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How does solar produce substantial power in northern and southern latitudes for several months of the year? How about at night? How about during long cloudy p

How does solar produce substantial power in northern and southern latitudes for several months of the year? How about at night? How about during long cloudy periods? Solar usually ends up with carbon based backup. It should be nuclear instead. For solar to really work, it will take massive energy storage capabilities. That is NOT ready to deploy. Until then, solar will only be a partial solution at best. Anyone who wants carbon free power generation should be pro-solar AND pro-nuclear.

onethought 4y ago
Country the size of Australia could actually build sizeable solar assets across multiple timezones. The "backup problem" is a storage problem that could be solved more locally to the consumption. (houses with batteries, or suburbs, or cities, or states). The "night time" generation problem is a bit BS given electricity demand drops significantly at nigh in Australia, so the storage requirement is no where near the generation requirement. Just some thoughts. Australia has enough unutilised land mass to generate the global power demand a couple of times over, North Africa also does... so you could build a solution that requires no storage at all.
- tfigment 4y ago
  There is very high demand from 6-10 pm and lesser in morning when solar is not available or very diminished. Also solar still needs cleaning all of those panels. Solar requires rare earths and that is surprisingly toxic manufacturing/refining process. Distribution and transmission is also not as easy as just building everything in Africa and sending it elsewhere. We need a mix of systems in practice.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Solar does not, in fact, require rare earths. (And, incidentally, "rare earths" are very, very far from rare; that is just a name.) And, the cost to clean them once in a while is very low. You are reaching. The fact is that renewables are the cheapest source of power that has ever happened on this planet, and they are still getting cheaper. Storage is likewise cheap and very quickly getting much, much cheaper. By the time we actually need any, you will not notice the cost.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      You need rare earths for wind power. They broadly come from hellscapes in the far reaches of Mongolia. [1] The reason they're primarily mined in China isn't, as you point out, their not existing anywhere else - it is due to the Chinese being willing to pay the extreme environmental cost of their refining. The second-most common type of panel, CdTe solar panels still contain cadmium, tellurium and sometimes lead - and all of them to my knowledge have huge quantities of plastic. These are rarely recycled and generally end up buried with the rest of the e-waste in poor countries. [2] [1] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/toxic-lake-black-sludge-result-mining-create-tech/story?id=30122911 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/toxic-lake-black-sludge-re... [2] https://www.americanexperiment.org/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-what-will-we-do-with-the-megatons-of-toxic-trash/ https://www.americanexperiment.org/solar-panels-are-starting...
      - onethought 4y ago
        I was talking about solar panels. They are purified silicon… not rare or toxic. You purify it by melting it. The coating of boron or other substance is also not toxic. Compare it to ANY other energy source and it is less toxic in manufacture and of course is completely static in use.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Rare-earth magnets are often used in wind turbines, but very far from always. CdTe PV is made on glass. They are common mainly in the US, mainly because of import tariffs. But Cd and Te are valuable and easily extracted from panels, so, no, they will not end up in landfills. The Si ones may, but very highly-purified Si is also valuable. Thin-film cells likely to be used in future cells use very little material. So, you are reaching.
        arcticbull 4y ago
        Not reaching, citing.
        onethought 4y ago
  - onethought 4y ago
    I mentioned building solar across multiple time zones so assets in Perth are still getting sun until 7-8pm in Sydney. Transmission isn’t easy? Compared to what? Building thousands of power plants globally is easier? You could also look at panels towards the poles where the sun shines longer. Solar panels really are an insane technology.

onethought 4y ago

Country the size of Australia could actually build sizeable solar assets across multiple timezones. The "backup problem" is a storage problem that could be solved more locally to the consumption. (houses with batteries, or suburbs, or cities, or states). The "night time" generation problem is a bit BS given electricity demand drops significantly at nigh in Australia, so the storage requirement is no where near the generation requirement. Just some thoughts. Australia has enough unutilised land mass to generate the global power demand a couple of times over, North Africa also does... so you could build a solution that requires no storage at all.

tfigment 4y ago
There is very high demand from 6-10 pm and lesser in morning when solar is not available or very diminished. Also solar still needs cleaning all of those panels. Solar requires rare earths and that is surprisingly toxic manufacturing/refining process. Distribution and transmission is also not as easy as just building everything in Africa and sending it elsewhere. We need a mix of systems in practice.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Solar does not, in fact, require rare earths. (And, incidentally, "rare earths" are very, very far from rare; that is just a name.) And, the cost to clean them once in a while is very low. You are reaching. The fact is that renewables are the cheapest source of power that has ever happened on this planet, and they are still getting cheaper. Storage is likewise cheap and very quickly getting much, much cheaper. By the time we actually need any, you will not notice the cost.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    You need rare earths for wind power. They broadly come from hellscapes in the far reaches of Mongolia. [1] The reason they're primarily mined in China isn't, as you point out, their not existing anywhere else - it is due to the Chinese being willing to pay the extreme environmental cost of their refining. The second-most common type of panel, CdTe solar panels still contain cadmium, tellurium and sometimes lead - and all of them to my knowledge have huge quantities of plastic. These are rarely recycled and generally end up buried with the rest of the e-waste in poor countries. [2] [1] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/toxic-lake-black-sludge-result-mining-create-tech/story?id=30122911 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/toxic-lake-black-sludge-re... [2] https://www.americanexperiment.org/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-what-will-we-do-with-the-megatons-of-toxic-trash/ https://www.americanexperiment.org/solar-panels-are-starting...
    - onethought 4y ago
      I was talking about solar panels. They are purified silicon… not rare or toxic. You purify it by melting it. The coating of boron or other substance is also not toxic. Compare it to ANY other energy source and it is less toxic in manufacture and of course is completely static in use.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Rare-earth magnets are often used in wind turbines, but very far from always. CdTe PV is made on glass. They are common mainly in the US, mainly because of import tariffs. But Cd and Te are valuable and easily extracted from panels, so, no, they will not end up in landfills. The Si ones may, but very highly-purified Si is also valuable. Thin-film cells likely to be used in future cells use very little material. So, you are reaching.
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        Not reaching, citing.
        onethought 4y ago
- onethought 4y ago
  I mentioned building solar across multiple time zones so assets in Perth are still getting sun until 7-8pm in Sydney. Transmission isn’t easy? Compared to what? Building thousands of power plants globally is easier? You could also look at panels towards the poles where the sun shines longer. Solar panels really are an insane technology.