Envision a best case scenario where all the stars line up, politically, financially, and socially to implement solar power on a mass scale. We start a mahanttan-like project(10% of GDP) to install solar on all residential homes and buildings and parking lots. How long would it take with existing technologies and manufacturing capacity to install the equivalent of 2 kWH worth of panels per person in the US?
At current prices, that wouldn't even take 10% of one year's GDP. That's 2x10^3 watts x 3x10^8 people x $2/watt (wholesale) = 1.2x10^12 dollars or $1.2 trillion. Our 2007 GDP was just under $14 trillion. At an average of (say) 6 peak hours of light per day (put them in the desert), that would displace roughly 25% of US electrical generation. I think. At present, I think we have domestic manufacturing capacity of around 1GW of solar per year, but that changes rapidly, so that figure would be out of date. So we'd have to manufacture 600 year's worth of solar cells, based on current capacity, or increase current capacity 60-fold if we wanted to do this in a decade. Or get 60 printing presses like the one Nanosolar just announced they had up and running, and run them for a decade. So, obviously we'd run out of everything in a hurry. Silicon-based panels would not be possible in that quantity, based on current market conditions. It would have to be something else, like the Nanosolar process (gallium not silicon). I've often thought that if I ran the world, and we were desperate enough, I'd write a blank check to Nanosolar, expropriate their process and patent via eminent domain, and pay to have N (eg 60) of those plants put up ASAP along with materials processing factors to supply the raw materials. Plus, those guys were talking $0.25/watt instead of $2.50/watt for conventional panels. If so, we'd be talking about something like 1% of one year's GDP, not 10%. Or, if you will, 0.1% of GDP for the 10 year period it would take to make this happen. So, screw silicon, write a blank check to the founders of Nanosolar to build and run 60 of their printing presses. Hey presto, 10 years later we'd be done, and if their original cost estimates were anywhere near correct, it would cost about 1% of one year's GDP, or 0.1% of the decade's GDP. (Well, 2% -- one for the panels, one for the install and modifications to the grid to handle the solar power). Assuming you could get enough gallium arsenide (?) to make them. This is what irks me when people say we can't do anything about greenhouse gas emissions. I can understand "won't", I can even understand "shouldn't" (though I strongly disagree), but "can't" is clearly wrong, at least from a purely technical perspective. Perhaps our society and government are not up the the challenge of making that change, but our engineering certainly is.
I never new Gillium was such a neat metal. I would hate to get a handful of that stuff near my prius So... honestly. what would it take to get this done? everyone writing and hoping our legal system helps out? don't forget.. bush just put a stop to new large scale solar projects...
With a 3.3 kWh system, that provides 80% of our household needs for 4 people. Sounds like the math is in the ball park, however, how long would it take to the "printing presses" going and how long dig the material? Could we get that kind of production capacity going in 2 years if we put our minds to it?
Bush is an a-hole and mostly CLUELESS, and his legacy will be four things: 1. He started a needless WAR to keep oil prices low, for his oil buddies, he ended up killing many brave americans for NOTHING 2. It didn't work out, and oil is now THREE times the price it was when he took office 3. He tried to kill large scale PV projects 4. He killed, mangled, and mutilated out economy by all of his dumb decisions The next president is going to have to reverse ALL of that a-holes decisions. I hope GWB gets brain cancer and DIES!
lads, just to be picky, it's a 2kW or 3.3kW system. The kilowatt hour part comes when you actually deploy the system. Chogan, the other thing that could be done is build a large number of CSP plants, which wouldn't require the exotic materials. I would guess that we could build far more silicon cells than CIGS cells, which is what Nanosolar's printable cells are, I believe. Cost would be higher until shortages of gallium et al drive the price way up. The jury's still out on Nanosolar and we don't know (I think) how durable the cells would be, so that's a possible issue. CSP and PV are both essential for the future, along with the other renewables, so I think any kinda manhattan project should be obliged to implement several solutions instead of focusing on a particular technology.
The answer to much of this discussion is efficiency and conservation. It makes no sense to "go get more" if we don't use what we already have efficiently. Wind may be intermittent, but properly constructed buildings (schools, businesses, churches, homes) with a large thermal mass (specific heat) factor overcome much of the fear factor when a turbine is not spinning. Many alternatives are already in practice: geothermal storage (at the individual home level) in extreme cold and warm climates to store and retrieve warmth and coolth. See: Johnston, D. & Gibson, S. (2008). Green from the Ground Up. Newtown CT: Taunton Press. (sustainable, healthy & energy efficient construction).
Thanks for pointing out the oversight. That's what you get when one's last physics class was over 18 years ago. Personally, I think when considering massive scalable solar technologies, CSPs is the one financially most feasible. How much of our deserts would we need to cover up though and what environmental impact if any would there be? I'd surmise much less than fossil fuels, nuclear, and even wind. With CSPs you'd cover habitat, but would you really be destroying it? The attractive thing about solar, is that you would cover roofs which wouldn't impact the environment any more than the original roof was already doing. Yes of course conservation is a key component. I was thinking of replacing existing energy capacities as opposed adding on to existing energy capacities.
