This is the subheading from a Nature comment piece last week:
Covering 10% of the world’s hydropower reservoirs with ‘floatovoltaics’ would install as much electrical capacity as is currently available for fossil-fuel power plants. But the environmental and social impacts must be assessed.There is mention of the benefits:
Placing solar arrays on reservoirs could have many advantages. The arrays are simply conventional solar panels installed on floats that are anchored through mooring lines. Proximity to water tends to keep them cool, making floating panels about 5% more efficient than land-based ones7. Arrays shield the surface from the sun and might reduce evaporation, retaining water for hydropower, drinking and irrigation8. Hydropower reservoirs already have the grid infrastructure for conveying electricity to consumers, reducing transmission costs. Pairing solar with pumped-storage hydropower could address the twin challenges of providing energy when sunlight is weak and storing it as potential energy in reservoirs when solar-power production is high9.
I've been saying this for some time....
This seems rather pointlessly megalomaniacal though. Why not just cover the whole of the earth's surface in photovoltaics? Hey, it's destroying the world, but at least it will save it! Anything rather than have a few more nuclear power stations.
ReplyDeleteWhy not just cover the whole of the earth's surface in photovoltaics?
ReplyDeleteUm, because you don't need to. In fact, the startling point of that article to me is how little of the world's reservoirs would need to be covered with floating solar to replace fossil fuels. It's not even reservoirs generally - it's hydropower reservoirs:
"Covering 10% of the world’s hydropower reservoirs with floating solar panels would install nearly 4,000 GW of solar capacity9 — equivalent to the electricity-generation capacity of all fossil-fuel plants in operation worldwide."
Its not that bad an idea since it can do double duty at reducing evaporation. Solar is usually a dumb idea but this one I think is not so bad.
ReplyDeleteRooftop solar damages roofs. Stand alone solar is a horrible waste of land. Floating solar is the only one I can approve of. But the CO2 anti-science brigade will turn it into a vehicle for Australian impoverishment and Chinese enrichment.
ReplyDeleteAgain we see the denial of the fringe-dwellers who hang out with the economist Quiggin. They deny that if there was a problem it would have to be solved with soil development. And perhaps with mid-density wooden housing via cross-laminated timber. The planet simply cannot get enough five storey buildings of this nature. So Steve dry your eyes and put away that hankee. The problem, which was no problem, has been solved.