Potentially 60BB of oil in Falklands waters.......

[fsskier]

[/quote]
http://www.metaefficient.com/news/north-americas-largest-solar-electric-plant-in-switched-on.html

Does it make sense to spend $100 million to save $20 million?[/quote]

Reread it carefully: The Air Force invested nothing. They get a 1 million dollar a year savings in their electric bill for the 20 year contract.

The private investors who built the solar plant raised the 100 million and are selling the electricity to the Air Force for less than the price of the competition.

I suspect they are also trying to make money, and are not just operating a charity!!

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

The article says there is 1 million bucks in savings a year. Since they are selling the electricity for 2.2 cents per kW hour vs. the 9 cents the AF was paying, savings would be 6.8 cents per kW hour. That puts expected sales at 14705882 kW hours, resulting in an annual income of $323,529.

Since annual maintanance/administrative/personnel costs must at least equal this amount (they are, in all probability, much higher) there is virtually no return on the $100 million investment.

I don't know who would invest in such an incredibly stupid program, but I suspect Warren Buffet wasn't involved. I'd guess the funds came from the U.S. Government.

 

[Gary Allan]

One of my "in the beltway boyz" is always trying to cut a deal. All you need to make money with photovoltaic is to have a site that will allow you to plant them on it. It has to make no sensible gain economically. The gains are in avoided taxes and/or tax credits.

 

[fsskier]

Gary Allan, your comments match nicely with what I have read:

Photovoltaic power generation is improving, but needs more volume and additional manufacturing/cost improvements to be really competitive.

Steam Turbines, using reflector fields may already be competitive.

Of course coal power does not include the cost of carbon capture..... or the cost of the ocean rising several feet and causing my daughters house in Florida to become a reef!

 

[PandaBear]

Regarding to "from concentrate" orange juice, they are "efficient" because you can store them in low cost, and is cheaper because some land is more effective in growing orange than others (sun light). I'd imagine it won't be too efficient during non peak season to send oranges fresh across the globe, but when the season isn't there and people want oranges, that may be the more efficient way (i.e. shipping lettuce around). In addition, illegal workers in the field is cheap in US compare to legal workers in Australia / New Zealand, so you get these import oranges.

Now tempest, about price stability: you either have regulation to ban market manipulation like Enron (which causes utility bankruptcy and rolling black out) or Goldman Sacks driving up oil price with massive stockpile not released to refinery to prop up scarcity and then crash it. How is the market going to fix that without regulation?

 

[Shannow]

Still, if you look at the moisture content of oranges, and the energy that it takes to drive that moisture out, you use more energy that the calorific content of the orange in processing...to get a nutritionally inferior outcome.

 

[Gary Allan]

Essentially we're going to starve to death if we can't produce enough energy to process and transport our food. People only see that it's grown (virtually) energy free, seeing the irrigation and planting/harvesting as minor. Another iceberg.

 

[fsskier]

]The article says there is 1 million bucks in savings a year. Since they are selling the electricity for 2.2 cents per kW hour vs. the 9 cents the AF was paying, savings would be 6.8 cents per kW hour. That puts expected sales at 14705882 kW hours, resulting in an annual income of $323,529.[/I] quote]



Since they claim that they will generate 30 Million KWH each year, they do not mention how much they sell the other 15 million KW for.

The newest steam-solar plant put on line is actually getting MORE than average rates, by agreeing to sell it on hot sunny days, when wholesale rates rise sharply in the desert southwest. That plant is clearly going to make money.
Perhaps the income of this photovoltaic plant will greater than it appears if the other 15 Million KW commands peak rates!

Maybe somebody can find a link giving more information??

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

Ok, if they are able to sell the remaining power generated for the retail price of 9 cents per kW hour, then they will have an additional $1.35 million a year. After costs, that probably represents about a 1% a year return in investment.

No argument there about the steam-solar plants, providing you have the available water. The photovoltaic plant is a boondoggle done for photo-ops and political grandstanding. They would have been much better off spending that money in R&D.

 

[Shannow]

Most steam plants have a closed loop rankine cycle operation, but evaporate water for the cooling.

If you've got a run of river, tidal pool, or select dry cooling (Air coooled condensers, at a lower efficiency), then water requirements from steam cycle power generation can be very small.

 

[Gary Allan]

I want greenhouse and street cooling ..especially in the winter. Just make the system twice as big as needed. No water usage of merit. They can process the effluent from the sewer plant and send it back up to the water plant after they're done with it.

Have faith in systems.

 

[Tempest]

Originally Posted By: ArrestMeRedZ
I'd guess the funds came from the U.S. Government.

Exactly.

From the US:
Quote:
While the U.S. does not have feed-in tariffs at this time, it does subsidize solar power through investment tax credits that are as high as 30 percent currently and until 2016. Solar also benefits from a permanent investment tax credit of 10 percent in the U.S., and a 5-year accelerated depreciation write-off. The Energy information Administration estimates that total federal subsidies for electric production from solar power for fiscal year 2007 were $24.34 per megawatt hour, compared to 25 cents per megawatt hour for natural gas and petroleum fueled technologies—98 times higher. Yet, even with these subsidies, solar generated only 0.02 percent of U.S. electricity in 2008. That is because solar at around 40 cents per kilowatt hour is more than 4 times as expensive on a levelized cost basis than its fossil competitors. (EIA estimates that levelized costs for conventional coal are 9.46 cents per kilowatt hour and those for natural gas combined cycle are 8.39 cents per kilowatt hour (in 2007 dollars) for 2016.


