, and (CHON) Organic Chemistry in general?
Yes, his statement was also overly broad. 'No Barrier', indeed.
There are MANY important things to do, and MANY people that we have to keep busy if we are to get there. (Since we clearly can't stay here..)
Bob
I seem to remember Indium going for something like $100 an ounce and this was several years ago.
It might be now, where gold was a decade ago.
If it could be displaced by carbon, it would be. There must be applications that really call for it.
One I've heard of it, that it's used in low-temperature soldering, like of mil-spec stuff.
I've long said that high-tech stuff would soon devalue to where it's only worth its scrap value, but that it where high-tech equipment stands now. It's not repairable, it's quickly outdated, and its only value is in the gold, palladium, and stuff like indium that may be on the circuit boards and in the chips.
The minute human beings began chipping stone tools we became a technological species. Just prior to the invention of the steam engine, Europe had thousands of water wheels powering manufacturing machinery of various types. A nascent solar power industry also existed but was cut short by the realization stored solar power in the form of coal was more economical to exploit. Assuming that the human race survives the coming energy transition, there is not the remotest possibility that we will become a non-technological species. The key questions are:
1. What level of economic production can be sustained in post fossil fuel world containing 8 or 9 billion people?
2. How long can the world’s net economic productivity continue to increase?
It is not just the sustainability of solar PV that matters, but economic cost of delivering a net unit of energy, including the cost of compensating for the variable nature of the solar resource on both short and long time scales as dispatchable fossil fuel generation declines. Since China is still building coal fired power plants like crazy, it is clear that solar energy has a ways to go yet before it can match the economic quality of fossil fuels.
Furthermore, no matter how much solar energy technology improves in the future, it cannot enable the exponential expansion of our economic productivity forever. When the world’s net economic productivity stops increasing, then new ways of allocating production resources and more equitable means of distributing economic output will have to be developed if we hope to maintain a humane, democratic society. I believe that the dream of purely technological fix which will enable business as usual operation of the current economic system to the end of the century and beyond, will prove delusory.
I would maintain that we (USA) do not have what qualifies as a humane and democratic society. We may have come close a few decades ago, but things have been decidedly downhill since the 'Reagan Revolution'.
The trends of wealth accumulation, poverty and injustice are plainly negative. At present we likely have available the most energy per-capita that will ever be available (some figure the peak of per-capita energy was passed ~1989). Given this, how are these trends likely to be reversed. How are we going to fix our deteriorating infrastructure, house our homeless, provide health care and education for all in a future with less energy available? Especially considering the extra energy that will be taken to make the post fossil-fuel transitions?
Optimistic back-of-envelope calculations will mean nothing until these negative trends are seen to be clearly on the mend.
I would maintain that we (USA) do not have what qualifies as a humane and democratic society.
I agree with the above comment. I should have said: 'If we hope to create and maintain a humane, democractic society'.
The fly in the ointment here is the "H" or Hydrogen. There is no free hydrogen anywhere on earth. It takes more energy to extract hydrogen from water than you get when it is re-oxidized and becomes water again.
Just saying that these elements are out there and all our needs can be satisfied from them says nothing. Well, it says nothing to anyone with any knowledge of thermodynamics anyway.
But of course the solar rollers believe we can build thousands of square miles of solar panels and extract all the hydrogen we need from water. But all this is nothing more than a pipe dream. It is a little like fusion energy, fifty years in the future, and always will be.
Ron Patterson
Or bussard fusion which could be just a few years away:
http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2007/12/bussard-fusion-update.html
I like how Ron is so positive about what the future will bring, doesn't think there is absolutely any chance he is wrong. Although I think new science and tech will save the future, even I know there's a chance that is wrong and things will go bad. I think my favorite quote of the year on the forums was "absolute statements amuse absolutly" can't remeber who wrote it, but very telling. There was also someone who had a great prediction from 1880 about NYC, where the guy predicted in 100 years NYC would be overrun by horse manure, pretty amusing. The point of all this? No one not even Ron can predict the future with 100% certainty, only a fool would believe so.
unfortunately other than Bussard (now gone) and those who are continuing his work, nobody who works in fusion seems to think it will work - I've spoken to a few physicists who work in fusion and none of them believe the Bussard type fusors are the way to go...not my area of expertise by a long shot, but doesn't make me hopeful that the (fusion) cavalry is going to ride in at the last minute and save us all...
