Subscription Center
May 15, 2009 04:00 PM | 44
If solar power is ever going to take off—and the world needs it to—photovoltaic cells will have to become a whole lot cheaper to produce.
Making solar cells from silicon, the most common approach, can be expensive and relatively inefficient at turning sunlight into electricity. As semiconductor manufacturer Applied Materials chief technology officer Mark Pinto told me last year: "With solar, it's all about cost."
But there are signs of improvement, writes Richard Swanson of SunPower Corp. in this week's Science. Last year, manufacturers made 5 gigawatts of photovoltaic panels. And some of these panels required just under six grams of silicon per watt of power—down from 15 grams at the turn of the century. And that watt of power now costs around $1.40 to produce compared with $2 or more in the 1990s.
Swanson argues, that cost will fall to $1 per watt within five years—making solar power for the first time cost competitive, without subsidy, with conventional fossil fuel–fired generation.
Of course, solar power represents just 0.375 percent of all installed power generation worldwide and there's the little problem of producing electricity at night. Plus, installing the solar panels can more than triple that cost per watt to more than $4.
But if photovoltaic technology improves as Swanson predicts, solar panels’ day as a practical source of power may finally be dawning.
Tags:
photovoltaic,
sunshine,
solar cell,
electricity,
renewables,
solar power,
renewable energy
More News Blog:
Next: Optical Illusion: Tracking the trajectory of a curveball
Previous: Bolden resurfaces in the NASA chief rumor mill
See what we're tweeting about
BoraZ #Icanhazpdf http://t.co/JWoiBKnL56 Coturnix Gmail BoraZ A Monkey with Human Eyes and Other Links from the Brink http://t.co/ZiY5Z8yFYQ by @johnrplatt at #SciAmBlogs
sciamblogs A Monkey with Human Eyes and Other Links from the Brink http://t.co/QT2VhPibZU by @johnrplatt at #SciAmBlogs
Deadline: Jun 30 2013
Reward: $1,000,000 USD
This is a Reduction-to-Practice Challenge that requires written documentation and&
Deadline: Jun 29 2013
Reward: $7,000 USD
The Seeker for this Challenge desires proposals for chemical methods that could rapidly degrade a dilute aqueous solution
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
44 Comments
Add Comment? WHERE IS THE SCIENCE IN THIS ARTICLE??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople like to say that solar cannot produce power at night, but that is only half right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is only dark on half the planet at a time, so solar power somewhere could be producing electricity.
The problems to be overcome are storage and the grid - being able to efficiently route power to where it is needed from wherever it is produced.
The problems to overcome are storage and the grid... Both are proving to be huge and expensive problems and technologically difficult to achieve.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour comment regarding how it is only dark on half the planet at a time, seems to be suggesting a worldwide grid that routes power from the day side to the night. I'm no engineer, and I could be wrong but, I don't see how that that would be any cheaper than simply drilling miles into the earth's crust for geothermal. Both seem wildly impractical.
"Dark half of the time . . ." Ok, then use the PV during the day, wind when available and geothermal 24/7/365, thus limiting fossil-fueled plants as back-up to fill the gaps the others leave. I am sure what will be amazingly apparent is that with a proper overlapping systems of PV, wind, Geo-thermal, etc., we could reduce the fossil-fuel generation to only 10-30% at any given time. I am confident that even the most ardent eco-freak would accept that as a viable alternative to our present situation. And, it should be doable very soon (no hard data, I admit) for not much more money to consumers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was not necessarily suggesting a worldwide power grid, though why not start thinking about that anyway? The grid in the US is ancient and 40% of generated power is lost before the end use. The US covers more than 4 time zones, Russia 8, national grids could be used for the bulk of routed power and peak demand times.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStorage is a problem to be solved. There currently is no storage at all for mass power. Batteries are not practical, obviously. Efficient storage would allow generation when convenient (sunny for solar, windy for wind, rough seas for tidal... etc.) and the power would be stored, to be used when demanded.
Storage also could allow for small localized power generation, each house for themselves, which may not seem practical on a large, national scale though third world people could definitely benefit from that type scheme.
