Re: Turning Hydrogen into electricity

From: Alex Terrell (alexterrell_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 02/15/05 

Date: 15 Feb 2005 00:08:45 -0800

Don W. wrote:
> "Alex Terrell" <alexterrell@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1108374147.894984.82650@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> >
> >
> > In your otherwise excellent paper you confuse me by mixing the
> > economics and the energy use.
> >
>
> You're confused if you think that economics and energy use are
separate
> issues.

No, but your argumentation implies they are the same. Sure they're
linked, but they are not the same.

> As long as there are energy markets, there is a direct equivalency
> between money and energy.

and beer and tennis rackets and everything else that money can buy. And
energy costs are but a small part of the cost of a PV system.

Take two, approximately correct statements:

1. A PV system will generate 10MWhrs in its lifetime. Its construction
and deployment used 1MWhr of electricity.
2. The same PV system will generate $30 of electricity in its lifetime.
To produce and install and operate cost / will cost $150.

Statement 1 comes from the research that a KWhr of solar electricty
produces 50g of CO2 in its lifecycle. Grid electricity tends to produce
500g/KWhr, so there's a 10:1 payback on electricity, or about 3:1 on
thermal energy.

Statement 2 comes from the fact that PV electricity is about 5 times
the cost of grid electricity. So there's a 1:5 payback on money.

Clearly money and energy are not the same thing - unless you think
money and beer are the same thing.

I agree the only time solar pays back financially is where grid energy
is not available, or expensive to connect, e.g. some parking meters.

snip

> Except that it takes energy to make money and money spent on
synchronous
> inverters cannot also be used for other things that might provide
greater
> benefit (even greater environmental benefit) than synchronous
inverters.
> It's a matter of allocating resources. Resources allocated for
synchronous
> inverters are no longer available for... well, ANYTHING!

Agree there, but it takes many things to make money, the most important
typically being capital, labour and external supplies. Energy is
typically just one of the external supplies.
>
> Allocate your resources as you think best, but allocating those
dollars to
> methods of conservation might provide a much greater "energy payback"
and a
> much greater environmental benefit.
>
> > > ...synchronous inverter financing alone will cost you
> > > something like TWICE what it delivers in electricity.
> > >
> > > Thus GUARANTEEING a net energy sink.
> >
> > Thus Guaranteeing a net FINANCIAL sink.
> >
>
> Thus guaranteeing that one can buy one's electricity elsewhere and
still
> have lots of dollars left to replace big energy consuming devices
with more
> efficient ones or when the washing machine needs replacement, use the
extra
> cash to buy a front-loader instead of a top-load, or extend your next
> vacation in the mountains a few days...
>
Or fly a bit further, or buy a bigger car, or put spot lights in the
kitchen.

The point your making is that money we spend on solar power would be
better spent on other CO2 reduction methods - and yes, energy
conservation has the biggest payback - as BP found out, it costs
virtually nothing, and has a big impact on CO2 output, (completely
torpedoing the view that Kyoto is prohibitelvely expensive).

and yes, if you have 3m2 free on the roof, better put in a solar water
heater.

That said, if no one buys PVs, there'll be no R&D into PVs, and a
promising technology will be scrapped.

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