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Prospects Darken For Solar Energy Companies
Hugh Pickens writes "Although global demand for solar power is still growing — about 8% more solar panels will be installed this year compared with 2010 — bankruptcies, plummeting stock prices and crushing debt loads are calling into question the viability of the solar energy industry that since the 1970s has been counted on to advance the world into a new energy age. Only a handful of manufacturers are now profitable in the face of too much capacity, which has contributed to a plunge in prices as government subsidies have been curbed. Prices for solar panels started 2011 near $1.60 per watt, but a buildup of inventory forced manufacturers into a fire sale toward the end of the second quarter that has pushed prices to near $1 per watt now. 'The prices that we're seeing today are likely not covering manufacturing costs in many cases,' says Ralph Romero. With at least seven solar-panel manufacturers filing for bankruptcy or insolvency in the last several months and six of the 10 largest publicly traded companies making solar components reporting losses in the third quarter, public-market investors are punishing the solar sector, sending shares down nearly 57% this year. Although winners are expected to emerge eventually, the question is how much more carnage there will be before that happens. 'The fact of the matter is, nobody really knows which solar companies will be pushed out of business or be forced to merge,' writes industry analyst Rodolfo Avalos. 'Nobody also knows how long it will take for the solar industry to improve even when the forecasted solar global demand for the next 5-10 years is quite promising.'"
The summary does not mention the actual need for prices on solar panels to drop to make them more viable, only on the economic repercusions of the shift in the market.
I thought to myself one day that this was one of the necessary evils or events in a free market economy, prices must shift and therefore allow more efficient companies and technologies to emerge. Any real change requires chaos.
You wanted change? Here you've got it.
What keeps the solar power industry from taking off is not the market. It's the subsidies that keep fossil fuels artificially cheap.
Subsidies like spending a trillion dollars to keep military control of producing countries, like fucking up the planet for the future generations, and so on.
Only if we allow it to. Right now it can not, because the prices are being manipulated by government subsidy. Not just the solar energy prices, but those of coal, nuclear, and wind as well.
It is a lesson we continually fail to learn: Industries built on government subsidy suffer when those subsidies begin to go away, even if the product itself is sound.
These guys need to make something people want.
How is this a long term bad thing? Either the industry will come up with an idea that will allow a marketable solar power system sans subsidies and thus thrive, or it will die and we can move on to the next idea instead of wasting engineering hours on a failed/NRFPT energy source. In either case we win.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Companies going bankrupt is the invisible hand of the free market, they overproduced and stockpiled, based of forecasted growth, the real shame here is the closing line of the summery showing how we never really want to learn, saying demand is looking good for the next 5-10 years, their are no certain bets.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
That's exactly what's happening. There are too many vendors trying to sell solar panels and not enough customers to keep them in business, so they're going belly-up. Profit and loss is how you know whether people want you to keep doing what you're doing.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Recall the workstation industry in the late 80s and early 90s?
Many companies, many failures, a few survivors.
Couple that with the suck economy, and anyone who guessed wrong on the timing of the recovery, is in a tricky place.
Yesterday Iran threatened to stop the flow of oil in response to new sanctions being floated by the US. Who wants to predict how that would affect solar? Also, what effect is the explosion of shale oil operations in the US having on technologies like solar?
------ Tim O'Brien
The enemy of solar power is not oil but gas and coal. A very small percentage of electricity fed into the grid is from oil. Mostly from peaking plants
This is why you subsidize research, not production.
I, as the consumer, don't really care about the solar energy market (as a citizen and an environmentalist, I do). I care about longevity, installation, viability, and overall cost. And I know little about those things, even though I am really interested in solar energy (and am probably solar's target market).
My options are the Internet, which isn't incredibly reliable for something which is somewhat location specific, or spending hours and hours of my time to gain this information from local contractors.
Its important to remember that photovoltaic technology is not the the sum total of solar energy. In many ways concentrated solar much more applicable to the industry when discussing competition between solar, natural gas, coal, and nuclear. These power plants exist and are being built in the western US as we speak, although some subsidies are still required to make it competitive with coal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power (wiki)
China flooding the market, specifically to destroy the competition IMHO, is just half the story. How are people supposed to buy solar panels for the house when they are not even able to make the house payments. Small business owners aren't going to throw up panels any time soon. They rent. Renters aren't going to put up solar panels, their customers are going out of business left and right. Manufacturers with large plants are too busy deciding if they are going to relocate. China needs to learn to let other people make money. A customer base requires someone has an income.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Don't worry, I'm sure the invisible hand of the free market will step in and all will be OK.
That would be true if there weren't actors like China distorting prices in the market by dumping government-subsidized-manufacturing-produced solar panels on the market at below-cost rates in order to destroy foreign competition.
Free markets only work where there is a fair market. When governments step in to "tip the scales" in order to influence the market, there is no "free market". Same thing applies with Capitalism. As can be seen with the US, when the government steps in to prop up certain businesses and tear down others in an effort to engineer certain outcomes and societal directions, the result is not Capitalism, it's "Crony Capitalism", and that hasn't worked out so well for US citizens.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The sad thing is that everytime I bring up this massive scandal of enormeous proportions, I only get a shrug or something like "it's always been that way" as a response.
But in fact, Richard Nixon was impeached for far less and while certainly there was corruption before it seems to have gotten out of hand with the Bush/Obama bailouts.
When the cost of solar energy becomes cheaper than the cost of (fill-in-the-blank) it will take off. It's as simple as that.
