New research shows densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa could harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm tropical seas near the equator.

‘Limitless’ energy: how floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hotspots::New research shows densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa could harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm tropical seas near the equator.

  • @cydEnglish
    19•1 year ago

    It’s certainly promising, though the main problem is maintenance. Floating panels are obviously harder to fix than land-based ones, and seawater corrosion tends to be a big problem for any kind of long term infrastructure. Several countries are doing small scale trials to see how well the technology works in practice, before any kind of big rollout.

    • @TheObserverEnglish
      -10•1 year ago

      If they’d spend time researching ways to prevent any kind of corrosion in the first place we wouldn’t need as much maintenance. As for cleaning them hell just have them submerge themselves 1 time a day or week or whatever and come back up. Or research ways to make it 100% hydrophobic and…dustphobic? Is that a word? Lol. That would allow for even less maintenance.

      Unfortunately that style of research takes tons of time and tests and here’s the big one that ruins it all in the first place : money. Money is what will make all of what i just said not happen in the first place. People would rather slap some cheap shit down instead of paying a larger sum 1 time and be done with it.