/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12623941
Depends. What kind of solar panels?

>>12623941
Really rough estimate
Avg solar panel generates 265 Watts for 1.6 sq meters of space
US used about 1.1 Billion kW for 2019

so roughly 1641153 Acres of solar panels

So a little bit more than Delaware in terms of a super rough estimate

>>12624038
That might be doable if we install all the panels on residential and commercial rooftops. Solar panels only occupy empty land if we decide they should.

It really depends where you wanna put them. Some places in the US get more sun. If you consolidated them all in Arizona for example.... pic related.


If Tesla was allowed to finish his wireless energy transfer machine, you could have a few of these scattered on different parts of the planet pumping energy into the atmosphere. It's always sunny somewhere, and using the atmosphere as a battery means you never need batteries for anything ever again. Not for cars or cellphones or nothing.

>>12623941
You wouldn't need that much square miles if you just built up.
Solar towers or huge walls with panels affixed to them would save tremendous amounts of space

>>12624100
And cost you a bazillion dollars in maintenance

>>12624110
explain

>>12624112
It's easier to move horizontally than vertically

>>12624118
I'm sure people much smarter than you and I, could figure out a way to save on both space and dollars while maintaining such structures.

>>12624129
No

>>12624146
explain

>>12624129
>I'm sure people much smarter than you and I
>>12624146
>No
t. two smartest people in the universe

If this is humanities best, we're all fucking doomed.

>>12624156
I decline

>>12624157
>we're all fucking doomed
You thought otherwise?

>>12624082
Lemme guess, you also believe in the magnificence of 3, 6, 9?

>>12624172
then everything you posted is forfeit
>>12624157
I never even implied such a thing. Learn to read, tranny.

>>12624082
>If Tesla was allowed to finish his wireless energy transfer machine,
Why doesn't someone else create one? At least on a small scale?

>>12624082
>storing energy in air
You mean... storing energy in electromagnetic fields?
Like... capacitors?

>>12624246
Inefficiency. We have Qi wireless charging for phones. But they're ~70 percent efficient over 1mm distance. That's right. 1 millimeter wireless charging reduces efficiency that much. That's with just laying your phone on a wireless charging pad.

The efficiency over 100 meter would be horrible without something better. Laser charging might be doable but lasers are single point light emission, which means it would have to be reabsorbed by solar panels, which already has a weak efficiency(~20%) to begin with and now has to deal with laser light conversion, which will further reduce efficiency even more.
TL;DR we need something more viable.

>>12624378
You're not wrong, but wireless energy transfer has been demonstrated with an 80% efficiency over a meter or two using magnetic coupling

>>12624409
need to be able transport energy to the moon, not just 2m.

at least city scale..
that was the dream of nikola tesla

>>12624425
My point is you're off by more than 3 orders of magnitude

>>12623941
Who knows? the real bottleneck is batteries. without know what's the roundabout efficiency of a theoretical battery cheap enough for widespread implementation in our grid.

>>12624100
That's not any more efficient you retard, You have so shade just as much area, but in your scenario the panels might be less efficient and would also be more expensive to install//maintain.

>>12624513
It is if you don't have much space to work with.

>>12624504
I always wondered why isn't chemical storage of energy a thing? You could do the good old hydrogen hydrolysis, then burn it for energy. You just need water, solar panels and a tank to store hydrogen. At least for big domestic instalations, you would do away with stupid expensive bateries you need to replace every X years.
And just in case someone comes up with the "but m-muh dangerous!" meme argument, it's ridiculous since gasoline is also dangerous and we use it all the time.

>>12624537
>I always wondered why isn't chemical storage of energy a thing?
That's literally called a battery dude
>You could do the good old hydrogen hydrolysis, then burn it for energy.
Hydrogen fuel cells already exist and are much more efficient
>>12624523
we have vast empty deserts to work with, space isn't an issue.

>>12624548
>That's literally called a battery dude
I know, I meant non degradable. I thought it was obvious but some autist didn't get it, it seems.
>Hydrogen fuel cells already exist and are much more efficient
Cool. Widespread commercial use hopefully before the end of the century? Why don't I see them anywhere? I actually have an idea, but I'd like you to elaborate since you are so smart.

