Power the U.S. With Solar Panels!

[Flash]

I see uninformed people arguing a subject based on what they read, but obviously nobody here has experienced living with solar power. Some here,(the ebike dude for one) are simply liars.You are hearing a 30+ year veteran of living off-grid right here.
The literature that the industry puts out is filled with outright lies. Without trying it yourself, you really have no way of knowing. Theoretical data is simply not the same as real world experience.
People like me are rare, but we are around.
The most important point to be made shouldn't be what battery technology is best, or how long panels last or how many cloudy days there are.

The most important point should be how to reduce power consumption. In other words, conservation.
Most of you poor fools are tied to a power grid, and for political reasons will never be allowed the opportunity to try anything other than being tied to the grid.

If you live off the grid in a rural area solar makes sense if you have the money. There aren't many alternatives.

If you have lots of money and don't really care about the payback then you can even make solar work elsewhere.

The trade off is economics and solar cannot compete with the grid in a level playing field.

It is even worse when you consider government subsidies because that is false economics.

Of course then you have President Potatohead running up the cost of fossil much higher than it has to be in order to make his Chinese buddies solar cells more viable. The Chinese that made his family filthy rich.

 

[Dadoalex]

Yes, really. Energy isn't measured in time, dummy. Energy is measured in btu's.

Solar power and battery technology are low energy density power sources.

Hey dumbass...
When you burn that barrel of oil the only thing left is the pollution you create.
Solar panels will last decades.
and
millions upon millions of panels means an ongoing supply of those cute little BTUs.

Remember, your brain is not just a spacer for your ears.

 

[ding]

Hey dumbass...
When you burn that barrel of oil the only thing left is the pollution you create.
Solar panels will last decades.
and
millions upon millions of panels means an ongoing supply of those cute little BTUs.

Remember, your brain is not just a spacer for your ears.

You aren't getting what I am saying, dado. The technology isn't practical to replace fossil fuels but you go all in and you'll find out for yourself. It's just math and something tells me you aren't very good at math.

 

[Dadoalex]

I was answering your questions.
It's not my fault if you're wrong about almost everything.

I thought not.

You've gotten this far without thought, why change now?

You were answering what you wanted the questions to be.
Try again but, maybe this time think with the big head.

 

[Dadoalex]

How long does it take to burn a gallon of oil?

Not very long. Quick, reliable energy is great.

Until it runs out.
Which it will.

Load up that F350 what's it costing you fool?$150-200 ?
Enjoy your future fool.

 

[westwall]

Hey dumbass...
When you burn that barrel of oil the only thing left is the pollution you create.
Solar panels will last decades.
and
millions upon millions of panels means an ongoing supply of those cute little BTUs.

Remember, your brain is not just a spacer for your ears.

Hey dumbass, guess how many barrels of oil you are burning to create those panels. How much CO2 you are creating to make the cement to house them, the oil burned to make the cabling to transmit the power, etc. etc. etc.

NOTHING gets made without fossil fuels.

 

[westwall]

Until it runs out.
Which it will.

Load up that F350 what's it costing you fool?$150-200 ?
Enjoy your future fool.

When? We have passed over a dozen Peak Oil dates, no end in sight.

 

[alang1216]

The technology isn't practical to replace fossil fuel

I think the tipping point will come soon. Solar cells are getting cheaper and new materials will continue to decrease the cost. I think it will tip once cheap and long-lived cells can be incorporated into roofing tiles and electric companies have the infrastructure to allow us to have meters that can run backwards as our roof tiles generate power

 

[Captain Caveman]

How much do we spend on obtaining, burning, and cleaning up after fossils.
And that money is just burned.
Solar is an investment.

Nuclear is an investment, solar isn't. A nuclear plant can have an eighty year life span, how long does a panel last? And don't forget, a nuclear plant is equivalent to 3.125 million PV panels, based on 320 watts a panel. So how many panels is that over 80 years, and waste?

 

[Captain Caveman]

I think the tipping point will come soon. Solar cells are getting cheaper and new materials will continue to decrease the cost. I think it will tip once cheap and long-lived cells can be incorporated into roofing tiles and electric companies have the infrastructure to allow us to have meters that can run backwards as our roof tiles generate power

More landfill.

 

[alang1216]

More landfill.

Even if those tiles paid for themselves over time and electric companies had extra power during peak times?

 

[Captain Caveman]

Even if those tiles paid for themselves over time and electric companies had extra power during peak times?