Only if we allow it to. Right now it can not, because the prices are being manipulated by government subsidy. Not just the solar energy prices, but those of coal, nuclear, and wind as well.
It is a lesson we continually fail to learn: Industries built on government subsidy suffer when those subsidies begin to go away, even if the product itself is sound.
B-b-b-but isn't MORE government control the solution to that?!?!?!
(Yeah, it's sarcasm for the "government-can-fix-ANYTHING" slashtards...)
The invisible hand of the free market has a second name, it's W-I-N-D P-O-W-E-R
Wind turbines are mechanical, sturdy looking, and people can easily grasp how they function. Solar, on the other hand is some sort of expensive, brittle black crystal stuff and - DON'T TOUCH IT YOU'LL BREAK IT - sort of fragile looking. And you want to put them outside in the weather with hail and stuff? Are you crazy? How does it work? You set it out in the sun and magical eco-elves fart out power or something.
People like to invest in things that don't seem completely like magic and are primarily featured in hippie movies about solar powered car races (I love you solar powered car racers, but you kind of make the whole industry look goofy). Wind turbines are a lot easier to sell to investors.
moox. for a new generation.
which has contributed to a plunge in prices as government subsidies have been curbed
Corn costs more to produce than we (or ethanol manufacturers) pay for it.
Coal power has higher costs than we see.
This is all because of government subsidsy. In the case of corn it keeps the price of corn artificially low and the farmer paid. The problem now is that many subsidies have outlived their usefulness but continue own because of the political clout of the companies/groups recieving them, and right now, the government has little or no money to subsidize other things. To me at least, it would make sense to subsideize a promising technolgy and give it a boost, instead we always cut the new guy, while the old belchers with the power, clout, and money (having extra saved from subsidies helps) get paid.
Silence is a state of mime.
Look, I WANT solar power on my home. I have a good location South facing, near full time sun during the day, am tech oriented, and I'm not dirt poor! I get HomePower magazine, I track the technology, I'm a buyer looking to do this.
So why don't I have it? Because my home like so many others is upside down and the cost of a solar install of decent size is looking like $30K or more which will be saving me something like $150 a month on my electric bill. How exactly does THAT make sense? Prices are down per watt? You could've fooled me! The price of raw cells on the wholesale market may have dropped some but the installed price is in the stratosphere IF you can even find a company local to you willing to do it.
There's a company near me advertising solar LEASING like crazy. They install and maintain the system and you pay them a monthly fee that's lower than your existing electric bill. Now this sounded possibly interesting despite my trepidation about anything that says "lease". I tried to sign up for an estimate - they don't service my area! Say what?! These guys are putting out printed ads and radio like mad here and then won't take my money? Kripes it's like trying to get high speed internet all over again! SolarCity -> asshats!
Now I know that my area isn't big on subsidies and it's also not someplace like Fla. where the sun roasts anything not moving but there's good potential in my site just no damned affordable way to do it no matter how much these guys claim to have reduced cost. Certainly installing solar makes huge sense in many ways but if the pricing is going to be $30K per house in a market where people are $40K upside down or more with a payoff measured in decades I think the reasons why few are buying are pretty damned clear! The local and federal Govt subsidies need to crank up, this is infrastructure we're talking about and it needs to be supported IMO. This is the technology that can take loads off our grid, why isn't there any incentive to go for it?
P.S. My neighbors just had to cut down all of their trees that used to shade the front of my home during parts of the day. It was awful but I now have no obstructions and full exposure but cannot take advantage of it. This sucks!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
the subject seems to imply that there's a panel manufacturing problem. In reality, there's a "new economic policy" problem: practically all the demand is government issued, and the private sector has been sucked up in the maelstrom. As in the original plan, I expect a full nationalization will ensue, on economic grounds
Here in Italy, solar has been heavily pushed via two mechanisms: one is that via tax rebates, building a solar plant is incentivized. the second is that ALL the energy produced is retired by the grid at a heavily increased price, and the increased price is then passed on to the consumers via the electricity bill. Private use is incentivised even more, since there's a counter at thee production level: a user/producer gets paid the higher price on all production, and pays his consumption at the lower general level. It goes without saying that this is a much bigger incentive than using a "net" mechanism, by which only the excess energy produced over consumption gets paid.
The necessary build of conventional energy plants to guarantee continous production is done by the general electric utilities, and spread on the bills accordingly. The construction boom has been huge.
The rationale behind my saying that this will all end up in public hands is that most of the "industrial" establishment of solar plant has been funded by banks, with little money coming out of the equity investors' purse. An uncontrolled shrinkage of the incentive schemes would cause a big banking problem; helping the banks is not considered the thing now; and taxing Joe Public to give money to people who could convince banks to sink millions into a tax haven is a problem too, so nothing like a giant nationalization of the existing plants would work.
Would it help the First Solars of the world? nooooo, because as much as public servants love to spend other people's money, many other investments are more profitable even on a CO2 standpoint. in less than 10 years, the city where I live has become the first in district heating in Europe; the local utility built, in less than three years, a combined gas and steam plant that by selling surplus heat in winter reaches an efficiency of 85%.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Subsidies distort the market and are, let's be honest, just a way for corrupt politicians to use our money to pay off their big supporters. Funny how so many of those companies going bankrupt were big Obama supporters... and got juicy loan guarantees.
I'll be straight with y'all: no political party or politician is smart enough to properly apply a subsidy even if they do it from the noblest of motives. We need to remove the ability of our government to do it in any fashion and we'll all be better off.
/// Not a super-genius . . . yet. ///
It shouldn't be a surprise that prospects darken for those corporations.
