Will solar Become Cost-Competitive with Fuel?

I think that it will get there in about 20 years. They are getting cheaper and more efficient every year. Fuel will go up, and solar will come down.

Some of the new solar lab cells are over 40% efficient, the ones they use now are about 18-20%, cheap thin films are under 10%

In addition, other ways of using the thermal energy in addition to the visible range, with Stirling cycle machines can get another 20%++ out of it

http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&xhr=t&q=solar+%2Bstirling&cp=14&pf=p&sclient=psy&safe=off&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=solar+%2Bstirling&pbx=1&fp=92d723d3e589ed30

After all it is a stupid comparison: Solar is a way to convert a form of energy in another: from "visible" light radiation to Electricity.

Fuel is a way to store energy: some years ago the sun's light was converted to sugar complexes in the green stuff in leaves and algae. This has transformed through many different steps into what we call oil and coal.

Solar will never compete with fuel due it's huge energy content, you simply can't run a car on solar panels alone, the energy needed is to much for the sun to deliver on the surface of the car's body. (forget trucks and planes)

But in some years we will stop using fossil oil for another reason: we will run out of it at some point in the future.

Some applications are possible: where the total mass can be reduced to what is ultimately possible.

Aside from the first two answers which for the record are very naive, I was building computers with 400 megabyte drives in 1985 for the US government, the public did not get computers with 400 meg drives until 1995. So spare the rest of us your silly beliefs on what does and does not exist.

as to the question parity is sort of here now, the use of diesel generators at one dollar a day worth of diesel, combined with 50 percent of solar panels previously calculated to do the job is the correct way to go, the panel cost is halved and the power is absolute sufficiency. the only thing that does not alter is the battery storage capacity.

What has occurred is the electricity prices have become so high that the use of diesel at one dollar a day to top up the batteries is now viable. you see it costs minimum 90 dollars a quarter just for service charges and gst tax without the cost of the power on top, so for 90 dollars a quarter you can now get all the power you want at no extra charge with half the panels it would take to run a standard house.

Yes, when is the only question.

A centuary ago Florida had solar hot water, 50 years back Australians got onto solar hot water, and 40 years back started powering communications relay instalations.

Have a look at North African solar power for Europe, two propositions competing!

Brazil and Australia are the only 2 hour/30 degree tropical countries which can reduce night-storage for power.

Using electricity for surface transport is a change mankind can cope with.

Flying is another matter and engineers will fix it, but slowly. Try a fast train, quicker than a plane already and a real competitor.

Solar will only progress in the market when storage technology becomes available that can time shift the energy from when it is available to when it is needed. It doesn't matter how cheap you make solar panels. You ain't gonna to have energy when the sun don't shine.

Part of the question here should also be as to what degree of dependence should we place on the ability of solar power to maintain our electrical supply system?

There are currently over 35 active volcanoes throughout the world. The are 6 "super volcanoes" , 2 in the United States, that could erupt with devastating consequences to their locality and to atmospheric conditions.

• The 1992 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines Islands caused 342 deaths; more than 250,000 people had to be evacuated. Vast amounts of aerosols were spewed into the stratosphere, forming a global layer of sulfuric acid haze that lasted for several months. Global temperatures dropped by about 0.9 degrees F (0.5 C).
  Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/volcano#ixzz1BP59qQE2
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• A super volcano eruption could lead to a "nuclear winter". Significant reliance on solar power prior to such an eruption could have dire consequences as the ash spreads over the atmosphere and solar output is reduced both from the translucence of the atmosphere and the ash fallout coating the panels.The eruption of major volcanoes resulting in tsunamis could also wreak havoc on wind mills generating power on many shores further reducing electrical capacity.
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• Indonesia's Krakatoa has erupted several times, with the last and most devastating eruption in 1883. The resulting tsunami killed more than 36,000 people in the area of Java and Sumatra. New islands were formed by the huge amount of lava and ash and debris scattered as far away as Madagascar. The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as Perth, Australia (nearly 2000 mi/3100 km), and Rodrigues, near Mauritius (approximately 3000 mi/4800 km).Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/volcano#ixzz1BP6fCSLM
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• Solar and wind power should be considered more of a supplemental and temporary stop gap approach to solving the clean energy issue until more environmentally friendly solutions are implemented than the current fossil fuel burning. Fuel cells powered in combination with coal gassification plants operating along with the steam power electric co-generating plants would provide more of a long term basis than the feel good approach of solar and wind currently being hyped.

