Now is the time at SDA when we told you so!
William Tucker, 2009;
Solar radiation is the result of an E = mc2 transformation as the sun transforms hydrogen to helium. Unfortunately, the reaction takes place 90 million miles away. Radiation dissipates with the square of the distance, so by the time solar energy reaches the earth it is diluted by almost the same factor, 10-15. Thus, the amount of solar radiation falling on a one square meter is 400 watts, enough to power four 100-watt light bulbs. “Thermal solar” – large arrays of mirrors heating a fluid – can convert 30 percent of this to electricity. Photovoltaic cells are slightly less efficient, converting only about 25 percent. As a result, the amount of electricity we can draw from the sun is enough to power one 100-watt light bulb per card table.
Eco-campaigners who built a classroom powered by the sun believed they were paving the way for the future.
Instead they have been taught a valuable lesson – there is not enough sun in North London to sufficiently heat their building. The much feted zero-carbon Living Ark classroom was opened three months ago to great fanfare. It boasts laudable green credentials and is made from sustainable wood, sheep’s wool and soil. The roof is made of mud and grass and it has its own ‘rain pod’ and solar panels.
But there is snag – its solar panels only provide enough energy to power a few lightbulbs.
h/t WUWT
Dennis Prager had a great bit on his radio show about this.
Apparently at LAX there’s a Big Important exhibit of a bunch of windmills powering a laptop.
We’re meant to be amazed, but as Prager says, “Yeah, but… it’s just a laptop! 10 fans for that??”
Is he the only person who passes that exhibit and makes that point? That’s the really scary part.
“All this will teach kids is how poorly planned costly local authorities projects can be”.
At £25000, that’s cheap. Try a few billion pounds on windmills for a real lesson.
The triumph of environmentalists religious beliefs over the laws of physics.
Well, in their minds.
one look at the space station can tell you how much solar array is required for minimal lifesupport.
It’s even worse than the quoted statistic of 400 W/m2 (=.4kWh/h/m2 or ~10 kWh/day/m2)
Average US solar radiation
Only a teeny-tiny bit of the US is over 9 kWh/day/m2. As the map shows, most of the US is half that figure, or less.
Aaa-haa! Classic fail a la greentard!
Except for the shitty solar panels the Living Ark sounds a lot like a sod house of the kind prairie pioneers built.
I also recently came across an article in Discover magazine featuring Obama’s green energy czar Stephen Chu. Seems that Czar Chu does the math quite differently regarding the potential of solar energy.
An excerpt:
Putting all this together, could we be mostly carbon-free in the United States by 2050?
It’s ambitious but it’s possible. The cleanest form of nuclear power is the sun. The amount of energy hitting Earth is more than 10,000 times what we need. If we achieve even 1 percent efficiency at low cost and we can store the energy, we’ll have enough for nine and a half billion people without polluting the world. The laws of physics say it’s possible. We don’t have to invent something better than the sun. It’s the sun that gives us solar, hydro, the wind, and the waves.
The rest here:
http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jan-feb/25
Czar Chu must be using the new unicorn math.
Actually, Tucker has overstated the ability of PV solar a bit. Only 13% of solar photons have sufficient energy to free an electron from a silicon substrate. His 25% applies only to PV collectors using rather exotic materials. Typical performance by a PV collector will be about 50 watts/sq.m.
During a day, this will produce, given diurnal variation, about 600 watt/hours in direct sunlight when the sun is directly overhead at noon. However, weather conditions interfere with this. Overcast reduces the output by 75%. If you assume that 1/3 of the days in a year are overcast, then solar production is reduced to an average of about 400 whd. Reducing for solar angle in the morning and late afternoon will reduce this to about 300 whd.
Curvature of the earth also affects this. The 400 w/sq.m. only applies at the equator. Solar flux is less as you move away from it. North of about the 45th parallel, the effect starts to become severe.
Latitude effects, diurnal variation and weather effects also reduce solar thermal as well in similar proportion.
“…. minimal life support.”
Point noted, Cal2, but pretty sophisticated, automated “minimal” life support nonetheless.
Solar thermal and solar electric have their place …. just not in the mainstream “grid”.
MM
Stupid is as stupid does!
Not much play in/on MSM ’bout O’s Katrina+.
But, the “experts” blather on, as usual:
“scientists concluded those dolphins “died from something environmental during the last year,” Mase said.”
Look out for this:
>>> ““Because of this declaration, many resources are expected to be allocated to investigating this phenomenon,” she said.”
…-
“U.S. Gulf Coast dolphin death toll rises”
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Environment/2011/02/25/17406376.html
At the latitude that I live in,southern Sask,in the wintertime it just gets light,there is little heat energy in the sun.
Sustainable Wood, heh.
Is that the name of an environmentalist gay pr0n movie?
Just cover the plant with windmills and solar panels enough to actually power things and find out how much “sustainable wood” you’ve got left, Leftists.
…they have been taught a valuable lesson – there is not enough sun in North London to sufficiently heat their building.
Next time they should check with me before they waste 25,000 pounds.
You guys see a useless classroom, I see the perfect location to house and educate True Believers on the limitations of alternative energy. Why waste an opportunity to re-task an expensive structure.
Evangelical environmentalists are welcome to starve while freezing in the dark right now, but they want to take the rest of us with them, if they drink the Kool-Aid first then I’ll give it serious consideration, honest….
Elsie Bennett @3:04 – “You guys see a useless classroom…” Meh, I say freeze the little swine. Teach ’em to be grateful and such. Alternatively it might make a nice sauna.
London is the same latitude as Calgary.
They could have figured out many of these problems before they every built it. A little arithmetic would have gone a long way.
What were they thinking? Were they thinking?
Eco homes. Craik Sk 1$ lots and you build what they want. One guy looks a little PO’d his windmill will light a lightbulb. Entertaining.
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/The_Passionate_Eye/1274903384/ID=1449987664
rabbit – London is not as cold as Calgary, what with the gulf stream and such, but at least Calgary has seasons, like the rest of North America. Britain merely has shifts in the severity of cloud cover and the frequency of drizzle, that’s it. (Admittedly Southern England, in a good year, has something resembling a “spring”, which Atlantic Canada doesn’t. But I still say we nuke ’em).
p.s. I’m pretty sure you mean “longitude”. Unless you don’t; this stuff has tripped me up before.
Nope, second thought, you meant “latitude”. Carry on, ignore me. I’m just a girl, I’m bad at spatial stuff.
A great lesson for the kids actually, though expensive. These failed green projects are all over the place, but don’t usually get any more than local media coverage — if that.
Cal2 mentioned the space station’s solar panels. Good point … maybe even more so since because the space station is outside the atmosphere, the solar panels are actually receiving MORE solar energy than they would if they were on the earth’s surface.
cal2
You frogot to mention that the space-stations solar panels are made of the expensive exotic stuff and are deployed in a vacuum without the atmosphere obscuring or reducing the solar radiation. Somewhere on the interwebs is the efficiency of these orbiting arrays……
The conditions in space involve the necessity of rotating space craft to reduce heating by the solar wind. Heating as a result is less of a problem than cooling.
That tinted visor on fighter helmets is necessary because sun glare/light gets extremely bright at altitude….along with radiation….
Make them live in it.
Let them freeze to death in it.
I’ve got my thermostat set for 70 degrees. My bill will be high, but it’s worth every penny.
I can see the sea level rising from my window.