# Wind Power: Promising? Or hot air? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2002, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wind-power-promising-or-hot-air/126375 "2002-08-30T22:15:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wind-power-promising-or-hot-air/126375/21 "2002-09-04T04:02:13Z")
Narile, While it is interesting to know the efficiency of photovoltaics (and I’ll take your word on the numbers), you have hardly explained why a 33% efficiency somehow dooms them. I mean there is a freakin’ lot of sunlight available for the harvesting…The fact that we only get a conversion rate of 33% of the sunlight that falls onto a cell into electricity does not necessarily mean they won’t be at least a useful part of our energy future. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wind-power-promising-or-hot-air/126375/22 "2002-09-04T05:12:56Z")
> [@](#): > > In France, where fossil fuels are less subsidized, nuclear has competed a lot better … Don’t know what sort of subsidies it gets there. It didn’t compete at all. All nuclear power plants are build and run by a state-owned company (actually, _all_ power plants, nuclear or not). Favoring nuclear power (which provides something like 70% or 75% of the electicity) was and is a political choice. It makes France less dependant of imports (since France doesn’t have oil and few coal which could be extracted at a competitive price). Perhaps it’s also cheaper, but I really don’t know since I don’t know to which extent investments made in building these power plants or even in research are taken into account in the overall cost of electricity. I guess I should try to know… ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wind-power-promising-or-hot-air/126375/23 "2002-09-04T15:01:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jshore \* > \*\*Narile, > While it is interesting to know the efficiency of photovoltaics (and I’ll take your word on the numbers), you have hardly explained why a 33% efficiency somehow dooms them. I mean there is a freakin’ lot of sunlight available for the harvesting…The fact that we only get a conversion rate of 33% of the sunlight that falls onto a cell into electricity does not necessarily mean they won’t be at least a useful part of our energy future. \*\* This blurb is from the same source (James Lacey) quoted in the OP. (Whether or not he’s a mouthpiece for big oil and or polluters I do not know): > [@](#): > > Oh, and producing 300,000 MW of power (that 15% goal) using solar energy would require blanketing every state on either side of the Mississippi with photovoltaic cells - and finding some way to dispense with clouds. Very general statement; I can’t vouch for its’ accuracy. Blanketing, to me means completely covering. If that’s the case, just keep em of my property and off Jones Beach. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2002, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wind-power-promising-or-hot-air/126375/24 "2002-09-04T17:26:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Oh, and producing 300,000 MW of power (that 15% goal) using solar energy would require blanketing every state on either side of the Mississippi with photovoltaic cells - and finding some way to dispense with clouds. I am very sure this is wrong. I looked into this when California was having energy problems. The following site says .8 kW/m^2 is about how much energy we get from the sun at the surface of the earth in Germany. I am assuming here they are not taking into account the latitude of Germany If they are the following calculations get a little better for solar power. [http://www.solarserver.de/lexikon/solarkonstante-e.html](http://www.solarserver.de/lexikon/solarkonstante-e.html) My electric bill is 305kW hours per month. Assuming a latitude of 30 deg. I will get about .70 kW/m^2 of land. Further assuming I get only about 5 hours of good sun a day and a 20% efficient solar panel I need about 17 M^2 of land This is about 12 ft by 12 ft. That is a lot of solar panels but a long way from blanketing the entire west if every body also put up solar panels. Using the same assumptions what is needed to generate 300,000 MW of power is 2140 kM^2 but that is only when the sun is shinning which is does usefully only for 5 hours a day so you really need about 4.8 times as much land or about 10 thousand square kilometers of land which is a square about 64 miles on a side. When I looked into this it would cost around 30K to get a setup to run my house. At $50 a month that is 50 years to pay back the cost assuming no maintenance costs, batteries last forever, I pay 0% interest on the loan. All of which are ludicrous assumptions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wind-power-promising-or-hot-air/126375.md?page=1)