I thought the idea of moving away from fossil fuels was to save the planet, not dig it up and fill it back in with defunct solar panels

 

[ding]

I think the tipping point will come soon. Solar cells are getting cheaper and new materials will continue to decrease the cost. I think it will tip once cheap and long-lived cells can be incorporated into roofing tiles and electric companies have the infrastructure to allow us to have meters that can run backwards as our roof tiles generate power

That's great but without installing double capacity and battery backup storage it's never going to be viable source for base loading electric grids. Then there's the small problem of any solar radiation that is converted into electricity is solar radiation that does not warm the surface of the planet. Not a particularly good idea in the middle of an ice age.

 

[2aguy]

Apparently at current technology, I will show you a picture of how many solar panels it would take to power the U.S. That is both day and night. (With the stored energy for nighttime) The square in yellow shows the total amount of area in solar panels it would take to do it. Argue with that you naysayers.

View attachment 538042

Yeah....no....

I heard this story on the Dan and Amy show here in Chicago....

This promised paradise is a sham built on wishful thinking and green marketing. Consider the experience of Dharnai, an Indian village that Greenpeace in 2014 tried to turn into the country’s first solar-powered community.

Greenpeace received glowing global media attention when it declared that Dharnai would refuse “to give into the trap of the fossil fuel industry.” But the day the village’s solar electricity was turned on, the batteries were drained within hours. One boy remembers being unable to do his homework early in the morning because there wasn’t enough power for his family’s one lamp.

Villagers were told not to use refrigerators or televisions because they would exhaust the system. They couldn’t use cookstoves and had to continue burning wood and dung, which creates air pollution as dangerous for a person’s health as smoking two packs of cigarettesa day, according to the World Health Organization. Across the developing world, millions die prematurely every year because of this indoor pollution.

In August 2014, Greenpeace invited one of the Indian’s state’s top politicians, who soon after become its chief minister, to admire the organization’s handiwork. He was met by a crowd waving signs and chanting that they wanted “real electricity” to replace this “fake electricity.”

When Dharnai was finally connected to the main power grid, which is overwhelmingly coal-powered, villagers quickly dropped their solar connections. An academic study found a big reason was that the grid’s electricity cost one-third of what the solar energy did. What’s more, it was plentiful enough to actually power such appliances as TV sets and stoves. Today, Dharnai’s disused solar-energy system is covered in thick dust, and the project site is a cattle shelter.

Opinion | The Rich World’s Climate Hypocrisy

They beg for more oil and coal for themselves while telling developing lands to rely on solar and wind.

www.wsj.com

 

[Concerned American]

Indeed, there are many ways to store excess electricity. I was reading somewhere that in some electric cars they are using capacitors to augment the batteries. I bet that if they tried real hard they could create functional electric cars that run entirely off electricity stored in capacitors.

The way I understand it, capacitors can be charged slowly over time, but they discharge 100% of their stored energy instantly. I don't think you can meter the discharge. They are used kind of like a ballast in a fluorescent fixture.

 

[alang1216]

That's great but without installing double capacity and battery backup storage it's never going to be viable source for base loading electric grids.

Not sure what you're saying. Any electricity generated by my roof tiles, especially in the summer, and be fed back into the grid will decrease the peak requirements of our local utility. If there is too much (hard to imagine) the utility could invest in backup systems but not necessarily backup batteries. There are other options such as pumping water up to a dam/reservoir where that water could be used to generate power when needed.

Then there's the small problem of any solar radiation that is converted into electricity is solar radiation that does not warm the surface of the planet. Not a particularly good idea in the middle of an ice age.

That doesn't sound like a real fear but we could always burn some coal I guess.

 

[alang1216]

I thought the idea of moving away from fossil fuels was to save the planet, not dig it up and fill it back in with defunct solar panels

We already dig up (e.g., coal) and fill in the planet (e.g., defunct cars), how is this different?

 

[ding]

Not sure what you're saying. Any electricity generated by my roof tiles, especially in the summer, and be fed back into the grid will decrease the peak requirements of our local utility. If there is too much (hard to imagine) the utility could invest in backup systems but not necessarily backup batteries. There are other options such as pumping water up to a dam/reservoir where that water could be used to generate power when needed.

I'm saying that intermittent electrical generation technologies (30% efficiency) trying to replace continuous electrical generation technologies (95% efficiency) will need to install additional capacity (at least double) to store electricity when it's not producing.

 

[ding]

That doesn't sound like a real fear but we could always burn some coal I guess.

Only if the soot makes it to the glaciers to decrease their albedo.

 

[ding]

Until it runs out.
Which it will.

Load up that F350 what's it costing you fool?$150-200 ?
Enjoy your future fool.

Are you driving an EV?