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In short, as cool as we all would like wind power generation to be, it just falls way too short in the aforemention critical statistic. If you've seen the wind farm outside of San Fran, you know how big they can get. The nuke plant between SD & LA (iirc) is but a postage stamp compared to that windfarm and it probably has about twice the power output.

However the US has enough potential wind power to electrify the US. On top of that, whereas the land a nuclear power plant uses is only good for that, wind gennies on farms can supplement a farmer's income, ie they can still grow food on it. Right now wind is the fastest growing energy source in the world.

The disposition of nuclear waste is a political problem, not a technical one.

Tell that to the French where many people support nuclear power.

Nobody's suggesting that we don't use the available wind, geothermal, or tidal power. If that's not sufficient,

Ah but those alternatives are sufficient. Sciam, "Scientific American", published "A Solar Grand Plan" that details how solar power can provide 69% of the US's energy needs by 2050. If that isn't enough the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory published the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States showing the wind resources the US has, which is a lot. The Rocky has enough potential wind power to provide the 48 contiguous states with most if not all the energy needed. Another good energy source, in some locations, is Geothermal. Fact is is alternative energy sources like those above can provide the US with all of it's energy needs easily, technologically speaking.

The disposition of nuclear waste is a political problem, not a technical one.

Tell that to the French where many people support nuclear power.

Nobody's suggesting that we don't use the available wind, geothermal, or tidal power. If that's not sufficient,

Ah but those alternatives are sufficient. Sciam, "Scientific American", published "A Solar Grand Plan" that details how solar power can provide 69% of the US's energy needs by 2050. If that isn't enough the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory published the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States showing the wind resources the US has, which is a lot. The Rocky has enough potential wind power to provide the 48 contiguous states with most if not all the energy needed. Another good energy source, in some locations, is Geothermal. Fact is is alternative energy sources like those above can provide the US with all of it's energy needs easily, technologically speaking.

If people would just start thinking realistically about these problems and allow the building of Nuclear Power plants, this problem would be solved.

Then you'd just be exchanging one set of problems for another.

And while on the subject, I used to think that these people were simply "NIMBY's", the age old Not In My Back Yard type of folks. But these people aren't NIMBY's, These people are BANANAS! Build Almost Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. They are flat out anti-progress and they do it in the nicest way "we're trying to help".

I and a lot of other people are all for building geothermal and solar power plants as well as wind farms, even in their own back yards. The state I live in, Minnesota, has a number of wind farms and I'm all for building more. Not only is it relatively clean but it also creates a new income stream for farmers. If I lived in California near Yellowstone I'd be just as supportive of building geothermal plants there as is currently done in Hawaii. And if I lived in Cape Cod I'd be just as supportive of building off shore wind farms.

I say BULLSHIT! You have three choices: Nuclear Power, Agrarian Society, Global Warming. Pick one.

What's BULLSHIT is this. The Rocky Mountains along have almost enough potential wind power to provide all of the lower 48 states with electricity. And as that Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States shows other states have a lot of potential wind power as well. In "A Solar Grand Plan" Sciam lays out how solar power can provide "69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity" by 2050. In "Hot Rocks: Tapping an Underutilized Renewable Resource" Sciam reports how geothermal power plants can provide a lot of energy as well. Since 2000 "a geothermal power plant in northern California" has been powering 750,000 homes. Yellowstone is capable of generating more. In Hawaii geothermal provides the Big Island (Puna) with 30% of it's electricity.

Perhaps because there are already running plants with a well understood technology. Perhaps because, once built you have free, automated fuel delivery. Perhaps because you don't have to replace the entire infrastructure. Not to mention that NREL (a group I would classify *Really Smart People*) is predicting costs of about $0.054 / KWH by 2020
ref. http://www.nrel.gov/solar/parabolic_trough.html

And, just maybe, because the cost of the Iraq war is not just measured in dollars but in human lives, beyond what the monetary assessments can place a value on.

And with all the NIMBYs out there, nobody is willing to build new and needed Hydro Electric, Nuclear, Coal powered plants anytime soon.

Neither more nuclear nor coal plants are needed. In December 2007 SciAm had an article, "A Solar Grand Plan" saying that by 2050 solar power can provide 69% of the USA's electricity and 35 percent of its total energy. Then the Rocky Mountains alone has enough potential wind power to supply the lower 48 states with electricity. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details the potential wind power of sites throughout the 48 states. TFA "The Unsung Solution" in "Orion Magazine" goes over waste heat that can be used to produce more electricity. But you're right about NIMBYs, they are working to stop offshore wind farms. Though the Mid Atlantic states have good sites for offshore wind farms NIMBYs are doing what they can to stop wind farms in places like Cape Hatteras. Geothermal energy also offers good energy potential.

