Let's watch this test case

TangoMan-

We seem to be talking past each other at this point (which is OK with me
right now). Still, a few choice points (letting lesser ones drop
regardless of merit) before likely retiring from the fray to move on to
other things. :-)

> Not in the least. The data for SPS is well understood at each
> discrete point in the SPS concept, all that remains to be developed
> is the large scale implementation issue and the unrelated orbital
> infrastructure development. The science and engineering is well
> understood, so too is the systemic engineering. I'm on very solid
> ground on this point.

Your argument for SPS isn't IMHO on solid ground other than in theory --
precisely because for among other reasons you admit to the uncertainty
regarding large scale implementation issue and the unrelated orbital
infrastructure development. For example, many of the PV or wind system
problems you cite come from large scale implementation or unrelated
infrastructure issues and took a while to be understood and then
addressed. It would be different if you were saying "China already made
habitats+SPS and it worked for them, so we should do it too." These
practical issues are part of the package and introduce uncertainty. For
example, one reason the space station Mir was abandoned was a creeping
space fungus:
http://www.space.com/news/spacestation/space_fungus_000727.html
Who knows what other unexpected things can go wrong when people have
large scale operations in space? I'm not saying these can't be resolved
eventually, just that they may introduce delays and additional
operational costs (which you continually claim will be minimal). Or, we
just had an enormous solar flare beyond any previously seen which
blinded the sun observing satellites -- stuff like that might
unexpectedly effect SPS operations.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/10/30/solar.storm/index.html
I'm not saying either of these issues specifically can't be dealt with
-- just that the unexpected happens.

> Simply put, in a grid distribution system, solar and wind will cause
> MASSIVE energy surges follwed by droughts. The frequency of the
> electricity cannot be maintained to match the demand against the
> supply when the supply is eratic. PERIOD. Renewables work well as an
> adjunct to the system when the system can rely on stable and
> controllable power generators to manage the balancing act. Denmark
> has probably gone as far as it can, at 50% renewable power, before
> its system breaks down. That's why they are retreating from
> implementing further renewables.

First off, I'll have to see more sources for Denmark retreating from
windpower before I believe this citation from one conservative
commentator pushing centralized nuclear power
http://www.theenergyreview.com/html/1-replace/1-1-2.htm
you cited in your previous psot. I haven't seen that sort of comment on
this Danish wind energy site:
http://www.windpower.dk/
http://www.windpower.org/en/faqs.htm
which still states: ""Denmark is one of the countries which is planning
for substantial amounts of electricity consumption to be provided by
wind energy. Already (2002), wind energy is covering 18 per cent of
Danish electricity consumption, a figure which will increase to at least
21 per cent by 2003. 50 per cent of Denmark's electricity consumption
will come from wind by the year 2030 according to Government plans
("Energy 21").""

I'm willing to ackowledge some problems with what your commentator calls
"bird grinders" especially when they are big or horizontal -- which is
why PV is more often installed than wind despite being more expensive
given there can be issues with noise, birds, safety, etc. in various
situations. Still, for constrast, consider:
http://www.hydrogenappliances.com/test.html
"I am one very happy owner of your HT 2 wind turbine. It flew through
the hurricane Isabel flawlessly, as did the SEA charge controller. This
was the first opportunity I have had to see it work in high wind
conditions. I have only praise for the design, function, and durability.
It is a very quiet turbine, a barely audible whispering hiss could be
heard while standing at the base of the mast and had no detectable
vibration of any kind. ... This is a very neighbor friendly wind
turbine, its near silent operation makes it unobtrusive, I painted the
blade tips yellow, as is the body, hub and tail, making it resemble a
giant sunflower. Considering zoning limits, I classify it as a lawn
ornament. My concerns of neighbor complaints were needless, all of them
frequently stop by, look and marvel, waiting for a breeze to start it
turning and ask endless questions about it. I live just across the river
from Washington, DC. The hurricane here was bad, but could have been
much worse. They say a million people are without power throughout the
region and likely will be for days. I am enjoying adequate power needs
for my home. I have loaned out my portable and backup generators."

Also, there are inherently safer wind generators which are vertical and
helical not horizontal and propeller-like, see for example:
http://www.windside.com/painik/etusivu.htm
http://www.windside.com/frames.htm
"Measurements made a.o. on the circumstances of the Archipelago of
Finland proved that WS-Turbine produced 50 % more electricity a year
than traditional propellers with the same swept area. The average wind
speed prevailing in the world is approx. 3 m/s. The special WS Vane
Construction makes the Turbine able to utilize winds of 1-3 m/s, which
is insufficient speed to others. The WS-Turbine works also in storms,
tested in 60 m/s, which is unbearable speed to others. Both these
WS-facts are World Records. Besides the wind speed, will the turbulence
and wind direction changes effect on the power production of the
turbines. WS-Turbine is able to utilize winds from any direction, even
turbulent winds, unlike traditional models. WS Spiral Vanes always reach
the wind at right angles. WS-Turbine is in harmony with nature and human
environment. It is totally soundless due to the spiral shape and the
fact that the rotation speed does not exceed the wind speed. There are
no flying ice blocks, leaking oil or cutting blades. The device is safe
to people, animals and nature. Due to its beautiful design and smoothly
rotating structure WS-Turbine resembles a work of art. Several artists
as well as landscape and building architects have noticed this, and the
results can be seen already in ecological building."

Wind generators have improved immensely over the past couple of decades,
so it isn't reasonable for commentators (like one you referenced
previously) to cite historical problems with wind systems to condemn the
entire field when newer wind systems don't have the same issues.

Still, I think PV will be in the end bigger than wind for reasons of low
maintenance and easy deployment, so I think PV+Hydrogen is the best
contrast to SPS long term (even though wind is much cheaper per kWh than
PV now in windy locations).

You continue to ignore the concept that an intermittent electrical
source like PV or wind can be made constant using hydrogen storage as a
load leveller. Please consider and accept that fact. Here is some expert
opinion on it, from RMI's "Twenty Myths about Hydrogen".
http://www.rmi.org/images/other/E-20HydrogenMyths.pdf

"A modest and cheap amount of local hydrogen storage can turn an
intermittent source of electricity, such as wind or solar, into a firm
dispatchable source thats far more valuable. (ICI in Britain has long
stored very large amounts of hydrogen in underground caverns at up to
50-bar pressure without difficulty; Gaz de France has stored
50%-hydrogen town gas in large aquifers, as has the city of Kiel,
Germany; and solution-mined salt caverns are known to be hydrogen-tight.
Helium storage in Texas rock strata beneath an aquifer offers another
encouraging precedent. One of the worlds leading experts on renewable
energy, Professor Bent Srensen of Roskilde University, notes that all
of Denmarks energy not just all of its electricity, a fifth of which
now comes from wind could be provided by windpower when lightly
buffered with just two weeks of hydrogen storage, less than is now
available in existing salt caverns. In larger countries, a considerable
amount of hydrogen can be stored in the pipelines themselves (linepack)."

The experts you cite on grid issues with wind/solar also seem to me to
be trying to say renewables won't scale because the current most
profitable approach to using them (peak shaving for the grid) has
scaling issues. So, considering only grid issues you raise, according
to this expert, Denmark can run entirely off of wind if they use
intermediate Hydrogen storage. I think you are citing experts who are
simply basing their analysis on the wrong approach. This is as
irritating to me as I am sure it is for you when "experts" put down SPS
out of hand saying it is uneconomical because it would be too expensive
to lift everything from the Earth (when your plan involves using lunar
resources). It is true that as the grid exists right now, using the grid
as a backup is economical, and that you (probably correctly) point out
scaling issues with this approach. But as you can see from the above
expert, there are other approaches involving storing energy temporarily
which resolve this issue. When grid scalability for backup and storage
by renewables gets to be a significant problem, other local energy
storage techniques less economical than using the grid right now can can
be adopted.

Also, please note that SPSs could go offline for numerous reasons
(repairs, preventive maintainence, computer failure, etc.) and so
reserve capacity will need to be built into an SPS power delivery system
anyway. So even if the sun is always shining in space, that doesn't mean
every SPS component is always working 100% (including the receiving
rectenna and distribution grid). Nuclear processes are always going on
and yet it seems some nuclear plants go up and down like yo-yos.

>> .....during the same time period in R&D and tax preferences (thus
>> on the order of >1000X more subsidies), thus suggesting to me that
>> renewables may improve immensely in efficiency, cost effectiveness,
>> ease-of-use, and so on once equivalent R&D and tax breaks are in
>> place for them as the current political Power landscape . .. ..
>
> How long can you hold your breath? If I give you a $1,000,000 can you
> hold it for 3 minutes longer? If I give you $10,000,000 can you hold
> your breath for a further 5 minutes? If I give you $100,000,000 can
> you hold your breath for a further 5 minutes on top of the previous
> extension of 8 minutes?

