So we've talked about how nuclear stacks up against the power-house (pun intended) of coal, the two primary competitors for power grid load and surprisingly similar given their very different fuels.
But what about alternative energy? Specifically solar, which claims to be the future of base-load power? How does it stack up?
Let me start by saying that I love solar power. Having spent my whole life so far as a resident in Florida, many of the homes I've lived in have had solar panels on the roof, usually for heating a pool or assisting with the hot water heater to help save energy. A large portion of the world lives in the tropics or near deserts where long sunny days are a fact of life, and utilizing that sun to make our lives easier and cheaper just kinda hits you as an obviously good decision. So I want solar to work on a large scale, I would love for it to be economically viable and provide cheap, emission free energy for the whole world.
Unfortunately, it has yet to prove an ability to do so. So far the technology is limited to the point where economy of scale just doesn't work out. Take Nevada's Solar One, one of the most prominent solar facilities in America: it's exactly what the typical educated person imagines as a solar plant, a bunch of black photovoltaic panels that generate electric current from the sun's photons. The whole plant cost just shy of $300 million, which is a pretty reasonable cost for a power facility. But here's the catch: it generates a whopping 60 megawats [1], a tenth of what a typical small nuclear reactor does. That brings it to a capital cost of 5000 dollars per kilowatt, and as you may recall from a previous blog generally the highest capital cost of a nuclear reactor is 4000 dollars per kilowatt. Add on to that that the facility takes up 400 acres of otherwise untouched desert, and it really starts to fall short of what you might have expected or wanted.
That facility is aging, though. The "cutting edge" right now is the multiple solar facilities that add up to be California's Mojave Solar Project (MSP), the most recent of which went online in this last year. It includes classic solar plants like Nevada's, as well as the almost sci-fi facilities that use focused mirrors to heat molten salt, which is just plain cool. All of MSP's components together generate about 250 MW [2][3], which is the base-load for a small city, and much harder to scoff at. But the total cost so far is estimated around $1.2 billion, bringing the capital cost to 4800 dollars per kilowatt; still not viable, in an economic sense, against a nuclear reactor.
Like I said, I like solar, and I hope it continues to develop especially in the private or residential side of the technology where it makes the most economic sense. Unfortunately it just hasn't proven to be fully viable on the commercial scale. Progress is being made on that front, but it's being made very slowly. When it comes to base load power, in my biased opinion we should still be building more nuclear power plants to bridge the gap into something truly clean, safe, and renewable.
[1] http://energy.sandia.gov/energy/renewable-energy/solar-energy/
[2] http://powerfromthesun.net/Book/chapter10/chapter10.html
[3] http://clui.org/ludb/site/solar-two-experimental-solar-facility-site
400 acres is an insane amount of land to produce 60 MWe. How much electricity does your typical roof-top set produce? I remember hearing that theoretically folks could produce energy and sell it to the power companies using solar.
ReplyDeleteIt's a possibility, but requires a very "green" household. Which in principle everyone should strive for, but not everybody can afford the capital investment to make a green house.
DeleteAs far as electricity produced by household solar, I'm not sure of actual numbers. Anecdotal: I know it cut my parent's electricity bill down a third when the set up solar to cover water heating in our house.
Generating energy is one thing, but storing it is another. You guys should also check out this source: http://umdrightnow.umd.edu/news/umd-scientists-turn-leaves-batteries
ReplyDeleteIt talks about a potential solution for the future of energy storage, which when coupled with solar generating means we profit as a species and our energy needs will almost certainly be met.
I did forget to mention that one part of actual solar-panel solar plants produce DC, so they can be stored in mass battery banks to be drawn on when the local grid requires it (such as at night). But to store enough energy to power the world, you still have to first produce that much energy, and solar simply isn't anywhere close to doing that. Until we figure out a way to store AC power (which is currently impossible, even in theory) our options are very limited in the energy production department.
DeleteVery interesting topic! I was wondering how far we have come in solar power and this really helped explain it. I am also all for the advancement of solar but agree that it is currently not the best option. I just read Michael's post on the comparison of Hillary and Trump's stance on nuclear and it said how Hillary plans to implement all of these solar panels but won't say that she supports or does not support nuclear.
ReplyDeleteInteresting fact: you could completely cover the earth's surface in solar panels and not produce enough electricity to fulfill the current world's energy needs. So as it stands right now, any time a politician (or anyone) promises to build a lot more solar panels, all they're really promising is to waste your money. Beyond that I'm choosing to keep my political opinions away from this blog.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThanks for providing some insight to Solar energy as a renewable source, and for highlighting that despite the fact that these sources are considered "green energy", they actually require the destruction of much more habitat than other traditional sources like coal, natural gas, and nuclear
ReplyDeleteIf the nuclear industry/nuclear tech does not pan out for you, or catch your interest, do you see solar energy as something worth your time?
ReplyDelete