/sci/ - Science & Math

>implying they need to be on land

whats the total acreage of roof tops in the united states?

Nuclear's already efficient though. I'm really not sure why we haven't swapped over to primarily nuclear plants and spending more money on discovering more efficient and safer methods in that field, beyond the blatantly obvious fear-mongering that takes place. I never even hear it discussed when people are talking about alternative energy, because they just dismiss it off the bat.

>>5290807

You do realize the surface area of the planet is only 326,442,240,000 acres?

>>5290812
Total developed land in the US is around 60M acres, so probably much less than that.

Still, it's a spurious comparison to suggest only solar would be used to meet the total demand, and that somehow makes it too inefficient to be practical.

Solar has potential in residential and commercial use. For example, solar panels on the roof that cut a fraction of the power taken from the grid.
For big farms like this i dont think it has a lot of potential.

I don't think Nuclear Power is our answer. While there is fear mongering, you cannot ignore the damage nuclear disasters have done to our planet. Nuclear power seems like the primitive, area to start with, and we must advance other ideas. Like trying to find a way to eliminate the generation of energy through mechanical avenues, like nuclear power.

While solar does provide some benefit it is very expensive and inefficient. But a combination of all natural generation sources, we should be on par with Switzerland, with the right logic and funding.

>>5290832

But these natural alternatives require us to rely on factors that are out of our control. We cant produce wind on demand, and we can tell the clouds to go away for a few days. And fusion is still roughly a century away before its a viable replacement.

It's all about efficiency, atm the best solar panel efficiency is at 24%~ and it costs a lot

>>5290841
True. Until fusion becomes a viable source we have to work with what we have and nuclear does what we need.

But we should probably start making rail guns more efficient to offload our nuclear waste.

>>5290832

Silly Hippy.

Nuclear's completely safe. People just have to stop building them in unsafe locations where they weren't designed to be built, and stop staffing them with idiots who can't troubleshoot a valve problem.

Also, the Chernobyl reactor, along with being one of the biggest nuclear disaster in history, was also one of the more poorly designed and constructed.

It's like saying Germany doesn't belong on the world political stage because they were belligerents in a few wars.

Technologies, just like nations, grow and evolve and learn from their past.

Sahara desert

/thread

>>5290798

Math is a bit off. cia.gov has it in energy consumed (MWh) and not power (MW). You would need 4.88 million acres not factoring peak demand and not producing any at night (you would double that number). It makes more sense to incorporate into existing buildings where the roof isn't being used. It defiantly has a future if costs can get competitive. You could basically cut down peak demand usage which is basically when electricity prices are the highest (and matches the output of the solar panels as well).

Solar is not viable. First of all it intermittent power which can never be used to compromise more than 10% of the grid because after the sun sets in the evening we are screwed. You see we produce and consume electricity simultaneously. So when more people turn on there air conditioners the coal power plant fires up more generators to compensate. They try to keep the voltage on the line 120 plus or minus 5%.

>>5290798
> Current U.S. electricity demands are about 3.7 billion MW

No you dumb shit. It's 3.7 billion MWh (Mega Watt Hours) per year.

There are 8766 hours in a year. The Topaz solar farm produces 550MW, which is 0.0048213 billion MWh per year. The US would need 767 of them to meet its electrical demands. This would take up 4,663,360 acres.

>>5290896
You mean 4200 hours or so because they only produce about 10 -12 hours a day.

>>5290914
>>5290894

When the sun goes down is the whole world in the dark? Flat Earthers Get Out.

We have the technology to STORE energy, like pumped storage hydroelectricity.

Solar panels are not the only way we can harness the suns power, pic related.

>>5290866

The Sahara desert is useless. Nobody lives close to it. Your power losses will be enormous if you try to wire electricity to largely populous areas (e.g. Europe)

>>5290943

>When the sun goes down is the whole world in the dark? Flat Earthers Get Out.

To transfer electricity to the other side of the world will result in enormous power losses. You could only achieve such a feat with superconducting cables (which would cost so much it makes the entire exercise futile)

>storage
yes, this is viable.

>>5290914
According to the Topaz wiki,
>The project would deliver approximately 1,100 gigawatt-hours (GW·h) annually of renewable energy.

So that's equivalent to 2000 hours at the field's 550 MW nominal rate.

>>5290943
I don't even.

