Viability Of Solar Power As Grid Baseline

[PeZook]

For phones kept in pockets, there's materials that generate electricity when being twisted or stretched. Sewn into clothing, they supposedly can power small devices with the power of your movement.

[madd0ct0r]

BUT THAT's NOT SOLAR!

and this thread is all about the sunshiny goodness SI has promised us

[PeZook]

BUT THAT's NOT SOLAR!

and this thread is all about the sunshiny goodness SI has promised us

Technically it is solar, actually. It runs off your movements, which take energy from food, which in turn is made by chemical reactions that use sunlight for energy.

[NoXion]

Technically it is solar, actually. It runs off your movements, which take energy from food, which in turn is made by chemical reactions that use sunlight for enemy.

Surely by that definition coal is also technically solar as well? Since it is plant matter made using solar energy that has been compressed underground for a while before being dug up and burnt.

[PeZook]

Well, yeah. That's why I said technically. I will not disallow general discussion about alternative power, but only after SI has presented his material for discussion.

[aerius]

Baseload power means it runs 24/7 at its full rated capacity. By definition solar is out of running, period, unless you put the damn thing in space and beam the power to earth. But we have batteries and storage for night and cloudy days you say, well, those batteries ain't gonna charge themselves so at best your solar farm will run at about half its rated capacity. Now here's the really fun part, once you get a set of batteries charged up to 80-85% or so the charging efficiency goes to hell and it takes an increasingly large amount of power to top up that last 15-20% of charge, there's a reason that hybrid cars cycle their batteries from around 40-85% of total charge, trying to get that last 15-20% would kill the efficiency of the car. After accounting for charging losses your solar plant is effectively running at around 40-45% of its rated capacity assuming perfect ideal conditions.

Your next problem is materials, unless you're going to stick to silicon solar panels you'll run into material shortages. Gallium & Indium are rare earth elements and seriously expensive, the Tellurium used in CdTe thin film cells isn't exactly common or cheap either, there's some other stuff you can use for solar but efficiency goes down the crapper. Your next problem is that a lot of the high efficiency gallium-indium compounds only work under concentrated sunlight, meaning you need a bunch of lenses or mirrors to focus sunlight on the cells so that you can get 30-40% efficiencies, otherwise they don't really work that well.

Bottom line is you can't get baseload power from solar. Baseload power comes from coal, hydroelectric, and nuclear, and this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

[madd0ct0r]

Aerius, you are wrong.

'Base load power' does not mean it has to run at 100% capacity 24/7. it means it has to produce a certain capacity 24/7.
(not to mention base load demand fluctuates over the year too)

there's a big difference. Judging power sources only by their peak output, and then claiming they're rubbish becuase they can't achieve peak output 100% of the time is pretty stupid.

Coal and oil burners can be turned off during periods of low demand. Gas even more so. Nuclear HAS to run, so if you're produceing electricty that nobody is using, and there's no way to store it, you loose it.

Now, for solar, as you correctly worked out, to achieve base load X, we need the solar capacity to be 2X (give or take).
Obviously, this varies depending on the location. Siberia will have far more trouble then Somalia. Likewise Vietnamese demand is at the highest in summer (for AC). Fortunetly this conicides with the sunniest period. Batteries are still required, as most people run the AC overnight.

So, rather then making not very well thought out claims, perhaps we should look at the 'base load' of various countries, their solar resources and calculate the volume of storage required. It will make later conversation when we have some cost data much more intresting.

[Sky Captain]

Now, for solar, as you correctly worked out, to achieve base load X, we need the solar capacity to be 2X (give or take).

Actually far more solar capacity would be required. For example German solar plants have capacity factor of 0,1 - 0,13.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany
so to produce average X you would need 8 - 10X capacity installed. Most of the Europe would be in similar situation, Only countries near Mediterranean would have better conditions with capacity factors approaching 0,2.

