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The problem with solar is that they require large amounts of resources to produce but also that they also produce the wrong type of power. To give you an examp
by asharp 16y ago
The problem with solar is that they require large amounts of resources to produce but also that they also produce the wrong type of power.
To give you an example, think of a way to run a large aluminium smelter overnight using just solar cells. There isn't any sun shining, so you arn't getting any power in. You need to somehow store enough energy to run the plant overnight, and do it in a form that can actually be produced, isn't absurdly expensive and isn't utterly dangerous.
And at the end of that, you need enough solar cells to produce enough power so that your countries economy doesn't stop in the first spat of bad weather.
I do agree with your point, however. Fossil fuels cause too much damage to the environment for them to be viable long term.
The only question is how do we go about replacing them, with the current political state of the issue?
- shadowpwner 16y ago> Wrong type of power. I don't think you explained this. It seems as though you're just arguing about the cost of batteries, not a certain "type" of power. (what types of power are there, anyways? I only know of one: electricity. There are many different ways to generate it though..)
- nitrogen 16y agoBatteries don't actually store electricity. They convert electrical energy into chemical energy (and vice versa). I believe the "wrong type of power" referred to above was electrical vs. thermal energy, as well as delivery at the wrong time.
- asharp 16y agoThe power for a particular grid generally has two components, that which is always on and that which fluctuates through the day. To give you an example, an aluminum smelter will always use a fixed (and very large) quantity of electricity, day or night, rain or shine. As it is impractical to store electricity anywhere near the scale required to power these types of buildings, you need a power plant that can provide cheaply a continuous supply of power. These are known as your base load power plants. To show you that the storage of large quantities of is impractical by example, think of the last time you visited a data center, and remember the rows upon rows of of UPS batteries required to run one datacenter for a few minutes. It stands to reason that enough batteries to power the datacenter for an extended period of time (ie. days), would be utterly impractical. This is why datacenters have generators, ie. the batteries can't power the datanceter indefinitely and when the batteries run out, it needs to produce the power to power the datacenter. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load_power_plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load_power_plant
- artsrc 16y agoAluminium smelters might be better placed somewhere with abundant power from sources like Hydro or Geothermal sources. Or you could mine New York garbage and make diesel out of that.
- adrianN 16y agoPhotovoltaics are indeed not very cost efficient right now, but solar thermal[1] is a much more mature, cheaper technology. It's also easier to store large amounts of heat than to store electricity. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal
- asharp 16y agoSolar thermal is in fact a very interesting technology. I've looked into the pilot plants over in the desert in california and it seems like a real step forward. Its also interesting that they seem to solve parts of the "baseload power" problem, ie. some plants store molten salt and can thus generate power for extended periods, but they would still have issues. For example, in non-equitorial climates I would assume it would have diminished capacity in winter, which could be a problem if a large portion of the grid was composed of solar thermal plants. Similarly you have efficiency losses/etc. associated. Considering that the only alternative in terms of storing power involves pumping water up hydroelectric dams, though, it's certainly a step in the right direction.