Latest solar cell breakthrough a nark’s worst nightmare

For a ‘technological dead end’ it works fine for me. Not only will I never get another electricity account but I also get an income & a tax rebate from depreciation. All luddites are welcome to keep supporting bloodsucking parasite politicians & their avaricious power retailer cronies but I for one have chosen to opt out of their rorts. Given the repeated posts from weterpebb, one has to wonder for whom he / she / it / whatever works, my guess is some entity that profiteers from the mainstream electricity industry.

Hi Andy,

It’s not CERN that is working on the Thorium car, a private US company called Laser Power Systems is working on it. Prototype available in ~2 years. 🙂

The 8g of Thorium in the engine should power it for over 100 years… but I’d take the $2000 engine out and use it to power my house for at least 30 😉

Although you are quite correct that Switzerland, among other nations, has been researching thorium power as a long term replacement for coal or uranium quite intently.

Brett Allen stops your little anti solar rant in its tracks and you resort to name calling, sad mate, very sad. Brett makes his point “You can’t find a Thorium Pebble Bed Reactor for sale at Harvey Norman.” quite clear, if you want to help yourself and the environment at the same time, then solar can be a viable option and his experience proves it (in his area, for his purposes).

If you want to be able to call someone ignorant when talking about the practical and real world operation of a technology, show us an example of where you have used it first hand and how it failed you. Until then, I’ll take Brett’s example as the more informed.

Righto, Mr Andrew Richards. Have at you.

1. I have given you examples of grids both large and small with significant renewable penetration, as the most cursory reading of my post will inform you.

2. Baseload. We have no shortage of it. Look at the NEM price for energy at 4AM, what you will see is a few aluminium smelters paying very low rates for energy. No-one is gunning for that market segment. Existing infrastructure is already in excess of present needs.

3. Density. This is an absurd LaRouchian myth. The area required to capture the entire annual energetic pruduct of the country, at an array efficiency of 10%, is significanlty less than the area already under roof in Australia.

There is no density constraint. If you wish to make an economic argument, I am ready. But desist with assertions that simple arithmetic can disprove.

4. No serious solar proponent of whom i am aware is proposing a 100% solar supplies mix. This is a stupid straw man argument, seeking to avoid the reality that the rooftop ‘real estate’ is unutilized and the generation from solar is presently economic at retail electrical prices, solar capital costs and the prevailing costs of capital. Companies purchasing solar are perfectly aware of solar’s lower capacity factor, and even allowing for this it remains competitive.

If we run our existing installed conventional capaity less, this is no bad thing. I am confused as to why you allege that I desire to remove infrastructure that is already built and paid for, which I do not. You are attacking a straw man, and i find it odius, sir.

5. I suggest you desist from calling me ignorant. It it very poor form.

Brent, I’ll deal with point 5 first. If you don’t want to be accused of being ignorant, then don’t make idiotic arguments about not being able to buy certain types of power stations from the likes of Harvey Norman when electrical retailers have never been in the business of providing them. Such arguments just make you look uneducated and ignorant and destroy your credibility.

Now to your points.

1. By your own admission in point 4 no serious proponent of solar would argue in favour of solar being the core of a grid, but rather serving in an auxiliary capacity. Funny how I’ve never argued against them being used in that capacity with the exception of in areas where polarisation issues affect local wilflife.

2. Existing infrastructure is a joke- having been left to rot and rust over more than 20 years of maintenance being determined by economic rationalism rather than in the iterests of keeping the power grids of this country at peak efficiency.

3. The fact is that whichever way you slice it, different power sources are going to have different efficiencies. Harvesting a tiny fraction of an output from a nuclear reaction where the output is already attenuated to hell by the inverse square law, is going to give you far less bang for your buck than harvesting the full spectrum of energy at a much closer proximity to the reaction. Likewise, energy produced by a chemical reaction is generally speaking, not going to give the same yields as a nuclear chain reaction.

4. You accuse me of attacking a strawman, yet that is the position you adopted from the outset. I made it clearthat I had issues with solar being used in a primary baseload capacity, while at the same time recognising that provided you’re aware of the pitfalls from things like dodgy panels and dodgy installs ( plus ensuring that there’s sufficient roof access in the case of fire) that solar certainly has merit in an auxiliary capacity, such as residential applicatios and small business. If your position is that it merely forms part of the grid and is perfectly fine for small scale power needs- rather than forming the foundation and majority source of say, the entire power grid for the bottom half of Sydney’s Central Coast for example, then why did you respond to me in a way that did come across as being in favour of baseload?

