SOLAR ENERGY – 5 REASONS why it won’t solve Global Warming [2019]
Alternative Energy Tags: 2019, Energy, global, REASONS, Solar, solve, Warming, won’tNo Comments »
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SOLAR ENERGY – 5 REASONS why it won’t solve Global Warming [2019]
Why we NEED to rethink SOLAR ENERGY – About two years ago Elon Musk made a claimed that the number of solar panels that we would need was a blue square on a map.
There was no further information as to the area that he was referring to, so in this video I will show and how that is not possible by extrapolating things a little bit.
Slowly we are realizing that Solar can only contribute to a small part of what we need to achieve in the near future.
Here is the what we have to consider, and it will always be a problem. Solar panels are dependent on weather. Depending on where you are located on earth, the amount of sunlight available will differ, but what most people don’t know is that the solar energy available is actually less than sunlight hours.
This means that even though at the equator you would have about 16 hours of sunlight at the best time of the year, the actual hours that can be used with the Solar Panels is a bit less, or about 12 hours. (Need to verify this)
And the further away from the equator line you go in terms of latitude, the less Sun energy you will have available.
So, what does this translates to?
The best solar panels you can buy today has an optimal sunlight conversion in between 20% to 30% at best. To make calculations easier, we will use the 250 watts output.
The power per area unit of the sun is about 1kW/m2, but that varies through the year.
We can draw the solar panel efficiency throughout the day like this.
• Chart with solar panel efficiency throughout the day Rotating earth
• Next slide, solar panel angle
Next, what we have to consider is that for the panel to drawn the most energy possible, or to be the most efficient, the panel has to always be perpendicular to the sun however, in normal households, by putting panels on the roof tops, that is not viable, so in most houses the panels will never be flat facing the sun at all times.
Since most houses do not possess flat rooftops, you know what that means. The efficient drops throughout the day, which is ranges in between 5% and 15%.
As you can see, the solar panel will not be converting 250 watts all the time and at winter times, it drops significantly.
And all of this is to provide energy for you, only during the day if you don’t have any batteries to store the energy. Even if you buy a tesla power wall, the maximum number of hours that you will have available is about maybe 8 hours at best with one of them.
Yes, this is good for anyone going off-grid, but as you will see next, houses are only a tiny part of the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_area
https://www.statista.com/statistics/222066/projected-global-energy-consumption-by-source/
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec2_3.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#/media/File:Insolation.png
NOTE: The animations in my videos take a substantial amount of time to make, so please be patient. I am trying to get a video per week, but some times it takes longer.
