Talk:Solar energy/Archive 5

message: I have mentioned symmetrical vs, asymmetrical arguments on this talk page. These are more commonly understood as apples to oranges comparison. The page should try to consistently compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges... I did some rework on the Architectural section tonight and I've noticed some A to O comparison conflicts. The page is far from complete but I just want to shout out a warning against apples to oranges comparisons... We should bring them up and resolve them where possible. Mrshaba (talk) 09:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apples and Oranges 

message: I found a bunch of great pictures on Sandia's data base last week and am uploading today. How do I tag these with a category? Is that something I do from Wikipedia commons? Mrshaba (talk) 20:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: After you upload each photo, edit the file on commons and add at the bottom, Category:Solar energy. You can also put it in while you are uploading it but then it will probably not come at the end of the page. 199.125.109.129 (talk) 00:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures!!! 

message: *Ammonia can be decomposed into nitrogen and hydrogen at high temperatures (650-700 °C), and the stored gases can be recombined to generate heat or electricity via a fuel cell. A prototype system was constructed at the Australian National University.
Now why would anyone want to decompose ammonia in a solar power station? If anything, you'd want to make ammonia, either as a fertilizer, or as a hydrogen storage option. The actual article says that the nitrogen+hydrogen reaction to get ammonia is exothermic, and can drive a steam generator, while the decomposition reaction is endothermic. Basically ammonia is supposed to be an intermediate storage medium, for 24 hr production, a storage device. Their storage device is a mixed liquid ammonia/gaseous hydrogen+nitrogen vessel. Now picture you want to accumulate a lot of energy and store it with this system, even for months. That means you break down a lot of the liquid ammonia and turn it into a gas. Imagine the pressures you generate - a gas is the worst way to store energy, you might as well go ahead and break down water and store the hydrogen into gigantic citysize balloons. If anything you want an energy storage system that's the other way around, a liquid representing your high energy "fat", and preferably a liquid representing your low energy waste that can be regenerated into the "fat." Molten salts are such things, unfortunately they are thermal energy storages, you'd prefer chemical means of storage that are not limited by Carnot Cycle thermodynamic efficiency limits. And if you want a medium that's for a few minutes only, before you convert the energy into a permanent storage medium, you're better off with either straight hydrogen, or the noble gases: helium, argon, xenon, that allow you to take the temperature very high (over 2000°C) and drive a very efficient thermal engine that generates the electricity that generates the chemical solids or liquids storing energy. If anything, you want to not consume but generate ammonia with a solar station, from atmospheric nitrogen and water derived hydrogen, because liquid ammonia is a relatively easy to handle hydrogen carrier, and a much needed fertilizer. Ammonia production still uses a lot of energy, because it requires very high pressures, hydrogen, and air separation. Sillybilly (talk) 00:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no problem with your removal of this information. I think this section should be about using solar energy in chemical processes. The process you removed isn't particularly notable in my opinion. As far as solar chemical goes... I noticed Judith moved the photosynthesis blurb that was at the bottom of the section up to the top. She blended the info well and the movement of the information goes along with the way the article is laid out in general so I think this was a good regrouping. One concern I have is where to add additional solar biological info. I've been wondering where to re-place interesting history of medieval crop growing practices in the article. Should this be a separate Solar biological section or could we place some info within the Solar chemical section. Any opinions? 66.122.77.148 (talk) 06:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

text: You're right. It's a very nicely written and interesting section but somehow it doesn't belong under solar chemical. I would just split it out from under the chemical subsection (it's listed as a subtopic where the titles are uptop), and rename the agriculture-horticulture title to something more generic along the lines of "solar biological."Sillybilly (talk) 00:52, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see a problem with Solar biological standing as a separate section. I've tried to keep the main sections organized by principle energy conversion and energy use. i.e. light used as light, light to heat, light to chemical etc. The Architecture and urban planning and Solar vehicle sections are exceptions to this rule. I could have grouped Solar vehicles under solar power but I figured because Transportation has its own category of energy use (Commercial, Industrial, Transportation) it deserved a stand alone section. Solar biological covers all agriculture if we want it to but I don't want it to. I see this section as listing techniques to "optimize" energy use in agriculture. I've only touched the surface of these. I'll look for more notable examples of solar energy optimization in agriculture. Mrshaba (talk) 01:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explanation why I removed the following section 

message: I've started work on a solar energy glossary. I figure we can pull the active,passive,direct,indirect definitions there and replace them them with an introductory blurb about how solar technologies deliver a diverse range of energy types (heat, light, electricity, chemical). Big picture stuff like how solar energy can be used to offset or replace conventional energy use. Mention that solar energy is often turned to when conventional energy supplies dwindle. The Greek example of turning to solar architecture when firewood got scarce is a good candidate. This example could be balanced against a modern example... German/Japan come to mind. Any thoughts on pulling these definitions out? There was a time when I really thought they needed to be there but now I think this info is better put in a Solar glossary. 70.135.164.15 (talk) 21:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solar energy glossary 

message: In the words of the first century Roman architect Vitruvius: 
and then we change the "quotation". Is there a better phrase that conveys the idea that the following passage is more-or-less what Vitruvius would have written if he had written in English? --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand. Do you find the "in the words of" phrasing too informal? I did not change the quotation, I used the translation that Perlin offered in A Golden Thread. Here's another one.
ON CLIMATE AS DETERMINING THE STYLE OF THE HOUSE
1. If our designs for private houses are to be correct, we must at the outset take note of the countries and climates in which they are built. One style of house seems appropriate to build in Egypt, another in Spain, a different kind in Pontus, one still different in Rome, and so on with lands and countries of other characteristics. This is because one part of the earth is directly under the sun's course, another is far away from it, while another lies midway between these two. Hence, as the position of the heaven with regard to a given tract on the earth leads naturally to different characteristics, owing to the inclination of the circle of the zodiac and the course of the sun, it is obvious that designs for houses ought similarly to conform to the nature of the country and to diversities of climate. Mrshaba (talk) 02:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  In the words 

message: Now that the sunspot and solar flare images are gone, there is no picture of the sun.  I think an image/figure showing the sun belongs at the start of the article.
I tried Image:The sun1.jpg (shown right?), but someone pretty quickly didn’t like it.  Images of the sun showing stuff in the foreground are pretty difficult to photograph, but I think some figure showing the sun, but not as a closeup, is needed.  --SmokeyJoe 05:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the image that long held the lead on this page but I found it rather sleepy so I changed it out. Vantucky pointed out this image is already used in the lead on the Sun page which makes its use here inappropriate. Mrshaba 23:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I also like this image although not as much as the sunspot TRACE image. This image is used as the lead on the heat page with the caption "Heat from the sun is the driving force of life." Mrshaba 23:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely not relevant to article. 199.125.109.124 02:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Lack of a picture of the sun!

message: The choice of pictures has been a distraction to the forward movement of the page. I initiated the Rfc to gather information which could be used to consensually choose the pictures in the lead and control this distraction but somehow the issue of picture choice in the lead has expanded to the picture choice on the entire page. Sizing of pictures in particular has become an issue and all of the pictures on the page have been reverted to thumbs. In my opinion this is a step backwards which has subtracted from the quality of the page but I foresee polishing editors moving pictures around and resizing pictures for maximum effect so I'm not too worried.
In regards to the picture choice there is room for two pictures in the lead. It seems clear that one picture should be of the sun and one picture should be of a solar technology. I personally think the solar technology picture should be a PV technology because the majority of visitors to the page will be interested in PV. 
Another consideration is that the pictures should be chosen in tandem to some degree because of color considerations. Technology pictures which incorporate strong green or blue colors would in general work well with the red or yellow colors of the final sun picture. The only other consideration is that the sun picture should express both heat and light. Solar energy technologies predominantly use both heat and light so choosing a sun picture that expressed both heat and light would help understanding. Mrshaba 17:31, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What works for me is one photo that is representative of solar technology and one image that demonstrates the availability of solar energy, which is what we currently have. The photo should probably be rotated occasionally, because no one image can cover all of the different implementations of solar energy. 199.125.109.56 05:00, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rfc regarding pictures

message: --70.129.25.143 18:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a big structure with lots of planets, but that's not important right now. --NameThatWorks 17:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  what is the solar system 

message: The new addition to the page needs some attention, I feel. First, the newspaper story does not constitute evidence of any general critique of solar power coming from an environmentalist direction, only a criticism of one particular proposal in one location. It is not the same situation as with wind power or tidal power where these sorts of objections are commonplace in public debate. Second, if it is to appear in the article it has to be in the right place. Third, we must make sure that it is not too long so as not to give undue weight to this minor point. What do others think? Itsmejudith (talk) 22:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks to be an objection to power lines if anything. I don't think it belongs at all. Mrshaba (talk) 23:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. 199.125.109.134 (talk) 02:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That device with the Stirling engines hanging high in the air and waving around in the sun looks like it must be a noise problem for miles around. Is it? 70.15.116.59 (talk) 17:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Environmentalist opposition 

message: The new images, replacing :Image:Breakdown of the incoming solar energy.jpg and the one below it need to be restored with the previous ones, they are not very good. Also restore the two images removed from the lead. 199.125.109.41 (talk) 12:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restore images 

