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German-led consortium about to invest €400 billion in Solar Energy (Desertec)
- arrrg 17y agoThey plan to use low tech solar thermal power and high voltage transmission to Europe. They want to have it up an running within a decade. This low tech approach (all existing technology) seems to me to be exactly the right way to go.
- Retric 17y agoA major advantage to photovoltaic’s is they still work when it's cloudy unlike concentrating systems. That might now seem like a major issue, but without long term energy storage the peak power output is less useful.
- arrrg 17y agoThere's still the question as to whether photovoltaic is as effective as we would like. It might just be the case that producing them takes more or not much less energy than they produce. The low tech solutions have the advantage that they are cheap and available. The problem of energy storage certainly remains.
- Retric 17y agoNot really, Spending 10,000$ on a solar cell system in a good area, gives you far more energy over it's lifetime than buying 10,000$ in electricity from the grid today. The reason they are not cost effective is the diminishing value of future returns. AKA 100 dollars today is worth a lot more than something that would give you 100 dollars in 15 years. PS: There is nothing low tech about a high effecency consentrating solar plant. It's a highly complex system that seems easy to understand, but the devil is in the details. Such as automaticly tracking the sun over the course of the day for years and buiding high effecnecy turbines ect.
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- arrrg 17y agoRelativly low tech, i.e. existing, working tech. And I am not so much talking about costs, rather about whether photovoltaic is really sustainable.
- Retric 17y agoPV is used on a far larger scale today than solar thermal power generation. Solar adoption is currently constrained by manufacturing capacity which is why it can quickly scale. It's 0.15% of total electric use today. But instilled capacity is doubling every 2 years. The maximum efficiency of PV is far larger than solar thermal systems and they have been improving far more quickly both on cost / watt and peak efficiency. PV systems are easier to install and maintain than solar thermal systems. PS: Looking the cost / adoption curves PV is only looking more attractive each year. But, suggesting there is no long term energy crisis does not generate a lot of publicity. Also there is a perception that PV is magic and hard to understand even though manufacturing it is a well understood process. Edit: If you have a more secefic issue with PV I would gladly address it, but it looks like PV is going to provide atleast 10% of our electricity needs within 20 years.
- Tobias42 17y agoThis is not a big issue if you spread the power plants over various places in the sahara, each of which is cloudy only a few days per year.
- xexers 17y agoI can guarantee if they are ready to spend 400 Billion Euros, they have thought out these details. They have the very best minds working on this plan.
- Luc 17y agoYou could say they have top men working on it right now. Top men.