How Many Solar Panels Would Be Needed to Power Earth?

[Pinky's Brain]

We would need breeders to have long term fission fuel with current technology if we wanted to use it near exclusively.

Uranium stocks are limited, classical reactors don't make very efficient use of it and fuel recycling doesn't help much. It's only ever recycled once and even then it's not economical. MOX is the biggest boondoggle in the nuclear industry, France's "success story" is a mirage (I'm not saying their Nuclear power infrastructure isn't useful, but their reprocessing industry has been a drag not a boon).

 

[Ambitiousmould]

How much space is going spare in the Australian Outback currently? Lot of sun there, I hear.

 

[wulfy42]

Cold fusion is the theoretical solution to humanities power source problem (And also almost manditory for long range space exploration/terraforming). We don't currently have many people working on it anymore and it doesn't look like we will have a breakthrough anytime soon (it may even be impossible).

There are other methods of generating power, including thermal power, which can be used in combination with solar power (allowing you to store energy up at night that is generated during the day as thermal power). Batteries can also be used on a smaller scale to store power generated the sun, usually deep cycle batteries are used (they recommend you have a capacity of 3-4x your average daily usage so you don't run out at night). They can range from 500$ to $5000+....but are capable of storing enough energy for a full house...with a 98% efficiency rate (power stored vs returned). The larger batteries are expensive though, but....can allow you to run your power completely off the grid...it's something I may look into at this point.

A thermal plant though could be used to accumulate and store large amounts of power generated during the day, and then distribute it throughout a local area. IF every house/apartment, school etc was built with solar panels (with batteries underneath the panels to store the power locally as well), you could drastically reduce how much additional power was needed. Add in the current system (where power goes into the grid that you don't use), and store excess power, and you could possibly eventually power cities completely with solar power, and without spending a ton of extra money.

The cost of putting in solar panels isn't huge right now, and, it's for profit (Significant profit). If countries would start making it required to have them installed on new buildings (and paying for retrofitting existing ones), allowing for drastic reduction in power costs in the future etc, you could see the cost of installing solar panels drop drastically, with a large net gain finacially in just a few years.

With electric or hybrid cars becoming more popular/cheaper, it could drastically change the resources we use. The problem is the politicians are not likely to support such a change (Since many get money from oil etc). Wind is inneficient, but hyrdo-electric (could also be used in combo with solor) and especially thermal power generators are efficient, safe, and work well in combination with each other.

After doing just a small amount of research, I can see now that solar could be used WAY more effectively then it currently is, even in homes that actually have solar panels. We are not encouraged to do so, and I'm not even sure if you have to get a special license to do so in cities etc, but with our solar panels (and especially if we had them put on the other side of our roof as well), we could easily power our house without ever running out of power if we had one of the 5k batteries (and with just 3-4 months of paying electric bills that would be maybe 2 years to pay off the batter at our current rate).

 

[Baresark]

The main issue is the cost of solar is not cheaper than the cost of fossil fuels. We are talking a difference ranging from 5-10 cents per kilowatt hour less expensive for solar. Solar is only more cost effective than fossil fuels when there are government incentives to cover the difference. And as sad as it is, the average person still has to worry about cost. I want more solar and less fossil fuels like most people, but you can't dictate what is more important for other people. Now can we stop demonizing nuclear power, that is something that is far cheaper than fossil fuels and far cleaner than it was even 20 years ago.

 

[insanelich]

Photovoltaics are a stillborn technology, and anyone defending them is hopelessly deluded or has an agenda.

How much cheaper does it have to get to be born? Ten times we might be able to do in a decade, if it has to be cheaper than that we will need a little more time. The great strength of PV is it's massive potential for cost reduction, it will eventually come down to little more than glass cost (and we use much more glass now than what is purely necessary as a hermetic barrier).

I think we will get to the point where just a flat field of PV is the most cost effective way of harnessing solar power. No tracking, no concentration, no towers, just fields of solid state electronics.

If it was cost, we'd have nuclear.

