 |
|
|
|
 |
DaveSZ
When The Levee Breaks

Registered: Jan 2003
Location: ATX
|
|
|
Dec-22-2003 06:25
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
DrUg_Tit0
e^(i*pi)+1=0

Registered: Nov 2002
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
|
|
|
| quote: | Originally posted by rizen
only if we may stick the waste in your backyard  |
No problem, as long as you put it in safe containers. Besides, I'm sure some middle eastern governments or terrorist networks might be interested in it.
Although solar power is gay and hippieish, the tower is really big and made up from lots of concrete and steel, so I guess that's not such a bad thing after all. On a more serious note, it's an interesting and clean, but somewhat inefficient project that can work only in countries with a lot of sunshine.
Now, the problem with solar panels is that you need sunny weather to operate them. Same works for the solar tower mentioned above. So it's a technology that can well be used in places like Australia, Nevada, or Sahara, but not in many other places. The biggest problem with solar panels is that they're fairly inefficient. They use up only 15-20% of the radiation they receive. Now, considering that the solar constant is 1.37kW/m^2 (but because of the atmosphere on the earth it's about 900W/m^2), a 1m^2 solar panel gives us only about 135-180W on a sunny day. Now, an average home needs several kW of power. Let's say you need the average power of 4kW to have all the electrical appliances and lightbulbs function perfectly. For everything to function properly, we need to take into consideration the worst case scenario, and that is the winter period. Let's take an average country, like Germany or Japan, where we can assume that most of the winter months are cloudy. Cloudy weather reduces the solar panel output by around 50%. Now, we must also assume that about half of the 24 hour period is night. So the effective power output during winter from a solar panel is a quarter of the power output that panel makes on a sunny day, and it's about 34W/m^2. The proposed solar panels convert only 10% of solar power to electricity, so their power output would be about 22.5W/m^2. Now, to get to our desired 4kW average, we'd need 178m^2 of those solar panels. Not to mention that you need to have some pretty powerful batteries installed which store the energy collected during the day to be able to use the electric current during the night. All things considered, the technology is good if you live on a huge farm with 2km^2 of land, but it's useless in cities and towns.
___________________
1+1=10
|
|
Dec-23-2003 00:28
|
|
|
 |
All times are GMT. The time now is 16:49.
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
Contact Us - return to tranceaddict
Powered by: Trance Music & vBulletin Forums
Copyright ©2000-2026, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Privacy Statement / DMCA
|