Why renewable energy won't work.

[mrstickball]

Rath said:

Kasz216 said:

sapphi_snake said:

So, in other words: people don't think of what is best in the long run, and saving money is more important than having a planet to live on.

Well... that and most countries don't have the space to build power plants the size of Arizona... because there is no way to make much more efficent wind, solar and hydro plants because there is a very finite amount of energy put in one spot.

Photovoltaic energy is only about 25% efficient at the very top end at the moment, there are ways to make it much more efficient. In fact there are more efficiency gains to be had in solar than in any other form of energy as far as I can see.

Very true, which is why we shouldn't subsidize them. If we can truely reach incredible efficencies in solar PV, then we shouldn't invest now, but when they reach market acceptible levels. That way, your not wasting money. If you watched the Reason video I posted, there is a lot of money out there in private industry that is ready and willing to buy into Solar PV by the billions, if not hundred of billions.

The issue is that its just not ready for prime time yet. But at our current rate of improvement in cost per watt for solar PV, we should see the cost per KWH drop from $0.25 to about $0.10 by 2030. At that point, it is very reasonable to expect most energy companies to adopt solar. That is why the free market is so wonderful - it can adopt the technology very quickly if it is workable. If it isn't (which is always possible), then it will pursue another form of energy production.