It's the PV technology, and the storage technology. We don't need it cheaper, we need a less destructive process of creating the cells, and some truly groundbreaking battery technology.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

While solar power is good in theory, in reality it doesn't provide a constant stream of energy like nuclear or fossil fuels. Maybe if they can figure how to do it, it'll catch on more.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

It's the PV technology, and the storage technology. We don't need it cheaper, we need a less destructive process of creating the cells, and some truly groundbreaking battery technology.

A solar panel which produces for 20 years produces more energy per gram of silicon than is produced per gram of Uranium in a fission reactor and we're not nearly finished with reducing the cost of materials per panel.

As I said before, we have cheap medium term storage (non adiabatic thermal storage). What we lack is cheap storage with good round trip efficiency, if PV gets cheap enough you can just eat the low round trip efficiency.

 

[Baresark]

It's the PV technology, and the storage technology. We don't need it cheaper, we need a less destructive process of creating the cells, and some truly groundbreaking battery technology.

A solar panel which produces for 20 years produces more energy per gram of silicon than is produced per gram of Uranium in a fission reactor and we're not nearly finished with reducing the cost of materials per panel.

As I said before, we have cheap medium term storage (non adiabatic thermal storage). What we lack is cheap storage with good round trip efficiency, if PV gets cheap enough you can just eat the low round trip efficiency.

I think you somehow quoted me but I didn't say that.

 

[Strazdas]

if we assume 20% efficiency of solar panels and account for average sunlight in various places on the world (instead of taking deserts for entire world as too many people do) the entire land surface of earth would not be enough. Solar panels are a deadend technology. unless we magically stop using electricity for everything, they are not and never will be a solution to energy problems. There simply isnt enough sunlight on earth.

I always keep teeling this the people of Prypjat, Futaba and Okuma... somehow they seem not to care, I wonder why that is...

Stupidity. Chernobyl was intentional human medling and perfect storm conditions rolled into one. Not to mention that another chernobyl is literally impossible to to different reaction designs and fuels used. it is literally impossible to cause another explosion like that, even if you tried intentionally. there is no reactor in the world still standing that could do that.

As far as the other two goes, there were 0 deaths from the Fukushima plant emergency. there were thousands of deaths from the tsunami and earthquake that caused fukushima emergency to begin with. even despite fukushima cutting out on saferty features required, it didnt actually do any measurable harm. yet somehow it overshadows the tsunami. if thats not stupid fearmongering i dont know what is.

Right it's not like there is some soil that Japan still needs to figure out where to store because for some reason it is considered hazardous.
Not to mention that 2 cities probably will forever be in a restricted area where the world health organization deems it unhealthy to live in. Pure hyperbole.
I mean what could possible go wrong with a little bit more background radiation? Just look at Hiroshima! It is fine there are certainly no risks to your genome whatsoever.

As you said natural disasters are completely irrelevant. I men how many tornados, earth quakes, volcanic eruptions or hurricanes are there per year? Almost none at all.

I'm all for more nuclear power. Especially when it comes from your backyard.

Cheers!

no, there is no such soil outside of Chernobyl contamination zone.

Yes, Pripyat was relocated along with surrounding area. Oh, you mean the Fukoshima one? theres nothing like that there.
did you really just compare a nuclear bomb (which btw no longer exists, we use hydrogen bombs now, well, have, not use, anyway...) to a nuclear reactor? the two are so different that its not even possible to make/use nuclear reactor fuels for bombs.

Well, where i live there is exactly 0 tornados, earthquakes or volcanos. Nor are there are hurricanes. come, build the plant. oh wait, 3 are already being built around here.

If the entire Earth switched over the nuclear power then we would be out of fuel for it within 15 years. That's what my friend who has a degree in Environmental Science told me at any rate.

Then hes full of shit. we have enough nuclear fuel to last thousands of years even if nuclear was producing all the earths electricity demand. in fact we have so many most areas we know that has it we dont even bother mining because the demand is so small. For example Europe has plenty of Uranium underground but does not mine any of it and instead buys it from Africa since there is so much to go around in Africa and they prefer not have to dig up national forests.