message: thumb|left|300px| 
I wrote and talked to Paul Maycock several weeks ago and he gave me data from which I've developed a PV price vs. production history graph. The original data was cumulative MW installed and real $/kW. There is one online reference from Maycock which closely mirrors the numbers I used but Paul sent me updated and more complete data so I relied on this info to fill in the table which the graph is based upon. From Maycocks original numbers I derived production per year figures and used an inflation calculator to translate the real $/kW info into inflation adjusted $/kW. The table and graph are not yet complete in my mind. Maycock informed me that commercial PV production did not begin until 1972. Prior to this pseudo-commercial production consisted of toys and gadgets which relied on off spec PV cells from the space program. As it stands I still need to acquire data for 1972-1974 to completes the commercial portion of the table and graph. 
Maycock's numbers are solid. I'll have to find out from Perlin what "kind" of numbers he used before the PV section can be written consistently. This has been a time consuming adventure. My question now is how should the data be presented? Should this page compare PV prices (real and inflation adjusted) or something else? I'm open to suggestions? The graph below shows both prices and production on separate right and left logarithmic axes. The two graphs that trend downward together are the price graphs. The upward ramping line is production. Mrshaba (talk) 16:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  PV price/production graph 

message: The current lead photo has a distinctive appearance, but a rather technical legend - more to the point, there's a section below that introduces three types of concentrators (trough, power tower, and parabolic dish) but only has examples from two of them.  It looks like the current lead photo was looted from that section.
As a lead photo I'd suggest Solar Two:
Simply because this is the most iconic "solar power plant" you see everywhere from movies to SimCity, and the first example of a large-scale solar power plant. 
Alternatively you could use a picture of a solar cell, though this seems somehow more specialized (even though in a way it is less so). 70.15.116.59 (talk) 17:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different lead photo? 

message: The statement in the introduction that solar energy is 99.9% of available renewable energy needs to be justified. The citations go off line and cannot easliy be checked. The Geothermal_power#Potential section seems to suggest that a large potential exists for geothermal energy with a recent MIT report calculating the world's total Enhanced Geothermal Systems resources to be over 13,000 ZJ. Geothermal power is derived from the Earth's rocks and not from the Sun. This article seems to me to exagerate here. Lumos3 (talk) 23:08, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is sufficient to use "most" instead of being grandiose and making up a number that is not easily checked. In the body of the article it is ok to be more specific. Normally it is not a good idea to have any references, or any need for any references in the lead paragraphs. 199.125.109.56 (talk) 15:15, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Challenge that solar is 99.9% of available renewable energy. 

message: What's up with the non-standard reference style of putting "See:" everywhere? I wouldn't have clicked on the reference if I didn't want to see it, I don't need to be told to see it. It is not normal to combine references, it is more common to list them separately, and where the same information is available from multiple sources just use the best source. There also appears to be too great a reliance on book sources instead of sources that can be verified through the internet. 199.125.109.56 (talk) 16:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: "Conventional HVAC systems account for roughly 40 percent of the energy used in the United States and European Union." 
The cited article in fact states 
"Residential and commercial buildings already account for roughly 40 percent of total primary energy use in the United States and the European Union. With HVAC&R and water heating responsible for a significant percentage (75 percent of residential and 64 percent of commercial building site energy use)" 
So the figure is in fact closer to 28%. It's hard to put an exact number on it given that we don't know how that 40% is split between commercial and residential.
85.210.14.62 (talk) 23:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poor citation 

message: Why is this page not semi-protected?
Why do we have to waste time checking and reverting this and other pages damaged by rescidivist or random inputs?
Why arent all pages automatically protected from vandalism and other viral, corrupt or malevolent inputs?
I dont know why wikipedia continue a policy of allowing unregistered no account editing, although at a guess it would seem to be ideological or a failure to let go of a previous belief despite the facts of ongoing and increasing vandalism, therefore vandalism can be seen as an imposition upon users by wikipedia administration for its own reasons.
Isnt this the sort of decision that registered users should vote on?
What do you think?
--Theo Pardilla 11:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the edits to Wikipedia are by unregistered IP users, many of whom only make one edit. It is not Wikipedia policy to prevent them from editing any article. Page protection is done temporarily to keep the vandalism in check, but when pages are protected you also lose contributions from millions of users. This page gets protected from time to time, but should not be permanently protected. No page should be permanently protected, or let me correct that, no article should be permanently protected. Some of the internal pages like commonly used templates have no reason not to be permanently protected. The only way to find out if a page needs to be protected is to remove protection and see what happens. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 17:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Wiki-article for sale... Only $497. http://energybusinessreports.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=1457&affillink=EPRW20080124 66.122.72.201 (talk) 19:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  In the news 

