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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank
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To: cosmicforce who wrote (6747)2/27/2001 3:52:05 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (2) of 82486
 
Solar is 1000 W / m^2, perpendicular incidence angle. Current solar cells have quantum efficiencies of up to 10% That means the roof of your house is more than adequate to meet your needs. You might even be able to sell some back to the grid.

I'm not sure if selling power back to the grid is an option for me. Also I have a small roof (I live in a small 3 floor townhouse), and my heat and apliances are all electric so I have some doubt that my roof would be enough for me, but thats not really relevant to your point which is that it can be cost effective and not take up too much space. I wonder how much filling my roof with high efficiency solar cells would cost. I think it would be a lot.

As for taking up space I wasn't just talking about the amount of power that I would need for my house but rather the amount to generate a strong % of our total electricity needs. I think nuclear supplies about 20% of our power needs in the US. There is something like 95gw of nuclear capacity in the US. (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/n_pwr_fc/data98/prefix3.html) If we were to equal this amount from solar cells we would need (using your figures for watts/m^2 and efficancy need about a 950,000,000 sq meters of solar cells. That doesn't include support infrastructure and acess or the need for extra capacity for cloudy days. Maybe we would need up 2bil sq meters or 2,000 sq km. Actually thats not nearly as much as I though we would need but its still a lot. How certain are you of the 10% effciancy for large scale use? How much do these cells cost per sq meter?

Tim
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