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Existing Solar Tech Could Power Entire US, Says NREL
derekmead writes "A new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory finds that solar holds more potential to generate more power (PDF) than any other clean energy source. The NREL broke things down into four groups: urban and rural utility-scale photovoltaics (giant solar plants, basically) as well as rooftop solar and concentrated mirror arrays. Between those technologies, which are all already on the market, the NREL reckons there's a proven potential for solar to hit a capacity of 200,000 gigawatts in the United States alone. For some perspective, 1 gigawatt is what a single nuclear power plant might generate, and it's more than most coal plants. A gigawatt of capacity is enough to power approximately 700,000 homes."
They have tested and proven that "molten salt" can be produced by aiming a field of mirrors at a high tower. The salt is double the temperature of boiling water. It gets stored underground in big tanks or caverns. Then a portion of the heat is used (24 hours a day) to boil water and run a conventional steam turbine hooked up to a conventional generator. The system can run for 3 days with no sunlight.
Wouldn't it be great if the U.S. started a public works program (not unlike the Hoover Dam project) that provided unemployed Americans jobs building solar/battery systems? Wouldn't that be a fantastic use of taxpayer's dollars? Why isn't that already happening to help out of work Americans?
4x it's weight in toxic waste and greenhouse gasses
That's not very much. Each kWh the panels generate saves roughly half a kilogram of greenhouse gasses based on the average generation mix in the US, for example. On average, a single one of the 15kg, 215-watt panels on our roof makes enough power to offset four times its weight in greenhouse gas every 23 days. Given their 25-year warranty, that's means that the panels will save roughly four hundred times the greenhouse gas that was produced in their construction, if your "four times the weight of the panel" number is correct.