[Singular Intellect]

So I finally got around to setting some time aside for my promised contributions to this thread. Here's a couple of links to Ray Kurzweil's take on the upcoming solar power situation:

Solar Power to rule in 20 years
100% Solar Power in twenty years

IMPORTANT: Do not mistake these references as appeals to authority. They are not, I'm merely referencing them as starting points on the issue, as Ray Kurzweil sparked my interest on the issue and I was also quite skeptical on the claims initially.

Just recently I came across a lecture by Hermann Scheer. It's an hour and a half long, but a very interesting and informative one. His points regarding nuclear power optimism are very enlightening. I will also repost the link to the documentry video of the solar power revolution currently going on.

Indications of the exponential rate of solar power adoption and installations:

Installed photovoltaics
Germany's example of solar growth
Analysis of solar industry growth
Huge growth expected for North American solar
Incredible growth for solar
Chinese solar industry
Chinese solar industry booming
India rapidly adopting solar power

Here's an assorted list of articles I have on hand about the subject:

40% efficient solar cells
80% efficient solar panels work at night
900 MW Japanese plant begins production
Artificial leaf for solar power
Solar powered iPhone
Japan's Nuclear incident spurs China to look more into solar
Solar energy to rival oil
Micro inverters for solar panels
One dollar watt solar panels begin mass production
Five game changing solar technologies
MIT developes advanced Solar Power storage technology
Solar Power being made cheaper than coal
Solar cell efficiency pushed to 66%
Solar Cell made of 98% plastic and captures 96% if incident light
Self repairing Solar cells
Photovoltaic concentrators boost efficiency by 300-400%
PETE technology for Solar panels converts heat and light
Production methods uses only 1-2% of silicon
Printing out Solar cells onto large scale sheets
Solar Islands being constructed and tested, aims for 500 meters to 5 kilometer sizes
Copper used in Solar cells, 10x cheaper
Cheap concentrator technology
Self cleaning Solar panels
PETE technology tripling solar efficiency
Organic molecules layered onto solar cells
Magnetic potential for solar energy production
Solar aims for 5 cents for kWh
Solar to become world player in power generation
Spray on Solar film turns windows into solar panels
Plastic spray on solar film harnessing infrared spectrum
24/7 solar energy storage technology
Super solar panels using no silicon
Nanotechnology revolutionizes solar power
Multi junction 41.1% efficient solar cells
IBM developes non rare metal solar technology
65% efficent nanowire solar cells
100% performance gain for organic solar cells
Building integrated organic PV technology to hit $430 million by 2013
Graphene organic photovoltaic panels
Cheap and easy to manufacture plastic solar cells
Self repairing organic solar cells use DNA
Cerium solar reactor turning solar into fuel
Low cost organic solar cells being developed
Developments of full spectrum solar cells
Easily manufactured full spectrum solar cells

Just the tip of the iceberg in my estimation. Twenty years of development and installations via exponential growth and accelerating returns makes a solar powered world a pretty easy conclusion. (First person to mention strawman bullshit like 'exponential growth cannot continue indefinitely' needs to be smacked with an understanding of logistic growth curves)

The major tipping point will be when solar power reaches grid parity, as mentioned here:

Solar-power prices slide toward 'grid parity'
India's projections for grid parity
US solar power projected to hit grid parity in 2015

As costs continue to decline, solar power will become cheaper than conventional energy methods, and it's all down hill at that point by the sheer force of economics.

Also, I should mention I'm not advocating the position that a solar powered world means all other forms of energy production and research will cease or disappear. They'll simply become small scale and special case specific.

[Singular Intellect]

Forgot to include additional links to energy storage technologies being developed:

Spongy carbon energy storage
Liquid batteries for solar energy storage
Molten Salt energy storage already in use

There's plenty of other examples I'm sure I could dig up, but spent the better part of an hour assembling most of this information and need to go to bed.

At the very least, I hope I'm providing some interesting reading material.

