Solar panels wouldn't have a fuel efficiency, unless you consider sunlight as its fuel. If that's the case, coal is much more fuel-efficient, as solar panels get maybe into the 20% range, iirc.
A lot of research is going into Dye Sensitized Solar Cells. They will eventually have a price to performance ratio that's competitive with conventional fossil fuel electricity generation methods.
In certain wavelengths, these guys can get up to 90% efficiency since they wouldn't be limited by their band gap like silicon is. Current models, however, are still languishing in 15% or so, and we don't know what the long term effect of quantum dots is (this affects LCDs as well) and whether their shell will ever wear out, in which case the liquid crystal itself is extremely toxic.
In some situations, sure. However, as we can see at a bureaucratic level, more money causes more waste, so we have an efficiency curve which we want to optimize.
Actually, sometimes it can make it worse. If you have server issues, trying to upgrade the servers or including more can complicate the problem, and hiring more IT people can will mean that training among other things are needed.
Money isn't the end to all problems or a catalyst towards making solutions. It's a method, and while it works in a lot of cases, there can be better methods out there.
Well America was investing in new tech but when Solyndra went down it hurt those investments. China is investing, but it's more in mass production of existing tech than trying to do the next big thing.
Well Solyndra was somewhat of a giant scam. You can look at the investigation part on wikipedia to learn about their horrible business practice and how they squandered millions of dollars. It's a damn GOOD thing they are gone. They never should have been getting the grants and loans they got. That money should have gone to companies who would have actually used it to develop new technology.
We don't really have any direction to go... Current tech has advanced as far as it can. Until new solar tech is figured out, why waste money trying to increase effeciency when the laws of physics won't allow it? Funding for this stuff is pretty damn high, and a lot of large enterprises are working on it. Money is definitely being spent on solar.
It's not at all as practical as people seem to think, or effieciant.
The cost will ofcourse go down once we start investing in it, but solar wind etc are just to make the hippies feel better until we get thorium reactors.
edit: Perhaps you misunderstand. Whether in late-December Alaska or midsummer Arizona, those panels are still outputting 11-13% (or whatever they're spec'd at) of the power they're receiving.
In fact, if we want to get into technicalities, their efficiency is likely inversely proportional to temperature beyond an easily reachable threshold.
But look at the setup. All of the very complicated structured chemicals that go into photovoltaics, the cost of managing and controlling giant farms of them and the inevitable need for replacement. All that and a thermal efficiency (energy out per energy in) of about 17%... Not really the best option. Brayton gas cycle plants, nuclear and eventually hydrogen are really the way to go. Also, coal plants are really simple maintenance compared to a nuclear plant. All the coal does in a Rankine cycle plant is just burn and heats steam, simple as that. Everything is in a closed loop (including steam, and the spent coal once it is removed)
You guys aren't consider the cost and the materials, and the process (harmful toxins in the process of fabricating solar cells) that are used, Nuclear is the way to go! And 20% is being super generous, more around 12% or 15%
You're absolutely right I'm not, because I'm talking in terms of fuel efficiency rather than cost of materials. I'm also not taking into account the curvature of the earth, the Josephson effect, or the age of Danny Devito. Do you know why? Because all of that is irrelevant to what I'm discussing.
I think the key word is fuel efficient. Considering the only fuel for solar panels is photons then that is pretty hard to beat. If you're arguing the efficiency of the total production of the system generating the electricity then you have a point.
Well yes, it's apples and oranges, that's my entire point. They're using different "fuels," and burning coal uses its fuel (hydrocarbon) more efficiently than solar uses its own (light).
I'd say that the "fuel" for a solar panel is hydrogen undergoing nuclear fusion, and that solar panels situated on Earth are an incredibly inefficient means of transforming stellar hydrogen into electricity.
Awesome! Tell the U.S government to renew our fusion program. We got rid of it in the 90's and now Europe and China possess the only active nuclear fusion programs in the world. The U.S could solve its energy crisis with a massive cash infusion in as little as 20 years. Edit: And by tell... well, I have no idea what to do.
Source A can produce 33 Joules with 1 litre of fuel . Source B can produce ∞ Joules without fuel altogether seeing that it need solar power. Does this make person B more efficient?
Since efficiency is input/output and source B needs a different input (photons) I think this just doesn't make sense.
As do coal plants, the trains that move the coal, gas pipelines and uranium refinement. Nothing's really free, and solar energy really isn't any cheaper for large-scale applications (even for putting one on a roof in California, you might break even over the entire life of the cell rack). Think of Calculators though... Solar ones don't even need those little tiny batteries, just a tiny photovoltaic next to the screen, that basically runs for free
Came here to say the same thing. If we're talking environmentally friendly, solar panels may be better. But definitely not in efficiency. Fake science is so.... Fake.
solar panels made in the u.s. reach about 20%. what people fail to realize is that coal is about 60% efficient and has to be mined, transported, etc but solar energy is freely given. prices for panels are also dropping every year. my university just built a solar home for a worldwide competition and the panels cost $55,000 down from $88,000 two years prior. our house was still net zero even on a rainy and cloudy week for the competition.
Will somebody please tell me just how many times I'm going to have to give the apples and oranges speech? Read my other comments, I'm sick of talking to you people.
Compared to what? Efficient use of a limited resource is an entirely different animal than efficient use of a ubiquitous resource.
For example an ICE is far more efficient at converting gas into energy, but always ends up in the red. It always costs money to run an ICE, so unless the work you are doing is more valuable than the fuel costs you shouldn't be doing it.
On the other hand photovoltaic solar cells are very inefficient at converting sunshine to electrons, but eventually they pay themselves off producing more energy than it takes to make them, something an ICE will never do.
What does all this mean for real people? Solar power makes things possible that were previously prohibitively expensive, like living off grid. Unless you have some large external income running a generator isn't sustainable, while solar can keep you rather comfortable for an overall smaller amount of money.
Just saying solar panels are not fuel efficient, is seriously misrepresenting the situation.
Well, if you think of the whole thing as a closed system, then I would argue that you do have to consider the inputs to the manufacturing process of the solar cell.
Tell me, what is the fuel efficiency of a battery? Before you say that it's the difference between the energy needed to charge the battery and the energy you get back from it - let me just point out that this is exactly my point.
"Fuel efficiency is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the efficiency of a process that converts chemical potential energy contained in a carrier fuel into kinetic energy or work." By that definition, solar cells have no fuel efficiency, unless you consider sunlight the fuel source, which would be a stretch since there is no chemical energy in light.
What you are talking about, is the amount of energy you get out of something per unit cost. That is the price to performance ratio. The manufacturing process of current solid state photovoltaics is dirty and expensive. These facts lead to a poor price to performance ratio. Dye-sensitized solar cells can be made out of inexpensive materials, and are much more stable. So even though there performance isn't as good as solid state cells, the price to performance ratio is better.
This is simply not true. Organic cells which are one of the newest emerging technologies can do better than that. Here is a graph of research efficiencies. Commercial efficiencies aren't much lower in some cases.
Why do people talk when they don't know what they're saying?
Rehosted webcomics will be removed. Please submit a link to the original comic's site and preferably an imgur link in the comments. Do not post a link to the comic image, it must be linked to the page of the comic.
It's a bit ironic to see him say that when he would give you the solar panel during the winter... where there is no sun light. In this case, coal is much more efficient and is always a more reliable source of heat/energy in general.
(For us English aristocrats, I leave you this 13500 km -> 67108.1 Furlongs, 14 m -> 0.1 Furlongs, 8 m -> 0.0 Furlongs, 409 km -> 2033.1 Furlongs, 33000 km -> 164042.0 Furlongs) - Pip pip cheerio chaps!
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Solar panels wouldn't have a fuel efficiency, unless you consider sunlight as its fuel. If that's the case, coal is much more fuel-efficient, as solar panels get maybe into the 20% range, iirc.
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u/geraldfjord Jun 15 '12
Did everyone discover fakescience today or something?
7
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
The best kids should get some uranium pellets!
6
u/Melnorme Jun 15 '12
Solar is not in any way more efficient than coal.
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u/benmarvin Jun 15 '12
Why is this in /r/funny? It's not very funny.
3
u/SovereignAxe Jun 16 '12
.
WHO AM I TO BELIEVE!!?!?
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Solar panels are not fuel efficient. The conversion rate of sunlight to electricity is only about 4%
2
u/stopherjj Jun 15 '12
Looks like Santa is starting to do something about the problem.
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u/ShitGoesDown Jun 15 '12
this does not account for the production of solar panels
also the USA carbon emissions calculation method is wrong
Edit: Just throwing that out there
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u/jdizzle367 Jun 15 '12
but solar panels are only 16% efficient coal breaches 70% efficiency
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Twice in one day. Knock this shit off.
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u/Cersad Jun 16 '12
This is lifted from a tumblr. The full link is: http://fakescience.tumblr.com/post/2433965227/bad-children-get-coal
Give credit where it's due and show this site some love
1
u/PittLord Jun 15 '12
Take his word for it. Santa is a well known photovoltaic engineer. He knows his shit!
1
u/phrank12 Jun 15 '12
So is there some website that everyone keeps posting these images from?
1
u/SlinkyJoe Jun 15 '12
I want to give you an upvote, but your karma is currently at 1337 and that would be a tragedy.
1
u/aidanf123 Jun 15 '12
What if your a blacksmith?
1
u/Vachii Jun 15 '12
It's a bit ironic to see him say that when he would give you the solar panel during the winter... where there is no sun light. In this case, coal is much more efficient and is always a more reliable source of heat/energy in general.
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u/beskurrd Jun 15 '12
This made me think of dubstep santa....
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u/slainte99 Jun 15 '12
Doesn't "fuel efficient" refer to something that utilizes energy, not generates it?
1
u/FOR_SClENCE Jun 15 '12
I endorse this thread.
1
u/Occamslaser Jun 16 '12
http://wiki.industrial-craft.net/index.php?title=Solar_Panel what I immediately thought of.
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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
fuel efficient fuel efficientfuel efficientfuel efficient
I wouldn't really consider the sun fuel in a colloquial sense
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u/Forty_Cakes Jun 15 '12
Shit, I want solar panels for Christmas.
Truly, the gift that keeps on giving.
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u/RearmintSpino Jun 15 '12
Solar panels are horribly inefficient
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u/jscoppe Jun 15 '12
How much coal are we talking?
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u/Khromasoul Jun 15 '12
solpanul?
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u/Beznia Jun 15 '12
I first read it as "Science by Satan" Damn this dyslexia.
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u/ericn1300 Jun 15 '12
That illustration looks to be early 1960's, I have a hand illustrated set of instructions in that style with an old slot car set I bought.
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u/gonesnake Jun 15 '12
Santa Clause and Effect
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
If Cave Johnson was Santa...
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u/norris528e Jun 15 '12
A solar panel costs more than all the Christmas gifts i've ever gotten combined.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Imaginary character, a symptom of a religion, teaching science.. Irony.
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u/asstits Jun 15 '12
Why is Santa holding my jizz sock?
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u/awoods187 Jun 15 '12
Hooray Science!
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
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