On Oct 23, 6:33*am, The Daring Dufas
wrote:
On 10/23/2010 3:33 AM, harry wrote:





On Oct 23, 6:42 am, The Daring
wrote:
On 10/22/2010 9:16 PM, wrote:

On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:36:07 -0400,
wrote:

"My argument is it is impossible to run this [entire] country/state/city off
of sunbeams."

There. You just said it again.

As well he should ... unless it doesn't get dark where you live.

Don't you have batteries where you live?

And why the thick-headed insistence that in order to be useful, solar
power would have to supply all power used, day and night?

Yeah I do, they are very expensive, a toxic waste site when you need
to get rid of them and a way to make a marginal idea like solar PV
ridiculous.
That is why all of the systems the government will help you pay for
are grid tie.

Unfortunately all you can possibly save is the fuel charges since we
still need all of that generating infrastructure at night or even on a
cloudy day. If any significant number of people start using solar
energy, they will still find a way to bill you for that
infrastructure. It is really about half of your electric bill.

I'm thinking a big problem is a "green" storage solution for storing
the solar power. There are solar energy plants that store the power
in a heat bank where the heat is used to vaporize a working fluid to
run turbine generators. I remember reading something about a system
that had combination solar energy collectors that utilized solar cells
and heated oil as a working fluid to store heat energy. Perhaps solar
energy could be used to pump water into a reservoir where it could be
used to run turbines when the sun isn't shining. The problem is, how
do you capture and hold on to a sunbeam for later consumption? 8-)

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Solar energy can be used to lop the daytime peaks in electricity
usage. *Obviously other sources will be needed for the base usage.

There is an incredible amount of solar energy hitting the planet.
If we can figure out a way to harness and STORE it efficiently,
there would be no need to burn coal and other fossil fuels to
produce electricity to run cities and industry.


There is an incredible amount of water hitting the plane If we can
just figure out a way to harness it and get it to the Mojave desert,
we can turn it into a super farming area and supply the world food.


If the problem
was solved tomorrow, we would still need those fossil fuels for
the production of energy and propulsion where solar won't work.
I read an interesting story about a solar powered air conditioning
system that works great as long as there is abundant sunshine.
What do you do in an area that's hot and humid without the sunshine?
Of course when someone develops practical nuclear fusion power,
we'll be making our own sunshine.

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