What role will solar power and wind power play in the year 2058?

3 Comments

1. GPSMAN says:

   October 31, 2009 at 9:33 pm

   Solar can give us a maximum of 1500 watts per square meter, at noon. This is if we could capture and convert 100% of this. It is impossible to get more than 1500 watts per square meter ( rounded to the nearest 100 ). That is the output of the sun. The sun IS powerful, but we are 93 million miles away from it, and that’s pretty far. Today we can capture about 15% of that 1500w with affordable cells, and about 40% of that 1500w with million dollar cells. By 2058, I think the million dollar cells will come down in price to a few bucks, and we will be getting 40% or 600w per square meter of panels into our homes. I don’t think it will ever get much better than that.

   Wind has more hope. Wind blows at night too!
   One large windmill today can make 3 million watts, and you only need 12-15 MPH winds.
   I think we "could" get up to half of all our power from wind by the year 2058.
2. edrogers55 says:

   October 31, 2009 at 9:33 pm

   It depends upon the energy supply at the time. Let’s say, just for arguments sake, that vast new oil fields are discovered and developed. Crude prices drop and the price we pay for gas drops. Alternative energy production will likely remain the same or decrease, because the cost to produce it would be relatively high.

   In a more realistic outlook, alternative energy production will grow significantly. As the price of crude oil skyrockets, it becomes less practical to use..while solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energy will become much more attractive.
3. skurka says:

   October 31, 2009 at 9:33 pm

   New solar products set to be released in late 2008 will achieve 35% efficiency. Solar technology is constantly improving in efficiency as it becomes more cost effective and profitable to pursue. As mentioned above, there is a technical limit to what it can provide.
   Solar and wind will be only part of the picture in the future. What also is needed is a way to store energy that is not used immediately. As more research is done in the energy storage field, we will also see vast improvements in how we store and consume energy.
   One draw back is the affect of large business on these efforts. A multinational corporation is not about to give up profits to provide free energy. As soon as Exxon/Mobile finds a way to charge you for sunshine or wind, you will see major interest in the technology. So the issue is also political. (sorry, got a bit off topic)

   In 2058, solar and wind will provide much more energy than it does today, but we as a society will require far more energy than we use today. for this reason, the percentage of solar/wind providing humans energy may never go above 50%.

   Also check out this article from Scientific America:
   http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan&print=true