Backwards

[Dave Sheldrake]

David, I think you have summed it up very accurately and succinctly. Unfortunately, it is politicians and ideologues who are driving the decision making instead of engineers and scientists.

Dam Art!! exactly!! as said by Alvin Weinberg (the inventor of the Molten Salt AND High Pressure Nuclear Reactors (that he later said were not safe))

in now way do I think Solar or Wind power
can be scaled up sufficiently to supply the 4 billion people that want to flip the switch.

The big problem with wind and solar is they are destructive technologies, people don't want huge swathes of land torn up to build wind farms or solar fields. On larger scales the energy density of wind and solar is too low and the cost of transporting / storing that energy is too high for any company to get into unless they get the repeat business from it (GE etc make no money on building reactors for example, they make from the fuel contracts).

Eventually the choices will be made for us, either destructive or constructive but they will be made one way or the other.

cheers

Dave

[Scott Shepherd]

The big problem with wind and solar is they are destructive technologies, people don't want huge swathes of land torn up to build wind farms or solar fields.

And you have to see the irony in people wanting wind turbines because it "doesn't have the red bellied sap sucker's environment", only to see that all the Raptors are dying by the 100's from running into the blades. Glad we saved one birds habitat to kill 100's of other precious raptors.

[Shawn Pixley]

While I don't agree with the government's policies on subsidizing solar energy or electric cars, I would absolutely take advantage of those subsidizes if they made sense for me. On a different note, you may want to consider that it is State government policies that caused your electric bill to be possibly 4 times what mine is.

Do you agree with the oil subsidies? These dwarf the solar subsidies...

[David Weaver]

Do you agree with the oil subsidies? These dwarf the solar subsidies...

I'd like to see a net cost per million btu of energy, with all subsidies and taxes taken into account. That would be more instructive. A nominal amount that's not unitized doesn't tell us much.

[Rick Potter]

I forgot to mention that I also got $4007 in rebates when I bought the car. I took them and ran, like the cowardly, anti environmental bigot that I am.

I do have to admit, there is one person who harbors discontent for my solar system. My next door neighbor can see it if she goes to an upstairs bedroom window, and leans out. She has barely spoken to us since the installation. She threatened to plant a tree to block the sun, but I informed her that was illegal by CA law. Everything I do seems to upset her. When we built our mother in law quarters, she complained we could look down into her house. The addition is single story and we brought her over to show her we couldn't peek, then we spent a couple grand trimming that side of the house nicely to look good from her yard. Then we spent another grand raising our block wall so she could have more privacy (without asking her to help pay). Finally, we spent almost $1500 extra on the solar panels to get the ones that are better looking, for when she leans out that window.

I am done. $4,000 spent trying to be a good neighbor, and it isn't enough. I am showing her though, I quit throwing her kids balls back into her yard.

An interesting footnote....her neighbor on the other side just got a bid on solar .

[Frederick Skelly]

I do have to admit, there is one person who harbors discontent for my solar system. My next door neighbor can see it if she goes to an upstairs bedroom window, and leans out. She has barely spoken to us since the installation. She threatened to plant a tree to block the sun, but I informed her that was illegal by CA law. Everything I do seems to upset her. When we built our mother in law quarters, she complained we could look down into her house. The addition is single story and we brought her over to show her we couldn't peek, then we spent a couple grand trimming that side of the house nicely to look good from her yard. Then we spent another grand raising our block wall so she could have more privacy (without asking her to help pay). Finally, we spent almost $1500 extra on the solar panels to get the ones that are better looking, for when she leans out that window.

I am done. $4,000 spent trying to be a good neighbor, and it isn't enough.

Sounds like youve been mighty reasonable Rick.

Im curious about how that CA law works. If your neighbor has a tree that blocks your solar, she gets fined or what? Hows it work if the tree was there before your solar was installed? Any idea?

[Shawn Pixley]

David,

That is a valid argument. The subsidies are large and are over $ 35B for the 2002 to 2008 period. The cost per BTU would be small. However, I would offer that the oil companies are incredibly profitable. Why is it in the public interest to increase their profits through subsidies?

However, I think that if you boycot one form of energy over subsidies and ignore the similar subsidy in another form of energy, it is hippocritical.

I favor the long view approach. History is littered with civilizations / societies that collapsed because they did not change and adapt before they had to. If you wait until hits you in the head like a 2x4, some other group who didn't wait has an advantage. People who only think in the near-term find themselves at a disadvantage in the long run.

[Jim Matthews]

We're listless now and more satisfied to win useless arguments (via courts, etc) than solve problems.

Nice to see we're in agreement.
That's as close to a parenthetical reference to what I said, earlier.

We don't lack the means, we lack the collective anything to advance as a species.
It's not for lack of advance notice, either.

FWIW - I couldn't give a damn about how many birds fly into windfarms, that's a canard (if you'll excuse the pun)
forwarded by people that value their vista over keeping the lights on,
and it's an example of what you've just noted.

As if pumping effluent into waterways and heavy metals into the air weren't as bad, or worse.
You can't claim that you're protecting a species by perpetuating the chief killer of same.

Shenanigans

[Mike Henderson]

I have a solar system, also, in southern California. I've had it in about a year and have generated about as much as we use. I'm on "time of use" billing instead of tiered billing and I generate the electricity during peak time, so I get more for it than I pay for the electricity I use in the evening - so I have a credit balance with the power company. I elected to get paid for the excess simply because it looks like I'll continue to run a credit balance each year.

Regarding rates, during peak times, when solar is putting out the most electricity, the electric company used to have to bring "peaking generators" on line at high costs. So solar helps reduce the power company's cost during those times.