I agree the future is quite unknowable - but I would argue that some truly awful "nasty, brutish and short" futures are included (and perhaps more likely?)
on the other hand Indium was supposedly as common as silver, so how could we have only 10 years left? (and it has not been a sought-after element for very long, unlike silver) - not sure I'm buying into peak Indium yet...
I can make an absolute prediction that I am certain is right - everyone of us is going to eventually die.
It's that "eventually" that's the tricky bit. . .
Are you aware that so far only about half of the people who ever reached the age of 1 have died?
Which just goes to show how much of the world's resources we must plunder to keep the current population alive and happy for the remainder of our natural lives...
Not a nice thought.
Wrong! Not just wrong but terribly wrong. A quick google check of "How many people have ever lived on earth" brings up several estimates.
And:
But of course it does not say how many of those 106 billion lived to reach the age of 1. But you can be sure it was far more than one in 30, the number it must be if half the people who reached the age of 1 are alive today.
So only 1 in 15 to 20 people who ever lived are alive today.
Ron Patterson
Yeah, estimates since agricultural development, are as high as 100 billion, but with much of the time in that 10,000 year period having infant mortality rates as high as 1 in 2, about 50 billion have reached 1 year old - so today it's about 1 in 8 people alive compared to the total who have reached 1 year...
Now, if you look at resource use, I would suspect that our resource use, for the people alive today, will far outweigh all the rest of human history.
AntiDoomer, your critique of my post can best be described as "whining". I posted my opinion that thousands of square miles of solar panels to generate hydrogen from water and save the world form peak oil was a dream, and like fusion energy, always somewhere in the future.
You replied with a URL that on the Bussard reactor that ended with this statement:
"Someday, they said, if they're right, a machine just 20 times bigger than the one sitting in the corner on Parkway Drive could run the city of Santa Fe."
Someday indeed! And I made no absolute declarations in my post. But I do believe that crude oil will begin its decline in five to ten years, perhaps less. And the fusion reactor that will solve all our problems is coming down the pike someday! We cannot wait for someday AntiDoomer.
If peak oil hits the economy hard, and I believe it will, research money will be the first to go, especially research money that only promises a "perhaps someday" reward.
Ron Patterson
One Glaring problem with fusion is how to extract energy from it. Half of the energy output of D-D fusion is fast neutrons which are extremely difficult to trap and convert into thermal energy. These fast neutrons also have a nasty habit of embrittling materials as well as transforming them into radioactive isotopes. Fusion has the radioactive madas touch. Everything in reach will become radioactive.
That's exactly the point for why Bussard's polywell fusion is potentially so interesting. He believed the machine would support Boron-proton fusion, which is a much much cleaner process.
One description of this:
For more details: (Should Google Go Nuclear?, Polywell, Aneutronic Fusion).
theantidoomer,
Thanks for posting that link. It's nice to hear that Bussard's polywell work is still progressing.
W.
Please.
We researchers and engineers who churn out this miraculous stuff for you to brag about are dismayed by your lack of understanding.
Have you any idea what compromises and limitations we have to fight each day just to keep adding tiny refinements to existing technologies? And how long its been since anything 'revolutionary' has been discovered?
We're no longer plunging into the unknowns, full of undiscovered unpredictable new fangled things. That was over hundred years ago. Today we know rather well what might be possible. Rather we are like stuck in a small box of limits of laws of physics, tediously stretching our limbs for better positions, with ever diminishing returns...
But surely more money will create more innovation and release us from our troubles?
What do you mean by more money? Double my budget? Ten times the dimes I have? So a hundred times then. Ok, that'll buy me some latest equipment, hire a couple of research teams on projects I'd been keeping in the closet, and maybe a new building for them. Let's see ... no, you didn't even double my 'innovations'. And by the way, now I'll need that same or increasing amount of money every year from now on just to stay in place.
