RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Unless something happens to the sun, it's a constant source of energy.

A good to greening the world

Too much is made of the Big Brother/Oil Baron side of this issue. There are lots of companies that sell this equipment, but they do not market well and are not customer friendly.

I looked into solar for a small application to power a boat dock. This seemed reasonable since the roof over the dock is out away from shore and gets almost continual sun. All I needed to power was a few lights and the boat lift, which is essentially a vacuum cleaner motor/blower.

The companies I contacted said it was very feasable, then gave me a large worksheet to develop my loads so I could take that information and determine what would be required. I'd then have to order all the separate components, from the panel, to the voltage regulator, to the batteries, to the inverter. Then I would have to install these myself and/or hire an electrician. The dock is on a US Corps of Engineers managed lake, so they would also require a licensed electrician to submit plans and certify the installation.

I buried a 10G line down to a pole next to the dock.

There's tons of money in this right now. You put the collectors where there's lots of space, and where they either are out of the way, or improve the scenery: 1) in the desert (you feed the power to the grid, and the people who benefit do *not* have to be nearby); 2) rooftops of really big industrial buildings. Thin-film technology is improving all the time, and is getting better at a phenomenal rate--i.e. collectors are *not* all that expensive any more, and getting quite efficient. Not surprisingly, some of the most sophisticated technology is coming from Israel--where they have lots of sun, and are surrounded by nasty folks who you wouldn't want having control over their power supply.

The big problem is where are you going to put the solar collectors? The big cities are going to want to stick them in the boonies, and the boondockers are going to resist. It doesn't produce that much power anyhow.

I know where the trendy folks want to put them, and that is anywhere but in their backyards. Maybe numbah and IJR will volunteer to cover the Arizona desert with all these collectors!

It is also not reliable. We do have a cloudy day or two in this country.

Clean and available to anyone smart enough to invest in it-it's not perfect-but it's a lot closer to perfect than fossil fuel!!!!Best of all,we won't have to go to War over it.(Except maybe with greedy oil barons)UPDATE:I know a guy who powers his cabin with solar(He did it himself,too!).He even has an air conditioner.ANYTHING that cuts down on our fossil fuel dependance,can be installed easily,and is FREE afterwards is worth looking in to!

Outside of small-scale applications, solar energy is a pipe dream. We have already made a big mistake by not building lots more nuclear power plants. It's clean, safe, and won't blow up the world.

Seems like a reasonable alternative for a narrow list of applications. I don't see it replacing oil anytime soon but keeping the government(s) out of its development might facilitate more applications.

I believe that in my state, if you place a "solar collector" up on the roof of your house, you have to register it (in advance) with your local code enforcement, and pay taxes on it. They don't miss a trick.

The first robot produced solar panels came off the assembly line in 2001. With the deveolpment of the 110 inverter which allows regular appliances to operate off direct solar batteries, the option has come a long way in just a few years. The problem is that it doesn't make the money because the parts don't need to be replaced for years. Dr. Helen Cauldicott once remarked that solar power would be the primary source if the companies could simply wrap a blanket around the stratosphere and sell holes. Companies have bought up patents and sat on them. Fortunately, the independents are finally inching their way into the market.

If solar energy was truly an effective source of cheap electricity, we would not be burning coal/gas/oil to power our lights/computers/televisions/air conditioning, not to mention heating and transportation (overwhelmingly non-electric). At very high prices, solar energy becomes viable; but even here, its applications are limited due to the cost of materials (if everyone started building solar panels, the material costs would soar as well), cloud cover, and the difficulty of storing electric power that can only be produced by sunlight (the most practical method is to use electricity to pump water uphill during the daytime, then let it run downhill at night...not very efficient). There are a few regions and a handful of countries that have the potential to rely entirely to solar power. However, most of them are already massive oil/gas producers (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq) or too poor and chaotic to consume much power at all (Somalia, Sudan, Mali). Anyone who believes there is a conspiracy by the oil companies/government to prevent solar power from taking off does not understand economics and/or the practical scientific obstacles involved.

This is excellent and very cheap relative to fusion/fission, what have you. Why do we have to have a potentially dangerous reactor next to our houses when we have one 93 million miles away that's already powering our planet?

The ultimate source of all energy on the planet it the sun so solar energy should be very cheap. Due to lack of use it appears to be very expensive but after the initial investment at can save a lot of money. The goverment has thousands, if not more, of buildings that could be fitted with solar systems; think about the tax dollars that could be saved.

There is enough sunlight striking the surface of the earth every minute to meet the worlds electricity demands for a whole year - The fact that we have not exploited, with greater zeal, this completely renewable life giving force that has been tanning our fat carcasses since we slid out of the primordial ooze umpteen eons ago, is simply stupifying. Between the 50's and 90's there were not insignifigant strides made in the collection of solar power. The efficiency ( it's main achillies heel )of photovoltaic solar panels improved somewhat during that time, especially considering the lack of funding and attention given to it. In that time period, the efficiency of the panels increased from 4% to 15%. ( Which means; they are currently able to convert 15% of the sunlight striking them into usable electrical energy.) Nothing in the literature I've read has stated that we can't get that number up to 25 or even 50 percent. Combine the abundant amount of energy striking the earth every minute, and more efficient panels, and all it would take is probably several hundred thousand acres of unhinhabitable desert land to power the whole damn country... Small price to pay for ecomnomic, environmental, and geo-political stability, I'd say. Not to mention, it would spawn one hell of a public works project as well ... The "not in my backyard" types really have no argument here. Besides, I suspect most of these people who complain about the 'eyesores' of wind and solar farms are probably rich fatcats with financial ties to the oil and coal industry anyway, so screw 'em. You would of course have to have enough panels to over-produce electricity to store in energy storage capacitors for cloudy days and such. But I'm sure some scientist at an R&D lab at BP Petroleum ( Sunshine Division ) has already figured it all out anyway, and is just waiting till the "window of marketing oppurtunity" is right, so my rant is all for naught. I just think it reeks of greed and misplaced priorities that we never jumped on this ball a century earlier, and instead have used a system of global corporate tyranny ( underwritten by you, the tax payer, ) and suppression of science that has enabled our dependence on fossil fuels for so long, all in the name of profits - Man, we have alot to answer for.

