cheaper than coal

Quote: reno

Yes, this is true.

As for ocean wave energy, in favorable locations, wave energy density can average 65 megawatts per mile of coastline. Coal mines are certainly very profitable, but they also have enormous capital costs that ocean wave energy avoids

Hey, I'd like to see tidal power work. Far more predictable than wind or solar. From what I have read they are still working on the best ways to harness it, but as any smart person knows tides and water are powerfull stuff.

Quote: AZDuffman

Strip mines do, conventional mines not nearly as much. Gas wells even less so. But the thing is density. I will wager that coal mine gives far more KWh per surface acre than the solar installation.

Maybe, but that's immaterial if the land has no other use. If you have large spaces of high desert like Nevada, and it's not in use, and a solar farm generates revenue per acre where none existed before, and that energy can be produced at a rate that's comparable to coal, it's all good.

Quote: TheCesspit

(if solar gives you about 12%, solar to create hydrogen to store is even less so....) Solar doesn't even have to be ultra efficient... it just has to be cheap enough per KW to be worth while.

Cesspit- I basically agree with everything you've written on the issue, but I'm happy to report that 12% efficiency is no longer the max for commercially produced photovoltaic panels. Keep your eye on a company called Semprius. Their solar panels get over 30% efficiency. Achieving theoretical 30% efficiency in a research lab is no big deal (see chart below), but bringing that technology to market at a competitive price is another matter entirely. Last month Semprius opened a manufacturing facility in North Carolina; so they have moved well beyond the research phase. Their plan is to revolutionize the industry. We'll see...

Earlier in thread about solar producing energy at night... full moon or thereabouts OK. Different "Chemistry" OK.
Some Space-Based triple-junction cells get about 40% efficiency, most Earth-bound cells about 1/2 that.
Of course this is not meant for Toledo, OH and environs (lowest number of clear days in USA).

Simul-post... thanx for NREL chart, I was going from off the top of head.

I've wondered before if the best place for solar energy panels is along the miles and miles of highway --- IF, you could somehow transfer it to the moving vehicles, both alleviating storage and distance concerns. Basically electricity coming into vehicles from panels along the side of the road as they travel. If you could figure out how best to do it.

Quote: rxwine

I've wondered before if the best place for solar energy panels is along the miles and miles of highway --- IF, you could somehow transfer it to the moving vehicles, both alleviating storage and distance concerns. Basically electricity coming into vehicles from panels along the side of the road as they travel. If you could figure out how best to do it.

I've seen electric busses in San Francisco so the idea has been tried. Nicola Tesla proposed several methods of moving power with no wires. But I do not see either as being practical. I will repeat my assertion that if we get solar power to be practical and efficient it will not be via the pannels you see now but rather a method not yet conceived. When that happens the pannels will seem like Whale Oil seemed in the 1890s with people saying, "What were we thinking?"

Getting the government out of the solar business is the first step to freeing thinking in this regard.

You do realise that the molten salt stations aren't using solar panels, but big mirrors... which suggests your prediction is already true :)

Quote: rxwine

I've wondered before if the best place for solar energy panels is along the miles and miles of highway --- IF, you could somehow transfer it to the moving vehicles, both alleviating storage and distance concerns. Basically electricity coming into vehicles from panels along the side of the road as they travel. If you could figure out how best to do it.

Missouri is rolling out a set of energy-generating photovoltaic pavers along a section of the famous Route 66 highway—the first such panels on a public right of way in the U.S.

The street pavers were developed by Solar Roadways, a company created by inventors Scott and Julie Brusaw which raised more than $2.2 million in crowdfunding in 2014 to bring their technology to market. The Brusaws claim that replacing all of America’s roads and parking lots with their solar pavers would generate more than three times the country’s electricity consumption in 2009.