ecogeek.org — The stigma of solar only as one of many solutions needed to satisfy our energy needs may not be true. David Mills, chairman and chief scientific officer of solar company Ausra, presented a paper at the International Solar Energy Society conference saying that solar thermal plants could indeed solve all of our energy problems.
Sep 21, 2007 View in Crawl 4
pmisaSep 23, 2007
chikin inas gosd byewr huad blea
grumpyrainSep 23, 2007
1. You use the energy you collected during the day which is stored in the form of hot oil in an insulated tank, but rely more heavily on other technologies in your energy mix. Our energy use tends to drop off overnight.2. Well it is the same as what happens when a nuclear plant is hit. You lose much generating capacity. I don't think it is a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket with any technology. I mean unforeseen weather would really cause a problem if your entire generation capacity was not geographically distributed. Instead of having one 92x92 mile mega-plant, have 5x5 mile plants scattered across the country in areas of high solar energy and no cloud.
ijustamSep 23, 2007
Hey, The Badlands kick ass. Convert Kansas, nothing good has ever come out of Kansas.
arpadSep 23, 2007
Yeah, then all you'd have to do is site the plants where the locals enjoy thousands of ground strikes per year? month? week? and stop by the Hogwarts Electrical Supply for some of them there capacitors and you're gold.Alternatively, you could have the lightning strikes wind up some really big springs and then the springs can run generators. I've got a radio that works just like that and it's a pip. But no, I think magical capacitors would be easier all around. Can you imagine what would happen if a spring the size of South Carolina got loose?
arpadSep 23, 2007
Sorry bozo, they're not. The absolute tippy-top of the heap right now is what? about 44%? Also, they only exist in laboratories. Real life PV cells are 20%+ for polycrystal silicon and around 7% for amorphous silicon.
psygnisfiveSep 24, 2007
Exactly. Basically it just ain't gonna work on the ground. Solar powersats or it's doomed to fail.
leviasayOct 30, 2007
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curlymeatball38Aug 28, 2008
i think that you wouldn't have to revise the whole AC system, just the new DC power coming from the southwest would have to be transformed into AC power to merge into the existing infrastructure.
mallorcahpNov 27, 2008
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fortinw4Apr 13, 2010
We should definitely start putting these solar panels on the roofs of downtown office buildings and homes across all the urban areas of the Southwest such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tuscon, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, etc. Wind turbines should be placed across the Great Plains, and Wave Energy could be utilized as a means to power the 3 coastal regions. With these 3 alternative energies put in place in their respective locations, this should provide more than enough power for the entire United States without the need for a dramatic restructuring of the power grid. What about maintenance costs, one might ask? Prison work is free.