That is a misguided analogy as I can point to solar cells that produce
chemical energy and are just about free -- in plants (although there are
processing costs in using them). See for example:
http://www.life.uiuc.edu/govindjee/whatisit.htm
"Photosynthesis is the most important biological process on Earth. It
serves as the World's largest solar battery. The primary reactions have
close to 100% quantum efficiency (i.e., one quantum of light leads toone
electron transfer); and under most ideal conditions, the overall energy
efficiency can reach 35%. Due to losses at all steps in biochemistry,
one has been able to get only about 1 to 2% energy efficiency in most
crop plants. Sugarcane is an exception as it can have almost 8%
efficiency." [Note, that is why in my previous posts I cited the
potential value of systems that convert sugar as from sugar cane to
electricity -- which has nothing to do with ethanol farmer welfare, by
the way.] Given that basic science, and that there seems no theoretical
reason why we can't make mass produced solar cells that produce
electricity about as easily as we make textile cloths or plastic mats
with patterns on them, there is no reason to expect R&D on solar cells
won't ultimately succeed in producing cheap PV which produces power at a
very, very low costs. Essentially, we are ultimately talking about
fabric you just throw on the ground or cover your roof with (perhaps
with some built in power routing smarts to drop out damaged or shaded
sections), and when this fabric shreds or gets damaged too much, you
just replace it for about the same cost as a plastic tarp and throw the
shredded stuff on your compost pile (maybe after spraying some special
goop on it to start it decomposing faster). But solar shingles that
integrate hydrogen storage and inverters are another approach (since
houses need shingles anyway).

> Some issues are limited by their inherent nature. This is the case
> with renewables. No matter how efficient you make a PV cell, it won't
> work if the sun doesn't shine. That is the limitation that no amount
> of money will fix. You can try to argue that away by implementing
> massive BATTERY schemes, but why bother when the sun shines 24 hours
> a day in orbit, and there is no atmospheric attenuation, etc. Why
> continue to push for a energy policy that has inherent limitations
> that no amount of money can alleviate?

Again, see the expert comments above on Hydrogen storage. Also see
previous comments on SPSs needing to turn off at various times. Why be
so focused on energy storage issues? SPS needs rectennas and a grid on
the ground, PV needs hydrogen plus fuel cells or turbines. Both systems
have some added complexity -- SPS for power delivery, PV for local power
storage. Note that even if PV system's local in-house storage is sized
too small so that a couple days a year the system runs out of stored
hydrogen due to clouds, this isn't much more down time than one might
expect from grid failures.

>
>> B. Your arguments sometimes don't consider complete system issues
>> as regard to environmental impacts of various technologies. You
>> inflate the importance of pollution from creating solar panels as
>> an overall percentage of other industrial activities which go on
>> regardless of the initial energy supply -- while assuming somehow
>> SPS energy use for industrial production won't have environmental
>> consequences in making SUVs etc. as far as refining ores to be
>> thrown away or makign plastics and cumpetrs and so forth.
>
> Come on! You're conflating issues. The pollution caused by
> manufacturing PV cells is what I documented. That's real and it
> affects Earth's biosphere. SPS construction occurs outside of the the
> Earth's bioshpere and causes no pollution. There's no way to
> mumbo-jumbo out of that fact! This is a complete system analysis, and
> what the energy is used for after it is created by PV/wind or SPS is
> immaterial to the analysis. PV/Wind is clearly inferior to SPS in
> this regard.

While I am willing to grant that PV production as done now may cause
pollution, I am suggesting (with handwaving :-) that if the world relied
entirely on just PV+Hydrogen the pollution involved by making PV cells
would only be 1-10% of the total industrial pollution humans now produce
(or would otherwise produce in the course of using less or more PV
energy). Thus, PV pollutants are a relatively insignificant pollution
source relative to others like refining steel to make SUVs, or making
rubber for SUV tires, etc. and thus your environmental argument against
PV and for SPS is meaningless in practice because it is not a
significant change meriting a trillion dollar investment in SPS
(especially when such money could be used to directly clean up the
environment or to do R&D on cleaner manufacturing processes for PV or
SUVs etc).