Solar power just isn't viable without energy storage on a large scale. Without that, it only works as a supplement to a reliable power supply that has already been established, shaving a few percent off the fuel usage before causing serious trouble. (On the order of 3-5%, at which point it makes up some 30-50% of peak power demand.)
...like the early automobile industry. Many companies spend money innovating, and advancing the technology as a hole, and most end up going under. The few left end up monster international corporations who build crap we don't want.
Congress has ended the corn ethanol subsidy. Alternate energy is in for a bumpy ride. Unconventional oil and gas are coming on line. They will bring down the price of energy generally and make it hard for alternate energies to compete.
The other thing is that we will be energy self-sufficient with shale oil and shale gas. One of the pushes for alternate energy was that it helped us avoid importing energy from people who hate us. That reason won't work any more.
There's lots of assumptions and suppositions going on in this thread, but a notable fact its the continued use of falsely low pricing.
At $1 per watt, solar photovoltaic(PV) panels are considerably cheaper that most utility electrical costs. This would make them an excellent investment and would drive great, far greater than anything we've seen so far, demand for PV panels. The demand would be there even without government subsidies.
But, the reality is that PV panel pricing is nearly triple the actual market price for PV panels. Most reasonably efficient panels run $2.50 to $3.00 per watt. That makes them an expensive proposition, even with government subsidies. Thus the market has decided that they are still not worth it. I myself am ready to drop $30,000 on a PV panel array as soon as the ten year price per watt reaches parity with grid pricing. Until then, solar is out of the question.
Fark wrote the headline in a more humorous fashion, "Iran threatens to sink own navy if its demands aren't met".
Someone else pointed out that the biggest competitor to solar is Coal - the magic point where solar is cheaper than coal is around $1 per watt - keep in mind that the US of fuckin' A is the "Saudi Arabia of Coal". Yep, that would really drive up global oil prices, but the US has been a net exporter of oil now for about 6-8 months, yes, net-exporter of oil, and we have enough coal reserves to power our country for the next 300 years. Until you can power cars and farm equipment with solar, I don't think the price of oil (mainly transportation & chemical mfg) is going to effect solar tremendously. Gold star for keeping up on world news though.
moox. for a new generation.
Wouldn't it be great if the Solar Panel industry was able to succeed or fail based on the merits and the value of thier products, not be tossed about by the whims of politicians who shovel money into anything that looks "green" wihen they are up for re-election? The politicians, desperate to curry favor with certain constituant groups tosses obscene amounts of money into companies with trivial advancements.
The Government builds up manufacturing capacity with grants and low-cost, gov't backed loans, then they subsidise the purchase of solar panels by end-users to create demand for the panels, then they force utilities to pay well above market rates for whatever power the solar panel owner pumps into the electric grid, without allowing the utility the ability to manage the flow of electricity onto their grid.
And what is the argument for investing ever more money into the solar panel industry? We have to keep up with "threat" of China's investments in their solar panel industry. Here's the problem - first off, solar panels are on their way to being a commodity, and China excells in that space (manufacturing commodity items), second, China has the money to invest in these projects we don't (we perversely are borrowing the money fo fuel our "green initiatives" from China!).
Solyndra was in the $3/watt solar panel business when the industry was going from $2.50 -> $1.60 -> as low as $1/watt solar panels now - Gov't shouldn't be in the business of investing in businesses it subsidies and regulates - it has the ability to create a false market, subject to the political needs of elected officials, not and real demand on the part of the consumer.
Ken
The real issue is that the price of panels has been driven down by the Chinese dumping (selling at a loss) of panels. Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/dumping_is_such_a_harsh_word
Even without dumping, the US industry required subsidies to compete. And now the Chinese are selling them at a loss? Of course this doesn't work. Congress should impose a duty on imported panels on a sliding scale to compensate, but this would be assailed as anti-free-trade.
The problem is simple, the free market has been corrupted.
Government subsidies decreased the costs to these companies so they could produce more product for lower price. However not all companies can get the same subsidies so they are forced to compete with some companies who have the ability to sell more for less, increase supply thus creating a situation where other companies need to sell at a loss as well there isn't that high of demand to allow these companies to invest into more efficient production methods. Thus they go out of business because they don't make money.
"If you build it then they will come", is not an economic principal. A lot of people have been burned by green energy, my father put up a wind turbine (on top of windy mountain) that cost him $20k and he saves $20 a month on his power bill. Other forms of green energy like Geothermal seems to only have a marginal effect. People who have tried going green with big investments have gotten burned. So with solar energy no one really believes the claims on how much they will really save because the green energy market has lied to the public too many times to try to sell their goods.
Solar Panels will need to improve more to a point where their price justifies their cost. Not lower the price where their price justifies their performance, because this method sounds like they are dumping junk on us.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Don't worry, I'm sure the invisible hand of the free market will step in and all will be OK.
That's exactly what's happening.
The solar power industry's entirely dependent on subsidies. Solar power doesn't make any sense on an economic basis and the people who think solar power's the next step in power generation can't change that so they've thrown in with commercial interests, which are perfectly happy to take government money while it flows, in the hopes that those subsidies will "prime the pump".
But even government subsidies have an upper limit and that limit's clearly been reached. Now the "invisible hand", having been thwarted by those subsidies, is going about the business of setting things right by putting an end to companies that offer products not for their economic value but for their narcissistic value.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Actually, gas and coal do not power UPS/fedex/USPO/semi-trailer trucks, or pacific ocean container ships. Both for the end user delivery and delivering raw-ish materials to the manufacturers.
