Sandia pushes limits of solar technology

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You made a couple of errors..

Both your facts and your math are a bit off.

Hover dam produces upwards of 2080 Megawatts.. see. http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/faqs/powerfaq.html

Dividing that by 25Kw per unit yeilds the need for 83,200 25Kw units..

83200*$50K per unit == 4.16 Billion dollars.

Note: Max recoverable sunlight energy in desert area is roughly 8Kw M^2(out of 24Kw M^2) per day. Thus multiply overall cost by another factor of 3 if you need to replace a 24x7 power source.

Thus the need for 249,600 25Kw solar units.. or 12.48 Billion dollars.. But, Hoover dam doesn't run at full capacity 24x7. Thus, the replacement cost will probably fall somewhere in between the two numbers.

As for replacing a 1000 Mw reactor would 40,000 25Kw solar units with a cost of two billion dollars. If you need to replace all a reactor's output, then multiply that number by three. (Six billion, but that yields three times the power which is all being generated during peak usage times.)

Thus even after reducing the cost to 50K per unit. It's still got a ways to go..

I forsee that no single energy source will supply all of our electrical needs. But, we could go a long way towards conserving what remains of our fossil fuels and preserve the enviroment at the same time.

Posted by: thetruth_z   Posted on: 11/25/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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