Solar Panel Guide Discussion

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

I think that the extent of my input is overplayed ....

there are those who are so optimistic that they simply believe that the problem is solved and the solution could be available tomorrow (including technologies which are unproven, bordering on unlikely) and then there's a group who understand many of the current technical issues and therefore 'fear' the level of impact that the 'optimists' have overlooked .... If anyone is firmly rooted in any one camp, whichever one it is, then, believe me, it's the wrong one ....

HTH
Z

Oh, go on and take the credit, it doesn't happen every day.

I agree entirely that it's got to be a mix of everything. But a really important part is price. It has to go up, as it has to become more realistic and encompass subsidies rather than hide any. Also 'polluter pays' so CO2 taxes to balance the playing field.

Can you see anyway of avoiding nuclear completely and meeting CO2 concerns? I wish I could, but ......

Mart.

orrery

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Oh, go on and take the credit, it doesn't happen every day.

I agree entirely that it's got to be a mix of everything. But a really important part is price. It has to go up, as it has to become more realistic and encompass subsidies rather than hide any. Also 'polluter pays' so CO2 taxes to balance the playing field.

Can you see anyway of avoiding nuclear completely and meeting CO2 concerns? I wish I could, but ......

Mart.

Again, it isn't a question of avoiding nuclear completely - we need it for certain now, and we may be too late in starting the build. The dash to nuclear will be forced on many countries and then the world stock of nuclear fuel could last as little as 30 years.

Martyn1981

orrery wrote: »

Again, it isn't a question of avoiding nuclear completely - we need it for certain now, and we may be too late in starting the build. The dash to nuclear will be forced on many countries and then the world stock of nuclear fuel could last as little as 30 years.

Hiya orrery, apologies for being boring, but yet another article I read (possibly New Scientist). Looking into the issue of nuclear fuel.

Whilst known stocks are low, there may not be a problem. Many mines shut down due to low demand following 'the issues' in America and the Ukraine, and the availability of decommissioned arms.

Also, and I was surprised at this, there hasn't ever really been much of a hunt for Uranium, compared to oil, gold etc, so there may be a lot more, or perhaps none. I'll check my garden later.

Mart.

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Oh, go on and take the credit, it doesn't happen every day.

I agree entirely that it's got to be a mix of everything. But a really important part is price. It has to go up, as it has to become more realistic and encompass subsidies rather than hide any. Also 'polluter pays' so CO2 taxes to balance the playing field.

Can you see anyway of avoiding nuclear completely and meeting CO2 concerns? I wish I could, but ......

Mart.

Hi

It's definitely not possible to move directly from A to B without travelling a path and in the case of energy provision the path involves mixing whatever sources are available at that time. The trick as I see it is to analyse the mix and applying unbiased risk analysis to establish the order of decommissioning of various generation technologies in order to achieve an evential goal of sustainability .... herein lies the main roadblock as it immediately sets the 'anti-nukes' camp up against the 'anti-climate change' camp ... it's quite funny actually that some actually believe that there's no conflict and sit in both camps ...

I see nuclear as a particular issue. Nuclear isn't 'big' due to technology constraint, it's technically possible to have a plant in every decent sized town/city and drastically reduce the cost of the transmission grid, probably introducing an economy of scale which would seriously reduce build costs per unit energy supplied ... the issue is risk, but it's probably not the risk associated with plant failures which prevents this from happening, it's simply the risk of loss of fissile material from overcomplicating/overstreaching security requirements.

If every other form of energy production moves towards the distributed generation model then it's pretty obvious that there's no real strategic fit for nuclear as a national resource as it's a centralised generation technology (for the reason raised above) .... long-term energy policy would likely be to reduce the number of plants and concentrate them on existing sites close to population centres and therefore operate them in a semi-distributed manner .... it's this that's causing the uncertainty to the private-sector plant sector at the moment .... everything seems to stacking up in favour of distributed generation, so for the private-sector to allocate resource into a solution with a mis-alligned strategic-fit would probably be a bad investment call .....

HTH
Z

orrery

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya orrery, apologies for being boring...
Mart.

No not boring - a stimulating debate. Like all these things, you get a spread of quality of contributions, but that's just life.

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

niche product suppliers catch a cold as market conditions change ... efficient competion comes along and suppliers with a niche or geographic strategy simply dissappear .... we all know of great brands which have suffered this fate in the automotive, electronics, shipbuilding, aircraft, white goods or literally hundreds of other sectors, including pv (anyone care to name the company ) ...



Z

I still have somewhere my Faber slide-rule!

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

I still have somewhere my Faber slide-rule!

... and I still have a British Thornton sliderule in the loft - it's in the same box as the first generation technology which killed it off, a Sinclair Executive calculator (yes I really did have a calculator which at the time cost about a months average wage !!) ... the really sad thing about this is that Sinclair saw themselves and the product as being suited to a niche market and eventually lost out to competition who saw the global picture and made the necessary investment to become low cost global players .... pretty typical of UK business really, develop something useful, bring it to market, be content in ripping the customer off for long enough to tempt competitors to take some of the action at a lower cost and/or margin, fail to react and then simply disappear .... but that's the point I've been attempting to convey for a long time ... mass market 'consumerisation' leads to falling prices, where niche market players can protect margins and can effectively control market prices ..... all that's needed is either time or a catalyst to kick-start the 'consumerisation' of the market ...

Z

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

... .... but that's the point I've been attempting to convey for a long time ... mass market 'consumerisation' leads to falling prices, where niche market players can protect margins and can effectively control market prices ..... all that's needed is either time or a catalyst to kick-start the 'consumerisation' of the market ...

Z

The point 'I have been attempting to convey for a long time' is that neither my Faber slide-rule or your Sinclair calculator(and the many calculators that it spawned) received at any time a subsidy - and certainly not for 25 years;)

Market forces over a period of time determined the success or failure of a technology.

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

... and I still have a British Thornton sliderule in the loft - it's in the same box as the first generation technology which killed it off, a Sinclair Executive calculator (yes I really did have a calculator which at the time cost about a months average wage !!) ...

Z

This is going to sound like a cheap shot (to some) but I've just dusted off my Casio fx-451 from the drawer where it's been for about 5 years. It took about 20 secs to come on, but is working fine. Solar powered calc bought around 1985 for maths classes. What a trooper.

I'd forgotten why it got retired to the drawer, till I just leaned over it, and remembered that it doesn't work very well at night (CFL bulbs!), oh well, you can't win em all.

I wonder if they come with FITs these days?

Mart.

Cardew

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Also I believe Spain are planning an unsubsidised PV farm next year - that means grid viable.

Mart.

Would you care to hazzard a guess at how much 2 years of subsidy to some UK consumers, with a further 23 years to go, have contributed to the situation where Spain can have a grid viable PV farm?