Re: Fuel Cells and "green" energy

[Rick Tarara <rbtarara@SPRYNET.COM>]

Jim, check out
<http://www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/ENERGY_PROJECT/ENERGY2100.htm>
for some figures developed by my liberal arts energy class.  While the
numbers are rough, they can give you a feel for magnitude of the problem.

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
Associate Professor of Physics
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Green" <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: Fuel Cells and "green" energy


> >  Anyway, to get
> > large amounts of solar and wind into the system as 'energy on demand'
> > sources may require up to 4x the generators and solar collection areas as
> > would be needed if these were used directly. Such a system would then
> > require tens of thousands of square miles of photovoltaics and 10s of
> > millions of large (megawatt) wind generators.
>
> We have not yet discussed the "amount of energy" (Ugh!) needed to
> manufacture, repair, and replace the photovoltaics and wind generator
> towers and turbines -- losses well beyond the thermal losses.
>
> And would somebody be willing to venture a guess as to the number of
square
> miles of turbines and photovoltaic fields which would be required to make
> any sort of meaningful difference in the whole issue.
>
>
> Jim Green
> mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
> http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen