Thread by @timlongson

1/17 We can cut #energybills & #ClimateChange emissions by switching to 100% #solarpower floating #solarpanels on our reservoirs & using environmentally friendly SODIUM (NOT lithium) large scale batteries to make FREE (after setup) & clean electricity! S&S petition.parliament.uk/petitions/6114…

2/17 The technology to produce 100% of the UK's energy needs via #solar ALREADY EXISTS! Best possible solution to cut #energybills & tackle #climatechange. If we float solar panels on UK reservoirs then zero land would be used up by panels, with the added advantage that it CONT..

3/17 will reduce evaporation (something which IS increasing each year as climate change gets worse) reducing droughts & will reduced toxic algae bloom growth in our drinking water.

Because the panels are floated on only a percentage of each reservoir, & the fact that there CONT

4/17 are no moving parts, there will be zero negative effect on local wildlife (unlike wind turbines which kill birds) & zero noise. And because they are floated on the water surface & close to water colour, they are nearly invisible from a distance.

Solar panels which are CONT

5/17 floated on water are cooled, increasing their
efficiency & lifespan, which is already more than 2X the life expectancy of turbine electricity generation like wind turbines. Using cutting edge technology, greener solutions are available for the production of the hardware CONT

6/17 like using sodium (as in sea salt, rather than lithium) batteries, removes the need for mining rare earth elements. Sodium batteries are bigger & heavier than the batteries you get in your phone, but they last MUCH longer & are fine for large scale stationary batteries CONT

7/17 & they can maintain 95% of their original charge capacity even after 10,000 full charge-discharge cycles! These batteries ensure than the generated electricity is 100% reliable 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

Solar technology, because of ever improving research & CONT..

8/17 development, is now about 10X cheaper than it was a decade ago, with increasing efficiency meaning that much smaller area of panels can produce the same amount of electricity. Unlike turbines which have physical limitations solar has the potential to increase the energy CONT

9/17 it produced by an additional 300% in coming years (see below), so the money investment to make this happen will also fund further research & development to take this technology to new levels.

Amount of reservoir surface needed to generate 100% of UK electricity needs CONT

10/17 would be determined by the efficiency of the #solarpanels. With current mainstream technology there is a limitation of #solar panels because they can only make use of about 23% (with a max potential of up to 30%) of the sunlight that hits them because of the band of CONT

11/17 energy that it harnesses (primarily in the red & infra-red band of the electromagnetic spectrum). But even at this level, solar panels work just fine in British weather, including on rainy, foggy & even snowy days (snow is less likely to stick to floating panels, but a CONT

12/17 simple resistance wire, triggered if the electricity production fell below a certain % because of snow sticking, could be used to melt the snow clear of the panels).

HOWEVER, there is tech in development (already exists within labs) which could increase the existing CONT..

13/17 efficiency rate by over 50% more than it is today & beyond, by placing a layer above existing solar panels which converts up to a potential of the remaining 70% of light into a form that solar panels can also make use of. Large scale investment, like the UK making this CONT

14/17 switch, would provide the funds to makes research like this a reality & could be used to reduce the necessary area.

Here is a good video talking about new technology, being developed by a UK firm called Cambridge Photon Technology (published Nature science journal) CONT

15/17 which could make use of the whole spectrum of solar light by placing a film over solar panels which converts the normally unusable light into pairs of excitons which, via quantum dots, then CONT...

16/17 causes the film to emit lower energy photons that the solar panels CAN then use on top of the normal light bands they currently do. CONT...

17/17 So PLEASE sign the petition, confirm email you get sent (check spam if not in inbox), & then share this to everyone you know so we can FORCE our government to switch to this vastly cheaper & cleaner energy source: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/6114…