[aerius]

You realize that all those 40%+ efficiency solar cells are gallium-indium-arsenide cells or gallium-indium-something or other. Look up the cost of gallium & indium some day, they're both rare earth elements with hefty price tags. Last time I checked gallium was going for over $200 per ounce. Problem #2, if you'd read one of your own articles you'd know that those gallium-indium cells only have high efficiencies under concentrated sunlight, specifically about 450 times regular solar intensity. Meaning you need a giant magnifying glass or reflector array to focus light on the cell so that it can operate at peak efficiency, either that or it needs to be somewhere inside the orbit of Mercury.

With regards to energy storage, molten salt thermal storage has worse energy density than lead acid batteries, which is to say it's abysmal. If you're talking about molten salt batteries such as sodium-sulphur cells it's not exactly great, you get about half the energy density of a lithium-ion battery.

Some numbers for fun. Let's say you use the best batteries we currently have which are lithium-ions, they have an energy density of up to 250Wh/kg. We have about 15GW or so of baseload power generation in Ontario. 15GW, times 12 hours a night on average gives 180GWh, divide it out and that's 720,000 tons of batteries, since we can only use about half the capacity of those batteries without killing them that's over 1.4MT of batteries. Capacity factor up here is going to be a lot worse than Arizona, probably around to what's been quoted for Germany. Multiply the required storage by 5-10. 10 million tons of batteries to run the baseload for one Province. Peak consumption here is around 25-27GW. You go figure out how many square kilometers of solar cells you'll need to lay out and the amount of energy storage that's required to keep the lights on.

By the way, exponential growth on the scale you're talking about doesn't work given real world energy and resource constraints. About 10 years ago or so the cost of carbon fibre went up quite a bit and the supplies ran low since every last scrap of it was getting bought up by Boeing and Airbus for their airplanes. Same thing happened when the electronics industry suffered a tantalum shortage around the same time when manufacturers started going to tantalum parts, they just couldn't mine the stuff out of the ground fast enough. Solar won't be any different, the raw materials ain't coming out of the ground at an exponential growth rate. It's gonna bottleneck and the cost increases are going to do a real number on the industry.

[Darth Tanner]

That’s an impressive array of articles. Unfortunately the majority are simply unsupported claims by the companies hoping to get rich selling the stuff, there’s little in the way of actual performance results from fully functioning facilities or reports from government bodies or even energy companies thinking of investing.

That Kurzweil guy strikes me as a bit of a buffoon with his 100% solar grid and singularity ideas. How he can argue with a straight face that solar capabilities will continue to double every year regardless of any other factor is amazing let alone argue a 100% solar grid.
I’m also not sure you have truly read most of these articles. Many say quite clearly that the solar industry is receiving massive subsidy (which could not be maintained if solar was expanded to provide a significant amount of power) or depends on rare resources that there is massive demand for. Indeed one of your articles out right says that the recent drop in price has been a result of a drop in silicon prices since 2008 but that they expect it to go back up as the excess supply is used up and the economy in general recovers.

Furthermore many of the articles introduce wonder technologies that you believe will revolutionise solar tech, but give no mention to how much more they would cost to introduce or the limits imposed by using far more complicated and expensive manufacturing methods. Just saying you can triple capacity by using technique A is irrelevant if technique A involves increasing the panels costs by a factor of 10.

As costs continue to decline, solar power will become cheaper than conventional energy methods, and it's all down hill at that point by the sheer force of economics.

Except there’s nothing to back up your or your articles assumptions that solar will drop below the cost of alternatives when you factor in its inefficiency and lack of generation capacity at night. Not to mention if you strip out the subsidies or factor in a country without lots of direct sunshine, i.e. most of the developed world.

[Hawkwings]

The solar energy grid has a fundamental problem: producing and storing energy for use later costs more than simply producing it and sending it. Baseline power plants aren't built on basis of efficiency or steady power output or anything. They are built on basis of cost. You want to put as much power out there as you can for the least amount of money possible. It just happens that more efficient power plants with low operating costs are the cheapest way to do that. If you add in huge banks of batteries to store this energy, then you have the additional cost of batteries that you must pay off eventually, plus the cost of replacing the batteries which is not going to be insignificant (since you're working them so hard every day).

