I was having a debate with a big eco-warrior buddy of mine recently so many you anons can help settle this for us

I was having a debate with a big eco-warrior buddy of mine recently so many you anons can help settle this for us.
Technologically speaking, are/will solar panels a viable alternative to fossil fuels?

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solar panels are made of fossil fuels and also need to be replaced every once and a while so 100% no

I think that they can be part of a solution but there is no way they could be the entire solution

But if the net energy gain on modern panels is massive. This means that they are definitely viable to replace, as they provide the energy to manufacture their replacements. And if they get better there will need to be half as many or 1/10th as many or what have you, so the use of fossil fuels will only decrease per panel over time.

i live in a 3rd wold shithole where power goes out for random reasons
so having solar panel for light and ventilation is a god send

No, solar boilers in some cases maybe.

Solar panels will only be viable when energy storage at the grid level/scale is viable. Sadly that is difficult and expensive atm.

no because people will never get used to spend energy only when there's sun available and batteries won't be any better in the near future

Depends on the weather obviously, but also on the particular season depending on your latitude. In winter there is no way these things can meet the energy requirements, especially with the massive push towards ecars. They also take up a lots of space. Nuclear is the way of the future.

batteries are great now, just not those garbage lithium shits

Not in most cases, no. The scale isn't there, the storage technology isn't there, the required material aren't there. Solar is a good investment, certainly, but it's not going to replace fossil fuels in the foreseeable future. The only thing right now that could outright replace fossil fuels for most uses would be nuclear.

>And if they get better there will need to be half as many or 1/10th as many
It's not going to get 100% better, let alone 1000%. There are advancements to be made, but you're not going to get 100% more energy per area any time soon.

they're not, basically because
>short lifespan

>What is pumped storage hydropower

>And if they get better
they didn't get better in the last decade, so why would they suddenly get better now?
efficiency is still at ~20% peak and the more wattage is achieved simply by making them bigger

stupid loss of energy with too high a maintenance cost

theres tons of really great materials-efficient batteries out there that arent shit. lead acid is a great example, lead acid batteries are hypercheap and run for decades (completely 100% unrelated to capacity). i dont remember a lot of them but theres some salt formulations and maybe some air or iron oxide batteries or something? tons of shit that is fine at scale and not at miniature.

you mean for water heating?

what's your resident shithole, user?

I did read somewhere that they are 10 or 20 times higher in yield than they were a decade ago. Surely this is on the horizon?

>people will never get used to spend energy only when there's sun available
They will when the price gets jacked up.

I wonder how many solar panels I'd need in my current state in life to be energy independent. It's assuming that I continue living myself.

>Typical use of kitchen appliances and laundry machines
>Gaming PC with triple monitor setup that must run all day (sleep at night)
>I don't have a TV entertainment center, I like watching things either at my computer or on my tablet.
>phone and aforementioned tablet

No. Once you account for all uses (concrete, smelting, industrial inputs, electricity, transport, fertilizer, plastics, etc.), renewables are only about 2% of energy use, and most of that is hydro (which is only practicable in a few countries) and biofuels (which are either greenwashing, or a fancy kind of agricultural subsidy depending on how charitable you're feeling). is correct.

No. Nuclear is.
Unfortunately, it's named "Nuclear" so it scares all the normalfags enough for them to protest about it so it's never gonna happen so we're gonna use shittier, less efficient alternatives

well thats also a matter of how you measure. most individuals' net power usage is going down so tiny power sources can cover more of that. if your solar can cover 90% of cases and then you need a super nuke plant for a much heavier 10% that's fine too.

>lead acid
>run for decades
Lead acid sits idle for decades. If you actually use it for more than a few seconds at a time (e.g. for starting internal combustion engines), you'll destroy it quicker than any other common battery chemistry. For durability you want something like vandium redox batteries.

>most individuals' net power usage is going down
Cancelled out by population growth.

it doesn't "destroy" it gets sulfatey and loses a tiny bit of capacity over time. this is fine because it's already dirt cheap to begin with. they're selling at like 10000% markup though which counters that a bit.