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[Trollheiming]

I've already mentioned my mega-project of interest. Large scale solar power. It would cost under $20 trillion to replace 100% of electrical production. And probably less than twice that to replace rest of the energy industry. And the year over year savings would break even after a few decades.

You wouldn't need to replace 100% with solar. Over 50% of energy produced in the US is lost to inefficiency in the first place, most of which could be eliminated through standards and infrastructure legislation.

Government can't change physics, though. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics applies. Coal plants can generate an average of 31% of theoretical potential energy, with a practical high of 45% that depends more on input coal quality rather than actual infrastructure itself. Legislation can't change the quality of coal that is available. Next up, the transmission. Energy transmission always involves some losses, because there's always electrical impedance. High-voltage transmission lines lose about 1% per 100km of cable, which really is not a bad loss rate and little can be done to improve it. Finally, transformers step down the transmission voltages to 120V for local household use, but those have an efficiency of 98% approximately. The transmission infrastructure is about as lossless as it can be right now, unless there's a revolutionary new approach.

In Sci-fi fantasyland, we would have lossless superconductors, of course, but that isn't going to happen. Government can't legislate against science obeying the laws of nature, and it can't much rush the remaining marginal advances in efficiency by throwing grants recklessly about.

As for massive-scale solar, that seems pretty unfeasible purely on logistics alone. America uses 3,700,000 GWh of electricity each year. A 200-MW solar farm like Golmud in western China covers 2.2 square miles and produces 317 GWh each year. Extended to 100% of American consumption, that's 25,630 square miles of solar panels, or 23% of the land area in Nevada.

I'm not going to argue the costs and saving, but claiming that a massive solar megaproject pays for itself in a few decades is troublesome when considering the lifetime of a solar cell is a maximum of 30-35 years, and diminishes to 80% capacity within 20 years. You have to maintain and replace the 25,630 square miles of solar panels, you know.

Meanwhile, suppose everyone stopped using gas-powered cars and used Chevy Volts with 16 kWh batteries capable of 35 miles range on full electric. There were 3 trillion vehicle-miles of traffic last year. That's an additional 1,400,000 GWh. That's 35,400 square miles of solar cell that would cover 32% of Nevada.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Government can't change physics, though.

I didn't say they could?

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics applies.

"The entropy of a closed system will always increase"?

Coal plants can generate an average of 31% of theoretical potential energy, with a practical high of 45% that depends more on input coal quality rather than actual infrastructure itself. Legislation can't change the quality of coal that is available.

Hence why we have to start moving away from coal, among other reasons.

Next up, the transmission. Energy transmission always involves some losses, because there's always electrical impedance. High-voltage transmission lines lose about 1% per 100km of cable, which really is not a bad loss rate and little can be done to improve it. Finally, transformers step down the transmission voltages to 120V for local household use, but those have an efficiency of 98% approximately. The transmission infrastructure is about as lossless as it can be right now, unless there's a revolutionary new approach.

There are two things we can do here, one of which is available to us already. The efficiency of transmission is directly tied to the voltage. More voltage, more efficiency. If we step up the voltage we can make small gains in efficiency, but over the entire nation even small gains are meaningful.

In Sci-fi fantasyland, we would have lossless superconductors, of course, but that isn't going to happen. Government can't legislate against science obeying the laws of nature, and it can't much rush the remaining marginal advances in efficiency by throwing grants recklessly about.

And the second is developing room-temperature superconductors, which are not lossless but are as close to lossless as is permitted by reality. Investing in researching and developing these is how we're going to get them, and is a worthwhile use of government money.

Anyway, there are plenty of other things that can be done for efficiency. The average American ends up wasting a lot of money and energy on very small things that add up over time, like phantom draws and inefficient planned obsolescence appliances. Gradually raising standards so that industry has to sell efficient appliances that don't draw power when not being used will solve this on an individual level and lead to savings on a national level.

As for massive-scale solar, that seems pretty unfeasible purely on logistics alone. America uses 3,700,000 GWh of electricity each year. A 200-MW solar farm like Golmud in western China covers 2.2 square miles and produces 317 GWh each year. Extended to 100% of American consumption, that's 25,630 square miles of solar panels, or 23% of the land area in Nevada.

....and? The panels don't have to all be in Nevada. We can put them all over the place. Residential panels especially so, as individual residential areas are not very energy intense in the first place. Also, investing in energy efficiency will decrease the number of solar panels we need overall, and the entire energy mix doesn't have to be solar. We've got wind as well, and while it's fairly bad coal won't go away entirely any time soon either, though it will be better once we get Carbon Capture and Sequestration like we already have sulfur removal.

