There is an interesting graphic by solar panel advocates showing the area needed to be covered by solar panels to fuel the world. These are obviously huge areas but it offers an interesting perspective.
The advocates point out that large areas of such panels could produce massive amounts of energy — particularly if located in places like the Saharan Desert. (That would make the currently poor Saharan people the new energy-rich producers). According to the site, the total energy needs for 2030 could be met with less than 500,000 square kilometers of solar panels.
Obviously, there are tremendous technological barriers in getting energy from such spots to population centers and maintaining such massive grids. However, it does offer an alternative view of how to break our dependence on oil.
I guess it’s really not a case of technological arguement here, rather than the current world situation.
Most countries will have some means of providing towards a worldwide sustainable “smart grid”. The UK has an abundance of wind (pun there I’m sure!) Norway an abundance of hydro and many African and middle eastern countries an abundance of solar energy.
Along with the solutions suggested by Tony C we could do this.
The big “BUT” however, is that countries would have to trust eachother a lot more and not use the shutting down of their own bits of the grid as a tool to impose their individual wills on other countries.
There are some countries like Norway that are capable of supplying all their own energy demands at all times, but what of those that cannot, even with the methods Tony C suggests?
I think that this will be the main obstacle.
The picture too 😉
The Oilah Akbar aficionados have the government and the people addicted.
When addicted one does not think straight.
As evidence, notice what BP (big petroleum, big politicians) have been saying about the gulf catastrophe.
But if you want to know about a story that points out that the vegetation of the Earth is in recoil, moving away from as well as to other areas, you will realize that room is being made for solar energy.
Whether panel style or thermal (steam turbine gen’t by refracted sunlight) or photovoltaic …
Anyway, the entire Gulf of Mexico, above and below the water, is unstable and unpredictable.
Read what scares some experts and should scare all of them.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/06/testimony-of-earth-under-oath.html
Bdaman,
You can say that again and again and again and again…..Oh well you get the point……lol
Thank you Gyges.
It’s not often that brilliant and Bdaman are often associated with each other here. 🙂
I hope everyone’s paying attention, because that last post from BDAman was a brilliant piece of bait.
That’s how you troll folks.
Don’t forget we are working against the clock here.
The more Co2 that gets in the atmosphere the hotter it will get at the same time creating massive snow storms that haven’t been seen in over a hundred years.
Obama Wind Farm Goals Threatened by Indian Rites, Kennedy Wish.
Ted is dead, as for the Indians they have a point.
April 15, 2010, 12:02 AM EDT
By Tom Moroney and Jim Efstathiou Jr.
April 15 (Bloomberg) — An Indian tribe’s sunrise ceremony, Nantucket’s whaling-era architecture and a parting wish of Senator Edward Kennedy may block the first wind farm in waters off the U.S. and stymie a potential $270 billion industry.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he will rule this month on Cape Wind, a proposal to invest more than $1 billion placing 130 wind-powered turbines in the shallow waters of Nantucket Sound off Massachusetts. A federal advisory council recommended on April 2 that Salazar reject the project because of the “destructive” effects on historic sites.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-15/obama-wind-farm-goals-threatened-by-indian-rites-kennedy-wish.html
Looks like coal and oil until we can figure out where to put all of these alternative energy farms.
Tell Feinstein that nuclear waste sites take up much less acreage and see what she thinks. 😛
here’s the link
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/21/feinstein-dont-spoil-desert-solar-panels/
P.S. it’s an AP story so if you don’t want to go to Fox, Google it.
Tell it to you picked a Feinstein to leave me Lucile.
Thousands of panels and no crops in the fields.
Feinstein: Don’t Spoil Our Desert With Solar Panels
California’s Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy
production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy.
Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.
Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.
There is no technological barrier that has not already been overcome concerning the use of multiple types of alternative energy. Getting these projects up and running will create a massive, high paid work force (something we obviously desperately need). I truly urge people to go to Science Friday and listen to the many programs that have addressed tackling all the problems associated with different types of alternative energy and how to get that power to the grid or keep it on site. There are links to papers and actual projects that work, not in the future, but right now.
As to cars there are several options. The internal combustion engine can be tweaked to create much better mileage. People who have done this can’t get funding for their projects. There are other people who can, right now, convert ICE into engines which use sustainable energy. This is expensive but we could offer grants so that everyone could afford the conversion. This is not a problem that can’t be solved, it is a problem that isn’t being solved. Conservation is also something we can do right now. It will bring in more energy to our economy than drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.
The answers are available to us now, it is only the will to use them that is lacking. I feel we should pool resources locally and finance projects in our area. We don’t have time to wait for our “leaders” to figure this out (assuming they have any interest in doing so in the first place). We can do this. I would say, we must do this.
I used to heat the pool with solar panels. It does have its place and can be used for efficient purposes. I have seen design concept “refuel cell cars.” They operate off of solar while driving. If memory serves me correctly GM buried about 100,000 or maybe 10,000 of these in the Arizona dessert about 8 years ago.
http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/06/01/making-solar-technology-competitive-force-us
@Alan: Yes, that is the molten salt method I mentioned, but notice they say “tanks can be designed to power a turbine for two to twelve hours.” That is good, but barely overnight. Of course one could have multiple tanks, but molten salt, even in an insulated container, will cool.
The reservoir system is capable of storing energy that can last weeks or months, and cooling is not a problem. This is important for areas where energy can be seasonal, or overcast for weeks at a time (due to storm season, or winter).
Of course there is no reason to not use both; I don’t know what the efficiency coefficient of molten salt is, but if we can recover more of the stored energy using that, store it for use overnight, then when the sun shines use the excess to pump reservoir water uphill for longer term storage.
@Nal:
We can switch to hybrids before the plants needed to provide the energy can even be built. I don’t have the figures, but I’d bet the vast majority of cars on US roads is less than 20 years old; so before 2030 just about everybody is getting a new car anyway. It might as well be a plug-in hybrid.
Besides that, trains and streetcars and buses could be electric. For transportation that requires more energy than batteries can supply, electricy can be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and compress them to liquids, both are powerful fuels. Note that this operation can occur in small spaces; I’ve seen designs that could fit in a 4×4 closet. What that means is the alternative energy plant does NOT have to be connected to the electric grid; it can generate electricity, split water, and store the compressed hydrogen and oxygen in compression tanks for later pickup. And of course, automatically stop if they become full (or switch to the next in a line of hundreds of empties).
This, too, exploits technologies a hundred years old; albeit well refined and far more efficient than when it was invented.
If we wanted to do it, we could be energy independent in ten to twenty years, with zero new technology, using unpatented, publicly available means of power generation. I presume the reason we do not is because we do not really want it. The pain of oil dependence is not yet great enough to really address the problem. I suspect we will just wait until the Gulf is a dead and stinking cesspool before we do anything about it. If we even care then.
@Tony C.: the newest thermal solar plants are designed to store heat and use it to generate power when the sun is not shining, so they do not need an external energy storage plant, such as a stored hydro energy plant that you mention. See http://www.sandia.gov/Renewable_Energy/solarthermal/NSTTF/salt.htm
Having investigated this myself (I am a full time scientist) the problem with this projection is that the rare earth metals currently used in solar panels are *rare* and the entire known world supply and reserves (stuff still in the ground) could not build more than about 5% of these panels.
If one wants to go solar, go thermal. This uses polished aluminum mirrors (an infinite supply and as cheap and thin as soda cans) to focus sunlight on a tube to create heat; usually the tube contains a common type of salt that becomes molten and can be used to generate steam to power a generator, but there are many workable designs.
Arguments against Solar being intermittent or “only working during the day” are bogus arguments; we do not need batteries or any new technology to store intermittently supplied power (wind, solar, wave, whatever). The simple solution is over 100 years old — The hydroelectric reservoir. While the electricity is being generated it goes directly to the grid; but any excess generated is used to pump water from a downhill reservoir to an uphill reservoir. When the day is cloudy, drain the uphill reservoir to the downhill reservoir, through hydroelectric generators. The entire loss due to this operation (including evaporation and the cost of pumping water) is about 15% of that excess electricity.
Uphill/Downhill reservoirs can be built anywhere, even on flat land, with bulldozers. The Downhill reservoir is excavated, and the material removed is used to construct the walls of the Uphill reservoir right next to it. The reservoirs can be landscaped, stocked with fish and used for public recreation, if that is desired, as it may be if the reservoirs are used to store energy from windfarms or geothermal. Of course the water does not have to be freshwater, filtered seawater can be used to store energy from coastal currents or wave action generators or open sea wind farms.
YES!!! Find some place in the middle of a desert or in our case the thousands of acres out west that are owned by the Bureau of Land Management. I have been thinking of installing solar panels on my roof, it faces south, but my whole heating system would have to be overhauled. Currently the house is heated by propane-ugh. Started at $1.45 a gallon when I bought the place 3 years ago and now it’s up to $2.25. How would you like to get an $882 heating bill for one month.
I think we should investigate all forms of alternative energy. Why not put turbines in the ocean to capture the power of the ocean? After all, our atmosphere above the water is just an ocean of air.
Not sure how much this would break our dependence on oil. On average, only 3% of US electricity is generated using oil. A switch to electric vehicles would have to accompany the use of solar to make a dent in our oil usage. Then there’s the storage problem for night time electrical usage.