It's really depressing how the nuclear industry's lies have been swallowed so completely that almost everyone seems happy to trot out the lie that nuclear power is so wonderfully cost efficient that we shouldn't even look at these expensive renewable sources.

currently the nuclear plant in my country is producing electricity 3 times cheaper than our wind turbines are. in fact we all are paying subsidies just to keep those turbines around so we could say we have renewable energy there. so yeah, its pretty cost effective in areas that cannot just slap a solar panel in a middle of a desert.

Decommissioning costs for old nuclear power plants are astronomical - I worked on the decommissioning project at Magnox Berkeley for a time, and that place will be incurring costs (at a run rate peaking at around £100m per year and then down to half a million per year for the final stages) until at least 2083. It last generated power in 1989, meaning almost 100 years to shut down and clear the site after switching everything off - and there are some sites with even longer close-outs. The waste produced during its operational life will need safe storage and security for as long as it remains potentially hazardous - and given the fact that if Julius Caesar had had nuclear power, we'd still be managing his nuclear waste today, that's a hella long time!

Thats one outdated plant you have there. normally a shutdown like that is around 20 years. As far as nuclear waste goes, modern reactors produce around a teaspoon per year. so its not like it needs massive storage warehouses.

Take all of the lifetime costs of nuclear power, including the build, decommissioning and waste management and compare them to the actual KWh that are produced, and Nuclear power is actual the least efficient method currently devised - it's not even close! The main reason for nuclear power was because nuclear research, and ready availabilty of uranium and plutonium was required for nuclear weapons. The headline efficiency was trumpetted to the public because having a civilian use in parallel helped sweeten the argument in favour of having the bomb. In a post cold-war world it's a travesty that the arguments for renewable power sources are still tainted by cold war propaganda.

You know, despite the fact that nuclear plants can work for decades, that other plants need as much upgrading as nuclear ones, that nuclear ones are far more safer (which i hear is a factor nowadays), despite its completely enviromentally friendly. but no, you decided its not efficient.

Oh and btw the fuel used in Nuclear power plants cannot be used on nuclear weapons. not since decades ago. in fact the last power plant that could use that was shut down around 5 years ago thanks to the nuclear scare. now instead it was replaced by coal and gas plants. very good choice, ech?

 

[wetfart]

A couple thoughts from a NucE:

INPO and the ANS have stated that, in the United States, nuclear power is not the solution to our energy needs. However, there is no solution without nuclear. A mix of nuclear, solar, wind, natural gas and even fossil fuel is needed. Nuclear is a great way to establish your base load for the power grid. In the PMJ market it was the second cheapest. (Hydro was the cheapest; coal was usually the most expensive) You would then use things like coal or natural gas to load follow.

Reprocessing and MOX fuel are good ways to get more energy out of each bundle created. The biggest issues to that are licensing and training. MOX fuel behaves differently than UOX. Faster periods, different energy spectrums, and all the little goodies that make nuclear utilities not want to rush into them. Also I don't think the NRC has ever allowed anything MOX related besides a few LUAs in the US. Non-proliferation concerns could be addressed by the use of Fast Actinide Burners which also help in reducing the danger of spent fuel.

I would love to see things like the Pebble Bed Reactor and the 4S reactor be explored more. South Africa is still gung-ho on the pebble bed. And I just think the 4S is a neat design with some interesting uses.

Fusion has always been "a few decades away". I'll believe that when I see it.

Solar panels have issues. Photovoltaic cells when created produced some nasty by products that were, in some cases, worse than anything created by fission. Has this been solved? Solar farms need lots of space and the ever wonderful NIMBY is going to lead to transmission losses. What happens at night? Or in places where it's overcast frequently? These are questions that need to be answered and, I'm sure, will be some day.

Interesting tidbit, several of the designers of the RBMK reactors were actually put on trial by the Soviet government for crimes against the state. They were able to successfully defend their design decisions. Take that for what you may but given cold war politics and the Soviet Union's ruthlessness I would say they had a pretty good defense.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

The problem is they are not making solar power effective enough for the average person. We have solar panels for instance, but, the energy from them does not go into our house, but instead into the grid, you only get the effect of they energy from your panel at the lowest rate, so any power you do use over what the panels generate can often cost more (if you go into a higher tier of energy usage, even if it's only during a short period). Power outages still affect you, and you don't gain any money/credit for additional energy that goes into the grid that you don't use.

