Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: Petrochemicals on 18/04/2022 07:22:50
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The average embodied carbon in those references for monocrystalline PV was 2,560 kg CO2e per kWp. The embodied carbon of all products vary notably, so that should be appreciated with any embodied carbon values.
From https://circularecology.com/solar-pv-embodied-carbon.html
Gas generation of electricity has a co2 output of 0.429kg of carbon per kwh. That means the solar panel has to generate well over 5000kwh of electricity before it is recouping the carbon invested in it. Is solar reducing co2 emmissions or is it a white elephant?
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Depends on what you use to generate the power. Coal is cheap, and common in China, where 90% plus of all solar panels are made, though hydropower is also a good part of the energy mix there, so the energy mix is somewhat different. The advantage of solar is that they can last 25 years plus, and thus will recoup the energy in production, and are also recyclable with relatively little extra effort, as now you have the components easy to separate, if somewhat labour intensive, but still worth the energy 25 to 50 years down the line.
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Average output of a solar unit in the UK is 10% of its rated power, so that's 25600 kg of CO2 to produce 1 kW for 20 years (performance falls off towards the end of life) - 175000 kWh, say 0.156 kg CO2 per kWh. That's about 2.5 times the energy per unit CO2 that you'd get by burning coal, or 1.5 times what you'd get from diesel fuel, so it's marginally economic as long as you don't need to store the electricity, in which case the climate would probably be better off with coal.
If you need to replace all your internal combustion and gas heating systems in order to use solar electricity, and build electrical storage systems, the carbon break even period looks more like 200 years.
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True, but there are other places that are not UK weather wise, with rain most of the time (my current weather notwithstanding, there is a cyclone dumping over a half metre of water so far, which is leading to the area being declared a disaster zone, but normally you have at least 8 hours a day of full sun here) to drop output, so there are plenty of locations that offer better use of the panels.
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normally you have at least 8 hours a day of full sun here
Somewhere on an oscillating planet? It tends to rise and set in most places.
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. The advantage of solar is that they can last 25 years plus, and thus will recoup the energy in production, and are also recyclable with relatively little extra effort
but that means in climates of intermittent sunshine that this recoup of energy means that they are nothing but a self funding expense. If after installation and maintenance losses etcetc they only save enough carbon to produce more of themselves, solar is a major carbon expense. They are of course made in the far East where we can deny our carbon footprint.
True, but there are other places that are not UK weather wise, with rain most of the time
You must be confusing the uk with somewhere sunny. And light when it's dark outside.
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In Australia, we get better sun than the UK.
The bulk of electricity generation is from coal, which dumps a lot of other pollution into the air and ash ponds (not just carbon dioxide). So the sooner we can reliably decommission the coal-fired power stations, the better.
embodied carbon in those references for monocrystalline PV was 2,560 kg CO2e per kWp
Do you have an equivalent figure for construction of a coal-fired power station?
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Average output of a solar unit in the UK is 10% of its rated power, so that's 25600 kg of CO2 to produce 1 kW for 20 years (performance falls off towards the end of life) - 175000 kWh, say 0.156 kg CO2 per kWh. That's about 2.5 times the energy per unit CO2 that you'd get by burning coal, or 1.5 times what you'd get from diesel fuel, so it's marginally economic as long as you don't need to store the electricity, in which case the climate would probably be better off with coal.
If you need to replace all your internal combustion and gas heating systems in order to use solar electricity, and build electrical storage systems, the carbon break even period looks more like 200 years.
I make it about 7 years before they break even, but this is without transport, back up generation or the over specification for winter demand in a dark country/installation/accessories/etc. Even at present I cannot believe that it is a carbon benefit in the UK given that they are scrapped after 25 years.
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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/5/4/872/pdf&ved=2ahUKEwir8Z_5gJ_3AhWQfMAKHT43DzwQFnoECDIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0EgQzRKhM5AMM_ZAyQO4P2
In Australia, we get better sun than the UK.
The bulk of electricity generation is from coal, which dumps a lot of other pollution into the air and ash ponds (not just carbon dioxide). So the sooner we can reliably decommission the coal-fired power stations, the better.
embodied carbon in those references for monocrystalline PV was 2,560 kg CO2e per kWp
Do you have an equivalent figure for construction of a coal-fired power station?
Which is ironic, far better sun yet powered by coal. Solar is vastly cheaper economically than nuclear or combustion plants if you have good sunshine, virtually free energy, Australia could do a great trade in green steel production. Plus they then have the ability to make more solar panels without using combustion sources, they are not some self perpetuating carbon expense. The carbon footprint of Nuclear power is questionable as well, a lot of concrete steel etc that is unusable again, lots of waste, difficult to process fuel.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/gerrard1/
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Solar panels aren't scrapped after 25 years, they have about 0.5% loss of output per year, so they're still outputting nearly 90% of their original output after that. That's just the suggested lifespan, but they're clearly going to go a lot longer.
The fact that the panels are only producing about 10% of the time doesn't matter, because they DO produce during the day, when people are using more energy, that increase is mostly carried by natural gas, so it directly reduces the amount of natural gas burnt. Spoiler: natural gas is a LOT more expensive right now than solar power.
Note that solar installations have got a LOT cheaper. Payback can be as little as 5 years now, but 7 is probably more common. The actual panels are stupidly cheap at about £0.3/watt peak and still falling. What kind of investment pays back the initial investment in 7 years? A good one, that's what.
Note that solar panels work better in the UK than Australia during their respective summers, because the UK is such a long way north. We get over 14 hours of sunshine.
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Note that solar panels work better in the UK than Australia during their respective summers, because the UK is such a long way north. We get over 14 hours of sunshine.