the chance that a super volcano erupts are quite low.

the probability that we run out of fuel before is quite high.

setting up serious alternatives is dealing with reality, working towards the worst thing that can happen is stupid and needless, you can never predict what it will be that happens and how that will evolve.

Just like the bridges they build in serious earthquake regions: it's cheaper to rebuild it after the potential big hit than to design it to withstand, even with the disastrous effects a collapsed bridge has as it might kill a lot of people and the complete transport systems is build round it.

It is dealing with reality and accepting that you can't prepare for everything, but should prepare for what is sure.

The chances that an area the size of Texas would be underwater/flooded in Australia would probably be considered quite low. But it happened.

The idea that Mt. St. Helens would blow its top was unpredicted, unexpected and people were unprepared for even though there were signs of trouble brewing.

The idea that air traffic to Europe would come to a complete halt in 2010 due to the eruption of a volcano in Iceland would evidently be outside the realm of reality for you and shouldn't be considered as anything to worry about. Perhaps they should have just allowed the planes to depart, fly through the ash clouds and let the chips fall where they may. Since you are from Belgium you would have had first hand knowledge of the results of that ash cloud and I would assume that evidently there was no adverse affect on the solar power output in Belgium.

The Tambora eruption of 1815 in Indonesia where the explosion affected the global climate, robbing North America and Europe of a summer in 1816, but creating some stunning sunsets. That outburst killed at least 71,000 people, including those affected by the resulting famine.

Krakatoa, Indonesia: The volcanic island of Krakatoa, located between Java and Sumatra, experienced its most violent eruption in 1883. With a VEI of 6, its nuclear yield was around 13,000 times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In its wake, some 165 villages and towns were devastated, and more than 36,000 people killed – many, from the resulting tsunamis. The ash ejected from the volcano tinted the skies of Europe and America red.

Tambora 1815, Krakatoa 1883, Mt. Pelee, Martinique 1902, Mt. St. Helens 1980, Pinatubo, Philippines-1991, Montserrat 1995, Iceland 2010 just to name only a few within the past 200 years.

Dealing with reality should be including all the variables and playing ostrich about some of the variables is not accepting reality. Sound engineering practices should include those variables unlike today's political rhetoric which does not. Omitting variables may make it easier to win a discussion but lacks integrity of outcome. Putting all your eggs in one basket often results in scrambled eggs.

Please do not tell the Japanese that you are not building their infrastructure to be earthquake proof because it is too expensive and the saving of lives in not worth the extra expense. They certainly would argue that point. They jail the engineers and contractors who do that.

Perhaps we could argue with the Dutch that they would have more available land if they just remove some of the width of the dikes and "take a little more of a chance" of the dikes still holding back the seas. They probably design for the 500 year storm instead of being practical and just designing for the 50 year storm.

And please let me know if you have worked on the design of any buildings, bridges or causeways. I would like to put them on my "Do not go there list" in case I decide to visit Belgium.

I do believe that there is almost an unspoken unwritten understanding among engineers worldwide that like Doctors "Do your best and Do no harm".

I also do believe that like death and taxes, volcanic eruptions are a "Sure" thing. It is only the size,location and timing that differentiates them.

I can assure you: we do not take eathquackes and volcanos into account when designing bridges and other structures. at least no serious quackes as the risk of having them is enormously low here. (and I'm not in bridge design neather)

But just as I mentioned before: you can't take into account everything: like the floods. People living there (and also where I live) know that you should not start blaming and fingerpointing. clean up and look where it might have gone wrong and which measures you can take to have less issues next time.

should we all move to higher grounds?

