Solar Energy is a tool of Democrats

In an article about a potential breakthrough in solar energy, some Freepers are sorta excited about the whiz-bang technology. But most of them suspect it might make liberals happy. And since Freepers' number one policy driver these days is liberal unhappiness, they're going to shit on it until they moment they embrace it as a conservative market-driven innovation.

HiTech RedNeck knows they key is a free market, like the free market that gave us flat panel TVs. No subsidies there!

A free market in such things as this is wonderful. What isn’t wonderful is when government arbitrarily picks a winner, even if it is not the best in class (e.g. Solyndra).

It is because of relentless competition to improve in engineering that we went from the vertical scans of Stooky Bill to the flat panels that most of us are sitting before, if not using their miniature version in smartphones. Let good solutions give place to better, and then even better, solutions.

Quiet revolutions like this, rather than government fiats (which are ludicrous in technological fields), could evolve the world past the need for fossil fuels, if other events do not intervene. I don’t think technology is going to be the bottleneck for mankind. I think spirituality will be.

TheNext is just knee-jerk anti-solar power.

Major Breakthrough!

Solar cell now 0.000000000001 percent more efficient.

And they re-positioned the Sun for 24 hour coverage.

* cough * junk science * cough *

BobL doesn't think technology getting better requires any increased storage ability.

I read reports about all of these great battery ‘breakthroughs’ that never seem to make it out of the ‘battery journal’...and that’s understandable because the type of battery needed for an electric car, for example, will get exposed to more crap than even a typical Trump voter, from extreme temperatures, vibrations, accelerations, crashes, humidity, etc.

So, let them do their research...it is always possible that something new will break out and be usable...but yea, expect 20 technologies (at least) to be talked about as the next greatest thing...then quietly disappear.

PJammers doesn't understand efficiency.

It doesn’t matter if solar cells achieve 100% efficiency. They are only active 50% of the day and most of that time they are not at peak performance due to the position of the sun.

Solar power is the ethanol of the power industry.

theBuckwheat knows this just makes us vulnerable to bad guys!

As good as this news is, keep in mind that solar cells will be instantly and totally destroyed by any EMP. That is due to their very construction, that is the “PN junction” they all rely upon and the current-collection grid they all must have. The voltage spike induced by the EMP cannot be mitigated by the external diodes commonly used because of the sharp rise time of the Pulse. There is NO way around this. PV cells WILL be destroyed in an EMP attack. Almost certainly the vast majority of them.

outofsalt knows you can't harden against solar flares like solar panels have been for decades:

A solar flare that can burn a PV panel will fry the majority of gadgets that would benefit from using them. There are other calamities that can occur where you would want to have solar charging.
It’s been pointed out that PV is the second most expensive power system, only slightly less costly than having no power at all.

I won’t spend that kind of money for it but, to each his own.

Despite his not being mentioned, bert is sure this is a media conspiracy to prop up Obama.

but, you see....... it doesn’t matter. It happened while Obama was president. We are experiencing the three or four weeks of building the historic paper record of the Obama legacy.

Solar energy breakthrough to remove the Soylandra blight stain, Standing up to Russia moving troops to Poland, the UN peace initive to forever end the Israel/PIA wars.......