Four experts discuss the balance between pristine land and renewable energy, the pros and cons of photovoltaics versus solar thermal, and how much rooftop solar can help.

Solar power in California has been heavily subsidized for the past decade. The state’s solar power capacity has grown by a third between 2007 and 2008 and now accounts for two-thirds of America’s solar energy capacity. But the amount of power generated by the Sun in California is still miniscule—less than .025 percent of the state’s needs. Even with time and money, solar leaves a lot to be desired in terms of capacity. It’s a similar story with wind.

Enthusiasm for renewables, despite their inefficiency, is gaining speed. Last June, the US Bureau of Land Management, inundated with proposals for solar energy projects on more than 1 million acres of desert, issued a moratorium on further submissions in order to consider the environmental damage. Though the hold was called off after only a month, the idea of 1 million patchwork acres of solar grids of various types, each with its own need for access roads, water pipes, and electric wiring, gives even the most dedicated renewables advocates pause.

At current levels of efficiency, even a million acres would provide only about 3 percent of what the US uses in a year.

Read more . . .

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Tags: Innovation, power, pristine land, pros and cons, renewable energy, solar, solar power, sun

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Innovation, Project Energy, Seed Magazine, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.