So, we'd need to cover 25% of the southwest (not just california) for 100% of current electricity. Unfortunately they don't take into account the instant 25-40% increase in electricity usage that will occur when we all plug in our EVs for the first time.

We need so much land for power generation if we only use solar. However if wind power is added it changes a lot. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to provide all of the 48 continuous states in the US. However the NREL link above lists other places with good wind potential as well. Add Geothermal heating and power along with tidal power then hydrogen produced by algae and the US can be weened from fossil fuels.

So, my question still stands, does the solar tech in the article not scale?

I don't know if it scales or not, but then again I'll turn that on it's head. Why do we need massive centralized power generation when many smaller decentralized power plants, whether geothermal, solar, tidal, or wind will work? I know many /.ers want hugh and massive engineering feats but they aren't needed.

Not really. Available power drops off significantly with increasing latitude. It also drops off with cloud cover. Which means we have to get into insolation maps. The northeastern US gets less than half the solar power per unit area the desert southwest does. Same for the northwest.

Solar-derived electricity is going to have to be shipped around, even if you build enough plants to locally generate power. A nor'easter will come in, block out the sun for a few days, and dump several inches of snow on top of the mirrors of solar plants across a wide area of the country. Other parts of the country have their own meteorological issues.

Is this a useful technology? Yes. Is it a silver bullet for the world's energy needs? No.

"Disposal" isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be; reprocessing reduces the amount of waste produced tremendously, and storing a little waste for a time is a whole lot better than *not* storing it and dumping it into the atmosphere, as we're doing with coal.

The French, who have come the farthest in reprocessing, are finding out it's not as simple to reprocess as many would have you believe. IEEE's magazine "Spectrum" has a good article on this: "Nuclear Wasteland". However another /.er brought up the Candu reactor in Canada a few weeks ago. I don't know much about it so I can't say whether there are any problems with the design or waste, or whether its economically feasible. However nuclear power isn't really needed, not in the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to supply the 48 continuous states with electricity. Add OR, CA, AZ, NM, and Texas along with some offshore sites from Cape Cod to the Mid Atlantic and much more can be generated by wind. Also many megawatts of potential power goes up smoke stacks daily as Waste Heat. Combining wind, solar power, cogeneration or waste heat recovery and conservation negates the need for nuclear power. The alternative power sources, both listed above and others, have a distinct advantage over nuclear power, while it can take years and years for a nuclear power plant to be constructed and brought online, these others can be added immediately. Wind generators and solar PVs can be made from raw material and brought online in months, and can be sited closer to many of the placed where the energy is needed. Besides PVs on roofs a farmer in the Adirondack Mountains in New York can provide electricity to NYC. The farmer would then have a second source of income.

And this is where you stop getting taken seriously. Our energy consumption is only going to go up. What is needed is better ways to generate electricity, e.g.: nuclear power.

It's you who isn't serious. Conservative can work. But as you say energy consumption is going up. That's because more and more people are getting more and more energy inefficient appliances. People buy more and more because they think it will make them happier, however they never really are. A lot of people say they can't get by with only one job, but if they cut their consumption they don't need as much money. However that doesn't take into consideration other energy sources.

For instance right now, the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details areas of the US that are good sites for wind farms. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to power the 48 continuous states. And there are a number of other good wind sites. When California had those rolling blackouts several years ago, a wind farm in southern CA capable of generating several megawatts of power sat idle when it have been supplying electricity to the grid. Why was it idle? Because Con Edison nor anyone else would lay the power lines to the farm. NAMBYs, so called environmentalists, in the northeast and midatlantic are trying to prevent wind farms from being erected offshore. From Massachusetts to North Carolina there are good sites for wind farms offshore. Then from southern CA east through AZ and NM to Texas, besides wind, it's good for solar power. Florida is also good.

Also there's something not many have thought of, waste heat. Gigawatts of lost energy goes up smokestacks everyday. "About twelve megawatts' worth of potential electricity is going up the stack" of a "Maxwell House coffee roaster in Duval County", Florida plant. With tens of 1,000s smokestacks in the US that's a lot of energy lost.

Quite simply nuclear power is not needed.

> Punch $0.99 a watt into the calculator, and even good chunks of
> Alaska become economical for installations.

That assumes, of course, that they can hit those numbers. A lot of other thin-film companies made the same claims and are nowhere near that number, and I'm including completely different technologies, like amorphous silicon and CdTe. These technologies are more expensive than traditional polysilicon panels, and to date have only found niche roles where flexibility trumps, well, everything else.

