Solar energy storage — a gift from Gaia

I love the way Viv thinks! Once again he highlights a stunning new aspect of the man-made global warming absurdity. Everyone should hear this: but especially our government, the Greens, the Maori Party, vegetarians, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gareth Morgan. – Richard Treadgold

There is a massive problem with photo-voltaic solar power. Modern cities and industries require power 24/7 but solar panels can only deliver significant energy from 9am to 3pm on a clear day — a maximum of 25% of the time. Even within this time, energy production peaks at midday and falls off steeply on either side.

Science has yet to develop a solar storage battery suitable for grid power. It must be sufficiently large, cheap and efficient to hold the solar power generated during the short solar maximum so it can be used later, when peak demand usually occurs. This process requires that much of the solar energy produced in peak times would have to be devoted to recharging the massive battery.

A linked hydro plant would work in certain limited locations, but the same people advocating solar power are opposed to dam building for hydro power.

However, Planet Earth has already solved this problem. For millions of years Earth has used photosynthesis to store solar energy in wood and plant material, then converted this to long-term storage in the form of coal.

Coal is nature’s answer to solar energy storage and, in a wonderful bit of synergy, the process of recovering the energy releases back to the atmosphere the building blocks of life — water vapour and carbon dioxide. These are again converted by solar energy into more plants, wood and coal. The whole process does a bit towards postponing the next ice age and returning Earth to that warm, moist, verdant, life-filled environment that existed when the coals were formed.

Coal is a gift from Gaia — the 100% natural, clean, green and sustainable answer to Solar Energy Storage!

Viv Forbes
forbes@carbon-sense.com

If you would like to read more see:

Solar Power Realities:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/solar-realities.pdf
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/solar-realities-addendum.pdf

Solar Energy hits the Dust:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/dust.pdf

Wind and Solar are Worse than Coal, and cause a waste of gas:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/wind-solar-coal.pdf

Visits: 131

13 Thoughts on “Solar energy storage — a gift from Gaia

  1. Magoo on 12/02/2014 at 12:10 am said:

    I always said that coal and oil’s natural tendency is to burn, therefore burning coal and oil is a perfectly natural thing to do.

  2. Richard C (NZ) on 12/02/2014 at 8:47 am said:

    >”A linked hydro plant would work in certain limited locations, but the same people advocating solar power are opposed to dam building for hydro power.”

    Opposition is a good thing but complete and nonsensical opposition isn’t.

    ‘The Costs of the Environmentalism Cult’

    February 11, 2014 by Bruce Thornton

    California is in the third year of a drought, but the problem isn’t a lack of water. The snowfall in the Sierra provides enough to help us ride out the years of drought. All we need to do is store it. But California hasn’t built a new dam in 35 years. Worse than that, every year we dump 1.6 million acre-feet of water––about enough to serve 3.2 million families for a year––into the Pacific Ocean in order to protect an allegedly “endangered” 3-inch bait-fish called the Delta smelt. California’s $45 billion agricultural industry, a global breadbasket that produces nearly half of U.S.-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables, is set to take a huge hit, with hundreds of thousands of acres left fallow and the San Joaquin Valley region’s already sky-high 17% unemployment destined to increase.

    More>>>>>

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/the-costs-of-the-environmentalism-cult-2/

  3. Andy on 12/02/2014 at 8:55 am said:

    There are good hydro schemes in NZ that have minimal environmental impact. We visited the Manapouri underground power station over the holidays. This supplies 20% of NZ’s power (most going to Tiwai Point) and creates this from seven turbines in an underground cavern.
    The systems utilises the height differential between Lake Manapouri and Doubtful Sound.

