Do you see it as being a major energy resource, or is it just too costly?
How much longer do you think it will be before solar energy finds it's true niche?
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Do you see it as being a major energy resource, or is it just too costly?
How much longer do you think it will be before solar energy finds it's true niche?
The Brighter the Light the Darker the Shadow
Well, the solar constant is about 1000 kW/m^2.
The atmosphere probably absorbs at least half of that (as much of it is in the non-visible spectrum, in which the atmosphere is largely opaque).
The world energy consumption is of order 500*10^18 J/year.
Consider solar cells that are e% effective.
Thus, we would need to cover an area of (1/e)*30 km^2 with solar cells.
Assuming solar cell effectiveness of order 25-50% (which is very high), we'd need to cover an area the same order of magnitude as Manhattan with solar cells to cover the entire world's energy needs. Which is probably feasible, but would be one hell of an engineering feat both to build and maintain.
Hey look, Japan made a movie about me!
It lacks the reliability of hydro and wind power, and agin to bring up the issue of it's unreliability in northern countries.
Last edited by -GAZKUL-; 01-13-2011 at 12:42 PM.
yes, but when you think about it economically, that's probably a really good thing. It is big and complicated, which means that there's going to be a very massive need for a lot of workers- a lot of people, whom otherwise wouldn't have a job.
and given that it would most likely be made down here in the southwestern area of the US, where the largest concentration of Sun comes from, there should be no shortages of 'help wanted'.
The Brighter the Light the Darker the Shadow
Not just any workers off the street, though. This is precision engineering, so most workers would require fairly extensive education to be useful. And you'd probably need one facility on each continent (Southwestern US, The Sahara, The Gobi, and some other similar locations).
Hey look, Japan made a movie about me!
I say its still inefficient until they're able to come up with solar panels that are able to absorb a wider range of solar waves. It's to costly for now. And even if it wasn't, wouldn't that totally destroy the economy of other energy sources?
If all power was to be generated in one spot, wouldn't that be the #1 terrorist target? I'd say spread them centrals around the world. o_o
Hey look, Japan made a movie about me!
Forget solar bro, wind power is where it's at. Well, I'm only saying that as I live in a very windy, non sunny country.
This is a Sig. It's horribly out of date.
The problem with wind is not so much feasibility, but rather limitation of resources.
The way we have windmills set up now is great and everything, but you have to remember, that to get the energy from the wind, you need to take it out of the wind. Meaning, that if we were to REALLY scale things up to a point were they'd be super efficient, we'd take so much energy out of the wind, that... well, there wouldn't be any wind left. o_O; which, has pretty nasty consequences on the environment if you think about it..
The Brighter the Light the Darker the Shadow
I had to do the math for my environmental science class and a solar panel that would cover all the electric energy for my family would cost over $52,000.00 and would take over 39 years to pay itself off. That's way to expensive to consider, especially since my parents gross annual income is less than $45,000 and they live on a fixed income. All of those damn hippies who keep preaching about alternative energy can suck my bleep.
Last edited by Eris; 01-17-2011 at 03:29 PM.
Hey look, Japan made a movie about me!
All these innovative alternative energies are nice as supplements, but they are probably not, actually, they are not, ready to become the main form of energy production yet.
I highly doubt any of our world leaders will be thinking about solar energy as an alternative to the 'magic liquid' that happens to run everything.
Its also unlikely, because the Sun goes away each day and doesnt tell us where its going.
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