Try going to a solar panel distributor and ordering a bunch of panels, made in the US or china doesn't matter, the shipping cost of sending a truck out to you full of delicate glass is really quite high.
I'm told that on islands almost all electricity is generated from stationary diesels. In the continental US it doesn't matter, but I could imagine the price of diesel has a big effect on sales on the Hawaiian Islands, which coincidentally probably get a lot more sunlight than seattle anyway.
If oil spiked, the demand for installed panels would be extremely high, but the UPS cost of delivery would probably rise to a multiple of the cost of the panels, its very unclear if this would improve or destroy overall system economic budget numbers. The explosive inflation rate that results would also modify the cost of competitive energy sources... If the coal miners literally cannot afford to drive to work unless you triple their pay, then coals going up in price (probably by a bit less than triple, but...)
Shale oil is a great way to burn nine barrels of high grade crude to produce around ten, plus or minus five, barrels of low grade crude. The EROEI is not that awesome. Its right up there with turning diesel oil into corn into corn oil into biodiesel, or the corn ethanol cycle, lots of arguments about it being microscopically net positive or microscopically net negative cycle, but everyone agrees its right around 1:1 so its pretty irrelevant in the big picture. Also Shale oil needs a lot of water to process, and it seems stereotypically to be located right where there is no water available, changing it from a lack of oil problem to a lack of water problem. If only there were shale oil deposits in the great lakes, or new orleans, then it would be all good, but it always seems to be in a desert or under a glacier or something, almost like a supernatural being put it there just to frustrate us. (yeah I know a glacier has plenty of water, but being a glacier, the water in the plant wants to freeze in the pipes, so its a big problem...)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Solar energy can beused in a variety of ways, panels are only one of them. While panels are receiving tremendous hype lately, the fact is that they are the least effective way. Solar plants have double the efficiency of panels, and are cheaper as they only need ordinary mirrors. For individuals, using a solar collector for heating is much cheaper and saves more energy. And while solar panels could be useful on vehicles, they are too weak for that. Solar panels are dying for a reason.
This is a company problem. The industry is healthier than ever, with fierce competition pushing technological advances at break necking speeds. There are many, many companies that were depending on subsidizes to survive, but now more and more geographic areas no longer need to be subsidized for solar to make sense. The winners at this point seem to be Chinese manufacturers and innovative firms like First Solar. All companies will temporarily take a hit until the losers disappear, but once that happens, the winners take all (at a non-subsidized price point).
Didn't we see something similar happen in the PC industry when it was just getting started?
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
This!
China seems to have a model they use to undercut us on manufacting. They start out cheap and with massive government assistance. Once our companies go under they move up a bit and make some profits. Plus their workers are often treated like fodder.
This is where tariffs are supposed to be used to compensate for the government subsidies. The fact its not being done suggests some US politicians are being bought by Chinese interests.
for the failed, or failing companies. Just like Global Crossing failure doomed the internet.
$1 per Watt?
Here's my dollar - I'd like that Watt until the heat death of the universe, and beyond.
You don't think you should be measuring energy in terms of energy, rather than power?
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
It hasn't worked out well for a lot of citizens across the world. Take Africa for example. The US gives tons of aid and free food, and the local farmers can't compete with the free food, so they go out of business. The gov't needs to learn to stay the hell out of the way.
I live in a sub-division where the Home Owners Association does not allow solar panels to be installed. The world could completely run out of fossil fuels, and the only hope is solar/wind/geothermal/etc., and all these idiots care about is resale value. Personally, I believe "free" energy would be a perk when it comes to selling a home.
The US electrical grid is woefully out of date. It is not designed to accept electricity from many point suppliers.
Germans and Europe in general are moving the direction of a smart grid technologies which will enable them to squeeze inefficiency at the consumer level by market driven inducements. For example, the power company ask you to use less energy than regular while washing clothes and they will give you a better rate. You say "sure" and the signal is given to your "smart" wash machine to curtail wash rinse and spin cycles. Furthermore, the European grids will be able to make use of every roof top as a point producer. America does not have this capability but will have to gain it sooner or later.
The problem you described sounds like an opportunity for someone to create a company which will pay to install a solar panel on a homeowners' roof, but the panels remain the property of the company, while the homeowner pays an electric bill to the solar panel company.
Sort of a "solar utility company". Now, you say, you'd like to get away from "the electric company" - isn't that the point of solar panels? Well, if the choice is between the local utility monopoly, or a solar utility company, and if the solar utility company can sell you power at a cheaper cost than the local monopoly (a *big* IF, I realize, but at $1/watt, it might be possible).
For this idea to work the solar "utilitly" would need the ability to get a feed-in-tariff on selling power back to the local grid - that way, the solar panels could continue to make money even if the home is vacant because of foreclosure.
According to everybody there was just a gigantic demand for electric cars and people would be fighting to buy them if only somebody would build one proper. So GM builds one. Turns out 99% of the people who'd talk all day about what they would buy, in actuality won't buy.
The harsh reality is that anytime a government payout is involved, companies and organizations will emerge whose entire raison d'être is to exploit those payouts. A lot of those solar companies included big government subsidies in their business plans, and most of them knew damn well that they couldn't possibly be profitable without them. Another subset (and I *hope* it's just a subset) were likely straight-out hustlers looking to quietly pad their individual pockets with a Uncle Sucker's payout and then declare bankruptcy. The latter are companies where the CEO and top managers drew huge salaries and little in the way of actual production ever got done.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
New York City is home to 8,175,133 people as of 2011. It uses 64,500 gigawatt-hours of energy per year. Using a standard industrial solar panel (ex Trina Solar 230) which produces 5750 watts (assuming constant supply 5.75 kWh) with a base area of 17.6 sq feet and costs $360. To power NYC it would take 11.2 trillion panels taking up an area of 7081 square miles of solar panels, at a cost that of $500,000,000 per NYC resident.