Not according to the folk who sell solar power systems - see the attached chart of annual equivalent sun hours. The polar regions get 24 hours of sunshine in the summer but remain covered with ice! And of course demand is maximised in winter, not summer.
The more I learn about renewable sources of electricity, the more I am convinced that their commercial success so far depends almost entirely on the flexibility of fossil fuels. If it wasn't possible to fire up a gas-powered generator quicker than coal, wind and solar would never have featured in the energy market.
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The fact that the panels are only producing about 10% of the time doesn't matter, because they DO produce during the day, when people are using more energy
And they do produce during the winter when people need energy by far the most.?
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demand is maximised in winter, not summer.
Again, that depends where you live.
- Australia does have a winter peak of air-conditioning, which coincides with minimum hours of daylight
- but it also has a summer peak of air-conditioning, which coincides with maximum hours of daylight
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For cloudy or hot conditions such as arizona, some sources state thin film panels are better
https://solartown.com/learning/solar-panels/advantages-make-thin-film-solar-panels-shine/
Are we rushing into solar in some locations before the technology has been created?
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Note that solar panels work better in the UK than Australia during their respective summers, because the UK is such a long way north. We get over 14 hours of sunshine.
Not according to the folk who sell solar power systems - see the attached chart of annual equivalent sun hours. The polar regions get 24 hours of sunshine in the summer but remain covered with ice! And of course demand is maximised in winter, not summer.
That's averaged over the entire year. Which bit of 'summer' didn't you understand?
The more I learn about renewable sources of electricity, the more I am convinced that their commercial success so far depends almost entirely on the flexibility of fossil fuels. If it wasn't possible to fire up a gas-powered generator quicker than coal, wind and solar would never have featured in the energy market.
As opposed to what? Nuclear?
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The fact that the panels are only producing about 10% of the time doesn't matter, because they DO produce during the day, when people are using more energy
And they do produce during the winter when people need energy by far the most.?
No, but wind does.
Apparently in your heads, the UK has no electricity demand in summer, and you think that using natural gas, which gives a current electricity price of over 14p/kWh is only superior to solar which costs around 5p/kWh in the UK right now and wind that costs about 7p/kWh.
Hint: if solar panels are attached to your house, you can reduce your bills because any electricity you use only costs 5p/kWh instead of ~27p/kWh and any you don't use gets exported to the grid and reduces the electricity price.
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The retail cost of electricity has very little to do with physics and a great deal to do with profits, taxes and subsidies.
Having lived through many, I understand a good deal about UK summers. Yes, the sun is above the horizon for over 16 hours in June, but the solar angle never exceeds 62 degrees in London, 59 in Inverness, which is why it is generally colder in Scotland than in England and the north pole (24 hour sunlight) stays frozen. And we do have a lot of cloud over these Atlantic islands.
The value of mains electricity and gas is 24/7/365 availability at any level from zero to the supply rating. Until the cost of renewables includes that of maintaining an adequate overnight and strategic (say 10 day) reserve, you are not comparing apples with apples.
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demand is maximised in winter, not summer.
Again, that depends where you live.
- Australia does have a winter peak of air-conditioning, which coincides with minimum hours of daylight
- but it also has a summer peak of air-conditioning, which coincides with maximum hours of daylight
If I was in Australia and not in the outback I would certainly drive an electric car that I powered myself from solar power, there is also the space in australia for solar. What sort of weather do you get in Australian winters Evan?
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No, but wind does.
Apparently in your heads, the UK has no electricity demand in summer, and you think that using natural gas, which gives a current electricity price of over 14p/kWh is only superior to solar which costs around 5p/kWh in the UK right now and wind that costs about 7p/kWh.
Hint: if solar panels are attached to your house, you can reduce your bills because any electricity you use only costs 5p/kWh instead of ~27p/kWh and any you don't use gets exported to the grid and reduces the electricity price.
We are discussing solar. Yes wind does, but solar is now requiring ancillary production in the UK, and that ancillary production (wind) then requires ancilliary production, all of which require carbon to set up. Australia as is in your head just as good as the UK for solar production is in my head a different kettle of fish, you would recoup the production carbon in under 2 years and the rest in under 5, plus the fact that over specification of a solar system will need to be far far less.
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What sort of weather do you get in Australian winters Evan?
Not sure where Evan is, but winter holidays in Queensland were like an English summer plus heat on the coast, and continuous sunshine inland. Hence the bloody great desert
I would certainly drive an electric car
thus committing another 20 - 30 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere to build it.
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I would certainly drive an electric car
thus committing another 20 - 30 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere to build it.
Plus the powerbank and solar panel carbon. If you do 10kmiles per year that is about 30 charges, or 3000kwh but call it 5000 for variance losses etc. A 100kwh powerbank and a 3kw solar array should keep your car in the pink.
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The retail cost of electricity has very little to do with physics and a great deal to do with profits, taxes and subsidies.
There are not really any solar subsidies anymore in the UK. They pay you what is basically cost (or more accurately, they pay the electricity supplier, most of them just pocket this, but Bulb gives you the money.)
Having lived through many, I understand a good deal about UK summers. Yes, the sun is above the horizon for over 16 hours in June, but the solar angle never exceeds 62 degrees in London, 59 in Inverness, which is why it is generally colder in Scotland than in England and the north pole (24 hour sunlight) stays frozen.
Gee, if only someone could work out a magic way to deal with that issue, such as tilting the panels at ~30 degrees. But apparently you can't think of any way. Must be impossible.
And we do have a lot of cloud over these Atlantic islands.
Yeah, except not so much in summer. Solar is quite predictable in summer, and isn't permanently hidden by clouds in the UK.
