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Understanding Solar Energy

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261 points chmaynard | 1 comments | 20 Mar 25 12:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.244s | source
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1970-01-01 ◴[20 Mar 25 14:50 UTC] No.43424256[source]▶
I mentioned this yesterday, but storage is the new holy grail for cheap energy. If humans could focus on building safe and reliable battery tech instead of AI and bitcoin, we will have solved the energy crisis until fusion is ready.
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kibwen ◴[20 Mar 25 16:58 UTC] No.43425725[source]▶
Fusion is ready, and it's been ready for about 4-ish billion years. Once you deploy the panels needed to collect space-based fusion, there will likely never be an economical argument for Earth-based fusion. There's only so much simplication you can apply to a machine designed to contain a miniaturized star, especially compared to a dead-simple dirt-cheap solar panel.
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gridspy ◴[20 Mar 25 21:49 UTC] No.43429379[source]▶
You say "likely never" but eventually we'll have covered the earth's surface in solar panels. Unless we are transitioning to space based solar and transmission we'll want fusion to increase energy generation beyond surface irradience of earth.

In the meantime, solar panels for massive generation also incur transmission costs to centralize that energy for any major energy usages. We might want to keep having high power generators next to super-high energy consumers. For instance our (theoretical) hyperspace communication and computation array. Right now those usages are things like Arc Furnaces, Aluminum smelters, data-centers, ...

Plus, we'll want to have figured out that fusion tech so we can build it into our spaceships travelling out beyond Mars as an energy source and hopefully also a thrust source. We want to master that tech on Earth's surface for sure.

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1. ben_w ◴[21 Mar 25 09:25 UTC] No.43433527[source]▶
> You say "likely never" but eventually we'll have covered the earth's surface in solar panels. Unless we are transitioning to space based solar and transmission we'll want fusion to increase energy generation beyond surface irradience of earth.

> In the meantime, solar panels for massive generation also incur transmission costs to centralize that energy for any major energy usages. We might want to keep having high power generators next to super-high energy consumers. For instance our (theoretical) hyperspace communication and computation array. Right now those usages are things like Arc Furnaces, Aluminum smelters, data-centers, ...

Well before we cover the entire globe in PV, the mere fact that the panels absorb a lot of light means they will change the planet's albedo, heating things up.

But any source of power on that scale will also increase the planet's equilibrium temperature (regardless of if it's PV, fusion, or even if we figure out how to harness dark energy/zero point shenanigans) so we want space-based power before then — and the industrial capacity to use that power in space, because simply beaming it down to Earth is still going to heat up the planet just like any other power source.

Before we even get to that point (in fact, already today) humanity is manufacturing enough metal to make a global power grid with only 1 Ω of resistance the long way around. The limiting factor is geopolitical, not technical, because it's literally just China making enough of the relevant metals.