Featured The Lie Begins to Unravel (R.I.P Cloud Peak Energy)

Agreed. Which is a matter of debate in terms of contribution. And not made true by consensus.

What we need is a way to sequester and use the carbon waste from power generation and manufacturing (of solar and wind power devices, as well as everything else) to reduce impacts. I have never understood why the same people who criticize traditional power generation are willing to terra-form Mars, which is plainly man-made climate change on a global scale.

A certain level of global warming is not necessarily bad. A rational approach would be to harness the power to influence climate in order to sharpen the efficiency of food and energy production and shape the quality of life for a growing world population.

 

Without actual data supporting vague statements like that, it gives the impression of downplay.

 

Renewable energy in Norway - Wikipedia
tell that to (countries like) Norway - where ~ ⅓ of car purchases are electric, & >99% of electric generation is hydroelectric .... as well as being a net electricity exporter

Norway's electric cars zip to new record: almost a third of all sales - Reuters

maybe SOME countries just need a combination of more Vision, coupled with desires to not search out the quick, dirty & easy way.
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The article doesn't surprise me. Of course, they will spend their money on lobbying for their benefit. With this coal company being gone, I wonder how much more rest of the fossil fuel industry has to increase its funding level. Not much. I suspect.

 

That is only true for brown Australian coal.

I'd like to think that by the time that has an major impact, we can built solar satelites that beam power down, or are installing panels on space elevators.

Anything we do will have an impact. It is a question of which option is less detrimental.

Free standing solar panels have the virtually same impact on water run off as a building.
Instead of rainfall being spread out over an area of open ground, that volume is being concentrated along a line of ground. That concentrates the erosion forces onto that line. It is the difference between digging holes with your first vs a shovel.
The concentration of rainfall also means that the ground's absorption rate will be over whelmed faster. Yes, the excess will spill to the ground under the panel, but the simple fact that water is pooling on the ground instead of draining into the soil means more will go into storm drains and streams.

The US makes it from natural gas. Hill is alluding to Toyota's plan for supplying hydrogen for Japan.

Coal can processed into a powder that has much on the polutants removed before burning it in a power plant, or even a ship. Comes down to cost and regulations.

Making a FCEV a plug in mitigates some of the issues facing them, but a large battery and hydrogen tanks make vehicle design harder.

It's easy to spread because the major forces(Toyota, Japanese government, CARB, etc.) trying to commercialize FCEVs are pushing hydrogen for the fuel. Those using PEM fuel cells in their cars are pretty much tied to pure hydrogen. Those fuel cells are suspectible to contaminate poisoning, and can't run an autoformer as efficiently as a solid oxide fuel cell.

The only major car company using a fuel besides hydrogen for their fuel cell is Nissan. Ethanol is much easier to transport and fuel with. The large battery and small fuel cell format can be cheaper while being plug in ready. It just relies on Nissan's battery cooling.

Ethanol and nearly any other hydrocarbon or other hydrogen carrier can be used with an autoreformer. Solid oxide fuel cells, like Nissan uses, can self reform simple hydrocarbons, like natural gas/methane and methanol, right in the cell.

Yeah, solid oxide ones run hot, and they are less efficient than a PEM(ignoring hydrogen production). Nissan uses a low output one that 'trickle' charges a Leaf sized pack to reduce the cost. In the future, they may work out as an replacement for an ICE in a PHEV. They can be made to run on whatever fuel we are using then, which will surely be easier to make and use than hydrogen.

It is actually very simple once you realize it is about having environments suitable for humans' survival and expansion.

That is much easier said than done. On Mars, we will be starting from the point where people can't survive. On Earth, you run the risk of making the environment unsurvivable. Which is the path we are already on.

 

Really? Do you have a link? Pretty much, AFAIK most solar panels are ~15% efficient with some more expensive ones being ~22% and it has been this way for a decade or so, with the more efficient ones costing up to about 2x as much (so only economical if you really have limited rooftop space). I got my ~15% efficient ones 4 years ago.
Note that concentrating solar (while useful) still doesn't, technically, make the cells more efficient since the watts per unit area is what matters for efficiency. (watts per $ matters most for most homes when roof area isn't limiting).
If you want to spend 10x or 100x as much (a guess) then there are panels used in space that are ~40% efficient.

