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Solar Power On the White House
CartaNova writes "The Obama administration has announced plans to install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the White House. The Carter administration had previously installed a 32-panel solar system at the White House — which was quietly removed during Reagan's tenure in office. Solar hot water and Photovoltaic firms had been campaigning on this issue for some time."
I've seen the White House on Google Maps and Google Earth and there seems to be some kind of thick cloud obscuring the area. Will they generate any electricity with these things or is it just another feel-good liberal gesture with no real world effect?
...will help us all get through this malaise.
I've had solar hot water at my family's home since the early 80s. Looks kind of weird, like giant lasagna pans on the roof, but I'll be damned if they don't work great and keep the gas bill down. Not sure how much it will help in Washington, but worth it in So Cal, especially with the govt kicking in a large tax credit
So, they quietly removed it, and now they are installing it again... hum :P
A few more millions go away, yay!
I have both technologies on my roof and both are rather simple and reliable. In Germany most new homes do at least have solar hot water and it's a great feeling that you don't need any natural gas for about half of the year (it would be even greater if it would work for the whole year but then you'd need something like a 20.000 gallon reservoir for hot water which would make it somewhat less simple).
I thought it would fit with the American culture to be proud of modern technology and to be independent. So I can't understand why Americans seem to not like solar power very much?
The energy saved by the installation will be more than made up for by the amount of energy expended in proclaiming how green the White House is.
I could make a cynical remark in AC about some political bias this or that...but honestly I don't think it fits here.
With this economy, green technology today is not the extent of the "green-washing" we saw during the housing bubble in 2006. I believe in many ways that a good portion of what we dub "green technology" today is rather fiscally smart investments - good for our pocket and the environment. There should be no contest to what decision Obama may have pushed...hell this is like voting to reduce the volume on commercials: it is something which just about everyone agrees.
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
I knew it obama is turning into the black house. one solar cell at a time.
Yes there is a extremely good reason we could care less about solar and especially solar electrical power. My electric bill averages about 80 dollars a month, I live in the central part of
the country at that rate it would take about 30 years to reach break even, if I could generate all my electrical needs with a 30k investment. As long as we have plentiful coal resources which
we do electricity is a relatively cheap commodity.
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Why do Europeans have problems not generalizing about Americans?
I just signed a contract to get solar power installed, and the sales guy said business was booming. His phone didn't stop buzzing the entire time.
Also, our President is getting solar power, if you hadn't heard.
He removed solar thermal panels, probably much less efficient than the evacuated tubes used today, when the roof was being repaired in 1986:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE2DF113BF937A1575BC0A960948260
They were not reinstalled because of cost effectiveness issue. I also heard maintenance was a pain. They were donated to a university, IIRC.
Bush also had solar panels installed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/technology/how-it-works-from-a-white-house-roof-solar-power-proclaims-gains.html
Many places are spinning this story politically no doubt.
BTW, I think solar thermal and more insulation is a great, cost effective thing. PV, otoh, not so much yet.
I don't think it's "Americans don't like solar power." Most Americans I know (liberals and conservatives) like solar power. It's cool technology, and getting free energy from the sun sounds like such a good deal.
If you hear about Americans objecting to solar power, it's probably objecting to the government subsidies for installing solar panels. Conservatives and Libertarians tend to support the idea that we should focus on making the technology cheaper, then people will install it on their own, rather than subsidizing it.
Qxe4
I am curious, not trying to bust your chops or anything but how can you justify the cost on something that will never pay a return? I cannot see it ever being a good investment at todays prices at least.
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Yes there is a extremely good reason we could care less about solar and especially solar electrical power.
I could care more.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Sure PV is only cost effective if you otherwise would have to run lines out to where you want to go, but solar-thermal hot water heating (and dare I saw wind generation) is already competitive, if not already the better long term investment.
couple it with an inground-thermal mass heat pump (when building a new house), and correct front window aspect, and the long term comparison is not even close.
but of course this is just the broken record replying to trolls.
I am curious, not trying to bust your chops or anything but how can you justify the cost on something that will never pay a return? I cannot see it ever being a good investment at todays prices at least.
Depending on where you live (ie: depends on how much sun you get and the cost of electricity) as well as what government subsidies for solar installations are offered, it is possible to get a loan for solar equipment today and have the savings on your electric bill completely cover the cost of the loan with savings to spare. So you're not actually spending money out of pocket... it pays for itself and then some.
The downside to this approach is that in a few years, solar panels will be even cheaper and more efficient and the resulting loan payment will be even less and you'll be stuck saving less than you could have saved had you waited. In other words, do you want a net savings of $30/month starting today for 20 years, or wait 3 years and have a net savings of $50/month for 20 years?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Just proclaiming that they are adding solar panels to the white house probably burned more energy than they will ever produce. Think of the 10's of thousands of servers, laptops, routers, desktops, storage space, backup tapes, man hours, gasoline, blogs, new sites, images etc involved in this story about the white house is going green.
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Conservatives and Libertarians tend to support the idea that we should focus on making the technology cheaper, then people will install it on their own, rather than subsidizing it.
I think conservatives and libertarians feel that we should do nothing, and that Free Market Jesus will come from the sky and solve all problems in one fell swoop...
The only ones I've heard object for political reasons are the far-right. Not just the regular conservatives, but those towards the fringe - and they only oppose solar because it's a 'liberal thing,' and thus must be evil.
They should have installed wind towers instead, with all the hot air originating in DC!
More like, individuals pursuing their own goals will do a better job of allocating resources than a pack of bureaucrats trying to manage the economy. Your characterization of the free market as some kind of miracle betrays your own ignorance.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
As He sayeth in the Good Book: Galt 3:16 "Yea verily, I was amortized for your sin taxes..."
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
I think liberals feel that we should do nothing, and that Government Jesus will come from the sky and solve all problems in one fell swoop. Free Market Jesus has a hell of a lot better track record than Government Jesus when it comes to solving problems, and without sacrificing liberty too.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
We're really just thinking of the poor. Basically, if people are using less energy from the power companies, their profits will go down. Since they are publicly owned (i.e. they have shareholders, not that they're owned by the govt), profit is the primary goal. As such, they will raise rates for those who are still dependent on their systems because they can't afford solar power.
Basically, solar power is a liberal elite technology for oppressing the poor. Of course, as always, they *claim* it's just the opposite.
The CB App. What's your 20?
The evil is the government subsidies.
Solar does pay for itself. Solar water heaters do. Photovoltaics do. As long as you aren't in Alaska or something (and even then, there's a lot of solar because there are more people living off the grid there than anywhere else), they pay for themselves without a problem. Have you been drinking the anti-solar kool-aid? It may not be a "good" investment. But it does pay back.
Learn to love Alaska
with panels made in China. Uniquely American!
If I understand correctly, we'll then be able to determine the White House effect on the green house effect?
Also, our President is getting solar power, if you hadn't heard.
Apparently the public often misses it when the President installs solar. G W Bush installed solar. From the fans of W at the Huffington Post:
"In 2003, solar photovoltaic panels were installed at the White House. Two smaller solar thermal systems were also installed to heat water: one for landscape maintenance personnel, the other for the presidential pool and spa. The Bush Administration itself never really announced the project."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/white-house-solar-panels_n_160575.html
Suppose the White House consumes around 200kW. If one million Slashdotters spend 5 minutes reading about this story on systems consuming 50W each, they will expend about as much energy as the White House does in a month.
...
That's not counting energy for Slashdot servers and other internet infrastructure (ha ha). And not counting the energy the administration consumed in coming to this decision and putting together their press release. And energy spent by news writers, bloggers, TV news, print newspapers,
All this thinking is making me hungry. Hang on while I go eat a hamburger.
"This message will cost the net hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to post to all machines. Are you sure you want to do this?"
... The Green House?
Take it away, Jim!
