32 ms·

The area needed is not really a problem for solar power. It's storage. We need power when it's dark, probably even more then than when there's daylight.

lhorie 16y ago
You know solar panel systems often have batteries, right?
- mseebach 16y ago
  Yep. I also know that they're pretty inefficient and expensive and toxic to manufacture and dispose of. Which makes them a problem for large-scale solar installations. Solar is great for when there's sun. Once the sun's out, not so much.
  - lhorie 16y ago
    I remember reading somewhere a while back that the investment in solar panels doesn't really pay off because of the somewhat low life expectancy (~10 years) and high costs. Is that because of the batteries also?
ugh 16y ago
Also, any human artifact which shows up as a box – not a dot – on a map of this scale is pretty darn huge. We currently probably couldn’t even manufacture all the solar panels or mirrors required, even if we wanted to. Long distance power transfer might alleviate some power storage worries, but that is a huge engineering challenge in itself. It would also increase the required area – probably considerably – and we would – again – end up with a centralized power system which absolutely depends on international cooperation, you know, kinda like oil (not to say that’s a bad thing, it just adds another point of failure). That’s not to say solar power is forever and always not feasible. I think it’s an interesting challenge and we might expect at least some success.
zokier 16y ago
Hydrogen could be a solution for storage, transportation. And there is a possibility to find a more direct way to produce hydrogen with solar power that photovoltaics and electrolysis.
- aidenn0 16y ago
  Hydrogen via electrolysis is not a good solution for grid-scale storage. The cycle efficiency is just way too low.
  - mseebach 16y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the world has moved away from hydrogen in favor of batteries? There's the cycle efficiency, but it's probably also a factor that we have a very well developed infrastructure for shipping electrical power around, while pretty much none for hydrogen.
bulanga 16y ago
That's right, storage is all too often forgotten. Some ways energy can be stored: - kinetic energy storage e.g. spinning flywheel - potential energy storage e.g. pump water at an altitude - thermal energy e.g I read somewhere that molten salt can store heat for hours. i.e. steam can be produced to spin a turbine.
nfnaaron 16y ago
So implement storage. Build more capacity than you need for momentary power and use the excess to charge batteries or raise water columns. Build still more excess capacity, charge local storage at the solar plant or at intermediate locations, and use the rest of the excess at the point of consumption to charge storage there. That's a lot of solar generators. So the sooner we start, the sooner we'll get there. The interesting thing is, just as better computers help us design and build still better computers, increasingly available energy will drive the cost of existing energy down, reducing the cost of energy used to build and maintain new capacity. If we can only power the world half the day with solar, then that's a large fraction of our power that we don't have to burn oil or coal or biomass (food) for. If we can only power half the world half the day, it's still a win. If we can only make it through part of the night before lighting up an oil generator, it's still a win. It astounds me that we're living in a blowtorch and we do essentially nothing with it, fight wars over oil, spew oil and emissions all over the world, and watch the elderly and poor die from lack of heat or cooling.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  If you need to build a complete parallel power generation infrastructure which must be capable of satisfying peak power demand on its own then it's almost irrelevant whether that infrastructure is battery powered or coal powered (from an economics standpoint). Not to mention that nobody's created anything even remotely capable of being used to generate peak (or even base) power loads using only stored energy. This tidy infographic makes it seem like we could start the switch to PV power tomorrow if only we really cared to do so. However, the truth is far different. Not only do we lack the manufacturing capacity, by orders of magnitude, to produce enough PV panels, we do not have the operational experience in creating the sort of power storage systems that would be necessary if PV sources dominated base electrical power generation. This is not a solved problem.
- anamax 16y ago
  > So implement storage. Build more capacity than you need for momentary power and use the excess to charge batteries or raise water columns. Build still more excess capacity, charge local storage at the solar plant or at intermediate locations, and use the rest of the excess at the point of consumption to charge storage there. You're assuming that that's economically viable. If it is, why aren't you going all-in with your money? > That's a lot of solar generators. So the sooner we start, the sooner we'll get there. Nope. We'll end up with a lot of old-tech solar that isn't as good as what we'll get by waiting. > If we can only make it through part of the night before lighting up an oil generator, it's still a win. Only if you ignore costs. Spending $100 today on a solar system that is half as cost-effective as one that becomes available in 2 years is a good idea in some circumstances but not all. That's relevant because solar systems are not static. > increasingly available energy will drive the cost of existing energy down That's not necessarily true. It depends on costs. For example, we can get energy by burning diamonds. However, doing so will not drive the cost of existing energy down.

