Wikipedia:Peer review/Solar energy/archive2

Solar energy

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it was reviewed in the past and I don't think any of the problems raised then apply any longer. The article has been stable for a long time, but there are many editors who are interested in this question and who would be able to fix any remaining issues. The article covers all aspects of solar energy in a balanced way. The sourcing is good. It has benefited from a split, whereby solar electrical generation is covered in Solar power. So I think a further peer review is long overdue.

Thanks, Itsmejudith (talk) 12:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

My comments:

• The column of same-size pictures on the right is dull. Put some on the left, and customize the sizes.
• Per Wikipedia:Footnotes#Multiple columns, the notes are too long to break up into 4 columns. Choose the shortened or regular footnote format, and convert to that. And why not use the reflist template?
• The Applications section takes up a disproportionate amount of space and its structure is confusing. It starts off by defining a split between passive and active techniques, which are then not used in structuring the section. It also throws in an extra set of labels, supply and demand, without ever explaining or using these again. And the link to supply-side economics helps to make your head spin even more. Then the structure suggests that heating, cooling and ventilation are not an architectural application, nor is water heating or solar lighting, since they are listed separately. If categorization is needed, only one categorization scheme should be used at a time, either by process (lighting, thermal, chemical, electrical) or by application (vehicle, architecture, agriculture, etc.) not intermixed together.
• I don't think that energy storage systems deserve their own section in this article. The pumped hydroelectric storage paragraph is particularly out of place. Perhaps what would be more appropriate is a section discussing the intermittancy of this energy source (cloud cover, nightime, seasons, latitude) with references and hotlinks to storage techniques that can be used to compensate.
• The development, deployment and economics section, which really could be three separate sections, never mentions a dollar amount, and only one capacity figure. Maybe this should be relabelled a history section?
• The ISO section belongs in the article on solar water heaters, not here.
• The See Also and External Links are mostly of little value and should be severely pruned. Wikipedia is not a link farm.

--Yannick (talk) 00:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Expansion suggestions:

• This article discusses solar energy almost solely as an industrial resource. There's only a passing mention that some of it is captured by biomass, which again is discussed as an industrial resource. Even the agriculture section fails to note the role of unassisted solar energy in ordinary farms. If this article is really meant to be about all uses of solar energy, it may be a good idea to devote more space to solar energy's role in keeping the ecology alive, causing hurricanes, and keeping the planet warm. The Earths temperature, for example, is determined by the balance between incoming solar energy and outgoing thermal emissions into cold black space.
• a section on origin of solar energy would seem appropriate: nuclear fusion in the sun, age and prognosis for the sun, variations in radiation due to the sunspot cycle
• Extraterrestrial uses of solar energy may deserve mention: solar sails, helium-3 deposited on moons, solar powered spacecraft, weather on other planets

--Yannick (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)