Silicon Valley Startup Prints $1/watt Solar Panels

GWBasic writes "A Silicon Valley start-up called Nanosolar has shipped its first solar panels — priced at $1 a watt. That's the price at which solar energy gets cheaper than coal. While other companies have been focusing their efforts on increasing the efficiency of solar panels, Nanosolar took a different approach. It focused on manufacturing. 'The company [has developed] a process to print solar cells made out of CIGS, or copper indium gallium selenide, a combination of elements that many companies are pursuing as an alternative to silicon.'" The outfit also happens to be backed by Google, a fact that's getting some attention at tech media sites.

Comments

Consumer offerings?

[phrostie]

i was reading their webpage the other day and they only seemed to sell to large corporations or utilitiy companies. when will they start offering a consumer version.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Rei]

Once their production capacity outstrips their manufacturing obligations. As per their website, which I've been following (slowly) over the past couple years, you *could* get one right now off ebay -- their #2 print. However, it's being sold as a collectible item, a piece of history, with the proceeds going to charity. So, needless to say, the price is rather steep ;)

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

Re:Consumer offerings?

[noname4444]

From TFA:

In a previous interview, Roscheisen said all of Nanosolar's anticipated production in 2008 has already been ordered.

So my guess would be not until 2009 at the earliest...

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Enigma23]

That's what I'd like to know. If we can get the average consumer homeowner to get these installed on the rooves of their own houses, it will help contribute towards significantly lowering CO2 emissions. Hell, if it's cheap enough to get most people doing it, maybe the US will actually have a chance of meeting the targets of a climate change agreement for once...

Re:Consumer offerings?

[blake1]

Probably around the time that you add an extra couple of 100 square metres onto the sun-facing side of your roof so that there's enough surface area to absorb a worthwile amount of energy, or not until they improve the efficiency side of things.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell "...a solar cell of 12% efficiency with a 100 cm2 (0.01 m2) surface area can be expected to produce approximately 1.2 watts of power."

Re:Consumer offerings?

[MrLogic17]

$1/watt? Cheaper than coal? I'm confused.

Coal you burn once, and you're done. Easy price calculation.

With solar, you buy the solar cells. And the regulators (Sunlight's variable ya know). And the battery packs, assuming you're not going directly back into the grid. And maint of said batteries.

And the solar cells aren't producing 100% output for 12 hours/day. And the lifespan of these solar cells are an estimate.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this. I'm just very suspcious of an apples to oranges comparison used in marketing speak.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[smilindog2000]

This is a huge milestone. However, the summary gets a couple things wrong: First, $1/watt panels aren't "cheaper than coal". Large coal consumers buy 2,000 pounds of coal for $50. Burn that in a crappy Bush-endorsed power station, and utilities can print money at $0.07/KWh. That's why coal is the #1 enemy in the global warming battle - not oil. The $1/watt goal makes solar utility power feasible in areas that currently have excellent sunshine (say southern CA), and expensive fuel (say natural gas). It's a huge step, but not the last step.

The second error in the summary is the current price. The company claims they could sell $1/watt panels, but with 100% of their production for 2008 already purchased, what are the odds they're selling their stuff 4X below market value? Not a chance. The revolution's happening, but it will take a while.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

To get apples to apples, compare the cost of the panel (1$ someday) with the production (mining, transport) cost of 1 Watt of coal.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be 1 Watt Hour of coal vs 1 Watt Hour of solar.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Rei]

Yes, it is cheaper than coal power, almost everywhere in the US. You can run the numbers for yourself. The problem with coal is that once you burn it, it's gone. The problem with traditional solar is that the capital costs are so high, you'll never catch up with the interest. When you cut the capital costs on solar significantly, it wins hands-down.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[misleb]

Also, I assume they have a patent on this process so we're not going to see any competition. At best we'll see them license the tech out to others... but probably with some kind of non-compete clause. Like the the licensee can't charge less for the panels or some dumb crap like that.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Ironsides]

Probably around the time that you add an extra couple of 100 square metres onto the sun-facing side of your roof so that there's enough surface area to absorb a worthwile amount of energy, or not until they improve the efficiency side of things.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell "...a solar cell of 12% efficiency with a 100 cm2 (0.01 m2) surface area can be expected to produce approximately 1.2 watts of power."

Average household consumption is about 2kwh per hour. So, lets so you need 4kwh of solar cells to produce this. So, to make the math easier, lets say 1.0 watts per 0.01m2, thats 4,000*0.01m2, or 40m2. No, that's roughly 430ft2. I'm pretty sure most roofs are about that large. You won't be able to get all you power from the cells, but that's what your grid connection is for (and for selling back the excess power)

Re:Consumer offerings?

[bcattwoo]

I think the ability to get it "right now" is debatable based on this portion of the eBay listing:

This solar panel is currently in Seller's possession but it will be held in escrow until 6/1/2009 before local pick-up by the winning bidder

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Hijacked Public]

The company claims they could sell $1/watt panels, but with 100% of their production for 2008 already purchased, what are the odds they're selling their stuff 4X below market value? In the article I read:

Roscheisen said the manufacturing process the company has developed will enable it to eventually deliver solar electricity for less than a dollar per watt Which I take to mean,, Slashdot's usual headline buffoonery aside, their process could not deliver it today for $1/watt regardless of demand. There is an unquantified less than in there, but if I'd guess if they were delivering it to their current customers at $1.01 per watt they'd call it $1 and we'd all forgive them.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[DaleGlass]

I imagine though that the $1/Watt isn't a $1/Watt in the panel's lifetime, but $1 for a panel that will generate 1 Wh, when used at full capacity.

Assuming a lifetime of 20 years, a $50 panel producing 50Wh will produce 8760 kW at $.005/KWh, assuming it runs at full capacity 24/7. An actual real world figure would be several times worse, but that still comes out looking very good.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're comparing apples and oranges: kWh (which is a unit of energy) with W (a unit of power - energy divided by time.)

1 W of power, generated for one hour, is one watt hour. One thousand hours is 1 kWh. So $1/W means you have to run the solar panel for a grand total of (*clickety click*) 14,286 hours to break even compared with coal, based upon your figures. (100 cents per dollar, divided by 7 cents, is 14.286 hours for 1 Wh; times 1000 for 1 kWh.)

That's less than 5 years at 8 hours/day. That is significant.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[dgatwood]

It's $1/Watt, not $1/Watt-hour. $1/watt is $1000/kW divided by... say 8 hours of full sun per day... time 20 years. That will get you the kWhr price, or about 1.7 cents per kWhr, a fifth the price you mention for coal. Of course, you won't always get 8 hours of full sun per day in all locations, so the numbers are highly variable by location and time of year, but if your numbers are correct, that is significantly cheaper than coal in many cases.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[AJWM]

All true, but we can estimate.

Best case: these things do produce at 100% output 12 hours a day. A one-watt panel would produce 4.38 kWh a year, for $0.226/kWh. To match coal at the $0.07/kWh someone else mentioned above (which may be low, and doesn't count environmental impact), the panels would have to last a bit over three years to match coal. If the panels last 10 years, they only need to produce full output for an average four hours per day, or half output for 8 hours a day.

I don't know what the performance degradation over the cell's lifetime is, but a 10-year lifespan is probably on the low side. It's not like there are moving parts, the principle reasons for wearing out would be degradation of the light-sensitive material and weather damage (hail, windstorm, surface erosion by dust, etc.) Yeah, I could see these things being cost-competitive with coal.

Then there's the advantages of being clean and able to provide power where the power lines don't go.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[bodrell]

This is a huge milestone. However, the summary gets a couple things wrong: First, $1/watt panels aren't "cheaper than coal". Large coal consumers buy 2,000 pounds of coal for $50. Burn that in a crappy Bush-endorsed power station, and utilities can print money at $0.07/KWh.

You can't compare watts to kWh. They aren't the same units. But I went ahead and did the math for you.

1 kWh = 3.61 x 10^6 J
$0.07/kWh = 14.3 kWh/$ = 51.6 x 10^6 J/$
solar panel = $1/W = $1/(J/s)
3600 s/h, 24 h/d, 365 d/year --> 31.5 x 10^6 s
51.6 x 10^6 (J/$) / 31.5 x 10^6 (J/year/$) --> 1.64 years (producing at full capacity) makes it cheaper than coal. Even if you only run at 25% capacity on average, taking into account varying daily solar intensity, the investment pays for itself in 6.5 years.

Of course, your other points are valid; burning coal is bad, at least using the current technology. And that $1/W number is still theoretical, so if they're selling at $4/W, then it would take 26 years to be as cost-effective as coal (given constant energy costs; but that time would be much shorter if we have an energy crunch and prices spike--or another Enron-style price-gouging scam, for that matter).

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Pascoea]

Burn that in a crappy Bush-endorsed power station, and utilities can print money at $0.07/KWh.

They wouldn't burn the shit if you didn't use the product. Next time you want to bitch about coal power, try doing it in the dark without your electricity consuming computer. I'm not saying that there isn't a market for alternative energy sources, but why don't you coal bashers take some time out of your busy granola eating life to do some research into what has been done, or is being pursued in the coal-burning plants so you piss-ants can quit whining about pollution?

Do me a favor, pull you head out of (the sand) and be realistic.

BTW, Bush does suck, there is no contention to that on my part.

-A

Re:Consumer offerings?

[smilindog2000]

Thanks for the web site. It computes the break-even point for installing solar panels at home, and plugging in $1/watt makes it all work out quite well. I'll have to keep track of this link. However, from what I read, coal is still cheaper to burn for power in utility plants. I read that it costs utilities between $0.01 and $0.02 per KWh to produce when burning coal, even when taking the cost of the plant into account.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[mr_mischief]

I'm frankly too lazy to do the math right now, but maybe they're counting on installations closer to consumption sites with less delivery loss. The cost of generation in large centralized plants is one thing, but line attenuation and impedance loss are another.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Rei]

The calculations are a lot more complicated than that. You can check the source for the calculator (linked earlier) to get an idea of all that needs to be taken into account.

The reported wattage of a panel is typically the amount of power it will produce when given 1000W/m^2 of sunlight and with the panel maintaining a constant temperature of 25C. 1000W/m^2 is basically your best-case situation here on the surface -- bright, crystal-clear sky on a summer day with the panel facing straight at the sun. Overall, the panel will average produce far less than its rating, but the exact amount is very complex to determine and depends on where you are and what your setup is like, so panels are rated in standard terms. Beyond that, there's also the "derate factor", which is the losses in your system apart from the panels -- wiring, terminals, etc, but most importantly, the losses in your inverter. 0.77 is a good derate factor. The derate factor drops with age. Panels also produce less power with age, but this effect is often overemphasized.

Secondly, you're confusing watts and watt hours. Watts are a unit of power, while watt hours are a unit of energy (a Joule, another common unit of energy, is a watt second). If your panel is producing 1W, then it's producing 1 Wh every hour -- i.e., 8.8 kWh/year. But if it's simply a panel that's rated for 1W, and isn't on a heliostat, you'll probably get something like 0.5 to 1.5kWh/year, depending on where you are.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[kestasjk]

It's tricky to convert between watts and kWh, they sound the same but one is a unit of power and one is a unit of energy. Power is energy per second, so it's like comparing the cost of a gallon of water with the cost of a spring.

A kWh is like a glass of water, and a watt is like a trickle of water from a leaky tap. A 1 watt panel would take 1000 hours to make one kWh.
If a panel lasts 1000 hours then you're paying $1/kWh, which doesn't compete with $0.07/kWh. If it lasts forever you're basically paying $0/kWh in the long run, so you might as well buy ~10^12 panels and forget about energy problems.
This is why hydroelectric power is appealing: Once built they stay there generating power for only the cost of maintenance, the problem is there are only so many places where a dam can be built.

In a nutshell more info is needed to know if this even counts as progress. What about the materials? Can you get lots of whatever semiconductor they're using cheaply? Does the $1/Watt panel become $1/ 0.01 Watts when it's not facing directly at the sun on a bright day in California?

I'm not looking for any "revolution" from a small start up energy company.


By the way this is an area where nuclear power could become an even better alternative: The big cost of nuclear power is building the plant and decommissioning it afterwards, the uranium is dirt cheap. The price of a kWh from a nuclear plant is made up mostly of the price of building and decommissioning the plant. If a nuclear plant's design can be made so the life is doubled the cost will halve. If a plant that lasts as long as a hydroelectric plant could be designed we could have power too cheap to meter.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I agree w/ your second paragraph, but your first one is flawed, and common.

You see, when people talk about $1/watt with solar they are talking about a system for MAKING energy, not that single watt.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[alphakappa]

There are more errors. $1 is the price of the panel, but the cost of a complete system that uses that $1 panel will be more than that (You have to package the panel and add additional circuitry and a decent profit margin for whoever does that). According to the NYTimes, the system would cost somewhere near $2 (and for comparison, that story states that coal costs $2.1/watt.) Again, keep in mind that the cost of coal is related to, but is not an exact indicator of how much coal energy costs. The price of coal required to generate a watt of electricity is not same as the cost of coal energy - you have to add the costs of building and maintaining a plant and related facilities for the same.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Rei]

Actually, you'd be surprised. They have a patent on their *specific* process, but they don't have a patent on CIGS cells in general, and there are quite a few companies pursuing them. I doubt anyone will be able to hit Nanosolar's price point because not only is Nanosolar ahead in terms of commercialization, but I think their tech is the most promising CIGS cell tech. Even still, the competitors should be able to at least approach Nanosolar's prices, and -- here's the big deal -- since it'd be a decade at best before Nanosolar could sate the market's demand enough to lower prices to that $1/W level, its competitors production should help the prices fall faster.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are forgetting that it actually costs money to build a coal plant before the worry of paying for coal, etc. New coal plants cost a little under $2 per watt of generating capacity to build right now. That means $1/watt panels ARE cheaper than coal since not only are the upfront costs lower but the operating costs (i.e. sitting in the sun vs. buying and burning coal) are also much lower.

AC

Re:Consumer offerings?

[mr_mischief]

"2kwh per hour" ... so, 2kw?

Re:Consumer offerings?

[mr_mischief]

Not so much, no. A solar cell uses what is called "renewable energy". A 1-watt solar panel produces 1 watt whenever it is under full sun for the lifetime of the cell. A 1-watt lump of coal produces 1 watt ever. To get a watt hour from coal, you need to continuously burn 1-watt lumps of coal for the hour. To get 1 watt hour from a 1-watt solar cell, you expose it to direct sunlight for an hour and the cost doesn't change.

The solar cell will depreciate out and need to be replaced eventually. The coal won't be replaced at all. It will be gone, and the coal like it from the same mine will eventually all be gone, too. You'll need to substitute other coal from a deeper, more dangerous mine that's more expensive to mine and will cause more direct damage to the environment through the mining process itself. That mine will likely be farther from its point of use than the previous mine, so more other energy will go into its transportation besides the extra energy in mining it.

Plus, not only do solar cells not produce energy-trapping CO2, but they're actually taking energy from the sun's rays that otherwise could go back into higher layers of the atmosphere and become trapped heat.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[aengblom]

The two figures you're comparing (watts and watt hours) are very different figures. One is based on the i>capacity of the energy generation unit and one is based on the cost of the actually energy produced by a generation unit.

For example Duke Energy has proposed an 800 MW coal plant at a price of about $2,250/kW, which if you talk watt terms is $2.25 per watt. This compares well with the $1/watt that the company is claiming they could sell profitably at $1 per watt.

Of course there are some small print in these figures that matters, the most problematic for Nanosolar being that solar panels can only reach their full capacity during the middle of sunny days in favorable regions. Thus, while I certainly don't have the tools to do it, one would have to discount the amount of capacity one could actually count on depending on the climate the panels were in. As a result, that means either more solar or backup natural gas capacity, which would increase the real cost per watt.

Of course you don't have to pay for fuel (just maintenance), so that would help solar technology.

If they really can produce at that cost, it's quite impressive and hopefully solar can be a much bigger part of the electricity generation mix.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

You are confusing materials cost with sunk cost. The cost to build and maintain a coal plant averages a dollar per watt WITH RESPECT TO CAPACITY.

A 1000 MW plant (capable of producing a MWHr of energy every hour) costs about a billion to design, build and maintain over its expected lifetime. A 1000 Million dollars -- one dollar per watt.

Give or take. And I'm leaving a lot out. But that's the gist.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[MBraynard]

Your ideas about the environmental impact of coal are better suited for the 19th century, not the 21st. Coal is cleaner than ever and if Clinton had not shut off America's source to the cleanest available sources in Utah, it would be cleaner still.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[MrLogic17]

>To get apples to apples, compare the cost of the panel (1$ someday) with the production (mining, transport) cost of 1 Watt of coal.

For coal, that's easy. The purchase price of coal includes all of that. It must, otherwise coal mines wouldn't be selling coal.

These might be the solar cells to solve some problems, but you've got to keep in mind there's a ton of cost overhead to turn those photons into usable electrons.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Instine]

This is valid, but it just moves the breakeven temporaly. i.e. you will still eventually save money... I just love the idea of vast slow moving rafts turning ocean water into hydrogen and then selling it where it eventually docks... or may thats just me.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[kurzweilfreak]

...assuming it runs at full capacity 24/7.

Only if it's a combination solar/lunar panel.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Gravatron]

You do realize many people have no choice on where they get their power, or how it's generated, right?

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Facetious]

As chance would have it, I came across this very informative chart from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I am astounded at the amount of loss (transmission being a major factor).

Re:Consumer offerings?

[lee1026]

Well, there is a slight problem with your calculations - you also have to factor in the interest rates for you initial start up capital.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Rei]

It's mostly generation loss, not transmission loss. Transmission itself is pretty efficient. Neat chart, though. :)

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Rei]

Not really. Check out the solar economics calculator and use non-nanosolar cells in Alaska, and check out the results at the bottom. Sure, it just moves the payback period back, but you'll;find that it makes "Mortgage Length" infeasable and your IRR is tiny. That means "bad investment". If the panels cost too much or don't produce enough electricity, the savings will never catch up with the interest payments on your capital costs.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Facetious]

Indeed. I would love to see the "loss" portion broken down by transmission vs generation vs distribution. Generation, supposedly, doesn't lose much in very large plants. That would leave distribution, which I assume means local substations and transformers on power poles.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coal is cleaner than ever Phew, that's a relief!

Re:Consumer offerings?

[harrkev]

Burn that in a crappy Bush-endorsed power station

I am no fan of Bush, but I do not blame him for my favorite football team loosing, a receeding hair line, and my beer going flat. How many power plants up and running right now were planned, approved, and built in the last eight years? Are coal-plants something new? And even if Gore had won, things would not be THAT much different. Keep in mind that the power companies are there to make money. If they are driven out of business, that is a bad thing. If they have to double their prices, that is also a bad thing for the consumer. Changes that the power companies have to make must be done gradually in order to spread out the economic impact. CO2 emissions are nothing new. It has been happening for over a century. While it is important to fix things long-term (10 years or mroe), it does not have to be done overnight.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[flaming-opus]

You're forgetting two very important things. In your math you're forgetting to amortize your capital costs. Basically you're assuming that you can get a 0% loan. In reality, paying for solar up-front, instead of coal as you need it, you need to tripple the cost of the solar, because of the interest you will have to pay over the 25-year life of that "loan".

Secondly, solar provides great energy during the middle of the day. However, most residential electrical demand happens in the early evening, when people get home from work and turn everything on. Most industrial users of electricity need a constant supply, around the clock. Commercial users need electricity throughout the day, with a spike in the late afternoon as air conditioning demand increases. Solar-electricity provides for some, but not all of these needs. Storing solar energy in batteries, thermal storage systems, or mechanical storage systems doubles or tripples the cost again.

Thus, even with $1/W panels, general-purpose solar power is still 8-10X the cost of coal. I'm terribly doubtful that solar power will ever be economically competitive with coal, UNLESS you factor in the ecological costs. Unless we start taxing utilities for the carbon that they emit, we will not see solar become competitive, beyond little feel-good projects, and home-hobbyists.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[harrkev]

But they have a choice about using. Lots of people also go "off grid". Any homeowner can do it, if they want to put their money where their mouth is. It costs tens of thouseands of dollars, though.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[CajunArson]

I love how these coal plants are all Bush's fault when 100% of them existed for 100% of the Clinton administration (you know, the one with that "genius" Al Gore as vice president). I find it amusing that they were great and wonderful as long as Clinton was in office, but the moment Bush took over they started destroying the world and its ALL HIS FAULT.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[DaleGlass]

The calculations are a lot more complicated than that. You can check the source for the calculator (linked earlier) to get an idea of all that needs to be taken into account.

Of course. That's why I said "assuming it runs at full capacity 24/7". This won't actually happen in reality, but you can calculate the amount of sunlight the panel will receive and produce a more realistic figure from that.

Secondly, you're confusing watts and watt hours. Watts are a unit of power, while watt hours are a unit of energy (a Joule, another common unit of energy, is a watt second). If your panel is producing 1W, then it's producing 1 Wh every hour -- i.e., 8.8 kWh/year. But if it's simply a panel that's rated for 1W, and isn't on a heliostat, you'll probably get something like 0.5 to 1.5kWh/year, depending on where you are.

What exactly I'm confusing? 8.8 * 50 * 20 = 8800 kW after 20 years, same result I arrived at (except for the loss in precision in this last one)

It's the grandparent who is confused, as he was trying to claim that the cost would be $1/kW. Though the article is confusing in this respect.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Waffle Iron]

Generation loss would be from two factors: the heat engine and the electrical generators. Generators convert mechanical energy to electricity with very high efficiency. However, due to the laws of thermodynamics, all heat engines are rather inefficient at converting heat to mechanical energy. The oldest coal plants are usually less than 40% efficient, and the best combined cycle natural gas plants can approach 60% efficiency. So the chart looks about right to me.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[DerekLyons]

Even if you only run at 25% capacity on average, taking into account varying daily solar intensity, the investment pays for itself in 6.5 years.

No - that only pays for the panel in 6.5 years. Now factor in shipping & handling, installation, the equipment to convert the panels DC output into AC, maintenance...
 
Yes, maintenance. At a minimum you'll need to head out and clean off the panels now and again. Plus you have wiring exposed to the weather, conversion equipment, etc... etc...
 
Worse yet, in large swaths of the US - 25% capacity is nothing but a pipe dream.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[egomaniac]

I'm terribly doubtful that solar power will ever be economically competitive with coal

I think you mean "...competitive with coal at today's prices". There is a finite supply of coal, and we are using it up at an alarming rate. The price will not stay this low.

Also, people seem to be assuming a 25-year lifespan on these panels. Is that accurate? Just out of curiosity, what's the failure mode? I'm guessing a slow and steady decline in output power, but what causes it?

Re:Consumer offerings?

[falconwolf]

However, from what I read, coal is still cheaper to burn for power in utility plants. I read that it costs utilities between $0.01 and $0.02 per KWh to produce when burning coal, even when taking the cost of the plant into account.

It's only cheaper because utility companies get to pass on External costs to others. If coal miners had to pay for the cleanup of coal mines and power companies had to pay for their emissions electricity would be more expensive.

Falcon

Re:Consumer offerings?

[shlashdot]

You seem to be assuming a coal-fired plant is free. They run over $1/W to build actually. You're right the coal plant is 24/7, but the fuel will never be free. So the solar is right in there for cost of energy. Storing it is a whole separate issue.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Anonymous Coward]

The investment pays for itself in 6.5 years.

But will this type of technology last 3 years? Is the plastic covering UV rated for that long? Can it withstand hail? I want real numbers not good intentions.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[AmericanInKiev]

I think you'll find that Clinto's administration was headed towards tighten restrictions on coal plants. There were reasonable, scheduled improvements. Bush took us off the path to improvement, so basically yes - this is all Bush's fault. remember, a stronger presidency means more blame. Clinton shared power, and thus responsibility.
AIK

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Erpo]

Forget about consumer products for now. How about: When will they deliver what they promised in the first place?

From the article: Roscheisen said the manufacturing process the company has developed will enable it to eventually deliver solar electricity for less than a dollar per watt, which would be significantly cheaper than fossil fuel sources of power generation.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[hey!]

This is an excellent point. Somebody invests in the coal plant and charges his capital costs to you, the consumer, plus a profit.

The same thing could well be done with solar panels. I could install solar panels on your business and charge you for the power they produce. The benefit to you is that I'd lock in a fixed energy price for a certain number of years.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[rcw-home]

Generation, supposedly, doesn't lose much in very large plants. That would leave distribution, which I assume means local substations and transformers on power poles.

Generation does lose a lot from any heat engine (which is currently a required step for anything that generates electricity by making something hot: coal, oil, nuclear, geothermal, biomass, and natural gas). Wikipedia's combined cycle gas turbine article lists 59% efficiency as state of the art. The theoretical limit is not 100% efficiency - it is the Carnot Limit defined by the ratio of the high and low temperatures (natural gas burns at 1600K, the coldest you'll get the exhaust is 400K, so your absolute max is 75% efficiency).

Mechanical-electrical conversion (hydro, wind) is much more efficient. Electric generators are basically motors, and the large ones are commonly 95% efficient. The Francis turbines in use at hydro plants are upwards of 80% efficient at converting water pressure to rotor power. I don't know what the numbers are like for the wind turbines - probably much worse, since the goal isn't to make the turbine blades stop the air entirely.

Photovoltaic solar generation is the worst of them all. The most expensive cells that they put on space satellites are just over 40% efficient. The more cost-practical silicon-based cells are more like 12% efficient. As a result, a new development in large-scale solar is using a bunch of mirrors to focus the light into heat which can then spin a turbine (which may be 35-40% efficient).

Re:Consumer offerings?

[pngai]

Solar panels don't/can't produce power 24 hours a day. You also left out the cost of the inverters and a lot of other stuff like who cleans the snow off the panels.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Anonymous Coward]

A mistake many people make is to compare the cost of alternative home power to the centralized power plant costs. A 600 Mega Watt coal fired power plant costs around 600M$-800M$ to build and produces power (at recent coal prices of $30/ton) for about 3.0 to 3.5 cents per KW/Hr but they sell it to you with taxes and transmition losses and surcharges and profit added. In central Florida, Florida Power and Light charged me 9.15 cents per KW/Hr for the first 1000KWHr, and about 12 cents above that.
Compare: a home PV system in this area, we get 5.7 effective full power hours of sun daily. On a 2KW peak system your getting ~11KWHrs a day. 365 days x 11KWHr x .12$/KWHr = $481/yr or around $40/month savings on your electric bill max if you use all of it yourself as opposed to selling any back to FP&L at 3.7 cents/KW. To break even the cost of the entire system must be less than $7000,(a loan of $7000 at 6% for 30yrs is $40/month or $480/yr). Current costs for a 2KW grid tied (no batteries = much cheaper) system will run you +12k$ installed (ie: http://www.dmsolar.com/2000w-solar-gridtie-sy.html).
Solar panels run over half of the total hardware costs call it ~$6K of the $9.8K in the example above. $6K/2KW= ~$3/W . If thin film can sell for $1.5/W it would knock ~$3K off of the total price.
Would you pay $54/month for a system that drops $40/month off your electric bill, gives you emergency power, keeps the air a little cleaner, reduces the money we send overseas for fuel or military, provides local jobs, ect ?
I've ignored the effects of tax incentives or rebates which vary from place to place and over time, but they could bring the price down below break even.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[MyNymWasTaken]

Because small companies have never revolutionized the world... /sarcasm

FedEx
Microsoft
Wal-Mart

Re:Consumer offerings?

[shlashdot]

This is already being done in the US, structured exactly as you describe.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Adult film producer]

Why do the inverters cost so much? Just looking at the page you linked to and checked out the cost of the sunny boy inverter on google, $3400 .. Yikes.

http://www.energyalternatives.ca/catalogue/Items/SB1800U-SBD.htm

Re:Consumer offerings?

[ChrisA90278]

"This is why hydroelectric power is appealing: Once built they stay there generating power for only the cost of maintenance, the problem is there are only so many places where a dam can be built."

No, a hydro plant has a limited lifetime. It could be 100 years. What happens is the lake in back of the dam silts up. For example when Hoover Dam flooded a section of the Grand Canyon the water stopped flowing fast enough to cary it's load of silt so it falls out to the bottom of the lake. I think the lake was a realitivly short lifespan. OK yo could dig it out but take a look at the volume of Lake Mead and figure how many dump trucks it will take. In 200 year they will be building condos on what was once a lake and before that a canyon. But you do get a good 150 year of "free" power.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[falconwolf]

Thus, even with $1/W panels, general-purpose solar power is still 8-10X the cost of coal. I'm terribly doubtful that solar power will ever be economically competitive with coal, UNLESS you factor in the ecological costs. Unless we start taxing utilities for the carbon that they emit, we will not see solar become competitive, beyond little feel-good projects, and home-hobbyists.

You left out inflation. Burning coal will only get more expensive not less.

Falcon

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Maury Markowitz]

> 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

Re:Consumer offerings?

[falconwolf]

Do me a favor, pull you head out of (the sand) and be realistic.

Who has their head in the sand, one who discounts alternative energy sources or one who encourages them?

Falcon

Re:Consumer offerings?

[doom]

But they have a choice about using. Lots of people also go "off grid". Any homeowner can do it, if they want to put their money where their mouth is. It costs tens of thouseands of dollars, though.

Not to mention the gasoline involved... those guys playing at being "mountain men in the wilderness" all depend on the federal government keeping gas cheap so their trucks can keep guzzling.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[jelle]

Uhm, it's $1/Watt not $1/KWh...

Plus, solar panels can be installed much closer to the consumer, cutting a lot of the electricity transporation cost (and losses).

The table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics pretty clearly shows that $1/W, if the panels last 20 years, depending on the area where the panel is installed (how much sunlight it's getting), results in an energy cost of 4.2 ... 12.5 cents per KWh... So those panels will even beat a coal plan in Arizona, for sure...

