Solar Islands

 

Thoughts on Climate Change

Solar Islands

 

In the Thought on Climate Change overview, I brought up the idea of “solar islands”. A solar island would consist of a large array of solar panels mounted to a floating platform over the ocean. The reason the panels are over the ocean is to get double benefit from the panels. They of course produce electrical energy, but they also produce solar shading. Creating solar islands serves to directly cool the ocean and, therefore, minimize the effect of radiative forcing from CO2 and other greenhouse gases that seem to affect the weather.

The concept of solar islands comes from the realization of how much of the earth will need to be covered with solar panels to produce enough energy to meet the energy requirements of the earth’s inhabitants. One estimate is that 191,000 square miles of solar panels would be needed to meet the energy needs of the world[i]. A solar island might have a size of 10 miles by 10 miles which would then be 100 square miles of solar shading for each solar island. It would take at least 1900 of these islands to produce enough power to meet current needs. As more things are power by electricity more area would be needed. For the sake of discussion, I’ll say 2000 of these islands would be required.

How much solar shading would 2000 solar islands produce? The earth has about 197 million square miles of total surface, so .1% of the earth will be covered in solar islands. This doesn’t seem like a lot of solar shading, but it is on the same order of magnitude as the radiative forcing increase caused by the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Certain areas of the oceans on earth are sensitive to a little more or a little less heat. Proper placement of these solar islands could affect the weather in critical regions of the ocean.

Each solar island would then have two benefits. First, it would produce on average 116 billion watt hours of electricity per day[ii]. Second, it would produce on average 2.23 trillion BTU of solar shading per day for each island[iii].

Consider the solar shading first. Each island would collect over 2.23 trillion BTU of heat each day. Currently, solar panels are about 20% efficient so 1.78 trillion BTU heat is captured by the panels and if not used it will dissipate into the air. If instead this heat were captured and taken away from the panels, it would cool the panels and make them more efficient. The heat could be radiated into the sky using radiative cooling technology that would prevent it from being captured by green house gases (GHG) and negating the effect of the GHGs[iv]. This might be a good solution to immediately counter the effects of GHG heating. By placing these solar islands in key locations on the ocean, a minor lowering of the ocean temperature could affect the local weather. But there may be better things to do with this extra heat. If the heat were used to create clouds and thermals (created by the heat) could lift those clouds to the proper altitude the solar shading could be extended to thousands of square miles. Different types of clouds could be produced, and certain types of clouds would cause rain to fall to mitigate drought conditions. Even putting some of the heat back into the ocean might be necessary on a seasonal basis to prevent harsh winters or to keep the ocean at an ideal temperature to accommodate marine life.

What about the solar power that is captured by the island? With the island being well off the coast, transmission lines may not be practical. But solar power, no matter where it is produced, has to be stored so it can be used during peak hours. What if large cargo ships were loaded with batteries and the power from the island was used to charge those batteries. The ship could take the power to a dock where it would be connected to the grid and supply power during peak load periods. Those same batteries would be available to take excess power from land based solar arrays or wind turbines. The batteries would eventually be discharged enough that they would need to be sent back to the solar island to be recharged.

With the island located on the ocean, other options are available. Hydrogen could be produced using the power collected on site. The hydrogen could be compressed and shipped to locations where hydrogen energy was deemed viable.

Another option would be to have a carbon capture facility located on the solar island. With the captured carbon and hydrogen produced on the island, synthetic fuel could be produced.  Having a truly green fuel that doesn’t require any fossil fuel to produce would provide a much smoother transition to all-electric without adding more CO2 to the atmosphere. Yes, CO2 would be produced when it is used but equal amounts of CO2 would be removed on the solar island.

While the solar islands might be difficult to manage, due to the wide range of benefits they can produce, the advantages of having immediate positive effects on the weather, cooling the oceans and producing power make solar islands worth investigating.

 

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