Deploying Solar In California's Urban Areas Could Meet Demand Five Times Over

Lucas123 writes: About 8% of terrestrial surfaces in California have been developed, ranging from cities and buildings to park spaces. If photovoltaic panels, along with concentrating solar power, were more effectively deployed in and around those areas, it could meet between three and five times what California currently uses for electricity, according to a new study. The study from the Carnegie Institution for Science, found that using small- and utility-scale solar power in and around developed areas could generate up to 15,000 terawatt-hours of energy a year using photovoltaic technology, and 6,000 TWh of energy a year using concentrating solar power technology. "Integrating solar facilities into the urban and suburban environment causes the least amount of land-cover change and the lowest environmental impact," post-doctoral environmental earth scientist Rebecca Hernandez said.

Comments

Re:Space for solar hasn't been much of a concern

[itzly]

I thought solar was supposed to allow us to use less fossil fuels like natural gas and not more. Any gains by using solar may be wiped out by burning more natural gas to make up for storage problems. I don't think that is a good plan.

These problems are not going to get solved by whining about them. Instead, we should just build the solar panels. At first, storage won't be a problem, because we can use the peak energy for A/C. And when solar power actually grows to a point where storage is a problem, it will be fixed, because there will be money to be made in energy storage.

Re:Space for solar hasn't been much of a concern

[jklovanc]

Solar is already causing a problem. It is called the duck graph. Basically as solar rapidly drops off at sunset conventional is having trouble ramping up to meet demand. There is too many incentives for solar production and not enough for storage and that needs to be changed now.

Re:Space for solar hasn't been much of a concern

[sjames]

If only we had a way to predict when the sun would set...

Re:solar and wind are just proxies for natural gas

[catmistake]

Nuclear power is the answer. I know someone is going to point out the nuclear waste that comes from nuclear power now.

Yes, waste is a concern. But the real concern is the economics of nuclear energy has never made any sense. It is outrageously expensive, and never has a nuclear power plant been able to have been built without massive capital from governments. An individual can install wind and solar and other alternative energies on a local scale. There are solvable problems involved. Eventually, the problem of energy storage will be solved. But the problem with nuclear power, which is that is the most expensive form of energy ever conceived, will never be solved. Nuclear energy proponents ignore this, but it is the only thing standing in the way of your dream of nuclear power being the solution to the world's energy needs: its just too damn expensive. Money wins every time.

Re:Night

[angel'o'sphere]

It would also require more rare earth elements than exist in the earth's crust.
That is complete nonsense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Raw earth elements belong to the most abundant elements on earth. Only the name is strange due to historical reasons when they got "discovered".

like flywheel storage ..., and still require significant amounts of rare earth elements to produce
No they don't. You only need a flywheel and a generator. If you sacrifice 1% efficiency there are no raw earth elements involved at all. (*facepalm*)

Molten salt storage requires vast resources as well.
What a nonsense :D

None of these can compete with even first generation nuclear power
Ofc it can't. You compare storage technology with power production. That is like comparing biodiesel with a motorbike. Wow, the motorbike is not even using diesle. So now you compare the motorbike with gasoline ... oki. Nevertheless the gasoline/diesel is the storage medium. And the bike the user/producer of energy.

Your comparison makes no sense, especially as nuclear power is the most expensive power to produce, since ever actually. It never was cheaper than coal, water or anything else.