[lifesaviors] Stored Solar Energy, as Hydrogen, as Phase-Change Silicon
- From: <lionkuntz@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lifesaviors@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 23:21:14 -0700 (PDT)
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F623302.C349EFF6%40tinaja.com&output=gplain
"Because of the staggering loss of exergy, it is
ludicrously absurd to use solar pv for electrolysis."
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F58A22D.8E487B6E%40tinaja.com&output=gplain
"Power plants have nothing whatsoever to do with
hydrogen generation. Electrolysis is wildly and
laughingly unsuitable for bulk hydrogen energy because
of its staggering exergy loss. Thermodynamic
fundamentals guarantee this."
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F558060.CFE745D2%40tinaja.com&output=gplain
"Even if it were not, there is still the exergy issue
to be addressed that clearly tells us that ANY form of
electrolysis will cause a staggering loss of energy
value. Hydrogen is produced commercially by the
reformation of methane. Electrolysis is reserved ONLY
for those applications where the value of the hydrogen
greatly exceeds its laughingly meager energy content.
And then ONLY on demand."
Palaces For The People considers electrolysis a viable
technology for storing solar energy for future use. I
argue against the disinformation promulgated widely
above.
Electricity, especially Solar Photo Voltaic, has zero
exergy if it is not being 100% used. Any excess above
the actual instantaneous usage is lost completely and
eternally forever unless it is stored. Storage
technologies take many forms, but batteries represent
one of the highest cost storage methodolgies in the
human knowledgebase commonwealth.
A solar PV watt which is not used has a value of zero
dollars and/or zero pesos. A watt of generated grid
electricity which is not used has a value of zero
dollars and/or zero pesos. Grabbing transient watts
and storing them represents 100% efficiency versus
zero percent efficiency. Every single watt of unused
electricity stored is pure profit. Any losses of the
watts in reconversion to electricity are off the books
-- they wouldn't have existed at all except for the
storage device. Economically, and physicsly, the ONLY
items to cost are pro rata watt-share of whole
life-cycle storage infrastructure and instantaneous
associated labor share.
In a perfect world there would never be excess
capacity, and there would never be excess production.
Every single watt would be produced on demand, and
only on demand, and never in excess of demand. THIS
WORLD is not perfect: nuclear plants, hydroplants and
largescale coal plants do not have instantaneous
response time for satisfying demands. They must
anticipate demands and be ramped up to produce at the
maximum rate of anticipated demands. Every unused watt
represents 100% loss in actual value, regardless of
THEORETICAL value, or sentimental value placed on this
precious but unused watt. With modern electronics
switching, unsold, unused watts can be stored at "100%
efficiency" compared to being lost at "100%
inefficiency". Modern switching can alternate between
storage to online demand fulfillment in times shorter
than the human capacity to notice without instrument
prothethics.
Creating silicon solar cells take finite quantities of
power to produce finite quantities of silicon through
each and every stage of the purification process
through final deployment and online status as solar
power panels at the customer's location.
Silicon production and processing represents some of
the oldest technologies in the human civilization
knowledgebase. Fused silicon pottery is often the only
remaining proof of existence of some vanished
prehistory peoples. Silicon is considered trash of
negligible value by modern people, and deposit-refund
laws have to be passed so that consumers are
restrained from their impulses to litter the highways
with their discarded silicon beverage containers.
Glass and pottery are 90% or better on the way to
becoming Solar Grade (SoG) silicon (Si), and 90% or
better of the energy needed in making SoG-Si is there
on the table when you eat off cheap one dollar plates
and drink out of 5 cent beer bottles. Silicon does not
need to be poisonous, nor environmentaly destructive,
nor even expensive. After all, in making SoG-Si, we
are not aiming for Pentium-4 quality Si wafers. We
just want a nice 14% efficiency collecting TOTALLY
WASTED sunbeams otherwise deteriorating the roofing on
our homes. The value of every watt collected is 100%
efficiency versus 100% inefficiency of not collecting
any watts at all. The value of the stored watts are
100% efficiency versus 100% inefficiency of not saving
unused watts for later. And later always comes
eventually.
The cost of solar pv cells should be in the range of
the cost of a beer bottle. It is not, but there is
nothing in physics which causes this to be true,
temporarily, at this point in the history of an ever
increasing global human knowledgebase commonwealth.
Palaces For The People has a fundamental assumption
that solar panels will power the Palace energy
systems. It has a second fundamental assumption that
solar power will be saved and stored for later.
The first assumption will be satisfied by "Solar PV
Breeders" technology. The second assumption will be
satisfied, in part, by using Silicon as a
"phase-change" heat storage medium. The process of
saving solar energy as heat energy in concentrated
amounts which melt silicon is a novel idea, not seen
on the landscape today. The "slow-cooking" of silicon
kept liquid for days and weeks allows purification of
the silicon by methods unavailable to the hurry-hurry
industry. Relatively low-tech processes, using cheap
know-how, can produce small quantities of purified
silicon as a waste-product of energy storage.
Essentially, it is 100% efficient, because one has
obtained a primary service one desired by heat
storage, and one obtained a serindipitous waste
byproduct at no significant additional cost.
The purified silicon can then be multi-stage processed
into PV waferstock ingots, sawn into wafers,
post-treated and cleaned, processed into PV cells,
made into PV panels. Any portion of this can be
income-producing "cottage-industry". The end net
result is predicted to be each Palace reproduces its
solar PV collectors every year. The cost of powering a
Palace for the People is thereby paid-off within the
first 12 months.
There is more to say on this subject, but some details
need to be withheld to insure cooperation from certain
truculent governments in exchange for them
facilitating the deployment of Palaces within their
borders. This is not a pure freebie for eco-hostile
interests to obtain for continuing their negative
patterns.
=====
Sincerely, Lion Kuntz
Santa Rosa, California, USA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Palaces4People/
http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Proposal/Palaces_For_The_People.html
http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Challenges/Asia_Floods/Wet/All_Wet.html
http://www.ecosyn.us/Interesting/
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Other related posts:
- » [lifesaviors] Stored Solar Energy, as Hydrogen, as Phase-Change Silicon
