[Discuss] Eclipses Re: Great talks last night, however...

[Richard Pieri]

On 7/20/2017 4:03 PM, Bill Ricker wrote:
> ​I wouldn't worry about solar power lost to the coming eclipses. Over the
> next 10 or 100 years, you'll lose far more to thunderstorms blotting  out
> the sky; they cast bigger shadows more frequently.

Yeah. And I'm even more concerned with the 10-14 hour (or more in some
parts of the world) solar outages we experience every day. Or night if
you prefer. For reals. Because despite Elon Musk's assertions, chemical
batteries are terrible ways to store electricity. They're inefficient
(~90% waste as heat). They're dirty (strip mining for rare metals,
hazardous chemicals needed to manufacture). They're non-renewable (while
some of the plastics and rare metals can be reclaimed, most of a
worn-out battery is landfill). Without an affordable, efficient, clean,
renewable and scalable way to store electricity, ground-based solar
can't be a solution.

-- 
Rich P.