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Solar Power Becoming More Affordable
prostoalex writes "With both startups and large companies such as Boeing working on solar power, the technology is becoming more affordable, MIT Technology Review says. Solar power concentrators are all in rage now: 'The thinking behind concentrated solar power is simple. Because energy from the sun, although abundant, is diffuse, generating one gigawatt of power (the size of a typical utility-scale plant) using traditional photovoltaics requires a four-square-mile area of silicon, says Jerry Olson, a research scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, CO. A concentrator system, he says, would replace most of the silicon with plastic or glass lenses or metal reflectors, requiring only as much semiconductor material as it would take to cover an area the size of a typical backyard. And because decreasing the amount of semiconductor needed makes it affordable to use much more efficient types of solar cells, the total footprint of the plant, including the reflectors or lenses, would be only two to two-and-a-half square miles.'"
This headline can be recycled and reused into perpetuity. Chances are with continuing advancements it will always become more affordable than it was last week, month, year, decade, or century.
But when will it become truly affordable for the masses? That's what most of us want to know. Wake me when it's time to disconnect from the petroleum/nuclear fired grid.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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Let's just say that it costs a super cheap 20$ a square foot. The cost of the mirrors alone would be $1,115,136,000.
Wow. I can make up numbers too. Let's assume it was a "super cheap" $2 a square foot. That's only
$115 million. Oh wait, let's assume it's only
Rather than pulling numbers out of your ass, maybe you should have real estimates of what it costs to make a plastic mirror. Considering you can make wood flooring for
AccountKiller
The problem with all these "The Big Bad Industry doesn't want X to succeed!" is the absolutely staggering number of X's that have nonetheless succeeded. Who cares what my power company "wants"? If I could buy cost-effective solar, I would. I can't. (And given that I live in cloudy Michigan it's going to be even longer for me than for some of you, but that's just a detail.)
Good luck to any power company foolish enough to stand in the way of something with the PR power of solar power. Can you imagine the media bloodbath that would ensue if any power company executive even mumbled something about getting solar outlawed?
Seriously, less emotion, more brain. It's the Universe making solar power hard, not a conspiracy of apparently-omnipotent "evil executives".
I've worked a lot with photovoltaics. They're really cool, but I recognize their limitations for utility-scale power generation. The primary limitation is that silicon-based photovoltaics currently convert only 10-23% or so of the incident solar power into useful electricity. Silicon solar cells cannot convert infrared light to electricity - the photons have too little energy. Higher energy photons (visible and UV light) are poorly utilized - a solar cell will get the same energy output from a red photon as a blue one, despite the fact that the blue photon has higher energy. Solar cells aren't very reflective (by design), so most of the remainder of the unconverted sunlight becomes heat in the cell.
You can get higher efficiencies by going to other chemistries, like GaAs, and by layering different chemistries on top of one another. These are not cost effective, and won't ever be able to get above, say, 50% efficiency.
But solar energy is not limited solely to photovoltaics. Probably the best way to use solar energy is solar thermal - capture all that 1000 W/m^2 of incident sunlight as heat. It can be used to heat a fluid up to fantastic temperatures, which can drive turbines, etc. This is the principle behind Solar One, Two, and Tres and the Nevada Solar One plants. These are, however, demonstration plants, not utility scale.
The other major kind of solar energy is biomass. Photosynthesis is a pretty good way to capture sunlight and make it do something useful. Plants have had a looong time to get good at making use of sunlight, which we use to our benefit in many ways. When cellulosic ethanol comes around, you'll probably make better use of sunlight by planting crops and building a solar power station.
First building a proper and efficient home is extremely hard to do.
1 - they are "ugly" to most people that want the cookie cutter that looks like the other 15 homes in the new subdivision.
2 - They require more land than the typical suburbian/urban lot offers.
3 - Actually paying for low-e glass + correct design + insulation is expensive! They would rather have cherry cabinets, stone fireplaces with a plasma TV above it than energy efficiency.
4 - building from real materials is also insane expensive. I live in a all brick and Stone home now that is from the 1950's It's beautiful and would cost nearly $1,000,000 to build today. The stonework is real the brickwork is real my walls are 2X6 and then have the stonework on the outside giving me 10-12 inch thick walls, new mansions dont have real stone anymore, they have the faux or created stuff that is in reality only an inch or two thick even for their fireplace stonework (I have real marble and limestone) so building the home to have real thermal capabilities is not possible except for the rich.
5 - efficient materials like adobe is illegal most places, an adobe home is incredibly efficient.
6 - efficient designs are hard to get approved by the association... Any home that looks different is considered ugly. Domes are the absolutely most efficient. I had one that during some winters was self heating due to the sliders and skylights to the south. Paying $85.00 a year for propane for heat is really stinking nice(1999-2002)
The common person cant have an efficient home, they cant afford it. Jsut like solar and alternative energy. No average joe can float $5000-8000 for a basic solar install that will pay back in 10 years saving few dollars here and there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.