Wasn’t the main appeal of the mirror installations that you can store the heat somewhat efficiently? Rooftop solar is cost effective even here in Germany, where darkness and shadows loom around every corner.
I mean, if they’re dramatically cheaper, they don’t have to be efficient.
That being said, solar cells get around 20% efficiency, steam generators maybe 50% on a good day, subtract the reflection, collection and storage inefficiencies and you might get roughly in the same ballpark as solar cells.
Non-tracking solar panels are closer to 12% actual efficiency, 20% would be a theoretical efficiency. I only mention this because you used an actual efficiency estimate for the steam generator but not the solar panel.
These numbers change every year, but: solar panels on roofs don’t track so they’d be lucky to get 20%, average closer to 12%, efficiency and slowly degrade over a few years. Sun tracking panels can reach a maximum of around 40%, theoretically, but on average more like 20%-30%. You have to subtract the negative impact of creating and assembling the materials from it’s lifetime effectiveness, in Germany I believe Hydrogen Steel exists which is much greener than other types of smelting, or otherwise Aluminum is the higher grade material used for such things, and Photovoltaic Panels have a very specialized Glass in most cases that has to be exceptionally clear and strong. If the capacitance of the system is not enough to hold the produced power then an electrical failure will occur, so you must also include large commercial and industrial batteries.
Meanwhile, a Heliostat (a Collection Tower and Mirror Array) out in the desert has a theoretical efficiency just below 70%. Furthermore, if the capacity of the grid fills up then the array can be disable by adjusting the mirrors and excess power can be stored for extremely long periods of time by utilizing molten salt beneath the tower.
These efficiency numbers refer to how much of the heat energy from full spectrum light hitting the array is converted into electricity. Home panels are nice because you can put them on your home
If by “few” you mean like 30-50 then sure, they degrade. But it certainly beats anything with a spinning turbine. Or anything with moving parts really. PV is purely solid state physics, you can’t get more longevity than that.
If the capacitance of the system is not enough to hold the produced power then an electrical failure will occur, so you must also include large commercial and industrial batteries
That’s not true. You can also simply turn PV off. The inverters only run when they sense 50 Hz on their output terminals, it’s easy to have them turn off when it’s 50.2 instead. Basically all big powerplants follow that rule already, ordered by things like shutoff time etc.
a Heliostat (a Collection Tower and Mirror Array) out in the desert
Funny that you specified in the desert. The appeal of PV is not only that it’s cheap and easy, it also scales down to small investments and local power generation. If base load actually becomes a problem concentrated solar power will be relevant. But for now, slapping a few solar panels on your roof just makes sense.
My dad is still using the first 60w panel he bought in 1986, for 600$. Obvs added many more to his system, and who knows how efficient it is, but it does work, haven’t put a ampmeter on it though.
Mind you it was made in the USA, probably better materials than nowadays.
The mass market has really pushed solar panel production. I expect the material quality even of the cheap china panels to be better than what anyone was able to produce almost 40 years ago. That’s a long time to understand degradation processes and develop countermeasures.
Nobody was arguing anything otherwise, I was just answering questions about why we swap back to steam power for largescale. If you’re powering some LEDs and a Toaster then yeah it’s fine, if you’re powering 10,000 then heliostat time.
Cost per MWh is what tends to matter more than efficiency. Photovoltaics have become dirt cheap. Mirror collection systems haven’t been able to keep up, and the projects for them are basically defunct at this point.
Was worth trying, though. It wasn’t obvious that photovoltaics would get so damn cheap 10 or 20 years ago.
Right. We all know it’s generated by trees. It’s why cutting trees down is so bad for the environment, it stops the wind and everything gets more hot. Leading to global warming.
I can read some Cyrillic, fuck knows what it means. What I can see is:
ЛИВЬ…(Possibly a я here, hard to tell)
ЧЕВУРАТОР
Which roughly transliterates to
“Leave(ya?) Chyevooraitor”
That’s probably not it exactly, I read Cyrillic better than I pronounce it. Russian has its roots in Greek, so there’s sometimes some similarities to English/romantic language where Greek roots have been bastardized in, and there’s also places where they’ve borrowed our words. I’m going to take a very, very wild guess and say that the top word is something to the effect of “liberator”.
text in the bottom says “ЧЕБУРАТОР” or “Cheburator”, it’s a play on words, probably referring to Cheburashka, a character from an old popular soviet cartoon. The picture above the text is them in a military uniform (guy grew app and got fucking drafted i guess 💀)
I have no idea what’s the one on the top is supposed to mean, since the beginning of the word is cut off.
It ends with “ЛИВЫЙ”, but even after viewing the original video i can’t make out the first few characters.
mayyybe it’s “(трус)ЛИВЬІЙ”? (which means cowardly), but ehh I’m not sure
The hypocrisy level is epic, of course, not only using a character that is supposed to be friendly as a militant, but also calling an active militant “polite” 🤦♂️
I remember this was one of Amnesia: The Dark Descent’s first tricks. After an early puzzle, it gave a pulse pounding sound effect, played one distant noise of a monster, and gave you the sneaking tutorial. But players would spend minutes looking around for a monster that wasn’t there.
files.catbox.moe
Active