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Politics aside, this is a great symbolic gesture by the White House. Hopefully the publicity will make a few people think of installing a solar water heater and be kind to Mother earth. Understand that this technology might not be applicable for all parts of the world, but there is significant portion of the world where the solar water heater makes eminent sense. Currently I live in Bangalore, India. I have a solar water installed in my house with a 300 liters storage volume. It works for 95% of the year flawlessly supplying hot water for the whole family. On the rare days, when the water temp is not hot enough (it is never colder than ambient temperature), we have a valve in the bathrooms which will route the hot water thru a electric heater. According to my calculation we need to spend about 1000 rupees in electricity charges per month for going completely electrical water heating. The unit cost me about 50 K rupees to buy and install. So it makes good economic sense to me and hot water is always available. BTW it is estimated that we really need one hour of good sunshine (post noon, because the solar panels are facing SW direction) to heat up the water. These are really popular in India, wish it was adopted more than the extant situation. The city is planning on making this mandatory for all new houses. I was actually planning to install PV's to generate all the electricity needed for our family (BTW based on the past 15 months consumption data, we consume ~ 250 KWh per month). Spoke to a few poeple, did the math, PV's are still economically not feasible. If anyone has any solid data or leads let me know, I will certainly be interested in knowing more. Additional data: I have a UPS installed in the house (rated at 5 KVA, with four 12V 120AH batteries, which I believe can store approx 8 KWh of energy) which should be enough supply the house in the night times. So ideally with the right PV's (which can generate about 10 KWh per day with a few hours of sunshine) I can completely go off the grid and tap into the grid only on emergencies or when we have unusuall
I don't think of it as a miracle, but it appears that some conservatives and libertarians do. Note that I don't make the claim that socialism (or bureaucratism for that matter) is any better. I just don't think that the whole "free market solves all" method is going to work in every case.
It makes individual sense to do a lot of things that are detrimental to human society, or even local society as a whole. In some cases, it is better to regulate the cost of a particular resource to reflect the actual societal cost of its extraction or use. That's something the "free" market is horrible at.
Neither "Jesus" seems to have much of a track record individually - it's only when the two work together, complimenting their skills and covering up their weaknesses that things happen. Both extreme socialists (ie communists) and conservatives don't seem to get this.
For maximum exposure to the sun, they should just be installed directly on John Boehner.
Didn't Jimmy Carter install solar panels on the Whitehouse roof, only to have Reagan remove them for ideological reasons immediately after his inauguration? (Or was that Clinton and Bush II?)
Most Americans I know (liberals and conservatives) like solar power. It's cool technology, and getting free energy from the sun sounds like such a good deal.
Oh, but I thought Americans dislike people getting things for free, it is so communistic! I mean, look above, president Reagan removed solar panels from White House, he couldn't stand that god-awful commie/hippie contraption. How would honest hard working, God-fearing American power producers survive if everyone was getting energy for free? G. Westinghouse would certainly agree with my argument.
Can you be more specific? What are the weaknesses of the free market where the government should step in? I think pretty standard libertarian beliefs involve government acting only as an umpire, providing laws, police, military, legislature, courts, that sort of thing. Essentially it all boils down to protecting individual liberty by removing the use of physical force from the society. I must be one of those extreme conservatives you speak off because I can't think of too many other valid uses for the government. Can you give me some examples?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
"Why do Europeans have problems not generalizing about Americans?"
*lol* I don't really have to go and explain what's funny here, right?
Yours, A European.
It's probably because there seems to be a hard core of very *loud* Americans who yell (figuratively, online) at the top of their voices about how any renewable power is no good. They also yell loudly about how $INSERT_EFFICIENT_TECHNOLOGY is no good, too. It's almost as if they think being energy inefficient is something to be proud of.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
What are the weaknesses of the free market where the government should step in?
Sub-prime mortgages? Derivatives-build-from-derivatives ad nauseum? Rings any bell?
Healthcare. Firefighting. Police. Armies. Roads. Power. Water. Un-Pollution. Safety (melanin in your babyfood?).
Plenty more.
Thats why they yell instead of talking...
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
providing laws, police, military, legislature, courts,
Here is part of the answer. The meaning of "government step-in" appears to be different to different people. For some the acts of creating and framing, that is, legislating a market is too much government involvement. For others they are essential guarantees for working, free markets. Some Americans do tend to think quite black-and-white about the issue which can be seen from the caricatural usage of Jesus metaphors.
Solar powered red button!
Obama: "Damnit, I will nuke the sh!t out of these South Koreans*, just when this cloud moves...."
> as well as what government subsidies for solar installations are offered, it is possible ... So you're not actually spending money out of pocket... it pays for itself and then some.
No, it's money out of everyone else's pocket.
I'm not arguing your main point here; sometimes for the individual it does make economic sense, but only because everyone else is paying for it. If you could get the taxpayers to fund my mortgage, buying a much bigger house than I have would make economic sense too.
That said, sometimes people do this for reasons other than economic. Sadly I can't afford to go solar in a big way, but if I could come *CLOSE* to breaking even in the next decade, I'd probably do it.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
My wife and I were talking about something similar yesterday: How the only people who can afford hybrids and electrics that save a ton of money on gas are the people who have enough money that the price of gas isn't really hurting them.
That said, correlation definitely does not imply causation here. The price is high because the technology being new. As they find ways to make it more efficient and more easily mass produced, the benefits will get to the point where more middle class people can afford it. We're already seeing that with PV solar to some extent. The fact that it benefits the rich who can afford it more in the short term is a result of that cost of developing new technology, not some kind of monetary caste system in effect to keep the poor down. In fact, the rich people buying the technology now will help pay for the development that gets the price down to where other people can afford it more quickly. So you could actually argue the opposite, that the rich are subsidizing the development of these technologies.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Why do Europeans have problems not generalizing about Americans?
Yes, I've often wondered myself why all Europeans have stereotyped views of Americans, damn their brie-eating, lederhosen wearing, cricket-playing hides!
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's probably because there seems to be a hard core of very *loud* Americans who yell (figuratively, online) at the top of their voices about how any renewable power is no good. They also yell loudly about how $INSERT_EFFICIENT_TECHNOLOGY is no good, too. It's almost as if they think being energy inefficient is something to be proud of.
They have mod points too:
(Score:1, Troll)
by Alioth (221270)
Car analogies break down.
The most effective solar and wind power device is drying clothing outside. It not only saves electricity, but actually cooling down an environment.
The problem is that it may look unaesthetic, unless a nice looking dryer is invented. Meanwhile drying clothing in the air is forbidden in many districts and even entire cities.
The effectiveness of drying is 100%. No energy is being lost. And the volume is enormous, - billions of people wash and dry clothing everyday.
Production of dryers does not involve any toxic material and is not expensive. But if clothing is dried in electrical driers then a lot, a lot of electrical energy is being used.
I would argue that the problem of global warming would be solved, if drying outdoors would be not forbidden, but promoted. Of course, after an invention of a aesthetic outdoor drier.
Kind of like how hybrids never "pay a return" however some people do it for the purpose of being less dependant on oil/coal products.
"...— which was quietly removed during Reagan's tenure in office"
I don't know what the OP is talking about. This was done very early on and was publicized widely, as a way of showing how the Reagan administration was forward looking and confident, as opposed to the defeatist Carter administration (or something like that - I could never really grasp Reagan's propaganda). What was done fairly quietly was the complete evisceration and cancelation of the Carter era alternative energy research program, which was just at the stage of showing promise. What was left unsaid was how pleased the oil companies were by all of this.
I notice the story you posted, removed the part about that Bush put in Solar power to heat the pool and a out side building. So not the only solar power at the White House.
Whenever I read about solar panels, I think of hail storms. Last month, Wichita, Kansas had hail; some the size (and weight) of billiard balls.
Wow.. you think that the housing bust was free market? You don't know that the mortgage market was/is subsidized/backed by the Federal government?
Why do you think they were so willy-nilly with their money? They knew the tax payers would pick it up if the market blew (which is exactly what happened).
Fannie & Freddie and the Federal Reserve own 90% of the mortgages in this country.
individuals pursuing their own goals will do a better job of allocating resources
I don't think capitalism ever made any such claim, only that people would allocate resources based on their ability to pay, with ability to pay rewarding proper allocation of resources. There's too many idiots who have no clue what they're doing and yet still manage to be rewarded with ability to pay to claim that this is being done well.
The fact that people are clueless idiots with shitty goals is also why every other economic system we've tried failed. Some day someone will invent one that runs on herp derp, and that person will crowned the ruler of retards.
