/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10522871]

Why isn't everything in the US just powered by solar energy? What's stopping us?

[Anonymous No.10522872]

China

[Anonymous No.10522873]

>>10522871
night

[Anonymous No.10522876]

>>10522871
Free energy is too expensive.

[Anonymous No.10522888]

>>10522873
we can just make everything powered by moonlight tho

[Anonymous No.10522932]

>>10522871
>gov. removes huge chunk of forest and replaces lower income projects to place big,expensive solar panels in view of sun
>remove more forest place more expensive panels remove more lower income projects
>exofascist places 1 bomb in one these huge solar panel farms
>20% of power is cut off alongside big expensive panels getting blown to bits
>no

[Anonymous No.10522938]

>>10522871
Solar is a meme. Photovotiacs have a short longevity (10-20 years) and, in point of fact, are incredibly polluting, and require millions of acres. They are plagued by intermittency, which means there will always be a gas or even worse, coal fired back up.
It will never be a viable alternative against nuclear. This is why oil companies could care less about it. The only green energy source is nuclear fission. Only brainlets are opposed to it.

[Anonymous No.10522942]

>>10522938
>It will never be a viable alternative against nuclear
against fossil fuels*

[Anonymous No.10522972]

>>10522938
Hmmmmm

[Anonymous No.10522978]

>>10522888
Youd need more panels then. I think ideally you need a base line power production that is not dependent on the time of day or other variances. Example being a nuclear plant or coal plant that is able to produce 100% of its output whenever you need it, say when solar irradiance or wind is low (for wind turbines). Solar/wind could bypass needing some baseline power if we had sufficient ways to store energy during the day with low loss, like efficient batteries or a water potential reservoir.

[Anonymous No.10522979]

>>10522871
In terms of square meters to power output it's horribly inefficient. Nuclear is objectively the best power source currently at our disposal but brainlet politicians refuse to install more facilities or maintain the few that we have. The Green New Deal is a joke without a provision for additional nuclear plants.

[Anonymous No.10522980]

>>10522972
>such observation does not take into account... reliability or intermittency-related considerations
see >>10522938
>They are plagued by intermittency

[Anonymous No.10522990]

>>10522972
LCOE is a pretty shit measure. It's like BMI placing weightlifters in "obese" and does not take into account costs of compensating for intermittency, which PV has in spades.

https://physicsworld.com/a/the-cost-of-power-moving-beyond-lcoe/

[Anonymous No.10522991]

>>10522871
An entire pre-existing infrastructure and industry based around the systems we've spent a century cobbling together.
Also trying to go to one uniform power source is pants on head retarded, you need a robust power grid with plenty of redundancies and power storage.

[Anonymous No.10523005]

>>10522980
>>10522990
The $82 figure is solar with storage. Which alleviates almost all intermittency issues. Still pretty competitive.

Complaining about the industry standard cost analysis is useless without providing better studies with superior methodology.

[Anonymous No.10523011]

>>10522972
actually the 2017 version

[Anonymous No.10523202]

>>10522873
this, we need a better battery option

[Anonymous No.10523203]

>>10522972
Renewables are controlled opposition by the fossil fuel industry, you imbecile.

[Anonymous No.10523223]

>>10522873
>>10523202
Why isn't everything just powered by the sun during the day then?

[Anonymous No.10523239]

>>10523202
Why not electrolysize hydrogen during the day and run on fuel cells at night?

[Anonymous No.10523292]

>>10523223
many things are, but until we can get the cost of producing solar cells down or have more efficient ones (btw normal ones are around 20%, however recent experiments have reached over 40%) then it isn't economical for everything.

[Anonymous No.10523310]

>>10522873
What if we built a giant system of mirrors around the world?

[Anonymous No.10523315]

>>10522938
But I am afraid nuclear factory go boom!

[Anonymous No.10523327]

>>10523310

Because rockets have sucked so far.

[Anonymous No.10523361]

>>10523203
They'd better control them better because they're quickly becoming the better power source in all ways.

[Anonymous No.10523967]

>>10523361
t. Brainlet regurgitating DUDE SCIENCE tier idealistic futurism.
They aren't becoming a better source. Their inherently limited. Nuclear is the only real alternative.

[Anonymous No.10524001]

What is kind of strange, is that the SUN powers life, and in turn powers humans that draw calories from the environment.

Thus would it not make sense to make humans a clean energy source like the old days? We have so many people we can use for this.

They can work both in the day and in the night.

[Anonymous No.10524075]

>>10522871

because of conversion issues and, most importantly, storage.

I still believe that reducing population is the best strategy if we want to be really eco friendly.
And by reducing population I'm looking at those african and asian gentlemen.

[Anonymous No.10524126]

>>10523967
I don't hate nuclear, but it's still failed to solve it's problems of waste storage and arms nuclear proliferation. It also suffers from ludicrous start up costs and time. Renewables on the other hand are already cheaper and only continue to get cheaper and. Ittermittancy is still an issue but is solved through storage which is also improving in cost and density quickly. Nuclear is a good option for some niche markets where renewables aren't viable, but in most cases it's just worse.

[Anonymous No.10524182]

>>10524075
Yes.
Every country should apply that law which is in China: If someone makes more then 2 child, then goes into the jail.

[Anonymous No.10524248]

>>10524126
>Waste storage
You put it in a pool for a few years, then put it in a barrel for about 50 years and by then it's hardly harmful. The most harmful radioactive waste products decay the fastest (higher activity stems from shorter half life), so the waste only becomes safer over the course of years and decades. The fact that some plants have failed to safely contain waste does not mean waste on the whole can't be safely contained fairly easily. It can, and is. Making space for waste isn't a problem since it's so dense.
And let's not forget the extreme environmental impact of mass producing PV cells, and the unusable waste when they're dead after a few decades.

>Nuclear proliferation
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-nuclear-energy-likelihood-proliferation.html
High enrichment for weapons-grade material is vastly more energy- and technology-intensive than the low enrichment needed for fission plants. Countries that want nuclear weapons typically just go for high enrichment right away: since you have to build so much infrastructure in secret it's not really worth expanding off of LEU sites.

>High startup cost
The first reactors a nation builds are always way overbudget, but this cost drops to a reasonable level as the infrastructure for building them develops. The cheap power easily pays back the costs and subsidies involved. Even the decommissioning cost typically isn't a problem, as the funds for it are built up over a reactor's life.

>Nuclear is a good option for some niche markets where renewables aren't viable, but in most cases it's just worse.
Switch the words 'nuclear' and 'renewables' and you get the reality of the situation.

[Anonymous No.10524259]

>>10522932
What is a fucking desert

[Anonymous No.10524270]

>>10522932
lol. they would be spread along the south, not being ALL located at the same place

[Anonymous No.10524274]

>>10522871
greedy politicians