Re:Where are we on the actual math of solar power?
by vectorwhat on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @04:29PM
(#13273837)
From your document it seems that the researchers ignored the most energy intensive part of the process!
From your document:
"Purifying and crystallizing the silicon are the most energy-consumptive parts of the solar-cell manufacturing process."
"To calculate payback, Dutch researcher Erik Alsema reviewed previous energy analyses and did not “charge” for the energy that originally went into crystalizing microelectronics scrap."
The way I understand it, the calculations don't charge the most expensive part of the process by arguing that, being scrap of the semi-conductor business, its already been paid.
Re:Where are we on the actual math of solar power?
by vectorwhat on Wednesday December 28, 2016 @04:12PM
(#13273693)
So instead of 1/3 the land area 1/1000. That's insane. That's absolutely insane.
Yellowstone national park is 1/1000 of the US' surface area.
For battery space, the same factor of a few hundred still applies. Also I'm not sure where you looked up the volume of the Trump tower but wikipedia claims a floor area of 240,000 m^2 and I doubt people can walk in an area a foot tall. With a more realistic ceiling height of 3m, you'd be off by another factor of 10 there.
--> Closer to 1/1000 of land area for coverage and 100 trump towers for storage.
Your claim on it taking more energy to make a solar panel than it produces is likely untrue, but I don't have enough scientific background to quantitatively refute it. (http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf claims a breakeven period of 2-4 years)