Is it really worth the effort to put Solar Panels on the White House? Isn't Global Warming going to cause the sea level to rise and inundate Washington DC in just a few years anyway?
Bush got what he wanted, he wanted an administration where nobody knew anything and everything was absolute top secret. His legacy will be that nobody has a fucking clue what he did in his 8 years in office.
For all we know, spending time "on the ranch" was his secret code word for spelunking in Afghanistan and wrestling mano-a-mano with robotic terrorist overlords with laser eyes holding our soldiers hostage, but we'll never find out that Bush was actually a bad enough president to save the dudes.
Because generalization isn't seen as an inherently bad thing outside the US, but a useful rough statistical tool? It's far more accurate than basing one's opinion on exceptional cases.
The GP informed us that most German homes are built with solar panels, and you know damn well that not even a tiny percentage of American homes are, nor will this be the case five years from now no matter what Obama or you do.
Or, to put it another way:
If you were given a chance to bet on whether a random American house builder would have solar panels installed or not, it would be smart of you to generalize that Americans don't give half a damn about the environment, and bet accordingly.
Lost battle.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
So...did you just come out of a coma, or were you not paying attention when "Free Market Jesus" almost destroyed the global economy in 2008?
Actually, supply and demand requires that as fewer people use the publicly owned utilities that will mean that they have a surplus of generating capacity driving the price down for their few remaining customers.
Putting solar panels on your roof isn't just good for the environment: It helps the poor too.
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
Well, one example is the free market will never properly price externalities, such as pollution. Pollution is free - just let it spew out the smokestack, or dump it in the river. This caused widespread problems.
So the government added a price to pollution.
I am curious, not trying to bust your chops or anything but how can you justify the cost on something that will never pay a return? I cannot see it ever being a good investment at todays prices at least.
p>The downside to this approach is that in a few years, solar panels will be even cheaper and more efficient and the resulting loan payment will be even less and you'll be stuck saving less than you could have saved had you waited. In other words, do you want a net savings of $30/month starting today for 20 years, or wait 3 years and have a net savings of $50/month for 20 years?
The problem with this kind of statement is that it is an overall generalisation that can be applied to ANY industry, and will never have a set definite cutoff date. You can say the same thing about buying a computer... why buy now when you could buy a cheaper more efficient one in 3 years... and that statement holds just as true in 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010.
In 1995, you may as well just live without a 486 or Pentium computer until the more efficient Pentium II comes along in 1997, but wait, there's a more efficient Pentium III, but wait, more efficient Pentium IV, but wait, Core, but wait, Core II Duo, but wait, Core i3, i5, i7, but wait, next step in development... if you kept putting off a purchase like that, you'd never get the item.
The same goes with solar panels. Is it a huge leap in logic to consider that the panels of today are cheaper and more efficient than those of 5 years ago, or those of 5 years before that? I could probably guarantee that whatever units are available during today's administration are cheaper and more efficient than those installed during the Carter administration, and the ones in 2015 will be better still, and in 2020, even better still.
At some point, the balance of efficiency gains versus cost saving versus life of the item has to be weighed.
Another possible way is to find some way to spread your purchases over time while still staying compatible through the whole system. Say you need 10 panels to power your house completely over 20 years lifetime per panel, plus backend equipment with 20 year lifetime. Purchase one panel every 2 years, and at year 20, replace the first panel and the backend as its lifetime is up and efficiency is waning, and continuously upgrade every 2 years ad infinitum as your equipment dies. True, you will not get the full benefit of power savings immediately, but you WILL reap the benefit of having a system that is utilizing the newest and more efficient tech over the years as opposed to a static system that is altogether 20 years outdated. The efficiency will average out, assuming all items are swappable and compatible with one another... true, it will probably be about as efficient as a complete system slightly older than the average age, but at the 20 year mark, an 11 or 12 year old averaged system is probably more efficient than a 20 year old complete system, and is cheaper to upgrade a single panel to keep that average than flat out replacing the 20 year old system.
Now. That's how we bailed out the private lenders.
Fannie and Freddie were legally unable to do subprime mortgages until 2006. What made the mortgage "subprime" was that Fannie and Freddie wouldn't do them.
Mortgage originators were so "willy-nilly" with their money because they knew they would only hold the mortgage for a couple months. They'd get paid, some schmuck who bought a CDO would lose. The schmuck bought the CDO because the originator paid someplace like Moodys to claim shit was gold.
Well, I live in central Texas (plenty of sun), and the numbers don't work out for me, even with the generous federal and local subsidies. Ran the numbers again last week to be sure, and installing a solar system would still end up costing me more over the life of the system than not. I'm almost to the break-even point, but not there yet, and that's with the subsidies that amount to somewhat over half the cost of the system.
Which makes me think that your comment is true in only very limited areas. California, perhaps, but I honestly haven't bothered to look in to the local rebates in other states since, after all, I don't live there.
I'm guessing 6-7 times as much as whats normally placed on residential and commercial real-estate.
It's not like he came in in 81 and wanted the solar gone. The White House was undergoing roof repairs in 86 and the solar panels had to be removed to do it. They were just never put back up, citing cost reasons.
What are the weaknesses of the free market where the government should step in?
Sub-prime mortgages? Derivatives-build-from-derivatives ad nauseum? Rings any bell?
What are the weaknesses of the government that the free market can exploit?
Trillion dollar bail-outs on sub-prime mortgages, derivatives-build-from-derivatives ad nauseum? Rings any bell?
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
No battle: "I could care less (if I tried, but not willing to expend the effort)", and "I couldn't care less (even if I tried, and I'm not willing to expend the effort)". The key to both is the futility, which, I agree, you expressed very well. :)
Something like flammable and inflammable, although those do have specific meanings.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Or because they like the smell of their own farts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UdmYInXplY
I'm only playing devil's advocate here, and I disagree with your "troll" mod; clearly someone doesn't understand the question (or is embarrassed about their own answer).
That said, there are reasons to do things other than economic. People value different things, and for some going solar isn't about the money; it's about making a statement, raising awareness, being the first or hippest on the block, reducing their carbon emissions, or any of a host of other reasons. I'd be one of those people too, if the economics were considerably more in my favor, but I have a family to support so I can't think of just my reasons.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
I'd rather make my own mistakes with my my own money...and hopefully learn a lesson and pass said lesson on to family and friends...than pass the same money on to bureaucrats who seem to keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again, simply because it's not their money.
That's how the free market works. Millions of people making their own choices based on their own needs, rather than a few hundred assholes dictating everything to everyone else.
I think it is more like the incumbent energy supply industry really doesn't like solar panels on individual homes. They want to keep you suckling at their teat.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Speaking as a person who actually has a photovoltaic system of relatively recent vintage on the roof, it certainly does pay for itself.
My yearly $2000 electric bill is now zero.
In New Jersey, the law states that the electric company has to use "net metering", meaning that at the end of each year after installation, the company nets up how much you gave them and how much they gave you. If you used more, you pay retail for that electric power; if you made more, they give you wholesale for the part you made for them. So, I made a hundred or so.
The real kicker is the SRECs. For every megawatt hour one makes, surplus or not, you get a Solar Renewable Energy Credit. I just sold August's for $645 to an aggregator. I get about ten of them a year; so, in a couple of years, the original cost of the panels will be paid off.
The power companies in the state are required to make some 2% of their electricity "green". For anything less than that, they pay a fine per megawatt hour, but they can pay the fine with SRECs. The state sets the fine amount per megatwatt hour; right now that's hovering around $700 per SREC.
The SRECs received by the state go into the bit bucket. Cash received by the state goes into grants funding more solar panels. Ratepayers end up footing the bill. Advantage for the community: With solar power going in like crazy, coal-burning plants don't have to be built to handle the air conditioning load and the NIMBY factor of new plants is vastly reduced.
This is what comes of having a state legislator who's a EE with an economics degree.
NJ has more panels than any other state save California.
With pretty much zero cost out of pocket and a 2nd mortgage for the panels, I've been cash-flow positive on the whole deal since day one.
. So I can't understand why Americans seem to not like solar power very much?
Because they're sheep, by and large. They hear a seductive line of bullshit on their favorite "news" program or radio talk show and conclude, without further consideration, that alternative energy is (pick one) socialist, leftist, liberal, un-American, ineffective, only for hippies, etc. To be fair, widespread adoption is also hampered by the fact that fossil-fuel is still ridiculously cheap here, compared to much of Europe.
