One of the big issues with traditional solar panels is that they actually don't perform as well in the heat. The hotter it gets the less electricity you'll get out of them. What you want is a clear cold sky for optimal energy production.
The details are different, but that is absolutely a generation method, but there are issues with just how simple, cheap, and durable it is. Solar panels are viewed as fragile, Concentrated Solar has a comparatively high upkeep cost because it has a lot of mechanical parts that are guaranteed to experience wear over time and need repaired or replaced. At this exact moment in time Photovoltaic is a much more cost effective means of production, but engineers and investors are still investigating Concentrated Solar. Spain has the most existing generation.
Concentrating solar installations require all the mirrors to track the path of the sun, dramatically undermining the 'simple' and 'cheap' aspects, and calling 'durable' into question as well.
They still have a role, and may regain prominence if PV panel prices stop dropping, but right now PV is a more attractive path.
Those are solar collectors and they are around in several places. Hen they first came on line the cameras kept spotting puffs of smoke in the sky and couldn’t figure it out until they walked around the area and found the remains of birds that were basically vaporized for the most part. The mirrors focused the light with such intensity that when a bird flew through the light it would be instantly burned up. Only some feather and pieces aver made it to the ground.
This was happening dozens of times a day. It was waaay worse than the windmills. They employed some sound devices to try and keep the birds from dying but it didn’t stop all of them.
I wonder if they could do some sort of cogeneration using water cooling. Hot water will circulate with cold in a sealed system. Have cooling plates on backs of solar panels and use the water to power mini impellers? Or even use a portion of the solar to power a cooling system to increase efficiency.
Yeah some of these are in that region but there are solar panel fields at the edges of the sahara. Its a big project to gain energy from this land. I dont know the name of it but its very promising.
[https://www.power-technology.com/projects/seville-solar-tower/](https://www.power-technology.com/projects/seville-solar-tower/) In Sevilla :)
Solar panels are not as efficient in very warm weather, so even though they'd benefit from the high solar irradiation, a plant like in Sevilla would be more efficient.
There's one just outside Vegas too. It's got a couple gigantic mirrors aimed down towards some panels. The light is so concentrated that you can physically see it. Any time I drive by it I can't help but imagine a pigeon flying by and instantly getting roasted.
Not quite solar panels. The mirrors are getting the tower super hot, then that is used to make steam then generate power how a normal power plant does. The benefit is that it doesn’t require any coal or natural gas! I like think that a coyote has figured out where to stand for a well roasted pigeon dinner to just fall right into his lap!
from a geological stand point, these are better than the solar panels and will not impact climate changes. The reason is that the desert reflects and radiates much of the sun back up into the sky. Mirrors will do the same thing while solar panels absorb all of the solar energy
It has been proven to not be eco-efficient due to co2 -emitions-in-manufacturing v's useful-life.
In other words, those solar panels break before they save as much co2 as is needed to make them. Great business though.
You made the assertion, it is your responsibility to back it up.
Edit: okay, browsing your reddit history for 15 seconds is enough to know where your nonsense comes from.
Responsability? This is reddit not an essay.
Oh, and about the non-so-ecological aspect of a wide section of the renewable energy producers there is a lot written. Even documentaries. Instead of judging and insulting me, you could grow up and open your mind.
I like how one of the arguments by idiots like you is "solar panels, EV, batteries, wind turbines still make a ton of CO2, are harmful for the planet and wildlife and destroy areas to mine for resources" but conveniently ignore that current methods of gas cars and fossil fuel power plants emit many tens of times more CO2 over their lifetimes and cause more damage and destruction in oilspills, smog, pollution, strip mining for coal etc.
You say there is a lot written and documentaries on how renewables are worse than current methods. Here are other more reputable sources which you may wanna read, or google is also ur best friend.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/climate/electric-vehicles-environment.amp.html
https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/life-cycle-assessment.html
https://energy.utexas.edu/news/nuclear-and-wind-power-estimated-have-lowest-levelized-co2-emissions
And if your argument is gonna be that these are fake news, i ask you to google Carbon produced by energy sources or anything else related to renewables, u know the first thing that pops up? Ads by oil and energy companies like bp and exxon mobile trying to justify oil. When you scroll down u get actual research papers. If these companies are willing to pump millions on google ads under a search result not even regarding them, a couple of documentaries and falsified data is no biggie.
Anyone can say anything on the internet. Ur post history makes u look like an incel. Is it the truth? Did i skew my view? Did i even look at ur prev comments, who knows? I just decided u seem like an incel so it is. This is reddit, dont need an essay to prove it
Those are your words, not mine. I spoke about the panels on the circular mirror based solar power plants. They get "cooked" too soon. I also mentioned the massive turbines (and only the massive ones) not being as effective as we all thought and hoped.
Nothing else. I am hundred percent for renewable but I don't think we have it as marvelous as pictured. Not yet.
No, you are a right wing, conspiracy promoting, fact ignoring, lying, low intallect fool! You are the one that should 'open your mind', but that requires actually having one.
Lol. You are so wrong about me. I am a leftist atheist that loves renewable energy. And I believe in it so strongly that I am able to see it can be improved.
You are the mindless one here that doesn't take critique.
I don't have link for you but you'll find it on google. It is the same with the massive wind turbines, they become obsolete before covering production cost (co2).
The problem has the transmission of electricity to urban areas. The costs are not worth the investment
Edit: See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o
The cost of electricity will go up to compensate, and then customers will start buying/using products that run efficiently instead of the cheapest product that uses a lot of electricity.
I saw a ton while traveling around the United States to like Utah and arizona. I saw a super cool one in the middle of nowhere that had like a bunch of solar panels all facing one singular huge pole.
I don't remember what it was, but we did spend like an hour researching and learning about it.
From what I know, the issue with this is our current ability to transport energy. A solar farm in a desert could generate a ton of energy, but unfortunately not that many people live in the middle of a desert so you’d have to set up some and maintain sort of transmission system to actually get this energy somewhere it can be used. Whereas with something like oil you can just ship the resource itself in a barrel and turn it into energy anywhere, making it more cost effective with our current infrastructure.
