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Report: America could power itself 100 times over with solar energy

11 points by Libertatea 12y ago

edent 12y ago
I have solar panels in Southern England[1] - where it rains all the time :-) My domestic panels completely offset my domestic needs. Over the course of the year, I'm a net positive contributor to the energy mix of the UK. But, here's the rub, that's averaged out over the year. Obviously, solar doesn't work at night time. During fog and cloud cover, the output is fairly low. There are only so many appliances I can set to turn on at mid-day. What's now needed is better energy stores. I turn some of my surplus solar energy into hot water - that saves me burning gas to heat it up. I also try to charge my laptop and phone during the day - but that's only a tiny fraction. Tesla reckon they're approaching US$200/kWh on their battery tech[2]. That's still hideously expensive if you want to save enough energy to power your house through the lean winter months. Sure, in the USA you can probably import power from the sunnier areas to the North - but it's much more efficient if it can be charged and stored locally. [1] https://twitter.com/edent_solar https://twitter.com/edent_solar & https://twitter.com/OxfordSolarLive https://twitter.com/OxfordSolarLive [2] http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1094442_tesla-battery-cost-new-report-suggests-model-3-to-cost-50k-or-more http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1094442_tesla-battery-co...
- HeyLaughingBoy 12y ago
  in the USA you can probably import power from the sunnier areas to the North - but it's much more efficient if it can be charged and stored locally. Interestingly enough, the Upper Midwestern US has very high solar insolation values (http://www.solarmn.org/solarinmn.html http://www.solarmn.org/solarinmn.html) despite being just below Canada. We have relatively few cloudy days and very clear skies. My first summer living here after moving from the Northeast I noticed that the sun seemed "hotter" somehow. My guess is that a fair amount of sunlight was reflected back by the hazy Northeastern US atmosphere. I've done some small scale solar experiments: on a clear winter day where the air temperature was -10F, I was able to get the temperature in a small insulated box over 100F using an 8.5x11" window pane facing the sun. And that was with significant air leaks.
wyldfire 12y ago
This might sound silly, but I wonder what is the environmental impact of absorbing this energy with PV instead of having it be absorbed/reflected by rooftops, grass, etc? Presumably its a net benefit over combustion of fossil fuels. If solar power continues its efficiency pace, should we be concerned with its deployment?
lawturd 12y ago
Why not make the Earth a sort of "Dyson Sphere"? No seriously, why not?

11 points by Libertatea 12y ago

edent 12y ago

I have solar panels in Southern England[1] - where it rains all the time :-) My domestic panels completely offset my domestic needs. Over the course of the year, I'm a net positive contributor to the energy mix of the UK. But, here's the rub, that's averaged out over the year. Obviously, solar doesn't work at night time. During fog and cloud cover, the output is fairly low. There are only so many appliances I can set to turn on at mid-day. What's now needed is better energy stores. I turn some of my surplus solar energy into hot water - that saves me burning gas to heat it up. I also try to charge my laptop and phone during the day - but that's only a tiny fraction. Tesla reckon they're approaching US$200/kWh on their battery tech[2]. That's still hideously expensive if you want to save enough energy to power your house through the lean winter months. Sure, in the USA you can probably import power from the sunnier areas to the North - but it's much more efficient if it can be charged and stored locally. [1] https://twitter.com/edent_solar https://twitter.com/edent_solar & https://twitter.com/OxfordSolarLive https://twitter.com/OxfordSolarLive [2] http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1094442_tesla-battery-cost-new-report-suggests-model-3-to-cost-50k-or-more http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1094442_tesla-battery-co...

HeyLaughingBoy 12y ago
in the USA you can probably import power from the sunnier areas to the North - but it's much more efficient if it can be charged and stored locally. Interestingly enough, the Upper Midwestern US has very high solar insolation values (http://www.solarmn.org/solarinmn.html http://www.solarmn.org/solarinmn.html) despite being just below Canada. We have relatively few cloudy days and very clear skies. My first summer living here after moving from the Northeast I noticed that the sun seemed "hotter" somehow. My guess is that a fair amount of sunlight was reflected back by the hazy Northeastern US atmosphere. I've done some small scale solar experiments: on a clear winter day where the air temperature was -10F, I was able to get the temperature in a small insulated box over 100F using an 8.5x11" window pane facing the sun. And that was with significant air leaks.

wyldfire 12y ago

This might sound silly, but I wonder what is the environmental impact of absorbing this energy with PV instead of having it be absorbed/reflected by rooftops, grass, etc? Presumably its a net benefit over combustion of fossil fuels. If solar power continues its efficiency pace, should we be concerned with its deployment?

lawturd 12y ago

Why not make the Earth a sort of "Dyson Sphere"? No seriously, why not?