Money is linear but research subjects are infinitely exponential. Give me any amount of money, and I'll spread it out so thinly on all the possibilities that nobody will notice the difference. So you have to make choices. Not just ball park guesses but actually very specific and highly defined narrow projections on where it's worth placing the buck.
And then you go to work. You spend 5 years collaborating with your international colleagues to experimentally test some of the most likely projections. You end up with a candidate or two and spend your next 5 year's budget to make the experiments that define enough data to see some of the engineering limits of its applications. Then a venture capital firm jumps on some fruitful looking angle of your technology and you spend another 5 years waiting if they can get their shit together and make anything out of it. Oh, too expensive for the current market conditions? - damn, back to the drawing board. And so on and on...
So, you see, I find it hard to share your optimism. Perhaps you'd like to share with us your ideas and experiences on why we should think that after a hundred years, our modern, mature, pumped dry and streched to the limit -technology has the capacity left, or the time to deploy, solutions or even significant mitigations to problems like PO or GW?
Ransu, great post. I read it twice. I could not stop chuckling at your venting of your frustration. Of course I know it was not funny to you but nevertheless I could not stop laughing.
A far better rebuttal to TheAntiDoomer than I could ever give.
Thanks again.
Ron Patterson
ransu, great post - right about dead on what the less technocopian fusion researchers describe...
I know one fusion physicist who (quietly on the side) said to me that he sees societal collapse before we solve the engineering issues of fusion - I'm afraid his view is far closer to mine than the "we can mine helium 3 from the moon and run society forever!" camp....
the test reactor that they just groundbroke in France, I wonder if it will even be finished when budgetary problems hit? and that's a test, not adding anything to the grid at all...
ransu,
The frustration is understandable.
While you're crying in your beer I'd like to hear how the unified theory of physics goes - since you implied it with "Rather we are like stuck in a small box of limits of laws of physics,"
Ah, did I? Well, may I then too assume you imply that the existance of water-proof unified theory is required before one is allowed to critically look at what can be achieved?
As for crying into my beer, may I be excused for doing so when surrounded by antidoomer people spouting silly nonsense without the slighest understanding or experience in experimental physics or real world engineering?
My point was the species is still learning the physics laws, so the box size is unknown ...and then there is that real world engineering ...that costs ...money.
Yeah, reality is a hard taskmaster !!
Ok, the box I was talking about is the conceptual frame, which consists of our understanding of physics, a frame you need in order design any kind of experiments in science or applications in engineering. We know this box well, we've been bouncing on its sides for long enough now, and its getting tight for us already. We see clearly all the walls and have measured the angles between them, so it sure looks like a box to us, inside of which we are stuck. Now, we cannot quite see if the seams join in the corners so there is some small uncertainty left, hence we can't make up our minds on the unified box theory yet...
Now, what you mean is well known - the limits have been discussed here on TOD many times. Your box is the reality. Specifically for us, at this time, this globe. With all our physics and chemistry books and datasheets full of statistics on ecology of populations, we just don't seem to 'get it'. As a species we're the kid in the classroom who slept during all the lessons when nature spoke of the rules and limits, which govern everything. Now we're sweating it out at the exam, trying to make up stuff in the answer sheet.
Re: "the conceptual frame,"
Thanks for the clarification.
This post explains exactly why I left the field of environmental ecology (entomology) and became a computer analyst for a private company. I decided the effort to succeed in science far outweighed the returns. I am glad that there are some folks left in the world with the stamina to keep up scientific effort, but it becomes more difficult every passing year. My tolerance for it all ran out after ten years.
I salute you and sympathize with your struggle. I decided to try for a more normal life...kids and a salary to support them.
Ransu,
Excellent post. A lot of intelligent folks still don't seem to 'get' either the time constraints this particular civilization is under or the Tainteresque diminishing returns on investment in complexity, which are huge at this point in mature fields.
I spoke with Bussard last year about his approach, not because I thought it would work, but because it was one of the few long-shot approaches which might not prove to be impossible, and if it wasn't impossible, it seemed to possibly have the characteristics which could allow it to be retrofitted into current systems in a reasonable time. (ITER-style tokamaks won't ever be built out significantly even if they work fine). In other words, a hail-mary pass.