NYC is also one of the most energy efficient cities in the US. Other cities would require a lot more panels. This also does not account for the need of storage batteries, energy transmission loss, and power loss to material degradation (dusty solar panels), life-cycle (panels last about 20 years), or the fact that during the night there will be no energy production.
I go over these figures every few years and it just does not appear that this is a viable solution. It would be *nice* to use solar panels but if it is not realistic the solar panel industry will never thrive. Where would we fit all of these solar panels, and where would we find the money?
The biggest subsidy coal gets is not charging coal powered plants for my asthma treatment. Unfortunately that's never going to happen.
How are people supposed to buy solar panels for the house when they are not even able to make the house payments.
Was that a question? It's hard to tell.
If you had bought a house that you could actually afford, instead of buying the biggest house you could get a loan for, you would be able to afford those solar panels. I make about US$84,000/year and live in a house that cost under $150,000. If I had listened to the lenders, I would be in over my eyeballs in a US$500,000+ house. If you want to occupy something, forget Wall Street; try occupying a home that is within your means.
Since I live well within my means, I'm always taking on home improvement projects that I otherwise wouldn't be able to afford. Not because the house is broken down and needs repair, but because I feel like putting in a large second story deck off of the kitchen, or a big workshop out back, or solar panels!
You also have to look at costs of developing solar power. Here in the US, IP has to be respected, so a new product has to be pushed through a labyrinth of avoiding or licensing patents.
China doesn't have that problem. About 6-12 months ago, there were /. articles about Chinese intrusions into US solar company machines. That technology is theirs now, and they don't have to abide by any IP rights.
So, because the cost of development is next to nothing due to IP infringement, combined with the fact that they have actual production capacity, it is trivial for them to make solar cells far less than the competition. It is even more trivial for them to dump the panels far less than cost to shutter the nascent US solar industry.
What does this gain China? Three major strategic victories:
1: Without a solar industry that might start an alternative energy boom, the US economy stays flaccid. This ensures fewer resources for US interests. Though this might slightly hurt Chinese interests, they can at any time let their currency float free, especially once oil stops being traded in dollars.
2: Actively denying the US cheap solar/wind locks the US and Europe into oil and coal, which means they have to continue dealing with the Middle East. Notice that every single port along the African coast that is of any importance now has an unstable government? China is extremely good at providing aid and comfort to enemies of the West, and has been since the days of the Korean conflict. Iran is looking at blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and while the US and Europe duke it out with Iran, China isn't fettered by oil as much -- they have sweetheart deals in Iran, Iraq, and other places. To boot, while the US is dealing with no nuclear power plants, China is having a boom of clean energy due to new designs. This is a core strategic advantage right here.
3: It ensures that another manufacturing technology only resides in China. The US has lost a lot of its manufacturing capabilities to the point where the semiconductor fabs on this side of the pond are just too obsolete to produce mainstream chips. Yes, Samsung has a plant, but what about x86 chips? RAM HDD controllers? Those all come from overseas.
It is obvious from an observer what the heck is going on. China is good at providing arms and support to enemy states. Combine that with its unparalled mode of industrial espionage and the anti-nuke lobby (which is pretty much a shill), and then when you see China actively kill a nascent US industry by theft and predatory pricing you can start to see what their strategy is.
The bad thing is that Congress has broken their Constitutional oath of office. Other times in history, we have seen dumping of goods, with Congress imposing tariffs to stop the practices. Now, Congress refuses to adhere to their duty and protect US interests against an overseas aggressor just because of basic partisan lines (solar == liberal/Commie/socialist, oil/gas/coal == the American way.)
Fossil fuels generate pollution and green house gases. Who pays for that cost? Not the producers but the public. Economically speaking, that is a subsidy.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
You don't think you should be measuring energy in terms of energy, rather than power?
Nope. The units actually used in the electrical power business are around $1000/KW.
So a GW class plant probably costs about a gigadollar to build, from "thinkin' bout it" to putting it on the grid.
Yes I'm well aware that the capex of a coal plant is well under $1000/KW (or at least, it used to be?) however for solar, the fuel cost and endless maint cost is quite a bit lower, not to mention the ongoing labor cost which for a truly big solar plant basically rounds down to zero, although a coal plant employes a small, highly trained (=expensive) army. Then you get costs like site security, which is pretty much zilch for windmills vs quite a bit ongoing at a nuke plant.
I fully realize its sloppy accounting to only talk about capital cost per installed capacity, instead of factoring in capital costs, labor costs, financial costs, etc, but its a long term tradition in the power biz to only talk about capex and then fudge the numbers when making comparisons across different technologies.
I've been a utilities stockholder and investor for over a 1/4 century, I've read more annual reports than I can count, etc etc. I've pretty much been on autopilot for a couple years so I don't have current numbers to pull out of my hat, but the $1000/KW number "feels about right"
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It was the very visible hand of government intervention that got them in trouble in the first place.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Which is basically anything at all as long as it involves buying large quantities of:
1. micro organisms (yeast).
2. Large vessels.
3. Energy to keep it all warm.
If someone is subsidising their countries product X, everyone else is better placing product X on an import duty roster cancelling the subsidy.
