solar power

I thought this would already be a topic, but I'm curious if there are any thoughts on Trump's Solar Wall. Personally I think it's idiotic for technical and practical reasons.

The National Report: Solar Panels Drain the Sun's Energy Unfortunately, this type of thing often gets filtered through the moronic masses and freaks out a certain percentage of the people. Really sad.

I'm ready to take the plunge and put up solar panels (photovoltaic - PV) to try to offset some of my grid demand. The local electric company has been accepting PV intertie for almost 2 decades. Unfortnately, my city is not ready. In a recent Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, lots of...

Slashdot posted a Reuters article indicating that Germay has set a record as far as solar power production, generating nearly 50% of it's daytime needs last weekend by solar alone: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-climate-germany-solar-idUKBRE84P0FI20120526 Not that this solves all...

Hi Everyone, Driving my last internal combustion vehicle. Checking out the Chevy Volt. Here's my question: Who out there can help me with how best to rig a solar charging station for my new Volt? (when I get one). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Patty :)

So, in my effort to become self-sufficient due to retirement, I have decided to purchase a piece of land in eastern TN. My main goal is to not pay any bills, lol! I have sold/given away everything that doesn't fit in my Mustang. (Note- this is not the most conducive vehicle to go in the...

Are Solar Thermal Powerplants in combination with molten salt storage a technology for the future? A very promising technology i think first plants already run. interesting presentation of the current state of the technology. cjwKIQ2ON-M

This seems to me like a very interesting approach to harnessing solar energy. I would greatly appreciate any input, critical or supportive, from the many knowledgeable posters who frequent this forum. You can click on the link and watch a short video, or just read the description of how it...

No. This will be my crash and burn alone...:D

Moor's Law has done wild things to the world of micro computing and personal computers. I think there are signs of it coming into play in alternative energy, particularly solar energy and solar panels. Today, desalination of sea water is an expensive proposition only for rich coastal cities...

SOLAR POWERED STIRLING ENGINE: (again, can't post any links yet, delete spaces between http): h t t p ://digg.com/d1rmzX It also links to various websites where they show you how to make one from simple household items Thoughts?

I have been reading over the past few years about the integration of nanotechnologies and solar power. Also, there is a company, NanoSolar, claiming they can produce energy at a cheaper cost than that of coal. Is it true? How soon before all warm-weather states' roofs are covered with this stuff?

As a warning, first, I will check this thread later, very likely only next weekend, so discuss as you will. Second, I'd like to ask you guys for your patience if something obvious and stupid has passed by when I thought about this. With energy prices going low again, this may not be a concern...

A question: Me and the wife are implementing some things that will reduce our humongous energy bill. One of the things we're looking at are solar boilers. Here's the model we're considering. Apparently the newest model (looks like the pods from Alien). Sorry, the site is in Dutch. This model...

Take a look. http://www.physlink.com/News/080801CobaltOxygenHydrogen.cfm A more efficient method of storing solar energy? Let me know what you think.

I just came across into an interesting article of Scientific American, where it is proposed a "Solar Grand Plan", which could provide "a massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.’s electricity and 35 percent of...

Just wondered if anyone here knew anything about this. The Guardian published a piece on the front page of Saturday’s edition trumpeting some sort of breakthrough in solar panel technology that’s going to make it as cheap to produce electricity from the sun as it is to produce from oil. Which...

There are many things we are supposed to do today to be more green and of course recycling and pumping out less bad stuff into the environment can only be a good thing. However people seem to be so gripped with rabid desire to be more green that they encourage us to do things that I wonder how...

Scientific American has a recent article on Solar Thermal and besides the typical hype from the solar companies, I was surprised to read that solar thermal power plants (for generating electricity) are currently limited to about 25% efficiency. I wonder what limits the overall efficiency in a...

I work in an industrial park that has huge warehouse type buildings, and not a lot of pollution. I have no doubt the park uses plenty of electricity though. Most of which is probably made by the coal plant in our city. While Indiana is not exactly a great place as far as sunlight (compared to...

What are the main (and not so main) arguments against solar power? I am specifically interested in pollution caused and energy consume din the production of photovoltaic cells. ?