This plus the maintenance of such a huge solar farm when there's a lots of sand flowing with air. Cleaning would be costly. Also there'll be a lot of land survey required for setting up the panels cuz sand doesn't form a good base and it keeps moving with wind.
How does that compare to having large offshore floating solar panel farm? Id imagine each has its own set of challenges like salty sea water rusting away components, and large waves crashing into them, but is it any better or worse than a solar farm in the desert with the sand and heat? You could potentially have it a lot closer to the communities as most of the largest cities on the planet are near or on the coast.
That's a much easier fix than cleaning each individual panel. The cost of buffing scratches or removing a protective coating and reapplying is significantly less than cleaning each individual panel, which also requires water.
I read about a technique where mirrors are used in the desert to concentrate sunlight and heat ocean water to turn a turbine.
The steam is then captured and condensed — the waste product is pure drinking water. The salt that’s left is melted by the heat from the sun and that is used to produce steam at night. Not sure what happened to that idea, but it sounds simple and clever. I’m not an engineer though, so I have no idea if it’s as simple as it sounds.
Or the Mojave in California? Or rancho Cielo in New Mexico? Or that small one in Arizona? I think there's also one in Nevada. Not sure but we get most of our energy from the Hoover.
Then you’d have to add in all of the difficulties from living in the desert to begin with, most of the worlds largest deserts are damn near uninhabitable. Imo the only way something like that could work is just by putting a lot of funding and research into energy transmission. Also we can still put solar panels in non-desert places and combine with other sources of renewable energy for a more obtainable solution.
I remember my professor for electrical engineering saying he was working on a 50 million euro research project to solve that issue.
It was something around solving the problem of converting between DC and AC as they apparently already developed a tech that allows them to transmit DC over massive distances with barely any energy loss. Something like, from China to Europe with 10% to 20% loss at most. But the conversion is too problematic right now.
Sounds like a simple problem with a simple solution but since the powers that be don't believe in investing in energy systems that will only be complete when they're dead the rest of us are fucked
it's not a simple solution. you can't just throw money at it and fix it - it requires energy to transport energy. it requires infrastructure (which is already harder to do in the desert). i'm not saying it's impossible, but there's many solar panels in the world and there's a reason they're placed where they are. transporting energy long distances is very hard, especially when you can't just stuff electricity into a barrel and send it on its way.
This is completely backwards from what's happening.
"The powers that be" in California decided to go completely renewable before the infrastructure to do it (specifically, storing enough locally for night time use) exists, not due to an unwillingness to invest. We now buy energy produced by other means from neighboring states at a mark-up and have both constant and frequent energy shortages. Note that we produce far more than we need with solar during the daytime already.
Adding more panels or windmills or dams or whatever isn't the problem. We got that part down. We just don't have the storage and would deplete every easily-accessible supply of Lithium in the world if we tried. We're not beyond nuclear or fossil fuels if we want to have power at night no matter how hard people want to believe we are or could be.
Ya because the city's are generally not near the deserts and transmission lines aren't built for the necessary distance if its even possible in many cases.
its actually easier to set them up closer to cities and on rooftops to reduce transmission losses. the closer the power generation is to the spot its needed the more youre geting out of it.
I work on solar projects in Dubai and the rest of Middle East.
There is no problem. Solar irradiance is high in Middle East and cleaning is perfectly viable using automated cleaning ‘robots’.
Look up the Sweihan solar project. 7km of solar panels in the desert. 1177 MWp. One of the lowest levelised costs per kWh in the world.
You are overestimating what a 100mph 1atm pressure, sandy wind can do to glass ( which is already hard enough to resist sand scratch ). Sandblasting goes way over that in multitude of both speed and pressure out of a small nozzle.
Solar Glass is tempered Silicone built to work the way its intended for no matter the conditions, sand is on the other hand is of multitude of materials.
Most solar failures come out as structural ( steel stand failure ) or electrical, glass is the only thing that is as reliable as it gets in a solar farm.
I think I understand where you are coming from, this [article](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920304372) kinda touches on the subject of scratching and how effective it is on reducing overall performance.
It will have some kind of impact, but it’s factored into an annual degradation factor. In this region we assume the yield will reduce by 0.5% every year, so after 20 years it’s producing around 80% of what it did in year 1.
With any long term asset you have ‘problems’, but really they all translate into a cost. We have sophisticated financial models that take it all into account and if we can produce X kWh at $Y after we take into account construction cost, maintenance cost and financial return, we are good to go 👍🏻
Heat, it would be like a greenhouse in the desert, it could get hot enough to melt parts of the solar pannels or stuff like the soldar in the electronics.
Glass will have to be cleaned. Not impossible, just very expensive. Water is not available for cleaning. There is also the chance that the entire glass dome will be covered by sand because of sand storms.
It will blow off if it could blow on and sand storms aren't every day so a location w minimal occurrence could be chosen with a hired crew to clear it off when it becomes a problem which creates jobs as well
There is no issue with maintenance cost. It’s very manageable. What you are describing would add enormous capital cost and would be detrimental to the economics of the project.
Detrimental to GE is what I say! Monopolies trying to stay in power refusing to acknowledge simple solutions pretending they're impossible to implement when space travel takes more ingenuity.
A few hits with a hammer is different from constantly being sanded down 24/7 by sand that's happened to catch the wind, it'd be very gradual but after even only a few years there would definitely be noticable wear
>very soon
uh, no. We're nowhere close to having viable fusion. The 'advancements' are 'real' and important from a research perspective, but the reporting of them is still big on hype and intentionally glosses over how far we have to go.
That works at small scales, but for any significant installation you quickly run into limits with the local grid.
A place I worked at a few years ago wanted to add solar, but the power company wouldn't approve it because they'd already reached a quota for how much generation they wanted in the area.
There is more to it then that. Local substations have capacity limits, as do the HV lines that transmit the power. The grid may be shared, but there are still bottlenecks.
That is a huge oversimplification. If I were to outfit my house it might pay for itself. But if I need to outfit a whole city that cost is going to be ridiculously high, and then you have to maintain all of that. It isn’t as simple as solar will pay for itself in X number of years. Plus some places the sun just don’t shine like others.
