'Limitless' energy: how floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hotspots
'Limitless' energy: how floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hotspots
New research shows densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa could harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm tropical seas near the equator.
New research shows densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa could harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm tropical seas near the equator.
Very interesting visualisation of the sea conditions. Being based in Singapore I can attest to the very calm waters around here. However, the available area will shrink quite a bit if you consider that the waters around Singapore and the Strait of Malacca are a major shipping lane. A traffic density of that level effectively prohibits any offshore installations. Would have been nice to factor that into the graphics.
I wonder how much of it would be sapped up by the air conditioning required to survive near the equator after temperatures rise a few more degrees.
So cut the amount of energy going to the life that produces the oxygen we need to survive....
Well, with they way ocean temps are skyrocketing, maybe it doesn't hurt to siphon off a bit of that energy.
That was my first thought too. But then I remembered this research article saying that oceans were turning greener... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02262-9 maybe we're at a win-win situation? Phytoplankton are the base of the marine food web, and their blooms can deplete oxygen levels in the water, endangering the marine ecosystem..
For countries in the equator it'd probably make more sense to have land-based solar panels, since they're cheap. African countries probably have the land to spare.
Africa is huge and West Africa is pretty densly populated.
We still haven't figured out how to make solar panels that produce more energy in their lifespan than what it take to build them.
This seems like greenwashing... We won't solve the climate crisis by generating more energy if we don't stop using fossile fuel...
That’s completely untrue, it takes between 2-4 years depending on the type of solar panel to generate as much energy as was needed to create it. Leaving 26-28 years of free energy given a typical 30 year lifespan.
Check out this fact sheet for specifics: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37322.pdf
Does it include recycling cost? And more importantly, does it include the batteries to store that electricity? Batteries are not clean nor renewable. For example, just look at how cobalt is mined today and how it ruins ecosystem and populations.
If by generating more energy you mean converting it from renewable sources through physical processes rather than fossile Ressourcen in chemical than yes, we do solve climate crisis by exactly doing that.
Yes, and no. It's not as easy. We do need to switch to renewable energy if we want to solve the crisis, but more importantly we need to stop using fossil fuel. Unfortunately, if you look at history, every time we discovered a new energy source like solar, hydro or wind, we never actually stopped using the older energy sources. For example, if you look at coal, we use more coal today than ever before in history, despite having found "better" options like petrol.
So yeah, it cool that we have new ways to build solar panel, but unless we actually stop using fossil fuel, then it won't stop the crisis.