Will the most intelligent species on Earth continue to go the route of least intelligent choice? Are we really so blind that we are willing to continue this argument while using up ever more fossil fuel and making the Earth even sicker, until the time for a solution has passed. Alvin Tofler once coined the phrase "massmindedness" and we are now witness to his truthful vision. Stop arguing, stop batting this back and forth. Demand that the federal government make Solar & Wind & Hydro equipment here within our borders and that it be avaivlable to the masses. If this would be our call to "ReTool" our society many other issues would evaporate before our eyes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBert L. Friedman
There is no law saying that you have to produce 100% of your power 24/7 via solar. Most people that buy photovoltaic panels for home don't disconnect from the grid-- they feed into the grid during the day (when demand is high) and draw from the grid at night when demand and prices are low. If everyone had solar panels, we'd still need power plants... just 80% fewer of them, and they'd primarily run when there was no sun. This would be a tremendous leap over what we have today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI looked into photovoltaics, and was told that it wasn't economically viable unless my average electric bill was over $100/month. Tech like that described will make it viable for the rest of us, who have conserved, and have low power bills.
Actually there is large scale storage for electric power. It's called pump / generator off stream hydro storage. The British have one that is over 8 gigawatts peak in size. The overall efficeincy is not bad over 60% net.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to the cost effectiveness of photovoltaics over the last 35 years, if there is no government subsidies and you have to borrow the money to construct, it will never be cost effective. If you have the money in your pocket ( or in the bank ) the pay back is 7-10 years, not bad, and the electric company raises it's charges every year. SO it's up to you.
There is a notorious pumped storage unit just south of St. Louis MO atop Tom Sauk Mountain. Notorious because of a dam break that had nothing at all to do with the concept but it showed that even a seemingly benign idea has to be executed right. Nobody killed but it made a mess of a State park, now repaired.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisre the grumbling about the lack of science in the story: the subject of solar power economics is certainly of interest to science-minded readers, and there must be some science behind the use of less silicon per watt. The story should have pointed to a source of that info.
Overall economics: if borrowed money cannot be justified without subsidy, the solution is by definition not cost-effective, taking government and private economics together. One key is the three-fold installation multiplier; that's a promising target to attack.
Best place to generate solare is about 100 miles from wherever it is you are currently trying: straight up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpace based solar is one very promising approach to generating an abundance of dependable, safe and cheap power, utilizing adances is technology that makes the most sophisticated designes of the 80s and 90s look like cudgels: wireless power transmission, nano scale materials of unprecedented purity and structure, and robotics capable of operating where previously humans would have been required, all add up to a capability for space based solar power that really would have been impossible not long ago. Is now the time or it there reason to wait? Either way, using the archaic designs of the previous decades and the mindsets that came along with them, is leaving us short.
Hmm, I think you might need to check your math, or at least your metric prefix. A quick check on the Internet for the largest hydro generating station in the UK, let alone a pump back station that I believe you are talking about, is the 1.7 gigawatt Dinorwig Power Station. Storage is accomplished in this way, but not nearly in the quantity that you suggest. The power generation of the facility you seem to be alluding to is most likely 8 MEGAwatts, not GIGAwatts. Pump back station capabilities, when compaired to total electrical generation, are basically insignificant and serve as mostly a way to ease peek power demand past the runnoff season. Something to remember about pump back storage is that you are using a process that is far less than %100 efficient, to generate the power to run a far less than %100 efficent pump, to pump water that evaporates a bit, to then run through a far less than %100 efficient hydro generator. You lose efficiency every time you convert energy to another form. Lets count the conversions. 1. Solar radiation to electrical power. 2. Electrical power to mechanical motion pumping the water. 3. Potential energy of the water in the dam to mechanical energy in the turbine. 4. Mechanical energy to electrical energy in the generator. Thats not very efficient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTruly, solar power production is a viable augmentation to our fossil fueled power base, but just the surface area required by the solar panals to significantly impact the coal usage would be staggering. Another form of storage is the production of hydrogen using the process of electrolysis.
The idea of transmission of power over contenental distances is completely out of the question with todays technology. Just the resistance of the line would make this impossible, not to mention several exotic perterbations in the frequency, etc. that crop up in a long power line. That is why California hasnt gotten rid of all their power plants and just bought their power from distant states. There must be a power plant at certain intervals across the power grid to stabalize the grid. That being said, there are some technologies that can allow slightly more distant transmission of power such as ultra high voltage DC.
