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RE: Getting Solar Panels On Your Home
Actually we are not running out of anything! We have plenty of coal, oil, gas, uranium, etc & etc. Technology makes some energy sources obsolete. Like wind has been used for millennium. Solar is very rare mineral intensive. If we really want to get it right fission nuclear now! Fusion nuclear in the future! They will provide unlimited energy to bring everyone up! Cheers!
I would love to see nuclear fusion working, and if more money was spent on it then I think it could be a reality faster. If we are talking about future innovation, the World Community Grid have been doing a lot of work to research organic solar cell materials. These would overcome your point about materials used for solar PV.
The point of my article is about what you as an individual can do to preserve resources, even if they are currently not in short supply (I didnt say they were), maintaining them for as long as possible is a decent thing to do for our future generations. For all we know there will be a CME that will fry all our electronics and return us to the steam age!
Thanks for your reply, its good to talk to other people interested in these issues.
Good to have a civil conversation on these topics. It is interesting that the fuel that brought us out of being 100% renewable (before ~ 1800), ie COAL is still the number electrical generator in the world. The coal industry, along with big $ oil and gas have colluded (press, advertising, bias science) to try and kill fission nuclear for 50 years. prior to 1800 the world was 100% renewable, coal era is lasting until ~ 2020, oil and then natural gas until ~ 2050. Nuclear fission then fusion 2050+: We enter an era of abundance! ( I hope!)
Abundance; I concur :)
Regrettably , fusion reactors will cost MANY millions of $, sustained plasma generation (at the millions of degrees necessary) were (8 months ago) 2 sec., not even close to self-sustaining, and it's unlikely that's improved much, it took 10 years to get a modest increase in burn time. See for reasonably recent (2016/10) info
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/17/mit-nuclear-fusion-record-marks-latest-step-towards-unlimited-clean-energy
That places any commercially usable system another 30 years off. It's possible Lockheed-Martin will get an operational smaller device in another 10-15 (they'd steal everyone else's thunder, for certain.)
In common with all these systems are the high capital costs. Only large corporations and utilities will be able to afford one- given historic trends, there is zero chance that near-unlimited source of power will be available to us, the trash of the corporate world, at a price a free market would indicate as appropriate. The most powerful good hot fusion power will enable is somewhat reasonable space travel.
There are several alternatives due to roll out as commercial products in the next two years, proof-of-concept and prototyping having been completed- THESE will be what changes the world from the standpoint of energy supply. HF will still be a necessary development.
The calculation of materials cost for solar is always only viewed as capital costs, not ROI on lifetime cost, and use of organic materials and peroskite structures can shrink them an order of magnitude.
Were the truth EVER told in the mass media, as soon as environmental and health burdens are considered, solar was competitive with coal years ago, even when it's not produced with Chinese indentured labor.
Ultimately, though, PV can only reach 60% theorectical output efficiency for the footprint, and it's still NOT dirt cheap. Solar hot water (not CSP) is, but maintenance is something most people don't want to consider.
Wow, people are lazy. Who knew?