Comments on: A Solar Powered Army of Energy Managers

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 09:02:00 +0000

Thanks. And for anyone catching this comment later, it’s in reply to another comment, not the article.

By: MrEnergyCzar

MrEnergyCzar — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:51:00 +0000

This makes no sense. My solar home system runs my entire house 100% annually and the surplus powers my Volt 6,000 miles and it has ac…

MrEnergyCzar

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:26:00 +0000

it really is. never thought i’d say it, but the US military is a somewhat refreshing force these days (of course, when not doing the things we’d rather not think about)

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 07:37:00 +0000

It’s great that a naturally conservative organisation like the US military is demonstrating that true conservatism doesn’t have to be the insane variety that currently runs the GOP and is their presidential candidate.

By: RobS

RobS — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 03:29:00 +0000

Whilst it seems Cliff had no reply to my challenge to produce any basis for his claims, we now have solar install details for the first half of 2012 and they are up a whopping 120% on 1st half 2011, even higher then the first quarters QonQ growth of 85%. So again unless cliff thinks panels have somehow been installed without ever being bought then the claim that PV sales are falling has once again been summarily disproved.

By: Cl1ffClav3n

Cl1ffClav3n — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:24:00 +0000

@Zach, if you go back and read the thread from the beginning, you’ll see that I am also arguing for minimizing the liquid fuel on the battlefield. We are all on the same side of that issue and no one wants the soldiers to be casualties. My point is that they will use MUCH LESS liquid fuel towing a small trailer with a side-by-side 10-ton AC unit and 40 kW generator on it and running that generator 24/7 than they will use if instead they have to use additional trucks and carry additional people into harm’s way to haul and set up and take down in a hostile environment a solar panel farm the size of 40 tents and the truck-full of batteries required to run through the night. Combat units are mobile units. OBTW it also costs a lot of fuel to fly or ship those extra panels and trucks and batteries from home to the theater instead of that single trailer. I’m all for minimizing the use of petroleum. Trying to use solar for anything of larger scale than 1 foldable panel per soldier for radio or LED light battery charging will dramatically increases battlefield fuel consumption, not to mention vulnerability to the enemy because of incredibly decreased mobility and the huge distraction of having to pitch 40 tents at every stop instead of just fire up the genny.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:01:00 +0000

Cliff, I am totally tired of dealing with your crap.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:58:00 +0000

Because if I wrote the kind of foolish stuff you do Cliff, Zach would laugh at me.

You need to stop sniffing the right wing glue tube….

By: Cl1ffClav3n

Cl1ffClav3n — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:57:00 +0000

Solar is subsidized everywhere, so “parity” is a farce. You can look that up. I would start with Germany.

By: Cl1ffClav3n

Cl1ffClav3n — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:54:00 +0000

Bob, why don’t you tell Zachary about the solar “externalities” that need to be priced in. Do you have numbers for the environmental costs of mining silica and bauxite and the rarer materials needed to make the glass and aluminum and dope the semiconductors, and the life-cycle environmental damage of the industrial chemicals and toxins used in manufacturing and which must be handled in decommissioning. We also need to reimburse the taxpayers for any public land used for solar farms and furnaces, and for the pristine natural views and property values ruined by square miles of mirrors and panels. Even more importantly, we need to calculate the cost of the extinction of species and loss of biodiversity from industrializing millions of acres of natural habitat with solar farms. We also need to price in the toxins associated with the storage batteries and capacitors and fuel cells and smart grid meters necessary to make this viable, and reimburse the taxpayers for new rights of way for HVDC transmission lines and the costs of forcing existing electrical power plants to operate inefficiently with spinning reserves idling to make up for unpredictable lapses in variable solar power that otherwise endanger the grid.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:15:00 +0000

if you look at full costs, solar matches up. but you are intent on leaving out the costs of climate change, casualties, and health.

the military is not.

By: RobS

RobS — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 04:04:00 +0000

Fuel convoys have to pass through hostile territory even to reach fixed bases. Modern combat equipment has increasingly large power requirements, batteries now account for over 20% of the weight a soldier carries in a combat operation, the average soldier begins an operation with between 20 and 35 pounds of batteries in their pack, the military is very interested in mobile solar charging to cut that load. It is the batteries that are sacrificing their mobility. In the end the military is actively exploring both troop based micro charging and base mounted larger systems, so this isn’t just our opinion it’s a reality, unless you think you know more then the military about the benefits of mobile charging solutions in combat situations.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 03:35:00 +0000

“the huge capital expense of installing solar in somebody else’s country doesn’t
make sense unless we plan to be there for 20+ years.”

A diesel generator running at 90% full load would produce 7 to 10 kWh per gallon.

How about we use 7.5kWh for our back of envelop calculations?

OK, for a year of 1kWh, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year the military would have to ship in 1/7.5 gallon of fuel x 24 x 365. About 1,168 gallons of diesel.