>>5290943
>energy storage
Is inefficient, but so is long-range energy transfer. In both cases, you lose way more than 50% of produced energy.

>>5290964
>Sahara Desert
>to largely populous areas (e.g. Europe)

Why there? Why not Cairo? You don't have to transfer power over absurd distances you know, if you want to power Europe you build it near Europe or better yet within it.

>>5290971
>>5290988
LRN2HVDC

Fuller proposed this like 50 years ago, if we could link the worlds power grids, we could get 1cent/kw/h electricity.

didn't tesla have ideas about wireless energy? could those ideas be implemented in any useful way using todays technology?

>>5290832
There are more nuclear reactors that have never had any incidents than there are those that have had disasters. Bicycles and cars have killed more people than nuclear disasters/accidents. Quit acting like a fool.

>>5291004

Assuming you are the original poster, why would you suggest the Sahara as a solution to the worlds energy problems?

>>5290832
>to our planet
I doubt nuclear power has done anything to the ecology. Nuclear power has done damage to individuals and prevented some real estate from being used for a while. and that's due to accidents.

While humans fear radiation, in the long run it will have zero net impact on the ecology.

In comparison, other human activities cause so much more damage that everything that has something to do with nuclear power doesn't even compare.

>>5291042
Not OP, but in case you're also talking about a single xboxhueg solar station, where in jurop would you put it? Pic related.

>>5291012
I like your analogy. Comparing human error to highly funded scientific technology.

In my mind if we spend billions on nuclear research it should be able to not make a part of the planet uninhabitable for 100,000+ years. '

If you read back I clearly stated that nuclear technology is very important to humanity right now, but we must not spend our time and money on boiling water. Nuclear technology is a very primitive technology in the vast array of what is possible, and to spend any more money expanding this technology COULD prove to be more harmful than useful.

Silly half brain.

>>5290855
see
>>5291078

>>5290798
>photovoltaic
AKA the retarded way to do solar power. CSP is where its at.

>>5290832
>you cannot ignore the damage nuclear disasters have done to our planet
Oil has done incalculably more harm yet we continue to use it. Hell if it wasn't running out we probably wouldn't even care about alternative energy at all.

>Nuclear power seems like the primitive, area to start with
No nuclear in one form or another is THE energy of the future. It is vastly more powerful than mere chemical bonds or trying to collect the highly dispersed solar energy.

We will never explore space or even fully utilize our own planet without learning to make PROPER use of nuclear energy and I'm not talking about any light water bullshit.

>>5290798
ctrl+s "dyson" do you faggots even lift?

Those spheres are the only real efficient use of solar power that we could ever hope to use.

>>5291117
Converting a Ceres mass to raw materials to build it would alone be a task worthy of legends.

>>5291126
it's not feasible now or in the near future, but it's something that's been giving serious scientific thought

Is someone in this thread honestly trying to say that nuclear damage outweighs what we've done with carbon fuels?

I'm willing to venture that the BP oil spill in the gulf has, by itself, caused more damage to our planet than every nuclear detonation and accident combined.

>>5291117
>Using multiple solar system's worth of materials to collect energy from a single star
>Efficient
Choose only one

In any case I think this thread is meant to discuss practical solutions for now and the near future not talc soft science fiction fantasies.

>>5291143
it's not a fantasy, there's been legitimate searches for dyson spheres in star systems

also, solar power will replace wind power in the next 5-10 years, but it won't get close to meeting our needs

>>5291143
>Confusing dyson spheres with dyson shells.

Hey, I have a question... in terms of efficiency, how does photosynthesis compare to photovoltaic cells?

>>5291143
A multi-layer dyson swarm made of graphene could conceivably take about as much mass as one or two of the major moons in the system.

If you're talking about a solid dyson shell, that can't be made before we invent magic.

>>5291006
do you have any grasp on how insanely costly and inefficient this would be?

really think about it
no
No
NO
stop looking at your dumb picture

actually think about how much raw material you would need to make this feasible

>>5291078
>nucklear is primitive
>new technology is better

so if steam power is primitive (LOL DISCOVERED ONLY DECADES AGO) what does that make wind turbines or solar energy?

where the fuck do you plan to magic some energy from?

