/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12088792
not yet
solar cells are still in its infancy and we still havent unlocked its max potential

The Earth received more than 8,000 times as much energy from the sun as humans use in all forms so it's robust enough of a power source to do the job. The issue is largely with power storage and transfer since the sun only illuminates half the Earth at any given time.

The UK gets roughly 50% of its power from renewables on windy days.

The key is better storage and less irrational nonsense about nuclear.

>>12088851
And collection space efficiency.

You only get 200 watts per square meter with current pv panels. Unless you want to blanket wilderness in black glass.

>>12088851
It makes me wonder if the future of power is a smart grid with decentralized power generation. For example, having solar panels on the roof of a hundred thousand houses instead a few big solar fields.

>>12088882
future of power is most likely tidal power or geothermal

>>12088882
Funny, read something like that earlier.

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Microgrids-Are-The-Future-Of-Energy.html

Any well off home and plenty of businesses with big roofs will be pretty much energy independent going forward with some grid usage in winter and in case of battery failure. Solar plants might create methane/hydrogen for winter peaking plants to cover the sunlight gap.

>>12088792
why not just use nuclear?

>>12088920
Because it's more expensive.

>>12088920
ask fukushima

>>12088880
Space isn't an issue. The efficiency of solar is roughly 20%. 20% of 8,000 is 1,600 and if we only collect 60% of that sunlight due to lack of tracking we're left with 960 times the energy we need which means we need to cover 0.1% of the Earth with solar panels to cover what we use currently. Also wind is more power dense for the same footprint so this figure can be reduced with greater adoption of wind power.

>>12088882
That's the direction I see it going, especially if electric vehicles gain more traction. The batteries can be used to store energy when it's cheap and sell it back to the grid when it becomes more expensive. An HVDC supergrid could allow states on the east coast to sell solar power to the west coast and vice versa which would effectively extend the time solar produces power.

>>12088792
Add in geo thermal + small nuclear to top off the batteries.

Why do you need any alternative energy shits when there is free energy? This is what happens when people don't question what they learnt since young. Indoctrinated to pseudothermodynamics.

>>12089040
To power NYC for a day. You need 11 kurnool solar power parks and hundreds of hornsdale power reserves. At bare minimum 70,000 acres of land. 1/13th the area of long Island.

On a good sunny day that isn't too hot.

>>12088945
Okay
Looks like it's completely safe outside the plant and maybe one old employee might have a condition worsen while there and die, other than that it provided decades of clean energy

>>12090307
New York City is nearly 200,000 acres. I think they can find enough parking lots and rooftops to meet their needs.

>>12088792
Some nations are 100% renewable for years. But mainly because of hydro power.
Some nations got a high share of wind
Denmark 41.8%
Lithuania 26.9%
Germany 24.7%
Portugal 20.7%
Ireland 20.2%
Spain 17.8%
UK 17.1%

meanwhile solar is growing fast
Germany 9.0%
Italy 7.6%
Greece 7.2%
Spain 5.0%
UK 3.9%

This year will break records because demand was lower. e.g. UK had shut down all coal plants for months. This is first time it happened since the industrial revolution. Meanwhile wind and solar are cheaper so only this is being build.

>>12090307
You better power a coastal city with offshore wind.

>>12088882
>having solar panels on the roof
just do it

>>12091697
In my understanding, these had a fatal problem of being eroded by salty sea wind hitting the blades at a high speed. Significantly reduced lifetime.

>>12091722
not fatal in the least, there are still massive extremely successful offshore wind projects. They're just more expensive than land based wind.

Solar is already the best, choice for a power plant in sunny nations like Egypt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH0xDjzCBKg

>>12088792
If countries were willing to invest in it, it could work. But fossil fuels are much cheaper and easier to maintain.

>>12088792
There are tests to build continuous hydrothermal liquefaction plants that convert most biomass into biocrude, nutrient-rich water and compost sludge using supercritical water
Since most of the energy needed is heat, you could put solar concentrators on the roof of a plant to power the process and use the city’s waste biomass to make crude oil and Biogas from a biodigester
So you could make hydrocarbons and recycle waste biomass using CSP and a giant thermos heat battery

>>12088851
Build a global power grid, simple. The sahara could power china at night, and europe during the day.

Why don't they put solar panels on wind turbines and send them into space to harvest solar wind?

>>12092456
The cord would be too long

>>12092400
The problem with biomass is that it only stores about 10% of the sun's energy and you only get about a third of that back when you burn it so it would be more efficient to install solar panels rather than grow biomass to burn. Might be a cool way to deal with waste though.

>>12092462
then use batteries

>>12092317
this is nonsense, investors invest, not countries
and for some years investors invest in
solar, wind and natural gas only simply because this is most profitable

>>12092456
this brilliant plan needs asteroid mining and space industry first

>>12088851
>8,000 times as much energy from the sun as humans use
That doesn't sound all that promising when you think about how much of the surface of the Earth is oceans and areas we'd rather leave wild instead of covering with solar panels.

>>12092574
we just need to cover every parking lot

>>12092559
Investors invest in what gets government $

>>12092152
*gets bombed by Israel*

>>12092559
Measuring additions to grid by capacity is rather pointless when you look at the different capacity factor of each source. Which means if you add a gigawatt capacity solar plant only about 160 megawatts will actually go into the grid
Wind with around 30% and solar around 16% compared to coal and gas with 50% and nuclear with 90%

>>12092611
I'd rather have more tree islands in parking lots than just more concrete and steel

Home storage is going to be huge, if you have lots of sun, wind or a fast creek you'll be completely off grid.

>>12092631
I'd rather have nice clean air and lower emissions