Re: Solar-hydrogen home power system?

From: william mook (william.mook_at_mokindustries.com)
Date: 10/18/04 

Date: 18 Oct 2004 04:40:18 -0700

Bob Suruncle <bob99sur@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<807I3KRJ38278.1268634259@anonymous.poster>...
> In article <4172DB18.722DAB97@tinaja.com>
> Don Lancaster <don@tinaja.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Solar pv electricity is ridiculously too valuable to waste on hydrogen
> > generation.
> > The system would be a net energy sink and a net destroyer of gasoline.
> >
> > See http://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf
> >
> > --
> > Many thanks,
> >
> > Don Lancaster
>
> Does this mean that William Mook is out to lunch when he talks
> about making hyrdrogen from solar panels?

Mention my name and I appear! :)

Okay, here's the deal, afaik with Mr. Lancaster. He's assuming at the
outset that solar panels are $6 per watt.

Assuming zero operating costs you still have time value of money to
deal with.

So, at 8% discount rate and say a 15 year lifespan, you've still got
to pay 60 cents or something like that per year, to pay for the time
value of money.

Periods of low interest and low government spending - will have lower
discount rates and rapid growth in energy use. Periods of high
interest and high government spending - will have higher discount
rates and slowing or downturn in energy use. But 8% is a good average
number. Higher rates will attract lots of capital. Lower rates will
be a non-starter.

Note I said SPENDING - not taxing - so tax breaks without some sort of
plan to reduce spending won't help. Nixon learned that, and so will
Bush if he makes it to a second term.

So, at $6 per watt you're paying 60 cents a year for your fixed
capital cost hardware.

Now, the sun only shines so many hours a year. Somewhere between
1,400 and 2,400 hours in most places. So each watt of installed
capacity produces between 1.4 and 2.4 kWh.

Once you have your time value of money and your insolation level, you
can figure the cost of your energy;

   $0.30 per kWh - if each watt produces 2 kWh of energy per year -
which can be more or less depending on insolation and discount rates.

Now, each watt over the course of its 15 year life will this $0.30 per
kWh energy will total 30 kWh costing a grand total of $9.00 ($6.00 for
the capital cost $3.00 for th etime value of money cost.)

Fuel costs for conventional energy are around $0.02 per kWh. So, this
adds up to $0.60 for 30 kWh for fuel.

Now it costs energy to make a thing - and energy is something capital
owners spend their interest payments on. So, part of that $9.00 buys
energy. If we spend more than 6.7% of our economy on fuel - we will
have a net energy loss with these numbers (we've omitted a lot of
other costs that are low, but not zero - so let's say that 6.7% of the
economy is energy related to acount for that)

And that's what Don is getting at I think.

Now, lookee what happens when the numbers are $0.06 per watt instead
of $6.00! All the costs are 1/100th the costs calculated above so we
can say

    30 kWh $0.09 -- $0.003 per kWh -

This is 15% the cost of fuel alone in power generation. Clearly
energy made at this price is a benefit! We take 6.7% of the $0.09 and
divide it by the 30 watts and add this correction to the cost as above
- we're still ahead of course. This is just a correction term when
the prices are this low.

So, Don's statements, if made clearly and concisely - complete with
all the assumptions he's making and the logcial process spelled out
once and for all - can be converted into a price point that must be
achieved by PV for hydrogen to make sense. And when you do that -
following the numbers I've given here - (and reasonable people can
disagree with what the real number is precisely) - you end up with a
number like $0.60 per peak watt, for hydrogen. For other markets you
have;

    $60.00 per peak watt - price of PV at the outset of the technology
     $6.00 per peak watt - current price of PV
     $1.85 per peak watt - without battery - utility fill in during
day
     $1.85 per peak watt -electric utility (must include battery)
     $0.60 per peak watt - hydrogen production (must include
electrolyzer)
     $0.35 per peak watt - synthetic oil production (must include
reactors)
     $0.18 per peak watt - synthetic oil from carbon-dioxide

So, what if you achieve $0.06 per peak watt? What then? Well, you
end up with $8.90 per barrel synthetic oil from carbon dioxide. And a
change in the way the world thinks about solar energy.

>
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