Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: combjelly who wrote (834716)	2/6/2015 4:10:01 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	1 Recommendation Recommended By i-node Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575973

CJ, Do you have a context for that? The context is how many square miles of solar panels you would need to match the average power output of one coal plant. The amount of energy output you can get out of one square meter of sunlight at high noon at the equator is 1,000 watts. That's barely enough to power a hair dryer. From that, the following factors will reduce the actual amount of energy you can capture via solar panels: 1) No solar panel is 100% efficient. Even 30% efficiency is pretty damn good. 2) The sun rises and sets, so you'll never get the full strength of sunlight all the time. 3) We don't live near the equator, so that will also reduce the amount of sunlight we get. 4) Clouds will reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface. Based on all of that, if you demolished a coal power plant and covered the land it took up with solar panels, you would get a small fraction of power output. But hey, at least it's clean energy. Tenchusatsu