What are some pros and cons for solar energy?

Question

Im doing a science exit project, and for english class I have to make a thesis for it, my FIRST thesis

Answer 1

pros

clean plentiful renewable

cons

cost

Answer 2

This was covered before here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...

You might get 20 year life from solar panels, but batteries may need replacing every 5 - 10 years.  

Photovoltaics may not be cost effective for many years - unless the cost of energy goes up 5X quickly

Answer 3

Pros is that solar energy is a renewable source and doesn't produce harmful pollutants like the burning of fossil fuels.

Cons are that photovoltaic cells and systems used to capture and convert solar energy is costly and you have to have room to install it.

Answer 4

How about the source, it is natural.  It sucks that MAN wants to charge fees for something that all of us have. (I know the technology)

Answer 5

I wish it was a little more in my price range.  As it stands now our house would require a system costing around $30,000.  I love the idea of having enough electricity to give back to the grid in my neighborhood but it is just too expensive.

Answer 6

When most of us think of solar power they are thinking of solar panels on roofs, but that isn't the only form of solar power.  

Concentrating solar, both photovoltaic and solar thermal are our best choice for power plants.

the technology is here now at competitive prices with fossil fuel plants.

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We could have a nearly 100% solar electric grid by the end of this century, and 65% by 2050: cheap, 100% clean energy that will never, ever need any fuel. The technology is already here and it is competitive with the price of fossil fuel power plants. In fact, when you really add up all the costs to our country from continued fossil fuel use, the solar is many times cheaper, in my opinion.

Here's an article in Jan 2008 Scientic American

about how to achieve this.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

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Getting back to roof panels, the efficiency has improved vastly from 20 years ago and the cost is coming down as thin film silicon solar cells are becoming common. They use less silicon which is the biggest expense in making the panels and cells.  Non thin film cells are more efficent however(watts per square foot) and are still the best choice where square footage is an issue.

  And economies of scale are beginning to lower costs.  PV solar will be competitive with fossil fuels in 5 years or so.  In the meantime..

  Most countries that are going for PV solar,

(or photovoltaics) are susidizing it.  Germany, Italy, Spain are the biggest buyers of solar right now.  The U.S. has had tax credits for solar, but it expired this year, and Republicans stripped it from a recent energy bill.  It will probably be renewed this year, and for sure next year if a Dem is president.  

It is my belief that the subsidies are justified because we are subsidizing the oil industry by tens of billions of dollars per year.  The money would be much better spent on alternative energy.

Exxon made $40 billion profit this year.  I don't think they need subsidies.  The provision stripped from the energy bill above was to take $21 billion from the oil company tax credits and put into alt energy tax credits.  That's less than 1% of oil company profits.  

One of the best ideas is what the city of Berkely,CA just did.  They appoved a bill to finance solar rooftop installation for any homeonwer who wants it. They will sell bonds to finance it.  The homeowner will pay for the installation each year along with his property taxes.  If he sells the house before it's paid off, the next owner takes over payments.  This is a brilliant idea, a win win deal.  No reason why other communities across America can't do the same thing.

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From the website of a solar thermal company called Ausra

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

"Solar thermal power plants can store energy during daylight hours and generate power when it's needed. Ausra's power plants collect the sun's energy as heat; Ausra is developing thermal energy storage systems which can store enough heat to run the power plant for up to 20 hours during dark or cloudy periods."

"Solar is one the most land-efficient sources of clean power we have, using a fraction of the area needed by hydro or wind projects of comparable output. All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

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Ausra is building a factory in Nevada to mass produce the parts for these plants now. Another company is building a plant in New Mexico. There are seven companies in the solar thermal field in California that I know of.

Ausra is building a 175 megawatt plant near San Luis Obispo, CA. There are solar thermal plants already okayed or on the drawing boards in California totalling 2.6 gigawatts.

San Francisco could be powered by 1 gigawatt.

Hoover Dam is 2 gigawatts and so is a medium size nuclear plant.