[ExI] Luna Ring Solar Power

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2013-12-01 00:40, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se 
> <mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
>
>     On 2013-11-30 13:45, giorgio gaviraghi wrote:
>>     we don't need centralize solar farms. Each building will carry
>>     its own, same with roads that will power the vehicles
>>     we must decentralize power generation get rid of power lines,
>>     stations and so on
>
> I'm on the record stating that PV panels on every roof is a really bad 
> idea because of the infrastructure requirements for every building. DC 
> power doesn't travel very far efficiently, so you can't distribute the 
> infrastructure easily. It is not the cost of solar panels that kills 
> you, it is the cost of the inverters and other electronics to convert 
> to AC. Very costly stuff.

Still, local DC looks like it *might* be making a comeback. But it is 
long-range transmission that is hard.

>     If you want to really help mankind, invent a really good (large
>     capacity, many cycles) rechargeable battery. The rest is easy.
>
>
> What do you think of this one Anders?
> http://bit.ly/1cevY1Y

*Sounds* good. But the proof is in the pudding - there is no shortage of 
press releases for promising tech.

I have the suspicion that we need something more fundamentally different 
than just clever improvements of current batteries. I am watching 
supercapacitors with interest, although they still have far to go. 
Still, a really cheap and simple battery with the right properties might 
work out despite inefficiency: the solution does not have to be 
close-to-limits-set-by-physical-law-perfect to make distributed power 
generation or renewables effective (just consider how fracking, for all 
its imperfections and headaches, is still good enough to revolutionise 
the US energy industry).

-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University

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