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

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (681483)	10/28/2012 7:06:34 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572883

>>> Current efficiency of commercially-available photovoltaic cells are somewhere in the low teens. We've only been subsidizing solar energy for 30 years. If we keep paying for another 70, it could even double. We would see much faster progress if companies were having to spend their own money for this.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (681483)	10/28/2012 8:25:00 PM
From: J_F_Shepard	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572883

But they are inexhaustible....and clean.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (681483)	10/30/2012 7:17:32 AM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1572883

There is only 1 kW of power (energy/second) in a square meter of sunlight at high noon on the equator. You would need to harvest 100% of that energy for 36.6 hours straight in order to equal the energy content in one gallon of gasoline. I am not quite sure what to make of the usefulness of your analogy...it has been calculated that the sunlight bathing the earth for one hour contains enough energy to meet the earth's needs for an entire year...efficiency and practical aspects notwithstanding of course..i do know that i can power my entire house with a 6kWh solar array, which easily fits on the roof of my house...assuming I can either store the excess power produced during sunlight hours or sell and recover it at night......i can further report that that very same 6kW array would cost me today 1/5th of what it would have five years ago, or roughly $12K ($2/W) without subsidies...I am very close to pulling the trigger ... I can happily report that my small solar array has been powering my boathouse day after day for five years now Al