Re:Consumer offerings?

[falconwolf]

Your ideas about the environmental impact of coal are better suited for the 19th century, not the 21st. Coal is cleaner than ever and if Clinton had not shut off America's source to the cleanest available sources in Utah, it would be cleaner still.

Cleaner =! Clean.

Falcon

Re:Consumer offerings?

[doom]

I love how these coal plants are all Bush's fault when 100% of them existed for 100% of the Clinton administration

On the one hand:

• Bush energy plan includes coal-burning power plants
• Bush: Kyoto treaty would have hurt economy

And on the other hand:

• Clinton Blasts Bush On Kyoto Pact -- Ex-President Says Current President 'Flat Wrong' On Global Warming
• Barack Star -- Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama's got green cred

I think the Republicans have a very bad "not-invented here" problem where environmentalism is concerned.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Pascoea]

Apparently you failed to read my post before you made your comment.

I am not discounting alternative energy sources, I am merely calling bullshit to all of the gloom and doom "coal is the end of the planet" crap. I simply invite you to do some research into current and upcoming pollution controls for coal fired power plants.

How about a process that takes the flue gas from a coal fired boiler and turns EVERY pollutant in it into a viable resource? (fertilizers, raw metals, etc) Where the only thing coming out of stack is nitrogen, water, and oxygen. Just do the research.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[doom]

MBraynard wrote:

Your ideas about the environmental impact of coal are better suited for the 19th century, not the 21st. Coal is cleaner than ever

Great! So you mean we can expect to see the number of US deaths attributable to coal every year to gradually decline below the hundreds of thousands level? And please tell us about the New Technology the coal industry has to reduce emissions of radioactive crud... do you think they'll be able to operate under the same rules as nuclear plants now without being shut down?

(If you ask me, it's coal burning that belongs in the 19th century, if not the 18th...)

Re:Consumer offerings?

[HiThere]

But the power comes from turning potential energy into kinetic energy into electric energy. You don't need the lake for that. One tall pipe will do, with an input at the top and an outflow at the bottom. The lake is for power storage...but that doesn't take much depth. The deep parts of the lake aren't energetically useful.

Still, it *will* start to require continual maintenance. Either that, or you build the dam higher (and plug any gaps in it's surroundings). The second choice may not be feasible, and that would mean dredging every year or so.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Facetious]

Now THAT is a cool idea! That's got me thinking about hydrogen pipelines...

Re:Consumer offerings?

[bodrell]

You're forgetting two very important things. In your math you're forgetting to amortize your capital costs. Basically you're assuming that you can get a 0% loan. In reality, paying for solar up-front, instead of coal as you need it, you need to tripple the cost of the solar, because of the interest you will have to pay over the 25-year life of that "loan".

Ah, assumptions. Will coal prices stay constant? What about inflation, even if coal supply remains constant? And the 25 year figure was only for $4/W. At the $1/W figure cited, it's less than 7 years (assuming the 25% capacity, and I don't know how reasonable that is). What about if I buy more than my capacity, and actually am able to sell electricity back to power company when I produce excess?

Secondly, solar provides great energy during the middle of the day. However, most residential electrical demand happens in the early evening, when people get home from work and turn everything on. Most industrial users of electricity need a constant supply, around the clock. Commercial users need electricity throughout the day, with a spike in the late afternoon as air conditioning demand increases. Solar-electricity provides for some, but not all of these needs. Storing solar energy in batteries, thermal storage systems, or mechanical storage systems doubles or tripples the cost again.

Batteries? Huh? First, solar electricity in California (not where I live, btw, but it is a state with very expensive electricity) can be sold back to the utility company; if you produce more than is required, it causes the meter to run backwards. And since the highest electricity demand is during the middle of the day, especially when people run air conditioning, that is when the rates are highest. If you sell energy back to the utility company when the rates are highest, then use electricity in the evenings when rates are lower, it's a win-win. And storage? Use the grid! Besides the advantage of selling excess energy, being connected to the grid eliminates battery and storage costs (not to mention inverters and other equipment).

Thus, even with $1/W panels, general-purpose solar power is still 8-10X the cost of coal.

Except that your math is incorrect, the panels in question are very inefficient, and a bunch of other people are working on this problem to drive the prices down. Not to mention you used the 25 year figure, which applies to $4/W panels, not $1/W. Also, I checked the price of energy on the DOE website, and California electricity costs $0.125/kWh, not $0.07/kWh. In sunny Hawaii, the electricity cost is $0.207/kWh! http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/rep/ In Hawaii, with rates 3X above what I used in my calculations, $1/W panels would pay for themselves in only 2-3 years. That's assuming you don't lose too much money getting them shipped to Hawaii, and that the panels are still only 25% efficient even so close to the equator.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[TooMuchToDo]

Not to mention when carbon cap and trade comes into effect. The fed isn't going to push it through, but 13 states have already agreed to pursue the save policy as California is pursuing.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[TooMuchToDo]

But many people DO have the option of where they get their power from. This is usually in the form of paying 2-5 cents more per kWh for their electricity, and in turn their utility will buy more renewable power.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[TooMuchToDo]

Because they usually are pretty complicated. Example: The Xantrax line of inverters for home renewable power systems can hook up to the utility, your solar array, and a generator. It will regulate when to pull power from the grid, when to sell power to the grid, when to start the generator when there's no other power available.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[TooMuchToDo]

We should start building farms of these in the desert, and supply power to California. Simply keep adding panels as long as the manufacturing capacity exists. As panels degrade years from now, you replace them with (hopefully) more efficient panels that have been worked on during the first buildout. Build some intelligence into the system so you can detect damage and repair/replace panels as needed.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Rei]

The "secret sauce" is that the cell isn't made of CIGS; it's CIGS printed onto a substrate. You can read how they do it in their patent, but basically, you're talking about micron-scale coatings printed onto a cheap backing. Hardly matters how expensive raw indium is; they're barely using any "ink" to cover each 1W worth of area (about 4"x4", if my calculations are right).

Re:Consumer offerings?

[dtmancom]

You lost me at "crappy Bush-endorsed power station." If you can't keep your religion out of arguments, don't expect anyone to listen to them.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Anonymous Coward]

The big cost of nuclear power is building the plant and decommissioning it afterwards, the uranium is dirt cheap.

Actually, the biggest cost of nuclear power, by far, is disposing of the waste. Because we don't even know how to do it yet, the cost of disposal remains unbounded. Satisfactory long-term disposal has yet to be accomplished for any nuclear power plant, and that means that there are still ongoing and ever-rising costs to be paid for every nuclear power plant that has ever generated power, including those that have already been decommissioned.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[ppanon]

As a result, a new development in large-scale solar is using a bunch of mirrors to focus the light into heat.

New? That was first pioneered back in the late 70s or early 80s. The thing is that your mirror arrays have to track the Sun, which requires motors and control equipment that use up some of the power you're generating. What we really need is a field of Ringworld sunflowers (and rigorous pollen control). Maybe Monsanto can design some :-)

Re:Consumer offerings?

[WalksOnDirt]

assuming the 25% capacity, and I don't know how reasonable that is It's on the high side, although you could do a bit better than that in parts of the Sahara. In much of the southwestern USA desert you can get at least 20%, however.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[falconwolf]

Apparently you failed to read my post before you made your comment.

Wow, you can read my mind. But you did poorly because I did read your post, and all you say of alternative energy sources is that there's no market, then you go on about granola eaters bash coal calling them piss-ants.

I simply invite you to do some research into current and upcoming pollution controls for coal fired power plants.

And I invite you to do research on what coal mining, especially Mountain Top Removal, does to the environment. Such as how it buries streams with the waste, or pollutes the streams. Or how it makes picturesque mountains into parking lots, or golf courses.

Just do the research.

Do research yourself!

Falcon

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Jataro]

3600 s/h, 24 h/d, 365 d/year --> 31.5 x 10^6 s I don't know about you, but where I live the sun sets.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[smilindog2000]

Yes, coal is only popular close to where it's mined. It costs more to ship it than to mine it if you're not on the East Coast. California burns natural gas, which is eco-friendly, but not cheap (I personally think this is a good idea). There are two huge clouds of smog perpetually over two parts of the world. One is over China, the other is over the East Coast, because of all that damned coal we burn. Check out Global Dimming. The sad news is that when we finally give up coal (probably because we're feeling a bit warm), the Earth's temperature will rise sharply.
"

Re:Consumer offerings?

[dasunt]

I am running the numbers.

Coal is .08$ a kWh.

So for $1000, that buys 1 kW of photovoltaic cells.

If the cells are run for 12,500 hours at full capacity, the price is equal to coal. Past 12,500 hours of full capacity, that's cheaper than coal.

That's 521 days of 24/7 sunlight, for almost two years. Rather unlikely on earth.

The Google tells me [I]A 1 kilowatt peak Solar System will generate around 1600 kilowatt hours per year in a sunny climate and about 750 kilowatt hours per year in a cloudy climate[/I]. Which means that we need to run the system for 7.8 years before we see it being cheaper than coal (double that in cloudy climates). And this assumes that the system still operates at full efficiency for the duration of those years.

This is not counting the related infrastructure needed for photovoltaic -- battery arrays, voltage converters, etc.

I'm doubting the numbers.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[dbIII]

First, $1/watt panels aren't "cheaper than coal"

It all depends on where it is and how much power you need. Remote facilities that don't use much power get much cheaper than coal at a lot more than that and heavy industry that uses a lot is at the other end of the scale (thermal power generation scales up well - double the size and you get more than double the power).

Where solar is really competing now is for things like, oddly enough, solar powered lanterns. They are replacing kerosine lanterns in remote areas so are competing against a high fuel cost and have major health benefits over CO and other fumes in confined spaces.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[dbIII]

With large installations you would go for solar thermal anyway - however the large capital cost slows everything down. Photovoltaics are expensive in large numbers but I suppose like wind you can buy small units and just add bits on over time with little or no planning.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Ferretman]

He also conveniently forgets that Klinton endorsed them too....Al and company had 8 years to "fix" the designs and didn't do diddly.

Feretman

Re:Consumer offerings?

[MBraynard]

the number of US deaths attributable to coal every year to gradually decline below the hundreds of thousands level?

Your tinfoil hat is crooked. Take a moment to adjust it.

...

When you are done, maybe you can document this one. Apart from working in a mine that has collapsed, I'm very curious to hear about coal being the #3 or #4 cause of death in the US each year.

PS - you aren't suppose to eat it (unless you are poisoned - different story).

Re:Consumer offerings?

[MBraynard]

No, I'd say zero-emission and near-zero-emission coal plants are 'clean.'

Re:Consumer offerings?

[rcw-home]

New? That was first pioneered back in the late 70s or early 80s. The thing is that your mirror arrays have to track the Sun

Well, Sandia Labs has had their Solar Power Towers running as proof-of-concept for quite a while, and SEGS in Mojave has been around since the late 80s, but the rest of the big ones listed here are fairly recent (Nevada Solar One near Las Vegas and PS10 near Seville, Spain, just went online this year), and there are now several more plants under construction. It's really starting to take off.

One bad thing about solar concentrators is they require parallel light rays - direct (specular) sunlight. Clouds diffuse the light, making it impossible to concentrate. Photovoltaic plants deliver partial power on cloudy days - I don't think thermal solar delivers much at all. But many deserts rarely see clouds.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[falconwolf]

No, I'd say zero-emission and near-zero-emission coal plants are 'clean.'

And where is the coal going to come from? Mining that's where and mining is dirty, especially Mountain Top Removal. As for the link you provide it says almost nothing about "zero-emission and near-zero-emission coal plants". One thing I did notice was that it said the CO2 was going to be stored underground. How in the world is anyone going to be able to keep it there? In a release of a massive amount of gas stored underground, in a methane burp, at Lake Nyos, Cameroon more than 1700 were killed up to 25 km away.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[smilindog2000]

I agree 100%. We really need to implement a carbon-credit system.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Maxo-Texas]

Not true since the coal you will buy in 8 years will be be about twice as expensive purely from inflation. And the coal you buy in 16 years will be three times as expensive.

It is like a house payment.

You pay $1000 now-- and $143k in interest.
Or you rent for $700 now-- and no interest. But after 8 years, the rent is up to $1400 for the same place... and after 16 years, the rent is up to $2100.

Now - wages did the same thing-- you were making $3000 a month at the start-- and $9000 a month at the end-- and it had roughly the same purchasing power.

So after 20 years, if you still own the same house, your payments could be covered by turning in bottles for deposits.

Nanosolar is very significang. However it has the same problem as Wii's.

If the market demand is high-- it will never sell for $1/watt. Scalpers will simply buy it at $1/watt and then resell it for $3/watt.
Prices only drop when supply exceeds demand.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Maxo-Texas]

The panel installation and shipping is actually a major benefit for nanosolar too.

They are about 1/50th the weight and should be much less to install and ship.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Maxo-Texas]

Nanosolar is unknown.

Existing solar panels are typically 70 to 80% power after that time period and slowly drop in output. Some over 30 years old are still producing power. The usual death is from water infiltration.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[dan42]

I dunno about that. I entered my monthly usage and estimated hourly usage rates, then removed the tax breaks (I'm in Canada), and $1/watt is still "unfeasible". I reduced it to $0.10/watt, and finally I have payback in 15 years!

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Tmack]

What we really need is a field of Ringworld sunflowers (and rigorous pollen control). Maybe Monsanto can design some :-)

Yeh... just take your flying platform covered in the superconductor cloth with the superconductor wire attached, hover it over the middle and circle the slaverflower field with the extra line... myabe put it in a trench with some water from the sea to create a nice circular fogbank to keep them from spreading. Then just run the end of the wire into a boiler to power the turbine and not worry about getting the plants to focus on anything else.

Tm

Re:Consumer offerings?

[chefmonkey]

Why are you taking out a 25-year loan on $7,500 worth of solar panel?

Did you take out a 50-year loan on your car?

Re:Consumer offerings?

[bodrell]

I don't know about you, but where I live the sun sets.

That's why I included a 25% efficiency term. 50% of the day is light (average) and the panel operates at 50% of capacity, average, in daylight hours. But I'm not sure how accurate those estimates are.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[LWATCDR]

"Batteries? Huh? First, solar electricity in California (not where I live, btw, but it is a state with very expensive electricity) can be sold back to the utility company; if you produce more than is required, it causes the meter to run backwards. And since the highest electricity demand is during the middle of the day, especially when people run air conditioning, that is when the rates are highest. If you sell energy back to the utility company when the rates are highest, then use electricity in the evenings when rates are lower, it's a win-win. And storage? Use the grid! Besides the advantage of selling excess energy, being connected to the grid eliminates battery and storage costs (not to mention inverters and other equipment). "
That only works if a small part of your power is coming from solar.
Power stations are not like your car. they do not have a super fast response time. Only gas turbines powered by natural gas and diesel generators can respond quickly to power demand.
So yes you can use the grid if solar is only a small part of your power production.
I don't how big a percentage of highly variable power the current grid can handle but I would guess it will be under 10%.

"In Hawaii, with rates 3X above what I used in my calculations, $1/W panels would pay for themselves in only 2-3 years. That's assuming you don't lose too much money getting them shipped to Hawaii, and that the panels are still only 25% efficient even so close to the equator."
Okay what does how close you are to the equator have to do with how efficient the cells are?
They convert only 25% of the power falling on time to electricity. That will not change if they are at the equator or Alaska.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Pascoea]

I stand corrected, I guess that makes me the asshole.

Turn off your lights and eat some more granola.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[MBraynard]

Mining that's where and mining is dirty

Mining itself causes zero CO2 to be released, it's the burning that is in question.

If you don't like mountain top removal or other coal mining operations, drink more bottled spring water. This will create an economic incentive to preserving a natural state.

So don't store CO2 underground? I suppose we can't store nuclear waste underground either. Because a long time ago, NO ONE was poisoned by it.

Or just forget about storing it and accept the fact that it has nothing to do with climate change.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Geminii]

Basically you're assuming that you can get a 0% loan.

What's the minimum I can pay upfront for a single panel and a metered hookup back into the local grid? Too large to pay out of pocket? What about if I'm a business, or a really rich dude?

Just sayin' if I do have to get a loan, it doesn't necessarily have to be for a $50,000 solar rig straight up. Consider it a long-term investment.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[falconwolf]

Mining itself causes zero CO2 to be released, it's the burning that is in question.

But CO2 isn't the only problem with coal. Mining, especially the Mountain Top removal I mentioned earlier, plays havoc with the environment where it's mined. CO2 isn't the only pollution.

If you don't like mountain top removal or other coal mining operations, drink more bottled spring water. This will create an economic incentive to preserving a natural state.

Most bottled water isn't spring water. Some of it is ground water and some comes from the tap. But even with true water, the more the demand increases the greater the pressure on the source of that spring water. As it is now aquifers throughout the world are being drained. Water is being pumped out faster than it can be replenished. Take the Ogallala Aquifer in the central US. It is one of the largest aquifers in the world yet it's being drained too fast in some locations. In India water is being pumped from aquifers to irrigate farms unsustainably. Coca-Cola plant in India shuttered over water use. The same is happening elsewhere.

Or just forget about storing it and accept the fact that it has nothing to do with climate change.

So more than 1000 scientists are wrong? What's your education and training that has you knowing more than those who have their degrees in climatology or related fields?

Falcon

Re:Consumer offerings?

[MBraynard]

So more than 1000 scientists are wrong? What's your education and training that has you knowing more than those who have their degrees in climatology or related fields?

Because I have carefully listened to the arguments on both sides, know the ideologies of those involved (scientists are some of the worst in terms of ethics). So I am bold enough to cite the works of these 400 scientists who went on record in 2007.

1000s of scientists got DDT banned - needlessly - and killed millions of people as a result from malaria. Scientists cannot accurately predict a storm season season. Scientists allow themselves to be used by politicians to enrich themselves.

Regarding bottles water (and I meant pure) still gives greater economic value to a prestine - regardess of the sustainability. Eventually the replenish rate will meet the usage rate. So drink up.

Regarding MTR, that is not a reason to limit coal use. Greater demand for coal creates greater incentives to find alternatives to MTM since the amount of problems (if there are really any long term MTM problems - it doesn't seem like it).

Further, a strong economy - fueled inescapably by greater energy needs - is what is required to reach the technical and economic thresholds necessary to find fully sustainable, totally clean alternatives. Limiting access to coal also limits mankinds ability to reach that threshold and will bottleneck further progress.

You are really long on whining about problems and short on practicle solutions, aren't you? Can't use coal, can't drink bottled water, and, btw, the sky is falling. What else can we add to the list?

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Sardaukar86]

Excellent point.

However, as another /. reader pointed out with reference to landfill, we're simply stockpiling exactly the materials we have proven to use most regularly. It's not in an immediately-usable form but it is there nonetheless, growing ever more usable as our recycling technologies continue to improve.

I believe the Yucca mountain issue (i.e., the growing pile of nuclear waste in the States) is largely political. If the U.S. decided that reprocessing no longer equals proliferation, or collectively found the risk/reward of doing so reaches a more appealing ratio, all those swimming-pools full of spent rods local to the reactors become partially usable fuel again. With the use of breeders even more potential can be realised.

This of course ignores the important point that reprocessing is a non-trivial operation requiring specialised facilities that likely wouldn't be added to an existing plant for reasons of cost.

That leaves one in the unenviable position of transporting hot poo across the country to your reprocessing plants (the Mobile Chernobyl problem). Perhaps when factoring in this risk it may prove cheaper in the long run to equip each power station than clean up after a disaster.

Still, we need look no further than France, Japan, or the U.K. for a known-good and reasonably safe operational model for managing the entire nuclear fuel cycle.

The DCS http://www.srs.gov/general/srs-home.html Savannah River http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel MOX project may even make this a reality; my guess is it'll be down to how the public receive the finished plant.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[itzdandy]

I must point out that $.07/KWh is a one time gain. just over 14 hours of that and you have spent $1. that coal will no longer produce power so $1 gets you 14.29KW of power.(using the parents numbers)

these cells cost $1 for each Watt a panel. That is not a cost of $1/watt for each watt produced, that is $1/panel which produces 1W each hour for 20-30 years. so your initial investment of $1 will net you 58.4-87.6KW of power, or $.017-$.012 per KWh over the lifetime of the panel.

in the us, the average household uses 26KW on average per day. this is typically in the evening so power must be stored so i will use a %50 efficiency handicap for power storage, either to grid, or to batteries. at just 8 hours of collectible solar period during the day, we will need 6.5KW worth of solar @ %50 storage efficiency. so $6500+$2000 for connectivity equipment such as inverters and grid tyeing equip(assuming to grid and not to batteries) means an up front investment of $8500. the average utitily bill of a US home is about $987/year. so the payoff is about 9yrs.

if the panel lasts the advertised period of 20-30 years then solar would be 2.3x-3.5x cheaper with %50 efficient storage.

in many states, power companies must buy power from a consumer at the same rate they charge for it meaning that many people could use the grid for storage, or more accurately, charge the grid and get paid for it and use from the grid when needed. that would 1/2 the cost of the above numbers. this is not taking into account losses on home wiring or transfer to grid etc but their is a good margin here for such things.

consumers only need to break even to lessen our impact on the environment though saving money will be the driving force behind a change.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[Anonymous Coward]

But your comparison is flawed because you're mixing units. $.02/kWh is 1 Watt for "only" 1000 hours. $1/Watt is one Watt for the life of the panel (while there is adequate light).

So if you conservatively calculate 275 days/year at 7hrs of usable sunlight/day, that's 1925 hrs/yr. After 10 years, that's 19,250 hours. So $1 for 19.25 kWh is $0.0519/kWh. You also have to remember that as a CONSUMER, I still get charged over $0.10/kWh.

However, in the break-even equation, you must also figure in the costs of installation and the control electronics, battery storage or grid-tied, maintenance, etc. After all that, using an estimated 15 year lifetime, $1/Watt for the panels is the generally-accepted break-even point.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[flaming-opus]

You can't send excess electricity into the grid in very large amounts. Like I said, a few home hobbyist can get away with that, but you can't really store much electricity in the grid, you just reduce localized demand, and the transmission infrastructure can only tollerate a limited amount of this. If we are talking about hobbyist-scale offerings, it's meaningless to compare against the cost of coal, and we should really only compare against the residential rate charged by the local utility. If we're looking at hundred-megawatt scale deployments, then we can compare against coal.

Also, $1/W panels don't exist. Some startups are promising that they can do it, in the hopes of collecting enough venture capital to put together some production lines. I've heard a lot of promises from startups looking for capital, and few of them are completely true. There is also a lot of infrastructure necessary, beyond the cost of the panels, in a PV solar system. I'm sure that PV will continue to be deployed, and I welcome any reduction in the cost, but I don't think price-parity with fossil fuels is likely, near-term.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[flaming-opus]

There is a LOT of coal in North America. As more appalacian mountains are leveled, the political cost will rise, but I think it's a LONG time before we use up all the coal.

Nanosolar uses a thin-film substrate, if I'm not mistaken, which will likely break down, ironically from sun exposure. The thin-film products I'm familiar with, break down after a few years, so they must have done something clever to prevent that. I'd be surprised if they last 25 years, but don't really know.

Re:Consumer offerings?

[flaming-opus]

Anyone willing to lend you the money also understands how inflation works.

The difference between utility costs and your mortgage/rent math, is that most of the costs for the utility are consumables, they really have no cost until someone is paid to dig them out of the ground. The costs of a home are all up-front whether they are yours, or a landlords'. You're not really comparing apples to apples.

Seems good.

[Anonymous Coward]

So who all here's going to put their money where their mouths are, and snatch these things up? Or is copper indium gallium selenide not environmentally safe enough?

In any case, capitalism once again is the solution to our energy woes.

Re:Seems good.

[Rei]

It is a rather safe formulation. That's one of the reasons why it's more popular among new companies than cadmium telluride cells.

Nobody can "put their money where their mouth is" and "snatch these up", because all of their capacity is currently being eaten up by a 1MW german PV installation. And, one correction to the article: they're not being sold for $0.99. The company has stated that they can turn a profit on them selling them at $0.99. But as long as there's a glut of demand and shortage of cells, it seems unlikely that they'll hit that price. What it *does* mean is that Nanosolar never has to worry about money again. Venture capitalists will be throwing money at them if only Nanosolar lets them. They'll have no problem scaling up production; we just need to be patient.

Re:Seems good.

[blind biker]

I have invested some money (well, my retirement fund) into Henderson Industries of the Future, which is composed by alternative energy companies.

As luck would have it (sarcasm) this company is NOT in the portfolio.

Re:Seems good.

[jamstar7]

I figure the consumers will start getting their hands on some of these in '09 or '10.

I'll be standing in line with my checkbook in hand.

Re:Seems good.

[Rei]

Don't feel too bad: everyone's wanted a piece of Nanosolar for years, and they haven't been biting. They got all the money they needed and shut their doors. And with all the cash that's going to be flowing into them (if you can produce something for a fraction of a dollar per watt and sell it for almost six dollars per watt, that's like printing money), I don't expect to see an IPO any time soon. Still, while I don't think Nanosolar's CIGS competitors are as interesting as they are, they should still be making out like bandits once they get their products on the market. There's no way Nanosolar can sate demand any time soon.

Re:Seems good.

[blind biker]

Thanks. That actually was a consolation.

What's in your stocking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course coal also works at night.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[Red Flayer]

A solution is a global energy grid. Sure, it may be daytime in the US right now, but it's night-time in India. Of course, there would be transmission losses, never mind the cost of insulated undersea high-voltage power lines, the cost of ninjas to fight the pirates who would threaten to hold the power lines hostage, and the cost of robots to keep the ninjas at bay.

Seriously, though, power usage at night is much lower than during the day. We have other non-fossil-fuel energy sources that can be used to produce power at night. It's funny how solar power works during the day, when our usage also peaks... it's too much of a coincidence to believe that could happen naturally. I think mayhaps His Noodly Appendage has touched the power generation industry.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[sm62704]

So do rechargeable batteries.

This makes me think once again that the 20th century was an abberation.

Before the 20th century if you wanted to know what time it was you pulled a clock out of your pocket. In the 20th century you looked at the clock on your wrist. After the 20th century you pulled your phone out of your pocket.

Before the 20th century musicians made their money by performing. During the 20th century many musicians made their money by recording music. After the advent of the internet musicians will once again make their money by performing and use their recordings as advertising (as everybody but the RIAA bands do now).

Before the 20th century there were few wires. During the 20th century wires were everywhere - strung from poles, on your phone, TV, computer eqiopment, everything that used electrity. After the 20th century everything is wireless.

-mcgrew

Re:What's in your stocking?

[rah1420]

A solution is a global energy grid. Sure, it may be daytime in the US right now, but it's night-time in India.

And if the electric companies have any sense at all, a "global energy grid" should be keeping them up at night. If I were a betting man, I'd say within the next couple hundred years we could see feasibility studies on a global grid.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[hansonc]

I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure my energy use peaks in the evening.... you know when it's dark and I have to turn on lights... and I'm home... and I'm heating my home... and doing laundry or washing dishes...

Re:What's in your stocking?

[Red Flayer]

I think we'll see studies as soon as we have the capacity for economically feasible distributed energy production (such as the solar cells mentioned here ramped up in scale). I think feasibility studies will be happening in the next fifty years. Decentralized power production is really what the power companies fear.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[Paulrothrock]

Yes, but peak electrical energy use is during the day, and the yearly peak is in the summer. So putting solar panels on a lot of roofs all connected to the grid would help reduce our fossil fuel use and make it easier on the power plants since it takes a lot of work to vary their power output. And it will help prevent brownouts.

And if you get paid for the electricity you feed back into the grid, you could significantly reduce or eliminate your electricity bill. And once you've got the solar panels, adding a few batteries and a charge controller would be a great way to make a UPS for a couple rooms in your house.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[Slugster]

This is true.

There's only three problems with solar power installations: the cost of solar cells, the cost of inverters, and the cost of storage batteries.

Solar cells without storage batteries is only helpful for things that you only need to run during peak daylight hours--or if you live in an area that doesn't have enough power capability for peak-load use times (such as California, with its regular rolling blackouts in certain areas during the summer).

The huge costs of residential whole-house solar setups makes them economically unattractive to most people where utility power is an available option... the only places in the US they're popular (or even common) is where there are big government subsidies available.... such as in California. Outside of areas with such subsidies, solar system contractors won't claim that a suburban house system will save money, because overall,,, -it won't.

It's my understanding that in most cases, a windmill will give a greater return of electricity for its cost than a solar panel will--but there again is a problem. The main factor of a windmill is how high it can be mounted, and 25 feet off the ground doesn't get you much in terms of wind speed. They don't really start cooking until they're mounted 150 or 200 feet off the ground, and I don't know that's something I'd care to see suburbia even attempt.
~

Re:What's in your stocking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are in the minority, see most people SLEEP at night. The majority of homes have home entertaiment, appliances and just about any other gadget running during the day. Asumming you're not a 30 year-old living in your mothers basement, you probably work, and use electricity there too, during the day!!

Re:What's in your stocking?

[michaelmalak]

Let's test out the Ron-Paul-offtopic-moderation here.

Going beyond technology and into politics, before the 20th century (really, before Marx), there was individualism, plus corporations were strictly limited by law in geography and lifespan. The 20th century had experiments in communism, nationalism, and capitalism gone amok. Now we realize our mistakes and are seeking out individualism once again, and have found a way to it in Ron Paul.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[sm62704]

I'd like to think you're right but I'm not hopeful.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[philicorda]

"Before the 20th century musicians made their money by performing. During the 20th century many musicians made their money by recording music. After the advent of the internet musicians will once again make their money by performing and use their recordings as advertising (as everybody but the RIAA bands do now)."

Piffle.
Recorded music is an artform that first appeared in the 20th century, and is distinctly different from acoustic live music. To say people should not be paid for it is to say that only certain musical genres should make money.