In other words, a desperation move. We're down to desperation moves at this point. His work was funded by the Navy instead of by what I had in mind, which was fine by me. I'll be amazed if anything comes of it, but it'd be nice.
Anyone who thinks there are plenty of tech answers out there to human overshoot really, really, doesn't understand the problems.
Keep posting!
ITER-style tokamaks won't ever be built out significantly even if they work fine
Could you elaborate ?
Tritium can be breed over time.
Even if more costly than fission nukes, anti-nuke nations should be interested in them (Italy, Germany, Denmark, etc.)
Best Hopes for Fusion,
Alan
Disclaimer: I'm not a practicing physicist, or an expert in fusion. If I have any expertise - debatable - it's in visualizing a number of things simultaneously and not shrinking from what I see.
I think ITER-style tokamaks will function as advertised. I see no flaw in the theory; the physics are unremarkable and in many ways elegant. On an artistic level, I support it as an object of complex functional beauty.
My skepticism has everything to do with "receding horizons". Even if the thing cranks ahead on schedule, commercial versions are supposed to be designed by what, 2040? And the first one maybe built out by 2050? And how many of them do we need?
I'm afraid that once we get a couple of decades into the future, fiscal and geopolitical systems will be in a fair deal of chaos, for reasons frequently discussed here. "Just in time" supply chains, won't be. Impoverished and increasingly hungry/disgruntled populations may complicate things significantly.
Beyond that, though, I suspect that the falling EROEI will begin to qualititatively affect the level of complexity which is sustainable by a globe-girdling civilization. A high-tech masterpiece like a functional tokamak will require, by its nature, designing to the limits of alloying and fabrication technologies. Our current reality, in which nearly any element is available in a reasonable time at a reasonable price, is the output of the most complex evolved extractive system ever to exist, operating at its all-time peak efficiency. That evolved infrastructure is an integral part of things from tokamaks to space shuttles, they don't exist independently of it; and that infrastructure is changing in fundamental ways. It will not well tolerate or recover from hiatus.
Building rail is great precisely because it does NOT require the current infrastructural complexity.
Don't misunderstand; I'm not opposed to giant tokamaks. I even think that a few will be built and will function for awhile. I would help if I could. But unless some plague were to wipe out 90% of the human population and buy more time, I don't see it happening. The project isn't being pursued with the necessary desperation and probably isn't scalable.
I was that odd environmentalist who was for O'Neill colonies, superconducting supercolliders, and mankind as the responsible high-tech stewards of a healthy oasis in space. My preferences went unrealized; and continue to be.
best hopes for my being wrong about reality.
I understand your point. One analogy would be German (and Japanese) efforts during WW II, where certain available resources (oil & mercury in Japan, oil & rubber in Germany) were far short of requirements, and bombs kept falling on the infrastructure.
I do prefer robust infrastructure (hydroelectric dams kept producing in North Korea and Albania despite isolation, and PRK RRs as well).
Still, if a workable economic design of a tokamak can be built, I think more will be built at erratic speed and places. Not a smooth curve of worldwide construction but brief clusters here and there.
The Nordic areas might be one center of design and construction post-2050. A disciplined and desperate Japan might be another. Perhaps Russia, the USA (the USA has a large strategic stockpile), EU or even Brazil.
And the remaining islands of high tech metallurgy & electronics (the two most critical basic skills to building tokamaks) could trade with each other.
Best Hopes for Fusion,
Alan
There are tech answers to population overshoot. The problem is getting people to use them. :)
Paradoxically, they're only answers IF people use them. That, as it turns out, is a damn big IF.
As a chemical engineer currently debottlenecking a polyimide film production line, I can absolutely understand the intense time, effort, and capital required to make incremental improvements to established processes.
I don't have experience with determining the feasibility of theoretical projects; however, I imagine the same generalities apply as materials, technologies, and markets evolve over time.
Progress is neither quick nor easy.
Technical improvements are hard won any more, but we don't have much in the way of technical problems. Political and organizational improvements can come in a flash. We desperately need some of those, starting with leadership that is a little less useless than the Bush administration ...
