PV energy less expensive than natural gas.

[DougSpindler]

They're in the same place as (non Russian) commercial breeder reactors, future.

Not sure what the point of your reply was.  When you sat futeure, do you mean next year, or the perpetual future?  Is a company actually working on the product?  Or is this just a pipe dream?

There are thousands of people close to where I liver who lost their homes in the wild fires who could benefit from such a product.  How real is the product you are talking about?

[Marco]

3m has polymer barrier technology they say will last decades, people are still working on thin film solar, costs keep plummeting. There are flexible thin film solar cells right now, they are just not efficiency/cost competitive ... but their advantage is there is no real bottom on their cost, because the material use is so low.

At some point traditional crystalline silicon solar costs will bottom out because of bulk material costs and all the patents for thin film technologies will run out and then it will be time for thin film to shine.

PS. they also do better in low/diffuse light, which is nice if you are over-dimensioning to deal with poor sunlight conditions.

[Red Squirrel]

PS. they also do better in low/diffuse light, which is nice if you are over-dimensioning to deal with poor sunlight conditions.

Interesting wonder if that would be better where I live.  We mostly just get overcast skies here so arrays have to be sized accordingly.  When I sized my shed array I went for maximum roof coverage knowing I would only get a fraction of the rated wattage.  Also had to face west as there's shadows from the south.  I have room for about 3kw on my house's south facing roof so that would probably be the next place I put some. 

Though the real challenge with solar here in Canada is finding the panels themselves, not a lot of sites to buy them from and lot of them charge too much for shipping.  So thin film is going to be even harder to find, at least in large scale.  Can find small ones for charging cell phones etc.   I ended up buying my panels off Amazon for a bit more money than I wanted to spend but still cheaper than the ones at Canadian Tire.  $600+ for 100w is just crazy.

I'd probably still end up going with mono panels if I did a big off grid setup though just because they're slightly easier to get.   I did end up finding a site in BC that sells 280w+ modules for decent price and has free shipping, so I'd probably order from there if ever I do a big array.    Hopefully as solar gets more popular it will be easier to buy panels.   I'd say more than half the sites I found didn't even have an option to buy.   

[DougSpindler]

3m has polymer barrier technology they say will last decades, people are still working on thin film solar, costs keep plummeting. There are flexible thin film solar cells right now, they are just not efficiency/cost competitive ... but their advantage is there is no real bottom on their cost, because the material use is so low.

At some point traditional crystalline silicon solar costs will bottom out because of bulk material costs and all the patents for thin film technologies will run out and then it will be time for thin film to shine.

PS. they also do better in low/diffuse light, which is nice if you are over-dimensioning to deal with poor sunlight conditions.

I’m confused.  You say they are still working on it and you say cost is plummeting.  So how much do they cost today?  Can you provide a link to where it can be bought today?  There are thousands of people who lost their homes in California’s wildfire who need electricity today.  The product sounds like th e perfect solution for them.  Would you PLEASE provide a link to a the company so people can buy this product?  Thank you. 

[Marco]

I’m confused.  You say they are still working on it and you say cost is plummeting.  So how much do they cost today?  Can you provide a link to where it can be bought today?

Just go on Amazon and buy new old stock from Unisolar (they went bankrupt). The big current CIGS players don't sell straight to consumers (and the Chinese crap is crap).

There are thousands of people who lost their homes in California’s wildfire who need electricity today.  The product sounds like th e perfect solution for them.  Would you PLEASE provide a link to a the company so people can buy this product?  Thank you.

Why? Standard photovoltaic cells have higher efficiency and their greater bulk is not yet cost limiting and for most applications not a problem. CIGS is nice if you architect it directly into roof structures, need it curved or want to put it on top of a vehicle or something ... when you can just bolt on a standard module then for the moment just bolt on a standard module.

You were the one who brought up the limiting factors for PV roll-out, I simply pointed out they are not actually limiting.

[DougSpindler]

You were the one who brought up the limiting factors for PV roll-out, I simply pointed out they are not actually limiting.

But then again they aren’t really a practical solution either.  There are thousands of people who lost their homes who are living out of tents.  You made me thing this might be a wonderful inexpensive solution for them.  THey can’t really use hardframed solar panels as they have no way of mounting them in a Walmart parking lot.  Or moving them when Walmart asks them to leave.

