West said;
Bazz your argument doesn’t make sense, go out to your nearest highway
and count the cars that will give you a little insight into production capacity of the industrial world.
unquote

It is one thing to make cars in a factory, and granted if that industrial capacity was doubled
you might be able to manufacture
equipment for every home, shop etc etc in the world but can you install and maintain it ?
You can't take it to your local service place for service ? Or could you ? Probably not the batteries would be too heavy.
Think of all the poorer economies where not every
house has a car, they will have to be supplied with solar, wind mills and batteries as well.
The solar cell material is already in some supply difficulty from what I have read.
Battery maintenance on this scale is a major problem to such an extent
that it may rule it out altogether. I was way back in history involved with
large scale battery maintenance and it is no simple matter.
Is there enough lead/nickle/lithium available ?
Perhaps not on this scale.

I'll see if I can do a calculation on how long it would take to
install a system and then see how long it would take to fit out Sydney
with say 1000 installation techs. Technical people are pretty thin on
the ground these days but it might be possible to retrain enough people.

Bazz you dont have to have a battery in every home , it is more economical to use communal storage. Energy usage can be cut through architecture and uban design and cultural changes. Most people consume more energy than they actually need even if frivolous use is taken as a need. Any problems encountered with solar is nothing compared with nuclear energy. Nuclear power has no future, there is nothing that can be done about that , there just is not the uranium to support current supply in the medium term. Nuclear energy is just not cost effective , where it exists it requires vast subsidies from government to enable the population to afford it. Nuclear powerstations have short life spans of which the public have to pay for containment. Nuclear power stations create more greenhouse gas in their construction and power up than is saved in their short life time. The power generation capacity of nuclear energy is not more effeciant than coal. There is just simply no point to nuclear energy , it is a dinosaur industry.

Yes, but West what do you suggest is used for communial storage ?
Batteries ? Of course that is possible and battery banks as large as
a Coles supermarket might well support the local community during the night.
Well if you say it quickly enough it might.
Having community batteries does solve that problem just shifts it and
its maintenance and financial charges elsewhere.
Was it community battery banks you were suggesting ?
Don't forget the sun will set on all the community at the same time as
will the wind dropping.
Just don't be on the local hospital operating table when the battery goes flat.
I think I would rather rely on maintaining my own batteries but then I
and a few others are a special case. We have the technical capability
to look after ourselves.
Think of all the old ladies and gents you know who don't know one end
of a soldering iron from the other.

I suspect that you are locked into the mantra that nuclear can never
be used, no matter what. Wait till the lights go out and the public is
told that there will be restrictions on what you can use and when.
They will be marching in the streets for nuclear power then.

Why do you think they are attempting to install Broadband Powerline ?
The new meters will include the facility to shut you off completely or
turn off your heavy loads such as stoves, ovens and air conditioning.

I agree that nuclear is not a good solution but it is way ahead of whatever is in second place.

Bazz,
You appear to cherry pick which question to attack. Too much storage capacity demand means no lights at night.
Great!
We can get some sleep, turn of the moronoscope and rediscover the stars and crickets.
All good so far.

Not enough materials to create the required solar cells?

I think West answered that effectively, 'go out to your nearest highway and count the cars'

And the expense … ?
Billions spent on nuclear power plants and monthly electricity bills ad infinitum, then there's the question of disposal and storage of nuclear waste, decommissioning etc.

That will pay for a lot of solar panels.

Of course, with nuclear power we get more security paranoia, so more police, more population surveillance and control, more fear-driven election campaigns and the ever tightening grip of Big Brother.

So, get a life Bazz and Wayne.

Put solar panels on your roof, chuck out the energy-greedy consumer junk, turn in when it gets dark, wake with the cock's crow, ride your bike, take time to smell the flowers and enjoy your time on earth.

Obviously Bazz is unaware that hospitals have back-up generators to take over when the main power source fails. So it matters not of the main energy source, there will always be some type of energy back-up in hospitals!

You don't seriously think that the all-powerful coal industry will close its doors with the advent of a few nuclear reactors, do you Bazz? And what to do in the meantime whilst the Neros fiddle away for at least a decade or two, reluctant to change the status quo?

Mandatory solar panels on all new roofs would result in fewer profits for the coal industry and a mitigation of the need to go nuclear!

That would be a start and could be easily enforced!

Accent:
When I questioned the material availability I was on about the materials used to make solar cells, not cars.
There has been comment in the electronics media about a shortage of material.
The same situation could very much be the limiting factor in
batteries, depending on what type became the most used.
The elctronics in the regulators and invertors might be manageable to
manufacture for every building in the world.
I think you are hung up on an anti nuclear mantra.
You need to come down off your cloud and get your hands dirty.

Dickie:
I am well aware of hospital standby generators, I used to
work in that field. Almost none of them are no break so don't be on
the operating table when the changover occurs.
When peak oil starts to bight who says that they
will have diesal anyway. The idea is to do away with coal & oil,
I thought that was what it was all about ?

You can mandate solar cells on every new roof, but there will be a lot less
new roofs going up in the future so it will have negligible effect.
If I wasn't involved in other things I would like to install
a solar/wind system as a technical excercise and even you two might
learn something from it. To get the power required, no gas here, would
be a very expensive exercise. a very rough adding up of the sums
puts it into the area of $8000 to $10,000 with nill labour.
Minimium power capability for lights, TV set & computer and some other gear
but no cooking perhaps $3000.
How many in the world could make that capital outlay even if they will
save on electricity bills in the future.

I seem to be the only one on here with the technical knowledge so
where you assume that all this is just a matter of doing it I see
the repeated catch 22s, and know that it is not that easy.
I don'r have all the answers, I just know the questions.