So then the question becomes whether or not Nanosolar has some secret sauce that makes their system scale downward more easily than the others. Maybe they do, but maybe you need to price out some indium...

http://www.nrel.gov/pv/thin_film/docs/indium_supply_and_demand%5B1%5D.doc

Maury

With a 25 year guarantee, in a typical US site where the average annual solar resource is 4.5 kWh/m^2/day assuming peak insolation is 1 kW/m^2 so that you have 4.5 hours per day of peak equivilent then at $1/watt the cost of power is $1000/(4.5*365*25 hours)=$0.024/kWh. For large installations, inverters likely run about $0.60/watt over 25 years and putting the panels in place could cost $1.50/watt (including land) so your looking at about $0.075/kWh. This is under the average retail price near $0.11/kWh so that installations with low transmission costs should help to stabilize the cost of electricity with a pretty good return on investment. Things are even more favorable when you compare with daytime electricity sources which tend to be gas rather than coal. Installations in the Southwest probably justify transmission to the Southeast which is probably why some Southwestern senators voted against the energy bill. They can prevent the Southeast from developing their own resource and thus corner the power market. The cost of power in the southwest would be about $0.036/kWh given the low cost of land there.
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Rent solar power for your home: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html

According to the rather conservative PVWATTS calculator:

http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/codes_algs/PVWATTS/version1/US/code/pvwattsv1.cgi

But hey, thank's for the FUD bud.

The problem with most "green" power is that it works great in a small area.

For example, solar is just the ticket for sunny parts of the world, but next to useless in places like Seattle where it's cloudy most of the time.

True but while some things won't be able to be used in some places, solar in Seattle, other things can be used there. For Seattle, and Portland, wind is good. Of course wind farms would upset those NIMBY environmentalists there, just as some NIMBYs are upset over proposed wind farms offshore in Cape Cop and Cape Hatteras. Puget Sound may also be good for tidal energy, though I admit I don't know this for fact.

Ethanol works great IN BRAZIL, largely because they've got abundant sugarcane and no petroleum reserves (at least until they found some) But sugarcane doesn't grow everywhere. And most of the other things that might work as ethanol food sources require more development. Do you really want to stake our survival as a species on something that's still fairly speculative? Just because the Manhattan Project was able to make a nuclear bomb in time doesn't mean that everything you throw a bunch of scientists at will net results.

While throwing scientists may not solve all of the problems it most certainly can help. But for the life of me I can't think of a single place on earth that doesn't have some sort of energy source they can develop. Discounting oil even Siberia has an energy source, locked under the melting permafrost is a lot of methane gas. Methane is more than 20 tymes as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2, however it can be burned to produce electricity with CO2 and water as the emissions. It's better to burn methane and release CO2 than it is to let the methane be released into the atmosphere.

I have a buddy who lives off-the-grid. And I think it's the coolest thing ever and feel that it is highly geek-friendly. But you cannot take the results of a set of people who made it a success and try to apply these results to the rest of the world as a general solution. People in big cities like NYC do not own enough space to live off-the-grid. You can't just decree that NYC be liquidated to feed your "off-the-grid" dreamland, nor can you assume that factories that produce stuff that we need like metals or electronics can be easily made self-powered. Do you know how much power an aluminum plant takes up?

The Catskills Mountains in New York near NYC have good wind potential. A power company can lease small plots from farmers to erect wind turbines to generate electricity for NYC. While the the pads for the turbines would take up a little space there would be a year round source of income supplementing the farmer's income. NYC already does this sort of deal with farmers for water, the city pays farmers to conserve and not pollute the water the city needs to survive. As for the aluminum smelting plant, I'm not advocating the use only of alternative energy sources now, those big energy point users can still have a coal fired power plant, but those entities, businesses and individuals, who don't have large energy requirements can use an alternative energy source. Also cogeneration, which NYC already uses, can be expanded maybe. Besides NYC can reduce it's energy needs by simply replacing 1 incandescent light with a compact florescent light in just a tenth of the light fixtures.

So would solar + tidal + geothermal + wind.

'Course, that's not actually sufficient to power our civilization

Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States. Combining geothermal, solar, tidal, and wind with efficiency should meet the US's energy needs.

'Course, that's not actually sufficient to power our civilization, leading to wide-spread collapse and subsequent famine and pestilence

Guess what will happen when oil is gone. Collapse of civilization that's what. We have millions of people dying of hunger now, but when oil is gone not only will transportation suffer but so will food crops. WHY? Because conventional western agriculture depends on massive amounts of petrochemical inputs. Fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides are all made from petro.