HONC if you're organic
Careful with the explosives -- you'll get yourself on some sort of list :)
That's extremely unlikely. Nature itself gradually (over billions of years) incorporated a whole host of trace elements beyond CHON. Not likely that these were gratuitious incorporations. We may temporarily get around this or that scarcity, but we cannot continue our present way of life on CHON any more than our bodies can dispense with other elements. At some point, we will be forced to live on what nature (intelligently assisted) provides us on the surface of the planet.
I think there are a few other elements we will need in the mix--like maybe silicon, and a metal or two?
(Human body constituents)
Researchers have been trying to get organic photovoltaics to be viable for some time (and even these often involved transition metals). It's not due to a lack of trying, or some Silicon Industrial Complex conspiracy, that we're not there yet.
As a chemist, I say let all the elements into the party. Even those weird ones with the unpronounceable Latin and/or Russian names.
Indium is as common in the earth as silver. We aren't going to "run out".
You missed the word 'peak' - as always with any mined substance (including silver) you can't get at it all at the same time.
Just like oil, it's all about the rate of extraction, not the reserves, and (in the case of Indium) the non-availability of suitable alternative optically transparent materials to make the PV terminals from.
I would also add that the "rate of extraction" is likely to be severely impacted by peak oil. Energy costs and outright shortages have already become a big headache to mining companies in South Africa.
Given enough cheap energy, we will never run out of any commodity. We'll either find ways to keep extracting or manufacturing it, or we'll find substitutes. When the commodity in short supply is energy...I think that will prove to be a very different story indeed.
Agreed. I also think that this relationship between energy and all other mineral commodities is something which the typical economist appears to be unaware of. It's been noted that there's a very large amount of gold and uranium available as dissolved salts in the oceans. Almost every other material resource can be recycled and re-used, but that is not true for energy. Using fossil energy is a one time deal.
E. Swanson
Yes, at some point we start suffering from the Receding Horizon Effect...the cost of extraction keeps increasing such that it never becomes economic to pursue lower concentration ores/resources.
Andre'
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We aren't even trying to mine Indium yet. We have never tried to mine it. What we currently produce is a mere by-product of mining other metals. Declaring peak Indium right now and "running out" in 10 years is incredibly stupid.
Furthermore, it is invalid to compare a peak metal with peak oil. Yes, both with peak in production, but not in the same bell curve fashion, and not for the same geological reasons. Metals do not flow under the earth and pool under pressure.
It is far too early to declare knowledge about the max rate of indium extraction.
Agree. This has been discussed in earlier threads.
Peak Indium? Oh, nooooo. We might have to fall back on boring old Silicon.
This discussion highlights the danger of the techno-fix. As for PV the Achillies heel appears to be the doping agents and the energy required to get them. The present doping elements are indium, arsenic, phosphorus, gallium, aluminum,cadmium and boron. From what I have read most are by-products of another process; i.e. indium from zinc ore processing.
Does anyone know if the EROEI (10-30) for a PV system includes the mining and processing of the raw materials? Most of the elements listed above are also getting more difficult to extract and the mining industry is energy intensive (ICE fuel - transport, natural gas smelting, and electricity - crushing drives). Food for thought - Indium was about $94 per kG in 2002. Now it is $700 to $1000.
The OP was about Nanosolar's exotic CIGS semiconductor. Indium is not a dopant but an ingredient: the 'I' in that acronym. I was just sort-of joking around ... :) As for dopants, since their levels are in the parts-per-million, the cost of dopant in a semiconductor is negligible.
Nanosolar is making thin-film panels, so they will need small but non-negligible amounts per panel.
On the other-other hand, since Indium is not consumed to produce power, it is infinitely recyclable. So any notion of "peak" mineral would just refer to exploitation of natural deposits and neglect the likelihood of re-use.
My own opinion is that we should be working like crazy to promote known mature technology based on common things like silicon, sodium, alumina, sulfur, steel, and copper. The rarest ingredient in that list is copper, and we could (in principle) have a robust electric power infrastructure based on those elements.
I could get a couple of hundred dollars for a few oz. of Indium in flat-tape form.
The one use I know of for it is low-temp soldering, like when you don't want to risk damaging your mil-spec DPS chips putting 'em on the board.