    There is a small dam but I think the environmental impact is fairly minimal

    I’m not sure I would agree that coal is 100% clean. If you install scrubbers, possibly

    • Al Black on 12/02/2014 at 11:54 am said:

      That was the 2nd-last hydro scheme ever build in New Zealand – the last was the Clyde Dam, approved in 1977, finished in 1993. None has been approved since due to the Luddite, Gaia-worshiping Greens who think it is a sin to interfere with a river’s “natural” flow, so Viv is 100% correct. We are living through the end of the Age of Reason.
      Visit the Mt Piper Coal Power Station near Lithgow, NSW. The coal is burnt at extreme heat, with catalytic convertors taking out Nitrogen and Sulphur oxides, and filters taking care of the ash. The Smoke-stack is a misnomer – nothing is visible except a heat haze, nothing escapes except CO2 and water vapour. Coal plus technology = very clean power.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/02/2014 at 1:05 pm said:

      >”The Smoke-stack is a misnomer – nothing is visible except a heat haze, nothing escapes except CO2 and water vapour”

      And elsewhere…….

      ‘Being Green Means Never Having To Use Your Brain’

      Steve Goodard

      These Greenpeace activists are protesting the Four Corners Power Plant in New Mexico, and fail to notice that it isn’t dirty.

      See photo http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/screenhunter_516-jan-31-15-40.gif?w=640

      At one time (45 years ago) it was dirty, and I was one of the people fighting to get them to clean the plant up. They installed electrostatic precipitators, and now the plant delivers huge amounts of electricity to several states – with minimal pollution.

      http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/being-green-means-never-having-to-use-your-brain/

    • Andy on 12/02/2014 at 3:18 pm said:

      It is almost unimaginable to think of the Manapouri scheme going ahead nowadays. (Located in a National Park, especially so)

      The interesting thing too is that the Milford Road and Homer Tunnel were created from job creation schemes around the time of WW2.

      I can’t even imagine that building a road to Milford would be allowed now, yet it provides access to our magnificent Fiordland for thousands

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/02/2014 at 4:35 pm said:

      >”It is almost unimaginable to think of the [insert project name here] scheme going ahead nowadays.”

      China is where everyone else was years ago – think Three Gorges Dam.

  4. Richard C (NZ) on 12/02/2014 at 1:11 pm said:

    Aside, and way off topic, saw this while scrolling down Real Science looking for the smoke-stack post:

    ‘What Could Possibly Go Wrong?’

    http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/what-could-possibly-go-wrong-7/

  5. Mike Jowsey on 13/02/2014 at 5:44 pm said:

    I am involved with a company which builds offgrid transmission sites for data links. They run on solar with large batteries for storage, We have found that solar stresses the batteries and shortens their lifespan. This is due to the huge midday peak. Batteries prefer sustained charging, plus a desulfation unit attached. Which is why we are about to install our first wind turbine. (It’s OK Andy – I have voiced my misgivings and if bird strike becomes a problem then it’s coming down and we go back to the drawing board.)
    The effect of the turbine on amperage profile will be to flatten it a little. We are also installing PV panels facing east and west to increase morning and afternoon amperage, also flattening the profile. This will give our batteries increased longevity.
    The reason we have gone with solar in the first place is for remote hilltop transmission sites – we can put them wherever we want and don’t have to drape power lines across the countryside.
    Also, I think it’s a useful model for developing nations wanting internet transmission into remote areas. It has its place, but I don’t see solar power in its current technological incarnation being any sort of option for powering a national grid. Nor wind, for that matter.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/02/2014 at 6:53 pm said:

      These things have been pumping water around the world since the mid 1800s, I remember them thrashing wildly in strong winds when i was a kid.

    • Andy on 13/02/2014 at 6:55 pm said:

      Mike
      I don’t have a problem with the occasional wind turbine.
      It is the large scale industrialization of the countryside that I am concerned with.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/02/2014 at 7:19 pm said:

      And worse, large scale industrialization of the countryside by subsidy (not NZ) and a bogus tax on the competition (ETS NZ).

      According to the European Commission, onshore British wind and solar power industries are “mature” and should be allowed to operate without support from taxpayers and the current level of state support for renewable energy sources must be phased out by the end of the decade..

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/renewableenergy/10548157/Europe-wants-to-block-UK-wind-farm-subsidies.html

      Gosh, that will be a relief for beleaguered, fuel impoverished consumers and dose of reality for wind and solar – in 2020.

Leave a Reply to Richard C (NZ) Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Post Navigation