New Techonolgy: Solar Thermal. This isn't Your Grandma's Solar Energy!

Since night happens half the time and clouds happen half the time, you still haven't avoided the problem. Even with a zero cost energy storage system, to get 1500 MW of 24/7 power, you would need to build 6000 MW of maximum capacity, which is 4 times the cost of a 1500 MW facility. And then, of course, your energy storage system isn't going to be free either.

Is it possible to get along without nuclear? Sure. Is it a good idea? Of course not. Just as it's not a good idea to get rid of wind. We have billions invested in running wind turbines and that would be totally wasted if we decided to abandon wind power. The same is true of nuclear.

Chernobyl was an inherently dangerous design that no other country has ever built before or since. At Fukushima, the seven newest reactors all shut down normally and cooled normally. The remaining three (all old gen I designs) shut down but did not cool normally. The result is that the radiation level at the plant perimeter is now (before cleanup) 1.7 milliSieverts per year. That compares to a typical background dose of 3-6 milliSieverts per year. In other words, the excess radiation you would get by living at the plant perimeter would be about the same as the excess radiation you'd get by moving from Miami to Denver. The current number anticipated excess cancer deaths from Fukushima is zero -- the same number of deaths from Three Mile Island. And that's using the (overly sensitive and probably incorrect) LNT model.

 

Yes, solar thermal energy can be stored in molten salts for use later but there is an energy loss related to it. Not significant but it is a loss. At the sametime the total amount of energy does not increase. If we have a 1500 MW solar powerplant that collects energy for 8 hours and stores energy for use during 8 hours when solar heat is not being collected effectively we have a 750 MW powerplant for 16 hours per day. (1500 MW x 8 hrs = 12,000 MW / 16 hrs = 750 MW) If we could store the energy so that we had 24 hrs of power production from the solar thermal powerplant the average production would only be 500 MW/hr or 1/3 of the "rated capacity" of the power generation system.

Yes, all solar thermal powerplants require a 100% back-up powerplant so if a new solar powerplant is built the construction costs and operating costs of the back-up powerplant have to be added to the total cost of the solar thermal powerplant. If we require 1500 MW of power 24/7 then we'd need a back-up powerplant to furnish that 1500 MW of power to ensure electricity when the solar thermal plant is not producing that amount of energy. If we have a coal fired 1500 MW powerplant that can provide that power 24/7 then why do we need the solar thermal powerplant?

 

The loss is 7%. Why didn't you say that? Just say it: "molten salt retains 93% of the heat transferred to it during the day". It's OK, you can be honest and report the facts even if they don't reflect well on your "nuclear will save the day" argument. Well, for all those people not Russian or Japanese, or German, or Italian anyway..

Those ears are what you would call "deaf" to your arguments.

The costs of adding backup carbon in the interim of implementing solar thermal steam generators would be eliminated when solar thermal steam plants are erected IN TANDEM WITH ALREADY EXISTING CARBON PLANTS. You merely construct the solar thermal plant adjacent or fairly nearby as possible and connect into the grid already being serviced by the carbon plant.

And you are forgetting a crucial point I keep making about solar thermal steam vs nuclear steam: that once the plant is set up, IT'S FUEL IS FREE. It's fuel is free. Let me repeat, IT'S FUEL IS FREE.

Now, purely from an investment standpoint, I've got a wad, say, of $100K burning a hole in my pocket [ah, to dream]. I want to invest in the lucrative market of energy, but where? Well, I know how to crunch numbers and I'm well aware of overhead vs profit, having owned a business before. So before me are two portfolios. One is of a nuclear plant that I see is highly subsidized by a taxpayer base [the US citizens] who are currently strapped to the teeth with debt, with no apparent way out...and are looking to drastically cut spending or their financial system will collapse...the same financial system that keeps nuclear power artificially propped up for investors like me..hmmmm...not looking so good there. To make matters worse, that industry has just had another horrific accident that rendered tens of thousands of square miles of land uninhabitable forever on the tiny island nation of Japan, and of course the sea around it where radiation will make it's way into their food chain, their main source of protein...used to be a great world business partner and a source of many of my other investments before turning a profit...not so much anymore..

