Is Solar Power Really Practical?

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

(CBS)  It's freezing in the Contessa Foods plant in Los Angeles, where workers process, package and ship tons of frozen vegetables, fish and meat each day.

“It’s almost like putting 200,000 refrigerators … in one place,” said John Blazevich, CEO of Contessa Premium Foods.

And it’s powered primarily by the sun. An array of paper-thin solar panels rolled across a roof the size of two football fields has helped cut Contessa's energy use, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports.

“In half, which is significant for an operation that requires so much energy,” Blazevich said. “It can be done and we did it.”

Diana Ungerleider put solar panels on her roof last year. They not only got her meter spinning, but, as she says: “it’s actually spinning backwards, meaning that the electricity being generated ... is feeding back into the grid."

But her head spins every time she gets an electric bill.

“So, last year you paid $220 for a two-month period?” Whitaker asked.

“Right,” Ungerleider said.

“And this year only $14?” Whitaker asked.

“Right,” she said. “I’ve saved, like, I think, over $1,000 in one year.”

Known for fun in the sun, California more than all the other states combined, is now putting the sun to work.

At a Napa winery, the sun ripens the grapes and provides all the electricity.

“This is going to become a launching pad,” said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger recently announced the most ambitious program - Southern California Edison, the region's largest utility, installing solar cells on 65 million square feet of commercial rooftops over the next five years.

“When it’s complete, it will produce enough power for 162,000 homes,” he said.

Much of this sun worship is pie in the sky, say critics like U.C. Berkeley's Severin Borenstein.

“Solar energy is definitely not the magic bullet for high energy costs,” said Borenstein. “Right now, solar photo voltaic power is very, very expensive compared not just to fossil fuels, but compared to the other renewable sources that are out there."

And, as Ungerleider says, that’s the biggest downside. She paid $50,000 for her solar power.

But, she says, “my system will probably pay for itself after about 10 years. And after that, it’s just free energy.”

Solar and green technologies added 15 percent to the $40 million cost of the new Contessa food plant.

“I feel the smart businessman would be justified doing this, ‘cause it’s going to help them in the long run,” Blazevich said. “And it’s going to help the planet.”

Rising demand for solar technology should bring prices down eventually, but for now it helps to have green in your heart and in your pocket.

[onmild4]

Your two examples of people saving money now on Solar power systems shows that it is competitive NOW not it the future. It is so cynical to title your article "Is solar power really practical?" when clearly the answer is yes. You should report the answer to your viewers: The answer is YES! By leaving the question open you deceive your audience into thinking we aren''t quite there yet and maybe we need to do go drill in ANWR or go kiss the Saudi ring of power some more.

[ubrew12]

When you factor in the cost of losing 1000s of miles of coastline in the near future if nothing is done, then, I''d say solar is more than practical. Global Warming is not something you can turn on a dime with. If ocean levels go up significantly, they are essentially going up permanently. Factor THAT into the cost of fossil fuels.

[my2centss]

With natural gas rates increasing, and power increasing, she may pay off those panels sooner than later.

[seafang]

" When you factor in the cost of losing 1000s of miles of coastline in the near future if nothing is done, then, I''''d say solar is more than practical. Global Warming is not something you can turn on a dime with. If ocean levels go up significantly, they are essentially going up permanently. Factor THAT into the cost of fossil fuels.
Posted by ubrew12 at 07:26 PM : Jul 07, 2008 "

So how do you lose thousands of miles of coastline "in the near future" How much have you lost so far ?
Read Jan 2008 Scientific American Magazine; for a proposal to build a solar power plant in the waste desert areas of the american southwest. We can have a new electricity solar plant and it only requires 30,000 square miles od desert wasteland; well theres'' that extra solar heat/steam plant that adds another 16,ooo squ miles.
Oh almost forgo; 30,000 square miles is exactly the size of that other desert wasteland in the news; often called ANWR; but they only need about 2400 acres of that to drill for oil. For the soalr plant; they need evberys single square foot of it, including having to kick out the millions of people who live there, and close to to human visitors for ever (too vulnerable to someone throwing rocks at the solar panels.

Dr Fred Singer asked"who''s going to clean 30,000 square miles of solar panels every now and then.

