Question by java_user: How to get solar power continuously and without any interrupt?
Gas prices are bound to increase , I think will never come below $ 4. Only solar power is the guaranteed clean,affordable ,low prices alternative option.Only problem is it is not available at all time, Can we build a system that can be placed above the clouds and supply us the solar energy on the ground continuously? Any thoughts?
Best answer:
Answer by Larry Lawrence
“Only solar power is the guaranteed clean,affordable ,low prices alternative option.”
Clean? How are they manufactured?
Affordable? Why don’t we all have them?
Placed above the clouds? Hmmmm…..would this increase the cost? Does it get dark above the clouds at night?
Keep thinking!
Check your facts, Mr. 357. Listen to “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd. Especially the very end.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
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adaviel says:
September 17, 2013 at 6:31 am (UTC 0)
It has been proposed to put solar arrays in space and beam power down as microwaves to “rectenna farms”.
Other ideas include the super-grid – high efficiency, perhaps superconducting electrical grid to link solar pane farms in deserts etc. around the world to cities Or using solar electric to generate hydrogen and using that in vehicles
Mr.357 says:
September 17, 2013 at 7:10 am (UTC 0)
I think the best bet would be to build a solar power plant on the moon. One side continuously is facing the sun so it could produce power continuously and there are no clouds there.
Joan D says:
September 17, 2013 at 7:44 am (UTC 0)
That’s a good question. Surely some of those smart guys at places like MIT are working on it.
The biggest difficulty, it seems to me, is getting the sun’s energy through those clouds. Were you thinking of having a satellite above the clouds connect to a power line on earth feeding electricity to customers?
roderick_young says:
September 17, 2013 at 8:21 am (UTC 0)
I don’t know about that $ 4 floor price for gasoline. The price is fickle, but it has definitely risen over time with respect to other things. I remember when I could buy 10 gallons of gas for the price of one T-shirt. Can’t do that today, and I don’t think that will ever come back. So your point is valid, the trend for fossil fuel prices can only be up in the long term.
We can gather enough solar energy right on the ground. It’s much more cost-effective to build a solar array locally, even if it has to be bigger, than to put it on a distant mesa or in space.
What I envision is a power grid that dynamically prices energy according to supply and demand. When there is a lot of solar connected, then if the load was the same, the price would drop during the day. Given a potentially huge difference in price, I might schedule most of my flexible tasks to occur during the day, like cooking, washing, even computer-related things like downloads. The servers at iTunes (or wherever) would pay more for electricity at night, so a download might be 99 cents at night, 69 cents between 10 am and 3 pm. They might program some of their servers to only go on line when the price of electricity drops to a certain level. And a customer might queue their purchase to wait for cheap hours. Maybe restaurants would charge more for the same thing at dinner than at lunch (this already happens somewhat, people take it in stride), or a meal would cost more on a cloudy day, or be discounted on a sunny day. People could program their A/C thermostats to vary according to electricity price. If the grid is $ 1/kWh, it only goes on at 85 degrees. If the grid is 0.10/kWh, then it cools down to 70.
We would still need nuclear, hydro, and some other sources to carry the load at night.
With dynamic prices on electricity, individual homes would be more interested in storing their own electricity, and might adopt battery banks. At any given time, a home could be programmed to decide whether to buy grid power at a given rate, or drain the battery bank. This would drive research and development into better, cost-effective batteries. At one point, I can see the majority of homes and businesses with a solar array, each being their own energy generation and storage unit. The grid would then be truly bidirectional and decentralized.
I probably will not live to see all this happen, but maybe I’ll see the beginnings of it. If you’re young, maybe you will.
ahmad zaim says:
September 17, 2013 at 9:02 am (UTC 0)
Putting solar panel outer space and retransmit it to earth using other medium won’t be worth in term of efficiency.
Lots of energy will drop in the process such as during transmitting and energy converting.
Currently using rechargeable battery to backup the energy during daylight for the use at night is still the best way. Other than that we can maximize the solar radiation to the relatively expensive solar panel using mirror to focus the beam to the target-Require natural cooling such as water etc.
PS. Other than microwave why not try using laser as a energy transport medium from space to earth since laser has single wavelength and there for its easier to construct laser solar panel to work with single wavelength and the efficiency is very good.