Guess we will have to disagree as I’m seeing nothing but limitations with PV solar and this is just one more to add to the list.

[IanMacdonald]

Guess we will have to disagree as I’m seeing nothing but limitations with PV solar and this is just one more to add to the list.

There is no doubt that PV has its useful applications. One is for illuminated street signs, since in rural areas PV and a battery may be cheaper than miles of cable. Since I don't use my van all that much (a lot of admin work is done by remote access these days) I have a 20w setup to keep the battery fresh and some onboard gadgets working.

That said, the main issue with Grid-scale PV is that in high latitudes you get next to nothing over the main part of the winter.  Also, price comparisons tend to be with retail electricity rates. Which will not be hard to beat with raw power since the retail prices have to cover power line maintenance, etc. Somebody has to pay for the cabling and infrastructure, so if everyone went solar there would have to be a much higher standing charge for anyone who wants a Grid connection. When you factor that in, the economics don't look so rosy.  I guess if you're equatorial you might just get by with only PV and a big enough battery, but no way will that work in the UK.

One idea that should be looked into a bit more is fuel cell or thermocouple generation for gas central heating. In principle this would provide electricity 'for nothing' when the heating is in use. This could complement PV since it will be available in winter. The Bloom Box is one such idea that's already  in commercial use.

[Red Squirrel]

Solar works great for what it is, I think what more money and research needs to go into now is long term storage tech.  They spend billions and billions on oil rigs and pipe lines, imagine if that budget would go towards energy storage instead.  Either new battery tech, or even grid grade storage. It does not even need to be a battery, perhaps a way to convert energy into some kind of green fuel.  Hydrogen comes to mind though I don't think that's viable due to power density and efficiency losses, but maybe there is something else we just have not thought of yet.

In the summer months there's like almost 20 hours of daylight, what if you could have a solar array that generates everything it needs for the day in no more than 5 hours, and then store the rest in long term storage - whatever that tech may be.   In the winter when you only get like 4 hours of daylight and most of it being unusable, then you would sip on the stored energy that was produced in summer.   Basically this would be some kind of "elastic" storage that you can just keep dumping excess power into.  Not only from solar but from the grid itself.  So you have these storage systems along the grid, with solar farms in other locations, they don't even all need to be in the same place.  Keep existing nuclear plants going because they're working and paid for, even keep existing natural gas plants, but in the meantime slowly start adding more solar.  The entire grid could in theory run off the storage system long term if it needs to, which would make solar and wind very viable even though they are so variable.

[DougSpindler]

Solar works great for what it is, I think what more money and research needs to go into now is long term storage tech.  They spend billions and billions on oil rigs and pipe lines, imagine if that budget would go towards energy storage instead.  Either new battery tech, or even grid grade storage. It does not even need to be a battery, perhaps a way to convert energy into some kind of green fuel.  Hydrogen comes to mind though I don't think that's viable due to power density and efficiency losses, but maybe there is something else we just have not thought of yet.

In the summer months there's like almost 20 hours of daylight, what if you could have a solar array that generates everything it needs for the day in no more than 5 hours, and then store the rest in long term storage - whatever that tech may be.   In the winter when you only get like 4 hours of daylight and most of it being unusable, then you would sip on the stored energy that was produced in summer.   Basically this would be some kind of "elastic" storage that you can just keep dumping excess power into.  Not only from solar but from the grid itself.  So you have these storage systems along the grid, with solar farms in other locations, they don't even all need to be in the same place.  Keep existing nuclear plants going because they're working and paid for, even keep existing natural gas plants, but in the meantime slowly start adding more solar.  The entire grid could in theory run off the storage system long term if it needs to, which would make solar and wind very viable even though they are so variable.

Yup.....  It's that thing we just haven't thought of yet, what is it?

We do have several methods for long term storage.  Water/hydro and fossil fuels.


The solar and wind energy associations have told us in 30 years we might be lucky to get 20% of our energy from solar and wind.  Wher's the other 80% going to come from?

Instead of wasting time and money on storage why not spend that money and thouse resources on the Next Gen nuclear?  We have a universe full of fuel and there's no long lived radioactive waste.  It works at all latitudes and will be able to provide power day and night without any wind.  It's the greenest way to produce electricty we know.

Doesn't that make the most sense?

[cdev]

IMHO nuclear fission is problematic because of the waste and the risk of loss of the ultimate heat sink, thermal melt down and uncontrolled release of radioactive materials into the environment on a massive scale.

So, its not 'next generation' anything.

And obviously both coal and natural gas come with substantial problems as well in the form of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Research we pursue should focus on non-fossil fuel and non-fission directions, such as improving the efficiency of solar calls and solving the problems of nuclear fission so we can generate large amounts of power on demand without risks of nuclear accidents, which should be a wake up call for all of us. Nuclear fission power plants create large quantities of nuclear waste as well as carry a risk of increasing nuclear weapons proliferation.

[Red Squirrel]

Nuclear is kind of a compromise between renewable and fossil fuel, so it would be nice to replace fossil fuel with nuclear for the time being, but it should not be the ultimate end all solution.

Now if we can figure out what to do with the waste (some of the barriers may be political) then it would not be AS bad but the risk is of course there while it's operating.

Now if we can convert the waste back into a usable product by using PV/wind energy somehow, maybe that would be a form of "storage".  I don't know much about nuclear but I recall something about being able to bombard uranium with electrons to "recharge" it?  Is that the case?   

[DougSpindler]

IMHO nuclear fission is problematic because of the waste and the risk of loss of the ultimate heat sink, thermal melt down and uncontrolled release of radioactive materials into the environment on a massive scale.

So, its not 'next generation' anything.

And obviously both coal and natural gas come with substantial problems as well in the form of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Research we pursue should focus on non-fossil fuel and non-fission directions, such as improving the efficiency of solar calls and solving the problems of nuclear fission so we can generate large amounts of power on demand without risks of nuclear accidents, which should be a wake up call for all of us. Nuclear fission power plants create large quantities of nuclear waste as well as carry a risk of increasing nuclear weapons proliferation.

You are mixing up current nuclear technology, fission which uses heavy elements with Next Gen nuclear which is fusion and lighter elements.  There is NO long lasting radioactive waste.   Two completely different technologies. 

[coppice]

You are mixing up current nuclear technology, fission which uses heavy elements with Next Gen nuclear which is fusion and lighter elements.  There is NO long lasting radioactive waste.   Two completely different technologies.

That's not quite right. By the time the fusion plant is decommissioned much of the plant itself will be fairly radioactive. This is not on the same scale, in either size or intensity, as the amount of nuclear waste produced by current fission reactors, but fission reactors only account for a very small proportion of human energy production (a fair bit of electricity production, but a very small part of overall energy production). If fusion scaled to be the dominant form of human energy production the total amount of pretty long lifetime radioactive junk would be substantial.

[IanMacdonald]

Greens are opposed to fusion spending because they say it's been under development for 40 years with no result. (which is not quite true, but..)
They're also against thorium even though it's been shown to work.
At the same time they push wind energy like crazy in spite of it having been under development since Roman times and never been found very satisfactory in over 2000 years.
They claim that energy storage will solve the intermittency problems of wind and solar. As if it were a done deal. Yet, Grid-scale energy storage hasn't been developed yet. Somehow they think it's OK to base projections on as-yet uninvented tech if it's one of their own pet projects. But, not for someone else's.

World spending on renewables is in the region of half a trillion USD a year. If you add other CC measures that comes to 1.5 trillion.
For this, we've achieved the amazing result of a fraction of a percent (or somewhat over 1% depending who you ask) of world energy from renewables.
The one-off cost to build ITER will be about 0.02 trillion. And, that's the most expensive of the fusion projects.
Once fusion or thorium is perfected, getting the majority of world energy from that source is a perfectly realistic goal.

-I think we can see where funding is more likely to bring results.

"If fusion scaled to be the dominant form of human energy production the total amount of pretty long lifetime radioactive junk would be substantial."

Depends what you build your reactor out of. Aluminium is problematic in this respect as it's 'activated' by neutrons. Choice of the right materials will minimise this issue though. Most of the neutron activation is not long lasting, anyway.

[NiHaoMike]

They claim that energy storage will solve the intermittency problems of wind and solar. As if it were a done deal. Yet, Grid-scale energy storage hasn't been developed yet. Somehow they think it's OK to base projections on as-yet uninvented tech if it's one of their own pet projects. But, not for someone else's.

The technology to adapt demand to supply has become very affordable within the last decade. What's missing is a standard to tie it all together. Something like Ohmconnect, but even more flexible.

[DougSpindler]

I just read about Ohmconnect, web site is vague, but this article explains it much better. 
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/life/home/ohm-connect-legit/

From what I understand you have to trip the circuit breakers to your home, and sit in the dark not using any electricity to benefit from Ohmconnect.  Or let me put this another way...  If frist world-citizens are willing to trade the reliability of having electricity for the unreliability of third-world countries Ohmconnect is for you.  But be prepared to not use electricit5y when you want to.  Not sure how that stores electricity, sound more like a carbon cap and trade to me.

Surprised no one has offered a suggestion on what we should do with the 600 year supply of enriched Uranium we have.  Isn’t it only good for two things?  Nuclear bombs or nuclear power?  Wouldn’t it be better to use it for nuclear power than bombs?  What do you suggest we do with the stuff?

There appears to be some confusing about NextGen Nuclear.  For some reason people keep saying their is long lived highly radioactive waste.  Not true.  There is NO long lived radioactive waste.  NONE!  Picture the worst Chernobyl or Fukushima scale nuclear accident.  In less than one generation of human life all of the radiation will have decayed away. 

Can we look at the factts and scale for a moment?  Remember E=MC^2.  The amount of electricity which can be generated in one NexGen Nuclear plant would take 20,000 acres of solar panels or 60,000 acres and 2800 wind turbines.  (20,000 acres is 31.25 square miles)

As “we” consume more and more electricty how are we going to produce it?  Thinking we can do it all from solar and wind is silly.

[cdev]

Doug,

Assuming you mean fusion, I am very sorry, you are right in that I was assuming you were talking about various rehashes of fission. My mistake.

I support research into fusion energy. So we likely agree on this. And I take back what I said about it not being next generation.

IMHO nuclear fission is problematic because of the waste and the risk of loss of the ultimate heat sink, thermal melt down and uncontrolled release of radioactive materials into the environment on a massive scale.

So, its not 'next generation' anything.

And obviously both coal and natural gas come with substantial problems as well in the form of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Research we pursue should focus on non-fossil fuel and non-fission directions, such as improving the efficiency of solar calls and solving the problems of nuclear fission so we can generate large amounts of power on demand without risks of nuclear accidents, which should be a wake up call for all of us. Nuclear fission power plants create large quantities of nuclear waste as well as carry a risk of increasing nuclear weapons proliferation.

You are mixing up current nuclear technology, fission which uses heavy elements with Next Gen nuclear which is fusion and lighter elements.  There is NO long lasting radioactive waste.   Two completely different technologies.

[DougSpindler]

cdev thanks just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing.  I've found a lot of people are very poorly informed about nuclear energy and how ecologically dangerous it is  I was one of those people.  But then I realized the people who were "preaching" to me just how dangerous nuclear energy is were also the ones who were opposed to logging and forest management.  It took me years to find out I was being duped by under-educated people who had an agenda of spreading false and inaccurate information to scare people.  (It worked on me.)

But then I took a physics class and learned about nuclear physics and the health risks associated with sub-atomic particles.  At the same time California had another fossil fuel spill in Southern California.)  Turned out to be the third worst fossil fuel spill in human history.  How was it found?  Nuclear or ionizing radiation levels were accidentally found to be much higher than normal background radiation levels.

It was then I learned just how much nuclear material/ionizing radiation is in fossil fuels including coal.  What those poorly educated environmentalists weren't telling people was how much radioactive materiel/ionizing radiation was being released into our atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels/coal.  It's millions of tons every year and the dummies who are so afraid of radioactive nuclear contamination from nuclear power plants couldn't seem to care about coal/fossil fuel radioactive material.  Silly isn't it.

Hope we agree we need to do something.  Wind/solar are okay, but are unreliable.  There is no one perfect solution so don't we need to go with the least worst?  Hopefully coal in at the absolute bottom of the list by now.  Followed by fossil fuels.  (We will probably always use fossil fuel as it's so energy dense.)  So that leave nuclear, current gen with our 600 years supply of fuel and NextGen which we have a universe of fuel to use but we still need to perfect.

I'm with you, we need NextGen nuclear, but then we need to do something with the 600 year supply of fuel we have.

Have you looked much at Thorium reactors?  I have.  It looked promising 50-60 years but time has passed we know a lot more.  China had plans to have a Thorium reactor up and running next year or in 2020.  The Chinese, just like the Americans 50 years earlier ran into technological issues which could not be solved, or could not be solved affordably.  (The American reactor everyone talks about was a small experimental reactor which worked beautifully.  The issue was scaling it up to something that would be commercial size.  We found with the technology at the time it could not be done.)

Appears the Chinese have given up on Thorium too.  Over the past 8 years they couldn't solve the same list of technological issues we had 50 years ago.  It is my understanding earlier this year the Chinese have quietly discontinued funding and all research work has stopped.

Appears you have come to the same conclusion I have....  NextGen Nuclear with the technology we have is our "best" (least worst) solution.

Still not sure what to do with the 600 year supply of nuclear fuel we already have.

Doug,

Assuming you mean fusion, I am very sorry, you are right in that I was assuming you were talking about various rehashes of fission. My mistake.

I support research into fusion energy. So we likely agree on this. And I take back what I said about it not being next generation.

IMHO nuclear fission is problematic because of the waste and the risk of loss of the ultimate heat sink, thermal melt down and uncontrolled release of radioactive materials into the environment on a massive scale.

So, its not 'next generation' anything.

And obviously both coal and natural gas come with substantial problems as well in the form of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Research we pursue should focus on non-fossil fuel and non-fission directions, such as improving the efficiency of solar calls and solving the problems of nuclear fission so we can generate large amounts of power on demand without risks of nuclear accidents, which should be a wake up call for all of us. Nuclear fission power plants create large quantities of nuclear waste as well as carry a risk of increasing nuclear weapons proliferation.

You are mixing up current nuclear technology, fission which uses heavy elements with Next Gen nuclear which is fusion and lighter elements.  There is NO long lasting radioactive waste.   Two completely different technologies.

[NiHaoMike]

I just read about Ohmconnect, web site is vague, but this article explains it much better. 
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/life/home/ohm-connect-legit/

From what I understand you have to trip the circuit breakers to your home, and sit in the dark not using any electricity to benefit from Ohmconnect.  Or let me put this another way...  If frist world-citizens are willing to trade the reliability of having electricity for the unreliability of third-world countries Ohmconnect is for you.  But be prepared to not use electricit5y when you want to.  Not sure how that stores electricity, sound more like a carbon cap and trade to me.

You don't have to switch off altogether. Just reducing usage is the goal. Besides, if the savings in the article is correct, that's enough to pay for several kWh worth of batteries in just the first year, when just 1 or 2 will easily run a lot of electronics.

[DougSpindler]

I just read about Ohmconnect, web site is vague, but this article explains it much better. 
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/life/home/ohm-connect-legit/

From what I understand you have to trip the circuit breakers to your home, and sit in the dark not using any electricity to benefit from Ohmconnect.  Or let me put this another way...  If frist world-citizens are willing to trade the reliability of having electricity for the unreliability of third-world countries Ohmconnect is for you.  But be prepared to not use electricit5y when you want to.  Not sure how that stores electricity, sound more like a carbon cap and trade to me.

You don't have to switch off altogether. Just reducing usage is the goal. Besides, if the savings in the article is correct, that's enough to pay for several kWh worth of batteries in just the first year, when just 1 or 2 will easily run a lot of electronics.

Not accorind to a  women who has it and wrote an article about it in PennyWise.   She siad was having a dinner party with 40 people and the power went out leaving her and her guets in the dark.

Didn't you see the cost for batteries?  It's $0.60 kHr.  Once of most expensive sournces for electricy.

[cdev]

Great, I much prefer agreeing with people than disagreeing.

cdev thanks just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing.

One of the things I worry about is the way they do cost benefit analyses now, is not going to work much longer because its based on lost wages of work. Because of how its structured, old people, poor people and children's lives are worth much less. So that means that whatever profit generated becomes infinitely larger than it should be in the balancing game, of deciding environmental issues. Basically the system is rigged so that profit is weighed much higher than it should be in relation to people's costs and lives. It completely disregards investments people make in their lives, homes and education, and only looks at employers costs.