Indium takes energy to get back out of those circuit boards.
The stuff is MUY EXPENSIVE I know someone who's sitting on hundreds and hundreds of lbs of the stuff, he's fixed for life.
Indium solder has been used (since WWII at least) to form a solder joint between copper and glass. In vacuum tubes for example.
My dad used to have a small sample of indium solder amongst his war-surplus ham radio junk. I have no idea where it is now. (probably disappeared when my mom let local hams pick over his stuff after he died)
Like tin, it makes this odd creaking noise when you bend it.
For all those who did not read my comments on Mega Solar Projects, there is a technology called CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) that works with HEAT, stores HEAT and just uses normal turbines to drive electric generators. Providing basic load and peak load on a 24/7 is guaranteed. No need for sophisticated materials, all you need is steel, glass and concrete. EROI is excellent. The technology is mature and applied in Europe (Spain) and Africa on big scale projects in the hundreds of MegaWatts. Industry grade, utility scale !
You can find excellent information here: www.mareinitiative.com or look for DESERTEC or German Aerospace.
Maybe you should ask Wolfgang Ehrlich of MARE Initiative or Dr Gerhard Knies of Desertec to write a guest post ?
Happy new 2008, Cheers !
The technology is mature ...
HARDLY !
Four small prototypes operational (a couple of them are really just solar assisted natural gas fired plants, perhaps all of them, the websites bury the FF use carefully in the verbiage).
Why do you ignore the low hanging fruit of Grand Inga ? 44 GW of hydroelectric power ?
Alan
Hey Alan, please go to www.solarmillenium.com and get yourself an education before posting ;-)
Now, Grand Inga is a drop in the proverbial African Desert. Do you have the slightest idea of Africa's energy needs ?
The population will reach very soon over 1 Billion, expected to reach 2.5 Billion by 2030. The average African today lives on 200Watts per day (12kw for US citizens).We are talking about some serious catch up here !
You are the one that "needs an education" or a dose of realism. Your proposed technology is VERY FAR from technologically mature. Most so-called "solar thermal electrical generation" are just solar assisted FF generation. Nice, a small silver BB, but not earth changing .
You are pushing an unrealistic dream with immature technology and unknown costs, unknown operating costs, unknown life expectancy, material requirements, etc. Solar thermal is where wind was circa 1970-1975. DECADES before maturity ! Too far away for more than R&D and demo plants at this time. Certainly nothing to count on today !
Your link to commercial promoters of a technology was not "unbiased". And I found them not very informative either.
I had earlier downloaded the 0.5 Mb pdf file on the Andasol project and was disappointed with the lack of good engineering info. Just PR. In noted a "low pressure preheater" in the schematic that was NOT solar so I wonder if this is a also a hybrid FF/solar plant, but it appears to be mainly solar (unlike others).
A constant 44 GW is hardly a "drop in the bucket". And it does use a mature technology, hydroelectric power. I will be long dead before solar thermal generation ever produces a constant 44 GW (44 GW x 24h x 365 = 386 TWh, Grand Inga is supposed to generate over 320 TWh/year) worldwide. I seriously doubt that solar thermal will reach 320 TWh in the next half century.
Total world electrical generation was 17,400 TWh in 2006 (EIA) Grand Inga would be close to 2% of world electrical generation !
The possibly pure solar examples (0.011 GW in Spain) I noted
BTW, does the average African use 200 Wh per day ? or 4800 Wh/day ? Your use of units makes no sense.
Grand Inga, plus other hydroelectric projects built or under development (7 GW in Angola for example) could create a mainly renewable grid for Africa today. Add a few nukes and wind turbines and Africa could be a non-GHG electrical grid ! (No solar required, just mature cost-effective technologies).
This is the REAL solution that could be on-line in a decade ! Unlike your pipe dreams.
Alan, you are soooo predictive, it's always a pleasure :)
And you show willingness to learn, that's a positive. But your ignorance on Solar CSP technology is still pathetic, hence my sincere efforts here to enlighten you and everyone on this forum.