Anyway, no one makes any money gigging. You have absolutely no idea how expensive and how time consuming it is. The gigs are to advertise the recordings.

Just work out how much a band with four members and a single roadie/manager/sound guy would have to make every day by gigging to feed everyone and pay the rent.
You'd need to be doing 4-5 gigs a week, every week, all year. How long can a small band do that before they exhaust their fanbase? Probably a couple of months. That's assuming their fanbase is not scattered thinly all over the world, and can actually make it to the local venues the band can reach.

Only the larger or RIAA acts can play places large enough for the economies of scale to kick in and start making profit.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[ffflala]

Before the 20th century musicians made their money by performing. During the 20th century many musicians made their money by recording music. After the advent of the internet musicians will once again make their money by performing and use their recordings as advertising (as everybody but the RIAA bands do now).

Eh, that's not quite so.

Before the 20th century, it is unlikely that musicians did not make the bulk of their money by performing. Historically, it would appear that publishing and commissions were far more lucrative.

Live music performances were far more common before the 1900s than they are now, odd though that may seem. Contemporary club venues and cover charges were not the prevalent model of live performance at that time. Chamber, church, and open public performances were more common, not to mention the standard evening's entertainment around the piano. There were operas and symphony concerts of course, but the structure of these performances wasn't exactly analogous to modern opera and symphony. And there would be very little similarity to catching your favorite band at a show as you can today.

It's not in the link below, but I believe the first song to sell a million copies sold was in the 1820's. Many of the biggest composers lived at the mercy of support from various royal courts; getting a job as a court composer was how one made it really big, like Mozart. Alternately, birth into a wealthy family (Mendelssohn) was another route.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_music_publishing

Re:What's in your stocking?

[rah1420]

I would agree with you except that I still think that some technology needs to happen to overcome the oceanic barriers. With the exception of the Bering Strait, the continents are, for the intent of power distribution, effectively isolated. And the Bering Strait is no picnic to fish a wire across either, if I'm not mistaken.

Once the technology barriers were overcome, connecting the continents through the Bering Strait would effectively connect everywhere save Greenland and Australia/Antarctica.

Would a global cartel decide to go ahead and do that, I could see terrorists with wet dreams about incapacitating the "Bering Strait Interconnect."

Re:What's in your stocking?

[Red Flayer]

Residential power use if lower than industrial/commercial power use... we're talking about total grid load

Re:What's in your stocking?

[jbengt]

Piffle.

I personally know a woman in a band that makes all of their money touring. That's a full time band, not people that wait tables during the week and do gigs on the weekend. True, they would love to get a recording contract and a shot at making it big, but even then, the recording contract would probably be less money net than their touring.

Also, the parent to your post never said that musicians shouldn't be paid for their recordings.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[philicorda]

Out of interest, do they play all original music or are they a cabaret/covers band? And how many people are in the band?

Re:What's in your stocking?

[jollyreaper]

Before the 20th century there were few wires. During the 20th century wires were everywhere - strung from poles, on your phone, TV, computer eqiopment, everything that used electrity. After the 20th century everything is wireless. That's exactly the thing that starts to make my head hurt. Back when I was growing up, turn of the century meant yonks ago, 1900's. Now it means just a few years back. When people referred to the wireless, that was ancient history, like before WWII. Now wireless technology is cutting edge. Any day now they're going to bring back "colored" as an acceptable term for black people and I'll be completely lost.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[sm62704]

I know several people who make all their money performing as well.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[sm62704]

Any day now they're going to bring back "colored" as an acceptable term for black people and I'll be completely lost.

First the word "nigger" was offensive, and rightly so. "Nigger" means "slave" to a black person, and a slave was just another farm animal.

So polite folks used "colored". The some comedian talked about the white woman with the red neck and blue hair calling him "colored" so it was changed to "black" Then "black was offensive so...

Some people beg to be insulted and it doesn't matter what you say.

Even more amusing (to me) is homosexuals. A "fag" is something a British person sucks on (a cigarette), a "fruit" is something you eat, "queer" means "out of the ordinary". Purely descriptive, and I suspect all those terms were originally coined by homosexuals themselves.

Now they want to be called "gay" despite the fact that 50% of "gay" people have attempted suicide. Now "gay" is being used by teenagers as a synonym for "stupid".

A rose by any other name... personally I think the way to fight racism and homophobia is to be considerate of others' feelings and grow a sense of humor, whatever your race or sexual orientation.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[jbengt]

THey are a country/rock band doing festivals, bars, opening acts, mostly small/medium size venues. They want to play their own music, but their venues want them to cover. 5 members: lead singer/guitar/harmonica, rythm guitar, keyboard/sax/accordian, drums, and my friend's duaghter, fiddle/mandolin. She's done a couple of indie CDs as well, but hasn't made any money with them.

Re:What's in your stocking?

[philicorda]

Thanks for the reply.
I thought it would be a cover or pit band or something. There is nothing wrong with playing covers (it's all about making people enjoy themselves after all).
You don't really need to have recordings or an established fanbase either, as people know pretty much what they are going to get in advance.

It's not the part of the music industry I'm in. I only work with original acts, for better or for worse.
I guess I've been doing it so long I tend to see everything from that perspective.

How practical

[downix]

Will they last, are they durable, is it flexible or rigid? Lot of questions left to answer on the solar front.

However, if I can shingle my roof with these things, all the better!

Re:How practical

[tinrobot]

They have a 25 year warranty, so hopefully they'll last at least that long.

They are printed on aluminum instead of glass so yes, they are flexible.

Re:How practical

[Xenius]

The first paragraph of the article states: "Well-financed solar start-up Nanosolar on Tuesday said it has started shipping its flexible thin-film solar cells, meeting its own deadline and marking a milestone for alternative solar-cell materials." So they're certainly flexible. I'd also imagine they last as least as long as other solar cells if they're building a 1 megawatt power plant with them.

Re:How practical

[budgenator]

well since the title of TFA is "Nanosolar prints flexible solar cells" I would think that means yes

Re:How practical

[misleb]

I read that they were printing on aluminum. So it sounds like it would be pretty rigid... and even usable as shingles.

Re:How practical

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, hopefully they will last that long. If there turns out to be an unforseen, inherent, problem with this type of cell they certainly won't be capable of honoring the warranty beyond a point which bankrupts the company... BP OTOH, now if they make a 25 year cell then they would have to pay every damn penny back.
I bought a 70watt/20v panel ob ebay for less than $100 shipped (which approaches 1$/watt) - it still works but the backing has separated and is trying to peel off. Just a white plastic-like reflective/protective sticky film. At least it is not taking the very delicate and thin, nearly transparent, layer of silicon off, but it reminds me that a cheap no-name panel is useless without a warranty.

Re:How practical

[timeOday]

Coincidentally, I had to replace the roof on my home lately and 25 years is the same as the warranty for a good-quality standard (not solar) roof.

Eventually.

[xlsior]

From the article: Roscheisen said the manufacturing process the company has developed will enable it to eventually deliver solar electricity for less than a dollar per watt

Re:Eventually.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it's better than 'éventuellement'.

Re:Eventually.

[YouTookMyStapler]

If the printed panels are effective at collecting solar energy, combined with a low cost of manufacturing, it will make solar panels affordable for almost every income level, not just the incredibly wealthy.

Re:Eventually.

[xstonedogx]

I'm not sure you emphasized the correct word:

Roscheisen said the manufacturing process the company has developed will enable (the company) to eventually deliver solar electricity for less than a dollar per watt

It sounds like the technology is already in place. My guess is that they need to pay for development and/or wait for economies of scale.

Re:Eventually.

[adpowers]

Or they figure there is so much pent up demand for solar panels that they can sell at market rates. They'll make a killing at that price, which can be used for paying off their debt and expanding capacity. As they saturate the market, they can lower prices and still make a nice profit. Eventually panels will be commoditized and then they will sell for less than a dollar per watt. Until they can fulfill the demand, why lower prices?

Of course its cheaper!

[weaponx86]

It generates cash at the rate of $1/watt!

Re:Of course its cheaper!

[sm62704]

Yes, but now you're paying not per watt, but per watt hour.

Hopefully this will just be the start...

[tinrobot]

Once they get their manufacturing up to speed, prices will most likely get even lower.

Too bad they're already sold out for the first 18 months of production, because at those prices, you could make a typical house solar for about $1500-2000 for the panels, plus another few grand for installation and hookup. At that price, it makes a lot of sense.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Overzeetop]

I think you're off by almost two orders of magnitude. A typical, all-electric house (no nat gas, LP or oil) is going to have a minimum of one 200A-240V panel, and will likely have two (50- or 100kW total). Iirc, the rule of thumb for inverters and storage is a dollar of that backend stuff for every dollar of panel (that could also be off by quite a bit...and probably not in the homeowner's favor). Once you get that part figured out (say $100k) then all you have to do is get 4000SF of southerly facing rooftop, and you're good as gold.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Reality Master 101]

Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?

Everyone laments the number of stupid people, but no one stops wonder if they're one of them. :)

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

I've been looking seriously into going solar on my house. I live in Arizona and it costs about $18,000 to $20,000 for the initial installation. You end up with about $4,000 out of pocket once the conversion is done and you've gotten the tax breaks, etc. The process of installation takes about 6 months. I don't have the start up capital to do it.

As soon as I can I'm going to because I'm sick of the high electric bills in the summer. I can do nothing about it because you have to run your air conditioner when it's 115 degrees outside. I'm very energy conscious but I still end up using over 3000 kW-Hours during the worst months. I'm not a greeny either, I just don't like the cost. I long for the day when I don't have to worry about this anymore and I can run whatever appliances I want, whenever I want. As it is now I try to run my vacuum cleaner and laundry on weekend only when the power rate is lower. I would very much like to do things on my schedule and not the power company schedule.

For me solar is about freedom and convenience. I don't give a rip about the environment because I don't think man could destroy it even if he tried. The doomsday people have been wrong for decades, but the earth just keeps on healing itself no matter what the going wisdom is at the time.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[AshtangiMan]

I love the assumptions. Flat roof vs. Pitched. Southern facing walls can also hold solar panels. Solar panels can go in the yard, on storage buildings, carports etc. I know a few people right now who have solar only houses, with Propane for cooking and back-up heat, with a lot less than 4000 SF of solar panels. A lot less. Perhaps you, or the majority of USians would need a) more, or b) to use much less. The rule of thumb you quote would not necessarily hold true for a new technology. The inverter is a fixed cost, and storage is a slowly moving cost, mostly moving to cheaper depending on what technology you are pursuing. The need for storage is not a given for most people, as most are already grid connected and the grid is therefor a very economically viable alternative to other methods of storage. I could get a $.13 per kWh credit as a producer without actually selling any of the power I produce (ie, I get paid to produce it and I still get to use it all). Alternatively I could net meter and sell the power I feed to the grid at the same price I buy it for later. While there are real concerns about viability of solar depending on many variables, your straw man is very disingenuous and not helpful for any part of the debate.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[tinrobot]

Just because someone has a 100kw panel doesn't mean they use 100kw. You'd pop every circuit breaker in house if you used that much.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "typical all-electric house" uses electricity for cooking and heating too, but that's not what you'd use solar power for. You'd use solar power to run your computers, the TV, the lights, and *maybe* the fridge. Also, you don't have to have enough power for peak load as long as you're hooked in to the grid, just enough for your average use. When you're not using much, you sell your excess power to the power company, and when you need more (to use your electric stove, say), you buy back.
Heck, even if the solar installation covers less than your average use, it could still be very economical to get solar. For example: PG&E in California has a tiered pricing scheme, with the electricity at the highest tiers costing more than 30 cents/kWh. If you can get solar power at less than that, it would make sense to use it, even if it's only enough to push you back in to the cheaper pricing tiers.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The doomsday people have been wrong for decades, but the earth just keeps on healing itself no matter what the going wisdom is at the time."

Tell that to the dinosaurs. The climate changes. We've had ice ages. Get your head out of your ass and look at the science.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[the_B0fh]

You're really silly. The issue is not about humans destroying the earth. The issue is about humans screwing up the environment enough that the new environment cannot easily support the current population *AND* lifestyle.

If you take out the current coastlines, we have a lot less land to live on.

If the weather gets a lot more temperamental and extreme, your summers will go up by 10-20 degrees, and your winter goes down by another 10-20 degrees, what happens to you and your lifestyle? You can always pretend to be an eskimo in winter, but is that what you want to do?

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Ironsides]

A typical, all-electric house (no nat gas, LP or oil) is going to have a minimum of one 200A-240V panel, and will likely have two (50- or 100kW total).

You're math is wrong. Very wrong. No one uses 100kW, except maybe Al Gore. The main breaker to a house is typically 200 AMP and 120V, peaking household usage at 24kW. But no one ever maxes out their house. Average power consumption over a month for my parents house is 2kW. So, say it peaks during the day and that's 4kW. More than an order of magnitude less than your 100kW.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[silicone_chemist]

I was following these guys [http://www.energyinnovations.com/] for awhile and their goal was 1 $/watt installed cost. They are going with the concentrator approach which I'm a fan of since it reduces the need for the most expensive part of the equation, the PV's. Hit an array with 20, 40, 80, 100 times the sun and your array can be fairly small and consequently cheap.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[khallow]

Once they get their manufacturing up to speed, prices will most likely get even lower.

What are their prices? As far as I can tell, it's well above their stated goal of $1 per watt. Sure, if they can meet their goal, then we would expect that there's a good chance that they can do better than that. After all, the $1 per watt was chosen not because it's a natural limit of solar cell manufacturing, but because that is a point where the cells become competitive with other technologies for routine power generation.

My concern here is that this company hasn't yet delivered on its goal. It appears to be making some good moves (eg, apparently meeting its production schedule), but it still needs to demonstrate that it can stay in business.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Rei]

Indeed. Rules of thumb are awful for solar installations because the power production, geometry, and needs vary so much. You really need to calculate it for your given setup. Offgrid is a huge premium to pay, and with panels this cheap, it's now going to be an even bigger premium. Not only do you have to pay for the batteries, but also their maintenance, replacement, and the charge controller, which at $5.80/amp, isn't negligable either. For on-grid, panels are typically the overwhelming portion of the costs. With panels this cheap, you'll spend almost as much on the inverter and installation as you will on the panels ;)

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

I love this shit. I knew the kooks would come out in force when I wrote that. I'm so amused by the lunacy.

By the way, I'm a pilot, Aerospace Engineer, and Computer Science Engineer. I'm well educated on the environment, weather patterns and changes. I was watching this long before it was a political issue. Don't try to educate me on the science you incompetent, ignorant sheep. You would do well to step away from your little moment in time where you're all caught up in todays fad and actually look at the science and the trend data.

You should also consider data from before the industrial era where mankind was not the cause. The temperature swing was more dramatic. Mankind is not the cause now either. How do you explain the cooling trend in the 70s? You guys are the same tossers who were out there in the 70s claiming the Ice Age was coming, the same alarmists who were warning that everyone would soon burn up because of the ozone hole (which is now smaller, but the hole has always been there) in the 80s, the same losers who warned of the earth overcrowding in the 90s and you're the same zealots who think the Earth is on the brink of disaster if global temperatures rise.

I've got some news for you, Global temperatures can rise quite a bit, and they have in the past and mankind was fine and will continue to be fine. The only way I won't maintain my modest lifestyle is if you dicks take it away with your misplaced lobbying for more oppressive government.

I'm not going to convince you of anything. I know that. But remember this: This fad will pass like all the others. You will be forgotten. There will be some other fad that comes along. Perhaps at that time you'll be a little more open to the realization that there's more to science than politics. I know that because I've participated in science for so long. I'm sorry if I can't buy into this nonsense. Live your life and be happy. Stop worrying about trends that come and go. If you're truly interested in science then study it. Otherwise stay with politics, that way you don't have to prove *anything*.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

What's your point here? Mankind destoyed the dinosaurs? We caused the ice age?

The climate is changing? That's a brilliant statement. I agree, the universe is not stagnant.

I'll concede that the doomday people were right about the dinosaurs. If mankind is not careful we might cause their extinction again.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

you can live on 1500-2000 watts for your home? how?? I'm a green freak and have had PV arrays and could not dip below the 4500 watt number.

I was more comfortable when I was generating 6500 watts so that I had enough to completely charge my battery bank by noon of each day

1.5Kw is easily consumed in a typical home. Most TV's eat over 500 watts. Desktop PC's are typically 350 watt monsters, and those 14 watt CF bulbs add up fast. nothing sucks more than watching tv on your 1500PV array and having your wife brown out the whole house because she made popcorn in that 1000 watt microwave.

TRIPLE what you think you need, THAT is the reality of what you need in PV for home.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[tinrobot]

2000 dollars, not 2000 watts.

In my state they give big fat rebates which reduce the cost of solar to less than half.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're math is wrong. You are English is wrong :-).

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

You know if you keep picking that scab it can eventually become infected and even lead to gangrene.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[nmos]

I'm not a greeny either, I just don't like the cost. I long for the day when I don't have to worry about this anymore and I can run whatever appliances I want, whenever I want. As it is now I try to run my vacuum cleaner and laundry on weekend only when the power rate is lower. I would very much like to do things on my schedule and not the power company schedule.

If that's your goal then you can pretty much scratch solar off you list. One of the first things people learn when they start to look into solar is that it's much cheaper to reduce your consumption (effecient appliances, better insulation, reduction in phantom loads, cfls etc.) and then buy a smallar solar system then it is to try to buy a system that will meet their current usage. If you don't like doing laundry on weekends when power is cheaper you're really going to hate coming home to do laundry during lunch because that's when the sun is the strongest or putting it off a day or two because it's cloudy. At least weekends are 100% predictable.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Rei]

How do you explain the cooling trend in the 70s? You guys are the same tossers who were out there in the 70s claiming the Ice Age was coming,

Not really.

the same alarmists who were warning that everyone would soon burn up because of the ozone hole (which is now smaller, but the hole has always been there) in the 80s

Not really.

But, hey:

Don't try to educate me on the science

Finding the sand comfortable around your head, eh?

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[ari_j]

Don't forget another $50,000-100,000 for enough batteries to survive when you live in a colder climate and sometimes get 2 months of cloudy skies and freezing temperatures.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Overzeetop]

No, mains in US houses are 240V, with two 120 volt legs 180 degrees out of phase. Homes built before 1980 are likely to have a 100 or 150A panel (which is likely overloaded); those after will probably have a 200A panel. Modern homes over 2000SF which use all electric will likely have at least two 200A panels.

As for the power used, a typical electric tank hot water heater pulls about 6000watts. I have two instant electric heaters in the kitchen (each about the size of two paperbacks) which pull 10kW each when they operate, and a full sized electric instant water heater will pull about 29kW. The heatpump will pull about the same when it's really cold outside and it needs to fire the resistance coils, and about 15kW when it's running full tilt in heat pump mode (in either direction, heat or cool). My electric oven (an old double Whirlpool model) can do about 10kw as well.

There are a lot of things in a house which will drive the peak load (and hence the inverters). In the winter (peak usage), we can use up to about 3500-3800kWh in a month, or 120kWh per day. Unfortunately, this occurs when we only get 9-10 hours of sun, and without tracking, probably only about 3-4 hours of collection. That's 30-40kW needed to meet peak demand. FWIW, I live in a 1600SF, 1960s ranch with a full basement. A modern house with better insulation (without going insane) can be about 70-75% of that number. The annual average use is a bit under half the peak month.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[DerekLyons]

As soon as I can I'm going to because I'm sick of the high electric bills in the summer. I can do nothing about it because you have to run your air conditioner when it's 115 degrees outside.

No you don't have to run the air conditioner when it is 115 degrees outside - you choose to do so rather than adapting to living at those temperatures.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

Indeed. I'm not bothered by what you think of my conclusions. So if that means I have my head in the sand by your standards, then it's a damn good thing that what you say doesn't matter.

You're obviously in the majority here as I get modded flamebait and you're modded informative which is group think for others agree with you and disagree with me. Again, not bothered by this. Neither is science and fortunately it never will be.

Also, your link proves my point. It supports what I'm saying. Why did you link with "Not Really"? Why do you say my head is in the sand?

Let me get this straight. You link to something that supports my points, then you imply that what I say is not true which is not what your links indicate, and then you also think I've got my head in the sand? Only on Slashdot. You get modded up for implying you disagree with me, but you don't. I get modded down because I'm in your face about it.

This is a fun place ;-)

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Rei]

You link to something that supports my points

Apparently the sand's gotten in your eyes as well if you think links that point that it's essentially been proven that the Montreal protocol slowed the growth of the ozone holes, but that they haven't been "shrinking" as a whole, just levelling out (including the large 2005 hole, also linked), somehow support your argument. Or if you think the same about a link that points out that there was only a hemispheric cooling trend from the 40s to the 70s, not global, and that the concensus at the time about the propsect of an ice age was, "we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate?" somehow supports your argument.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[tehdaemon]

Nobody in their right mind would ever use PV electricity, generated on-site, to heat water. Solar heats water directly just fine and much more cheaply. The same goes for heating the house. It is far cheaper to put in more insulation and use radiant heating than to ever think of using electric heat. That leaves your oven. Most solar homes would use propane/natural gas. (not sure I would, I don't like monthly bills...)

T

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

Whoa there partner! Slow down a bit! As I moused over the links they all seemed to be pointing to the same web site. So I only went here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/global-cooling-again/ Pardon me for not following what appeared to be dupes. Next time you want to debate something, just list the references for the simple folk like myself. The next paragraphs are in regard to this link. The point you missed was the hysteria this illustrates. Even if the data was found not to be true, people still ran with it and lobbied for certain things because of it. They expected everyone to do something with the information, even if it was bad information. I was making a case for social implications. So you did illustrate that point well. I'm not arguing data the all. It is what it is. I don't think I've indicated it was anything but. We do disagree on the results of this data and what will be caused if certain trends continue.

we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate?" somehow supports your argument. This thoroughly supports my stance. A correllary to this is we can't predict it because we can't model it. We can't model it because we don't understand it. But we sure as hell can conclude that man is changing what we can't model and don't understand. I rest my case. You lose. Thanks for playing. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Jeremi]

I don't give a rip about the environment because I don't think man could destroy it even if he tried.

You're absolutely right. However the question isn't whether mankind can "destroy" the environment, but whether mankind can/will degrade it enough that it can no longer support the human population. All signs indicate that our current course is unsustainable -- that is, that we are using up the planet's natural resources faster than the planet can regenerate them. Given that, it's a matter of common sense that something will have to give -- once the planet's natural resources are largely used up, we will either have to learn to live without them, or a significant percentage of us will die.

The doomsday people have been wrong for decades, but the earth just keeps on healing itself no matter what the going wisdom is at the time.

Earth can heal itself, given time. But our current activities deplete it much faster than the rate it which it can recover. That isn't speculation, that's cold fact, and those who deny it are merely whistling past the graveyard.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

You bring up some interesting questions that are worth responding to.

The system I've been investigating doesn't remove you from the grid. You are a power company producer during the day and a user at night. You sell back excess power when you're not using it and you use whatever you normally would at night.

The net result, as least as it stands now, is that you can have a $0 electric bill.

I've already done much to reduce power usage including but not limited to:
  - florescent lights
  - better roof insulation
  - double paned windows
  - turning up the temperature on the A/C
  - using gas appliances (which are much less costly in my area)
  - adjusting the times I do certain power using tasks

There are others but you get the idea. Solar doesn't remove you from the grid and it doesn't mean you don't have power at night. You might want to check what the power company in your area offers for various options. It might not be as bad as you think.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

I can't believe you took the time to even post. I can't mod you stupid, so I'll just call it stupid. Stupid.

It's not about me anyway. I have pets and a family that can't take that kind of heat. I've worked outside through the summer in Arizona so I can actually handle those temperatures just fine. But I don't expect my pets or relatives to live like this. That really would be cruel. So I choose to not be an asshole.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

I'm going to play devils advocate not to pick a fight but to point out a few things.

Less people are dying in the world than ever before. There's higher survival even in countries that aren't as developed as the US. I don't begin to believe that worlds problems are on the brink of being solved, but keeping that in mind, the lower death rate is one of the biggest reasons for current population explosion.

I'm an optimist. Man is smart. Man will adapt. I can't say how or I'd capitalize on it ;-) But I'm sure man will learn to use resources differently as soon as certain resources become scarce and thus expensive. Once the cost balance shifts, there will be interest in innovating to solve whatever problems come up. With some government guidance in terms of resonable regulation, everything will be fine.

I'm not whistling to the grave and neither are you. I'm more worried about paying my bills on time. That's a far cry from death.

Just keep it in perspective. We're not going to die. We're going to adapt. All species that don't adapt, die. Species that adapt, live. I believe we're going to live and adapt. I think you're wrong for believing otherwise.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! A moron as well as stubborn and illiterate, huh?

You can't read a link to see that several links are all pointing to different documents. Who is this 'They' who you are talking about who lobbied for things? Climate scientists? Prove it!

You last comments about how it proves your point because we can't model it - More idiocy! We couldn't accurately model THEM, 35+ years ago. NOW we have consensus among all the leading climate science organizations, and models that we can truest at least enough to make some viable predictions.

But I'm not trying to change your mind. You've already proven quite adequately that you cannot read, see, OR understand reasons, even when your head is dunked in the trough of knowlege.

But you make it easier for the rest of us to see your mistakes. Thanks! ...

Idiot.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Rei]

As I moused over the links they all seemed to be pointing to the same web site

So you're an internet novice to boot. You sure keep elevating yourself in the eyes of everyone here.

Even if the data was found not to be true, people still ran with it and lobbied for certain things because of it.

The scientific community did no such thing. There were a few scare articles in the popular press, but the scientific community doesn't control the popular press. They control peer reviewed journals, and those were quite muted, pushing only for further study so that we could develop better models. Which we did.

Let's sum up: They couldn't model it in the 70s. They realized they couldn't model it in the 70s. They stated that they couldn't model it in the 70s. They can model it now. They realize they can model it now. They state that they can model it now.

How, exactly, does this back up your notion that the scientific community has been getting things wrong?

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

Wasn't talking about the scientific community I said people. How many posts have to say that before you actually read it? You even quoted it. What your problem?

I disagree that it can be modeled now. There is plenty of evidence for this. The reason research continues and models are constantly being worked on and improved is because they are not perfect. So I'm left to conclude that if a modification is made to the model (which is always happening, otherwise research would stop) it is because the last models had problems and were not working. It does not take a scientist to make this simple observation. It only takes basic academic honesty. Run from the scientists who are unable to articulate where there may be shortcomings in a particular model. They should be rightfully discredited.

So you're an internet novice to boot. You sure keep elevating yourself in the eyes of everyone here. Compared to you, I suppose I am. I also don't have a clue what I'm talking about and apparently I can't read because I explained very clearly what happened and I see the words in my post. I just can't figure out why I can see the part that explains this mouse-over thing and you can't. I even see it in your quoted part! Hell, it must be my internet incompetence. What else could it be?

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

But you make it easier for the rest of us to see your mistakes. Thanks! ...

Idiot. Dear Idiot,
      It was no problem whatsoever. That's what we're here for: To educate and inform. Please stop by anytime you need to learn something new and exciting. We're always here even if we're not all there!

Sincerly,
      Mr. Stubborn Illiterate Moron

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Watson Ladd]

Your argument is an ad hominem. You are claiming that because some people are misinterpreting data that your opponent is too. Now, you stated that you do not dispute the data, yet argue that climate cannot be modeled or understood. Finally, we do not understand everything about the behavior of turbulent flows. Does this mean that a plumber cannot say that water hammer will destroy your pipes?

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[fast turtle]

Well I'll have to correct you on those figures as I live in an All Electric House and my current avg. demand is 5.7kw per day. Of course this is during the winter with radiant heat in each room instead of a central heatpump that's highly efficient.

As to how expensive it is to switch to a PV Array? I've already priced it out and for the location I'm planning on building in, it's comparable to having power line installed as that cost is $100K due to distance. That's right, when you start to factor in the cost of running power line to an isolated location and it reaches $50+K, then PV begins to reach parity with a grid connection and I don't have to worry about ever increasing utility costs since the overall cost is amortized over a minimum of 25 years with an expected operational lifespan of 50 years per panel. The normal panel warranty for high quality panels is 25-40 years and not the 10-20 years you see for amorphous and other less efficient panels. Sorry but the actual costs are not born out by many of the assumptions being made by lots of folks contributing to this discussion.

For those interested, there's a very good book written in the Late 80's called "The New Solar Home" that includes a critical set of PV Array Size Calculation Sheets. Check your local Library and see if you can get a copy either through reservation or inter-library loan and simply copy the calculation sheets for later use in figuring how large of a PV array you would need as I've done. You already have the primary information on your personal demand and it's called an Electric Bill (shows the breakdown per avg. Daily usage). Very solid and with the work sheet you get a chance to examine the projected cost of switching yourself to PV power.

Of course when you factor it in on new construction, you suddenly realize that if the building permit authority in your community would require a minimum of 1KW of PV array per new home (roofs facing south) you could begin reducing overall peak daily deman (office buildings and such) along withe base load production by local production.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

Your argument is an ad hominem. It is not ad hominem. You didn't follow the discussion and your logic is erroneous.

You are claiming that because some people are misinterpreting data that your opponent is too. No one disputes the data. This applies to myself and my opponent. Anyone can look at the data. It takes a scientific mind to formulate a testable theory. Theories that can't be tested or proven are not theories, they are called hypotheses. I disagree with the hypothesis. It is still under investigation by the scientific community. This will be a long process because no one can define an experiment that adequately controls the variables at this point to test the hypothesis: Man can control global warming and that the trends, regardless of cause, will forcast devastation. This is a poor and unsupported hypothesis regardless of who states it, whether I like the person or not. What is ad hominem about that?