Drat... And then Germany, Italy & Japan are turning their backs utterly on nuclear...even worse... And of course the plants are very expensive in reality to build...a burden that private investors will have to bear now that our gravy-train [the 2/3 of the nuclear-iceberg costs just out of the radar] will no longer be able to be born by taxpayers...oooh...that means ME, the private investor will have to pony up! But what returns can I expect? Uranium mining is an environmental nightmare, costs, mitigation, oversight agencies, threats, waste storage...egad! The continual thirst for fuel rods..

But wait a minute. How exactly is nuclear power made? It just boils water to run turbines right? What other type of power does the same thing? Well, there's geothermal. And there's carbon. But carbon doesn't come free. It has it's own host of snag-costs from mining to scrubbing and insurance claims against the company, continued need for fuel.

Then I hear about solar thermal. It's this thing where rows of parabolic mirrors just reflect the sun on a pipe, like we did with magnifying glass on paper as kids, to make the fluid in that pipe boil to superheated steam, to run turbines...just like nuclear. And they even are perfecting a method of storing heat for night use. And the US has hundreds of thousands of square miles of sun drenched real estate prime for the projects...

And the fuel to continue running those power plants is...what? Free you say????!

Guess where I'm investing?

 

I actually stated it was an "insignificant" loss and was unaware of the fact that 7% was the actual percentage of lost energy. That is actually significant and we should probably anticipate an equal loss of energy when the heat stored in the molten-salt solution is extracted to power the turbine generator. That would reflect a total loss of about 14% of the energy collected as opposed to the insigificant loss that I assumed of maybe a couple percent.

I've never proposed that nuclear energy would "save the day" but according to the DOE it is far less expensive than solar thermal power generation. As has been accurately noted the numbers for both nuclear power and solar thermal could be distorted because of government subsidies though.

So the proposal is not about adding to our current energy production but instead merely supplementing our existing capacity. This is, by analogy, like buying a second car just to get to work when a person already owns a car to get to work. A second car would make sense if it was for the spouse so they could drive to different places at the same time but to merely have two cars to do the same thing is a rather costly proposition.

At the sametime all of our current "coal fired powerplants" are all using dirty coal technology instead of clean coal technology. From a cost standpoint it would seem that spending fewer dollars to retrofit existing coal fired powerplants with clean coal technology to reduce emissions would be more effective and "green" than spending more money and still employing dirty coal.

What is actually "free" is the energy in the sunlight. By the same token the energy stored in coal and uranium is also "free" but there are costs related to using the energy from light, coal and uranium.

For coal there is the mining and shipping costs.
For uranium there are the mining, processing, shipping and handling costs.
For sunlight there is the maitenance costs of the system and the cleaning of the mirrors or collectors.

While the processes for coal and uranium are basically automated reducing the costs the cost of cleaning solar collectors and mirrors is basically manual. I could think of many ways of automating the process but then it gets into a large amount of water being lost during the cleaning process and increase system costs.

I have the $100K and it's invested heavily in metals (e.g. gold and silver) as they beat out investments in either coal, nuclear or solar power generation at the moment. But were I to invest these would be my current evaluations related to investing in electrical production:

Currently nuclear energy is off the table as the US government will not issue the permits for the powerplants. Why invest in something that can't be built?

Solar thermal is too expensive for the customers so I don't see it as being a viable investment because of the cost of the product.

Coal is a viable option if it were to build a clean coal technology plant. The products is reasonably priced and there is a huge demand for it at the current price. The additional costs of clean coal technology are minimal on new plant construction.

If I was only considering investing in solar it would be in low temperature applications such as hot water heating or pool heating. There's money to be made there as these are very cost effective uses of solar energy.

Obviously in an industry that will have no sales because the cost of the product is too expensive for the consumers.

 

The original evacuation zone around Fukushima was less than 600 square miles. More than half of that has already been declared safe, and the current evacuation zone is less than 300 square miles.

But hey, there's nothing like a 100-fold exaggeration to bolster your argument, so you might as well keep going with it. Maybe nobody will notice that you're just making stuff up.

