Why can't we have solar panels in the desert?

[Zeppflyer]

Why the desert? The sun shines in plenty of places where there is already power infrastructure.

I don't understand why we would want to place solar panels in the middle of nowhere and spend a ton of money to wire them up when there are millions of office buildings with empty roof's (rooves?) that already are on the grid.

The implication here is that you need to go somewhere HOT to get solar power, which is not the case...it just has to be bright.

Other places are OK, but deserts have the greatest amount of sunlight hitting them per square foot. No rain = few clouds = more sun. Most forms of thermal solar and all photovoltaic relies on direct sunlight. There are some forms of thermal that can live on difused light, but they are not as efficient if you can use something else. Plus, cost efficient solar (if that's not an oxymoron) relies heavily on being able to build a facility big enough to get some real scale advantages which requires acres and acres of flat, vacant ground; which deserts have in abundance. Plus, if we're talking thermal solar, which (I think) is where the real potential lies, air temperature really is a factor.

That doesn't mean that there's not a place for roof-top solar, but it can't provide enough power to do the job by itself, especially in dense cities where your population and power consumption per acre is very high. Plus cities such as Seatle and Pittsburgh which have more days overcast than not, would never be able to have cost efficient solar right at home without some huge efficieny gains that aren't even on the radar right now.

[PLAYER57832]

Why the desert? The sun shines in plenty of places where there is already power infrastructure.

I don't understand why we would want to place solar panels in the middle of nowhere and spend a ton of money to wire them up when there are millions of office buildings with empty roof's (rooves?) that already are on the grid.

The implication here is that you need to go somewhere HOT to get solar power, which is not the case...it just has to be bright.

Other places are OK, but deserts have the greatest amount of sunlight hitting them per square foot. No rain = few clouds = more sun. Most forms of thermal solar and all photovoltaic relies on direct sunlight. There are some forms of thermal that can live on difused light, but they are not as efficient if you can use something else. Plus, cost efficient solar (if that's not an oxymoron) relies heavily on being able to build a facility big enough to get some real scale advantages which requires acres and acres of flat, vacant ground; which deserts have in abundance. Plus, if we're talking thermal solar, which (I think) is where the real potential lies, air temperature really is a factor.

That doesn't mean that there's not a place for roof-top solar, but it can't provide enough power to do the job by itself, especially in dense cities where your population and power consumption per acre is very high. Plus cities such as Seatle and Pittsburgh which have more days overcast than not, would never be able to have cost efficient solar right at home without some huge efficieny gains that aren't even on the radar right now.

This is true, but the issue is not putting solar in deserts in general, it is putting panels on specifically protected desert lands. (It could be that there are other desert areas that should be protected, but are not. However, that is a different question>)

[Zeppflyer]

Why the desert? The sun shines in plenty of places where there is already power infrastructure.

I don't understand why we would want to place solar panels in the middle of nowhere and spend a ton of money to wire them up when there are millions of office buildings with empty roof's (rooves?) that already are on the grid.

The implication here is that you need to go somewhere HOT to get solar power, which is not the case...it just has to be bright.

Other places are OK, but deserts have the greatest amount of sunlight hitting them per square foot. No rain = few clouds = more sun. Most forms of thermal solar and all photovoltaic relies on direct sunlight. There are some forms of thermal that can live on difused light, but they are not as efficient if you can use something else. Plus, cost efficient solar (if that's not an oxymoron) relies heavily on being able to build a facility big enough to get some real scale advantages which requires acres and acres of flat, vacant ground; which deserts have in abundance. Plus, if we're talking thermal solar, which (I think) is where the real potential lies, air temperature really is a factor.

That doesn't mean that there's not a place for roof-top solar, but it can't provide enough power to do the job by itself, especially in dense cities where your population and power consumption per acre is very high. Plus cities such as Seatle and Pittsburgh which have more days overcast than not, would never be able to have cost efficient solar right at home without some huge efficieny gains that aren't even on the radar right now.

This is true, but the issue is not putting solar in deserts in general, it is putting panels on specifically protected desert lands. (It could be that there are other desert areas that should be protected, but are not. However, that is a different question>)

Beg pardon. I agree in full. Were it just unclaimed desert, I'd be all for it. But since these lands were donated to the government with the expectation that they'd be held in trust as a nature preserve, it would be wrong not to honor that. I was just pointing out the advantages of deserts in general.

[spurgistan]

I'm not sure anybody sensible is making that assumption - deserts are great for solar precisely because they receive a LOT of sunlight.

The Antarctic is a desert.

That's true. If it were feasible to run power lines through the ocean, Antarctica would be a great place to throw some solar power generators.