Posted on 02/19/2021 1:37:32 PM PST by EBH
More so to optimize insolation averaged over the whole year.
Not quite. In space, for a satellite with solar panels, what you say is true because the photons only come from on direction, the sun. From the Earth surface, the sunlight has been scattered across the sky and photons come from a wide range of direction. The efficiency of a cell for not being pointed at the sun drops a little, but not much more than 10-15% in good daylight since the scattered light comes from anywhere you can see blue sky. I’m a spacecraft engineer but I have done this type of analysis for earth arrays. But don’t read me as a green new deal supporter. Solar cells at their very best are still only 20% efficient and like wind power, by the time you have paid off the investment you need new panels.
Does it snow in space?
Thanks for teeing that one up 😝
Tesla is selling solar roofs. The solar panels look like textured roof tiles, and an install is cheaper than a regular roof with solar panels tacked on. You wouldn't know it's a solar roof on a house, as it blends in. Some reviewers have tested it in snow conditions, and the snow slides off while snow stays on other home roofs. Yeah, solar is expensive and doesn't work so well when the sun isn't shining, but Tesla has the better technology. Also, other firms have created flexible panels with 3d-printed embedded electronics; these can be flexed and bent to "shake" off snow. Maybe solar will be a good option for electrical generation in 20 years; now not so much.
There’s no way this story is true.
I posted it on Facebook and it was blocked by fact checkers in 15 seconds!
Thats a record for me. So it must be false.
😊
“why so many fossil fuel sources failed”
why would an enviroweenie talk about fossil fuel failing? isn’t it all about why did wind and solar fail so that RE-driven electric switches couldn’t work in the natural gas pumping system?
and I’ll just leave this one here:
“I’ll be flying to Texas today Airplane to visit “
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster/
filed: April 8, 2010 • Ontario, Opinions, U.S.
Wind power is a complete disaster
Credit: By Michael J. Trebilcock, April 08, 2009, network.nationalpost.com ~~
There is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a significant impact on carbon emissions. The European experience is instructive. Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).
Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark’s largest energy utilities) tells us that “wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that “Germany’s CO2 emissions haven’t been reduced by even a single gram,” and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery.
Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually increase greenhouse gas emissions in some cases, depending on the carbon-intensity of back-up generation required because of its intermittent character. On the negative side of the environmental ledger are adverse impacts of industrial wind turbines on birdlife and other forms of wildlife, farm animals, wetlands and viewsheds.
Industrial wind power is not a viable economic alternative to other energy conservation options. Again, the Danish experience is instructive. Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in 2008, on a dollar per MWh basis, the U.S. government subsidizes wind at $23.34 – compared to reliable energy sources: natural gas at 25¢; coal at 44¢; hydro at 67¢; and nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U.S. commentators call “a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy.” The Wall Street Journal advises that “wind generation is the prime example of what can go wrong when the government decides to pick winners.”
The Economist magazine notes in a recent editorial, “Wasting Money on Climate Change,” that each tonne of emissions avoided due to subsidies to renewable energy such as wind power would cost somewhere between $69 and $137, whereas under a cap-and-trade scheme the price would be less than $15.
Either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system creates incentives for consumers and producers on a myriad of margins to reduce energy use and emissions that, as these numbers show, completely overwhelm subsidies to renewables in terms of cost effectiveness.
The Ontario Power Authority advises that wind producers will be paid 13.5¢/kwh (more than twice what consumers are currently paying), even without accounting for the additional costs of interconnection, transmission and back-up generation. As the European experience confirms, this will inevitably lead to a dramatic increase in electricity costs with consequent detrimental effects on business and employment. From this perspective, the government’s promise of 55,000 new jobs is a cruel delusion.
A recent detailed analysis (focusing mainly on Spain) finds that for every job created by state-funded support of renewables, particularly wind energy, 2.2 jobs are lost. Each wind industry job created cost almost $2-million in subsidies. Why will the Ontario experience be different?
In debates over climate change, and in particular subsidies to renewable energy, there are two kinds of green. First there are some environmental greens who view the problem as so urgent that all measures that may have some impact on greenhouse gas emissions, whatever their cost or their impact on the economy and employment, should be undertaken immediately.
Then there are the fiscal greens, who, being cool to carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems that make polluters pay, favour massive public subsidies to themselves for renewable energy projects, whatever their relative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. These two groups are motivated by different kinds of green. The only point of convergence between them is their support for massive subsidies to renewable energy (such as wind turbines).
This unholy alliance of these two kinds of greens (doomsdayers and rent seekers) makes for very effective, if opportunistic, politics (as reflected in the Ontario government’s Green Energy Act), just as it makes for lousy public policy: Politicians attempt to pick winners at our expense in a fast-moving technological landscape, instead of creating a socially efficient set of incentives to which we can all respond.
Michael J. Trebilcock is Professor of Law and Economics, University of Toronto. These comments were excerpted from a submission last night to the Ontario government’s legislative committee On Bill 150.
Damn, damn, damn that global warming.
Germany’s Green Failure... Needs Dirty Russian energy to power it during times of crisis.
Interesting. I track power generation for the UK using a real-time site: https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
There is a similar site for the US but I cannot find one for Germany. Does anybody have a link?
One other point. I was going to post this article on Facebook, but a message came up saying that the information was not accurate - notably the dramatic photo of the solar panels covered with snow came from Russia not Germany and the message stated that renewable energy production in Germany had not collapsed during the intensely cold period. Unfortunately I could find no way of resolving these diametrically opposed views without the real time electricity generation data.
I could understand that.
I lived at over 9,000 feet for quite a few years. Great for PV solar, but there were drawbacks (health risks, extreme cold and winds, spraying ice, soil sterility, remoteness, corruption in nearest faraway communities, crooked hombres creeping around, etc.).
Great for wind turbines, too, but they needed to be homebuilt for toughness, based on Hugh Piggott’s axial flux design. Commercial turbines would burn up pretty quickly.
And they ate saying similar to the Texas diabolical!
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