Back of the envelope: is solar power feasible?
Dr Buzzo has some interesting back of the envelope calculations concerning localised solar power generation. This kind of localised, renewable energy generation, is something that Greenpeace are pretty hot on:
Day by day the sun supplies 15,000 times the amount of the daily energy-demand of the total global population. In less than 30 minutes the sun sends more energy to our planet than is consumed in a whole year.
This certainly looks promising. Dr Buzzo looks at it from the other direction, by taking available data on the amount of solar energy available, the efficiency of solar panels etc, and looking at how much energy could be generated in his native Connecticut:
Reasonably speaking I’d want a while lot more than that to power my computer, refrigerator, air conditioner and so on. And yes, I have an air conditioner. More likely I’d want to have an average of at least 8 kilowatt hours per day. Therefore I’d need at least 16 square meters of solar cells to assure I have a more reasonable amount of avaliable energy. That’s a four by four meter square. (just over 13 feet for those of us who think in terms of feet).
Interesting stuff - it remains to be seen if these sort of solar panels are economically feasible though…
[story from Depleted Cranium][additional material from Greenpeace International][image from Schwarzerkater on flickr]
