Musings of a Babylon Lurker

Some Thoughts on Solar Energy

Saturday, August 9th, 2008 | solar energy, technology | No Comments

In the light of the previous post : “Breakthrough in Solar Energy ?” I would like to express some thought about generating and using energy.

I have, for some time, been thinking of how we could make better, more efficient use of the energy we have, one point being that distribution of energy over large distances is rather inefficient, and the energy should be harnessed more locally. For example, combine the energy generation for every house with regionally a generated reserve.

First of all, building the infrastructure, power lines, gas pipes, is expensive and energy consuming in itself.

Further, reliability. Local energy generation would make society less vulnerable to failures of the energy infrastructure (for any reason whatsoever).

Personally I would like to be at least partly self-sufficient when it comes to generating energy. and solar is the only viable energy form in that respect.

OK, we have to look into the energy efficiency of using solar cells, since the production of those use up a lot of energy.

I would think that a combination of solar cells and wind turbines would be the best for local energy generation.

More about this later ….

Tags: solar energy