>>12624504
If Tesla is able to realize their battery factory, then US battery bottleneck would be solved.

>>12624548
True, since half the united states is empty deserts no one lives in. But that previous post was about building in the scenario you didnt have the square mileage to do so.

>>12624562
bottleneck is lithium
>>12624561
>I know, I meant non degradable.
oh fuck off, you ignorant narcissist.

>>12624564
probably best to just keep building more on rooftops in that case.

>>12624568
Are you telling me you can run forever with the same lithium batery?

>>12624572
Of course im not.

If we completely switched to solar and stopped using oil/gas/coal for domestic electric use, how much would American CO2 emissions be cut?

>>12624579
For someone apparently so smart you offer no explanation about any of the questions asked, and reply with only that.
You could have said you don't know and it would have saved some time on my part and some mocking on yours.

>>12624589
You deserved to be mocked for not knowing what the fuck a battery is and then trying to pretend you meant something entirely different to cover your ass (while claiming the person at fault is the guy correcting you), you don't deserve to be interacted seriously, you're comedic relief.

>>12624568
Nevada alone has enough lithium to convert entire US car industry into EV. If Tesla gets ~30 percent of the car market, the other 70 percent of the capacity can be used for grid energy. Then there are other lithium deposits in the US as well and canada. Etc.

>>12624678
>Nevada alone has enough lithium to convert entire US car industry into EV.
Oh really? I thought most of it came from south america. Is it on federal land or lower in concentration or something?
But in any case lithium is still fairly expensive to use for grid storage. There's probably more promising alternatives cost wise.

>>12624714
>I thought most of it came from south america
No. There's a chunk in Nevada, good amount in Australia. South America has lithium flats thats easy to export, but with innovation, you can do it from any other lithium source.

>>12624746
Oh yeah it seems a mine just got the go ahead in Nevada barely a weak ago, cool.

>>12624082
Ah yes, pumping that much energy into an atmospheric system sounds wonderful, I see no way in which that can fail catastrophically

Whenever I hear someone talk about solar or wind power and they never mention energy storage, I immediately ignore them as mouth breathers.

Daily reminder that lithium-ion batteries have (far) less energy density than fucking body fat.

>>12624848
Have you looked at liquid metal batteries

>>12624848
It doesn't matter if lithium has less energy density than body fat. What matters is if we have capacity. We're not interested in if lithium ion batteries weigh a billion ton per watt because it wont ever move from a storage area. Energy density is never an issue for grid battery storage. Its nice, but not an metric thats valid. What matters is life expectancy per energy storage per price. Current grid energy storage lithium can last ~30 years. Thats more than enough for most grid storage applications.

>>12624942
>energy density won't matter
>just have a massive energy storage facility in a heavily dense metropolitan area like Metro Tokyo
>the entire planet is as vast as the deserts of california bro

rope yourself retard

The real problem with clean energy plans right now is constant power availability. Present green energy subsidies and initiatives specifically exclude methods of zero emission power generation that can provide an even and constant output like nuclear or hydroelectric energy. The problem with wind and solar is that if it's an overcast and cloudy day with no wind, generation levels drop drastically. The other problem is that grids built on such systems cannot handle demand surges. They can only put out whatever is being generated by the weather, there is no way to crank up output to match demand. Presently, the green energy movement is politically driven rather than governed by science and engineering, and in it's present form cannot feasibly replace our grid's power sources without permanantly relying on non-green solutions.

Nuclear and Hydro-electric could, but ya know. We might upset some fish or have to innovate our nuclear science beyond the 1960's levels the no nukes movement froze it at, so thats a no-no.

>>12624714
Well, when the two major motivations to replace petroleum are no drilling and no pollution, lithium is a pretty shitty alternative. On top of being an exponentially less efficient energy storage method, its also reliant on heavy strip mining for harvest, and the production as well as the recycling of it dumps heavy metals and toxic compounds into the environment. So lithium is really only swapping one kind of environmental destruction for another.

On the bright side, we can package it all up in a sleek solid state set up, and we can have our catastrophically destructive lithium mines in 3rd world countries so we can much, much more easily market it as a clean alternative to petroleum.

