From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2014 10:48 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Climate models

 

 

On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Chris de Morsella <cdemorse...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

 

 

> Shall we do the math now .

 

Yes lets.

 

> 150GW * 8670 (hours/year)

 

Actually 24 times 365 is 8760 not 8670; and if you want to get technical a
year is a little more than 365 days so it's really 8766 hours, but never
mind.

 

Okay. get picky about very small details dude, but  that does not alter the
fact that your result was off by a factor of two thousand times!



> Typically nuclear power plants operate at 80% capacity so 1 GW * 8670
(hours in a year) * 80% = Annual expected output = 6936 GW hours / year

>>OK, Gigawatt is a unit of power and Gigawatt-hour is a unit of energy, and
so the plant produces .8 
Gigawatts of power and .8 Gigawatt-hours of energy every hour or 7008 (not
6936) Gigawatt-hours of energy every year.

 

You are so very picky for someone whose calculations produced results that
were wrong by a factor of two thousand times. A GW of capacity is the
nameplate measurement of capacity to produce power; a GW-hour is a
measurement of actual output. You multiply the capacity by a capacity
factor, which for big thermo-electric plants (both nuclear and coal) is
around 80% and then multiply that by the number of hours in a year to get
the estimated annual output.

 

 

  * 20% (capacity factor) = 260TW of annual electric output. This yields:
0.0017. A number that is 2,000 times larger than the number you erroneously
produced. 

 

What the hell? You're confusing the difference between power and energy,
they are not the same thing and if you insist on multiplying the capacity of
your solar cells by a factor of 8670  (or even a 8760 ) then I can multiply
what's needed to run human technology by that same 8670 factor and the
percentages would remain the same. 

You really don't get it do you. Are you dense or just argumentative?

Capacity measures the nameplate potential to produce power - a solar panel
with a 1kw capacity can produce a kilowatt of power if the sun is shining on
it at full flux. Actual annual electric output is a very different, but
related metric. You get that by multiplying the capacity by the number of
hours in a year and then applying a capacity factor adjustment to the
result. The sun does not shine at night so right there solar PV capacity
factor goes down to 50%. It also Is not always sunny and so it goes down
even more. In the end what you have left - and the average figure that is
most widely accepted (it does of course vary from place to place - some
areas are better for solar than others)  is 20%

I did my calculations correctly; you were off by 2000 times dude. The 8670 =
365*24 - that is the number of hours in a year. To get annual electric
output from a measure of a energy systems capacity this is what you do..
Does not matter if it is solar, wind, nuclear, coal, gas or whatever, dude -
and now I really am beginning to question your intelligence John. This is
basic math dude.

You can certainly multiply a figure that is representing the annual total
amount of energy consumed in a year expressed in terms of watt hours by any
number that pops out of your brain, but to what end? The annual energy
produced is already a measure of annual energy produced so multiplying that
figure by the number of hours in a year is stupid. Are you stupid John?

On the one hand there is a measure of capacity and on the other hand there
is a measure of annual output. In order to compare these numbers an annual
output number needs to be computed from the capacity number; otherwise it is
comparing apples and oranges. Please don't be so dense; this is simple.



The Watt is a unit of power and the watt-hour is a unit of energy.  So if a
1.5* 10^11 watt solar instillation runs at 20% capacity as you say then on
average it produces 3 *10^10 watts of power and in one hour it produces 3
*10^10 watt hours of energy. But the POWER required to operate human
technology on this planet is the equivalent of 1.5*10^17 watts,  and to
operate it for one hour you'd need 1.5*10^17 watt-hours of ENERGY and to
operate it for one year you'd need 8760 times as much energy.

Therefore I was incorrect when I said photovoltaics provides .0001%  of what
is needed  to run the world, the true figure is less than that because I
didn't take into account the 20% capacity figure that you mentioned;  so
photovoltaics actually provide .00002% of the power needed to run human
technology, or to put it another way, photovoltaics provide .00002% of the
energy needed to run things for one hour, or 00002% of the energy needed to
run things for one day, or .00002% of the energy needed to run things for
one second, or ....

When you think about it this very low figure really shouldn't be a big
surprise because I would guess that of all the large machines you have ever
seen in your life (with your own eyes and not on YouTube) photovoltaic
powered ones comprise about .00002% of them.

 

John you really don't get it do you? Amazing!

 

>>  let's stop all this idiotic talk about recoverable Thorium reserves. 

 

> Only if you stop the idiotic talk of counting the Thorium in your garden
dirt as being part of some hypothetical future Thorium reserve.

 

As I've said several times nobody is going to bother with the Thorium in
your garden dirt until ores of much much greater Thorium concentration have
run out, and at current energy consumption that won't happen for over a
billion years. And when dealing with technology a billion years in advance
of ours it would be ridiculous to say what sort of ore is recoverable and
what sort is not.

Nobody is going to resurface planet earth - ever. Get real dude.

>>> and in order to bring it [LFTR} into existence would require a large
scale concerted multi-decadal effort.


>> A keen grasp of the obvious. A changeover of the way human civilization
is powered from fossil fuel to ANYTHING elsewould require a large scale
concerted multi-decade effort.


> Brilliant deduction Sherlock


I believe the expression you were looking for is "No Shit Sherlock".

You said it.

  John K Clark

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