Best alternative.

Great! If every family in America just put in one small solar pannel, we could extract huge amounts of energy.

Solar Energy would be an ideal energy source, however efforts to develop it for mass consumption have been very disappointing. Harnessing the suns energy is not really feasible economically or technologically. It is very costly to replicate, hence why less than one percent of the US households are powered by this source of energy, but nonetheless there is some promise here in the long term.

Great alternative for everyday use. It can be a reality in the near future- gas stations will be obsolete and we do not have to fret about the rising gas prices. Clean and even flawless, this is one that I would likely want installed in my home.

Orbital Solar Arrays in geosynchronous orbit with microwave transmitters beaming safe, cheap, plentiful energy into recieving stations on the earth. and its real science, not hippy dreams.

there are 1 or 2 stupid comments here saying it doesnt work. well for starters, 80% of electricity supply across Greece is solar. it's also widely used even in more northerly European countries like Germany.

!I made my money back in under a year! I have saved thousands by going solar!

Until the ultra-clean and ultra-efficent fusion comes along (and then, of course, matter/antimatter), solar, wind and hydrogen power are the way to go! Solar power is proven to work (and has been used on various space probes and craft since the 1960s) and is harmless to the envrionment. Photovoltaic cells could store energy into clean batteries when the sun isn't up, so don't think just because the sun goes down, the power goes off. Plus, how cool would it be to have solar panels sticking off of your house!

Energy determines our standard of living and economic growth. To keep pace with rising populations, increased production is required or economic growth is inhibited. The US already imports more than 50% of its oil and, within two decades, domestic natural gas production will decline. Coal is plentiful, but its increased use could lead to an ecological disaster. Either the US curtails heavy industry and agriculture, or an energy solution must be found. ----- Advocating nuclear over coal would be a grave mistake. All out use of light water reactors could satisfy only 10% of the 2,800 gigawatt (billions of watts) US economic engine while exhausting uranium reserves during a short service while creating millions of tons of radioactive waste creating a tremendous risks for a millennia. ----- There just isn't enough energy in geo-thermal, wind, or the biomass to meet the demand on their own. Solar thermal, however, has the potential to run the entire US economic engine forever without deadly waste or CO2. As example, a 33-mile plot in the desert could generate a mean of 50 gigawatts with 137 gigawatts peak output, more than all nuclear power now generated in the US. This would be utilizing unpopulated areas and not scar the country mining ore. The amount of land and cost of equipment would be less than now expended on nuclear with construction completed within a fraction of the time. ----- Provided property tax breaks in much the same spirit as fuel not taxed for conventional power plants and then solar thermal cost about 30% less than nuclear and does not require long term storage, ongoing mining operations, is not a terrorist target, nor needs to be decommissioned after a few decades where all the materials are lost. In addition, heating salt allows long-term storage of the collected energy with a less than 1% per annum loss. ----- Long distance distribution of solar thermal energy has already been solved. Northern states share inexpensive hydro-electric power over thousands of miles through the use of ultra high DC voltage with losses less than 10%. Foul weather operation with fossil fuel is easily accomplished as solar thermal uses conventional turbines and eutectic molten salt can also provide highly efficient night reserves. Unlike nuclear, the thousands of replicated solar thermal modules provide efficiencies of scale, which can dramatically reduce cost and, being made of common materials, are labor intensive to construct, which could also provide a transitional employment benefit. ----- A sound renewable energy technology exists. Either a legacy of a collapsing, dangerous energy system or clean and ever cheaper energy will largely depend on leadership. Use of hydrogen made from natural gas is not a solution if the US does not have a surplus. The fertilizer for corn uses more energy than provided by the crop. ----- Power lines will be swaying above the bountiful energy reflecting off the desert sand as solar thermal generators hum with the sound of clean energy.

Solar and wind are hippie pipe dreams. Energy has become a political issue item instead of a scientific one, sort of like global warming and AIDS. The only common sense policy is develop nuclear energy and explore for gas and oil where ever it is. If it were up to the left wing democrats we would have cars that cannot go over 25 MPH and have solar panels on our roofs and windmills in our back yards

I wish this were an idea that they can get to work! I mean, if they could get it to work, I couldn't imagine a better source of energy! It's unfortunate that they haven't advanced as much as they could.

Great idea that will never happen,until there is ral trouble and then it will be to late.This just make too much sense.

Did anyone stop to consider that solar energy hasn't been implemeted because of the effects it would have on the oil companies? Less profit? Do you think these corporate giants will let go of all that money just for the environment. That why they have lobbyists...

Silliness incarnate. If they can't make it work after trying for 30 years and billions of tax credits, research dollars and private funding why continue the waste.