5 ms·

That's false on a number of levels. A) It's not just solar. B) A lot of the manufacturing actually happens in Germany. It's just that recently, China is spinn

by skore 14y ago

That's false on a number of levels. A) It's not just solar. B) A lot of the manufacturing actually happens in Germany. It's just that recently, China is spinning up the competition. Market at work. C) "costs more energy than it produces for decades". Even if that were true, it would still be a better deal. You provide no source for proof because there is none - Particularly considering technological progress, this will soon be even more laughable. D) It's not about frigging CO2. That's part of the deal, but reducing it to that is dangerously close to obfuscation. E) "except maybe pushing the cost down" - there is a gold mine of discovery and realization being brushed away with crushing ignorance there. "pushing the cost down" is quite the magic thing in the history of mankind, you know? F) "The one and only technology" - Yeah right. Tell you what, there is an article linked at the top which talks about the actual, one and only technology. It's already working and being implemented.

ars 14y ago
A: Yes, and wind. Wind has a reasonably good energy ROI, but it's not possible to collect enough energy from it without covering the country in turbines, and people don't want that. Offshore is interesting, but the costs (financial and energy invested in building them) are much higher. B: Market at work, sure, but the end result is the same: They are claiming low CO2 by simply sending the CO2 to China. C: It is true - look it up if you like. It takes about 20 years to return the energy (forget about the money). And when you have: "the skies are often gray and his roofs aren't all optimally oriented" then those solar cells will never return their energy investment (they will degrade before they are able to do that). Germany is spending money to increase CO2 emissions - brilliant plan: waste money, increase CO2. > Particularly considering technological progress, this will soon be even more laughable. You make me laugh. People have been researching solar for decades, and it's always: "soon". I've seen those graphs on how the cost of hydrocarbon fuel is going up, and eventually will go higher than the cost of solar. I'm sure you've seen them too. Looks great right? You know what they forget? The biggest expense in making solar cells is energy - that exact same hydrocarbon energy who's price increase is being celebrated. When that price goes up the cost of making a solar cell also goes up. D: Maybe, but that's how it's being sold. And it doesn't help that most renewables are net negative on energy. E: The research on solar is basically finished. You can't gain any more energy from it that is already being done. The only thing left is reducing the cost. Those super special solar cells that you read about? They use hard to find elements, and we simply don't have enough of those elements on earth to create enough solar cells! Crushing ignorance indeed - you know nothing about me, or how much I know about the field of solar. I know nothing about you either, but you certainly don't sound like you know much about it except for the breathless prognostications from science rags. Photovoltaic: It's dead. It's pointless, it takes more energy to make them than they produce for a huge time. Solar thermal? Now we are talking, but no one hardly builds them since you need HUGE areas (instead of small incremental installations). You also need an excellent power grid, (but that could be done). F: No it's not working, it's just costing them money, and increasing CO2 emissions for the rest of the world. Nuclear is it - everything else is just little "feel good" incremental bits. Maybe solar thermal.
- marvin 14y ago
  Your claim about 20 years required to return the energy to produce a solar panel is false. Googling a bit after "energy returned on energy invested" (EROI) indicates that there aren't really any reliable ways to measure this number. Wikipedia quotes 1.5 for the US, which seems ridiculously low. This study (http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1796/pdf http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1796/pdf) from 2011 indicates an average EROI for solar panels of 6.5, and this does not take into consideration that this number appears to be rapidly increasing for newer and cheaper panels. See article from the Oil Drum at (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3910 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3910). A conservative EROI of 6.5 would indicate that it takes about 4.5 years to earn back the energy to produce a panel, assuming static energy output and panel lifetime of 30 years. In short, the data I can find indicates that you are wrong.
  - ars 14y ago
    You are misreading that number. It's not years, it's how much energy is returned compared to invested. i.e. 6.5 times as much energy returned as invested over the entire life of the device. For comparison hydrocarbon fuels have numbers in the 30 range, and nuclear is 60 and up (depending on how long the plant lasts). So 6.5 is quite poor. And they list no numbers on expected lifespan - lifespan is the number one thing that controls the EROI on solar. Also, these numbers usually use very sunny areas and ideal angles to calculate the return. In Germany the results will be much worse.
    - revelation 14y ago
      Thats an overly useless calculation. The whole point of this exercise is: not all energy is created equal. You can waste many many millions of kWh of Norways free power and then ship the panel to Germany where it will replace energy generated through coal or nuclear. It might not make up for the energy you wasted back in Norway, but that was never the point to begin with.
      - ars 14y ago
        > Norways free power Mind explaining what you are talking about? I mean if you have free power, then yes converting it into something else even inefficiently is good. But what free power? I know there are some geothermal plants in Iceland that capture otherwise wasted power and use it to refine aluminium, but I've never heard of countries with free power.