I cant help but notice how none of us can really get our head around how enormous the world is. The amount of power that just the US consumes is inconcevable to us. It is not sensible to believe that we will replace coal with these sources in the foreseeable future. Thinking people will continue to debate these issues with fervor. We cannot afford to allow a vocal, and childishly na�ve radicalism, to unduly shame us into living like Buddhist monks. We should stop kidding ourselves that we will ever significantly reduce our fossil fuel usage with a puff of wind, a drop of water, and a ray of light. Im not saying we shouldnt pour as mush money into research and development as we can for these other sources of power. I am saying that we ARE the most intelligent species on the planet.
Hmm, I think you might need to check your math, or at least your metric prefix. A quick check on the Internet for the largest hydro generating station in the UK, let alone a pump back station that I believe you are talking about, is the 1.7 gigawatt Dinorwig Power Station. Storage is accomplished in this way, but not nearly in the quantity that you suggest. The power generation of the facility you seem to be alluding to is most likely 8 MEGAwatts, not GIGAwatts. Pump back station capabilities, when compaired to total electrical generation, are basically insignificant and serve as mostly a way to ease peek power demand past the runnoff season. Something to remember about pump back storage is that you are using a process that is far less than %100 efficient, to generate the power to run a far less than %100 efficent pump, to pump water that evaporates a bit, to then run through a far less than %100 efficient hydro generator. You lose efficiency every time you convert energy to another form. Lets count the conversions. 1. Solar radiation to electrical power. 2. Electrical power to mechanical motion pumping the water. 3. Potential energy of the water in the dam to mechanical energy in the turbine. 4. Mechanical energy to electrical energy in the generator. That’s not very efficient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTruly, solar power production is a viable augmentation to our fossil fueled power base, but just the surface area required by the solar panals to significantly impact the coal usage would be staggering. Another form of storage is the production of hydrogen using the process of electrolysis.
The idea of transmission of power over contenental distances is completely out of the question with today’s technology. Just the resistance of the line would make this impossible, not to mention several exotic perterbations in the frequency, etc. that crop up in a long power line. That is why California hasn’t gotten rid of all their power plants and just bought their power from distant states. There must be a power plant at certain intervals across the power grid to stabalize the grid. That being said, there are some technologies that can allow slightly more distant transmission of power such as ultra high voltage DC.
I can’t help but notice how none of us can really get our head around how enormous the world is. The amount of power that just the US consumes is inconcevable to us. It is not sensible to believe that we will replace coal with these sources in the foreseeable future. Thinking people will continue to debate these issues with fervor. We cannot afford to allow a vocal, and childishly naïve radicalism, to unduly shame us into living like Buddhist monks. We should stop kidding ourselves that we will ever significantly reduce our fossil fuel usage with a puff of wind, a drop of water, and a ray of light. I’m not saying we shouldn’t pour as mush money into research and development as we can for these other sources of power. I am saying that we ARE the most intelligent species on the planet.
Koribdus
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour information on pumped storage is wrong. Pumped storage plants have a round trip efficiency of 72% (85% for generation, and 85% for pumping), which is the highest efficiency for any energy storage system. (Reference "Hydropower Engineering Handbook" by John Gulliver, Roger Arndt, Chapter 11, 1991). This compares to battery efficiencies in the 40 to 50% range. Moreover, the pumped storage facility has a lifetime of 50 to 100 years (versus 5 to 10 years for batteries), and can store anywhere from a few hundred megawatt hours of energy to thousands of megawatt hours, dependent upon the size you want to build.
Over 300 pumped storage facilities have been built worldwide (Reference "Standard Handbook of Powerplant Engineering", 2nd edition, Chapter 1, Sect 1.5 Hydroelectric Energy, McGraw Hill 1997), and 42 more were under construction per the aforementioned 1997 text. Therefore, I'm sure more have been built since this book was published. This just affirms that pumped storage facilities are a tried and proven technology for energy storage with a long lifespan,and zero emissions.
