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Have you tried thinking for more than 5 minutes? Surely this is not an insurmountable problem. Here, literally the first two things that pop into my head wrt. t

Have you tried thinking for more than 5 minutes? Surely this is not an insurmountable problem. Here, literally the first two things that pop into my head wrt. to this issue: 1. Heat storage: incorporate some sort of long-term energy store that allows us to sink extra energy from the warm season and reclaim it during the cold. We already have this technology, nothing new. 2. Use the warmer areas to power the colder. This thing will create its own power grid, right? So we don't have to rely solely on the one panel to produce its own energy for heating, it can take advantage of the entire network of panels. As long as the entire network of panels is generating a surplus (which back of the envelope calculations say it could), then you're fine. I'm sure if I spent any real amount of time thinking about it I could find other solutions. So maybe we can be a little more creative than, "the new system cannot function in exactly the same way as the old system, therefore it is impossible." You are the one being intellectually lazy.

monochr 12y ago
The question isn't is it an insurmountable problem. The question is if it is an economically sound way of doing things. And the answer is a resounding no just from thinking about conservation of energy: you will need an area of land at least ten times the size of that covered in snow to melt it from the simple fact that turning heat into power to turn back into heat is in incredibly inefficient process and during winter there is more than 12 hours of night in which solar panels don't work. And 100 trillion dollars worth of batteries isn't a solution either.