I am getting a little tired blogging on the stupidity of solar energy all the time, but as a Registered Professional Engineer, I feel that I have a responsibility to shine some light on the stupidity of solar energy. Even some smart technical people do not understand our problem, that is what frustrates me. Myth #1 is, "We need to become energy independent". No country in the world is independent of anything and that includes energy. The much of the equipment that is used to get the oil out of the ground in Saudi Arabia come from the USA. So, what does "independent really mean?
I hear from my liberal engineering friends that we need to build these multi billion dollar solar farms to "prove out the viability of solar energy". Nothing could be farther from the truth. We only need to build what is called a "proof of principle" installation of one solar panel or one wind mill. Zero is gained by building thousands of solar farms or wind mills. If it can not be proved economical with one installation, building thousands will not make any difference.
Wait, you may think that there are economies of size or numbers and there is, but these are easy to estimate or test with "break even analysis". You don't have to build a "trial" Golden Gate Bridge to prove that it is possible or economical to build a bridge across the Golden Gate. Engineers proved that the bridge was possible using only pencil and paper. The same goes for solar and wind power. Since the Wright brothers, nothing technically significant has been discovered regarding propellers or wind mills. If you disagree, post what significant thing has been discovered since the Wright brothers.
Regarding wind mills, you can divide it into three areas:
(1) Blade design
(2) Structural tower design
(3) Transformers and distribution system design
Now look at each one of these and you tell me that spending billions of tax payer's money is going to significantly affect anyone of the three items? Millions have been spent on airplane propellers and the technical boundaries have been clearly defined. Any addition increase in efficiency is going to come at a very high cost. That is a cost that can not be justified and even if possible would not significantly affect the economics.
Now for structural towers. To date, billions of towers have been built and the few more that would be needed for wind mills, who have zero affect on the learning curve or any other improvement. People have to be realistic and not just go on blind faith.
The other big part is the transformers and distribution system. So far the world has spent trillions on electrical power control and distribution systems. Note that electricity from a wind mill is exactly the same as power from coal or any other source. You need exactly the same distribution system for wind power except for one key thing. You will need a much bigger transformer and distribution system for solar power per the amount of power generated. That is because the system has to be sized for the peak load or wind speed when in real life, the wind mill will operate at an average 20% of peak load. That means that 80% of the time we have made too big of an investment in transformers and distribution than we would have for a coal or nuclear power system.
You will never read in the news paper or see on TV facts like this. They all seem to what us to spend our money on the basis of "faith". That is "stupidity"
