Solar Panels Increase Home Value

blair1q writes "Venture Beat reports that a study (PDF) by Berkeley National Labs has found that homes sold in California earned a premium for solar panels. The benefit ranged from $3900 to $6400 per kW of capacity. An earlier study found that proximity to solar or wind power may also raise home values. These results contradict the arguments based on degrading home values used by putative NIMBY (Not In My Back-Yard) opponents to installing or living near such energy-generating equipment."

Comments

Makes Sense

[DWMorse]

Makes total sense. If I was looking at houses, and the prior owners had installed a hot tub, earning them a glare or two from neighbors in the process, I would also pay a little extra for that amenity too. Duh. Beneficial improvement raises value.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes total sense.

But then the "econutters" would be right and there's a whole contingent of people out there who are going to go burn tires just to show them who's boss.

Time after time, conservationists say "we think you should X because it will save the world". Opponents say "You gaia-worshipping econutters can't tell us what to do, we're going to burn a tire just for you". Companies turn off their lights at night and discover that they are saving 25% on their electric bill. Or they recycle and discover they're saving on their raw material costs. The list goes on and on. Sure, there are some crazy suggestions out there, and sadly some of them have gotten backed by the government (like the incandescent bulb ban), when they haven't gotten completely redirected for the profit of some small group (corn-and-corn-only ethanol springs to mind, though I wouldn't be surprised to find out that GE sponsored a number of the anti-incandescent bulb legislators).

Re:Makes Sense

[MoonBuggy]

I was thinking precisely the same thing. It doesn't explain the older study's conclusions, though: "...an additional study conducted by the government in 2009, found that home prices were either unaffected or rose based on proximity to renewable energy sources like wind power turbines and solar panels." - unless I'm misunderstanding, that's talking about solar/wind facilities nearby, not installed on the house in question as in the Berkeley study. I can't work out why that would raise property prices; it's not like you have to take your Prius to the nearest power plant to pick up a jug of fresh-squeezed eco-energy, after all. All I can think is that maybe there's a common cause. Good conditions for power generation could coincide with desirable features for a property location, I guess.

Re:Makes Sense

[timeOday]

For me it would be a bonus because it would mean the land is likely to remain relatively undeveloped instead of filling in with more suburbs.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

Time after time, conservationists say "we think you should X because it will save the world". Opponents say "You gaia-worshipping econutters can't tell us what to do, we're going to burn a tire just for you". Companies turn off their lights at night and discover that they are saving 25% on their electric bill. Or they recycle and discover they're saving on their raw material costs. The list goes on and on. Sure, there are some crazy suggestions out there, and sadly some of them have gotten backed by the government (like the incandescent bulb ban), when they haven't gotten completely redirected for the profit of some small group (corn-and-corn-only ethanol springs to mind, though I wouldn't be surprised to find out that GE sponsored a number of the anti-incandescent bulb legislators).

There's three main schools of thought for enviromentalism - the nutty Gaia-worshiping dirty hippies (who believe many crazy things against science), the Greenwashing Corporation Movement (pretending to be environmental to save money on dyes, water, etc., while diverting attention from the crazy Gaia-worshipers), and the enlightened self-interest people.

I fall into the latter camp. I think global warming is a real problem. I also won't give up driving a car, and biking to work (which is a 5.5 hour drive in my car, twice a month), or taking public transportation, or any of the other nonsensical things that hippies suggest we should do for Earth day. (Dirty hippies start with the indoctrination of the young: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfYawbcBGQ&feature=player_embedded) But I don't, you know, hate the environment. I go backpacking a lot, never litter, and so forth. But I put solar on my home solely for economic reasons (the CO2 reduction is just gravy) - if I can generate power myself at half the rate PG&E charges me, why shouldn't I do it?

The right wing rejects the science behind global warming because they don't want to give up their cars.
The left wing thinks that global warming means we have to give up our cars, or suggest other similarly impractical or nonsensical things (like driving hybrids).
Both sides are wrong.

The Shaka Energy Plan: It is possible to reduce America's CO2 levels by 50%, which would meet every CO2 target imaginable (and do much better than just stabilization, which a lot of accords shoot for), simply by targeting our power generation. Replace coal and gas with nuclear (and wind and solar when economical), which won't raise energy rates. Use our gas to power public transportation, and coal to power our cars. No more foreign energy imports, and we can even pat ourselves on the heads for being good little dirty hippies for our massive CO2 reduction.

Re:Makes Sense

[BasilBrush]

For me, when I pass by a wind farm, it brings a smile to my face. I'm happy that here is something being done about global warming and the upcoming energy crisis. The report suggests that feel good factor results in increased property values. Makes sense.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

[......] the enlightened [......] people.

I fall into the latter camp.

Of course you do!

Re:Makes Sense

[presidenteloco]

Actually the climate scientists are pretty much saying we need 80% to 100% GHG (CO2...) emissions reductions soon to avoid potentially catastrophic warming.

Your enlightenment may be on the blink.

Also, your stereotype and cliche filter probably needs replacing.

Re:Makes Sense

[bunratty]

I think your explanation of why the right wing doesn't want to accept global warming or that it makes sense to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is because they think we'll suffer. You're essentially right in saying that we don't need to suffer at all, just change how we generate electricity.

You're missing the part efficiency plays, however. By using more efficient lighting and appliances, driving higher gas mileage cars, and living and working in buildings with more insulation, we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by simply not using as much energy in the first place. We'll hardly notice any difference, except for the different types of light bulbs or perhaps charging up the car instead of refueling it.

You're also off in how much we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We don't need to cut them in half; we need to reduce them by 80% or more. That's why Obama set a goal of 80% of our energy from non-emitting sources by 2035.

Re:Makes Sense

[SwedishPenguin]

Cutting America's CO2 levels by 50% would merely put you in the middle of the current European pack, it's not nearly enough... We in Europe need to seriously curtail our CO2 emissions, and you guys need to double your efforts to get down to the same levels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

Re:Makes Sense

[bunratty]

Yes, climate scientists are saying we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 85% to stabilize the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we emit much more than that, we will emit more carbon dioxide per year than the carbon cycle can absorb, and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to rise and the temperature will continue to rise. So we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80-90% at some point.

There is some disagreement about how much time we have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80-90% to avoid catastrophic warming (and by catastrophic, I don't mean "ZOFMG we're all gonna die!"). How long it takes us to reduce emissions will determine the concentration at which we stabilize, which will in turn determine how much the temperature rises. For example, if we stabilize at 550 ppm, we will have doubled the concentration of carbon dioxide. There is uncertainty about whether this will lead to a mere 1.5 degree Celsius increase (which isn't too bad) or a 4 degree Celsius increase (which would be pretty bad). The most reasonable course of action would be to play it safe, just in case the actual warming is on the high side of our estimates. If we start reducing carbon dioxide emissions and realize we don't need to cut them so quickly, we can always cut them more slowly. If we wait until we realize that we need to cut them dramatically or that we're already too late, then we're SOL.

Re:Makes Sense

[presidenteloco]

Hmmm. "Eco-nutter". I'm trying to think of an equally derogatory term for those who don't value eco-system integrity and the environment.

Let's see, how about:
"Lemming" - as in those who are convinced it is fine to keep on running this way.
"Genocidal maniac" - as in those who don't mind exterminating species and decimating future human well-being and population for the sake of comfort.
"Ostrich" - as in "head in the tar sands" is clearly the best strategy.
"Bio-blivious" - as in those who can't grasp or irrationally deny that we are a biological species in the context of a complex eco-system.
"Money Eaters" - putting dollars before sense - as in those who think that money is more valuable than everything else, and are pretty sure they will be able to eat money after ecologically produced food supplies dwindle and clean water systems are used up.
"Shopbots" - uncritical zombie-like over-consumers of wasteful or harmful products of the unsustainable economy.
"Neo-convicts" guilty of environmentally criminal industrial, land development, or resource extraction acts, and of of not understanding or deliberately closing their eyes to the fact that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.

                         

Re:Makes Sense

[TapeCutter]

Somewhere back in the late 80's the right wing recognised the coal industry were facing extinction and have reacted by conducting a major disinformation campaign to convince their followers to act against their own best interest, it has worked spectacularly well. Somewhat ironically their hero Ronald Reagan was instrumental in creating the internation cap and trade system for sulphur emmission in order to reduce acid rain, that also worked spectaularly well.

Re:Makes Sense

[bunratty]

Yes, the George C. Marshall Institute.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, based on that list, we should all strive to emit carbon dioxide like china.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Efficiency is important. However, banning the use of Incandescent light bulbs because they're 1% efficient at generating light is stupid. The other 99% of the energy isn't lost in some magical fairy land.

My lamps happen to also heat my house, which means I don't have to have the thermostat up too high.

Re:Makes Sense

[PopeRatzo]

Beneficial improvement raises value.

But what are you going to do when one of those solar panels fails and leaks solar radiation all over? It won't be so good for property values when there's a Level 7 solar panel disaster.

I hear there was a leak at one of the wind farms and now they're finding wind residue in the water supply over a five-mile radius.

I think we better stick with nuclear energy: Clean, Safe, and Too Cheap to Meter!

Re:Makes Sense

[QuasiSteve]

There's three main schools of thought for enviromentalism

1. the nutty Gaia-worshiping dirty hippies (who believe many crazy things against science)

2. the Greenwashing Corporation Movement (pretending to be environmental to save money on dyes, water, etc., while diverting attention from the crazy Gaia-worshipers)

3. and the enlightened self-interest people.

bias? what bias?

I fall into the latter camp.

As somebody else has already said.. of course you do *pat pat*.

But I don't think you actually do. I think you fall into category number two. Let's re-state the gist of it:
pretending to be environmental to save money

Now let's look at your claims:

I think global warming is a real problem.

Alright! Admitting there's a problem is the first step.

I also won't give up driving a car

Nobody says you have to - though some may take issue with the 'gas guzzler' type. Clearly driving a car can be a necessity.

and biking to work (which is a 5.5 hour drive in my car, twice a month),

Bit of a grammar fail there. I'm going to guess that you meant you won't be biking to work, rather than not giving that up.
A 5.5 hour drive to work is a bit much. Even a 9-5 job would be pretty much undoable. But you say it's only twice a month, so I suspect this is a far cry from a 9-5 job.

or taking public transportation, or any of the other nonsensical things that hippies suggest we should do for Earth day.

I'm pretty sure the hippies - be they dirty or otherwise - suggest people take the bike or public transport, when feasible, every day. Not just on Earth day. Clearly, it's not feasible for you to bike to work. But when you need a pack of batteries, do you take the car 10 blocks down the road to a store, or do you get on the bike? That's the type of thing where taking a bike is feasible.
I also presume that public transport can't take you to work those 2 times a month, or that you have personal issues with the mode of transport (U.S. buses are quite different from the ones in Western Europe, and I'd think twice about being in a Greyhound for 5.5 hours, too.)

But I don't, you know, hate the environment. I go backpacking a lot, never litter, and so forth.

Well there's a bit of a difference between hating the environment and going out of your way to take care of the environment.
Backpacking may be enjoying the environment, but it doesn't do much for the care of said environment other than park services and the like tending to hiking routes.. but that's park services, and not you.
Similarly, I'm glad you don't litter. But when you see litter, do you pick it up and put it in a trashbin? If all you do is 'not litter'.. again, that's not doing much for the environment at all.

This covers the pretending to be environmental clause of category 2. You're not actually being environmental, but you like to suggest that you are by not going out of your way to affect said environment negatively.

But I put solar on my home solely for economic reasons (the CO2 reduction is just gravy) - if I can generate power myself at half the rate PG&E charges me, why shouldn't I do it?

And this doesn't really need a detailed exposition. This is the to save money clause of category 2 and overlaps with the earlier clause. You're not doing anything for the environment, you're doing it for the money. You say it yourself, 'the CO2 reduction is just gravy'.

To top it off, Bill, your Shaka Energy Plan is all about having zero individual, personal, responsibility (let the energy companies figure it out) or burden (won't raise energy rates). In your own words, why shouldn't you support such a plan ( having slapped your name on it aside ;) ).

Re:Makes Sense

[Xaositecte]

5.5 hours by car is... Irregular working conditions.

Biking to school/work is manageable for a significant portion of the populace, and is actually faster than driving in some cities.

Also Enlightened Self-interest of getting precious exercise.

Re:Makes Sense

[lightknight]

I ask you, if we find that all this pollution is holding off an Ice Age, what do we get to call you?

Re:Makes Sense

[Belial6]

Since I was a kid, wind farms brought a smile to my face. Not because of the power concerns, but because they are giant art exihbits. If they didn't do anything useful, people would rave about how cool they are and declare them "Art". A wind farm is basically a field full of giant pinwheels. How cool is that!

Re:Makes Sense

[swb]

Usually, though, hot tubs, pools, and other extensive "features" don't add value. They all age, are expensive to reapir, and limit the home's resale appeal to peole who want those kind of features.

The same is true of elaborate home automation or HVAC solutions. My guess is a solar power add-on that offered a substantial cut in power bills on a monthly basis with minimal maintenance costs might be a wash at best; anything less that, it's just an albatross to a buyer, something he doesn't want that will cost him money; some might even a demand a sale price discount equal to the cost of removing it.

The brand names of products or installers are also not there for these products. It's not like you buy a GE Profile solar power systems installed by the local plumbing or electrical installer. I'm sure theres good gear and installers, but because it's still growing they aren't common knowledge nor do many have a long history.

A geek or a solar power guy may pay a premium, but I think most home buyers would not pay any premium for a house with solar power. Yet; I think some kind of home generation technology will probably become a necessity eventually.

Re:Makes Sense

[SwedishPenguin]

Well yes, per capita China produces less CO2 than any western country, or at least they did in 2007, they may have passed Switzerland by now. The truth is the Chinese are investing more in clean tech than pretty much anyone else, but unlike the west they have a very quickly growing economy.

Re:Makes Sense

[Vegemeister]

If home generation technology ever becomes a necessity our power delivery infrastructure will have failed. In which case there will be bigger things to worry about than the housing market.

Re:Makes Sense

[vadim_t]

Your enlightened self-interest only seems to go one level deep in the best case.

What you're speaking of here isn't really environmentalism, it's just common decency at most.

It's certainly not too bad, but I don't find it all that commendable. After all, if everybody stopped their thinking at level 1 (themselves), we'd quickly find ourselves in a crappy situation. Take for instance indiscriminately throwing trash into the river you drink from. On an individual level that works out because your contribution is small compared to the river. Yet enough people doing that can easily poison the river until the water isn't drinkable anymore. To prevent outcomes like that we must think of more than the most immediate outcomes of our actions.

I find it interesting that you seem to think further down regarding garbage than regarding CO2. Why do you make a distinction? What is it about littering that makes you not need an economical reason not to do it, that doesn't apply to CO2 emissions?

Re:Makes Sense

[RicktheBrick]

The county I live in Michigan is doing everything it can to stop the windmills from being built here. They have already voted down a proposals to build the windmills offshore in Lake Michigan. The people who are mostly here only in the summer consider the windmills in the lake to be a eyesore. Now when they are trying to build them on land, they are trying to severely limit the sound and have a large area between the windmill and any other owned property. The land area will be huge if one must own all the land within a quarter of a mile of a windmill. Some people are complaining that the windmill could break and throw piece into their homes or ice could build up on the vanes and be thrown into their houses. I see that GE has a plan for better windmills which should be available at the end of this year so maybe it is better for the local energy company to wait until all the issues have been solved.

Re:Makes Sense

[Gadget_Guy]

Yes, based on that list, we should all strive to emit carbon dioxide like china.

Yes, please! If the US did this then its emissions would drop to less than one quarter of the current levels. I know that it is fashionable to consider China as the big bogeyman for carbon emissions (because it helps us avoid doing anything about this problem ourselves), but really they are not worse - just bigger than everyone else.

Re:Makes Sense

[Firethorn]

But then the "econutters" would be right and there's a whole contingent of people out there who are going to go burn tires just to show them who's boss.

Still, I figure 'most' people out there are halfway sane. My installing a hot tub, or a solar electric system might not make fiscal sense for me, but if I come across a house with it I'll be willing to pay more because it's either a nice feature or it'll save me money in the future.

'Green' Features reduce or replace energy usage. I'm considering a solar hot water heater for my house, I've recommended them to my family(I'm in Alaska, they're in Florida).

What sort of increase would I be willing to pay? Depends a lot. Would that amount be more or less than what they paid? At this time - probably less. Still, estimates for a professionally installed solar electric system are around $4-6/watt, all in, so it looks like they are indeed getting most of their money back if they sell.

Which covers your butt if you put them in and end up having to sell. Heck, at those prices, if I was a developer, I'd consider installing them in the next subdivision I build.

Re:Makes Sense

[Gadget_Guy]

I ask you, if we find that all this pollution is holding off an Ice Age, what do we get to call you?

If we were maintainung the status quo thn this would be reasonable. But we are not. The world is getting hotter. It is like trying to stop ourselves from getting cold by setting fire to ourselves. It is not the sane thing to do.

To suggest that we do this would put you straight into the original eco-nutter category.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

>>bias? what bias?

Of course I have bias. Did my post appear too objective with terms like "dirty hippie"?

>>To top it off your Shaka Energy Plan is all about having zero individual, personal, responsibility (let the energy companies figure it out) or burden (won't raise energy rates). In your own words, why shouldn't you support such a plan ( having slapped your name on it aside ;) ).

Hey, you got it in one.

I'm firmly opposed to the environmentalist ideas that "being painful" and "good for the environment" go hand in hand. It's just Catholic self-flagellation under a different name.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

>>we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by simply not using as much energy in the first place

If all of our power generation comes from CO2-free sources, cutting energy consumption won't do very much. =)

While CFLs are (much) more efficient than incandescent bulbs, CFLs produce a terrible quality of light, flicker noticeably (wave your hand in front of one), and release mercury gas at about twice the occupational hazard limit set by the EPA if you, you know, happen to drop one.

>>We don't need to cut them in half; we need to reduce them by 80% or more. That's why Obama set a goal of 80% of our energy from non-emitting sources by 2035.

Those two statements don't go together. Half our CO2 production is from energy, so 80% non-emitting energy sources will be only a .4 * .8 = 32% reduction in total CO2 emissions.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

Cutting America's CO2 levels by 50% would merely put you in the middle of the current European pack, it's not nearly enough... We in Europe need to seriously curtail our CO2 emissions, and you guys need to double your efforts to get down to the same levels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

Or we could always have twice as many babies. That'd reduce per capita emissions significantly.

(Per capita restrictions are very silly.)

Re:Makes Sense

[Seumas]

A lot of HOAs and cities consider solar panels to be eyesores and forbid them. That said, of course they'll raise the value of your home. If you spend $20,000 (the price of a very minimal system), you'd sure as hell hope they have some return value on them. Especially since it takes about 25 years (the warrantied life span of the panels, of course) before they start to save you money. $6,000 return for $20,000 investment seems pretty pathetic, to me.

And of course, that's only if the panels feed directly into the grid. If you're looking at storing energy locally, the installation and maintenance of batteries is even more expensive.

Of course, we wouldn't want the reality of the expense and low return on these systems to stop places like "Venture Beat" from boosting the booming solar panel industry. It's not about actually selling something that will save you money. It's about selling you a life-style and a bragging point. It's about selling you an idea. It would be fantastic if solar panels were affordable and had a 30 year life span and paid for themselves in 10 and started saving you money in the 11th year, but that's not the case. Not yet, at least. And until it is, it's just another market to sucker you out of a buck, like the whole "carbon credits" scam.

Re:Makes Sense

[SwedishPenguin]

Why do you say per capita restrictions are "silly"? More population equals greater pollution, no matter how little each extra person pollutes. Are we supposed to equate the US and China despite China having four times the population? Or maybe the US should restrict its total pollution levels to the levels of Sweden with 3% its population?

Re:Makes Sense

[tftp]

The world is getting hotter.

Yes, that's why so many Mexican crops are destroyed by cold, and that's why rains can't stop in California. Last few years were much colder than average.

Re:Makes Sense

[tftp]

I can't work out why that would raise property prices; it's not like you have to take your Prius to the nearest power plant to pick up a jug of fresh-squeezed eco-energy, after all.

Proximity to a harmless power plant actually improves your supply of power. Long transmission lines have a higher chance of failure.

In part this matches the original idea about solar panels. The cost of energy is expected to rise (or you can say that the value of currency is expected to continue dropping.) This means that the value of each kWh that you get for free is increasing, unlike your salary. If $0.30/kWh from PG&E is expensive today, the $3/kWh would be a disaster - and PG&E certainly can get there; the government works tirelessly, day and night, to make the dollar worthless - and they do a great job at that, just ask S&P.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

If it made economic sense to do any of these things you mention we would be doing them right now.

So by spending twice as much money on my car, I don't suffer?
By raising electricity prices by using alternative energy we don't lose jobs, businesses, and a bigger chunk of my paycheck to electricity?

By forcing me to drive a smaller, slower car, that's forcing me to suffer, I like fast, loud, big sexy cars.

We don't need to reduce greenhouse emissions, we need to fix global warming. Even if we cut all greenhouse emissions by 100% right now it's not enough, there have been 100 years of emissions that need to be dealt with.

Then do a cost benefit analysis, and it's clear fixing the problem (geo-engineering) is much cheaper. Give it another 5-10 years and solar prices will become cheaper than coal, then market forces take over and we will switch automatically.

Forcing us not to use cheap coal and gas now just makes poor people starve the world over and prolongs the time until we actually have cheap solar. Mass production of current solar technologies that use toxic materials doesn't make any sense and just impedes research.

If a CFL breaks you have to evacuate and vent the entire room, scrub down carpets if you have pets or little kids, and personally I don't like the spectrum. I also live in Maine so basically 100% of the waste heat is used to heat my house most of the year, so for me, there is no efficiency I gain from using CFLs, I just have to use more FUEL oil to heat my house, not environmentally friendly at all.

Re:Makes Sense

[Eponymous Coward]

You understand the difference between climate and weather, right?

Re:Makes Sense

[nospam007]

"Yes, that's why so many Mexican crops are destroyed by cold, and that's why rains can't stop in California. Last few years were much colder than average."

You're confusing weather with climate.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

What's the quickest way to a 100% CO2 free power structure -- massive investment in R&D until we have cheap solar and some storage tech (batteries/ultra capacitors/ethanol/fuel cell).

How would we have the most amount of money to spend on R&D, well that's simple. Use the cheap coal and gas we have right now, to make sure we have plenty of money to spend on R&D. I'm all for NSF funding and other private R&D, which the major oil companies spend a lot on.

What the longest way to 100% CO2 free power... well that's simple too. Waste as much money as possible on current expensive tech. Divert money from the R&D facilities around the world to production, which the so called 'green' movement wants.

The 'green' movement is made up of young kids that know no better and generally have good intentions. Who lead them? Socialists and corrupt government lobbyists from both sides, be it CO2 free mandates, corn ethanol subsidies, incandescent bans, or the ridiculous mpg requirements that wrecked the US auto industry.

What's the biggest thing the government could do right now to make electric cars more feasible. Just ban the Ovonic battery patent that GM holds for NiMH batteries. Never have I heard anyone talk about this, yet it's really the only thing that would make a big difference, RIGHT NOW.

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

Driving hybrids is impractical or nonsensical? Because making IC engines extract power from petrofuel at their maximum efficiency by buffering with a battery, while gas gallons finally start to stay above $4, I suppose. Huh?

