Values I looked up indicate that the solar energy hitting the Earth averages about 1350 Watts per square meter. A goodly portion of the energy that drives our weather systems is absorbed by the atmosphere before it hits the ground, so I'm guessing that it won't likely be a problem. The thing about solar power systems is that if they are inefficent (which they currently are) then a lot of the energy just gets lost to the surroundings and not converted to electricity. But if they become much more efficient, sure more of it is converted to electricity, but you end up needing far less space taken up by solar panels.
Worldwide, sunlight apparently comes in at about 1.740×10^17 Watts. That's a lot of watts. That fluctuates by a couple percent regularly, so I'm guessing that even if we were sucking up a few percent of that we'd be ok. And a few percent of that number is really really big. Judah On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 2:29 PM, Robert Munn <[email protected]> wrote: > If solar improves enough, the residential market becomes really good. I > wonder, though. If we suck in solar energy and convert it to electricity at > a large scale, will that have a cooling effect on the planet? After all, > solar energy is absorbed and provides natural heating. If we subtract out > some portion of that heat, what will the effect be? I have no idea, but if > we're worried about "upsetting the balance" I think we ought to account for > that loss. > > Batteries suck. I wish they didn't, because I hate having to recharge my > phone, computer, Bluetooth headset, iPod, etc. every day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:283372 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