And imagine how this will work out in the future if the predictions come true and few people need to work.

That will mean lives will be worthless in the systems eyes so basically it will become okay to pollute with devastating effects as long as its profitable.

Because even modest profits will be weighted higher in cost-benefit analyses than the non-incomes of the majority of people. Their lives will be weighted as worthless in the calculations.  This is basically what people run into now when the injured or killed person is particularly, old, young or unemployed. (or a subrogation agreement is in effect, basically assigning any compensation to a health insurance company first)

The effect is that lawyers usually advise the injured or their survivors that they cant take the case.

Another problem is the value which would be destroyed by a nuclear accident would not be insured - Homeowners might have huge losses, but the costs would not be compensated by insurers.

"There is diversity of life around Chernobyl and Fukushima is now far greater than before the accidents. "

Yes, this is true, but mutation brings with it a host of problems for future generations! 

[DougSpindler]

Great, I much prefer agreeing with people than disagreeing.

Agree or not, I like to have civil intelligent discussions with one another. 

cdev thanks just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing.

One of the things I worry about is the way they do cost benefit analyses now, is not going to work much longer because its based on lost wages of work. Because of how its structured, old people, poor people and children's lives are worth much less. So that means that whatever profit generated becomes infinitely larger than it should be in the balancing game, of deciding environmental issues. Basically the system is rigged so that profit is weighed much higher than it should be in relation to people's costs and lives. It completely disregards investments people make in their lives, homes and education, and only looks at employers costs.

And imagine how this will work out in the future if the predictions come true and few people need to work.

That will mean lives will be worthless in the systems eyes so basically it will become okay to pollute with devastating effects as long as its profitable.

Because even modest profits will be weighted higher in cost-benefit analyses than the non-incomes of the majority of people. Their lives will be weighted as worthless in the calculations.  This is basically what people run into now when the injured or killed person is particularly, old, young or unemployed. (or a subrogation agreement is in effect, basically assigning any compensation to a health insurance company first)

The effect is that lawyers usually advise the injured or their survivors that they cant take the case.

Another problem is the value which would be destroyed by a nuclear accident would not be insured - Homeowners might have huge losses, but the costs would not be compensated by insurers.

"There is diversity of life around Chernobyl and Fukushima is now far greater than before the accidents. "

Yes, this is true, but mutation brings with it a host of problems for future generations!
[/quote]


Not sure if you are aware but we are not seeing mutations at Chenobyl, Fukushima, California (worst US nuclear accident) or in the Pacific Islands where the atomic bombs were tested. 

The worst US accident was a Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Californa which involved a sodium reactor.  Accidents don't happen but the way they are dealt can be tragic.  What we did in the US is shameful....  We kept the accident a secret then the land near the accident was turned into a housing development.


The crazy thing is this is just 10 miles away from where the thrid worst fossil fuel spill/leak occurned in Aliso Canyon.)  Southern California.)  Fossil fuel contain several radioactive isotopes.  So people living in this area are living with a double dose nuclear radiation accident.   

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-le-simi-valley-nuclear-disaster-20180220-story.html

[NiHaoMike]

Not accorind to a  women who has it and wrote an article about it in PennyWise.   She siad was having a dinner party with 40 people and the power went out leaving her and her guets in the dark.

Didn't you see the cost for batteries?  It's $0.60 kHr.  Once of most expensive sournces for electricy.

How much (little) do you really need to run essential electronics (home LAN) and LED lighting? I can easily run my home network, including a workstation PC (biggest power use in the setup thanks to its age, although not too bad if run at peak efficiency), for a few hours from $200 worth (a pair) of Nissan Leaf modules. Running just the core router, modem, and one AP, that can easily stretch to days.

Perhaps the better approach to matching demand to supply is to set a baseline of, for example, 100W or so below which there's much less incentive to further reduce demand? That's enough to run a lot of essential electronics and LED lighting.

[DougSpindler]

Not accorind to a  women who has it and wrote an article about it in PennyWise.   She siad was having a dinner party with 40 people and the power went out leaving her and her guets in the dark.

Didn't you see the cost for batteries?  It's $0.60 kHr.  Once of most expensive sournces for electricy.

How much (little) do you really need to run essential electronics (home LAN) and LED lighting? I can easily run my home network, including a workstation PC (biggest power use in the setup thanks to its age, although not too bad if run at peak efficiency), for a few hours from $200 worth (a pair) of Nissan Leaf modules. Running just the core router, modem, and one AP, that can easily stretch to days.

Perhaps the better approach to matching demand to supply is to set a baseline of, for example, 100W or so below which there's much less incentive to further reduce demand? That's enough to run a lot of essential electronics and LED lighting.

You nned to think globally, not locally.  What about your neighbors, can they do the same?  And what about all of the stores and businesses you depend on to live.  And then essential services like hospitals, police etc.  If you were in a hospital being operated on would you mind if the power were cut?  I know I would like to happen to me.

Why not develope Next Gen Nuclear so everyone can have electricy?

[cdev]

It may have already been done. Even if so, it would be understandable why the world has been skeptical. Look at the source.

https://phys.org/news/2010-05-nkorea-success-nuclear-fusion.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/12/north-korea-creates-nuclear-fusion-claim

Nonetheless, something strong enough to register on seismographs happened in the area on that day. (Kim Il Sung's birthday)

And radioisotopes monitored nearby showed a spike.

So, although its highly improbable, the story may be true.
Its remotely possible that something did happen.  When this story came out, eight years ago, people brushed it off. Now, that they have successfully tested a larger fusion device, the picture is a little bit different. I think the world should ask them to put their cards on the table.

If indeed they have solved the power generation puzzle, they would have a right to be proud of their achievement. As I said, although its highly improbable, its not impossible.

Look at it this way, necessity is the mother of invention. They are a power starved nation, isolated by the rest of the world. However, they do have rich deposits of many minerals, far more than many other countries of similar size.

-----


North Korea claims nuclear fusion breakthrough

It is the holy grail of clean energy: harnessing nuclear fusion to create unlimited power without also generating greenhouse gases and radioactive waste.

For decades the dream has eluded the world's scientists, but today, North Korea claimed it had succeeded where many have failed, creating a successful nuclear fusion reaction.

The official Korean Central News Agency said: "The successful nuclear fusion by our scientists has made a definite breakthrough towards the development of new energy and opened up a new phase in the nation's development of the latest science and technology."

But the extraordinary assertion, which would put the regime well ahead of its nuclear rivals in the west, was dismissed by scientists in South Korea.

"Nuclear fusion reaction is not something that can be done so simply," said Hyeon Park, a physics professor at Postech science and technology university.

He said he believed North Korea had merely produced plasma, a preliminary step on the way to nuclear fusion.

The KCNA said scientists had "solved a great many scientific and technological problems entirely by their own efforts … thus succeeding in nuclear fusion reaction at last." Rodong Sinmun newspaper said the "ingeniously" developed technology "represents a field of the latest science and technology for the development of new energy desired by humankind". The announcement came on the Day of the Sun, a holiday to mark the birthday of North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. If true, the claim would represent a scientific breakthrough – one all the more remarkable for taking place in one of the world's poorest countries, which struggles to generate enough electricity for lighting and other basic needs.

Kune Y Suh, a nuclear expert at Seoul National University, poured scorn on the claim, saying: "Maybe if two suns show up in the sky tomorrow, then people could believe the claim."

A South Korean official said the North could not afford the facilities necessary to create nuclear fusion. "It is not easy to make such facilities secretly."

Unlike fission, nuclear fusion produces little waste, but scientists in other countries have so far been unable to turn it into a viable energy alternative.

North Korea's nuclear ambitions continue to generate concern: Pyongyang has tested two nuclear bombs, the most recent a year ago, and has vowed to build a light water nuclear fission plant.

The communist country has come under pressure to return to nuclear talks following UN sanctions that have added to its economic problems.

In its report the KCNA said: "In this course, Korean-style thermonuclear reaction devices were designed and manufactured, basic researches into nuclear fusion reaction completed and strong scientific and technological forces built to perfect thermonuclear technology by their own efforts." It pointed to "a definite breakthrough toward the development of new energy", adding that it had demonstrated the country's "rapidly developing cutting-edge science and technology".
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