Paul, if you were trying to engage in irony by calling me an idiot, then congratulations, you just succeeded in spades.

I’d love nothing more than to see the utterly crooked system cleaned up and in particular, all essential services returned to their rightful public control. Unfortunately I cannot imagine that occuring as long as the present culture of corporate greed & political male bovine dropping is tolerated. As I’ve commented countless times, the concept of large scale alternative energy technologies are all very commendable however its inconceivable that consumers will ever see any benefits, in fact I can well imagine arguments being mounted for significant price increases. That in a nutshell is why I am far from convinced that there is any point in pursuing alternative energy on a macroscopic level. We’ve already see the results of allowing big business get its grubby claws on essential services and nobody in their right mind could possibly support any expansion of this nonsense. It may well be that stifling innovation is the result, but there is nothing new about limiting new technologies when they threaten the profitability of multinationals.

Many years ago there was a statement made about the love of money being the root of all evil & the significance of that was never more obvious than it is today. Blind Freddie can see that corporatization / privatization of essential services must inevitably lead to MASSIVE operating cost escalation regardless of any possible ‘efficiency’ increase. Public companies exist only to make an operating profit whereas the original concept of public sector entities was to minimize overheads by ensuring they remained ‘non-profit organizations. Politicians as a race (being mostly failed lawyers with all the ‘interesting issues’ endemic to that mob) are experts at stuffing their own pockets with public money whilst avoiding any possible semblance of accountability / responsibility, hence the headlong rush to flog off every asset not securely bolted down. It matters not that the sheeple are expected to pay extremely dearly for the aspirations of those they appoint to look after their (ie the sheeples) interest.

Yes Minister, the problem with that response is that it’s precisely everyone responding that way and giving up which allows that very status quo to continue. Often people say “I’m just one person, what can I do?” The answer is, that if you and everyone else ho felt that way got together and saw what you could do collectively, your mind would most likely be blown.

Kimalice, your claims about governments being able to fund large scale infrastructure are a myth. In fact the Commonwealth Bank as initially set up to do just that. The fact is that if our government looked at the resources it owns (including mineral resources and its capacity for growth and generated that credit to itself as a loan (much like a business getting a loan) then that issue would soon go out the window. Need 100 billion for a national high speed rail network? Done (the railway pays for itself both directly and indirectly in terms of the commerce it facilitates). Same goes for any kind of infrastructure project you can name, including power generation, big water projects and low interest loans for things like manufacturing. The truth is that contrary to the myths of politicians, we don’t need big business to fund infrastructure- just that by having backroom deals, politicians can secure post political retirement jobs for themselves, as well as jobs for the boys.

In response to Andrew Richards, I am in fact active in a number of consumer groups which have achieved a measure of success, however I don’t rely on pressure groups to ‘fix’ everything. I also attempt to get elected officials to extract their digit & whilst there are a few who make at least a token effort, the majority are nothing but overpaid oxygen bandits. Personally I won’t take on a political position until / unless they are made voluntary / unpaid (as was the case with many local authorities not that long ago) .The system of paying top money to attract top people has obviously never worked, all that does is encourage the kind of grubs we’ve had for the past twenty years or more whereas voluntary / unpaid positions would appeal to those with a genuine interest in their community. There is no shortage of highly capable folk with the ability to provide a few days per week without expecting a kings ransom in return (as is the case with the present crop of incompetents).

Criticisms of public sector failures are generally justified & the dismal lack of accountability is certainly deplorable. On the other hand, it can’t be denied that Energex / Ergon in Queensland were infinitely more cost-effective electricity retailers than the AGL, Origin, rats & mice retail entities with which we are presently saddled. Same goes for the local authority water entities compared with the ostensibly ‘more efficient’ corporatized replacements. Essential services don’t need a greedy ten million dollar fatcat, they don’t need a bunch of shareholders all clamouring for dividends and they really shouldn’t be regarded as profit making centres. Had successive politicians not decided to get their grubby claws into power and water, the issue of privatization with all its nasty side-effects would never have arisen. Furthermore, the retail electricity price wouldn’t have risen dramatically if at all, and the ne3ed for PV installations on every second house in the country would never have existed.