The value of mains electricity and gas is 24/7/365 availability at any level from zero to the supply rating. Until the cost of renewables includes that of maintaining an adequate overnight and strategic (say 10 day) reserve, you are not comparing apples with apples.
Wrong. Dispatchable electricity is certainly useful to have, but you want to use it as little as possible because: it's always £££ and high CO2 emissions. But a lot of our electricity is predictable and highly correlated with the daytime.
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The retail cost of electricity is the renewables subsidy. The retailer gets a profitable 27p per unit whether the wind is blowing or not, so there is no incentive for the wholesaler to build the storage system needed for a fully renewable supply.
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Not sure where Evan is, but winter holidays in Queensland...
I live in Sydney, but I'm currently on an autumn/fall vacation in Queensland.
Sydney averages 240 cloud-free days per year, and around 300 with some Sun visible. So where I live is a good place to install solar panels.
Unfortunately, we had a La Niña this year (the opposite polarity of the better-known El Niño), so we had fewer sunny days this summer - just after I installed solar panels!
PS: Alan, for your vacation, was that winter in UK, or winter in Queensland? (North Queensland summer is hot and wet; I find that Queensland winter is a better time to visit).
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The retail cost of electricity is the renewables subsidy. The retailer gets a profitable 27p per unit whether the wind is blowing or not, so there is no incentive for the wholesaler to build the storage system needed for a fully renewable supply.
If the retailer is getting 27p/kWh then it's still in their interest to get the electricity for the lowest possible average cost. Note that wind power is usually sold on Contract For Difference, which is essentially a fixed price of 7p/kWh or whatever.
In practice, retailers are in competition with each other for customers, so they try to hold their price down- the 27p is not a given.
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Alan, for your vacation, was that winter in UK, or winter in Queensland? (
Queensland! 42°C in Mount Isa just beat the Cambridge record for June, but Bris and Bundy were tolerable with good gliding weather too. Looking forward to the next round of bugs and tinnies!
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Solar panels aren't scrapped after 25 years, they have about 0.5% loss of output per year, so they're still outputting nearly 90% of their original output after that. That's just the suggested lifespan, but they're clearly going to go a lot longer.
Whilst this is somewhat true of current panels, many older panels are significantly worse, plus there is the lifespan of associated equipment/faults/ servicing.
https://news.energysage.com/how-long-do-solar-panels-last/#:~:text=The%20industry%20standard%20for%20a,below%20what%20the%20manufacturer%20projected.
But given this degradation that is reported widely at 1% a year and the lack of cloudy sky generation, I have to think this is being rushed into. When cloudy sky generation is improved most solar in the uk will be replaced.
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When cloudy sky generation is improved most solar in the uk will be replaced.
Only radical climate change can do this. Clouds absorb and reflect almost the entire spectrum of sunlight. Less input = less output!
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Solar panels aren't scrapped after 25 years, they have about 0.5% loss of output per year, so they're still outputting nearly 90% of their original output after that. That's just the suggested lifespan, but they're clearly going to go a lot longer.
Whilst this is somewhat true of current panels, many older panels are significantly worse, plus there is the lifespan of associated equipment/faults/ servicing.
https://news.energysage.com/how-long-do-solar-panels-last/#:~:text=The%20industry%20standard%20for%20a,below%20what%20the%20manufacturer%20projected.
But given this degradation that is reported widely at 1% a year and the lack of cloudy sky generation, I have to think this is being rushed into. When cloudy sky generation is improved most solar in the uk will be replaced.
No.
And because there's been little installation so far, most panels that will be installed will be new panels, and they give 0.5% a year:
https://www.nrel.gov/state-local-tribal/blog/posts/stat-faqs-part2-lifetime-of-pv-panels.html
Note that the UK may well be a lot less even than that, a lot of the degradation is due to stuff like high temperatures and damage from sunlight. The UK has less sunlight than many places (like Hawaii!) and is not a particularly hot country, so the calendar degradation should be much less.
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When cloudy sky generation is improved most solar in the uk will be replaced.
Only radical climate change can do this. Clouds absorb and reflect almost the entire spectrum of sunlight. Less input = less output!
I am not sure Alan if we could produce solar panels that produce at the 200w per metre square rate regardless of conditions, rather than the 20.% currently, this would give the same peak output, but reliably under all conditions. Admittedly it would not cure the sun angle day length problem in winter, but it would go a long long way to make solar viable in the UK.
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Solar panels aren't scrapped after 25 years, they have about 0.5% loss of output per year, so they're still outputting nearly 90% of their original output after that. That's just the suggested lifespan, but they're clearly going to go a lot longer.
Whilst this is somewhat true of current panels, many older panels are significantly worse, plus there is the lifespan of associated equipment/faults/ servicing.
https://news.energysage.com/how-long-do-solar-panels-last/#:~:text=The%20industry%20standard%20for%20a,below%20what%20the%20manufacturer%20projected.
But given this degradation that is reported widely at 1% a year and the lack of cloudy sky generation, I have to think this is being rushed into. When cloudy sky generation is improved most solar in the uk will be replaced.
No.
And because there's been little installation so far, most panels that will be installed will be new panels, and they give 0.5% a year:
https://www.nrel.gov/state-local-tribal/blog/posts/stat-faqs-part2-lifetime-of-pv-panels.html
Note that the UK may well be a lot less even than that, a lot of the degradation is due to stuff like high temperatures and damage from sunlight. The UK has less sunlight than many places (like Hawaii!) and is not a particularly hot country, so the calendar degradation should be much less.
Yes,
The source you state has implemented policies to give Elon musk money from poor peoples taxes, for increacing fossil fuel usage.
