Sunday Morning Renewable Energy Blogging
Posted by Phoenix Woman on March 2, 2008
– Good news for conventional solar panel makers: The polysilicon shortage is about to ease dramatically, if not end. Of course, thin-film solar cells don’t use as much polysilicon anyway — and CIGS and printed thin-film cells (like Nanosolar’s) don’t use polysilicon at all.
The goal is ambitious: to install 33 gigawatts (GW) of wind power capacity in the next ten years to supply electricity to 25 million homes.
The means are unprecedented: to build about 7,000 offshore wind turbines around Britain’s coastline.
But this could just be the start of a huge expansion of renewable energy in the UK, though wave and tidal power and even solar energy would need to be harnessed if the government is to meet its objective of drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions while also retiring a generation of old, polluting coal and nuclear power stations.
25 million homes is a lot of homes, considering that the UK’s population is a touch over 60 million right now. And 33 gigawatts is a big chunk of Britain’s energy usage, which currently tops out around 60 GW. If over half of the UK’s energy needs can be sustainably and cleanly supplied in ten years’ time, that will be a good thing indeed.
UPDATE: In the comments, Charles points out the potential of graphene as a superconductor. Right now, transmission losses over long distances is a major problem in the energy field. Imagine graphene networks conducting energy from solar or wind farms to places thousands of miles away with minimal losses.
3 Responses to “Sunday Morning Renewable Energy Blogging”
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Charles II said
I have one word for you, m’dear.
Graphene
Phoenix Woman said
Hey, Graphene! I knew her in high school! She was in my American History class! Oh, wait.
Nice use for carbon, Charles. Nanotechnology rules!
It’s also another great reason to encourage industries to trap carbon in their smokestacks: Suddenly we’ve got a new use for the stuff, sequestered in superconductor form. (This also means that transmission losses from sending energy long distances can be greatly reduced from what is typical today. Solar and/or wind farms in Texas can send their energy to the Yukon with next to no loss.)
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[...] distance electricity must travel, the more is lost in the transaction [03/04/08 UPDATE: The rise of new carbon graphene superconductors may solve the second half of this problem, but not the first — though it is possible that a [...]