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10 Myths surrounding solar energy

11 points by c4urself 15y ago

reirob 15y ago
Very enlightening. I did not know that solar panels can last from 25 to 40 years and that only in 1 to 2 years the produced energy pays off the carbon footprint needed for producing the panels.
caesarion 15y ago
"In the summer, almost 10% of the household electricity in the south of Germany is generated by solar panels." I don't know a great deal about solar energy, and I was led to believe that it was a bit hokey or inefficient, but that is a really impressive number. Cool!
nextparadigms 15y ago
This is why I want the public and the Governments to focus on pouring money into solar energy. The more attention it gets, the better the technology becomes and the price keeps dropping.
- dennisgorelik 15y ago
  Thank you for the offer, but no. Government should stay away from innovations. It's not where government is efficient at.
  - wlievens 15y ago
    Arguably it's not about doing the innovation, it's about accelerating its adoption.
    - dennisgorelik 15y ago
      How is that government business to decide what innovation to accelerate and which businesses/innovations to decelerate by taxing them (so funds would be available to accelerate cherry-picked innovations)?
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    Well, I wasn't exactly implying that Government should be the biggest investor in these technologies, just that it should support it, and be its main priority going forward, like writing legislation to help it accelerate, etc.
    - dennisgorelik 15y ago
      Partial government involvement into innovation process would limit the damage, but it still would be damaging. Main priority of the government going forward should be limiting government expenses. That would be the best thing to encourage innovation.
sixtofour 15y ago
Consider that the name of the site is Solarplaza. That said: "But the payback time for the energy used to produce a solar panel is only one to two years. This means that in this time the panel generates the total amount of energy that has been used in its entire production. ... Other sources of energy have much longer payback times. Specifically, nuclear power plants have extremely long payback times - so long in fact that it is questionable whether all the power that generated during their lifetime is enough to pay for the energy used to build and disassemble them."
- skew 15y ago
  The bit about nuclear power plants is such nonsense I doubt the creditability of the rest of the article. The highest figure anywhere seems to be about 15 years, from Storm van Leeuwen http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20071013/partC.pdf http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20071013/partC.pdf
plesn 15y ago
What about the end of life of solar panels ? Did they manage to build recyclable ones ?
- reirob 15y ago
  The answer is at the end of the article. The short answeris: that the solar industrie has processes to recycle 100% all the panels. I agree that it would be nice to know more about this, especially if the panels are really recycled - after all having processes is not a gjarantee that they are really applied.

11 points by c4urself 15y ago

Very enlightening. I did not know that solar panels can last from 25 to 40 years and that only in 1 to 2 years the produced energy pays off the carbon footprint needed for producing the panels.

caesarion 15y ago

"In the summer, almost 10% of the household electricity in the south of Germany is generated by solar panels." I don't know a great deal about solar energy, and I was led to believe that it was a bit hokey or inefficient, but that is a really impressive number. Cool!

nextparadigms 15y ago

This is why I want the public and the Governments to focus on pouring money into solar energy. The more attention it gets, the better the technology becomes and the price keeps dropping.

dennisgorelik 15y ago
Thank you for the offer, but no. Government should stay away from innovations. It's not where government is efficient at.
- wlievens 15y ago
  Arguably it's not about doing the innovation, it's about accelerating its adoption.
  - dennisgorelik 15y ago
    How is that government business to decide what innovation to accelerate and which businesses/innovations to decelerate by taxing them (so funds would be available to accelerate cherry-picked innovations)?
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Well, I wasn't exactly implying that Government should be the biggest investor in these technologies, just that it should support it, and be its main priority going forward, like writing legislation to help it accelerate, etc.
  - dennisgorelik 15y ago
    Partial government involvement into innovation process would limit the damage, but it still would be damaging. Main priority of the government going forward should be limiting government expenses. That would be the best thing to encourage innovation.

sixtofour 15y ago

Consider that the name of the site is Solarplaza. That said: "But the payback time for the energy used to produce a solar panel is only one to two years. This means that in this time the panel generates the total amount of energy that has been used in its entire production. ... Other sources of energy have much longer payback times. Specifically, nuclear power plants have extremely long payback times - so long in fact that it is questionable whether all the power that generated during their lifetime is enough to pay for the energy used to build and disassemble them."

skew 15y ago
The bit about nuclear power plants is such nonsense I doubt the creditability of the rest of the article. The highest figure anywhere seems to be about 15 years, from Storm van Leeuwen http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20071013/partC.pdf http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20071013/partC.pdf

plesn 15y ago

What about the end of life of solar panels ? Did they manage to build recyclable ones ?

reirob 15y ago
The answer is at the end of the article. The short answeris: that the solar industrie has processes to recycle 100% all the panels. I agree that it would be nice to know more about this, especially if the panels are really recycled - after all having processes is not a gjarantee that they are really applied.