USA's largest solar farms

RE: USA's largest solar farms

Former Member — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:02:45 GMT

My God, No wonder USA is in deep manure! Get real Americans.

You are either making a big error or need to take a hard look at yourselves.

50kWh!! That is enormous! (You didn't say what you were intending to run though)

My household electricity use is consistently below 8kWh!

My 2.1kW solar install returns credits on my electricity bills.

RE: USA's largest solar farms

Former Member — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:51:32 GMT

When working out what a good life powered by renewables would cost, one must first look at what people need, which is grossly missmatched to what some people in some countries presently have. If you are using more than 1kWh per day per person then you have made some major purchasing mistakes in the size and types of appliances being used.

It is profligate living beyond the planets' means to use 50kWh per day. Adding illegal speeding capability and more than a tonne of junk to standard motor vehicles gets through that much in imported petrol and failing to choose a sensible sized living space with good passive thermal properties wastes another 20kWh per day on heating if done badly enough.

It is surprising how much use a single person can get from a single 175W solar panel and some DC-DC converters which you can study by looking inside a laptop. Solar is more than enough for electronic comms, TV if it is an efficient 30Watt device, high performance computing with less than 100Watts .. More pragmatically, 4kWp solar photovoltaic plus 2 square meters of solar thermal heating provides lots of power for a large house, or half that will run a sensible European sized mid-terrace or semi-detached home. Why use more?

RE: USA's largest solar farms

Former Member — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:43:20 GMT

When reading that the 17 power plants have 55 reactors total in Japan - they only supply 24% of the power used... Seems like an incredible price to pay for green - How green is green when it is dead or contaminated... These panels are taking up a great deal of space - what is the ratio? Your calculations are relatively close to my own and I think that your remark about going into a different direction is exactly right. What about places like Washington and Michigan where constant sunshine is not such a regualrity?