Now, you stated that you do not dispute the data, yet argue that climate cannot be modeled or understood. So did he. That's why I mocked his quote and destoyed his baseless conclusions. Not disputing data has nothing to do with whether climate can be modeled or understood. This statement is absolute garbage.

Finally, we do not understand everything about the behavior of turbulent flows. Does this mean that a plumber cannot say that water hammer will destroy your pipes? I'm sorry but I think you have no clue what you're talking about here. Can you explain what turbulent flow has to do with shock wave propagation? Plumbers can say that a "Water Hammer" will destroy pipes because compressible flow and properties like the bulk modulus of water are well understood. Experiments to replicate these theories have confirmed these facts in the field of fluid mechanics. Turbulent flow, which has nothing to do with this, is still an area of active study in fluid mechanics. Certain problems have to contain aspects of compressibility in the study of turbulent flow but not all turbulent flow study requires this to be considered. I could write a whole essay on this subject but jest of this post is to show that you have said absolutely nothing of value to anyone.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[nmos]

The system I've been investigating doesn't remove you from the grid. You are a power company producer during the day and a user at night.

I live in AZ as well and this is the first I've heard of AZ having a net metering progra, that makes a big difference. Looking at the APS site it looks like it was just approved this past Summer. Just a quick off the top of my head calc. makes it look like you could have a system pay for it'self in 2-5 years depending on exactly how close your system is sized to your needs. It still isn't entirely clear to me how this program would interact with the peak/off-peak pricing you describe (we don't have that in my part of AZ) so you still might end up shifting loads around but maybe not.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Jeremi]

Just keep it in perspective. We're not going to die. We're going to adapt. All species that don't adapt, die. Species that adapt, live. I believe we're going to live and adapt. I think you're wrong for believing otherwise.

I agree that homo sapiens won't go extinct. However, we'll be lucky if our "adapting" doesn't include the loss of a few billion no-longer-sustainable human lives. In that scenario, life will ultimately go on, but things will get pretty ugly for quite a while.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Ironsides]

I too live in an all electric house, but it uses a heat pump. Now, you do not use 5.7kw in a day. You might use 5.7kw instantaneously, but not in a day. The 4kw I gave was a peak instantaneous power consumption. I believe the average for the house I am in is about 40 kwH per day. Still less than the original numbers given.

Are you sure about that 5.7kwH per day? That seems a tad low, given the average for the country is closer to 24kwH/day.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

I'm not up on all the details either. Stuff like on-peak/off-peak. I am an APS customer, which means my source is the same as your source for information. There are also some local articles about it, but I can't remember the magazines. Maybe Arizona Highways? Not sure right now.

You ended up with the same numbers I did: 2-5 years. I have a 1600 sq ft home. I'm going to do it as soon as I can afford the start up.

I'm sure you read about it too but you can't do the installation yourself. You have to use an approved contractor so saving money on that end of it is out.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

Sounds like a doomsday scenario to me. So I don't agree with you at all. What you describe is just as catastophic as destroying the whole Earth. But I don't believe that's going to happen for a second.

There to much evidence that what you describe is not happening. Technology is getting better which happens to be an on going trend. Death rates are low, also an ongoing trend. And we continue to find new ways of using our resources, replenishing resources, and recycling resources.

That anyone thinks we're on some arbitrary timeline 'till we bust out is beyond my comprehension. You know, you're not the first person to say this kind of thing. I remember reading about Revelations in Sunday School. So these prophesies of doom have been around for a few thousand years, minimum.

You gotta lighten up man. Where the heck is all this doomsday stuff coming from anyway? Sounds like cultish priest stuff. Not trying to put you down, honest. But you gotta get out more. 'Cause this just don't make any sense.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Overzeetop]

Actually, the original poster was talking about a typical home - you know, like the 100 million in the US that already exist. Sure, you can build a solar house, and chain yourself back to fossil fuels for all of your heating and cooking...but then what's the point? You may as well put in a diesel generator. At least then you could run it off vegetable oil if you wanted to (and converted it for said purpose).

Besides, are you going to put in PVs and a hot water system? What happens when you take a shower or do laundry on a cloudy day? I guess you just get cold. Same with hydronic - if you use hot water to heat your house, you need massive heat storage capacity. Of course, the same can be said for PV. But the idea was cheap, simple solar. Not redesign the entire way a house works, adding tens of thousands of dollars in construction and engineering costs. I happen to be in the building industry, and hydronic heating and large storage tanks / masses are a significant expense.

Remember, the idea was to try and make this stuff cheap and simple. I'm simply pointing out that it's not, for a "typical" house.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh ...
So these links are also all the same, eh:
Not really
Not really
Don't bother responding, thanks.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Overzeetop]

Here's a data point:
  Again, 1600SF ranch on a basement, 1960s construction (R-11 walls, I've added R-25ish in the attic), new argon windows, all electric:

Peak month = $275 @ $0.07/kWh = 3900kWh, or about 131kWh per day
Annual avg = $150 @ $0.07/kWh = 2150kWh, or about 71kWh per day

Now, remember that this is all electric - hot water tank (inefficient), heat pump (13 SEER, decent), "old" house.

If the GP had his units correct, 5.7kW avg load is 137kWh per day. That's pretty close to my figure, and if he's using electric radiant (i.e. resistance) heat, I can see his usage being up there. With a $100,000 in line costs to string his new house, PV and thermal solar has a lot of room to play with. Propane is butt-ripping expensive - more expensive than electric resistance heat where I live. But with a good PV array, a backup diesel generator (run it on vegetable oil if you're a real greenie), good passive design, low voltage DC appliances, and some hot water solar, you could reasonably live off grid - maybe for less than your line costs. But, then again, most people just don't have the extra $100,000+ to live remote.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Raenex]

Forget all this doomsday stuff. There's quality of life to consider. You can look at places around the world that suffer from heavy pollution where laws to protect the environment are lax. You can look at where America was heading before it started caring about the environment. Your position is that you never want to think about the consequences of your actions on the environment. While understandable, it is completely selfish and naive.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

So what you're saying is that I live in America, the only country that cares and is doing the right thing for the world, yet I'm personally selfish and naive without regard to the consequences of my actions? Letting this part of the argument go (mainly because I don't care what you think about me), would it not follow that people like me are not the problem? Would it not seem that the other nations should be the focus of attention by persons such as yourself?

Following your line of condescension towards me, it would seem that my views and beliefs are irrelevant in your paradigm.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Raenex]

I live in America, the only country that cares and is doing the right thing for the world That's a patently absurd statement. There's a wide continuum.

would it not follow that people like me are not the problem? People like you are exactly the problem. They don't concern themselves with the consequences of their actions. America wouldn't have pollution control laws if everybody thought like you.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

That's a patently absurd statement. There's a wide continuum.

The whole thing was absurd. It was a troll and I caught you 'cause you bit the hook. The reason I was messing with you is because I found some of your conclusions about me offensive. Like this one:

While understandable, it is completely selfish and naive. So I had a little fun twisting your comments around. Actually, you have no idea what I think or why. I was pushing your buttons which, as it turns out, are quite sensitive.

If you have any interest in how I actually do think you can look up through the thread ancestry. Some of it is amusing, some of it will offend you, if nothing else it will be entertaining if you have even a shred of a sense of humor. You may disagree on certain things and that's cool but if you don't take it personal it will be enjoyable.

No hard feelings bro. This is a catch and release conservation program.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Raenex]

Actually, you have no idea what I think or why. I have a pretty good idea:

"I don't give a rip about the environment because I don't think man could destroy it even if he tried. The doomsday people have been wrong for decades, but the earth just keeps on healing itself no matter what the going wisdom is at the time. [...] Live your life and be happy. Stop worrying about trends that come and go."

If every person had this short-sighted attitude we wouldn't have any environmental laws.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[leet]

Here's what I actually said:

For me solar is about freedom and convenience. I don't give a rip about the environment because I don't think man could destroy it even if he tried. The doomsday people have been wrong for decades, but the earth just keeps on healing itself no matter what the going wisdom is at the time.

You are only reading what you want to too. I don't want to convert my house to solar for environmental reasons. That's not what motivates me to do what you should actually be supporting for your reasons. I grew up in LA and I remember how the smog used to hang over the basin. It's quite pleasant out there now. But even then we didn't destroy the environment. We tried and failed.

Actually every time we've tried to destroy the environment we've failed. And we'll continue to fail as every city here in the US solves it's problems thus affecting the whole. Another amazing thing keeps happening too. As power becomes more expensive, people like myself, middle class, trying to make a nominal living, look at ways we can make our lives better and be more efficient and look what happens. Somebody comes along and says, "You know. If we could make solar cheap enough, tie it into the grid, and then sell this system to the masses, we could become rich!" Scumbags like myself say, "You know, I'd like to lower my electric bill and I heard you can go solar on your house to do it!" and then what happens? Short-sighted people like me actually end up doing the right thing as technology improves and new options become available.

So you had no idea what I think or why. And even after reading this you might not. Oh, and I'd like you to name one doomsday prophecy that's come true. Except we wouldn't be engaged in this exchange if you could name one. So...

Live your life and be happy. Stop worrying about trends that come and go.

Re:Hopefully this will just be the start...

[Raenex]

I don't want to convert my house to solar for environmental reasons. Ok, I may have partially taken your "I don't give a rip about the environment" out of context, but I say partially because your general attitude has been that individuals shouldn't worry about the environment, and that every concern that comes along is just a fad. This attitude leads to a worse environment and bigger problems before corrective action is taken.

I grew up in LA and I remember how the smog used to hang over the basin. It's quite pleasant out there now. But even then we didn't destroy the environment. We tried and failed. Wouldn't it have been better not to have the smog in the first place?

Oh, and I'd like you to name one doomsday prophecy that's come true. I prefaced my comments with "Forget all this doomsday stuff. There's quality of life to consider." So don't blame me as the only one misreading arguments.

Live your life and be happy. Stop worrying about trends that come and go. Think globally. Act locally. The whole is made up of individuals.

Inaccurate summary

[Chainsaw Karate]

From the article: "Roscheisen said the manufacturing process the company has developed will enable it to eventually deliver solar electricity for less than a dollar per watt"

Nowhere in the article does it mention the price of the first run of panels. I'd imagine they are much more expensive than $1/watt.

Re:Inaccurate summary

[moosesocks]

I seem to remember reading somewhere the last time NanoSolar was mentioned on /. that the company was quoted as saying that their variable costs are approximately $0.55 per watt of solar panel produced.

They, of course, have fairly considerable start-up costs to recoup, and want to make some sort of profit.

Heck.... bringing $1/watt solar panels to the market (and still making a profit) have these guys destined to become ridiculously, and insanely wealthy, whilst doing a huge service to humanity.

The technology's legit, and I'm really excited to see how it's going to be used in coming years.

Re:Inaccurate summary

[Lord Ender]

If it costs them one dollar per watt to produce, eventually, through the magic of capitalism, market forces will scale up production and shrink margins until they sell for about one dollar per watt. It's an inevitability.

Re:Inaccurate summary

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even worse.

Slashdot:

"A Silicon Valley start-up called Nanosolar has shipped its first solar panels -- priced at $1 a watt."

CNet:

"On the company's blog, CEO Martin Roscheisen ... said the manufacturing process the company has developed will enable it to eventually deliver solar electricity for less than a dollar per watt, which would be significantly cheaper than fossil fuel sources of power generation."

Nanosolar Blog:

"the world's lowest-cost solar panel - which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as $.99/Watt;" Interesting game of gossip, eh?

Yahoo!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really know whether global warming is real and dangerous. Now just maybe I don't have to care.

Can we conver Arizona with these (and use ultracapacitors for night power)? Please?

Re:Yahoo!

[explosivejared]

You sir are a genius. No really I mean it. I wish there were more people like you that put the ad nauseum hashed debate about warming or climate change or whatever to the side. There is a legitimate argument for a lot of different viewpoints about the climate. The area where there is no room for different viewpoints is on the limited nature of fossil energy resources. Whether or not you buy into anthropogenic climate change or not, you should support more efficient non-fossil fuel energy sources. Diversity is the key. For two long we've all of our eggs in one basket, and it hasn't been until recently that we've realized that come back and bite us. Cheap solar like this could go a long way to broadening available energy as we start to see the real issue with energy arise, namely how do we support a rapidly industrializing third world and a world population that will reach nine billion in fifty years. Quantity is a real problem. We've built our economies on cheap energy, and now we're gonna have to work to keep that going.

Re:Yahoo!

[Rei]

Quite a few problems with that. :)

For one, I can't picture production capacity catching up with demand enough to lower prices to that level for at least a decade, and even that would take a trenemdous expansion rate. There's no way Nanosolar is going to *sell* at $0.99/W when the current market price if $5.80/W and they don't have enough production capacity to meet supply. They stated that they can *turn a profit* selling at $0.99/W. They'll sell for $5.70/W, $5.60/W, or whatnot -- whatever's the most they can charge and move all their capacity. They're not idiots. They're going to earn every last dollar they can, and pump it into new production facilities. Only as the market becomes saturated will prices drop.

Secondly, global warming is going to happen even if all killed ourselves today. There's too much inertia behind the problem. What we effect today is what things are going to be like in 2050, 2100, not the next decade or two.

Third, this doesn't address vehicles. Still have to take care of that gorilla in the corner. It also doesn't address industry CO2 pollution unrelated to power demand, such as steel production. Still, it's a great start.

Fourth, you don't need to cover a big expanse of desert at all. There's more than enough rooftop space in the world to meet demand. Example: China has 32521 square kilometers of urban area. Assuming 11% efficiency on these cells and 25% of that urban area being able to be coated in cells, and assuming an average insolation of 200W/m^2, we get a total power production of about 180 terrawatts. Current *world* demand is only 10 terrawatts. See where I'm going with this?

Fifth, ultracapacitors are too expensive for power storage currently. We're still going to need baseload power production until a cheaper method of storing power can be found. One concept that I find interesting relates to electric cars. To charge a car quickly in your garage, you're going to need a home charging unit. Your house just can't deliver power nearly fast enough for a five to ten minute charge. The idea I read is to use those for power balancing: have them charge themselves when there's a glut of electricity and discharge into the grid when there's a shortage. In exchange, utilities would give consumers a significant discount on their power bill.

Re:Yahoo!

[Rei]

Minor correction: cells this cheap would probably lay flat, aren't going to be heliostat mounted, and I didn't consider the derate factor, so that production figure is probably more like 70TW or so instead of 180TW. Still, you get the picture. Rooftop space is way more than enough to meet our needs.

Re:Yahoo!

[Rei]

You're right. All of the world's climate scientists are idiots, and didn't figure out this obvious thing which you did. Right? Because that's the implications of what you're saying: you think essentially all of the world's climate scientists are complete and utter idiots.

Of course, what you said is completely untrue, but hey, who cares? Like most anti-global warming arguments, they sound good to someone who knows absolutely nothing about the subject.

Re:Yahoo!

[networkBoy]

Thank you for the link, as I had not seen that before. I'll discuss it at lunch with my physicist friend (IANAP).
You do realize you come off a bit abrasive though...

-nB

Re:Yahoo!

[Rei]

My apologies. But after the first thousand people who've never read a single peer-reviewed paper on the subject who think that they've figured out some obvious thing that defeats global warming that everyone else mysteriously missed, you start to lose patience. I half expect to hear the "sensors are only measuring a heat island effect" one trotted out any minute now.

Re:Yahoo!

[operagost]

You are being far too polite to that belligerent jackass. I commend you.

Re:Yahoo!

[jfengel]

My empathy on your frustration. I'll add what I think is yet another aggravating factor: not only are you hearing scientists contradicted by people who haven't done their research, but there's an implicit (or explicit) accusation that the scientists have ulterior motives.

It is not a coincidence that nearly all climate change deniers are of a particular political stripe. Since they are arguing in a partisan fashion, rather than on facts, they assume that you are, too.

Those researchers are being called not only fools, but liars, and I think the latter accusation stings harder.

(I should add that in fact very few people on either side of the argument have done sufficient research to make their pronouncements. Many people who talk about climate change are also willing to believe because of their ideology, not because they've run the numbers. They happen to be right, according to the vast majority of climate scientists, but their justification isn't often any better.)

Re:Yahoo!

[networkBoy]

Of course the sensors are only measuring the heat island effect, specifically the one in Colorado that's only meters from a fire pit and inches from a parking lot... both installed after the sensor had been gathering "baseline" data for over a decade.
But that's an entirely different argument :-)
-nB

Re:Yahoo!

[Rei]

Wow, can I call it or what? :) No, that's wrong also.

Re:Yahoo!

[fifedrum]

want to be the next President of the USA? Make this same attitude your platform, carbon neutral energy independance using energy generated by a wide variety of sources and pimp it to the one side by saying how clean the air will be from using clean fuels, and how free we'll be by using bio fuels (from algae, none of this corn stuff) solar and "other" and how free we'll be of foreign energy by using home-grown fuels created by local family farm co-ops and fresh spring-scented nuclear power.

then see who complains about the setup and throw them in jail

(which is what the latest energy bill threatens by outlawing incandescent light bulbs)

Re:Yahoo!

[IamTheRealMike]

Assuming 11% efficiency on these cells and 25% of that urban area being able to be coated in cells, and assuming an average insolation of 200W/m^2, we get a total power production of about 180 terrawatts. Current *world* demand is only 10 terrawatts. See where I'm going with this?

Yes, but Indium supplies are expected to encounter serious trouble once world production capacity is in the 20GW range. Some say it could be even earlier than that. I looked through this whole thread to find somebody raising the alarm about Indium supplies - there are only two posts about it that I can see, both at the bottom. There are serious supply issues facing a lot of the materials we rely on today as well as materials we're thinking of relying on tomorrow. For instance, if you think electric cars will one day fully replace petroleum cars, try running the numbers on world lithium supplies. Like most attempts to figure out how much of an exotic substance we have left, you'll encounter wildly varying numbers of equal credibility, and most of them will be far too low for your liking.

Re:Yahoo!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a lot of people just don't understand the whole energy problem as it relates to the US.

The US is sitting on some of the largest known coal reserves in the world. If we were to keep using coal as we are now, we'd be sitting pretty for at least a couple of centuries.

If push comes to shove, we could move much of our oil economy to coal. It would obviously be a costly move, but we could do it. Much of the rest of the world couldn't, though, as much of it doesn't have the same access to coal as we do.

Now, setting aside the whole global-warming stuff, the US has an energy safety net that much of the rest of the world doesn't have. That's why we're less compelled to move to alternative energy.

Let someone else more hard-pressed to get alternative cheap energy eat the development costs. We've got a Plan B until things are figured out.

Re:Yahoo!

[doom]

I should add that in fact very few people on either side of the argument have done sufficient research to make their pronouncements.

Yeah, and you know what? I can't figure out why anyone even cares that much. On the one hand, coal power kills a few hundred thousand US citizens a year, and on the other hand it may be destroying the planet. Any way you look at it, why shouldn't coal power be "enemy number one"?

As for oil, just take a look at the "foreign entanglements" involved (not to mention some of the slimey corporations)... do you need to have the global environment threatened to make up ypur mind to be anti-coal?

And as for cars... let's say burning gas caused no problems whatsoever, you've still got 50 thousand American deaths per year because of "car accidents", not to mention the many any various ways cars-on-the-brain have warped community planning. What does it take to convince people it'd be a good idea to reduce reliance on cars and ramp up public transit?

Re:Yahoo!

[falconwolf]

What we effect today is what things are going to be like in 2050, 2100, not the next decade or two.

No, some of the effects are being seen today. Because of shrinking sea ice in the Arctic polar bears are drowning as are Inuits who break through thin ice. Then there are locations that depend on glaciers for fresh water. People around Mount Kilimanjaro depend on the glaciers there for their fresh water, however those glaciers are melting and will soon be gone. Those people's fresh water will then be gone as well. The same thing is happening in the Andes of South America. Cities in Bolivia, Peru and others SA nations depend on glacier melt for their fresh water. On top of that because of the risk of melting glaciers bursting ice dams many who live downstream are threatened. And that overlooks the possibility of extreme weather.

Falcon

Re:Yahoo!

[JavaRob]

But -- if we get *enough* cells out there, absorbing solar energy that would normally have been primarily heat and turning it into electricity that's used for lower-heat purposes... isn't that going to cool the planet?

Heh.

You know, this goes along with the idea that many windmills will change the weather (possibly for the better, e.g. attenuating hurricanes), and lots of wave turbines will ruin surfing but slow erosion. ...or is it only me imagining these things?

Re:Yahoo!

[TooMuchToDo]

The day I trust a physicist for climate data analysis is the day global warming is proved to not exist.

Re:Yahoo!

[servognome]

There are serious supply issues facing a lot of the materials we rely on today as well as materials we're thinking of relying on tomorrow.

Exactly, I was looking for somebody to mention Indium supply issues also, it's gone from $85/kg to over $1000/kg in the past 5 years! Not to mention Copper which has had a price increase and gallium which isn't that abundant either.
LCD manufacturing which has been eating up a lot of the Indium supply isn't expected to shrink, so maybe they can make a $1/watt solar panel now, but it will be more expensive in the future.

Re:Yahoo!

[Facetious]

If you choose to believe me, then you are about to read an opinion from someone who is truly undecided on the issue of anthropomorphic climate change. I have studied both sides of the argument whenever I can (which is too rare, I'll admit), and I am still undecided. Here are some of the reasons why:

- There are more scientists on the "global warming is true" side, but there are legitimate scientists on the "global warming is false" side too
- For every piece of of good scientific evidence discussed, there are a hundred ad hominem or political attacks
- Making predictions is hard, especially about the future (oblig. Yogi Berra quote)
- Autodidacts such as myself are better swayed by good, reasoned argument than by credentials
- When discussing change versus the status quo in energy production and usage, we are talking about tremendous amounts of money, and hence power. It is nearly impossible in such an environment to have a reasonable discussion without the influence of those with an agenda.

...there's an implicit (or explicit) accusation that the scientists have ulterior motives. I, personally, doubt very much that real scientists have ulterior motives. However, non-scientists seem to be less bulletproof. For example, it is very hard for me to take Al Gore seriously because he is the chairman of a company that stands to make a killing if laws are changed to reduce carbon emissions.

Those researchers are being called not only fools, but liars, and I think the latter accusation stings harder. I agree. Scientists take their reputations very seriously; however, I believe scientists on either side of the argument have been accused unfairly. The "true" group is accused of cowing to political and peer pressures. Those in the "false" group are called oil company shills.

Many people who talk about climate change are also willing to believe because of their ideology, not because they've run the numbers. I couldn't agree more, and I think this is a fair criticism of either side.

Re:Yahoo!

[polar red]

What
does it take to convince people it'd be a good idea to reduce reliance on cars and ramp up public transit? Put a gun to their head and shout at the top of your lungs ... they won't listen : they are frigging [font size+20]Selfish Idiots[/font].

Re:Yahoo!

[wytcld]

For one, I can't picture production capacity catching up with demand enough to lower prices to that level for at least a decade, and even that would take a trenemdous expansion rate.

That's a sad measure of your imagination. Historically, when major new wonderful stuff has caught on there's been a tremendous expansion rate. Look at the railroads. Look at Internet backbone. Look at Dutch friggin tulips. What Nanosolar is doing is ramping up very fast. They have a technology whose production scales up well. They've hired executives with great track records at premier corporations. There are billions of dollars available from venture capitalists, and from Google, both of whom have other major investments whose future completely depends on our solving the energy production problem. They can't afford to fail; and they can afford to win. There's almost no risk of this getting underbuilt; all the risk is on its getting overbuilt, like railroads, backbone or tulips. Even so, the world wins. We're still using our railroads (if not every spur line), we're catching up with backbone capacity, and Holland's still full of tulip fields come spring.

Re:Yahoo!

[networkBoy]

Yes I assumed that some correction was applied to weather stations experiencing said effects.
That confirmed it.

Note that I am not entirely convinced that global warming as it were is human caused (for a multiplicity of reasons) but I do find that site enlightening, so thanks again for turning me on to it.
-nB

Re:Yahoo!

[ricegf]

Put a gun to their head and shout at the top of your lungs ... they won't listen

Just out of curiosity, would you mind stating (1) where you live, and (2) what forms of public transportation you use to avoid having to rely on a car? It's an honest question.

In Texas (at least), we're so spread out that I can't work out any means of public transportation that would be even vaguely efficient for more than a few percent of my transportation needs. I've thought about it quite a bit - if it were more efficient than cars, it would be a major business opportunity!

I use intercity rail to reach certain sporting events - but reaching the rail station requires a drive almost as long as the train itself travels. I also tried the local bus system, but it doesn't pick up anywhere near my house, nor does it travel to within walking distance of most of my destinations. My local city tried "jitneys" (basically small buses with flexible routes), but they quickly proved too expensive to operate in a sprawling community.

Otherwise, until you can help me work out an efficient and practical public transportation system here, I don't agree that I'm among the "Selfish Idiots" - but rather, I suspect you're among the "Clueless Snobs".

But please prove me wrong! :-)

Re:Yahoo!

[networkBoy]

I live in the burbs of sac, ca and for me to get to work on public transit takes no less than two bus transfers (4 if I want a more direct route, be a push as to which is faster though), plus about a mile and a half walk to get to work. I live about 15 miles from where I work and I find that unusable... so I drive.
-nB

Re:Yahoo!

[polar red]

(1) antwerp, belgium (2) i go to work in brussels, and i commute by train. - also to note : i have a company car - all expenses paid.

Re:Yahoo!

[doom]

Just out of curiosity, would you mind stating (1) where you live, and (2) what forms of public transportation you use to avoid having to rely on a car? It's an honest question.

If you're asking me, I live in San Francisco, and use the busses and trains to get around (when I'm not walking or riding a bike).

I understand the problems of living in a place as spread out as Texas, but these are self-reinforcing problems we're talking about here: post WWII, America went ape-shit building places that assumed everyone was traveling around via cars, and amazingly enough, it's hard to think of any way to get around them besides cars.

These aren't going to be problems we fix over night, but you'd think we could at least get a consensus on where we want to be twenty-five years from now (e.g. low-density suburban zoning regulations should be regarded as the anti-social monstrosities that they are).

Re:Yahoo!

[Ferretman]

Oh Rei, please get a grip.

We just had 400 scientists--distinguished folks who are mostly of the climate persuasion--announce that they basically thought human-induced global warming is just so much hookum. I'm sure of course you'll find some reason to discredit them, of course--the levels to which the Global Warming Hysterics will stoop are astounding.

He's 100% man; you'll see.

Re:Yahoo!

[flyingfsck]

I live in Canada. Global warming is a good thing. I don't care if it will turn your country into a desert. That is your problem. Tell someone who cares. ;)

Re:Yahoo!

[javaman235]

We're still going to need baseload power production until a cheaper method of storing power can be found.

Check out the recent Scientific American article, which talks about storing power as compressed air in underground caverns: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

Re:Yahoo!

[MadUndergrad]

No, what he's saying is that while there are effects today, it's too late for us to affect these effects now. What's not too late is to affect the effects 50 or 100 years down the line if we change what we're doing now.

It's out there: You can walk on solar shingles

[denis-The-menace]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=solar+shingles+roof&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Here is the link to the auction on ebay

[Evan Meakyl]

To mark the occasion, Roscheisen said the first commercial panels will get special treatment: the first that came off the rolls will become part of a Nanosolar exhibit; the second will be auctioned off on eBay

And here is the link!

Re:Here is the link to the auction on ebay

[magarity]

Read the fine print before bidding: the winning bidder can't have the thing til mid 2009.

Re:Here is the link to the auction on ebay

[Bryansix]

The seller has no feedback! Couldn't they have used a seasoned Ebay account to sell the thing?

Why the govt is helping more

[Widowwolf]

Even with piece as small as a sheet of plywood size for each house, this would dramatically decrease the demand on the utilities in California. With all of his greenhouse emissions standards for california http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/20/california.emissions/index.html > I hope this is somethign the ahnolds looking into more. If this was subsidized for the average household, it would be a boon for california

Re:Why the govt is helping more

[Slugster]

If the fiscal emergency starting on 01 Jan 2008 gets ugly enough (and there are a lot of people who think it will) we may well see solar subsidies get shelved, at least for a couple years. If to keep daily operations going the state government is pulling budget money from schools, do you think they'll still be helping homeowners buy solar panels?

....

In a way, this is come full-circle hasn't it?
People in california getting government subsidies to buy solar systems that aren't really economical, and the subsidies were based on property tax rates that were based on inflated property values, driven by speculators with bad loans--that were not really economical either.
~

Re:Why the govt is helping more

[harmanjd]

If this was subsidized for the average household, it would be a bane for california.

Fixed your spelling for you.

People would be better of with less taxes so that they could buy these things rather than giving the money to the gov't to get it back as subsidies.

Re:Why the govt is helping more

[Widowwolf]

Very good point. The instead of government, possibility the utility companies themselves, with a buyback program for excess energy such as what they do now with some solar systems and wind systems. Help cleanup the environment, no worries about brownouts ..In my opinion, i think the large businesses should be starting to place these on as the buildings are made..I know Walmart is starting their green initiative, and would like to see more large businesses take this on.

DOH!

[sm62704]

Here in Springfield, our power plant runs on coal. Since my electricity's cost is not only the coal, but the maintenance and transmission of electricity, it should be cheaper to line my roof with these things than to buy it from Mr. Burns (he's the one in front of the giant check, on the left. He's also the one in the first linked picture, also on the left).

But at a dollar per watt I'd pay $20,000 for a single circuit... oh wait my math is wrong. At 100 volts that aould be $200. So I could power my whole house for a one time investment of less than $2k?

Sounds too good to be true. What's the catch?

Re:DOH!

[Anonymous Coward]

That catch is you can't buy it.

You also still need to be on the grid, and hope you're in a state where you can feed back into the grid your surplus. Check your bills for the rates you can expect, it's the fuel cost rate. You'll still be paying for the privilege of being hooked up.

