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MIT Report Says Current Tech Enables Future Terawatt-Scale Solar Power Systems
Lucas123 writes: Even with today's inefficient wafer-based crystalline silicon photovoltaics, terawatt-scale solar power systems are coming down the pike, according to a 356-page report from MIT on the future of solar energy. Solar electricity generation is one of "very few low-carbon energy technologies" with the potential to grow to very large scale, the study states. In fact, solar resources dwarf current and projected future electricity demand. The report, however, also called out a lack of funds for R&D on newer solar technology, such as thin-film wafers that may be able to achieve lower costs in the long run. Even more pressing than the technology are state and federal policies that squelch solar deployment. For example, government subsidies to solar are dwarfed by subsidies to other energy sources, and trade policies have restricted PV module and other commodity product imports in order to aid domestic industry. Additionally, even though PV module and inverter costs are essentially identical in the United States and Germany, total U.S.residential system costs are substantially above those in Germany.
The cost isn't different between US and Germany, The way it's paid for is different. Germany subsidizes solar power far more than the US. Just because tax revenue is spent, doesn't mean it's cheaper. One of the biggest reasons for it being uneconomical is that there is still the huge amount of hazardous waste that needs to be disposed of from the manufacturing process. It may be less of a carbon footprint, but green energy it is not.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
News flash: slashdotter reads article about article, finds something to complain about, stops to post complaint, and never reads actual paper.
News flash: slashdotter reads article about article, finds something to complain about, stops to post complaint, and never reads actual paper.
The article about the article is an accurate summary of the actual article. Current solar tech does not make much economic sense, so we are spending billions to subsidize it, rather than spending enough on research and development of new tech that does make sense. Furthermore, subsidizes designed to encourage solar adoption, have instead been co-opted by the solar industry, and used to prop up inefficient domestic producers at the expense of better and cheaper imports. So the end result is that solar is more expensive to consumers, while the worst panels are being installed. No matter how dumb you think our solar policies are, they are actually even dumber than that.
None of those taxes begins to account for the lack of disposal fees for fossil fuels.
If all fossil fuel users were required to collect and safely sequester the CO2 that they're allowed to spew into the air free of charge, fossil fuels would not be even close to competitive with solar energy. As it stands, the rampant use of fossil fuels is saddling future generations with hundreds of $Trillions of remediation costs. It only looks cheaper because you're kicking the can down the road.
The triumphant little guy sticks it to The Man, news at 11. More like, the distributed smart grid (or whatever) turns out to somehow be more expensive and less secure than advertised, and given the noteworthy lack of philosopher kings to run it, regulations become necessary to curb the worst misuses and excesses. (Assuming the distributed smart grid (or whatever) is actually viable.) Meanwhile, back in the real world, note the progress of solar in Japan, where the utilities (that would be, the folks running the grid) are somehow unhappy about having to both eat higher costs and to install new infrastructure to support all the new solar stuff.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...
Sorry, I meant silicon vs. thin film. Here's a thing (caution, pdf). The panels, even the newest ones, last a very long time.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”