Nuclear power has been the answer for Canada, France, Japan and others for quite a while. The looney left is the only reason the US doesn't have more plants.

Oh, and France doesn't have a Nuclear Wasteland?. They still haven't figured what to do with the hot and toxic waste left over from reprocessing. Nuclear power is not an answer to any question that needs to be asked. In the US, the Rockies contain enough potential wind power to provide the 48 continuous states with energy. But in case that's not enough the Pacific Northwest on down to California, then through Arizona, and New Mexico to Texas hold more potential wind power. As does other places in the East and Northeast such as Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras. Here's a Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States. Add that CA on through TX along with Florida are good places for solar power. Meanwhile, while it can take 10 or 20 years to build, inspect, then start a nuclear power plant, solar and wind can be added in less than a year.

That is just right. Usually figures are given for tracking concentrators or latitude tilt panels. You can find US maps here: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html. The units are in kWh/m^2/day which I divide by a kW/m^2 to get hours per day. You'll notice that in New York, panels do better than tracking concentrators. This is owing to clouds being a bigger problem for concentrators. Tracking panels should do better than latitude tip panels though by something close to but not quite the fraction that tracking concentrators beat latitude tilt panels in the southwest. For worldwide resources you can look here: http://swera.unep.net/.

The solar constant is about 1300 watts per square meter (in space). On earth the best you can hope for is about 1000 watts peak. So on average we will look at about say 50% of 50% and less on a cold winter day when we need both heating and more lighting. In fact on a winer day at about 51 degrees latitude we get about 8 hours of light and even then its less than 250 watts per square meter.

64% = 0.6366 = 2 / pi

Could be wrong. College calculus was 24 years ago.

I tried calculating insolation from first principles as you seem to be doing here, but I had no idea how to do atmospheric losses in the morning and evening (when the sun is low in the sky). So I gave up on that, and used these maps instead.

The number you quote seems to be closer to the extraterrestial solar flux of between 1.3 and 1.4 kW/square meter.
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brooksdr/DRB_web_page/papers/UsingTheSun/using.htm/
According to ASHRAE, a horizontal surface on the earth will get around 256 btuh/sq ft peak at noon on a clear, sunny day. By my calcs, that's about 800 Watts/sq meter.
For yesterday's data on actual insolation at the surface in the Western US, see this:
http://www.soils.wisc.edu/wimnext/insol/westinsol.html/
Here's a little more on the subject:
http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-insolation-window.html/
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas//

...and before you casually hurl "know it all" insults. I live in georgia, and also own an aeromarine wind power generator, but I use solar for my alternative energy of choice, because it works *much much better* here than wind. There's no one single "best" power source, it depends on use, location, etc. Solar just works hella better here than wind, right now,I am getting decent sun, but the wind is quite calm. Other areas it is way more windy most of the year, but solar might not be as good. Some guys are lucky and can run decent hybrid systems, using both, especially good as wind picks up in the winter when there is less sun, and vice versa. It just depends. Here ya go, look at some solar and wind potential maps

I've been into alternative energy since the 60s (you??) when I first worked with my dad and we built from scratch some solar heating for our swimming pool (added a month decent swimming both spring and fall for only a couple hundred bucks and some labor), and since that time as a hobbiest and also it was my business for a few years (might be again possibly, the interest has picked up a lot this past year with all the energy cost increases), by actually "doing* stuff with it, everything from solar thermal space heating and solar water heating for household use to making biofuel ethanol and methane, working on superinsulated structures (several of those, best dollars you can spend is more insulation and better windows), etc. etc, along with solar PV and wind. I am fully aware of the pluses and minuses of this or that technique and what stuff costs, etc. This isn't theoretical casual web board commentary from me, it is hands on experience. I don't write code, so I don't comment about that a whole lot, but with alternative energy I can speak from some significant experience. I don't claim to be the expert's expert, because I am not, but I do have a lot of hands on with this stuff and try to keep up with the industry in general terms. And it worked just swell with that laptop, and it also ran a reading light and a small TV and a radio at the same time during the evenings, it wasn't stupid at all, it "just worked" for relatively cheap money, and it has been long paid off and the same rig still works fine, even that original single battery that is going on ten years old now works fine, and the larger battery bank is 8 years old now and works fine.

