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Philbot_ t1_ja4m9fx wrote

Reply to comment by Waslw in The ultimate solar panels are coming: perovskites with 250% more efficiency by Renu_021

Full direct sun is around 1000W/m2. A tennis court is around 200m2. 200kW can power a large office building with a roof area of multiple tennis courts.

If we had 100% efficient solar panels, humanity would be set for a very long time.

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Waslw t1_ja4oejf wrote

I’m not knocking the tech and I know the math… and as far as where we are today in our energy needs it’s promising, in my opinion things like nuclear are still superior because of shear energy density. Thorium is 35 times more energy dense than Uranium. 1 Kg of Uranium has an energy density of 45,000 kWh, 1 Kg of oil 12 kWh and 1 Kg coal only having 8kWh.

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gulgin t1_ja4pg9h wrote

Everything is relative. It is unlikely that fusion will ever be as scalable or reliable as solar. Solar panels are so incredibly simple that they will always be more efficient than fusion in certain circumstances. That being said, it is possible that fusion would be more efficient in different circumstances where high power density is required or solar suffers from environmental issues. One is not better than the other, any more than a carrot is a better vegetable than broccoli. They are both good. For better or worse solar is shooting up the maturity ladder much faster than fusion, but fusion will get there eventually. (I hope)

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Waslw t1_ja4uwu6 wrote

I think your confused… I’m not talking fusion, I’m talking fission, technology that has existed and has been used for many many decades… arguably out of all the “green energy” technologies that exist today it is the most scalable, affordable, safest as far as deaths, injuries and illnesses (that includes aftermath of things like Chernobyl, Fukushima, and 3 mile island) … and over its life the only energy technology that is truly carbon neutral and with little improvement carbon negative.

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gulgin t1_ja4w4t6 wrote

Apologies, I assumed you were talking fusion. Either way the exact same arguments apply. Fission is still necessarily much more mechanically complicated than solar and will never be as reliable or maintenance free. I am also not sure how you are considering nuclear safer than solar, but in the long run the safety stuff gets solved either way so I wouldn’t hold that against either technology. Carbon neutrality is also a very complicated question, environmental impact is a difficult if not impossible thing to holistically judge.

Either way, there will always be situations where solar is a better energy production method than any kind of nuclear, and there will always be situations where any kind of nuclear is better than solar. As the technologies develop that crossover point will swing back and forth.

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SandAndAlum t1_ja5ttbg wrote

Closed fission fuel cycles are scifi, safe, clean thorium separation doubly so. And the largest uranium mines and deposits like Inkai would produce more power as solar farms than uranium mines.

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