How come solar energy technology is still not ready ?

[rdx]

Gas price keeps going up everyday, and we, consumers have no choice at all. I am just wondering why solar energy technology is still not fully developed and ready to replace crude oil. I remember people started researching and testing on solar energy when I was a kid 20 plus years ago. Actually, at that time, scientists warned us the crude oil underground will not last another 25 years. But now we are relying on crude oil and no big progress on solar energy.

Just wondering if the US government is hiding the technology as the secret weapon (as crude oil controls many countries' economy and growth) :confused:

[cipher]

Because solar cells cannot generate enough energy at a fast enough rate to power a 2000lb+ vehicle. You are also at the mercy of the weather.

[BobW]

Don't be such a North American. Solar power is used extensively in many parts of the world. Go anywhere in Central America and take a look. Seems that somehow the "third world" can make solar houses work while we all need to be hooked up to the grid.

Keep in mind that the average Latin American house is probably quite a bit smaller than yours and starts out using MUCH less electricity. No computers, nintendos, 14 bulb lighting fixtures over the bathroom sink, etc. Of course, if they had to survive winters, they would need to bump up the juice a bit....

[thelefteyeguy]

My cousin's house in Australia is fully powered by Solar panels on her roof. She says the equipment is fair inexpensive but really pays for itself.

However she tells me they get tons of sun...I can tell cause she quite dark.

In Toronto, I don't expect a lot of ppl using Solar energy since we barely get enough sun for even ourselves.

(btw her energy is tapped in the network and she even get's paid lol, and her house is huge...7 bedrooms lol...and no 2nd floor!)

[deep]

Don't be such a North American. Solar power is used extensively in many parts of the world. Go anywhere in Central America and take a look. Seems that somehow the "third world" can make solar houses work while we all need to be hooked up to the grid.

Keep in mind that the average Latin American house is probably quite a bit smaller than yours and starts out using MUCH less electricity. No computers, nintendos, 14 bulb lighting fixtures over the bathroom sink, etc. Of course, if they had to survive winters, they would need to bump up the juice a bit....

Your post addresses two valid points. You've nicely illustrated the point that solar power ISN'T exactly viable as a gas replacement yet, despite all of our research into it, and also that geography will continue to dictate our power needs. Small, temperate countries have greatly reduced power needs for a variety of reasons. Our biggest energy drains are transportation and heating/cooling.

Apart from that, you haven't answered the OP's question. Solar energy will probably never be viable for transportation in a direct manner, but perhaps it will be the energy source for fuel cells or batteries. I'm not sure why we haven't had more success with heating and cooling, but considering plants took millions of years to achieve a fairly low efficiency, I guess we can give it a little more time.

[CodecX81]

There's a family up in Orangeville area sorta..

http://www.naturallifenetwork.com/sunfest2003/index.asp
http://www.naturallifenetwork.com/wilson/journalpg1.asp

Built the house completely off-grid. There are days where the hydro meter actually runs backwards, feeding the ontario Grid. So don't tell me that this idea isn't doable.

sure, its one ugly-ass house, but its doable.

I remember going here when I was a little kid on a field trip.. Apparently they're trying to start up an entire off-grid community (http://www.naturallifenetwork.com/village/siteplan.asp). I'd prolly do it if they ever ran GoTrain up that far ;)

[cipher]

Your post addresses two valid points. You've nicely illustrated the point that solar power ISN'T exactly viable as a gas replacement yet, despite all of our research into it, and also that geography will continue to dictate our power needs. Small, temperate countries have greatly reduced power needs for a variety of reasons. Our biggest energy drains are transportation and heating/cooling.

Apart from that, you haven't answered the OP's question. Solar energy will probably never be viable for transportation in a direct manner, but perhaps it will be the energy source for fuel cells or batteries. I'm not sure why we haven't had more success with heating and cooling, but considering plants took millions of years to achieve a fairly low efficiency, I guess we can give it a little more time.