Let’s take a good look at what deregulation and economic rationalisation (including privatisation) has done to this country. Our roads are in a mess, our manufacturing industry is almost extinct, our police are under funded, organisations like DOCS are so under funded that the system has more cracks and holes in it for victims of abuse to fall through than a giant block of Swiss cheese, our education system is in tatters, our power grids are on their last legs due to poor maintenance and our hospitals have record high waiting lists. All of this caused by the dogma of privatisation and economic rationalisation completely taking over state and federal governments for the past 30 years.
Let’s see, our roads are Government funded, not privately funded, our manufacturing is in such a mess because the Unions have demanded and got, through intimidation, wages that verge on the ridiculous. Take a Holden worker just as as an example. He or she is paid 3 times the normal wage for the work they do and that’s before the 26 special conditions are bought into play. Now the Unions are backed by the various Labor Governments that have blighted this land over the last 50 years so there is another example of Government stuffing this country.. Everything that you have shown as examples of Privatisation is actually Government funded so your whole argument backs me up completely, thanks.
Privatisation without Government interference is the way to go. Wages have to be curbed and the power of Unions stopped as this is what is making Australia a laughing stock and forcing our manufacturing overseas or to close down.
I was an employer who had workers on wages and was getting crucified by the Union demands that were backed up by the Government so I sacked the lot and took them back as contractors. Not only did they make more money but they turned out more product with less faults as they were paid per item, I made heaps extra and everybody except the Unions were happy, that’s how private enterprise should work and work well.

Base load is Coal, in this country. And it should be that way. We don’t import coal, we export it. Our infrastructure has been developed around the cheapest energy source available – coal. We can use natural gas, but it is supplementary to coal fired turbines and that is exactly how the other power sources fit into our base load system. Wind turbines, natural gas, domestic and commercial solar, geothermal, wave power are all in the same category. Each is important in its own right, and each one of them contributes to a cleaner energy outcome by replacing some of the coal base load power supply.

This is not rocket science, everyone should understand it. Although some people read the words Commercial Solar and imagine that it means a massive stand-alone solar power generation system contributing to base load. In reality, commercial solar is 300 panels on the roof of a winery, or a large processing plant, or, in my case, a small commercial solar system consisting of 56 panels on my winery roof, with two inverters. That is all I need at present, but I know of other commercial solar installations on bigger wineries where 200 to 500 panel systems and on-site storage are included.

The best way to get up to speed on solar, is to invest in a system which suits your circumstances and requirements. People with good solar installations do not spend time on negative blogs, and they are usually very happy customers. People who sell and install the systems invariably have a lot of very happy customers, and they benefit from word of mouth referrals. The only people I read about who are not happy, are people arguing about imaginary problems. Well, there are virtually none, so go ahead and place an order.

Actually Yes Minister, there have been multiple problems with the system. The first is the infiltration into both sides of government by societies and organisations that have agendas contrary to Australia’s best interests- namely the Mont Pellerin Society and the Fabian Society.

In fact it’s highly telling that for example you have an ALP Prime Minister making the national apology for what happened to the Stolen Generation and then his successor who is actually a part of the very organisation who were the legal impetus for what happened to the Stolen Generation (aka the Fabian Society). Additionally, the ALP policies regarding the NT intervention have been criticised for being rather paternalistic and the Gillard government’s adoption of a QALY based health care system reeks of the proposals of Sir Julian Huxley in the 1936 Galton Eugenics lecture.

Conversely, in classic example of “voting for puppet A or puppet B” at the last election, due to Rudd’s alleged affiliations (and the bail in moves behind the scenes certainly give credence to those allegations) we had both the ALP and Coalition being driven by Mont Pellerin Society interests.

The large bulk of this can be summed up by the sway the big banks globally have over both sides of parliament in this country.

In fact it’s highly telling that Hawke got into power wanting to implement the findings of Campbell Report- proposals so economically radical that even the Coalition rejected them and when he got into power, commissioned a dummy report, the Martin Report to make it look like it was an ALP idea. When you hear Howard an Keating go at it over who is the most responsible for Australia’s economic reforms over the past 30 years, that’s why.

