Audi creates "synthetic diesel" from air, water, and electricity...?

Well...I'm not really sure what you mean by that. The atmosphere only absorbs about 25% of the sun's energy on a clear day, so there isn't a huge efficiency gain to be had by putting the plant in space -- just more hours of operation.

If you're getting the CO2 from the humans in the space station, you may as well get the water from them too -- it's the primary thing people exhale (aside from most of the air they inhaled).

Agreed.

 

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Oh? I thought the efficiency drop was more than that, especially further from the equator? And yeah, more hours of operation if it isn't in a geosync orbit but... I would imagine that presents its own problems (since, if memory serves, most satellites are geo-sync?)

True

*nod* That's what I was afraid of lol. Would only be even remotely practical for space-borne operations... but I doubt anything in space utilizes diesel... heh

 

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I like your advar. You seem to follow the LFTRs. What is the status of the one or few than India is building. India has little uranium but large part of the world's known thorium.

 

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Not if the panel is pointed at the sun. There is no difference with latitude if you point the panel directly at the sun. That just takes active tracking (which isn't needed in orbit).

The vast majority of satellites are not in geosynchronous orbit, but yes, the hours of sun exposure in low earth orbit are only slightly greater than the daylight hours on earth, depending on orbit inclination vs latitude -- but there are also no clouds in space.

 

Huh, very cool. Why is it so many people that try to denounce solar power claim that it's "horribly inefficient" because of the atmosphere? Is it just an attempt to capitalize on the unknowing masses believing what they say? (which... well, honestly wouldn't surprise me much)

 

I'm not sure I've ever heard "inefficient". Inefficient is pretty meaningless when the original energy is free. Economics are what is important (or, rather, efficiency as it influence economics).

The primary complaint people such as myself have against solar power (or solar proponents) is the very, very misleading statistics people use to promote it. It is often compared with other sources on a straght kW-kW basis even though it averages only about a 20% capacity factor when you take into account weather and daylight hours, compared with 70-90% for conventional sources. For example, I just saw this article linked from another forum:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/fossil-fuels-just-lost-the-race-against-renewables

Setting aside that the title says "renewable", but the graph says "clean" (difference: nuclear power), "capacity" doesn't keep the lights on in your house at night.

 

Yes, slant range affects total insolation as well, although local effects (smog, fog, clouds) have far more to do with overall performance. One of the reason that tracking mounts don't buy you all that much is that pointing directly at the Sun near sunrise or sunset doesn't get you much power anyway since the slant range is so long - most of the energy in the sunlight is dissipated during its much-longer trip through the atmosphere.

 

*nod* Part of why I've been hesitant to even consider a solar system here in Pennsylvania - too large an angle to the sun, especially in the Winter, I would imagine

 

Depends on your location and orientation. While here in San Diego we average about 5.5 direct-sun equivalent hours a day, you probably average around 4 (depending on where you are.) Which isn't so bad that it makes it unaffordable. All that means (in general) is that you need more solar panels to get the same annual output, and at $1/watt that's not such a big deal any more.

(Needless to say it's cheapest per kwhr in Tucson.)

http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/eere_pv/national_photovoltaic_2012-01.jpg

 

The bigger factor is the weather, not the angle. From the link, you can see that PA is roughly at the same latitude as northern Nevada, but most of PA is in the 4-4.5 kWh/day range whereas most of northern Nevada is in the 5.5-6 range. That difference is entirely based on weather. And if you are away from the coast, Washington and Oregon get as much sun as The Sunshine State. Whereas near the coast, I don't think they ever see the sun.

 

Well, the way things are going with solar panel, that will be cheaper than LFTR. The diesel fabrication will be a nice benefit for the airlines to make their fuel, when the fossil-tax of the future administrations grows too huge to bear economically to get diesel from natural oil instead of synthetic.