Solar Energy

[dwarven]

Enough energy hits the earth from the sun per hour to power the world for a year. Why is it that our solar technology is so rudimentary? I have an answer that I think could be accurate, but I just want to hear your thoughts.

[semaphore]

Not enough investments. A significant part of which can be blamed on people promoting fossil fuels in the fact of global warming. The cheapness of fossil fuels represent a market failure where the true costs of the action is not accurately reflected by the market prices. Consequently it crowded out alternative sources of energy until very recently when policy changes started.

[obdigore]

Not enough investments. A significant part of which can be blamed on people promoting fossil fuels in the fact of global warming. The cheapness of fossil fuels represent a market failure where the true costs of the action is not accurately reflected by the market prices. Consequently it crowded out alternative sources of energy until very recently when policy changes started.

This is a pretty good analysis. Lots of money in fossil fuels, and continuing to use them are cheaper than solar energy and have been that way for decades. As they start to get rarer that will change, but we are still a bit away from that. I support the government funding research into this area now, so that it becomes an alternative before we run out of fossil fuels.

[Warpaladin]

Solar energy is great the only problem I can think of is the amount of room it takes -- solar plants/fields are huge!

[Omnoms]

Also the transportation method is... not amazing. Exporting solar energy in the shape of liqified salts is how they do at the moment, but issue with it is... well, it cools down so that a great deal of the power is lost in the process.

[Deleted]

The OPEC countries are lobbying and threatening to make gas expensive and even cut down on extraction rates, should any serious effort be put into alternative energy world wide. This is why attempts and inventions of alternative fuels are being shot down almost instantly, even though some are far from being as inefficient as the governments say.

In the governments' defense, there isn't much they can do but to oblige to OPEC's blackmail. You will see mankind won't be in any danger even after the oil resources run out, as the good alternate fuel recipies are in secret storages and will be implemented when there will be serious hints at the oil running out.

[dwarven]

Solar energy is great the only problem I can think of is the amount of room it takes -- solar plants/fields are huge!

Exactly. So why aren't they more efficient when other areas of technology have improved dramatically. We have a super computer with over a million CPUs and 96,000 terabytes of memory and we're still using internal combustion engines. As a semaphore stated, it seems to be an issue of money. If every home had a super-efficient solar array, the only cost for energy would be a one time investment in the array and subsequent repairs down the line. I feel that oil companies want to milk every last dollar out of th world's oil supply.

[Bolson13]

I don't know about the technology but here in the Netherlands, a lot of people want solar panels on their roof these days. Free electricity + the quality (as in how easy it breaks) seems okay. And if you are cheap with your usage you can actually make a little off of it as well.

But I think northern Europe is used to paying rediculous prices for our energy. So then it is cost effective.

October first our VAT will increase and we will be paying €2,00 per liter. That is $9,86 a gallon (it feels wrong but that is what I got calculated)

[herpecin]

companies would rather get $50 a week, every week, every year, from you using fossil fuels. then get $5000 once for selling you solar panels.

its a rather simple economic idea.

it doesnt take up that much space, strategically placed it would take less then 1% of the earths land mass covered in solar power facilities to power the world. the areas that are the best for solar power are places people dont live anyways.

however in order to properly do it you would need a global electrical network, where the day side feeds the night side.

they dont move molten salts around, those solar plants are actually steam turbine plants(just like nuclear, natural gas, and coal plants), they use the heat to heat up the salts then transfer that heat to water to super heat it to something like 700 degrees F without it boiling, then when it does boil it expands to something like 3000x its volume. they do this so that the plant will remain functional and creating electricity at night time.

while that isnt a perfect solution, it is a solution to a problem that wouldnt exist if we had a global electrical system.

[Hypro]

I think its to do with there are places that dont get a lot of sunlight and its limited.. while i have solar panels on my house

[chazus]

Having worked in the solar energy field (sales, maintenance, lobbying) for a few years, there is a LOT more involved than simply "Its cheap, its good, why don't we use it".

It's many of the same reasons we don't have definitive treatments for cancer or HIV. Having an answer, a product, a solution, doesn't mean it gets implemented, or done well. Ignoring the political and business reasons (government blocking, business blocking), there are a LARGE number of reasons that Solar isn't invested in to a greater degree. It might be relatively cheap to the consumer, but the consumer is not the only person involved.

