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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (308645)	11/1/2006 10:13:14 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572542

"We could easily fit a 100 mile square solar farm into Arizona. " One problem is line losses. The longer the wires, the higher the resistance. Suffice it to say, they aren't going to run a power line from Arizona to, say, California, economically. Now a superconducting line would work fine, but be incredibly expensive, even if those high temperature superconductors could carry enough load. Regular low-temp. superconductors would be even worse.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (308645)	11/2/2006 12:53:39 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572542

100 square miles probably wouldn't be enough. And whatever the exact mileage is it would be that much that was totally given up to solar cells. I can imagine the environmentalist reaction to a plan to develop 100 square miles of "pristine desert". Note all the sites linked to below are supportive of solar and other alternatives. People who are skeptical about solar, apparently are more likely to say "it won't work" I couldn't find any calculations from them. Maybe I could if I kept looking but I think I've already provide enough links. -- U.S. electricity demand in 2000 was approximately 3,700 TWh (billion kilowatt-hours). Generating this entire amount from solar thermal energy would, by conservative estimate, require a land area of roughly 20,000 square miles of Southwestern desert land, or a square of about 140 miles on a side.(see footnote 24) Alternatively, generating the same entire amount of energy from wind farms in the Midwestern plain states (where the land can be simultaneously used for agriculture) would require an area of perhaps twice that size.(see footnote 25) commdocs.house.gov "What about solar energy? Solar energy will be an important component, an important part of the solution. If you want to gather enough solar energy to replace the fossil fuel that we’re burning today—and remember we’re going to need more fossil fuel in the future- using current technology, then you would have to cover something like 220,000 square kilometers with solar cells. That’s far more than all the rooftops in the country. It would be a piece of land about 300 miles on a side" msnbc.msn.com Solar Texas receives enough solar energy to supply one and a half times the world's current energy consumption.* If the entire state of Texas—all 262,000 square miles of it—were covered with solar cells, the state would generate 550 quadrillion BTUs of electrical energy every year. That is equal to one and a half times the total energy used in the world.* Obviously, the state will never be paved with solar cells, but Texas could easily incorporate solar power into the fuel mix. texasep.org "Just 10,000 square miles of land with CURRENT solar technology (Stirling Solar Engines) would be able to generate enough electricity to completely power the US. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's "only" 100 miles square." oes.org

To: RetiredNow who wrote (308645)	11/2/2006 1:00:56 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572542

Mindmeld, > We could easily fit a 100 mile square solar farm into Arizona. But who's going to maintain it all? If solar panels were as durable as, say, our highways, it wouldn't be that big a deal, but they're more fragile and thus more prone to the elements. Like I said, it doesn't work that way. I'm all for solar power, but let's be realistic about its limits. Hence I'd rather put my hopes in other technologies like cold fusion (if it's even possible) ... Tenchusatsu