11–20 of 226 posts
There's no shortage of open area to put solar panels. If we put a (nearly) continuous strip in every highway median, that would be a huge step forward, and still take up practically zero useable space. Even 1% of the federally owned land in the sun belt would generate an enormous amount of power.
I cannot imagine the revolution that solar power will produce if it can fall another 3-5x in the next 10 years. It is already at grid parity. Although my personal hope is for storage, inverters, controllers and other technologies to get cheaper. Especially longer term storage beyond 4 hours.
I think it’s unlikely you see any fossil generation in the mix in 10 years except in the most remote of locations (with no solar or wind potential). Wind and solar are already around 2 cents/kWh utility scale, and batteries are catching up. No fossil or nuclear generation can compete with that.
There's no shortage of open area to put solar panels. If we put a (nearly) continuous strip in every highway median, that would be a huge step forward, and still take up practically zero useable space. Even 1% of the federally owned land in the sun belt would generate an enormous amount of power.
"if the government were to take over the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of sand in five year" -- Milton Friedman (exaggerating, somewhat) Better to put them on home roofs, and arrange for them to be owned by the homeowners, designed so that the occupants are (literally) empowered when the grid is mismanaged, as in California. On highway medians control is more centralized, and they would require more mainte…
There's no shortage of open area to put solar panels. If we put a (nearly) continuous strip in every highway median, that would be a huge step forward, and still take up practically zero useable space. Even 1% of the federally owned land in the sun belt would generate an enormous amount of power.
There's no shortage of open area to put solar panels. If we put a (nearly) continuous strip in every highway median, that would be a huge step forward, and still take up practically zero useable space. Even 1% of the federally owned land in the sun belt would generate an enormous amount of power.
Just waiting for it to be economical in the nearer term and all of this stuff will magically start appearing. Everyone goes through the motions of thinking about solar solutions to energy, and then they realize how little power they provide and how many they need en masse and then scrap the idea. Once the math adds up for a quicker ROI, the plans will stop getting shelved and will be presented as novel by different p…
A link with details about the concept, minus the use of transparent solar panels: https://buildingradar.com/construction-blog/green-roofs/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"if the government were to take over the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of sand in five year" -- Milton Friedman (exaggerating, somewhat) Better to put them on home roofs, and arrange for them to be owned by the homeowners, designed so that the occupants are (literally) empowered when the grid is mismanaged, as in California. On highway medians control is more centralized, and they would require more mainte…
Solar panels on home roofs aren't necessarily configured to power the house without the grid. Also you would additionally need batteries and related hardware to have a usable source of power at any time, so unless your house is set up for off-grid solar, you still need the grid to be managed well.
There are two kinds of solar: one that adds to the existing signal from the mains, or one that is self-contained. The second kind is more complicated and therefore expensive. I wasn't aware of the distinction before, but I definitely am now.
There's no shortage of open area to put solar panels. If we put a (nearly) continuous strip in every highway median, that would be a huge step forward, and still take up practically zero useable space. Even 1% of the federally owned land in the sun belt would generate an enormous amount of power.
"if the government were to take over the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of sand in five year" -- Milton Friedman (exaggerating, somewhat) Better to put them on home roofs, and arrange for them to be owned by the homeowners, designed so that the occupants are (literally) empowered when the grid is mismanaged, as in California. On highway medians control is more centralized, and they would require more mainte…
As to dust, economies of scale make a huge difference. It’s rarely worth it, but using a farm truck to spray water across miles of panels is much more efficient than tens of thousands of homeowners doing the same.
I cannot imagine the revolution that solar power will produce if it can fall another 3-5x in the next 10 years. It is already at grid parity. Although my personal hope is for storage, inverters, controllers and other technologies to get cheaper. Especially longer term storage beyond 4 hours.
I think it’s unlikely you see any fossil generation in the mix in 10 years except in the most remote of locations (with no solar or wind potential). Wind and solar are already around 2 cents/kWh utility scale, and batteries are catching up. No fossil or nuclear generation can compete with that.
Are they? The US consumes 11.5TWh of electricity daily. It's estimated that it needs 3 weeks if storage to get to 100% carbon free [1]. By comparison global battery production in 2019 was 300GWh [2]. Even if you factor in the fact that the curve of battery production is rising, it'd take decades to fullfil just the US's storage demands with batteries. There are other storage options like hydroelectricity and pumping air into mineshafts, but those are geographically limited.
1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
2. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-batt...