Status on alternative energy

[What_Exit]

@WarmNPrickly

We agree then. I’m not saying that solar can’t be part of the solution, but I think in the next 10-20 years it won’t be a major part of the solution. Even if you go with the mythical 100% efficient solar panels, you still have to cover about 180 square miles solid with solar panels and that still assumes no peak demand, perpetual noontime sun, no clouds and panels that don’t degrade in efficiency over time. That is based on the cite I gave previously for 22% efficient solar panels. I simply divided 909 by 5 to get 180. In reality, I think they are unlikely to get above 40% efficiency in the near future. Producing solar panels like this on a massive scale would be a tad more daunting than anything the US government has ever done and private industry is entirely useless for such things.

It is likely that the PV will get into the 40% range within 10 years, the various cheaper solutions they are working toward would all appear to be in the 20% range but should be far cheaper.

It will become a matter of all new houses having some form of Solar Panels/Collectors installed once the price comes down. These would be in place of the current shingles that do little. The better designed houses and more efficient appliances will make a big difference, possibly bigger than solar.

Nuclear will probably have an increased role, but some country is going to end up moving on it before us. I predict China, as they won’t care about protesters and NIMBY.

We can and I believe we will start cleaning up our coal plants and it makes sense to keep using coal for many more decades as we have such a huge resource. So I don’t think we need to replace coal, just oil and natural gas.

Wind Farms will help, but they have been a tough sale when even Ted Kennedy help squash a major wind farm in Massachusetts and fairly liberal states like New Jersey also cannot seem to get the plans approved. A plan to put a farm off Belmar, NJ was shot down. This is why I think Solar will continue to grow. Most people think Solar Panel look interesting at least. I wish I had installed a large amount, I only have 6700 watts and I should have gone for 7500 watts.

They work well almost anywhere you can get good southern exposure and they are extremely low maintenance. Many of the fears projected my a few posters are incorrect.

They are expected to have a 20-25 year lifespan.
They protect the roof while they generate power.
The panels effectively self-clean.
The snow comes off of them within hours of the sun being out. (So far up to 9-10" for me.)
Because of the nature of snow, power is still generated at a reduced rate before the snow falls off.
You do not need to buy batteries, this is often mentioned but there is no need.
As electricity has gone up faster than the projected 3%, the payback on mine will actually be much faster than I expected. (The state paid for 70% of the panel and install cost at the time, as I was an early adopter. Now the rebate system is below 50%)
I also get green credits that I have been selling to BP for roughly $500 to $600 per year to help the payback even quicker.

Jim

[wevets]

@WarmNPrickly

Wow! Good point! In fact if you take each car to be 6 by 20 ft then 909 square miles only requires that you make 211 million extremely fragile, highly sensitive to impurities complex electronics that decay in efficiency over time to accomplish the task, assuming the solar panels are at the equator with no clouds during perpetual noontime light.

You sure showed me. It is practical!

Sarcasm jam works so much better when it’s not thinly spread over straw man.
You’re trying to pursue a cost argument (saying solar is too costly) by presenting figures on the surface area required. :dubious:

If I were you, I’d concentrate less on saying that 909 square miles of solar panels is too much and I’d concentrate more on saying that $1585500 billion* is too much to spend. Of course, you’re free to think square miles are a unit of measuring cost, but it doesn’t seem that anyone agrees with you.

I don’t think it’s likely that solar will account for more than 20% of US electrical generation anytime before the year 2050, but after that I stop thinking anything we know now will give us a good idea of what the future might look like.

*At $3.5 billion per 1000 MW of solar, then 453,000 additional MW of solar power will cost that much at 2007 prices. 2007 prices won’t represent the actual cost of solar power in the future, but at least it’s in the right units.