You slipped the units. That should be 4.32 kWh/day. But, you also for got to tilt the panels: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/us_pv_annual_may200 4.jpg. You want 5 kWh per meter^2 per day and at 17% system efficiency that is about 0.85 kWh/m^2/day. You need 39 m^2 of panels to get 33 kWh/day or about 6 meters on a side.
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Rent solar power and save: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

You are correct that looking at the durability of the panels is important. Aten solar sells panels for $3.00/Watt:http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_p anels.htm with a 25 year warranty (performance above 80%). So, with a cheapo ground mount (the panels are not very efficient) that you cut yourself from the woods and $1/watt for a 4000 W inverter (corrected to 25 year life) you are looking at $0.03/kWh if you are willing to keep the panels until they degrade to 40% of their original efficiency (100 years; 66 years new equivilent; you need to figure out the smaller and likely cheaper inverters for the last 75 years which might take you up to $0.034/kWh). Oh, and plus gas for the chainsaw. If you are not so cheap, or you figure you won't live that long and don't want to pass on the investment, you are looking at $0.09/kWh bailing after 25 year and just junking the panels (no aftermarket). This assumes and average of 5 h/day peak production equivilent which is typical: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/us_pv_annual_may200 4.jpg.

So, if you have the land, you can either match utility rates or substantially undercut them. For rooftop applications $4+/Watt is standard retail for more efficent panels. Now, mounting costs something and you need to consider the reroofing timescale. By cutting out the middleman, we match utility rates with a rental model and can fix the rate for up to 25 years: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html. This makes solar power an overall savings rather than a luxury.

Hey Greg! That is true on orbit. The solar constant is taken at the top of the Earth's atmopshere but by the time it gets to the ground you get about 1 kW/m^2 when it is clear. This map gives average anual per day energy adjusted for clouds and such in kWh/m^2:http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/us_pv_annua l_may2004.jpg. This map is for tilted panels. Tracking concentrators have a somewhat different behavior, doing better in the southwest and, surprisingly, worse in New York:http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/us_csp_annual_ may2004.jpg. Panels are less sensitive to clouds and haze. For panels, 5 kWh/m^2/day is a typical value which you then multiply by the panel efficiency. Note that Northeast Alaska is a pretty good place for tracking concentrators. Tracking panels might do even better; they'd have to spin 360 though.
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Solar power without the spin:http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot- users-selling-solar.html

Hey Greg! That is true on orbit. The solar constant is taken at the top of the Earth's atmopshere but by the time it gets to the ground you get about 1 kW/m^2 when it is clear. This map gives average anual per day energy adjusted for clouds and such in kWh/m^2:http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/us_pv_annua l_may2004.jpg. This map is for tilted panels. Tracking concentrators have a somewhat different behavior, doing better in the southwest and, surprisingly, worse in New York:http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/us_csp_annual_ may2004.jpg. Panels are less sensitive to clouds and haze. For panels, 5 kWh/m^2/day is a typical value which you then multiply by the panel efficiency. Note that Northeast Alaska is a pretty good place for tracking concentrators. Tracking panels might do even better; they'd have to spin 360 though.
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Solar power without the spin:http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot- users-selling-solar.html

How about the power infrastructure?

Based on a research conducted by the National Renewable Energy Lab, http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf, a 1000 square meter out door pond at Roswell, New Mexico was used to grow algae with controlled conditions (Ph value, CO2...). Algae could grow at a peak value of 50 gram/m^2/day and average value of 10 gram/m^2/day. Then some people on the good old internet translated (manipulated) this number as algae can grow at 10-50 gram/m^2/day. Then the number was redefined as biofuel can be produced from the pond at a speed of 10-50 gram/m^2/day. An acre is 4047 m^2. So that's 40470-202350 gram/acre/day and 14,771,550-73,857,750 gram/acre/year. Diesel density is 850g/liter, and one gallon is 3.7854 liter, so one gallon of diesel is 3218g. Then the pond production rate become 4,600- 23,000 gallon/acre/year, then some other people at the Wiki thing estimated 10,000-20,000 gallon/acre/year, and then comes the Boeing number.

I really hope we can fly cleaner, but, man, there is a dead fish smell.

http://www.geothermie.de/egec-geothernet/basic/200 3_05_06first_shell.htm I was told that the hydrogen is sealed so good that you can even smoke when you are refilling hydrogen by a scientist from National Renewable Engergy Lab.

That is wrong. Sunlight varies dramatically and no such generalization can be made but "daylight" is quite well balanced; it is not biased toward green.

No, the Bayer filter has twice as many green pixels because (a) there are 4 pixels and only 3 colors so one color is going to get twice as many as the other...

Adding more [green] pixels does not in any way take advantage of this extra green light you claim exists (but doesn't).

