Solar cell
in [Design]
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From: Joel Koltner on 24 Apr 2010 20:22 "Paul Keinanen" <keinanen(a)sci.fi> wrote in message news:d7d6t5taf84tugstr1s24b4aeug5hvme06(a)4ax.com... > The problem with huge government subsidies is that it kills all > innovations. It doesn't kill innovation for a couple of reasons: 1) Since companies still have to compete for contracts, if they can improve their product, making it more efficient or cheaper to build, the company's bottom line is still better off -- that's an incentive. 2) You make the common mistake of assuming that all companies and their employees are primarily motivated by the almighty dollar. Which this is certainly quite often the case, there are plenty of people who will always do the best job that they can, even when they're well aware that they can "get by" with less. (As an extreme example, look at the Apache web server -- the most popular web server on the entire Internet, that's constantly being improved and upgraded, despite few of the programmers making any money whatsoever off of it.) I would give you that government subsidies can tend to *decrease* innovation: If a product you normally sell for a dollar and make $0.20 profit on is being subsidized by the government to the tune of $0.25 per dollar, in a sense you're now making $0.45 profit instead, and even if you can shave another nickel off your costs, going from $0.45 to a $0.50 (~10% increase) profit isn't nearly as impressive as going fro $0.20 to $0.25 (25% increase). ---Joel
From: mpm on 24 Apr 2010 21:20 On Apr 24, 7:13 pm, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > "mpm" <mpmill...(a)aol.com> wrote in message > > news:04419c55-58eb-4701-a869-17dd82217845(a)c21g2000yqk.googlegroups.com... > > > But solar-cars, electric or electric-hybrids, or even nuclear-powered > > cars -- all are possible, but none have proven to be instant hits. > > Toyota seems to be making plenty of money on Priuses? > > I think PV cells are like LCDs once were: They have plenty of nichey > applications already as LCDs have had since about the '70s, but just as no one > knew how to build a 1920x1080 LCD array (with a transistor for every single > pixel, no less!) in a cost-effective manner up until the late '90s and yet > today such a device is <$200, no one today can build PV cells cheap enough to > make them competitive with oil, nuclear, etc. > > > But to your specific gasoline example, one could say this was tied to > > the success of the personal automobile (another big hit over the horse > > & buggy!). > > It's interesting to consider what technology would become porminent if, > somehow, all the gas stations and oil refineries suddenly disappeared over > night -- bet we still had all the technological know-how as of 2010. I'm > thinking the replacement infrastructure might include a lot more diesel > automobiles... > > > I also disagree with your Internet example, though that may be just an > >exercise in agreeing to what exact timeline constitutes something > > taking off like a rocket. I'm sure you'll agree that (as a whole), > >the Internet has been a huge success. > > Yes, I'm just suggesting that government dollars created the thing we call the > Internet (and the methods we use to access it) likely some years sooner than > if there hadn't been a DARPA or similar product. As others have pointed out, > BBSes were already getting themselves networked (e.g., Fidonet) and the idea > of hypertext has been around for many decades, so clearly something like the > Internet would have still happened anyway -- I just think it likely would > have taken a "significant" amount of extra time, which I'd guesstimate to be > perhaps a decade. > > > But my position remains: If utility PV was ever going to be > > successful, you would see the signs early and often. This has not > > been the case, and indeed, utility PV has yet to see the light of day > > PV needs some fundamental breakthroughs in manufacturing costs and (to a > lesser extent) cell efficiency. I think you can fairly argue that those sorts > of breakthroughs are more likely to be produced in some "basic research" lab > somewhere (relatively cheap funding) than from dumping a much larger amount of > money into subsidizing production of the existing technology and hoping that > what commercial competition remains will spur enough R&D spending by the > existing producers to create it. > > > Another example is wind energy. Again, no technological hurdle, but > > can you really claim it's taken off? > > There sure seems to be a lot of interest in it, but I'm not knowledgable > enough about it to speculate on whether or not it would be viable sans > government sunsidies/mandates. > > I do have a relative who interested a sizable chunk of change in a wind energy > company and so far has only lost money on it. :-) > > ---Joel So, let's take these one by one: First - Electric cars Circa 1902, we had the Wood's Electric Phaeton Carriage. Before that, 1832 and 1839 (the exact year is uncertain), Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first crude electric carriage. I'll grant you that 178 years later, things look a little rosier for electric cars, but even now, they still don't outsell internal combustion models. Second - ...nobody knows how to build [insert item name here]. Obviously, anything here proves my point. Magnetrons are perhaps another good example. Invented in 1920. Microwave heating discovered (accidentally) in 1945. First successful product in 1967 (Amana Radar Range) Total time: 47 years. Third - Wind power Google T Boone Pickens. 'nuff said? Fourth - PV Solar I predict that other technologies will suppress innovation in utility- scale PV solar. Namely, solar-thermal. The only true obstacles there are land use, and of course, the oil industry lobby. Did I mention solar-thermal works well in the desert!? It will either be that, or nuclear that seals the deal on utility- scale PV. And that is not to say that more efficient PV does not (and would not) maintain a superiority in certain niche applications. -mpm
From: mpm on 24 Apr 2010 21:31 On Apr 24, 7:55 pm, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgro...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > It's truly amazing and a bit scary what you can get at Taco Bell for $0.99 > these days... :-) What's even more amazing is that people will eat it! I'll stop now before this thread morphs into a discussion on that new KFC bunless wonder.... :) Oh wait, I guess this is supposed to be an engineering forum. I'm relatively certain we could come up with an equation to relate present-day obesity to the amount of processing (in terms of kWh) that goes into the modern day diet. By that, I mean if you grab a jar of applesauce out of the cupboard and start chowing down, the energy to sow, grow, pick, peel and smash was all done by machines other than the human body machine. In summary, the food energy was obtained without all the effort.