Waht balderdash saying solar is green.

[seafang]

Speaking of power; I didn''t remember reading about that 550 tons of Uranium Yellow cake, that Saddam Hussein never had that was recently moved to Canada from Iraq. So Joe Wilson was the great master spy who discovered that SH wasn''t interested in Nuclear.?

Well his wife wrote a dull book about that.

[ubrew12]

Seafang said: "We can have a new electricity solar plant and it only requires 30,000 square miles od desert wasteland"

30,000 sq miles = 10,237 GW of electricity from solar at 10% conversion efficiency, 0.85 W/in2 sun power.

Translation for you: *** are you talking about?! Do you even know yourself?

[ubrew12]

Seafang said: "So Joe Wilson was the great master spy who discovered that SH wasn''t interested in Nuclear.?"

Wilson showed that Saddam hadn''t been trying to purchase yellowcake from Nigeria. That was a central contention of Bush''s State of the Union address and Bush had already been told it wasn''t certain. When Wilson outed Bush the Bush team retaliated. You know this, so why toss bvllsh*t on the rest of us? Is it just something you''ve gotten used to doing?

[ausus-2009]

I worry about Diana Ungerleider''s mathematics. If she saves $107 a month in electricity (assuming that is an average and not just counting peak months, it would take 467 months or more than 38 years to pay for her solar panels, and not 10 years. As well,there is no mention of maintenance and replacement costs over those years.

I am a strong supporter of solar electricity and would get the panels if I could afford them, but I know it would be for the greater good of the community rather than and personal saving.

[ozarkbard]

"Rising demand for solar technology should bring prices down eventually"

You''re kidding, right?

Why would the US solar industry be different from every other US industry. In the US, demand only increases prices... to increase profits. It''s the American way.

Every time I read about a new breakthrough in the renewable energy industry, all I can think about is how much more the CEO of that company will get paid, insteas of how much cheaper energy will be. That would take faith in America, and I''m running out of that.

[ozarkbard]

Personally, I don''t think our energy future is in solar cells, but rather solar STERLING ENGINE technology.

There are several companies closing in on the 50 percent efficiency mark in sterling solar generators... much more efficient then even the most expensive solar cell tech. and it''s a much simpler tech (in comparison).

One more time Earth, say it with me....

STERLING ENGINE!

[funkotronic]

Until a more efficient method of collecting solar energy is commonplace and economically feasible, the existing low-efficiency (+/- 10%) silicon-based PV method will just be a fragile and expensive oddity, rather than a viable choice. New tech is coming, but not soon.

Here%u2019s an idea: Put the existing low-efficiency solar cells in orbit as solar collection stations (and create plenty of high-tech jobs in the process), harvest 95% of the available power (no atmospheric filtration), beam it down to Earth as microwaves (there are many 1000%u2019s of square miles of unusable land just in the US southwest that would make dandy microwave antenna farms), convert it to electricity at these farms and then inject it into the existing power grid. You get limitless power & it''s non-polluting, other than the residual heat from the devices consuming the power. Now you have all the power you could possible need and you could power your electrical devices for literally pennies, even considering the subsidies required to bootstrap the entire conversion process.

Oh yeah %u2013 convert your home illumination to 12VDC & LEDs - save bunches of $$.

Oh, wait - this will never work cuz the oil companies (or the totally honest, completely uncorrupt government) won''t make any money off of it. Oops - I have to go now - the assassins are at the door to kill me for being an iconoclast.

Not original - proposed IN DETAIL by Jerry Pournelle in his "High Frontiers" series of essays.

[andor3]

any system of accounting that concludes that a free, unlimited source of power is more expensive than petroleum-based polluting sources is broken.

It is not that solar power is too expensive, it is that we do not calculate the true cost of technologies that produce pollution and greenhouse gasses.

[CarolJWright]

There are so many things changing with solar technology, what''s wrong with just starting the process. Some can afford to take themselves off the grid now. Great. A new solar printing technology, like printing paper, will be another step of accessibility. Using solar power panels to power remote buildings, lights, emergency phones, etc. saves the energy it would take to mine and manufacture metal poles and electrical wires. Solar panels can provide shade for buildings and parking lots. It''s planned for the Prius to have a solar roof to run the air conditioner. Small solar panels can charge batteries, laptops, lights, phones in an emergency. Perhaps it is not the ultimate solution for all our energy needs, but let''s not shoot ourselves in the foot here. Let''s keep improving solar and other options...meanwhile, somewhere, someone''s dial is going backwards.

