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Earth gets hit by 170 000 TW of sunshine every hour. That's more than the yearly global consumption of energy. If we could capture only 1% of that, we'd have 8

Earth gets hit by 170 000 TW of sunshine every hour. That's more than the yearly global consumption of energy. If we could capture only 1% of that, we'd have 80 times more than we need, from just the sunshine reaching earth. This makes the photovoltaic cell and related technologies more interesting than nuclear to me. A way more abundant energy source with none of the downsides of nuclear is clearly within our reach. It's not even unknown technology, we just haven't made the infrastructure to capture it yet. Nuclear seems to me to be similar to Coal in that we may think it's a good idea now, only to discover later on that it actually killed us due to things we didn't think about. Or didn't want to think about. They are also similar in that we who get the benefits today are leaving the problems with it to future generations.

nitrogen 5y ago
Listing large numbers and then saying "if only we could get this small percentage" doesn't make for a solid business plan, and it doesn't make a solid energy plan either. We're talking about insane amounts of land, for one thing, and ignoring distribution for another. Plus "80x more than we need" assumes a fixed level of need forever, humanity capped off, the book of progress written and closed.
- Kon5ole 5y ago
  It sure isn't a business plan, you're right! :D But knowing the potential is a first step, wouldn't you agree? You don't build the mine before the geologists have determined that there is indeed gold to be found, so to speak. Distribution is not as big a problem I think, since you can have small installations everywhere, combined with larger installations where possible. Storage is a problem, but we know of several solutions that could be developed. As for land, the land already wasted to man-made lakes for hydroelectricity more than covers it 100-fold if my roughly estimated math is correct (assuming ~30MW per km2 from newer solar installations and based on a list of man-made lakes on wikipedia). Floating solar is already a thing, it works. How about a hydroelectric dam-duo where solar panels on the artificial lakes pump the water back to the upper reservoir when there's lots of sun? Energy and storage combined! Elon Musk - are you listening? ;-) Solar can also easily be installed on buildings or in deserts, so I don't think large amounts of any valuable land would be needed. As a whole it seems totally feasible to me, at least as a big part of the puzzle, much bigger than it is today.
celestialcheese 5y ago
Solar isn't without its flaws. The solar deployed today will be EOL 25-30 years from now. That's 6M metric tons of waste yearly estimated by 2050 and almost 80m metric tons total [1]. Coupled with the increased demand for materials in PVs and supporting battery infrastructure, more mining and mines have real environmental and social consequences. That's a lot of lead and other toxic elements that if not properly disposed of will lead to massive ecological consequences. The current strategy of dumping in north africa is not a solution, and we're setting ourselves up with a PV waste problem for future generations. 1 - https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/ https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die...
- Kon5ole 5y ago
  A valid point for sure, this is indeed a problem. Luckily it seems like it can be solved and that people are trying to do it. The first european solar panel recycling plant opened just 2 years ago: https://www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en/industry/first-recycling-plant-europe-solar-panels https://www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en/industry/first-recy... I think the reason why it hasn't been done earlier is that the volume was not there to make it a good business. 20 years from now it surely will be. Just like the business of recycling batteries.
edhelas 5y ago
You're missing a real technical limitation there, it's often call "the night". But eh, we will create some hydrogen-lithium batteries to store all this energy we need when we have "the night" (that seems to happen quite often).
- Kon5ole 5y ago
  Not sure how to read your comment but basically yes, we'll have to store the energy of course and we know how to do that in many ways. Of course we need to build things, that goes without saying, but it's not "unknown imaginary things", we know how to store energy.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"If we could capture only 1% of that, we'd have 80 times more than we need" Should people abandon Norway, Greenland and Iceland? Hypotheticals which ignore all trade-offs and drawbacks are not very usefull.
- Kon5ole 5y ago
  I agree about hypotheticals, and sadly I find that is usually the problem with this topic. Some people "know" why some thing will definitely work because they ignore problems, and others "know" why something will not work because they don't realize the problems are solvable or even non-existent. Such as in your example - the three countries you mention are already (at least combined) self-sufficient in renewable energy. (Norway is a net exporter and covers the diesel generators some of the 50 000 people living in Greenland use). Not only that, but solar is totally feasible in all those countries. The notion that solar can't be used far north or far south is just not true. They even use solar power in Antarctica: http://www.antarcticstation.org/station/renewable_energies http://www.antarcticstation.org/station/renewable_energies
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "Norway is a net exporter" Norway is powered 95% by hydro and Iceland by geothermal, so it says nothing about feasibility of wind / solar. Also being a 'Net Exporter' is not enough - Scotland is a net exporter of wind energy, but was actually only able to cover ~30% of it's own needs, because sometimes there is too much wind, and sometimes not enough. "Not only that, but solar is totally feasible in all those countries." Research station in Antarctica is not a suitable benchmark: if their setup produces electricity at £2/kWh, that's a great deal because their only alternative is shipping diesel thousands of kilometres at 50x the price. But charging even £1 for electricity in UK would have major repercussions. In the UK, during the summer there is 10x more solar irradiance than in Winter, Norway will be even more extreme. Anything is feasible if you invest enough, but you probably have to overbuild your renewables, and have cross-continent power transmission to even it out.