When that's your attitude, I'm neither surprised by nor interested in your interest in nukes and coal. Nor your hatred for "dirty hippies", who can never be as filthy as the nukes and coal you embrace.

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

You're heating your house with coal. Even during the Summer. Congratulations!

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

I just tested your assertion right here. CFLs produce perfectly decent light and don't flicker. If you bought any but the clearance sale ones in the past 2-3 years. Which I didn't, and they paid for themselves in 6 months.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

If you wanna live like a poor Chinese citizen be my guest, my family moved to the US for a reason, and the cheap oil and gas that made this country rich can't be ignored. But you are correct, we shouldn't be telling what China to do until the PER CAPITA CO2 production is higher than ours.

Hans Rosling has a great TED talk on this, and it's very enjoyable to watch.

Just look at Europe, even with a insanely high tax on gasoline, the technology for electric cars just isn't there yet. I applaud the Europeans, they have let me buy much bigger/faster/nicer cars that would have been available if they had no tax (since gas prices would go up for everyone if Europeans used more).

Re:Makes Sense

[Jeremi]

What the longest way to 100% CO2 free power... well that's simple too. Waste as much money as possible on current expensive tech.

You're forgetting how 'expensive tech' becomes 'cheap tech'. How do they do it? Volume, volume, volume!

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

The petrofuels compete only on the $BILLIONS a year in subsidies they get. Which you are paying.

Hybrids don't cost double what straight fuel burners cost.

You're not forced to drive a smaller slower car. The rest of us who pay for your privilege to do so are being forced to pay for it.

Greenhouse emissions are causing climate change. Climate scientists say that if we cut them by 80% over the next 10-20 years we will sufficiently slow or stop climate change.

Upping the ante with "geoengineering" is failing to learn from our arrogant mistakes building up global industry that's causing climate change.

Somehow you have solar becoming the cheapest energy source in 5-10 years, but also impeding research while poor people starve the world over. No more are starving than during the generations when coal and gas were still cheap.

If you break a CFL you have to open the window and wash the area without vacuuming, not "evacuate". If you like heating with electricity from incandescents rather than burning fuel you can do so much more effectively with a $25 heater/blower on the floor than with a light bulb at the ceiling.

You really don't know what you're talking about. But we should trust your dreams of "geoengineering" to compensate for your loud, big "sexy" cars. Electric cars are faster and sexier, too.

Re:Makes Sense

[Jeremi]

A geek or a solar power guy may pay a premium, but I think most home buyers would not pay any premium for a house with solar power.

The whole point of TFA is that yes, they will.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

If it was possible to do that just by increasing volume right now there would be hundreds are companies doing it. Since it's not possible yet, they demand subsidies that only strip money away from other areas of the economy. That was my ENTIRE point.

Re:Makes Sense

[bennomatic]

Out of curiosity, why do you consider driving a hybrid to be nonsensical? It seems like a fine way to cut your fuel burning significantly without necessarily changing your habits.

I'm not saying it's the only way to do things. I myself have a fairly inefficient SUV because if I want to go to the mountains with my wife, my kid and my dog, there's no way all of us would fit in a Prius. That being said, wherever possible, I use public or zero-emission (walk, bike) transportation, and I think we've put less than 6000 miles on the beast in the last 12 months, including a 1500 mile round-trip road trip to visit family last chrisma-hannu-kwanzaa.

Point being, I agree that there are lots of ways to skin a cat, and many of those ways have short-term benefits (cost savings) as well as long term ones (earth savings). Unless you know something I don't about hybrids, what point is there in ridiculing the use of them to cut fuel consumption?

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

Per capita emissions stats are BS. The large majority of Chinese people are living in farming and other preindustrial conditions. The fraction of Chinese people who emit most of their emissions, in their factories and using motorized transit to commute to powered buildings, have higher per capita emissions than in the US.

Emissions per $production are the only sensible measurement. And the US is over 5.25 times good as China in that comparison.

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

Per capita emissions stats are BS. The large majority of Chinese people are living in farming and other preindustrial conditions. The fraction of Chinese people who emit most of their emissions, in their factories and using motorized transit to commute to powered buildings, have higher per capita emissions than in the US.

Emissions per $production are the only sensible measurement. And the US is over 5.25 times good as China in that comparison.

Re:Makes Sense

[bennomatic]

That's one way to think of it. We've probably also warded off planetary invasions. The Zonkoids almost attacked, but then after sampling our atmosphere determined that we'd made the place too inhospitable. So they left. Thank god for our carbon emissions! We should call the eco-nutters pro-invasionists, since they want to make our planet a welcoming place for potential attackers.

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

You do know the difference between Mexico and the whole world? Between one datum and the average? Evidently not.

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

I live within 10 miles of a nuke plant, and I get one-second blackouts a couple times every few months. For which service I'm paying more for the electrical network component of my bill than the average national total electric bill.

Corporations, especially energy monopolies, work tirelessly, day and night, to make my dollars worththless, and their power transcend the dollar entirely. The government, defective as it is, is the only thing you and I have to protect ourselves from them.

Re:Makes Sense

[bennomatic]

There's a solar charging station a few miles from my place which has ports for people to plug in electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars and electric bikes, and little charging lockers where you can plug in just about anything that needs a charge. I don't know how much it's used or what the costs are--I think it's sort of a proof-of-concept and may only be used by the city or some such--but it is very much like what you describe with the fresh-squeezed eco-energy.

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

No, hot tubs, pools and other expensive features add value. Despite the fact that everything wears out, and requires maintenance cost. As anyone shopping for a home would know.

All you've got is guesses, and certainty of them. Slashdot forever!

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking idiot. Just thought you should know.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

Petrofuel companies only make Billions/yr (so how would they spend more than Billions/yr) and they have their own R&D facilities that do plenty of pure science that isn't subsidized, as well as plenty of research into alternative fuels that isn't subsidized completely and they have been doing that research for decades.

Hydrids cost close to double when you include the tax incentives and battery replacement costs. If not double, what 50% more, it's not less either way. If the government actually wanted to do something beneficial to customers they would force GM to release the Ovonics NiMH battery patent that they aren't using, which actually has a chance of giving us competitive hybrid vehicles.

How are you paying toward my non-hybrid car? That's my issue with hybrids, because that is when I am paying for your car.

Climate scientists say an 80% reduction in 10-20yrs will SLOW climate change, but my argument is that if we don't waste all this money on production and consumption of the current shitty hybrids/alternative energy sources, is that we will get to a sustainable future both sooner and richer. And slowing climate change, or keeping the current increase in temperature doesn't fix the problem, sea levels will still rise. Without geo-engineering the problem isn't solved and countries the world over will have to deal with global warming.

My point was that people would starve if we stray from using cheap gas/coal, not if we don't. Solar will get to be cheaper than coal within 5-10 years on the current research path, there's no need for government intervention, although NSF funding is always appreciated.

I suppose I could ignore the warnings on the CFL, and if I have to wash down my carpets, that much worse than vacuuming. Also CFL lifetimes on the packaging is only if you leave them on all the time, if you turn them on and off their lifetime is reduced by an order of magnitude and the cost benefit just isn't there, that's why these companies like GE are using the strong arm of the government to force you to buy and subsidize their inferior product.

BTW, I don't have kids or pets and I saw the nice subsidies so I bought and use a bunch of CFLs that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Electric cars are nowhere near gas cars in any aspect, if they were we wouldn't be arguing, because you'd be able to point to them, and I'd be able to buy one.

I know what I'm talking about, I'm just realistic.

Re:Makes Sense

[tftp]

"Asked and answered" (link)

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

To me, it's like the government demanding everyone have computers, when a computer still took up an entire building. It took TIME and RESEARCH to get to cheap iPhones. A government subsidy demanding we all have computers before they were ready wouldn't have helped, and personally, I think it would have just made it a lot longer to get to iPhones and the like. More money poured into NSF and other R&D companies would have helped, and I'm all for that approach, and the way we have the most money to throw into R&D is to use the cheapest form of energy we can right now.

That's not to say we go back to no emission laws or anything, but CO2 is not nearly as bad as acid rain, and we can deal with another 5-10yrs of CO2 quite easily.

BTW, I don't like iPhones, it was just a nice example.

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

It takes a lot of $billions to make a $trillion. Many of the $billions the petrofuel corps spend are handed to them by the US Congress. Which I'm paying so that you have cheaper gas than the $8 gallons the rest of the world has. And I'm not even counting the $billions in wars I'm helping pay so your gas supply chain stays open for business.

I have CFLs that paid for themselves in six months over 2 years ago. All but one defective one are still working. I replaced incandescents at least 10-20% more often than that, but I have yet to actually see a CFL reach its lifetime. The CFL warnings say just what I said. They don't say "evacuate" or other exaggerations like what you said.

Electric cars are already extremely fast when they're designed for speed instead of mileage efficiency. But the fact is that most people aren't as interested in the speed as in the efficiency. But people like you who are also benefit from them.

You don't really know what you're talking about. You're just projecting from your foregone conclusions that protect your existing gasoline car.

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

Your defense is that you're lawyering in a debate about math? You're guilty.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

I don't buy bargain basement CFLs, but then again, I'm very sensitive to flicker as well. If you waggle a pencil in front of one, you should see it split into distinct lines. I've never seen a CFL that doesn't do this.

Re:Makes Sense

[tftp]

Your debate is invalid to begin with. You were guilty then, and you are guilty now :-)

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

I just waggled a pen in front of one with all the others off, and saw no distinct lines, "freeze frames" or anything like that. And I have quite acute vision.

TVs flicker at 60Hz, and cinema at 24Hz, but most people don't care.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

>>Out of curiosity, why do you consider driving a hybrid to be nonsensical?

It's called the rebound effect. When you pay half as much for gas, people just end up driving more. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/science/08tier.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss)

Studies have found that there's a fair amount of homeostasis around the amount people want to budget for gas each year.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

The $8 gas is mostly from taxes, otherwise it would be just as cheap gas as the US has, and even we have taxes on top of the gas. I don't see how the wars in Iraq or Libya increased production at all, more the opposite. You could even follow the price of gas vs the wars, and it's extremely clear it only increases the price of gas. If the US went to wars to take the gas that would be great and I might actually change my view and become pro these wars.

I followed your link to various electric cars that still haven't got anywhere close to any gasoline counterpart. Electric dragsters lose dismally to an 8,000 hp ethanol drag car. Top speed runs are even worse and still haven't eclipsed what a gas car can do in a 1/4 mile. Then when you look at production cars and it's just as bad.

Yes IF you have windows you don't have to evacuate, but considering I have to wash down my entire carpet it's not practical at all. When you say that they paid for themselves, was that WITHOUT a subsidy, and if it was, then there's no need at all for the law, they'd disappear on their own within a couple years.

Yes, I like my gas car and motorcycle very much, and if electric cars/bikes were competitive in anyway at all, I'd have to justify my purchase. Considering they are more expensive, slower, shorter range, there's no need to at all.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

Driving hybrids is impractical or nonsensical? Because making IC engines extract power from petrofuel at their maximum efficiency by buffering with a battery, while gas gallons finally start to stay above $4, I suppose. Huh?

When that's your attitude, I'm neither surprised by nor interested in your interest in nukes and coal. Nor your hatred for "dirty hippies", who can never be as filthy as the nukes and coal you embrace.

Oh, I drive a hybrid. There's a very good reason for it - paying less for gas is a good thing. When the IRS gives you a flat mileage writeoff, and you drive 25,000 miles a year for work, it makes absolute sense to drive a car with high fuel efficiency.

I'm saying it's nonsensical as a *policy* standpoint. When people have hybrids, they tend to drive more. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/science/08tier.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss) Some people estimate [who?] that hybrids actually increase total gasoline consumption (and hence CO2 emissions) since it becomes much cheaper to drive.

I don't embrace coal for electricity. And the environmental impact of nukes is generally overstated. Did you not read the Shaka Plan for Energy? I want to use coal for gasoline.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process) You can convert coal to gas at about $1.80/gallon, and with no CO2 emissions at around $2.80/gallon.

Re:Makes Sense

[Lord Kano]

Though I don't take it as far as tire burning, I'm one of the kind of people that you're talking about. If something has a direct and tangible benefit to me, it's a lot easier to sell me on an idea. If putting solar panels on my house will (within a reasonable amount of time, say 10 years) be a net savings over paying for all of the KWH instead or on the value of my house when it's time to resell it, I would go about doing it. A bunch of greenpeace eco-whackos screaming is a lot less persuasive than someone with a calculator and a notepad.

LK

Re:Makes Sense

[Gadget_Guy]

It never ceases to amaze me that people can think that their tiny factoids can be more accurate and revealing than all the studies by all the climate scientists of the world. So much so that in this case you actually state that:

Last few years were much colder than average.

And yet 2010 was the equal hottest year on record according to the people who actually measure these things. The last decade was the warmest decade on record. Who are we to believe? The scientists who dedicate their lives to measuring what is happening around the world, or someone posting with a couple of isolated incidents and extrapolating a completely opposite conclusion?

Global warming is not about the temperature becoming evenly warmer all around the world. It is about the entire system getting warmer and more energetic. This results in extreme heat and extreme cold at the local level. It also can cause an increase in rain.

The events that you describe match the predicted effects of global warming.

Re:Makes Sense

[Maxo-Texas]

A $10,000 system with no battery backup can yield you about $500 a year in energy savings.

As you say... 20 year pay back.

But... then that $500 is tax free so if you are working, it's effectively double the actual return ($1000 a year).

But then... energy costs since the early eighties have risen from 5.5c/kwh to 12.5c/kwh to 15c/kwh. (Get just a little bit careless and you can be looking at 24c/kwh).

And then a solar system reduces your most expensive energy usage first.

In 10 years, energy costs could double (just inflation- not actual cost). Suddenly your 10,000 investment pays off in 15 years.. and then gives you 1k per year (effectively 2k per year since you don't pay taxes on savings).

There may be cheaper ways to get energy savings (for example a $24 LED bulb that lowers your energy usage from 40 watts to 10 watts). But once those are done, solar is not a bad deal. And it's a hell of a lot less risk than trying to invest it in the market ($10,000 invested in 2000 is worth about $9,000 right now).

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

And my incandescent shoots most of the light/heat at the floor, so really how much more efficient is a blower on the floor.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

I tend to get annoyed at LCD lights on Christmas trees, LCD lights inside of cars and brake lights, monitors, movies, CRT monitor refresh at low rates, and so forth.

Perhaps it is my super power.

My wife used to think I was making it up, but now she's started noticing it, too. I'll growl, and she'll say, "Oh, that car three up and two over?"

CFLs are all pretty bad.

Re:Makes Sense

[bennomatic]

Assuming this is true, there are lots of ways to skin that cat. Like provide incentives for using hybrids paid for by additional taxes on gasoline. Triple the price of gasoline and even if someone has a car that's twice as efficient, they'll reduce their driving by 30%, by your logic.

However, there are a lot of factors that it's not immediately apparent are being taken into account here. Maybe someone who's got a Prius volunteers to be the driver on outings more often, so while they're drving more, they've got one or two friends also in the car who would have driven themselves to the movies or whatever in their Humvees, burning 12 barrels of oil in the process.

But this is the up-is-down, black-is-white, what's-good-for-you-is-bad-for-you logic that ultra-right-wing nuts have been trumpeting for years. I remember when Michelle Obama put in an organic garden at the White House, some commentator at Fox showed, with rigorous logic how urban farming would cause *both* starvation *and* obesity and decried her as irresponsible for modeling that behavior. Please tell me you don't really buy into that.

It's exceptionally dubious that this author of the linked conflates efficient vehicles with "efficient" washing machines. I put the latter in quotes because if a washer isn't washing, it's not efficient no matter how little water it's using. True efficiency means getting the job done with as little waste as possible, not reducing consumption at all costs. If the regulations are poorly written, or if these washers are poorly implemented, that's not a case against efficiency, it's a case against idiocy.

But that's not the same as a car that uses half the gas. A hybrid car isn't false efficiency, it's real efficiency; the human behavior factor is something on top of that which can be addressed by different means. But there's no reason to deride hybrid technology as nonsensical in and of itself.

Let's just imagine for a moment that there could be another far reaching effect of more common use of this technology: it could lead to reduced cost of the technology and greater research into even greater efficiencies. What if instead of increasing MPG by a factor of two, MPG was instead increased by something astronomical--say 100x? You know what would happen? Oil companies would see the writing on the wall and would move out of the oil business and finally spur innovations in other areas. You like nukes? How about clean, safe nuclear power for your car? A self-contained, suitcase-sized reactor which would power your car for 100 years or 10 million miles?

Of course I'm making stuff up here, but do you really think it's nonsensical to make vehicles more efficient? Holy heck, I thought I was going to hear something about pollution from the batteries, or chronic safety issues, or even deaths caused by people not hearing these quiet cars coming. But, "Give them a more efficient car and they'll just drive more?" That is not the most intelligent argument I've ever heard, to say the least.

Re:Makes Sense

[TheRaven64]

Nope, never seen that effect with CFLs, and I've been using them for about 10 years. I have a fluorescent strip in my kitchen though, and it has that effect.

Re:Makes Sense

[TheRaven64]

The flip side of this is the falling cost and rising efficiency of solar panels. Right now, I could afford to install a system that would take a significant fraction of my load off the grid, but in a few years I can probably get one for the same price that will take everything except my absolute peak load off the grid - and be putting energy back into the grid enough that my electricity bill becomes zero.

Mind you, the thing I'd really like to do is convert all of the lighting circuits in my house to DC. If I replaced all of my CFLs with LEDs and fed them directly from a couple of lead-acid batteries then a relatively small solar panel would cover the entire lighting system quite easily. It will probably take a couple of years for LEDs with a nice spectrum to drop in price to affordable levels though.

Re:Makes Sense

[the_other_chewey]

My CFLs do indeed flicker - accoring to the data sheet, their flicker frequency is 50kHz.
I highly doubt you'll be able to see that...

Re:Makes Sense

[phoenix321]

Some of us live in that magical land of fairytales where it's below zero every night for about half the year, every year, with temperatures during the day being not much higher.

In a climate like this, banning small electric heaters that also give off some light is pretty hilarious.

People heating their homes with electricity (very popular in France, BTW) should not use electric light bulbs because of what?

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

>>Of course I'm making stuff up here, but do you really think it's nonsensical to make vehicles more efficient?

No, not at all. I drive a hybrid! When the IRS gives me 50 cents a mile wherever I drive, I am incentivized to make my miles as cheap as possible.

I simply think that relying on hybrids as a policy preference is a mistake, when it appears (both from studies and in talking with my hybrid-driving friends) that net fuel consumption stays the same.

>>What if instead of increasing MPG by a factor of two, MPG was instead increased by something astronomical--say 100x?

Or the other way, if fuel went up by 100x in price.

Yeah, people's driving habits would change. But that's kind of my point. When gas becomes cheaper, people drive more. When it becomes more inexpensive, they drive less. Hybrids have the effect of making gas cheaper, so it results in more miles driven.

>>Please tell me you don't really buy into that.

I think organic food is kind of a silly concept, but otherwise I don't see anything wrong with people gardening. It has a history, after all.

Re:Makes Sense

[drinkypoo]

Proximity to a harmless power plant actually improves your supply of power. Long transmission lines have a higher chance of failure.

Bullshit. The length of a transmission line is relevant but not even close to the most important driver of the probability of a failure. I live in Lake County, California next to The Geysers, the most geothermally active region in the world. We have one of the world's largest geothermal power plants. It is perpetually over budget and under production, and Lake county has horribly unreliable power. Proximity to a power plant is about the least relevant factor in the likelihood of an outage... unless the power plant is on your roof. Meanwhile all forms of power but solar or wind done right have significant local environmental impact, so you don't want to live anywhere near them. (I count nuclear just on a risk basis.)

Re:Makes Sense

[drinkypoo]

Yes, based on that list, we should all strive to emit carbon dioxide like china.

Yes, please! If the US did this then its emissions would drop to less than one quarter of the current levels.

You must not have noticed, but China is STRIVING to emit CO2 like the USA per capita. They're putting in power plants as fast as they can... dirty, dirty coal plants.

Re:Makes Sense

[drinkypoo]

Out of curiosity, why do you consider driving a hybrid to be nonsensical? It seems like a fine way to cut your fuel burning significantly without necessarily changing your habits.

If it's a plug-in hybrid then it makes sense.

If you drive all city miles then it makes sense.

For anyone else, a TDI will actually have a lower lifetime energy consumption while delivering the same real-world mileage.

If you really want to reduce your fossil fuel consumption then you go electric, because they can run on the power currently being wasted at night. You do NOT buy a Hybrid, which simply takes more power to produce than a non-hybrid, and you can get numerous non-hybrids which get the same mileage as a hybrid.

Again, plug-in hybrids can make sense. But buying an ordinary non plug-in hybrid to save energy is fucking stupid, because it will do the opposite.

Re:Makes Sense

[dunkelfalke]

So did those in my aquarium (I've bought it used). I've just replaced the two old ballasts with a twin electronic one. No flickering anymore and much faster startup with that.

Re:Makes Sense

[drinkypoo]

The world is getting hotter.

Yes, that's why so many Mexican crops are destroyed by cold, and that's why rains can't stop in California.

Are you really this stupid, or are you trolling?

Re:Makes Sense

[SwedishPenguin]

Bullshit. First of all, GDP is not a measure of physical production, it's a measure that includes ridiculous things like transferring a bunch of money between banks that have very little impact on pollution, hell your ridiculous health insurance fees increase the GDP for an example of how ridiculous of a measure it is. China produces *alot* of stuff for the west. Using real GDP is even more ridiculous, using PPP GDP, the US has twice the PPP GDP/emissions than China, half of France, and 1/3 of Sweden...

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

impractical or nonsensical things (like driving hybrids).

Try driving a hybrid from a stoplight sometime.
It hauls ass.

Re:Makes Sense

[SwedishPenguin]

"ridiculous mpg requirements"? You guys drive cars that use more than double the amount of fuel/km than Europe, it couldn't hurt you to downsize a bit for the benefit of us all, you're not alone on this planet... And you're aware that incandescent light bulbs consume 4 times the energy of CFLs while burning out 8-15 times faster right? I've had maybe one CFL go out since I moved in to my apartment 5 years ago, incandescent required new ones at least once every year. Sure if you disregard the short lifespan of incandescents they may be okay in the winter if you don't have a more efficient means of heating your house than electricity, but they're essentially just a bunch of small heating elements that happen to produce light as well..
It's not an either/or, the amount of money spent on both R&D and "expensive tech" to lessen the CO2 produced is ridiculously small compared to the amount given to banks with virtually no strings attached. If that much money was spent on green tech, we'd probably be virtually CO2 free within the decade...

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the accepted term is carbon-denier. It's pretty offensive once the holocaust-denier analogy springs to mind. But this is one of those situations, like the abortion debate, where Godwin's law is countered by "But it's TRUE."

Re:Makes Sense

[Doc Ruby]

No, the point of using simple dollar GDP is that the stuff produced in China could be produced in the US instead and sell for the same amount, whether it's produced for "the West" or anywhere else. But when produced in China it produces more CO2 per dollar than in the US. The actual reality.