lhorie 16y ago

You know solar panel systems often have batteries, right?

mseebach 16y ago
Yep. I also know that they're pretty inefficient and expensive and toxic to manufacture and dispose of. Which makes them a problem for large-scale solar installations. Solar is great for when there's sun. Once the sun's out, not so much.
- lhorie 16y ago
  I remember reading somewhere a while back that the investment in solar panels doesn't really pay off because of the somewhat low life expectancy (~10 years) and high costs. Is that because of the batteries also?

ugh 16y ago

Also, any human artifact which shows up as a box – not a dot – on a map of this scale is pretty darn huge. We currently probably couldn’t even manufacture all the solar panels or mirrors required, even if we wanted to. Long distance power transfer might alleviate some power storage worries, but that is a huge engineering challenge in itself. It would also increase the required area – probably considerably – and we would – again – end up with a centralized power system which absolutely depends on international cooperation, you know, kinda like oil (not to say that’s a bad thing, it just adds another point of failure). That’s not to say solar power is forever and always not feasible. I think it’s an interesting challenge and we might expect at least some success.

zokier 16y ago

Hydrogen could be a solution for storage, transportation. And there is a possibility to find a more direct way to produce hydrogen with solar power that photovoltaics and electrolysis.

aidenn0 16y ago
Hydrogen via electrolysis is not a good solution for grid-scale storage. The cycle efficiency is just way too low.
- mseebach 16y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the world has moved away from hydrogen in favor of batteries? There's the cycle efficiency, but it's probably also a factor that we have a very well developed infrastructure for shipping electrical power around, while pretty much none for hydrogen.

bulanga 16y ago

That's right, storage is all too often forgotten. Some ways energy can be stored: - kinetic energy storage e.g. spinning flywheel - potential energy storage e.g. pump water at an altitude - thermal energy e.g I read somewhere that molten salt can store heat for hours. i.e. steam can be produced to spin a turbine.

nfnaaron 16y ago

So implement storage. Build more capacity than you need for momentary power and use the excess to charge batteries or raise water columns. Build still more excess capacity, charge local storage at the solar plant or at intermediate locations, and use the rest of the excess at the point of consumption to charge storage there. That's a lot of solar generators. So the sooner we start, the sooner we'll get there. The interesting thing is, just as better computers help us design and build still better computers, increasingly available energy will drive the cost of existing energy down, reducing the cost of energy used to build and maintain new capacity. If we can only power the world half the day with solar, then that's a large fraction of our power that we don't have to burn oil or coal or biomass (food) for. If we can only power half the world half the day, it's still a win. If we can only make it through part of the night before lighting up an oil generator, it's still a win. It astounds me that we're living in a blowtorch and we do essentially nothing with it, fight wars over oil, spew oil and emissions all over the world, and watch the elderly and poor die from lack of heat or cooling.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
If you need to build a complete parallel power generation infrastructure which must be capable of satisfying peak power demand on its own then it's almost irrelevant whether that infrastructure is battery powered or coal powered (from an economics standpoint). Not to mention that nobody's created anything even remotely capable of being used to generate peak (or even base) power loads using only stored energy. This tidy infographic makes it seem like we could start the switch to PV power tomorrow if only we really cared to do so. However, the truth is far different. Not only do we lack the manufacturing capacity, by orders of magnitude, to produce enough PV panels, we do not have the operational experience in creating the sort of power storage systems that would be necessary if PV sources dominated base electrical power generation. This is not a solved problem.
anamax 16y ago
> So implement storage. Build more capacity than you need for momentary power and use the excess to charge batteries or raise water columns. Build still more excess capacity, charge local storage at the solar plant or at intermediate locations, and use the rest of the excess at the point of consumption to charge storage there. You're assuming that that's economically viable. If it is, why aren't you going all-in with your money? > That's a lot of solar generators. So the sooner we start, the sooner we'll get there. Nope. We'll end up with a lot of old-tech solar that isn't as good as what we'll get by waiting. > If we can only make it through part of the night before lighting up an oil generator, it's still a win. Only if you ignore costs. Spending $100 today on a solar system that is half as cost-effective as one that becomes available in 2 years is a good idea in some circumstances but not all. That's relevant because solar systems are not static. > increasingly available energy will drive the cost of existing energy down That's not necessarily true. It depends on costs. For example, we can get energy by burning diamonds. However, doing so will not drive the cost of existing energy down.