Topic: Solar energy is the future. I want to save my planet!! What about you? (Read 888 times)

I think of this kind of topics more and more now. Have a quote stuck into my since since I was a kid which goes something like that: 'We haven't inherited the earth by our ancestors, we borrowed it from our children'.

My city isn't at all concerned about recycling so I separate my garbage, plastics, batteries etc. and look for a private companies to pass it on. I have a house outside of town as well and when I ran the numbers the wind turbine was better investment then solar panels. Although I guess it depends of the region too. If it is windier put the wind turbine, if it is sunnier then solar panels make more sense.

I don't think we can destroy the planet. Humans are adaptive and smart, yet so fragile. We need food, water, air, certain temperature. We could be wiped out in a blink of an eye. Maybe even more advanced civilizations were on this planet but when things go bad we will be gone first.

   The future of the planet is clear - it will die.
Solar energy may not safe our planet, but definitely may prolongate its life. Just like recycling and electric cars.
   Whatever made for saving the planet I'm voting for!

Solar energy conversion has its place, but we are becoming obsessive about it. Clearing a field of all its greenery and turning it into a solar farm may not be the most productive use of a scarce resource ( fertile land). It wold be far better to site the solar farm on desert land close to the sea, and use the solar energy to create hydrogen to transport to energy hungry cities. Hydrogen is a clean and efficent power source.

So many people seem to think they are saving the world by installing a couple of solar panels, and buying an electric car. They don't look at the total picture, and cut down trees and hedges in their gardens, pump themselves full of antibiotics and other drugs, and spray weedkiller over the barren parking lots they have created where their gardens used to be. They then use petrol leaf blowers to drive surface detritus out into the road to be washed down the public drains. They throw their litter onto the streets and into the environment, where much of it finds its way into the rivers and seas.

The governments don't help either. They introduce taxes and restrictions to suck money from consumers, and to force them to replace good efficient products with fashionable alternatives. This seems to benefit the bankers who own the manufacturing units and the resource mines, rather than the environment. For example there are massive restrictions on emissions from personal transport, but no restrictions on civil or military aviation. The burnt and unburnt fuel from air transport is pumped directly into the upper atmosphere, and there is no attempt to reduce any of the pollutants in the emissions. In fact some fuel still contains lead, which is banned in most transport fuels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlSCl-mjAYg this is the future, I also have a crazy way with mirrors and water to make what nik tesla was onto.

Well we all wants to save the planet it is our home and everyone wants to protect our home .
But we couldn't possible save it on our own we need to act together to save it .
We need to stop cutting tree's and throwing our garbage or waste in the sea.
And it is my plan when I buy my own house I would use a solar panel to save money for my electric bills.

I would love to put some solar panels on my house.  The up front cost is just really prohibitive right now though.  There used to be some really great tax incentives to get it done, but I don't think those are around as much with the new administration.  I could be wrong though.  The alternative energy source that I have been getting really excited about lately is Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.  There is a company called NuScale that is doing some amazing things. If they were publicly traded I would buy their stock in a heartbeat.  They have reactors that can be daisy chained to produced huge amounts of power.  They have a smaller footprint than traditional power plants and they are meltdown proof.  They are also working on technology to make them immune to EMP's.  I really think they can make a huge impact on the future of energy.  I reached out to the company about what happens with the "waste" after the rods are spent.  They actually got back to me with a really well worded and thought out reply.  It could all be BS, but I think they have enough credibility that I can probably believe them.  If you want me to share their response in another reply, just let me know.  Their work is so impressive that some of the regulatory commissions have fast tracked their approval process. 

I agree this is not about fixing it because it is really hard to do we should just minimize the damage,
We should do something to prevent it for being worst,Just think about what the future would be how would we live our life with just less natural resource around us being destroyed?
Tree's and plants being cut down ,Polluted water every where how could the next generation enjoy their life ?

Regarding solar energy - there is an alternative to the photovoltaics on the horizon. It's called a Stirling engine. The idea for Stirling engine is ancient; but it's use in exploitation of solar power is recent.
Couple of links for further reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-powered_Stirling_engine
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/13/could-this-be-the-worlds-most-efficient-solar-electricity-system
https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/space-centers/glenn-research-center/it-keeps-going-and-going-stirling-engine-test-sets-long-duration-record-at-nasa-glenn/

Interesting article you have here, but the problem is those in power are too greedy to let the earth heal because they've collected and stored lots of natural resources for their own gains so they kick against total renewable energy.

