05-30-2007, 07:05 AM
Quote:and I'm sorry. Just do the math. Sunlight is a very dilute form of energy, about 1000 W/m2 so if this is incident on a solar panel of 10% efficiency then only 100W is produced per square meter of panel. Calculate just what you would use, and then the cost of the contraption to capture and store the energy to be available when you need it.
Solar Power has been a boondoggle trumpeted by the technically illiterate for over 30 years as the savior of our energy woes. The only boon in Solar Power has been for those people who have been feeding at the government trough of grants, rebates, and salaries. Solar power is too dilute to be practical in solving any major energy need. This is why you don't see a rush to cover the deserts of the USA with solar panels. As for home use, again, the energy and material costs to produce the panels are too expensive compared to buying electricity from a power plant. Those consumers gullible enough to put a $12,000 to $20,000 unit on their roofs (with the 20 year payback if the units are 100% reliable) have hardly been so impressed as to herald them as the solution for the rest of us.
Sources of Electric Power
So, the power plants will continue to burn fossil fuels filling the atmosphere with those unwanted green house gases. The supposed "Greens" will continue point at the unfounded fantasy of cheap, abundant, clean, solar power and other solar related "soft energies" as the prim rosed trail.
First as you read, I said that according to me alternative energy sources will never give us enough energy if we don't change ourt lifestile....the same as also oil will not do.
But I don't agree with your words on solar energy panels. I know about quite a lot of research that is done on the cell using titaniumdioxide for example. These things can be used already, they are in the perfectioning phase now. Although not giving the same yield as silicon based solar cells these things are much much cheaper. And because thin layers of TiO2 are transparent you can build these things even in windows. In the future (I'm sure about this) everybody will cover his house in these things (windows, walls, roof etc.). Try googling e.g. the "gratzel cell" for more info. There is so much research done on these things nowadays that big scale commercialization will be just a matter of time.