While we're on the subject of low-tech solar energy, what's the current state of concentrated solar power (CSP)? The US Department of Energy's SunShot initiative continues to invest in both photovoltaics and CSP, such as plants built with parabolic trough collectors. These are mirrors that focus sunlight on a working fluid like water or air, which in turn drives a turbine to generate electric power. One advantage of these systems is the ability to store thermal energy directly in large, relatively cheap batteries for on-demand generation:
Their solution of storing thermal energy in molten salt isn't exactly low-tech, but other CSP systems use cheaper thermal storage materials like sand or basalt, which avoid the geopolitical and environmental problems of lithium extraction. Of course, PV panels can dump power into thermal batteries too. Maybe PV farms with huge thermal batteries of sand or basalt will be the best long-term grid-scale solution.
My understanding is that photovoltaic panels are ultimately cheaper to operate. Cost is driving a lot of decisions in this space. Less moving parts, no plumbing, etc. So, as a means for generating electricity, that just looks like one is clearly better than the other.
For storage, there are many other ways to store energy and that too is driven by cost. Dumping heat into salts, basalt, etc. are all attractive propositions from a material cost point of view. Converting heat back into energy is somewhat inefficient however. But these systems are great for providing long term energy storage for e.g. heating systems needed in the winter.
Of course, winters in Nevada are pretty short and warm. I visited Las Vegas in the middle of the winter once. It was very warm. Reno is a bit colder but also has short winters.
They claim to be deploying a 4MW demonstrator unit sometime this year. As I imagine it, a system like this one could charge smaller (in-home) batteries that provide immediate power on demand. As the batteries begin to drain, the turbine has time to spin up. The chemical batteries act as a buffer for turbine downtime and/or response time. Sort of like a Prius hybrid powertrain. The required chemical battery capacity would be much smaller than, say, a grid-scale lithium ion battery bank.
Concentrated solar power requires a large amount of precision mechanics, with robust supporting structures. Since the support structures are already a large share of the cost of photovoltaic panels, anything that increases its costs has this obvious downside. (And probably will get less and less investment over time. I wouldn't be surprised if heating something with photovoltaic panels and an electric arc isn't already cheaper than CSP.)
We don't need low-tech options. We have all that tech that we can use right now. Instead, the non-viability of all low-tech options is exactly what led us into this grave global warming situation we are.
It's also interesting where we choose to draw the line for what's considered "low-tech." The most common method for producing monocrystalline silicon was invented in 1915, and doesn't produce that much waste or involve exotic materials:
Oh, ok. I don't think PV fare any worse than CSP on that. In fact, CSP needs so many independent engineering domains that it's probably among the worst things you can choose on that metric.
For generating electricity, in dollar terms the Levelized Cost Of Electricity (LCOE) of PV is definitely much less than CSP. I don't know the current numbers, though. However, it is not clear to me if in terms of impact on environment, which technology is better. Even more unclear is if it makes sense (in terms of environmental impact) to scale either of the technologies to double digit percentage of the world's electricity requirements.
However, when I last did the calculations, passive CSP is much better at hot water generation for industrial applications - leather/textile factories need a lot of hot water or steam. CSP can at least cheaply pre-heat if not fully heat or boil the water.
Concentrated solar has some minor applications for high heat needs, but for electricity it is totally superceded by PV.
Once you start storing lower temp heat, not intended to generate electricity, then its totally abstracted from the input, you just use grid electricity which can be solar, wind, nuclear or industrial waste heat and locate them anywhere, not just desert locations.
But more importantly, there are no real geopolitical or environmental problems with lithium. It's abundant and recyclable. We're using it because the alternatives are so bad for the environment. Literally killing people, plus animals and ecosystems.
Or maybe he's smart enough to know that "I got coup'd because I was going to nationalise some industry" was too much of a "dog bites man" story, and that "I got coup'd for EVs" was going to be more viral and therefore draw more global attention.
Just like we talk about "Banana Republics" rather than "Worker Mistreatment Republics".
Maybe it's the people who don't want to pay the market price for things and respect environmental and worker regulations when they can topple democratic governments for less cash that are the real "geopolitical problem" not the lithium and bananas?
I mean what could we possibly do if a country with Lithium jacked the price up? Buy it from all the other countries with the broadly distributed Lithium deposits? Mine it in our own countries which also have Lithium? Then we're back in the problem situation of having to treat the workers like human beings and pay standard market rates.
There are companies, such as Heliogen, that are working on the next generation of CSP with higher temperatures and the use of lower cost thermal storage. It will be interesting to see how their systems work at scale.
The unsolved problem here is that they kill birds in a pretty unpleasant way, setting them on fire. I'm going to ignore utilitarian arguments about what else kills birds, the general public doesn't like the idea of birds being immolated by the fiery rays of the Sun and neither do I.
I don't think it would take many drones to eliminate this, though. Birds don't like coming near drones and when you have a huge tower with oversight of the region you need to protect, finding the birds well before they combust seems tractable.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/linear-concentrator-system...
The Crescent Dunes CSP plant in Nevada had a number of stumbles, but appears to be generating power again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Pr...
Their solution of storing thermal energy in molten salt isn't exactly low-tech, but other CSP systems use cheaper thermal storage materials like sand or basalt, which avoid the geopolitical and environmental problems of lithium extraction. Of course, PV panels can dump power into thermal batteries too. Maybe PV farms with huge thermal batteries of sand or basalt will be the best long-term grid-scale solution.