It's the same phenomenon found in things like retail, and why Dell has such long lead times for your custom-built laptop. They don't have any warehouses to store their product. This cuts down on cost. For a further analogy, if you think of a power plant as a production line, then you want a production line with three full shifts that maintains steady output, because that's how you're going to get costs down as low as possible.

[Sky Captain]

What ultimately matters is cost per W and energy storage system cost per MW/h stored. For most applications it doesn't matter if panels are 10 % or 40 % efficient. If 10 % panel costs x and 40 % panel 10X then for most applications you will choose cheapest panel. After all if you build your solar plant in huge desert it don't matter if it takes up 5 or 15 km2 of land. What matters is cost. You would go for highest possible efficiency only where size and weight matters like on spacecraft.

Also if it involves rare earths or any other exotic components forget about large scale applications because prices will spike as soon as demand outsrips supply.

[mr friendly guy]

Interesting articles, and I only had time to read a few. However I should point out that the Chinese target of 20 GW by 2020 while a good start, is easily dwarfed by her expected wind power capacity. In fact its less than China's current wind capacity of 44 GW.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/c ... 543481.htm

I should further add that China's non carbon polluting energy sources are still going to be outnumbered by the polluting sources by 2020 from their own estimates. Thus this doesn't suggest to me that solar will start producing most of the world's energy sources, unless they can suddenly crank out those super dooper solar panels, assuming they work as advertised.

[Singular Intellect]

US constructing solar plant to provide electricty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But yeah, solar power isn't practical and too unreliable...

Perhaps I'm doing a disservice by constantly referring to the photovoltaics industry; it's not the only solar energy player in town after all. Concentrated Solar Power is a rapidly improving and growing industry as well.

Even if it were conceded that solar will always be more expensive (an outright lie and myth), is that what our excuse will be to children in the future? "Yeah, we could've gone down the road of generating abundant, clean, unlimited and completely safe energy, but it was 'too expensive'. That's why we decided to stick with limited, rapidly depleting, environmentally destructive, dangerous and increasingly expensive energy sources."

We're literally staring at and being bombarded with fusion generated power by a reactor with a lifetime warranty of several billion years, of which an absolutely insignificant tiny fraction of it's output reaches us and yet still supplies ten thousand times more energy than our entire civilization consumes.

Limited potential? Unreliable? Too expensive? Lies and mythology, propogated by ignorance and biased viewpoints, to be blunt. Maybe I'm being too harsh; the conventional power companies wouldn't have any inclination to hinder, underplay or delay alternative energy sources, would they? They could easily switch to selling solar radiation and wind...whoops, wait a minute. Maybe not.

It's also obvious that things like devestating environmental costs, security and fighting over expensive to extract and limited resources doesn't factor into assessments of what kinds of energy harvesting is actually 'cheaper'. Last time I checked, didn't the US have a slightly suspicious reason for invading Iraq? Something to do with some kind of energy resource? How much did that cost again?

Which countries would be willing to go to war over solar radiation? Or wind?

Anyone bother to check the link to German's installation of solar power generation? From 2000 to 2010 they went from 76 MW capacity to almost 17 thousand MW, almost half of which was installed in the last year alone. Renewable energy installation rates blows the conventional ones out of the water with the speed at which they can be setup and start generating power.

The arguments against an inevitable and completely viable solar dominated power grid aren't just a little flawed, or little ignorant, or little downplayed. They're fucking absurd and should be tossed into the pile of bullshit including things like 'flat earth' beliefs.

[Magis]

I think everyone is neglecting a problem with solar panels - they take too much electricity to manufacture. Currently, the energy repayment period on solar panels is five to ten years. Note that I'm not talking about financial rates of return here, but rather an energy investment. In light of this, there's definitely no way panels could meet our energy demands in twenty years.