Otherwise you are taking money from people who need it and giving to those who don't.
Deleted
No, the lesson we refuse to learn is not that "gubment subsidy baaad mmmkayy!" It is that government subsidy needs to be A) predictable over the next decade and B) taper off gradually.
To the extent that the nations have done so, the intended stimulation of the solar industry has worked. Where they have pulled the rug out fast and early, they've caused uncertainty in the investment market. Sometimes intentionally, I would conjecture, given the rhetoric many of those responsible for policy are spouting and the incestuous relationships with established energy sectors many of them have.
Note, though, that a bunch of companies going bankrupt when a sector transitions from its initial phase to the established industry phase is well recognized by economists to be normal, with or without government subsidies. There really is basically nothing unusual to see here, just some trade rag journalists trying to keep their readers subscribed through exaggeration.
Someone had to do it.
Exactly, there is a difference between aid and investment. Dumping below cost products, which is what "aid" usually amounts to, is highly destructive to those being "helped". Much better would be to invest in infrastructure, education, or to provide loans for farmers. But doing the latter actually helps nations getting out of poverty, and therefore from out of the yoke of rich nations. Since rich nations obviously have an interest in keeping the status quo, there is little actual help.
It is a lesson we continually fail to learn: Industries built on government subsidy suffer when those subsidies begin to go away, even if the product itself is sound.
The lesson "we" continually fail to learn is that not everything is a vindication of one's favorite economic-religious theory. Every time there is an increase in demand for something, investments pour into the relevant industries far in excess of that demand, and most of those ventures fail before a handful of them succeed and become the dominant players. There's nothing magical about either the market or subsidies. Subsidies are just market forces, like weather influencing crop prices or international trade policy influencing imports and exports. The theoretical free market in which prices are not "manipulated" does not and cannot exist in the real world because it is ultimately based on human beings, and humans manipulate everything they can. It doesn't matter whether the influx of cash comes from subsidies or sales: companies benefit while the cash flows in, and they suffer when it stops flowing. Money is money.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Solar power doesn't make any sense on an economic basis
Citation needed. Something not from the 20th century.
Someone had to do it.
It will, and China will produce the products.
The idea that countries with high labor costs and tight pollution regs should be in the solar business is silly.
We have OTHER places suitable for such work.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The wind doesn't blow at any one place all day long, which means if you want 100 MW of reliable wind energy all day you need to install 300 or more MW in wind turbines all over the country so that at any given time at least some of them are receiving wind. That need for redundancy makes wind energy very expensive relative to natural gas and coal power.
The plain fact is that wind and solar both could get us off fossil fuels, but they would require even more government subsidies than they already receive to do it. Convincing voters to support more government spending when the US government already spent most of 2011 deadlocked over spending is effectively impossible. I would love to see it happen, but it won't.
Exactly.
Cheaper panels just mean bigger margins on the system integration and that's where it's expensive.
There's a bigger problem though. If you can afford tens of thousands of dollars for a subsidized solar installation, you are definitely in the middle class, so poorer people are being taxed to reduce your installation costs, and fuel bills.
Deleted
It would take a complete idiot to think that solar energy by itself could replace "conventional" power generation. It will take a combination of renewable energy sources to make a dent in the obscene level of energy consumption mainly promoted by Western societies. What is also necessary is a huge education program on energy conservation - without conservation of resources we are doomed as a society. The Earth simply cannot support the current agenda.
Not disagreeing, but would like to note that First Solar's fundamentals still look very strong. I think at this point the Chinese manufacturers are just clearing the industry of a lot of dead wood that was using old technologies.
Of course, Chinese dumping could reach a point that even innovative firms like First Solar will not be able to compete, but it does not look like we have reached that point yet. Meanwhile, price decreases should really start pushing the overall technology mainstream.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
They're not trying to measure energy, they're measuring peak power capacity. It's shorthand for $1/Watt fixed cost plus $0/kWh incremental cost. You'd do the same thing if you were buying a power plant ($X per MW fixed cost + $Y/kWh incremental cost), though in general the incremental cost varies and there are daily fixed costs as well. You do get that Watt for all the time maximum sun is shining on it and it is hooked up, until it stops working.
Not at all.
That is the big lie. Solar != oil at least in the US.
Solar makes electricity. One percent of the electricity in the US is from oil. Solar and Wind make up more than 3% of the US production. Solar at best competes with coal and natural gas. The thing is that for every kw of wind and solar the power companies build one kw of gas fired peaking plants to handle cloudy days and still days.
Oil is mostly used for transportation. You can not "practically" power ships, aircraft, and large long haul trucks with electricity. Electric cars are still very rare and even if they become popular it will take many years for them to grow to a large percentage of the market. Trains also use oil in the US but in theory at least some could be electrified but again that would be a multi year project and cost many billions of dollars.
The whole solar and wind can free us from oil is a marketing lie.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Something went seriously wrong in your figuring to come up with $500 million per person. It should be under $5000 per person or $34.5 billion total - if your run the numbers like I did below in Python (assuming these panels only produce for 8 hours per day, which is a number I just pulled out of the my hat).