It's not the GDP impact on pollution. If anything it's the reverse: more stuff is produced and sold because Chinese GDP per retail price is smaller than if the US produced it at higher prices. Because Chinese GDP doesn't have labor and environment costs added to it the way they are in the US. So more is produced, at higher emissions per production. That 5.25x rate is therefore also on a larger amount than the alternative scenario of US production. The PPP version of GDP is not relevant to these giant exporters, whose "emitting GDP" is measured in flat international dollars.

Yes the US GDP includes a lot of pure finance, but even in just the total manufacturing fraction of domestic production the US is far better than China. In (2008) the US the manufacturing GDP per emissions is ($13,178.35B * 13%) / 5,752,289Kt = 297.826743 $:Kt. In China it's ($2,657,840,000 * 32%) / 6,103,493Kt = $139.347878:Kt. The US manufactures 213.72894% of China's production of what's consumed by the world. When you count their respective mining and transportation emissions, the US is far better than China in emissions controls. Which is why China's air, water and soil (and the people, animals and plants in them) is far filthier than in the US.

Keep the proper perspective. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people are counted against their lowish per capita emissions, but they have nothing to do with it, while the US' far more integrated economy must count every person against its middlish per capita emissions. Counting emissions per energy consumed is a better measure, in which the US does much better than China. But ultimately those emissions are produced for global consumption, which is bought in equal dollars. But at far higher emissions when produced in China. Which is precisely why they're produced there: emissions are far cheaper for manufacturers when emitted in China. Which is what we're actually talking about in this thread.

Re:Makes Sense

[dkf]

It takes a lot of $billions to make a $trillion.

A whole thousand of them.

Re:Makes Sense

[Mr. Beatdown]

You should really look into what happens when a solar panel farm gets flooded.

When it comes to solar vs. nuke, nuke generation (because it's an industry obsessed with safety) claims far fewer lives per Watt-hour than solar, coal, even wind. It's just that when failures do happen, everybody notices. This is even if you include the deaths from the atomic bombs and their development.

Car Analogy - Think of it as the same as traveling by car or airplane. We know driving a car is much more dangerous than flying. But when a passenger jet goes down, it's news for weeks. When a fatal car crash happens, no one hears about it. No one cares when Lenny falls off a roof installing a solar panel that won't even produce enough energy savings over its life to pay for itself. If that same Lenny dies from radiation exposures expect a few weeks of nuclear radiation news.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html The stats.

Re:Makes Sense

[khallow]

So that's your devastating rebuttal to being called "econutter"? Coming up with a bunch of names for what you perceive as the other side?

Re:Makes Sense

[khallow]

Actually the climate scientists are pretty much saying we need 80% to 100% GHG (CO2...) emissions reductions soon to avoid potentially catastrophic warming.

How about the other people, experts like economists, computer modelers, relevant businesses, etc or the people actually making the decisions, like voters?

Further the language is deliberately vague. As I see it, "potentially catastrophic" just means that global warming probably won't be a problem, but these experts can't rule out people doing stupid things (such as the US subsidizing beachfront development through flood insurance) or the possibility of some, unforeseen "tipping point" scenario. If there really was significant evidence backing the danger of global warming, then they'd use stronger language (unless, of course, they're political hacks like James Hansen).

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

As a person that is involved deeply within the real estate business, your phrase "All I can think is that maybe there's a common cause " ... Yep there is an answer...

One note: don't forget that these are properties being bought with energy production, not installed after property purchase. so you need to think of the number slight different.

Solar power comes with benefit's IE: lower bills, sunshine in your yard, the positive personal karma and bragging rights... also monetary incentive ... if I save 100 per month average on my electric bill directly related to the solar panels that really means ( math time ) I get an extra value and usable leverage about 11K @ 10% for 30 years or 15K @ 7% for 30 years. So the validity of the argument seems to be correct on solar.

Wind Power : Well the one thing I would say about properties that have wind power is the views, most places I have seen are amazing IE: fields of crops for miles all around or hills that have game running all day or wondrous mountains in the far distance that at one time people only would see in paintings.

Hydro power: Heck who doesn't want a pond/lake to fish in. dip yourself into cool running water on a hot summer day

In real estate, the 2nd generation purchase of power generation receives many more benefits than that of the original purchaser since the install cost are no longer calculated, and the replacement cost for the same SQ FT of panels should be cheaper plus produce more energy.

I myself love solar power, when I lived in NJ, I always bought properties that the sidewalk and driveway faced the sun ( when it's winter, after shoveling snow, the next days sunshine would clean up the last bits ).

Re:Makes Sense

[cduffy]

Studies have found that there's a fair amount of homeostasis around the amount people want to budget for gas each year.

It's actually better than that -- for most people (you're clearly an outlier), there's a fair bit of homeostasis around how much time they're willing to spend commuting. So -- whether someone is driving a bicycle or an SUV, they generally won't accept more than a 45-minute commuter time. Sure, there may be some lag for that to take effect (as folks change jobs and housing only so frequently), but it all evens out in the end.

As such, I'm happy to be a "dirty hippie" spending my 45 minutes getting some exercise and stress relief... and saving money all the while.

Re:Makes Sense

[spire3661]

What I never understand is why NONE of these camps ever advocate having less/no children, which is the absolute #1 thing a human can do to reduce their 'footprint' on this planet besides suicide.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot- "Crimes Against Humanity Defendants" which is what they will all be eventually.

Re:Makes Sense

[spire3661]

'produce decent light'



Most consumer grade CFLs give off a horrible color light. I tried them for several years and im sorry but nothing beats an incandescent if you care about more then jsut throwing some light on something. For lighting a home, CFLs are shit for creating any kind of warmth. In my utility closet sure ill put a CFL, but every lamp in my house is incandescent and will remain that way until I cant replace them anymore.

Re:Makes Sense

[Larryish]

I'm too cheap for solar panels, but want to look "green" so the yuppies will be all jealous and whatnot.

So I am going to make fake solar panels out of plywood and Plexiglas.

Wonder if they would look realistic enough to get some sort of tax credit?

Re:Makes Sense

[Jhon]

They flicker. But then again, I can see CRT's flicker. I have an aspie son (and aspie myself) -- trust me. They flicker.

That said, there was a school for aspie/autistic special needs kids I toured a few years ago. I walked around staring at the lights. When the director asked my why I was looking at the lights I responded "Because they aren't flickering". They were CFLs. But special CFLs. Their cycle rate is so high that even *I* couldn't notice. And they cost the school a fortune.

With many distractions already in my environment, the last thing I need is flickering lights annoying the heck out of me.

Re:Makes Sense

[Maxo-Texas]

I like the LED's with the little fins on them. They produce good light in the pattern of an existing bulb that comes on instantly. The catch? Only 450 lumans (40watt bulb replacement). The 60 watts so far are very heavy (2 pounds?) and project like a flood, not 360 degree light.

I have a 20 watt bulb that only pulls 2 or 3 watts (and i think it acts like a 15 watt) and i use to to light an outside area 24/7. It doesn't it well-- but it's enough.

I hear "CREE" lighting has some good 60 watts but have been unable to make it to the local store yet.

There is a risk of solar becoming cheaper and more efficient- about the same as computers back in the 90's and early 00's. But.. like computers at some point, solar will be "good enough". I like "Nanosolar" technology- it's basically a roll of printed flexible, lightweight solar plastic. But it's entire production run is prepurchased for a german solar plant for another 14 months or more.

I'm a bit concerned rare earth might limit solar tho they have some new technologies which do not use the same rare earths and some which may not need rare earths.

My main goal is sufficient power to run the air conditioning during the day which is 50% of my power load 5 months a year when my power runs up to a little over 150 per month. (so hoped savings $385) and then misc a/c and weekend lighting and daytime fridge the other seven months (hoped for savings of $15 for 7 months off of my $60 to $80 power bills).

Re:Makes Sense

[Score Whore]

I tend to get annoyed at LCD lights on Christmas trees, LCD lights inside of cars and brake lights, monitors, movies, CRT monitor refresh at low rates, and so forth.

Huh? Do you mean LED? Also LED powered by a DC source (automobile instrument panels, brake lights, etc.) have zero flicker.

Re:Makes Sense

[Solandri]

By using more efficient lighting and appliances, driving higher gas mileage cars, and living and working in buildings with more insulation, we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by simply not using as much energy in the first place.

Paradoxically, increased efficiency typically leads to increased energy consumption. Basically, as technology becomes more efficient, demand for demand for energy for essential services drops, lowering its price, causing an increase in consumption which exceeds the amount saved by the efficiency gain.

To bypass it, you have to keep the price of energy the same. That means you're basically subverting economic processes to force higher energy prices onto people (e.g. gasoline taxes). It can work, but expect a lot of opposition to it from free market types.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

>Hmmm. "Eco-nutter". I'm trying to think of an equally derogatory term for those who don't value eco-system integrity and the environment.

So you could just call these people "insular backstabbing turncoats". They're going to retire in Nicaragua or Surinham anyways, given the zero-taxes policies they offer rich expatriates.

Here's a forgotten angle to conservation: We're obviously occupying Iraq for "their" oil (we're obviously not there on humanitarian grounds, or to protect the world's supply of opium). (And Afghanistan may have oil - Karzai has strong oil industry ties - but even if they don't discover any the argument is it's a failed state on the periphery of oil producing states)

What brought an end to the Vietnam war was when the US started drafting the children of the upper rmiddle class and rich. Do that now, and the rich will go from "thanking you for your service" to "oh shit". It might even be the "invisible hand" that "the market" needs to nudge people into wasting less oil. During WW2 we were encouraged to recycle and carpool, and if you made a show of wasted resources (such as wearing a 'zoot suit' or other flashy fashion) you would get your ass HANDED to you.

It's sad that conservation can only be sold to some folks during times of war(s), but we're not even trying. Why conserve when it's someone else's kid dying? Just thank them from their service, and fill up the tank of their SUV.

Re:Makes Sense

[Solandri]

The petrofuels compete only on the $BILLIONS a year in subsidies they get. Which you are paying.

You're conflating total subsidy dollars with amount of energy that's generated per subsidy dollar. Yes the oil companies get billions in subsidies. But the amount the oil companies get per unit of energy produced is peanuts compared to what developing technologies like solar and wind get. It has next to no impact on the competitiveness of the petroleum industry. (Note that these are subsidies only for electrical generation. But the figures I found for total subsidies for the oil industry were only about 4x higher, which would still put it far, far below what solar and wind get per MWh.)

Page 6, table E35, subsidy dollars per MWh
Coal - $0.44
Refined Coal - $29.81
Natural Gas and Petroleum $0.25
Nuclear - $1.59
Biofuels - $0.89
Geothermal - $0.92
Hydroelectric - $0.67
Solar - $24.34
Wind - $23.37
Landfill Gas - $1.37
Municipal solid waste - $0.13

Instead of concentrating on total subsidy dollars (which is silly - like arguing a homeless shelter is wasteful because it spends $5,000/mo on food while you only spend $100/mo), you need admit that solar and wind are getting disproportionately large subsidies for the amount of energy they produce, but then shift the argument over to appropriateness of the subsidy. Nuclear, oil, and coal all got substantial government aid when they were first being developed. Solar and wind deserve the same. So their extraordinarily high subsidy per unit of energy is warranted.

Re:Makes Sense

[DavidTC]

Exactly.

If we can build hydro, we should, as it is easier to deal any problems, and a heck of a lot cheaper. And wind. And geothermal. But all those have limited locations they can go.

And then, until we actually invent solar power that can supply everything we need, it's nuclear. It's much safer.

We should be sticking solar panels on roofs and stuff, despite what that page says, though. People falling off roofs is a general problem, and is not much increased by people installing solar panels, and isn't increased at all by installing them on new houses, which obviously are going to have people on the roof regardless.

However, while we're nearing the point where they could mostly power a well-designed house they were on, we're still nowhere near enough to run industry from them, which is what everyone forgets when talking about 'solar power'.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Time after time, conservationists say "we think you should X because it will save the world".

Swell, but we're talking about solar technophiles, not conservationists. Technophiles do things because it's "cool" or because it saves them money.

When I hear of Republicans burning tires, I don't worry so much about the pollution as I worry about what their gimmick was, where they somehow got me to buy their tire for them.

Re:Makes Sense

[Gadget_Guy]

You must not have noticed, but China is STRIVING to emit CO2 like the USA per capita. They're putting in power plants as fast as they can... dirty, dirty coal plants.

And you must not have noticed their nuclear reactors that they are building that will provide 40 Gigawatts of power. You have not noticed the 120 Gigawatt capacity of hydropower stations being built over the next 5 years. You have not noticed the 70 Gigawatt capacity of wind power plants being built over the next 5 years. You have not noticed the 5 Gigawatt capacity of solar power plants being built over the next 5 years.

China is betting heavily on green power being the next big industry and they want in right from the start. If they want to build the green technology for the world, then it makes sense for them to use it themselves - even if only to prove to the sceptical governments that it can be done.

Re:Makes Sense

[Solandri]

You're comparing an accident at a 4.6 GW nuclear plant to a single rooftop solar installation and a single wind farm, which is patently ridiculous. Any definition of "cleaner" and "safer" must be normalized to the same amount of energy generated. Since most people have little concept of what a MW or kWh is, let's put it in terms they can relate to. How much electricity does a typical U.S. home use in 30 years? The average U.S. home in 2009 consumed about 11,040 kWh/yr. So in 30 years it would use 330 MWh.

According to the EIA, a ton of coal yields about 2000 kWh of electricity. To power a typical U.S. home for 30 years with coal will take about 165 tons of coal. You'll see that this is so high I'm not even gonna bother calculating the steel and concrete needed for the coal plant itself.

Commercial solar panels generate about 125 W/m^2 peak. Factor in night, weather, angle to the sun, and they have a capacity factor of about 15%. So on average you're getting about 20 W/m^2 throughout the year. I'm feeling generous so let's say this house is in the Southwest and you're getting a 20% capacity factor. 25 W/m^2. One year is 8766 hours, so to generate 11,040 kWh in the year would require 50 m^2 of solar panels. They typically have a 20-25 rated life, but let's give them 30. And ignore any battery requirements - pretend there's another power source (like nuclear) providing base load and solar is merely supplementing it. The stats I'm finding online say with support structure, solar panels are about 16 kg/m^2, so 50 m^2 would be 800 kg of trash after 30 years.

How about wind? A 1 MW wind turbine needs about 150 tons of steel and concrete. Most onshore wind farms operate at a 20%-25% capacity factor, but let's go with the higher 25%. So the average generation from our 1 MW turbine will be 250 kW. Over a year, that's 2192 MWh/yr. A typical home uses 11 MWh/yr, so the single turbine will provide for about 200 homes. They have a rated life of 30 years (U.S. accounting uses 40 years, but the rest of the world uses 30 years before they're expected to need to be replaced). So after 30 years of wind electricity generation for your home, you're talking about 150/200 = 3/4 ton of trash = 750 kg. I'll make the same assumption about batteries as with solar.

How about nuclear? The U.S. generated about 800 TWh of electricity using nuclear in 2008, producing about 2000 tons of nuclear waste in the process. That's about 2.5 tons per TWh. So the 11 MWh of our typical homeresults in the production of 0.000275 tons, or 25 grams of nuclear waste per year. That's about 1.3 cubic centimeters - about a quarter of a teaspoon. In 30 years, you're at about 2.5 tablespoons. (If we reprocessed, the waste would be about 1/10th that amount, and only "hot" for a few hundred years.)

The plant itself would be about 250,000 tons of concrete and steel for a 1.6 GW plant. But that provides enough energy for 1.25 million homes @ 11 MWh/yr per home. Most nuclear plants will operate for more than 30 years, but just to keep it simple let's pretend it'll be decommissioned after 30 years. 250,000/1.25 million = 0.2 tons of steel and concrete trash per home.

So to summarize, to power a typical U.S. home for 30 years:

Coal: 165 tons of waste pollution
Solar: 640 kg of trash
Wind: 750 kg of trash
Nuclear: 200 kg of trash, 2.5 tablespoons of nuclear waste w/o reprocessing

So... which one is cleanest again?

As for "safer", you're in for a surprise when you find out which power generation technology has historically had the fewest fatalities per TWh of electricity generated.

Re:Makes Sense

[DavidTC]

Mind you, the thing I'd really like to do is convert all of the lighting circuits in my house to DC. If I replaced all of my CFLs with LEDs and fed them directly from a couple of lead-acid batteries then a relatively small solar panel would cover the entire lighting system quite easily. It will probably take a couple of years for LEDs with a nice spectrum to drop in price to affordable levels though.

What I'd like to see is homes constructed this way, with a parallel DC electrical system for different parts. The lights would probably be the only 'exposed' part, but there could be a DC water heater and DC air conditioning right now.

Actually, instead of a DC water heater, what could be done is small 5 gallon water heater before the main one, that just runs solely off solar. If you currently had solar power, your main water heater will be getting hot water supplied to it, which obviously means it doesn't have to heat anything up itself, whereas if you didn't, your main heater would work fine.

Same thing can be done with AC and heat pumping. If you have extra solar power, and it's winter, you just have a solar powered heat pump running all the time, essentially storing solar energy as heat in the house. And same with AC in the summer. I'm sure we could all live with an extra few degrees of climate control, especially if we're one of those people who try to save energy with our climate control normally. That heat pump wouldn't even be the 'same' system as the other one, it would be something designed to run off erratic DC, doing whatever it can with whatever it gets. You just need to share a blower. (Or not even use the vent system, just dump it in the middle of the house.)

If we stop trying to convert solar power to 'normal' power, and instead use it lessen the load of a few specific things, we'd be much better off. The only time it should turn to AC is if we don't need it anymore and dump it on the grid.

Re:Makes Sense

[DavidTC]

My main goal is sufficient power to run the air conditioning during the day which is 50% of my power load 5 months a year when my power runs up to a little over 150 per month. (so hoped savings $385)

Buy a DC window air conditioner, stick it in a window hooked to a solar panel, and turn it to 'very cold', and leave it running all the time. (You probably want to do this in an unused room, and leave the door open.)

Trying to run an existing AC air conditioner partially off solar panels loses a lot of energy in conversion.

Re:Makes Sense

[TheRaven64]

What I'd like to see is homes constructed this way, with a parallel DC electrical system for different parts. The lights would probably be the only 'exposed' part, but there could be a DC water heater and DC air conditioning right now.

Actually, having a load of DC outlets would be pretty good too. I have lots of things like phones that take DC power and have a wall wart. In my school, I remember that they ran DC and AC around the benches in the science labs, so you could plug in DC things at a few different voltages (3.3, 5 and 12, as I recall), using different cables with different connectors on the other end. I'd love to have something similar for routers, phones, and all of the other low-power things. Maybe even for laptops. If I had a solar panel on the roof, then the losses converting first to AC and then back to DC for each item would be silly.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

Yeah, LED lights. And LCD screens. That's what I get for typing when I'm tired.

LED brake lights on some cars (Cadillacs are the worst) flicker very noticeably.

Re:Makes Sense

[KDR_11k]

I get annoyed about talk about LCD lights. That's not how liquid crystal displays work!

Re:Makes Sense

[jackspenn]

"Lemming" - as in those who are convinced it is fine to keep on running this way.

You obvious don't understand the key point about lemmings

Funny because I use the word lemming to describe people who blindly following what others say and do. For example people who follow without question, the hypothesis that global warming is man-made and CO2 is responsible tend to be lemmings.

Perhaps a better term would be CO2 Bigots, because despite the scientifically proven fact that H2O in the atmosphere is a more significant green house gas than C02, these Bio-blivious types continue to call for CO2 cuts, while making excuses for clouds (I suspect this is because clouds are white). Maybe the simplist thing for us to do is refer to them as GASists while pointing out all their flawed, faked and poorly done research in the area of GW; highlighting that nearly every conclusion derived requires people to give up their quality and way of life.

I look at everything GW parrots say, how they are in the process of attempting to re-brand it as "climate change", for which a reasonable person would say "Like the seasons dumbass?". Look at how GW lemmings ignore the fact that we could cover the entire planet with solar panels and not have enough energy, how public transportation buses with a driver and 2 passengers is less efficient than a Tahoe with 2 people, yet public transportation (which the GW elitist will never use) is the cliff they prefer to jump off of. Point out people should make one trip to Wal-Mart instead of seven trips to independent co-ops and GW fascists will flip their lid, because that isn't their master plan for humanity. Finally if you really want to have fun, ask GW robots something they are not programmed to answer (or comprehend), ask them what the correct temperature should be for the location and place you are in, explain how they should know the answer for two reasons, first so we can measure how close we are to their cliff (I mean goal) and second so we can ensure we don't go to far and cause man-made global cooling.

Re:Makes Sense

[tftp]

Well, so much for that theory then. Maybe the original findings are incorrect.

Re:Makes Sense

[PopeRatzo]

You're comparing an accident at a 4.6 GW nuclear plant to a single rooftop solar installation and a single wind farm

I'm not "comparing" anything.

I was making a joke.

Re:Makes Sense

[bzipitidoo]

I wish I could get some of those wonderful European gas sippers in the US. I've looked into importing one, or buying in Mexico and driving across the border, but the requirements are so onerous that it's not worth doing. Have to tighten up the pollution standards-- Europe's regulations on diesel emissions in particular are less stringent. Then have to strengthen the B pillar and do a few other safety improvements. That adds weight to the car, which reduces fuel economy. When manufacturers do it, they mess it up even more. They remove all but the biggest engine and the shortest gear ratio so that the car can do the jackrabbit start they think Americans must have. By the time they're done modifying a car for the US market, they've knocked 1/3 off its fuel economy.

Re:Makes Sense

[bzipitidoo]

Neither ethanol nor hybrids are the fuel economy bonanza they've been hyped to be. An electric motor is 10x better than a combustion engine. But a gas tank is 20x better than a battery pack. I'll be a lot more interested in electric cars when batteries can be recharged in 5 or perhaps 10 minutes, and last at least 10 years. And don't weigh 5 times as much as a full tank of gas.

But fuel economy is still well worth doing. Would be a considerable help if we didn't distract ourselves with flashy, dubious whiz bang tech, and paid more attention to some low hanging fruit we've been ignoring. For instance, the aerodynamics of the average car can still be significantly improved. We've recessed the door handles. But we haven't gotten serious about smoothing the underside or the engine compartment. Some of the things done to cars increase the cost and make the aerodynamics worse at the same time. One such is the opening for the front grill. Tends to be far too large. Why? Purely cosmetic reasons. It's just stupid to go to all the trouble of building a hybrid, and then ignore such simple improvements. Then there are the roads. Traffic lights are brainless, and frequently make drivers wait for nothing.

Don't let a few bad ideas fool you into thinking all ideas for the environment are bad.

Re:Makes Sense

[Stellian]

Emissions per $production are the only sensible measurement. And the US is over 5.25 times good as China in that comparison.

So you are saying that a ton of corn ($300) or steel ($700) produced in a developing nation should have the same carbon footprint to a mobile phone ?

Further, you do realize that moving the Western populace from preindustrial conditions to current conditions was done without regard to carbon outputs and efficiency ? Given that carbon levels are cumulative, why should the average 3rd world country be taxed for doing the same today ?

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

First let's do some math. Say you expect to drive 100,000 miles in the next 10 yrs. At $3.50 /gallon and 35 mpg, it's 10 cents a mile, or $10,000 for those 100,000 miles.

So in the USA it made sense to switch from a 15mpg car (~$20,000 in gas) to a 35mpg ($10,000 in gas) as long as the high mpg car cost less than $10,000 and it was still practical.