The return rate is 3-5 years if they can actually deliver, and you live in a sunny area.

But, the catch is you can't but it.

Re:DOH!

[fahrbot-bot]

So I could power my whole house for a one time investment of less than $2k? Sounds too good to be true. What's the catch?

Powering it at night :-)

Re:DOH!

[kevmatic]

200W at 100V is only 2 amps. Most household circuits are 15A, so that would place the wattage at 1800W... So $1800/circuit, not including inverter losses.

But then solar panels only make juice during the day, so you'd need at least double that to power the whole circuit all day.

Realistically, you could power a house off of an average 8 kilowatt without much conservation, and probably get down to around 5 or so with it, and lower still if you make some sacrifices.

But then you have to get that power on AVERAGE. You probably get enough sun to get that 1watt a third of the time. Less if you live an area like I do (Pittsburgh, which has VERY few sunny days).

Or is this $1/watt taking into account the downtime?

Re:DOH!

[Tiroth]

You were right the first time: 220V * 100A = 22000W = $22000 @ $1/W.

Of course, most designs would require a much smaller up-front investment, because you'll run off the grid when you are using the dryer/stove/ironing/AC, but take advantage of cheaper power for the base load (lights, computer, fridge).

Re:DOH!

[sm62704]

I need coffee, can't tell my right from my left. In the above post change "left" to "right". Damned lithograph class I took in college fucked me up for life!

Re:DOH!

[ivan256]

You have to clear the snow off of it, it only works when the sun is out so you need a crap-load of batteries or $15-20k worth of automated switching equipment which allows you to be simultaneously connected to the grid without electrocuting the lineman who is working on your pole and thinks the power is off, you probably need to multiply your number by at least 4, because you need to generate power for the 75% of the time you're not getting good sun in the 25% of the time that you are, and you need some pricey inverters if you want to run devices designed for 110V AC...

Additionally, they're not actually $1/watt. That's the theoretical cost if they are able to ramp up production as planned. If you had $1 for every startup that failed in that phase, you wouldn't care how much your solar panels cost.

Re:DOH!

[hypnagogue]

So I could power my whole house for a one time investment of less than $2k? Sounds too good to be true. What's the catch?

Depends on what your expectations are. Were you planning on actually having power during the other 20 hours of the day? If so, then you'll need to have a very large battery array, and about 6 times the solar capacity you've calculated in order to fully charge the batteries during the relatively brief peak hours. Add in a massive charge controller and inverter, and you are pretty close to working.

We have lots of people here in South Park (no, not a joke) that run solar; but none run solar exclusively (that's impossible). In order to do things like laundry or the dishes, most of them have to fire up the generator. And, during the winter, peak solar hours are shorter, and weaker, so the batteries start to sulfate from over-discharge if you don't keep them topped off -- more generator time. During some months we have a regular parade of people bringing their generators in to town for service.

Also understand that this special class of individualist burns wood for heat, and owns no air conditioner. The solar powers the well and the freezer, and not much else. Most of the power they use is delivered in the form of wood and propane.

Re:DOH!

[192939495969798999]

The catch? you still can't get one to power your house with. That's a pretty big catch (complete unavailability of the advertised product or service)...

Re:DOH!

[tinrobot]

An entire grid-tie solar installation for my house was bid at $18-20K.

If the grid-tie switching equipment costs $15-20K, I must be getting the panels and labor for free.

Re:DOH!

[kfischer100p]

Well, for one thing, you'd have no electricity at night...

Re:DOH!

[ivan256]

Either that or the quotes I've gotten were trying to rip me off... Joke's on them though, 'cause I didn't buy.

Re:DOH!

[bcattwoo]

The catch is $200 worth of $1/watt panels only gets you 200 watts, enough to power 2-3 conventional lightbulbs or a dozen or so CFL's. At my house peak average usage in the winter is like 2.5kW. If I wanted to be very generous and assume 8 hours a day of usable light and perfect storage/conversion we would need like $8000 worth of panels. I imagine we would probably actually need like 3 times that. Of course in the spring/fall we might be able to sell some back to the power company.

Re:DOH!

[sm62704]

What's the catch? Powering it at night :-)

Not hard. If I'm still on the grid I can buy electricity at night and sell it back in the daytime. If I'm not I can store it in batteries.

Your sig: It must have been something you assimilated...

That's pretty brave words when talking to a cyborg.

Re:DOH!

[Lumpy]

No. my syncing inverter cost me $3500.00 it doesn't do the FUD of "electrocuting the lineman" like people enjoy using out there. No Line tied inverters were capable of doing that for over 15 years now.

$3500 syncing inverter + $2000.00 of PV array at those prices = a significant savings and almost ZERO maintaince costs or time. Washing them off twice a year with a hose is plenty. and my array never had to have the snow removed. what idiot leaves the PV array tilted that high in winter?

Re:DOH!

[sm62704]

You're right; I told you I needed more coffee!

Re:DOH!

[sm62704]

We have lots of people here in South Park (no, not a joke) that run solar

Is this a first, someone from one cartoon town responding to someone else on slashdot from another cartoon town? We have an alderman named Gail Simpson here in Springfield. The power plant blew up a month or so ago, look at This editorial cartoon about it. Now look at a photo of Todd Renfrow, AKA "Mr. Burns" (on the right, in front of the giant check) and a photo of Springfield's Mayor.

Its scary thinking what Canadians must look like where you live! I can't figure out if I live in Cool World or Toon Town. Anyone reading my journals most likely thinks I either make them up or...

Re:DOH!

[Bo'Bob'O]

No debut that you have to account for your local climate in figuring out how much power you get from your panels, but that bit about batteries and supper expensive inverters? That was true maybe a decade ago. It's nothing like that now.
http://www.xantrex.com/web/id/172/p/1/pt/23/product.asp

One box, sell the power to the utility when you aren't using it, buy it back when you need it.

Re:DOH!

[hypnagogue]

Is this a first, someone from one cartoon town responding to someone else on slashdot from another cartoon town?

Well, to whatever extent that 1000 square miles of moderately-arable, sparsely-populated tundra in the middle of the Colorado Rockies could be considered a "town". I prefer to think of it as a wormhole to Alaska. Folks here use solar power because that's all that they CAN get.

Still, it's a nice enough place, at least since that know-it-all John Galt moved out. What a jerk!

Re:DOH!

[Anonymous Coward]

The snow is a problem only where and when it snows.

Grid-tied single phase 240VAC with center neutral inverters for residential PV exist on the market today, including automatic disconnect for line faults, peak power tracking, a boatload of other safety features, efficiencies >94%, and price on the order of $1/W (thats end-user price, BTW). This is a booming market. I know because I work on residential PV system design and residential inverters.

One of the key drivers for this market, besides dropping PV costs, subsidies, and higher energy prices, is forgetting about local energy storage and relying on the grid as a buffer. While it is conceivable that this could be a limiting factor, we are a long ways from that today.

Re:DOH!

[sribe]

... or $15-20k worth of automated switching equipment...

The switching equipment is nowhere near that expensive. Divide by 10.

...you probably need to multiply your number by at least 4...

The way you phrased that sounds as if you were just guessing. Guess what? You nailed it!

Re:DOH!

[dbIII]

You really have to think about what that 2.5kW is doing. If it's heating then solar hot water and burning plain old gas (no - not gasoline, popane, butane etc often mixed together) is a better way to get heat than resistance heating or reverse cycle. Refridgeration doesn't have to use a lot of electricity either. There are a lot of 12V appliances out there and you would probably have to do that. It's not rocket science - my parents were running off a small 12V generator in 1959 only it was deisel insteady of solar.

Fortunatly I live in a house designed for it's subtropical location that requires neither heating and cooling - and remember that the majority of the world's population lives in that type of climate.

Re:DOH!

[cthulhu11]

Also factor in the cost of maintenance over the years, and the output drop over time if they're anything like conventional cells. And, just how much Indium is available?

Re:DOH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you don't like solar, doesn't mean it's bad. Quite the negative astroturf.

You don't need the batteries to use solar - tie it to the grid and you'll still save. Batteries are good if you want more independence though.

The "lineman" has to deal with electrical power either way. He's a professional - people who kill themselves don't tend to be around long. Sort of a work-based evolution.

The panel can be tilted to *not* collect snow. And panels tend to warm up enough to melt the snow that does collect (a bonus to being black), even here in cold, cold Canada. Plus, many people don't live in a snowy locations.

Re:DOH!

[sm62704]

Still, it's a nice enough place

You're lucky, Springfield is a madhouse full of assholes. Ever see "Cool World?" That's Springfield.

Re:DOH!

[ivan256]

Wouldn't "astroturf" imply being paid to have a particular agenda? I didn't realize that truthfully answering the question posted by in the original comment meant that I "didn't like solar". The fact of the matter is that it *does* have downsides.

And if you think the panel being black makes it heat up any quicker when it's covered in snow, clearly you've never had a panel on your roof. Additionally, tilting it so snow doesn't collect (has to be fairly steep) is frequently incompatible with optimum summertime exposure.

Lastly, you say "save", but with a basic setup, even at the panel prices listed, there is still a pretty good chance that your installation will fail before you see return on investment.

It's not that I don't like solar. I do. I'm a big fan of trying all sorts of independent generation solutions. It's just that very few are practical yet for the vast majority of the population. Including solar, even when the panels are $1/watt. Until there is something out there that has zero (or close to zero) maintenance, and reaches ROI within 5 years, these are all just toys for geeks and activists. You may think that by painting a rosier picture than reality you'll encourage adoption, but what will really happen is that you'll convince somebody to buy solar, they'll have all the problems I mentioned and that you didn't tell them about, and they'll put more effort into talking people out of solar than you could ever undo.

$1?

[tajmorton]

I read both the linked articles, but I didn't see a ref to $1/watt... What did I miss?

Re:$1?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says "will enable it to eventually deliver solar electricity for less than a dollar per watt." I think the summary is misinformation. You can't buy them, and if you could, they couldn't make them for that price.

"Charity"

[Besna]

So what charity gets the money? Is it the usual suspects--sick kids and Africa? Why not the EFF, or FSF? Why not Wikipedia? It seems that often a charity needs to be identified in order to get rid of money. ThinkOfTheChildren usually results.

Re:"Charity"

[Lord of Hyphens]

So what charity gets the money? Is it the usual suspects--sick kids and Africa? Why not the EFF, or FSF? Why not Wikipedia? It seems that often a charity needs to be identified in order to get rid of money. ThinkOfTheChildren usually results. You inconsiderate clod, do you honestly think I would trust Wikipedia with money?

Re:"Charity"

[DragonWriter]

So what charity gets the money? Is it the usual suspects--sick kids and Africa?

I dunno. Is it?

Why not the EFF, or FSF? Why not Wikipedia?

Shouldn't you do the work to find out that it isn't those things before you whine about it not being them?

Anyhow, here's the deal: you come up with something that people are willing to pay money for you and that you are willing to donate the proceeds from to charity, and you can decide which charity it goes to.

Re:"Charity"

[terrymr]

They'd probably reject it for being non-notable, original research or some other such reason.

Re:"Charity"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ken Lay memorial defense fund?

Re:"Charity"

[Bryansix]

What's wrong with donating to help sick kids and Africa? Didn't you or anybody you know ever get hospitalized as a kid? Think about the people who can't afford such care because of the broken health care system in the US; or the lack of health care in some countries.

Re:"Charity"

[ChrisMP1]

You inconsiderate clod, It's insensitive clod, you insensitive clod.

Re:"Charity"

[thefoul]

Sick kids in Africa? Get real. Christ, we've got enough sick kids HERE to worry about, not to mention homeless people and a thousand other social problems that need money thrown at them. Why send it somewhere it won't do any good at all? That kind of money is a drop in the bucket to Africa's problems, and to be honest, it's not our responsibility to solve the world's problems, fix your own problems first and then worry about everybody else's! If you're going to donate money, at least donate it sensibly rather than the first bleeding heart item you spot on TV.

Re:"Charity"

[Lord of Hyphens]

It's insensitive clod, you insensitive clod. Slashdot tradition aside, I meant inconsiderate--you insensitive clod.

Re:"Charity"

[Bryansix]

I don't donate to people who advertise on TV. They waste way too much money. I use http://www.charitynavigator.org/ to find charities that operate effeciently. In addition I never said to send all your money to Africa. I prefer Americares which helps people here in the USA and abroad. They also operate with some 98% effeciency or something close to that.

Re:"Charity"

[KevReedUK]

Not wishing to be seen as nit-picking here, but the GP said:

Sick Kids AND Africa

NOT

Sick Kids IN Africa.

We need a good acronym like YACC, YASC?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I have always appreciated the self deprecating humor and the jolly view of things indicated by that unix tool, Yet Another Compiler Compiler. I wish someone would name their solar cell, yet another solar cell, just for the kicks.

Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[AHumbleOpinion]

Will they last, are they durable, is it flexible or rigid? Lot of questions left to answer on the solar front. However, if I can shingle my roof with these things, all the better!

If you are going to shingle your roof then "are they fire resistant" and "do they release toxic fumes when burning" should be two more explicit first questions.

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[rucs_hack]

sooo.

I can has my tin foil hat and be environmentally friendly at the same time?

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does a regular roof burning not release toxic fumes while burning?

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[Alari]

> solar cells made out of CIGS, or copper indium gallium selenide

So they melt. =)

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[AHumbleOpinion]

Does a regular roof burning not release toxic fumes while burning?

In this context "toxic" means something beyond potentially fatal. Smoke from plain old organic wood can kill you at some point, but it is not "toxic" in the way that some plastics are for example. I once worked in a department store warehouse. There were fire extinguishers all over the place but management told us that if the toy department was on fire to hit the alarm, make sure others got out, but do *not* go near the fire. That toxic fumes are most likely being generated: hydrochloric acid, dioxin, etc. This is why people wiring their own homes must make sure they are buying cabling that is rated for indoor use.

If the solar material has similar issues, and if it is used as shingles then it may have sufficient quantities to present a hazard to neighbors.

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[AHumbleOpinion]

sooo. I can has my tin foil hat and be environmentally friendly at the same time?

I think you need a tinfoil hat and a tinfoil air filter. ;-)

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[CodeBuster]

It doesn't really matter if they produce toxic fumes when burning (most probably noxious but not necessarily toxic or even poisonous ) since (a) they are probably outside anyway (i.e. on your roof or out in the yard), (b) there are plenty of other things in a modern home already that would be equally noxious or toxic when burned such as the insulation in the walls and attic (i.e. in for a penny in for a pound), and (c) do you plan to hang around inside your burning house while inhaling all of the wonderfully noxious fumes or will you be getting out just as quickly as you possibly can?

I would be more concerned about the durability of the product and its ability to maintain production of the rated wattage over a long enough period of time to justify the initial capital equipment costs rather than whether or not they produce nasty smoke and gases when burning.

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[pkulak]

"do they release toxic fumes when burning" If my house catches on fire, I don't plan on going up to the roof to breath heavily.

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[Lumpy]

Who cares. If you don't shingle your house with them. but put them in trays 6 inches off the roof (which is a better choice anyways you reduce solar heat loading in your house by over 45% by doing that.) like conventional solar installations nobody cares if they are fire resistant or release toxic fumes when burning.

and yes, a typical glass solar cell put out really nasty toxic gasses when burned. but it's mostly covered up by the toxic smoke from the burning polycarbonate protective coverings and backing.

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[Rei]

They're not "made" of CIGS. They're printed with CIGS. That's not what the substrate, which is the bulk of the product, is made of.

Re:Are they fire resistant? Toxic when burning?

[rucs_hack]

I think you need a tinfoil hat and a tinfoil air filter. ;-)

Yup, but, um, how did my post get modded insightful? No really..

Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[holysin]

Have to ask, the gurus or would be gurus:

When companies report that their solar solution costs $X a watt, is this figure a steady watt/hour figure (e.g 1000W = 1kw/h) during which time the sun is shining on the pannels, or watts generated per hour of direct sunlight, 8 hrs of direct sunlight, every odd Tuesday, what? I always assumed it's a steady watt/hour figure but in this case $1000 would give you 1KWH while they were running, which gives you (assuming you have a battery storage solution) a production of 180KW/H a month (assuming 6hrs of "good" sunlight a day for 30 days.) If this is the case then sign me up, I'll break even in less than a year with my current evil power hungry mode of life. But the question is.... is this the case?

Now back to cooking that turducken (damn electric ovens)

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[DragonWriter]

When companies report that their solar solution costs $X a watt, is this figure a steady watt/hour figure (e.g 1000W = 1kw/h) during which time the sun is shining on the pannels, or watts generated per hour of direct sunlight, 8 hrs of direct sunlight, every odd Tuesday, what?

Watt is a unit of power, not energy. So its watts (presumably, in some specified lighting conditions), not "watt/hour".

I always assumed it's a steady watt/hour figure but in this case $1000 would give you 1KWH while they were running, which gives you (assuming you have a battery storage solution) a production of 180KW/H a month (assuming 6hrs of "good" sunlight a day for 30 days.)

Assuming it was average output per 6 hours of usable time a day (which its probably not, its more likely the peak at the best conditions), and presuming also that surface area limits are not an issue (which they may well be), and that $1/watt was the current cost, rather than an estimate of what the technology would eventually provide, yes, $1000 would get you panels that would produce ~$180 kW-h (not kW/h) per month.

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[Alioth]

All the solar panel outputs you typically see quote peak output - i.e. with full sunshine, zero haze, with the sun shining directly onto the panel square on (rays at 90 degrees to the panel). Even a little haze (say, some high cirrus, or 7 miles visibility) typically reduces output to 70% of the peak output. A bright overcast day and you're lucky to make 20% of peak. That's with the current most efficient panel design that's easily available (monocrystalline silicon). There's no information that I've seen saying how this new type of solar cell performs in non-ideal conditions that are found in the real world.

However, *if* they can produce it for the price they think they can (note the weasel word eventually in the article) then given the amount of unused roof space that's available, it may not matter unless they are desperately worse than current technology.

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[bogaboga]

The cost per watt is average. But even then, this average is subjective because the amount of sunlight one gets depends on location.

Regions near the equator would obviously harness more energy more cheaply than say the Canadian arctic where some areas get a few hours of light depending on season.

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[matt_martin]

Your numbers are close, except you have to consider that the "real world" efficiency will be around 2/3 of the peak rating. (depends on angle, location, weather, dust, temperature etc) One unfortunate effect (with silicon cells anyway) is that temperature reduces output, so the brightest/hottest times of the year see the lowest efficiency.

You can benchmark it by rolling it all into effective hrs of sun a day (total kWh / peak rating).
Here in Arizona, I've been getting the equivalent 5-6 hrs of sun per day out of my array,
about 15-18 kwH per day for a 3kW peak rating.

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[kfischer100p]

It measures performance in standard test conditions, which are generally speaking comparable to peak sunlight. You can find out how many hours of peak sunlight your area gets on the web pretty easily; 3-5 hours is usual, depending on your area, I think. It's important to keep this in mind when comparing prices per watt; a solar system will be _MUCH_ more expensive than e.g. a coal system at the same investment/watt (assuming you include fuel costs in that) b/c you can run a coal system all day and night, so you get 24 peak hours. On the other hand, solar's peak hours come at a good time- when energy usage is high and high-cost natural gas plants are on to satisfy demand- so the real measure of whether solar is good would likely be when its cost dips below that of natural gas generatation. (natural gas is used instead of coal for variable production because it is more expensive to scale coal production, and because coal plants are generally not run below ~50% capacity at any point because of the difficulties in bringing them back up to full utilization afterwards). The variable production cost of coal is $20/KWh, natural gas more like $60/MWh, whereas solar has little if any variable production cost, but the setup costs per watt of coal and natural gas systems are far lower ($2,000/kWp, $750/kWp respectively, whereas solar is more like $8,000/kWp even if we dubiously give it credit for producing at peak performance all day and night). $1/Wp would, obviously, be $1,000/kWp, but since this represents a peak performance number, this is still not competitive with coal or gas (equivalent to $6,000/kWp if you have 4 peak hours of sunlight, which is a fair median).

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[holysin]

Wow, thanks for all the great replies folks. As far as the comparison to "traditional" generation technologies, that's not really valid from a home owner stand point as coal/gas electricity generation is not exactly feasible, community rules and all that. You're buying power from your local company or generating it via solar/wind/generator. However, let me run the numbers using the 5hrs mentioned by someone who actually has solar panels (and lives in an area that solar would be useful) note this doesn't factor any "green" benefits, just raw $...

Say you use 1500KWh per month (my highest and most recent bill in the UK is for this so it works for me, flipping a/c unit...) Also, southern California Edison's website has a sample bill (which isn't totally up to date price wise accurate however they have the same usage so 1500 it is...

Their sample bill shows a bill for $300.09 for said energy usage (delivery, tax, production, etc) so you're paying ~20cents a KWh. In the UK after shopping around (a lot) I'm paying ~0.09 pence per Khw (17cents us at today's exchange rate, yay, something is in fact cheaper here than in the states!).

Assuming I can store all the energy not immediately used (or I sell the energy back to the grid at the same rate at which I pay for it/my meter runs backwards) and using the 5hr number from the AZ responser's numbers (admittedly biased as AZ gets more sun than most places in the states, but likewise, AZ, CA, and NV are the places that will likely buy solar first so let's say it's a wash) in order to produce 1500KWh per 30 day month you'd want to produce 50KWh per day. This means you'd need to spend $10,000 on solar panels at the $1/W point (10kw worth of panels) figure another what, 4k, for the storage/delivery/installation @ your house? So $14,000 down. Assuming no tax breaks and a CA electric bill as mentioned above you'd break even in ~4 yrs. (~3 yrs if the 1k/w includes everything else you need. Unlikely for quite some time) for the remainder of your 6 warrantied years you're "making" $300.09/month for a total "profit" of $21,606.48 (again using today's numbers as an example, assuming the usual 10yr warranty, and that warranty work doesn't cause mass downtime big assumptions I grant you.)

Have to say given inflation, future cost of money, these figures being correct. Once we can go out and buy these panels for $1/w solar is in fact usable and affordable for the "average" power hungry user in the sunshine belt that won't move for 4-10years. Sure it's not as immediately cheap as coal (again, that comparison never makes sense to me, you can't buy coal, you can't buy/install equipment to generate power from coal), however it's generated @ the premises not by an outside company that might have power outages and will likely raise their rates in the future.

Wonder when $1/w will reach the home market...

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[jackpot777]

Wouldn't all areas in the Arctic Circle get the sun in the sky all day for months, not just in Canada? IANAPE (Planetary Expert), but I'm sure that's what the Earth's tilt means.

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[falconwolf]

Their sample bill shows a bill for $300.09 for said energy usage (delivery, tax, production, etc) so you're paying ~20cents a KWh. In the UK after shopping around (a lot) I'm paying ~0.09 pence per Khw (17cents us at today's exchange rate, yay, something is in fact cheaper here than in the states!).

There's a problem with your conclusion on cost. The sample bill you're using is for California and CA has one of the highest energy prices in the US from what I've heard. I live in Minnesota and I pay about 10 cents per kwh.

Falcon

Re:Cost per watt is based on what time frame?

[holysin]

Well, yes, but MN also has not only regular "weather" (snow, clouds, rain), but often extreme weather (SNOW, hair, uber cold temps, very hot temps) which is hard on most materials (like, say, bridges or solar panels). Solar won't be coming to the north east, midwest, or much of the US in any large fashion anytime soon, it's just not feasable even at $1/w considering generation issues (clouds, inches of snow covering pannels etc). It will however come to CA, AZ, and NV (or at least the segments of those states that don't really have "weather".) So I'm fairly comfortable with my cost estimates especially given that the population of CA (36.5M) is somewhat higher than the population of either MN (5.2M) or AZ (6.2M), and California currently does have power delivery issues at times which will encourage early adopters to adopt solar power early. Basically, it's my contention that SoCal is where solar will really take off in terms of #'s of installs, in part due to the high cost of electricity, and in part due to liberal guilt.

Breakeven point

[Thelasko]

Assuming the current price of electricity is $0.10/kWh it will pay for itself in ~1.14 years. However, that does not include the cost of installation, a rectifier, or batteries/controller.

Re:Breakeven point

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but you didn't take into account the social or environmental saving either.

Re:Breakeven point

[falconwolf]

Assuming the current price of electricity is $0.10/kWh it will pay for itself in ~1.14 years. However, that does not include the cost of installation, a rectifier, or batteries/controller.

With intertie, other than the panels all you really need is an inverter. You only need batteries and the rest if you're Off the Grid.

Fslcon

Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[Overzeetop]

It's not just the cost of the panel that matters, but the anticipated life of the panel. Traditionally, it has taken more energy to make a panel than that panel will return to the grid. That's not as big a deal if you're truly off grid - say in the boonies, or in space - but it matters if you want to make it viable in a business sense. And it can't just be equal, it's got to be a significantly low fraction. Otherwise you're creating an energy storage medium (and a very limited one in the case of a solar panel) instead of a power generator.

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[Alioth]

The current generation solar panels have an energy payback time of 6 years in the real world, and typically last for at least 25 years.

Presumably, what makes this technology potentially less expensive is it requires less resources to make than silicon solar cells, so it's fairly likely that they have a faster energy payback than silicon cells.

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[matt_martin]

For sure, usable life is an important part of the cost/benefit and energy balance calculation.

However, I've seen energy payback quoted anywhere from 1-3 years for conventional silicon photo-voltaic solar panels including the glass and metal packaging. As they are supposed to have a life > 20 years I'm not sure your second statement is correct. Do you have a source ?

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[blind biker]

Traditionally, it has taken more energy to make a panel than that panel will return to the grid.

That's actually incorrect. The average till a couple of years ago used to be 1:4, that is, the total production energy was about 1/4 of the energy the panels would generate in their lifetime.

But I guess mods can't be bothered to check facts.

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[steveha]

Traditionally, it has taken more energy to make a panel than that panel will return

However, that is no longer the case. I quote Wikipedia:

In the 1990s, when silicon cells were twice as thick, efficiencies 30% lower than today and lifetimes shorter, it may well have cost more energy to make a cell than it could generate in a lifetime. The energy payback time of a modern photovoltaic module is anywhere from 1 to 20 years (usually under five)[12] depending on the type and where it is used (see net energy gain). This means solar cells can be net energy producers, meaning they generate more energy over their lifetime than the energy expended in producing them.[13][12][14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#Solar_cells_and_energy_payback

So, if you take a solar cell and stick it into an underground cave, it probably won't be producing more energy than it took to manufacture. But for typical uses a solar cell will be a net energy producer.

steveha

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[mdsolar]

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.
--
Rent solar power for your home: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[kfischer100p]

Where are you getting this figure? From what I've seen, solar panels in general don't even reach payback over their 25 year useful lives, though in some countries (e.g. Spain) the numbers are a bit more forgiving. Including subsidies, of course, things are different.

Am I misunderstanding "energy payback"? Is this not the same as the payback period (i.e. money)?

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[joshuac]

The current generation solar panels have an energy payback time of 6 years in the real world, and typically last for at least 25 years.

25 year lifetime is right on, but 6 year payback is sounds suspiciously-panel-salesmanish _way way way_ optimistic, but who knows, maybe there has been some revolutionary change in photovoltaics in the last couple years.

With subsidies of course, then solar power (ignoring the macro picture) is economical and in a spreadsheet any payback time you like then becomes possible. Of course, in reality this isn't sustainable, all you're doing is shifting the energy cost around, giving you an especially inefficient coal-burning panel instead.

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[Alioth]

Yes you are - energy payback is how long it takes for a device to generate at least as much energy as it took to make. This is not necessarily the same amount of time as to pay back the purchase cost. A solar panel may generate the energy it took to make it in 6 years, but it may be two or three times that amount of time to generate the amount of electricity to monetarily pay for itself.

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[Alioth]

No, 6 years is actually quite pessimistic. See http://jupiter.clarion.edu/~jpearce/Papers/netenergy.pdf

Quote:

RESULTS

It is readily apparent from Figures 1-3 that all silicon based solar cells in any type of design and placed anywhere in the U.S. will pay for themselves in terms of energy over their lifetime. This is counter to the resilient myth that solar cells will never be viable because they cannot ever make up for their embodied energy. The myth started with an analysis of very early cells and continues today because of the confusion generated by the economically based "emergy" analysis. The payback time ranges from about 1 year for BIPV installations in Phoenix made from high efficiency a-Si (Fig. 3b) to nearly 5 years for low efficiency c-Si in a centralized power plant located in Detroit.

Older cells in particular were much thicker than today's, and took much larger quantities of refined silicon to make. Solar panels have had positive "energy payback" for many years - not just a couple.

This doesn't mean the panel will pay off in money terms though; what with electricity being so incredibly cheap, while the panel may well pay itself off in terms of energy in 6 years, it may take three or four times that length of time to pay back in money terms. This is of course the significance of this new type of solar panel *IF* they can get the cost down. (Note the weasel word eventually in TFA).

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[falconwolf]

A solar panel may generate the energy it took to make it in 6 years, but it may be two or three times that amount of time to generate the amount of electricity to monetarily pay for itself.

I've heard of monetary payback periods of 7 years though I'd think 10 years would be more accurate for many applications.

Falcon

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[falconwolf]

With subsidies of course, then solar power (ignoring the macro picture) is economical and in a spreadsheet any payback time you like then becomes possible. Of course, in reality this isn't sustainable, all you're doing is shifting the energy cost around, giving you an especially inefficient coal-burning panel instead.

In what way isn't it sustainable?

Falcon

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[Maxo-Texas]

That is if you score one of the very limited state grants that covers 60% to 80% of the cost of your system.

Otherwise, a decent system runs about $45k.

Nanosolar allows the potential for $15k systems without any subsidies.

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[joshuac]

In what way isn't it sustainable?