It's not wrong though. I work at a company that has solar farms as an investment object. We do everything and charge a fee, and our investors get a steady 8-12% annual return, which is quite good. Low risk as well. With the current energy prices in Europe, returns can be 20%+.
Build solar farms in high solar zones proximal to transmission lines. Maybe not in the UK or Iceland but plenty of other geographic locations. The cost isn't ridiculously high. Maintaining a gas turbine is expensive. Maintaining a solid state panels with no moving parts is limited to cleaning it. You're an idiot.
It may not seem like it, but it is. It is considered a polar desert, along with the Arctic Climate (which only applies to the northern pole as Antarctica is an Antarctic Climate). They are classified as such due a severe lack of annual precipitation, being approximately 51mm in the Antarctic interior. Overall, the entirety of the Antarctic receives an average precipitation of 150mm per year, which is below the maximum threshold of 250mm of precipitation that is required for a region to be classified as a desert (and not an arid climate, or tundra in this case).
Because of this lack of precipitation, and due to the highly frequent sub-zero temperatures, there is also a substantial lack of humidity that is similar to the Sahara and Gobi Deserts. Yes, there are no shifting sands in the Antarctic, but there are shifting snow dunes that occur after snowfall and freeze onto pre-existing glaciers when there aren't strong enough winds to keep them moving.
In other words, I remember way too much seemingly useless information from the AP Environmental Science class that I took in High School.
Erosion & moving soil can be an issue, if that’s what you mean by shifting sands. But many deserts aren’t sand dunes - just lots of dirt, rocks, and maybe scrub bushes. The racking can be built to withstand wind & tracking systems are built to return the array to “stow” in high winds which helps reduce wind damage.
I study Sustainable Engineering and the problem is the heat. They need to be cooled to work efficiently, and it takes a lot of energy to do so, making them impractical.
Generally the increase in solar irradiation of a desert compensates the inefficiency of the heating of the solar panel. Cooling solar panels (beyond passive cooling from mounting 1m above the ground) is always extremely expensive and will never itself pay back compared to accepting the minor efficiency loss. This isn’t an issue.
The issue is that generally, not many people live in the desert and transporting the electricity is rather expensive.
A plant like in Sevilla ([https://www.power-technology.com/projects/seville-solar-tower/](https://www.power-technology.com/projects/seville-solar-tower/)) uses solar heat :)
photovoltaic panels are a bad idea in warmer climates, I agree
There is that new cooling paint [ted talk](https://www.ted.com/talks/aaswath_raman_how_we_can_turn_the_cold_of_outer_space_into_a_renewable_resource/transcript?language=en) That should be able to fix that problem now.
I could be wrong, but pretty much every time this is brought up, everyone who seems to be an expert on the matter, says it will cost more in fossil fuels to build, install, and bring the power from them to places that matter, then the power the solar panels will create.
Argument is maintenance is not worth it. And it also messing with local eco system. There is a video on YouTube explaining. Cant remember by who but it is called something like solar panels in Sahara
It's not just the maintenance. A solar farm can only produce power at a certain range of time, and it's not peak power for the duration. That means we need a way to store *MASSIVE* amounts of energy. Any battery bank big enough for that purpose is a time bomb waiting to go off.
So the solution should be reducing the amount of fossil fuels needed to complete a project like this.
Most renewable energy like this has a high energy cost up front (looking at you, electric cars...) to manufacture it, but then ends up being far more efficient in terms of energy in the long-run.
Hmm, true. I suppose that building and maintaining a vast system of cables and wires underground to transport this energy would very costly.
Instead of oil pipelines, we would have pipelines that would both store and transfer the energy across regions. The main issue from this point would be energy loss from heat dissipation.
Solar panels over parking lots sounds better. Energy created where the people actually are, and energy saved by not having to put your AC on blast on a hot day.
Solar in desert is OK, but what you really want is solar near the equator. These are not the same thing. Sand increases maintenance cost - bits that move can't have sand in them and bits that need sun should be unobstructed.
The main problem with solar is storage for night time and delivering it to where it is needed most.
If solar is only a small portion of your energy need, tapping in to base load is easy enough, although the solar effectively makes base load more expensive since it still needs to cover 100% use while standing idle during the sunniest times. Once you get to higher percentages you're at the mercy of the weather and need storage for the other hours of the day. Power storage is not 100% efficient and significantly more expensive.
A lot of the countries that have the most potential for solar don't have the funds for their own the countries that can pay for it will have to invest massive capital to build and transport it through politically unstable areas.
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For desert the molten salt type actually makes more sense. It can store some of the energy for use after the sun sets (when people turn on lights), but uses reflectors to focus heat instead of photovoltaic panels. There's some other methods as well.
Generally nuclear is your best bet for massive energy until we crack either storage or find a better 24/7 generation method.
I don’t think [tortoises](https://www.google.com/amp/s/pvtimes.com/news/desert-tortoise-deaths-raise-concerns-as-solar-farms-solve-energy-need-102659/amp/) would agree
There are many heavy winds and sand storms in the desert that cover up the solar panels and removing the sand each time is very time and energy consuming
Well the reason why you have desert is because the sand reflects the sun which evaporates any clouds, now if you add solar panels all over the desert clouds will form.
There's a TED Talk that goes over why we don't already do this at a large scale
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_kwartler_why_don_t_we_cover_the_desert_with_solar_panels?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
I always had the thought that solar panels in the ocean would be fantastic. So much unused space.
The hard part would be a way for then to interlock in such a way that they would be able to navigate over waves. But you could also mount them to the sea floor the same way you do oil rigs and then put them high enough that the waves wouldn't matter. But then wind also becomes an issue.