People should consider ground-source heat pumps in new homes. We have a new 22 floor building in Winnipeg (Manitoba Hydro) that will use the technology to heat and cool the building. This will make it one of the world's most energy efficient buildings.

[Ziggy007]

A better question is why hasn't the hybrid technology taken off even though it has been researched and developed for over 10 years now?

Answer: Gas companies generally buy the patents to these technologies and then bury them in the desert...

[cipher]

A better question is why hasn't the hybrid technology taken off even though it has been researched and developed for over 10 years now?

Answer: Gas companies generally buy the patents to these technologies and then bury them in the desert...


What are you talking about? There are hybrids on the road today. The reason it hasn't taken off was because of the low cost of gasoline and the higher initial cost of purchasing a hybrid vehicle. However, that may be changing as the Toyota Prius is selling very well and used models are selling for more than new prices.

[wiggy]

All the conspiracy stuff aside, oil and gas have been dirt cheap forever and there isn't really anything else out there that offers near as much bang for your buck horsepowerwise.

People generally do what's easiest and costs them the least. Why put all kinds of effort into solar and wind technologies when there's no need for it? Now that the final oil shortage is approaching the impetus changes.

[sleepyguy]

on 'sorta' the same topic... TD Centre i work in uses lake water to cool the building... pretty neat setup.

[CodecX81]

on 'sorta' the same topic... TD Centre i work in uses lake water to cool the building... pretty neat setup.

God Bless Enwave (http://www.enwave.com/enwave/view.asp?/dlwc/energy)

Hey which building?

I'm just in BMO myself ;)

[d_jedi]

Last time I heard (this was in a class I took during first year university), only oil and nuclear were net producers of energy if you look at something called the gross energy requirement (GER), which includes all of the energy needed to create the product.

IE. with oil, when you consider all of the effort to drill the oil well (amortized over all of the oil produced), refine it, and get it into our cars.. you get more energy out of the process than you put into it.

With solar, it costs more (in terms of energy) to manufacture the solar cells than they will produce during their lifetime.

Not sure how true that is today, though


**5000th POST!!!**

[Bortman]

My aunt and uncle live at a "resort" I guess you could say. They live right on a lake year round where everyone else just has cabins there. Needless to say they pay a lot for power. He'll be transfering for his job to either Australia or Brazil for 1 year, and when he comes back he's going 100% solar power. Its doable, very doable, but its not mainstream because of the monopolistic energy companies.

[T-Bone]

You can buy homes in Okotoks, Alberta that are heated 90% by solar and 60% of the hot water made by solar power.

http://www.town.okotoks.ab.ca/media.html

http://www.atcogas.com/About_Us/News_Releases/2005/Okotoks%20BKDGR_FO.pdf

[Rockstead]

I'm in Montreal and I have 8x 4x12 Solar Panels on my roof to heat my inground swimming pool. So far my temperature has not dropped below 80 and has goen as high as 90 without a solar blanket on.

[grant]

You can buy solar panel systems for your home today if you wish, I don't understand what you are talking about.

[deep]

You can buy solar panel systems for your home today if you wish, I don't understand what you are talking about.

Indeed. However, the point is that they're not viable considering their cost and return versus other energy sources. My parent's old house had a solar water heating system that worked amazingly well....and would have paid for itself in just under 100 years if we hadn't received special government funding supporting alternative energy. I'm sure today they are significantly cheaper (this was 20+ years ago) but I'm also reasonably sure that for most Canucks, they're still not worth the outlay.

[Kommander_KornFlakes]

One question..... can a powerful solar panel generate enough energy to power my computer and monitor? If it can't then it's useless, and don't tell me that I need a fotballfield-size solar panel, that would not be viable either.

[me!]

solar power just isn't too reliable for home heating here. Sunshine is just too variable to provide constant energy. And what do you do at nighttime?

I still think there is some sort of conspiracy on hydrogen. not the hydrogen fuel cells, but the splitting of H2O to hydrogen and oxygen.

[cipher]

One question..... can a powerful solar panel generate enough energy to power my computer and monitor? If it can't then it's useless, and don't tell me that I need a fotballfield-size solar panel, that would not be viable either.


