"German scientists are switching on 'the world's largest artificial sun'
in the hope that intense light sources can be used to generate climate-
friendly fuel"

"The Synlight experiment in Jülich, about 19 miles west of Cologne,
consists 149 souped-up film projector spotlights and produces light
about 10,000 times the intensity of natural sunlight on Earth"

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...orlds-largest-
artificial-sun-german-scientists-activate-synlight

or http://tinyurl.com/ka75qet

They're coy about how much energy it uses. "four hours of operation
consumes as much electricity as a four-person household in a year".
Many more of these and they'll need to bring their nukes back online

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) "Between two evils, I always pick
(")_(") the one I never tried before." - Mae West

On 23/03/2017 17:03, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

They're coy about how much energy it uses. "four hours of operation
consumes as much electricity as a four-person household in a year".

" – but scientists hope that in the future natural sunlight could be
used to produce hydrogen in a carbon-neutral way."

I think its just a research project. Actual implementations would use
sunlight.

En el artículo , Jethro_uk
escribió:

You can also focus sunlight to heat water to power turbines - there's a
massive tracking array of mirrors in Spain (?) that do this.

California?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpa...Power_Facility

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) "Between two evils, I always pick
(")_(") the one I never tried before." - Mae West

On 23/03/2017 17:17, Jethro_uk wrote:


Surely the only viable way to split water is electrolysis ???

It begins to dissociates into hydrogen and oxygen above 3000c - so maybe
that's what they are trying. It can't be easy separating H2 from O2 and
water vapour (plasma?) in that environment.

Thermodynamics says it takes exactly the same amount of energy to split
a water molecule however you do it, but maybe this method is more
efficient than boiling water to power a steam turbine to spin a
generator to produce electricity to hydrolyse water.


--
Reentrant

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Jethro_uk wrote:

You can also focus sunlight to heat water to power turbines - there's a
massive tracking array of mirrors in Spain (?) that do this.

California?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpa...Power_Facility

I think the Spanish one heats molten salt, rather than producing steam,
so iy can store the energy and deliver it at night (either that or
they've hidden the diesel gennys better than that other spanish scheme).

En el artículo , Chris Hogg
escribió:

I think several of these 'solar furnace' arrays are in financial
difficulties, and aren't producing as much power as was claimed in
their various prospectuses.

Funnily enough, I've just re-watched Danny Boyle's "Sunshine".

They also cause significant harm to bird
life. Any bird that flies through the concentrated beam of sunlight is
instantly incinerated and falls to the ground leaving a trail of
smoke. The ground in front of the central collector is littered with
partially incinerated corpses.

I was going to suggest scarecrows, but that would be a bit mean.

Wind farms also kill birds, though I have no idea of relative numbers.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) "Between two evils, I always pick
(")_(") the one I never tried before." - Mae West

In article ,
Jethro_uk writes:
On Thu, 23 Mar 2017 17:03:26 +0000, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

"German scientists are switching on 'the world's largest artificial sun'
in the hope that intense light sources can be used to generate climate-
friendly fuel"

"The Synlight experiment in Jülich, about 19 miles west of Cologne,
consists 149 souped-up film projector spotlights and produces light
about 10,000 times the intensity of natural sunlight on Earth"

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...orlds-largest-
artificial-sun-german-scientists-activate-synlight

or http://tinyurl.com/ka75qet

They're coy about how much energy it uses. "four hours of operation
consumes as much electricity as a four-person household in a year". Many
more of these and they'll need to bring their nukes back online

Surely the only viable way to split water is electrolysis ???

The trouble is it's not efficient.
Most hydrogen is produced from hydrocarbon fuels, releasing the
carbon as carbon dioxide. Only around 2-3% comes from electrolysis
because it's much more expensive.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

What on earth are they up to?
Kind of reminds me of the huge amount used by some of those laser driven
fusion devices popular a few years back, until they realised the real issue
is containment and energy extraction.
Brian

--
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This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
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Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Mike Tomlinson" wrote in message
...

"German scientists are switching on 'the world's largest artificial sun'
in the hope that intense light sources can be used to generate climate-
friendly fuel"

"The Synlight experiment in Jülich, about 19 miles west of Cologne,
consists 149 souped-up film projector spotlights and produces light
about 10,000 times the intensity of natural sunlight on Earth"

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...orlds-largest-
artificial-sun-german-scientists-activate-synlight

or http://tinyurl.com/ka75qet

They're coy about how much energy it uses. "four hours of operation
consumes as much electricity as a four-person household in a year".
Many more of these and they'll need to bring their nukes back online

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) "Between two evils, I always pick
(")_(") the one I never tried before." - Mae West

On Thursday, 23 March 2017 20:38:28 UTC, Mike Tomlinson wrote:
En el artÃ*culo , Chris Hogg
escribió:

I think several of these 'solar furnace' arrays are in financial
difficulties, and aren't producing as much power as was claimed in
their various prospectuses.

Funnily enough, I've just re-watched Danny Boyle's "Sunshine".

They also cause significant harm to bird
life. Any bird that flies through the concentrated beam of sunlight is
instantly incinerated and falls to the ground leaving a trail of
smoke. The ground in front of the central collector is littered with
partially incinerated corpses.

I was going to suggest scarecrows, but that would be a bit mean.

Wind farms also kill birds, though I have no idea of relative numbers.

Both these sound like another level in angry birds I haven't come across.