Throw in extra for installation costs. It would be interesting to know what the total area is of NYC rooftops that have good sun exposure.
ny_area_sqmi = 302.6
ny_population = 8175133.0
ny_demand_watt_hours_per_year = 64500 * 10**9
panel_watt_hours_per_year = 230 * 8 * 365
panels_needed = ny_demand_watt_hours_per_year / panel_watt_hours_per_year
panel_cost = 360.0
panel_area_sqft = 17.6
total_cost = panels_needed * panel_cost
total_area_sqmi = (panels_needed * panel_area_sqft) / (5280**2)
print 'panels needed', panels_needed
print 'total cost $ %.2f' % total_cost
print 'cost per person $ %.2f' % (total_cost / ny_population)
print 'square miles %.2f' % total_area_sqmi
print 'percent area of nyc %.2f%%' % ((total_area_sqmi / ny_area_sqmi) * 100)
------
panels needed 96039309
total cost $ 34574151240.00
cost per person $ 4229.19
square miles 60.63
percent area of nyc 20.04%
It is not "Crony Capitalism". The thing that is often referred to as "Crony Capitalism" is just the inevitable result of a centrally planned economy (whether that centrally planned economy is called fascism, socialism, communism, or something else is irrelevant). When you give certain people the power to plan the economy, the end result is that sooner or later, and usually sooner, those people will start to manipulate things to favor their friends and associates. I just came across an article this morning that talked about this and reviewed a book on the subject titled "Throw Them All Out".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The USPS truck that comes through my neighborhood runs on natural gas. I've seen some UPS trucks using it, too.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Don't forget the massive subsidies for oil- over a trillion dollars spent in Iraq which would not have been spent if Iraq did not have oil.
In addition to straightforward subsidies, the oil industry also has access to substantial US military aid. Even when it's not being used directly, it's being paid for to sit around ready to use.
On the flip side- China's subsidies to solar go beyond subsidies to get the industry started and are so large that they are essentially an attempt to destroy solar industries in other countries.
If we had to pay the true cost for coal, nuclear, wind, oil, then solar would be an expensive option. I consider it every year. I'm likely to go partial solar soon. My highest electrical bills are when the sun is out the longest. I don't need batteries- I just need something to run the A/C and fridge during the day.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
...but the US has been a net exporter of oil now for about 6-8 months, yes, net-exporter of oil
Ummm... no. You've confused crude oil with refined gasoline. The US is still a major net-importer of crude oil, but, yes, it's exporting quite a bit of refined gasoline now.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
duh! anyone with two more brain cells than a horse could recognize that solar is a bad investment...
except for ID10T Progressives of course, who just love to spend other people's money
The article misses that Hon Hai, the parent of Foxconn, the company that really makes Apple's products, announced last week that they were going into the solar business. The reaction in the industry was that they will force prices down.
(Hon Hai is a very big company, with over 400,000 employees.)
Sister Mary Magdalene just rolled over in her grave.
The leaner & meaner Chinese firms are putting weak competition out of business, including firms based in the US, Germany, and China. They have licensed American & German processes, equipment, and construction and have transitioned PV into a commodity. IMO, everything is relatively above the board, that is why the move is brilliant. These Chinese firms are remaining profitable and still have ~22-30% margins. Conspiratorial accusations of atypical dumping and government subsidized manufacturing are unfounded. Primarily smaller poly silicon and maybe some tier 3 module producers are dumping product as their last move before bankruptcy, but these companies have only affected the market for crappy 2nd rate goods. Municipal and federal tax subsidies may be generous for the Chinese firms, but they are not that different from their US counterparts (checkout the sweetheart deals on all the failed US solars). The Chinese juggernauts do have access to massive CDB loans, but 1) They are largely untapped (e.g. like ~5% used) and 2) the CDB capital has more expensive terms than the equivalent US DOE loan guarantees. Furthermore, this point is moot since these companies have expanded using money (asset/security/bond) sales in the private markets (mostly US and HK).
China wins the race to grid parity. I hope they are rewarded for their vision, if only to light a late spark for the U.S.
Since I live well within my means, I'm always taking on home improvement projects that I otherwise wouldn't be able to afford. Not because the house is broken down and needs repair, but because I feel like putting in a large second story deck off of the kitchen, or a big workshop out back, or solar panels!
"a large second story deck off of the kitchen, or a big workshop out back"
ROTFL!!!
This is do to China have a government supplemented Solar Panel industry.
As the US puts tarring on panels made in China, you will see this problem go away.
Do not confound the viability with solar, with the individual companies in the solar panel industry.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The next two lines in TFA:
Granted, these raw totals obscure a few things (if you looked at dollars per unit of energy delivered, oil and coal subsidies would be smaller than wind and solar). But the overall disparity is stunning, given everything we know about the harm fossil fuels are doing.
For some reason, they didn't look at subsidies in $/kwh. It's not like they're hard to find on the web. That source puts fossil fuel subsidies at 0.8 cents/kwh and "renewables" (non-nuclear, non-hydropower) at 5 cents/kwh.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Oil in, gasline out. Essentially we're importing air pollution from refineries. It's good to know that crony capitalism is working as designed and the refiners can leverage their ability to externalize production costs (like health care costs of people living downwind of refineries) and turn that into shareholder profits. In other words, it's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.
"Don't forget the massive subsidies for oil- over a trillion dollars spent in Iraq which would not have been spent if Iraq did not have oil."
Yes, we've received so much oil in return. I also presume you believe the same about AF?
Doh!
China is spending to support R&D and the US is spending on war.
Let me know how that works out for you.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
You might want to check the figures and math before copying and pasting your response from some whack-a-doodle forum.
Your numbers assume it needs to generate 64,500 Gigawatts in ONE HOUR, As opposed to over a whole year.
Dumb ass.
