The area needed is not really a problem for solar power. It's storage. We need power when it's dark, probably even more then than when there's daylight.
So implement storage. Build more capacity than you need for momentary power and use the excess to charge batteries or raise water columns. Build still more excess capacity, charge local storage at the solar plant or at intermediate locations, and use the rest of the excess at the point of consumption to charge storage there.
That's a lot of solar generators. So the sooner we start, the sooner we'll get there. The interesting thing is, just as better computers help us design and build still better computers, increasingly available energy will drive the cost of existing energy down, reducing the cost of energy used to build and maintain new capacity.
If we can only power the world half the day with solar, then that's a large fraction of our power that we don't have to burn oil or coal or biomass (food) for. If we can only power half the world half the day, it's still a win. If we can only make it through part of the night before lighting up an oil generator, it's still a win.
It astounds me that we're living in a blowtorch and we do essentially nothing with it, fight wars over oil, spew oil and emissions all over the world, and watch the elderly and poor die from lack of heat or cooling.
> So implement storage. Build more capacity than you need for momentary power and use the excess to charge batteries or raise water columns. Build still more excess capacity, charge local storage at the solar plant or at intermediate locations, and use the rest of the excess at the point of consumption to charge storage there.
You're assuming that that's economically viable. If it is, why aren't you going all-in with your money?
> That's a lot of solar generators. So the sooner we start, the sooner we'll get there.
Nope. We'll end up with a lot of old-tech solar that isn't as good as what we'll get by waiting.
> If we can only make it through part of the night before lighting up an oil generator, it's still a win.
Only if you ignore costs.
Spending $100 today on a solar system that is half as cost-effective as one that becomes available in 2 years is a good idea in some circumstances but not all. That's relevant because solar systems are not static.
> increasingly available energy will drive the cost of existing energy down
That's not necessarily true. It depends on costs. For example, we can get energy by burning diamonds. However, doing so will not drive the cost of existing energy down.
"Nope. We'll end up with a lot of old-tech solar that isn't as good as what we'll get by waiting."
No, we'll still get the years of use from the "old tech" while new tech is being developed, partly on the back of what was learned by bothering to develop the old tech in the first place.
What if we decided not to build cars until we developed the Prius? Or computers until the iPhone? You have to go through the stages, tech doesn't happen fully realized without what went before.
> "Nope. We'll end up with a lot of old-tech solar that isn't as good as what we'll get by waiting."
> No, we'll still get the years of use from the "old tech" while new tech is being developed
(NB)-C < (N-k)B'-C in some cases. (Yes, I realize that NB ignores time value of money. For N>>k, that can be reasonable if C is not too large.)
The numbers matter.
> What if we decided not to build cars until we developed the Prius?
What if we didn't invent false choices? (Hint: I'm not saying always wait.)
You're the one insisting that all-in is always the right solution. That's simply false, as is always wait.
The numbers always matter and they're often context dependent. (Example - pretty crappy solar made sense in some situations while it didn't in other situations. Better solar makes sense in some of the latter, but not all. And so on.)
Your response to every cost-based objection was "more" and "build it".
> you complained above that I'm not going all in. I'm confused
You've said that spending on solar is necessarily good and the more the better. If you're serious, that's how you've spent your money and every dime that you can borrow.
That's why I asked what you've done with your money. Surely you're not going to say that other people should spend money on something that you're unwilling to go "all in" on. Right?
> In fact I'm opposed to ... if we do it we must do it 100%." I thought that was clear, but I guess not.
Let's review what you wrote.
> That's a lot of solar generators. So the sooner we start, the sooner we'll get there.
> The interesting thing is, just as better computers help us design and build still better computers, increasingly available energy will drive the cost of existing energy down, reducing the cost of energy used to build and maintain new capacity.
Which doesn't imply that spending on solar is a good idea. Spending too much on an energy source leads to less energy, not more. However, the fact that your statement is false doesn't mean that you didn't make it.
and you complained above that I'm not going all in
If you need to build a complete parallel power generation infrastructure which must be capable of satisfying peak power demand on its own then it's almost irrelevant whether that infrastructure is battery powered or coal powered (from an economics standpoint). Not to mention that nobody's created anything even remotely capable of being used to generate peak (or even base) power loads using only stored energy.
This tidy infographic makes it seem like we could start the switch to PV power tomorrow if only we really cared to do so. However, the truth is far different. Not only do we lack the manufacturing capacity, by orders of magnitude, to produce enough PV panels, we do not have the operational experience in creating the sort of power storage systems that would be necessary if PV sources dominated base electrical power generation. This is not a solved problem.
Also, any human artifact which shows up as a box – not a dot – on a map of this scale is pretty darn huge. We currently probably couldn’t even manufacture all the solar panels or mirrors required, even if we wanted to.
Long distance power transfer might alleviate some power storage worries, but that is a huge engineering challenge in itself. It would also increase the required area – probably considerably – and we would – again – end up with a centralized power system which absolutely depends on international cooperation, you know, kinda like oil (not to say that’s a bad thing, it just adds another point of failure).
That’s not to say solar power is forever and always not feasible. I think it’s an interesting challenge and we might expect at least some success.
Hydrogen could be a solution for storage, transportation. And there is a possibility to find a more direct way to produce hydrogen with solar power that photovoltaics and electrolysis.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the world has moved away from hydrogen in favor of batteries?
There's the cycle efficiency, but it's probably also a factor that we have a very well developed infrastructure for shipping electrical power around, while pretty much none for hydrogen.
Yep. I also know that they're pretty inefficient and expensive and toxic to manufacture and dispose of. Which makes them a problem for large-scale solar installations.
Solar is great for when there's sun. Once the sun's out, not so much.
I remember reading somewhere a while back that the investment in solar panels doesn't really pay off because of the somewhat low life expectancy (~10 years) and high costs. Is that because of the batteries also?
So anyone who thinks we can manufacture nearly 500 billion square meters of solar panels by 2030, raise your hand.
It seems clear that if we were to do this it couldn't be all photovoltaics. Even with concentrating solar cells that's a lot of silicon and/or more rare elements (indium etc.).
With solar-thermal added into the mix it becomes potentially feasible, but who is going to fund a huge solar farm in the middle of a politically unstable region like north africa?
Another technical problem is that you have to transmit all that power somehow. I'm no expert but I would imagine that you would need orders of magnitude higher voltage transmission lines (or more of them) than currently exist. Also, the geography of most of those location is pretty intense.
There has been some pretty interesting research in to storing energy in molten salts. This is a bit different than the photovoltaic cells which I believe this map is referencing; It involves capturing heat and turning it in to electricity rather than light. This is mainly just research right now, but if it pans out it could potentially be much more practical than photovoltaic cells because it doesn't require as many precious materials to manufacture and stores energy at night. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage
To put that in perspective: Current global oil use, 75e6 barrels per day, at current price of $75/barrel = 2 trillion US dollars per year.
It's the same cost as 25 years of oil production, at current prices. Even if you think oil price won't go up and solar panel price won't come down, that doesn't seem economically crazy. 25 years is probably about the lifetime of the solar installations.
Infrastructure is a big cost, but the only difference is that the infrastructure cost for oil has already been sunk. It's a one-time changeover cost and eventually there will be no oil.
While that is a huge number it is not out of the realm of possibility. According to Wikipedia the world's GDP was $57 trillion last year. So we devote 8% of our output to this project and in 10 years the whole planet is energy independent
8 percent? Good luck getting the world to just 'divert' 8% of their GDP to build this stuff. That much vaunted US military spending? The one that outspends the entire rest of the world? That's 4% of your GDP.
