3 ms·

Oil is primarily used as fuel for transportation. How can I power my kilowatt car with these? How about flying a megawatt plane? This seems more like a milliwa

by joss82 12y ago

Oil is primarily used as fuel for transportation. How can I power my kilowatt car with these? How about flying a megawatt plane? This seems more like a milliwatt application. Probably nice and useful for phone, but not to replace oil. The title is misleading. What is the efficiency of this technology compared to the usual solar panels? We need terawatt-scale energy sources if we want to meet actual demand. How many square kilometers of that glass do we need to install to meet that demand?

keehun 12y ago
I think the goal is to replace every window with this, producing an uncountable (Google interview question about Seattle) square kilometers of electricity-producing surface. I think the efficiency has to improve before most people would bother replacing their windows, though.
antr 12y ago
> Oil is primarily used as fuel for transportation. The use of the word "oil" tends to include gas too (and in many cases coal) as the word the press many times doesn't use is hydrocarbons. Gas (be it natural gas, shale gas) is very much a source of electricity production, around one third of all gas is used for electricity... it's almost 100 in the case of coal. > What is the efficiency of this technology compared to the usual solar panels? It's mentioned in the video: traditional cells c. 30% vs 22%. A 1/3 loss in efficiency. But then, their use is more flexible. > How many square kilometers of that glass do we need to install to meet that demand? "Dividing the global yearly demand by 400 kW•h per square meter (198,721,800,000,000 / 400) and we arrive at 496,804,500,000 square meters or 496,805 square kilometers (191,817 square miles) as the area required to power the world with solar panels. This is roughly equal to the area of Spain. At first that sounds like a lot and it is. But we should put this in perspective." Source: http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127
higherpurpose 12y ago
> Oil is primarily used as fuel for transportation. How can I power my kilowatt car with these? Easy. You build batteries using energy from solar panels, and then you charge them with energy from solar panels.
- LordKano 12y ago
  After you mine rare earth minerals using energy from solar panels? Simple perhaps but certainly not easy.
onion2k 12y ago
The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, has a total of 120,000 square metres of windows. It's already got some solar panels that generate 690MWh of energy a year, as well as heating most of the water used in the residential bit. Obviously that's a special case (it's huge and it's in an ideal location) but it's not entirely unbelievable that other buildings could benefit from this sort of technology.

by joss82 12y ago

keehun 12y ago

I think the goal is to replace every window with this, producing an uncountable (Google interview question about Seattle) square kilometers of electricity-producing surface. I think the efficiency has to improve before most people would bother replacing their windows, though.

antr 12y ago

> Oil is primarily used as fuel for transportation. The use of the word "oil" tends to include gas too (and in many cases coal) as the word the press many times doesn't use is hydrocarbons. Gas (be it natural gas, shale gas) is very much a source of electricity production, around one third of all gas is used for electricity... it's almost 100 in the case of coal. > What is the efficiency of this technology compared to the usual solar panels? It's mentioned in the video: traditional cells c. 30% vs 22%. A 1/3 loss in efficiency. But then, their use is more flexible. > How many square kilometers of that glass do we need to install to meet that demand? "Dividing the global yearly demand by 400 kW•h per square meter (198,721,800,000,000 / 400) and we arrive at 496,804,500,000 square meters or 496,805 square kilometers (191,817 square miles) as the area required to power the world with solar panels. This is roughly equal to the area of Spain. At first that sounds like a lot and it is. But we should put this in perspective." Source: http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127

higherpurpose 12y ago

> Oil is primarily used as fuel for transportation. How can I power my kilowatt car with these? Easy. You build batteries using energy from solar panels, and then you charge them with energy from solar panels.

LordKano 12y ago
After you mine rare earth minerals using energy from solar panels? Simple perhaps but certainly not easy.

onion2k 12y ago

The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, has a total of 120,000 square metres of windows. It's already got some solar panels that generate 690MWh of energy a year, as well as heating most of the water used in the residential bit. Obviously that's a special case (it's huge and it's in an ideal location) but it's not entirely unbelievable that other buildings could benefit from this sort of technology.