The White House submits a preliminary budget proposal, the House and Senate formulate legislation, the two separate versions get reconciled, and then the president signs (or doesn't). Reagan always claimed that the ballooning deficits on his watch were due to Congress, but most of his proposals were unbalanced to begin with and he always signed, claiming he had no choice. Clinton proved Reagan's claims of powerlessness to be hollow in 1995, vetoing the Republican-controlled Congress' proposed budget and thereby shutting down the government for almost a week until Newt Gingrich caved.
So Congress has sole power to pass the legislation but the White House can play a very significant role if they have the will to do so. It always has seemed ironic to me that Reagan and Reaganites claim the mantle of deficit reduction while the facts are that the ration of Debt / GDP (i.e., what we owe relative to our aggregate income) dropped pretty much continuously from WWII to Reagan and then skyrocketed under all subsequent administrations except Clinton's. Republicans try to claim credit for the Clinton years, ignoring the fact that Clinton stared them down.
On my vacation to Turkey, I saw solar panels for heating water on every rooftop in the city.
(not my picture, did jfgi)
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/WHNixROTFyXi1bA_32YobQ
I am curious, not trying to bust your chops or anything but how can you justify the cost on something that will never pay a return? I cannot see it ever being a good investment at todays prices at least.
I've investigated it every couple years for the last ten since I got my house. You are correct two years ago it did not pencil out very well. It would have taken 20 to 30 to pay back which is the lifetime of the system. Then a funny thing happened... panel prices dropped! And energy prices rose!
After rebates a 2kw system will cost me $10,500 ($15K before), and save me a little under $1,000 a year, conservatively. Electricity ain't cheap in San Diego, but sunshine is. This pays me back in 11 years if energy prices don't rise. If they rise at current rates it is significantly less than that, around 8. In 30 years the system will have lost 15% efficiency (that's the advertised lifespan), and be net $25-50K depending on how you project energy prices. Secondly, I am planning on getting an electric car in a few years given they look like they are starting to come together. The system is expandable to 4kw, of which just 1kw would cover the energy used by my car. So once I get that going, no more trips to the gas station. Lastly, as a father with two young daughters, it will be nice in ten years not to have to cringe every time I see a light on in an empty room or hear a blow dryer running for 45 minutes at a time!
I'm sorry you were marked troll. It seemed like an honest question I would have asked before I did my last round of investigation. I am absolutely not doing this to "save the planet". It is a long term monetary investment for me.
Why is this tagged "funny"?
Is Obama going to use it to power his teleprompters?
Thing is that there has been a massive increase in energy efficiency in people's houses since that time -- this is one of the success stories regarding being green -- but active solar systems are rare. People just put in more insulation, tightened air leaks, developed new construction methods and building codes -- pretty low tech.
Given that you need backup heat in a solar home, the low-tech increased insulation route was much more cost effective for the same savings as the 1970's active solar homes. Yeah, yeah, you could do both solar and insulation and save even more. But I am comparing what people thought you should do in 1974 vs what actually took place.
There is just so much opportunity for electric energy savings in houses that simply throwing on a PV panel is your high-tech waste of money. For example, people who need to air condition in Florida are putting up these 5 kW peak PV panels. If they simply followed the low-tech route of efficienct air conditioning recommended by the Florida Solar Energy Research Center, their electric bills after the mods would be the same, with 1/5 the money spent.
Yeah, yeah, you could do the mods and do solar too. But that is not what people are doing. There is simply gobs of subsidy thrown at the PV panels, the green wienies hire some pirates to throw up the panels, they call it a day, and sit back and think how they are saving the planet.
for the last few decades it's compulsary for new buildings,
and most of the older buildings have one as well.
it provides all of your hot water needs for almost all of Mar-October, and also during sunny winter days.
installation cost is not too bad, and the electricity saving is significant over the years.
PV (linked to grid; electricity company buys the extras from you at 4X the normal price which is around 12cent/kWh ) is still rare and expensive to install here, though.
I am curious, not trying to bust your chops or anything but how can you justify the cost on something that will never pay a return? I cannot see it ever being a good investment at todays prices at least.
We used to do that all the time. It was called "pure research". It did pay a return, of course, and often a spectacular one. However, since it's not the kind of thing that can be projected into next quarter's profit statements, there's not as much call for it as there used to be.
And speaking of 3-month myopia, there's the problem we have with thinking that the price at the cash register is the only price. If everyone had waited for LCD TV prices to be cheap, they wouldn't be. Someone had to "prime the pump", so to speak. It takes money to make money.
Sub-prime mortgages? Derivatives-build-from-derivatives ad nauseum?
Neither of which would have been as big of an issue if Government hadn't kept interest rates low and money artificially cheap.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This probably shows how long it takes the White House to announce something new after some activists give them the idea -- see when they were given the idea here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/9/unity_college_students_bill_mckibben_launch
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/13/headlines#11
So you can see that it takes approximately 24 days from when the activists make a statement of their intentions for the press (non-mainstream press unless they do something wacky or are connected with ad dollars.)
Uh, I don't mean to insult the students by calling them activists, that word has negative connotations here in the USA.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The GP informed us that most German homes are built with solar panels, and you know damn well that not even a tiny percentage of American homes are, nor will this be the case five years from now no matter what Obama or you do.
No, I don't know that damn well. Sorry. Also, the GP said solar water, not solar photovoltaic. Every home improvement store has large solar displays here in San Diego.
Or, to put it another way: If you were given a chance to bet on whether a random American house builder would have solar panels installed or not, it would be smart of you to generalize that Americans don't give half a damn about the environment, and bet accordingly.
I don't give half a damn about "saving the environment" with solar panels. I don't buy man-made global warming (or climate change or whatever it goes by nowadays). Even if I did I'm not convinced that buying and installing solar panels is a net carbon "win". I do think free electricity is a good long term investment in the value of my home. I do think that gasoline vehicles are loud, smelly, and will ultimately be less reliable than electrics. I do think it will be nice when there are fewer of them making smog and noise. But make no mistake, I'm doing this for no one but myself and wouldn't be doing it if the price math didn't ultimately pencil out well in my favor. And as the GP said, German homes have it because it is efficient, not because they are trying to save the environment.
I think the reason that some Americans are so opposed to renewable energy is that they have been beat over the head with nebulous claims of global warming catastrophe rather than shown the direct benefits I listed above. They have been told time and again how evil they are for simply living their lives. The smug that comes off some people is palpable and disgusting.
Fossil Fuels get their own share of subsidies.
On the subject of Libertarians, I was astounded to find that the Cato
Institute was essentially founded by Charles and David Koch. They just
happen to be in the fossil fuel business and drop tens or hundreds of millions
of dollars into think tanks and institutes to pay for scientists and other
seemingly independent writers to promote lower regulations and corporate taxes.
It just so happens that those issues will personally increase their wealth substantially.
Apparently $20 Billion is not enough.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
They first tried the direct approach. David Koch ran as Vice President on the 1980
Libertarian ticket. They did very poorly in the election. Since then, they have changed
their approach and spent enormous sums quietly influencing public opinion.
When I heard about this last month, it really changed my view of the range of political
opinion in America. Perhaps the slow shift of public opinion to the right has been
funded by people who stand to gain from it. It also explain why public figures on the
right rarely warn about the dangers to our freedom from private interests. You only
hear about that dangerous government.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
Unfortunately, I think you're being naive. How could people outside of the US have any other generalization about us?
A small, vocal percentage of Americans thinks solar is:
1. a threat to their status quo and therefore the work of evil people like liberals and atheists.
2. ugly.
3. a complete waste of time and money which will never amount to anything because, you dumbass, sometimes it's night. (And wind power just the same because sometimes the wind stops blowing. What are you gonna do then, moron?)
4. a threat to their jobs.
5. a first step by the enemy of what's right and good (the status quo) in the ultimate aim to take away the things that Americans have. Things like trucks and homes and Barbie.
Just like in any other country, we have stupid people here. But we also have a media which likes to pander to them because they're a wonderful demographic. They buy things they see advertised on TV without questioning whether they need such a thing, whether it's a good idea, whether it works, etc. This makes advertisers, and therefore the media, happy.
