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This is great news, there should be a large push now to base large parts of the grid on solar (and of course wind). Not accounted in the costs of conventional p
by _ph_ 10y ago
This is great news, there should be a large push now to base large parts of the grid on solar (and of course wind). Not accounted in the costs of conventional power generation is all the environmental impact - factoring that it, solar probably is already cheaper.
Another seldom mentioned fact is, that solar plants don't have a minimum size. So for large regions in Africa, where there is no grid yet, it is much easier to set up isolated small solar plants in villages than to construct a whole grid.
- gaius 10y agoThere is environmental impact in solar too - the manufacturing processes for photovoltaic cells aren't exactly clean, the raw materials still need to be sourced, installations spread out over mile after mile need vehicles to maintain etc etc. But the real elephant in the corner of the room is that there is no really good method yet for buffering power generated by solar by day, for consumption overnight, when it is needed for lighting, heating, cooking, etc. A conventional station doesn't care what time of day it is. THAT is the barrier to widespread adoption, and it's one that solar proponents always seem to overlook...
- nl 10y agoI'll keep posting this until I see someone else on HN posting itbtoo: Flow batteries are here now, cheap, and work well. They don't have the power density of the Tesla batteries, but for residential and light industrial use they work well.
- jessaustin 10y agoCan you recommend an online supplier or a particular model?
- marcosdumay 10y agoFlow batteries have two basic problems. One is that they deal badly with usage intermittency - one must be always charging or discharging them, you can't just store them. The second is just, where do I buy one? Nobody seems to make them, no idea why. Maybe this one solves itself when solar gets widespread, or maybe there's some government hand in that and it won't be available when we need it.
- nl 10y agoOne is that they deal badly with usage intermittency - one must be always charging or discharging them, you can't just store them. That isn't really a problem in home use. You just run your power though them, and dump any excess to the grid. The second is just, where do I buy one? Nobody seems to make them, no idea why. Maybe this one solves itself when solar gets widespread, or maybe there's some government hand in that and it won't be available when we need it. For industrial use http://redflow.com/ http://redflow.com/, and just starting to hit the residential market now (Disclaimer: I work in the same building as a Redflow office)
- gaius 10y agoI'm waiting for vanadium redox batteries to go mainstream myself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery