Which Power Source Is Most Efficient?
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Australian researchers just unveiled the most efficient solar panels ever. How efficient are they, and what is the most efficient source of energy? Get 15% off http://www.domain.com's s domain names and web hosting when you use coupon code DNEWS at checkout! Read More: In world first -- UNSW researchers convert sunlight to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/uons-iwf120514.php "UNSW Australia's solar researchers have converted over 40% of the sunlight hitting a solar system into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported." New world record for solar cell efficiency at 46% French-German cooperation confirms competitive advantages of European photovoltaic industry http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-and-media/press-releases/press-releases-2014/new-world-record-for-solar-cell-efficiency-at-46-percent "A new world record for the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity has been established." Australia develops world's most efficient solar panels http://rt.com/business/212383-australia-record-solar-energy/ "?Australian researchers have developed a new method of using commercial solar panels that converts more electricity from sunlight than ever before." What is the efficiency of different types of power plants? http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=107&t=3 "One measure of the efficiency of a power plant that converts a fuel into heat and into electricity is the heat rate." Improving Efficiencies http://www.worldcoal.org/coal-the-environment/coal-use-the-environment/improving-efficiencies/ "Improving efficiency levels increases the amount of energy that can be extracted from a single unit of coal." The Most Common Electricity Sources in the U.S. http://pureenergies.com/us/blog/the-most-common-electricity-sources-in-the-u-s/ "Though renewable energy is growing fast, the U.S. still gets the vast majority of its power from conventional power plants." Increasing the Efficiency of Existing Coal-Fired Power Plants http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43343.pdf "Coal has long been the major fossil fuel used to produce electricity." Coal Will Survive as Efficient Power Plants Boost Demand http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-02/coal-seen-surving-as-efficient-power-plants-boost-demand.html "President Barack Obama's plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions left coal with a future even as the industry accuses him of trying to make the fuel obsolete." How Do Wind Turbines Work? http://energy.gov/eere/wind/how-do-wind-turbines-work "So how do wind turbines make electricity?" Screwy-looking wind turbine makes little noise and a big claim http://www.gizmag.com/the-archimedes-liam-f1-urban-wind-turbine/32263/ "Although it's getting increasingly common to see solar panels on the roofs of homes, household wind turbines are still a fairly rare sight." Betz's law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz%27s_law Wind Energy More Energy Efficient than Fossil Fuels http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/18/wind-energy-energy-efficient-fossil-fuels-uk/ "Here's something that may surprise you. Wind energy is more efficient than carbon-based fuels." Wind Energy's Shadow: Turbines Drag Down Power Potential http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130516-wind-energy-shadow-effect/ "As seemingly limitless as the air that swirls around us, wind has proven to be the world's fastest-growing source of renewable energy." Advanced Nuclear Power Reactors http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Power-Reactors/Advanced-Nuclear-Power-Reactors/ "The nuclear power industry has been developing and improving reactor technology for more than five decades and is starting to build the next generation of nuclear power reactors to fill new orders." Hydroelectric Power http://www.mpoweruk.com/hydro_power.htm "Hydro-electric power, using the potential energy of rivers, now supplies 17.5% of the world's electricity (99% in Norway, 57% in Canada, 55% in Switzerland, 40% in Sweden, 7% in USA)." Hydroelectric Power http://www.usbr.gov/power/edu/pamphlet.pdf "It's a form of energy ... a renewable resource." ____________________ DNews is dedicated to satisfying your curiosity and to bringing you mind-bending stories & perspectives you won't find anywhere else! New videos twice daily. Watch More DNews on TestTube http://testtube.com/dnews Subscribe now! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=dnewschannel DNews on Twitter http://twitter.com/dnews Trace Dominguez on Twitter https://twitter.com/tracedominguez Tara Long on Twitter https://twitter.com/TaraLongest DNews on Facebook https://facebook.com/DiscoveryNews DNews on Google+ http://gplus.to/dnews Discovery News http://discoverynews.com Download the TestTube App: http://testu.be/1ndmmMq
Comments
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Nuclear's still best
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Comparing figures as is done in this video might sound interesting but is largely comparing apples and oranges. Efficiency is an attribute of energy conversion processes, and comparison is only fair when input and output are of the same nature. (An example would be converting electric energy to kinetic energy for transportation, via the intermediate paths of battery storage, hydrogen production+fuel cells, or synthetic hydrocarbon production.) For fossil fuels (including nuclear) the energy is already present in stored form, but for renewables it is about harvesting energy that would otherwise be completely lost anyway, so "efficiency" is a secondary matter. For hydro, we have renewable energy for which the conversion into high grade energy is already done for us, so it is not surprising that efficiency is very high; we don't take into account the efficiency of evaporation and rainfall needed to get the water upstairs in the first place.