Short answer, because the harder you manipulate the market, the harder the market manipulate you (sorry, I know, Soviet Russia joke with inadequate effort, it's late).

Quickly made up numbers:
Let's say you have two fuels on the market, one wildly successful (let's call it gasoline), and an alternative not so much (call it diesel). People decide for whatever reason we diesel is better and needs to be used more. Efforts are therefore made to artificially reduced the price of diesel down from it's natural price of $10 a gallon to it's artificial price of $0.01 a gallon by charging the difference to gasoline consumers. In the start when 5% of the fuel market is diesel and 95% of the fuel market is gasoline, this works. But unless something is adjusted* it will crash when scaled. As the market adjusts to the new prices and more diesel is consumed as people start buying cars powered by this alternative fuel en masse, you will have a problem; the natural, actual price to deliver diesel hasn't changed, but you no longer have the cash cow (wildly successful gasoline is no longer wildly successful) to prop diesel up. Either you need to find something else to tax to keep the charade going, or you turn off the subsidies and everyone gets to see what it really costs.

* In the real world, subsidies are often intended to be a temporary measure as a way of hopefully outsmarting the general marketplace. For example, 'photovoltaics currently (1970) aren't even close to being practical so no one is expending any effort into developing them, how can we encourage people to use them which will encourage companies to work on improving the technology?' One popular answer is to subsidize photovoltaics so they _are_ (artificially) competitive, and hope with enough eyeballs looking to outperform each other in a now large market a real breakthrough in their natural competitiveness will be made.

Photovoltaics (and most alternative energy) is subsidized so much from end to end (Research --> Development --> Manufacturing --> Consumer) it isn't even funny. In California the delivered "cost" to the consumer isn't even close to what it actually cost to get it there. The only difference is instead of that one consumer paying the cost, the cost burden was spread across to other people and therefore isn't sustainable; it works fine when 0.3% or whatever of a nations energy production/cost is photovoltaic, but can no longer be done when it is 90%. Again, the hope is that well before that point someone will have made a breakthrough making it actually economical enough to stand up on it's own two feet.

In my personal opinion (and many others, probably most mainstream economists would say something similar) while subsidies in theory could possibly work well, in reality they rarely have the expected consequence the people who created the subsidy hoped for.

After typing all that, I go to google and realize there are way better definitions of why subsidies aren't sustainable:

The Economist (popular mainstream economics magazine) has an economics dictionary, here it doesn't describe _why_ a subsidy isn't sustainable, but gives a succinct definition and links to other related concepts:
http://www.economist.com/research/Economics/alphabetic.cfm?letter=S#subsidy

The Wikipedia Subsidy entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy#Tax_Subsidy

And if you search google for "tax subsidize photovoltaic" all sorts of things about the current situation come up. Naturally the people who have an interest in selling photovoltaics think subsidies are wonderful and necessary :)

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[joshuac]

Ok, without answering directly (it's late, I wanna go to sleep soon :) here's what pops out at me here:

It is readily apparent from Figures 1-3 that all silicon based solar cells in any type of design and placed anywhere in the U.S. will pay for themselves in terms of energy over their lifetime. This is counter to the resilient myth that solar cells will never be viable because they cannot ever make up for their embodied energy. The myth started with an analysis of very early cells and continues today because of the confusion generated by the economically based "emergy" analysis. The payback time ranges from about 1 year for BIPV installations in Phoenix made from high efficiency a-Si (Fig. 3b) to nearly 5 years for low efficiency c-Si in a centralized power plant located in Detroit.

I've never heard of the term "emergy" before (although "exergy", applied in many areas including PV cells plenty). A quick lookup on Wikipedia to find out what "emergy" is and it appears to be a word invented in the '90's. So how did this flawed "emergy" analysis get applied to "very early cells"? Just a quick cognitive disconnect that jumped out at me. Doesn't mean any of what they say is wrong, I haven't read any more of the source at all.

This doesn't mean the panel will pay off in money terms though; what with electricity being so incredibly cheap, while the panel may well pay itself off in terms of energy in 6 years, it may take three or four times that length of time to pay back in money terms. This is of course the significance of this new type of solar panel *IF* they can get the cost down. (Note the weasel word eventually in TFA).

I'd say that reaching production _energy_ parity is reasonable, I haven't kept up on things much at all but that seemed reasonably close, although the paper(?) you quote not-withstanding, I don't know if we're even there yet. Just being the pessimist here, but the power received at the leads to a panel isn't even close to the theoretical summed output of all the cells in that panel. Group "a" may be quoting theoretical cell output reaching parity with production (energy) costs, but group "b" see's that when they try it with actual panels things fall short.

I think when PV real-world-actually produces as much power over it's lifetime as goes into it's manufacturing you will quickly see PV production facilities that are powered by nothing but their own product. Obviously for some reason we don't see this happening out there. We don't even have any manufacturers cheating by using grid power to build a large enough initial array of panels to produce a smaller stream of panels later entirely off grid, much less an honest to goodness bootstrapping of a factory. That would be wonderful marketing for the first factory that could do that, but of course none have. Of course that _could_ easily be explained by the cost as you point out, and I humbly apologize (and celebrate!) if it turns out that a PV cell can already over it's lifetime produce as much power as was used to make it. If things aren't there yet, I suspect they aren't far off, but paying for itself power-wise in 6 years (or 1 year n Phoenix)...if with a 4:1 (or 25:1/Phoenix ideal) power output to power needed ratio like that why don't we see any things like solar powered PV factories?

And of course financial parity like you say is the big deal. If the article is correct and they "eventually" do pull it off, that is great. Probably a way bigger deal than energy parity, anyway.

Thank you for the link, I'll definitely read more into it tomorrow.

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[khallow]

I've never heard of the term "emergy" before (although "exergy", applied in many areas including PV cells plenty). A quick lookup on Wikipedia to find out what "emergy" is and it appears to be a word invented in the '90's. So how did this flawed "emergy" analysis get applied to "very early cells"? Just a quick cognitive disconnect that jumped out at me. Doesn't mean any of what they say is wrong, I haven't read any more of the source at all.

Why look for a cognitive disconnect when that's not what the sentence says? They didn't say that the myth started with the "emergy" analysis, merely that the latter continues the myth.

I think when PV real-world-actually produces as much power over it's lifetime as goes into it's manufacturing you will quickly see PV production facilities that are powered by nothing but their own product.

That's not the threshhold. As the poster you've debated with has indicated, they've passed energy parity a long time ago. Google for it. The information should be widespread enough that it'll take you less time to figure it out on your own than to talk it over on slashdot. The obstacle to using solar power to generate solar power is that it's currently more expensive than grid power. Energy parity and economic feasibility aren't the same. For example, the production (and recharging if possible) of batteries is a clear case where more energy goes into the manufacture than can possibly be extracted. But if you want light in your hand, a direct connection to the grid often is out of the question.

Another thing to note is that energy parity would have been reached *before* the solar cell produced as much power as went into its construction. As it turns out, for a while solar cells were made from excess silicon wafers discarded by the high tech world. As I understand it, purifying silicon is most of the energy cost of making a solar cell. Recycling pure silicon is far less energy intensive. So a considerable portion of the energy cost was paid whether or not the silicon refuse was manufactured into a solar cell.

Re:Units Please! What's the cost per watt hour

[Alioth]

The reason why you don't see solar panel factories powered by their product is:

a) Grid power is currently an order of magnitude cheaper
b) Solar power is intermittent, but a factory requires a reliable supply.

While a solar panel factory could be partially powered by its product and use grid power at night or when the weather is bad, (a) still holds true at the moment. If this new process really does get the cost to what they say it will, then I suspect every factory in the world will have a roof full of panels in time.

Indium

[RikF]

This stuff is already hard to come by. We won't all be covering our houses in this stuff!

Re:Indium

[Bryansix]

"It is estimated that, at current consumption rates, there is only 13 years' supply of indium left."

This according to New Scientist which is quoted in the Wikipedia Article on Indium.

Re:Indium

[missing000]

Google it then.

The I'm feeling lucky search for Indium Shortage has some very insightful ideas on the subject.

If Indium is as common as silver, we're not running out any time soon.

Re:Indium

[khallow]

The price has gone up substantially in the past few years due to demand from the LCD market. That means a lot of supply that wasn't feasible a few years ago is now feasible.

vaporware, anybody?

[SuperBanana]

From the ebay auction:

This solar panel is currently in Seller's possession but it will be held in escrow until 6/1/2009 before local pick-up by the winning bidder (or shipment at cost to the winning bidder).

Um...what?

Re:vaporware, anybody?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also note that they require you to sign an agreement that you not reverse engineer it. So what are they selling you, a license to have this in your back yard to show off? Anyone who falls for this is a damn fool.

Re:vaporware, anybody?

[gambolt]

Which also means, beyond a doubt, that they will keep a stranglehold on the patent. I consider "energy independance" to mean no country or corporate body has control.

The idea of Google as the power company on top of everything else is a bit much for me.

You really don't want to smoke these CIGS. :)

[Kaz Kylheku]

This body deliberately left blank.

I need a loan...

[jon.wolf]

Can anyone loan me 1.21 Gigadollars? Is that right? I wonder if they offer volume discounts...

Re:I need a loan...

[f8l_0e]

You'll never get a blimp to reach 88 mph or even take off with the amount of solar cells you'd need.

Break out point very near?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

We need a good way to store electricity because solar power is intermittent. The flywheel battery is not yet ready for transportation applications. Not crash resistant. But for domestic and office use one can bury this 10 feet below ground to "contain" it in the event of failure. A cheap solar cell installation and a reliable storage system will take many homes to reduce their load on the grid.

Despite all that, our transportation sector still relies too heavily on imported oil. Till we find a solution to that, we will be sending billions of dollars to marginally stable dictatorial nations for our oil.

We can reduce oil imports by 30% if we capture the methane from farm waste, reduce odor pollution, and get organic fertilizer too. Plug in hybrids can relieve another 30% of the load on oil imports.

But the oil producers cut the oil price and make the investors bail out and then raise the oil prices again. We need dedicated investors who will stay in wait for a real long time in the oil-replacement technologies.

Though stories of breakthrough in solar cell technology is running almost like a cron job in slashdot, this time it is slightly better because this time it is shipping already. It is not a story about what a technology that is 5, 10 or 20 years from the market.

Re:Break out point very near?

[Dan Ost]

But the oil producers cut the oil price and make the investors bail out and then raise the oil prices again. Now that demand for oil exceeds supply, that tactic will no longer work. Also, I'm not convinced that anyone has really used that tactic in the past.

Watts per meter of earth

[bonkeydcow]

Even if solar panels were completely free, they still would not meet our power needs. The sun only puts out X watts of power per square meter per hour, during the day. Even if you covered the whole earth with solar panels, it would not supply the power that is currently used. And of coarse, we can't cover the whole earth for several reasons. I have nothing against solar, but to imagine that it can provide all the power we need is unfortunately not possible.

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[giafly]

Even if you covered the whole earth with solar panels, it would not supply the power that is currently used.

Yes it would, 1000 times over. There is plenty of renewable energy, the issue is cost, which is where these cells come in. "The total solar energy available to the earth is approximately 3850 zettajoules (ZJ) per year ... Worldwide energy consumption was 0.471 ZJ in 2004." - Solar Energy

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed several zeros in a calculation somewhere. Global power usage is tens of terawatts, and the sun delivers a hundred petawatts to the Earth. That's 10^17 / 10^13 = 10,000 times more power than humans use now.

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[bonkeydcow]

I can cover every inch of my property the watts don't even cover my usage during the day, let alone the power i need during the night. So where are you going to put these panels? Cover the oceans, farmlands?

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[Dan Ost]

Care to share your calculations with the rest of us?

Everything I've ever heard says that the energy incident to the Earth far exceeds human needs.

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[Trinn]

Just nit-picking, since this is such an incredible number, you are off by a factor of 10, based on those numbers its more like 10,000 times over (though not of course including the impossibility of capturing all that energy, the efficiency, etc. but you get my point)

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[pavera]

Your property is either a) ridiculously small or b) you use too much energy.

I've already got proof of concept if I cover 1/2 of my roof and 1/2 of my garage roof I will be putting energy back onto the grid from sunup to sun down, enough of an offset that during the night my usage from the grid will not exceed what I put on the grid during the day. I will get a check every month and be self sufficient.

Granted, all of my light bulbs are florescent, I have gas water heater, dryer, stove/oven, and furnace. My greatest usage by far is in the summer with the AC. But even at peak, I'm only drawing 2500W. I can put 4kW of solar on the roof space I mentioned. Granted if these new cells have abysmal efficiency I'll have to put more up.

Unfortunately, at current cell prices it would cost me about 40k to do this (a 200W panel is ~$1000, so $10k/1kW). If the price really does come down to $1/Watt I can do it for ~4k. That is insanely attractive.

I don't have an overly large house (2200 sq ft not including the garage) or an overly large property (.1 acre lot). I have had 3 different solar installation companies give me quotes and do feasibility studies.

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[pavera]

yeah I'm retarded, $5k/kW sorry for the really poor math. The quotes I've received are ~40k including installation
and it would still be probably $10k-15k after installation for these new panels too.. installation, mounting, labor is ~half of any solar install from what I've seen.

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[Boogaroo]

Ok, I'll bite...
Either your calculations are off, or you use more electricity than the average person.

We live in Seattle and only need a space on the roof about 12 feet by 8 feet to supply all our needs. This is even with the crappy clouds and low sun angle. We figured that we'd break even in about 5-6 years. Screaming that it can't be done is ridiculous considering people have given you examples and hard facts that contradict this obvious falsehood.

Where'd you come up with the idea you can't cover your usage with solar?

Re:Watts per meter of earth

[TooMuchToDo]

Look into state incentives as well as bidding out the job to several different installers. You can even get 0% loans for the system from the state in most cases. Let me know if you need more info.

Consumer use?

[Dan East]

Since they are focusing on cheap manufacturing instead of light conversion efficiency, these things may not produce much output per unit of area.

So it may be one of those scenarios where you would have to cover your entire roof, as well as those of your two nearest neighbors, to generate enough power for a single house. In other words, they may be intending this for use in solar farms out in rural areas, where real-estate is not a concern.

Dan East

Re:Consumer use?

[phantomfive]

According to the wikipedia entry, they have about 19.5% efficiency. Typical commercially available solar cells get from 14%-19% efficiency, so these are pretty good.

Re:Consumer use?

[pavera]

That article says the material they use can achieve UP TO 19.5%. That is a theoretical maximum. That will never actually be achieved by any cell using this material. So, they are getting less than 19.5%, and probably much less (I'd bet 10-12%).

Eco-friendly gaming system

[davidwr]

Cool, now for $750 one-time fee I can power my gaming system in an eco-friendly way.

But only on sunny days.

Now to power my DeLorean properly I'll need to take out a $1.21G loan from Google.

Re:Eco-friendly gaming system

[pla]

Cool, now for $750 one-time fee I can power my gaming system in an eco-friendly way.

I think you meant that sarcastically, but if you leave that rig on all the time, the payback time comes out to under a year vs paying $0.15/kWh.

depends on your latitude and time of year

[petes_PoV]

Beware of headlines.

While the sun might be strong enough at some locations to provide the headline power output for the price paid, is this only going to be on the equator in high summer?

Considering that (in most countries) more power is consumed during the winter months to keep warm, the power output from solar power is at it's lowest so more cells are needed than would be the case to generate the same amount of power during the summer. Likewise, the industrialised countries tend not to be in the areas of the globe that get the most sunshine.

What we really need to know is the cost (i.e. number of square metres) of cell needed to generate 1W of electricity at a given latitude at a given time of year.
Until you get these numbers, all you have is marketing hype.

Re:depends on your latitude and time of year

[coolmoose25]

This may be true philosophically, but practically, it is exactly the opposite... You only hear about power grid problems and blackout/brownouts in the SUMMER, when A/C loads are high... Solar is an EXCELLENT power source in that scenario, as the higher the solar load, the more you need A/C, and the more solar energy you can collect...

Re:depends on your latitude and time of year

[petes_PoV]

that may be true in america, but for the other 95% of the world's population (including the 1/3rd who simply don't have any electricity at all, ever) aircon is simply not a factor.

With any luck they'll be the main beneficary of this tech.

Re:depends on your latitude and time of year

[tygt]

I realize this may be considered pedantic, but at the equator in high summer, the sun is highest in the sky at 23.5 degrees latitude (north or south, depending on which summer you're talking about). At the equator your best solar output will probably be during the equinoxes, except for potential weather considerations which vary by season and location.

Re:depends on your latitude and time of year

[falconwolf]

Considering that (in most countries) more power is consumed during the winter months to keep warm, the power output from solar power is at it's lowest so more cells are needed than would be the case to generate the same amount of power during the summer.

I don't know about you but I've used AC much more than I have heating. Whereas I've used heating a couple of months a year, I've used AC 4 months or more a year.

Falcon

Some calculations

[SamP2]

In hotter climates people use solar roofings already, especially for electric water boilers. But with sufficiently cheap and available coating, people could make entire roofs covered with solar panels. You'd also of course have to think about things like durability and waterproofing.

(Up front, I apologize to all the yanks for being an insensitive clod that doesn't use imperial measurements).

Earth's surface is absorbing ~90 petawatts of electricity any give time (Wikipedia), and with 510 million square kilometers of surface area, an incredibly rough generalized calculation says that each square meter absorbs 175 watts (this is a 24-hour average, even though obviously it's all absorbed during daytime). Of course, not all or even most of it can be converted to electricity, but still, that's a huge resource tap. I'd estimate an average home to have a roof surface area of about 50 square meters, which means that on average the sun sends 8kW on your roof. Next, the average American household uses 8900 kWh/year, which produces, again, an average usage of about 1 kilowatt per household. If you tile your entire roof with solar panels, you'd need to be able to convert 12% of heat/light energy to electricity in order to be fully self-sufficient.

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place.

Of course, this would have to be done on a truly massive scale to have any effect, but every bit helps, and if the industry can make it profitable to the consumer (and of course overcome the interests of evil megalomaniac neofascistliberal Big Oil corporations, as any /. troll will point out), it'll grow on its own.

Re:Some calculations

[ZorinLynx]

>the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming.

Allow me to teach you about the laws of thermodynamics.

You may be converting the sunlight into electricity instead of heat directly, but unfortunately when that electricity is used, it eventually will become heat.

It doesn't matter what you use the power for. Run a fan? The moving air will eventually slow down via friction and turn into heat. Run a light bulb? The light is eventually absorbed by surfaces which warm up, becoming heat. Run a computer? Every single watt you put in becomes heat.

This is the way life is, and there's no way around it. :)

Re:Some calculations

[ultramk]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place.

Erm. Well. What do you think happens to the solar radiation that is converted here into electricity? Do you think once your toaster/computer/lightbulb/air conditioner has a crack at it that it just goes away? Guess what, energy is neither created or destroyed: it all gets converted back into waste heat eventually (if it isn't sequestered somehow), which will--in some miniscule fashion--contribute to localized warming.

If you really thought that reducing the absorption of solar energy was a good thing, you would paint your roof white, or better yet, cover it with mirrors to reflect that energy (at least some of it) back into space.

Re:Some calculations

[wigaloo]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming.

Most electrical power is dissipated as heat. The incoming solar flux must be balanced by the outgoing flux which depends strongly on the surface temperature. Absorbing more of the sun's energy can only serve to warm up the planet.

Re:Some calculations

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some serious problems with what you wrote.

First, without any regard to the actual numbers you used, the Earth is absorbing light, electromagnetic radiation, primarily in the visible spectrum but lots of infrared too, not electricity.

On a bright sunny summer day at noon there are about 1000 W/m^2 at the surface of the Earth. I would bet that the best solar panels can get at about 20% of that and convert to electricity. There will be other losses due to conversion to AC and storage etc.

Finally, any light that you convert to electricity is still ultimately converted to heat. Where do you think it goes? There is no reduction in the overall energy absorbed by the Earth. Just a redistribution. Now that redistribution may have some measurable effect but my guess is that the signal will be very small compared to the natural variability.

Solar electric is a great idea. It will never solve all of our power generation and distribution problems. And it will not "cool the planet".

Re:Some calculations

[Lifyre]

Have you ever done the research on Global Warming or do you just believe what you're told?

Global Warming is a theory, don't treat it as fact. Global Warming (and cooling) have been going on for a shit load longer than the past one or two hundred years.

If human caused Global Warming becomes a reality who is to say it is a bad thing?

Al Gore and a lot of other people have done a good job spreading the fear of Global Warming around. So much so that people stop looking for facts and just follow the common knowledge.

There is absolutely no reason that Global Warming should even factor into this discussion. Renewable power supplies that don't use highly valuable resources are good for many reasons beyond lack of pollution. The problem with solar power is it doesn't produce a base of power and never will be able to.

If you want to make a real big difference find ways to provide base power. The only real option left in the USA is nuclear. It's cleaner than solar, provides base power, and what waste it does have is actualy pretty easy to contain and dispose of, as opposed to spraying it out the smoke stack.

Re:Some calculations

[Anonymous Coward]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place.

Actually solar panels do contribute in a way to global warming. Most of the electricity a solar cell produces would eventually turn to heat. A solar panel is black so only a very small percentage of the sunlight that falls on it would be reflected back to space. The positive efects however are probably more significant.

Re:Some calculations

[Junta]

It will never solve all of our power generation Now I wouldn't proclaim that. As we more efficiently use power and drive up efficient gathering operation, the power needs might be met. I do agree that storing and distributing the power is an orthogonal problem that must be solved to provide dim areas with power.

If we can extract on average enough electricity such that at any given instant it exceeds tho global demand for power, then can you be sure you have a sustainable power source for Earth until bigger problems arise that require us to not be on Earth anymore (fossil fuels after all are essentially merely solar power stored up over a very long time that is consumed in a much shorter period of time). Note this is all theory, but keep in mind that somewhat better than 20% efficient panels exist in exotic situations, and we drive down power usage per task.

And while I agree with the sentiment about Solar power and heat, theoretically if the panel only got 20% of the power and acted like a mirror for the other 80%, then in the aggregate it would be less than a black roof would have done (however, I'm sure this isn't close to reality, but it's a theory that could mean something pulling double duty as a mirror and solar panel could do better than a roof tile alone).

Re:Some calculations

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the laws of thermodynamics. You're not being "twice as productive." All of the energy converted to electricity will be converted to heat, whether that's through use in light bulbs, LEDs, televisions, electric car motors, or just through transmission. Exactly 100% of the energy absorbed will be converted to heat.

Re:Some calculations

[mailseth]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place.
The electricity is all still converted to heat energy eventually, you're just doing something useful with it first. That's what all the fans on the back of your computer are for, to deal with the heat energy. ;)

Re:Some calculations

[highacnumber]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place.
Ummm...except that the electricity eventually gets turned into heat. So rather than reflecting some sunlight, you are turning as much of it into heat as possible. But I don't think that's a problem on the scale we're talking about.

Re:Some calculations

[Anonymous Coward]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place.

The heat gets dissipated one way or the other. Any heat savings come from failing to burn fossil fuel, and when compared to the amount of energy coming in from the sun, it's less than a rounding error.

There is no double effect, since the energy that hits the Earth eventually migrates back out, even if we borrow it for a while. Thermodynamics and whatnot.

Re:Some calculations

[Kz]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming.

wrong.

all energy converted to electricity is ultimately turned into waste heat after use (except the _very_ small fraction that gets irradiated to space, mostly a little light and radio).

in terms of energy balance, solar farms mean replacing groud (which might be somewhat reflective) with dark panels, making the earth a little darker in color.

it would be interesting to put this darkening in context of the greenhouse emissions; i'm sure it's just a few percent of a disadvantage.

Re:Some calculations

[Anonymous Coward]

"An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place."

Not necessarily, you are covering the earth's surface with some dark light absorbent material. It's quite possible that the light would have been reflected in absence of the solar panel not converted into heat. For all we know the solar panel may produce more energy AND more heat

Re:Some calculations

[WalksOnDirt]

Every single watt you put in becomes heat.

This is the way life is, and there's no way around it. :) Unless you happen to be using the power to run a searchlight...

Re:Some calculations

[NemoinSpace]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place. YGTBFKM! First of all you dont absorb the suns energy AS electricity. Secondly, all energy is ultimately converted to light or heat. (radiation if you would like) Did you suddenly discover a perpetual motion machine? Or a way to reverse entropy? Where did you and the moderators undertake your fisix and erth syince studies? Can we please have a (-1) totally funkin wrong modifier?

Re:Some calculations

[evilviper]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place.

Low efficiency solar cells will dramatically increase global warming. Instead of 90% of the sun's rays being reflected back off into space by nice light sand or white roofing materials, 90% will be absorbed by photovoltaic panels, and turned into heat either immediate (solar cells are inefficient) or after being used in the form of electricity.

Re:Some calculations

[calidoscope]

Low efficiency solar cells will dramatically increase global warming. Instead of 90% of the sun's rays being reflected back off into space by nice light sand or white roofing materials, 90% will be absorbed by photovoltaic panels, and turned into heat either immediate (solar cells are inefficient) or after being used in the form of electricity.

That would be another reason to continue work on high-efficiency PV - the albedo of most roofing material is pretty low, so a conversion efficiency of 40% would be a net gain. The more important reason for high efficiency is that the structural support cost per watt goes down as efficiency goes up.

You did bring up a good point about roofing material. Going to a higher albedo saves in two ways, one being that it cools the local enviroment (especially if the material has a high emissivity at 10-20um), the second is that it reduces air-conditioning loads, which reduces electrical demand. Similarly, local warming can be reduced by increasing the albedo of pavement.

CdTe vs CIGS

[savuporo]

Anyone followed First Solar ( FSLR ) IPO ?
They were the first to bring CdTe cells to market, and guess what happened ..

Now, several companies have been working furiously to get the competing CIGS cells going. Miasole, Nanosolar, HelioVolt, just to name a few. FSLR of course beat them to market, and is already a winner, but i am waiting for IPOs for the CIGS companies too ..
Anything that doesnt use crystalline silicon is going to be huge, and in some instances, already is.

Honda

[Ogive17]

Honda has been develloping CIGS technology for a few years now. I believe they are already selling these type of solar panels in Japan. http://world.honda.com/news/2005/c051219.html

Corrections

[abramsh]

• They are not selling at $1/watt, that is their goal. They would be selling at $2.12/watt, but they are sold out for the next 18 months.
  
• They are not backed by Google, they are partially backed by some of the Google founders.
  

Springfield runs on coal?

[andrewd18]

Here in Springfield, our power plant runs on coal.

I could have sworn Springfield had a nuclear power plant...

Re:Springfield runs on coal?

[Anonymous Coward]

that's nu-ku-lerr.
Nu-ku-lerr.

Re:Springfield runs on coal?

[sm62704]

That's up in Clinton. It's just that burning coal releases more radioactivity into the air than a nuke plant. Plus that's not the only thing Groening got wrong; not everyone here is bugeyed (althogh a lot of them are). There are other cartoon characters here like Popeye, Olive Oyle, and Betty Boop, only like the linked diary mentions, the Springfield Betty's head is bigger, Springfield's Olive is flatter chested, and she isn't with Popeye.

The day before yesterday I saw Santa Claus tooling down the street in a motorized wheelchair with a set of golf clubs on his back, I shit you not! Come to se the Lincoln Presidential Library, stay for the 3-D cartoons.

Re:Springfield runs on coal?

[sm62704]

Like Pogo said, "About that nuclear power, it ain't so new and it ain't so clear."

Watt, Watt Hour?

[WPIDalamar]

I'm confused by the $1 per watt and "cheaper than coal"...

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought a watt was a measure of capacity whereas a watt-hour was what we actually paid for from our electric company as a measure of (what? power? energy?)... So a watt-hour is something like "continuously using one watt for one hour".

For solar, there's no fuel cost. So the $1 gets you a "perpetual" 1 watt. If it lasted forever (which it won't), that'd be an infinite amount of watt-hours.

But coal plants have a fuel cost. So $1 only gets them so much coal, and only so many watt-hours.

Or is that comparing the cost of building a coal plant to building solar panels? Or is it some kind of TCO figure?

Re:Watt, Watt Hour?

[geekoid]

If you had a panel that could produce 200KWh, that panel would cost 200 dollars to build.

200 / .13 cents per KWh
Pays for itself in about 1538 hours of use at max output. 2 months or so.

Not bad, and even places that have a lot of cloud cover could show a savings.

Re:Watt, Watt Hour?

[Change]

Solar panels have a finite lifetime. Last I checked a few years ago that was about 20 years, may have improved since then. Also, the sun only shines a certain amount each day...for LA, you get an average of 5.6 sun hours per day (per http://www.solarexpert.com/Pvinsolation.html). So, let's do some math, assuming a 100-watt panel that costs $100.
100 watts * 5.6 = 560 watt-hours per day.
560 watt-hours * 365 = 204 kWh/year.
204 kWh/year * 20 years = 4080kWh over the lifetime of the panel.
$100/4080 kWh = $.0245/kWh.

Add in the cost of inverters, if you want power 24 hours a day you'd need batteries (which have about a 5-year life before needing replacement), and the costs do add up (I don't have inverter/battery prices in front of me, nor do I have the time to work up a full PV system plan right now, but the info is out there and just takes some basic math to figure out the total cost per kWh of a system over its expected lifetime).

Re:Watt, Watt Hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's comparing the capital investment costs of both technologies.

Coal power plants cost slightly more than $1/W to construct currently.

You are correct that the fuel costs make it harder to compare, but historically the initial capital investment required for solar has made it unviable compared to coal, despite the fact that coal has to pay for fuel and solar does not. Now that this is no longer the case, it's expected that the fuel costs will start to dominate the picture and more people will go for solar.