The reference to the "notorious " Tam Sauk pumped storage plant's dam breach was a result of faulty instrumentation installed during an upgrade. The plant was built in 1963, and had operated very reliably for 40 years before the faulty instrumentation was added in 2003/2004 (not certain of the date). The plant was a remote unattended pumped storage plant, which means it was run by remote control from another station. The faulty instrumentation was related to water level sensors which identified when the upper reservoir was filled, and pumping should be stopped. There was no redundancy in these sensors, and they failed; resulting in water coming over the top of the dam (just like over filling your bathtub when no one is there to shut off the water), which resulted in a dam failure. This does not prove that pumped storage is dangerous, just that you must do an adequate job when installing instrumentation for a remote operated station.
Wind and wave/tidal power are more useable and economical at present - the waves and tide never completely stop and it would be very unusual for an area more than a few miles across were completely without wind, so these measures should be the first elements of green electricity infrastructure to be rolled out. Simply make it a legal requirement to put a wind turbine on every new electricity pylon, for instance. Solar, if it is to be successful, will probably do so in the form of organic photovoltaics rather than silicon ones - organic materials technology (which happens to be the field in which I work) is currently very much turning not to outperforming silicon electronics components but more towards reducing cost. It doesn't matter if a solar panel is half as efficient if its reduced cost allows you to deploy more than twice the area, the energy itself is free.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not know why Swanson would say this, what is the big change to drop the cost to the dream price of $1 per watt. They have been saying the cost will drop lower than $5 for a long time now and I have been following this for twenty years. The price should have been there already and it is not. They been claiming the $1 a watt fer thin film and it is still at $10 a watt for the end user. There is no excuse for why it is not. People would buying millions if only they would.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPune
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReducing the overall cost of solar power is absolutely essential, as the asian countries which get the most sunshine generally have low per capita income. Dr J D Bapat: http://jdbapat-greenenergy.blogspot.com
which company is the largest solar panel producer in the world?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur energy problems are amazingly simple to solve. A combination of coal fired power plants and plug in hybrid cars could help us kick the imported oil habit. Solar power will only make us poorer. Why pay 3 or 4 times the price of coal derived electricity? The only reason solar is installed at all is government subsidy. So we are all paying for it and it's detrimental to the economy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDave,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour use of references and your research into this topic are commendable, however your calling my information wrong is not. Your own simple math backs mine up. You stated that the pump back process has a %72 round trip efficiency. If I accept your numbers as accurate, they track perfectly with my statements of less than %100. You may be missing my point. Currently, the vast majority of pump back stations are simply using off peek, low cost generation to pump water back to the reservoirs of hydro facilities, so the power can be used at peek times. This makes the pump back process a net consumer of energy, which increases the use of fossil fuels by incurring losses in the process. In other words, you use less coal if you just build more coal burning power plants and run them at peek. I think this whole pump back station issue is being sold to the masses as energy saving, when it is simply not. This is the reason I brought the inefficiencies up in the first place.
We were talking specifically about solar power, and how we might be able to store it using pump back stations. The fact is that it is unlikely in the extreme, that we would be able to produce enough solar power to offset just the coal use in this country&in the next several decades. Unless we decrease the coal usage to zero, the prospect of storage is not, in the least necessary or efficient. To do this, the amount of electricity generated per surface area of solar cells needed, would have to be dramatically increased. By the way, this is why decreasing the cost of solar will not help produce more power. The transmission system would need substantial changes in its infrastructure. The dark hours, night, rain, winter, etc. would need to be addressed in some way, either by storage, which would mean that a substantially larger amount of power from solar would need to be generated for this, or the existing power generation capabilities would need to remain sufficient. Remember, every time we use an additional process that is less than %100 efficient, we are consuming power in the end result. Solar power needs to go straight into the grid until all the coal plants and other fossil fuel burning facilities are backed down and shut off. This is the only sensible use of solar energy.
In the US, %49 of the power we generate comes from coal. The total energy usage is roughly 4.065 billion KWh. Roughly half of that is produced by coal. I just dont think most people see how immensely enormous this amount is. If you can finally get a grasp of this large number, you will laugh with me at how completely insignificant our solar capabilities are likely to be in the foreseeable future. Again, I am not suggesting that we not continue to research this technology. It is just that it needs to jump several degrees in magnitude to affect a change of any meaningful degree.
