• Antimutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Look! My solar panels are 23% efficient! 😀

    And what happens to the other 77%? It turns into heat! 🥵

        • SkyeStarfall
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          1 year ago

          Don’t forget that solar panels also displace other energy sources, such as burning coal.

          How much heat does that produce? And then there’s co2…

          • Antimutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            For the right price, I’d buy them. But they’re not the World’s panacea - just a medium term fix, not to be over used.

      • Antimutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Solar panels appear dark - more so than a 23% reduction can account for. The whole of the other 77% will not immediately turn into heat, but the bulk of it will. Some photons bounce, with a dependence on colour - but what happens to them then? A tiny amount will escape the Earth, with the rest absorbed by objects, atmosphere and eyes - mostly becoming heat. And what happens to visible light when it loses “a little energy”? It becomes infrared - y’know: heat.

          • Antimutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            Indeed it doesn’t increase the total energy. It converts much of it into energy that our excess CO2 traps - IR. So we must either leave it as visible light, or push technology to convert it into microwave, both of which can escape.

              • Antimutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 year ago

                Both would kill us, so it doesn’t matter which passes the finish line first. This is what the article warns about - massive engineering projects that affect the climate, whether for the purpose of geo-engineering or not.

                Nothing wrong with solar IF we can pump the heat out of the atmosphere, or dodge it in some other way. Which we can’t, yet, and a solution to this is not waiting around the corner.