Tag: energy

Controlled heat flow

Future building materials could let heat out during cool summer nights but keep it in during the winter. Solar cells could harness the portion of the sun’s spectrum that isn’t converted to electricity for other purposes. A roof installation could send this lost energy to heat water, for instance

Etching solar

While researchers did find that production of individual black-Si passive emitter rear cells (PERC) were between 15.8 and 25.1% more expensive than making conventional cells, they also found that the efficiency gains and the ability to go to the less-expensive multicrystalline silicon starting material far outweighed those extra costs: overall the cost per unit power dropped by 10.8%.

Solar regulatory burdens

The regulation comes in 3 un-American guises: permitting, code and tariffs — and together they are killing the US residential market. Modernizing these regulations, primarily at the local and state level, is the greatest opportunity for US solar policy

Rooftop solar in the us costs 2x as much as in developed countries due to inconsistent, super-local “regulations”. why we can’t have nice things.

Can energy pay for UBI?

Total cost of energy in the us is $1.1 trillion, or 6.2% of GDP. If you cut that by 90%, which is on the way, you pay for ~1/3 of US UBI. That does not factor in new uses of energy that will have dramatic value like vertical farming. Given cheap enough energy, UBI should become quite affordable for the economy.

Darkness

Darkness is either really good, or really bad. fascinating. lower light levels are both due to better technology and tragedy.

At their core, night lights are a generally human phenomenon. As such, they are tempting proxies for things like standard of living and economic activity. An illuminated place, sufficient to be detected by an orbiting satellite, represents the substantial influence we have on pushing back the darkness of the nighttime sky.

Red states lead on clean energy

Some of the fastest progress on clean energy is occurring in states led by Republican governors and legislators, and states carried by Donald J. Trump in the presidential election. The 5 states that get the largest % of their power from wind turbines — Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma and North Dakota — all voted for Mr. Trump. So did Texas, which produces the most wind power in absolute terms. In fact, 69% of the wind power produced in the country comes from states that Mr. Trump carried in November.

5 energetic epochs

Judson divides the history of the life on Earth into 5 energetic epochs, geochemical energy, sunlight, oxygen, flesh, and fire

Battery production scaling

3 massive battery storage plants—built by Tesla, AES Corp., and Altagas Ltd.—are all officially going live in southern California at about the same time. Any one of these projects would have been the largest battery storage facility ever built. Combined, they amount to 15% of the battery storage installed planet-wide last year.

2017-08-08: 120 GWh by 2021

Factories planned by Chinese companies could have the battery capacity to produce more than 120 GWh by 2021 – enough to supply 1.5M Tesla Model S vehicles. This will be over 3x initial the battery cell capacity of the Tesla Gigafactory at 35 GWh

2020-08-10: European battery factories are situated in the wrong countries

Out of the 14 projects scheduled in Europe, 10 rely on CO2-intensive electricity production with locations in Germany, Hungary, and Poland. France, which produces 88% CO2-free electricity thanks to its 58 nuclear reactors, has only 1 gigafactory in the pipeline.

Solar Roof

cheaper, longer lasting, better looking and gives you energy.

2060 Energy Scenarios

The World Energy Scenarios comprise 3 scenarios for the energy sector up to 2060 referred to as Unfinished Symphony, Modern Jazz and Hard Rock. Solar and wind energy account for only 4% of power generation in 2014, but by 2060 it will account for 20% to 39% of power generation. In Unfinished Symphony, strong policy supported by hydro and nuclear capacity additions will allow intermittent renewables to reach 39% of electricity generation by 2060. Large-scale pumped hydro and compressed air storage, battery innovation, and grid integration provide dependable capacity to balance intermittency. Modern Jazz sees intermittent renewables reach 30% of generation enabled by distributed systems, digital technologies, and battery innovation. For both resources (solar and wind), the largest additions will be seen in China, India, Europe, and North America. With less capacity for infrastructure build-out, Hard Rock sees the lowest penetration, with solar and wind generation reaching 20% by 2060.