Re:Watt, Watt Hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, you're right, it's not an easy comparison. You have to figure out the amount of energy you would generate over the lifetime of the panels vs. how much coal it would take to create that much energy. You also have to take into account things like interest on your initial investment, potentially rising costs of coal, inflation, etc. extrapolated over 20 years or so, and it gets quite inaccurate. Depending on what your assumptions are, either solar or coal can come out cheaper. However, at $1/watt it's pretty clear that solar is cheaper, even with the other initial assumptions skewed heavily towards coal.

Re:Watt, Watt Hour?

[WPIDalamar]

200KW = 200000 Watts = $200000

How many watts per sq. meter?

[otis wildflower]

How much juice can these things generate? Can one be self-sufficient with, say, covering a home + garage with these and putting a battery in the basement/shed?

Re:How many watts per sq. meter?

[Dan Ost]

How much juice can these things generate?

That is entirely dependent on how much area you have to devote to solar panels.

Can one be self-sufficient with, say, covering a home + garage with these and putting a battery in the basement/shed?

Sure, as long as you consume less energy than the amount of energy captured per unit area multiplied by the area of your panels. Of course, you'll want to over-spec it a little and store the excess somehow, so that means you will further multiply the result by the round-trip efficiency of your storage method.

I'm over-simplifying a little, but you get the idea.

This has been feasible for a while now for people who don't consume lots of energy. As panels get cheaper/better, it becomes feasible for more people. You'll have to determine for yourself where you lie on that curve.

Hot Damn!

[Cleon]

The main problem with solar power technology so far has been cost-efficiency; it's cost more to manufacture them than they produce, both in terms of money and in terms of energy. Last time I checked, the technology for that to change was still a good decade or two off.

If this is for real, it could very well revolutionize how the world is powered. Major props to these guys, and here's hoping the trend continues.

Re:Hot Damn!

[boris111]

it could very well revolutionize how the world is powered

I've seen a couple post that mention the power loss due to inverters used. But if solar panels were to truly change the world wouldn't we consider wiring our house DC then?

Re:Hot Damn!

[falconwolf]

The main problem with solar power technology so far has been cost-efficiency; it's cost more to manufacture them than they produce, both in terms of money and in terms of energy. Last time I checked, the technology for that to change was still a good decade or two off.

Check this out, Alioth posted it above in the thread: NET ENERGY ANALYSIS FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY PRODUCTION FROM SILICON BASED SOLAR CELLS. It says the payback period for the energy used to produce it is from 1 to 5 years depending on the location, ie it takes 1 to 5 years of energy production before it produces as much energy as was used to make it.

Falcon

We have everything you're looking for.

[crhylove]

Right now. We have the Tesla car. We have cheap solar. We have several different electricity storage solutions including the aforementioned flywheel batteries, and lithium ion batteries, and even new nanotechnology based super capacitors. Alternately, I never understood why we don't have zeppelins as they are clearly a very practical and efficient mode of transportation for many applications. I mean, 40+ people survived the Hindenburg, and all passengers routinely die in plane crashes. I imagine wifi and GPS guided autonomous carbon fiber zeppelins could solve most of our transportation issues, and safely too. It's really just a matter of engineering.

The only problem is, you'd have to pass these ideas past Mobile, Shell, Exxon, Dow, Viacom, and every other corporation that owns this government, and they all stand to lose greatly. I'd say you could vote their paid lackeys out, but apparently, the votes are not currently being counted. I'm behind you in spirit though, and would love to buy a giant live-in autonomous carbon fiber zeppelin, if you come across one. Might as well cover the thing with the new cheap solar panels, too..... I'm tired of living in a house anyway.

rhY

You have it all wrong.

[jwilcox154]

You have it all wrong. Honda has never developed that kind of technology. On the other hand; Phillip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and R.J. Reynolds have not only have developed CIGS technology, but they have also been pushing CIGS on us for quite some time now. ;)

Re:Some calculations (errors)

[clonan]

Good post with ONE error...

While any light absorbed by the cell would not directly heat the surface under it (like your roof) it doesn't mean it will never heat the planet...

When you eventually use the electricity created by the solar cell (say for your computer), it will in the end come out as heat in the system exhaust fan.

I absolutly agree that using a solar cell is a fantastic idea however if what you are suggesting is true and all the heat from the light never escapes, we would see an ice age almost immediatly after wide spread use.

But since the solar cells will delay the heat generation and move it away from your roof, it might lower your AC usage....

Still a great post anyway!

Intersting Personal Investors

[AbbyNormal]

Pretty nice list of personal investors to begin with!
A little bit of funding from Mr. Sergey Brin, http://www.nanosolar.com/investors.htm (Google).

GoogleSolar.com planned?

Why so focused on the solar exposure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are people so focused on how much sunshine you get? There's a solar panel plant up in Toledo, and their biggest buyer right now is Germany. I'll admit they may not always have great ideas, but if they get enough sunlight up there that they think it can have an impact, why the hell couldn't US do it?

Failed Thermodynamics?

[dj245]

An extra bonus is that the more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet, and that in and of itself reduces the effect global warming. So you are being twice as productive - not rely on heat-trapping coal, and reduce the amount of heat that saturates on the planet in the first place.

Well, no. No matter what you do with your electricity, it always ends up as heat. Lightbulbs? Heat. Even Compact Floro's, even LEDs. Computers? Little space heaters. Ovens, Toasters, hairdryers etc go without saying. Air conditioners are just heat *pumps* that move heat from one place to another, adding some more heat in the proceses. I think someone failed thermo.

Quick ROI

[Oxydius]

If it turns out to be $1/watt, it will be an awesome return on investment. That translates to 11 cents per kilowatt-hour over a single year, with perpetually free electricity over the remaining 24 years the panels are under warranty. The system would be positive within a year in California, and within 2 years even in places like Quebec where hydro-electricity is dirt cheap. Pimp my roof, Nanosolar!

Fossil Fuels

[Rob the Bold]

Use them and nobody gets hurt.

Re:Fossil Fuels

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, no one gets the obscure simpsons quotes.

uh, the heat will stay on earth all right

[Anonymous Coward]

he more you absorb the sun's energy as electricity, the less of it is converted to heat which dissipates around the planet

Er, not to nitpick your otherwise very informative post, but unless you are putting any electricity you generate into an energy beam pointed out into space, you can be sure the energy is going to stay on earth no matter what intermediate form you convert it to ; )

mod wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"$15-20k worth of automated switching equipment"..sorry, out to lunch there. Completely 100% el-wrongo, and there's no need for that at all. I am just guessing but I bet you don't know anyone who actually uses solar. There are *thousands and thousands* of working home installations out there where the whole shebang including that "crapload of batteries" cost less than that or right at that. 20 grand worth of solar gear is a lot. 10 grand is enough to have a few critical dedicated circuits in your house, whole room UPS type systems, plenty for daily use and to get your through the odd ice storms and power blackouts. Ya, you can get gouged there as well from some companies, but being geeks, and tool users you/we can do 95% of the installation yourself and just have a licensed electrician do the final box connections for the inspector to look at. Save thou$ands of dollars that way. All those people who have done it are laughing at the naysayers who are waiting for the big utility companies to say "solar works" before they go for it. Hint:they'll keep gouging you no matter what, that is their only business model, keep you locked into the monthly payment forever. No way in hell are they ever going to admit you can actually pay your electric bill off and be running on free electricity. Right now for most people in sunny enough areas it is below ten years, after that, free, and the panels they have now go for 30 years plus and the batteries are good enough for at least ten years, maybe longer if you size your installation correctly and do shallow cycling. Solar has been cost effective for tons of people for over a decade now, they are living it and proving it. Not for everyone, but for millions of people potentially, and for tens of millions to provide a daily good chunk of it, say 3/4ths of normal household needs at a relatively fast payback point compared to a normal home mortgage term. The planetary geographical areas where the bulk of humans live are overwhelmingly good enough for at least some solar usage. Very few places are really so terrible to not make it at least somewhat useful to 100% a good idea.

Every time this subject comes up here the bulk of the replies are just wild speculation and outright FUD. I've noticed even most of the guys are are running on solar who've posted over and over again over the years with the real facts have just stopped replying, their real world success stories and honest experiences, etc get driven out by the energy luddites (or electric cartel company employee astroturfers).

Bad math

[Ktistec Machine]

At $0.07/KWh, generating a kilowatt for a year would cost .07*24*365 = $613.20.
Over 5 years, this would be a total of $3066.00 for generating one kilowatt
during that time, or about $3 per watt. If the solar cells cost $1 per watt
and they last for five years (they'd better last at least this long), then the
solar cells win by a factor of three.

yikes

[raygundan]

You have to clear the snow off of it,

This may be the only thing you got right.

it only works when the sun is out so you need a crap-load of batteries or $15-20k worth of automated switching equipment which allows you to be simultaneously connected to the grid without electrocuting the lineman who is working on your pole and thinks the power is off

The "automated switching equipment" is a good order of magnitude cheaper than you specify, and is typically built into the inverter. Total cost, maybe $2k.

, you probably need to multiply your number by at least 4, because you need to generate power for the 75% of the time you're not getting good sun in the 25% of the time that you are,

Why? Why not just leave your connection to the grid and use power from them when you can't make it yourself? Most installations are grid-tied these days, for obvious reasons. But as long as our daytime demand greatly exceeds our nighttime demand, and our cooling power requirements rise when the sun is out, our demand will float nicely with the availability of the sun.

and you need some pricey inverters if you want to run devices designed for 110V AC...

Oooh, pricey. $2000 or less. If you're considering solar panels, this is a drop in the budget compared to what you're going to spend on the panels themselves.

Additionally, they're not actually $1/watt. That's the theoretical cost if they are able to ramp up production as planned.

Sorta. I have no idea what cost they're actually being manufactured for, because nanosolar is sold out at full capacity for the next 18 months. They could be making them at a nickel a watt, but as long as all their competition is selling at $4 or $6 a watt, they'll just undercut a little and make tons o' money. We won't find out how low they can really go until they have some competition.

Totally unrelated to your post

[Lifyre]

Your sig made me giggle. I'm going to have to go watch that again now. Utena was so much fun.

Re:Totally unrelated to your post

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing like a series that has combat set to music about trilobites, eh? :)

Re:Totally unrelated to your post

[Lifyre]

Don't forget get the "subtext" oh dear god the subtext...

Re:How practical or...rather is it some scam?

[mazanoid]

Not to spread FUD, but this venture firm might actually deserve it. From what I gathered after reading up on the company, they completed 3 panels this year.

Two go to various museums where they will (probably) never be used or hooked up to anything (Hrmmm....)

The other one is sold via ebay and at time of posting ends : Dec-27-07 17:13:10 PST (6 days 6 hours)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150196787450

Of note, considering for 100 million in venture funds and 5 years they have only produced 3 panels...and wait, what's this? Oh yes that darn fine print...for 13,000$ you can buy the worlds most expensive Christmas present wrapping paper, because they sort of disclaim more or less that it ...probably doesn't work.

Read carefully! If you cannot agree to these terms, DO NOT BID!

This solar panel is sold AS-IS, without any warranties (either express or implied). As we make no claims to any express or implied warranties, all bidders acknowledge and agree that this panel is presented as a collectable item that may have potential historical value, not an item meeting any specifications.

modme up =P

Solar will become like DRAM

[tinrobot]

The CEO of Nanosolar had this quote:

"This industry is in a very different stage now. This is going to be like the DRAM business much more quickly than many may realize."

http://www.benchmark.com/news/sv/2007/07_30_2007a.php

It won't get under $1/watt this year, but if what he's saying is true, prices will continue to fall until solar becomes an affordable commodity.

Re:Solar will become like DRAM

[khallow]

Interesting quote, but what does it mean? They aren't doubling the capability of their solar cells every couple of years. I don't yet see the demand for that quantity of solar panels.

Sure they can print these for $1/watt

[K-Man]

But the USB cables are $50,000.

Re:How practical or...rather is it some scam?

[Rei]

You read wrong. Those are the first three panels that they consider to be part of their full production run, so they're being treated as having historic value and are not just being sold along with the others. The first they're keeping, the second is being auctioned for charity, and the third was donated to a tech museum. After that, panels have been going to Germany, and they just got their first check for them. Before that, they had been producing panels on their line, but it was an incomplete line and the panels were being used for testing.

Self Replicating question

[jameskojiro]

If they powered a factory making these cells on the same solar power cells they make, how long would it take to make enough cells to power another factory making the same cells?

Could this same tech be used to make Lunar based solar cells?

Where are the Specs?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) the $1/Watt isn't defined. I read somewhere that it was nanosolar's cost, at some level in the manufacturing process, and that they could sell panels for $2/Watt, thereby approaching the cost of coal generated electricity. The $2/W figure probably applies to large wholesale purchases. Consumer panels for homeowners would be more. What they are actually selling their product for? Are these finished panels, ready to use? 2) What is the efficiency. I couldn't find it anywhere on nanosolar's website. Hightech cells approach 40% efficiency. Consumer grade crystalline cells are at about 13-20%, amorphous cells are about 11%. Lower efficiency means bigger panels and more expensive enclosures and mounting. There is no clear information out there, that I could find, with numbers that actually mean anything

Being outside can still be dangerous ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

It doesn't really matter if they produce toxic fumes when burning (most probably noxious but not necessarily toxic or even poisonous ) since (a) they are probably outside anyway (i.e. on your roof or out in the yard),

Since we are talking shingles we are talking about a lot of material. There could be a threat to those outside in the vicinity, you and your family, neighbors, etc. When plastics burn there is often a danger of long term permanent damage, including cancer risks from carcinogens. Hydrochloric acid vapors and dioxin for example, it's not simple smoke inhalation. I once worked in a warehouse and a fire in the toy department was considered extremely dangerous, even to those outside exposed to smoke. I'm wondering if there are similar problems here.

Re:Being outside can still be dangerous ...

[CodeBuster]

I'm wondering if there are similar problems here. Hence, the "in for a penny in for a pound" argument. Your modern house is already full of plastics, insulation, and all sorts of other materials that would be noxious or even toxic if your house were to burn so NOT adding solar panels simply because they might be toxic when they burn too is sort of pointless. You aren't really increasing your overall risk much, beyond what it otherwise would be anyway, by adding solar panels to your home. Now maybe you live in a natural adobe home or a mud hut, but for the rest of us this line or reasoning is valid.

Re:Being outside can still be dangerous ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Hence, the "in for a penny in for a pound" argument. Your modern house is already full of plastics, insulation, and all sorts of other materials that would be noxious or even toxic if your house were to burn so NOT adding solar panels simply because they might be toxic when they burn too is sort of pointless. You aren't really increasing your overall risk much, beyond what it otherwise would be anyway, by adding solar panels to your home. Now maybe you live in a natural adobe home or a mud hut, but for the rest of us this line or reasoning is valid.

You are discovering my curiosity here. The problem with your line of thinking is that the materials in a house are designed to mitigate the harmful by products. Hence building codes preventing one from using PVC pipes designated for lawn sprinklers as conduits for running indoor cabling, there are pipes with alternate ingredients for that application. Building codes also cover exterior elements and consider chemicals released during burning. My curiosity is whether the current formulation of the solar panels present no special risk, and may therefore be used in the near future; or if a reformulation is necessary, which delays its use. There are also other issues such as whether the material is inherently flammable, another issue that would preclude roofing applications.

How much after the CEO cut?

[heroine]

$1/W to produce. $5000/W after the CEO's bonus is added in.

Ob

[Hognoxious]

A dollar per what?

1$ per watt... someday

[yipper]

The actual article says that they someday, maybe, might be able to make them for $1 per watt. That would be great.

But for now it ain't so.

Efficiency

[suggsjc]

I know that this is big news and all, but the real breakthrough is going to be when they get the efficiency high enough that you can power light bulbs to shine back on the panels so that you can still use these babies during the night! Granted you'll probably have to use those expensive CFL bulbs, but it will still be cool. After all, you'll still need power when the sun goes down.

Viva la revolution!!!

Mind the units...

[Junta]

$0.07 per KWh isn't directly comparable to $1/W

You need to know the lifespan of the solar panels in order to make that comparison. If it lasted one hour, yes, the panels would be less than 1% of 1% as efficient cost wise. If it lasted, say 10,000 hours, then it would be 7 times as cost efficient (breaking even at about 1500 hours). Of course, that's ignoring financial weirdness like capitalization and such. It also ignores that solar panels themselves are useless for continual power unless paired with some uber-efficient power storage technology that would add cost (how else do you get power at night and on cloudy days, how do you provide power during a week of rain). Also, real estate prices come into play, as solar panel power generation obviously requires more land as demand goes up, and since high power demand is near high population density areas, that hurts.

I keep seeing Wh spoken of when comparing to solar, and it makes it non-trivial to compare since the cost of the 'fuel' in solar is free, it's just setting up your fuel collection costs money that you must recoup over time.

That said, I think the current situation of solar demanding the most real-estate where prices are highest hurt it from power company perspective. It is however very interesting from a decentralized view. If I could cover my roof with these things, I might be able to drive a fair percentage of my own power (don't know what the Watts/square foot is for this).

paying for solar

[falconwolf]

The problem with traditional solar is that the capital costs are so high, you'll never catch up with the interest.

While the capital costs of solar is high, the interest can be paid for in savings, for those who build off the grid. More and more mortgage lenders are offering interest rates lower for building that are energy efficient and have a solar or other alternative energy system built in. Many also offer higher mortgages to pay for them, they are able to do this because such a system reduces or eliminates the the monthly expense of power. The cost of solar is rolled into the cost of the building and what interest is paid is tax deductible. Some solar systems have a payback period as low as 7 years, ie the cost of the system is paid for in 7 years because of the lower costs of power. However this ignores inflation, the costs of electricity continues to rise whereas the cost of solar is in the equipment only has to be paid occasionally. The warranty of equipment can be 20 years or longer, the shortest period I've seen is 7 years. However because of the progressive march of technology equipment only gets more efficient and prices drop, so even if something has a 20 year warranty the owner may still want to replace something with a new one.

Falcon

Re:paying for solar

[Rei]

While the capital costs of solar is high, the interest can be paid for in savings,

But that's the problem: In most places, traditional solar prices simply don't have savings greater than the interest. That's the big deal about these: that the savings *is* greater than the interest almost everywhere.

Re:paying for solar

[falconwolf]

But that's the problem: In most places, traditional solar prices simply don't have savings greater than the interest. That's the big deal about these: that the savings *is* greater than the interest almost everywhere.

Ah but it does, the savings in solar is greater than the interest otherwise mortgage lenders wouldn't allow higher mortgages for buildings that incorporate alternative energy. A responsible lender, not one of those subprime lenders, has to calculate the costs of the operation of a building into how much they will lend. And as I said before this ignores tax writeoffs and inflation. The feds and many states also allow the costs to be deducted from taxes up to a certain level. Some utilities also will pay part of the costs, then there's net metering wherein the utility pays for power fed into the system.

Falcon

Re:paying for solar

[Rei]

Ah but it does, the savings in solar is greater than the interest

Look, you can claim that all you want, but it's just not true. A panel that's rated for 1W and returns you an average of 0.05W over the course of the day and year but cost you $6, and is replacing power that costs $0.10/kWh simply will not match the interest on that panel, even with tax writeoffs. I can do the calculations for you here, or you can just punch it into the calculator. There's a reason why most of the world's power isn't solar, and it's not because the world's economics community is a bunch of idiots.

Re:paying for solar

[falconwolf]

Look, you can claim that all you want, but it's just not true.

I'll switch that around, no matter what you claim it's not true! People who build Off the Grid are proving you wrong every day.

Falcon

Re:paying for solar

[Courageous]

The people who build off grid either build because the grid isn't near by, or they simply like the idea of being off grid, and don't care particularly about the time value of money.

You should have heeded the other poster, and tried some calculations.

Truly.

C//

Re:paying for solar

[falconwolf]

The people who build off grid either build because the grid isn't near by, or they simply like the idea of being off grid, and don't care particularly about the time value of money.

Care to prove all of those who build off the grid have money to burn?

You should have heeded the other poster, and tried some calculations.

Those who have built off the grid have already done the calculations.

Falcon

Re:paying for solar

[Courageous]

You're not one of them, and you haven't performed any calculations.

It's easy. But no.

PERFORM THE GODDAMN CALCULATIONS.

C//

Re:paying for solar

[falconwolf]

You're not one of them, and you haven't performed any calculations.

Wow! You know everything about me and what I've done. NOT!!! Actually I did do the calculation, back in the '90s. I took my electrical usage back then, sized a solar system for that usage and calculated the price. Then I took the price of the energy I used and the payback period was about 15 years. Since then things have only improved. Energy efficiency has increased and prices has come down a lot. Adding all of the rebates and tax credits and the price should be a lot lower. First thing, and most efficient, is to cut energy usage. I paid around $15 for the first Compact Florescent Light bulb I bought. Last year I bought a 3 pack of CFLs for less than $10, and I have CFLs in all light fixtures but one and I rarely use that one. With the exception of my clock radio and my juicer all of the electrical appliances I have now use less energy than the appliance the new ones replaced, yes I look at labels and look on the net for energy usage stats for appliances. So my energy usage is now lower than it was. Next, because of the web I was able to find out that at least some utilities offer credit for energy efficiency measures. For instance some of them will credit or refund part of the costs of adding insulation. On top of that some states now have net metering, in which the person is paid for the energy they put into the system. Next, the feds and some states offer incentives such as tax credits for improving energy efficiency. DSIRE, Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Effiency is a database of what each state offers in incentives. Just click on the state. For instance Minnesota, the state I live in now, will pay $2/watt DC (which goes up to $2.25/watt DC after July 1, 2008) for a solar system up to $20,000.

With increased efficiency, reduced costs, as well as the rebates and tax credits I'm sure that 15 years I calculated years ago can be dropped to a 10 year payback period if not even lower with inflation.

So, while I haven't done a calculation lately I have, unlike what you say, done a rough calculation.

Falcon

Re:paying for solar

[Courageous]

An investment of equal size has a return of it own. That return COMPOUNDS. A mutual fund will average about 11.5% annually, COMPOUNDED, when you pick a simple S&P 500 index.

You have NOT performed the calculations. You've only performed the half of them. You calculated, on the back of a napkin, so to speak, how much money you would "save." You did not calculate, however, how much money you would fail to gain by not investing that money in good investments elsewhere. Not to mention: with the "good investments elsewhere," your principal is still in your hands at the end. With your current strategy, the money is not.

A quick shot in excel shows me this. $35,000 at 11.5% interest is worth $100K after 10 years. Did your 10 year calculation show a similar return on energy bill?

I KNOW THAT IT DID NOT.

C//

Just fell off the 'tater truck?

[Otisserie]

Were you guys born yesterday? Any reporter in the Bay Area could wallpaper his office with bogus PR releases from Silicon Valley startups.

A quick look at the company website shows two things: 1) no prices are listed for any products; and 2) you can't see the product specs without signing an NDA.

So no one has any possible way of judging whether they *actually* have any solar panels for $1/watt. They can make any damn claim they want.

PR Flack: "Our company invented a car that runs on water!"
Reporter: "Great. Let's see it."
PR Flack: "No."
Reporter: "Well, how does it work?"
PR Flack: "I can't tell you."
Reporter: "Thanks for wasting my time."

power losses during transmission

[falconwolf]

As chance would have it, I came across this very informative chart from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I am astounded at the amount of loss (transmission being a major factor).

I see a problem with the chart. No where on it do I see whether the electricity is transmitted AC or DC or the distances. At high voltages over long distances AC looses more than DC does.

Falcon

Re:power losses during transmission

[Facetious]

I would assume transmission is AC at high voltage, but you are correct that the chart doesn't distinguish between loss due to type. I would be very curious to see a source on your second sentence. As I understand it, AC won out over DC (which Edison championed) for the very reason that DC loses so much voltage (and power for that matter) over long distance.

Re:power losses during transmission

[drwho]

AC won out of DC because of Stanley's invention of the transformer, which enabled changing high current, low voltage electricity into high voltage, low current electricity. It's not the AC or DC which effects transmission efficiency over distance, it is the voltage (Electromotive Force). It's just easier to raise the voltage of an AC current.

Re:power losses during transmission

[Beltonius]

It's not really that AC loses power over distance more than DC, it's that higher voltages lose less power over long distances than lower voltages. Due to the constantly-varying nature of AC, it is easily 'transformed' between voltages. However, this is a two-edged sword since AC can be easily converted for transmission, but that same AC property of constantly varying voltage causes losses due to impedance (essentially frequency-dependant 'resistance' due to inductance in the lines). With modern switching power electronics (close to 100% efficient...100% is theoretically possible), AC-DC, DC-DC and DC-AC conversions are fairly easy and there is talk of using high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) to replace the current high-voltage alternating-current transmission lines to eliminate the reactive power losses (due to impedance in the transmission lines). If the grid were changed over to HVDC then an eventual switch to high-temperature super conductors could virtually eliminate long-distance transmission losses (except for whatever coolant might be required to keep the lines in the super-conducting range).

Re:power losses during transmission

[falconwolf]

As I understand it, AC won out over DC (which Edison championed) for the very reason that DC loses so much voltage (and power for that matter) over long distance.

"High-voltage direct current"
"Advantages of HVDC over AC transmission"

"The advantage of HVDC is the ability to transmit large amounts of power over long distances with lower capital costs and with lower losses than AC. Depending on voltage level and construction details, losses are quoted as about 3% per 1000 km. High-voltage direct current transmission allows use of energy sources remote from load centers."

Falcon

Re:power losses during transmission

[fyngyrz]

At high voltages over long distances AC looses more than DC does.

"loses"

Quite aside from the tortured English, I didn't see how they accounted for the energy required to obtain, for instance, petro. Digging, refining, transporting the material as well as bringing workers and equipment to and fro, etc. For instance, to get gasoline to your car from the filling station, it typically will move in a tanker that spends X amount of fuel doing the moving, then electricity is spent pumping it to your tank, etc. A solar panel, once purchased, just sits there and supplies energy. There's no continually recurring costs the way there are with consumable energy supplies barring outright system failures.

It reminds me of the people who think we are taxed at about 30%. They just have no idea what is really going on, how much of the money they put out actually goes to the feds.

Re:power losses during transmission

[falconwolf]

Quite aside from the tortured English, I didn't see how they accounted for the energy required to obtain, for instance, petro. Digging, refining, transporting the material as well as bringing workers and equipment to and fro, etc. For instance, to get gasoline to your car from the filling station, it typically will move in a tanker that spends X amount of fuel doing the moving, then electricity is spent pumping it to your tank, etc. A solar panel, once purchased, just sits there and supplies energy. There's no continually recurring costs the way there are with consumable energy supplies barring outright system failures.

Maybe it's tortured logic but I don't see the relevance of petro to whether electricity is transmitted as AC or DC.

Falcon

I don't understand $1/Watt, please explain...

[Abuzar]

Uh, can someone explain this:

I thought that when the electric company charged me, they charged me per kilowatt. Something like $0.20 per 1000 watts (per hour, right?). So like, what does this $1/watt mean? Does it mean that coal costs $1/watt (per hour?) that it produces? Then I don't understand how I get electricity for so cheap? And what does it mean when a solar cell produces $1/watt? Does that mean that over its average lifetime it will produce a certain number of watts and that each watt costs $1?

Also, I imagine that with coal there must be slaves shoveling rock somewhere and someone constantly having to shovel stuff into an oven, whereas solar cells just sit there and absorb light, right? Is the energy cost involved in producing solar cells and coal equipment (ovens, trucks?) included in the equations?

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me understand :-)

Re:I don't understand $1/Watt, please explain...

[The Master Control P]

With solar power, the $/Watt is unit cost per (maximum) unit power output. It's related to how long a solar power system takes to pay for itself; The lower the $/watt, the fewer watt-hours needed for the system to pay itself off. At 4$/Watt, a big panel outputting 120 watts costs about $480 and (before tax breaks) will probably take 20-odd years to pay for itself. Since 20 years is an unreasonably long time for an investment to break even, not many people are doing this. At $1/Watt, it costs $120 and will pay for itself in 5 years (2 or 3 after tax breaks), which is much more economical.

For example, say a given panel costs $N/Watt. The income is (power * time * rate), and it pays for itself when that equals the original cost. Assuming 275 days/year with 8 hours (on average) of full sun each, then for $N, you get $(1 * 8 * 275 * .0002) per year, or $.44. Then it takes N/.44 years to pay for itself. So at the cost of silicon, it takes 9 years to pay for the panel, but at $1/Watt only 2.3 years. Keep in mind that panels are about half the cost of the system (+batteries, inverter & installation), and that's where 20 vs 5 years comes in.

Hope this helps :)

Re:I don't understand $1/Watt, please explain...

[Abuzar]

Thank you, yes it does clarify how the prices calculated :-)

Not all at once

[RealBothersome]

People seem to think too shallow in terms of using these things.

You don't need to have your house running on solar power at 100%. Even if you bought say 200 cells (that produce 1 watt of power each), you could charge nine 12 volt batteries and use the power from the batteries. For instance, most modern computer power supplies will operate off 108 volts of DC power directly. That would save you the energy from the grid to power your computer. Some savings are better than no savings. Other types of equipment can run directly off of DC power. Like some vacuum cleaners (the kind with brushed motors in them). Lights can also be used from DC. Along with some electric heaters. You don't have to power the whole house from solar. Maybe powering some things will be enough to get the world greener.

Collective reply to "thermodynamics" objections

[SamP2]

This is a collective reply to all the "you forgot thermodynamics" replies (I'm the author of the parent post). I probably should have clarified that in the original.

I did not forget the laws, and I'm well aware that eventually all energy becomes heat one way or another.

But consider this:

- If you burn coal, you get heat energy from the following sources:
1. The heat produced by burning the coal itself
2. The heat produced by trapping more of the sun's heat in the atmosphere (if you reject global warming theory you may not agree with this one, but I'm not going to bother arguing with you on that point)
3. The heat produced by the end usage of electricity

- If you use solar panels instead of burning coal, yes, you STILL get heat from source 3 since you use the same appliances, but you don't get excess heat from the first TWO sources. That's what I meant by "bonus advantage" - you cut down both the heat from burning the coal itself, and from the greenhouse effect as well.

