Reply #26: Maybe you should read what the Department of Energy says.

[garybeck]

you said:

When you look at these numbers, and then recognize the size of the solar facilities pictured, you should be disturbed, not encouraged.


now read what the DOE says:

Myth 1: Solar electricity cannot serve any significant fraction of U.S. or world electricity needs.
PV technology can meet electricity demand on any scale. The solar energy resource in a 100-mile-square area of Nevada could supply the United States with all its electricity (about 800 gigawatts) using modestly efficient (10%) commercial PV modules.

A more realistic scenario involves distributing these same PV systems throughout the 50 states. Currently available sites—such as vacant land, parking lots, and rooftops—could be used. The land requirement to produce 800 gigawatts would average out to be about 17 x 17 miles per state. Alternatively, PV systems built in the "brownfields"—the estimated 5 million acres of abandoned industrial sites in our nation's cities—could supply 90% of America's current electricity.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/myths.html#1

So, when you say "people like you" to me, I guess you're talking about the folks at the Department of Energy too. I guess those guys are all a bunch of pipe dreaming hippie drug crazed lunatics who actually think solar panels work. Why don't you write a letter to them and tell them their website is wrong.


the point is not how much energy is produced by solar TODAY. The point is that it COULD, CAN, SHOULD, WOULD produce a significant portion of our energy needs if we just had more people in positions of power who are willing to do something about it.