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Conspiracy theories can be fun
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I am not sure Alan if we could produce solar panels that produce at the 200w per metre square rate regardless of conditions,
That would really offend the guys who write the laws of physics.
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I am not sure Alan if we could produce solar panels that produce at the 200w per metre square rate regardless of conditions,
That would really offend the guys who write the laws of physics.
In what way, something to do with the construction or conversion into electricity? Clouds do not completely block solar irradiance. Different technology etc. Even if solar produced at a continuous 5 percent of total irradiance rate it would certainly be an improvement on the current.
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One important condition is called night. This magically reduces the ability of any solar panel to produce anything at all. So having reduced the maximum possible average output to half the peak rating, let's look at the intensity of illumination under "all other conditions".
This chart shows that solar illuminance varies by up to a factor of 120,000:1 during daylight,so if you want to build a system that will deliver 200 W/sq m under all conditions half of the time, it needs to be rather more than 2,000,000% efficient.
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One important condition is called night. This magically reduces the ability of any solar panel to produce anything at all. So having reduced the maximum possible average output to half the peak rating, let's look at the intensity of illumination under "all other conditions".
This chart shows that solar illuminance varies by up to a factor of 120,000:1 during daylight,so if you want to build a system that will deliver 200 W/sq m under all conditions half of the time, it needs to be rather more than 2,000,000% efficient.
Yes but compared to the average in London of 1000w at noon. Even if a panel that was producing at 20w a square metre or 2% during daylight continouosly would be advantageous.
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Which London are you talking about? Best average output in the UK is 10% of peak rating, according to the manufacturers.
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Which London are you talking about? Best average output in the UK is 10% of peak rating, according to the manufacturers.
The London in greater London, obviously. But that is 10 percent 24 hours a day, not during the average daylight of 12, at which measurement it would be 20 percent average but that is a percentage on duty cycles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Kingdom
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A single solar panel cost £300-£500, but it can vary depending on the size and type of system. The cost of solar panel installation to predict it's very difficult, but you can easily know about it through our solar contractor.
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Everyone talks about cost, they never talk about the profit. If you install solar panels you're virtually guaranteed to save money, they typically pay for themselves in 5-10 years. The best angles to place them in the UK are usually about 30-40 degrees to the horizontal, facing south east and/or south west. That gives you electricity in the mornings and evenings when you need it (mainly in spring, summer and autumn). The solar electricity costs about 6p/kWh, and it saves you spending ~27p/kWh on electricity.
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Everyone talks about cost, they never talk about the profit. If you install solar panels you're virtually guaranteed to save money, they typically pay for themselves in 5-10 years. The best angles to place them in the UK are usually about 30-40 degrees to the horizontal, facing south east and/or south west. That gives you electricity in the mornings and evenings when you need it (mainly in spring, summer and autumn). The solar electricity costs about 6p/kWh, and it saves you spending ~27p/kWh on electricity.
It was intentionally started as a thread on carbon rather than money. I accept that at present solar can be reasonably profitable, in a similar way electric cars are cheaper to fuel but there are many hidden charges to the average IC engine car, such as road tax fuel duty vat. In carbon terms fully electric cars and IC engine cars are the same in carbon terms to fuel, but the electric car having a higher carbon footprint. Hybrid cars are obviously the best option.
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Whilst we are diverting towards money it is worth noting that the permitted price of mains electricity in the UK is linked to the current wholesale price of gas, not the actual cost of generating electricity.
Right now, 80% of demand is being met by non-gas generation, so wind, solar and nuclear generators are profiting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Red/green color blindness?
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The cost of natural gas in the eastern states of Australia is tied to the international price.
- The smarter government in Western Australia decreed that all gas exporters had to reserve 15% of production for local use, at a price related to the cost of production, so they are not suffering like the Eastern states.
So gas prices have spiked in the Eastern states:
- Since peak-hour generation is provided by gas turbines, they are bidding higher prices to stay profitable
- Several coal-fired power stations were down for maintenance, when a couple of others broke down, significantly cutting supply (this is how Enron (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal) became so profitable!)
- So the energy regulator shut down the spot market for electricity, capped the wholesale price, and told the gas generators to start producing (reimbursement to be worked out later...)
- Some of the coal generators are now back on line, and the electricity market is operating again. Blackouts narrowly averted.
Apparently one contributor to the problem has been the Green party; looking for excess purity, they refused to fund gas-fired generators to be backup supply.
- I thought most people realized that gas is going to be an important bridging power source as we reduce coal consumption, but we still need to meet peak-hour demand.
- The gas turbine generators are installed by businesses to keep data centers and industry running when there are blackouts. IMHO, it makes sense to use them for peak demand whenever renewables+storage is insufficient.
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Apparently one contributor to the problem has been the Green party; looking for excess purity, they refused to fund gas-fired generators to be backup supply.
- I thought most people realized that gas is going to be an important bridging power source as we reduce coal consumption, but we still need to meet peak-hour demand.
I should think Australia is not far from being carbon neutral? Its a big place just like Canada, but has few people. In the current economic situation coal is a fantastic fallback.
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Whilst we are diverting towards money it is worth noting that the permitted price of mains electricity in the UK is linked to the current wholesale price of gas, not the actual cost of generating electricity.
Right now, 80% of demand is being met by non-gas generation, so wind, solar and nuclear generators are profiting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Red/green color blindness?
Many solar producers are producing their highest amounts, yet the feed in tarrifs are around 2.5p a kwh. I have a feeling strip mining coal is about as cheap as you will get elsewhere. The carbon cost though and the environmental costs are great.
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answer is Yes.
Ref: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=84600.0
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answer is Yes.