I mean, it will start showing up in your sea food after a few decades of pretending to recycle them by dumping them in china whom then hack them up with blow torches and dump them in the ocean, but hey. Its not oil so it must be clean!

Hey, I got an idea! lets build the majority of our power generation facilities that are reliant on the weather in a single region so that we can expierience nation wide power outtages and rolling brown-outs every time a cloud passes by!

>>12625482

>>12625482

>>12623941
with solar technology from a few years ago about 10,000
https://www.freeingenergy.com/how-much-solar-would-it-take-to-power-the-u-s/

But solar technology is improving fast and we don't need to generate all power wit solar, There is already plenty of hydro and wind and we only need to replace atomic power and fossil fuels. So covering suitable roofs, parking lots and some useless desert would be more then enough.

>>12625427
"massive" is a relative term, even the worst lead car battery stack would still easily fit inside a building and there is no real reason why you need to construct the battery in downtown anyways, you can simply build them out where the actual power plants (which are also massive) are. Energy density is largely irrelevant factor for utility scale power storage with the only real concern being the price of storage.

>>12624082
I'd rather use UHVDC cables but in principle, moving electricity from one time zone to the other could lessen the impact of peak demands
in theory

Imagine thinking the US of 2050 will be able to construct a tin shack in the woods much less 10K square kilometers of solar panels and associated infrastructure.

>>12623941
With less people it would take less solar power panels at higher rates of consumption. The number of anti-renewable, pro fossil fuel, overpopulation is a meme. Pol is here.

Allocate solar panels in most solar effective areas, With a super train across the country, and massive nuclear facilities.
The train transports goods and people, eliminating lots of planes and roads.

>>12624064
Australia tried this. There has been huge government funding for rooftop solar panels. After about a decade they are at 0.1% of energy needs from solar.

>>12626328
What even is the point of solar if you want to build massive nuclear?

>>12624537
Using hydrogen as a battery is inefficient AND dangerous.
>And just in case someone comes up with the "but m-muh dangerous!" meme argument, it's ridiculous since gasoline is also dangerous and we use it all the time.
Hydrogen is way more dangerous than gasoline. For one, gasoline is a liquid while hydrogen would be stored as a compressed gas. While gasoline will only catch fire in a worst-case scenario during an accident, hydrogen will explode as soon as the fuel tank is breached. Hydrogen will also leak from any tank by literally diffusing through the atoms of your walls, escaping to the atmosphere or building up wherever you are storing your car.
Hydrogen is a meme fuel shilled mainly because you can make it from natural gas, which would permit oil companies to continue to make profits.

Pic related.

>>12626772
*allow oil companies to continue to make profits.

>>12626772
Not to mention said storage vessel is HEAVY. Everybody points to the energy density and efficiency of of hydrogen and reports glowing numbers because they never factor in that a car the size of a honda civic powered by such a system weighs as much as a dodge ram. Once you factor all of that extra weight against the energy you are actually getting the numbers drop drastically. Electric cars also suffer from this to a certain extent since they usually weigh twice what a gasoline vehicle of the same performance would. Not to mention that lithium ion batteries lose up to 40% of thier efficiency in high or low temperatures, meaning you are now either expending energy just to keep the battery cool/warm, or simply accepting that you will see sharp performance drop offs during bad weather. Either way, once these inconvienient numbers get factored in EVs real world performance is kinda crap.

>>12626763
Real talk? The big wind and solar push was a scam to utilize heavy subsidies to force normally unproductive companies to post profits and create returns for thier investors, many of which were the same politicians who created said system of subsidies. It was basically all government insider trading. Solar and wind companies also brag about dropping the federal subsidies while hiding that they've simply forced the states they operate in to take those financial committments over. Hell, big wind and solar aren't just not developing past the need for subsidies, they're actually agressivley lobbying for state governments to enshrine those subsidies into thier state constituitions so the tax payers can continue propping up said companies profits while not really recieving much of a return in production.

>>12623941
>short answer
a lot
>long answer
https://www.withouthotair.com

>>12626763
>Comparing eroi at source to eroi at grid
If we're comparing meaningless numbers I think you should know solar has a nicer shade of blue than nuclear which really puts it ahead.