That, coupled with the fact that English has become the lingua franca of the entire world, means that educated people in every country in the world can see American TV and see people who believe the things above. They understand our dumb people, and we put our dumb people on TV.
(Dumb people in the Mongolia say things and we never hear them. We don't speak Mongolian. Well, for that matter, dumb people in France say things and we never hear them. We don't speak French. The smartest Mongolians and French all speak English -- if we're going to see Mongolians or Frenchies on TV, they're gonna be the smart ones who talk normal.)
Compounding all this, American "liberal" media's obsession with balanced coverage means that it is considered good policy (though thankfully it doesn't always happen) that when someone comes on to say "Solar is Good", someone has to be dragged out who will say "no it isn't", no matter how far down you have to scrape the barrel to find such a knuckle-dragger. (I think we see less of this, now as, like with almost anything, at some point controversy on non-controversial things just seems pointless even to the media.)
It's an inferiority complex defense mechanism caused by rejection and jealousy. They, especially the Brits, can't wrap their heads around why we ever left. Americans just transformed European arrogance into cockiness. We were tired of being choked by stuffiness and bullshit allegiance to inbred royals. And then we had to come back later to save them from themselves. Oh sorry, was I generalizing? My bad.
We like you Europe, but it's time to stop being little bitches. Act locally and shut the fuck up globally.
Netburst was decidedly NOT efficient.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
No, the free market does that quite well. It's called "supply and demand".
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
If I only had mod points. Hilarious comment.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
It depends on your definition of "return", which for some people includes more than dollars; and it also depends on whether you are talking about technology from the 90s or technology from today, which is significantly better ("significantly" is the operative term"). But let's ignore the second point and focus on the first: he can justify it many ways; the most obvious way is with environmental concerns. Do you reject that justification, or had never heard of it?
Sub-prime mortgages came about because of Fannie Mae, a GSO. Try searching Google for "Fannie Mae eases credit to aid mortgage lending". Derivatives based on sub-prime mortgages wouldn't have existed without Fannie Mae creating them. By the way, there are many kinds of derivatives, and they aren't all inherently "evil". For example, calls and puts on stocks are derivatives. I mention this because Joe Sestak's lackeys are running ads about his opponent Pat Toomey "creating" derivatives, banking on our ignorance. Toomey dealt in interest and currency derivatives, not credit default swaps.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yes! That's what they believe.
And they are wrong.
I hate to say it, but you probably do.
Yours, a Canadian.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
As one of those people who are always yelling about "green" energy which is no good, let me defend myself.
Simply: I dislike most green energy because it isn't "green". Sure, you're not burning petrochemicals to get the fuel, but that does not make them "green", or even (in many cases, better).
Wind turbines, for instance, are environmentally destructive in use, have a relatively small life span, and use up copious amounts of natural resources in their construction (metal, cement). Their construction is disproportionately energy intensive - something which takes a very long time to recoup.
Solar is approaching practicality while at the same time decreasing in cost. It's improving, but the cost of these panels is largely demonstrative of their environmental impact (even after subsidy). Economy of scale is not the issue: production is running at 110% due to demand, yet prices remain high due to the materials and processing which must go into production.
Bio-diesel is another big one, historically (though I understand this has changed in the past couple years - I've not been paying much attention to it).
My particular pet peeve, at this point, is the EV - particularly the EVs which use small gas engines and lithium based batteries. Why in the world would anyone think these are a good idea? Aside from the limited supply of lithium and its relatively short lifespan (lead-acid gets 5 years, why would you expect more than that from lithium?), it is extremely costly to produce and recycle. This cost translates to environmental impact, and is largely the result of limited supply and the toxic nature of lithium. Then there's the fact that these EVs use gas engines instead of diesels, which makes absolutely no sense when considering the amperage potential of a diesel vs. a gas engine, the relative lack of energy density in gasoline when compared to diesel, and the additional refinement necessary over diesel for gasoline production. Not terribly green.
When you eliminate the gas engine, why do batteries at all? Just generate electricity directly from something like a diesel turbine engine and use that to directly power your wheel engines (or convert an older vehicle to use a variable speed electric motor). (For increased performance, you could add a battery 'capacitor' for starts and the like, of course.)
California's roadway system is another example. If you want to go 'green', improving your cities might be a better way to do so instead of improving your interstates or installing billions in 'public transit'. The cost should not be so dissimilar unless politicians get 'overly involved', and the result will be better cities.
I am against drastic, disruptive technological change, because there is not enough time to judge the practical long-term results of such changes. What will they do to the economy? What will they do to the environment? And so on.
We've had the technology for decades to create 'green' stuff, yet we're ignoring those improvements largely in favor for 'more technology'. Case in point: a 2010 Sienna claims 17 city, 23 highway - for a combined 19mpg. However, these #s are more than likely based off the in-car computer, which almost invariably seems to over-estimate the mileage). Meanwhile, a 20-year-old full-size van (truck chassis, more room, etc.) with a turbo charged inline 6 (Windsor) will get about 2-4mpg better than that with similar driving patterns and be able to haul a hell of a lot more, nevermind hitch a trailer full of tools behind it and not fall apart in the process. The technology in that 'old' van is 20 years old, and does a better job to boot in pretty much every comparison.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
As much as I love snarky comments it doesn't quite work in this case, there could be no Government Jesus because government isn't run by an abstract idea, 'liberals' think that in a set of cases decisions are better made by a government official with a defined set of goals and responsibilities, as opposed to some random person in the industry who has no responsibilities before the public, thus we have such things as social services, healthcare, police, army, breathable air and drinkable water.
Also, why are you so sure that Free Market Jesus wouldn't be sacrificing your liberties, or for that matter your life (I've got so many examples, where do I start?). While being so scared of government boogeyman, you fail to see the elephant in the room.
Sure, the weakness of free market theory is that it is based on the idea that people will take actions required to solve problems in the markets, and unfortunately that isn't true. For the most part, until a problem is very large indeed, most people won't take action to solve it. That means that in free (unregulated) markets, consumers have to put up with small, medium, and large-size problems, and are only saved from extra-large size ones, which are big enoguh. So, we use regulation to solve some of those small, medium, and large-size problems.
History is the simple proof. If free markets solved consumer problems, then why would there ever be a situation in which people were clamoring for government action? Government action would never be required if free markets worked according to theory. The very existence of regulation is itself a repudiation of free market theories.
Markets respond to pressures, yes; but not absolutely, and importantly not well enough. So to improve free markets, we regulate them, resulting in much superior non-free markets, and consumers benefit.
Lots of posturing, no substance. Obama sold out on fighting climate change long ago.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/11/101011fa_fact_lizza
So? burning coal is a horrid way to create electricity. and clean coal has never worked.
You also seem to assume you won't be paying for energy during that same persiod. You are GOING to pay for energy of the next 30 years. Wether it's coal or solar doesn't matter. Why would paying 80 dollars a month for solar over 30 years, be worse then paying 80 dollars for coal for 30 years?
There is more to think about then 'cheap'
30K? how much electricty do you burn a month?
lets say you use 1 megawatt. Thats above the average home use in the US.
That means you need to generate 1368 watts per hour.
Now, that 24 hours, so we will double it. 2700 watts worth of panels.
you can get 28 210watt panels for about 16, 500 dollars. 28 us how many come in a pallet at solarhome.org/solarpanelspallet.
You only need 14 of those, so if you split the cost with someone else, that's 9000 dollars after shipping.
Assuming you are reasonably capable, you and the person you split could both take some installation classes and help each other out.
Or even use all the panels and sell even more excess. In this scenarios you still use the grid at night, but during the day the electricity you sell is more then you use at night.
I would have thought the lack of avocado green carpet and bell bottom would have been a clue that it's not the 70s anymore.
Extra credit:
210 watts * 28 is 5880 watts. per hour. assuming 10 cents a Kw, that 58 cents and hour. lets say 8 hours. 4 bucks * 30 = 120 dollars. even if it's 25% less then that you still break even.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm all for renewable energy when and if it starts making economic sense,
"Economic sense" is a perfectly circular argument. No matter the conditions presented, 'economic sense' can be used to defend it. As in, "solar power doesn't make economic sense because it's more expensive than burning coal." This argument is impenetrable because the externalities of your favorite ideas cannot and do not ever get factored in. I'll refrain from some other logical problems in your post.
