Jones Beene wrote:
Under the premise that a solar energy converter with an installed capital cost of less than $2 per peak watt will go a long way towards solving the energy crisis, and....
This goal seems unnecessarily ambitious. $3 or even $4 per peak watt would be almost as good, and easier to achieve.
I think it is reasonable to assume that a well engineered product introduced at $4 would catch on and begin selling like hotcakes for some applications, in some locations, such as Arizona. Once sales ramp up, the cost is bound to fall. The cost of conventional PV and wind turbines has fallen rapidly, and is still falling.
Wind turbines are selling like hotcakes. In 2007, wind was the largest source of new electric power generation in the U.S.. Total wind capacity roughly doubled, and wind now produces ~1% of U.S. electricity. That doesn't seem like much, but if it keeps growing at this rate in another 10 years or so it will reach ~20% of the total capacity in places where wind is available, which is the most you can have with today's power distribution networks. This could reduce coal consumption by a huge factor. Wind and plug in hybrid cars together can reduce CO2 faster than any other technology now available. By the time they reach their peak, in 10 or 20 years, other technology will be available to continue the process. Uranium fission is a good candidate in my opinion, but it takes years to build, so we should start with wind now, and add nukes in ten years.
Coal produces about ~50% of U.S. electricity and nukes ~20%. I would build ~100 more nukes, bringing their contribution up to around 40% of total electricity, and I would add the equivalent of 100 nukes in wind power and/or solar. That would replace nearly all coal. The remaining ~10% of coal capacity might be gradually replaced with natural gas, solar, or various other alternatives. You might add another ~50 nukes but this may be a bad idea, because nuclear power for anything other than baseline generation (24-hours a day) is not economical, according to U.S. industry sources. It seems to work in France, but what do they know?
We could phase out coal and most oil in 20 years at a reasonable cost with existing technology. I cannot understand why we are not doing this.
- Jed