Very, very sorry for the multiple post in my last comment!
I'v been hearing this for 5 years now, so where's the yahoo store to buy it from? Ya, that's what I thought, let me know when it's here. I'm sick of these stories, that's what they are, just stories. Until it's for sale, why bother, oh that's right, they're looking for investors and funding. Fresh out here, check with my government, they seem to be giving away trillions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne doesn't have to drill miles into the crust for geothermal power and there would be little point in transmitting energy from the dark side to the light side as the transmission costs would be prohibitive. there is no problem drilling distances of up to 4 km. It is done routinely in oil and mineral exploration on a daily basis. The technological problem is the conversion of the geothermal heat to useful energy and getting it to where it is needed. The beauty of solar power is that it can be genrated largely where needed and requires energy storage to overcome the lack of supply during the night.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a news article not a scientific paper. The requirements are very different in terms of justifying the viewpoints put forward. I dispute that there is not science in the article. It discusses the improvement in efficiency of production of solar cells and improvements in their energy efficiency and cost. these are relevant to the ability to use solar power in commercial competition with other sources
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only sesible answer is nuclear power. It has no greenhouse effect, is very practical and can be made extremely safe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear power is the only answer. No green house gases and it can be made extremely safe. Why dont you see the obvious?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKoribus
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you that all energy processes are less than 100% efficient, including pumped storage. What I was trying to point out was that your original statement said "...far less than 100% efficient...", and with all the energy conversions that it is very inefficient. That is not true. Therefore, I wanted to clarify that pumped storage is the "most" efficient method of energy storage; and a proven technology. Compressed Air energy storage (CAES) has efficiencies in the range of 50 to 60%, and requires additional natural gas combustion to generate electricity.
Pumped storage, in addition to being a "renewable" energy process (utilizes 90% of the same water over and over again), produces zero emissions while generating or pumping (does not burn any natural gas or fossil fuels).
The point of solar power, which has a 15 to 20% efficiency range (solar to electricity) is that it produces an insignificant portion of the U.S. electricity (less than 0.2% at present), while wind produces approx. 1%. Both of these renewables would be complemented by an efficient energy storage system. The only large scale energy storage system that is a proven technology, and has the highest efficiency of any storage system, is pumped storage. Fortunately, the markets are finally discovering this point of view because over 20,000 MW of pumped storage projects are now moving thru the licensing process.
Koribdus
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry for misspelling your name in my last comment.
And, upon a reread of your latest post, I agree with you that solar will produce an insignificant part of our electrical power until new technological advances are made to lower the price/increase the efficiency. However, along those same lines; and this is probably more applicable to wind than solar, I still believe a viable energy storage system is required to complement are renewable energy program. If you have ever been involved in transmission line negotiations thru a number of states (each state having their own Public Utility Commission with its own environmental or other priorities), you would know that upgrading the transmission grid in the U.S. to accommodate renewables will not happen within the next 20 years, if ever. There are too many complications. That again brings us back to the most efficient method of energy storage in a local area to facilitate the increase of our renewable energy base.
Of course, your logic that each time we use an additional process that is less than 100% efficient, we are consuming power in the end result, is, of course, true. However, there are no 100% efficient processes in life; and therefore, we have to work with the best processes we have. We all know this is not coal fired power plants, but your idea of feeding solar straight into the grid will only work on a large scale if there is an energy storage capability present because solar plants are low efficiency plants.(Reference the Andasol plant in Spain, 50 MW in size if I recall correctly with a liquid salt storage mechanism) Even the Andasol plant, with its 90 to 95% efficiency molten salt energy storage facility) is only 20 to 25% efficient overall (solar to electricity).