If you think that you just go to the store and buy a solar panel, slap it on your roof, plug it in and save money, you're sorely mistaken. It's not consumer ignorance or anything, there's just a LOT of work that goes into implementing it correctly. I wouldn't be surprised if half the people on this form aren't even eligible to have panels installed in their area.

[Arch0s]

Enough energy hits the earth from the sun per hour to power the world for a year. Why is it that our solar technology is so rudimentary? I have an answer that I think could be accurate, but I just want to hear your thoughts.

The same can be said about harnessing tidal energy yet, we don't....

[Djuntas]

Solar panels, in its current form are not a worthy thing cause of the price.

Say you live inn a average sized house. You can save up to 2000 dollars inn heating bill's a year, if you have solar panels (Thats what I read anyway, do correct me if wrong) on your roof, but the problem is the cost to get it. I belive you need to live inn that house for more than 12 years, before it pay's itself home.

Now ofcourse, 12 years is not alot of time for a houseowner, you can plan ahead, but things like that dosen't help promote solar panels.


Its the same thing with windmill's. A great idea on paper, but it cannot store power and are insanely costly (To a point where windmill's are more of an invesment than anything else), just like solar panels cannot generate electricy without sun aswell. All in all, we need new, better green technology, in order to really make a difference. Its like we need to invent the damn wheel again imo =/

[Bolson13]

Solar panels, in its current form are not a worthy thing cause of the price.

Say you live inn a average sized house. You can save up to 2000 dollars inn heating bill's a year, if you have solar panels (Thats what I read anyway, do correct me if wrong) on your roof, but the problem is the cost to get it. I belive you need to live inn that house for more than 12 years, before it pay's itself home.

Now ofcourse, 12 years is not alot of time for a houseowner, you can plan ahead, but things like that dosen't help promote solar panels.


Its the same thing with windmill's. A great idea on paper, but it cannot store power and are insanely costly (To a point where windmill's are more of an invesment than anything else), just like solar panels cannot generate electricy without sun aswell. All in all, we need new, better green technology, in order to really make a difference. Its like we need to invent the damn wheel again imo =/

Hmm, here in our cloudy country they say it is 8 years and the average age of when they need to be replaced is 16-20 years. And if you sell your house, solar panels actually increase the value.

Also, they are installed by proffesionals in general. I don't exactly know what Chazus means by being eligable but as I said, it is not that sunny here most of the time and apparently people still find it worth the money (we do have a lot smaller houses + the high oil prices which increases the price of all energy sources).

[chazus]

I belive you need to live inn that house for more than 12 years, before it pay's itself home.

Not only that but consider on top of that...

-Emergency maintenance if damaged
-Regular maintenance every 2-3 years
-Newer tech coming out every 2-3 years making current investment either obsolete, or a waste of money if you wait a bit longer
-Energy taxes (yes, you usually have to pay money to the energy company for them to support your grid)
-Moving to a new house

[Julian Rayne]

They should make windmills that have solar panels for vanes.

[chazus]

I don't exactly know what Chazus means by being eligable

Some places simply cannot support a solar power system being hooked up to their energy grid.

It's the same concept of not having Cable TV or DSL in your area. The technology to support it simply isn't installed there.

[Mikael123]

If you compare solar energy to other renewable sources of energy, you'll find that solar energy is an expensive solution. Solar energy has a much larger dollar per watt ratio than for example wind energy.

[Slummish]

Solar energy is great the only problem I can think of is the amount of room it takes -- solar plants/fields are huge!

This is an "okay" answer, but the truth is, the surface area needed to power the planet is right around 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles). This is slightly less space than the U.S. state of Montana. That's not a bad trade off for eventually-inexpensive, renewable energy. If you broke these sites up into smaller portions based on the geographical energy consumption rates, you're looking at about 20-25 sites of varying size. You would run into problems in densely-populated areas of Earth (India, Europe, etc). But for the most part, the planet has more than enough room.

I can't imagine the constant dusting the panels would require, but I guess it would put a bunch of poor people to work...

[Deleted]

Ive seen a documentary about someone in Africa, who bought ,with some goat(2 or 3), enough solar panel to give electricity to all is village.

Im sure that if we use those panel on our roof, we will have some nice amount of energy!