So even with solar panels, we end up having a 0 balance/cost for most of the year, and then ower a bunch for the summer months (When our air conditioning is going most of the time, pool is powered etc.

What should happen is solar panels should be installed on most houses with a payment schedule that is similar to current power bills (over time you pay it all off and then don't pay any more at all). It should go directly to your house instead of on the grid (with just the excess going to the grid which you get a small credit for, or even possibly get paid for generating energy). If all the homes had solar panels it would probably generate most of the power needed right there (our house only has panels on half of our roof for instance, we could in theory generate enough power to supply 2 homes most of the time (and everything we need during the summer).

They did (possibly still do) have goverment incentive programs to get solar panels installed, but we got ours before they where available, and the other problems with solar panels still exist (Although if we had gotten them isntalled during those programs we probably would have gotten more of them, so we would not owe anything during the summer months either).

Solar panels should be the norm when constructing buildings at this point though. New schools should all have them, new homes/apartments should have them etc. It's crazy that is not the case.

We actually had a program where people would get paid (or get a tax rebate) for the power they supplied through solar panels they installed here in Belgium. It was a way to offset the cost of installing them.

However, this plan backfired immensely. Not so much because of small individual houses installing panels, but because large companies with huge industrial terrains saw this as an opportunity to score big (and they can't really be blamed). It ended up costing the state incredible amounts of money, especially because the grid itself was not capable of supporting the large spikes in power generated through solar energy.

I am very much not convinced about solar power. It's a good way to supplement renewable sources, but pictures like in the OP of whole open areas being filled with solar panels are just horrible ideas imo.

We have so much space in cities and industrial areas that are unused for power generation, yet we destroy nature and open space to install these things.
Finally, a smart grid is the first thing you'd need for something like this to work, along with a change in behaviour from people.

As for the latter part: I'm not convinced anyone will ever succeed in suddenly changing a behaviour. Unless we go into a massive crisis.

 

[Lightknight]

I wonder if they accounted for power loss during transportation of energy?

In any event, while that seems like a small square, what is the price tag? They say "only the size of Spain" but that could also be read like , "ONLY the size of freakin' SPAIN?!!"

While we're at it we might as well affix solar panels like this to space elevators...

 

[Pinky's Brain]

The biggest issues to that are licensing and training.

No one has ran a MOX plant which wasn't a uneconomical, for the moment it makes more sense to just store most of it and only do R&D projects instead of 10 billion dollar boondoggles (same is true for Solar of course).

 

[Pinky's Brain]

if we assume 20% efficiency of solar panels and account for average sunlight in various places on the world (instead of taking deserts for entire world as too many people do) the entire land surface of earth would not be enough.

The topic starter article has calculations, could you show the part where they made the multiple order of magnitude error you are claiming they made?

 

[wetfart]

No one has ran a MOX plant which wasn't a uneconomical, for the moment it makes more sense to just store most of it and only do R&D projects instead of 10 billion dollar boondoggles (same is true for Solar of course).

Duke Energy was looking to move to MOX assemblies in the near future. They started testing LUAs in 2005 and did 3 cycles with them. The LUAs didn't perform as hoped so they're back to redesigning the bundles. Hopefully, a bundle redesign will make MOX more viable.

 

[Made in China]

Plus, solar energy uses up quite a bit of water. Some enviro twats like to make wild claims that Solar uses up 0 water..
But they completely forget that solar panels need to be regularly cleaned. Especially ones in desert areas where there is a lot of dust build up. And most of the water used, is lost through evaporation.
Which yet another strike against solars supposed "greeniness".

It doesn't "use" any water as 100% of the water used to clean it can be recycled, or at the very least recirculated for multiple uses. Just build solar field with a very slight slope (should be a given as long as you're not building it on the equator), flush water from one end and catch it with a drain on the other. Do it once a week/day/whenever and at night to prevent quick evaporation and loss work hours. Ta-da! You've got a solution.