>>5291204
steam power was invented over a decade ago

just gonn leave this here

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

I could post some primary sources but I'm not sure how many people have access to EBSCO

>>5291172
biofag here

on average, plant's only utilize 1% of the sunlight that is available to them

it's not for lack of trying, of course

>>5291210
woops

*nuclear

>>5291212
i don' think nuclear waste disposal is the issue

it's more like fission <<<<<<<<< fusion

>>5291144
>>5291145
>>5291176
Oh okay I was unaware of dyson swarms. Still though building giant solar collectors near the sun is at the very least many decades away (more like centuries probably) and to survive the next few decades and establish a presence in space we need nuclear energy. Even when we are able to build such things why travel millions of miles and build huge structures to collect solar energy when we can just make our own miniature suns at our convenience.

>>5291220
lemme know when that stuff starts working

It's really cool and stuff, but that's waaayy off in the future.

It would be silly to abandon fission just because we might find something better in 100 years

>>5290896

even less with solar panels on rooftops. Also solar panels could/should be built vertically to maximize space. Seems easy enough, and we're making strides everyday towards making solar more efficient/cost effective

>>5290798
Lava drops

captcha: solar tiazedk

>>5290896
>4,663,360 acres

thats still double the area of the united states.

>This farm produces 1MW of power per 11 acres of land.

That have to be wrong.
Assuming a solar irradiance of 1000W per square meter(which is lower than peak) then you're getting 44MW per 11 acres in solar input. Even on an annual basis the actual percentage have to be higher than 2%.

Assuming 20% panels it should peak at 8.8MW, though yes, the annual average could actually be ~1MW(given that the average capacity of solar plants end up around 10-20% average usage)

>>5291643
Yeah, shit doesn't work as well as in theory. It's called the real world. Deal with it.

>>5290798
>solar photo voltaic
>not using thermal solar
you can get more energy and higher efficiencies.

>>5290798
>Will solar ever be efficient enough to be practical?
It's more about cost than efficiency. If those panels costs 1 cent per square meter it would be reasonable to mount them on pretty much any and every surface.

At least solar has potential. Wind energy is a waste of money.

carbon solar energy

Like I said earlier, solar has potential in home use. Solar panels in the roof are a good way of reducing energy costs. Other than that, I don't see it competing with nuclear any time soon.

What about lunar energy bros?

>still looking for a magic bullet

Stop this. The biggest challenge in energy production is always distribution. Ethanol was basically ruined because we tried to use corn for the entire country rather than using regional crops (some of which had much higher yields anyway).

>>5291683
Won't work. Once the moon is down, you'd have to expend as much energy to get it back up again.

>>5291687
>once the moon is down you'll have to reboot it bros, sometimes it bluescreens because it hasn't been updated in like forever

>>5291683
dude it's called geothermal

>>5290832
as compared to damage done to the planet by fossil fuels? Two of the greatest natural disasters ever know in human history struck a bunch of ageing Japanese nuclear power plants one after the other. The outcome was minor. We are not in the depth of nuclear power created collapse of the earths environment or civilisation.

Solar is impractical as a primary power source for two reasons.
1) It can't be regulated. In order to guarantee that you can maintain system frequency, you 1 MW of thermal or hydro online for every 1 MW of solar. That means you are burning fuel or passing water without actually producing any power, just to keep the solar online. (It's actually worse than this, because you need to provide regulation in both the upward and downward directions... anyway, that gets complicated.)
2. You can't produce reactive power with solar. That means you need to spend a lot of money on voltage regulators, waste a lot of MW spinning big motors, and so on. And it's usually the public utilities that get hit with this bill, while private solar companies rake in the profits. (Check out the recent lawsuits between Bonneville Transmission and wind producers.)

Nuclear's not perfect either, because it's very expensive and difficult to maintain, so nuclear units get based loaded to maximum output.

>>5290866
> Sahara desert
And how do you propose to move the power you generate in this desert all the way around the world?

>>5291745 (cont.)
Also, as a side-effect of DC-AC conversion, you get harmonics on the power system. These can cause massive damage both to consumer devices and to generating equipment. So once again, your transmission providers need to provide equipment to filter and compensate... the more solar you add, the more you eventually have to pay for transmission.

>Nuclear energy
>Good
>Crappy Murrican solar power plant
>Not pure shit
give it to OP
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-climate-germany-solar-idUSBRE84P0FI20120526

>>5290798
http://rt.com/news/solar-energy-record-break-332/

Fukushima (sp?) went bad because the design was terrible for its location. The diesel fuel to power the backup generator was washed away with the tsunami. They were supposed to be burried underground.
Its not the method. its the way its implemented.