[smurfcrusher]

Outstanding point, andor3.

[smurfcrusher]

ninas51 is SPAMming many message boards.

Ignore all posts by that user.

As a general guide, the only way to defeat SPAM is to NEVER, without exceptions, purchase anything as a result of SPAM.

Once SPAMmers realize their efforts are a waste of time, and that people will deliberately avoid their products because of SPAM, only then with SPAM stop.

[irliberal]

After November, I believe that the steam rising off the heads of neocons could potentially hold enough energy to power the entire country for the next 8 years.

[slim1h2o]

THe longer we wait to convert to other energies, the more money we''ll waste on oil, and coal.

Convert now,,and save some bucks for ourselves. If we all had solar power, look at all the power we would/could generate? Hell might be able to force out the utility companies.

[paulbpaul]

If Ungerleider saves $1000 per year and paid $50,000 for the system, how is it going to pay for itself in 10 years?

At that rate it would take 50 years.

To those of you confused by Diana Ungerleider''s math -you''re apparently overlooking the fact that the cost of traditional fuels is now on its way to the moon. When the average US electric bill is $1000 a month, maybe you''ll get it.

[ramos937]

Everything is way too expensive in CA. In TX, a good estimate would be $15K - $20K for a residential roof. A solar contractor in CA did develop a novel approach. He only requires a significant down payment (maybe $3K); he then charges the home owner based on the amount of KW the home owner uses per month. In some cases, he charges 9 cents per KW VS the current $.17 (in TX). Once the system is paid for, these monthly charges drop out. I hope he starts doing business in TX soon.

[jackobyte]

I think its so practical it will not be done. Doing simple back of the envelope calculations:

2006 number of housing units 127 million
times $30,000 for approx 3KW grid tie system
equals $4 trillion i.e. 4xthe iraq war cost (currently).

This is excluding saving due to mass production govt. backed endeavour (but knowing govt contractors a la $600 toilet seats)?

This would lead to complete energy independence. Imagine the savings to the USA and its people it would usher in undreamed of prosperity.

OK say we phase it in, right now for the cost of the Iraq war energy needs would be reduced 25%. That means all that money the citizenry spend on their electric bills would be a continuous ongoing consumer stimulus package, instead of going to rich oil potentates (yeah I know a lot of electric is coal genned, so imagine them green with envy).

Sure industry needs energy they can still get it from indigenous oil and coal and slowly as in the article they can also be converted too.

The flaw in the argument is of course the lack of imagination and will and the entrenched lobbies.

[ibzjem]

Solar cells are a little more efficient when they are cool. Raising them off the roof a little to allow airflow underneath would increase their output. I''d consider building a platform to lay them on that could be moved or covered during stormy weather. Cells are also fragile.

[gzuckier]

people seem to have forgotten the Other Solar; solar heat. Whether it''s just capturing heat during the day in a simple thermal wall for warmth at night, or focusing the heat with reflectors to generate steam to power generators or even just run things off steam turbines, it''s dirt cheap.

[gzuckier]

the other nice things about solar are that its availability tracks peak demand (caused by air conditioning) perfectly, and that it can be locally generated without needing to be delivered by the power grid, which is already at capacity. if we doubled our generation capacity in the US, we''d still have brownouts because we can''t deliver any more on a hot summer afternoon. So either you generate power on site equal to what your air conditioner is using, or you wait until the grid is upgraded, which is going to be a while. This becomes even more important if you''re planning to recharge your electric car on top of everything else.

[talkingham]

If we had dedicated just one-percent of what we now spend on oil to this purpose just 20 years ago just think how much farther along and how much energy we would have generated using solar power and heat.

It would be affordable if the government for which we spend so much of our hard earned dollars gave us something in return instead of contrived wars costing trillions of longterm dollars.

This switchover should be subsidized if not paid for in full by our tax dollars- instead we let the oil companies walk away with trillions while they are taxed at a rate from 20 years ago. That''s quite fair you know, especially since our government is run by oil companies and lobbyists. When the oil companies can own the solar technology then we''ll see some movement in this area.