From: krw on 24 Apr 2010 21:38 On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 17:13:22 -0700, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >"mpm" <mpmillard(a)aol.com> wrote in message >news:04419c55-58eb-4701-a869-17dd82217845(a)c21g2000yqk.googlegroups.com... >> But solar-cars, electric or electric-hybrids, or even nuclear-powered >> cars -- all are possible, but none have proven to be instant hits. > >Toyota seems to be making plenty of money on Priuses? No one said that there *wasn't* a sucker born every minute. >I think PV cells are like LCDs once were: They have plenty of nichey >applications already as LCDs have had since about the '70s, but just as no one >knew how to build a 1920x1080 LCD array (with a transistor for every single >pixel, no less!) in a cost-effective manner up until the late '90s and yet >today such a device is <$200, no one today can build PV cells cheap enough to >make them competitive with oil, nuclear, etc. PVs have had the same time frame *and* technology advances and *still* are a couple or orders of magnitude short of break-even. >> But to your specific gasoline example, one could say this was tied to >> the success of the personal automobile (another big hit over the horse >> & buggy!). > >It's interesting to consider what technology would become porminent if, >somehow, all the gas stations and oil refineries suddenly disappeared over >night -- bet we still had all the technological know-how as of 2010. I'm >thinking the replacement infrastructure might include a lot more diesel >automobiles... A silly what if. So what? >> I also disagree with your Internet example, though that may be just an >>exercise in agreeing to what exact timeline constitutes something >> taking off like a rocket. I'm sure you'll agree that (as a whole), >>the Internet has been a huge success. > >Yes, I'm just suggesting that government dollars created the thing we call the >Internet (and the methods we use to access it) likely some years sooner than >if there hadn't been a DARPA or similar product. You do know that IBM wasn't allowed to bid on the DARPA contract because they already *had* such a network (several hundred nodes, worldwide). There is nothing mystical about the Internet. The need was known and the technology existing. It *would* have happened, and already was in progress. >As others have pointed out, >BBSes were already getting themselves networked (e.g., Fidonet) and the idea >of hypertext has been around for many decades, so clearly something like the >Internet would have still happened anyway -- I just think it likely would >have taken a "significant" amount of extra time, which I'd guesstimate to be >perhaps a decade. Perhaps some time, but hardly "significant". >> But my position remains: If utility PV was ever going to be >> successful, you would see the signs early and often. This has not >> been the case, and indeed, utility PV has yet to see the light of day > >PV needs some fundamental breakthroughs in manufacturing costs and (to a >lesser extent) cell efficiency. I think you can fairly argue that those sorts >of breakthroughs are more likely to be produced in some "basic research" lab >somewhere (relatively cheap funding) than from dumping a much larger amount of >money into subsidizing production of the existing technology and hoping that >what commercial competition remains will spur enough R&D spending by the >existing producers to create it. After forty years of trying (at least), what makes you believe it's possible to jump a couple of orders of magnitude ($/W). >> Another example is wind energy. Again, no technological hurdle, but >> can you really claim it's taken off? > >There sure seems to be a lot of interest in it, but I'm not knowledgable >enough about it to speculate on whether or not it would be viable sans >government sunsidies/mandates. Of course it is. Drop subsidies and every wind turbine will grind to a halt in a year. >I do have a relative who interested a sizable chunk of change in a wind energy >company and so far has only lost money on it. :-) He will continue too, and likely feel smug about it until his death. Of course smug could turn to bitterness when he finds out that they buried the answer to efficiency next to the 200 MPG carburetor.
From: mpm on 24 Apr 2010 21:50
On Apr 24, 8:38 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...(a)On-My- Web-Site.com> wrote: > WV population in 1958 was around 2.2 Million. It's now, 52 years > later, 1.8 Million. In-breeding will do that. OK - just barely kidding. WV is the kind of place you have to spend some time to really get the whole story. Passing through on I-77 won't quite cut it. I can also state with certainty, that WV has the most (shall we say...) innovative way to distribute food to the poor. |