>>5291770
Not to mention that the design for the reactor was from the sixties.

>>5291766

Gigawatts PER hour?

do they mean Gigawatt-hours?????

>>5290798

so we would need 6 million Ft. Calhouns?

I don't think numbers are your friend.

>>5290798
>3.7 billion MW
>US power demand
Nope.jpg
The US does not use 3.7 petwatts.
Someone fucked up the numbers somewhere. and OP is a faggot and doesn't post the direct URL to citations.

>>5291795
Not OP, but
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption
>Electricity consumption (MW·h/yr)
>United States 3,741,000,000

Care to cite your resources?

>>5291223
It's probably about 20 years off.

Maybe.

The British have plans for it, but its badly underfunded due to the sciences getting such a small fraction of funding.

>>5291803
Megawatt hour per year is a different story from just MW.
The actual wattage by demand is then just a continous ~430GW.
A nuclear reactor can easily give 1+GW, and cositing a few reactors at each site means you can supply the entire electrical power demand from just ~120 nuclear power sites.

>>5290798
To un-fuck the unit mess OP have made. Here's the recap.

Topaz solar will produce up to 1204 MWh per year.(assuming an optimistic 25% of peak capacity average)
Ft. Calhoun Nebraska will produce atleast 3700 MWh per year.(assuming a pessimistic 90% uptime only)
And US power demands are 3.7 billion MWh per year.

>>5290798

The number is 3% of US soil. I remember seeing that number many places including my professor whose research is extensively in solar technology.

>>5291829

How much of the US soil is covered by buildings?

solar cells are flat and don't put out any waste

>>5291829
3%
That's roughly 300 000 square km.
Or 12000 times larger than topaz. And at 1204 MWh/year we'll then reach 14 million MWh per year.

Conclusion is that most of topaz is not covered by solar panels.

As a 300 000 square km area covered by 5% solar panels that reached 5% of max capacity per year would give more than the current total demand.

Now actually I realize I used total US area, not US soil, but can't be arsed to recaculate.

>>5291684
is there a place where I can order that hat?

It will be great for when I come out of the closet

False Choice:
we NEVER have to choose, and should never choose, just one power supplying method

Cherry-picking data for comparison:
Nuclear power's land demands may be small, but the coolant demands are quite high, the risk demands significant, and protective and secondary support facilities complex.
Staff required is high; maintenance is expensive and skilled, even the legal regulation is expensive.

>>5291684
>Ethanol was basically ruined

All past-tense for ethanol?
How is that? Ethanol can still do what it is good at!

>>5291908
vodka.

>>5291144
>it's not a fantasy, there's been legitimate searches for dyson spheres in star systems

This sentence doesn't make any damn sense.

It is a fantasy for US to build one.
There has been a legitimate search: it resulted in -0- likely sites.
A search does not legitimize the tech; I could produce a search for your seventeenth sister, it doesn't mean there is one.

>>5291700

*debils advocate*

People thought we couldn't affect the atmosphere give the size of the earth
What makes you think using the earth as a huge radiator wont warm/cool the crust resulting in adverse effects?

Why can't they build towers made of solar panels instead of lining every single solar panel across the land?

>>5291915
The poster made it sound like a few years of attempts to work ethanol into common fuels has finished off the idea.
Chemical ideas are never 'done.'
Ethanol has just as much potential today as it did ten years ago, and what it promised then can still happen.

>>5291920
well, we can -- we can build towers, we can line the outside of structures, we can hang flags of it, etc.

But the way that light impacts the surface of that material is what makes it efficient; and no one wants to put up more material that won't be efficient.
it's not like we can produce infinite quantities free, and just need to set them out.

>>5291918
do you know how gravity and friction work

>>5291964
What do gravity or friction have to do with geothermal power plants potentially warming the atmosphere?

it is the distributed power generation where the future of photovoltaics lies, the only centralized solar power genaration we will use is the thermal solar power

EU = 688
USA = 1.363

LUL WY CANT WE HAVE ENUFF POWA

You guys have huge tracts of land and huge deserts. Wasting gasoline and electricity is still a sign of success and seen as something positive, people who buy electronics which only uses little energy are ridiculed.