You can get one powerful enough to power a laptop. I have a friend who takes trips to places like Death Valley in a VW Vanagon and she has a solar panel that she uses to power her iBook. I'm not sure if she just recharges the battery in the iBook or if it actually produces enough juice to actually power the iBook. But a normal desktop computer consumes too much power to be powered by a reasonably sized solar panel...which begs the question...why can't they make desktops as energy efficient as a notebook?

[UrbanPoet]

I believe the solar systems recharge enough reserves for for a typica 40 watt light bulb to run for about a few hours, a radio for a few hours, and a cell phone for about 5 minutes of talk time.

I actually HAVE some 'energy efficient' products that are very effective....

I have a wind up flash light... 1 minute of winding gives me enuff juice to power one of the LEDs for 20 minutes and to cahrge my cell phone for enuff power to make a 5 minute call.

http://img348.imageshack.us/img348/5787/dsc038437qs.th.jpg (http://img348.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc038437qs.jpg)
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/53/dsc038459as.th.jpg (http://img118.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc038459as.jpg)

I only have a wire for sony Ericson tho.

[corrupt123]

solar power is alredy widespread for home use. i was in gernamy this summer, and atleast one house in every town i went to had a house with panals on the roof. in many cases i'd say 30-60% of the houses had panals on the roof.

it's because in canada/u.s. the cost of living is cheep. go over to europe, etc, electricity, etc isnt cheep. hell, gasoline and other sources of energy are real expensive.

i dont think we will see solar power replace gasoline in vehicles in our lifetime. what will? hydrogen. gaurenteed.

[me!]

i dont think we will see solar power replace gasoline in vehicles in our lifetime. what will? hydrogen. gaurenteed.
hydrogen as split from H2O and used directly as the fuel source, or hydrogen as part of a hydrogen fuel cell.

[d_jedi]

why can't they make desktops as energy efficient as a notebook?
Performance.

[guest10586]

Performance.

and money...as always.

[Kommander_KornFlakes]

You can get one powerful enough to power a laptop. I have a friend who takes trips to places like Death Valley in a VW Vanagon and she has a solar panel that she uses to power her iBook. I'm not sure if she just recharges the battery in the iBook or if it actually produces enough juice to actually power the iBook. But a normal desktop computer consumes too much power to be powered by a reasonably sized solar panel...which begs the question...why can't they make desktops as energy efficient as a notebook?

She uses it just to charge the battery, there's still NO solar panel, say the size of a 17" screen, that produces enough energy to power a notebook computer.

[Daemar]

Solar panels are Expensive especially for efficient ones. Most are 12-15% efficient and have modest cost associated with them... these are the ones people buy for their homes.

i believe you can get up to 50% efficiency (no sources, sorry)... but i do remember 25% efficient solar panels measuring 2m x 8m costing $1million+ but that was a few years ago.

As well, it is not yet practical for cars as you would need a large surface area exposed to the sun (we'd be driving those huge boats again).

Homes can be very energy efficient with all the technology these days. BUT, again the costs can be restrictive for an average person/family.

Fuel cells are probably the most promising technology as they offer a clean and plentiful source of energy. Again, cost and practicality come into play.

[grant]

Indeed. However, the point is that they're not viable considering their cost and return versus other energy sources. My parent's old house had a solar water heating system that worked amazingly well....and would have paid for itself in just under 100 years if we hadn't received special government funding supporting alternative energy. I'm sure today they are significantly cheaper (this was 20+ years ago) but I'm also reasonably sure that for most Canucks, they're still not worth the outlay.

Ok so this is sort of like asking "why isn't fusion technology ready" or "why isn't warp travel ready" heh

[TheBrain]

National Geographic had a good article on alternative energy sources last month.

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/index.html

Here's the article:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/feature1/fulltext.html

[sk8]

I've seen cars that ran on propane/methane in South and East Asia. It was so freakin cheap. They basically had to mod it to take natural gas instead of petrol. You could even switch from gas to petrol if you ran out of one. The downside is that its not safe since it can blow you up if something goes wrong.

[Headhunter]

North Americans don't care enough to demand it, conventional power suppliers want to milk existing sources as long as possible.

The only big corporation that's made a notable effort is British Petroleum, which has rebranded itself largely as Beyond Petroleum. Nothing like that on our side of the pond, so far...

[toalan]

In north america I think it will be tough, because we already have the lines built to deliver power. In other places solar might be much more economical because they can avoid building transmission lines.

[hyperion]

Read the August National Geographic, it was a long and indepth article of where renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are now. Solar is basically too price unefficient(currently) and dependent on weather. Wind is looking like a much better alternative, for example Denmark I believe is getting ~40% of their power from a huge wind generators out in the sea.

[blackhawk]

The more expensive oil is, the more viable other sources of energy become.

Now with expensive oil thats been high for almost a year, the oil sands in alberta and saskatchewan have become much more valuable. If the price drops way down again, then investment in the oil sands and offshore east coast energy drops off as its cheaper to buy the cheap oil from the mid east.

All these alternative energy sources have weaknesses but there needs to be some combined sources for at least the electrical grid. Nuclear energy for electricity in ontario will free up a lot of oil and developement of some wind and solar sources in the southwest urban areas would be helpful.

Hydro was the great hope of 30 - 40 years ago but too hard to do now with environmental concerns trumping power needs.

[bigbob79]

Why not this?
http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2003/Anything-Into-Oil1may03.htm

we can solve the homeless problem and the energy problem at the same time.

[stevethewheel]

To your original question...

Solar energy technology is being used, where it makes sense.

In California, for instance, there are lots of large buildings that make extensive use of solar power. The cool thing is that the panels generate electricity and at the same time provide 'shade' for the roof which reduces the amount of power needed to cool.

The materials are still very expensive, and manufacturing large, weather-resistant panels is far from fully developed but it continues to evolve.

It is unlikely we will extensive use of solar in Canada in the next 20 years because the cost of the equipment is still too high to justify summer use.
The angle of the sun in winter is just too low to be effective.

You can expect more adventurous, environmentally-minded types make localized use of solar in Canada. Panels are not that hard to find (although expensive) and the power-transforming technology is fairly advanced. So there should be more evidence in the news in the 'special interest' section when they're having a slow news day.

[stevethewheel]

I've seen cars that ran on propane/methane in South and East Asia. It was so freakin cheap. They basically had to mod it to take natural gas instead of petrol. You could even switch from gas to petrol if you ran out of one. The downside is that its not safe since it can blow you up if something goes wrong.

I've owned cars that burn methane (natural gas) here in Ontario. It's no less safe than having a regular gas tank. It is still about 60% of the cost of regular gas. The downside is that you lose a lot of trunk space and can only carry the equivalent of 10-15 L of gas. Great for a specific-purpose vehicle.

[rf134a]

Read the August National Geographic, it was a long and indepth article of where renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are now. Solar is basically too price unefficient(currently) and dependent on weather. Wind is looking like a much better alternative, for example Denmark I believe is getting ~40% of their power from a huge wind generators out in the sea.
The problem with wind generators is a concern that slowing the speed of the wind may affect weather patterns. It just seems like you can't win with this renewable energy thing... :(

[cipher]

The problem with wind generators is a concern that slowing the speed of the wind may affect weather patterns. It just seems like you can't win with this renewable energy thing... :(


You can't be serious.

[me!]

I hear more about geothermal energy than solar energy.

[sk8]

The problem with wind generators is a concern that slowing the speed of the wind may affect weather patterns. It just seems like you can't win with this renewable energy thing... :(

:-0 :lol:

[devious9191]

Why not this?
http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2003/Anything-Into-Oil1may03.htm

we can solve the homeless problem and the energy problem at the same time.

lol. That was a bit tongue in cheek, but I like it.

[i6s1]

If anyone here thinks solar power is so great, then why don't YOU have solar panels on your roof?