 

Well Poor Debator, picture's worth a 1000 words:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9a0Q1v93SA"]Radiation check in Japan June7/11 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twvmqjW-d7M"]Japan radiation causes possible rice contamination - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns95RE5ihIw"]Contamination map by Japanese Govt- radiation levels at Chernobyl level outside exclusion zone - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBkrIgJUWLk"]Japan's Fukushima 'worst in history' - YouTube[/ame]

 

Ten minutes of video, and not one word to support your claim of "tens of thousands of square miles of land uninhabitable forever". A picture may be worth a thousand words to some people, but apparently not worth three words from you: "I was wrong."

 

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree and let others decide for themselves after viewing the videos and reading the quote above. After all, investment is a private matter at the end of the day. Each man must take some quiet moments to reflect and decide on the best course of action for his money. It's a very personal decision. You and I can do the best we can to lay out our arguments but the investor is the final judge and jury on who should say "I am wrong"...

 

So shocker, since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear and the automobile was promoted, we've been experiencing rapid climate changes.

I've often wondered if pro-nuclear people would go after the throats of the carbon boys when the chips were down. The chips are down, there's no denying it. The factions of BigDirty are jockeying for position. If I was a carbon boy I'd fire back with some pictures of children of Chernobyl and the disaster in Fukushima.

Carbon at least can be reduced and will always have a place in our modern world. If you build solar thermal plants next to existing or new carbon ones, the carbon plant can act as a backup while the solar thermal one produces the lion's share of energy. This would have a significant impact on reducing climate change while not handing over the reins to the nuclear nightmare..

I've already demonstrated how solar thermal is less expensive than nuclear, to construct AND to run. After all, sunshine is free. Coal and uranium are not.

Investors can feel great knowing they'll make a truckload of money after investing in the free-fuel solar thermal steam generators AND helping reduce weird hurricanes on the East Coast, flocks of tornados all across the US, flooding, snowmageddons and so on..

 

Gee, and that's just what you are posting. Are you pro-carbon? Let's see:

Yup, pro-carbon. And therein lies the problem with intermittant renewables like wind and solar: you cannot actually turn off the coal plants! Because a reliable, non-intermittant source of power will always be needed as backup for intermittant power, and indeed usually that turbine needs to keep spinning 24/7 just in case the wind dies or the clouds move in.

So the real debate here is not about solar vs. nuclear, or wind vs. nuclear. We need solar and we need wind. No, the real debate is: which kind of reliable, non-intermittant power do we need to back up solar and wind, to make the grid available 24/7? Considering that hydro and geothermal are either limited or tapped out, in most areas of the world that leaves just two choices as reliable backup: nuclear, and fossil.

For those of you who answer "fossil", are points to ponder:

1. A coal fired power plant releases about 100 times as much radiation as a nuclear power plant.
2. The backup for wind and solar can't be turned off, which means if you're favoring coal, your favoring the continued release of massive amounts of CO2.
3. We're heading toward a climate catastrophe that is foreseeable and avoidable. But in order to avoid that catastrophe, all fossil fuel must be stopped. Not reduced, not lessened, but STOPPED ENTIRELY, within 50 years or less. Only nuclear will allow us to stop the coming climate catastrophe, because only nuclear can provide reliable, carbon-free backup to solar and wind.
4. The type of nuclear I advocate, LFTR, cannot melt down, produces no long-term waste, and will be much cheaper to build than current nuclear plants.

Uh, no you didn't. Because you've never taken availability into account.

 

Once agian the energy stored in coal and uranium are just as "free" as the energy stored in sunlight. It is the of extracting of that energy and converting it to usable energy is where the costs exist.

To my knowledge not a single cost analysis link has been provided on this thread that states that solar thermal is less expensive than either coal or nuclear electrical power production. Did I miss that link?

 

Right, sure. All things equal, with a nuclear plant or a coal plant constructed next to a solar thermal one [which is cheaper per MW to build than a nuclear plant as I established on this thread]...all these things equal and sitting there, investors are supposed to believe that nuclear fuel rods and truckloads of burnable coal just magically appear in a cloud of fairy dust right at the plants and ready to be burned? There's no pit mine, no refining, no fuel rod assembly, no waste. Somehow we're supposed to believe that free sunshine raining down on the parabolic reflectors costs the same as mining, processing, transporting, refining and disposing of the waste thereof of nuclear and carbon power plants?

