What are some problems, such as cost or available technology, with solar power?
Question by Marcus K: What are some problems, such as cost or available technology, with solar power?
Best answer:
Answer by WhachooSay
Yes cost, they’re pretty outrageous. But I never hear anyone complain of the energy storage that most solar panels require….. Car Batteries! They are filled with hideous chemicals that you can’t let land on your skin or leach into your tapwater, poison. And they don’t last too long, especially when used for solar panels. You have to replace them every few years. If all the dumps are filled with stacked boxes of hydrochloric acid, will people be happy then? I’m telling you, 50 years from now, the crusade will be to outlaw solar panels and their unfathomable storage means. A new generation of activists will crop up, but first they have to think of an alternative that hasn’t been shot down yet, then market– I mean warn the public about the dangers of hydrochloric acid, and sell the new way to do things. Or else!
What do you think? Answer below!
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about 1 year ago
Cost.
Available technology is too expensive. There are also some limits on its efficiency; silicon isn’t very ‘black’, for example. Some solar panels and manufacturing systems use dangerous chemicals including very strong greenhouse gases and heavy metals like cadmium which are toxic. Panels are still safe, but cost is the main problem right now. Costs have fallen and will continue to fall and they should be economic in a decade or so in Europe.
Intermittency.
They produce power when the Sun shines only. So they make a lot more in Summer than in Winter. In hot countries, that’s generally ok – Summer demand is higher because of air conditioning. In cooler countries, like the UK, that’s not so good, because we don’t use much A/C and most of our demand is for the cold, dark winters.
There are ways around this: concentrating solar power that heats up salts can store heat for up to 6 hours and generate electricity after the Sun goes down. Batteries, hydroelectric storage, compressed air storage, backup power stations or a ‘smart grid’ that turns off appliances at different times can all compensate for this.
Various studies have shown that 20%+ wind power is viable in the UK at a cost of something like 5% on consumer’s electricity bills. eg;
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL
about 1 year ago
It is an interesting, though very expensive concept. The technology, on the other hand is pretty impressive. Philips have created a streetlight on this concept.
about 1 year ago
The two main problems are concentration and storage:
Hydro power is due to solar energy that drives the water cycle. But it is most often used because of its concentrated and stored potential. It is in some ways a textbook source of energy. There are some issues with the weight of backed up water on the earth’s crust, but smaller dams don’t seem to be a concern.
We get most of our Energy from the sun. Where it is most useful it comes to us in a condensed and stored form such as oil, gas, coal, peat and wood. The storage method used is chemical from photosynthesis that was done millions or years ago for all but wood. As a result it is not renewable (except for wood) and the chemical storage method involved the sequestering of lots of carbon which is being released as it is used. This combines very easily with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. There are also byproducts that are not helpful and therefore considered pollution.
Solar energy that is in non stored forms include wind, waves, and direct solar radiation. For these forms we have to rely on non natural and technological means to achieve concentration and storage:
The quantity of solar energy is huge even compared to our present demands. The problem is that it is also a diffuse source. Solar energy also supports all life on Earth, not just our transportation and latte needs. We therefore can’t use 100% or “all life” will suffer. Nature tends to be less than 100% efficient. Photosynthesis is only about 6% efficient. Perhaps there is a wisdom in letting some of the energy go by. This means “collecting” or harvesting energy in the case of bio-fuel crops and droppings. We have been doing this for a long time.
Technologically we have different kinds of solar panels that are ever increasing in their efficiency. We know to put up not one wind mill but many; not one dam, but many; not one solar collector but many…
Nature stores energy by using it for one life that it turned into another. Energy flows from one form to another, but we have found that storing energy makes us more powerful.
Storing electrical energy is difficult and costly (like capacitors.) Storing energy as heat is easier and cheaper but insulation is costly. Storing energy in physical ways like flywheels, dams, pendulums, and phase change materials we are still exploring as we also continue to explore the storage of energy in chemistry like batteries, and self heating meals and hot / cold packs.
The issues you mention of available technology, cost and others like pollution and hazardous waste will all come down to issues of collection and storage that have not been done for us by nature.
about 1 year ago
To correct the answer that Whachoo gave, car batteries are not used to store solar electricity. Deep cycle batteries are used in off-grid installations that need to store their power for night. These batteries are available sealed so no acid can leak out. All deep cycle batteries, sealed or not, are completely recycled at the end of their life cycle, they do not end up in landfills, they are 100% reused.
That being said, most solar installations do not use any batteries. They are grid-tied installations that generate electricity during the day and sell any extra to the electric grid. At night, the homeowner buys back what they need from the electric company. They use the grid as their storage.
about 1 year ago
Two major issues coming up in Nevada for solar power are: availability of water and land use.
Most large scale solar projects are not photovoltaic cells, they are various versions of solar thermal concentrator generators. These require large amounts of water, and essentially use the sun to do what coal does in coal powered electricity plants. Nevada has water, but arguably not enough for large scale operations which so many want/hope to have built. So the alternative is to use technology that uses less or even no water — the technology exists, but tends to make significantly less electricity per acre.
And land use is the other front-page issue. Most solar plants, regardless of the amount of water needed, tend to spread out over hundreds and even thousands of acres (almost always federally owned land being leased), much of which is scraped of the native vegetation. This isn’t very good for any animals or plants in the region, as well as for animals that simply migrate through the region. Deserts are often (mistakenly) seen as vast wastelands, but the reality is they are well populated with species that live here year round, and even more species that depend on the region for food during migration. Scrape all that veg down, and suddenly you have a dead, dusty wasteland, and a roadblock (or at least a detour) to migration.
Some other “smaller” issues are: the creation of cooling ponds where standing water never was before, where species that never drink water (much less swim) can easily drown, or that will draw in certain migratory species that may feast on local species and decimate their populations. And all for electricity that for the most part, will go to power wasteful tourist industries in Las Vegas, rather than providing thoughtful, appropriate energy to locals. One form of solar thermal generation uses oil to heat and cool the water, thus providing a huge fire potential in remote areas with little or no fire departments. Many solar plants are planned to be developed in areas with inadequate infrastructure, such as small roads, not enough electrical transmission capacity, and such — the plants expect the local city to boom for the construction period, where hundreds of workers flock to the area, but don’t tell the communities about the bust period after construction, when the plant begins operations and only needs a few dozen workers (this has been happening for decades with oil and natural gas boomtowns, it is only the venue of construction that is changing). Also, there is the issue that solar is a daytime-only product, so there needs to be a way to fill the gap of electrical use at night, whether it be batteries or other forms of generation.
One idea that has not taken hold here, but has been very successful in Germany and a few other places in Europe is the de-centralization of electrical generation by installing photovoltaic panels on existing houses and buildings throughout cities. The electric utilities then pay a net on the produced electricity — in Germany it is more than the nominal cost of power produced for the first several years, in order to encourage homeowners to install the panels, but other places usually net the cost as even or somewhat less than the retail cost per kilowatt-hour. Think of how much electricity the Luxor could produce if it replaced it’s exterior with solar panels, or how much electricity could be provided if every house had a few solar panels!
about 1 year ago
Cost is the major factor