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Solar Power Play

Posted by timothy on from the them-photons-gotta-get-somewheres dept.

dpilgrim writes "While American power companies continue to chase vanishing oil reserves, the Japanese are once again a step ahead in innovation. Reuters is carrying this story about Sharp's new manucfacturing plant in the U.S. Sharp will begin manufacturing solar batteries stateside, and expects more than half its solar battery sales to be in the U.S. by 2004. Looks like a good use for that south-facing hillside on my property."

1 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Solar Power discussion. by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1) Cost.

    2) Energy already travels from the sun to earth at the speed of light. You're not going to get it here any faster. Electromagnetic radiation travels through space without loss (save for interference from objects and gravity fields).

    3) What if the beam of highly concentrated energy misses the near-earth target?

    4) Where are you going to PUT the near-earth target?

    5) Everything we use for energy today exists because of the sun (except for nuclear, anyways, but that's leftovers from some other star), so basically we're running on locally stored solar energy...

    =Smidge=