It is known for years that the Vesuvius is a dangerous mountain. Still everyone keeps on living near to it and millions visit the dramatic results each year. althow it might happen again and the italian govenment is honest: they are unable to move everyone out in the timeframe given by the specialists between serious warning signs and a potential catastrophy.

Even better: after each volcano eruption the victims return to their land.

Please come by and visit us, the only nation in the world wich is performing well and even better now we don't have a government for over 200 days.

Japan has a different problem: magnitude 8 quackes happen regularly, if they have to rebuild everything each time. Same thing for Tsunamis they have them nearly each year, so they are prepaired.

We have each year floods, so we are prepaired. can we prevent them: no. We just make sure we have sufficient pumps and buckets

Since my daughter spent a year at Leuven I know that you don't have earthquakes or volcanoes in Belgium so obviously designing for those would be ludicrous in your position.

However, if the floods could have been prevented by using better design criteria or some increase in a worse case scenario then one has to question whether the increased cost is less than the cost of cleanup and rebuilding not to mention loss of life. Cleanup and reconstruction can be much more than double the cost of proper initial construction.

Higher grounds- maybe yes or maybe be able to divert or contain depending on conditions but know all possible, plausible and worst case conditions.

Maybe not millions but thousands maybe hundreds of thousands visit the volcanoes in Hawaii and the geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone and walk away unscathed. No one builds a cabin to live in their shadows however. If they did, then Darwin's Law should prevail and the gene pool cleansed accordingly. The cost of sending Rangers up to warn each and everyone up there should not be borne by the general public not to mention endangering the Rangers lives.

As to lack of a government in Belgium I was unaware of that. Of course we haven't had a good government over here for probably the past 20 years so it probably didn't stand out as being different from our lot in life.

As far as Japan magnitude 8 quakes are not all that common. The highest I experienced there was a 5.7 though days after I left there was a 7.1. Friends were in an elevator at the time. A lot depends on the epicenter as to seriousness.

A quote based on the Japanese earthquake back in October 2010:

"Because the country has lived with constant earthquakes, stricter building codes and emergency preparedness plans have been put carefully in place. However, while the cities are well protected against most quakes, the outer lying areas are another story. In regions outside of the city, many homes are built without following earthquake guidelines.Much of the widespread damage and high mortality rates in past Japanese quakes are attributed to substandard building construction in areas where building codes are not strictly enforced."

Lastly I don't think anyone is ever prepared for a Tsunami although as you correctly said the Japanese are probably the best prepared. But they have spent a considerable number of yen to be so well prepared and they have based a lot of their planning on history and past experience. It certainly helped being a respectively wealthy country in order to afford the construction of numerous seawalls and tsunami gates to achieve that protection. Since the major part of their population lives within the coastal plain and has a limited space, their ability to get out of harm's way is severely restricted.

I sailed up the Chittagong River about a week or two after the article below. We understood at the time that it was about a 20' bore that traveled up the river. Many people lived in shacks on stilts over the water.there was generally a 15 to 20' clearance but we sailed up past a lot of empty stilts/poles with no homes left. There were still bodies of cows and people floating downriver.

October 1960: A severe cyclonic storm hit Chittagong and eastern Meghna estuary, with winds speed up to 210 km/h. The storm surge reached a height of 4.5-6.1 m. Casualty: about 10,000 people, 27,793 cattle. Losses: 568,161 houses destroyed. Also, two large ocean-going ships ran aground in the shore, and 5-7 vessels capsized in Karnaphuli River.

My contention is not to design for possible eruptions of super volcanoes as you seem to think I was but not to base all your hopes on eliminating or reducing oil use and therefore greenhouse gases by simply utilizing solar and wind since there could, just could mind you, be ramifications to such an approach of which a serious volcanic eruption could easily be one.