Why did I use the phrasing I did? Because I meant to say that the Sun's heat will strike the Earth whether you burn coal or not, so you can use the energy produced anyways instead of producing extra energy (from coal) which then adds on top of the original heat from the Sun. The argument is along the lines of "a penny saved is a penny earned".

Sorry if I was ambiguous.

Re:Collective reply to "thermodynamics" objections

[marcopo]

There is still one thing you overlook, and that is that solar panels tend to be black. This makes sense as they absorb more light, but that also means less light is reflected back into space. If you had a white roof instead then less energy from the sun would stay on earth.

This is related to the fact that with the north polar ice cap gone, less light is reflected from earth which feeds back into raising mean temperatures.

AC, DC

[falconwolf]

No - that only pays for the panel in 6.5 years. Now factor in shipping & handling, installation, the equipment to convert the panels DC output into AC, maintenance...

Why convert the DC produced into AC? Just use DC. Then you'll be eliminating 2 inefficiencies, converting to AC then reconverting to DC again.

Falcon

Re:AC, DC

[DerekLyons]

Sure - if you only want to furnish your home from the limited range of DC appliances available and only use them when you have power from the panels. Or spend a great deal of money on more panels than you'll need and a bank of batteries. And hope they never run down... Or spend a goodly sum on an AC/DC converter...

Re:AC, DC

[falconwolf]

Sure - if you only want to furnish your home from the limited range of DC appliances available

While choices for DC appliances aren't as big as there are for AC there are still DC appliances available and as any semi-free market the more people demand them the more businesses will offer them. Those who build Off the Grid have to go through this.

Falcon

Re:AC, DC

[DerekLyons]

Right. So now, not only do I have the capital cost of adding solar panels to my house - I have the additional capital cost of replacing all my appliances. Wonderful.

Say goodbye to Solar FUD

[Sir_Eptishous]

We've been watching Solar power mature since the first Energy Crisis.
It's time has come.

All the hoopla, legislating and hype about ethanol, hydrogen and nuclear needs to be shown to the door. Solar is poised to take off, and hopefully, in the coming decades, we can transform our infrastructure to an environmentally friendlier one.

What will be really interesting in the coming months is how the Solar FUDers will respond to this and the other advances in Solar tech that are coming on line. Apparently there is a large percentage of Americans who still think of Solar technology in 1970's terms...

Re:Say goodbye to Solar FUD

[doom]

At a guess, the way us pro-nuclear folks will respond is to ask embarrassing questions about peak load (it ain't enough to have cheap solar generation, you also need to store it somehow to keep the lights on when the sun is down). I'm also wondering a bit about trading off real estate costs vs. transmission line losses for these plants (once the roofs are covered, then how do you keep expanding).

$1/watt installed cost?

[IvyKing]

Is the $1/watt figure the cost for the bare PV cell or for total installed cost? In addition, if you're trying to replace coal with PV, you would need some of way of storing energy when the "sun don't shine" - which furthers raises installed cost.

Re:$1/watt installed cost?

[Rei]

1. Bare.
2. Grid + Baseload generation.

Re:$1/watt installed cost?

[IvyKing]

A rough guestimate for the lower limit on installed cost would be twice the bare cost, which can dramatically reduce the incentives for solar.

Grid plus Baseload generation only helps if solar constitutes a few percent of peak demand. Above that, there will be a need for energy storage as the demand curve lags the "solar output" curve by a couple of hours. This still leaves us with what provides baseload generation, which the best candidates are nuclear and coal (the latter using gasification to provide fuel for a combined cycle plant - which also provides a more economical way of sequestering the CO2).

Re:$1/watt installed cost?

[Rei]

I disagree. Ideally, solar constitutes 100% of peak demand, since it provides its most energy on hot, sunny summer days when ACs are being used at full blast. Baseload is there for the other times.

Re:$1/watt installed cost?

[IvyKing]

You obviously don't know anyone who has experience running an electric power system - check out the forecast demand on the Cal-ISO website sometime. Peak load typically occurs 2 to 3PM and load is still near peak from 5 to 6PM, well after the output from PV panels would start declining.

Lithium supplies...

[IvyKing]

The sodium sulfur battery has a reasonably high energy density and there is no shortage of either (I saw pictures of the huge sulfur blocks in northern Alberta produced from removing H2S from natural gas).

Some reality for this discussion

[drwho]

It amazes me how little people know about solar power here on Slashdot, yet they continue to post. So, here's a few tidbits of information that may illuminate some of you.

1) So far, Nanosolar has been vapourware. I've been waiting five years for thee cells to hit the market. I am excited that they're actually shipping some, but I don't know how long it will take before cells become available for the claimed $1/Watt

2) Nanosolar is not the only company in the thin-film, non-silicon photovoltaic business. You can already get CIS cells. They are pretty good, and not too expensive. But they are around $4/Watt. I expect that's the price point at which the nanosolar cells will make their debut.

3) A solar cell is not a solar panel. Other components of a solar panel are a frame to hold it, a covering glass, mounting materials, a charge controller, a battery charger, and maybe some sort of sun tracker. The cost of these 'accessories' can often be more than the cost of the cells themselves.

4) Photovoltaic cells perform better (namely: they provide more voltage) in cold weather. Therefore, while Alaska may not have as many hours of sun as southern latitudes, those hours will provide more power. Also, I am not sure of the climate of Alaska, but some areas can have many days of bright blue skies in the middle of winter. These combined can really help the cost-effectiveness of solar power at such latitudes. Though I am still not sure of the eventual cost equation.

5) Battery technology is still a problem. There are many different technologies and inventions in the field, but capital cost, self-discharge rates, expected lifetime, efficiency, weight, and environment hazards are trade-offs which much be made, and there is not happy answer. And please don't say "Hydrogen!"

6) It's an exciting time to be involved in the alternative energy field. Exciting also means volatile. There's great amounts of money to be made...and lost.

Re:Some reality for this discussion

[Bigjeff5]

4) Photovoltaic cells perform better (namely: they provide more voltage) in cold weather. Therefore, while Alaska may not have as many hours of sun as southern latitudes, those hours will provide more power. Also, I am not sure of the climate of Alaska, but some areas can have many days of bright blue skies in the middle of winter. These combined can really help the cost-effectiveness of solar power at such latitudes. Though I am still not sure of the eventual cost equation. You've got Alaska backwards, my friend. In WINTER the sun is out for only a few hours per day, even in southern Alaska. Up north, most famously Barrow but anywhere above the Arctic Circle, there can be up to three months (that's Barrow) with NO sun at all. It never breaks the horizon, the best you get is a near-dawn, which goes straight to dusk.

In the SUMMER (you know, the time when it's warmer?) the sun sets for only a few hours a night, even in the southern areas of Alaska. It does still get relatively warm here in the summer. Sure, Anchorage (the "big city") may rarely see above 80 degrees because of the ocean, but Fairbanks further north regularly pushes 90 degrees.

In other words, all the factors pretty well balance themselves out, and while solar would be fairly effective in the few short months of summer, the rest of the year it's either mediocre or piss poor.

And yes, we do get nice, bright, clear sunny days in the winter, but I rarely see them. The sun isn't up yet when I get in to work at around 8am, and it's already set again when I leave at 5pm.

flushing the plumbing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, I wonder, you say that Lake Meade will fill up with silt because the water isn't flowing fast enough. My understanding is most damns have a way to 'open up' the water flow and let it come out at a much faster rate. Can't they do that once a year or something for a week or two, flood the river, and let the silt out of the bottom of the lake? Granted, if there are any land-owners along the river, they might not appreciate it. . . But in the case of the Colorado, I think it mostly flows through undeveloped (and undevelopable - e.g. the Grand Canyon) lands, so it wouldn't be as big of a deal as it would for some other rivers.

Why do the inverters cost so much?

[nojayuk]

They need to be very reliable -- they're going to be running 24/7/365, handling several kilowatts of power, operating as efficiently as they can so they don't waste energy unnecessarily. If I had to design something like that I'd overrate everything by a factor of 5 or more to ensure reliability and uptime and doing that will add to the pricetag.

There's also other factors governing the cost. These inverters aren't mass-manufactured as such, and the makers need to provide a long-term maintenance opreration with technicians and spares on tap, not just for warranty servicing. There's also liability and type testing -- having a few of these inverters bursting into flames due to a design defect would be bad news, financially speaking.

energy usage

[falconwolf]

I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure my energy use peaks in the evening.... you know when it's dark and I have to turn on lights... and I'm home... and I'm heating my home... and doing laundry or washing dishes...

So, you have to heat your home? What about those who have to cool their home? Living in Florida we used AC much more than we did heating. Seeing as how it's hotter during the day more energy is needed to cool a building then.

Falcon

MOD PARENT +5 INSIGHTFUL

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

Batteries? Huh? First, solar electricity in California (not where I live, btw, but it is a state with very expensive electricity) can be sold back to the utility company; if you produce more than is required, it causes the meter to run backwards. And since the highest electricity demand is during the middle of the day, especially when people run air conditioning, that is when the rates are highest. If you sell energy back to the utility company when the rates are highest, then use electricity in the evenings when rates are lower, it's a win-win. And storage? Use the grid! Besides the advantage of selling excess energy, being connected to the grid eliminates battery and storage costs (not to mention inverters and other equipment).


300+ comments, and this is my favorite! Everyone is already connected to the grid, so why do the other commenters assume that they would suddenly be completely self sufficient and not need the grid? Its not like installation will cut the power lines! Sell back power, and use the grid when necessary. The point is not to eradicate coal power, because honestly, if we covered the entire world with solar cells I'm sure people would still NEED (read "want") more - our goal is to increase total energy so we no longer have brownouts and blackouts.

Re:Some calculations (errors)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if he was *really* serious about saving the planet, he could zap all his extra power into space as microwaves or some other convenient form of radiation with minimal atmospheric loss.

Whatever gets out of the atmosphere would avoid heating the planet, while still happily adding to the entropy of the general universe and not compromising those silly old physics laws.

The thought of billions of geeks doing their part for global warming by shooting lasers into space is pretty frickin' awesome too.

nuclear power

[falconwolf]

If you don't seriously advocate nuclear power, then you don't take global warming seriously.

Wrong, I take both global warming and long term storage of nuclear waste seriously.

Falcon

Re:nuclear power

[Reality Master 101]

Wrong, I take both global warming and long term storage of nuclear waste seriously.

If you take Global Warming seriously and really believe it's a major threat, then the problem of long-term storage is a puny problem in comparison. The only practical, proven, immediate solution to carbon production is nuclear power.

Re:nuclear power

[falconwolf]

The only practical, proven, immediate solution to carbon production is nuclear power.

Nuclear creates more problems than it solves. Nuclear power IS NOT NEEDED. What is needed is conservation.

Falcon

Re:nuclear power

[Reality Master 101]

Nuclear creates more problems than it solves.

Somehow France manages to get by. If we reprocessed nuclear fuel in a rational way, there is very little that is unused. The volume is relatively miniscule. Anyway, are you seriously arguing that a puny amount of spent nuclear fuel is more dangerous than the enormous carbon emissions we're spewing out?

Nuclear power IS NOT NEEDED. What is needed is conservation.

And back in the real world, conservation is never, never, EVER going to happen. Civilization is not going to revert back to metaphorically living in caves -- and that's the only way conservation could ever fix the problem. A couple of CF bulbs is not going to do it.

The only way forward is preserving our way of life using sustainable technology.

Re:nuclear power

[falconwolf]

Somehow France manages to get by.If we reprocessed nuclear fuel in a rational way, there is very little that is unused.

Yes but even the French, who have gone the farthest, haven't got it yet. According to TFA in the IEEE's "Spectrum" article " Nuclear Wasteland" they are still having troubles. Perhaps with Vitrification the nuclear waste can be encased in glass however there's still a lot of toxic chemicals leftover. Simply even the French don't have the magic wand yet.

And back in the real world, conservation is never, never, EVER going to happen. Civilization is not going to revert back to metaphorically living in caves -- and that's the only way conservation could ever fix the problem. A couple of CF bulbs is not going to do it.

Nor does civilization have to live in caves. One simple step can reduce people's energy usage. Switching light bulbs to CFLs can reduce the energy for lighting by 75% to 80%. And LED lights, though they aren't good for area lighting yet, use only 10% of the energy an incandescent light does. By improving insulation of buildings heating and cooling needs can be significantly reduced, then geothermal energy can be used for what heating and cooling is needed in many places. Then there's solar, wind, and other alternative sources of energy. In the US the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough wind energy potential to provide all of the 48 continuous states with power. And that's just the Rockies. There plenty of other places that can provide wind power.

The only way forward is preserving our way of life using sustainable technology.

Oh, I TOTALLY AGREE!!! But nuclear IS NOT sustainable. Solar and wind both are though.

Falcon

Re:nuclear power

[Maxo-Texas]

What is needed is 3 billion less people.

So long as we keep adding people, conservation must increase until it is onerous and limiting of freedom.

Re:nuclear power

[Embedded2004]

"Nuclear creates more problems than it solves. Nuclear power IS NOT NEEDED. What is needed is conservation."

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.

Conservation is a regressive policy. Lets keep moving forward.

Re:nuclear power

[Lifyre]

Mining for nuclear fuel is just the same as any other mined fuel and is no more dirty. Is it still mining? Yes, thats not going to change. I was going to give you this huge long post but since it's obvious you don't read slashdot much I'll use some other posts to do it for me. http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=384175&cid=21638305 This post deals with your entire waste issue pretty well. Or should I say lack of waste issue? Now for "accidents" http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=384175&cid=21639091 http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=384175&cid=21637333 Now this is before going into the environmental impacts of bird guillotines (wind power), solar panel wastes, solar panel fields, and giant dams... Should I let you you look through this and do your own science (what little is left for you) or should I just come back with a ClueBat?

Re:nuclear power

[falconwolf]

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.

Falcon

Re:nuclear power

[falconwolf]

it's obvious you don't read slashdot

WOW. An other /.er who reads minds and know exactly what I do. NOT!!!

Falcon

Re:nuclear power

[Embedded2004]

You are missing the point.

While it might not be needed for our *current* consumption levels our energy consumption will go up as we keep moving forward.

Trying to keep out energy consumption at a constant level is a regressive policy.

Re:nuclear power

[Lifyre]

No I don't read minds but your obvious ignorance to what has been discussed several times in the last two months was what led me down that trail. Of course stories about the Nuclear Renaissance and Anti-Nuclear Activists changing their tune wouldn't contain any of the relevant discussion.

Had you made an intelligent comment instead of some flame then perhaps you might have learned something.

I'm done with you, some people are too stupid to be taught.

Re:nuclear power

[falconwolf]

Had you made an intelligent comment instead of some flame then perhaps you might have learned something.

Like saying "it's obvious you don't read slashdot" was intelligent.

Falcon

Ebay has removed the Auction...

[skogs]

I would imagine that ebay decided that since the item wasn't actually for sale...at least not for pickup...until 2009, then it really wasn't actually for sale after all. Several thousand dollars for something that isn't guaranteed to work, and that you can't have for over a year is probably somewhat against ebay seller policy.

All the links now show an invalid/removed auction. Ho hum.

I am still waiting for something that I can mount on my own house. Seriously, every single electrician in the world will find plenty of extra work once we don't need the power companies anymore. Distributed semi-private generation is the future.

In related news...

[vuo]

In related news, indium, gallium and selenium just got so expensive it's pointless to produce these things.

I mean, most rare metals are purified by some extremely energy-consuming process, like electrolysis or so. For example, the noble metals (noble means unavoidably "more difficult and expensive to refine") used in automobile catalytic converters have become very expensive when governments passed "legistlation mandating their use (implicitly by setting emission standards so low they can't be achieved without). Currently, for example, the United States leads the way by standardizing platinum catalyst for diesel engines. Platinum production is not energetically "free". In contrast, or more precisely, in lack of contrast, spraying urea into the exhaust gas, stoichiometrically with respect to the pollutant, is the European idea of emission control. Urea is produced from ammonia, which is produced from hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas. Replacing a pollutant stoichiometrically with a CO2 emitter is a typical "feelgood measure".

Furthermore, all of these elements, indium, gallium and selenium, are currently produced as byproducts of more voluminous processes. How are you going to scale up? Scale up is not painless.

mod parent down for stupidity

[Ignis Flatus]

don't nerds understand thermodynamics anymore? sheesh.

Coal numbers are skewed

[bussdriver]

I'm sick of Coal's numbers being twisted. Coal plants get public money to help build the plants, public money to meet new regulations, public money & resources to get and collect the coal, devise schemes to not have to pay for the lack of large scale long term planning, occasionally need financial help for business problems, and finally the worst of all: they can mess up OUR AIR for free!
I'm sure I missed a few.

Take most of that away and they will not look as great.

Solar's "problem" is that it takes most the long term cost and some of the externalized cost and puts it right upfront in the beginning. I hear panels today claim a 25-40 lifespan. You can measure output, reasonably predict output and lifespan so add interest to a loan and you have a relatively solid long term business model.

nuclear power

[falconwolf]

If you want to make a real big difference find ways to provide base power. The only real option left in the USA is nuclear. It's cleaner than solar, provides base power, and what waste it does have is actualy pretty easy to contain and dispose of, as opposed to spraying it out the smoke stack.

Nobody has convinced me nuclear power is clean but you can try. Not only is using nuclear fuel dirty but the mining for it is dirty as would any storage of it be.

Falcon

What is needed is 3 billion less people.

[falconwolf]

So long as we keep adding people, conservation must increase until it is onerous and limiting of freedom.

I whole heartily agree.

Falcon

China

[quenda]

> There's more than enough rooftop space in the world to meet demand. Example: China has 32521 square kilometers of urban area. Assuming 11% efficiency

You forgot that the average Chinese rooftop rarely SEES the sun, and when it does, you might think its the moon.
Until the pollution is dealt with, those solars panels are not much good.
    Some cities like Kunming are better, and already use solar widely for water heating.

Yahoo!-Bottled Clash.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The area where there is no room for different viewpoints is on the limited nature of fossil energy resources. "

Or the limited nature of natural resources like drinkable water for example.

"We've built our economies on cheap energy, and now we're gonna have to work to keep that going."

Even moreso on cheap water. You can't have an industrialized society without oil, but you can't have a society, period without clean water.

Problem is impedance, not loss

[mangu]

At high voltages over long distances AC looses more than DC does.

More specifically, AC at 60Hz is a big problem when the line is exactly 1250km long. This is a quarter of a wave length, which means a short circuit at one end of the line will appear as an open circuit at the other end, and vice versa.

bs

[JackSpratts]

sounds to me like a few of the shareholders wanted some quick christmas cash. and got it.

Eventually deliver solar electricity for $1/watt

[BarnabyWilde]

Key word: "eventually".

Not now.

So much for reading comprehension, OP.

Quickly made up numbers:

[falconwolf]

Let's say you have two fuels on the market, one wildly successful (let's call it gasoline), and an alternative not so much (call it diesel). People decide for whatever reason we diesel is better and needs to be used more. Efforts are therefore made to artificially reduced the price of diesel down from it's natural price of $10 a gallon to it's artificial price of $0.01 a gallon by charging the difference to gasoline consumers. In the start when 5% of the fuel market is diesel and 95% of the fuel market is gasoline, this works.

You're right, it's made up. While biodiesel is being subsidized with farm subsidies, so is gas which is made from petro and the US is spending billions of dollars daily in Iraq to subsidize petro. If only alternative energy sources got as much subsidies though I'd really prefer all subsidies to be eliminated.

* In the real world, subsidies are often intended to be a temporary measure as a way of hopefully outsmarting the general marketplace.

Not really. Big agribusinesses have gotten billions of dollars in subsidies yearly for many years. So does military and aerospace contractors. Oil get more subsidies in the US, as does mining operations. The US General Mining Act of 1872 allows mining companies to mine public lands for less than pennies on the dollar. That law is more than 100 years old and it's still being used. I wouldn't exactly call that temporary. Farm subsidies are probably as old. But at least the US does not give out as much in subsidies as does the EU and Japan. That's a big reason the World Trade Organization talks failed. Brazil, India, South Africa and many other nations refused to budge on anything else unless the EU, Japan, and US agreed to cut dramatically farm subsidies. The Opium Wars through 1839 to 1860s the British fought in China. To get rid of the trade imbalance the British had with India, they imported tonnes of tea from India, they exported opium from south and southeast Asia into China and were able to make money doing so. So they were able to finance trade in tea. However the Chinese Empress made opium illegal, and the British didn't like that. Fact is is subsidies have distorted trade for hundreds of years.

The Economist (popular mainstream economics magazine) has an economics dictionary, here it doesn't describe _why_ a subsidy isn't sustainable

Though I don't subscribe to the "Economist", I'm on disability and don't work so I can't afford to, I buy an issue every several weeks. I'll go to a book store and will read it in the cafe and if I like it I'll buy it. Oh, the "Economist" isn't so much mainstream as it is Classical Liberal.

Falcon

Re:Quickly made up numbers:

[joshuac]

You're right, it's made up. While biodiesel is being subsidized with farm subsidies, so is gas which is made from petro and the US is spending billions of dollars daily in Iraq to subsidize petro. If only alternative energy sources got as much subsidies though I'd really prefer all subsidies to be eliminated.

Absolutely agreed with the last half of your last sentence.

I using "diesel" in my example wasn't meant as any sort of reference to biodiesel, I just made up two forms of energy to give you an example as to why subsidies aren't sustainable. I could have called the two items "Blue" and "Orange".

* In the real world, subsidies are often intended to be a temporary measure as a way of hopefully outsmarting the general marketplace.

Not really. Big agribusinesses have gotten billions of dollars in subsidies yearly for many years. So does military and aerospace contractors. Oil get more subsidies in the US, as does mining operations. The US General Mining Act of 1872 allows mining companies to mine public lands for less than pennies on the dollar. That law is more than 100 years old and it's still being used. I wouldn't exactly call that temporary. Farm subsidies are probably as old. But at least the US does not give out as much in subsidies as does the EU and Japan. That's a big reason the World Trade Organization talks failed. Brazil, India, South Africa and many other nations refused to budge on anything else unless the EU, Japan, and US agreed to cut dramatically farm subsidies. The Opium Wars through 1839 to 1860s the British fought in China. To get rid of the trade imbalance the British had with India, they imported tonnes of tea from India, they exported opium from south and southeast Asia into China and were able to make money doing so. So they were able to finance trade in tea. However the Chinese Empress made opium illegal, and the British didn't like that. Fact is is subsidies have distorted trade for hundreds of years.

I'd say as intended to be used, subsidies are meant as a temporary boost...I didn't say they are actually used as intended. I doubt the original authors of the General Mining Act framed it as something that would be in place over a century later.

And I agree, subsidies _certainly_ have distorted trade for hundreds of years. :) Also I hope you didn't read anything into what I wrote before saying that I thought subsidies didn't exist.

The Economist (popular mainstream economics magazine) has an economics dictionary, here it doesn't describe _why_ a subsidy isn't sustainable

Though I don't subscribe to the "Economist", I'm on disability and don't work so I can't afford to, I buy an issue every several weeks. I'll go to a book store and will read it in the cafe and if I like it I'll buy it. Oh, the "Economist" isn't so much mainstream as it is Classical Liberal.
Falcon

Ok, I'm guessing from your response somehow I've hit a nerve. I apologize. In any case, do you understand now why most economists wouldn't consider a subsidy as a sustainable solution (even the mining subsidy)?

As for The Economist being mainstream or not, with a 4 million weekly readership, I'd say it's pretty mainstream, irregardless of what label you give it's economic slant (Classical Liberal? Must be a pretty popular view). In any case, I just included a link to where they have definitions of subsidies, since you were asking about the subject. I read the economist maybe twice a year. If that source offended, very sorry.

P.S. If in your condition you go to the effort to read the economist every week, you probably are wider read than I am. If you have anything you would like to share, I'm interested in new reading material.

alternative energy

[falconwolf]

Well, yes, but MN also has not only regular "weather" (snow, clouds, rain), but often extreme weather (SNOW, hair, uber cold temps, very hot temps) which is hard on most materials (like, say, bridges or solar panels).

Though not much there is some solar energy in MN. MN is however great for wind. As are North and South Dakota to the west and Wisconsin to the east. However my post you replied to was specifically aimed at the statement "17cents us at today's exchange rate, yay, something is in fact cheaper here than in the states!" CA's energy costs are high for the US so to use CA's energy costs as a basis for the US is bad. In MN I pay something like 10 cents per KWH, maybe a couple of pennies higher after taxes are added. And there are a few of those I pay, there's city, county, and state taxes on the energy I use.

Falcon

You have NOT performed the calculations.

[falconwolf]

No matter what you keep insisting, like you can read my mind and know everything I do, I did do the calculations.

NOW GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!

Falcon

Re:You have NOT performed the calculations.

[Courageous]

Now you're merely lying.

Classical Liberal? Must be a pretty popular view

[falconwolf]

I modified liberal with "classical", and provided a link to what it means, because the meaning of "liberal" has been distorted from what it used to mean in the US. Other countries use it to mean different things as well. Though I'm not sure I think maybe it has remained the closest to the older meaning in France. Then again idea of liberalism comes from the Age of Enlightenment which though spread throughout Europe had a strong presence in France, unfortunately it was overtaken by the Reign of Terror. Anyway the liberalism of France influenced Thomas Jefferson among other Americans.

If in your condition you go to the effort to read the economist every week, you probably are wider read than I am. If you have anything you would like to share, I'm interested in new reading material.

I don't really read the "Economist" weekly, I may not even see it for 2 or 3 weeks. When I do see it though I'll quickly scan the cover and table of contents to see if there's something of interest to me. As for any other reading material that has something to do with economics, I really don't read anything else. Now I do read magazines with politics as the subject matter; left, right, and center (in the US). Mostly though I read magazines about computers, science, photography, and renewable energy. I read as much as I do because I'm disabled and don't work, though I'm hoping I can start working in 2008.

Falcon

Waiting for consumer availability

[Geminii]

I'd want to see a couple of things before I bought.

First, the panels being made available to Joe Consumer for a reasonable cost. Internationally.

Second, a couple of years of testing on average rooftops, and some refinements to the original design.

Thirdly, call me back when Google HQ is plated in these things.

At that point, sure I'd buy. Australia's a great place for sun power. But until then, what's the objective difference between this and any number of other start-up solar cell makers?

energy

[falconwolf]

So I am bold enough to cite the works of these 400 scientists who went on record in 2007.

What 400 scientists went on record for what?

1000s of scientists got DDT banned - needlessly - and killed millions of people as a result from malaria.

So wildlife means nothing?

You are really long on whining about problems and short on practicle solutions, aren't you?

I have repeatedly made suggestions of practical solutions. This, this , and this bring up wind farms, in August 2006. Here's one I wrote on algae to produce hydorgen. As is this, and this. I've written of using Switchgrass, and hemp, to produce ethanol. Here's one on using kudzu to produce ethanol. There are other posts I made in the article about "America's First Cellulosic Ethanol Plant". I've written about using hemp to produce biodiesel, as well as other things.

Falcon

Re:energy

[MBraynard]

1000s of scientists got DDT banned - needlessly - and killed millions of people as a result from malaria.

So wildlife means nothing?

Telling that you would even consider balancing the two against each other. I guess it's because they were black.

It's also telling your ignorance. DDT - it turns out - had zero effect on wildlife. Zero. Margret Carlson admitted as much in the late 90s after it was proven difinativly.

Regarding your other ideas, I suggest you try powering the wind farm yourself.

Re:energy

[falconwolf]

Telling that you would even consider balancing the two against each other. I guess it's because they were black.

What's this? Are you suggesting I'm prejudiced against Blacks? Though I am Caucasian I used to date a Black lady. I admit I am subconsciously biased but I try not to be and I am not prejudiced. To combat the spread of malaria and other mosquito born diseases you need to know why they have become so prevalent, and you can't say it's because DDT isn't being used. DDT is relatively new yet societies have had to live with malaria since it's beginning. Mosquitoes can also be combated using nature. For instance frogs eat them, as do bats. Inviting them to live near you can hold down the mosquito population. I grew up in Florida and we had to deal with mosquitoes a lot. We used to joke that the mosquito was so large it was the state bird, it's really the hummingbird.

Regarding your other ideas, I suggest you try powering the wind farm yourself.

I'm not sure what you mean, but I noticed you left out a lot of what else I've said. You first say "You are really long on whining about problems and short on practicle solutions", but when I point out I in fact offered solutions you give practically ignore it only offering some asinine remark. Therefore I think you must be just trolling.

Falcon

Re:energy

[MBraynard]

Though I am Caucasian I used to date a Black lady.

ROFL.

DDT could have saved millions of Africans. It was in widespread use before a lot of scientists (who no doubt believe in MAN MADE GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE) got it banned, resulting in killing a lot of black Africans.p>As far as your solutions to the problems (frogs? Are you joking), none of them are nearly close to answering energy needs and the truth is, you have zero to do with any of them. The free market will solve the problem, as it always does, if the world's government's don't mess it up. As the price of oil gradually rises and encourages alterative R&D, alternatives will become more viable until they replace oil entirely. Political instability in the ME will also encourage investment in alternatives.

The problem is also that any of these investments risk loosing their money if oil drops back down to $0.99 a gallon, which is entirely possible.

DDT

[falconwolf]

As far as your solutions to the problems (frogs? Are you joking), none of them are nearly close to answering energy needs

Other than that it take energy to make DDT what does energy have to do with mosquito control? Oh yea, mosquitoes can breed in the stagnant water behind dams. Oh, and they can also breed in water pools below dams. Guess that only goes to show how much I know, imagine how humans can increase the mosquito population.

Falcon