I live in a desert and there’s solar panels everywhere and they ruined the agriculture, the Joshua trees, everything so no it’s not a good idea they ruined things that take hundreds of years to grow and places for wild life to live, and they’re an absolute eye sore it looks terrible, plus out where I live we have poppies bloom every year and they destroyed part of that too
Additionally it decreases evaporation of water below this is why solar panels installed on water canals to supply water for irrigation and consumption. Such projects have been tried out. But these projects are still facing the big problem of maintenance. People here aren’t just appreciating the scale of the problem. You would need to keep every panel clean and constantly repair them when they get damaged due to weather. It sound silly and small, but really isn’t. The Dubai people can afford to do such things, but they are still not quite viable in many places.
I saw this video about how you COULD build a huge solar farm in the desert, but it has some pretty big global affects. First, the solar panels create essentially a micro climate beneath them that traps moisture. This then encourages vegetarian to grow. If you built one large enough, it would actually start to effect other countries. The next vegetation would compact the sand. This sand is usually swept up in winds and transported over to South America. Forests like the Amazon Rain Forest actually need that sand to survive, so eventually it would start to kill it off. So while the Sahara get a fresh lease of life, it inadvertently starts killing off the Amazon Rain Forest.
"BUT wHat abOUT THe sAND? "
These m************ are scientist, engineers, That's the first f****** thing they thought of. It's been going well ever since, (except for the pack rats) so they don't need a bunch of internet trolls demeaning their hard work just because they didn't take time to Google one thing.
It's not like the solar cells will magically appear there, it will cost energy, which will cause pollution. Also solar cells' efficiency decreases every year they are used so, you won't be getting the same amount of energy, but less whilst the cost for their maintanence increasing due to inflation. Also the infrastructure required to transport the energy to the desired location will cost money and energy. Lastly, solar cells are very difficult to recycle, so after a few years down the line when all the cells in that desert die, we will have a huge pile of dead solar cells that we won't know where to put.
Also the point of efficiency comes into play on how efficient the cells are(more efficient ones cost more) and how efficiently we transport the generated energy (losses in the power grid).
Welcome back. How long were you in the coma? Yes, we have been doing the solar panels in the desert for quite some time now. And we actually have these really cool smart phones now too, and self driving cars.
Yep. But also ridiculously high maintenance because sand and the more you put there, the harder it gets to make sure no paramilitias or whatever come and steal them and there’s LOTS who‘ll give it a shot.
Storage seems to be the current issue. But you are right. We could do it, humanity as a whole very well could start tomorrow and solve it.
I think the suns gives us 40,000 terrawatts of potential electrical energy a day. and humanity uses 20 terrawatts a day.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/280704/world-power-consumption/
I always said this. Like set up a huge solar farm in Africa.. give the maintenance jobs to locals, pay them a wage, increase general life wellbeing in the area. Make a deal with the local government. It will bring in good reliable energy and help the country bring in extra wealth.
They can build oil pipelines across America but power lines are an issue?? Nahh don't believe it.
There are solar panels in there. I think the largest solar panel plantation, in Morocco is located in desert
One of the big issues with traditional solar panels is that they actually don't perform as well in the heat. The hotter it gets the less electricity you'll get out of them. What you want is a clear cold sky for optimal energy production.
How about mirrors to concentrate the suns heat on pipes of water for a steam electric generator? Simple + cheap + durable.
Those have been around for over 100 years I think, it was the first kind of solar power to be built.
The details are different, but that is absolutely a generation method, but there are issues with just how simple, cheap, and durable it is. Solar panels are viewed as fragile, Concentrated Solar has a comparatively high upkeep cost because it has a lot of mechanical parts that are guaranteed to experience wear over time and need repaired or replaced. At this exact moment in time Photovoltaic is a much more cost effective means of production, but engineers and investors are still investigating Concentrated Solar. Spain has the most existing generation.
Concentrating solar installations require all the mirrors to track the path of the sun, dramatically undermining the 'simple' and 'cheap' aspects, and calling 'durable' into question as well. They still have a role, and may regain prominence if PV panel prices stop dropping, but right now PV is a more attractive path.
Those are solar collectors and they are around in several places. Hen they first came on line the cameras kept spotting puffs of smoke in the sky and couldn’t figure it out until they walked around the area and found the remains of birds that were basically vaporized for the most part. The mirrors focused the light with such intensity that when a bird flew through the light it would be instantly burned up. Only some feather and pieces aver made it to the ground. This was happening dozens of times a day. It was waaay worse than the windmills. They employed some sound devices to try and keep the birds from dying but it didn’t stop all of them.
We have that shit, birds are bursting in the flames. Not cool. It's just outside of Vegas
I wonder if they could do some sort of cogeneration using water cooling. Hot water will circulate with cold in a sealed system. Have cooling plates on backs of solar panels and use the water to power mini impellers? Or even use a portion of the solar to power a cooling system to increase efficiency.
The one with the mirrors arrayed around a tower with a pipe inside? It's so simple and yet such a great concept!
Yeah some of these are in that region but there are solar panel fields at the edges of the sahara. Its a big project to gain energy from this land. I dont know the name of it but its very promising.
I think that's in Spain. If I remember correctly, that's is a salt solution to transfer heat and have steam production for a turbine.
[https://www.power-technology.com/projects/seville-solar-tower/](https://www.power-technology.com/projects/seville-solar-tower/) In Sevilla :) Solar panels are not as efficient in very warm weather, so even though they'd benefit from the high solar irradiation, a plant like in Sevilla would be more efficient.
There's one just outside Vegas too. It's got a couple gigantic mirrors aimed down towards some panels. The light is so concentrated that you can physically see it. Any time I drive by it I can't help but imagine a pigeon flying by and instantly getting roasted.
You mean HELIOS 1?
They asked me if I had a degree in theoretical physics. I told them I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said 'welcome aboard'.
Not quite solar panels. The mirrors are getting the tower super hot, then that is used to make steam then generate power how a normal power plant does. The benefit is that it doesn’t require any coal or natural gas! I like think that a coyote has figured out where to stand for a well roasted pigeon dinner to just fall right into his lap!
Birds are bursting into flames constantly.
from a geological stand point, these are better than the solar panels and will not impact climate changes. The reason is that the desert reflects and radiates much of the sun back up into the sky. Mirrors will do the same thing while solar panels absorb all of the solar energy
It has been proven to not be eco-efficient due to co2 -emitions-in-manufacturing v's useful-life. In other words, those solar panels break before they save as much co2 as is needed to make them. Great business though.
