Coal Seams Not So Efficient

A correspondent mentioned a recent article he had read – probably in New Scientist – which reported on the efficiency of coal seams in capturing and storing solar energy. He couldn’t retrieve the article at the time, but it calculated that less than 0.1% of the solar energy originally captured by plants has actually made its way into coal.

So that means that a coal-fired power station, at about 40% thermal efficiency, is actually 0.04% efficient, in terms of primary solar energy. Since solar panels turn about 10-12% of the solar energy that falls on them into electricity, they leave coal in the dust.

Comments

One response to “Coal Seams Not So Efficient”

  1. scruss Avatar

    We found the paper. It is:
    BURNING BURIED SUNSHINE: HUMAN CONSUMPTION OF ANCIENT SOLAR ENERGY
    JEFFREY S. DUKES – http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *