It is a source of energy, but it has drawbacks just like hydro, wind and geothermal. Nothing approaches the efficiency of burning fuels. It will take a technological breakthrough of the highest order to make solar viable enough to replace fossil fuels. As long as we are waiting on tech breakthroughs, we might as well think about gravity, magnetics, anti-matter, anti-mass, and zero-point energy. It's sci-fi stuff right now but advanced research is being done in several countries. Anti-gravity research in the US got very black about 15 years ago, which may indicate impending advances in military/intelligence applications.
You schooled me a few months ago on solar power. I understand from a cost standpoint and a jobs standpoint we can't abandon fossil fuels right now. But we can't continue to burn oil at the rate we are burning it without a backup plan. I'm really interested in geothermal and solar. i find those 2 to be fascinating.
That it does, a single solar flare emits more energy that all the atomic bombs ever detonated on the planet combined. Figure out how to harness it and you are a wealthy man.
man has done some incredible things considering if you compress the universe's life into a calendar year, we were anatomically correct December 31st around 11:54 pm. One would think this would be an achievable goal.
But global oil production has quite a different profile. And the beauty of capitalism is that it does bring new technologies and processes to find and produce more oil when its profitable. And its far from exploiting known reservoirs. The lower tertiary is a 15 billion barrel oil play (as known today) across the Gulf of Mexico that it just beginning to get processed. Peak Oil Theory was a fair warning theory that was of great value, but was exploited far beyond what was fair by the chicken littles. In the end instead of the 'head-on collison' of running out of oil, it will be a manageable intermingling and transition to other energy sources as technology and economics play out.
I really understand, I think, why this is not happening, but in 2015 it would seem that every shingle on every house ought to be a solar converter of some milliamp/milliwatt. There are so many shingles on houses, you don't need much out of one to make large difference, in total. Kind of light stars, billions and billions. Tax credits galore!
They are interesting and they can provide power to reduce the fossil fuels we burn, they just aren't in position to replace them entirely. Geothermal has great potential for clean energy and the US leads the world in geothermal production, but there are issues that prevent it from replacing fossil fuels. Geothermal drilling and power plants are very expensive. The efficiency of geothermal electric plants is low because geothermal fluids do not reach the high temperatures of steam from boilers. Again, the laws of thermodynamics limit the efficiency of heat engines to produce more energy than the pumps consume.
