Elon doesn't even like solar for space use it sounded like from Rogan's more recent podcast episode with him.
Definitely not supposed to be a main use. Elon likes solar, but also believes it can't be more efficient than it is now.
So that presents an interesting problem if he's correct. Investment into solar was always based around a future promise of better efficiency, to get the infrastructure in place and improve on it over time.
But when we are talking about scaling it to millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions of people, there's just not enough surface area and probably not enough material on the planet to sustain it.
It's worse if it can't operate at high temperatures either -- which is kind of important since the best places for solar tend to be places with higher temperatures.
Solar's best use case, after it comes down more in cost, is for supplementary power on an individual's home basis, and for preppers / off the grid living.
Powering an electrical grid? We need something far more efficient. Nuclear is clearly the future technology of the past that needs to be further developed, as it has near limitless energy potential. We just need to figure out how to get rid of the waste, as right now we store it in expensive containers permanently to the best of my knowledge.
Solar is neat but inefficient. Hydro is expensive and requires heavy construction and maintenance. Aero is clearly the worst, as it is even more conditional than solar and way more destructive to the environment than hydro, and requires a lot of land.
I believe they've actually developed nuclear plants that actually run off of nuclear waste, but the really useful innovation will never happen until the laws banning the building of home fission reactors...
I get the safety arguments, etc, but My thought is smaller reactors would produce less waste and call less fallout if they failed.
actually, I've been playing with the idea of making a small solar/nuclear hybrid, base on a video I saw a long time ago, think it was kipkay. He took a small bit of nuclear material from an old smoke detector and fastened over the end o of a webcam so you could see the radioactive decay. He had this idea you could use it as an actual random number generator, based on the data from the webcam.
I'm wondering if you could do something similar with a solar panel and the same material. Obviously you couldn't power a house or anything like that, but a portable phone charger that always had juice would be pretty cool. (dunno if it would be feasible, of course, just an idea...)
nuclear waste issue has been mostly solved. just the narrative and lack of political & investment interest holding it back.
i'm just going by memory, but do look into it for yourself:
thorium reactors, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors... all that technology is largely ready to go. very safe, meltdown safeguards built-in. thorium & some uranium can be recycled back into more energy-generation up to a point where the resultant waste is miniscule & can be disposed of as bricks. radioactive sludge waste products not so relevant anymore.
This. Any serious energy engineer will tell you that the only current clean energy technology available to serve our massive power needs is nuclear. The safety issues have been drastically improved and are very manageable. Wind and solar have a horrible ROI, but are largely driven by $cience. Ramp up our domestic oil and gas industry to serve our needs in parallel with a massive 10 year deployment of nuclear. Global warming, I mean Climate change is a hoax, but that doesn’t mean we should not have a responsible, non-political long term energy strategy.
Yeah, but solar was also treated as a space exploration technology due to the lack of atmosphere inhibiting direct rays. Fact we can't even really use it that way definitely detracts from the promise of a solar array.
I used to defend solar based on future potential, but the only one pushing for space exploration doesn't believe in it getting more efficient than it is.
And of course while Elon isn't an expert in every field personally, I would definitely say he has some of the world's brightest minds employed.
TL;DR: Solar really kinda sucks for 9/10 use cases. Can't even charge an electric vehicle to any substantial degree under optimal conditions. Green New Deal fetishists should go back to the drawing board and stop wasting our time and money.
Absolutely, and when I was in school, all the data and spec sheets for solar and wind made it absolutely clear that, outside of a few geographically specific locations, that no renewable project at grid scale should be implemented.
Since then, I've seen job postings for 'BESS' systems, where they take solar arrays to charge massive lithium battery banks that power up a 16kV 'mini' grid to power things like bases outside of grid range, research stations, etc. (I actually wanted that job, in spite that it was effectively a 'grid' with a 'bomb' as a key component to its operation).
Main problem I have with solar is that after 15 to 20 years no longer efficient maybe less.
I asked a solar guy salesman how are you going to get rid of these in 15 years when they dont work anymore. He said we hope we will figure it out but then lol.
Geothermal is better investment imho. Underground will always be cold.
In areas where the water table isn't high geothermal is the better option. But in areas where the water table is high geothermal is not a viable option (eg Florida).
Solar like other green technology is for complimentary purposes and never should be considered a main way of generating power.
Elon doesn't even like solar for space use it sounded like from Rogan's more recent podcast episode with him.
Definitely not supposed to be a main use. Elon likes solar, but also believes it can't be more efficient than it is now.
