Fuel Cell Performance

>
> Solar photovoltaics are particularly subject to low capacity factors
> of course - they only make power when the sun is up.

Which, as mentioned, is when the greatest need it.

> Calling rooftop solar power a solution to "blackouts" is laughable.

They don't solve the problem, but they do provide some power when the
grid goes down -- as do the gas turbines you mention later.
>
> Buuuuuuutttt... solar PV is actually a very expensive way to meet peak
> power demand.

I don't know the exact figures, but the cost of PV have come down by
huge factors over the last 20 years. 10 or 100 or something like that.
The curve has not flattened out. Much the cost reduction is
apparently driven by the computer industry which is learning a great
deal about silicon. Some of this knowledge is applicable to PV. PV,
by the way, is already economic for some niche applications
(calculators, road-side call boxes, etc.). Finally, some people will
buy PV for its perceived environmental benefits -- which is perfectly
reasonable.

> The competition is gas turbine plants, which have very low
> capital costs and are dominated by the fuel costs.

These have some of the same good properties as PV, some advantages (as
noted), and also depend on a distributed power grid with many small
providers to make work properly. That sort of infrastructure
improvement is the proper domain of government.

One question: how noisy are they? I don't like obnoxious background
noises. PVs are silent.

The International Space Station's (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was a terrific space
station, but by the time of Tito's trip it was also old, smelly,
crowded and probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shiny,
much more roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts
of how great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.