When a coal, nuclear and solar thermal plant sit side by side, the blue-ribbon winner for "cheapest to construct per MW" is the solar thermal plant.

When a coal, nuclear and solar thermal plant sit side by side, the blue-ribbon winner for "cheapest to run per MW" is solar thermal hands down. Since, you know, it does't require mining, transportation, refining and disposal of waste. It just rains down from the sky onto the reflectors and back at the fluid steam tubes.

Seriously Shiva. Just stop. I'm getting embarassed for you.

 

Nearly. For thorium, there is refining, but there is no fuel rod assembly, no long-term waste, and perhaps no pit mining either (monzanite, the most common thorium ore, is found in sand). Further, the amount of thorium ore you need to mine is 100 to 300 times less than uranium for the same amount of energy, and about 4 million times less than the coal you'd mine for the same energy. One kg of refined thorium costs $25, and could power your home for 500 years: that's 5 cents per year. So the fuel costs of thorium aren't zero, but they're utterly trivial. You'd lose more in the cushions of your couch.

And we're also supposed to believe that the Sun shines at night? And on cloudy days? Because your cost "analysis" assumes that it does. The only one who should be embarrassed here is you.

 

We can actually find that the Capital Investment Costs and even the Operation and Maintenance costs are less for solar thermal than for nuclear and coal produced electrical power based upon nominal capacity. There is a fundamental difference that isn't being taken into account and that is the "capacity factor" which reflects how much of the nominal capacity will actually be available for use by the customers.

The capacity factor for a coal fired electrical powerplant is 85%. So if we have a 100 MW powerplant it is expected to produce 85% of that power, or 85 MW of energy on a consistant basis.

The capacity factor for nuclear power is 90% so it will produce 90 MW of power based upon a nominal capacity of 100 MW.

For solar thermal the capacity factor is 18% so a 100 MW solar thermal powerplant can only be expected to produce 18 MW of power.

The capital investment costs for the most advanced and expensive clean coal technology are about $5,350 with an O&M cost of about $77/yr.

The capital investment costs are about $5,335/KW and with an O&M cost of about $90/yr.

The capital investment costs of a solar thermal powerplant is about $4,700 with an O&M cost of only $64/yr.

That looks good on paper but because of the very low capacity factor of solar thermal it would require four solar thermal plants with the same nominal capacity rating to be equal to either a coal or nuclear powerplant. That would raise the capital investment costs from $4,700 to $18,800 and the O&M costs $254/yr.

To be able to compare "apples to apples" we need to address the cost of the power coming through the electrical lines to the customers and the capacity factor addresses that. To obtain the same 80+ MW of power from a powerplant it would take four solar thermal powerplants rated at 100 MW while only requiring one nuclear or coal fired powerplant.

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/05/12/levelized-cost-of-new-generating-technologies/
http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/beck_plantcosts/index.html (see table 1)

 

Round and round...fortunately people who invest money don't need an advanced degree to see where fuel is free.

Once again poor debator is ignoring molten salt and pretending solar thermal does not have night potential. Once again poor debator ignores the fact that the massive use of energy is by industry during the very daylight hours that the energy is free and plentiful.

Let's play pretend like those daylight maximum use hours of free energy won't add up to higher dividends on shares, OK? In a parallel universe we are expected to believe that somehow, uranium and coal are superior to sunshine in cost..

...lol...right. I know where I'm putting my money. I like the lowest overhead with solar thermal "fuel"..

 

From the investment advice I've seen I'd place my money on PV as opposed to solar thermal then as that is what investment advisors are looking at. I didn't find any investment advisors advocating investments in large scale solar thermal companies.

 

Do as you please. However I'm rather impressed with the power of steam. So obviously are nuclear and coal since this is merely how they produce massive MW of power with their dirty and dangerous fuels.

Funny how the old argument used to be "steam generators kick PV's butt ten ways to Sunday". Now the nuke and coal crowd are all about encouraging anything but solar thermal. I smell fear of competition..



= free MW, no fuel needed, superheated steam and way, way, way less CO2 in the atmosphere..

Sterling solar generation is interesting too..

