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What people don't realize is that solar power is not enough to support industrial production. Neither is hydro and wind power. To have enough solar energy, you

What people don't realize is that solar power is not enough to support industrial production. Neither is hydro and wind power. To have enough solar energy, you would need huge fields of panels where the sun shines bright. Panels block the sunlight beneath, so you can't plant anything where the panels are. On the other hand, you need space for agriculture. So, you see where the problem is. Large wind turbines also need a lot of space to be efficient. And you can't just place those anywhere, either. Wind turbines need strong wind to work. Hydro power plants need water flow to generate energy. So you can't have those anywhere, of course. The only reliable and eco-firendly way to generate power are nuclear power plants. You can build them anywhere, they produce small waste per output and they require about the same space as any coal-based plant. Sadly, you need good experts and no bad luck to operate them safely. Otherwise, we saw what happens.

iso1631 4y ago
Crops under solar panels: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=planting+under+solar+panel&atb=v329-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=planting+under+solar+panel&... "researchers are showing how panels can increase yields and reduce water use on a warming planet." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_wind_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_wind_power "As of 2020, the total worldwide offshore wind power nameplate capacity was 35.3 gigawatt" Many areas need large amounts of cheap clean electric, but don't need them 24/7. If your CO2 sequestran or hydrogen generator or desalination only runs during the day, or when the wind is blowing, meh.
pawsforthought 4y ago
Agrivoltaics [1] has enormous potential. [1]: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/publications/studies/APV-Guideline.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/p...
Kon5ole 4y ago
>What people don't realize is that solar power is not enough to support industrial production. Neither is hydro and wind power. You need energy storage as well, people have realized this and it's being built in most countries. Hydro however is enough on it's own, and is in fact also one of the best forms of energy storage. If you have enough hydro to cover half your needs, adding "half your needs" from wind and solar lets you save hydro for the other half (This is a huge simplification but essentially true) >Panels block the sunlight beneath, so you can't plant anything where the panels are. On the other hand, you need space for agriculture. So, you see where the problem is. I don't see where the problem is. You seem to postulate that a solar power plant needs to be built like a nuclear power plant and take up a huge area of new land. It doesn't. You can put solar where you are already doing other things. In fact, we could just build solar roofs on existing parking lots! Shade is very nice for parked cars and the area currently used by parking lots is enough in most countries. Also, parking lots are not used for agriculture. I think the real thing people don't realize is just how great a solution solar power really is, because it's new and has enormous implications. So far most of the development has been done on a basically amateur level. Distributed energy generation and decimated price of electricity will disrupt a lot of powerful incumbents, so there's bound to be some propaganda against it from many sources. If the claims in the story are true, anyone using IEA as a source would be lead to believe that solar has no future, for example. But the actual solar developments have surpassed IEAs 20-year estimates within 1 year, 13 years in a row.
pfdietz 4y ago
> What people don't realize is that solar power is not enough to support industrial production. Neither is hydro and wind power. We don't realize it because it's not true.
alvah 4y ago
You should probably read the article, before writing a highly-downvoted comment answering a completely different article.

iso1631 4y ago

Crops under solar panels: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=planting+under+solar+panel&atb=v329-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=planting+under+solar+panel&... "researchers are showing how panels can increase yields and reduce water use on a warming planet." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_wind_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_wind_power "As of 2020, the total worldwide offshore wind power nameplate capacity was 35.3 gigawatt" Many areas need large amounts of cheap clean electric, but don't need them 24/7. If your CO2 sequestran or hydrogen generator or desalination only runs during the day, or when the wind is blowing, meh.

pawsforthought 4y ago

Agrivoltaics [1] has enormous potential. [1]: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/publications/studies/APV-Guideline.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/p...

Kon5ole 4y ago

>What people don't realize is that solar power is not enough to support industrial production. Neither is hydro and wind power. You need energy storage as well, people have realized this and it's being built in most countries. Hydro however is enough on it's own, and is in fact also one of the best forms of energy storage. If you have enough hydro to cover half your needs, adding "half your needs" from wind and solar lets you save hydro for the other half (This is a huge simplification but essentially true) >Panels block the sunlight beneath, so you can't plant anything where the panels are. On the other hand, you need space for agriculture. So, you see where the problem is. I don't see where the problem is. You seem to postulate that a solar power plant needs to be built like a nuclear power plant and take up a huge area of new land. It doesn't. You can put solar where you are already doing other things. In fact, we could just build solar roofs on existing parking lots! Shade is very nice for parked cars and the area currently used by parking lots is enough in most countries. Also, parking lots are not used for agriculture. I think the real thing people don't realize is just how great a solution solar power really is, because it's new and has enormous implications. So far most of the development has been done on a basically amateur level. Distributed energy generation and decimated price of electricity will disrupt a lot of powerful incumbents, so there's bound to be some propaganda against it from many sources. If the claims in the story are true, anyone using IEA as a source would be lead to believe that solar has no future, for example. But the actual solar developments have surpassed IEAs 20-year estimates within 1 year, 13 years in a row.

pfdietz 4y ago

> What people don't realize is that solar power is not enough to support industrial production. Neither is hydro and wind power. We don't realize it because it's not true.

alvah 4y ago

You should probably read the article, before writing a highly-downvoted comment answering a completely different article.