Switching to a 70mpg car would only save you $5,000, so really what's the point for us. It's just not economically practical. Your suggestion of forcing us to switch only wastes money that could be spent on jobs and other useful things.

Have you ever driven a 1300 cc (1.3 Liter) car or pickup truck. Besides failing crash tests they are horribly slow, and I couldn't imagine trying to pass someone on the freeway with one of those cars. You can't even produce autos when the hp and torque are so low, and we like autos in the USA. You have to downshift just to go up a hill.

How can I tow my boat with those little engines? There's A LOT of countryside in the US and pickup trucks are very useful, and they can plow snow.

As far as high mpg diesels go, if we did import them to the US the diesel price would skyrocket. That's the very reason Ford didn't bring it's 55mpg diesel here. We made a choice decades ago that Europe can use diesel and we will use gas.

The mpg requirements force companies like Lamborghini to make small efficient cars so that their average mpg is high enough. It doesn't make any sense, if you specialize in making trucks and SUVs there is no need for the government to come in and force you to create and market and sell small compact cars that you are not skilled in and do not care to produce. If the market wanted high MPG cars, they would have produced them, but the mandates just made detroit produce compact cars that are inferior to japanese compact cars, and it helped wreck the US industry.

Then what is sort of hilarious is that in the last decade there were tax incentives to buy gas guzzling SUVs, yet there were still average mpg requirements, it's just government insanity everywhere you look. Although I do support the crash test requirements, that's just common sense. Watch a couple crash tests of those little cars and I'm sure you'll think twice before buying one.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

I meant "less than $10,000 MORE"

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

So because the government illegally bailed out the banks, it's a good idea to create laws to change the market. If CFLs and high mpg cars were as appealing as you think, they would take over the market WITHOUT the help of the government.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

LEDs are more efficient that CFLs, so why not ban CFLs too.

Re:Makes Sense

[toddestan]

If you're heating your home electrically, and you live in a cold climate, you should be using a heat pump as it's way more efficient than resistive electric heating.

The only places where resistive electric heaters make any sense is relatively mild climates where you may only need heat a few days a year, and it's not worth the cost of installing a heat pump system.

Re:Makes Sense

[toddestan]

Some cars, particularly Cadillacs but also some others, dim their LED tailights by flickering the lights on and off rapidly rather than simply lowering the voltage to the bulbs. I'm not sure what the exact frequency it is, but it has to be around 40-80 Hz. It's very noticeable on the cars that do it this way.

Re:Makes Sense

[swalve]

Have these people never been near a windmill? They make practically no sound. The sound of the wind is louder. Insanity.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

This is without a doubt the stupidest argument I've ever seen in 15 years of Internet use. Jesus Christ you are fucking amazingly stupid. Doesn't matter if you think climate change is real or not; your argument, your 'reasoning' here is a magnum opus of idiocy on its own merits. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Re:Makes Sense

[SwedishPenguin]

CFLs already have virtually taken over the market, by the time they were banned in the EU, I at least had not used an incandescent lamp for years, but there were obviously holdouts, and it makes sense to ban such wasteful technology completely. As for LEDs, they are not quite mature enough for general purpose lighting yet, but their time will come.
Without a gas price that reflects the damage its use causes, there will never be an incentive to increase efficiency, and gas prices in the US are ridiculously low... I know this is heresy to a "libertarian" like yourself, but there are more important things than what is economically beneficial in the short term, the long term viability of this planet we call home is one of them...

Re:Makes Sense

[khallow]

This is without a doubt the stupidest argument I've ever seen in 15 years of Internet use.

Just stop. Go back to AOL or wherever you came from. I'm not here to throw pearls before swine.

Doesn't matter if you think climate change is real or not

You should have meant "global warming." "Climate change" is a weaselly term for people who don't want to get caught saying something that could be shown incorrect. That's the key problem here. People say statements with remarkable low content and then expect the rest of us to act on them in ways that can cost trillions of dollars.

As I see it, yes, it does matter if anthropogenic global warming is sufficient real. And similarly, there are many groups, both of experts and nonexperts who need to be convinced. Merely noting that some climatologists say vaguely alarming things isn't a serious indication to me that something needs to be done.

Please keep in mind that humanity and its societies don't exist to keep the thermostat at whatever temperature it was in 1850. Some of the things we do, such as poverty mitigation, feeding all of humanity, human progress, etc are more important than keeping temperature in a narrow range.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

No I agree with your stance that products prices should reflect the damage they do, by using EPA regulations and the like. My argument is that the damage done by using gasoline is far far less that the damage done by increasing the cost of gasoline. Just drive around some of the poor states in this nation and think of what would happen if the price of gas doubled. No more money for college, no more money for books, for businesses, for food, for farming, for fertilizer, it would decimate this country and prolong the transition to Solar power/Electric vehicles. Geo-engineering solutions all cost far less, why aren't they considered. Drop a couple nukes and it cools of the earth, it's pretty easy and cheap to do. How about a 4th of July with some nukes, for the sake of the environment. Weather control will be one of the great accomplishments of humanity, it's sad how it's always thought of as 'bad'.

The transition to natural gas vehicles looks somewhat promising and if it could be accomplished with small incentives, the taxes on the profit made from producing natural gas locally (instead of importing oil from other countries) could pay for the incentives. A thorough analysis would have to be made to see if this is actually cost effective. Any policy that just makes all Americans poorer, I'm not in favor of.

I have a nice little desk lamp, it's 25 watts and I like the spectrum incandescents produce, to me it's worth the extra cost of electricity. By the government telling me that I should ignore the features I like, to save what, a whole 15 watts doesn't make any sense. My computer is by far the most power hungry thing I have in my house, but they didn't put a ban on desktops and large monitors.

Oil is a finite resource and ANY scientific analysis will show you that we will switch away from oil within 20 years or so, so why force the issue to make us poorer. To me it's either good intentions with a lack of thought, or it's just socialism in disguise.

Re:Makes Sense

[kelemvor4]

How about the other people, experts like economists, computer modelers, relevant businesses, etc or the people actually making the decisions, like politicians?

(fixed for accuracy, since voters don't make decisions)
Those people will all be dead with everyone else due to the global warming so you can safely overlook their misguided opinions.

Re:Makes Sense

[khallow]

Those people will all be dead with everyone else due to the global warming so you can safely overlook their misguided opinions.

Since the climatologists aren't talking about end of the world stuff either, they must be misguided as well.

Re:Makes Sense

[russotto]

You understand the difference between climate and weather, right?

It's possible to make testable predictions about the weather. You can't make testable predictions about the climate, because if a prediction about the climate is falsified by data, it must have been weather after all.

Re:Makes Sense

[benhattman]

I think your explanation of why the right wing doesn't want to accept global warming or that it makes sense to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is because they think we'll suffer. You're essentially right in saying that we don't need to suffer at all, just change how we generate electricity.

From what I've been told, by people on the far right; the real reason that the political far right is so vitriolic towards climate change research is because they do not like anyone suggesting how they should behave. Unless, of course they are told to buy gold. Or stock up on canned goods. Or go to church. Or rally against socialists. Or pack heat. Or ignore leftists radicals like climate scientists. In those cases, they don't mind doing as others tell them, but if they are told to recycle or turn off the lights when they leave the room: no thank you!

Re:Makes Sense

[rhalstead]

Brakes lights and LCDs in cars do not, or "should not" flicker. CFLs do, but it normally takes something to make it visible like the moving pencil. They are no different than any other fluorescent. They all flicker, but as with the CFL it takes a moving object to make them visible. LDC screens (IE monitors) do not normally flicker regardless of refresh rate as only the portions of the screen that change between frames get rewritten unlike the old CRT where every other line on the screen is refreshed 30 times a second. . OTOH if you are a gamer, then refresh rates can become important. I have two 20 " monitors that do flicker, but it's due to the power supply and not the normal refresh. Those two need to be fixed!

Re:Makes Sense

[rhalstead]

Depends on your line frequency. If you are in the US it's 60 Hz while most other countries are 50 Hz.

Re:Makes Sense

[bzipitidoo]

Very nice on the math. But there are some costs you have not factored in. What can we expect of gas prices over the next decade? $3.50/gallon is probably on the low side. What of all the external costs, such as all the economic destruction to the Gulf of Mexico fishing and tourism industries, the likely chances and costs of future accidents, and the effects on our health from pollution both at the exhaust pipe and at the refinery? And as for your conclusion, maybe $5000 is pocket change for you, and not worth it. But it sure isn't pocket change for me!

Yes, I have driven many small cars. I owned a Ford Fiesta (1.3L), and 2 Chevy Metros (also 1.3L). My first Metro was totaled in a crash when a teen driver ran a red light in front of me. T-boned him at about 45 mph. I walked away from that crash with a few bruises, and a cracked rib from the airbag. Good thing for them I wasn't driving a monster SUV or one of them might have been seriously injured, or even killed. And if the car had failed crash tests, the outcome would have been much worse for me.

Horribly slow? You sometimes tow a boat, you say. But you don't know slow. You have no appreciation for how fast current cars are. I have driven a '59 car with a 1.0L engine. 0 to 60 mph takes 28 seconds. Now that's slow. But it is still faster than a truck. And still worlds more powerful than a Model A or a Model T. That car actually can keep up with the traffic, except the jackrabbits. Compared to that, a Metro is a powerhouse. We've occasionally passed cars on two lane roads with the 1.0L antique. I daresay you're spoiled, and you don't know how to do that. I'll tell you. You can't just hang on the slow car's bumper until a break comes and then open the throttle wide and roar past, not when the car needs 10 seconds to accelerate from 50 to 60. Unless you have a whole mile or more of clear road ahead, you won't have enough time. You have to back way off, give yourself room to build up speed. You time it so you come up on them when a chance to pass comes, perhaps just as a car in the opposing direction has gone by, or when you crest a hill. Then, if it is safe to pass, you pass. Otherwise, you hit the brakes and stay behind. Usually though, this is not a problem.

Maybe pickup trucks can plow snow, I don't know. But I doubt it. They suck for driving in snow, as you would know if you'd ever compared it to something that's good. I hear minivans are excellent for such conditions. As for towing boats with little cars, you don't, unless we're taking something like a jet ski. I think most states require that the towing vehicle outweigh the load. Towing your own boat around is not the only way to enjoy a bit of boating. (I presume your boat is purely for pleasure. You don't fish regularly, or transport cargo by water, or operate a riverboat casino, or conduct any other sort of business that requires a boat, do you?) You can rent boats, or leave yours at a marina. But why this hobby, this way? If not renting or using a marina, why not scale down? Two canoes or a rowboat that can be strapped to the roof of a car? Or an inflatable raft? Possibly have an outboard motor. But if you can and want to afford to own and operate a larger boat, and a trailer to tow it on, with a vehicle that can tow that kind of load, surely a few more dollars for gas is no problem? I don't see why the world should go out of its way to make pleasure boating more affordable. We are NOT going to keep gas artificially low for that.

I didn't say anything about forcing anyone to switch. I much prefer to scrap the CAFE regulations, and let high gas prices do the job. If gas is expensive enough, people will respond, as we saw in 2008 when sales went way down for every manufacturer but Honda, and SUVs piled up in used car lots. No need for clumsy regulations. Since a sane gas tax is politically impossible, thanks mostly to Big Oil-- and by sane, I mean a percentage, not a fixed amount-- we'll just have to wait. Peak oil, you know.

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

I think we might agree more than we disagree.

I agree with some things you say, but I think you misunderstood my point of $5,000. My point was that a 70mpg car would have to be LESS than $5,000 more than a 35 mpg car for it to make economic sense. My point was that $5,000 is a lot of money for me, and then you have to pay interest on top of it, which is money that could have been used for business loans or something.

I towed a $2,000 sailboat with my Subaru, renting a boat in a Marina or even paying for storage over Winter is far too expensive for me. Take your little 1.0 into a big city or on some highways in NJ and you'll quickly realize that you don't have miles to pass people.

Pickup trucks plow basically every driveway up here in Maine, and parking lots and small country roads as well, and they are excellent at it, a 4x4 with chains is excellent in the snow. I can't really think of anything better besides a plow truck with 10,000 lbs of salt over the back wheels, although my Subaru with snow tires does quite well. The F150 was the best selling vehicle in the USA for a reason, it's very versatile, and can deal with offroad trails, hunting, construction, towing, and whatever else you might need.

But otherwise most of my point was just to let the gas prices go up naturally and let the market take care of the rest, with Peak oil being the driving factor. You argument that we should go back 100years and be happy with model T speeds or Geo metro speeds is ridiculous, the whole point of economic development if FORWARD progress. By a truck taking longer than 20 something seconds to 60, you mean an 18 wheeler? Pickup trucks are plenty fast enough.

And yes my parents minivan handles an inch or three of snow decently, not a foot or two. But load 1000lbs of bricks in the back and you bottom out and it's just a hazard to drive on the road.

Re:Makes Sense

[rhalstead]

"My Guess" would be he/she has the same mind set of a lot of people in they can not see an economic payback buying a Hybrid then there isn't a reason for purchasing one, and there isn't when compared to non hybrid cars that get high mileage. OTOH they don't see the gas saved as a positive because of the increased price of the hybrid. They think only in terms of money saved instead of fuel saved. We have a Hybrid and an older, mid sized SUV. When you figure the overall cost per mile of the hybrid compared to the SUV there is little if any difference even though the hybrid gets twice the mileage of the SUV. Cars are by far the most expensive form of transportation *unless* you keep them a very long time and gas at 5.00 a gallon is still the cheapest part of driving. If you purchase a car and trade it in as soon it's paid for, be it 3, 4, or 5 years, or worse, before it's paid for, the cost per mile is staggering. The cost per mile is not only the gas, oil, and maintenance, but insurance, AND the difference between what you paid including interest and what you get out of it. If you finance a car for 4 or 5 years you can easily pay a considerable portion of the purchase price in interest. That means a 34,000 (or more) Hybrid really costs 50,000 and if you get 12,000 in trade it cost 38,000. At 100,000 miles that was 38 cents per mile just in the cost of the car. Add insurance, gas and oil and you have easily passed 50 cents per mile and this is for an economy car. With gas likely to hit 5.00 or more by summer that at 50 MPG it's another 10 cents per mile. Typically we are more likely looking at 15 to 20 cents per mile just for gas. Electric cars? At 40,000 plus for 100,000 miles we are looking at 40 cents per mile with no gas purchased. Maybe a 2 or 3 dollar charge for 40 or 50 miles adds another 6 to 7.5 cents per mile or close to that 50 cents per mile. Unfortunately long term ownership of hybrids and electrics means replacing a battery that is likely to run some where between another 4,000 and 7,000, not counting other expenses. BUT even with the extra expense we have saved considerable pollution and CO2. Unfortunately most of the population can't afford to save that much. Still our most efficient fuel savings comes from conservation. Plan trips for the fewest miles, minimize trips, car pool! With gas going up and the value of the dollar going down I'll bet that car pooling becomes popular again (along with small cars) BTW not everyone qualifies for tax writeoffs and someone still has to pay one way or another. For me the savings in the amount of fuel used is fine.

Re:Makes Sense

[Maxo-Texas]

Interesting.
How well does it handle the end of day drop in power? Any motor problems from brownout?

Is there a "turnkey" system for this anywhere you could recommend?
I'd put this in my kitchen for now. It's the core of the house and cooling would spread from there to adjacent areas. so.. Got a link?

Re:Makes Sense

[lakeland]

At uni we found banning incandescent bulbs saved a lot of money. But it was mainly because the union were the only people authorised to change bulbs and so changing to much more expensive bulbs saved a whole lot in labour.

Re:Makes Sense

[lakeland]

If their analysis was not that sophisticated it would make sense. Places with alternative energy nearby have people with higher disposable income - that's how they can afford to put alternative energy sources in. Places with higher disposable income have rising house prices.

Re:Makes Sense

[bzipitidoo]

Take your little 1.0 into a big city

Been there, done that. You think I live in the sticks or something? Been right through downtown Dallas and Fort Worth, on the interstates. Was able to stay with the traffic at 75 mph. Once even took it to Colorado and over several 10000 ft passes. As to passing people, where is the need? Near the speed limit works for me. You mostly do not pass, not in a car like that, but you can if you really need to. You'll get there as fast as the guy in the sports car, unless he greatly exceeds the speed limit. Only things you are going to pass is the occasional vehicle going 10 or 15 mph under the limit. And on a multilane highway, you have all the miles you need to pass that slow vehicle in the right lane.

You can't equate a Model T with a Metro! The Model T's top speed is somewhere around 30 mph. The 1.0L antique can do 75 mph, which is orders of magnitude better than the T. The Metro is to that car as that car is to a Model T. I don't know what the Metro's top speed is, but I expect it's around 100 mph. I've never needed to run it that fast. When you lump Metros and Model Ts together, you show you don't know what you're talking about. I mentioned the Model T to contrast it with the Metro. I'm telling you we can do just fine with smaller engines. I'll concede the antique 1.0L is a little weak to make a comfortable cruiser. But the Metro is absolutely fine. You ought to talk to someone from South America. There, any engine over 2.0L is considered big.

You spoke of downshifting. If your vehicle has a decently tall high gear, that's going to happen. If your vehicle doesn't need to downshift when you push it hard trying to pass someone while going uphill or some such, that's not a sign of power, but that your top gear is too low. You wouldn't drive a 5 speed on the highway in 4th gear all the time, would you? But that's effectively what your vehicle is forcing you to do if it has power to spare when in top gear.

Of course I mean an 18 wheeler, with a load. No problem at all to beat a truck like that. Tough to find 0 to 60 times for such vehicles (no one seems to care), but I did find one, and they reported a time of 65 seconds.

Sounds like pickups have become much better in snow than they used to be. What little I know of driving them in snow dates to the 70s. Still, don't think they're the ultimate in flexibility. They aren't so good in cities. Try to parallel park that thing in a tight spot, turn a very sharp corner, duck into an old parking garage with a low ceiling, or drive down a really narrow alley, and you'll be wishing you had a little hatchback.

I agree that we should let the market dictate gas prices. But we tend to subsidize it. The gas tax is supposed to pay for our roads, but somehow we are finding it necessary to resort to tolls. More than that though is all the external costs of oil. If the reason we deploy peackeeping forces in some of the places we have is because there's oil there, shouldn't gasoline bear at least some of this huge expense, rather than hiding behind the taxpayers?

Re:Makes Sense

[bennomatic]

There are some guys who make plug-in kits for the Prius. Slightly bigger battery and some other doodads, and your first 60 (?) miles is purely off the battery, after which the standard operations kicks in. Charge overnight when electricity is cheap, potentially never tank up on your commute. Ain't too bad.

Re:Makes Sense

[bennomatic]

Thanks for the calm, reasoned answer. Although to your point about organic foods, again, there are some aspects that are indeed silly--I don't care if that chicken I'm eating was free-range and happy--but others that are worth considering. Pesticides are poisons, and it's not like pesticides haven't been released, termed safe, and wrought all sorts of havoc on people in the past. Modern ones may be better, but that may just mean that the effects take longer to show up and are more difficult to correlate.

Some years back, my doctor prescribed me something called Seldane for my seasonal allergies, and it was indeed the best drug I've ever taken for that purpose. It was a miracle. No drowsiness, totally stopped my allergies. But six months later, they took it off the market because people were dying of heart attacks left and right. Since then, I basically have a rule that I won't take anything that hasn't been in the common market for at least 20 years, unless it's an emergent situation and I need it to save my life.

I realize it's a totally different industry, but the FDA is the regulating body for both, and it seems to me that it's reasonable to believe that some of the toxins that are being put onto (and into) our foods are not fully understood. Yes, DDT was 40 years ago, but Seldane was 15 years ago. I'm sure there are others. Now if only Jenny McCarthy would leave immunizations alone and go after the farma/pharma-chemical industry...

Re:Makes Sense

[Americium]

Good point, the geopolitical concerns and costs are not factored in and they should be. I still don't concede that switching to smaller engines is progress, even though it may be a necessity.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

>>Yes, DDT was 40 years ago, but Seldane was 15 years ago

To be fair, you can eat pounds of DDT and not get sick. It's not toxic to humans. Bird eggs or whatever, but not humans.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

>>I get annoyed about talk about LCD lights. That's not how liquid crystal displays work!

LED lights, LCD displays. Typing too fast when tired will do that to me.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

There are some guys who make plug-in kits for the Prius. Slightly bigger battery and some other doodads, and your first 60 (?) miles is purely off the battery, after which the standard operations kicks in. Charge overnight when electricity is cheap, potentially never tank up on your commute. Ain't too bad.

Looking at the numbers on a Prius (http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-prius-technical-discussion/42156-energy-capacity-hybrid-battery.html) it doesn't seem worth it unless you upgrade the battery pack also. Priuses don't have a very large battery capacity.

At California electric rates, even at night electric cars are pretty expensive. Especially since it will easily push you out of your baseline allowance and into the bend-over category. In places where electricity is cheaper (i.e. everywhere else) electric and plug-ins make more sense.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

They don't flicker like a CRT does (which is very noticeable for me at lower refresh rates, i.e. ~60Hz). Instead it's more of a marching ants effect I see when my eyes get close to the monitor. I've solved it by sitting further away with a larger, higher res, monitor.

LED tail lights absolutely flicker. It drives me insane. They constantly draw my attention away from other cars on the road.

Re:Makes Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Psst, heat pumps don't work well in COLD climates. They work great in moderate climates, where you claim it's not worth the cost of installing.

Re:Makes Sense

[DavidTC]

Yes, they have turnkey window air conditioning units that are designed to work off solar, I suspect they just cut off when the power drops.

Although it might be cheaper to buy a mobile unit, like they have for campers and truckers.

Most solar systems can easily be hooked up where they provide only a specific range of power, and nothing outside that range. I.e., if the voltage drops too far, it gets shut off entirely. That's just a simple relay.

It should be possible to build a air conditioner that runs at any voltage, just slower as it drops. But I doubt any actual one does that.

Re:Makes Sense

[Maxo-Texas]

Here is what I found...
http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/solar-panels-faq/DC-air-conditioning-

Lots more detail at the faq level but I summarized some of it here. This looks exciting! I was original interested in a turnkey AC unit that I could leave running during hte day which would prevent the real AC unit from starting and drawing power. In Houston, we pay a premium after a certain point (like 750 kwh or 500khw) so my primary goal is just to lop off that premium cost power.

FAQ.html

DC Powered Solar Air Conditioning | Solar Heating
Frequently Asked Questions

Click here for Solar PV FAQ's

Click here for Solar Thermal (Solar Water Heating) FAQ

NOTE* This FAQ is for DC air conditioner, SplitCool DC18 (Runs on DC power from photovoltaic panels/batteries).
Click here for Solar Absorption Chiller FAQ (Solar thermal powered HVAC, runs on hot water)

What is the SplitCool DC18 unit?

The SplitCool DC18 unit is an all-DC ductless air conditioning system that is designed to run off a battery bank. The battery bank is then supplied power from an array of photovoltaic modules or other DC power source.

SplitCool is ideal for off grid applications like remote sites where grid power is unavailable or unreliable, or requires generators (with potentially complex or costly refueling logistics). This unit can also be used in applications like construction office trailers, portable classrooms, remote medical facilities or other portable or remote structures. The native 48VDC system is also directly compatible with the 48VDC power systems used in many data center, telecom or tower site applications.

Does SplitCool provide heating as well as cooling?

  Yes. The DC18 unit provides 18,000 BTU/hr of cooling, as well as 20,500 BTU/hr of heating.

How many square feet can SplitCool heat or cool?

This depends...On average, this unit can heat and cool a space of between 500 ft.^2 and 800 ft.^2. However, this is not an absolute...

Is there any difference between SplitCool and a heat pump?

The SplitCool is a 48 volt DC heat pump. Other than using a direct DC power supply, it is very similar to the latest generation of ultra-high-SEER heat pumps.

How many PV panels are needed to power the unit?

The amount... would start with 4 or 5 250W panels and go up from there depending....

How many batteries will be needed?

Depends... four batteries required (stable voltage) even daytime- but may need more if you want to use AC overnight (and then more panels to charge them).

What makes the SplitCool better than using a regular air conditioner with an inverter?

1. It doesn't lose power to conversion.

2. It runs at variable power levels depending on the thermastat (and humidity?)
How is SplitCool different from the high-SEER âoeDC Inverterâ air conditioners that are becoming so popular?

Long details but basically say it's improved DC Inverter.

Re:Makes Sense

[Maxo-Texas]

http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/solar-panels-faq/DC-air-conditioning-FAQ.html

Re:Makes Sense

[DanTheStone]

It's mostly Cadillacs with their terrible LED tail lights. The effect is most noticeable (and distracting) when it's in your peripheral vision.

Re:Makes Sense

[ShakaUVM]

>>It's mostly Cadillacs with their terrible LED tail lights. The effect is most noticeable (and distracting) when it's in your peripheral vision.

Yep. And it gets worse when you're tired, for some reason.

Re:Makes Sense

[dcw3]

Funny thing is, there have been more solar panel related fatalities than nuclear.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

Re:Makes Sense

[PopeRatzo]

there have been more solar panel related fatalities than nuclear.

This is one of those "Freakonomics" statistics that the energy industry shills toss around whenever renewable energy is discussed.

Just try to find a breakout of what those "solar panel related fatalities" really are. You won't. Further, the reported fatalities from nuclear power are limited to direct cause-of-death. When someone ends up with scores of tumors in their body a decade later, like the workers from McMurdo Station, it's not counted. The fatalities that will most certainly result from the Fukushima Level 7 disaster won't be counted.

In other words, the people who go around repeating this prevarication need to look down, because their pants are on fire.

Re:Makes Sense

[dcw3]

Some people just can't handle the truth, and have to continue their urban myths. More FUD please.

Transition

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what year solar installations will be standard on all new homes? 2017? 2020? Probably much sooner in the American SW than in the NE, certainly.

Re:Transition

[Rei]

Hawaii already requires solar water heating on new homes.

vs. the alternative fuel methods

[jroysdon]

It sure beats living by nukes, coal plants, tire burning plants, etc., eh? Even a natural gas power generation plant isn't nice to live by. Plus, you don't have to worry about the neighbors being noisy.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[nschubach]

Plus, you don't have to worry about the neighbors being noisy.

Cemetery's have that perk too!

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Rei]

I sure wouldn't mind living near a geothermal power plant like most Icelanders do. Instead of just electricity, you can also get piped-in waste heat, and who wouldn't want this in their backyard? :) Most power generation methods's waste causes long-lasting environmental or health problems. Geothermal's waste causes health spas. ;)

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[CrimsonAvenger]

It sure beats living by nukes, coal plants, tire burning plants, etc., eh?

If I were on my roof, I could see a nuclear power plant. Doesn't bother me at all.

If a coal plant were over there, I'd have moved years ago. Ditto tire-burning.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, you don't have to worry about the neighbors being noisy.

Cemetery's have that perk too!

No they don't. Always with the Taps those cemetery's.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Xtifr]

It sure beats living by nukes, coal plants, tire burning plants, etc., eh?

If I were on my roof, I could see a nuclear power plant. Doesn't bother me at all.

In most of the world, I'd agree with you. I'd be perfectly happy to live next door to nukes if I lived in the eastern 3/4ths of the country, or most of Europe or...a lot of other places. As we just saw in Japan, though, the Pacific Rim/ring of fire may not be the best place for your nuclear plants. And Berkeley is very much on an active fault line. If I lived in Berkeley, I think I'd have strong reservations about living next door to nukes.

Right after the Japan quake/tsunami, the news folks tried to tell us that California's two existing nuclear plants should be no cause for concern, because they're rated for a 7.0 and a 7.5, respectively. Um, guys? We just saw a 9.0 in Japan--two orders of magnitude greater than our margin of safety here. How am I supposed to be reassured? (Not that I live close enough to either plant to worry, but still...)

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[countertrolling]

How convenient to ignore the dark underbelly of geothermal.. apocalyptic indeed.. you'll never see a coal plant do that.. This is what happens when you hand it over to BP.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Kizor]

No, that's the dark underbelly of having huge-ass volcanoes around. As long as there's no solution to that, possibly involving enormous straws, folks are pretty much stuck with it. Volcanic geothermal power is a fully positive method with painful prerequisites.

Thanks for the pictures, though.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[the gnat]

If I lived in Berkeley, I think I'd have strong reservations about living next door to nukes.

Fortunately, the voters of Berkeley passed a law back in 1986 declaring the city a "nuclear-free zone", which guarantees that we will continue to get our electricity from hippie-friendly sources such as wind and solar. . . and gas and oil, of course (don't know about coal - I hope not). They even have signs announcing their moral purity at various roads into the city. True story: a couple of years ago, the public library's book scanners needed servicing, but the company that made them had recently been bought by 3M, which does nuclear power work elsewhere. As a result, the library was semi-crippled until the city council could pass an emergency waiver allowing 3M to fix the scanners.

(That said, of course I agree with you - I live and work almost on top of the Hayward Fault. The two reactors used for consumer electricity are far to the south, however, where AFAIK there isn't a history of catastrophic earthquakes. There are actually a couple of smaller reactors near the Bay Area, at least one of which is in Livermore, but these are relatively tiny and used for research purposes.)

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather live by a nuclear plant and have electricity on cloudy days.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[RobertM1968]

The interesting problem seems to be that where geothermal is a "viable" option, there interestingly sits a volcano or subterranean volcanic features and structures.

There was a plan a while back to create geothermal energy in Yellowstone. Even though we (by then) understood the fact that there was a massive, far from dormant volcano there, using it as a source of geothermal energy probably would have been disasterous - considering the new information we have recently gained that indicates the Yellowstone volcano is far far more massive than previously believed (and that even the caldera, already thought to be the second largest in the world, is also larger than originally believed). Keep in mind, much of the Yellowstone volcano is underground, so the part of the volcano I am discussing is it's magma chamber. It is now believed to be over 15,000 cu km big. While "back in the day" when we almost put a geothermal plant on top of it, we also thought it was just a little pool of magma. Then a few years ago, we thought it went far enough down that it was actually connected to the upper mantle. Today, we think it and it's surface plumbing may go a LOT farther down - to the LOWER mantle.

Sounds like dangerous folly to me. This brings up the problem with large geothermal plants (which need to be in such locations to operate at the size they are). We are finding out we know very little about these underground monsters - something that may (or may not) have very serious and very dangerous repercussions. For instance, what would have happened if we had fractured the cap on Yellowstone's magma chamber? It's apparently already more than full enough for an explosion on the level of some of it's earlier ones - all that is preventing that is apparently a greater thickness of rock above it (3-10 miles... though even that number has decreased as we've gained a better understanding). If we triggered a "super-eruption", the theories all pretty much indicate we'd end up eradicating much of the life on the plant (some immediately, a vast majority of the rest over time as crops and food animals died, creating a scarcity that could no longer support the billions of humans on the planet).

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Anonymous Coward]

HOLY CRAP, someone actualy used "orders of magnitude" in a sentence where it was actualy of some benefit, instead of doing it to look smarter.

Howerver, I have to say that the solution to prevent Japan's issues from hitting us is to not store spent fuel rods on site. Either reprocess them ( doesn't really matter if they create plutonium, when we still have at least the 2nd largest cache of nukes,) or store them somewhere else in a more secure location built specificaly for long term storage of nuclear material.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Doc Ruby]

None so green as the dead.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Doc Ruby]

No, volcanoes are around only where the most irresistibly cheap geothermal is an option. Like when oil was first collected from only pools on the surface.

There's more than enough tappable geothermal power available without taunting fickle volcanoes. Though doing so in more remote areas will teach us more about both power and the volcanoes. There's plenty of live labs to try it without worrying about causing a "super-eruption".

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[RobertM1968]

No, volcanoes are around only where the most irresistibly cheap geothermal is an option. Like when oil was first collected from only pools on the surface.

There's more than enough tappable geothermal power available without taunting fickle volcanoes. Though doing so in more remote areas will teach us more about both power and the volcanoes. There's plenty of live labs to try it without worrying about causing a "super-eruption".

Not quite accurate. In order for geothermal energy (on a scale needed to power cities) to be possible (note, I did not say economical), we'd need better equipment to determine where to drill, how far and so on. The Earth's crust, in most places, is pretty thick (for our current drilling technologies). The areas of "warmth" happen to interestingly coincide with subterranean structures such as... get this... volcanoes or volcanic structures or magma structures akin to their volcanic counterparts - or very thin portions of the Earth's crust that sit above... the magma of the upper mantle. I guess we could do the "drill till we're deep enough" scenario, but that'd be kinda silly.

So, perhaps I could have been more clear, though I thought I was with the "or subterranean volcanic features and structures" comment in my first paragraph. Wherever there's natural geothermal activity near or at the surface, there's volcanic or "volcanic like" features powering it. We have yet to find exceptions to that. In the other areas, perhaps it's far enough down to not create detectable geothermal activity - but that also means it's difficult or impossible to detect (with our current technology) for use as a power source - not to mention the fact that there is only so far we are capable of drilling with our current technology.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Americium]

You're forgetting about the advantage decentralized power gives us in the current paradigm of terrorism. Without major power plants to attack we gain huge, huge advances in national security. Besides national security, I hate the mandates and laws the government is placing upon us.

To me, it's like the government demanding everyone have computers, when a computer still took up an entire building. It took TIME and RESEARCH to get to cheap iPhones. A government subsidy demanding we all have computers before they were ready wouldn't have helped, and personally, I think it would have just made it a lot longer to get to iPhones and the like. More money poured into NSF and other R&D companies would have helped, and I'm all for that approach, and the way we have the most money to throw into R&D is to use the cheapest form of energy we can right now.

That's not to say we go back to no emission laws or anything, but CO2 is not nearly as bad as acid rain, and we can deal with another 5-10yrs of CO2 quite easily.

BTW, I don't like iPhones, it was just a nice example.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Doc Ruby]

We already have plenty of places we know we can tap geothermal without messing with surface volcanoes.

Our current drilling technologies are routinely drilling 2 miles below the sea floor, starting a mile below the sea surface. We've got plenty of drilling tech to drill plenty of geothermal.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[RobertM1968]

We already have plenty of places we know we can tap geothermal without messing with surface volcanoes.

Our current drilling technologies are routinely drilling 2 miles below the sea floor, starting a mile below the sea surface. We've got plenty of drilling tech to drill plenty of geothermal.

Note 1: I said, numerous times, SUBTERRANEAN volcanic structures. Yellowstone, for instance, has it's heart 3 or more miles below the surface.

Note 2: The Earth's crust, is on average, a LOT thicker than 2 miles... (ten+ times thicker)

Note 3: Please take a look at your map... the red areas are either (a) volcanic or (b) active faults or (c) geothermal features/areas powered by volcanic like structures below the surface or (d) all of the above. The geothermally active areas (dotting virtually the whole map's "hot areas") are powered by volcanic like subterranean features - like I said in an earlier post.
-C'mon, you can note much of that by looking for the little volcano icons on the map - or the little geothermal icons. And that map doesn't even include a few of the super volcanoes in the US, nor active regular volcanoes we didnt know existed (or thought were dead) - for instance, a few in Washington State that are missing. Nor does that map take into account the scale of the super-volcanoes it does mark. Yellowstone, for instance, is marked with a couple little triangles, which does not even remotely indicate that it's subterranean structure is larger (in the 2 dimensions that parallel the surface) than many states. That alone makes the map pretty useless.

On top of that, the data is ancient, when we had a very limited understanding of such. Don't believe everything you read.

Of course, the Pacific Ocean "looks" viable on the map... except for the water depths and added expense of bringing the power back to the mainland.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Americium]

Show me a nuclear power plant design that's immune to terrorist attack and I might be onboard. In the US we have a nuclear plant within 30 miles of NYC!!!! Can you imagine having to evacuate NYC. I'm all for nuclear power for space travel and in remote regions where fallout won't require millions of people to leave everything behind.

And isn't a 9.0 THREE orders of magnitude bigger than a 7.0??

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Americium]

Not really, a 9.0 is THREE orders of magnitude more than a 7.0.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, I would volunteer to live next to some intact nuclear power plant in Japan. In a very unlikely scenario (ie. I probably have a much better chance winning the lottery) that another one goes the way of Fukushima, then I would at least get a nice settlement from the power company.

Unlike things like refineries or chemical plants, nuclear power plants don't instantly kill. It takes a while, a good while. In the mean time, it is generally good to leave the area. Even in Chernobyl, where no one was told of the issue at hand for over 24 hours, there were no fatalities in the people living close to the power station. Heck, their radiation dosage was relatively small and there are people living in the exclusion zone for the last 25 years (30+ in one village where the 80 year old is now almost the youngest remaining residents).

California's two existing nuclear plants should be no cause for concern, because they're rated for a 7.0 and a 7.5, respectively. Um, guys? We just saw a 9.0 in Japan--two orders of magnitude greater than our margin of safety here.

Well, California is not Japan??

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-japan-quake-california-idUSTRE72F5KG20110316

The colossal California quake considered inevitable and long overdue is most likely to strike along the southern end of the famed San Andreas Fault and register a magnitude of 7.5 or greater, many times less powerful than the 9.0 temblor that rocked Japan on Friday, geologists say.

That means the California power plant will most likely shut down just fine. In Japan the problem was not even the earthquake itself, but the tsunami and backup system not designed to work when flooded. California power plants have fuel and backup generators under ground in a sealed unit, not on top. And tsunamis are not exactly something that is expected in California.

Beyond rating earthquake, like 9.0, could possibly cause damage inside the nuclear power plant, yes. But that damage would be leaky pipes or crack in the outside concrete shell. It may even prevent the reactor from restarting per safety regulations. But it would not result in loss of cooling after shutdown. For that you would need a massive tsunami and failures in the passive cooling systems that are present in the US reactors that were not present in the Japanese (eg. spring-loaded activation of steam-powered cooling pumps - no electricity required to get the valves aligned).

Finally, what happened in Japan is a lesson that will enable other reactors in tsunami regions to prepare better.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Anonymous Coward]

A 9.0 earthquake is very unlikely in California except along the far northern coast. California has different kind of faults than the one that caused the Japanese earthquake. The highest earthquake magnitude you'd see in most of California is in the low 8's and unless they happen right under the nuclear plants they'd receive a far lower level of shaking. What got the Fukushima plant was the tsunami, not the earthquake.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[kf6auf]

Last I looked, the plants in Japan survived the earthquake and aftershocks with no major damage. However, the fault lines in questions near Japan are in an offshore subduction zone and therefore produce tsunamis, which can cause major problems if systems are not designed properly. The fault lines near the California nuclear plants are slip faults and generally onshore, meaning they can no more produce a problematic tsunami than a wind farm. Also, the power plants in California were designed for an earthquake 15 times stronger than what geologists believe is the maximum possible earthquake locally (remember, since neither plant is on a fault line, the earthquake magnitude is not the local magnitude). On the other hand, nuclear power plants in the Midwest were built without earthquakes in mind and could suffer damage from geologically routine earthquakes in the region --- so I'll take earthquake-prepared California.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Rei]

That's one of the most ridiculous posts I've ever seen.

1) The Eyjafjallajökull volcano and the Hellisheiði geothermal power plant are over 100 km apart

2) Eyjafjallajökull's volcano isn't remotely in the same geological feature as Hellisheiði.

3) Eyjafjallajökull's eruption was triggered by smaller eruptions at the new Móði and Magni vents, which are even further east (they laid a fresh layer of lava down over the Fimmvörðuháls hiking trail between Skógafoss and orsmörk.

4) Eyjafjallajökull's eruptions will continue to occur whether or not humans do *anything* to the volcano or glacier, be it nothing or detonating nuclear weapons right next to the magma chamber. Iceland is the mid-atlantic ridge. Magma will continue rising to the surface and building up pressure. If it doesn't release on Day A, it'll release on Day B.

5) Unlike Katla and a number of other Icelandic volcanoes, Eyjafjallajökull's magma chamber is very deep (something like 25km). Hellisheiði is not only over 100km away, but it's deepest well (the deepest in Iceland) is under 3km.

6) There is no link between Hellisheiði and Eyjafjallajökull's eruption.

7) There is no link between Hellisheiði and *any* eruption.

8) There is no link between *any* geothermal power plant and *any* eruption. Geothermal can trigger very small earthquakes, esp. EGS, and there can be links between earthquakes and volcanism. But this has never been demonstrated with any geothermal power plant, and it's exceedingly unlikely it ever would be, because the quakes are too small and in the wrong place. Instead, there's very good evidence just to the opposite. In a very unusual incident, drilling in the Krafla volcanic field drilled straight *into* the magma chamber, causing magma to engulf the drill bit and several meters of the well. The solution? "It's now a production well." Water gets injected, steam gets created, and the underground gets slowly cooler.

9) Even most traditional geothermal power generation is done in non-volcanic areas (Iceland is an exception). Heat does not automatically equate to active volcanism. Usually, it doesn't. Iceland just happens to be the Mid-Atlantic ridge.

10) Geothermal *removes* heat from the ground. Let me reiterate this again. Geothermal *removes* heat from the ground. So even if you were interacting with a magma chamber, you'd be increasing the magma viscosity and *decreasing* the odds of eruption -- and making it so that if there was an eruption, it'd be less violent.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Rei]

You're simply wrong. Most geothermal power is *not* generated near active volcanoes. Quite a few are on dormant or extinct volcanic areas (relying on residual heat), but that's quite different. And a number are in areas with no active volcanism. EGS in particular has great capacity to spread to non-volcanic areas.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Rei]

On top of that, the data is ancient, when we had a very limited understanding of such.

Yes, the ancient year of 2004, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and John McCain was only a child.

Your whole post is based on confusion between the locations of subterranean magma chambers and the realizeable heat flow rates from drilled wells.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[drinkypoo]

Not quite accurate. In order for geothermal energy (on a scale needed to power cities) to be possible (note, I did not say economical), we'd need better equipment to determine where to drill, how far and so on.

Geothermal isn't clean power anyway. You know what comes out of those vents? Shit like Arsenic. You know where it ends up? On the turbine blades. You know how they remove it? With a pressure washer.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[countertrolling]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you picked the last option in the 'humor' poll on the front page..

But it does appear the fracking technique might not be the best way

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, the real estate market has been adjusting itself over the last 10 years. On a per sqft basis, it's cheaper to rent near Coal Plants, that's why you find a lot of housing ( apartment complexes ) near them. Sorry I don't have the Nuke Plant stats.

Same rules apply for sewage treatment plants, they stink within 1 mile, so if you get breeze in your direction, it's stinky.

same rules apply with airports, the runway approaches and departures route are typically the cheapest with the departure route being the cheapest of the 2 ( fuel droplet's over your car ( boat ), full thrust engine noise, sometimes your home shaking ....

the real estate market has been adjusting itself rather well in the last 10 years to take into account all these things and as the consumer grows more knowledgeable, the relative price of these zones will always be the cheapest ( think getto or residences of last resort )

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[DavidTC]

Keep spent fuel rods offsite, and have saner backup generator configurations.

Also, why is there not a giant extension cord that runs to a mile outside (Obviously not literally that, but you get my point.) that someone can drive up and plug a big generator into to run the pumps? What was this nonsense about running power cables in there? Hell, why couldn't the pumps run off the grid?

This is 2011. We should not have problems getting electrical power somewhere!

And note that in the US, we appear to have less battery backup time than the Japan did.

I want someone to sit down and actually define, step-by-step, what happens one of the nuke plants has to be shut down, and then what happens if part of that step fails, and then what happens if the next part fails, etc.

Because it really looks like, in Japan, no one bothered to actually do that. 'Plant shuts down, we use battery backups until we start the generators.' 'And if the generators are damaged.' 'Uh...we have no plan.'

And, meanwhile, despite all that, I think less than five people have died, and while a few hundred more might eventually get cancer, it's still much much much safer than coal.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[RobertM1968]

On top of that, the data is ancient, when we had a very limited understanding of such.

Yes, the ancient year of 2004, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and John McCain was only a child.

Your whole post is based on confusion between the locations of subterranean magma chambers and the realizeable heat flow rates from drilled wells.

Yep. that ancient year when Yellowstone was 1/10 the size we know it to be today, when we didnt realize there's an almost as large super volcano not too far south of it, and another one SW of it, and one in Washington State, and a couple regular volcanoes on that coast that are not nearly as exctinct as we thought.

In terms of the subject matter we are discussing, the data is VERY VERY ancient.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[CrimsonAvenger]

And, meanwhile, despite all that, I think less than five people have died,

Less than five is a good way of describing "zero".

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[onepoint]

A huge as your volcano is, the most important part is the activity, it is happy burping along. the point of this is that it's a known risk.

tapping into Yellowstone, well that's a new risk, I would rather that they play "let's poke some holes" on Hawaii or similar prior to punching a hole in Yellowstone's cap. i wonder if it fractures like a balloon or a sledge hammer on concrete.

and when you say it removes heat ... yep it does, makes the cap more solid and in the long term pressure build up even more.

so what we really want if the risk is acceptable is a way to poke a hole, capture the heat after it vents to the surface, and take the pressure level down a bit, and ( wishful thinking ) pipe the magma to the coast, building a few islands along the way, some black sand beaches with some amazing waves.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Rei]

and when you say it removes heat ... yep it does, makes the cap more solid and in the long term pressure build up even more.

By that logic, all rock that's solid is just waiting to explode from gasses seeping up from the mantle.

Gas does exist in solid rock. It isn't released in volcanic explosions, however. It slowly seeps to the surface or collects in cap rock reservoirs (any "overfilling" leads to it flowing out the sides of the reservoir). If those reservoirs are rich in CH4, we "mine" them for natural gas. If they're mainly CO2, we usually don't mess with them.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Rei]

I'll repeat: "Your whole post is based on confusion between the locations of subterranean magma chambers and the realizeable heat flow rates from drilled wells.". The fact that you defended yourself by once again mentioning the locations of subterranean magma chambers just drives the point home.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[RobertM1968]

I'll repeat: "Your whole post is based on confusion between the locations of subterranean magma chambers and the realizeable heat flow rates from drilled wells.". The fact that you defended yourself by once again mentioning the locations of subterranean magma chambers just drives the point home.

Let me explain this to you in a different way. The neat little article you point out is irrelevant, misleading, and improperly utilizes an entire data set while also dropping dozens of inter-related data sets. That "report" means absolutely nothing. It's entirely designed to push an agenda - the same agenda that nearly caused us to create a massive geothermal plant on the Yellowstone Volcano (if it weren't for environmentalists fighting that, it may just have happened, for as short lived as the project (and us) would have been).

