Heavy duty investor backs solar thermal and talks about transmission overhaul...

http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/250043

"If we truly want to tap the potential of renewables, we have to take a hard look at investing in transmission that allows a city like Toronto to benefit from wave power in Nova Scotia, solar thermal power in Florida, geothermal in British Columbia and hydropower flowing from Newfoundland.

If we want renewables to directly replace coal and nuclear, it will only happen on the necessary scale if we have adequate transmission. Residential- and community-level renewables help reduce our need for the grid, but the need itself will never go away.

"I think that (enhanced transmission) is absolutely key to all renewables," says Khosla."

and

"Is this the power plant of the future?

By solar thermal, Khosla Ventures' Vinod Khosla is referring more specifically to concentrating solar power, as opposed to solar thermal technologies used to provide space heating and hot water in buildings, or conventional solar power, where the sunlight strikes a PV cell and is converted into electricity.

Concentrating solar power uses parabolic mirrors to focus the sun's energy on a single point, creating high temperatures that generate steam from a fluid. The steam spins a turbine, just as it would in a coal plant, which in turn generates electricity.

Alternatively, the sunlight can be concentrated enough to heat and expand the gas in a Stirling engine to generate electricity (I encourage you to Google "Stirling engine" – very cool technology)."


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more at link, a good read

...but those "used to provide space heating and hot water in buildings" contribute much more to the renewable energy supply than solar PV can hope to attain for many years yet.

If a solar hot water collector was a PV panel, it would have a "peak watt" rating of 700 Watts per square meter, compared to the very best PV panels this is three times as much energy per square meter, and on a dollar per dollar basis, is almost 10 times cheaper.

Of course thermal watts, especially low temperature thermal watts, cannot directly light lightbulbs or power electric cars. However, we would be much better off if more people preheated their water with solar, and in some areas stored up hot water to heat their house, than we would if we had people with electric heaters running off solar thermoelectric farms.

The difference is that the people would own the equipment. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. Give a man a fish, and tomorrow you can charge him for the next one. So that's why big tycoons don't seem to be funneling as much money into the companies looking to make retail products.

Again, not that the central generation facilities are a bad thing, they are needed for the cities, just it is interesting to watch purist capitalism fail us yet again.

Israel, Europe have lots of solar thermal panels. We have 1.5 million system, for 300+ million people. Go figure.





...all power figures in peak thermal watts.

he's talking about concentrated solar thermal, that is converted to electricity. There is a huge difference and one that really seems to elude most here on this forum from what I've found.

There's no arguing things like greenhouse, solar water heaters, etc. are awesome and should be encouraged.

Aside from the solar issues, the investor astutely points out that no matter what we do, we have to make a grid capable of long distance transmission if we really want to solve the energy problems w/o coal or nuclear. I think that goes to the heart of almost every argument that debases solar, wind, wave, etc.

You can't just write off what cities need because a good % of the world's population live in cities and I'd wager that most people on DU itself live in cities of one kind or another. Most people are going to be able to "live off the land" when they live in an apartment or condo. This fact is likely to become more the case as we have to house more and more people. I think we'll probably have more population density in the future, not less.

The solar thermoelectric farm people like to say "not like those wimpy water heaters" a lot, and that's what irks me, because those water heaters are solar's biggest success story.

I agree there needs to be centralized power gen and transmission resources. But only for the cities. Individuals and communities that can do something local should do so. It's insanity to leave it in the hands of the elite.

that kickback money and energy to the family and community itself. I think self-reliance and small community wealth generation through alternative energy sources should be taken further. I'd rather they own the turbines themselves rather than just renting the space.

I agree with the essence of what you are saying.