OT Solar power.

[harryagain]

Not be long before it's the same here. No wonder the mine owners in Oz are getting so desperate to export their coal.

[Adrian]

That's one hell of an extrapolation. The UK is somewhat different to Australia, both in terms of available sunshine and in terms of the national grid infrastructure.

[Andy Burns]

You don't even need to read the article, the ifs and buts are in the subhead

"solar could be economically viable" ^^^^^

Oh, when are we getting Aussie sunshine and monthly high temperatures from 36 to 49 degrees?

It'll give the Germans somewhere to buy mucky lignite from when they've finished devouring villages and motorways.

[Nightjar]

...

So, when do we get moved to the latitude of Egypt, which is roughly as far from the equator as Queensland?

[meow2222]

... a nonengineer writes an article on engineering.

NT

[whisky-dave]

data specialist ?

"data and software specialists like Google and Apple"

It's hardware where teh power saving will be made.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice for solar to be more viable but I wouldn;t want my fridge/freezer turning off at night.

[Nightjar]

They could be made to work that way, with enough insulation. Ice houses were capable of storing ice from one winter to another without any type of powered refrigeration.

[newshound]

They needed to be pretty big, though, at least before celotex. Also, they only held temperature at zero (thanks to latent heat) so not much good as *freezers*.

[Adrian]

It's not an article. It's an opinion blog.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I did the calculations once. IIRC 3 metres of stone castle wall fully meet modern insulation requirements and, if hung with tapestry, exceed it.

[Martin Brown]

Odd that their pricing system is quite so unstable.

Hell will freeze over first. UK latitude makes solar power here a joke.

Restricted mainly to lashings of hot water in mid summer just a handful of truly sunny days. Solar PV in the UK at >50N isn't cost effective.

Solar PV makes sense in hot sunny low latitude semitropical countries where there is a huge peak in aircon demand in the mid to late afternoon. Putting solar panels on a roof also slows heat ingress by shading it as an added benefit.

They used crushed ice and salt when they wanted to freeze things. The ice stored was from frozen natural pond water so never used directly.

[tony sayer]

Poor olde harry don't think he's ever been out of the UK;(.

Overcast and quite cool here at the moment looks like rain too;(.....

[Nightjar]

It was more the principle of being able to hold temperatures well below ambient for months on end without power that I was alluding to. It certainly wouldn't be beyond modern technology to build freezers that were intended to be powered for only a few hours a day.

[John Rumm]

It would interesting to know if there is anyone daft enough to think this is a good thing...

[John Rumm]

Not like he has an agenda either... much!

From his linkedin profile:

"Founder and Editor RenewEconomy January 2012 ? Present (2 years 7 months)Sydney

A new website focusing on renewable energy, cleantech, carbon, and climate. How Australia and the world tackles the challenges of adapting to new technologies."

[Brian Gaff]

What about at night though? Brian

[whisky-dave]

I don't think that happened in Australia perhaps the UK but even so not exactly practical for most people.

[whisky-dave]

Not many people owned or lived in castles with 3 metre thick walls. Also yuo can;t get below zero using water/ice can you ?

[Tim Watts]

You could with salt + water + ice :)

(Hint - Victorians had ice cream which needs

[whisky-dave]

There's always talk of new solar cells .

And a use for veganism too ;-)