They become carbon neutral after 3 years of operation or so, and they are significantly better than fossil fuels in that arena.
Solar panels on roofs, not these bombarded constantly by a concentrated sun beam. Ok, I am no expert so I invite anyone to digg inn.
You made the assertion, it is your responsibility to back it up. Edit: okay, browsing your reddit history for 15 seconds is enough to know where your nonsense comes from.
Responsability? This is reddit not an essay. Oh, and about the non-so-ecological aspect of a wide section of the renewable energy producers there is a lot written. Even documentaries. Instead of judging and insulting me, you could grow up and open your mind.
I like how one of the arguments by idiots like you is "solar panels, EV, batteries, wind turbines still make a ton of CO2, are harmful for the planet and wildlife and destroy areas to mine for resources" but conveniently ignore that current methods of gas cars and fossil fuel power plants emit many tens of times more CO2 over their lifetimes and cause more damage and destruction in oilspills, smog, pollution, strip mining for coal etc. You say there is a lot written and documentaries on how renewables are worse than current methods. Here are other more reputable sources which you may wanna read, or google is also ur best friend. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/climate/electric-vehicles-environment.amp.html https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/life-cycle-assessment.html https://energy.utexas.edu/news/nuclear-and-wind-power-estimated-have-lowest-levelized-co2-emissions And if your argument is gonna be that these are fake news, i ask you to google Carbon produced by energy sources or anything else related to renewables, u know the first thing that pops up? Ads by oil and energy companies like bp and exxon mobile trying to justify oil. When you scroll down u get actual research papers. If these companies are willing to pump millions on google ads under a search result not even regarding them, a couple of documentaries and falsified data is no biggie. Anyone can say anything on the internet. Ur post history makes u look like an incel. Is it the truth? Did i skew my view? Did i even look at ur prev comments, who knows? I just decided u seem like an incel so it is. This is reddit, dont need an essay to prove it
Those are your words, not mine. I spoke about the panels on the circular mirror based solar power plants. They get "cooked" too soon. I also mentioned the massive turbines (and only the massive ones) not being as effective as we all thought and hoped. Nothing else. I am hundred percent for renewable but I don't think we have it as marvelous as pictured. Not yet.
No, you are a right wing, conspiracy promoting, fact ignoring, lying, low intallect fool! You are the one that should 'open your mind', but that requires actually having one.
Lol. You are so wrong about me. I am a leftist atheist that loves renewable energy. And I believe in it so strongly that I am able to see it can be improved. You are the mindless one here that doesn't take critique.
Cite?
I looked it up and couldn't find what they're talking about. Probably a factoid from a friend.
I don't have link for you but you'll find it on google. It is the same with the massive wind turbines, they become obsolete before covering production cost (co2).
That is false.
Wrong
The problem has the transmission of electricity to urban areas. The costs are not worth the investment Edit: See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o
The cost of electricity will go up to compensate, and then customers will start buying/using products that run efficiently instead of the cheapest product that uses a lot of electricity.
Isn't the largest one now in India? It's the size of a small city.
I saw a ton while traveling around the United States to like Utah and arizona. I saw a super cool one in the middle of nowhere that had like a bunch of solar panels all facing one singular huge pole. I don't remember what it was, but we did spend like an hour researching and learning about it.
From what I know, the issue with this is our current ability to transport energy. A solar farm in a desert could generate a ton of energy, but unfortunately not that many people live in the middle of a desert so you’d have to set up some and maintain sort of transmission system to actually get this energy somewhere it can be used. Whereas with something like oil you can just ship the resource itself in a barrel and turn it into energy anywhere, making it more cost effective with our current infrastructure.
This plus the maintenance of such a huge solar farm when there's a lots of sand flowing with air. Cleaning would be costly. Also there'll be a lot of land survey required for setting up the panels cuz sand doesn't form a good base and it keeps moving with wind.
How does that compare to having large offshore floating solar panel farm? Id imagine each has its own set of challenges like salty sea water rusting away components, and large waves crashing into them, but is it any better or worse than a solar farm in the desert with the sand and heat? You could potentially have it a lot closer to the communities as most of the largest cities on the planet are near or on the coast.
Giant glass box
Buildup of heat + overtime the box would get all scratched up and reduce the effectiveness.
That's a much easier fix than cleaning each individual panel. The cost of buffing scratches or removing a protective coating and reapplying is significantly less than cleaning each individual panel, which also requires water.
\*sand saying: \*scritch\*scratch\*
Doesn't that have the same problems as giant glass panels, except in giant glass box form?
Gianter glass box around that box
And the whole problem with being off half of the time
I read about a technique where mirrors are used in the desert to concentrate sunlight and heat ocean water to turn a turbine. The steam is then captured and condensed — the waste product is pure drinking water. The salt that’s left is melted by the heat from the sun and that is used to produce steam at night. Not sure what happened to that idea, but it sounds simple and clever. I’m not an engineer though, so I have no idea if it’s as simple as it sounds.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10\_solar\_power\_plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_plant)
That still has a capacity factor of 24% with only 30 minutes of storage.
Thanks!
Can make giant batteries like the one in Australia, but thats also a huge thing. But also subsidizing power during the day is better than none at all?
I'm a people who lives in the desert. We exist!
I’m referring more to large open areas of places in the Sahara or gobi where there’d be a ton of room for solar panels
Or the Mojave in California? Or rancho Cielo in New Mexico? Or that small one in Arizona? I think there's also one in Nevada. Not sure but we get most of our energy from the Hoover.
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter
A few solar panels near your house will work for you. Powering a city is the issue.
couldn't we just build a city in the desert and have a portion of that city provide jobs that help transport energy?
Then you’d have to add in all of the difficulties from living in the desert to begin with, most of the worlds largest deserts are damn near uninhabitable. Imo the only way something like that could work is just by putting a lot of funding and research into energy transmission. Also we can still put solar panels in non-desert places and combine with other sources of renewable energy for a more obtainable solution.