Ref: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=84600.0
To produce enough solar panels to generate the electricity for the uks current usage would require somewhere in the region of 1 billion tonnes of co2, for all our usage that figure is at 10 billion .
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I should think Australia is not far from being carbon neutral?...just like Canada
Australia is one of the highest CO2 emitters in the Western world (per capita), at 17 tons per capita per year
- Behind Canada at 18.6
- But more than USA at 15.5 tones
This is due to:
- Base load is mostly burning coal
- One of the largest states (Victoria) uses brown coal, which is saturated with water; the water must be driven off before you can get it to burn - very inefficient!
- Political backlash against nuclear power over many years (even though Australia exports a lot of uranium ore)
- A carbon tax implemented in 2011 was quickly reversed by a change of government
- It is a fairly flat and dry country, so not much hydro power
- Far from plate boundaries, so not much geothermal power
- Neglected transmission infrastructure, so it is hard to feed in renewables
- The fossil fuel industry has a lot of money from exports, which funds their vigorous campaign to keep burning fossil fuels locally.
- NIMBY: Even if most people want clean power, everyone says "Not In My Back Yard"!
See: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
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I should think Australia is not far from being carbon neutral?...just like Canada
Australia is one of the highest CO2 emitters in the Western world (per capita), at 17 tons per capita per year
- Behind Canada at 18.6
- But more than USA at 15.5 tones
This is due to:
- Base load is mostly burning coal
- One of the largest states (Victoria) uses brown coal, which is saturated with water; the water must be driven off before you can get it to burn - very inefficient!
- Political backlash against nuclear power over many years (even though Australia exports a lot of uranium ore)
- A carbon tax implemented in 2011 was quickly reversed by a change of government
- It is a fairly flat and dry country, so not much hydro power
- Far from plate boundaries, so not much geothermal power
- Neglected transmission infrastructure, so it is hard to feed in renewables
- The fossil fuel industry has a lot of money from exports, which funds their vigorous campaign to keep burning fossil fuels locally.
- NIMBY: Even if most people want clean power, everyone says "Not In My Back Yard"!
See: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
It's a big carbon sink though Evan for the populace, just like Canada. I would think both countries are fairly neutral.
If it wanted it could make a fortune selling solar power to Indonesia, malaysia and the phillipines. It could also make carbon neutral solar panels rather than the ones we buy from China. But then again you have such big back yards it would suffer much resistance. Then if Australia powered itself from solar it could start charging the states carbon credits and get filthy rich just like Elon musk.
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answer is Yes.
Ref: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=84600.0
To produce enough solar panels to generate the electricity for the uks current usage would require somewhere in the region of 1 billion tonnes of co2, for all our usage that figure is at 10 billion .
And it would break even in a few years at the absolute most.
Meanwhile the price of coal and natural gas is soaring. Some places subsidize their local power with low-cost petrochemicals. The UK used to do that, British natural gas was sold within the UK at cut-price costs, but they're running out in the North Sea. And so the price is now rebounding to the world price-nearer what it probably should have been all along, and suddenly solar and wind actually makes loads of sense.
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answer is Yes.
Ref: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=84600.0
To produce enough solar panels to generate the electricity for the uks current usage would require somewhere in the region of 1 billion tonnes of co2, for all our usage that figure is at 10 billion .
And it would break even in a few years at the absolute most.
Meanwhile the price of coal and natural gas is soaring. Some places subsidize their local power with low-cost petrochemicals. The UK used to do that, British natural gas was sold within the UK at cut-price costs, but they're running out in the North Sea. And so the price is now rebounding to the world price-nearer what it probably should have been all along, and suddenly solar and wind actually makes loads of sense.
7 bare minimum in the UK for just the manufacture, neglecting any other concerns. It seems a little like adding a massive carbon load rather than reducing emmissions here.
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Nah, not even in the UK.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints/
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Interesting study with entirely predictable findings.
I'm somewhat surprised by the "nuclear" figure. Time was (in the 1960s) that the energy break-even occurred at 5 years of operation, so you would have to run a nuke for 10 years to exceed the input by 50% and around 100 years to get to a 5% footprint. It's difficult to believe that improved performance and increasing regulatory requirements have actually reduced that period, or that any nuke is expected to run for 100 years without 100% replacement of its components. In the strategy of the old Central Electricity Generating Board, nuclear power was regarded as the best investment of (then) cheap oil against future price rises - an energy store rather than generator - when the expected life of a reactor was about 20 years.
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Nah, not even in the UK.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints/
Solar, wind and nuclear have ‘amazingly low’ carbon footprints, study finds
From a site called carbon brief.
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Solar panels do value a small amount within the starting however compared to the price of electricity that you simply are going to be paying over the years, the panels area unit value your each penny. It not only reduces the price however additionally provides you clean emission-free energy right in your own yard.
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You will still lose power unless you have a battery storage system. Since you would be using net metering to get paid for extra electricity you produce you will be connected to the grid. If there is an outage your panels won't work because if they fed the grid workers would get hurt so they get turned off unless a battery solution is in place
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coal or gas [power] with carbon capture and storage (CCS)
Current methods of CCS are very inefficient.
It's even worse if you try to capture the CO2 after it has been diluted in the atmosphere, as you need to pump large volumes of air to collect small amounts of CO2.
3 cheers for growing trees, which use solar power directly!
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Problem with trees is that photosynthesis is at best 2% efficient and in the case of trees, probably closer to 0.1%, in converting solar input to stored energy. Then you have to burn them, at no more than 50% efficiency, assuming you expended no energy in cutting them down, chipping the wood, and drying it.
At least one UK biomass power station has been abandoned because although the primary input was free agricultural waste, the energy expended in transporting and preparing it exceeded the electrical yield.