How about kitchen utensils made with a lead alloy? Cheap and durable! It makes perfect economic sense. And yet, for some strange reason I have to pay many times the price for my preferred lead alloy utensils for 18/8 stainless steel utensils. Damn that evil inefficient government that prefers healthy workers over lead-poisoned ones.
Today's lesson: The 'economic sense' argument is used to fleece taxpayers/consumers all of the time. The fundamental premise is to capture some profit and shift the costs away from the enterprise.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Solar does pay for itself. Solar water heaters do. ... But it does pay back.
I keep thinking of adding a solar water heater, but I really can't see it paying off in a reasonable timeframe for me. My natural gas bills run about $20/month tops in the months when I'm using no heat; a decent portion of that is delivery fees which wouldn't go away if I switched to solar hot water. Even at the whole $20 a month, a $2500 system would take 10 years to pay itself off, if I did all the installation myself and nothing happened to any of the components in that time. We get a decent amount of snow, etc in the winters here (metro DC), so I'd think that some damage might well happen. It seems to me that 15-20 years is more realistic. One thing that might change my calculations is if I add an underfloor heating system - if I could tap the solar heated water for that, it would help offset more natural gas in the winter & make it a better idea.
If my numbers are off, I'd be happy to be corrected!
I could care less, but it's not likely.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This comment is accurate. The one it is replying to is pure vitriol.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I totally agree. I was being silly in my tea-party-esque rhetoric.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Actually, my post was somewhat of a joke; I'm not a glennbeckian teabagger.
However, your post is not entirely accurate because supply and demand aren't the only factors. There is also a (relatively high) base cost of production. Power plants powered by gas turbines, coal, hydroelectric, they all cost millions of dollars to build and more millions to maintain. It is certainly possible that, if the transition to greener fuel sources is not well managed, the supply/demand relationship will hit a point where lower demand means higher cost, because the remaining customers will have to shoulder the burden of a system which was built to handle much greater demand.
If it were up to me--and I warn you, I'm NOT an expert--I'd make sure that any new power generation facilities were extremely modular so that if power demand suddenly drops by 50% because everyone is powering their AC units with solar on the hottest days of the year, 50% of the generation equipment can be shelved with minimal maintenance cost, so that the cost per kilowatt hour doesn't suddenly reflect more of the cost of unused equipment than the actual cost of power generation.
And while I'm at it, if it were up to me, the power companies would be required to have a vested interest in these greener technologies so that they would have a reason to push them over greater centralized generation capacities. I'm not a huge fan of that sort of regulation, but if we don't do it, the end result will be that too-big-to-fail power companies will either demand high rates from those who can't afford them or huge government subsidies to continue operations. Or they'll shut down leaving thousands of people who couldn't afford alternative technologies in the dark.
The CB App. What's your 20?
What are the weaknesses of the free market where the government should step in?
Sub-prime mortgages? Derivatives-build-from-derivatives ad nauseum? Rings any bell?
Currency is government produced. Even money supply created by banks is only created by virtue of legislation, unlike a real product like farm produce or a manufactured good. The financial system should not be thought of as a free market for this reason. It is a mistake to treat it as a free market because it is in reality a government service that enables the free market and not part of the free market itself, much like the court system.
If we want a free market monetary system it has to be commodity backed so that supply is affected by market forces rather than government decisions on money printing and minimum lending reserve levels. If we want a fiat currency it should be run as a government service because that is what it is. If judges take private payments to pervert justice, we don't call it a failure of the free market, we call it corruption. If we allow people to get rich damaging the financial system using fiat money it should also be understood to be corruption. We allowed corruption to be legal based on a misunderstanding that was pretty much society wide. If we allocate blame incorrectly to either the free market or government ineptitude it will be impossible to fix.
And said schmuck only bought them because the Fed held interest rates at ridiculously low levels forcing larger risks to be taken to get any any worthwhile return. And at the same time had a wink-wink promise to bail everything out via the Greenspan put if things went south.
as well as what government subsidies for solar installations are offered
Subsidies don't make it cost effective, they only transfer the cost to someone else.
Pollution of common resources - the factory that pours toxic smoke into the air with no market repercussions since they are an exporter and hence their customers are far away and don't know or care. Externalities in general really.
It was great for heating.
Interesting.
OT: every time I see your signature, I smile as the song plays in my head and I watch the large costumes go down the wacky slide in my mixed-up memories (yes I know that was a different show :).
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Yes and that's fine. That still in the end comes under the same category of physical force, which can take many forms. Say, as an extreme example, I follow you around and blow poisonous gas into your face. Same thing really with large industrial pollution except that individual harm is harder to measure so rather than a tort case, this becomes an issue for government regulation. If you read or even watch you tube clips of libertarians from Hayek to Milton Friedman and on you will see that they have no problem with government role in reducing pollution. The devil is in the details though and the issue many of us have with things like cap and trade is that "think of the environment" has become new "think of the children" i.e a valid concern used as an excuse to introduce all kinds of big government schemes that have nothing to do with the original problem.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The free market does a great job in some respects, but by itself it takes no account of externalities, leading to things like the tragedy of the commons. Individuals pursuing their own goals will do a very good job of resource allocation if all costs are included, but in the case of energy there are considerable costs that are not included. This is a problem that a panel of government bureaucrats can at least avoid, and they can influence the market in an overall favorable way by adding additional surcharges for things with large externalities, and some subsidy for things that have small or even favorable externalities.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So...what part of cap-and-trade has nothing to do with the original problem?
And why is it bad when it's CO2, but just fine when it's SO2. (A cap-and-trade system is the reason we don't have much acid rain anymore).
If anything, cap-and-trade systems should be embraced by libertarians - it's better to provide a profit motive instead of just banning the activity.
What risk? Moody's, et al, claimed there was none. So no, this wasn't a case of struggling against fed policy. Investors were told it was a safe investment.
CDOs never paid the investors all that great a return. The money came from selling the CDO. Brokers made a killing, investors were promised reasonable returns.
The "Greenspan put" doesn't enter into the equation. The brokers had already been paid.
Here's some weaknesses of the free market for you.
Natural monopolies/barriers to market entry: Right now, I buy my electricity from a company called Xcel. They maintain a large and expensive infrastructure that would be really expensive and difficult to duplicate. There's literally no competition, and there's not going to be, regulation or no regulation. Therefore, they can theoretically set monopoly pricing and disregard customer service. That's where the Public Utilities Commission comes in - keeping the rates and service reasonable.
When uniform action is necessary: I drove to work today. I did it on a road which owed its existence to government action, in forcibly buying land from previous owners. Without it, I'd have to deal with each individual property owner for twenty-three miles.
When there are externalities: Not all costs are accounted for. A business that pollutes can operate cheaper than one that doesn't, typically, and so businesses will tend to pollute and degrade everybody's quality of life in a free market. Another example is global warming: by burning fossil fuels, we're warming up the planet as a whole, and that will have consequences. Some will be good, some will be bad, most will be disruptive. It will probably cost a great deal of money over time.
When there can be free riders: Suppose I was under threat of invasion from Canada. The army is supposed to defend me from them. Now, suppose I didn't want to pay my army bill. The US army couldn't possibly treat that as a license to let the perfidious Canadians occupy my house, since that would jeopardize the lines. They'd have to defend my house just like everybody else's. Therefore, the government forcibly takes money from me to pay the armed forces. Similarly, my city maintains a collection of very small parks throughout the city, and it's a whole lot easier to just let everybody use them than to restrict access to those who voluntarily pay.
When there's a fundamental asymmetry of information: When I go to the store, I can't tell if an individual banana or pork chop was prepared in a safe way. I can buy based on brand reputation, but I can't tell if a company has just dropped safety measures to cash in on its reputation in the short term. Given that the US regulates the food industry, I can be a lot more confident that anything I buy is likely to have no unexpected problems.
When the court system doesn't work: The answer to the problems above is not necessarily to sue in court. For large-scale redress of identifiable wrongs that are solvable financially, the courts work reasonably well. If I have problems from pollution, I can't sue every company contributing to my problem. If I take a hit of about $100 of damage from an identifiable source, it just isn't worth it to sue. If somebody poisons my food, and my son or I die, no amount of money can compensate.