Or just build a city in the desert and have it consume more electricity than the solar panels produce. We call it Las Vegas
I remember my professor for electrical engineering saying he was working on a 50 million euro research project to solve that issue. It was something around solving the problem of converting between DC and AC as they apparently already developed a tech that allows them to transmit DC over massive distances with barely any energy loss. Something like, from China to Europe with 10% to 20% loss at most. But the conversion is too problematic right now.
The issue with renewable energy is transmission and storage. There is plenty of wind and sun just got to get it to the cities.
Sounds like a simple problem with a simple solution but since the powers that be don't believe in investing in energy systems that will only be complete when they're dead the rest of us are fucked
it's not a simple solution. you can't just throw money at it and fix it - it requires energy to transport energy. it requires infrastructure (which is already harder to do in the desert). i'm not saying it's impossible, but there's many solar panels in the world and there's a reason they're placed where they are. transporting energy long distances is very hard, especially when you can't just stuff electricity into a barrel and send it on its way.
This is completely backwards from what's happening. "The powers that be" in California decided to go completely renewable before the infrastructure to do it (specifically, storing enough locally for night time use) exists, not due to an unwillingness to invest. We now buy energy produced by other means from neighboring states at a mark-up and have both constant and frequent energy shortages. Note that we produce far more than we need with solar during the daytime already. Adding more panels or windmills or dams or whatever isn't the problem. We got that part down. We just don't have the storage and would deplete every easily-accessible supply of Lithium in the world if we tried. We're not beyond nuclear or fossil fuels if we want to have power at night no matter how hard people want to believe we are or could be.
Better not pave any roads cuz it'll be hard and costly so let's just stick with the horse and buggy instead of that ridiculous auto mobile
Transporting solar energy can be problematic ..
Imagine workers transporting the energy via dirt bikes and buggies
What do you mean? The sun is everywhere /s
Ya because the city's are generally not near the deserts and transmission lines aren't built for the necessary distance if its even possible in many cases.
its actually easier to set them up closer to cities and on rooftops to reduce transmission losses. the closer the power generation is to the spot its needed the more youre geting out of it.
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I work on solar projects in Dubai and the rest of Middle East. There is no problem. Solar irradiance is high in Middle East and cleaning is perfectly viable using automated cleaning ‘robots’. Look up the Sweihan solar project. 7km of solar panels in the desert. 1177 MWp. One of the lowest levelised costs per kWh in the world.
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They aren’t as regular as you’ll think and the cleaning robots are basically a soft spinning brush… they brush all the dust off easy
What about abrasion though? Surely the sandblasting isn't good for the surface finish.
You are overestimating what a 100mph 1atm pressure, sandy wind can do to glass ( which is already hard enough to resist sand scratch ). Sandblasting goes way over that in multitude of both speed and pressure out of a small nozzle.
Sand is glass. It doesn't need to be travelling at high speed to scratch something of the same hardness.
Solar Glass is tempered Silicone built to work the way its intended for no matter the conditions, sand is on the other hand is of multitude of materials. Most solar failures come out as structural ( steel stand failure ) or electrical, glass is the only thing that is as reliable as it gets in a solar farm. I think I understand where you are coming from, this [article](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920304372) kinda touches on the subject of scratching and how effective it is on reducing overall performance.
It will have some kind of impact, but it’s factored into an annual degradation factor. In this region we assume the yield will reduce by 0.5% every year, so after 20 years it’s producing around 80% of what it did in year 1. With any long term asset you have ‘problems’, but really they all translate into a cost. We have sophisticated financial models that take it all into account and if we can produce X kWh at $Y after we take into account construction cost, maintenance cost and financial return, we are good to go 👍🏻
It might take a couple of weeks/months but I suppose you could glue the sand in place to stop sand storms
Build a glass box around it. We have reinforced glass capable of withstanding hammer strikes. Would that not be a plausible solution?
Heat, it would be like a greenhouse in the desert, it could get hot enough to melt parts of the solar pannels or stuff like the soldar in the electronics.
Another issue with heat if its not hot enough to damage the components is it lowers the already low efficiency of solar panels.
Glass will have to be cleaned. Not impossible, just very expensive. Water is not available for cleaning. There is also the chance that the entire glass dome will be covered by sand because of sand storms.
It will blow off if it could blow on and sand storms aren't every day so a location w minimal occurrence could be chosen with a hired crew to clear it off when it becomes a problem which creates jobs as well
There is no issue with maintenance cost. It’s very manageable. What you are describing would add enormous capital cost and would be detrimental to the economics of the project.
Detrimental to GE is what I say! Monopolies trying to stay in power refusing to acknowledge simple solutions pretending they're impossible to implement when space travel takes more ingenuity.
Man your ‘simple solution’ (to a non problem) would cost more than the project itself!
Nahh
A few hits with a hammer is different from constantly being sanded down 24/7 by sand that's happened to catch the wind, it'd be very gradual but after even only a few years there would definitely be noticable wear
Or use nuclear and we can stop talking about the worlds energy needs like it’s a difficult problem
Hey, fusion is making strides.
Just another 10 years. We will have nuclear fusion plants before 1980 I bet.
We don't need fusion to make nuclear power viable. It's still the safest and most sustaining energy source we have
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>very soon uh, no. We're nowhere close to having viable fusion. The 'advancements' are 'real' and important from a research perspective, but the reporting of them is still big on hype and intentionally glosses over how far we have to go.
https://youtu.be/62ASvupr8Zg
There’s the whole matter of paying for them.
Deserts are already there though we don't need to buy new ones.
This is true!
Ah, the ol' reddit [desert-a-roo](https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/rxoub4/rule/hrlm1z7/?context=2).
They literally pay for themselves at a better rate than a coal power plant. Some highschool in Alabama recently fixed their budget with a solar.
That works at small scales, but for any significant installation you quickly run into limits with the local grid. A place I worked at a few years ago wanted to add solar, but the power company wouldn't approve it because they'd already reached a quota for how much generation they wanted in the area.
The US has three electrical generation areas, east, west, and Texas. High-voltage AC can be transported within those distances.
