this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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Solar panels seem almost too good to be true
The downsides are all capitalism related like shitty mining practices or planned obsolescence. The sun is the ultimate engine of all life on this planet. Fossil fuels are just repositories of sun energy that got buried. Getting our energy directly from the sun cuts out the middle men.
Also, from a "science is neat!" perspective, they're like one of the only forms of power generation we have that doesn't involve spinning a turbine
In a weird way this is the wildest bit. It's because they don't have moving parts that really makes them incredibly portable, incredibly easy to mass produce, little-to-no maintenance, magic endless electricity squares. Anything with a turbine is basically impossible to both mass-produce and install on unattended/domestic properties.
From another science is neat perspective, we've actually reached insane levels of efficiency. Average panels get about 20% nowadays, degrading to about half that after a couple decades. Top-end commercial panels are about 25% efficient. Experimental panels have claimed up to 40% efficiency in real-world conditions. Plant photosynthesis solar->usable energy is, depending on how you calculate it, somewhere between 3 and 11% efficiency.
I knew they were getting more and more efficient, but seeing the hard numbers is wild! Like literally enough to help push back on my ever present climate related doomery, ty comrade
I always find this neat. As cool and as futuristic as nuclear energy may seem it’s still just hot thing makes steam to turn wheel same as a fossil fuel plant.
Compared to that, solar panels might as well be magic.