message: A very promising idea I heard recently is sea platforms filled with solar panels. Here's a source on it http://www.solarenergyltd.net/energy%20island.htm --fs 10:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds interesting - 70% of the surface of the earth is water. However it seems more likely that we will get all the energy we need from land based solar installations like on rooftops and from carports covering the vast parking lots we now have, not to mention from all the available desert lands. I don't imagine the oceans will ever be crowded with energy platforms. I think the estimate is that we need 0.02% of available solar energy? So the 30% available from land will be quite sufficient. 199.125.109.62 (talk) 18:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solar energy sea platforms 

message: Solar energy#Energy from the Sun had figures that contradicted the figures in :Image:Breakdown of the incoming solar energy.jpg and figures derived from simple albedo considerations.
* Image has 174 petawatts incoming solar, ie 5490 zettajoules per year;
* Image has 122 petawatts absorbed (89 by land and sea plus 33 by atmosphere), ie 3850 ZJ per year;
* 3850 is almost exactly 70% of 5490 so that implies 0.3 was used for Earth's albedo, so far so good;
* The image does not give the energy absorbed by the sea alone, and although the ocean's albedo is complex it seems to remain below 0.3 (0.03 to 0.3 from http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/getocnlut.html)
* Therefore the energy absorbed by the sea alone should be *at least* 71% of 3850 ZJ, ie. 2733 ZJ
* But the article's section states a too low 285, maybe a lost zero?
I do not have access to the cite "Smil 2003", so I cannot be sure it was referring to energy absorbed, although that seems likely. Therefore I have added a zero to the 285 and added a Fact tag because to me 2850 is just as much a guess as my 2733. -Wikianon (talk) 15:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like what they were trying to get at is how much energy is available from the sea. If you look at the diagram, 89 PW comes in and 88 PW goes back out, which due to rounding error, is the same number. 199.125.109.41 (talk) 17:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Energy from the Sun 

message: Seems to me that the section does not have enough on the economics of solar thermal and assumes that the only interesting issues are in relation to PV. Does anyone have something to hand that can be added? There will be material on subsidies for solar hot water in the UK but it would be much better to give examples from countries where this is more developed. Australia? Itsmejudith (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Economics etc. 

message: Thorough review of potential solar thermal technologies.  Mrshaba (talk) 23:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solar thermal help 

message: Good reference to improve the solar still section.  Mrshaba (talk) 22:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solar still help 

message: This has certainly been an ongoing process. One major difficulty I've had is determining what browser size to "design" for. I found some helpful guidance here  and here . Good luck finding a browser resizing utility but they're out there. I am now using a 1024x768 window to help make decisions about picture placement and answer questions like how big or how many pictures there should be.
In my opinion the CSP section has too many pictures judging from the run on in 1024x768 screens and higher. More importantly the captions have been sacrificed. It's worth mentioning that, "Along with the title, the lead, and section headings, captions are the most commonly read words in an article, so they should be succinct and informative." The article previously had overly brief captions. The more informative captions throughout the article were written with the help of a technical writer and were a welcome improvement.
There are many considerations that go into choosing pictures. Many of these are a matter of taste and since there is no accounting for taste what considerations do count? Quality and appropriateness of course but what else? The article has purposely been written to include solar technologies in as many places as possible. When choosing to describe a solar technology in country X against one in country Y the article as a whole is considered. The US with its technological achievements has had no problem being represented on the page. For me, if there's a choice between material from the US vs. Mexico I'm prone to use the info from Mexico just to keep things interesting. The pictures I've chosen follow this reasoning where possible so when it comes to a choice between the Solar Two in the US and PS10 in Spain I'm prone to choose PS10 simply because there are no other pictures from Spain on the page. Factoring in the fact that PS10 is brand new and Solar Two is decommissioned seals the deal for me.... But that's just me. Mrshaba (talk) 16:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not quite just you. I also like to see a lot of variety in the illustrations.Itsmejudith (talk) 18:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Pictures should normally be unsized - use thumb and let the user preferences choose the size. The only exceptions are exceptionally odd aspect ratio photos that need to have a size added to make them meaningful. Artistic layout of an article can be done by someone who has that gift - it has nothing to do with the content of the article. Since a wiki is a collaborative effort I would suggest sticking to the skills that one has in abundance and leaving others to contribute according to their specialties. I would still recommend against editing only one article. A lot can be learned by clicking random article and editing whatever comes up. 199.125.109.31 (talk) 19:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We all have different ways of editing. I like editing a very wide variety of articles, but rather than editing random articles, it is perhaps more helpful to assist with urgent tasks. I would recommend the wikification wikiproject to anyone who wants to be as helpful as possible. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page layout, captions and pictures 