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There are various ways solar panels pay off, ranging from reducing your carbon footprint to increasing your home's value. Recently, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that for a home with a solar power system, every dollar saved on energy increases a home's value by $20
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But most US houses depreciate in value over time, as does the solar panel installation and money itself. So the question is how long does it take you to save that dollar?
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The thread is more slanted toward carbon emissions than money. You can ask is manufacturing electric cars economically wise, the answer is yes given that other manufacturers of petrol cars have to pay you money even though your cars are manufactured and powered with carbon based fuel.
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Given that almost all of the primary energy used in exploration, mining, manufacturing and distribution comes from fossil fuels, all of which are free natural resources traded for cash, there is very little difference between carbon emissions and money.
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Given that almost all of the primary energy used in exploration, mining, manufacturing and distribution comes from fossil fuels, all of which are free natural resources traded for cash, there is very little difference between carbon emissions and money.
From a man who argues using green subsidies as examples it is a bit rich. Plus fuel is not subject to worth on the markets, it's subject to nutters witholding it to drive the price up. I suppose though that defeats my argumet, if you are self sufficient tyrants have no hold on you, so extremely worthwhile at any price.
But scientifically, do they make environmental sense ?
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You miss the point. The price of fossil fuel is irrelevant because you either use it to make solar panels, windmillls,or whatever, or to generate electricity, drive cars and heat things (including houses). The question is which route is most efficient at turning fossil fuel into end-user energy, and the simplest metric for comparison is the current and future cost per kWh of the delivered product.
In an ideal world you would do all the calculations before building anything at all, and thus generate "absolute" comparators, but if you start from the status quo, where power stations, cars etc already exist, you need "relative" comparators between the marginal revenue cost of running what exists and the total capital and revenue cost of whatever we might consider building next.
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You miss the point. The price of fossil fuel is irrelevant because you either use it to make solar panels, windmillls,or whatever, or to generate electricity, drive cars and heat things (including houses).
I did not miss the point, you seemed to miss the green subsidies bit, at present it costs less to run an electric car than an oil based fuel engine, yet the oil base fuel has lower co2 emissions embodied in its milage, let alone the actual car itself. I believe you are proposing a perpetual motion machine, where as once constructed can produce infinite power, if it is irrelevant.
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You're just lying. The CO2 embodied in an EV is about the same or less than a fossil car, and the electricity to run it has much lower CO2 emissions.
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Wow! Intelligent metering! When you plug in your electric car, the grid switches around to provide you with nuclear electricity! Brilliant. But improbable.
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You're just lying. The CO2 embodied in an EV is about the same or less than a fossil car, and the electricity to run it has much lower CO2 emissions.
That is a bit slanderous, and could you clarify co2 in an electric car, a full size adult one ?
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Wow! Intelligent metering! When you plug in your electric car, the grid switches around to provide you with nuclear electricity! Brilliant. But improbable.
Until we can provide 100% carbon free electricity at the level prior required to electric cars, any argument on the swap of oil and gas to electric is invalid. Heat pumps too are looking decidedly flawed if from carbon fuel.
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So, you think 99.998% wouldn't be enough? Wow sounds very technical and scientific. I'm sure you have an equation to prove it and everything. Wait you do HAVE an equation? (I don't think he's got one.)
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So, you think 99.998% wouldn't be enough? Wow sounds very technical and scientific. I'm sure you have an equation to prove it and everything. Wait you do HAVE an equation? (I don't think he's got one.)
I see you choose to hurl abuse rather than answering the matter at hand, assuming you are responding to me. I have Forbes magazine, although I am sure you will find they do not know what they talk of.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2018/01/24/more-electric-vehicles-mean-more-coal-and-natural-gas/amp/
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Clearly the work of Satan.
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So, you think 99.998% wouldn't be enough? Wow sounds very technical and scientific. I'm sure you have an equation to prove it and everything. Wait you do HAVE an equation? (I don't think he's got one.)
I see you choose to hurl abuse rather than answering the matter at hand, assuming you are responding to me. I have Forbes magazine, although I am sure you will find they do not know what they talk of.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2018/01/24/more-electric-vehicles-mean-more-coal-and-natural-gas/amp/
Oh no Forbes says that electricity is generated using fossil fuels, and increasing electrical cars means you need more fossils fuels?
Except no, that's bullshit, because electric cars mean you aren't burning petrol or diesel. Electric cars are a LOT more efficient, and only an ever shrinking fraction of the electricity they even need is made using fossil fuels. So switching to electric cars in fact NEVER increases the amount of fossil fuels burnt.
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Somebody has to generate the electricity. So you either burn fossil fuel in a conventional power station (early biowaste stations have been mostly abandoned because the fossil energy required to transport and process the fuel exceeded the electrical output!) or invest fossil fuel in a nuclear reactor (energy breakeven around 5 - 20 years depending on how safe you want it) or a solar farm (see all the posts above) or a windmill (similar to nuclear). And then you have to scrap a perfectly good diesel vehicle, build an electric vehicle (see earlier statements of CO2 emissions required to do so) and replace its battery after a few years. And dig up all the roads (using diesel trucks and tools) to install the additional supply infrastructure (mining copper with diesel equipment, refining it with gas, and making plastics from fossil hydrocarbons).
Two important things to remember in engineering: you have to start from where you are, not where you'd like to be; and you can't get something for nothing.
In a perfect world we'd all be driving electric vehicles and charging them with sunshine. Maybe on Mars (no fossil fuel!) but this world isn't perfect.
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So, you think 99.998% wouldn't be enough? Wow sounds very technical and scientific. I'm sure you have an equation to prove it and everything. Wait you do HAVE an equation? (I don't think he's got one.)
