David,
I think you missed Rosebud's brilliant point about using the DC current from
solar panels to electrolize water into Hydrogen and Oxygen which could be
stored/transported and used in fuel cells.
Regards,
John Meeks
'91 MultiWest

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM]On Behalf
Of David Brodbeck
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 1:43 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Alternate fuel.

On Sat, 21 Jun 2003, Rosebud wrote:

> If .04 of the energy that strikes Planet Earth in one day were to be
> converted to usable energy, ie fuel cell and electricity, it would be
enough
> to supply free energy to the world for over 30 days.

Unfortunately, the best solar cells are only about 5% efficient, so even
leaving out the many, many inefficiencies involved in transporting the
power converting 0.04 (4%, I assume?) of the sunlight falling on the earth
to power would require covering 80% of it's surface with solar cells!
And that's not counting cloudy days...

David Brodbeck, N8SRE
'82 Diesel Westfalia
'94 Honda Civic Si