message: The To Do list is a bit dated and I'd like to clean it up. 
# Reformat references to Harvard style. Improve quality of references where possible.
# References needed at a couple of points in the PV section.
# Improve Concentrating Solar section. 
# Find or develop a clean graph of solar price history and MW production from 1972-present. (Commercial manufacture began in 1972.) I still need backup data for 1972,1973,1974.
# Use more examples of cars and planes in the solar vehicle section. Add trains and bikes.
# Get a better picture of the solar still and solar cooker.
# Fill out use of concentrating solar in process heat section. Use 1 or 2 more examples.
# Add solar kitchen to Solar cooking section. 
# Add more to Fixed reflector/Dual axis receiver example. Cost/Efficiency/Temperature possibly.
# Add thermal mass properties of water and list a few applications of water in the Energy storage section. Remember that both hot and cold water are used to offset energy use.
# The solar still blurb needs to be reworked.
# Reduce size of article.
# Economic information is key to uptake and is not addressed properly by green flavoured advocacy of article.
My take on the to dos.
:(1) The references can still be improved but I don't think this is of the high priority it once was. 
:(2) Can be removed after citation tags are placed directly the specific info that needs references.
:(3) This to do should be made more specific or removed.
:(4) This can be done but maybe this graph is better suited to the photovoltaic page.
:(5) A few more solar powered vehicle examples can still be used here.
:(6) A quality picture is still needed here.  
:(7) The new Frito Lay facility in Modesto would be an excellent addition here.
:(8) The solar kitchen in India and mention of Scheffler concentrators remain to be added.
:(9) Probably overkill. Also there are not enough fixed reflector examples to give a good idea of costs.
:(10) A short list of the properties of water can still be added.
:(11) Some improvement is still needed on the solar still. If someone knows of a good reference that would help.
:(12) The size seems fine. 
:(13) I assume this to do is directed at PV economics but I'm not sure. Including economic information on all of the various solar technologies would be nice but I think it's generally beyond the scope of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrshaba (talk • contribs)  01:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The size (68,406 bytes) is horrendously large and should be reduced to 30,000 to 40,000 bytes maximum. I see that my arch nemesis has returned from their wikibreak, and picked up the same editwarring from before leaving (Did you restore the article from history or from a local file on your hard drive?). It's as though the hard work of three months editing has just gone poof. 199.125.109.41 (talk) 23:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The readable size of the article is currently a dab under 40 kB. This size is within your specifications and reasonable according to the Article size guidelines. . Mrshaba (talk) 05:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the article is not "horrendously large". Perhaps we can trim the odd sentence here and there. Thank you very much for your comments on the to-do list. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:50, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Readable size is less important than edit byte count. There are even sections of the article that are over 32 kb and show an edit count because of that. Since the article covers everything and the kitchen sink it is not possible to cover each topic without going way over budget, without making use of subarticles. Cutting a few sentences here and there will not allow the 50% reduction that is needed. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 02:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

text: You know perfectly well how this article got to GA status - by a high school kid whose very next GA review was instantly reverted, at a time that the article was as yesterday being constantly revised by one editor, which was the reason it was quick-failed the previous time it was proposed for GA status - for not being stable. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 16:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we clean up? 

message: Food for thought. 
:http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=207988
:http://www.jstor.org/pss/988906
Mrshaba (talk) 16:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Optimization of sunlight in agriculture/forestry 

message: I previously removed the following info but it has returned. On pg. 3 of the reference provided the term "solar" is described as representing .04% of the TPES. I see three problems with this info as it is presented in the article. #1. The "solar" term which makes up the TPES number seems to be assumed to be all PV but I don't think this is true. There's probably some CSP mixed in but I can't tell from the way the info is presented in the reference. #2. The source talks about solar hot water but the energy produced by these systems is clearly not accounted for in the statistics. #3. The 48% growth seems to be for wind rather than solar. So I'm challenging the validity of this info. I recommend finding a source that breaks down the quantity of energy PV produces world wide and using that.
"Photovoltaics provided 0.04% of the world's Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES) for the year 2004, increasing by an average of 48 percent each year since 2002, at a rate of growth to reach 0.40% by 2010.[5]" Mrshaba (talk) 03:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wind is only growing at 28% per year. Not sure why you thought the 48% number was for wind. Additional ref added. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 16:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I opened the source and used CTRL+F+48. Wind's growth rate pops up as 48.1% with solar as 28.1%. The second source mentions the higher growth rate of solar over the last 5 years. The numbers are 25-30% higher than the info Maycock provided me but it's a source. There still seems to be a problem with points #1 and #2 above. There's also an issue with using the growth rate from reference two to extrapolate the numbers from reference one.Mrshaba (talk) 16:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

