

Solar Power Blowing Up in the United States - zshahan
http://cleantechnica.com/2010/10/13/solar-power-blowing-up-in-the-united-states/

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ojbyrne
Having just worked at a company that installs solar panels, one thing was
obvious - the use of solar panels was driven largely by government incentives,
that are steadily being cut back. Perhaps the cost will drop enough over time
to make up for the loss of those government incentives, but I don't think
that's a sure thing.

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FluidDjango
Well, as much as I'd like to believe it... a report from "Solar Energy
Industry Association" is not a very independent analysis.

And there's the problem with presenting a bar graph showing _linear_ growth
over the next few years, followed by a text that says the claim is for
"exponential" growth over the next few years.

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humbledrone
The graph does not show growth increasing linearly, as you say. What it shows
is that the _rate of growth_ is increasing linearly, which indicates that
there is an acceleration in how fast solar power capacity is being created.
Thus, the growth of installed power plants will in fact be increasing
quadratically.

In layman's terms, quadratic growth is often referred to (incorrectly) as
"exponential" growth. If the article included a graph of the total solar power
capacity over time, it would indeed appear to be increasing "exponentially."

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bugsy
Um, no one sees any problems with that chart? Every single point except the
first one for the current year is theoretical and assume projections of
increases per year that are more than total current capacity. That's like
taking the US GNP and making a projection that we will undergo 150% growth the
next two years, then stabilize into linear growth after that at the same rate.

Saying that things are "blowing up" currently just ain't so. Where is the 2009
to 2010 curve, and how did they get the starting point in 2010 when the year
isn't even over yet.

Sorry, but this is clearly an article placed by solar panel salesmen.

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zshahan
if you read through the article, you'll see that solar capacity more than
doubled from 2009-2010. it would be nice if it included previous growth, which
actually was similar. but this is more about the future based on what is
happening now and expected in the future... i'm sure they used the previous
years' data though & showing those data in such a graph would be useful as
well. however, the site covers that regularly, so I think the regular readers
are quite familiar with the info.

~~~
bugsy
We might want to clarify here that you are a professional writer for the site
in question and the author of the given post; also you post a similar comment
there in response to a similar question. Also, despite having access to the
alleged pre-2010 data in question that you say is well known to regular
readers on your site you provide no links to demonstrate where this data might
be.

By the way, on another topic, you need to check out your site in Safari, there
is a fatal javascript loop. Probably a bug in Safari since it doesn't manifest
in other browsers but it should still be addressed.

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DougWebb
The most amazing thing about solar energy is clearly it's ability to enable
extrapolating a trend line from a single data point, and an estimated one at
that. How efficient!

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ax0n
I'm really looking forward to the advances that are being made in solar power.
Just a few short years ago, it was still mostly an inefficient pipe dream.
We're a long way off from being able to fully charge daily-used commuter
vehicles with on-board solar panels (to reduce our dependence on coal and oil
burned to charge the current wave of electric vehicles) but grid-connected
solar farms are gaining a lot of traction. I like that.

~~~
jws
You are _forever_ away from fully charging a commuter vehicle with on-board
solar panels.

given: the daily solar power on a sunny day is about 4 kilowatt hours per
square meter.

given: you have a big roof and get 2 square meters of solar panels.

assume: You can have magical 100% efficient panels instead of the 20-30% you
could have.

compute: You get 8 kilowatt hours of energy each day.

google: That is about 30 megajoules of energy.

wikipedia: Gasoline has 35 megajoules per liter.

thusly: Your tiny car with a huge roof covered in impossibly efficient solar
panels will get you the equivalent of one liter of gasoline a day.

§

But I have to wonder: Why are you carrying your solar panels around with you?
That just wastes energy. Let them sit somewhere and send power to the grid.
Pick up the power where you need it, when you need it.

The only function for a roof mounted solar panel is to look really cool in
concept art.

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ph0rque
Your analysis is way too conservative. An analysis by Tesla Motors some time
ago calculated that if you drive the Roadster an average of 35 miles a day,
you need about 105ft^2 of solar panels to produce all the electricity for it,
assuming 18%-efficient solar panels. [1]

The Tesla Roadster has an area, when viewed from the top, of 72ft^2. [2] That
means if you were able to cover it with solar panels that were 27% efficient,
you could power it just from the power it produced.

As far as your last point, I agree: I'd rather put the solar panels on the
garage roof, where I can somewhat control how much sunlight it gathers, than
on the car.

1\. [http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/electric-cars-and-
photovolta...](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/electric-cars-and-photovoltaic-
solar-cells)

2\. <http://www.netcarshow.com/tesla/2008-roadster/>

~~~
jws
Good numbers in the Tesla Roadster wikipedia introduction.

wikipedia: The tesla roadster use 490 kiljoules per kilometer.

compute: Our 30 megajoules above will take us 38 miles.

Of course I'm still using mythical 100% efficient solar cells on a biggish
flat roof and all sunny days, and Tesla used mythical shape hugging solar
cells on all of their exposed surfaces.

I still think the best solution for a solar powered car is to place your solar
cells the south western deserts near LA and pull what power you need from the
grid. That way you get a lot more power delivered from your cells.

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Helianthus16
Hate to say it, but this felt... spammy. They didn't include any trending data
from now, they just... kinda drew a line upwards?

Yeah, solar power is cool, it's growing and reasonable to assume it will
continue doing so. Article's rather light on information, though.

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dmfdmf
Harvesting the power of government stimulus.

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zshahan
a lot more government money goes into other forms of energy, though

