this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
42 points (90.4% liked)

Technology

59157 readers
2528 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

'Limitless' energy: how floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hotspots::New research shows densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa could harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm tropical seas near the equator.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course this assumes those waters stay calm. Given how fast ocean and atmospheric currents are changing that does not seem like a safe assumption. Hurricanes are not likely to move into the region but that's not the only weather that can wreck big plates of brittle silicon.

[โ€“] rog@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

The same can be said about pretty much every infrastructure project on the planet though. Earthquakes, cyclones, hurricanes, tornados, floods, droughts, etc can all take down power grids of all types.

They all need maintenance, and the benefit of solar is that you can spend more on maintenance because you dont have to pay for incoming energy for processing.

No project is flawless, but maintain a grid of anodes and shooing away birds has definite benefits over digging up coal or uranium, or pumping oil and gas all over the place.

We cant let perfect be the enemy of good.