Concentrated solar power plants have more potential in my view, but their efficiency is poor and still cost far too much. I'm actually surprised this thread even exists - there is such a myriad of problems conspiring against the practicality of a solar grid that it surprises me anyone thinks it's remotely possible. Does anyone really think that even in the future a government would willingly pay five times more for solar power plants that offer no advantages compared to their cheaper rivals?

[Singular Intellect]

I think everyone is neglecting a problem with solar panels - they take too much electricity to manufacture. Currently, the energy repayment period on solar panels is five to ten years. Note that I'm not talking about financial rates of return here, but rather an energy investment. In light of this, there's definitely no way panels could meet our energy demands in twenty years.

That's exactly the kind of unsubstantiated bullshit I keep talking about.

Actual energy payback time of solar panels. One to two years for energy payback for a panel that can produce electricity for thirty years or more. Even buying into your lie it takes ten years for energy payback, PV's are still a net positive investment.

Concentrated solar power plants have more potential in my view, but their efficiency is poor and still cost far too much. I'm actually surprised this thread even exists - there is such a myriad of problems conspiring against the practicality of a solar grid that it surprises me anyone thinks it's remotely possible. Does anyone really think that even in the future a government would willingly pay five times more for solar power plants that offer no advantages compared to their cheaper rivals?

No advantages? What the fuck are you smoking? Safety, clean energy, unlimited fuel...those are just a couple of the advantages. I already previously pointed out that even if it's assumed solar will always be more expensive, it's advantages vastly outweigh our current conventional energy sources. Unlimited versus limited, clean versus dirty, safe versus dangerous, rapidly depleting versus renewable.

How the fuck could you claim 'no advantages' with a straight face?

[aerius]

US constructing solar plant to provide electricty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But yeah, solar power isn't practical and too unreliable...

Perhaps I'm doing a disservice by constantly referring to the photovoltaics industry; it's not the only solar energy player in town after all. Concentrated Solar Power is a rapidly improving and growing industry as well.

Show me the math. I posted this already, but here's the efficiency of molten salt energy storage. You go work out how many square kilometres of mirrors you'll need and how many megatons of molten salt is required to replace a single nuclear generating station such as the Darlington nuke plant given typical capacity factors. Next, you get to square those numbers with global production of those resources. You're claiming it can be done. Prove it. Good fucking luck.

[Formless]

My god. I have never seen a post that was literally less informative than a wikipedia stub with a "citation needed" tag. I mean, most people would show some concern at the fact that their claims are being attacked for their factual accuracy or logic, but not you, Bubble Boy, not you. You just brush your critics off as liars or say that their complaints are myths without even referencing which claims you are talking about. I bet you could be a consultant for conspiracy nutjobs on "how to make yourselves look even dumber". I criticize you for the blatant bullshitting you are doing, but this thread is just a sad testament to your massive Genius complex and obsessive personality. All that can be done for you my friend is mockery. Mockery and prayer to the almighty Sun God that someday the rest of us will see the light.

[Singular Intellect]

US constructing solar plant to provide electricty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But yeah, solar power isn't practical and too unreliable...

Perhaps I'm doing a disservice by constantly referring to the photovoltaics industry; it's not the only solar energy player in town after all. Concentrated Solar Power is a rapidly improving and growing industry as well.

Show me the math. I posted this already, but here's the efficiency of molten salt energy storage. You go work out how many square kilometres of mirrors you'll need and how many megatons of molten salt is required to replace a single nuclear generating station such as the Darlington nuke plant given typical capacity factors. Next, you get to square those numbers with global production of those resources. You're claiming it can be done. Prove it. Good fucking luck.