nitrogen 5y ago

Listing large numbers and then saying "if only we could get this small percentage" doesn't make for a solid business plan, and it doesn't make a solid energy plan either. We're talking about insane amounts of land, for one thing, and ignoring distribution for another. Plus "80x more than we need" assumes a fixed level of need forever, humanity capped off, the book of progress written and closed.

Kon5ole 5y ago
It sure isn't a business plan, you're right! :D But knowing the potential is a first step, wouldn't you agree? You don't build the mine before the geologists have determined that there is indeed gold to be found, so to speak. Distribution is not as big a problem I think, since you can have small installations everywhere, combined with larger installations where possible. Storage is a problem, but we know of several solutions that could be developed. As for land, the land already wasted to man-made lakes for hydroelectricity more than covers it 100-fold if my roughly estimated math is correct (assuming ~30MW per km2 from newer solar installations and based on a list of man-made lakes on wikipedia). Floating solar is already a thing, it works. How about a hydroelectric dam-duo where solar panels on the artificial lakes pump the water back to the upper reservoir when there's lots of sun? Energy and storage combined! Elon Musk - are you listening? ;-) Solar can also easily be installed on buildings or in deserts, so I don't think large amounts of any valuable land would be needed. As a whole it seems totally feasible to me, at least as a big part of the puzzle, much bigger than it is today.

celestialcheese 5y ago

Solar isn't without its flaws. The solar deployed today will be EOL 25-30 years from now. That's 6M metric tons of waste yearly estimated by 2050 and almost 80m metric tons total [1]. Coupled with the increased demand for materials in PVs and supporting battery infrastructure, more mining and mines have real environmental and social consequences. That's a lot of lead and other toxic elements that if not properly disposed of will lead to massive ecological consequences. The current strategy of dumping in north africa is not a solution, and we're setting ourselves up with a PV waste problem for future generations. 1 - https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/ https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die...

Kon5ole 5y ago
A valid point for sure, this is indeed a problem. Luckily it seems like it can be solved and that people are trying to do it. The first european solar panel recycling plant opened just 2 years ago: https://www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en/industry/first-recycling-plant-europe-solar-panels https://www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en/industry/first-recy... I think the reason why it hasn't been done earlier is that the volume was not there to make it a good business. 20 years from now it surely will be. Just like the business of recycling batteries.

edhelas 5y ago

You're missing a real technical limitation there, it's often call "the night". But eh, we will create some hydrogen-lithium batteries to store all this energy we need when we have "the night" (that seems to happen quite often).

Kon5ole 5y ago
Not sure how to read your comment but basically yes, we'll have to store the energy of course and we know how to do that in many ways. Of course we need to build things, that goes without saying, but it's not "unknown imaginary things", we know how to store energy.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"If we could capture only 1% of that, we'd have 80 times more than we need" Should people abandon Norway, Greenland and Iceland? Hypotheticals which ignore all trade-offs and drawbacks are not very usefull.

Kon5ole 5y ago
I agree about hypotheticals, and sadly I find that is usually the problem with this topic. Some people "know" why some thing will definitely work because they ignore problems, and others "know" why something will not work because they don't realize the problems are solvable or even non-existent. Such as in your example - the three countries you mention are already (at least combined) self-sufficient in renewable energy. (Norway is a net exporter and covers the diesel generators some of the 50 000 people living in Greenland use). Not only that, but solar is totally feasible in all those countries. The notion that solar can't be used far north or far south is just not true. They even use solar power in Antarctica: http://www.antarcticstation.org/station/renewable_energies http://www.antarcticstation.org/station/renewable_energies
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "Norway is a net exporter" Norway is powered 95% by hydro and Iceland by geothermal, so it says nothing about feasibility of wind / solar. Also being a 'Net Exporter' is not enough - Scotland is a net exporter of wind energy, but was actually only able to cover ~30% of it's own needs, because sometimes there is too much wind, and sometimes not enough. "Not only that, but solar is totally feasible in all those countries." Research station in Antarctica is not a suitable benchmark: if their setup produces electricity at £2/kWh, that's a great deal because their only alternative is shipping diesel thousands of kilometres at 50x the price. But charging even £1 for electricity in UK would have major repercussions. In the UK, during the summer there is 10x more solar irradiance than in Winter, Norway will be even more extreme. Anything is feasible if you invest enough, but you probably have to overbuild your renewables, and have cross-continent power transmission to even it out.