Amazon Solar Farm in Virginia

[MAV-DC]

I'm conflicted about this (see Youtube video below about Amazon solar farm in Virginia) - I find seeing acres and acres of natural green fields covered by ugly solar panels - but I "get" that solar energy is a great untapped energy resource - I guess what's troubling is, this is just one instance of an Amazon "farm" - how soon before other tech entities start "farming", including, e.g. Tesla - all that beautiful landscape covered over with massive glaring panels - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn4ocOS0qJg

[et...@757.org]

Wait solar panels are ugly? They're like space age awesome man! I love the
high tech look of solar panels.

Look up the Apple datacenter in NC and look around it on Google Maps
Satellite view, tons of panels there as well.

> in Virginia) - I find seeing acres and acres of natural green fields
> covered by ugly solar panels - but I "get" that solar energy is a great
> untapped energy resource - I guess what's troubling is, this is just one
> instance of an Amazon "farm" - how soon before other tech entities start
> "farming", including, e.g. Tesla - all that beautiful landscape covered
> over with massive glaring panels -
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn4ocOS0qJg
>

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Ethan O'Toole

[George Walker]

S.O.P. for installing greater-than-rooftop-scale solar is to denute the landscape and cover it in gravel so it stays that way.

I have colleagues working on a solar project on tribal lands that is intentionally over-spacing the panels to allow grass to grow between them. I don't pretend to know how maintainable that will turn out to be, but I see potential for practical benefits in terms of animal habitat and topsoil retention / runoff prevention.


George

Sent from my iPhone

[Matthew "mirage335" Hines]

Land use is an overstated problem in the deployment of solar panels.
From Wikipedia, a few small black dots on the globe could meet
humanity's energy needs.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Solar_land_area.png

Capital and labor are more serious problems. Solar panels themselves are
getting quite cheap, while installation costs remain higher than power
plant construction. Right now, the expansion of renewable energy seems
to be keeping pace with human population expansion, making little dent
in emissions.

[George Walker]

The issue stated wasn't "There is not enough land to meet our energy needs;" the issue in question was "Solar panels made the land I liked looking at ugly (or 'Space age awesome')."

I would also disagree with the assertion that labor costs are a problem, however (at least for the solar industry).  Solar City is able to benefit from incredible subsidies at the state and federal level because they have been able to convince government officials that solar energy is a feel-good jobs program.  Perhaps the best example of this is New Jersey, where they are installing solar panels with the most labor intensive deployment strategy the industry has ever seen...which their Republican governor brags about.

You are correct that, to date, the solar energy has increased not decreased emissions --just look at the exponential production curve.  Hopefully they will pay off w.r.t. emissions over time.  How quickly that happens has a lot to do with what else we're doing to manage our energy consumption (especially w.r.t. time of use) and our fossil fleet..

George

[Alberto Gaitan]

Don't know the theoretical limits of photovoltaics efficiency but, Jevon's Paradox[1] notwithstanding, if the most efficient solar cells today are ~45%, wouldn't future 90%-efficient cells allow for a 50% reduction in land cover, provided ecological and/or aesthetic impact were priorities?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

[Jason Duerstock]

How long do you suppose it will take someone to utter the sentence
"This data center is too big."?

[George Walker]

Sure, but real-world efficiency is far below 45%, and already it doesn't matter: as Matthew pointed out, land area is already not the limiting factor domestically.

George

On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 12:26 PM, Alberto Gaitan <alberto...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Alberto Gaitan]

Presently, multi-junction cells seem to be at ~45%. 

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics#/media/File:Best_Research-Cell_Efficiencies.png

[George Walker]

Research cells --while neat-- are obviously not the stuff of real-world panels.

[Alberto Gaitan]

Sure, but I was just looking at the apparent next, great thing since my scenario was speculative.

[George Walker]

OK, I'm interested in the apparent next, too, which begs the question: what can solar panels do at ~45% efficiency that they can't do at ~22% efficiency (highest efficiency for production panels)?  My guess is not very much.  As Matthew pointed out, the costs are mostly not in the panels already.  BOM and installation costs are the areas for meaningful improvement, and gauging by Germany's performance in that area, the innovation that is needed is not technical in nature, it's organizational.

George

[Bobby Baum]

The "theoretical limit" of photovoltaic efficiency is 40% but there
are ways around that (multijunction cells, multiple electron
production from a single photon (recently demonstrated), totally new
conversion mechanisms, ???).
The best thing, which of course is what is largely being done, is to
put solar panels on roofs (for people) and in the desert (for
industry).

[Bobby Baum]

Also note that solar power is roughly doubling every 2 years (i.e.,
Moore's Law). 1% of electricity production today, a third in 10 years,
more power than we'll need by 20. All hell is going to break loose
soon... I just put a sizable chunk of my investments in a solar fund.