When bargaining power is asymmetric: Consider labor laws. When business-labor relations were a matter of the business offers what jobs it pleases with what benefits or safeguards it pleases on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, workers suffered badly. Most of us are happier with current labor law (which are obviously not perfect, just better than nothing). If we consider the goal of the social-economic system to be to make people in general happier, some regulation is a good thing.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No battle: "I could care less (if I tried, but not willing to expend the effort)", and "I couldn't care less (even if I tried, and I'm not willing to expend the effort)". The key to both is the futility, which, I agree, you expressed very well. :)
I could care more expresses the same sentiment. "I could care more (if I tried, but I'm not willing to expend the effort)". Thus, we come to the reductio ad absurdum conclusion that "I could care less" and "I could care more" are identical statements.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
It's bad, not because of the mechanism involved in trading the cost of pollution in a market, but because of the underlying, utterly unproven, assumption that imposing those costs in the first place will do any good. There are some things that are not open to doubt though: loss of jobs, mostly in developed countries, raising of prices of everything that is affected by the cost of burning fossil fuels, so pretty much everything, and the only net beneficiary - the government who ultimately receives the payments for the rights to pollute the, now nationalized, atmosphere.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I'm not arguing your main point here; sometimes for the individual it does make economic sense, but only because everyone else is paying for it. If you could get the taxpayers to fund my mortgage, buying a much bigger house than I have would make economic sense too.
In this case, the government has decided that they needed to step in to solve the chicken and egg problem. Solar panels are too expensive because they aren't mass produced. They can't be mass produced because nobody is buying them because they're too expensive. Right. Allocate X million dollars to the problem and subsidize them so that mass production ramps up and, over time, the subsidies drop to zero.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
. . . as fewer people use the publicly owned utilities that will mean that they have a surplus of generating capacity driving the price down . . .
First of all, current generating capacity is not sufficent for projected future demand, so less demand will just keep the status quo.
Secondly, if demand drops so much that they have to turn off a few power plants due to low demand, they will do what they can to pass the cost of those idle plants on to the remaing consumers, or they'll just go bankrupt. Neither way will the costs go down for the consumers.
Passing on the cost of idle power plants to customers is a non-starter:
In the scenario under discussion self-generated power is undercutting the public utility rates. The public utilities are losing people with the affluence to afford their own power generation equipment. Therefore the only way for the publicly owned utilities to remain profitable would be to offer electricity at rates that are competitive with self-generated power. Increasing their prices would be irrational as it would only drive more customer away.
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Yes, that's a good point. I hope the subsidies do in fact drop over time.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
Actually, many ppl DO like it. However, we only subsidize but a fraction of what Germany, Japan, and China do. I suspect that if we were willing to subsidize say just 1/2 of what you 3 nations have done and require that the companies be located in our nation, that we would do more.
Of course, the generalization that all Germans come up of Americans IS amazing. Oh, wait.....
Others replying to you have mentioned rebates, but sometimes those deductions and rebates are much better than people think.
For instance, here in Oregon, at one point in time between federal, state, and local deductions and rebates, you actually made money to install solar panels on your home:) That has since been fixed, but they still add up to over 50% off the retail price.
>And they are wrong.
And you're the superman who can do a better job of deciding what people need than they can themselves, eh?
Friedrich Hayek coined a term for that attitude of yours. He called it "the Fatal Conceit".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Does this qualify for the government tax credit on Obama's tax return?
Fannie and Freddie were legally unable to do subprime mortgages until 2006. What made the mortgage "subprime" was that Fannie and Freddie wouldn't do them.
So it was a law then, not the free market? Flamebait aside, the reality of the situation is that the financial collapse doesn't say a thing about the effectiveness of the free market or government regulation. See my comment here: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1811450&cid=33825598
Fiat currency can only be a government provided enabler of the market, not a free market good itself, since it is a product of the government. If we somehow came to think that courts should be treated as a free market to allow judges to take private payment and then decided to regulate how those payments could be made, the inevitable destruction of justice resulting would not be a result of over regulating judges payments, nor a failure of the free market system, it would be corruption.
Since we will not see a real financial sector takeover by government (ie private profits completely eliminated) or a return to commodity money (eg: gold standard) then we are in for more of the same.
The schmuck bought the CDO because the originator paid someplace like Moodys to claim shit was gold.
It's interesting that even people such as yourself who seem to not like free market economics still can't help implying that if the money WAS gold the collapse wouldn't have happened. And don't start on me about deflation spirals being caused by gold, they are not, they are caused by fractional reserve lending, under which system you can only have a partial gold standard (the minimum reserve requirement). Gold supply doesn't contract if loans don't get made and doesn't expand if they do.
Every financial system yet devised has its problems, whether they are solvable remains to be seen.
No, Solar PV does NOT pay for themselves. In everycase, they require subsidies. Even now, they are ONLY approaching the costs of nukes. AND solar PV would require storage and a lot more to handle night time. OTH, Solar Thermal, as an add-on to Coal, Gas, and Geo-thermal REALLY makes a lot of sense. The reason is that they replace a limited commodity. Yes, Geo-thermal actually has a limited life time unless you draw at a much lower rate. Well, if you add Solar Thermal to geo-thermal, then you get to draw at slower rates. Heck, the Geysers in CA should be doing this, but they are not.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Me personally? No probably not. We elect professionals to do that job (to know better than we ourselves know), and we watch them carefully.
But yes, in general, there are certain few people with superior judgment and perspective, whom the rest of us would do well to follow, more or less. The hard part is selecting those people and keeping them honest.
But sure, yes, there are a hell of a lot of people who don't know what is best for themselves -- and aren't even withing rounding error of that threshold. They are true idiots, truly bad at living, and yes we can improve the world by forcing different behavior on them. This is not at all a controversial statement, and it's simply that you and I draw the line in different places.
For instance, surely you would say that a police officer "can do a better job of deciding what people need" than the rapist he arrests. The question is whether a big-government bureaucrat who wants to establish a local fire department "knows better" than person who sets fires in barrels near their double-wide trailer in an area of the country where there is no fire protection. Or, whether a big-government regulator who wants to keep lead out of children's toys "knows better" than a mother who could, theoretically, buy a lead test kit for each and every toy she buys at Wal Mart.
Yes, I know there are people who would rather that guy suffer consequences, and that mother's child to die of lead poisoning. I just disagree with those people. I think we can find people who can do a better job of making those decisions than the people themselves. It's a sliding scale and we are right to watch the balance carefully.
If we would do the above, it would actually cost LESS than to do a pure solar PV set-up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You know it'd be a lot easier to take these libertarian ideals seriously if our country weren't already funding oil exploration and coal mining out the wazoo with subsidies and land usage grants, and also if the total cost (ie, all externalities included like pollution, deforestation, property value declines) were included on the bill.
The problem is that they aren't. Oil companies own the government (continued even in this supposedly liberal administration), and unless you convince me they're leaving DC, I sure as hell won't support any "getting government off my back" bullshit, because that just leaves a power vacuum for big business.
Big Business is as big (if not bigger) a threat to people's freedom as Big Government.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
So...did you just come out of a coma, or were you not paying attention when "Free Market Jesus" almost destroyed the global economy in 2008?
More like Saint Fannie and Disciple Fred from the Holy Church of Franken.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=related
what about the insecurity of a satellite blocking the sun (with malicious intent)? better not cut the hard lines yet...
Because another element of American culture is not pay twice as much for something that's available elsewhere at a considerably lower price - and that's the situation with solar power. Lacking massive subsidies, it's simply not anywhere near competitive.
Um...no. It wasn't literally gold nor literally shit.
As for fiat currency vs. 'gold standard', a cursory study of the great depression should have taught you how bad an idea the gold standard really is.
Free-floating currencies actually lead to greater stability, since they can allow depressed economies to compete against thriving economies. If it's all pegged to a single resource, no matter what the resource is, then you'll have very nasty problems. See: Spain, Ireland and Greece. Since their economy is "pegged" to the Euro, they are unable to deflate their currency to help stimulate their economy. All 3 nations are looking at a very, very, very nasty decade or more.