text: The numbers from the second source are misleading. They seem to include idle production capacity to make production look about 33% higher than it is. Mrshaba (talk) 17:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Page 50 of this source lists PV energy production as 1 TWh (3.6 petajoules) in 2001 when PV installations were around 1 GW worldwide. Page 50 also lists the other solar technologies and if you add them up (206 PJ) and divide this number by worldwide energy use (approximately 471,000 PJ - 2004 number) you come up with the .04% figure from the IEA ref. The math works but the .04% figure quoted in the IEA source is counting all solar inputs. The .04% number should not be used to describe PV's contribution. Mrshaba (talk) 18:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you OK with just going ahead to make the edits based on the sources? Itsmejudith (talk) 19:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Uh, it would be better to replace the number with whatever you wish instead of just deleting it. As far as I can see 0.039% of TPES by solar is a reliable source. You may be right that it is all solar, so just change it to solar instead of pv if that is the case. It would be better if you clarified what source you were talking about. I see where you got the 28/48% numbers from but they go all the way back to 1971, which is 33 years, and if we step backwards we get that in 1971 about 8.5 MWp of solar existed in the world, but only 100 kW of wind. They do say "due to a very low base in 1971". Once again my math could be off. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 02:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The source I used is . TPES numbers do not belong in the intro. The deployment of solar in micro-units makes this technology difficult and expensive to count. Supply side energy statistics exclude demand side solar technologies such as passive solar architecture, low-e windows, daylight savings time etc. Mrshaba (talk) 15:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: TPES numbers (11,059 MToe) are not appropriate, but percentages and rate of growth are appropriate. Hopefully we can find some numbers from more recent years and a rate of growth that is consistent with the percentage - there is no point in giving percent of TPES, or percent of electricity generated for all of solar and rate of growth for only one segment of solar - creating an apples and oranges comparison situation. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 16:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Your ref (part IV) is from 2001 and not very useful - I would rather see data for growth from 2004 on rather than growth from 2001 to 2004. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 16:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

text: For example, wind power passed a huge milestone last year I think it was with more than 1% of global electricity being generated from wind power. Solar is about 2-3 years away from accomplishing the same mile marker, I believe. But that's just a guess. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 16:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  There seems to be a problem with this info 

message: I moved and wikified this article a bit, but needs to be expanded and have spam removed. I think the article should ultimately stay as the subject is growing significantly. - RoyBoy 23:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Concentrator photovoltaics]] 

message: *Source - EIA Mrshaba (talk) 18:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  PV history 

message: This note is used on the Renewable energy in Scotland page. Something like it could be useful for this page.
Note on 'installed capacity' and 'potential energy'. The former is an estimate of the maximum productive output of a given technology or individual generation station at a single point in time. The latter takes into account the likely intermittency of energy supply and is a measure of output over a period of time. Thus, for example, individual wind turbines may have a 'capacity factor' of between 15% and 45% depending on their location, with a higher capacity factor giving a greater potential energy output for a given installed capacity. The 'potential energy' column is thus an estimate based on a variety of assumptions including the installed capacity. Although 'potential energy' is in some ways a more useful method of comparing the current output and future potential of different technologies, using it would require cumbersome explanations of all the assumptions involved in each example, so installed capacity figures are generally used. Mrshaba (talk) 20:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Types of Technologies note 

message: NB: This change needs to be made by someone with enough privileges to edit. I have no access to change this page.
The source [12] gives the figure of worldwide electricity production of 15746.54 billion kWh. Since 1 kWh = 1000 W × 3600 s = 3.6×106 J, the figure in question is 15746.54×109×3.6×106 = 56.68754×1018 J, or 0.05668754 ZJ. The article lists 0.00567 ZJ, which is one order of magnitude less, and needs to be changed to 0.0567 ZJ.
I also confirmed that worldwide energy consumption per [13] is right. I did not compare any other figures in the article to those in its sources, however.
— Fregimus (talk) 09:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That error was made by Mrshaba with this edit. 199.125.109.31 (talk) 13:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Only half done. The page is still protected, and needs to be unprotected. 199.125.109.134 (talk) 08:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order of mag error in wordlwide electricity gen. 

