Solar Power

It is a misnomer to state that Photo voltaic solar power is non polluting, as the statement discounts the manufacturing process and subsequent disposal.

The manufacturing process creates a number of undesirable waste products.

Subsequently when the panels lose their efficacy to the point where they are just lossy diodes, there is the disposal issue.

There have been incremental improvements in the efficiency of the cells and variations in methodology of cell manufacture. However most efforts have been in improving manufacturing yields.

The same could be said about the battery storage systems incorporated in most PV applications.

GA. PV also uses a lot of really nasty chemicals such as hydrofluoric acid and ammonium trifluoride in its manufacture.

What I've always found astonishing is that whenever people talk about solar energy, they always focus on PV, which operates in the visible spectrum of light and thus can only work in the daytime and not solar thermal, which can even work at night if there is an efficient way of storing the heat produced during the day e.g. a black-painted metal saltwater tank. This is all the more so when you consider that most of the energy collected by the PV panels is actually lost as heat.

Has anyone ever considered using solar thermal energy to power a Stirling engine made from recycled material to drive a generator?

Thanks for the GA, I worked at BP Solar during the early 90's so yes the chemicals used are quite toxic. There was a pilot plant for an alternative cell diffusion system that created a fairly evil gas that needed a "scrubber". I always thought that was dodgy...

As for ;

"Has anyone ever considered using solar thermal energy to power a Stirling engine made from recycled material to drive a generator?"

You did just now, sounds like an excellent concept for a IPCC grant...

http://www.stirlingenergy.com/

Have a look at this.

DO IT !

As per post #1, current solar systems waste more power making them than they will ever produce in their operational life. Solar problems and ongoing developments have been explained in numerous threads and posts previously on CR4. Have a look at those using the "search all of CR4" function on the right.

For additional links on latest solar products and developments try the following link (most of the links are applicable to solar also)

http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/589429

The development into solar continues, we just are not there yet where they become a truly "environmentally friendly" power generation alternative.

There is an enormous opportunity to develop areas currently designated 'desert' for this purpose.

See this link

http://www.nanosolar.com

They are producing flexible solar foil to make electrical solar panels that can be cut to any shape.

They have already participated in Giga Watt scale projects in USA and Germany.

However they give no information on where to buy the product, they only work for big companies, not for entrepreneurs.

Jaime Soto Figueroa

Chile