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I don't think that photovoltaic is an essential step on a grid perspective. The production of PV cells costs a lot of energy, produces a lot of CO2 and requires
by fafner 14y ago
I don't think that photovoltaic is an essential step on a grid perspective. The production of PV cells costs a lot of energy, produces a lot of CO2 and requires a lot of nasty chemicals (zB HF). The prices are only cheap because of massive government subsidies and in the EU because of silly laws, that force grid operators to accept every bit of solar energy despite what the plan says.
The best way would probably to invest in thorium and other modern nuclear technologies. But that's not desired. Waterpower is limited by nature. Currently the real alternative seems to be wind and depending on where you are solarthermal and geothermal. Especially massive offshore wind/wave plants. But all of this requires a restructuring of the power grid and massive pump-storage plants.
And I don't think c2 was considering diesel as a future alternative but just trying to give an idea about the size requirements.
- marvin 14y agoI agree that nuclear (thorium) is an option that should be reserached and developed, as should other nuclear options. But there is no silver bullet in energy. And solar cells are not cheap only because of government subsidies. This has been true for a long time, but the newest generation of solar cells are clearly profitable even without subsidies. In fact, the next generation of Chinese panels for US customers will only be _expensive_ because of protectionist import tariffs. See http://solartribune.com/2012-05-30-u-s-import-tariffs-could-reduce-solar-imports-by-45/ http://solartribune.com/2012-05-30-u-s-import-tariffs-could-....