Also, it is not entirely conflating issues to point out a double
standard in your argument that you sound concerned about environmental
issues when you dismiss PV, but then you ignore what SPS energy will be
used for unless our society undergoes a radical shift in its
manufacturing technology to close-cycle zero emissions production. So,
if most pollution happens from dirty manufacturing technology, SPSs will
have no significant impact on pollution on Earth -- other than to at
best cut down by 1-10% related to direct energy production. On the
other hand, if manufacturing SUVs etc. on Earth using SPS derived power
can be done with zero emissions, then PV related infrastrucutre could
also be produced with zero emissions. So, it is then untrue that an SPS
driven economy will be significantly more environmentally friendly than
a PV economy taken as a whole -- since both will either produce lots of
pollution or very little depending on the zero-emission quality of
industrial manufacturing processes prevalent -- which in turn depends in
large part on culture, religion, laws, taxation, and so on as they are
applied over time to changing the technical infrastructure. So, by this
reasoning, SPS+Industry has no significant environmental advantages over
PV+Industry taken as a whole across society.

>> C. Your arguments sometimes dismiss or ignore what still seem to me
>> to be obvious security vulnerabilities with SPSs . . .
>
> This has been addressed by other posters as well. The fact that you
> keep harping about it demonstrates to me that you just can't let go
> of arguments even after they have been refuted.

Sorry, but I rebutted much of the core of what the other posters had to
say (and they did not reply further). Given that this all started from a
question of how to spend $87 billion better for energy security, I think
it is still fair to question their vulnerabilities.

Look at it this way -- say Russia or China or Europe or Japan or Cuba
makes Hydrogen using rooftop PV shingles on passive solar well insulated
houses and the USA makes SPSs. Which country is more vulnerable to a
strike against its energy systems? The USA would now be in a a position
where another country or terrorists or a corporation could take out the
US energy supply with a few hundred or so missiles (or a computer virus)
without killing any US citizen directly. Then such an entity could
conveniently arrange to sell over priced energy to the US or make other
demands which would immediately have to be agreed to to keep the USA's
SUVs and vehicle accident trauma ER wards running.

>> E. Your arguments sometimes ignore the potentially pernicious
>> political effects of capital centralization on society and a
>> related minute by minute dependency of the mass of humanity on a
>> small technological elite for their essential services.
>
> You're living in a complex world. The low hanging fruit of technology
> development has already been picked, so now there is an increasing
> expense in wringing further development from technology. That means
> more intense applications of capital and knowledge.

More intense applications of capital and knowledge don't necessarily go
hand in hand. Often a more knowledgeable application of effort allows
one to use less capital. For example, smarter material science allows PV
cells (if the claim pans out) to be built for less and less money and
pollution and energy as time goes on. Smarter material science allows
more computing power per ounce of computer and per watt of energy. More
knowledge allows one to farm with less harmful broad spectrum
pesticides. More knowledge allows India to put in cell phones and skip
putting in land lines. Etc. You've hear the adage "Work Smarter, not
Harder"? Again, your point also misses that selfish motives have driven
much R&D towards ends which are not in the average person's interest,
and so there may be plenty of low hanging fruit in the area of
appropriate or sustainable technology if more scientists and engineers
could afford to start looking for it.

> Multiple local companies will lose much of the benefits that accrue
> from economies of scale and this will result in higher prices for the
> consumer.

Economies of scale are often overrated. Generally there is some form of
curve of diminishing returns -- or even negative ones as large
enterprises grow beyond the ability of local work forces or energy
supplies or heat pollution accepting environment to accept. We can
question how big various production lines need to be -- although
ultimately we'll have nanotech replicators and then production scale
will take on a whole new dimension.

> Your whole argument on this point is complete nonsense from an
> economic perspective.

