Re: Solar grand plan?

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 11, 2008, at 1:37 PM, Gar Lipow wrote:





> On Jan 11, 2008 10:01 AM, Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Jan 11, 2008, at 12:19 PM, Doyle Saylor wrote:
> >
> > > Greetings Economists,
> > > Scientific American online has this article here:  http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
> > >
> > > That suggests a plan for 480 billion (in increments from now to
> > > 2050)
> > > to completely go over to solar energy in the U.S. economy.  Any
> > > thoughts from renewable economics perspective on this idea?
> > > Secondly,
> > > they suggest in this article that it would not lower the current
> > > standard of living to adapt this regime.  Which seems to indicate a
> > > means for other countries to follow and develop upon.
> >
> > If it projects $480b over 43 years there's nothing "grand" about it.
> > If the US
> > can afford an Iraq occupation costing over $100b a year it could
> > just as
> > easily afford $4,800b over that period. A serious plan to convert the
> > whole
> > US economy to solar (including both its radiative and aeolian forms)
> > could
> > be accomplished in a much shorter time even with present technology
> > (and
> > the technology is improving rapidly).  Start with enormous wind farms
> > in the
> > northern plains, dedicated to production of hydrogen by electrolysis,
> > while
> > constructing dedicated pipelines to supply every present filling
> > station with
> > the hydrogen for fuel-cell cars.  Add solar farms in the southwestern
> > deserts connected to centers of use by DC transmission lines.
> > Require
> > all
> > new construction to be roofed with solar panels.
> >
> > This, of course, requires a huge dose of government enterprise and
> > economic planning.  Which is why US (and British) monopoly capitalism
> > cannot even think of such a project. Its solution (embraced, alas by
> > some despairing radicals) is to invest more and ever more resources
> > in
> > the
> > construction of  dangerous and technologically dead-end (but
> > privately
> > owned, of course) nuclear power plants.
> >
> > Shane Mage
> >
> > "Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to
> > be called Zeus."
> >
> > Herakleitos of Ephesos
>
> I'm with Shane on the money. 480 billion sounds more like an annual
> budget than a multi-decades budget. However don't count on hydrogen as
> a storage or transmission media. Really efficient Plugin hybrids with
> a 100+ mile electric range could reduce emissions by as much or more
> than a hydrogen car.  Pure electric cars with a ~200 mile range could
> meet all the needs of a great many people. And in terms of future
> technology, we are a lot closer to massive improvement in battery
> technology than we are to economical hydrogen.  (Bear in mind also,
> that most hydrogen advocates support deriving hydrogen from natural
> gas or coal during the "transition.")


A hydrogen-powered vehicle (car, bus, truck, dirigible, bike, ship or
boat) is
totally infrared-blocking-emission free when the hydrogen is produced
by electrolysis driven by electricity from a wind farm.  Both fuel
cells and
batteries are dynamic technologies and both will be much more economical
than now as soon as the economies of mass production are combined with
the improved technology.  But the starting point has to be the
investment
in wind farms, solar farms, pipelines and DC transmission lines.
Producing
hydrogen from coal or natural gas is even worse than relying on nukes.


Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to
be called Zeus."

Herakleitos of Ephesos