Here's a few cases in point about such idiotic "reports" (that are not reports, but agenda pushing nonsense).

First, that document does not properly map out the following CRUCIAL data needed to determine the viability of a geothermal plant - much less the viable size of one: (1) thickness (depth) of rock that needs to be drilled through (a couple miles, btw, is VERY far for our current technology), (2) type of rock (for instance, much of hot zones on that map are volcanic remnants from super-explosions... such as the entire Snake River Plains), (3) how characteristics of such rock affect drilling, stability, seismic "damage" and so on (for instance, those lava bed remnants are made up of rock with vastly different characteristics than the mountains the volcanic activity obliterated), (4) location, placement and activity of the "dormant"/ancient faults that riddle that area (common misconception: the "extinct" older fault lines are not active... they ARE active... just not as "explosively" active as the currently more active fault lines), (5) what affect drilling on or around such "dormant" faults will have, (6) what makes the area geothermally "suited" and how does that impact the safety of drilling in that area (for instance, is it a deeply plumbed geothermal system, or a shallow geothermal system sitting on top of a close-to-surface volcanic structure?), (7) how does the proximity to the "volcanic" structures that drive such warm areas impact the environment once we start drilling (for instance, at some of the geothermal plants in Greenland and Iceland, there are periods where humans cannot exist near the plant without special breathing apparatuses due to sulfur dioxide and other volcanic contaminates), (8) location and size of hotspots (as a for instance, sorry, but Yellowstone's CALDERA is far more massive than the little triangle representing it - and it's magma chamber DWARFS the caldera)... I could go on and on...

Basically, the "report" you point out does not address ANY of that, making it and it's map useless for pointing out suitable areas for geothermal power.

Now... on to the dangers... large scale geothermal plants (building and/or operation) have ALREADY caused earthquakes... inotherwords, seismic activity increases due to man's interference combined with the geothermal and volcanic activity that are the cause of the hotspot. As only two examples, France and Switzerland can attest to this.

Now, digging further into the idiocy of these "reports" - including idiotic, and incorrect reports from places as "esteemed" as the USGS... these, while not directly relevant to the actual topic (though relevant in other ways) are simply examples to show you just how lacking in validity the "mass released to the public" reports are. Read Bob Christensen's report from a while back about Yellowstone. First, he starts with his conclusion (huh? Don't most scientists provide facts and observations first, along with a smattering of statistics perhaps, and then CLOSE with their summary and conclusion?). His conclusion is largely contradicted in his very own almost 100 page report. He starts with downplaying the possibility of an erup

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[Rei]

The neat little article you point out

Basically, the "report" you point out

How about you start with paying attention to who you're responding to? I'm not the person who posted that link.

Beyond that:

1) The map does not claim to cover the things you criticize it for not covering. But it's a damned lot better data than "where are there magma chambers?"; it's actually based on real-world heat flow rate data. Assessment of sites for geothermal power plants involves flow rate data *as well* as a wide variety of other pieces of data. It is a single datasheet, not a be-all-end-all dataset, and was never intended to be.

2) Yet AGAIN you pretend it's a map of magma chambers! ("sorry, but Yellowstone's CALDERA is far more massive than the little triangle representing it") I mean, this is unbelievable. Let's say it ONCE AGAIN: This is NOT a map of magma chambers! It's a map of heat flow rates. They're NOT the same thing.

3) Your claim about drilling causing dangerous gas releases for "periods" as part of normal operation is simply not true. For example, the Hellisheiði geothermal plant (the largest by far in Iceland, which powers Reykjavik and Suðvesturland in general) is a popular tourist destination (despite being actively drilled and expanded), and is one of the key spots for tours on the Golden Circle route. Masks are never used. Geothermal wells are closed systems. There have been H2S *accidents* where H2S has leaked, but that's a totally different issue (and one generally related to a lack of experience in the field, esp. by contractors). Iceland, with its long history of geothermal power utilization, has rather scarce records of H2S accidents. Sensors activate alarms at a mere 10ppm. There were two worker deaths in a notable incident in 2008 where H2S was considered a contributing factor, but because it had consumed the oxygen in the tank that they walked into without checking, not because it poisoned them

4) The earthquake relation is to EGS, not geothermal in general. EGS is a particular technology involving fracturing rock. The Basel case that you cite is such a stupid thing. They sunk a geothermal well right into a fault that had previously destroyed the city. The quake it caused was a whopping 3.4. Do you realize how tiny of a quake a 3.4 is? But that's huge as far as EGS-related quakes go. And even that is something that's not going to happen any more due to lessons learned.

5) Lol, who to listen to, the USGS or RobertM1968? Hmm, tough call there? ;)

And really, I have no clue why you're obsessed over the concept of using Yellowstone in particular to generate power (or why even you obsess over Yellowstone in particular as though it's the only active supervolcano in the US -- or wait, let me guess, you don't know any better?). The main impediments to geothermal power at Yellowstone are that it's a cherished national park. There's not going to be a geothermal power plant in Yellowstone for the same reason there's not going to be a copper mine or a sawmill there; there would be bloody riots. And it's illegal, too. There are lots of places that are being *seriously* considered for new geothermal plants. Yellowstone is not one of them. And the heat source of Yellowstone represents just the tiniest fraction of the US's available heat resources. Heck, Yellowstone's hotspot is probably most notable for how *cool* it is. The temperature of the heat reservoir is generally only 50-200C warmer than its surroundings.

Re:vs. the alternative fuel methods

[RobertM1968]

Wow, just give up. You just admitted I am correct in that the map only shows "warm areas", that our current drilling methods can cause geological instability, and more.

As for the USGS thing... believe THEM. Look for their actual stats and info - but NOT the "keep the public from worrying" crap that's full of lies and contradictions.

Now, as for the "only" super volcano in the US... I mentioned this before, Yellowstone is NOT the only supervolcano in the US. much of those hot spots on the map are OTHER supervolcanoes. For instance, Long Valley, and Valles Caldera to name two (while not naming ones we've found more recently in the last few years). Long Valley and Valles (in conjunction with Yellowstone) cover a large portion of the warm zones on that map. And what sits inbetween are supervolcano created land structures (another big chunk of the map) built with "rock" of entirely different compositions that we have not yet adequately studied.

When it comes to natural geothermal/hydrothermal systems and supervolcanoes, our knowledge barely scratches the surface. As a matter of fact, for much of it, by the definition of such terms, we don't even have (scientific) theories to explain much of what we see (or dont see but speculate). All we have are ideas which do not fit the definition of scientific theory. That's how little we've progressed in that area - as most geologists will (or already have) admit(ted).

Yep

[ShooterNeo]

This is one of the reasons why it's supposed to be worth it to install solar in some places. There's heavy subsidies that bring down the cost, and electricity rates are extremely high during parts of the day in California. And you get your money back instantly when you install the panels, because if you were to sell the house the next day, the sale price would be boosted by the value of the panels.

Well, that's what they say, at least, and this article seems to prove it.

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they say. There are plenty of companies selling and installing solar panels in Califonria.

These companies will use Federal and State credits which allow you to lower the TCO. Considering the energy savings, the amortized cost also drops. All of these are wonderful until you think 10 years into the future. In ten years, the solar panel technology will get better and cheaper. In the mean time, the solar panels installed today may fail. The "lifetime" warranty applies only to the company that performs the installation which can easily go bankrupt as they are often resellers or subcontracting outfits.

I'd love to install a solar panel system but I don't see the cost benefit YET. Installers get their money, the sales guy gets their money and the solar panel people get their money up front and in full. Me? I have to pay for it all or most of it and I won't reap the reward until another economic cycle.

I know one guy who has solar panels and a wind turbine in his backyard but he is also in East Texas with a large plot of land. Me? Suburban guy with .2 acres and three computers + lights.

Re:Yep

[ShooterNeo]

Well, I looked in to it myself. The best case scenario is you DIY, half for the fun of tinkering with it. If you DIY, and get the panels from sunelec.com (the cheapest place I have found so far), and install them yourself (all but the last step - get an electrician to sign off on your wiring and do the final connection to the grid) it's a pretty good deal. You'd break even in 5 or 6 years at 10 cents a kilowatt hour.

Re:Yep

[dch24]

sunelec.com? You're getting taken in. Sorry you bought from them! (If that's what you did.)

Try googling for "3x6 DIY solar cells"

Re:Yep

[Pstrobus]

In ten years, the solar panel technology will get better and cheaper.

Yes, and ten years from then they will be even better and cheaper, so what? If you don't do something because it'll be even better in th future, you do nothing today. So, while you could be offsetting some of your energy costs now and for ten years into the future, you are instead paying the same While-U-Wait.

Re:Yep

[ksd1337]

It's a good example of the deflationary spiral.

Re:Yep

[Seumas]

I looked into this last year, after buying a home. I was looking at $20k-$30k for panels that at their most efficient, would maybe power half of my needs and didn't include a battery system (meaning it's only good during the day - and not all days at that, of course). Most solutions had a warranty and life expectancy that meant they would not start to save me money over current power options until they were at the end of their life. And by then, even if they still work, they aren't expected to be very efficient anymore. I gave up shortly after that, so I didn't even investigate what I could expect as far as how they stand up to weather since this past year we got as low as -20 degrees and had several big hail storms.

I'm not dismissing the idea of solar power for homes. I think the idea is fantastic. It's just the reality I have a problem with. When the industry can actually offering me a solid product that saves money and is reliable and provides truly long term benefits and isn't just a fool's wager, I'll jump in. Until then, it isn't worth the investment. Maybe in another decade, we'll be good to go.

Re:Yep

[ShooterNeo]

??? Are you serious? Sunelec is a credible retailer that sells a working, packaged product. Sure you could solder together your own panels...just like you could manufacture your own computer case instead of buying it from newegg.

Re:Yep

[Belial6]

That's pretty good since I pay $0.32/kwh, and have paid as much as $0.48/kwh.

Re:Yep

[Belial6]

There are companies in CA that will issue you a loan for the cost of the panels that is less than the cost of buying the equivalent electricity from PG&E.

Re:Yep

[RobertM1968]

Look into companies not owned or invested in by big oil (like the ones BP owns or sells to as BP Solar - their crappo panels are about 1/2 the efficiency of the good panels available from companies really interested in good solar). Their panels are not nearly as high efficiency as they claim - even though they bought the tech and patents to make better panels. For instance, (and they are hard to come buy - for some reason, almost only crappy panels are imported), there are 315W panels (3'x6') that are smaller than most other companies' 100-180W offerings (usually around 4'x8'). The prices per watt are a lot more attractive as well. This means you save both space and money. These panels are made by well respected companies and offered with great warranties - some with a slower efficiency decline as well.

Re:Yep

[Jeremi]

and didn't include a battery system (meaning it's only good during the day - and not all days at that, of course).

Does your house have a connection to the electrical grid? If so (and assuming your local electric company supports it) you can avoid the "only good during the day" problem via net metering: buy enough panels to overproduce during the day, the excess power is sold to the electric company which gives you a credit for it on your bill, which you use to offset the cost of the power you use at night. Essentially you use your local power company as a gigantic, free "virtual battery". Works great.

Re:Yep

[bennomatic]

It seems to me that this especially makes sense in places like Arizona, where in the summer, air conditioning is an absolute must. The days where you'd need the most air-con, you'd be getting the strongest rays from the sun. May as well use them to provide some of the juice for the AC.

Re:Yep

[Isaac-1]

Net metering only works until home solar becomes popular, electricity is not practical to transmit over long distance and cloudy weather patterns are often regional events, not to mention there is that whole night time thing.

Re:Yep

[raygundan]

You have this backwards-- point-of-use generation *reduces* grid load right up until the point where production actually exceeds usage by a substantial amount. That's a little past "popular." We're not talking about industrial-scale solar production here. Rooftop production just reduces end-user load, which reduces the total power the grid has to carry to that house. If we get to the point where we make as much as we use... there's zero grid load during the day, and normal grid load at night. If we make double what we use, there's normal grid load (just in the other direction) during the day, and the same grid load at night. If it gets cloudy... the grid has to carry exactly what it used to carry.

There isn't any real new long-distance power transmission occurring even with very large amounts of point-of-use solar generation.

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

In ten years, the solar panel technology will get better and cheaper.

Has that stopped you from upgrading your computer systems, etc?

Re:Yep

[linuxpyro]

Well, I looked in to it myself. The best case scenario is you DIY, half for the fun of tinkering with it.

This is actually a good way to look at it. I'm not sure I'd make my own panel, but assembling a small battery-based system is neat and can teach you a good bit about electricity, and what you can do with solar power. You might be able to run some lights and the computer depending on your usage and how big you size the system, and you'd also have a source of backup power if the grid goes down.

Re:Yep

[TheRaven64]

I just had a look, and the panels that I can buy now are about 14% efficient. The highest efficiency solar cells that I can buy are about 45% efficient, but currently they're insanely expensive (far too expensive to use in this kind of bulk). In a few years, I'll be able to get solar panels that generate three times as much power as current ones. With my roof and sun availability, that difference turns my house from a net consumer of electricity into a net producer. Given that the installation costs are likely to be most of the cost of getting it done (scaffolding up to my roof isn't cheap), it makes more sense to wait. There's also a huge psychological boost when you pass the point where you no longer have to pay for electricity again.

Re:Yep

[dkf]

Net metering only works until home solar becomes popular, electricity is not practical to transmit over long distance and cloudy weather patterns are often regional events, not to mention there is that whole night time thing.

Except that solar produces peak power when there is peak demand (for AC) so local production is a good thing anyway. Moreover, solar panels still produce power on cloudy days (though not as much as when it's sunny of course) so you're still getting a benefit. Maybe they make less sense up in Seattle, but they should be fine in San Diego. You don't have to have the same solution everywhere.

Re:Yep

[khallow]

There's heavy subsidies that bring down the cost, and electricity rates are extremely high during parts of the day in California.

But you'd be living in California. That place is slowly transforming into a disaster area. Things such as heavily subsidized solar panels are part of the reason why.

Re:Yep

[spire3661]

That seems wrong. Wouldnt the amount of energy remain relatively constant (dismissing cloud obstruction of course)? Even if there was fluctuation is it enough to be relevant, are the panels sensitive enough to detect it? Isnt increased local temeprature far more likely from heated air/geography rather then 'stronger 'rays'. IM not trying to troll you, your statement sparked all these questions.

Does the amount of energy we receive from the sun have any significant variance in this context?

Re:Yep

[onepoint]

I don't mean to be dumb, but could you post where I could look at and purchase 40% efficient or greater panels, at that level, I can do my house, never pay a bill again and have skylights.

Re:Yep

[TheRaven64]

I said cells, not panels. You can buy individual (small) cells at that efficiency, but it will be a while before their produced in enough quantities to build house-sized panels. You probably could build a panel with them now, but they're so expensive that you'd be looking at well over 100 years before you broke even.

Re:Yep

[onepoint]

sorry, got so happy to think that I could buy them, that I forgot to re-read before submitting LOL

Re:Yep

[dch24]

So, let me get this straight. You are buying from Sunelec for this reason:

The best case scenario is you DIY, half for the fun of tinkering with it. If you DIY, and get the panels from sunelec.com (the cheapest place I have found so far)

And then you are not interested in a lower price for this reason:

Are you serious? Sunelec is a credible retailer that sells a working, packaged product.

Nice. You're just astroturfing. Oh, and by the way, sunelec's prices are around $10/W, which is ridiculously high.

Re:Yep

[ShooterNeo]

uh...try 98 cents a watt. You fail.

Strawman opposition destroyed!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but people arguing from a NIMBY perspective have never claimed that domestic solar power degrades home values. This is simply an attempt to attribute a completely illogical and unreasonable opposition to someone.

It's likely that many NIMBY opponents have argued against wind farms based on a) their own personal taste as to what they can see outside their window, b) a perception that house prices will be affected negatively if what you see (and hear) are wind farms.

If it's their own personal taste it comes to then arguments about house prices aren't very relevant and don't contradict any arguments - if it's house prices it comes to then the study referred to in the article isn't highly precise, as it doesn't track house prices through time. You would usually only see wind farms from locations with great views, and hear them in a somewhat larger radius, hence a simple "do houses close to wind farms sell for less at this point in time" would be difficult to make accurate.

Re:Strawman opposition destroyed!

[Samantha Wright]

The strawman never saw it coming. They never do.

Think of the strawmen, people! Thousands, nay, millions of scarecrows being massacred constantly by unscrupulous argument tactics! Murderers and probably also child rapists walk our streets, unpunished for their crimes against these defenseless innocents!

Re:Strawman opposition destroyed!

[kf6auf]

I have heard it argued by a realtor that solar panels do not increase the value of the home as buyers tend to underestimate the remaining lifetime of the product. Of course, that was anecdotal and not a study with stated error bars.

Re:Strawman opposition destroyed!

[Anonymous Coward]

That was my first thought too. There is absolutely no comparison between a house with solar panels on it, and a house next to a wind farm.

Re:Strawman opposition destroyed!

[SydShamino]

Sorry, but people arguing from a NIMBY perspective have never claimed that domestic solar power degrades home values. This is simply an attempt to attribute a completely illogical and unreasonable opposition to someone.

My HOA has a restriction against solar panels, with a justification/explanation that it would lower the values of nearby homes.

My anecdote beats your "never" and I win.

Re:Strawman opposition destroyed!

[TheRaven64]

They may be right. They summary (and no one reads the actual article) doesn't say anything about how a solar panel on your roof affects the property values of your neighbours. Even ignoring the aesthetic side, if the property value of the house is increased by a solar panel then it may have the opposite effect on the neighbours' houses because people considering buying will look at their house and say 'it's like next door but without the solar panel' and think that makes it worth less...

Re:Strawman opposition destroyed!

[DavidTC]

I'd claim they were 'light antenna' and for the HOA to take it up with the FCC. People can put up any antennas they want, the HOA can't do anything about it.

Cost to install

[meza]

The article mentions an avarage cost of $5000 to install 1 kW of solar, so it seems like a pretty good investment overall.

Re:Cost to install

[Anonymous Coward]

5k WHERE....?

I have been pricing this sort of thing out. Try more along the likes of 15k per KW. It would cost you 12-14k just for the panels. Not including all the extra hardware and install costs.

WITH subsidies you might get there. 30% fed btw. Many states also have them.

Re:Cost to install

[ShakaUVM]

It's closer to $6k per kW in my next of the woods (that's why I paid), but I'm sure you can find a company to do it for $5k. I went with a company that had done some installations in my neighborhood, though, and had a pretty good reputation.

If you don't want to pay the money up front, you take out a loan, and use the monthly savings on your power bill to pay off the loan. As long as you're paying more than 24c/kWh you'll run a net positive balance, and end up with a solar system of your own after 10 years.

There's companies that will actually do this for you - they'll install the system on your house for free, and then just sell you the power out of it. Here in California, if you're running in the high tier power rates, it's a good investment. They also lock in your power rate at a fixed price, whereas PG&E tends to raise rates one or twice a year. There's really no downside to doing this, unless you're planning on reducing your power consumption and/or expect PG&E to lower their rates in the future.

Re:Cost to install

[Kentari]

Your pricing is way outdated. Pricing here in Belgium runs from 3 to 5 Euros per Watt peak installed including inverter. The pricing is mostly depending on the type of panels (cheap Chinese or high efficiency panels) and contractor. I just looked into it, these are actual values of offerings for household installations of 3 kW. This price is actually inflated by heavy subsidies (tax benefits and green power certificates for 20 years of 330 euros per MWh produced) driving up demand massively.

Re:Cost to install

[DarkTempes]

Too bad electricity only costs me ~$0.08/kWh in Louisiana...

Re:Cost to install

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you're paying more than 24c/kWh you'll run a net positive balance, and end up with a solar system of your own after 10 years.

And there's the problem with affording green technology. I currently pay 4c/kWh.

Re:Cost to install

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlikely to stay that price over the 25 yr warranty of polysilicon modules, which will pay for themselves at 0.08/kwh if you install it yourself and pay an electrician for the hookup.

Re:Cost to install

[raygundan]

Where the heck are your numbers from? In the US, full price for our 7kW system, installed, before any subsidies was $40k, or $5700/kW. This was two years ago, and used high-efficiency panels rather than the cheapest per kW, and things have gotten a bit cheaper since on top of that. That number includes everything. I don't think $5k per kW is unreasonable at all.

Re:Cost to install

[Jerrry]

"It's closer to $6k per kW in my next of the woods (that's why I paid), but I'm sure you can find a company to do it for $5k. I went with a company that had done some installations in my neighborhood, though, and had a pretty good reputation."

That's close to what mine cost ($80K for 12.5 KW). Even in summer with all 3 air conditioners running, my electric meter is still running backwards. Even it winter it's usually generating more power than we're using, expect on dark overcast or rainy days.

Re:Cost to install

[ksd1337]

About the same here. Pre-subsidy cost for our 10kW/h system was $55000. Post-subsidy is $17000.

(Subsidies include writing off tax rebates and SRX credits.)

Re:Cost to install

[corbettw]

The phrase is "neck of the woods". Just sayin'.

As long as you're paying more than 24c/kWh you'll run a net positive balance, and end up with a solar system of your own after 10 years.

Holy crap! Who pays that much for electricity? I'm in Dallas, and I just locked in a rate of 8/kWh for the next 12 months. I can't imagine paying 24/kWh, not when we typically use about 2000 kWhs in a month.

Re:Cost to install

[Belial6]

If your paying $0.04/kWh, YOU probably shouldn't be installing PV panels. You probably SHOULD be buying an all electric car though. Whereas, here in CA where the cost starts at $0.12/kWh and can quickly climb to a tier that costs greater than $0.40/kWh, PV makes a lot of sense, and all electric cars don't.

Re:Cost to install

[Xyrus]

If only everywhere had such subsidies.

Labor costs on a solar installation are pretty outrageous, and prevents a lot of people from going solar. Most people want to be able to take a noticeable chunk out of their electric bills, and for the average household that's going to take at least a 3KW. Now you can get such a system relatively cheap, but labor prices have, if anything, gone up so that even a small 3KW system is too expensive.

But if you want to get in on solar, it would probably be wise to do it soon. With the GOP aiming to cut renewables, I don't expect what little fed subsidies to remain for much longer.

Around where I am, it's more like $6-$7K/KW. Subsidies suck and, as I mentioned, and labor rates are astronomical.

Re:Cost to install

[ShakaUVM]

>>Holy crap! Who pays that much for electricity?

All PG&E customers in California. (http://www.pge.com/tariffs/electric.shtml#RESELEC)

If you have Time of Use billing, it can be pretty extreme. Lets run the math for your 2000 kWh usage in a month.

Summer Baseline allocation is 600kWh. This means PG&E expects that you should be able to stay within this limit during summer months. Go over, and you're penalized.
Peak Rates:
Tier 1 (up to 100% of baseline): 31c/kWh
Tier 2 (100%-130%): 32.7c/kWh
Tier 3 (130%-200%): 48.2c/kWh
Tier 4 and 5 (200%+): 59.2c/kWh

Yep, that's top tier rates at 59.2c/kWh - they've gone up since the last time I looked at them. Part-peak and off-peak are significantly lower. So run your AC at night, I guess.

Assuming all peak usage, you've got a bill of 600kwh x 31c + 180kwh x 32.7c + 420kwh x 48.2c + 800 x 59.2c = 186+58.86+202.44+473.6 = $920 for a month's worth of power. (This would be $160 in your state.)