Never made such a claim, idiot. Individual renewable power plants (like solar, wind) have no need or claim to be equivalent to nuclear reactors, coal plants or any other type of power plants. You know what means? You need to build more of them. You decentralize power generation and distribution, which is an advantage. We'll end up combining larger reneweable power plant generators with greater efficiency energy consumption and additional power provided on site for areas via the solar technologies I've been going on about. You break the current monopolistic structure of the power companies. Boo fucking hoo. I'm so sure they never thought of that scenario in their selfless quest for alternative solutions to the energy crisis instead of worrying about their bottom dollar and desperately trying to squeeze every penny they can out of people before going the way of the dodo.

By the way, I love your obession with a singular example of energy storage, even though I provided links to at least a couple other methods either used or in the works. Whatever happened to the "no one solution for everything" mentality I saw floating around here?

Do yourself a favour: pull your head out of the 'one giant power plant' concept for awhile and realize there are other models of power generation possible. IE: greater numbers of smaller, decentralized power plants tapping virtually unlimited fuel sources feeding higher efficiency areas supplying portions of their own energy needs.

[aerius]

Never made such a claim, idiot. Individual renewable power plants (like solar, wind) have no need or claim to be equivalent to nuclear reactors, coal plants or any other type of power plants. You know what means? You need to build more of them. You decentralize power generation and distribution, which is an advantage. We'll end up combining larger reneweable power plant generators with greater efficiency energy consumption and additional power provided on site for areas via the solar technologies I've been going on about. You break the current monopolistic structure of the power companies. Boo fucking hoo. I'm so sure they never thought of that scenario in their selfless quest for alternative solutions to the energy crisis instead of worrying about their bottom dollar and desperately trying to squeeze every penny they can out of people before going the way of the dodo.

So basically THE FUCKING UNICORNS WILL MAKE IT SO!

By the way, I love your obession with a singular example of energy storage, even though I provided links to at least a couple other methods either used or in the works. Whatever happened to the "no one solution for everything" mentality I saw floating around here?

I looked through them all, there ain't no fucking numbers on any of them, nothing on energy density or power density, I had to go look up the numbers myself and the only ones I could find are conventional batteries and molten salt thermal storage. Forget your press releases, you need to find the hard numbers and do the math to prove that your solution is viable.

Do yourself a favour: pull your head out of the 'one giant power plant' concept for awhile and realize there are other models of power generation possible. IE: greater numbers of smaller, decentralized power plants tapping virtually unlimited fuel sources feeding higher efficiency areas supplying portions of their own energy needs.

How about I build a couple dozen CANDU-6 reactors and run them on a thorium-uranium fuel cycle with full reprocessing? It'll be a hell of a lot cheaper and still give you as much power as you want for tens of thousands of years. Plus unlike solar, we have the technology to do it right fucking now.

[Singular Intellect]

So basically THE FUCKING UNICORNS WILL MAKE IT SO!

Yeah, I didn't think you'd make an argument there.

I looked through them all, there ain't no fucking numbers on any of them, nothing on energy density or power density, I had to go look up the numbers myself and the only ones I could find are conventional batteries and molten salt thermal storage. Forget your press releases, you need to find the hard numbers and do the math to prove that your solution is viable.

Right, solar plants have been built and are being built, but they're not 'viable'. By your reasoning, nuclear power isn't 'viable' either.

How about I build a couple dozen CANDU-6 reactors and run them on a thorium-uranium fuel cycle with full reprocessing? It'll be a hell of a lot cheaper and still give you as much power as you want for tens of thousands of years. Plus unlike solar, we have the technology to do it right fucking now.

Solar plants are in operation and being built as we speak, so don't lie and claim we don't have the technology to do it right now. We have done it, we are doing it and we're rapidly getting better at it.

But you go right ahead and keep dreaming about your nuclear solution while public pressure and opinion grinds your dream into dust. Which reminds me: Swiss decomissioning nuclear power plants. Grab your tissues and prepare yourself for this news becoming significantly more common. Nuclear's demise is written on the wall, you just need to read it.

In the meantime, solar power plants will continue cropping up at increasing rates, solar technology will continue getting cheaper via mass production and technological innovation resulting in more efficient and easier installations.

I guess we'll see who wins the argument in a couple of decades, right?