message: I was asked to look into daylight saving time and its relation to this article. I just now saw the text in #Moving and removing content and have the following thoughts:
* That study is old (2001) and its conclusions are dated. I suggest the following more-recent citations:
:*  This is a reliable recent review which says that recent research is limited and reports contradictory results.
:*  This study is by the same group that did the 2001 study. It says the earlier DST in 2007 had little or no effect in California.
:*  This examined billing data in Indiana and found that DST increased residential energy consumption by 1% to 4%, primary due to extra afternoon air-conditioning.
* For more studies and details, please see Daylight saving time#Energy use.
* It's probably overkill to cite all this stuff here. Aries & Newsham is the best citation, since it's a review (not just a single study). To help try to improve things I made this change to incorporate its results. Hope this helps.
Eubulides (talk) 05:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Daylight saving time 

message: This section has been set up to discuss and propose moving content off the page. Mrshaba (talk) 15:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Just do it. No discussion needed. Just leave a summary in the main article and copy it to the subarticles. Just don't delete anything. It helps if you do the copy before the delete because this is a high trafficked site and you don't want someone clicking on it and at that moment not finding what they are looking for. Better to for a few seconds have a duplication of information than for a few seconds/few minutes have information missing. 199.125.109.43 (talk) 18:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I calculated the effect of DST on California and came of with 553 GWh out of a total of 283,000 GWh of electricity consumed annually. I had thought the number was closer to 1-2% of electricity consumption rather than one-fifth of one percent. The DST paragraph was also questioned by the peer review. I added this information originally but now I think it needs to go. Any objections? Mrshaba (talk) 21:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See revised blurb and comments below by Eubulides. Mrshaba (talk) 16:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Please don't bite the newbies. This article needs more than one editor, more than two, more than ten. Please don't revert just because someone makes a good faith edit. You think there is any chance of someone helping with the article when they get treated like that? The material removed is covered in the subarticle and does not need to be duplicated here. There was nothing wrong with the edit, and it certainly helped with the size. When you are on dialup, which last I checked was true of at least half of the world, edit byte count is far more important than readable prose. In any case 41 kb is pretty long for readable prose. It is better to use summary style, which is just what you reverted. Apteva (talk) 11:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As you know, the edit byte count argument has been rejected on the Article size talk page and it doesn't need to be carried on here. I'd like you to drop this argument and remove your call for major trimming. It is fair to ask for discussion before moving and removing several paragraphs. FA articles are thorough and CSP is an important technology that deserves inclusion. Summarizing the individual technologies in 4 or 5 sentences seems to give them proper weight. Mrshaba (talk) 19:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The best way to include it is just to introduce it and make a  link to it. Articles should not attempt to pull everything out of subarticles and put them into the main article, but instead should do the opposite, pull things out of the main article and put them into subarticles. Which is better a 10 megabyte main article that has links to 100 subarticles that are each 100 k, or a 10 k main article that has links to those same articles? In both cases the exact same information is presented. In the first case it is all duplicated and the main article is impossible to open, in the second case the main article opens in about a second and can be quickly used to find the detailed information in the subarticle. The reason why Wikipedia has chosen the latter, known as summary style, is that it works better for an encyclopedia, where many people are just looking for one factoid, and do not wish to read the entire article. Apteva (talk) 15:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

text: You are entirely entitled to your point of view, which I believe is based on viewing it from a broadband account and not from dialup, which is 25 times slower. I am not advocating that the article be 25 times smaller, however, only 2 times smaller. I have no objections to a few sentences about an important technology, although the approach should have been to revise the summary and not just revert it. The intent is to summarize the entire subarticle, not every portion of it. I really can not see the need for subsections in summaries. Apteva (talk) 19:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving and removing content 

message: Adacore trimmed, truncated, and/or moved some detail oriented info. Following this mindset I'm moving similar info here. 
*A molten salt storage system consists of a salt loop connected to an insulated storage tank. During the heating cycle, the salt mixture is heated from an initial temperature of 290 °C up to 565 °C. During the power cycle, the salt is used to make steam for a thermal power station. Mrshaba (talk) 03:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving and removing content (Post Adacore) 