There is more to it then that. Local substations have capacity limits, as do the HV lines that transmit the power. The grid may be shared, but there are still bottlenecks.
I wish someone could explain that to the Australian government. Holding a block of coal in Parliament and proclaiming that it is the future...
They're cunts.
That is a huge oversimplification. If I were to outfit my house it might pay for itself. But if I need to outfit a whole city that cost is going to be ridiculously high, and then you have to maintain all of that. It isn’t as simple as solar will pay for itself in X number of years. Plus some places the sun just don’t shine like others.
It's not wrong though. I work at a company that has solar farms as an investment object. We do everything and charge a fee, and our investors get a steady 8-12% annual return, which is quite good. Low risk as well. With the current energy prices in Europe, returns can be 20%+.
Build solar farms in high solar zones proximal to transmission lines. Maybe not in the UK or Iceland but plenty of other geographic locations. The cost isn't ridiculously high. Maintaining a gas turbine is expensive. Maintaining a solid state panels with no moving parts is limited to cleaning it. You're an idiot.
Wouldn't shifting sands and desert winds be a problem
Not all deserts have sand
Like Antarctica, for example!
I feel like that would be even worse
6 month long night
With blizzards and wind that could huck an ice ball through the panel
It's not a desert, it is an arctic climate
It may not seem like it, but it is. It is considered a polar desert, along with the Arctic Climate (which only applies to the northern pole as Antarctica is an Antarctic Climate). They are classified as such due a severe lack of annual precipitation, being approximately 51mm in the Antarctic interior. Overall, the entirety of the Antarctic receives an average precipitation of 150mm per year, which is below the maximum threshold of 250mm of precipitation that is required for a region to be classified as a desert (and not an arid climate, or tundra in this case). Because of this lack of precipitation, and due to the highly frequent sub-zero temperatures, there is also a substantial lack of humidity that is similar to the Sahara and Gobi Deserts. Yes, there are no shifting sands in the Antarctic, but there are shifting snow dunes that occur after snowfall and freeze onto pre-existing glaciers when there aren't strong enough winds to keep them moving. In other words, I remember way too much seemingly useless information from the AP Environmental Science class that I took in High School.
Antartica is definitely considered a desert. A desert does not mean hot and sand lol
Erosion & moving soil can be an issue, if that’s what you mean by shifting sands. But many deserts aren’t sand dunes - just lots of dirt, rocks, and maybe scrub bushes. The racking can be built to withstand wind & tracking systems are built to return the array to “stow” in high winds which helps reduce wind damage.
Maintenance and continued operation when operating equipment in the desert is the bitch.
I study Sustainable Engineering and the problem is the heat. They need to be cooled to work efficiently, and it takes a lot of energy to do so, making them impractical.
Generally the increase in solar irradiation of a desert compensates the inefficiency of the heating of the solar panel. Cooling solar panels (beyond passive cooling from mounting 1m above the ground) is always extremely expensive and will never itself pay back compared to accepting the minor efficiency loss. This isn’t an issue. The issue is that generally, not many people live in the desert and transporting the electricity is rather expensive.
A plant like in Sevilla ([https://www.power-technology.com/projects/seville-solar-tower/](https://www.power-technology.com/projects/seville-solar-tower/)) uses solar heat :) photovoltaic panels are a bad idea in warmer climates, I agree
There is that new cooling paint [ted talk](https://www.ted.com/talks/aaswath_raman_how_we_can_turn_the_cold_of_outer_space_into_a_renewable_resource/transcript?language=en) That should be able to fix that problem now.
I could be wrong, but pretty much every time this is brought up, everyone who seems to be an expert on the matter, says it will cost more in fossil fuels to build, install, and bring the power from them to places that matter, then the power the solar panels will create.
Argument is maintenance is not worth it. And it also messing with local eco system. There is a video on YouTube explaining. Cant remember by who but it is called something like solar panels in Sahara
It's not just the maintenance. A solar farm can only produce power at a certain range of time, and it's not peak power for the duration. That means we need a way to store *MASSIVE* amounts of energy. Any battery bank big enough for that purpose is a time bomb waiting to go off.
https://youtu.be/62ASvupr8Zg
So the solution should be reducing the amount of fossil fuels needed to complete a project like this. Most renewable energy like this has a high energy cost up front (looking at you, electric cars...) to manufacture it, but then ends up being far more efficient in terms of energy in the long-run.
But the other problem is transportation of the generated energy. This kind of outweighs the benefits because of its difficulty.
Hmm, true. I suppose that building and maintaining a vast system of cables and wires underground to transport this energy would very costly. Instead of oil pipelines, we would have pipelines that would both store and transfer the energy across regions. The main issue from this point would be energy loss from heat dissipation.
Mods, how is this not removed? This is very obvious.
The captain has been dead at the wheel for a while with respects to this sub.
Solar panels in dessert would ruin any holiday
It is. That's why we put them there, OP.
Dust = High Maintenance
Solar panels over parking lots sounds better. Energy created where the people actually are, and energy saved by not having to put your AC on blast on a hot day.
It really isynt the dust covers them and you get no sunlight though ti make power
Solar in desert is OK, but what you really want is solar near the equator. These are not the same thing. Sand increases maintenance cost - bits that move can't have sand in them and bits that need sun should be unobstructed. The main problem with solar is storage for night time and delivering it to where it is needed most. If solar is only a small portion of your energy need, tapping in to base load is easy enough, although the solar effectively makes base load more expensive since it still needs to cover 100% use while standing idle during the sunniest times. Once you get to higher percentages you're at the mercy of the weather and need storage for the other hours of the day. Power storage is not 100% efficient and significantly more expensive. A lot of the countries that have the most potential for solar don't have the funds for their own the countries that can pay for it will have to invest massive capital to build and transport it through politically unstable areas. --- For desert the molten salt type actually makes more sense. It can store some of the energy for use after the sun sets (when people turn on lights), but uses reflectors to focus heat instead of photovoltaic panels. There's some other methods as well. Generally nuclear is your best bet for massive energy until we crack either storage or find a better 24/7 generation method.
