White House to Go Solar! ... What Happen to Jimmy Carter's Solar Panels?

Yep, Obama wants to be just like Carter in every way possible

1. Is Pluto within our solar system?

even though its not a planet anymore, pluto is still a part of the solar system. now its a dwarf planet

2. A silicon solar cell array works at an efficiency of 8.1% in sunlight and is exposed to an average solar insol?

Assume the area is 1 M^2. How many hours of sunshine ? Assume 12, but very few places never have clouds... Energy gathered = 230 x .081 x 3.15 x 10^7 x 8 Joules/M^2

3. Any drawbacks for solar panels?

I guess the main thing is to look out for the warranty like where the warranty is claimed and the process of claim, how efficient the inverter of the system is and also make sure you are getting value for your money

4. do you use solar energy to get electricity in your house?

I installed a 6 kW system about six years ago. Modules are Siemens, Inverters are Sunny Boy. This system more than supplies all of the electricity for my 2200 sq ft home, about 20 kW per day. There is sufficient surplus to allow me to supplement the gas furnace with resistance heaters. I did not install batteries, as we are on the grid, with net metering. Probably saved around $10,000 by doing without batteries. I hope to install a ground source heat pump to reduce the heating costs.

5. What is the plane of the solar system?

The Solar Sytem does not have a plane. The orbital plane of the Earth, the ecliptic is used as a reference because of convenience. You can also use the equatorial plane of the Milky Way galaxy as a reference, but the eclipitic is tilited at a 60 to 62 degree angle to the galactic equatorial plane, so it becomes really confusing when you do not or can not state what your reference point [Earth] is. "...Yahoo! does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any Yahoo! Answers content. Click here for the Full Disclaimer..." You've used up SPOTD. LOL!!!

6. are solar causes of global warming more dangerous than other causes?

The earth temperature has goes up and down and still we live on . The earth has many things to balance the cycle

7. when cheap, stored and abundant solar thermal energy............?

Aluminum melts at 660 C while NaCl (common table salt) melts at 801 C, so you cannot panel your big hole with aluminum foil. And you can not reflect light into a hole in the ground unless the mirrors are all on towers that can see down into the hole, which is why such plants are designed with the mirrors on the ground to reflect light onto the top of a tower. Then you need a boiler and steam engine to turn the heat into electricity. It is not simple or cheap to build. Photoelectric solar panels that make electricity directly from sunlight are much simpler, and there are a lot of big companies out there spending millions of dollars building new solar cell factories and reducing the cost of solar cell manufacturing. I expect that within 20 years solar panels will be as common as satellite dishes on home roofs.

8. what are some of the disadvantages shared by all renewable-energy sources such as solar cells and . . .?

They are subtle but they do change things, like how much sunlight hits the face of the planet and how much wind blows across an area. This can affect things like the planet's temperature and the ability for seeds or whatever to move around. It does not seem like much now but if it were to go to full-scale usage we would start to see ecological changes which are not generally good. Better to cut down on our consumption.

9. Do you think our solar system is a binary solar system [binary solar system a solar system with two stars]?

no. if the sun is part of a binary system, where is the other star? it would stick out like a sore thumb in hipparcos data

10. What is a solar flare?

The sun givin solar outbirsts of energy and fire look it up on YouTube it's quite amazing and yet dangerous for us