There has been constant progress with solar cells, but it has been on reducing costs, primarily.

Mike

 

CleanTechnica
SunPower Launches World's Most Powerful Residential Solar Panels | CleanTechnica

Somewhat older, at 425 volt
SunPower 425 Solar Panels

March, 2019 - 415 volt
SunPower Launches Industry's First 400-Plus-Watt Home Solar Panels, the Most Powerful Residential Solar Panels in the World - Mar 5, 2019

 

[Note: you confused watts with volts in several places.]

Uh, that 425 watt panel is not in the same size as other 300 watt units.

My newest expansion, four years old, has 280 watt modules in a 1.675 x 1.001 meter format. More recent versions were 300 watts in the same package, before business interruption shut things down a while back and their German parent sold them -- ironically, to SunPower.

Sunpower 425 unit: "Dimensions: 81.36" x 41.18" x 2.13 inches" or 2.067 x 1.046 meters, an almost 29% larger package. So the 33% power gain isn't so impressive.

I'm still trying to find spec sheets for the 'newer' 415 watt units, but their web pages don't seem to want to show them to me. What I do see is a picture with 66 cells, vs 60 cells in my current format. Thus it seems likely that it is also in a larger package. But one site indicated that it isn't being made available as individual modules for DIYers such as me, but only to installers of whole systems.

 

I'm not sure any of those is significantly different than these (certainly not really counting as improving weekly):

Record-Breaking Solar Technology and Award-winning Solar Innovations | SunPower
2007: SunPower begins volume production of its record breaking high efficiency solar cell, averaging 22.4%

Of course, we'll take whatever they can provide. But yields and cost per watt are still more important.

Mike

 

How about some specifications and test data, not stories pulled from press releases? I am skeptical.

 

As far as U.S. coal power industry, which I am not a big fan, but going back to the 1970's, their overall approach has been to embrace climate change due to coal as something we can accept with adaption etc. So when OP says "lie" I am not sure I have been mislead by the coal industry re: CO2. They did lie about coal ash being benign, with EPA/Congress support, but common sense tells you that is BS.

The problem I have with coal combustion, is even if the planet could handle the CO2, I am not sure the planet can handle the combiined effects of CO2, Particulates, NOx, SOx., mercury and so on, when you consider 1000's (?) of coal fired power plants in the world.

 

Are these guys giving fuel cells a bad rep? Bloom really hyped things up nearly a decade ago (I still remember the 60 Minutes story) and I haven't heard much about them since.

Why Bloom Energy deserves more scrutiny in 2019 | GreenBiz

Did solar+powerwalls effectively kill this concept?

 

I think the issue is still cost.

 

yep - mediocre and not really a financial success, but hanging on due to massive incentives in Cali - kind of like automotive fuel cells .... always a bridesmaid, never the bride.
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425 watt unit here, 19.7% efficiency:
https://www.energy.ca.gov/sitingcases//blythe_solar/pv_amendment/amendment/Appendices/Appendix_A/Appendix_A3_02_Satellite.pdf
SunPower 425 Solar Panels

I don't yet see a spec sheet for the A-series 415 watt unit.

 

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With cheap natural gas, an efficient generator works well enough.
I see fuel cells having a chance commercially once ICEs have hit their limits in efficiency and emissions. Though packaging advantages could tip in their favor for vehicles. Then there may be a place for them in renewable energy storage, if battery supplies become a limiting factor and pumped storage impractical.

Stopping fuel cell research because hydrogen is a poor idea is short sided.

 

You mean, "short-sighted."

 

Fuel cell research for cars is probably a dead end.

However, fuel cells for ships or planes could have a future. While we have a readily available green alternative for cars (electric), we don't have ones for ships or planes yet. Biofuels might work, but I view hydrogen's light weight potentially highly valuable for plane travel.