You see why I installed solar? =)

Re:Cost to install

[Rich0]

Uh, if you pay $6k for a 1kW panel, and electricity is worth 8c/kWh, then you're recovering money at a rate of about $19/month (assuming you get 1kW for 8 hours a day - that seems generous to me). That is $230/yr.

The interest on a 4% loan (a very low rate) on $6k is $240/yr.

A better investment is to just write a $6k check to your mortgage company.

Most of these panels-pay-for-themselves calculations tend to neglect time-value-of-money and opportunity cost. They assume that if you didn't buy the panels you'd leave the $6k sitting in a wad of $20's on your dresser or something.

Sure, buy panels to save the earth, but don't do it to save money - at least not at current rates.

Re:Cost to install

[texas neuron]

Are you actually paying $0.24 per kwH? Here in Texas it runs about $0.10.

Re:Cost to install

[ShakaUVM]

>>Are you actually paying $0.24 per kwH? Here in Texas it runs about $0.10.

Yeah. California sucks. 24c/kWh is actually the levelized cost of solar power. Since I pay more than that (over twice that amount for peak Tier 5 power in the summer), solar was a good investment.

"Property Prices" is code.

[FatLittleMonkey]

These results contradict the arguments based on degrading home values used by [...] opponents

Members of home associations that ban solar panels aren't really arguing that panels lower property prices, they're arguing "I don't want to see it". It's the same with most HA rules aimed at "protecting property values".

Re:"Property Prices" is code.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spot on. With this report in hand, they'll start arguing that solar panels improve home value too much and it will be unfair to your neighbors.

Homeowner Associations are the bane of actual homeowners everywhere, and if it wasn't for the fact that your choices are to either live on a ranch in the middle of Texas or drop trou, take it up the ass like a man, and live in a homeowner-association-owned dwelling within 30 miles of a city, I wouldn't touch an HA with a 10 foot pole. As it is, I'll just rent and not pretend like I own the place. At least I can shop around for an apartment complex with a landlord who isn't a 70 year old ninny with nothing better to do than nitpick every last little deed restriction.

Re:"Property Prices" is code.

[ShakaUVM]

>>Members of home associations that ban solar panels aren't really arguing that panels lower property prices, they're arguing "I don't want to see it"

Fortunately, here in California, it's explicitly illegal for HOAs to ban solar panel installations. They can hem and haw all they want (my HOA demanded to see the plans before "approving" installation), but they cannot stop you from putting it in, no matter what the CCNRs actually say.

To be fair, there's issues with some solar panels (highly reflective chrome surfaces can shine brilliant light into other people's houses, creating a nuisance), but most installations these days are a nice black matte,

Re:"Property Prices" is code.

[AfroTrance]

There are reflective PV solar panels? I thought they would all be black matte, considering this absorbs the most light.

Re:"Property Prices" is code.

[Bing Tsher E]

Absorbing all the light only matters if your solar collector is pipework and gathering heat.

Re:"Property Prices" is code.

[raygundan]

The cells are mostly pretty dark-- but there's lots of cells on a panel, and they're often octagonal and have gaps in between. SunPower, for example, has two nearly identical product lines-- one where the gaps between the octagonal cells are just silver-colored aluminum, and one where the panels are a uniform black. A lot of people prefer the look of the latter, but it reduces efficiency somewhat both due to the layer that makes it all a uniform color and because the extra heat absorbed makes them work less effectively.

Re:"Property Prices" is code.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. I got lucky - don't know how it happened, but our HOA let its chapter lapse, so WHOOSH - no more HOA! The really lucky part is that the bylaws require 100% participation to reinstate. I've told all me neighbors - as long as I live here, there will never be an HOA. Fortunately, three or four sane neighbors feel as I do.

Re:"Property Prices" is code.

[TheRaven64]

PV cells only turn specific wavelengths into electricity, and their efficiency decreases as they get hotter. A good design therefore reflects as much light that isn't in the correct range as possible. I believe that there are some combination designs that use water cooling running just under the PV cells and then use this water to heat the house's hot water supply.

Re:"Property Prices" is code.

[DavidTC]

Homeowner Associations are the bane of actual homeowners everywhere, and if it wasn't for the fact that your choices are to either live on a ranch in the middle of Texas or drop trou, take it up the ass like a man, and live in a homeowner-association-owned dwelling within 30 miles of a city, I wouldn't touch an HA with a 10 foot pole.

HOA are great if they're in charge of a pool and green space and streets and stuff. That was, in fact, their original point, to own community property, and even force people to pay 'taxes' to maintain that. It is not a bad idea.

However they then had power creep, over people's private property. I can see the rational for the start of that power, against people with absurdly unkempt lawns and rusted cars parked in yards, but somehow that turned into 'approving constructions' and then 'approving everything'.

I wouldn't live anywhere with an HOA that allowed the HOA to make whatever new rules they wanted about private property. Sadly, that appears to have become the default, with literally infinite power. If you have an HOA, check and see if you can find anything that stops them from calling your entire house 'unsightly' and requiring you to tear it down. I bet you can't.

That hasn't quite been my experience

[DRMShill]

A few years ago I got a deal from Nevada Power where they paid for half the cost of a 5kwh array. It was working great until work forced me to relocate to another state. I had a hell of a time selling the place because the general public is just not technical enough to appreciate it. One potential buyer got a static shock from the carpet as is common in the dry vegas air. She actuually thought the solar power array caused it! How am I supposed to reason with that kind of stupidity?

Re:That hasn't quite been my experience

[Anonymous Coward]

How am I supposed to reason with that kind of stupidity?

By coercing them to be eligible for a Darwin Award.

Re:That hasn't quite been my experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Just show them the door and hope they aren't so stupid they fall on their way out.... It's for the best anyway, they likely would have destroyed that equipment eventually.

Re:That hasn't quite been my experience

[rubycodez]

assure her it wasn't the solar panels, just a little residue ionization from the above ground nuclear tests of decades past.

Re:That hasn't quite been my experience

[couchslug]

Market to geeks and do it early.

Re:That hasn't quite been my experience

[garutnivore]

One potential buyer got a static shock from the carpet as is common in the dry vegas air. She actuually thought the solar power array caused it! How am I supposed to reason with that kind of stupidity?

Tell her the reason she got a shock is because of her negative emotions.

Re:That hasn't quite been my experience

[Anonymous Coward]

hire a better real estate sales person
or better yet

find me and I'll tell you whom to hire as a sales person to sell your home. or at least how to market it.

Most real estate sales people don't have a clue on how to market a solar home, the few that do consistently bicycle the area to find new sellers ( I bike looking at roofs hoping not to hit a car and, I've mapped out bing's birds eye view and google maps but the data is old already )

Solar has so many advantages to the home owner, and the home owner that really tries can get his bill down to the service charge ( with FPL, they still want the service charge, even if you are net metering and have $100 credit as of Jan 1 this year)

Re:That hasn't quite been my experience

[Idarubicin]

One potential buyer got a static shock from the carpet as is common in the dry vegas air. She actuually thought the solar power array caused it! How am I supposed to reason with that kind of stupidity?

No matter where you go or what you do, you're going to encounter people who don't understand that a) correlation is not causation; and b) the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

Some brands of stupidity you just can't reason with. Back when I was in high school (quite a while ago), I worked in a grocery store that did a fair bit of trade in the organic granola and magic sugar pill line. One of our customers insisted that we not use the bar code scanners on her groceries, because the laser light was a special form of dangerous "radiation". I refrained from suggesting that she tightly wrap her package in tin foil to protect it from the deadly sunlight outside the shop; I also avoided asking if she only ate in complete darkness.

With your solar panels, you introduce something that is going to desirable and interesting to one segment of your buying audience, and frightening to another. We can slowly shift that balance over time, but new things will always be exciting to some people and scary to others. As an aside, consider that the solar panels might have helped you to avoid a crazy homebuyer. If you hadn't had the panels on the roof, you wouldn't have known she was nuts until she started to make unreasonable demands during negotiations, or absurd damage claims after she bought. You might have narrowly escaped years of legal nuisances.

Re:That hasn't quite been my experience

[cerberusss]

She actuually thought the solar power array caused it! How am I supposed to reason with that kind of stupidity?

Marry her! Any woman that gullible, is probably also stupid enough to marry a slashdotter.

No Kidding

[ShakaUVM]

No kidding - you put $30k in on a solar system and that raises house prices? Because people don't need to pay extortionate power rates? What a weird concept.

The fact of the matter is, California has the highest power rates in the nation (I'd assign blame in equal parts to NIMBYs, environmentalists, PG&E, the PUC, and our legislature). Running air conditioning in the summer will kick you up into Tier 5 rates, which are currently around 50c/kWh. Getting a four digit power bill for one month is enough to convince even the most ardent anti-environmentalist of the value of solar.

If you run the numbers, rooftop solar has a levelized cost of about 24c/kWh. So it's worth it to build out capacity to meet however much power you use in the higher tier rates (Tiers 3 through 5). You don't necessarily want to run your power bills to zero (Tiers 1 and 2 are subsidized by the higher rates), but if you do, PG&E will write you a check at the end of the year. (How much has yet to be determined.) Schwarzenegger got that pushed through at the end of his term of governor - before that, PG&E would just pocket any excess capacity you generate.

I actually just had solar put in and finally turned on a couple weeks ago. It's nice running a net positive balance with PG&E, though it's still too cool for air conditioning.

Re:No Kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

It is worth it now, since the Gov got that bill passed. When we installed solar about 5 years ago we planned it out to for a net output of 0, since over-producing only benefited PG&E. When we sold that house the solar was a huge bonus in San Francisco. Who really wants to pay PG&E anything? Plus, since the buyers weren't planning on running servers and bunches of computers (like I was), I'm sure they get a tidy little check from PG&E from our solar installation.

HOA bans are mostly illegal

[raygundan]

Most states have specific laws that prevent HOAs from banning solar panels.

YES BUT...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your neighbors get hosed on their house prices.

Re:YES BUT...

[SuricouRaven]

Then they should get their own solar panels.

Correlation != causation

[Scareduck]

People who have money put in solar panels. People who have money ALSO live in rich neighborhoods. Who knew?

Re:Correlation != causation

[Black Parrot]

People who have money put in solar panels. People who have money ALSO live in rich neighborhoods. Who knew?

That's what I was wondering. Do these tend to be in newer houses? Houses that have had other improvements?

Did the study correct for such effects?

Re:Correlation != causation

[Anonymous Coward]

There are statistics methods to verify whether it's cause/consequence or not. If the researchers didn't consider this, fine, criticize them for being idiots, but don't assume that simply because it could be nothing more than correlation it has to be and you're the only one competent enough to notice it.

Sorry, but I'm tired of seeing this stupid "correlation is not causation" meme (although, to be fair, there are quite a few shitty papers that skip things they shouldn't).

Re:Correlation != causation

[Doc Ruby]

The article answers your questions. Why not RTFA?

Has nothing to do with NIMBY

[Anonymous Coward]

NIMBY is about some big ugly power generation plant, not properly and tastefully installed panels on the roof.

Also, there is no increase in equity unless you ignore subsidies. Without them, solar would be the dopiest investment a homeowner could make.

News flash: fashion items lift house values

[Snorbert Xangox]

This is not surprising, but not that encouraging either. If you pay for a bit of fancy landscaping and planting around your house before you sell it, you can often improve your house resale value by much more than the cost of the work. Solar also offers a warm glow of righteousness far out of proportion with energy generated.

Where I live (50km south of Canberra, Australia), we're paying ~20 of your Earth cents for a kWh during the day around here, so if you assume 7kWh per day from a 1kW solar installation (not that hard here, as we get a lot of sun), it takes 14 years to earn back $3900. Electricity will certainly go up in cost during that time, but I wonder whether you wouldn't be better putting $4000 into some safe-ish investment and concentrating on reducing your energy usage instead.

For years, I was holding out for Nanosolar or First Solar to get domestic panels out at somewhere nearer to $2/kW and without so much embodied energy in the panels, but they don't look to be interested in domestic sales. Until then, the only reason that panels are cheap in Australia is because of very high government regulated feed-in tariffs and purchase subsidies, which are just middle-class welfare masquerading as a renewable energy policy.

Until the government killed the program, there were businesses here doing energy efficiency assessments to see if houses qualified for interest free government loans to improve energy efficiency or install solar systems. An interview I heard with one assessor gave the impression that most houses had considerable inefficiency to rectify before it made any sense installing generating capacity. New Australian houses are still much less insulated than new houses in northern Europe or North America, rely too much on resistive electrical heating for the house and for the hot water supply, and the current fashion for building faux-Mediterranean rendered boxes with no roof overhang guarantees high cooling costs in summer. Old Australian houses often had no (as in, ZERO) insulation in them. Visitors from northern Europe are amazed at how uncomfortable and slapdash many of our houses are.

Re:News flash: fashion items lift house values

[ShooterNeo]

You know your comment is just BEGGING for an "eh, convict labor...what do you expect" remark...

Re:News flash: fashion items lift house values

[j-beda]

Where I live (50km south of Canberra, Australia), we're paying ~20 of your Earth cents for a kWh during the day around here, so if you assume 7kWh per day from a 1kW solar installation (not that hard here, as we get a lot of sun), it takes 14 years to earn back $3900. Electricity will certainly go up in cost during that time, but I wonder whether you wouldn't be better putting $4000 into some safe-ish investment and concentrating on reducing your energy usage instead.

7kWh x $0.20 x 365 = $511/year. That looks like 7.63 years to get to $3900. To "match" that, your $3900 would need to be invested to get a 13.1% yearly return in order to generate $511. 13% is not easy to come by.

One often overlooked factor for energy saving or generating investments is that money saved is equivalent to a tax-free income. If you take your $3900 and manage to get a return of $511/year you would have to pay taxes on that income. I don't really know what the average tax rate is in Australia, but Wikipedia seems to indicate that for every dollar earned over $3700, it is 30% (15% at $6k, 30% at $37k, 37% at $80k and 45% at 180k). Assuming your income is between $37k and $80k, you actually need an investment return of $730 so that when you pay your 30% ($219) you are left with the desired $511. $730 is a bit more than 17.1% of $3900 by the way.

I gather that solar water heating is the real way to make a "safe" investment for most moderate climates like the USA. The systems are very simple and relatively inexpensive. Even in upstate NY, estimates are that 50% of one's water heating can be provided by a solar system. Particularly for those who heat their water with electricity those can be pretty significant cost savings.

But as you say - before any new system is installed, caulking of cracks and insulation (with maybe some shade tree planting for the long term) has an even quicker return on investment.

Re:News flash: fashion items lift house values

[Snorbert Xangox]

Where I live (50km south of Canberra, Australia), we're paying ~20 of your Earth cents for a kWh during the day around here, so if you assume 7kWh per day from a 1kW solar installation (not that hard here, as we get a lot of sun), it takes 14 years to earn back $3900. Electricity will certainly go up in cost during that time, but I wonder whether you wouldn't be better putting $4000 into some safe-ish investment and concentrating on reducing your energy usage instead.

7kWh x $0.20 x 365 = $511/year. That looks like 7.63 years to get to $3900. To "match" that, your $3900 would need to be invested to get a 13.1% yearly return in order to generate $511. 13% is not easy to come by.

One often overlooked factor for energy saving or generating investments is that money saved is equivalent to a tax-free income. If you take your $3900 and manage to get a return of $511/year you would have to pay taxes on that income. I don't really know what the average tax rate is in Australia, but Wikipedia seems to indicate that for every dollar earned over $3700, it is 30% (15% at $6k, 30% at $37k, 37% at $80k and 45% at 180k). Assuming your income is between $37k and $80k, you actually need an investment return of $730 so that when you pay your 30% ($219) you are left with the desired $511. $730 is a bit more than 17.1% of $3900 by the way.

D'oh - thanks for spotting my arithmetic screwup. Serves me right for posting in haste. And you have a great point about how the savings work out w.r.t. marginal tax rates. Consider me corrected...

I gather that solar water heating is the real way to make a "safe" investment for most moderate climates like the USA. The systems are very simple and relatively inexpensive. Even in upstate NY, estimates are that 50% of one's water heating can be provided by a solar system. Particularly for those who heat their water with electricity those can be pretty significant cost savings.

But as you say - before any new system is installed, caulking of cracks and insulation (with maybe some shade tree planting for the long term) has an even quicker return on investment.

Yes, after stopping up cracks and installing insulation, solar water heating is the best thing that we can do here in Australia as well - using thermal solar energy to supplant electrical resistive heating is incredibly appropriate. For places without enough sun, there are air-to-water heat pump hot water systems which make more sense than resistive heating for the coastal regions of Australia; they aren't much good for winter in the high country though - we get down to -8 deg C at night, which is nothing compared to lots of Europe and North America, but much lower than the coastal areas. I suspect that the higher humidity at the coast may help a bit too with how much heat you can extract from the (above-freezing) air.

Re:News flash: fashion items lift house values

[Snorbert Xangox]

Australia - rhymes with failya. :-)

Re:News flash: fashion items lift house values

[corbettw]

One often overlooked factor for energy saving or generating investments is that money saved is equivalent to a tax-free income.

Don't trumpet that fact too loudly or the taxman will find a way to call cost savings "income" and tax you on it.

Re:News flash: fashion items lift house values

[luk3Z]

After 14 years of using solar panels efficiency of them will meet little bit downgrade.

Re:News flash: fashion items lift house values

[TheRaven64]

In the UK, feed-in-tarrifs are explicitly tax free. They are also a lot higher than the cost of electricity. I pay around 12p/kWh, but a feed-in-tarrif will pay me something in the 30-40p/kWh range. Any income from this is tax free.

Re:News flash: fashion items lift house values

[Databass]

This would also undercut the whole "property values" argument by making all houses look the same. Hard to say solar panels are an eyesore when people grow used to seeing them on every civilized house.

It depends on exactly how its done

[Anonymous Coward]

If the panels are installed as shingles (rubber shingles with a PV layer on top, covered by a plastic protective cover), then the whole roof creates power, but its not an eyesore. If its just a backyard full of panels (much like an industrial site), then it is a site, and the backyard is useless for barbeques, lawn darts, touch football, etc. It all depends on how its done. In general though, 5 kW of panels on the roof, plus geothermal heat/cooling are pretty 'hidden' and can add thousands to the value of a home, because you save thousands in annual costs, and you are 'green'. Even a small (5' diameter) windmill in the back yard might not be too much of an eyesore, depending on where you live, etc. Going green doesn't have to be painful, its just that the tree huggers and oil companies insist that it be painful; the first in a "suck it up its good for you" sort of way, and the latter in a "don't do it, oil is your friend" sort of way.

But when does it start paying off?

[Khoa]

Spend 30k now only to have to wait ten years to break even? By then, you'll probably be in another house, in another city. But, I do agree. Solar power should have been installed since day one. Next generations of city planners and engineers will have to (when the oil wells run dry) go "F, maybe this was a good idea after all."

Re:But when does it start paying off?

[dubbayu_d_40]

30K for how much? I paid 11.5K for 3kw.

Also, instead of thinking about paying it off, think about it as an investment. The premise being, you get your cash back when you sell your home.

I get a 12% annual return on my solar investment. That'll improve as energy gets more expensive.

Re:But when does it start paying off?

[j-beda]

Spend 30k now only to have to wait ten years to break even? By then, you'll probably be in another house, in another city.

I don't know that a 10% tax-free return on investment is anything to sneeze at. It also seems less volatile that most equities - the downside risk is that your local power costs are perhaps going to dramatically decrease? If the summary is has any validity, it seems as though moving is not much of an issue as the house value would have increased to offset some or all of the investment.

Re:But when does it start paying off?

[jasno]

Check out the solar lease deals. I just signed up with Sun Run to install solar on my house. They own the panels, and I don't pay them anything up-front. They get the rebates, and then sell me discounted electricity from my panels. They also maintain the system. If I move, the system gets transferred to the new owner(assuming they have good credit, which is a safe bet if they're buying my house).

Re:But when does it start paying off?

[Firethorn]

By then, you'll probably be in another house, in another city.

Thus the whole point of this article - that you can generally recover the costs of the installation if you end up moving.

Re:But when does it start paying off?

[TheRaven64]

Be careful with this. There was some coverage in the press here (UK) a few weeks ago about this kind of deal. They sound great, but most banks will refuse mortgages on properties with this kind of agreement and some will even consider it a violation of an existing mortgage agreement, because of the long-term lease on your roof. This makes it much harder to sell the house, because a buyer won't be able to get a mortgage on it, or will have to pay more.

NIMBY (Not In My Back-Yard)

[Anonymous Coward]

You really shouldn't use an acronym if you feel that your target audience doesn't know the meaning of the acronym.

AND I CAN MAKE A MILLION BY SELLING $1 for 50cent

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me when slashcraptacluar isn't so fucking retarded.

Yep

[PPH]

"A solar panel. That's just what we need to fix this place up, Daisy Mae".

My 3kw solar panels could even be worth $35,000

[skidisk]

I put panels up 6 years ago and they save roughly $2,000/year in electricity here in California ( my previous three years before panels were $6100; I've spent $300 over the last 6 years on electricity).

A prospective home owner knows they won't have to pay that $2000/year on electricity, so if they pour that into a 4% loan, they can borrow an extra $35,000 for that roughly $160/mo savings.

So to see a story say that my panels should be worth between $10K-$20K to a home buyer makes total sense.

Re:My 3kw solar panels could even be worth $35,000

[uninformedLuddite]

I'm not connected to the electrickery or the water and I am doing great. I am sure that the value added to the propery is immense.

Re:My 3kw solar panels could even be worth $35,000

[Anonymous Coward]

$508 / month for electricity? Seriously? How big a server farm do you have running in your basement?

Need to look at cost versus value

[Mud_Monster]

According to the article, if the home owner spends $20,000 to install solar panels on the home, the house is worth $5,500 more. This means the owner still loses $14,500 due to the purchase. Not really winning in my book.

Solar panels vs. power company shares

[Anonymous Coward]

If you live in an apartment, and would rather leave power generation to the pros, consider power company shares.

They pay dividends. You and a lot of other people have to pay the power company or DIY. Sometimes you can't DIY. I rent, so I can't. Shares are the only way for me to "generate my own power" without going to extraordinary measures that would probably upset the landlord. :)

My average gas+electric is less than $100, but let's say you burn $100/mo on average. If you live in California, you can buy enough PG and E shares to pay that electric bill for about $30,000.

Of course, stocks are risky; but you can "insure" the dividend stream with an option collar, or average into it. Choose your risk mitigation strategy with the click of a mouse.

Comparing this with panels is tricky. You generate with a mix (but some utilities have "green source" programs where you pay more for assurance of green. Of course, you have to trust them...).

I assume you can insure your panels as part of a homeowners policy. Not sure how that compares to options.

You have to buy the panels all at once. You can average into utilities, or even buy a utility from a different region, or buy a ute that you think is being run better than your local, or buy several different ones.

Your solar panels will depreciate. Unless there is a catastrophe of truly biblical proportions, or another Enron incident pushes the company into bankruptcy, your shares are likely to appreciate. It's hard to say where the shares will go, nothing is risk free. OTOH, the panels are certain to weaken and fail. The inverters and other hardware will fail too.

To reiterate, shares are the only option for most renters. If you really want to have panels some day, consider selling your ute shares to fund them... but you might decide getting checks from the power company is more fun.

Now, procede to condemn me as evil in 4, 3, 2...