To get 24kWh per day, with a 0.22% capacity one would need 4.5kW of panels. (4.5kW x 5.28 hours of sunshine.) Add in another 10% for battery charging inefficiency and you’re just under 5kW.

Cost: It costs the military as much as $300 per gallon to deliver fuel to forward bases. As much as $350,400 to fuel the generator. Plus driver deaths.

$350,400 for fuel. $20,000 to $30,000 for a solar system with battery storage.

Seems to me that the capex of a solar system is returned in a month or less.

(How many times do you want to go through this Cliff? I can just paste these numbers a whole bunch of times and you can include them the next time you make this argument. It would save me a bunch of effort.)

“you are going to bring in a contractor to spray foam tents”

If you could cut the size of your solar system by 90% or reduce the fuel needed to run the generator don’t you think it would make sense to train the guys on the base to spray foam? Wouldn’t it make sense to bring in a foam spraying technician rather than all that extra gear/fuel?

By: Cl1ffClav3n

Cl1ffClav3n — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 03:07:00 +0000

Y’all aren’t getting the whole battlefield thing. You use the threat of convoy casualties to argue that fuel can’t be trucked in, but you are going to bring in a contractor to spray foam tents and litter the battlefield with semi-permanent structures that you must stay tethered to for power–huh? A combat base camp in a hostile operating area and a fixed base in a low threat area are not the same thing. The fixed base in a low threat area could install the solar, but they don’t have the enemy threatening their fuel convoys and therefore need solar the least, and the huge
capital expense of installing solar in somebody else’s country doesn’t make sense unless we plan to be there for 20+ years. The base camp in the hostile zone has the fuel convoy ambush threat, but cannot afford to sacrifice their mobility and small footprint to put up 40 solar tents per AC unit at every stop. In either case, solar is not going to power your air-conditioner, which was Bob’s original question. BTW, it’s the electronic equipment on the front lines that demands the AC, not the soldiers. Like all wars, the soldiers in the rear (which generally make up 90% of the force) get all the full-time goodies like AC and USO shows and Burger Kings.

By: RobS

RobS — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 01:37:00 +0000

Cliff, you’re the one claiming demand has fallen off a cliff, why don’t you provide the demand data to back up your claim?

By: RobS

RobS — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:05:00 +0000

My reply had the link. I struggle to see how installs is not an indicator of sales unless you don’t think the installed panels had to be sold at some point. As Bob points out we don’t yet have 2012 sales data, we can however get some idea from EIA generating data, for the first 5 months of 2012 to the end of May solar power produced 1,164 Gwh, to the end of may 2011 solar power produced was 587 Gwh, that’s a 98.4% year on year growth so far in 2012. From that somehow I doubt sales have plummeted, furthermore remember that the EIA only includes utility scale systems and doesn’t take customer and small installations into account.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/xls/table_es1b.xlsx

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:02:00 +0000

Covering the tents with rigid foam could cut AC power demand by over 90%.
Leaving behind slabs of rigid foam when we move on would make the life of locals better. They could repurpose them for their houses.

Leave behind some foam insulation and some solar systems and we might get a few more smiles and fewer hates.

I’m wondering if it might make sense to develop rigid foam ‘Quonset huts’ of some shape or another. Foam them in place and then let the locals haul them to where they want and cover with ferrocement They could be easily cut into sections for transport and then reassembled.

Insulated housing that would be earthquake resistant.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 23:55:00 +0000

Solar has hit grid parity in several parts of the world.

You can look that up.

By: RobS

RobS — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 23:54:00 +0000

First of all air conditioning tents in the desert has got to be one of the most ridiculous schemes I’ve ever heard of, any military that can’t handle the conditions in which their enemy is fighting has no place being there.
Puting that aside, the cost to deliver fuel to frontline units in Iraq and Afghanistan has been gargantuan, the pentagon estimated in a te hearing fuel convoys have cost $300 per gallon of gas delivered, furthermore there have been over 3000 US military casualties in fuel convoy attacks. Each gallon of gas delivered at best produces 10kwh of electricity in base generators at a cost of $30 per kwh, you can pretty quickly see why solar which only has to be delivered once then continues to produce power indefinitely is so attractive.

By: Cl1ffClav3n

Cl1ffClav3n — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 23:49:00 +0000

Installed cost per watt coming down is good, and affects the amortized payback. I think solar will hit break-even eventually, but is not there yet and it must get way beyond break-even to have an EROI worth the investment. What’s hard to detect in the cost figures is the special arrangements that don’t get costed such as free land leases, guaranteed prices instead of market prices, shifting burdens to other utility customers, special liability and insurance arrangements, accelerated depreciation and tax breaks, special financing from federal and state sources, energy credits, etc. The raw deal Nevada citizens got is only now really becoming apparent. Nellis was promised a 15MW system and got 13MW, and I bet they were also promised a higher capacity than 22% as well. The technical spec I’m most interested in is real world W/m2 of dedicated land area averaged over a full 12-mo season. This gets past all the promises and formulas and models and puts us on solid footing.