I think it should be mandatory that all business and homes have solar panels on their roofs.

To me, that would be more productive than wind.

We can do better than that, we can integrate them in the structure of the building.

^^You may not believe it, but that produces electricity.

I wonder if we could have a fusion plant up and running already if all the money spend on wind turbines had been poured into fusion research.

It's a good alternative for remote places, provided you add some hydrogen fuel cell tech to store surplus energy for when you need it. For big cities you need plants than can provide peak power on demand
What happens in Spain on a hot day with no wind? It would be bad over here with all the ACs.

I don't know much about wind turbines, but my gut says the less moving parts the better. Having thousands of wind turbines for power must require a lot of maintenance. Solar power might be better in the long run?

Great, now we're going to use air as an electrical generator, and we're going to run out of air and suffocate.

Electricity production from solar cells decays with time. It doesn't cause problems, though.

Ohhh I like that.

You got that backwards. If all the money that was wasted on fusion generators had been invested in other things (like tidal power plants etc), we would have no need for this discussion.

Also the problem of solar/iwind energy production is not the production, it is the (large scale) distribution of the energy. Occasionally, wind energy producers in Europe have TO PAY per kWh to get their energy into the European grid (the grid is not strong enough yet, and storage options are limited currently).

One cool thing with solar panel tech is that is still has growth potential.

I remember reading in like 2010 about some Japanese company developing clear solar panels that generate electricity from visible light, UV light and IR light. However the efficiency at the time was VERY BAD.

Eventually these panels could be installed as windows in buildings (similar to your pic).

The good thing about these panels (assumign they get the efficency up) is that they will work in weather conditions that are not sunny as there are areas in Australia where the sun don't shine so bright but the UV is around 14.

The other cool thing I read back then was scientists developed a new level of black, which was 30x darker than previously created (basically a piece of solid carbon). From memory it could absorb 98% of light vs like 80% what currently is possible. Now if this coudl be utlised in solar panels then great for us.

The final solar research I seen is where they inject some sort of virus into the panels that helps with the production of electricity. However this virus was harmful to people, so I personally would hate to have panels like that in the event they cracked from say a hale storm. I guess they would need to build them even more durable to ensure they don't crack.

Windfarms are utterly useless, overpriced crap because;

a) Don't run all the time

b) Need huge maintenance.

c) Variable power supply. This means you need a smart National Grid which is impossibly expensive.

d) Vast area of land needed.

e) Offshore turbines are 10x more expensive than Nuclear due to the infrasturture needed to get the electricity from the shore inland.

All in all, a waste of time and money.

Yeah, if you have a device that generates electricity and you put any exceeding energy produced on the grid, instead of reducing your electricity bill you have to pay for it.

My guess is that Enel and the other electric companies prefer things this way.