Facts: CSP was patented more than 100 years ago in Germany
Commercial installations running: in the US since 1985 at Kramer Junction (385 MW total), new in Nevada with 68 MW. Running or being built in Spain: more than 200MW, more in the pipeline. Morocco: 500MW soon to be built.Everything needs a start, this one is not a bad one.
Now question: what is sooo bad about the fact that there is some hybrid FF/solar just to be on the safe side? Savings on FF are still tremendous, and possible biowhatever to replace in theses installations are real.
The link to the German site was on purpose , German engineering delivers, as everyone knows. And these guys know what they are doing, why not a shameless plug ? Wish I could say this about other big high tech countries....
Back to Africa. The energy usage study comes from an United Nations report that shows the proportion of energy usage in Africa right now compared to the US ... and yes, the average African uses 60x less energy daily, and the continent has 3x the US population right now. But wants to catch up to western lifestyle quick, thanks to all the nice pictures he sees on TV, and our generous aids.
No way you can close the gap with hydro, and Grand Inga has jet to be up and running: environment impacts are far from clear, politically, the region is anything but stable.
Now " Add a few nukes..." as you say must be the first real very stupid thing I have come across this year, but then, the year is very young. Political instability in Africa is extremely high and will be for generations to come. A nuclear Africa is everyones worst nightmare, forget it right now, nobody needs that !
What's left ? Cutting the trees, go coal ? Come on, are you actually paid by some anti-solar lobby to refuse stubbornly what lots of clever people have been working on for decades?
This is a forum about the future of energy as it's subtitle implies. The future is with renewables, the sun is the most credible solution for the future, there is no "solar peak" anytime soon. Technologies are here and work so let's use them. Time is ticking, put the money and the talents in the future, or run for the hills like all the doomers around :-)
http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/csp.htm
good site to start learning about concentrated solar power
At this point I'm supporting clean coal. A project was anounced for Illinois, then there was an anouncement from the fed goverment that the project was not going to be supported. Batteries for the phev lithuim iron , these batteries exist you can buy them there are issues with warrenty, quality, and who owns patent. nimh batteries seem to be propritory, zebra batteries seem good now. you can't buy them either.
fore and aft
I am for going forward with technogies and also for adopting backwards technologies to stay alive. I think the ban on keeping chickens would be a bad idea durring an economic crisis,
Henry, the above mentioned link is actually a support group for DESERTEC.
CSP is supported by most European States, the EU and a growing number of Mediterranean countries, and the august "Club of Rome". The 100 GW project in the Sahara will almost certainly be built, despite some funny comments of Alan. We shall see. Guess he is not that much a visionary. Most people I know in Europe believe strongly in the technology and it's potential. I guess there are always some guys around who think they got it all together until proven wrong.(I know, it cut's both ways) :-)
Commercial installations running: in the US since 1985 at Kramer Junction (385 MW total)
Kramer Junction is solar assisted natural gas fired electrical generation. VERY efficient NG plants with the solar assist. A nice idea, but NOT a world changing one. And not worth building those grandiose HV DC lines across Africa & Europe for !
Your Spanish total is almost all "being built" (some in the RFP phase from what I read). Prototypes in the process of construction are NOT "mature technology" !
Grand Inga has jet to be up and running: environment impacts are far from clear, politically, the region is anything but stable.
How wrong. Inga 1 (351 MW) has been operating since 1972, Inga 2 (1,424 MW) since 1982 and Inga 3 (3,500 to 4,500 MW) is under active consideration.
Note the HV DC lines proposed for Grand Inga compared to your links
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/inga.html
Supplying 2% of the world's electricity from renewable sources for $20 billion or so is "low hanging fruit" and MUCH more than "a drop in the bucket". It could supply much of today's electrical demand in Africa from renewable sources ! *ALL* (or 98%) of Africa' electricity, at today's levels, could come from non-GHG (and zero solar) sources. I doubt Africa will ever see major increases to US levels of electrical demand so I dismiss any need to build that much.
Build to today's demand and a modest growth from that. And no solar required to do so (of course, if it ever becomes economic, it should be built in that distant year).
There are no significant environmental issues with Inga (despite your claims), it is a "run-of-the-river" project shortly before the Congo empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Take water out just before the rapids and return it to the river at the bottom of the rapids. Just like Niagara Falls (about 5 GW there).