On Thu, 23 Mar 2017 17:03:26 +0000, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

"German scientists are switching on 'the world's largest artificial sun'
in the hope that intense light sources can be used to generate climate-
friendly fuel"

What does "generate climate friendly fuel" really mean? Grow stuff?

Spliting water to get Hydrogen is a non-starter. When you burn the
hydrogen you can only get back what you shoved in to split the water.
Losses mean the overall system needs an external energy source bigger
than the useful energy you get. May as well try and use that energy
source directly a skip the water to hydrogen conversion loses.

What we need to do is work out what green plants did millions of
years ago. ie how to convert CO2 and H20 into sugar and oxygen at
normal temperatures and pressures with just a bit of sunlight. Or
better still get at the process at the point were there is free
hydrogen kicking about before it's combined with the carbon.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 24/03/2017 10:20, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 23 Mar 2017 17:03:26 +0000, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

"German scientists are switching on 'the world's largest artificial sun'
in the hope that intense light sources can be used to generate climate-
friendly fuel"

What does "generate climate friendly fuel" really mean? Grow stuff?

Spliting water to get Hydrogen is a non-starter. When you burn the
hydrogen you can only get back what you shoved in to split the water.
Losses mean the overall system needs an external energy source bigger
than the useful energy you get. May as well try and use that energy
source directly a skip the water to hydrogen conversion loses.

They want to power hydrogen cars.
They need to make it look green.
They will probably try and use solar to do it.
If they can do it on a micro scale and get everyone to fit a solar
collector that produces hydrogen and some way to collect it up they will
be OK, however, they have no chance of that!

On 24/03/2017 11:57, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 10:20:37 +0000, Dave Liquorice wrote:

What we need to do is work out what green plants did millions of years
ago. ie how to convert CO2 and H20 into sugar and oxygen at normal
temperatures and pressures with just a bit of sunlight. Or better still
get at the process at the point were there is free hydrogen kicking
about before it's combined with the carbon.

There is still some work going on - quietly - in microbiology, looking at
direct fermentation of cellulose (i.e. grass and green biomass). There
are some bugs/yeasts/microbes that can ferment cellulose to alcohol
(which is then immediately available as a fuel). The problem is they are
sloooooooowwwwwwww. The need speeding up by a factor of 100, at least.

You can speed it up by scaling it up so that isn't the problem.
All you need is a few million litres going at once rather than a few
thousand litres.

I suspect there are other problems that are stopping it.

On Fri, 24 Mar 2017 11:57:51 -0000 (UTC), Jethro_uk wrote:

What we need to do is work out what green plants did millions of
years
ago. ie how to convert CO2 and H20 into sugar and oxygen at normal
temperatures and pressures with just a bit of sunlight. Or better
still
get at the process at the point were there is free hydrogen
kicking
about before it's combined with the carbon.

There is still some work going on - quietly - in microbiology, looking
at direct fermentation of cellulose (i.e. grass and green biomass).

Not the same as photosythesis, which I get the impression is a bit
like a bubble bee. The theory says bubble bees can't fly, but they
do. The theory says photosynthesis isn't possible, but plants do it.
They are getting there ISTR that it's down to molecular shapes and
possibly moving molecular shapes that strip electrons from the
oxygen.

There are some bugs/yeasts/microbes that can ferment cellulose to
alcohol (which is then immediately available as a fuel). The problem is
they are sloooooooowwwwwwww. The need speeding up by a factor of 100, at
least.

Or have a bigger tank. B-)

The same reason why despite the best use of UK solar energy to heat
your water via roof panels, everyone rushed into these ****ty PEV panels
that are bleeding the grid dry.

And the Domestic RHI insists that Solar Thermal is domestic hot water
only. Bung some solar thermal panels onto a heat bank that does
anything other than ho****er and you can't get the RHI for them. So
much for any "Incentive" to use less fossil based energy.

The solar thermal here does noticeably reduce the amount of oil we
burn over the summer period.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
idual.net...
On Thu, 23 Mar 2017 17:03:26 +0000, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

"German scientists are switching on 'the world's largest artificial sun'
in the hope that intense light sources can be used to generate climate-
friendly fuel"

What does "generate climate friendly fuel" really mean?

That hydrogen is a climate friendly fuel. Got other real downsides tho.

Grow stuff?

Nope.

Spliting water to get Hydrogen is a non-starter. When you burn the
hydrogen you can only get back what you shoved in to split the water.
Losses mean the overall system needs an external energy source bigger
than the useful energy you get. May as well try and use that energy
source directly a skip the water to hydrogen conversion loses.

Not if you use nukes to generate the hydrogen directly.

Tho what that would do if there was nothing but hydrogen
used as fuel is less clear total result wise. Sure, the result of
using the fuel wouldn't be as bad as currently, but could
be a problem consumption of oxygen wise and there would
presumably be other combustion products than water too.

What we need to do is work out what green plants did millions of
years ago. ie how to convert CO2 and H20 into sugar and oxygen
at normal temperatures and pressures with just a bit of sunlight.

Makes more sense to use plants to do that since they do that so well.

Or better still get at the process at the point were there is free
hydrogen kicking about before it's combined with the carbon.

Easier said than done.

On 24/03/17 17:41, Jethro_uk wrote:
a suggestion that evolution itself - in the area of genetic
combination - has picked up on the quantum world ...

What an extraordinary statement.

If the world - the One True World -is Quantum, how can one 'pick up on
the quantum world'.

Even if its just a human model the only thing that can 'pick up on it'
will be a human being.

--
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels