Solar panels not as green as you think

[Into the Night]

True. Everything is a trade off. Nat. Gas burns cleanly. But fracking for it is as damaging to the environment as drilling for oil.

Drilling for oil is not damaging to the environment and neither is natural gas. Drilling for oil is no different than drilling for anything else, like water.

 

[Into the Night]

And gas uses tremendous energy in the refinement process and then you have to ship it everywhere, using more.

Burning dinosaurs is not a renewable sustainable plan.

Install solar panels and it rains money.

Natural gas does not need refinement. There is NO energy used in the 'refinement' process of natural gas.
Gasoline does not use tremendous energy to distill it out of crude oil.

Neither oil nor natural gas comes from dinosaurs.

If you want to waste your money on solar panels and get your piddle power out of it, that's your business. Do not ask others to pay for it. Do not force others to pay for it.

 

[Into the Night]

Where Poor Richard's math is off is that home solar units only produce when the sun is shining, say about 12 to 14 hours a day.

Less than that. Remember that when the Sun is not at optimum angle or low, production of electricity is likewise reduced.

The rest of the time, the home is powered from the grid, not the solar panels.

Correct. The transfer switch takes care of the details.

Thus if you use say 30 kwh per day then solar only supplies about 15 kwh--give or take-- of that at a rate of around 2 or 3 kw continuous output. Thus, the array you need is for that 2 to say 5 kw output, not an array for producing an entire day's worth of power which would require an array roughly five (5) times larger.

It would also require some sort of ballast. Batteries are the usual method. Not cheap.

 

[Into the Night]

They are difficult to recycle because of the difficulty in separating the various metals and other materials from one and other.

Very few metals in solar panels themselves. They are mostly crystalline silicon. Crunching them up produces expensive sand.
The batteries are typically lithium oxide. No need to separate the metals here. Lithium oxide is just one step away from lithium dioxide, or common lithium ore. The big danger of lithium cells is fire. These things burn like a firework, and you can't put them out with water (its an electrical fire). Large banks of them, such as used as a typical ballasting system for solar panels, is actually pretty dangerous to have in the house.

It may be an "idea" but the reality is that PV cells have a lifetime, just like a battery, and will eventually fail. Right now, the best panels will last about 20 to 25 years and that's about the limit for them. Then it's time to buy more.

The actual lifetime has already been found to be much less than advertised. Remember these systems are affected by poor maintenance, sand, rain, snow, physical damage, plants and leaves, critters and pests, etc.

Solar is stupid. Nuclear backed by natural gas is the way to go.

Solar is stupid. Agreed. It is the most expensive method of generating electrical power, watt for watt, of any method.

Nuclear backed by natural is not the way to go.

Open energy markets are the way to go. Let people (including anyone wanting to build a power plant) buy what they want at market prices. The government has NO business manipulating energy markets. Government manipulation of markets is fascism.

 

[Into the Night]

You didn't bother to look at his link, did you? It clearly states the panels are rated for 140w max power which is NOT the sunlight they receive. I suggest you go look at the technical specs on the link he provided before you make such a clearly wrong claim.

You didn't bother to look at his argument, did you?

You need more than 240 solar panels rated for maximum 140w to power a typical home in the US?

Most sunlight striking a solar panel is reflected away. It is not absorbed by the panel at all.

Now you are just making yourself look really stupid.

Inversion fallacy.

Since the sun isn't at peak angle for 10 hours it makes the numbers even worse for T.A's argument.

You are apparently unaware of T.A's argument. He knows what he is talking about. You don't. You don't even know what he is talking about.

I was giving him the benefit of the doubt on his argument to try to max out what could be produced.

A 140W panel does not produce 140W. It is simply the maximum rating for the device before you destroy it.

Leave it to you to argue that the electrical code is irrelevant in a discussion of electricity.

Never did. Your use of the NEC is inappropriate here. It is a straw man.

Irrelevant. The discussion was about disconnecting from the grid in that T.A was arguing that an attempt to instantly disconnect a solar panel would destroy the panel since it isn't designed for an instant off.

It could very well destroy the panel. Inductive loads are particularly troublesome. These include any motor and even some light switches. The cause is reverse flux that exceeds the zener voltage of the panel. This can permanently destroy the panel.

So, you are agreeing with me that solar panels can be disconnected quickly from the grid without damaging the panels. Thanks for your support.

They can be damaged or even destroyed by disconnecting them quickly from the grid. They can also be damaged or destroy by quickly connecting to the grid.

You might want to check the code for installation before you make your claims.

Irrelevant. Nothing in the NEC changes the behavior of silicon when power spikes are presented to it.

Yes, dust on the panel can reduce the production but for the most part they are glass and have the same qualities as glass.

Panels get sand blasted. They can get covered by dust or debris. Rain, snow, and ice also damage them. Even sunlight damages them over time.

They can be cleaned with water.

Rain is water, and can cause damage. Cleaning them yourself means you have to get up on the roof to do it, and you have to be very careful where you walk.

Leaves blow off quickly in a breeze.

Not if they are needles or wet with rain. You just cannot understand why there are companies out there willing to clean your gutters for you, do you? The same thing happens to solar panels. I've seen them covered with wet leaves that just stick and leave a residue when they do finally rot or blow away, many trees have resin in their leaves that sticks to the panel surface and water will not remove it, the weight of snow can easily crack a panel, hailstorms can easily crack a panel, and critters often eat wiring or build nests on panels blocking them. Some birds will peck at them because they see themselves in the panel. That can crack a panel. A cracked panel is garbage. Moss grows on panels covering them. Mildew can attack associated wiring. Corrosion can easily be an issue.

Current code requires the ability to access each panel so it mandates distances between groups of panels that allow for that.

Specify that code.

It's those bugs that eat glass that really can ruin a solar panel, you know, the silicon based life forms that are so common here on Earth.

Bugs can easily ruin a solar panel or reduce it's output.

Yeah? And? Does that mean panels will be destroyed if they are suddenly disconnected from the grid?

I already said they can be.

I never claimed they worked at night.

True, you just conveniently forgot to account for it. To get power at night, you are going to need some sort of ballasting system. That can be batteries. LiO batteries to store that kind of power are dangerous to have in your home. They are also expensive.

I never claimed the sun was always at optimal angle.

Yes you did. Your math error is based on that.

All I did was claim that a 140w panel can produce 140w and is not restricted to only producing 28 watts at optimal angle.

A 140W panel producing 140W will probably fail in a very short time. These are maximum ratings for the device. Exceeding maximum ratings like this will permanently destroy the panel. Operating at maximum ratings dramatically shortens the life of the device.

 

[Into the Night]

Unless you have a battery system,

Okay. Now you are talking about a ballasting system in the form of batteries. This is a tremendous added expense to the already expensive solar panels. It also presumes you have sufficient panels to produce MORE power than your home is using most of the time to charge the batteries.

yes, your home is powered from the grid when the sun isn't up or if it is cloudy and you aren't producing enough power.

You keep conveniently forgetting that. Your home is powered from whatever coal plant, nuclear plant, natural gas plant, etc. that is provided to the grid.

My math assumed the array was only producing for 10 hours a day.

It is therefore wrong.

If you feel my math is off, please provide your math to correct mine.

RQAA. I already have done this. So has T.A.

Yes. And the other 15kwh is going to the commercial and industrial buildings that need excess power during the day but not at night.

Wups. What are charging those batteries with????

You are assuming an array is based on max usage instead of average usage. If the user uses 30kwh per day then the array is sized to be 30kwh per day.

No, YOU are assuming that. Don't project your problems on someone else.

In your example the array is producing 30kwh for the day. The array owner is using 30kwh for the day. Using 15kwh from the array, sending 15kwh to the grid and receiving 15kwh from the grid. How do you get that the array needs to be 5 times larger? The 30kwh usage and production would be averaged out. Some days the array won't produce 30kwh and some days the user won't need 30kwh so it would be sized up from there to average out over time. The only question is where the excess power goes and where the needed power comes from. But that doesn't really change the way the array is sized.

Did you forget about your ballasting system already??

 

[Into the Night]

For a solar array that runs 10 hours a day and has to produce 30 kwh of power, that array minimally has to be 3 kw in size. 3 kw x 10 hours = 30 kwh. Of course, it really needs to be more like 4 or 5 kw in size due to variations in output. This brings up a second problem with solar. You size for say 5 kw to get the 3 kw like 80% or more of the time, but up to 20% of the time you are producing too much output. Now you need somewhere for that to go...
For residential, that dumping ground is the grid. This problem on a national scale is destroying the German, Polish, French, etc., grid because of Germany's push to use solar. The result is that the Poles and French, in particular, are now working to disconnect from the German grid to make their own grid more stable.