That thing has an incredibly complex cycle, with losses all along the chain. There's ammonia, water, steam, air, and hot oil involved, with heat exchangers all over the place. The paper attached to it doesn't describe the basic thermodynamics in any real detail. It's sort of like a solar-powered Rankin cycle system. But much more complex, and without solid justification for the extra complexity.

This might be credible if they had a working prototype, even a little one. A prototype in the 1 KW range would be about right. That's a backyard project. A 1KW plant would need about 10 square meters of collector mirror, which isn't too hard. Then they'd have something. All they have now is hype.

I've had solar panels on my roof for 1.5 years, I did not try cleaning them until 3 months ago. Over last summer I estimate I lost 1 to 2 KWHr / day because they were not clean (there was rain in October which cleaned and increased the output.) What caused me to clean them was trying to understand how much energy was falling on my system and where the losses were. In one year my 18 x 170W panels generated 5MWHr, (San Jose, reasonably sunny), which at 10 cents / KWHr only represents $500. The system cost me $16K, but on top of it the state paid some ~7K. I expect in 32 years to get equal. But the true advantage is by putting the cells on the roof I started to investigate and understand where all my energy usage was going, and to reduce. It has also allowed me to study how to calculate where the sun is in the sky (math I've been wanting to do for a long time) and atmospheric effects. (I recommend http://rredc.nrel.gov/ .) I now believe the biggest loss I have is in the summer and do to how hot the panels are getting. I turns out by fixed mounting them only 6 inches above my roof, without a wind I have measured over 100F under the panels, on are relatively cool day. Yesterday was sunny, cool and windy, and I generated close to my ideal. (My solar water heater only got up to 110F, where as a couple days ago when the outside temp was 10 to 15F higher and no wind, I reached 140F but generated 1-2KWHrs less.) If I were installing them again, I would have raised them a little higher off the roof, spread them out a little more so there is better air circulation around them, and I would like to had an adjustable angle. (It amazes me how lazy American's have become, expecting everything to be automatic. By changing the angle only 4 times a year I could increase my output.)
    To sum it up: Cost of System: too much, Information gained: Priceless

A Look Back at the US Department of Energy's Aquatic Species Program (See also USDOE Renewable Diesel Fuel and National Biodiesel Board Reports Search)

It is hard to predict the future cost of money and cost of energy over the 20+ year life of a PV system, so perhaps we shouldn't get too caught up in the math. Geographic location is a huge factor in the economics. Try this tool for your location http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/codes_algs/PVWATTS/ver sion2/

    Here in Hawaii the economics of a PV is pretty good as solar radiation is fairly reliable. I documented my PV system here http://www.hawaiipv.com/

If you plated the entire US with solar panels, using the most efficient panels we currently know how to make, and you assume that there is no cloud cover or other weather obscuring the sun at any point during the year... you still wouldn't have a significant fraction of the power used by the entire US.

Unless you have some calculations to back that up, I call BS. According to http://rredc.nrel.gov/tidbits.html, "Every day, more energy falls on the U.S. than we use in an entire year." Since solar panels are more than 3% efficient (quick googling tells us the most advanced ones are over 35%), you fail it. Saying this is not possible is simply foolish, and it undermines your larger argument of whether it is advisable.

"Beginning June 1, 2005 all U.S. Navy and Marine non-tactical diesel vehicles will be required to operate on a B20 (20 percent) biodiesel blend" http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/stor y?id=24024 Also, in a reversal of a 2002 USDA study National Renewable Energy Labs finds B20 BioDiesel does NOT increase NOx (Smog) emmisions. http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/npbf/news.htm l B20 BioDiesel can be used in any Diesel vehicle, with no modification. With equal or greater performance. And much less air pollution. For the same energy input as Ethanol, BioDiesel produces 55% more energy. BioDiesel gives you far better Mileage than Gasoline, increase of 20-40% Ethanol gives you far worse Mileage than Gasoline, decrease of 20-30% Protecting America from disaster Protecting the World from disaster BioDiesel

"it costs more energy to build those panels than you'll get out of them"

That is completely untrue, and this lie is spouted everytime the topic of solar power is discussed. Current solar panels take 1-4 years to produce the amount of power used to create them.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

First, Solar PV cells seem to be net energy positive in relatively short order. This summary estimates 2-4 years with new technology coming online to make the energy payback about a year. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37322.pdf

This was one of the first hits to come up in searching google for "pv net energy".