There are also many ways to look at economics, for example E.F.
Schumacher's Buddhist economics.
http://www.schumachersociety.org/buddhisteconomics.html
Simply maximizing short term profit at the expense of everything else
(society, workers, environment, children) by passing on as many external
costs as possible to others and tilting the playing field in one's favor
by manipulating the legal system and tax code through legalized campaign
financing bribery is itself a cultish religion or addiction. See for
example:
"Confessions of a Recovering Economist"
http://www.caw.ca/news/factsfromthefringe/issue65.asp
"I know it's wrong that my particular profession hogs so much attention,
and is granted so much undeserved credibility. I know it's wrong to
pretend you can forecast complex economic outcomes with three-decimal
accuracy. I know it's wrong to reduce the whole of the human endeavour
to the endless pursuit of material prosperity. Yet still I yearn for
economics. I hunger for the prestige that comes with being the only
social science to regularly make The National. I savour the smug power
of belonging to that exclusive sect of financial mystics who understand
the magical circuits of money and commodities. ... Step 5: Acknowledge
that an expanding GDP will only feed your habit. The growth rate of
Gross Domestic Product is the stuff of newspaper headlines and
international comparisons. Yes, it's true that having more material
wealth opens the possibility of using that wealth to improve living
standards in a meaningful and sustainable way. But one doesn't
automatically imply the other. GDP leads to human progress only if we
make sure it does. If we are concerned with how people live, and how
they interact with their environment, we must evaluate and target those
things directly, rather than blithely hoping that a rising tide of GDP
will lift all our boats. Inspired by folks like Marilyn Waring, there's
now a determined constituency of activists promoting alternative, more
genuine measurements of our economic progress. They believe these
measures will guide us to collectively adopt more balanced and genuine
economic and environmental policies. They are wrong. It is power, not
statistics, that determines how our economy operates - the things we
produce, the way we produce them, and how the proceeds are divided. But
taking on the mainstream infatuation with gross output indicators, and
exposing the failure of growth to solve the real problems of the world
and its peoples, is a useful way for recovering economists to start to
chip away at that power. ... Step 10: Make a list of the countries and
people you have harmed. Billions of human beings, entire continents,
even the planet itself - all have been devastated by the glaringly
misguided dictates of economists. Even some of the most orthodox
practitioners at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will
now quietly admit that their domineering advice to developing countries
in recent decades - liberalize trade, liberalize finance, downsize
government, and wait for the invisible hand of the market to work its
magic - was completely and devastatingly wrong. Of course, these
institutions still actively perpetuate the poverty and hardship which
their own false recipe books did so much to create. But large cracks are
appearing in the intellectual dominance and self-confidence of orthodox
economics. Cataloguing the damage is an effective and damning first step
in tearing down the edifice."

So I would argue that advocating for SPSs on the grounds that lots of
energy is good for everyone is a lot like an economist arguing that a
rising GNP lifts all boats. It isn't necessarily true, especially if
some of those boats are leaky or are in the way. Lots of cheap energy
could mean the end of acid rain in the Adirondacks -- or it could be the
beginning of more and bigger and noiser snowmobiles for the ultra-rich
where everyone else has to get out of their way and listen to the noise
(with acid rain continuing as snowmobile fuels is made ineficiently from
sulfurous coal for some stupid reason like it is a fad to smell exhaust
fumes while snowmobiling). Centralized cheap energy is IMHO more likely
to favor the snowmobile scenario, whereas IMHO distributed cheap energy
is more likely to favor the end of acid rain -- in part because of the
value and beliefs which drive investing in the different choices.

>> F. Your arguments sometimes ignore the cost of maintaining the grid
>> and the value from both security and environmental reasons in
>> coming up with a way to eliminate the grid entirely for most
>> locations.
>
> They are ignored because the argument for both SPS and solar/wind
> requires a grid. The costs of maintaining a grid compared to the
> costs of massive decentralization are miniscule. Putting aside the
> merits of each case for a moment, the grid is a sunk cost. It is
> already established and paid for. Your vision means a whole scrapping
> of an existing infrastructure only to implement a less efficient,
> more capital intensive, and more polluting replacement. It doesn't
> stand up to scutiny other than in the incestuous amplification
> circles of the environmentalists.

The grid requires extensive maintenance. Again, solar/wind do not
require a grid. They may use the grid nowadays because it is cheap and
available, but it is not fundamentally needed long term because of the
possibility of storing energy locally using hydrogen etc. You just
continue to dismiss this possibility out of hand without IMHO seriously
contemplating it or rebutting it -- especially rebutting it not just now
as it is done with off-the-shelf equipment but also rebutting that it
will be even cheaper and more reliable to do after another 20 years of
R&D on PV+Hydrogen (given that the PV field has show continuous progress
on a somewhat exponential curve).

In any case, all the best. Maybe I'm wrong about everything :-) in which
case, I would hope SPSs succeed. Still, I remain unconvinced of their
merit as either a major investment or as a way to get space habitats.

--Paul Fernhout

P.S. Related to another part of this thread. Apologies for writing SPS
vs. renewables, since it is true SPS is a renewable and
Sun/Wind/Hydrogen is a better naming choice. I just meant "Renewable" as
commonly referred to vs. a future proposal. My bad. :-)