Fox News Claims Solar Won't Work in America Because It's Not Sunny Like Germany

[fitz1980]

Originally Posted by lavender blue

I was about to say that the Fox journalists should travel with me

I think that the term "Fox News Journalist" should appear in the dictionary under the word "Oxymoron."

[Gavida]

Originally Posted by ganzfeld

Most of Antarctica is desert, with very little cloud cover or precipitation; it's the largest desert in the world. The only reason solar doesn't take off there is that the natives don't speak German. (At least, according to I. B. Spanked.)

Well, the natives might not speak German, but all the Nazis living around the entrance to the hollow Earth do!

(Well, that was Fox News niveau, wasn't it?)

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by Errata

I think it does though. If I understand "direct normal radiation" correctly it is measured relative to the angle of the sunlight, not the ground. If so, then his point stands.

Not correct. He said, "The sunlight has to pass through a larger amount of atmosphere." That has nothing to do with the angle at which the surface would have to be positioned or directed during the day. What you're talking about and what he was talking about are two completely different things.

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Originally Posted by ganzfeld

Not correct. He said, "The sunlight has to pass through a larger amount of atmosphere." That has nothing to do with the angle at which the surface would have to be positioned or directed during the day. What you're talking about and what he was talking about are two completely different things.

Well, I did mention as my central distinction the low angle of all Antarctic (indeed polar) sunlight. I went on to say specifically the atmosphere thing, which is significant, since even the clearest air is not perfectly transparent to all wavelengths (e.g. the ozone hole forms each summer because of UV interaction and scattering by the ozone).

[ganzfeld]

Contrary to what you are saying, that map does take into consideration the atmosphere. Even at that increased angle, more radiation reaches the ground (perpendicular to the sun, see below) than many other places on the globe (including the US and Germany) for various reasons.

Errata's point would be more difficult if there were any shortage of space in Antarctica or wire were one of the higher expenses of building solar arrays. So, yes, you need to spread them our more but, fortunately, Antarctica has a lot of space and wire is cheap. The fact that less energy reaches each square meter of flat land really is not a problem. Now, getting that energy back to where people speak German is indeed a problem:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ottest-2011-10

[Errata]

True, since the land isn't in very high demand, just spreading out the panels more might be feasible. However we did discuss in another thread how concentrated solar was more efficient for large scale power plants than panels. I think having to spread out more would effectively make concentrating enough sunlight in one place a very much harder problem.