Solar Everywhere and We Don’t Have to Sacrifice New Mexico
You know the old trope, cover five or six thousand miles of New Mexico, and we can supply all of our energy needs. New Mexicans might welcome the shade in the summer.
Or we can supply half or all our needs by putting solar on all our rooftops. Except Seattle and Ohio, where the appearance of the sun is cause for the sacrifice of goats. Maybe Seattleites would use them for rain shelters.
The advantage of rooftop solar is that the panels are close to the consumers and are inexpensive enough for large numbers of homeowners to install them to cut their energy bills. The downside is current arrangements don’t encourage homeowners to install extra capacity to sell to the utility. PG&E in California will give credits that are redeemed for off-hours usage, but it does not pay directly for the generated electricity. Another downside is residential solar is much more expensive than utility-grade solar. Among the higher costs of residential solar are the overhead and marketing costs of the installer, permitting fees, and rooftop construction.
Urban areas lack the cheap open spaces necessary for solar farms, but I got to wondering about small spaces of a few acres instead of the 20 acres or more needed for rural installations. These smaller spaces would generate enough electricity to make flow batteries…