However, the cost of it all does fall under maintenance, which is integral to any power plant. You wouldn't keep a nuclear reactor (or at least the work environment surrounding it) dirty, would you?

 

[Atmos Duality]

A couple thoughts from a NucE:

INPO and the ANS have stated that, in the United States, nuclear power is not the solution to our energy needs. However, there is no solution without nuclear. A mix of nuclear, solar, wind, natural gas and even fossil fuel is needed. Nuclear is a great way to establish your base load for the power grid. In the PMJ market it was the second cheapest. (Hydro was the cheapest; coal was usually the most expensive) You would then use things like coal or natural gas to load follow.

Nuclear is the ideal base because while it's slow to adjust output to load, it's quite efficient (relatively speaking) and stable once it's at critical.

The "pure renewable" generation methods (solar, wind) definitely have their uses, but need on-site storage to level out their "spiky" production patterns. That, and they aren't the most reliable sources, being at the mercy of local weather patterns and geography.

 

[Made in China]

True, that's a good point. Yet from what i can find out about this. None of the ones that operate solar energy plants seem to be doing this. Maybe it's a cost issue of building that extra?

Solar panels for personal use are generally just the "plant" - the cell that produces electricity. How you maintain it - be it rig a water valve and drain or take a damp cloth to it every week - is up to you. If the government were to commission a field of them, automating the maintenance would be a good way to insure they're working properly at low cost.

In any case, i personally like solar energy. It's fairly efficient, clean and easy to implement in various ways. And a good compliment to nuclear.
But i do get annoyed at ones that claim it's "100% renewable" or "zero carbon emissions". And completely ignoring the environmental impact of building and maintaining them.

The general rule with these things is "Cheap, Eco-friendly, Efficient - choose two". It even applies to paper bags as opposed to plastic bags, which are considered less eco-friendly but producing them harms the environment far less than cutting trees for the paper bags.
Point is, if you're looking far enough, everything is harmful the environment. In the case of solar power, which isn't very efficient and not very cheap in the short term, it's all it has going for it. Even the toxic chemicals that are a byproduct of its manufacturing are recyclable, so it's all good. At least until we start infusing cells with uranium for MOAR POWER!!

 

[Almgandi]

Solar panels have issues. Photovoltaic cells when created produced some nasty by products that were, in some cases, worse than anything created by fission. Has this been solved? Solar farms need lots of space and the ever wonderful NIMBY is going to lead to transmission losses. What happens at night? Or in places where it's overcast frequently? These are questions that need to be answered and, I'm sure, will be some day.

Plus, solar energy uses up quite a bit of water. Some enviro twats like to make wild claims that Solar uses up 0 water..
But they completely forget that solar panels need to be regularly cleaned. Especially ones in desert areas where there is a lot of dust build up. And most of the water used, is lost through evaporation.
Which yet another strike against solars supposed "greeniness".

Still tho. I do support the use of solar as a compliment to nuclear energy. As it's still far cleaner than fossil fuels.

Cleaning outside of extreme areas like deserts will actually be very minimal. Due to the angle/position of the panels they will pretty much just clean themselves with the help of rain and whatnot. The only real problem is bird poop and leafs. Besides the removal of poop and leafs panels won't need to be cleaned more than once a year, maybe even only every second year. It is, however, true that solar panels at the moment aren't 100% CO2 free. Transportation + some things used during the production process (chemicals, gases that are created during the process or used for cleaning etc., and of course the emissions of the silicon production/purification) do result in 50-100 g of CO2 / kWh, which ,however, is still alot lower than your average coal fired plant-

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

It seems like a lot of money to spend when nuclear power could supply the most energy hungry nations quickly, efficiently, and at reasonable cost. Solar panels may seem like a renewable energy source, but you still need to *make* the panels, you still need to replace them when they get broken, etc.

It's also somewhat of a joke pretending a solar farm is at all defendable in a warzone, which may leave many parts of the world unable to implement them in the first place due to the difficulty in protecting these assets from sabotage. You can protect a nuclear power plant with a reasonable sized police force. You cannot expect the same of a solar farm.