Replies

Boris, aren't we doing apples and oranges here though? This is not solar cell technology. A football field sized array of solar panels does not generate power for 200,000 households.

Let us assume this technology works as they say it does.

Figure 10 million households in California. 40 football field sizes of these bad boys in the mojave desert. Dump the coal generators and keep El Diablo on line with cleaner nuke power to supply much of the power needed in the evening.

40 billion. But in a state that already is 35 billion in debt for this year... 40 billion isn't really that much money. It will be cheaper in the long run. Maintenance is going to be a lot lower. The air much cleaner. Couple that with the switch to hybrid cars, and the state gets quite a bit cleaner.

"Boris, aren't we doing apples and oranges here though? This is not solar cell technology. A football field sized array of solar panels does not generate power for 200,000 households."

Sigh. I use solar cells as representative and because that is the technology so frequently proposed. Here goes.

The "solar constant" in Earth orbit is about 1370 watts per square meter. On the ground, at the equator, at high noon, no clouds, it is almost exactly 1000 watts (1 kW) per square meter.

Solar cells are ~20% efficient, so you get 200 watts (electric) from solar cells. But there is night, so the effective output is roughly 100 watts per square meter.

California uses (electricity only!) 40,000 megawatts 24/7/365. That is 4 times ten to the tenth watts.

4E10/100 = 4E8 square meters. That is 4.3E9 square feet, or 154 square miles.

Notice that this assumes you are on the equator, which CA isn't.

Now. Solar cells could be pushed to maybe 30% efficiency, and then you would need 2/3 of 154 square miles or 103 square miles.

I will bet you anything this solar breeze machine is no more efficient than the best solar cells...Carnot's law and all that.

See?

--Boris