[K. A. Pital]

You decentralize power generation and distribution, which is an advantage.

Actually, it can be both an advantage or a disadvantage depending on precise circumstances. Aerius correctly challenged you to provide mathematic calculations relevant to the issue.

I love your obession with a singular example of energy storage, even though I provided links to at least a couple other methods either used or in the works

The task is not to barely provide links to information about a type of storage, but to show that this type of storage is viable from the point of view of - at least! - basic economics, and that includes mathematics and physics to show that it is scalable and cost-effective compared to other types of power. I think that's the main issue with your claims.

You consider promising technologies to be automatically scalable or their universal introduction automatically feasible. That's like treating that metal oxide car engine they've been hyping for years on TV as a scalable and universally viable technology. Were it so, we'd see a shift to this promising technology within mere years. If there are blocks to such acceptance, one has to show that these blocks can be overcome. Else, the technology will remain another invention of mankind which can't be scaled up. There are more than a few examples of such inventions, in the energy sector and outside of it.

Being skeptical is natural. Being optimisting presumes you have done at least some basic math behind the scenes (i.e. behind discussions on this board).

[Magis]

That's exactly the kind of unsubstantiated bullshit I keep talking about.

Listen up, you little shit. Don't accuse me of making unsubstantiated claims while simultaneously posting a link to a non-peer-reviewed article that includes zero explanation of their methodology or calculations.

Peer-reviewed, published numbers crunched by actual scientists (like me), rather than idiotic solar fanboys (like you) indicate the following:

Energy payback for thin film copper indium diselenide modules = 9 to 12 years
Energy payback for Crystalline silicon modules = 3 to 4 years
-EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE ENERGY PAYBACK TIME FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULES, Solar Energy Vol. 71, No. 3, 2001

Note: The above calculated payback times do not include: energy embodied by manufacturing equipment, energy needed to transport goods to and from facility, and end-of-life requirements, and also based the numbers on the average sun intensity encountered in southern Europe. The authors do take the liberty of making a pretty rosy speculation that in full-production the CS modules could fall as low as 2 years, but until we see that in practice I'm reluctant to take it as gospel.

According to my colleagues (who do photovotaic research for a living), the energy payback period in our country (Canada) is approx. 5-10 years, which is fairly consistent with the study referenced above, given the types of solar technology that currently enjoy widespread installation today. Might some experimental, still-in-lab phase panels do better? That's a possibility. But when we add in the as-of-yet unknown recycling/disposal components to this equation, I wouldn't be so optimistic about your 1-2 year claim.

No advantages? What the fuck are you smoking? Safety, clean energy, unlimited fuel...those are just a couple of the advantages.

I smoke something called "reality". You might want to give it a try. Regarding your safety claim, we really don't have a good sense of what the occupational health and safety situation will be like with a fleet of CSP plants, so unless you give me something concrete, your claim is unjustified. Clean energy? Do you think that mirrors, sodium and potassium nitrates, steam turbines and electrical generators grow on trees? This is the problem with labeling technology as "clean" vs. "not clean" when the reality is much more nuanced. I'll grant you this - CPS plants are probably "more clean" than fossil fuel plants. But on a per-kW-hr basis, I'm not convinced they're any more clean than nuclear power (and I bet they're actually more dirty).

Your "unlimited fuel" claim is so stupid I shouldn't even have to deal with it. Both solar panels and CPS plants involve the use of resources that are in finite supply.

How the fuck could you claim 'no advantages' with a straight face?

Because nobody has been able to substantiate any advantages. Even if you were able to conclusively show that solar plants offer some, say, public health or public safety or environmental advantage, that would have to be weighed against their higher financial costs. And higher financial costs, in practical terms, means less money that could otherwise be spent on things like cancer research or feeding the hungry - basically things that would provide much more bang-for-the-buck in terms of societal good than wasting a trillion fucking dollars on unproven solar tech instead of a nuclear, or hydro-electric, or even wind power.