Solar advocates claim that a "smart" grid would fix this problem, but dispatching electricity over really long distances is difficult and often expensive to do. Solar destabilizes large grids. It adds enormous costs in production--like storage, and is horribly inefficient. It's a total loser.

It's rather embarrassing for the Germans. They are sitting on a mountain of coal, but their electrical grid has become unstable.
Much like the SOTC that way. Silicon valley, the 'center of high tech', can't even keep their lights on reliably.

 

[cancel2 2022]

Yes they do. Their production requires the use of energy, such as coal fired plants, which YOU consider toxic waste, they are doped with arsenic (poisonous!), phosphorus (poisonous!), gallium (poisonous!) and other toxic chemicals. They are coated with a plastic, made of oil products. Their wiring uses plastic insulation (oil products). Their circuit boards for their control systems use cupric chloride (a metal salt, which you consider toxic), mercury, epoxies, and of course various dyes.

So you consider discarded panels as 'toxic waste' as well, do you?

Not possible. Solar panels degrade the moment they are exposed to light. They are also exposed to sand, rain, snow, critters, debris, and just plain physical damage. No solar panel lasts forever. If you fail to maintain them, it only shortens the life span dramatically.

America DID design them. It's not possible to produce them here on a practical scale because of eco-laws passed by DEMOCRATS. Those same laws affect all electronics manufacturing, which is why there is so little of it here in the States.

YOU have a defeatist attitude. Laws made by the people YOU support caused production to go off shore.

I just did. You can squarely blame it on the DEMOCRATS.

The worst offenders are the thin film panels used in large scale and industrial applications. They contain many highly toxic chemicals including cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium (gallium) diselenide (CIS or CIGS).

 

[cancel2 2022]

A solar panel got busted spilling sunlight all over the place. Who will clean it up?

Typically stupid remark from a fool.

 

[Sailor]

They don't recycle.

Sure they do. Here is one link, not hard to find many others: https://news.energysage.com/recycling-solar-panels/

 

[Micawber]

Nuclear power to replace computer monitors and flatscreen TVs It's the next new GOP thing!!!!!

 

[Micawber]

It's rather embarrassing for the Germans. They are sitting on a mountain of coal, but their electrical grid has become unstable.
Much like the SOTC that way. Silicon valley, the 'center of high tech', can't even keep their lights on reliably.

STFU you dolt. All this beautiful science going on in the world and muttonheads like you and Primaassstank spouting off
as if you know anything at all or as if anyone cares what the fuck an embarrassing social misfit addicted kook thinks.

 

[Nordberg]

The technology is getting better and better. The future is in alternative energy. Staying with coal will put us way behind and not a future commercial power.

 

[Sailor]

The technology is getting better and better. The future is in alternative energy. Staying with coal will put us way behind and not a future commercial power.

Yawn. If anyone wants to hear you advice on anything they will ask about your expertise on welfare benefits. STFU idiot.

 

[Monad Portal]

The technology is getting better and better. The future is in alternative energy. Staying with coal will put us way behind and not a future commercial power.

bubble crafting, fascism, and scams.. solyndra?

 

[Monad Portal]

STFU you dolt. All this beautiful science going on in the world and muttonheads like you and Primaassstank spouting off
as if you know anything at all or as if anyone cares what the fuck an embarrassing social misfit addicted kook thinks.

corporate scam.

 

[Bulletbob]

The problem with that argument is that solar panels only require energy when they are built. Then they produce power for the next 20-30 years with no emissions.

That is unlike fossil fuels that produce emissions when drilled/mined and then produce emissions when used and then have to be replaced every time they are used with new fossil fuels that produce emissions.

Solar panels - 1 month of emissions when produced.
Fossil fuels - 360 month of emissions.

No one is saying solar panels have no impact. It is just obvious to anyone with a brain that they have less of an impact than fossil fuels.

I doubt you will get much out of solar panels at the 30 year mark if they still work, they decrease in efficiency at least 10 percent or more after 1 decade and even more after that.
tHE AVERAGE HOME NEEDS 23 KV ELC A DAY THAT. with A SMALL RESERVE THATS 4 TELSA POWER WALLS ABOUT 40,000 INSTALLED, AND OF COURSE YOU NEED TO ADD IN SOLAR PANELS TO THAT. yOU WOULD NEED AT LEAST 40 KV OF SOLAR PANELS TO KEEP YOU CHARGED AND RUNNING THATS GOING TO RUN YOU 40 G OR MORE.

iT TAKES A LOT OF SOLAR AND WIND PRODUCTION TO POWER A HOUSE . iT WILL WEAR OUT , A GOOD SYSTEM WITH PLENTY OF POWER WILL COST YOU AT LEAST 80 G .

untilL THE BATTERY TECHNOLOGY AND PANEL TEC CATCH UP SOLAR IS REALLY ONLY GOOD FOR BACKING UP A HOUSES POWER TO EMERGENCY LEVELS NOT 100 PERCENT USE. YOU NEED A LOT OF SPACE FOR A 40 KV SOLAR SYSTEM .iTS A VERY GOOD THINK FOR NEW BUILDS AS YOU CAN GET A TELSA SOLAR ROOF FAIRLY CHEEP ON A NEW BUILD .

 

[Poor Richard Saunders]

I doubt you will get much out of solar panels at the 30 year mark if they still work, they decrease in efficiency at least 10 percent or more after 1 decade and even more after that.
tHE AVERAGE HOME NEEDS 23 KV ELC A DAY THAT. with A SMALL RESERVE THATS 4 TELSA POWER WALLS ABOUT 40,000 INSTALLED, AND OF COURSE YOU NEED TO ADD IN SOLAR PANELS TO THAT. yOU WOULD NEED AT LEAST 40 KV OF SOLAR PANELS TO KEEP YOU CHARGED AND RUNNING THATS GOING TO RUN YOU 40 G OR MORE.

iT TAKES A LOT OF SOLAR AND WIND PRODUCTION TO POWER A HOUSE . iT WILL WEAR OUT , A GOOD SYSTEM WITH PLENTY OF POWER WILL COST YOU AT LEAST 80 G .

untilL THE BATTERY TECHNOLOGY AND PANEL TEC CATCH UP SOLAR IS REALLY ONLY GOOD FOR BACKING UP A HOUSES POWER TO EMERGENCY LEVELS NOT 100 PERCENT USE. YOU NEED A LOT OF SPACE FOR A 40 KV SOLAR SYSTEM .iTS A VERY GOOD THINK FOR NEW BUILDS AS YOU CAN GET A TELSA SOLAR ROOF FAIRLY CHEEP ON A NEW BUILD .

You did make me laugh BB. I'm sure ItN and T.A. will be along shortly to correct your idiocy in not knowing the basics of electricity.


But in case they don't show up -
The majority of the homes in the US are not wired for anything more than .22KV (220 volts). A single solar panel with the right buck boost transformer would be able to give you 23KV but it really wouldn't do you much good since nothing in your home is rated for anything over .6KV and the amperage would be extremely low. Power isn't voltage.

 

[Nordberg]

Yawn. If anyone wants to hear you advice on anything they will ask about your expertise on welfare benefits. STFU idiot.

What is wrong with you? You just type insulting and stupid things over and over. I do not want to sink to your level on a debate board. You make it into a childish insult board. Do you think you are adding anything to the topics? I assure you, you are not. Try and do better.

 

[Bulletbob]

You did make me laugh BB. I'm sure ItN and T.A. will be along shortly to correct your idiocy in not knowing the basics of electricity.


But in case they don't show up -
The majority of the homes in the US are not wired for anything more than .22KV (220 volts). A single solar panel with the right buck boost transformer would be able to give you 23KV but it really wouldn't do you much good since nothing in your home is rated for anything over .6KV and the amperage would be extremely low. Power isn't voltage.

Your the one who dont know much dumb ass .
The average 2000 st home in america uses 32 kv of elc a day .
That means to your solar panels have to produce more then 32 kv. Enough to cover use and charging.
So 8n reality to have 100 percent solar power say 40 kv or 40000 watts . 1 kv is 1000 watta.
You assumption that 1 aolar panel is capable of proving that kind of energy is pure stupidy. .
Most homes in the us can use thier roofs but your not going to produce 40000 watts aka 40 kv on a 2000 sq ft roof.
You forget that home solar systems are 12 volt and rated in watts. 1 kv is 1000 watts.
You need a good bit of solar panels to generate this. My home is 2500 sq foot and wont provide enouh room.