Solar-Powered Jobs?
By: Ethan Knapp
[Background of Statement]
In this
year’s first
round of presidential debates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the
presidential candidates for the Democratic and Republican parties respectively,
were queried as to their plans to bolster the number of jobs available to the
working class. Trump summarized with his beliefs on what the problem is. He was
then followed by Clinton relating her plans to recover the number of available
jobs – and increase the amount of electrical energy available at the same time.
She stated, “And I think it's important that we grip this and deal with it,
both at home and abroad. And here's what we can do. We can deploy a half a
billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home.
We can build a new modern electric grid. That's a lot of jobs; that's a lot of
new economic activity.”
At first
glimpse, Clinton’s idea seemed like a good one – solving two problems at once,
however, as Trump pointed out, there would be more to it: “She talks about
solar panels. We invested in a solar company, our country. That was a disaster.
They lost plenty of money on that one.” That still leaves the question,
however, as to whether solar panels would be an effective solution to the
growing energy and environmental concerns.
[Purpose of Blog]
Although
the candidates’ arguments have multiple concerns to be considered (will
increases in the use of solar energy create jobs?, will solar energy be an
effective alternative to current means of energy production?, etc.), this
article will focus primarily on the scientific stability of their claims.
[Evidence]
There are multiple
methods of harvesting the energy that the sun casts upon the earth.
Surprisingly, there have been examples of humans harnessing this energy for
multiple centuries, perhaps the earliest of such inventions being the
greenhouse. Although they are not what we would typically think of when
somebody throws out the term “solar energy”, greenhouses are a prime example;
they are designed to collect and trap energy from the sun as heat. The trapped
energy is then used to nourish plants and help them grow faster or in
environments that they would not normally thrive in.
A similar
principle has been applied to attempt to heat homes. Instead of using a large,
glass room to trap solar energy, a large, shallow box with a glass window
facing the sun collects the energy. The box either contains a set of pipes and
heatsinks, or a ventilation system. When water or air is pushed through the
box, it is heated and can be distributed to heat the rooms of a house or other
small buildings. This technique is also used to
supply hot water to a home’s plumbing system.
While
these setups are decent sources of heat and hot water, they can’t provide
electricity on such a small scale, but there is anther method of solar
collection that uses specially designed panels (called photovoltaic
panels) that can gather light energy and convert it directly into
electrical current. This type of solar collection is relatively expensive
(though it has declined significantly in the last few years), making it
uneconomical to build large scale power plants using this technology.
Photovoltaics, however, are the only small-scale way of converting solar energy
into electrical energy.
 |
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power |
Despite the
inability to harness solar-thermal energy (that’s the heat that the sun
creates) into electricity on a small scale, it is possible to do so on a much
larger scale. The basic principle is the same, but instead of simply
multiplying the amount of collectors, large scale plants use one collector that
is surround by hundreds of heliostats – large, computer-controlled mirrors that
reflect the suns light onto a central tower.
Many of
these plants exist. The two pictured above are located in Spain. The world’s
largest solar plant is located in the Mojave Desert in California, generating
up to 392 megawatts (MW) of power (link).
In the
past, one of the major problems with implementing wide-spread use of solar
energy lies in the issue of obtaining “grid
parity”, or producing solar energy at a cost that is less than the cost of
the default methods for generating electricity. Fortunately for Clinton’s
argument, this is beginning to occur in some parts of the world where
electricity is typically more expensive, however, this is not yet wide-spread
and its growth has been slow, partly due to the additional
costs that go beyond the hardware itself.
Solar
plants also have a couple of other limitations. As can be seen in the posted
image; they require a lot of space. They also need constant sunlight in order
to produce more energy than they expend. Because of this, most large-scale
plants are located in deserts where space abounds and light is generally
predictable.
[Conclusion]
From a
scientific stand point, solar energy is a decent supplement to the currently
accepted means of energy production, but, despite it boosting available energy
during on-peek or day hours, no energy is produced during the night. The
technology has made leaps and bounds in the last few years, especially in terms
of reduced cost and beginning to obtain so-called “grid parity”. However, it is
not quite ready to replace the current, coal-dependent energy infrastructure in
the United States.
While
Clinton’s statement may bear true in the future, solar energy is yet as
effective or implementable as her claim seemed to suggest.
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