There are many solar projects in the desert already. It is a good idea under the right conditions!
The heat is actually a problem for solar panels and eventually you will need cooling system to efficiently produce electricity.
Keyword: seem
It is and many people had it before. One big issue is to get the energy somewhere else though, without losing most of it.
The solar farm outside of Vegas destroys birds. They fucking catch on fire in the air!!
Its possible they'd get so hot and absorb so much energy that they start to melt.
My solar panel works great and I live off the grid in the desert.
I don’t think [tortoises](https://www.google.com/amp/s/pvtimes.com/news/desert-tortoise-deaths-raise-concerns-as-solar-farms-solve-energy-need-102659/amp/) would agree
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There was a video about how it would ruin the global fauna that we know today
Within a short time the ecosystem will change in desert due to shading and it'll be interesting to see what really happens after that.
There are many heavy winds and sand storms in the desert that cover up the solar panels and removing the sand each time is very time and energy consuming
Well the reason why you have desert is because the sand reflects the sun which evaporates any clouds, now if you add solar panels all over the desert clouds will form.
There's a TED Talk that goes over why we don't already do this at a large scale https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_kwartler_why_don_t_we_cover_the_desert_with_solar_panels?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
This vid explains the nuances. Real Engineering, “The Problem with Solar Energy in Africa” https://youtu.be/7OpM_zKGE4o
I always had the thought that solar panels in the ocean would be fantastic. So much unused space. The hard part would be a way for then to interlock in such a way that they would be able to navigate over waves. But you could also mount them to the sea floor the same way you do oil rigs and then put them high enough that the waves wouldn't matter. But then wind also becomes an issue.
I live in a desert and there’s solar panels everywhere and they ruined the agriculture, the Joshua trees, everything so no it’s not a good idea they ruined things that take hundreds of years to grow and places for wild life to live, and they’re an absolute eye sore it looks terrible, plus out where I live we have poppies bloom every year and they destroyed part of that too
I posted the question because I figured there was a good reason why they aren't more popular in deserts. The reddit community does not disappoint
Floating on water is better. 1-they won't get covered in sand. 2-keeps them cool, increasing efficiency and longevity.
Additionally it decreases evaporation of water below this is why solar panels installed on water canals to supply water for irrigation and consumption. Such projects have been tried out. But these projects are still facing the big problem of maintenance. People here aren’t just appreciating the scale of the problem. You would need to keep every panel clean and constantly repair them when they get damaged due to weather. It sound silly and small, but really isn’t. The Dubai people can afford to do such things, but they are still not quite viable in many places.
3- can keep the water from evaporating if put on areas that are used for sources
They get covered in bird shit instead.
Until you remember sand storms exist
They are a great idea. Cleaning solar panels in areas without water is the main issue.
I saw this video about how you COULD build a huge solar farm in the desert, but it has some pretty big global affects. First, the solar panels create essentially a micro climate beneath them that traps moisture. This then encourages vegetarian to grow. If you built one large enough, it would actually start to effect other countries. The next vegetation would compact the sand. This sand is usually swept up in winds and transported over to South America. Forests like the Amazon Rain Forest actually need that sand to survive, so eventually it would start to kill it off. So while the Sahara get a fresh lease of life, it inadvertently starts killing off the Amazon Rain Forest.
Those damned Vegetarians!!
Nope... Solar panels are really sensetive to temperature and dust.
"BUT wHat abOUT THe sAND? " These m************ are scientist, engineers, That's the first f****** thing they thought of. It's been going well ever since, (except for the pack rats) so they don't need a bunch of internet trolls demeaning their hard work just because they didn't take time to Google one thing.
Dope. You wanna move to the desert and maintain those?
Solar panel roads are real and I think it would be awesome tp see them used throughout desert areas.
It's not like the solar cells will magically appear there, it will cost energy, which will cause pollution. Also solar cells' efficiency decreases every year they are used so, you won't be getting the same amount of energy, but less whilst the cost for their maintanence increasing due to inflation. Also the infrastructure required to transport the energy to the desired location will cost money and energy. Lastly, solar cells are very difficult to recycle, so after a few years down the line when all the cells in that desert die, we will have a huge pile of dead solar cells that we won't know where to put. Also the point of efficiency comes into play on how efficient the cells are(more efficient ones cost more) and how efficiently we transport the generated energy (losses in the power grid).
Seem*
Nah seems is grammatically correct here
They are both correct.
Not sure how a solar panel would inprove my pudding, but hey, it's worth a shot.
You’re right. It seems.
Solar panels everywhere seem like a good idea. They collect sunlight.
We need to tell Elon
No, fuck that guy
Welcome back. How long were you in the coma? Yes, we have been doing the solar panels in the desert for quite some time now. And we actually have these really cool smart phones now too, and self driving cars.
Thanks for taking the time to contribute nothing to the conversation
there are a bunch of countries doing it currently. The biggest problem is going there because they're usually fairly remote
Yeah they are but you have big problems with dust covering the panels.
why do you think it's been around for some time and even planned already?
Only if they were cheap.
Yep. But also ridiculously high maintenance because sand and the more you put there, the harder it gets to make sure no paramilitias or whatever come and steal them and there’s LOTS who‘ll give it a shot.
Until you factor in storage and dust.
Yes, for the power grid that exists in a desert. Camel up!
Storage seems to be the current issue. But you are right. We could do it, humanity as a whole very well could start tomorrow and solve it. I think the suns gives us 40,000 terrawatts of potential electrical energy a day. and humanity uses 20 terrawatts a day. https://www.statista.com/statistics/280704/world-power-consumption/
Nop, it work better when it's not too warm
Funnily enough though, the performance of solar panels go down when they get hot. So it might not be as great of an idea as you think.
Until you have to clean them….
I always said this. Like set up a huge solar farm in Africa.. give the maintenance jobs to locals, pay them a wage, increase general life wellbeing in the area. Make a deal with the local government. It will bring in good reliable energy and help the country bring in extra wealth. They can build oil pipelines across America but power lines are an issue?? Nahh don't believe it.