Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into Orbit

Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by ablatt89 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @02:25PM (#34265128)

Solar on earth makes sense in some contexts, but there's questions of how it's not scalable, clean up methods, local climate effects, is intermittent and causes the power grid instability. These are fair questions that should be looked at and solar on earth is not some solution to the problem of gas without tradeoffs, but these questions and concerns are usually ignored.

https://www.nrel.gov/news/features/2020/renewables-rescue-st...

These concerns are not really brought up by the media.

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Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by IshKebab on Thursday January 05, 2023 @02:39PM (#34265356)

I don't think they're ignored exactly. They're just not really significant problems compared to the greenhouse emissions of gas or coal power.

It's like how virtual keyboards on smartphones are not as good as a full physical keyboard (arguably) but nobody really talks about it anymore because the disadvantages of physical keyboards are so overwhelming that it doesn't matter.

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Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by ablatt89 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @02:45PM (#34265439)

I don't think that comparison is fair at all. You're comparing concerns of a technology and how it scales, to how no one talks about physical keyboards and smart phones? That's not even remotely the same and is pretty dishonest to make that comparison.

The problems of solar as a scalable renewable are very fair to talk about, considering that Africa and India NEED energy to grow their societies. The only solutions that scale are oil or nuclear. The idea you can just hand wave any concerns about renewables doesn't seem very rationale if you genuinely care about the problem.

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Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by IshKebab on Thursday January 05, 2023 @06:03PM (#34268244)

I'm not sure what you mean about them "not scaling". Do you mean that they don't work at night? What are you expecting people to say about that?

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Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by ablatt89 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @06:49PM (#34268748)

I linked an article above, I suggest you read it before asserting that my issues with solar are simply irrelevant. Here are others:

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-stress... https://fee.org/articles/solar-panels-produce-tons-of-toxic-... https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj6734

You cannot simply ignore and hand wave off "inconvenient facts" because you have a strong dislike for "climate deniers".

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Re:Caltech to Launch Space Solar Power Technology Demo into ... by IshKebab on Friday January 06, 2023 @03:43AM (#34272445)

Again, nobody is ignoring these issues. They just aren't using them as reasons not to do solar power.

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