Second, I find it laughable that you complain about large governmental solar subsidies without mentioning subsidies for storage of nuclear waste. Just look at the Yucca Mountain project http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/loux05.htm (And in this age of eternal terror, the government and nuclear industry are curiously silent about the additional cost of aedeqately protecting such waste sites for thousands of years...)

Based on models and real data, the idea that PV cannot pay back its energy investment is simply a myth.
[...]
During its projected 28 years of clean energy production, a rooftop system with a 2-year energy payback and meeting half of a household's electricity use would avoid conventional electrical-plant emissions of more than half a ton of sulfur dioxide, one-third a ton of nitrogen oxides, and 100 tons of carbon dioxide

Major limitations to the accuracy of this assessment are the difficulties in determining realistic energy conversion factors, and in determining realistic energy values for human labour. For this reason an allowance of up to 100% has been allowed, thus the range of payback is between 2-8 years. Thus small-scale roof mounted PV systems have a positive energy payback and are capable of contributing to a sustainable energy future.

National Renewable Energy Lab http://www.nrel.gov/

Sandia National Labs http://www.sandia.gov/pv

Solar energies association http://www.seia.org/

Solar Trade Association - Solar Energy, Energy for a Cleaner Environment http://www.greenenergy.org.uk/sta/solarenergy/cont ent.htm

PV-UK http://www.greenenergy.org.uk/pvuk2/

Solar design associates http://www.solardesign.com/experience.html

PV power resource site http://www.pvpower.com/

PV Materials Efficency http://www.iea-pvps.org/pv/materials.htm

Solar Cell Technologies http://www.solarbuzz.com/Technologies.htm

Sounds like what they've been trying to do with extracting energy from the ocean's, with little success. http://www.nrel.gov/otec/electricity.html

A Look Back at the
U.S. Department of Energy's
Aquatic Species Program:
Biodiesel from Algae

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf

Ok, here is a full US wind map http://www.nrel.gov/wind/images/wherewind800.jpg there are more detailed ones, but notice the majority of the contental costline is =5.

Anaesthetica has solid bone or rocks for brains

/. - Tell-us-something-we-don't-know.
Anaesthetica should have saved this bullshit for 2007/04/01, or anaesthetica is another one of those ignorant politicians' staffers or lobbyist. If anaesthetica is a staffer or OPEC or AgriBiz lobbyist, then they need to be honest enough to identify themselves as expressing corporatist interest and just spinning-truth to fit lies.

Last I checked, our planet's surface is about two-fucking-thirds water. For our/global economy and environment Hydrogen and SolarCell technology is the only way to solve energy/fuel and air-pollution problems permanently.

I hate stupid staffers, lobbyist, corporatist, and damn fool dogmatist with faux-answers.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy06osti/39936.pdf
Results from the Vehicle/Infrastructure Learning Demonstration Project
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx? id=17774&ch=energy
Cheap, Superefficient Solar Solar-power modules that concentrate the power of the sun are becoming more viable.
http://news.com.com/Solar+cell+breaks+efficiency+r ecord/2100-11395_3-6141527.html
Solar cell breaks efficiency record
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/12/06/027 228.shtml
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35174.pdf
Progress in High-Performance PV: Polycrystalline Thin-Film Tandem Cells
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0360-3199(97)00102-X
Affordable hydrogen supply pathways for fuel cell vehicles
http://dx.doi.org/index.html
http://www.greenwatts.com/docs/ProgressInPhotovolt aics.pdf
Energy Pay-Back and Life Cycle CO2 Emissions of the BOS in an Optimized 3.5 MW PV Installation

Anaesthetica has solid bone or rocks for brains

/. - Tell-us-something-we-don't-know.
Anaesthetica should have saved this bullshit for 2007/04/01, or anaesthetica is another one of those ignorant politicians' staffers or lobbyist. If anaesthetica is a staffer or OPEC or AgriBiz lobbyist, then they need to be honest enough to identify themselves as expressing corporatist interest and just spinning-truth to fit lies.

Last I checked, our planet's surface is about two-fucking-thirds water. For our/global economy and environment Hydrogen and SolarCell technology is the only way to solve energy/fuel and air-pollution problems permanently.