This nation and it''s leaders have learned a lot, a lot from Nero''s Rome.

[jackobyte]

Well oil companies in Solar is the biggest danger because of their past behaviour, they are scarcity driven, their mind set is corrupt, we need new blood not the same old blood suckers, they will create solar cells that need replacing every month or so, it is not in their nature to be good honest or fair.

Incidently every second the sun outputs enough energy that would supply the entire earths need for 37 billion years. Ergo: god has provided: there is no shortage, the only shortage is the will to fight the manipulators of scarcity logic, the fiends who would take away our freedoms and return us to practice animal enslavement, just so that they can retain their vain glories. Amen Jack.

[cyinzl8r]

If you want to pay for them and put them on your house and drive around in your never to make money sense Prius then fine. Pat yourself on your green back, but don''t make me pay for it with tax dollars. You want to subsidize something? Subsidize gasoline. It''s the best energy transfer media economic solution. Still!!! and will be for a long time!

[yerbaseca]

I installed a 6KW Photovoltaic system on my home in October 2004. Since that time I have been tracking the economic performance of my solar power generation system with the stock market over the same period of time. The Solar array has generated $8022.00 in tax-free revenue in the form of money not paid to Southern California Edison. My total net investment after rebates from the California Energy Commission and tax credits is $29,122.00. If I had invested this same amount in an index fund tied to the S&P 500 my return would have been $4753.00 over the same period of time. The specific mutual fund that I selected for this comparison is the Fidelity Investments Spartan US Equity Index Investor Class FUSEX.

A copy of my paper, which was presented to the 33 rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference held in San Diego May 11-16, 2008, can be downloaded from the following site:

ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/4059527/4059868/04060199.pdf

Ed Simburger

[yerbaseca]

I installed a 6KW Photovoltaic system on my home in October 2004. Since that time I have been tracking the economic performance of my solar power generation system with the stock market over the same period of time. The Solar array has generated $8022.00 in tax-free revenue in the form of money not paid to Southern California Edison. My total net investment after rebates from the California Energy Commission and tax credits is $29,122.00. If I had invested this same amount in an index fund tied to the S&P 500 my return would have been $4753.00 over the same period of time. The specific mutual fund that I selected for this comparison is the Fidelity Investments Spartan US Equity Index Investor Class FUSEX.

A copy of my paper, which was presented to the 33 rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference held in San Diego May 11-16, 2008, can be downloaded from the following site:

ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/4059527/4059868/04060199.pdf

[yerbaseca]

I installed a 6KW Photovoltaic system on my home in October 2004. Since that time I have been tracking the economic performance of my solar power generation system with the stock market over the same period of time. The Solar array has generated $8022.00 in tax-free revenue in the form of money not paid to Southern California Edison. My total net investment after rebates from the California Energy Commission and tax credits is $29,122.00. If I had invested this same amount in an index fund tied to the S&P 500 my return would have been $4753.00 over the same period of time. The specific mutual fund that I selected for this comparison is the Fidelity Investments Spartan US Equity Index Investor Class FUSEX.

A copy of my paper, which was presented to the 33 rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference held in San Diego May 11-16, 2008, can be downloaded from the following site:

ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/4059527/4059868/04060199.pdf

[yerbaseca]

I installed a 6KW Photovoltaic system on my home in October 2004. Since that time I have been tracking the economic performance of my solar power generation system with the stock market over the same period of time. The Solar array has generated $8022.00 in tax-free revenue in the form of money not paid to Southern California Edison. My total net investment after rebates from the California Energy Commission and tax credits is $29,122.00. If I had invested this same amount in an index fund tied to the S&P 500 my return would have been $4753.00 over the same period of time. The specific mutual fund that I selected for this comparison is the Fidelity Investments Spartan US Equity Index Investor Class FUSEX.

A copy of my paper, which was presented to the 33 rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference held in San Diego May 11-16, 2008, can be downloaded from the following site:

ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/4059527/4059868/04060199.pdf

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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...

[justspiffy]

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

[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.

[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.''

[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.

[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.