The second problem is the more visible one and in this regard, there is some crossover – namely the political donation system and the, at the very least suspicious, relationship between big problem and government in this country. I’m sure we all remember the trope that went around a few years back of “John Howard doesn’t run this country; Kerry Packer does”. Meanwhile the fact that key privatisations went through under the Carr and Kennett governments where Macquarie Bank was the chief beneficiary – only for senior members of both governments (including Carr himself) to wind up senior positions in Macquarie Bank after their terms in power, looks at the very least, incredibly suspicious.

The problem is that we are increasingly heading towards fascism- where the power of corporations have overthrown the power of governments. Detroit, where there’s now a banking dictator in place over the elected officials, is where it all looks like it ends up- where those calling the shots don’t even bother hiding the state of play anymore.

It’s only when that nefarious link is broken and our politicians start working for us, instead of their financial overlords, that we’ll finally be able to begin the task of getting this country back on track.

A few things Colin. Firstly, Coal is now essentially a 500 year old technology which is antiquated, dirty and can be replaced with far more effective alternatives, even if that means some additional research. If you want to play the abundance card, the same argument could easily also be made for thorium, where we hold arguably the largest deposits of thorium on the planet.

As for baseload, others read, as I did, the article making the argument that this new technology was going to form a new backbone for baseload power. It’s simply unfeasible unless you start talking about a massive solar energy collection array. If you think 300 panels on a winery is going to supply a something like 30,000 homes, then you need to revise your figures.

The fact is that no matter how much you talk about auxiliary sources, they will never form the backbone of you large scale grid – not unless you construct massive arrays out in the middle of the country- at which point you’ve ripped a stack of redundancy out of the system.Anyone with any electrical engineering training whatsoever would tell you that only a fool would advocate for ripping virtually all levels of redundancy out of the system.

Also, Imaginary problems”? You mean like issues with roof access and the flood of cheap dodgy panels and dodgy installers on the market? Wow way to prove my point about the dogmatic “magic bullet” attitude to solar.

Your response here is an example of precisely why the “the science is settled” crowd are every bit as bad as creationists with their anti-scientific approach.

There is an additional ‘spite’ value for at least some of us, ie the ability to thumb ones nose at the likes of Newman, McArdle et al. Given the increasing proliferation of household PV systems & the decreasing cost / increasing efficiency of batteries / skyrocketing retail power pricing, we must eventually get to a point where fewer and fewer consumers are sharing ever increasing generation / distribution costs. How far does that continue before the goose expires ?? I understand its already hitting home in europe.

So Jim, let’s review. I point out that you’re ill-informed on nuclear because your response is devoid of any knowledge of HTPBRs while making sweeping generalisations which include them. Your response, rather than actually demonstrating otherwise, is to latch onto my mentioning Thorium and try to debunk it by citing an article on LFTRs, which are rod core based reactors? Have you looked up the definition of the word ‘irony’ recently?

LFTRs are radically different to HTPBRs to the point where they’re practically different animals. LFTRs may be theoretical, but I was talking about the usage of thorium instead of uranium in a HTPBR. HTPBRs, unlike LFTRs have been successfully proven and operating in China since at least 2004 and the technology has been successfully working for over a decade now. In fact, the first large scale HTPBR, which just had the concrete laid for it in April in China, is simply a set of modules, identical to thecurrent reactor in Tsinghua university with an additional steam turbine driven by the excess heat attached to it. You would be actually capable of recognising the difference if you were actually informed.

However since you appear to be incapable of doing a google search on HTPBRs, here’s a well written article on uranium-based HTPBRs dating back to 2004: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html

It is purely an academic argument and wasted mental energy to compare various base load options. We have coal fired power stations with some hydro to handle peak load and most commercial demand. We also have rapid growth in solar power generation from independently owned systems across the low tension segment of the market. As most solar input to the grid occurs during working hours base load and peak load requirements have been moderated considerably. So much so, that a relatively new coal fired power station in S E Queensland has been shut down. It was specifically put in place to assist with peak load. So, Solar in Australia has been very effective in reducing coal fired base and peak load power generation. What the Solar industry now has to do is grab every opportunity it can to sell commercial solar to small and medium businesses. Imagine the effect on energy costs for Woolworths, Coles or IGA supermarkets if some of their roof area had decent sized solar panel arrays installed.
What’s stopping you? Get out and sell! Quit griping because your free ride on the public purse is being diminished. The subsidy and incentive system needed to stop eventually, and it is doing just that. Time to stand on your own two feet and get on with some serious marketing. Coal fired base load will automatically decrease if you Solar guys are doing your job.