Why not build a national solar energy sytem, to stimulate the economy and wean ourselves off of Arab oil?!?

Technology is on the rise. Solar energy is on the rise. Companies like First Solar and Sunpower are developing and selling solar systems. This is a good thing to wean ourselves off of energy consumption from other sources.

There are many projects happenning as the result of technology improvements and discoveries over the years. Life is unfolding.

Efficiency would have it that the cheapest means of transferring energy is in a localized sense, where energy is harnessed from the sun, the wind, the movement of nature and delivered to deliver necessary goods and services, to heat or to propel necessary beings to desired delivery points.

Most of the past ventures that made money this way were energy generation from large transports including heavy engines and motors that moved energy to it's desired points of delivery.

Lighter durable manufactured textiles and miniaturization of these original engine and motor concepts allows for the transferrance of that energy at far less expensive and more efficient local distribution.

Large distribution entails huge heavy duty power losses through heavy duty highly costly unnecessary use of resources in transmission lines and devices. It is like you driving around in a tank to get to and from your grocery shopping. Not too efficient, is it?

Eventually we are going to wean ourselves off of these huge monstrosities using solar power and nanotech, which eventually developed will provide nearly imaginative virtual reality state transportation almost merely by thinking yourself to where you want to go and thinking yourself to warm yourself etc. Meanwhile there will be more and more miniaturization, which will gradually cost less and less to operate and leave funds for developing the next connection to the think age.

If you look at just air pumps and machinery over the last decades, you can see the efficiency building and the expenses dropping. Take the blower motor on a furnace. Does it have to be that heavy to move air efficiently in a house? What more efficient materials produce adequate heat? Oil is not cheap right now? Perhaps an electric heat with a light weight blower running all the time would be more efficient heat in a house? Less startup current? So we have some things to look at and make changes, and as the devices come in to play, the changes will be made.

I like the wave generation plants that move generators using the pulsing waves. But I wonder how much abuse they can take and how much abuse the transmission lines could take in flex back and forth.... again....losses.

Why??? Because there is not ONE solution to the energy problem. Solar Energy is not the end all and be all of energy on this planet. The main reason most of the alternative energy solutions are not in practise is because they are just not good enough yet. Yes $$$ is a big factor but that is not the ONLY reason. the reason the alternatives cost more $$$ is because they do not work as well for as many people.

One of the first problems with these alternative power sources is that they do not work the same in all locations. The further away you get from the Equator the worse results you get from solar energy. Wind Energy is another source that is great to use, but not every place has consistantly strong enough winds to generate the amount of energy we need.

Geothermal energy is something that almost everyone could use but it doesn't get much press because it doesn't actually create energy it just greatly reduces the amount you have to use for heating and cooling which is one of the biggest uses of energy.

One of the other Largest problems facing our energy system is Transmission of power. The further away from the energy generating source you get the more energy loss there is. Generating energy on roof-tops would reduce energy needs but you CAN-NOT harness enough energy to meet the needs through that means alone. The sun's energy is about 100mW / cubic cm and while the amount of energy that hits the earth is many times more than the amount of energy we use, people seem to forget how large the earth is. People and their energy needs are not spread out equally across the globe, we are concentrated in cities and only on land. Even if you were to cover every building in all the cities with solar panels you would not be able to meet the needs of those people because the energy usage is far greater than the energy density of the sunlight available in that area. You would need to have collectors spread out over a much greater area and that energy would need to be sent to the city. Which means you would be taking away energy from the people outside the city, and you would be loosing energy because it is being transmitted.

Sure if everyone lived and worked from their own house and we all had solar powered roofs this idea would be fine. But we don't, we have skyscrapers and apartment buildings and office buildings and factories which all use much more energy than the amount of sun that hits the roof of that building.

Solar roofing is a fine idea and it would help. But it is not THE solution.

Despite it's practicality, building a national solar energy system won't be as easy as it may sound because of political reasons. Some government officials may be benefitting from the companies that currently supply the energy need. They might get in the way or object to the idea of having a national solar energy system as their benefits/shares might get less if the country would resort to an energy system that would no longer require the supply of the concerned companies.

nanotechnology is not there yet, and not sure why you would need nanotechnology anyway. Would be simple to establish solar heating systems on rooftops, but first we need to hold our governments--cities and counties and states, besides the fed, for not building more energy efficient, and building structures that seem to be designed to show off an architect's vision. To heck with energy efficiency, or productivity. Our new federal building is bizarre, with all glass exteriors facing the North, as if that makes any sense. We have so much safety crap, like excessive lighting on our highways they are visible from space. What is wrong with using our headlights on our cars- they worked for years. Energy efficiency should be the big push, yet Bush and Co have cut back on the weatherization assistance program and state energy programs which are designed to increase efficiency. Solar energy won't solve our energy problems, but a combination of many methods would add up. Very little arab oil, by the way, is used to heat our homes and provide electrical power- most of that is domestic energy usage from domestic sources. France supplies 78% of its electricity from safe and environmentally clean nuclear, while we still burn lots of coal and use natural gas that could instead be used to power our vehicles--compressed natural gas is cheaper than oil, and causes less wear on vehicles, but where is our national system of fueling stations-- not funded.

I suggest you listen to a very positive speech by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute on renewable energy, et. al. He talks about solar, energy storage and more. Go to the World Affairs Counsel site http://wacsf.vportal.net/ and type " Lovins " into the site search engine. Mr. Lovins speech was given in April 2007. You will learn a lot.

Solar is coming, but it is not the end all. Panels are expensive and not that efficient. (I've seen arguments that you will do more to prevent climate change by painting your roof white than you will be installing solar panels.) One advantage of solar is that it often performs best during peak load times (hot summer afternoons).

Efficiency is the best way to save, but everyone loves their SUVs and their big houses.

Actually, what I think is that we need to really look at geothermal. It has proven clean, cost effective and relatively unobtrusive. It also has the potential to be located relatively near urban centers which leads to efficiency.

It has some drawbacks and difficulties, but the big one is that we need to figure out how to make it work in a cost efficient manner where we have to drill deeper than we do now.

But then how would Exxon/Mobile makeit's $10 Billion a Quarter!

Going solar would be bad for business--we have to protect teh special interests. Can't have libral radicals promoting things like innovation, new companies, and manufacturing jobs in the That would upset the status quo!

You just don't understand the sophistication of neoconservative economics, obviously.

Why not? Money makes the world go round. when all leaders have sucked all the natural resouces out of the earth. Then we'll cry! Just to add, its not only Arab oil, Canada is now turning out lots and selling it to the USA, also the environment is going here. Also many countries running out of water, its all a mess! Peace!

Because such an endeavor would require more than a rudimentary knowledge of energy.

"These rolls, the companies say, will be able to provide energy for prices as low as the electricity currently provided by utilities, which averages $1 per watt."

Until one is able to recognize that a watt is not a unit of energy, but of power (i.e., energy per unit time), none of the rest of the scheme could possibly be workable.

Solar energy is expensive and not widely used.If we run out of oil,the solar energy market will be more competitive and drive the prices down hopefully making it more affordable than it is now.Like anything new on the market,wait a few years and it becomes more affordable.

The power company does not want that because then individuals could eventually afford their own solar panels and the power company would have to buy the power from them. Its actually does occur now but not a lot of people generate enough power to make the power company buy it from them.

Sounds like a great idea though.