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That's really great but the unsolved hurdle in solar power is energy storage. You can generate a large amount of energy on bright, sunny days but what happens

That's really great but the unsolved hurdle in solar power is energy storage. You can generate a large amount of energy on bright, sunny days but what happens at night when people go home and turn on their lights, television, and computers? Without a way to offer on-demand energy, solar will never be able to replace traditional coal and gas-fired plants. Wind power does fare better throughout the day, but is still subject to the whims of the weather. The big piece of the puzzle still to be solved is large scale battery/storage technology.

cma 12y ago
Air conditioning is a big power draw and peaks along with the sun.
- hueving 12y ago
  That doesn't really help unless the panels are in the same location as the solar field. Anecdotally this isn't really true either. The peak for air conditioning is usually later in the afternoon since it takes a while for the sun to heat up the area from the cool of the night.
TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
Why are people down-voting this comment? Is being correct not allowed? In Australia it is often not sunny for days on end, also it is often not windy for days on end, over huge areas of land - you know, like, bigger than a lot of European countries. For wind and solar to be economically competitive with coal / gas / nuclear they have to be at price parity including 24+hrs storage. This isn't going to happen any time soon without massive government incentive. Professor Barry Brook of Adelaide University has been blogging about this for a good few years now. We need to think critically about 'sustainable energy'. I encourage you all to read his blog [1], particularly the TCASE [2] (Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy) series. Let's level the playing field: ultimately there are only two good metrics worth considering a) life-time cost per kWh and b) life-time CO2 emissions per kWh --- but to level the playing field you need to consider each generating technology on a base-load comparison. It's no good comparing a 1GW gas plant and a 1GW nameplate solar installation because the sun only shines about 6.5hrs per day averaged throughout the year in, say, Adelaide for example, so you typically need to over-build solar by a factor of 4 and then add storage. When you do that the life-time cost and life-time CO2 emissions aren't so crash got because of the massive amounts of energy intensive stainless steel, steel, and concrete required, plus new transmission lines. If you want to see a real-world example of how wind does work, check the UK National Grid Status site [3] - the wind hasn't been blowing in the UK for weeks, presently their 8GW of installed wind is generating 0.82GW electricity. The data speaks for itself, look at the graphs. A vote for wind / solar is a vote for new gas _because_ gas is easily load following. Of course, the gas plant owners don't like that because when the wind blows their plants sit idle. The whole renewable energy push is an expensive mess. I've commented elsewhere on HN about this, so I'll stop repeating myself now. 1. http://bravenewclimate.com/ http://bravenewclimate.com/ 2. http://bravenewclimate.com/?s=TCASE http://bravenewclimate.com/?s=TCASE 3. http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ Edit: formatting
- threeseed 12y ago
  > The whole renewable energy push is an expensive mess. So what ? ALL energy production is. But I would rather take a clean, renewable source of energy over the polluting coal/gas or the unsafe nuclear kinds. And a country like Australia would be amazing for renewables provided we could have a country wide power grid. It is windy almost every day in say Fremantle and likewise sunny almost every day in many northern/central areas.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
    I'm not convinced you read my comment, so I'll repeat it in tl;dr format for your convenience: Once you tally up life-time CO2 emissions for solar & wind, including storage, new transmission lines, and loses for 3000km long transmission lines, neither of them stack up very well compared to, say, gas or nuclear. And saying "nuclear is unsafe" is nonsense. Nuclear kills fewer people per unit of electricity produced than even roof-top solar [1], including the deaths from Chernobyl and the deaths from the evacuation of the area surrounding Fukushima Daiichi. (I say "deaths from the evacuation" because, as yet, no one has died as a direct result of the core melt downs [2]). Saying things like "nuclear is unsafe because of Chernobyl / Three Mile Island / Fukushima" is like saying "Air travel is unsafe because of the Hindenburg disaster". Burning coal for electricity has released in to the environment more radioactive material than nuclear power ever will. It's the only current technology base-load capable electricity generator that has a completely closed fuel cycle. Additionally, we need to move away from saying things like "Australia would be amazing for" this or that technology. Aside from the evidence pointing toward 'renewables' being a dumb idea environmentally and economically (just look at the real world data), if China and India and the USA don't do anything about their emissions Australia might as well not even bother. If Australia doesn't do anything about transport (14%) [3], direct fuel combustion (15%) [3], and agricultural, emissions (15.9%) [4], we might as well not even bother. Electricity production emissions account for 36% [3] of Australia's GHG emissions. 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Chernobyl_nuclear_accidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Che... 3. http://www.carbonneutral.com.au/climate-change/australian-emissions.html http://www.carbonneutral.com.au/climate-change/australian-em... 4. http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Reducing-GHG/Carbon-Australian-agriculture_CLI.aspx http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Reducing-GHG/Carbon-Aus...
dwd 12y ago
There's a few companies around trialing systems. I know a guy who worked at Redflow for a while: http://redflow.com/ http://redflow.com/
tarikjn 12y ago
Actually, for steam solar plants, this problem has been addressed for a couple years already using molten sands: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-use-solar-energy-at-night/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-use-solar-e...

cma 12y ago

Air conditioning is a big power draw and peaks along with the sun.

hueving 12y ago
That doesn't really help unless the panels are in the same location as the solar field. Anecdotally this isn't really true either. The peak for air conditioning is usually later in the afternoon since it takes a while for the sun to heat up the area from the cool of the night.

TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago

Why are people down-voting this comment? Is being correct not allowed? In Australia it is often not sunny for days on end, also it is often not windy for days on end, over huge areas of land - you know, like, bigger than a lot of European countries. For wind and solar to be economically competitive with coal / gas / nuclear they have to be at price parity including 24+hrs storage. This isn't going to happen any time soon without massive government incentive. Professor Barry Brook of Adelaide University has been blogging about this for a good few years now. We need to think critically about 'sustainable energy'. I encourage you all to read his blog [1], particularly the TCASE [2] (Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy) series. Let's level the playing field: ultimately there are only two good metrics worth considering a) life-time cost per kWh and b) life-time CO2 emissions per kWh --- but to level the playing field you need to consider each generating technology on a base-load comparison. It's no good comparing a 1GW gas plant and a 1GW nameplate solar installation because the sun only shines about 6.5hrs per day averaged throughout the year in, say, Adelaide for example, so you typically need to over-build solar by a factor of 4 and then add storage. When you do that the life-time cost and life-time CO2 emissions aren't so crash got because of the massive amounts of energy intensive stainless steel, steel, and concrete required, plus new transmission lines. If you want to see a real-world example of how wind does work, check the UK National Grid Status site [3] - the wind hasn't been blowing in the UK for weeks, presently their 8GW of installed wind is generating 0.82GW electricity. The data speaks for itself, look at the graphs. A vote for wind / solar is a vote for new gas _because_ gas is easily load following. Of course, the gas plant owners don't like that because when the wind blows their plants sit idle. The whole renewable energy push is an expensive mess. I've commented elsewhere on HN about this, so I'll stop repeating myself now. 1. http://bravenewclimate.com/ http://bravenewclimate.com/ 2. http://bravenewclimate.com/?s=TCASE http://bravenewclimate.com/?s=TCASE 3. http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ Edit: formatting

threeseed 12y ago
> The whole renewable energy push is an expensive mess. So what ? ALL energy production is. But I would rather take a clean, renewable source of energy over the polluting coal/gas or the unsafe nuclear kinds. And a country like Australia would be amazing for renewables provided we could have a country wide power grid. It is windy almost every day in say Fremantle and likewise sunny almost every day in many northern/central areas.
- TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
  I'm not convinced you read my comment, so I'll repeat it in tl;dr format for your convenience: Once you tally up life-time CO2 emissions for solar & wind, including storage, new transmission lines, and loses for 3000km long transmission lines, neither of them stack up very well compared to, say, gas or nuclear. And saying "nuclear is unsafe" is nonsense. Nuclear kills fewer people per unit of electricity produced than even roof-top solar [1], including the deaths from Chernobyl and the deaths from the evacuation of the area surrounding Fukushima Daiichi. (I say "deaths from the evacuation" because, as yet, no one has died as a direct result of the core melt downs [2]). Saying things like "nuclear is unsafe because of Chernobyl / Three Mile Island / Fukushima" is like saying "Air travel is unsafe because of the Hindenburg disaster". Burning coal for electricity has released in to the environment more radioactive material than nuclear power ever will. It's the only current technology base-load capable electricity generator that has a completely closed fuel cycle. Additionally, we need to move away from saying things like "Australia would be amazing for" this or that technology. Aside from the evidence pointing toward 'renewables' being a dumb idea environmentally and economically (just look at the real world data), if China and India and the USA don't do anything about their emissions Australia might as well not even bother. If Australia doesn't do anything about transport (14%) [3], direct fuel combustion (15%) [3], and agricultural, emissions (15.9%) [4], we might as well not even bother. Electricity production emissions account for 36% [3] of Australia's GHG emissions. 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Chernobyl_nuclear_accidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Che... 3. http://www.carbonneutral.com.au/climate-change/australian-emissions.html http://www.carbonneutral.com.au/climate-change/australian-em... 4. http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Reducing-GHG/Carbon-Australian-agriculture_CLI.aspx http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Reducing-GHG/Carbon-Aus...

dwd 12y ago

There's a few companies around trialing systems. I know a guy who worked at Redflow for a while: http://redflow.com/ http://redflow.com/

tarikjn 12y ago

Actually, for steam solar plants, this problem has been addressed for a couple years already using molten sands: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-use-solar-energy-at-night/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-use-solar-e...