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Dam them all!!
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Considering that there is a gigantic amount of solar energy falling onto our planet, I am OK with low efficiency of solar panels.
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Why not solar shingles by Elon musk's company. Solar city?
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ok i have plans to buy a house in 7 yrs.. get those 40% efficient solar panels to tesla and make those solar shingles asap. time is ticking
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From what I read the high-efficiency solar panels are only in lab testing on small cells under intense light.
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2:30 When plants know better than we do.
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What a great universe it would be, if we can choose our power sources based purely on their eficciency. But in a real universe...well at first, its really questionable to compare results from lab tests to results from actuall real devices. Because lab tests can differ greatly from performance of mass produced panels.
And second: there are many other aspects we have to account in any comparassion between energy sources. One that is most importand is reliability. And that is were others sources really beat crap out of solar and wind. Both relies heavily on current weather conditions. And those are pretty unpredictable and variable. So unless we invent some much better ways of storing excess energy for later use, or transporting it in huge amounts over extremely long distances (intercontinentally, from one hemisphere to other), we cannot afford to base our power grid on such unreliable sources. -
What are the costs involved?
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Yeah lets compare a solarcell thats made without any budget in a lab to commercial powerplants that has been running for 40 years that sound like a good comparision. Not at all twisted for your point of view..
And the material they use for this solarcell is sure easy to get a hold of and not at all a sparse resource say like uranium...
And not a single word that windpower has an max efficiency that is impossible to get over (at 59%) -
Interesting, shows what is possible. BUT, energy efficiency is not the most important spec. What really counts is the bottom line, $/kwh (dollars per watt-hour) of the finished installation. That includes all the variables, of which there are several. This can make all the difference; for example, hydro looks good at 95%, but may cover many hectares of valuable land with water.
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If there was a way to transfer energy wirelessly we could set up solar panels on the moon ✌🏻
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There is something fishy in your efficiency formula at 1:23 in the video. Efficiency = Pout / Pin = Pout / (Pout + losses) = (Pin - losses) / Pin where Losses are heat and noise.
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it's not fair to compare plants that convert heat into electricity to those that convert mechanical energy into electricity. If you want to be more accurate try with second law's efficiency ( real efficiency devided by theoretical maximum efficiency ).
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Solar! Also, gravitational and wave power. Taking the energy of the sun and using it to generate electricity is a technology that should have been used 100's of years back. Concentrating the suns energy to produce steam was a technology has been known about for 100's of years (if not more) so it's absurd that it's just now gaining traction. I'd have said hydro-electric, but it's impact on the wildlife of rivers, it's not so great.
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Thorium - Salt nuclear reactors can run at nearly 100% efficiency WITHOUT any of the dangers of typical nuclear power plants. with Thorium, it actually burns ALL the nuclear fuel completely (Plutonium (and others) only burn a small fraction of their fuel rods - the rest is toxic waste). Thorium - Salt is the only logical and safe way that we as a society will EVER meet our insatiable thirst for power. No other power source even comes close to the virtually unlimited power with ZERO risk of nuclear meltdown - no matter what. We could have these powerplants running in our cars!! oh yeah, they've done that (with a proof of concept car).
Why the hell are Thorium - Salt reactors not the industry standard everywhere!? Learn about it and spread the word. -
I need it by magic
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So when will those new panels be available and at what cost?
Imo this video was really low quality. If you want ppl to listen to you, try hiding your own bias a bit harder or only your fellow believers will listen to you. -
Realistically, without base loaded nuclear power plants, you're contributing tremendously to CO2 emissions because the only other real game in town is burning fossil fuels. Wind and solar hardly make a dent in the country's electrical demand fulfillment. Most of the power you're using right now to light up your monitor and turn on your computer comes from a nuclear plant, hydroelectric dams, and gas/coal fossil fuel burning.
I've worked in a combined cycle gas plant.
I've worked in a windmill production plant.
I've worked in a nuclear power plant.
And I still wouldn't consider myself an expert. Ask yourself...What does that say about you? The impassioned member of the public who thinks they have a valid opinion worth voicing.