I'm not going to argue the costs and saving, but claiming that a massive solar megaproject pays for itself in a few decades is troublesome when considering the lifetime of a solar cell is a maximum of 30-35 years, and diminishes to 80% capacity within 20 years. You have to maintain and replace the 25,630 square miles of solar panels, you know.

Solar is gradually decreasing in cost and will be much less expensive to replace than to impliment.

Meanwhile, suppose everyone stopped using gas-powered cars and used Chevy Volts with 16 kWh batteries capable of 35 miles range on full electric. There were 3 trillion vehicle-miles of traffic last year. That's an additional 1,400,000 GWh. That's 35,400 square miles of solar cell that would cover 32% of Nevada.

Aside from my other points, have you ever considered the approach that we might also put solar panels....on cars? While not enough to run the whole thing this will end up lessening the load greatly.

No one said energy renewablity would necessarily be easy, but we need it. We need it very badly. Once a collapse starts it will be difficult to pull out of it, so we need to start and ideally finish going renewable before that has a chance to happen.

[Nadaka]

Solar thermal. Not photovoltaic. PV is for small scale infrastructure because it consumes exotic materials and has a finicky production process for anything but the lowest levels of wh per area. Solar thermal plants are made of glass, steel, aluminum and concrete. They are also more efficient by area. Solar thermal can produce ~909 GWh per square mile per year.

So to match your number of 3,700,000 Gwh, you would need only ~4070 square miles. Or a square 63.8 miles wide.

[RedKing]

So...polling averages have Romney within striking distance in the Electoral College, with 201-191, and a whopping 146 votes up for grabs. And the second debate is tonight. So y'know....no pressure or anything, just the fate of the world's lone superpower. 

It's increasingly looking like it's going to come down to four states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida. Win 3 of those 4 and you've just about got it in the bag. Win all four, you're pretty much in. Split decision? Then the small tossup states like Iowa, Colorado and New Hampshire suddenly become way more important.

Also, nifty graphic showing the electoral "sway" of all the states in Presidential elections since 1952. One of the best visual representations of the Great Realignment in 1960/64 that I've ever seen.

[lordcooper]

Would it be theoretically possible to just get a load of liberals to temporarily move to these states?

[GlyphGryph]

Relocating to influence the vote has happened in the past, but not since just before the civil war afaik.

[Sheb]

Man, there is no way I can wake up a 2:30 am this morning like I did last time.  Keep me updated, will ye. I'm expecting a much more aggressive Obama on this one.

[Nadaka]

Would it be theoretically possible to just get a load of liberals to temporarily move to these states?

Not really. The jobless don't have the money to move, and the working can't afford to leave their jobs. The only people with the resources to move on a whim are the independently wealthy, and they have a short term interest in supporting the conservatives, and no one bothers to care about about anything past next quarters profits.

I moved to Florida. And now my vote for president matters. But that isn't why I moved to Florida, just one of the perks.

[RedKing]

Would it be theoretically possible to just get a load of liberals to temporarily move to these states?

In theory...but they'd have to move at least a year ahead of time, I believe. And asking a bunch of San Franciscans to spend a year in Oklahoma just for political purposes....that's a tall order. 

[sluissa]

Easiest method would probably be to start up some really tempting college programs(I'm thinking liberal arts just off the top of my head) in these states with few/no out of state penalties and cheap tuition. Draw in tons of out of state students who would stay there for 2-4 years. Run a "<insert state> needs your vote!" campaign on campus to get them to register/switch registration.

That would be if I were that sneaky and had the resources and thought it would change anything. I'm not, don't and couldn't believe it.

[Jervill]

I'd rather have more liberals move here to Minnesota, myself.

Besides, both Minnesota and Iowa do what sluissa says, to an extent.

[Dutchling]

Why do you crazy Americans hod your presidential debates in the middle of the night :c

I am going to watch this one though. It's fall break so I am sleeping way too much anyway.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Why do you crazy Americans hod your presidential debates in the middle of the night :c

Why do you socialist Eurotrash always have night in the middle of our presidential debates?

[Sheb]

Clearly it's Obama/Romney's fault! (Strike the one that doesn't fit your partisan views).

[MonkeyHead]

Please, we define timezones as measured from here. Its clearly your fault.