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUrB7KRvxUk"]FRESNEL SOLAR STIRLING ENGINE SUN POWER ALTERNATIVE ENERGY STIRLING MOTOR GENERATOR - YouTube[/ame]

 

This continues to propagate the same failed logic. The "logic" proposed is that because sunlight contains "free" energy that it can be converted without cost into electricity. By analogy the ocean contains "free" water and fresh water can be derived from salt water therefore fresh water can be obtained for free. We know that is not the case with either solar electrical production or fresh water production from salt water. Both have inherent costs that make both financially unviable when other sources are considered.

Electricity derived from solar thermal will cost about three times as much as the same amount of electricity derived from coal. Yes, coal is polluting whereas solar thermal predominately is not but can the consumer afford to have their monthly electrical bill tripled? Given the choice of "dirty" coal for $100/mo and clean electricity from solar thermal for $300/mo virtually all consumers will take the pollution at the lower cost for their electricity. They don't like the pollution but that extra $200 a month in their pocket has more meaning for them.

 

Spin much? Sure there's cost: the setup to receive and reflect the sun onto the tube carrying the superheated steam focused by the parabolic reflectors. Those reflectors aren't free, naturally. Yet neither is a nuclear sarcophagus, monitoring equipment, mining, transportation, waste storage, oversight agencies and so on...

In fact, as you know, in the setup comparison even though solar thermal isn't free to install [duh], it still is cheaper per MW than nuclear. And we then go to the bottom line after the installation costs to continue the comparison.

Where solar thermal:

1. Has no mining operations/costs to extract fuel.

2. No refining process/costs to perfect fuel to burn.

3. No transportation costs to get fuel from the refineries to the power plant.

4. No oversight agencies to be sure radiation doesn't escape.

5. No terrorist threat.

6. No waste issues and costs.



When will you just throw in the towel? Investors aren't stupid. It's precious money you're asking them to bet on your three-legged pony after all. Mine has four and just ate a bucket of oats.

 

While the "capacity" of a nuclear or coal fired powerplant and a solar thermal powerplant can be equal, which is what the capital investement costs are based upon, the capacity factors are grossly different and the capacity factor relates to the usable energy of the total capacity. For nuclear and coal it is between 85-90% but for solar thermal it's only 18%. That means for the same amount of usable power it requires over four times the rated capacity for solar thermal to produce the same amount of enegy for use when compared to nuclear and coal power production.

Take the capital investment costs and multiply them by for to provide the same amount of energy output and the capital investment costs are several times as much as either nuclear or coal generated power.

It also requires far more workers to operate a solar powerplant than either a nuclear or coal fired powerplant. That results in much higher O&M budget which is the on-going cost of operation.

 

Investors will only see cost per MW produced. That's all they will want to know.

And solar thermal wins for two reasons:

1. The plants cost less per MW to construct and

2. They don't incur fuel costs once they are up and running. They run on sunshine and stored heat.

 

Only under your ridiculous assumption that the sun shines at night. People who live on Earth know differently.

And of course, LFTRs avoid more than half of construction costs of conventional nuclear.

Solar thermal also has
1. Acres and acres of mirrors that must be kept clean in a dusty environment. And the cleaning is done by hand.
2. Hundreds to thousands of moving parts, to keep the mirrors pointed properly, and which can fail at any time.
Which is why operating and maintenance costs for solar power is higher than nuclear.

 

Exactly. Per MW produced. Not nameplate max capacity, as you have been computing. Produced.

Which means you must take availability into account when computing cost! And when you do that, solar is three or four times more expensive to build than nuclear.

 

Investors will only see cost per MW produced. That's all they will want to

I think you missed reading part of my post. Wouldn't be the first time.

Sunshine is free. Uranium and coal aren't. Sorry if that upsets you. But investors will in fact be looking at those facts when making decisions about energy stock.

 

There's a new thread about using solar thermal to reduce the cost of producing ethanol here. Besides being conventional power plants for residential use. One growing industry, ethanol producers, could surely cut their overhead and step outside OPEC manipulations by using the sun to produce the premium "cut" material to extend gasoline.

Here's the thread: http://www.politicalforum.com/curre...wer-price-fuel-drastically-solar-thermal.html