Comments on: China — Helping to Bring in Wind Power http://2greenenergy.com/china-wind-power/1859/ Renewable Energy Business and Investing Tue, 22 May 2012 21:36:48 +0000 hourly 1 By: Craig Shields http://2greenenergy.com/china-wind-power/1859/#comment-2011 Craig Shields Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:17:54 +0000 http://www.2greenenergy.com/?p=1859#comment-2011 More conversation on this: Peter Buzzard: I love this Craig, we have to get together. You make a compelling argument. DC transmission is a great idea, but then you will have a resistive heat system to convert the energy to thermal for the salt storage. Has anyone researched the resistive losses? Also the salt storage will eventually be used to create steam and turn a turbine generator. This only 33% efficient. Of course, all conventional power plants have this same efficiency problem, but wouldn't it be better to get the full value of the solar energy? As far as start up cost for a solar project vs a nuclear project, I recently compared two estimates. Here are the results: Million $ Megawatts Dollars per watt Solar 515 80 6.44 Nuclear 13000 2200 5.91 But maybe if you really scale up the Solar project size, it will drop below Nuc. The nuc foot print will be smaller, but they both share some of the same location issues. I don't have good data on solar life expectancy or maintenance costs either. There are a lot of unknowns here, but at least it's getting attention. Craig Shields: Sorry, I haven't explained this very well. The heat energy from the solar thermal generates steam that turns a turbine that generates electricity. But some of that energy is also used to heat molten salt. When the sun goes down, that heat energy is used to produce electricty. The high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission is used to conduct the energy over long distances; the higher the voltage the less the line losses. I can probably do a better job of this verbally. Please call when you can; I'd love to catch up with you anyway. 805-693-1017. Re: <a href="http://www.2greenenergy.com/1756/1756/" rel="nofollow">nuclear</a>, please see blog post linked. More conversation on this:

Peter Buzzard: I love this Craig, we have to get together. You make a compelling argument. DC transmission is a great idea, but then you will have a resistive heat system to convert the energy to thermal for the salt storage. Has anyone researched the resistive losses? Also the salt storage will eventually be used to create steam and turn a turbine generator. This only 33% efficient. Of course, all conventional power plants have this same efficiency problem, but wouldn’t it be better to get the full value of the solar energy?

As far as start up cost for a solar project vs a nuclear project, I recently compared two estimates. Here are the results:

Million $ Megawatts Dollars per watt
Solar 515 80 6.44
Nuclear 13000 2200 5.91

But maybe if you really scale up the Solar project size, it will drop below Nuc. The nuc foot print will be smaller, but they both share some of the same location issues. I don’t have good data on solar life expectancy or maintenance costs either. There are a lot of unknowns here, but at least it’s getting attention.

Craig Shields: Sorry, I haven’t explained this very well. The heat energy from the solar thermal generates steam that turns a turbine that generates electricity. But some of that energy is also used to heat molten salt. When the sun goes down, that heat energy is used to produce electricty. The high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission is used to conduct the energy over long distances; the higher the voltage the less the line losses.

I can probably do a better job of this verbally. Please call when you can; I’d love to catch up with you anyway. 805-693-1017.

Re: nuclear, please see blog post linked.

]]> By: Peter Buzzard http://2greenenergy.com/china-wind-power/1859/#comment-2010 Peter Buzzard Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:42:25 +0000 http://www.2greenenergy.com/?p=1859#comment-2010 The current technology of Wind and Solar tends to provide power when and where it is needed the least. The transmission of power from wind and solar farms to population centers is extremely expensive, and superconducting transmission lines are still a future dream, so the answer lies elsewhere... probably small scale coiled supercondutors that will extract power from the magnetic field of the earth (or other planets we might go to). We will also need some major improvements in battery technology (our national labs are working hard at this). Either way, we don't have the right answer yet, but until we do, we have nuclear plants. The current technology of Wind and Solar tends to provide power when and where it is needed the least. The transmission of power from wind and solar farms to population centers is extremely expensive, and superconducting transmission lines are still a future dream, so the answer lies elsewhere…
probably small scale coiled supercondutors that will extract power from the magnetic field of the earth (or other planets we might go to). We will also need some major improvements in battery technology (our national labs are working hard at this). Either way, we don’t have the right answer yet, but until we do, we have nuclear plants.

]]> By: China Strategies Speaks on Renewables | Renewable Energy Business Consulting and Investment Services http://2greenenergy.com/china-wind-power/1859/#comment-2009 China Strategies Speaks on Renewables | Renewable Energy Business Consulting and Investment Services Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:28:12 +0000 http://www.2greenenergy.com/?p=1859#comment-2009 [...] Strategies Speaks on Renewables I quoted Lou Schwartz of China Strategies in an earlier post on wind power, and I found what he said so fascinating that I placed a call to him just now to ask him more about [...] [...] Strategies Speaks on Renewables I quoted Lou Schwartz of China Strategies in an earlier post on wind power, and I found what he said so fascinating that I placed a call to him just now to ask him more about [...]

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