On Sunday 17 August 2003 11:55 am, Having folded space, the Third Stage Guild Navigator said:
Use hydrogen. One solar panel (which will last forever unless you drop something on it) can split H2O into H and O. Store the H for windless days or at night. Feed this to a turbine for electricity and recover heat for hot water, store it in a heat sink, ect. Or feed the H into a fuel cell &
What kind of land area of solar panels do you plan to produce enough H for producing a gigawatt 24/7? Then multiply that by 60. You probably have to produce H equivivalent of 180GW to accommodate for nights and cloudier days, even if you would be somewhere where it usually shines.
If you want to add windmills to the equation, do the land area calculation taking into account turbulence effects which mandate your mill spacing.
Pete
The calculations I have seen of hydrogen produced vs watts in indicate solar could supply enough hydrogen to more than satisfy the requirements of a residential user. To calculate the theoretical (maximum) volume of the hydrogen produced, also in cubic meters, from the other data for the current and the time, using "Faraday's First Law": Vtheoretical = (R I T t) / (F p z), where R=8.314 Joule/(mol Kelvin), I = current in amps, T is the temperature in Kelvins (273 + Celsius temperature), t = time in seconds, F = Faraday's constant = 96485 Coulombs per mol, p = ambient pressure = about 1 x 105 pascals (one pascal = 1 Joule/meter3), z = number of "excess" electrons = 2 (for hydrogen, H2), 4 (if you're measuring oxygen production instead). 6 hours sunlight, ave (it's 7.1 here in new mexico) 4 120 watt panels, so: 8.914* 28*303*21600=1.633529e+09 96485*105*2= 20261850 80.620965 cubic meters of hydrogen a day Kyocera KC-120's are 1242mm by 652 mm So, put them on your roof. Lots of unused space. No need to have huge expanses for centralized generation. I've read of Solar Cells as building materials, using the Cells as the shell of the house. Sorry, I do not have a formula to factor in the Exxon Valdez damage, other damage to our enrironment, billions lost last week, ect !