Stop driving tank like cars, switch off your electronics if you don´t use them, develop and buy "green" electronics and use solar power and other renewable resources as good as you can.

I hate those idiots who want to fight nuclear power like it´s the devil just as much as you do and research has to continue.

Hint: Solar Power panels in space are the future.

>>5291968
a) what's the difference between geothermal heatsinks, nuclear heatsinks, or altering the albedo of the planet with solar panels. whatever you do, you're releasing energy into the atmosphere.

>>5291010
>>5291010
save us tesla lulz

>>5291978
>>5291978
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRQijskAMp4

>>5291980
>what's the difference between geothermal heatsinks, nuclear heatsinks, or altering the albedo of the planet with solar panels. whatever you do, you're releasing energy into the atmosphere.

Well, that's about as ignorant as you can make it.

Geothermal accesses existing heat in large amount and transfers it to the atmosphere; it is a direct transfer of heat exactly where we don't need it. But it also produces the energy we need, without a costly or dangerous fuel.

Nuclear plants create the heat we don't need and impacts both the water reservoirs and atmosphere with it; doubly awful. It requires a dangerous fuel, produces two dangerous and toxic discharges. but they can be installed in many locations and produce a lot of energy.

Solar panels alter planet albedo negligibly in even the most widespread projects; it is a very very tiny factor. Further, the amount of other energies absorbed is the same as without the panel.
Solar panels make the smallest change in absorption, with the smallest amount of produced material, the least complexity, an incredibly high flexibility in application -- in fact, the only factor against it at all is the small amount of energy produced.

But suggesting it could affect the atmospheric temperature like other techs? Ridiculous.

>>5292012
Your entire post is so stupid that it gave me cancer.

>>5292103
I'll bet you have trouble pointing out anything but the most trivial of problems, however.

I responded to a person who was making the broadest and most useless of generalizations (that all processes add heat to the atmosphere).
How would you have responded?

>>5292012
>Solar panels make the smallest change in absorption
A black panel as opposed to a bright desert.
>with the smallest amount of produced material
A 1000W generator will be smaller than a 1000W panel installation.
>the least complexity
You are out of your fucking mind, solar panels use semiconductor manufacturing techniques, this is cutting edge high tech and if it are not complex then nothing is.
> incredibly high flexibility in application
It can stand there in the sun and produce energy! Or if you only need to power a cellphone you can carry it with you, hardly incredibly flexible.

> in fact, the only factor against it at all is the small amount of energy produced.
And expense, and footprint, and being day/night and weather/season dependant, and installation, and fragility, and weight, and inverter requirement, and no storage.

I'm not saying it's shit, there's potential and viable applications for solar.

What I am saying is that you're a batshit crazed environmentalist or rabid solar salesman that needs to take off those leaf coloured googles.

>>5292126
>>Solar panels make the smallest change in absorption
>A black panel as opposed to a bright desert.
You left out the calculation of relative SIZE or of the change of energy absorbed.
You ignored the simple fact that there are simple ways to accommodate the change in albedo, also.

>>with the smallest amount of produced material
>A 1000W generator will be smaller than a 1000W panel installation.
I wrote 'material,' not 'final produced object.'
The material for a PV is immensely smaller than all machinery.

>>the least complexity
>You are out of your fucking mind, solar panels use semiconductor manufacturing techniques, this is cutting edge high tech and if it are not complex then nothing is.
Sorry, you must have no understanding of manufacturing or of what it takes to be complex.
First, semiconductors (the parts required to manage PV output) are minimal. Second, the circuit pathways for PV are a trivial effort; there are many ways to get that done, the etching chemicals aren't even that harsh.
But what I wrote was 'complex;' I am talking about the operation of the options. Mechanisms like a nuclear or geothermal plant, with reservoirs, cooling units, pumping, valves, safety systems, electronic sensors, and many other systems are, obviously, more complex than a panel, simple management circuit, and very simple wiring.

>> incredibly high flexibility in application
>It can stand there in the sun and produce energy! Or if you only need to power a cellphone you can carry it with you, hardly incredibly flexible.
'Application,' not 'purpose.' I am writing that it can be applied directly to the device that needs power, can be installed on a house for powering that house, can be built in medium-scale for local production, or large-scale for citywide production. PV can be built on flat surfaces, curved surfaces, wings, fabrics, flags, balloons, reflectors, films over transparent glass, and more.

>>5292333
ya man no caustic materials are required in the manufacture of SP. the base per volume per watt of materials of SPs are also less than any other energy source. the base cost per watt of SPs are also less than any other energy source but cost in no way reflects materials value or manufacturing expense.

>>5292126
>> in fact, the only factor against it at all is the small amount of energy produced.
>And expense,
Solar is the smallest possible expense of all choices across almost all applications.

>and footprint,
Solar is the smallest possible footprint of all the choices given. (re: materials, installation locations, small to medium scale, effort and expertise, management, maintenance, etc)

>and being day/night and weather/season dependant,
cheap batteries can be used for nighttime (not long-term; requires better batteries), and solar can contribute massively in daytime to powergrid systems. Yes, clearly solar isn't consistent in every weather or season, but no one needs it to be. For direct applications, smaller amounts of light are fine (solar calculators have allowed manufacturers to avoid batteries for years).

>and installation, and fragility, and weight,
installation is vastly easier than any other power generation; home users could do it. Fragility -- well, fairly efficient panels are made on very flexible film, enough to be molded against fiberglass, or applied to ripstop nylon. Even home units aren't very easily damage; a tree branch could do it.
But how often have you heard about damage (including fatalities) caused by power lines?

>>5292126
>and inverter requirement,
Maybe you have a specific thing in mind; lots of devices take DC and nothing is needed (the calculator, cell phone, lamp, radio, vehicle, and other devices are all DC). In any case, inverters are simple, inexpensive devices where they are needed -- and all of the other methods require similar packages in their system. Widespread systems require transformers -- do you understand how often those transformers have been problems in practice?

>and no storage.
Not true at all. Storage (for any system) is the same, if it is needed. As a supplemental system, storage is completely unnecessary. As an independent system, minimal storage is required, normally. As a direct system, storage is optional, but the devices to do it are broadly used (calculator requires nothing, cell phone requires a basic rechargeable, etc).

>I'm not saying it's shit, there's potential and viable applications for solar.
>What I am saying is that you're a batshit crazed environmentalist or rabid solar salesman that needs to take off those leaf coloured googles.
Ad hominem again? You're implying that someone that has environmental concerns (I didn't express any) cannot be correct or informed about these technologies?

>>5292012
Um... have you calculated or looked up how much heat a nuke gives off, exactly? I suspect you will find that it turns out to be surprisingly little.

Almost everyone is missing the major point here, which is that AC power can't be readily stored. It doesn't matter one fuck if you can generate the total amount of energy you need during the day if you can't run your generation at night. And when you consider that peak load is usually 6-8 pm, just when solar becomes useless....

The fact is that you need a diverse generation portfolio, because not all plants are created equal.

>>5292344
Yes, PV panels use a few nasty materials, and much is needed when you multiply by the eventual power produced --
but nothing overcomes the massive, incredibly huge cost of manufacturing the components of large-scale power plants. Those include vast amounts of plumbing, mechanicals, circuitry and sensors, cleaners and maintenance products galore.

There is significant reason to figure small-scale generators (even on the same fuels as current systems, excluding nuclear) are much more efficient, reliable, practical and less expensive than the multistate powergrid systems used today. (And there is considerable evidence that the only reason any of those exist is that they are very lucrative for the owners with political influence.)

>>5292376
>>5292374
>>5292333
Same poster
Also: [citation needed]

>You're implying that someone that has environmental concerns (I didn't express any) cannot be correct or informed about these technologies?

I'm implying that your rainbow coloured description of how solar power is the ultime cheapest superuniversalbest energy source is ridiculous.

I don't care what delusions you suffer from, if solar were as universally superior as you claim, we'd be using it on a much larger scale, we aren't, case closed. Go fuck yourself with a rake.

Thinking strongly that decentralized power is the most important direction of global power production:

PV panels also are the simplest to manufacture and install of all power systems.
Wind power is a close second, requiring only good skills for mounting the staff and QA for the blades.

Small-scale petrol generators are the second simplest to operate, but manufacture is quite skilled and maintenance and permanent installation require skills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaF-fq2Zn7I&feature=plcp

An interesting TED talks that is related to this topic.

>>5290870
the american great basin desert is 24 million acres. well enough for 10million acres of soar panels.... but who's going to build that?