Solar Towers producing 50% More Energy

retirede said:
There’s no chance in heck that that thing hasn’t broken down multiple times in its life.
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But from my experience, not all that much.

There is a mining operation out by Stockton, and he's still running a couple, well over 60 and still doing the job. His daughter drives one that looks at least as bad as that
 
I had a solar guy tell me today that China now installs almost as much solar power in one year as all the power the entire United States consumes, and thats just in China, they are also funding solar projects all over the world. What do you all think?
 
pipe_bender said:
I had a solar guy tell me today that China now installs almost as much solar power in one year as all the power the entire United States consumes, and thats just in China, they are also funding solar projects all over the world. What do you all think?
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Don’t think there is enough usable land in China to do that! LOL! Now their hydro would come much closer than solar would.
 
jaggedben said:
We're just posting random unreputable probably AI slop articles from the internet now?

Also from that website. 🙄
www.industrytap.com

Can Helium-3 from the Moon Power the Planet? Scientists Think So

As space exploration accelerates, a new kind of “gold rush” is unfolding beyond Earth—this time on the Moon. The resource at the center of global attentio
www.industrytap.com www.industrytap.com
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I met and spoke in person with Stanton Friedman about H-3. It's crazy stuff. Most people don't know that the worlds longest runway is in Salina, Kansas specifically built for tankers transporting liquid helium. I don't know why H-3 never took off and was used mainstream.
 
herding_cats said:
I met and spoke in person with Stanton Friedman about H-3. It's crazy stuff. Most people don't know that the worlds longest runway is in Salina, Kansas specifically built for tankers transporting liquid helium. I don't know why H-3 never took off and was used mainstream.
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I've been hearing fusion is right around the corner, and fision reactors are 100% safe for about 60 years now.

In 5th grade I was on the debate team with some other science nerds and we argued for a nuke plant to be built on the river (Basically within 2 miles of where we all lived). We won, but we had our talking points down from studying all the pro nuke materials they gave us. I'm not sure what the hippie girls who were against were given to study from. I enjoyed looking at them though, in a 10 year old kid kinda way
 
retirede said:
There’s no chance in heck that that thing hasn’t broken down multiple times in its life.
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This is kind of what that truck looked like in better days. Although this red one has been through 2 restorations over the years. First time was 1980 something and the guy had it all apart, cab off, drivetrain out, repower with an ENDT673C. It was beautiful, it just drew everybody's eye. Dark blue with gold accents, all lettered up in fancy hand painted script. But he put it to work from the day it was finished doing inner city excavation and demolition, I used to see it under Andersons asphalt milling machine all the time when they were milling the streets. He took good care of it though.

Now it's ABC Construction from Bensalem's truck. It looked really good after the last resto in like 2008, but I don't think it was as extensive a resto as the first one

 
herding_cats said:
I met and spoke in person with Stanton Friedman about H-3. It's crazy stuff. Most people don't know that the worlds longest runway is in Salina, Kansas specifically built for tankers transporting liquid helium. I don't know why H-3 never took off and was used mainstream.
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It's He-3, not H-3. H is hydrogen, He is helium. Also, liquid helium is almost entirely He-4 not He-3; He-3 is present only in trace amounts in the helium we have on earth.
 
Solar now costs about 1/2 to 1/3 what fission costs, sure there is no sun at night so we'll need both, the cost drop of PV per MWh while everything else keeps going up is astonishing and hard to ignore.
 
pipe_bender said:
I had a solar guy tell me today that China now installs almost as much solar power in one year as all the power the entire United States consumes, and thats just in China, they are also funding solar projects all over the world. What do you all think?
Click to expand...
I believe the correct factoid is that China installed as much solar capacity last year as the US has installed total (i.e. essentially over the last 10-15 years). Nearly a terrawatt nameplate capacity according to our government.

www.eia.gov

China’s solar capacity installations grew rapidly in 2024 - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov www.eia.gov
 
herding_cats said:
I met and spoke in person with Stanton Friedman about H-3. It's crazy stuff. Most people don't know that the worlds longest runway is in Salina, Kansas specifically built for tankers transporting liquid helium. I don't know why H-3 never took off and was used mainstream.
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3He hasn't taken off as a fusion fuel because we don't yet have an actual working fusion reactor to use it.

Not sure about other uses for the stuff, nor the idea of air transport of liquid helium.
 
Do any of you really think commercially viable nuclear *fusion* power is really going to happen soonish?
The joke is it's 10 years away and always will be..
 
pipe_bender said:
Do any of you really think commercially viable nuclear *fusion* power is really going to happen soonish?
The joke is it's 10 years away and always will be..
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I think when they tested the "H-Bomb" (as we called it when we were kids) the estimate was 10 years out

"So much power they won't even meter it"
 
pipe_bender said:
Do any of you really think commercially viable nuclear *fusion* power is really going to happen soonish?
The joke is it's 10 years away and always will be..
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No one has even built a net energy positive facility. We can't even talk about making it commercial (that is, economical) until we have a proof of concept that it's physically possible.
 
Joethemechanic said:
I think when they tested the "H-Bomb" (as we called it when we were kids) the estimate was 10 years out

"So much power they won't even meter it"
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Keep in mind that 'too cheap to meter' didn't ever mean free.

It meant that you'd pay a flat fee for the infrastructure and the reactor(s) and just use however much electricity you wanted.

Of course they got this wrong, both in terms of the cost of the power plants and the cost of the distribution infrastructure.

But this sort of billing isn't crazy for some applications; think of your internet bill for example.

Jonathan
 
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