What are the disadvantages of solar power?

Question

Other than cost? I'm helping a friend with a project promoting solar power, and I need to find the down sides of solar power in order to refute them, or at least show that the good outweighs the bad. Any suggestions?

I'm looking for things such as the waste from producing PV cells, storage problems, really anything that someone would say to argue against solar power, but I need detailed information.

I'll be doing a bunch of research on my own over the next couple weeks, but any kind of help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The main disadvantages of solar power are:

-it is an unstable source of power, available only during the day time, and also sensitive to clouds.

-as an energy source it needs a large area to collect energy, and then a method or technology to concentrate that energy to achieve the high temperatures required for most applications, all that makes it an inefficient source of useful energy.

since it operates outdoors, and is sensitive to dust, it needs continuous maintenance.

Answer 2

There are completely wasteful!

Call up your local recycling center and tell them you had a PV panel that fell off your roof and you want to know where you can dispose of it and I bet they will have you treat it like hazardous waste!

There are a few company's out there that are producing solar cloth and there is even a company that is researching a spray paint that can be sold to consumers. I am sorry I do not have these websites available right now but just do a search on these topics and you should come up with some interesting things.

Because PV's are silicon doped they produce a lot of waste, really horrible, chemicals like gallium and cadmium, really bad stuff.

A friend recently told me about solar cells that get their power from heat rather then from radiation (sun light) and that these will probably be the next wave in solar cells.

Answer 3

Well, the people who argue against solar will use cost/benefit numbers. As of now, they're kinda pricey and most people won't want to pay so much for what little they produce,

they'll say that it's not a practical source of energy, and even if you cover your whole house top to bottom, you'll get maybe 30-40% of your energy from them tops.

Placement and space (where will the panels go), weight of the panels (if on your house)

Answer 4

where?

how much sun?

are there trees in the way?

do you have a section of roof that slopes south?

is your roof strong enough to support the solar panels?

does your power company pay part of the cost?

or pay for electricity you generate and feed back into the lines?

does your neighbor have trees in the way.

(mine does.)

or are these questions irrelevant?

Answer 5

If one had all the right type of equipment on the in side of a home and the correct amount of solar on the out side, with the use of net-metering, that's right your meter spins backwards, there would be zero electric cost.  I don't know about how pollution is made in their production.  There is zero for the rest of their life time.  Solar made 30 years ago still work.

Think about this.

Long after one cubic acre of coal is gone.

Long after one cubic acre of oil is gone.

Long after one cubic acre of uranium ore stops glowing.

You one acre of solar will still be making power.

Over the course of time, all the fossil fuels took millions of years to make, solar has made 10 times that amount of energy.

Answer 6

Some primary disadvantages:

a) Because solar power is only available in the daytime, it requires batteries (or a large utility burning other types of fuel) in the night.  These batteries, while recyclable, are filled with caustics and hazardous materials.  

b) Solar panels are unsightly, and they require a lot of space.  Perhaps a single home has enough roof space to power itself with solar (and batteries!) but what about a hospital?  Or an aluminum can factory?  Or a foundry?  You'll need a LOT of acreage for any energy-intensive process.

c) There is a rumor that solar panels take more energy to construct than they produce in their life.  This is untrue, and your friend needs to do a bit of research to find reliable sources to refute this.  At the most recent solar conference I attended, the general consensus was that a solar panel took three years before it produced more energy than it took to fabricate.

d) People will also say that solar power is "inefficient" and that what we need is more efficient sources of power.  (Solar panels have an efficiency of roughly 8% to 15% versus fossil fuel power plants which have an efficiency of perhaps 35% to 50%.)    But if the base source of energy (the sun) is clean, it doesn't matter how efficient the conversion is - as long as it is cost effective.

e) The worst thing about solar power right now is that it is incredibly expensive.  In most parts of the US, if you don't count all the money that the government & utilities are giving away to support solar power, it takes anywhere from 30 years to 80 years for a solar panel to pay for itself.  

Hope this helps!

c)