I've wondered how practical it would be to store electricity by pumping water uphill
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it amazing that anybody could write an article on the cost of solar energy and focus exclusively on photovoltaic panels. You have completely ignored solar thermal energy which, last time I checked, was about half as expensive as photovoltaic panels. In addition to lower cost, it can run 24 hours per day with molten salt thermal storage. I believe only one of the comments mentioned Andasol-1 (David M. Clemen) which is apparently the best design for a solar power plant so far. You should all read about it, and then quit writing about PV solar until PV is cheaper and has cheap storage to go with it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's funny how they say 'relatively inefficient' in the paper when referring to photovoltaics. Let's have a breakdown of how far we have to go:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn perfect sunlight conditions (direct and continuous), the total draw of electric current from a photovoltaic cell is roughly 14-21% at best. At best. This is due to a combination of factors. 1) silicon wafers, while showing the best (cost-effective and competitive) reactivity to solar radiation, are treated for physical damage in ways that seriously limit the wavelengths of light which will trigger a photoelectric effect. 2) the current collectors in photovoltaic cells harvest only a fraction of the free electrons produced by photoelectric reactions. 3) direct and continuous sunlight is almost never achieved. Even 30% cloud cover will severely reduce the output of a photovoltaic cell.
Can we say hurdles? Yes.
This is pretty much a waste of an article. So some guy "Richard M. Swanson" who obviously works for the SunPower corporation, writes some article for Science saying he expects the industry to grow and the costs to come down. Wow!! What a suprise. Maybe Richard got his stock ( SPWRA ) to go up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are countless billions of solar cells in the world. They are the leaves of plants. Pyrolyse biomass and you get hydrogen and biochar, the latter of which can be economically converted into fertiliser. See www.EPRIDA.com for a full description. Not only does pyrolysis produce energy and fertility, but it also sequesters atmospheric CO2. Instead of the world building 70,000,000 cars, it should build 5,000,000 pyrolysis retorts to clean up greenhouse gases!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMevans,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know the numbers, but your idea of pumping water uphill and utilizing it later to generate electricity is in commercial use near Ludington Michigan by Consumers Energy. They use the excess power produced at night to pump water from Lake Michigan uphill, to be stored and used to produce power at peak demand periods. I would imagine that efficiencies are fairly high. The obvious problem is that you need a source of water and the right geography as well as plenty of space.
Mevans
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPumping water uphill for energy storage is the "pumped storage" we've been discussing. The Luddington plant addressed by "Soccerdad" is a pumped storage plant. The round trip efficiency is 72% (85% efficiency for generating electricity, and 85% efficiency for pumping the water to the upper reservoir). It is the "most efficient" way to store energy.
What ever happened to the printed Solar Cell technology. Konarka Technologies announcing that it's now able to manufacture solar cells using inkjet printing. Printing presses normally used to make Australian dollar bills produced solar power cells in a trial near Melbourne last week. ???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDinorwig, the UKpumped storage system, was constructed to store nuclear-generated electricity in order to smooth the load on the nuclear plant, which works most effeciently at a steady high output
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYES!!!!! Mr. McClaine: Both photovoltaic (and other solar power schemes) and geothermal are wildly impractical. That also goes for wind and tide turbines, etc. etc. etc. These fruit-cakes have no conception of the massive amounts of power we use. It is NOT just a few light bulbs in a shanty in Africa, it is subway trains and elevators and much of the world's rail-roads, and then there are the REAL heavy users of electric power: Aluminum refineries, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is true but i believe in order to increase the alternative energy production we must create an organized branch of authority which controls the composition on a national scale. I read out of the book Investing In Renewable Energy, by Jeff Siegel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe say, "In order for the world to produce the maximum energy the government must use tax payers money $98 billion as of 2009 to generate the proper technologies and equipment for global energy satisfaction."
I believe instead of using American's money, in all 4 trillion dollars of tax payers money on the war we spend it on the development of alternative energies.
Geothermal, hydro-electric, solar, bio fuels, generating methane from garbage dumps, space solar, etc. Time is running out! We need to do something soon. For our kids generation. Leave it better then you found it.
--Cody J. Vickery
Idiot: look up the thermal conductivity of rock as well as it's specific heat. Yes, there is hot rock down there, but it cools off really quickly when you try to heat LOTS of water with it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIceland gets by using geothermal power because it is sitting ON TOP OF THE MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE!!!!!, and is, in effect, in the caldera of a volcano. Wanna try to run a power-plant inside a volcano in Hawaii? No? Didn't think so...