Human is a danger to the earth and they will end up destroying it!!
they can't control it, the other day I was discussing with someone about Elite Mining Inc and the reason they decided to take the green initiative as a source of energy he said, he sees no reason for that, he can get power supply at cheaper rate does not matter!! I told him it matters we can solve the problems by just been a little bit kind to the earth...
check https://elitemininginc.com out
telegram:  https://t.me/EliteMiningInc

I do agree. In simple representation, humans are the cancer cells and the host is our Earth. The cancer cells slowly killing the host so if we remove the cancer cells then the host will survive and recover again. However, in reality, it's not that so easy. Of course we cannot cut the world population into half because it's immorral. So I guess the best option we can do is to act like a "less harmful cell" as much as possible and shift yourself into a white blood cell (I hope you get my point).

We all do have a point but we don't have the same opinions. We cannot convince all humans who live in this world just to agree on what's for the good/sake of saving our planet as you can see it's only on us if we keep on destroying the nature in our planet. Maybe from time to time, our nature will not be the same as what we have in the old times.

Pheww that was a very long read. All has their point , you know guys the world we lived in is destined to get damaged in due time. There is nothing we could do to stop that from happening but at least we could help slow the process of the earth from being damaged by human beings. We cannot avoid innovations, and we cannot innovate without risking the earth from all the pollution that causes by innovating .

Empty half the Earth of its humans. It's the only way to save the planet!

Just read this and I have to say you hit it just right. All those fools that believed the propaganda machines and went around babbling like idiots that we needed to all go CFL to save the planet...

They really do look stupid today, and it's because they were and are stupid.

Many other examples of primitive, unscientific thinking.

Actually, consider the 1-2 orders of magnitude improvement of modern LED lights and televisions,computers versus yesterday.

In a mild climate, you can 100% power the RV or shed with solar GIVEN THESE NEW STYLE DEVICES.

But the credit is not the solar, but the better devices. The solar is not relevant to the prime mover, the actual solution.

There's nothing hugely positive or wonderful about solar. It's just a type of powering stuff. Put it out on a job or a site and deal with it, deal with the hassles. Nothing to get excited about.

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They are a waste for the mis-directed applications they are being pushed for, by government incentives.

Without that, their actual productive uses would multiply.

Remote houses, hunting cabins, RVs, everything on islands that get lots of sun and need to bring coal/oil in for power, etc.

Nuclear power is actually statistically safer than rooftop solar panels, if you go by the amount of deaths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities

I also want to save the planet but solar energy alone is not the answer because what it is going to happen on cloudy days? no power... The solution has to be a combination of solar power and wind power and yes nuclear power too. I know that nuclear power it is  dangerous but if we as humanity are going to expand across the galaxy we need to master the nuclear energy

Shipping is $0 if you pick 'em up (they're a fairly local company from what I was told). Average Americans pay $0.10 per kwh. Technically, it really depends on area for solar energy; but throughout the year, it's 4.5 hours of sunlight in my area (for solar, data from my town's solar farm).

The numbers are there to make energy ROI worth it; even more so if you purchase the solar panels on a loan and pay it back as though you're paying a utility bill. Eventually the loan is paid off and you get a few years of free energy.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested

For anyone interested, I did some follow up with the companies offering $0.40/watt used solar panels. They aren't nearly as great of a deal as they make them out to be, but they are still better than expected.

For the 3KW of Solar panels for $1200, Shipping is $700, Mounting hardware is $1-2k, Inverters, charge controllers and such are about $800, and then whatever wiring you'd need. If you can install them yourself, you are looking at about  $3700-$4700 plus wiring. It gets more than two times more expensive if you need to hire someone to install any of it for you. If you want to tie it into the power grid, you do need someone licensed to do so, and the cost becomes prohibitive.

The solar panels you receive are around 10 years old, and provide 90% of the power they are rated for approximately, so effectively 2700 watts. At a DIY cost of, I'll split the difference and say $4300 for 2700 watts, you are at about $1.60 per watt. Each watt of solar panels will provide 1KWH of power every 1000 hours of peak operation. So, if you are paying $0.08 per KWH, you need 20 * 1,000 hours peak to hit an ROI on your solar panels. ~833 days of continuous sunlight. I think for estimates sake, 8 hours of direct sunlight per day is a slight over approximation, but we'll use it anyway. It takes about 2500 days for your panels to pay themselves off. About 7 years.

Of course, during that time the solar panels will degrade about 1% efficiency per year, winters don't provide the 8 hours of direct sun per day that we were figuring, and such, so I'd say broadly you are talking 7-10 years and the solar panels will pay themselves off at $0.40/watt. That isn't nearly as bad as the 20-30 year estimates that new solar panels try to get you with, but it still isn't fantastic. If you need to have them installed, the cost becomes prohibitive. But! If you own an RV or a Shed and want to have a little bit of backup power or something, and you have enough electrical knowhow to do it safely yourself, go for it.

I still affirm my position that solar panels are somewhat of a waste at the moment, but in theory they are a good idea, and give it some time and they'll be worthwhile. On a side note, I'd be curious what the environmental impact is for the production of the solar panels in the first place, for those that care.