I hate stupid staffers, lobbyist, corporatist, and damn fool dogmatist with faux-answers.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy06osti/39936.pdf
Results from the Vehicle/Infrastructure Learning Demonstration Project
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx? id=17774&ch=energy
Cheap, Superefficient Solar Solar-power modules that concentrate the power of the sun are becoming more viable.
http://news.com.com/Solar+cell+breaks+efficiency+r ecord/2100-11395_3-6141527.html
Solar cell breaks efficiency record
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/12/06/027 228.shtml
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35174.pdf
Progress in High-Performance PV: Polycrystalline Thin-Film Tandem Cells
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0360-3199(97)00102-X
Affordable hydrogen supply pathways for fuel cell vehicles
http://dx.doi.org/index.html
http://www.greenwatts.com/docs/ProgressInPhotovolt aics.pdf
Energy Pay-Back and Life Cycle CO2 Emissions of the BOS in an Optimized 3.5 MW PV Installation

Anaesthetica has solid bone or rocks for brains

/. - Tell-us-something-we-don't-know.
Anaesthetica should have saved this bullshit for 2007/04/01, or anaesthetica is another one of those ignorant politicians' staffers or lobbyist. If anaesthetica is a staffer or OPEC or AgriBiz lobbyist, then they need to be honest enough to identify themselves as expressing corporatist interest and just spinning-truth to fit lies.

Last I checked, our planet's surface is about two-fucking-thirds water. For our/global economy and environment, Hydrogen and SolarCell technology is the only way to solve energy/fuel and air-pollution problems permanently.

I hate stupid staffers, lobbyist, corporatist, and damn fool dogmatist with faux-answers.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy06osti/39936.pdf
Results from the Vehicle/Infrastructure Learning Demonstration Project
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx? id=17774&ch=energy
Cheap, Superefficient Solar Solar-power modules that concentrate the power of the sun are becoming more viable.
http://news.com.com/Solar+cell+breaks+efficiency+r ecord/2100-11395_3-6141527.html
Solar cell breaks efficiency record
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/12/06/027 228.shtml
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35174.pdf
Progress in High-Performance PV: Polycrystalline Thin-Film Tandem Cells
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0360-3199(97)00102-X
Affordable hydrogen supply pathways for fuel cell vehicles
http://dx.doi.org/index.html
http://www.greenwatts.com/docs/ProgressInPhotovolt aics.pdf
Energy Pay-Back and Life Cycle CO2 Emissions of the BOS in an Optimized 3.5 MW PV Installation

Anaesthetica has solid bone or rocks for brains

/. - Tell-us-something-we-don't-know.
Anaesthetica should have saved this bullshit for 2007/04/01, or anaesthetica is another one of those ignorant politicians' staffers or lobbyist. If anaesthetica is a staffer or OPEC or AgriBiz lobbyist, then they need to be honest enough to identify themselves as expressing corporatist interest and just spinning-truth to fit lies.

Last I checked, our planet's surface is about two-fucking-thirds water. For our/global economy and environment, Hydrogen and SolarCell technology is the only way to solve energy/fuel and air-pollution problems permanently.

I hate stupid staffers, lobbyist, corporatist, and damn fool dogmatist with faux-answers.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy06osti/39936.pdf
Results from the Vehicle/Infrastructure Learning Demonstration Project
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx? id=17774&ch=energy
Cheap, Superefficient Solar Solar-power modules that concentrate the power of the sun are becoming more viable.
http://news.com.com/Solar+cell+breaks+efficiency+r ecord/2100-11395_3-6141527.html
Solar cell breaks efficiency record
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/12/06/027 228.shtml
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35174.pdf
Progress in High-Performance PV: Polycrystalline Thin-Film Tandem Cells
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0360-3199(97)00102-X
Affordable hydrogen supply pathways for fuel cell vehicles
http://dx.doi.org/index.html
http://www.greenwatts.com/docs/ProgressInPhotovolt aics.pdf
Energy Pay-Back and Life Cycle CO2 Emissions of the BOS in an Optimized 3.5 MW PV Installation

The consensus among a lot of the architectural and green-building community, as well as a long-term goal of the US Department of Energy, is residential solar. It doesn't take that much roof space to generate enough power for a home, and it is totally viable. The DOE, and their National Renewable Energy Labs have been sponsoring a competition for universities around the country to design, build and compete against each other with 100% solar powered houses. It's called the Solar Decathlon, and it's an incredible event. The last one, in October 2005, drew over, 100,000 people (picture) to the National Mall in Washington, DC.

I'd recommend taking a look. (Full disclosure: I'm on Cornell University's team).

The average insolation for the desert American southwest is over 10 hours a day. See http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook /atlas/ and select Average, Annual, Two Axis Tracking Flat Plate. Now you have $1.2M a day or $438M a year. Although a 4.5 year payback is not what most businessmen would like to see, the power industry thinks long-term by necessity, and this looks reasonable.

"As long as the temperature between the warm surface water and the cold deep water differs by about 20C (36F), an OTEC system can produce a significant amount of power."

was Re:This is a life saving innovation