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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
bysootman ( 158191 ) writes:
Many years ago, ice was very expensive and rare. It was cut from frozen lakes in the north and was shipped all over. [wikipedia.org] Unimaginable now, and not everyone could have ice. Then, refrigeration came along and anyone, anywhere could have virtually unlimited ice for just the price of a machine, the cost of its maintenance, and electricity and water. Being able to preserve food (and medicine) is one of the single biggest contributors to lifespan and overall quantity of life the planet has ever seen. Being able to ke
byviperidaenz ( 2515578 ) writes:
Are you implying its the oil and electric industry that's manipulating the price of silicon wafers? Solar panels cost lots because they're full of silicon.
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byJustNiz ( 692889 ) writes:
You know silicon is one of the most common elements in the world right? It makes up the majority of the Earth's crust.
byviperidaenz ( 2515578 ) writes:
You know silicon you dig up from the ground and silicon wafers are not identical?
It costs a lot of money to grow pure silicon crystals. You can't just melt a bunch of sand and turn it into a semiconductor.
That's like saying diamonds should be cheap because carbon is even more common than silicon.
bySoulNibbler ( 2194576 ) writes:
Yeah, but the cheap solar is poly silicon, which is slightly more labor intensive than aluminium.
byviperidaenz ( 2515578 ) writes:
It sure doesn't cost the same as aluminium.
polysilicon panels are also less efficient.
bykhallow ( 566160 ) writes:
And all of that silicon is bounded with other elements. It takes considerable energy and infrastructure to separate and purify silicon. If you can make a really cheap panel though, it does allow for some interesting feedback effects (say using the cheap power you just made to make even cheaper panels).
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bybluefoxlucid ( 723572 ) writes:
I'm implying that solar panels are hilariously stupid and the worst solution to a problem.
In major installations, they're inefficient as living fuck. you can do much better with parabolic concentrators, solar towers, the like. Shiny flat glass is not only inefficient, but fragile.
In minor installations, they're expensive as living fuck, inconvenient (eventually you'll need to repair that roof...), and have dodgy ROI. Oh and better add on insurance--a 15 panel installation here has no less than 5 damaged panels, 3 of which are completely destroyed. Nobody else has solar. With long ROI, the risk of just coming out negative is so high.
Solar water heat: evacuated tube collectors into a tank. Hell, in general, a solar collector--a trombe wall on the roof, evacuated tubes, whatnot--with an insulated pipeline circulating to a solar mass (a concrete, water-filled, or beeswax box packed inside massive insulation, about the size of a chest freezer if you use beeswax but that shit is expensive as silver!) is a lot more effective. You can pipe the collected energy to water heating, space heating, space cooling, and even to electricity generation using a sterling engine (potentially you could use a high-temperature heat pump to achieve cooking and high temperatures for more efficient heat-engine power generation, same concept as a solar tower).
Advantage? In the case of evacuated tubes, extreme simplicity, low cost, ease of management, lower hazards, fast ROI (less than a year). A trombe wall on the roof has the disadvantage of being fixed, but the advantage of being fixed as well: the roof builds up over top of that part, containing insulation (You don't want your heat to radiate back out) and all the elements of a roof. It can be used for just space heating, or used as an isolated minor thermal mass and collector for a basement-stored thermal mass used to drive thermal equipment (water heater, space heating, sterling generator, thermal cooling, etc.). The disadvantage is weight--it's going to be a big piece of 2 inch thick concrete on your roof--and the complexity of insulated plumbing.
Direct heating and thermal cooling reduce the number of transformations and increase efficiency of utilizing collected solar power. Solar energy used for space heating comes in as thermal energy (light) and is moved as thermal energy to space heat at near 100% efficiency. Solar energy used for cooling comes as thermal energy and is used to drive a thermal air conditioner (like those natural gas ACs that are all the rage now). Solar energy used to generate electricity is piped through a sterling engine to achieve 38% energy extraction as electricity instead of 19% or less.
And then you need to consider mass core geothermal plants, non-disruptive hydroelectric (as opposed to disruptive), wind, quantum-newtonian-oscillation generators, and of course the storage mechanisms like FTL gasodiesel manufactured from atmosphere using excess electricity.
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bybluefoxlucid ( 723572 ) writes:
Tubes are often used because if one cracks or a seal fails you buy a new one for $20. If a $500 flatbed cracks,you buy a new $500 flatbed.
byAK Marc ( 707885 ) writes:
For minor installations, "expensive as fuck" is a 0-day ROI. I could finance the install and pay less next month than if I don't, and continue that "pay less" indefinitely. I'll be doing so as soon as my personal situation allows.
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