I'm way behind in my reading, so apologies for the delay.
On Jan 23, 2008, at 7:04 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
A one acre pond = 4000 meters^2 Peak Solar irradiation = 1 kW/m^2 Average Solar irradiation = 500 watts/m^2 active hours per day (seasonally adjusted)= ~10
= 20 MWh/day
active hours per year = 36,000
= 3,600 days
total yearly irradiation/acre = 72 GW/hrs
= 72 GWh
energy value/acre (50% conversion eff, & electricity sold at wholesale- $.05 per kW-hr) = ~$1.8 million
This sounds so high that it must be in error ;-)
I think there is indeed an error in the above. I don;t know if anyone has provided corrections. The error is 10 active hours a day gives 3,600 active hours a year, not 36,000 hours. So, that gives $180,000 /acre, which is huge. However, 50% conversion efficiency is probably way too high for any form of biologic energy conversion. Even 5% is probably high. Still, $18,000/ acre-year is a mighty fine yield, depending on the cost of the inputs.
Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
