westernrvparkowner wrote:
John & Angela wrote:
westernrvparkowner wrote:
burlmart wrote:
i got interested in solar energy in late 70's. so many naysayers convinced me that the sunshine was too diffuse, undependable, and too hard to store.
even if only some of the video speaker's ideas of future advances come true, it'll be big. for example, if car-on-demand replaces car ownership such that parking lots are empty, the acerage freed-up could be converted to solar energy collection.
And forty years after you first developed an interest in Solar it now accounts for approximately .6 Percent of the US energy production. If that percentage increases at a linear rate, in the year 6017 solar will finally produce over half the energy consumed in the America.
The fact is those issues that the naysayers pointed out are still the major issues today. Solar's small footprint is very much limited to the areas with high solar gain on a daily basis. Storage is still very much an insurmountable hurdle. Add to the hurdles the fact that the best storage systems use large amounts of rare earth metals (rare being the operative word) and solar isn't going to be a significant source of power anytime in the near future.
Well, solar output has been doubling every 2 years and has been for some time. So its a given that in a decade it will be a considerable part of the grid makeup. Storage is doubling a little slower but still not too far behind. I am guessing you didn't watch the video that addresses your point. .
Rare earth metals, you are probably referring to neodymium. Some manufacturers choose to use them but some don't. Tesla uses no rare earth metals in their vehicles,
"Doubling every two years" is a very misleading statement. Not much different than saying your savings doubled from a year ago. Without a basis of reference, it is meaningless. If you had a dime in savings last year and doubled that to twenty cents, you really haven't made an impact on your financial situation and the doubling of solar contribution to our energy grid is almost equally as meaningless. Until large scale impacts are made in the amount of energy solar actually supplies to our electrical grids and electrical consumption, any geometric measurement will be misleading. The fact remains that much less than 1 percent of our country's electrical needs are met by solar. That is an insignificant contribution when considering our electrical needs. And that doesn't even begin to address the costs associated with that .6 percent compared to the costs of the other 99.4.
Yah I know what you are saying, the numbers are small in the early years. But presently lets take that .6 percent of the total provided and multiply it by itself 10 times (10 years) and that is a significant amount. Having said that this is why I don't see that as a sustainable growth rate for the technology.
1, Production. Yes their are solar factories going up fast but once those numbers get bigger the production rate will be hard to maintain.
2. Storage. The sun doesn't shine at night and although the storage technology is now becoming mature the production (read factories) still has to catch up and will also be hard to sustain.
3. Coordination of public and private lands to install the solar panels. Although solar has a slightly smaller Physical foot print than coal (including mines and power plants) it is still a lot of area (50,000 square kilometers for example in the US) so yah, it will take some coordination.
Solar is one source of power and will play a role in the future grid makeup, however it is only one source. Certainly thermal and wind will have their place as well.
Anyway, it will be an interesting decade and it will be nice to see fossil fuels such as coal become slowly obsolete. Oil is an important manufacturing resource, we need it for manufacturing, not for burning.
You always bring up valid points and concerns and I always enjoy reading...and thinking about them. Thank you.
