[ExI] Luna Ring Solar Power
Anders Sandberg
anders at aleph.se
Sun Dec 1 01:06:25 UTC 2013
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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