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Old 19-10-2009, 11:19 AM
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renormalised (Carl)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coen View Post
To add further:
The maximum energy impacting on 1 square metre of the Earth's surface from the Sun is on the order of 1,000 watts (1kW). Thus if our solar collectors were 100% efficient then that is the maximum we can obtain if everything else was working in our favour.
Actually closer to 1370W/m^2.

In so far as efficiency of energy production, the pp chain reaction at the Sun's core runs at an efficiency of 0.7%, so that means 99.3% of the fuel is not converted into energy through the fusion process.

Last edited by renormalised; 19-10-2009 at 02:57 PM.
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