Show me a U.S. city that's willing to pay billions to have 90% of it's roofs covered in solar panels and wind turbines only to have to continue to pay the fossil fuel industry billions for peak power demand periods when there are rolling blackouts. No sun? No solar. No wind? No wind power. You need hydro, gas/coal, or nuclear to keep the power grid online. Power distribution doesn't like the unreliability of Wind and Solar because then they're always juggling to find power for a starving grid. They rely HEAVILY on nuclear for base load and again HEAVILY on gas/coal for peak power demand periods. If you want to stop burning fossil fuels, the only real game in town that's adaptable to any environment (like geothermal being geologically specific to certain areas or tidal power being restricted to coastal cities) is nuclear power. And people are ignorant AF when it comes to nuclear power technology. Everyone thinks you make bombs when you make nuclear plants. This is a gross misunderstanding of what causes explosions at nuclear facilities and the decades long real-world tested operation of nuclear power generation technology. More often than not, explosions like Fukushima or Chernobyl are caused by hydrogen explosions which are the result of zirconium alloy(from fuel pencils) and concrete(from reactor building envelope) mixing at super high temperatures while in a contained vessel like a reactor building.
And what of solar panel production? Do you even dare to attempt to tell me that building giant steel tubes for windmills or PV cells is somehow environmentally friendly? Have you ever even SEEN a windmill production facility? Can you pinpoint to anyone what makes building one steel structure or another more or less environmentally friendly? Maybe instead of giving everyone else lip, you could help people understand your perspective. Sure, maybe once you've finished with production, these solutions SEEM to be green. But people fail to see the big picture.
Imagine 10,000 windmills surrounding the city just to provide the same power output of 1 or 2 nuclear plants or 5 or 6 gas plants. Where's the green aspect of this? Is it in China where they make the steel without any environmental constraints imposed by the government?
Just be realistic. Try to think objectively for just a moment and maybe you'll see that Solar and Wind aren't going to power U.S. homes on a large scale for a long time. Gas plants, Coal plants, and nuclear are the biggest producers of electrical power and are the most heavily backed financially, so much so that big oil has been lying to the public about the dangers of nuclear power for decades in an attempt to increase its market share. And it's not like they need any help convincing the public that nuclear power is dangerous because overall, people are tremendously ignorant when it comes to how they are able to go about their daily lives when there are literally hundreds of thousands of people working around the clock to make sure the modern conveniences of life are sustained, mainly through electrical power distribution and production.
Just be real here. TRY to be real and honest with yourself for just a moment of your life. Stop buying all the hype. Just research the question honestly for what you think would be a reasonable amount of time to come up with a decision as to how we can best invest our multi-trillion dollar worldwide energy consumption budget to make things better over the years rather than continually deteriorating the life-giving systems of planet Earth that we depend on.
All in all, unfortunately, an ignorant and uninformed populace is par for the course. I like seeing videos like this because at least they make an attempt to educate. But beyond soundbites, the general public doesn't care. That's right people! Like it or not, you probably don't really care about the energy crisis as much as you should. You're probably doing more to aggravate the problem than you are to solve it. Be honest with yourself. There are very few of us who are carbon neutral or even carbon negative. And we are all far too lazy to do the legwork ourselves, in most instances. We are addicted to the conveniences of life we've come to take for granted.
Most importantly, beware of misinformation campaigns funded by big industries. And don't go around thinking you've found the silver bullet because no one will believe you. If there were a silver bullet, it would've been readily apparent ages ago and some huge outfit would've developed it by now. Energy is BIG BUSINESS TO A TEE! Oil consumption is ubiquitous, even if you run a nuclear plant, many of the pumps, pressure regulators, motorized valves and other devices REQUIRE oil to operate. But it isn't NEAR the amount of oil consumption that a gas plant requires. And selling gas is of great interest to big outfits like BP, Exxon, and Coral(Shell).
You CAN have cleaner fossil fuel plants, yes, if you use electrostatic precipitates and baghouses and filters to capture particulate from the smoke stacks and maybe some recombiners or other method to capture as much of the CO2 as possible and heck! Turn around and SELL the damn CO2! But the reality is that people don't want to pay the premium for cleaner power. When it comes time to work out the budget, no stakeholder has ever gotten a pat on the back for costing the company more money and they ALWAYS get pats on the back for cutting corners until there is a catastrophic failure. People narrowly only care about their intimate personal needs and claim that they shouldn't have to pay the cost of preserving the Earth. Well if everyone feels that way, needless to say, we wind up with what we currently have in this energy crisis. There are several billion people without power and already we are exceeding Earth's capability to sustain life. Something doesn't add up.
If you really care, you'll spend years of your life researching the question of how to get cleaner energy. A real human being with a functional brain would not draw conclusions from watching a 5 minute YouTube video or reading its comments sections. I hope for science and progress to continue to drive our civilization closer to a solution. I hope someone out there reading this finds new validation in their passion, their quest for cleaner energy. We need inspired and driven people to continue their meaningful work in the energy sector. Start a conversation. Don't seek to end it by providing the solution. Keep the conversation going and maybe someday... we'll get to live the fruit of our vision of a more energy equitable world that isn't so wrought with strife and corruption.
That's one man's dream anyway.
Thanks for reading.
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