Re:Cheap, spray-on solar cells developed by Canadian researc...
by contingencies on Sunday October 06, 2013 @03:06AM
(#6503399)
The latter part of my argument, about neighborhood and building-scale self-sufficiency (a concept I believe to be somewhat silly) was indeed premised on Western living patterns... but not the rest.
Thanks for the admission of poor premise. I'm just not clear what "the rest" was.
You continue to talk about "unused" land near major population centers, then combine rice-yield statistics from tropical, water-rich environments with an example of Beijing, an arid climate with relatively extreme temperature fluctuation making it a very poor yielding area for rice (though it is grown, you get only one instead of two and often three crops per year in tropical/subtropical zones).
I admire your optimism with regards to solar and share your concerns around world energy usage and the need to actively consider alternative energy generation, but I think the sad reality is that cities are a lot less space-rich than you assume and that solar yields in places like Beijing are too space inefficient to give the types of returns you are looking for.
You will have, of course, noticed that right next to Beijing (>21 million) are also the cities of Chengde (173km; ~4 million), Datong (265km; ~3.5 million), Tianjian (112km; >13 million), Shijiazhuang (267km; >10 million), Tangshan (157km; ~8 million), Zhangjiakou (160km; ~4.5 million)?
Despite this density, Chinese are well fed, a fact which derives from very high efficiency land use with strong government support for agricultural research and technology. Huge projects such as the Grand Canal[1] have supported these populations for millenia.
It's great to discuss these things, but the reality on the ground is very different to napkin-world. In short, I'm sorry but you're probably more than one magnitude out... "guaranteed".
Thanks for the admission of poor premise. I'm just not clear what "the rest" was.
You continue to talk about "unused" land near major population centers, then combine rice-yield statistics from tropical, water-rich environments with an example of Beijing, an arid climate with relatively extreme temperature fluctuation making it a very poor yielding area for rice (though it is grown, you get only one instead of two and often three crops per year in tropical/subtropical zones).
I admire your optimism with regards to solar and share your concerns around world energy usage and the need to actively consider alternative energy generation, but I think the sad reality is that cities are a lot less space-rich than you assume and that solar yields in places like Beijing are too space inefficient to give the types of returns you are looking for.
You will have, of course, noticed that right next to Beijing (>21 million) are also the cities of Chengde (173km; ~4 million), Datong (265km; ~3.5 million), Tianjian (112km; >13 million), Shijiazhuang (267km; >10 million), Tangshan (157km; ~8 million), Zhangjiakou (160km; ~4.5 million)?
Despite this density, Chinese are well fed, a fact which derives from very high efficiency land use with strong government support for agricultural research and technology. Huge projects such as the Grand Canal[1] have supported these populations for millenia.
It's great to discuss these things, but the reality on the ground is very different to napkin-world. In short, I'm sorry but you're probably more than one magnitude out... "guaranteed".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_%28China%29