You want Europe to relie upon "politically unstable power" ?
There are islands of stability in Africa that would be good sites for nukes. South Africa for one (a former nuclear bomb owner BTW). Tunisia and Morocco are others.
I think then German company linked is sucking on the teat of gov't subsidies and I have serious doubts that they can deliver economic power. I am very underimpressed by their published info.
the sun is the most credible solution for the future
Solar thermal (no hybrid FF use) electrical generation is the LEAST credible source of non-GHG generation ! You are pushing the most "far out" possibility.
A rough ranking in credibility (at reasonable cost)
1) Hydro
2) Biomass (limited volume though, but it works)
3a) Nuclear
3b) Geothermal
4) Wind
5) Solar PV
6) Tidal, wave
7) Solar Thermal
It is your ignorance, and not mine, that is pathetic,
Alan
Alan,
time will tell, and probably very soon, what is (left) in store. Africa is full of surprises as many have experienced over the years. I know quite a bit about it and can talk with confidence. Realism is my first name actually :-) .. so I am very skeptical about your comments.
So let's see how it all plays out.
I wish you a very prosperous and happy new year !
Sun
Alan,
I am not sure why you rank solar thermal below tidal and wave energy. 354MWe of solar thermal generation has been online in California for two decades. I do not think that tidal or wave energy have similar amounts of installations. The fact that these solar thermal plants also use natural gas is not a reason to regard them as inferior to other intermittent renewable energy sources. All intermittent renewables are effectively assisted by dispatchable fossil fuel generation via the power grid. The reason that solar thermal plants are built with the direct support of natural gas is because it is convenient to do so. The same steam turbine that is run directly by solar energy can also be run by natural gas with a relatively small extra expenditure of capital. The fact that solar thermal plants can be run directly off of sunlight, off of stored thermal energy, or off of biomass using the same piece of generation equipment is in fact an advantage of this technology relative to other renewable energy sources. For example and wind/pumped hydro energy system requires both the primary generators on all of the turbines, plus hydro turbines and generators in the pumped hydro storage system.
None of which is to say that I am promoting solar thermal as a miracle solution to our energy problems. The plant being build in Spain has quoted costs of $7000/kW and $0.31/kWh of delivered electricity, which is far from cheap. Still, new designs (e.g. linear fresnel concentrators) and mass production could drop costs significantly.
Roger,
as brief follow up, you are right about the mass production factor, this is precisely what the next EU support step is all about. Several manufacturers under the lead of the German Aerospace center are working hard to bring the system price down to finally get to the target price of about 0.05€/kWh of delivered electricity.
Sun
linear fresnel concentrators
http://www.novatec-biosol.com/engl/fresnel.htm
not what has been used for decades solel
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000294019&fid=942
tower solar power tower is another type of solar power generation.
such towers are in use in spain
sun edison has just made a big buy of china photovoltaics
Sunpower Corporation has been manufacturing back contact silicon PV cells for several years. Doesn’t this technology obviate the need for optically transparent conductors, at least for silicon cells? Of course transparent conductors give more design flexibility and are therefore still desirable.
Optically transparent conductors are required for thin film CIGS like Nanosolar. The material to make them is not costly, but the reliability is a factor.
The article which inspired this (divergent at times) thread is rather confused, thus inspiring even more confusion in response. One finds this sentence:
right next to a picture of an indium ingot which is clearly not transparent.
The idea (missed by the article) is that 2-D graphene sheets might replace thin Indium Tin Oxide layers. ITO is transparent and conductive--thus making it useful as a top conducting layer in liquid crystal displays (LCD). According to Wikipedia:
The function of Indium in solar cells is quite different from that in LCDs, as the graphic at the top indicates. Now, it is true that employing graphene in LCDs instead of ITO would free up Indium for use in CIGS solar cells, but the gist from the article that (highly conducting and transparent) graphene itself is useful as a photovoltaic semiconductor is bizarre. It's not even wrong, as Wolfgang Pauli once said.
Robert has a nice Nanosolar update today:
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/12/nanosolar-update.html