Completely off topic, President Obama is appearing on the Daily Show as I post this. Now back on topic there have been a lot of surprising facts I had no idea involved with solar energy. Instead of looking for an interesting subject I'll just list those problems I came across. 1: The thing a guy from Meridian Comp. said about if there was a thin shadow across diagonally the solar panel the whole panel would shut down. 2: Very costly- To install, maintain, design, research, etc... 3: Compared to a fossil fuels solar, with an efficiency of 15-17% at best, cannot compete; it only looks good for the company to say they promote solar energies.
These are some interesting issues that you bring up. The solar panel shutting down as due to a small area of shade on a single module is something to be worried about, indeed. There must be some sort of way to circumvent that. There are not that many places that are sunny all the time. What about passing clouds? As for the price, solar cells are becoming cheaper and cheaper as time progresses. If we as a country invest more in the research and manufacturing portions of the solar cell industry, we can drive the price down to competitive levels. As for the efficiency, it really doesn't matter if you have enough area for the array to cover. The fuel is photons, which are free courtesy of the sun. Does the efficiency really matter when all those photons would otherwise just be going to waste?
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