I see you choose to hurl abuse rather than answering the matter at hand, assuming you are responding to me. I have Forbes magazine, although I am sure you will find they do not know what they talk of.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2018/01/24/more-electric-vehicles-mean-more-coal-and-natural-gas/amp/
Oh no Forbes says that electricity is generated using fossil fuels, and increasing electrical cars means you need more fossils fuels?
Except no, that's bullshit, because electric cars mean you aren't burning petrol or diesel. Electric cars are a LOT more efficient, and only an ever shrinking fraction of the electricity they even need is made using fossil fuels. So switching to electric cars in fact NEVER increases the amount of fossil fuels burnt.
I see you choose to hurl abuse rather than answering the matter at hand, assuming you are responding to me. I have Forbes magazine, although I am sure you will find they do not know what they talk of.
Are you sure I haven't argued this with you before ? On one of the threads I went through the numbers and it turns out that electric cars use more carbon than ICEs.
If you go through it you will find out. Electric cars at best use 3kw per mile. A similar ice sized car achieve 50mpg
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If you go through it you will find out. Electric cars at best use 3kw per mile. A similar ice sized car achieve 50mpg
WTF does '3 kw per mile' even mean? A kw isn't even anything anyway. And a kW is a unit of POWER. Yeah, you're really showing your lack of knowledge already. It's kWhs per mile that are usually quoted. kWhs are units of energy.
Do you mean 3 kWh per mile, because if so LOL, You're out by an entire order of magnitude. A typical electric car is more like 0.3 kWh per mile, and there's prototype road car (Aptera) that is 0.1 kWh per mile that should be out next year. Even Teslas are generally nearer to 0.25 kWh per mile.
So, no. Electric cars don't 'at best use 3kw per mile', not even 0.3kWh per mile.
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If you go through it you will find out. Electric cars at best use 3kw per mile. A similar ice sized car achieve 50mpg
WTF does '3 kw per mile' even mean? A kw isn't even anything anyway. And a kW is a unit of POWER. Yeah, you're really showing your lack of knowledge already. It's kWhs per mile that are usually quoted. kWhs are units of energy.
Do you mean 3 kWh per mile, because if so LOL, You're out by an entire order of magnitude. A typical electric car is more like 0.3 kWh per mile, and there's prototype road car (Aptera) that is 0.1 kWh per mile that should be out next year. Even Teslas are generally nearer to 0.25 kWh per mile.
So, no. Electric cars don't 'at best use 3kw per mile', not even 0.3kWh per mile.
You see you do read these things. You must have done the numbers too, so once again how about answering the point ?
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0.3 kWh per mile is equivalent to 1.08 MJ/mile. With liquid fuels at 160 MJ/gal that would indeed be remarkably economical (over 100 mpg) if electricity was a primary fuel. Which it isn't, alas. Every joule available at the motor took around 2.5 joules of liquid fuel or coal consumption to produce. That's the problem with thermodynamics and aerodynamics - they don't go away when you make the system more complicated.
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On the UK grid, more than 50% of the electricity is produced using low carbon technology. And this is improving, not getting worse, and you've been told this multiple times, so you're flat out lying.
The aerodynamics of electric cars are significantly better as well. Turns out, not having more than 50% of the energy coming out as heat makes cooling needed so much better. So no radiator, which creates significant aerodynamic drag, or a much smaller one. The underside doesn't have a propshaft, so the underside is much smoother. There's no exhaust pipe running under the car either. Those and other reasons means that the aerodynamic Cd factor of a Tesla model 3 for example 0.23 which is so much better as well. So a fossil car is far less efficient, and far less aerodynamically efficient and powered entirely by fossil fuels.
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So, you think 99.998% wouldn't be enough? Wow sounds very technical and scientific. I'm sure you have an equation to prove it and everything. Wait you do HAVE an equation? (I don't think he's got one.)
I see you choose to hurl abuse rather than answering the matter at hand, assuming you are responding to me. I have Forbes magazine, although I am sure you will find they do not know what they talk of.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2018/01/24/more-electric-vehicles-mean-more-coal-and-natural-gas/amp/
On the UK grid, more than 50% of the electricity is produced using low carbon technology. And this is improving, not getting worse, and you've been told this multiple times, so you're flat out lying.
You choose not to answer the matter at hand.
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I'm missing something? Well, the original claim of this entire thread was that it took 2560 kg of CO2 to make 1 kW of solar panels:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rapid-fall-solars-embodied-carbon-chris-worboys
But this is an out of date claim going back to 2015. The figure in 2020 was 76% lower 615 kg CO2e/kWp:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rapid-fall-solars-embodied-carbon-chris-worboys
And it's projected to keep going down. Spoiler: making solar panels involves energy intensive stuff like melting silicon but this is done electrically and CO2 emissions for making electricity are plummeting.
The false claim is that electric cars are horribly polluting, but solar panels are very low carbon, and can be used just fine.
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Yes, they can be worthwhile if you want to set up a society in the forests without any human intervention, then it is one of the only few choices.
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I'm missing something? Well, the original claim of this entire thread was that it took 2560 kg of CO2 to make 1 kW of solar panels:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rapid-fall-solars-embodied-carbon-chris-worboys
Strange, other people like Michael Moore say different. If only there was some sort of government or European industry standard.
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Yes, they can be worthwhile if you want to set up a society in the forests without any human intervention, then it is one of the only few choices.
You would need to cut the trees down 1st.
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Yes, they can be worthwhile if you want to set up a society in the forests without any human intervention, then it is one of the only few choices.
Yeah, that's not what I've found. We've just put down a deposit for an on-grid solar panel/battery system here, and we don't live in a forest. The panels will provide about half the electricity over the entire year, and the battery will help store significant amounts of cheap off-peak rate electricity for use during the day as well as buffering usage and production during the day and night. The long term cost for the solar is about 8p per kWh, and hopefully should have a 30 year plus life, with under 15% degradation. Based on careful modelling I expect the system to pay down the cost in about ten years (an APR of about 10%, which under the current economic climate is really good), but the exact rate depends on the tariff costs, but the curve is quite flat. The financial optimum seems to be around where the average generation by the panels is used entirely within the household over summer, which largely prevents importing from the grid, and where the battery is big enough to fill out the production in the 'shoulder months' of Spring and Autumn with stored off-peak electricity.
Off-peak electricity is lower carbon because it's baseload and wind and nuclear are a higher percentage on average, and solar generation during the day is low carbon too, contrary to the misinformation that has been posted here.
The cheapest off-peak right now are the 'EV tariffs' which give you just 4 or 5 hours to charge the house battery at super low tariffs of 5-12p/kWh. Economy 7 can also be used but isn't quite as good. During the winter, the battery doesn't have enough capacity for the whole day, so expensive 'peak rate' electricity is imported, which is even more expensive than normal, but the ratios are such that it's still somewhat cheaper than conventional tariffs over winter, and the rest of the year, the costs are ridiculously low.
Basically, the core idea is to run the household on off-peak and solar power as much as possible, because it's simply far cheaper to do so. In winter, using wind power is the way to go, but fitting wind turbines to homes is probably a bad idea, but the grid is increasingly wind powered, so importing electricity in winter is likely to be a good strategy going forward.
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Given the un have just agreed this
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64019324.amp#scso=_1_ugY8DtNpOGgQaPxaeoDg_31:307.5555419921875
anywhere large enough to make it reasonably worthwhile with respect to carbon is going to be out except if you live in a nice desert.
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Emphasis is mine:
Average output of a solar unit in the UK is 10% of its rated power, so that's 25600 kg of CO2 to produce 1 kW for 20 years (performance falls off towards the end of life) - 175000 kWh, say 0.156 kg CO2 per kWh. That's about 2.5 times the energy per unit CO2 that you'd get by burning coal, or 1.5 times what you'd get from diesel fuel, so it's marginally economic as long as you don't need to store the electricity, in which case the climate would probably be better off with coal.
If you need to replace all your internal combustion and gas heating systems in order to use solar electricity, and build electrical storage systems, the carbon break even period looks more like 200 years.
I'm missing something? Well, the original claim of this entire thread was that it took 2560 kg of CO2 to make 1 kW of solar panels:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rapid-fall-solars-embodied-carbon-chris-worboys
But this is an out of date claim going back to 2015. The figure in 2020 was 76% lower 615 kg CO2e/kWp:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rapid-fall-solars-embodied-carbon-chris-worboys
So actually when you put these two posts together:
100%-76% = 24%
24% of 0.156g/kWh is 37g/kWh.
Compare that with coal which is usually more like 800g/kWh or even natural gas in CCGT power plants which is more like 350g/kWh.
37g/kWh is around the number I've seen quoted elsewhere, and the carbon intensity of solar panel's production is still going down.
Solar panels are RIDICULOUSLY low carbon.
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Hi everyone! Yes, IMO, solar panels are definitely worthwhile. They are a great investment for both the environment and your wallet. Not only do they reduce your carbon footprint, but they can also save you money on your electricity bill in the long run.
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normally you have at least 8 hours a day of full sun here
Somewhere on an oscillating planet? It tends to rise and set in most places.
Did you know that some people live in the tropics?
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"full sun"? Assuming no cloud and a tropical equinox, the sun elevation will be 45 deg or less for 18 hours.
And in comparison, I passed a British solar farm last week where the panels were all covered with snow!
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I had a look at my electricity bill recently...
- The amount of kWh I export to the grid..
- Is roughly the same as the amount of kWh I import from the grid (but at different hours)
- The bill doesn't tell me how much I consume onsite, without exporting to the grid :(
I installed the solar panels 2 years ago, by which time all the really attractive sell deals had been scrapped.
- So I get paid a lot less for electricity exported to the grid than the electricity consumed from the grid
- But I'm happy that my electricity consumption is now fairly much carbon-neutral (averaged over a week or so)
...now all we need is a good grid-scale battery technology to align peak production (around midday) with peak consumption (around 7am/7pm).
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I had a look at my electricity bill recently...
- The amount of kWh I export to the grid..
- Is roughly the same as the amount of kWh I import from the grid (but at different hours)
- The bill doesn't tell me how much I consume onsite, without exporting to the grid :(
I installed the solar panels 2 years ago, by which time all the really attractive sell deals had been scrapped.
- So I get paid a lot less for electricity exported to the grid than the electricity consumed from the grid
- But I'm happy that my electricity consumption is now fairly much carbon-neutral (averaged over a week or so)
...now all we need is a good grid-scale battery technology to align peak production (around midday) with peak consumption (around 7am/7pm).
Batteries are not too bad these days and electricity is very expensive, I could put a link Mr moderator. My smart meter says I am using around 150kwh per month, so a 5kw battery would be a good investment at 30 pence a kwh, £45 per day or £540 per year.
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And in comparison, I passed a British solar farm last week where the panels were all covered with snow!
Did you miss this?
True, but there are other places that are not UK weather wise
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The problem is that the places that don't have British weather, don't need as much electricity.
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British weather
I am planning to visit there in May, and the chances of cloud look quite significant.
- It should make for some atmospheric photos, I guess...
- For an Australian just coming out of Summer, definitely hat, gloves and scarf weather...
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