Where are the great minds that can overcome such a simple distraction?!Goodness could it be there are individuals of influence that doesnt want such to succeed?!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm with Theodore!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSolar thermal is now baseload. New graphite thermal storage is so efficient, they shine the sun's heat directly onto the graphite blocks and then draw down the heat from those blocks as needed to drive the turbine.
http://www.lloydenergy.com/heatstorage.htm
Sciam should do a science story on this.
I hope Solar PV makes leaps and gains with dye-based solar cells and other materials and approaches, but it is a really dishonest myth of the fossil fuel companies that it alone has to run at night. As others have said, it is good at supplying power during the day and assisting during times of peak energy demand during those hot summer air-conditioner days.
The future energy grid will most probably be decentralised and diverse, and extremely efficient. There is no one solution, but thousands of smaller ones that add up to a world free of fossil fuels. EG: Europeans use half the oil of the average American. Why? Traditional city design and better public transport.
Arguing that Solar PV has to do "everything" ignores what it is best at and forgets a variety of other solutions.
"The grid in the US is ancient and 40% of generated power is lost before the end use." That is an interesting statement... Care to provide a source for it? I would guess that anything older than you are (10? 12?) rates as "ancient". As far as "power loss" goes: sorry, IsquaredR losses and BvsH
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislosses are unavoidable: we can't achieve infinite voltages in our transmission lines so there is always going to be a current flowing, and there will likewise always be some loss of power with the changing magnetic field in a transformer: that is how we get a high voltage/low current situation to begin with...
"The US covers more than 4 time zones, Russia 8, national grids could be used for the bulk of routed power and peak demand times." I suppose you mean those self-same grids you were just denigrating as "ancient" and "wasting 40% of the power". Please make up your mind.
"Storage is a problem to be solved." Dohhhhhhhhhhh...
"There currently is no storage at all for mass power." I've got to hand it to you: you got that one RIGHT.
" Batteries are not practical, obviously." Sorry: batteries are very practical - at a certain scale of power storage.
"Efficient storage would allow generation when convenient (sunny for solar, windy for wind, rough seas for tidal... etc.) and the power would be stored, to be used when demanded."Yeah. That is the general idea. The only little problem with this is that there is insufficient power there to begin with.
"Storage also could allow for small localized power generation, each house for themselves, which may not seem practical on a large, national scale though third world people could definitely benefit from that type scheme." The REAL problem is that domestic power consumption is only a small fraction of our power needs... We use far more in transportation and manufacturing than we do in lighting our homes and keeping food cold, etc. And you STILL haven't solved the little problem of what do we do when there is a major storm or whatever. No matter what else you want to say about them, NPP's run around the clock, day after day, week after week, year after year, with virtually 100% capacity factor...
Solar PV during the day + Small Wind Generation at night = solutino to the "no electricity at night" problem. We need more Electrical Contractors skilled in design & installation & grid-tie-in of both technologies. And let's not forget that Solar Water Heating systems have the bigger financial bang fo the buck (better & faster ROI). Install Solar Thermal FIRST, then PV & Wind. (Well, do an energy audit & retrofit first, before installing anything).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContractors can learn more about all these technologies at Boots on the Roof in CA & NJ.
How to deal with the waste especially the environment damaging non green wastes? The most required element to fight waste is energy and if enerdy itself produces waste?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one here has mentioned the following:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.sandia.gov/Renewable_Energy/solarthermal/NSTTF/salt.htm
Advantages of Using Molten Salt
A variety of fluids was tested to transport the sun's heat, including water, air, oil, and sodium, before molten salt was selected as best. Molten salt is used in solar power tower systems because it is liquid at atmosphere pressure, it provides an efficient, low-cost medium in which to store thermal energy, its operating temperatures are compatible with todays high-pressure and high-temperature steam turbines, and it is non-flammable and nontoxic. In addition, molten salt is used in the chemical and metals industries as a heat-transport fluid, so experience with molten-salt systems exists for non-solar applications.
As for single home use currently:
http://www.americanpv.com/c_residential_on_info.php
How a Photovoltaic Grid-Tie System Works
Solar in the day & grid at night hybrid provides a solution until molten salt plants are built.