Speculations

Sahara is already covered with solar energy.

With how the oil price crash i don't think other kind of energy is a good alternative. Unless you are living in a good neighborhood wheren no wetback/nigger going to steal your expensive solar panel.

The future is probably fusion energy but it's a long stretch and might be just a dream.

>>55896574
Solar panels are a sore point around here.
They were heavily subsidized by the government and the electric companies promised they would buy back surplus power.
Now the subsidy has expired and there is so much surplus power to be had that the price has dropped to 10% of what it was.
A lot of people spent >$10,000 in expectation that they'd never have to pay an electruc bill ever again. No longer true.
Add to that the problem that many panels are not the quality they were sold as. After 4 years in the sun they are crapping out. Some never worked and the installers have vanished with the money.

nice, really relevant information! i was a bit afraid of poor response. But this good!

>>55896745
With current prices, it is more economical to go for solar-thermal, rather than photovoltaic.

>>55896444
You cannot cover the deserts, but you do not need to. A small portion of a few deserts will do. Check out these articles:

http://www.techinsider.io/map-shows-solar-panels-to-power-the-earth-2015-9
http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/solar-thermal-power-in-north-africa-how-much-land-to-power-the-world.html

>>55896745

Why is Australia full of cunts willing to rip each other off? It's like as soon as the government gets involved in any way a bunch of fly-by-night kikes rock up and compete to fuck over everyone they can.

Same shit happened with roof insulation.

>>55896883
if only there were batteries capable of storing all that energy and delivering it efficiently enough for these middle of nowhere solar farms to actually be worth it.

The reason solar panels are expensive is because they require a lot of energy to produce.
Which means more energy goes into making them than is made by using them.

Which is actually okay if you're making them using clean energy, it'd be like a battery; you make it using hydroelectric power, and then get the energy out somewhere else so you don't have to use dirty fuel sources.
Like you run a car using the energy from a hydro dam 500 miles away, instead of gasoline.

so putting the panels in the desert is the worst of both worlds; both losing energy overall and you're putting the return energy in the middle of fucking no-where.

If you could make solar panels in the sahara that'd change things.

>>55896928
North America, North Africa, South Europe, Central Asia, and all of Australia... are all sunny. Electricity does not need to be transported from the Sahara to Seattle. The only problem is international borders, and South America.

Too much maintenance work and dealing with the constantly shifting dunes and sand which becomes a nightmare.

If you want nature harnessed power which doesn't produce shit that ruins our environment, there are 2 ways:
1. Geo-thermal harnessing tectonic/volcanic activity. It would require portable stations.
2. Wind turbines sticking out of water with attached solar plating (not tidal turbines because those fuck up marine life and communication between marine life in the oceans), so as to avoid the noise problem for communes, and save on space.

Using jet streams in the upper atmosphere fucks up the whole planet's climate, so that option is officially blown to fuck due to the shattering risk it produces. Think Butterfly Effect.

>>55897046
>1. Geo-thermal harnessing tectonic/volcanic activity. It would require portable stations.
Difficult and expensive
2. Wind turbines sticking out of water with attached solar plating (not tidal turbines because those fuck up marine life and communication between marine life in the oceans), so as to avoid the noise problem for communes, and save on space.
surface area of wind turbines is so small that covering it with solar panels would be a waste of money

File: 1446439156514.jpg (60KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

60KB, 1280x720px

>>55897046
>Using jet streams in the upper atmosphere fucks up the whole planet's climate

Can't fuck it up worse than it already is desu senpai.

>>55897046
>Wind turbines sticking out of water with attached solar plating
Solar plating a wind turbine?

>>55897121
>surface area of wind turbines is so small that covering it with solar panels would be a waste of money

>i don't know what a flower looks like because i lived in a cave my whole life
>i can't imagine solar panels behind turbine held by valves like flower petals from the main stalk