So that presents an interesting problem if he's correct. Investment into solar was always based around a future promise of better efficiency, to get the infrastructure in place and improve on it over time.
But when we are talking about scaling it to millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions of people, there's just not enough surface area and probably not enough material on the planet to sustain it.
It's worse if it can't operate at high temperatures either -- which is kind of important since the best places for solar tend to be places with higher temperatures.
Solar's best use case, after it comes down more in cost, is for supplementary power on an individual's home basis, and for preppers / off the grid living.
Powering an electrical grid? We need something far more efficient. Nuclear is clearly the future technology of the past that needs to be further developed, as it has near limitless energy potential. We just need to figure out how to get rid of the waste, as right now we store it in expensive containers permanently to the best of my knowledge.
Solar is neat but inefficient. Hydro is expensive and requires heavy construction and maintenance. Aero is clearly the worst, as it is even more conditional than solar and way more destructive to the environment than hydro, and requires a lot of land.
I believe they've actually developed nuclear plants that actually run off of nuclear waste, but the really useful innovation will never happen until the laws banning the building of home fission reactors...
I get the safety arguments, etc, but My thought is smaller reactors would produce less waste and call less fallout if they failed.
actually, I've been playing with the idea of making a small solar/nuclear hybrid, base on a video I saw a long time ago, think it was kipkay. He took a small bit of nuclear material from an old smoke detector and fastened over the end o of a webcam so you could see the radioactive decay. He had this idea you could use it as an actual random number generator, based on the data from the webcam.
I'm wondering if you could do something similar with a solar panel and the same material. Obviously you couldn't power a house or anything like that, but a portable phone charger that always had juice would be pretty cool. (dunno if it would be feasible, of course, just an idea...)
nuclear waste issue has been mostly solved. just the narrative and lack of political & investment interest holding it back.
i'm just going by memory, but do look into it for yourself:
thorium reactors, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors... all that technology is largely ready to go. very safe, meltdown safeguards built-in. thorium & some uranium can be recycled back into more energy-generation up to a point where the resultant waste is miniscule & can be disposed of as bricks. radioactive sludge waste products not so relevant anymore.
This. Any serious energy engineer will tell you that the only current clean energy technology available to serve our massive power needs is nuclear. The safety issues have been drastically improved and are very manageable. Wind and solar have a horrible ROI, but are largely driven by $cience. Ramp up our domestic oil and gas industry to serve our needs in parallel with a massive 10 year deployment of nuclear. Global warming, I mean Climate change is a hoax, but that doesn’t mean we should not have a responsible, non-political long term energy strategy.
LFTRs. Much MUCH SAFER than current nuke plants. And we have 300 + years of fuel for them in coal tailings.
Solar in space is of little good once you get further out than Mars. There's a reason the probes that went further used RTGs.
Yeah, but solar was also treated as a space exploration technology due to the lack of atmosphere inhibiting direct rays. Fact we can't even really use it that way definitely detracts from the promise of a solar array.
I used to defend solar based on future potential, but the only one pushing for space exploration doesn't believe in it getting more efficient than it is.
And of course while Elon isn't an expert in every field personally, I would definitely say he has some of the world's brightest minds employed.
TL;DR: Solar really kinda sucks for 9/10 use cases. Can't even charge an electric vehicle to any substantial degree under optimal conditions. Green New Deal fetishists should go back to the drawing board and stop wasting our time and money.
P.S. RTGs are neat
Absolutely, and when I was in school, all the data and spec sheets for solar and wind made it absolutely clear that, outside of a few geographically specific locations, that no renewable project at grid scale should be implemented.
Since then, I've seen job postings for 'BESS' systems, where they take solar arrays to charge massive lithium battery banks that power up a 16kV 'mini' grid to power things like bases outside of grid range, research stations, etc. (I actually wanted that job, in spite that it was effectively a 'grid' with a 'bomb' as a key component to its operation).
Main problem I have with solar is that after 15 to 20 years no longer efficient maybe less.
I asked a solar guy salesman how are you going to get rid of these in 15 years when they dont work anymore. He said we hope we will figure it out but then lol.
Geothermal is better investment imho. Underground will always be cold.
I Put in systems 25-30. Years ago. That still work
My folks system put in 05. Still hits over ratings. ( Sunpower )
In areas where the water table isn't high geothermal is the better option. But in areas where the water table is high geothermal is not a viable option (eg Florida).
My parents tried to get solar panels for their house for this reason.
I had to talk them out of it, because it would've locked them into a contract for 10+ years and stuck them with the bill.
Thank God they listened to me.