by skore 14y ago

ars 14y ago

A: Yes, and wind. Wind has a reasonably good energy ROI, but it's not possible to collect enough energy from it without covering the country in turbines, and people don't want that. Offshore is interesting, but the costs (financial and energy invested in building them) are much higher. B: Market at work, sure, but the end result is the same: They are claiming low CO2 by simply sending the CO2 to China. C: It is true - look it up if you like. It takes about 20 years to return the energy (forget about the money). And when you have: "the skies are often gray and his roofs aren't all optimally oriented" then those solar cells will never return their energy investment (they will degrade before they are able to do that). Germany is spending money to increase CO2 emissions - brilliant plan: waste money, increase CO2. > Particularly considering technological progress, this will soon be even more laughable. You make me laugh. People have been researching solar for decades, and it's always: "soon". I've seen those graphs on how the cost of hydrocarbon fuel is going up, and eventually will go higher than the cost of solar. I'm sure you've seen them too. Looks great right? You know what they forget? The biggest expense in making solar cells is energy - that exact same hydrocarbon energy who's price increase is being celebrated. When that price goes up the cost of making a solar cell also goes up. D: Maybe, but that's how it's being sold. And it doesn't help that most renewables are net negative on energy. E: The research on solar is basically finished. You can't gain any more energy from it that is already being done. The only thing left is reducing the cost. Those super special solar cells that you read about? They use hard to find elements, and we simply don't have enough of those elements on earth to create enough solar cells! Crushing ignorance indeed - you know nothing about me, or how much I know about the field of solar. I know nothing about you either, but you certainly don't sound like you know much about it except for the breathless prognostications from science rags. Photovoltaic: It's dead. It's pointless, it takes more energy to make them than they produce for a huge time. Solar thermal? Now we are talking, but no one hardly builds them since you need HUGE areas (instead of small incremental installations). You also need an excellent power grid, (but that could be done). F: No it's not working, it's just costing them money, and increasing CO2 emissions for the rest of the world. Nuclear is it - everything else is just little "feel good" incremental bits. Maybe solar thermal.

marvin 14y ago
Your claim about 20 years required to return the energy to produce a solar panel is false. Googling a bit after "energy returned on energy invested" (EROI) indicates that there aren't really any reliable ways to measure this number. Wikipedia quotes 1.5 for the US, which seems ridiculously low. This study (http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1796/pdf http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1796/pdf) from 2011 indicates an average EROI for solar panels of 6.5, and this does not take into consideration that this number appears to be rapidly increasing for newer and cheaper panels. See article from the Oil Drum at (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3910 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3910). A conservative EROI of 6.5 would indicate that it takes about 4.5 years to earn back the energy to produce a panel, assuming static energy output and panel lifetime of 30 years. In short, the data I can find indicates that you are wrong.
- ars 14y ago
  You are misreading that number. It's not years, it's how much energy is returned compared to invested. i.e. 6.5 times as much energy returned as invested over the entire life of the device. For comparison hydrocarbon fuels have numbers in the 30 range, and nuclear is 60 and up (depending on how long the plant lasts). So 6.5 is quite poor. And they list no numbers on expected lifespan - lifespan is the number one thing that controls the EROI on solar. Also, these numbers usually use very sunny areas and ideal angles to calculate the return. In Germany the results will be much worse.
  - revelation 14y ago
    Thats an overly useless calculation. The whole point of this exercise is: not all energy is created equal. You can waste many many millions of kWh of Norways free power and then ship the panel to Germany where it will replace energy generated through coal or nuclear. It might not make up for the energy you wasted back in Norway, but that was never the point to begin with.
    - ars 14y ago
      > Norways free power Mind explaining what you are talking about? I mean if you have free power, then yes converting it into something else even inefficiently is good. But what free power? I know there are some geothermal plants in Iceland that capture otherwise wasted power and use it to refine aluminium, but I've never heard of countries with free power.