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>> "don't manufacture and maintain themselves" Well, for any kind of industrial operation you'll want to plant the trees.. then there is the 10-20 year growth
by skriticos2 10y ago
>> "don't manufacture and maintain themselves"
Well, for any kind of industrial operation you'll want to plant the trees.. then there is the 10-20 year growth period that's kind of a problem for planning flexibility.. and then you need to chop them down and move them to the power plant which is a non-trivial and costly logistical constraint.
All the while the solar cell sits there and produces energy without any intervention. That's a big difference.. Also, wood does not scale well, there is just so much space for forests.
- dredmorbius 10y agoSolar cells don't just sit there without intervention, and have larger up-front capital and labour costs than planting an orchard, or more appropriately, fuelwood or timber forests. And have a lifespan of 20-25 years. Plants are a pretty neat technology, all told.
- maerF0x0 10y agoI dont know how much they differ but planting trees has lots of cost. I estimate the cost of planting is something like $3 per surviving tree. (Cause you usually over plant assuming many will die).
- dredmorbius 10y agoDepends on the tree. For some forestry applications, seeding is done from the air. Note that if you're growing wood for fuel, you're not worried about grafting stock, or the net health (much), or overcrowding (you can thin later if necessary), etc. Planting orchards is, as it happens, pretty expensive. But that's also a pretty high-end case, and the expected life is generally 20-50+ years. Upwards of 300 in cases (olives, grapes, and citrus).
- maerF0x0 10y agoI was not referring to orchards, but for regular logging industry. Those cycles are about 60-80 yrs between harvests.