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I wonder how much power we could generate if we really have an affordable solar panel for everyone to use, put a giant sheet of panel up in the space, storing m

by yeukhon 13y ago

I wonder how much power we could generate if we really have an affordable solar panel for everyone to use, put a giant sheet of panel up in the space, storing mechanical and wave energy as we walk, drive on the road and move things around the house, convert organic waste (human and animal poop) into energy.

NamTaf 13y ago
Solar irradience on the surface of Earth is about 1200 W/m^2 Total energy consumption in 2008 was 143,851 TWh Take panels that have 20% efficiency, and assume they can absorb for 6 hours a day, for 70% of the year (255 days). You can generate 368 kW/year. To generate the total 143851 TWh, you'd need about 3.91e11 m^2 of area. That sounds a lot, but it's only a square of land 625 km per side, or about 90% of the area of California. Note that this is of course a very hand-wavey order of magnitude estimate. The problem isn't the abundence of energy sources, it's the collection, retainment, transmission and generation reliability of it (those factors overlap - generation reliability can be offset by better transmission and vice versa). We don't really have to go looking far for energy sources, we just really struggle to harness them with current technology.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  Folks criticize orbital solar collectors, because of the inefficiency of transmitting energy to the ground (losses in the laser creation and reception). But consider ground-based solar collectors are in the dark 50% of the time on average, no matter where you put them. Its hard to do worse than that.
tjmc 13y ago
There's some good answers to those questions here: http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/ I'm optimistic about renewables. Photovoltaic solar is already cheaper than retail power and competitive with wholesale in many markets. The issue now is grid storage. Battery tech is currently improving at around 7% a year, so I think we'll see electric cars go mainstream in the next 5 years and decreasing reliance on centralized power generation shortly afterwards.
- thaumaturgy 13y ago
  Incidentally, there are some very smart people working on the problem of grid energy storage, too. e.g., Lightsail Energy (http://www.lightsail.com/ http://www.lightsail.com/).

by yeukhon 13y ago

NamTaf 13y ago

Solar irradience on the surface of Earth is about 1200 W/m^2 Total energy consumption in 2008 was 143,851 TWh Take panels that have 20% efficiency, and assume they can absorb for 6 hours a day, for 70% of the year (255 days). You can generate 368 kW/year. To generate the total 143851 TWh, you'd need about 3.91e11 m^2 of area. That sounds a lot, but it's only a square of land 625 km per side, or about 90% of the area of California. Note that this is of course a very hand-wavey order of magnitude estimate. The problem isn't the abundence of energy sources, it's the collection, retainment, transmission and generation reliability of it (those factors overlap - generation reliability can be offset by better transmission and vice versa). We don't really have to go looking far for energy sources, we just really struggle to harness them with current technology.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago
Folks criticize orbital solar collectors, because of the inefficiency of transmitting energy to the ground (losses in the laser creation and reception). But consider ground-based solar collectors are in the dark 50% of the time on average, no matter where you put them. Its hard to do worse than that.

tjmc 13y ago

There's some good answers to those questions here: http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/ I'm optimistic about renewables. Photovoltaic solar is already cheaper than retail power and competitive with wholesale in many markets. The issue now is grid storage. Battery tech is currently improving at around 7% a year, so I think we'll see electric cars go mainstream in the next 5 years and decreasing reliance on centralized power generation shortly afterwards.

thaumaturgy 13y ago
Incidentally, there are some very smart people working on the problem of grid energy storage, too. e.g., Lightsail Energy (http://www.lightsail.com/ http://www.lightsail.com/).