Re:Solar panels vs. power company shares

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, investing in pure finance rather than in any actual capital or labor has really protected renters, their energy costs, and the economy generally.

Power corp stocks like Con Ed have a 15x P/E ratio, or a 15 year payback (if 100% of earnings are issued as dividends, which they're not). Solar panels have a 3-5-7 year payback (depending on local conditions). Yes, you can sell the stocks, but you can sell the solar panels with the house. The research in the story we're discussing shows that panels, which can cost $3:55:W at Costco + probably half that for installation, sell for something like 5%+ more than their net cost, even before subsidies. Which means that solar panels are better than twice as good an investment as even investing in evil power corp monopolies.

Renters should invest in buying a home, and then go from there. If they don't they're not investors.

Not Surprised

[Ferretman]

This doesn't surprise me, what with rising electrical costs.

I just completed construction on a new house and went out of my way to put a hefty solar system (30 panels, ~6.6kwh) on it. I absolutely, positively, in every single way love it!

Ferretman

NIMBY isn't in play yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Residential solar panels are still new and rare enough that no major incidents have happened yet. When a solar panel-related accident causes a house to burn down, and insurance rates on solar-equipped homes go up, that's when the panels will start to take a toll on home values.

That is, if the panels ever become practical enough to be installed widely enough for these events to become statistical. Then, knowing that x% of homes with solar panels will burn down because of those panels, then NIMBY becomes a factor.

Re:NIMBY isn't in play yet

[WorBlux]

They aren't any worse than any other wiring. Some risk of explosion if you keep a battery bank, but most people on the grid don't bother.

Re:NIMBY isn't in play yet

[Doc Ruby]

They're already practical enough to be statistical, and the statistics indicate extreme safety.

Name a single such incident in the past decade, during which millions of homes have installed solar panels.

Then I'll name a thousand homes burned in that time by their electrical grid connections.

Re:NIMBY isn't in play yet

[Anonymous Coward]

What did I just say in my first post? NIMBY isn't in play yet because there haven't been any incidents.

Your response is "name a single such incident". Are you literate?

Move to a different state

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can just move to any other state where electricity is normally $0.10/kwh or less

Re:Move to a different state

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, because the determining factor of where to live is the electricity pricing.

Common sense

[Targon]

People would not want to have a huge array of solar panels near them, but having solar panels on the roof is fine. Picture a quarter acre worth of solar panels taking up space next door to you to provide power to your neighbor....doesn't seem very attractive, so it lowers the surrounding property values. If your neighbor has solar panels on the roof, that won't generate that negative reaction.

Dual use is the answer

[dbIII]

Just don't have incredibly tall cattle and you won't have any problems with the windmills :)
Yes, there are access roads and gates in fences and all that but it's not really a problem if it's done sensibly.

Re:Dual use is the answer

[MoonBuggy]

I farm giraffes, you insensitive clod.

The Dark Side of Solar

[NicknamesAreStupid]

1) Shake roofs not designed to support the weight and collapse during high winds
2) Solar + Shake roof = roof rats nest, chew through shingles, invade attic
3) Solar + Shake roof = shade and, therefore, mold

All true. Caveat emptor.

Re:The Dark Side of Solar

[Anonymous Coward]

What about composite or metal roofing? do rats eat through those as well?
Where I live it is only the old roofs, those that will need to be replaced soon, that have wood shingles on them.
Where I live it is expensive to have a new wood shingle/shake roof, as there is a requirement to install fire sprinklers as well. Shake roofs are fire hazards where I live, as are the Eucalyptus trees and our dry summers don't help this situation. Maybe they work well in a wetter Climate, but the part of California where I live has wet enough winters that a lot of grass grows quickly, then the dry summers make it a tinder box.

If I add anything to my house, wIll it improve the value of my home, as an investment?
The market value of my house is relative to the specs of other houses in my neighborhood and similar offerings in my town, and what they sold for on any given day.

If I add solar panels to my house to maintain a certain comfort level, and reduce my use of non-renewable energy for the good of all, making the cost of power less expensive for those who are poorer than me, is this so bad? Or is this investing in my community and the humanity and environment that I enjoy?

If there was a coal power plant next to my house, versus a solar (array) power plant, I think that the house with the stinky coal power plant would be worth less, because solar panels don't stink, noisy trains and trucks don't drive passed my house to feed the solar power plant, and not many cars drive by to operate and maintain the solar power plant compared to the coal power plant, and I like less traffic in my neighborhood because I have children that enjoy playing outside, so I would pay more for a house near solar panels.

Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[dbIII]

After all air conditioning is a heat pump. You can buy a very simple fridge to run off the grid with a kerosene fuelled flame to expand the gas and a tub of water as the condenser. Why not use solar thermal to expand the gas?
In places where it costs a fortune to run air conditioning on electricity surely it's worth cutting out the middle step and just get a bit of solar heat to do the work? It's not as if you need a reverse cycle for warming in the tropics and subtropics.
There's plenty of solar thermal hot water systems around for very obvious reasons. This is just one step further which until now has been limited because it's so much more convenient to use electricity. High costs of using electricity remove a lot of that convenience.

Personally I live in an place designed for the subtropics with high ceilings, good airflow and up on stilts so the shaded area underneath keeps the place cool unless it is very hot. That makes A/C usually unnecessary but also completely impractical when it is very hot - a large volume of air and plenty of places for the air to escape rule it out.

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[uninformedLuddite]

Yopu run pipes underground that feed into the house down low and have outlets for hot air up high. Sucks the cool air into the house and works well if done properly.

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[dbIII]

Yes, I know about that one. I was instead thinking in terms of refridgerated air conditioning using solar heat instead of electrically produced heat.

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[uninformedLuddite]

My bad - maybe this is of interest

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[ShakaUVM]

>>In places where it costs a fortune to run air conditioning on electricity

If you install a solar system, what happens is you get energy credits for each kWh you generate, applied against your peak usage first. Since it's nice right now in April, I'm not running the AC at all, and building up a 10kWh credit per day I run the system (a bit less if it's cloudy).

So when summer runs around, I get to cool my house like a polar bear exhibit, and the energy either comes from my panels, or draws excess from the grid, which gets applied against my energy credits I've banked up. When all is said and done, it doesn't cost a fortune to run AC any more.

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[dbIII]

Good to see! I suppose it makes sense that these are industrial sized units because like it would be easier to do with large scales instead of small. I keep thinking of those 1950s kerosene + ammonia fridges and thinking about a residential scale though.
It would be nice to cool server rooms with something like the linked system than having to effectively pay the power bill twice to keep the machines cool. I ended up with a 8C drop in temperature on Thursday night in my workplace server room just by turning off the machines that would not be used over Easter.

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[dbIII]

Yes but that's an artificial mechanism where the power company gives you something back to drive small scale solar adoption so they can pretend they are being green far more easily than if they build something big themselves. If it lasts for a while (and it probably will) you will be laughing. When it stops you've got an AC you can't quite run off the solar you have and it may get expensive again.
Ignoring artificial market forces like the above using thermal solar to drive AC is sounding more inviting - however it's an artificially inflated price for electricity that would make it possible in the first place.
It's easier for the electricity generators to bump up the price and try to shift a token amount of generation capacity to the consumer than it is for them to build enough capacity to properly supply the network. When you think about what they are paying back to those generating solar it's about as much as they would spend on an advertising campaign. However it's nice to be getting the token amount of benefit AND having enough juice to run a few things when the rest of the place is blacked out.
I still tend to think of this stuff in the case of self-sufficient off grid installations because various benefits and handouts vary all over the place. In the next state to me over putting panels on the roof is almost a licence to print money but a change of government means the excessive amount is going to swing all the way back to zero.

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[ShakaUVM]

I thought about going off-grid, but it's not really worth it unless there's a zombie apocalypse or something.

Buying battery backups are very expensive, and there's times when your system isn't generating enough power to run your house at night. Being grid-tied is the way to go, IMO.

I agree that the incentive is only there because California's power situation is fucked up. But to look at it realistically, one has to ask: is there a reasonable chance it'll become un-fucked in the near future?

I don't see it.

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[dbIII]

I thought about going off-grid

Actually I meant it in terms of living out in the middle of nowhere and still having power :)

Re:Why isn't there any solar air conditioning?

[dbIII]

Also when I was in the power industry in the mid 1990s I could look across the ocean at California's power system and laugh at how fucked up it it was. Then my country copied some of the worst bits of it :( However it's probably even more fucked up now than it was in the 1990s and is not going to improve for a while given the financial situation.

Solar Panels Are A Bad Invesment

[Anonymous Coward]

If my memory recollects from what I have read about solar panels, is that within 7 years they need to be replaced. Bad investment. Da? And not very good curb appeal on some homes. Nuclear is the way to go.

Re:Solar Panels Are A Bad Invesment

[uninformedLuddite]

My Panels have warranties 90% of peak efficiency at ten years and 80% at twenty years. Whoever told you seven year replacemnt is full of it.

Re:Solar Panels Are A Bad Invesment

[raygundan]

This is just daft. Off-the-shelf consumer panels typically come with a 25-year warranty guaranteeing at least 80% of their original output at that time. Their useful life is pushing four decades. The *inverter* on the other hand, will probably need to be swapped out somewhere in the 15-year range. They typically have 10 or 12-year warranties. Fortunately, inverters are a small fraction of the system cost.

Costco Solar for $3.55:W

[Doc Ruby]

Costco is now selling solar PV systems including a 5060WDC for $18K, or $3.55:W. $5.50:W increased home value sounds like a good way to nearly double your investment in solar, even before the subsidies cut the cost to $2:W or less, tripling it or better.

Re:Costco Solar for $3.55:W

[Anonymous Coward]

I was looking at the 2.3kW system this weekend. Of the $9000 Costco charges, federal, state and utility incentives cover ~ $7000. So I'd only be out $2k plus installation costs.

Increase value?

[Anonymous Coward]

So does nuclear power plant in your basement.

SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[WindBourne]

Seriously, in the USA, construction has all but died. What is currently going is high-end homes and business (including apartment). What would make sense at this time, would be to require that all new buildings in the lower 49, to have 1/2 or more of monthly HVAC done by Solar PV. Now, that sounds like a lot, but it really is not. What it WILL do is encourage construction firms to increase insulation esp. on windows. In addition, it will encourage builders to move to geothermal heat pumps. The reason is that they are cheap to install up front, but most importantly, they have similar energy requirements winter and summer.
By requiring this, it will also make these places NOT compete against for-closed places. That later part is very important. The reason is that it prevents new homes from competing.

Re:SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[drinkypoo]

There is no point to this unless you also mandate that new homes shall not be pieces of shit. Most homes are built with the absolute minimum framing, tied together loosely with shitty metal plates which fatigue over time by code, then covered in sheet rock made in China from coal plant fly ash which may be contaminated with nuclear particulates (it's happened at least once so far, stuff leaching out of walls and harming people.) They're coated on the outside with chipboard like some shitty wal-mart furniture (it's much fancier material than that, but it's the same idea) and then clad with crappy siding made in the same way. They're roofed over with tar paper shingles guaranteed to degrade in a decade or less. Why bother putting solar panels on top of that? How about a law that says that houses shall be built without PVC and manufactured wood products, which release vast quantities of dioxin when they burn, raising cancer rates downwind for all of us? Instead of code that says that wires MUST be jacketed in PVC.

Re:SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[Stray7Xi]

Uhh no, if the southwest states want to do that, let them. It makes sense there. But there are many states that they'd be more of a liability then of any real value.

Re:SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[Anonymous Coward]

What about states (much of the south) that receive frequent hail? How do the solar panels hold up to that? Replacing shingles is expensive enough, trashing $10k or more in solar panels on every roof every time there is a spring storm sounds like an insurance disaster.

Re:SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[NUMA slashdot]

I live in Missouri, electricity costs $0.08 per KWh, which from reading of folks in CA, is really cheap. Even with our cheap electricity, our houses are heated with Nat. Gas, and Water is heated via Nat. Gas (which is much cheaper / BTu). My electricity usage in the winter is about $100 / month, and my heat gets as high as $180/month. We get real cold here, but then we have a couple months on either side of the coldest and hottest months, where we don't run heat or electricity at all (like now). We do get a good amount of hail, which isn't so bad since I can fix my own roof (and have, many times) which I need to replace the whole roof in the next year or so. And my electricity/gas bills would be considered very high since I live in a 22 year old house of around 4500 square feet. Now onto my point, let's say a minimum Solar installation costs 20k, and takes (likely a very long time around here) to pay off, even with subsidies, etc. Brand new homes are being sold in my area at around $130-$150k, which gets ya about 1800-2100 square feet, with a 'semi' basement. Since they are roughly half the size of mine, I would conservatively offer that they would use half the power/gas that I do, likely averaging $120 a month, maybe even less. Adding a 20k installation is disproportional high cost relative to how cheap new homes are. All for something that the cheap homes (which have an average residency of 6 years) can't justify any savings in.

Re:SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[WindBourne]

False. The reason is that home builders will simply insult more (better insulation, aerogel windows), as well as use geo-thermal heat pumps. And other than Alaska, ALL states will do fine with 1/2 hvac if they minimize their HVAC needs.

Re:SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[WindBourne]

There are a number of panels that hold up just fine to hail. Here in Colorado we get much more hail then you do, and much bigger than anywhere in the south. In fact, it is the only real issue that we have here. Ppl here get all scared about F1s, while since I grew up all around the USA including tornado alley, I only get interested in F3's and above. Most solar panels are covered with a glass designed to resist hail damage, but even if so, then the glass is replaced, not the solar cells.

Re:SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[rhalstead]

And here I just read that new home construction was up substantially. OTOH in the Midland Mi area we really never did see much of a drop in home value.and have had a lot of continuing construction. Most of these homes are well built and in the 300,000 plus range. We live in an older, relatively small home (we're retired with kids grown and don't need a large home). We were going to put in Geo Thermal, but the payback was on the order of 45 years compared to what it currently costs us. Multiple bids all come out within a few dollars. We've reinsulated, installed new thermopane windows with Argon gas fill and added a sun porch that is heated and air conditioned. Geo thermal would save us about 340 dollars per year. and of that about 45 was for air conditioning over our 12 year old gas furnace with central air. Cost of electricity is about 12 cents per KWH with all charges. 20K wouldn't come close on a solar installation that would make us independent. More like 50 K and that's for a small home.. When you look at the pay-back maps Lower Michigan isn't even listed.

Re:SHould be REQUIRED on new homes

[WindBourne]

Actually, you are talking about changing an OLD home. I was talking ONLY about changing NEW homes. With a new home, the payback on geo-thermals is less than 5 years (and that is without subsidies) through the entire lower 49 (my understanding is that even Alaska has quick paybacks on geo-thermal).

Triple pane low-E argon Thermopane is the current high-end standard on new homes, however, they still have 5-7x the loss of a aerogel window.

When it comes to older homes, you have probably done all that really can be done economically. What I am suggesting is to get NEW homes up to high standards so that they do not compete with older homes like yours. Basically, we do not need/want a race to the bottom.

Electricity in the USA is way too cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

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

You're right.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, since I looked into it. The ROI on solar was less than 1%, it could not work economically.

And of course, in 20-25 years the equipment is work out, so you have to shell out again.

Also, potentially home buyers hate complexity. Even a pool, which is low-tech and well understood, people will complain about houses with pools because "they're so much work" (they're not).

I note the study is done in California at Berkley, which is known for its very "liberal" way of thinking. So this study is from people who would put the best light on the situation.

The cost of solar systems needs to drop by 2/3's and efficiencies double before it will make much sense. Today, it barely makes sense with huge taxpayer incentives.

wow

[WindBourne]

You are really clueless about construction techniques here.
First off, back in katrina, we DID import some dry wall from China. We all know how that has gone. However, we stopped importing that LONG again. In addition, nearly all of it went into re-building katrina homes, not new construction.
My outside of the house is James Hardie concrete impregnanted board. TO drill through it, you need a diamond bit
plywood on the outside, not chipboard.
shingles, yes, though, I want to convert to metal when we get hit by a hail storm.
Minimum framing? 2x6 in mine. And I DEFINITELY want the metal places
Where do you live that you think that places are built that way? I live in Colorado (not an expensive place; $350-450K is the range for this neighborhood), and the average home is not built the way that you describe. However, they also do not go overboard. Engineering is such that these homes are DESIGNED and built to last 100 years plus.
But it sounds like you live in texas or Florida (both are notorious for cheap cheap cheap homes).

And the reason for the solar it because it forces homes to be upgraded, OR for many more solar panels to be installed. The builder will prefer the upgrade. So, will the home owner.

Re:wow

[drinkypoo]

I'm glad YOUR house is being built well. That's nice. In at least California, Nevada, and Texas, houses are built the way I described; I haven't really seen the guts of anything out of these states. I have it on good authority from a variety of builders that early every house ever built in a subdivision, which constitute the majority of new home construction, is built this shitty, regardless of state.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Every state has different issues. Florida, Texas, Nevada, and California have been trading high salaries for much lower ones. The reason is that these states have encouraged illegal aliens to come in and drop the local salary average. With that, home buyers can only afford less and less. Likewise, Florida, Texas, and California are constantly hit by redevelopment as well as large number of natural disasters (hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, mud slides, and earthquakes) which means that homes there have much shorter lifetime than other locations. Colorado is now being invaded by illegal aliens as well as Texans and Californians, so their salaries are going to drop and they will likely move towards the same cheap homes. The OP will likely lose his(her) house value over the next 5-10 years. As such, new homes there will adopt your housing techniques until the illegal issue is solved.

You miss the point

[WindBourne]

First off, the 20K is for solar installs of existing homes that are trying to cover all of their electricity usage. I am speaking of NEW homes in which they are designed in. By requiring a builder to have solar for 1/2 HVAC, the builder will have to make a choice. Either spend the money on about 15K of solar, OR spend it to better insulate their homes and then use either a air heat pump or a ground based one. The reason for the insulation is easy to see. better insulation, less costs. Aerogel windows are expensive, but will double the insulation value of the best triple pane windows out there (which are even more expensive and heavy). A ground source heat pump on a NEW install is about 2-4 K above and beyond installing a gas furnace AND AC. However, it will use a fraction of the energy that an AC would. Missouri and Tennese are funny places. They are ones that can actually do air based heat pumps VERY cheaply (you do not suffer temp extremes), while most others can not.

In addition, keep in mind that 13% of our homes are unoccupied. Why? Because banks are sitting on foreclosures. Yes, 13%. Huge amount (better than china; they are thought to be sitting on 1/3 and about equal to EU and UK). In the USA, construction has come to a relative standstill. It is still going on, but not that much. It is higher-end and business. Now, if ppl start building low-end homes, then those banks will have ZERO CHOICE but to dump the foreclosures on the market. Do you have any idea what will happen to your house value? You will not be able to MOVE IT. Not for the next decade. Not even if you wanted to.

However, if we use this time to build BETTER HOMES, then the foreclosed homes can be released over time, as they will keep their value. In addition, many Americans will like picking up homes that have energy bills of $15-$40/month.

BTW, as to energy prices, some ppl get upset about all sorts of things. Your .08 is about 1/2 of top price which is east coast. CA is around .13/KW.

Added Value? Not here!

[rhalstead]

They have made the installation of solar panels and wind generators illegal in our township...At least fot he time being.

Forcing technology

[rhalstead]

Technology can be forced by infusing tremendous amounts of money, but it progresses most efficiently at its own pace, neither hindered no forced. Either way ends up making it cost more in the long run. Subsidies have to come from some where and there is really only one source. As the rich 5% already pay over 50% of taxes and half the population pays no taxes that only leaves the working man and woman. It really sounds good when "they say" say, spread the wealth around, but there is really little wealth to spread, particularly when You see now much the country is already going into debt. Solar might be the answer to CO2 free energy, but it is far from being pollution free. I worked in the industry for 3 decades and I can say for sure that no state of the production from raw materials to finished devices is pollution free, while the actual generation of the cells has a great deal of pollution. BUT as one example, in the years I was involved with the materials end of the system I saw the requirement for a huge tank farm of liquid H2 and a truck a day topping off the tanks go to a single little tank that lasts for many, many weeks while the production went from a few tons of poly crystalline Silicon per year to thousands of tons AND the price of a multi pass single crystal went from 165 dollars a gram to a few dollars per kilo for poly crystal of a higher purity. I saw huge changes in the industry when sawing technology was able to cut the loss in half almost bankrupt many in the business. By making saw blades only half as thick they immediately doubled the production at no extra cost and this was long ago. However even with thin film tech, PV solar is still expensive due to the cost of installation. Add to the physical cost, a patchwork of regulations specific to locals within regions and huge differences in output between regions. We are, or have reached the point where the installation is the major portion of the installation cost. New constructions techniques where "solar shingles" are integrated into new construction, or retrofit into the time when homes have to be reshingled. Prices are coming down and drastically, BUT IF you want a fully PV solar home it's still going to cost close to 50,000 dollars. A combination of approaches, efficient constructions, efficient insulation, efficient windows, efficient heating and cooling. All of these combined can and do produce energy neutral homes even up here in the frozen North at a medium premium in construction. Energy neutral is a far cry from independence from the mains. What some call independence many of us would not be willing to accept. *HOWEVER* we are headed in that direction, as long as no one gets carried away and tries to force the technology it will come at a relatively reasonable price. Here in Lower MI we have 3 huge wind farms coming on line and the grid structure is already in place to handle the power, unlike many places in the country. We need to get away from subsidies and that applies to both coal and crude as well; which are highly subsidized. We need to get away from alcohol subsidies which are taking land used for food production for fuel instead. That raises the cost of food. Last winter I read a study that showed each gallon of alcohol that is relatively inexpensive costs over 10 dollars in subsidies. Yes at present we have lots of cheap and abundant coal, some of which is actually good anthracite coal along with lots of bituminous or soft coal with high sulfur content. China is moving away from coal even with all the new plants they are bringing on line. Still, both China and India are going to need LOTS of coal and crude. With each having more college educated middle class within about a decade than there are people in the US (man woman and child) resources are going to become both scarce and expensive. 5.00 gas this summer and 6.00 within a year or two. If Soros has his way and the US dollar is no longer the the world standard those prices will look cheap! Don't forget too, that every dollar the treasury prints (real or electronically) the value of our dollars and what they can purchase goes down which is only one of the many reasons for the current high price of crude and gas. It just isn't as simple as many believe.

Re:Forcing technology

[Americium]

Well said, even with the lack of paragraphs. Each time the dollar loses value the poor and middle class suffer the most, if only they would understand that their demand for government spending is what's destroying their wealth and wages.

But just look at global solar production, it's been on a beautifully smooth exponential path for the last 20 years (see Kurzweil), and now that nano tech is starting to come online, we should see that only accelerate, and the pollution will continue from production will only decrease as you pointed out. Even if it just stays on the current trajectory we will be 100% solar within 16 years. Solar is the future, wind and tidal can never produce enough power in any meaningful way, although Wind farms are pretty to look at, so they have aesthetic value that shouldn't be ignored.

Thats Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for homes sold in California. That does not translate to homes sold elsewhere. Don't drop $50k into adding solar panels if you live in Canada or the Northern States, it won't do squat to increasing your home value as you cannot save enough money to make it worthwhile for the (short) life the panels will last.

Australia != California

[Benfea]

Californians pay more than twice what you pay during peak summer hours (which would be precisely when those solar panels would be generating the most electricity).