message: If you would like to propose an alternate image, be my guest. However I do not know of one that does the job as good as the ones used. As to discrepancies, I see none. The article adds surface radiation of 89 PW to atmospheric absorption, 33 PW, to get 122, which is converted to 3850 ZJ. 33 PW is not inconsistent with the 870 TW that the wind includes. You want to explain your confusion? What you are doing in the article, however, is jumping around a lot between total energy for the sun and potential energy from the winds, which is totally comparing not only apples and oranges, but ripe apples with rotten oranges. If you would like to switch to other images, just remember the guidelines, one that shows an earth based application of solar energy, and one that shows the potential for solar energy. Apteva (talk) 00:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The box lists a flux of 86 PW. The page lists a flux of 89 PW. Mrshaba (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well that is hardly an order of magnitude. If you look at the reference you will see that the older version used 89 and the current version states that it gets updated as assumptions change. 199.125.109.136 (talk) 02:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 89 PW in one place and 86 PW in another is a discrepancy. Energy vs exergy is the discrepancy that underlies all of the information in the box diagram vs the page. The wind flux listed in the box is off by an order of magnitude from the wind potential listed on this page and the wind power page. The external ref listed for the box diagram blurb is also dead. The box diagram has already gone through an RfC which favored removing it for a higher quality picture. I've let it slide for the most part because I'm sure as the page makes the run to FA these things will work themselves out. Mrshaba (talk) 03:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You have a major discrepancy in listing 3850 ZJ for solar and 2.25 for wind as one is total flux and the other is available potential at a specific height and location. I was just going to remove the wind line item, but figured if it shows the height it was for readers would get a clue that it doesn't include the jet stream for example, which is included in the 870 number. There is nothing wrong with the cube figure, it's a good image - every time you take it out someone else puts it back. You are splitting hairs over things that are a mile wide. It's pointless. Apteva (talk) 03:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The immediate problem with the box is that it conflicts with information on the page - both text and the other diagrams with stronger corroborating sources. As to the discrepancy, each bullet is given in context with a source. Smil and NASA use similar fluxes. There is no way to compare everything symmetrically. Primary energy use does not compare 1:1 with electricity generated from wind or PV. These things are beyond the scope of this page. Mrshaba (talk) 05:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The box lists a flux of 86 PW. The page lists a flux of 89 PW. Congrats on getting an account. Mrshaba (talk) 17:55, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't think either picture belongs on the page let alone the lead. This picture went through a two month long RFC from October-December 2007 and has gone on well past long enough since then. SEE: Rfc Pictures. Consensus was to remove the picture. This has been an incredible waste of time and effort. Mrshaba (talk) 19:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to hear you so disappointed. Actually this is an important article that gets over a million page views each year, and on a topic that is becoming more important every minute. Solar grid connected PV is the fastest growing energy source in the world, and is an incredibly important replacement for dwindling oil supplies. Solar grid connected PV can easily replace home heating oil, automobile fuel, etc. In conjunction with wind power and hydro-storage, solar energy can easily meet all of our energy needs, 80% of which are currently met by oil. Oil which is selling at 5-6 times cost due to it running out soon. Just like the lemmings we came to a cliff and went right on over it, even though the solution was seen and the problem known thirty years ago, just as the dual problem of global warming was known thirty years ago. Another clue of the importance of this article is that it also exists in over 40 other languages. So no it has not been an incredible waste of time. However, to properly illustrate the article, the two lead images should be one that shows a typical application of solar energy and one that shows the potential for solar energy, which is just what we currently have. However it would be a huge improvement to replace the U.S. centric photo with one from one of the larger European solar power plants. Unfortunately we do not have any. Apteva (talk) 11:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Rfc indicated the box picture is undesirable for several reasons. There were 5 or 6 people that indicated negative views of the box diagram with you as the sole supporter. This is an ILIKEIT issue. Drop it. Mrshaba (talk) 15:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's an it makes sense issue. You might notice that during your wikibreak no one but no one objected to the lead images after they were restored, other than to tweak the size a little. Also, I took a look at all 45 sister language pages today and the vast majority use an application and/or an indication of the availability of solar energy. See for example de:Sonnenenergie and ca:Energia solar which used both. There were a few with none and a few that just used whatever we were using when their page was created. One used sort of a global warming diagram, and another used the spectrum of sunlight. So I fail to see  any reason to deviate from what is most practical, and most popular for that matter - an image of an application and an image showing availability. Apteva (talk) 07:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd suggest RfC except it's already gone to RfC. What's the problem with the picture of the Sun? Why are we making a big deal out of this? Itsmejudith (talk) 18:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Er... Only a picture of the Sun shows solar energy, to the extent that one can show energy. Other photos show some ways that people use solar energy. It's entirely appropriate to start with the general and then move onto the particular. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:00, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't that what this article is about, the ways we use solar energy? Discussion about the actual energy of the sun are contained in other articles, such as sun and nuclear fusion. We didn't create the sun, but we did create solar energy, in the form of photovoltaics and many other applications. It is a broad topic, but there are iconic images that can be used, such as solar two (now decommissioned, oddly enough), or a large photovoltaic power plant. I would love to have someone take a photo of one of the larger photovoltaic plants. Over the next few years these will be in the hundreds if not thousands of megawatts, although thousands of megawatts is like trying to take a photo of a forest - you lose sight of the trees - closeups of SEGS are more effective than overhead views. Apteva (talk) 16:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images