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Can the Sun Realistically Power Datacenters?
1sockchuck writes: A massive solar array in central New Jersey provides the daytime power for a server farm delivering online financial services for McGraw Hill. The 50-acre field of photovoltaic solar panels symbolizes a new phase in the use of renewable energy in data centers. Massive arrays can now provide tens of megawatts of solar power for companies (including Apple) that can afford the land and the expense. But some data center thought leaders argue that these huge fields are more about marketing than genuinely finding the best approach to a greener cloud.
Lets just get this out of the way;
As soon as they come out with them super whamodyne batteries, our problems will be solved.
Proceed....
We don't have a farmland shortage. We do have a need for vast amounts of cheap power.
It may be a drop in the bucket now (Facebook's 100kw solar array for a facility consuming 25Mw is just that), but the infrastructure is in place to put in better panels later as they're developed. Additionally, if using otherwise "wasted" space (such as a rooftop), why not put it in place? The long-term power cost savings for such a facility (that is planned for the long term, anyway) will eventually pay for for the system a few times over, even if the impact to overall energy usage is that proverbial drop in the bucket. In other words, it makes business (read: financial) sense to do it.
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
Congrats on winning today's "Dickhead of the Day" award.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
A: Yes. It's called "evaporation." Next question, please.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Efficiency can be easy - we just need to build a Dyson sphere.
The fact that some arrays were done in a way that's incompatible with farming doesn't mean that it can't be done.
And a lot of "high quality farmland" in many places has been and is being used to alleviate the vast condo,housing & shopping center shortage that's been such a burden on modern society. I'll take the wind turbines & solar panels over yet-another-Walmart
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
> The fact that some arrays were done in a way that's incompatible with farming doesn't mean that it can't be done.
The light either hits the corn leaves, or it hits the solar panel. The same photon won't hit both. You don't get to use that same bit of sunlight repeatedly. Each photon is either absorbed by the solar panel, or it's absorbed by the crop. You _could_ mix 25 acres of solar with 25 acres of farming, to have 50 acres of both mixed together. The productivity of mixing them together would be precisely the same as having 25 acres of farmland on one side of the street, and 25 acres of solar on the other side of the street. Mixing them, with ten feet of farm, ten feet of solar, ten feet of farm, ten feet of solar would be silly, though, because it's awfully hard to harvest the corn with solar panels in the way.
I recently saw that India is taking an innovative approach to solar installations. They are installing the panels over irrigation canals. This has a few benefits... less evaporation of water because of shading and the government already owns the land for the canals so no land needs to be acquired and no land is taken out of food production. They have thousands of miles of canals.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
If you elevate the panels you reduce the intensity of the shadow but you increase the size by a proportional amount. Grazing? There will proportionately less to graze on in the areas with solar panels. Reflected light? Plants use it just as much as the solar panels do.
raymorris is correct.
Yes, beef requires a lot more land than grains do. That's why I gave a range 20-250 people , depending on what you. That's no comment on what middle-class Americans SHOULD eat, it's just the productivity of the land based on what we DO eat. We do eat double bacon cheeseburgers.
Now that you mention it, it is funny to read the 1% (Americans) complaining about the stuff they do.
I'm at about the same latitude as North India. From May through September, the sunlight here is so intense that almost no garden vegetables will grow without shade protection.
If that shade protection should happen to generate electricity, so much the better.
And then there's the house, where every watt that falls on the roof would be a lot more appreciated in electrical form than in heat input to the attic. Where it leaks through to the house below and negates the air conditioning.