[cyberus-2009]

----
Is Solar Power Really Practical?
----

They said electricity would never be really practical because of the cost to run power lines to each house and the cost of wiring houses.
Telegraph then telephone service was never going to be practical due to the thousands of miles of line needed to be strung.
Same for municipal water, sewer, and storm drainage.
And lets not forget the boondoggle that the trans-continental railway was, I mean the cost of supplying water and coal to trains trying to travel all those thousands of miles will make it to expensive.
Point is, nothing new was ever inexpensive and practical.
Problem is, today unless something can show instant profit for a company no one wants to invest in large enough scale manufacturing to reduce the cost. The days of a company (and its stockholders)looking forward 10-20 years is over, profit NOW is the watchword.

[ibzjem]

The other real problem is infrastructure. No one wants to build the infrastructure for an alternative energy source. That''s why you can''t buy E85 in most places, let alone fill your hydrogen car. Without the infrastructure, people won''t and can''t buy into new technologies. There have been plenty of opportunities for Corporate America to do so, but they can''t see past end of the fiscal quarter, nor do they want to take the risk or make the change.

[labrat9999]

Gee I don''t know...ahh...are you sure this is a good idea? I really think if we start drilling holes in Alaska where everybody knows 40 per cent of the oil in the world is, and then we start building nuclear power plants all over the place...well that''s a better idea. And just because we said that (even though we know it will take 10 plus years) it will cause the oil prices to go down. Wonder what nut bag said that? McSame...what a genius.

[lovesamerica]

Personal and or business solar power makes more sense to me than the big ugly wind towers. The only thing to be remembered as power sources are researched, wildlife MUST be taken into consideration with any choice. Putting 500squaremiles of solar panels would probably destroy alot of desert wildlife and eco systems. Our planet is inter connected with every living creature. Bio fuel is awful for the environment...reasearch, without personal gain needs to be done.

[ausus-2009]

Proponents of solar power might be overoptimistic. They are assuming that everybody lives in a house with a flat or nearly flat roof. This leaves out large parts of the population who live in blocks of apartments where only one person might benefit from solar panels. Where would you put panels on the Empire State Building?

Then there is the problem with location. Those in the northern states have short days and long winter nights when there is little sun for the panels when electricity is most needed, for heating, lighting and drying clothes. Places like the Sacramento valley can have pea soup fogs that can last for days.

For those living in Arizona with a large, flat roof it will be a great idea, but it makes it unfair to people living in other parts of the country if these people would be the only ones able to take up any government subsidies.

[lovesamerica]

No government subsidies! Also many solar contraptions have a storage battery, so the northeast would be able to benefit to a degree. I have a neighbor that added on a solar roof,on a colonial house...many years ago. I personally could not afford to do it, but people who can really should.

[bptdude]

Solar power supplies enough energy to replace all fossil fuels and nuclear used in the world, including in this nation.

If 100 square miles of desert can turn sunshine into al the energy produced by all the power plants in the country, as is known, then we could shutdown all the coal plants and nuclear plants. Does not this have some value besides straight market trade value for just the energy unit?

If we could use another piece of desert to manufacture hydrogen from sunshine, and eliminate all the imported fuel used for cars, trucks, planes, and other transportation, wouldn''t this have a value beyond its straight market value of energy unit?

We live in a world that cries out about burning oil and climate change, but then do not have real value for those things when presented with other solutions.

Does having an abundance of energy, not shortage, of pure clean renewable energy, that could propel an economic growth surge, that we don''t have to pull from other nations, have some sort of value beyond the BTU per dollar that oil presents?

[cheetah-man7]

I feel quite happy to see more and more stories on the news sites regarding solar and wind power. It''s sad that we are all having a tough time with energy, but sometimes the lessons can only be learned when we reach a crisis. It''s not quite there yet, but we are close to a total meltdown globally when it comes to oil. I wish California every success with their solar power initiative and hope the US government can get on board as well. Lowering the cost of solar panels over time will allow more and more of us to reap the rewards of using natural energy!

[paulbpaul]

The problem with solar is not that it is impossible to get power from it but that it is impractical compared to other energy sources.

Wind, tide and nuclear are all more practical. Powering the entire country from the SW US would not work because of transmission losses. It could be done, but it couldn''t compete with other carbon free power sources.