Canada:
Quote:
Ontario will soon offer Canada's first subsidy to homeowners or businesses that install solar electric power. The incentive — 42 cents for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced

Market price is 6 cents.
http://www.energyrefuge.com/archives/Solar_panel_subsidy.htm

From Germany:
Quote:
Utilities currently pay about 39 euro cents in feed-in tariffs per kilowatt for solar power, about eight times as much they pay for conventional power, and industry experts expect the planned cut to speed up the shakeup in the industry.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE60J0PA20100120


Quote:
the cost of the ocean rising several feet and causing my daughters house in Florida to become a reef!

The ocean have been rising for 10,000 years...

 

[Tempest]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan

It's not efficient or inefficient stated that way.

So going from 6Billion inhabitants to 3 (not billion ..just 3) isn't efficient?


All of those 6 billion lives can be working on solutions to other problems (like energy) IF... they don't have to work in the fields to raise food.

The greater the population, the greater the discoveries. This is historical fact...when the people are allowed their own devices.

 

[Gary Allan]

Got a link?

So, let's expand the population ..depleting finite resources, many of which cannot be recovered, so that they'll discover better ways to consume finite resources ..that cannot be recovered.

Mind if I empty your wallet as much as I can? I want to see how many hoops you'll figure out to jump through to fill it back up again.

When I hear these notions ..I'm reminded of a Monthy Python skit. Eric Idle and John Cleese were discussing a design of a public building with Eric being the would be customer and John being the would be architect.

John described a moving conveyor hallway that passed through a set of rotating blades and terminated at a chute that led to the rendering plant.

Eric paused and said, "That's not quite what we had in mind".



I think cross cultural exposure is responsible for much innovation.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
I think cross cultural exposure is responsible for much innovation.

And exactly what has allowed the expansion of cultural exposure?

Are you saying that people invent just as many things in the rice patties as they do in engineering school and have time to do other things than raise food?

 

[Gary Allan]

So I think you should send everyone to engineering school to figure out more clever and innovative ways to consume finite resources.

Tempest, you'll just never get it. You're in a fish bowl of finite resources without any plausible escape hatch. Any notion of continual and perpetual expansion of consumption is just driving toward a cliff ..assuming that "some thing" will build a ledge out just to accommodate the driver.

It's ignorant of the notion that there will be no bridge. It's the most senseless philosophy that has not one defensible aspect in simple logic.

You have some faith based belief going on here. One that requires not one bit of material evidence to support.

The world just won't turn out the way you expect it to ..no matter how much you wish it to be so.

 

[Gary Allan]

..but let me also say that you are not alone in this assumption of "they'll figure something out". I see quite a few people who figured that they could just consume like there's no tomorrow ..since they figured that "they" would figure a way to enable them to continue to do so.

They were wrong.

 

[Shannow]

I liked the argument from a few years ago (not Tempest, and for that I give credit) that our children will be smarter, so it doesn't really matter what we do, our future generations will be able to fix it.

Sort of the "there's just enough of everything to get us to where we are going", but without the finite conclusion.

 

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
I think cross cultural exposure is responsible for much innovation.

And exactly what has allowed the expansion of cultural exposure?

Are you saying that people invent just as many things in the rice patties as they do in engineering school and have time to do other things than raise food?

People working in the rice patties do learn that newer, faster, bigger is not always the answer...

Seems like big "efficient" machinery wouldn't be much of an asset here.

 

[MarkC]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
Originally Posted By: ArrestMeRedZ
I'd guess the funds came from the U.S. Government.

Exactly.

From the US:
Quote:
While the U.S. does not have feed-in tariffs at this time, it does subsidize solar power through investment tax credits that are as high as 30 percent currently and until 2016. Solar also benefits from a permanent investment tax credit of 10 percent in the U.S., and a 5-year accelerated depreciation write-off. The Energy information Administration estimates that total federal subsidies for electric production from solar power for fiscal year 2007 were $24.34 per megawatt hour, compared to 25 cents per megawatt hour for natural gas and petroleum fueled technologies—98 times higher. Yet, even with these subsidies, solar generated only 0.02 percent of U.S. electricity in 2008. That is because solar at around 40 cents per kilowatt hour is more than 4 times as expensive on a levelized cost basis than its fossil competitors. (EIA estimates that levelized costs for conventional coal are 9.46 cents per kilowatt hour and those for natural gas combined cycle are 8.39 cents per kilowatt hour (in 2007 dollars) for 2016.


Canada:
Quote:
Ontario will soon offer Canada's first subsidy to homeowners or businesses that install solar electric power. The incentive — 42 cents for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced

Market price is 6 cents.
http://www.energyrefuge.com/archives/Solar_panel_subsidy.htm

From Germany:
Quote:
Utilities currently pay about 39 euro cents in feed-in tariffs per kilowatt for solar power, about eight times as much they pay for conventional power, and industry experts expect the planned cut to speed up the shakeup in the industry.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE60J0PA20100120


Quote:
the cost of the ocean rising several feet and causing my daughters house in Florida to become a reef!

The ocean have been rising for 10,000 years...


Actually,Holocene sea level was at historic maximum about 7000 years ago.