Fuel Frenzy

Never forget the Sun is the source of almost all energy available on earth past, present and future!

Hydro Power - Raised water results from water moved around the earth by weather all powered by the sun.

Wind Power - The sun is the source of all movement in the atmosphere making wind power possible.

Fossile Fuel -Solar energy via photosynthesis produces food, wood and the biomass from which all fossil fuels (past, present and future) are derived.

How much Solar Power is available?

The Solar Constant is the amount of solar energy that has radiated from the Sun and is available in space at the Earth's distance from the Sun, before it gets into the Earth's atmosphere. That amount is 1,353 Watts/sq. meter or 429.7 Btu/sq. ft./hour, which is called the Solar Constant. This is the maximum available energy available from the sun on earth.

From here it only gets worse.

The atmosphere absorbs about 20% of that total and another almost 50% gets reflected back into space by clouds leaving us with about 130 BTU/sqft/hour or about 400 Watts/sq. meter

Speak to or read about someone or a family that has gone Off-Grid and 100% Solar. They either spent $200,000 to get $1200 worth of electricity each year or they are living somewhat like Abe Lincoln. Picture the family at night gathered around the 20 watt compact fluorescent light reading. OK kids now speed up that reading the batteries will be dead in 40 minutes.

Yes, electricity can be made via solar power but it is still very expensive.

Two major problems are:

1. Cost - around $5 per watt

2. Energy Storage - for power use at night.

My hat is off to anyone using Solar Power today either Solar Photovoltaic to make electricity or Solar Thermal to heat water or air. They are leading us a small step in a good direction.

The problem is the numbers just do not support this grand Solar picture.

For example Florida Power and Light announced in mid 2008 the building of a $70 million - 10 MW Solar facility at the Kennedy Space Center.
From their own info they expect to get enough power for 1100 homes. That is about $63,000 per household or if looked at over 20 years about $3000/year/house. That is very expensive electricity! Now I suspect they forgot to mention that this power is only available during the day and only on days when it is not to cloudy!! If that is the case you can easily double the cost per house!

Solar - $70,000,000 for 10MW or $7,000,000/MW
at this rate a 1150MW Nuke plant would cost about $8 Billion and it even makes power at night!
BTW - A 1000MW Nuke is estimated to cost around $5 Billion.

A noble effort and I am glad to see someone exploring this area but it is very costly.

Solar Thermal

I live in Florida and cannot believe we are not using Solar Power to heat our hot water. Very easy tech and not to costly but we are so attached to the cheap and simple installation of electric or gas hot water when building that we continue to ignore the Solar option.
In Florida there is large scale use of Solar Power as pool heaters, but there are still many heated pools using gas.