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Do you think that solar energy can replace totally the use of thermal energy in future???

Do you think that solar energy can replace totally the use of thermal energy in future???

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Arun
25750 Points
6 years ago
year the solar industry installed a record amount of solar capacity. The impact can be seen in the data. According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2012 there were 3.5 million megawatthours of electricity generated by solar photovoltaic panels. In 2013 that more than doubled to 8.3 million Mwh. And to think that a decade ago the U.S. generated just 6,000 Mwh from solar PV. Solar is closing in on price parity with the likes of coal — with full-cycle, unsubsidized costs of about 13 cents per kilowatthour, versus 12 cents for advanced coal plants.So is the solar revolution finally here? Not quite. Even after a decade of rampant growth solar energy still barely moves the needle in the U.S. energy mix. In fact, solar merely equals the amount of electricity that the nation generates by burning natural gas captured from landfills. And it’s only slightly more meaningful than the 7.3 million Mwh we get from burning human waste strained out of municipal sewer systems.The fall off in demand has seriously wounded America’s biggest coal mining companies. Over five years shares in Peabody Energy are down 36%, Arch Coal down 67% and Alpha Natural Resources off 78%. Contrast that with shares in SolarCity, up 400% in just 18 months.But coal is certainly not dead. Not even close to it. “When even the president is anti-coal, it’s like you’re fighting City Hall. But the truth will prevail,” says Andrew Redinger, managing director at KeyBanc Capital Markets, which has done investment banking work for coal utilities and solar developers alike. “I see coal making a comeback. The best thing for coal will be when we start exporting natural gas.”This winter showed that “declaring the death of coal is premature,” says Bob Yu, analyst at Bentek, a division of Platts. “Winter was a reminder that natural gas is used for heating. Coal consumption was up a lot this winter because of natural gas demand by retail buyers

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