As for your other post, if you're not going to put your name one it, I really don't feel like taking the time to follow your link. Be proud of your position, whatever it is.
Your homes must be incredibly expensive, in Germany. I spent a lot of money on my home and the last thing I want to do is spend another, say, $40k to install enough solar panels and batteries to provide the energy I draw in my home all year. Not to mention, the cost of maintaining the system over the years.
I priced out a few panel installations as well as even simple solar water heating solutions on their own and in almost every instance, it appeared that the life span of the installation would expire by or just after the unit finally reached the "break-even" point and would start to save me money. That's an awful lot of work not to save any cash.
Not to mention, you're then stuck with giant ugly panels all over the roof of your house. Possibly obscuring your neighbors view. Possibly in violation of your HOA or even your city's laws.
You also have to factor in that outside of the sun-belt, a lot of places have sub-optimal exposure to enough sun.
Ah, I see. It's those damn scientists screwing up everything again.
Actually, the developing world will lose far more jobs. They don't have the capital to invest in 'greener' production. That's why they just burn it now.
As for developed nations, the assertion that it must cost jobs is far more unproven than climate change itself. Yes, some jobs will be lost, but at the same time some jobs will be gained. Somebody's got to be a 'CO2 trader'. Somebody's gonna be building and installing a lot more solar panels and wind turbines. And so on. We'll just have to see if we're smart enough to not outsource it all to China.
Would you rather those prices rose relatively gradually as cap-and-trade is phased in, or suddenly when fossil fuel prices skyrocket as supplies diminish?
So is religion, last I heard. A booming industry around a product is only proof that consumers buy into the hype; not that there is any validity to the hype. Snake oil salesmen have always counted on the ignorance of consumers to get rich.
All anyone has to do is calculate the actual sun exposure in their home. The number of panels and batteries to meet that. The life span of those panels (usually around 20 years) and then calculate their power bill for the next 20 years versus the cost of the equipment and installations (factoring in efficiency, which varies by location and installation). Chances are, they'll discover that they'll either be breaking even or actually losing money.
Great summary, I'll be amazed if you get a response from the GP. My issue with your average libertarian here is that they seem to be utterly ignorant of any research outside of 1930s era Austrian economics; particularly behavioural economics and psychology in general. I suspect many of them don't like having to deal with the complexities of the real world, human behaviour and social dynamics - the responses to any story about psychology research are often largely derogatory.
I might steal your post if I ever get into an argument again with a free market zealot; I spent years doing it, you never change their mind, but it's nice to be right even so :)
As for fiat currency vs. 'gold standard', a cursory study of the great depression should have taught you how bad an idea the gold standard really is.
I didn't advocate a gold standard, I asserted that financial markets are only free market enterprises with a gold (or other commodity) backing. Fiat currency is a government service and should be run as such. In other words, unregulated financial markets cannot work with fiat currency, a position I take it you agree with, although you mistakenly believe that's a problem with free markets rather than recognising that trying to treat fiat currency as a free market good is corruption, not a real free market. In any case, as I already said, currency contractions happen as a result of fractional reserve lending, not gold standard. Gold does not disappear if you don't lend it. Gold standard with no fractional reserve lending would not result in deflation but would be the end of capitalist financing as Adam Smith proposed and as we know it.
Free-floating currencies actually lead to greater stability, since they can allow depressed economies to compete against thriving economies.
Then by all means use it then. Don't be deceived into thinking it is a free market good though, it is government provided. I'd be quite OK with that if it were not semi-privatised, ie: public losses and private profits. The last couple of years should make you hesitate about the greater stability theory though. The value of the world's fiat currencies over the long term is in constant decline. We don't have free floating currencies because they don't allow contractions to happen, they only allow inflation because they don't know how to deal with deflation. The currency isn't stable, it's rate of devaluation is.
As for your other post, if you're not going to put your name one it, I really don't feel like taking the time to follow your link. Be proud of your position, whatever it is.
So your name is jeff4747 I take it? Back when I used an account I was posting at +2, I prefer to let my arguments stand on their merit, not my reputation. YMMV. I never log in anymore. Maybe I will start again sometime, but you are still as good as anonymous to me.
It would be just as irrational to lower the prices below their costs
However, rationality is uncommon, or, at least, rationality based on reality is rare, even in business.
Even with the price of home-grown energy production going down, demand is not very elastic, so raising electricity prices won't reduce the number of customers much. Also, most customers do not have a realistic choice.
In the state I live in, the electric rate has historically been set by a formula that takes into account a return on the capital investment of the utility companies.
Anyway, public utilities are for the most part a monopoly, or close to it, so this whole supply and demand free market does not compute, but even if it did, the above would be true.
But we will be helping destroy the planet with global warming if we put up more devices to absorb the suns rays instead of reflecting them back to the evil sun....
FragHARD or don't frag at all
We elect professionals to do that job
The Soviets had "professionals" to do that, too. Didn't work out too well.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yep. We seem to be a lot better at finding the balance than they were. It's not really surprising, since they were driven by an ideology, whereas more or less we are driven by moderation and practicality. I can't think of any time, in any place, where a purified ideology was successful in stable governance. You should think about that.
Well housing is expensive here, but solar installations are not really the thing to blame that on. The average house is way more solidly built than the average US house - always cellared, always a solid brick structure. That's going to cost more than wooden houses I used to live in while I was working in California. A huge factor for the price are quite high demand on energy efficiency, insulation and such.
As for the appearance - never seen anything like a HOA here, we are spared this pest. My neighbor can say fuck all when I decide to plow over my lawn and plant potatoes next year. Cities have regulations, but those mostly cover the rough appearance of houses in a certain region, e.g. every new built house along this street has to have a roof angle between x and y degrees. This has become more relaxed, though, lately. When my parents built their house in the early 80s, you really had to have a homogenous look in every quarter. Anyway, there is no chance that city regulations could forbid solar panels. They would get their arse kicked in court within weeks. Besides, the things are neither ugly nor do they obstruct the view. How did you come up with that?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
use them as shooting targets?
Exactly. (And, why I added the disclaimer to the analogy, because it's not exactly the same -- one talks about busting into flame in a container, the other in open air.)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I spent years doing it, you never change their mind, but it's nice to be right even so :)
That's because you suck at arguing. Be nicer.
I'm from Upstate NY -- we don't stop our normal routine for anything short of whiteout blizzard conditions
You wouldn't know by the traffic status what the weather is in Upstate; people there flip their cars over on bright clear sunny days. The only difference is that they don't stop driving when they run out of traction; leading to even more exciting accidents.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
>We seem to be a lot better at finding the balance than they were.
No, it's just that we don't have quite as much bureaucratic interference in the market as they did (yet).
We have one major institution that practices soviet-style central planning, and it just dropped us into the second great depression. It turns out, that the Federal Reserve isn't any better at picking interest rates than the soviet industrial planning bureaus were at setting production goals and prices.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You are wrong about everything you have said, mostly so wrong that it would make me laugh if I didn't know you were serious.
If I'm wrong, I'm sure you can point out any errors you see with something better than a "nu-uh". Give it your best shot.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If you didn't see the problems with the libertarian ideology the first time you heard it, how would I be able to reach into your brain and turn on the clue circuit? But here, this is the incorrect statement:
individuals pursuing their own goals will do a better job of allocating resources than a pack of bureaucrats trying to manage the economy
Sometimes this is true; often it is not true. This statement is accepted like religious faith by people who share your ideology, but it is rejected by people who pay attention to historical and contemporary facts. The market-is-always-best ideology is wrong for the same reason all other ideologies are wrong: because it rejects the validity and truth of other ways of seeing things. You seem to be a true believer, a religious faithful, a person who accepts the tenets unquestioned, and then has no problem accepting the conclusions which come from those tenets. The conclusions are fine, it's the tenets which are wrong. But the tenets are so obviously wrong that a person who accepts them is obviously not applying critical thought to them, and I couldn't possibly convince that person to do so. Instead of asking what is wrong with that statement, a much better question is what is RIGHT about that statement?
You can have the last word if you want it. I only engage religious people (religion in the general sense) in order to persuade third parties reading the thread, and it's long since anyone else read you and I biatching at eachother.