Comments on: Is Solar Power Really Practical?

Harnessing The Sun's Energy Is Becoming More Popular - But Experts Question Its High Cost

[ubrew12]

dmw1167 said: "The reason my electric bill is so low is one word NUCLEAR I live less than 50 miles from a Nuclear Plant"
I think nuclear should be doubled in America. However, a nuclear power plant is god''s gift to terrorists. And there''s the waste issue.

[ubrew12]

"Is Solar Power Really Practical?"

Just consider the following, folks:
The primary cost of solar panels is the energy cost. The materials are Silicon, which is basically SAND, and steel, which is basically DIRT (esp. Red Dirt). Put energy into SAND and DIRT, and you get solar panels. Then there''s the energy cost of transportation and installation.

So, WHY ARE SOLAR PANELS EXPENSIVE?? The energy itself should be cheap, if its SOLAR!! The reason solar panels are expensive is because there''s been no government-sponsored (socialist) ''Manhattan'' prject to develop autonomous solar panel producing plants that sit in the desert, scoop up abundant quantities of sand and dirt, absorb abundant quantities of the suns energy, and poop out solar panels. Why has there been no such project? Because the power-money is on oil and nuclear. It doesn''t want widescale adoption of solar. It just spent $1.5 trillion of YOUR tax dollars taking over the worlds second largest proven oil reserves, and it doesn''t like competition.

ENERGY is the primary ''cost'' of producing solar panels, and a solar panel producing plant comes with its own source of energy: the sun. Its that simple.

[jlagat]

You people are dreaming solar power on the scale that would power even one home completely is no where in sight at an affordable price. You will need power for cooking,lights,heating,cooling,hot water there is nothing today that will come close to that.

Posted by dmw1167 at 11:19 AM : Jul 08, 2008

You''re right. However, I think what this article demonstrates is a major shift in energy priorities and not just demonstrating how much it costs. Hopefully this major shift will increase motivation and speed up the tech development.

Just because Rome wasn''t built in a day doesn''t mean you quit building Rome. Same thing here; just because the technology for cheap and clean energy hasn''t been fully realized doesn''t mean you quit or transfer your resources and manpower somewhere else.

America used to be the country of technological and social innovation. Unfortunately, that has been long gone due to the overall laziness of the general American population who can be simply described as ''If I can''t get it tomorrow, it''s just not worth trying to get.''

[dan9111]

The enviro-fascists have lost touch with one thing. If you don''t care about the concerns of others, then how can you expect others to care about your concerns?

Not everyone wants to be threatened with getting shot for refusing to fund government-led projects -- no matter how good they are -- they are nonconsensual, period. If a program is enacted by violence, then I is believed by some that we will have Soviet-style failure. If that concern means nothing to you, then surely yours also means nothing. Good luck. Our environment can be protected by free enchange. Violent threats by greeny liberals will only make things worse. Those who think that is untrue will only cement further into place the behaviors of irresponsible people who really will damage the enviroment whilst blindly believing protection is simply the ''goverment''s job''. Government has failed. Wise and voluntary consumerism is our only chance.

[justspiffy]

Most electricity is powered by natural gas than
any other source.

[Razzl]

The best use of solar energy in our current state of techonology is to use it for simple and logical things that free up energy for other purposes. For instance, how many kilowatts of power would be saved from household use if inexpensive "Solatube" skylights were installed throughout the attic to channel light to interior rooms during daylight hours? Or passive solar panels for heating water and supplementing hydronic baseboard heaters? These ideas are incredibly cheap to implement, but the market just doesn''t have the product out there for people to invest in yet...

[yerbaseca]

dmw1167

Evidently you do not live in an area where energy conservation is very important. Southern California Edison has an inverted rate schedule where the more you use the more you pay for each KWH. Southern California Edison allows each homeowner to purchase about 350 KWH at their lowest tier rate of $0.13 per KWH. Once you reach 200% of that amount your rate per KWH increases to $0.32 per KWH. Thus if you lived in Southern California your electric bill would have been approximately $1300.00 for the 4660 KWH that you used. My total subsidy was around $21,000.00 making the total cost of the system about $50,000.00. The price of a new BMW of Mercedes. As for the comparison with the stock market I was trying to make the point that if you had to rely on the stock market to generate the same amount of money that would have been required you would need a significantly larger investment even without the subsidy. By the way the major part of the subsidy ($16,000.00) is supported by ratepayers through the California Energy Commission as a capacity charge against what it would cost to install peaking capacity on the Edison grid. Finally I have published this information without any grant on my own at my own expense.

[ubrew12]

dmw1167 said: "You talk about the Goverment subsidizing it, that is a form of socialism... The only thing that will work is when it is produced and sold by free enterprise. " How about bailing out Bear-Sterns with several billion dollars of our money because they were incompetent at their job? Was that ''free enterprise'' at work? I''m truly tired of the ''free enterprise'' religion spouted on these threads. When FDR built the dams that still generate 20% of our electricity today, there was none of this reflexive ''free enterprise'' faith being vomited out as today. He just subsidized an energy industry and it paid out big time. Why? Cuz it was renewable and had few environmental issues.

[ubrew12]

dmw1167 said: "You talk about the Goverment subsidizing it, that is a form of socialism... The only thing that will work is when it is produced and sold by free enterprise. "
We just spent $1.5 trillion in Iraq so that ExxonMobil could have a no-bid contract to exploit their oil, and THAT''s not subsidizing? Over the years, the U.S. government has spent $1 trillion on nuclear fission research (for energy, not bombs, bombs was several more trillion), and THAT''s not subsidizing? Time and again, money for alternative energy research can''t be found, they are told: make it in the ''free'' world. There''s nothing ''free'' about your world. But go ahead and drive your SUV and think you made that choice all on your own. Several billion dollars in SUV advertising over the years says something different. Spend $600 billion a year on the ''free market'' for weapons systems, to protect yourself from a handful of bedouins armed with box cutters. ''Free market''? You''re being gamed.

[paulbpaul]

People are "confused" by the math in the article because it is wrong. Most electricity in the US is generated by coal, not oil. The prices of coal and natural gas are not "on its way to the moon". Even if it was then nuclear, wind and tidal would still be far more efficient than solar.

And all of this doesn''t even take into account the fact that photovoltaic power is intermittent. It doesn''t work at night or when it is cloudy. These sorts of grid tie systems don''t have to take that into account because they use NG or coal power at night. If batteries or some other form of energy storage were included in the price, then the cost would be several times as much.

Another problem is that peak supply only coincides with peak demand in the Southwest. In the Southeast it is often cloudy and elsewhere peak demand is at night for heating.

And no one has taken into account the interest on a $50,000 loan.

I have seriously considered a photovoltaic system, and once you take into account all the drawbacks it becomes obvious that generating electricity with PV is like driving a Bentley. It is cool and a great status symbol for the well off, but it isn%u2019t realistic for the average person.