Second-law analysis of solar-thermal processes

Abstract

The second law of thermodynamics provides an analytic framework for the assessment of the potential displacement of fossil fuels by solar energy. the most promising areas are those which have entropy levels corresponding to the entropy level of the solar resource as converted to heat in various types of solar collectors. Since the entropy of solar heat can be partitioned by the means of collection—d.g., by the collector concentration ratio—solar can be matched much more precisely to many tasks at temperatures up to 300°C than can fossil fuels which are low entropy sources now widely misused for high entropy tasks.