But maintenance of the grid is an issue. All of us with solar could not really operate without the grid. It's only fair that we should pay a "grid maintenance" fee each month. I don't know how the amount would be determined (so that it's fair) but I'm sure we could come up with some rate structure that we could all agree to.

Eventually, it'll either be a grid maintenance fee, or wholesale rates for the electricity. The present rate structure for solar cannot be maintained for the long run.

In response to the person who commented about the incentives - that solar would not make financial sense without the incentives - yes, incentives may be necessary at this time to get people to install the systems. What we're seeing, however, is that the financial predictions are coming true. The increased volume of solar is driving down the price of panels and installation cost. If trends continue, we should see solar achieving parity with other generating technologies (without incentives) in a few years. If so, the incentives did what they were intended to do.

I view this as similar to the government funding of the development of the Internet. At the time it was developed, no business was going to pay for that development. The government funding allowed the developers to develop the technologies necessary for the Internet and it took off. Solar looks like it's going to do the same.

Mike

[David Weaver]

David,

That is a valid argument. The subsidies are large and are over $ 35B for the 2002 to 2008 period. The cost per BTU would be small. However, I would offer that the oil companies are incredibly profitable. Why is it in the public interest to increase their profits through subsidies?

However, I think that if you boycot one form of energy over subsidies and ignore the similar subsidy in another form of energy, it is hippocritical.

I favor the long view approach. History is littered with civilizations / societies that collapsed because they did not change and adapt before they had to. If you wait until hits you in the head like a 2x4, some other group who didn't wait has an advantage. People who only think in the near-term find themselves at a disadvantage in the long run.

Yeah, I don't really care how it's structured, I care about the net revenue (taxes minus subsidies). I don't really love subsidies for established items in general, but solar should be established by now, anyway, and so should wind. In my opinion they should pay net taxes and not be on the net subsidy side. When I say I don't really love subsidies, I guess that means I care a little - I'd rather see taxes only and no subsidies - the market itself tends to find whatever is easiest and most efficient when there is enforcement of anti trust and no abuse of legal systems. Subsidies distort that, and if it's easier to search out subsidies than it is to find legitimate solutions, then that's what the market will do.

I don't think using energy less expensive than solar and wind (like natural gas) at this point threatens our society nearly so much as detaching the notion of compensation vs. actually doing something that has value to other people. I would imagine collapse in prior societies probably had more to do with economic structure issues than technological or environmental.

Sometimes when you know something is a better solution, you just have to do it rather than not doing it because you don't want to be doing it in 50 years. Ignoring something you can do efficiently because you may not want to do it later doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

[David Weaver]

I have a solar system, also, in southern California. I've had it in about a year and have generated about as much as we use. I'm on "time of use" billing instead of tiered billing and I generate the electricity during peak time, so I get more for it than I pay for the electricity I use in the evening - so I have a credit balance with the power company. I elected to get paid for the excess simply because it looks like I'll continue to run a credit balance each year.

Regarding rates, during peak times, when solar is putting out the most electricity, the electric company used to have to bring "peaking generators" on line at high costs. So solar helps reduce the power company's cost during those times.

But maintenance of the grid is an issue. All of us with solar could not really operate without the grid. It's only fair that we should pay a "grid maintenance" fee each month. I don't know how the amount would be determined (so that it's fair) but I'm sure we could come up with some rate structure that we could all agree to.

Eventually, it'll either be a grid maintenance fee, or wholesale rates for the electricity. The present rate structure for solar cannot be maintained for the long run.

In response to the person who commented about the incentives - that solar would not make financial sense without the incentives - yes, incentives may be necessary at this time to get people to install the systems. What we're seeing, however, is that the financial predictions are coming true. The increased volume of solar is driving down the price of panels and installation cost. If trends continue, we should see solar achieving parity with other generating technologies (without incentives) in a few years. If so, the incentives did what they were intended to do.

I view this as similar to the government funding of the development of the Internet. At the time it was developed, no business was going to pay for that development. The government funding allowed the developers to develop the technologies necessary for the Internet and it took off. Solar looks like it's going to do the same.

Mike

There's a difference here, though. What's made solar partly viable is cheap international production. It's been around in PV cells for how long now, 50 years?

Now, I don't care as much about this as it may seem, I'm looking at it as more of an optimization issue and not something where I carry water for one group or another (well, I carry water for whatever is optimal).

[Art Mann]

Do you agree with the oil subsidies? These dwarf the solar subsidies...

No, I don't agree with any sort of government subsidies. I might be in favor of government subsidies to develop new energy technologies but as I already pointed out, those decisions are made by politicians rather than engineers. That is why you get billions of dollars wasted on a company like Solindra with no positive benefit to anyone other than a few politicians and their friends. My position is to let private enterprise finance the research and let them reap the benefits of their expenditures. I don't like the idea of government choosing winners and losers, be it oil or solar energy development or wind energy or whatever.

[Jim Matthews]

There's a difference here, though. What's made solar partly viable is cheap international production. It's been around in PV cells for how long now, 50 years?

Now, I don't care as much about this as it may seem, I'm looking at it as more of an optimization issue and not something where I carry water for one group or another (well, I carry water for whatever is optimal).

If you carry enough water, you've got a viable hydro system.
That's an inefficient way to convert biomass to electricity.

[David Weaver]

I could stand to convert about 40 pounds of my biomass to something else!

[Jim Matthews]

I can understand the differing points of view, but in my situation, location, with availability of rebates, etc., my payback is about 4.5 years.

About the same outlay for us, at 41 degrees North longitude.
Given the electric utility rates, our consumption and projected output from the PVs,
ROI was closer to 20 years.

I won't be in this house, that long.

If the utilities cut us a check for the power produced, in excess of our consumption - it would be an entirely different matter.