04-22-2012, 02:59 AM
quote:
Originally posted by PaulW
Interesting but let's see if it works in practice. He only talks about getting power from the sun, but there's a limit to how much of that there is per square yard, and it's only sometimes. The fact that he mentions that they've solved the battery problem as an aside makes me a bit skeptical.
We will never run out of oil, but cheap oil may get harder to find.
There's functioning alternatives to batteries. Electrolysis from solar and seawater makes hydrogen which can be turned directly into electricity and drinking water by a fuel cell at night. I saw that used on an island in Puget sound over 10 years ago when both technologies were more primitive than they are now. The French use the "unused" off-peak (nighttime) electricity of their fission plants to pump water to an uphill reservoir and when they need extra electricity during peak times they let the water flow back down, spinning generator turbines. Another option is to use "extra" daytime electricity to compress air which can generate electricity when released at night. I understand that they will need to make solar more efficient to compete with other alternatives but my point is that batteries aren't required.