" which produces 5750 watts (assuming constant supply 5.75 kWh) with a base area of 17.6 sq feet and costs $360. "
You would need less then one per resident. If you wanted to make up for night use, then 2 panels per person.* Presumable the extra electricity would be cold to neighboring cities during the day, and cover most, if not all, of the cost for night electricity use.
that's 720 dollars per resident.
You make another mistake people who hate solar make.. You assume if it only produces during the day, then it's not worth while. Ignoring other 24hours solar generation technique, even if the solar panels did cover night power, it would still cut power consumption in half. Obviously average through the year.
Cutting power usage from dirty generation in half is a good thing.
*I am basing that on the numbers you gave, so you will need to take that with a grain of salt...the size of your head.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is where tariffs are supposed to be used to compensate for the government subsidies. The fact its not being done suggests some US politicians are being bought by Chinese interests.
I guess that's one possibility. Another might be a concern that if the US imposes tariffs on Chinese solar products China will retaliate by reducing what it imports from the US. It imports close to $90 billion a year in US goods and services. Perhaps US action on solar products will kill the sale of Boeing aircraft to China. It could be that China has signaled that if the US takes action on solar products it will be less cooperative on international issues like Iran and North Korea. I think there could be a lot of reasons why the US has not taken action.
Don't worry, I'm sure the invisible hand of the free market will step in and all will be OK.
That's what it's currently doing, although it had to overcome the distortions caused by political posturing and attempted market manipulation in cases such as Solyndra.
You can not "practically" power ships, aircraft, and large long haul trucks with electricity.
No, but you can power trains with electricity, and they can replace many airplanes and large long haul trucks, and really should even if we don't power them with electricity.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Try going to a solar panel distributor and ordering a bunch of panels, made in the US or china doesn't matter, the shipping cost of sending a truck out to you full of delicate glass is really quite high.
If a distributor sends semi-trailer that can hold 400 kW to deliver a 5kW residential system, then one might look for a supplier with a wider selection of delivery options. My experience ordering glass by freight (larger more delicate glass than PV) was not especially different from normal freight costs.
If oil spiked, the demand for installed panels would be extremely high, but the UPS cost of delivery would probably rise to a multiple of the cost of the panels, its very unclear if this would improve or destroy overall system economic budget numbers.
I just did a quick calculation, each new pv panel (~23kg) on a trip of 10,000 km costs $1.3, $1.9, and $12.6. for rail, ship, and truck, respectively. We still would need 15-270x in fuel price to see the cost of long distance shipping approach the $200-350 cost per panel. These costs are about 10x-500x final delivery distances e.g., your scenario is mad max $1000/gal scenario
No, the lesson we refuse to learn is not that "gubment subsidy baaad mmmkayy!" It is that government subsidy needs to be A) predictable over the next decade and...
No one is thinking that far ahead anymore. It is just until the next election, or the next job, or until my options vest. Ya think that is related?
Well US refineries are cleaner than refineries in the rest of the world, due to compliance with EPA emission regulations. If it's getting refined (and it will), I'd prefer it be done where it causes the least pollution, and that's the US.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I see very little written about why consumers that were finally hot for for solar cooled so sharply.
The sad thing is that states like Florida promised their residents solar rebates, then never paid the full amounts. After waiting well over a year, my family finally received a check for just under half of what the state had told us we qualified for. They claimed they didn't have the money... But, they had plenty of money for countless billboards calling Florida "The Solar State".. sigh. So you have *thousands* of pissed off people that have invested a large sum of cash into solar, then found themselves ripped off. How many people did they tell their tales of state sponsored bait-and-switch to? How many people that would have gladly considered investing in home or small business installations put off any investment due to concerns that their state (if the state offered rebates) would turn around and screw them too?
Add to this the fact that the economy is in the shitter? Why is the discussion about the failure of the technology, rather than a discussion of a perfect storm of states defrauding residents and corporations trusting states to properly fund initiatives during a global recession?
The solar industry invested and expanded based on the assumption that the federal and state rebates would be paid, and the demand would continue to grow. The bait and switch states like Florida pulled on their residents is a big part of what tanked the market. The solar industry *can* be profitable. This was just a perfect shitstorm of bad luck for any company in the solar industry that expanded/invested/spent based on hollow promises by the government..
Where solar helps with oil is in generating power to perform conversions, converting or processing shale, coal, or other hydrocarbons into oil for use in trucks and trains and airplanes.
But yeah, solar can't power a car except to charge its battery while parked, and that only with infrastructure.
So can we stop subsidizing big oil, coal, and nuclear now? At least then solar and wind would be on an equal playing field.
Over the years, I've been hearing stories on how power companies keep buying most of these panels through contracts, so really the public never got a chance here. Think about it... If your power company buys up giant array's of solar panels, who's going to pay for it, subsidize it, and what benefit will it be to you the little piece of crap paying your ever increasing electric bill. I'd even bet the government helped the power companies buy them, while the whole dog and pony show is laid on the consumer's back.
So first off this ring of Greentard bullshit must be broken. Fuck the un/ipcc, and fuck candidates who support this fraud masking as a world government and world bank. I rather die than live under these psychopaths Agenda 21.
You get that 1W when the sun is shining at midday in midsummer. The rest of the year you get less. In fact in some locations you *always* get less.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
How many times in the last 30 years have we seen this exact kind of boom and bust in the computer memory business?
There seems to be a 4-5 year cycle of high prices, over investment in production, and price crash. You see similar cycles in disk drives, LCD screens and other components. I suspect it is endemic to businesses that have massive capital costs for each technology iteration.
Yet we don't hear people saying that computers aren't viable simply because memory suppliers are having challenges timing market demand cycles.
This especially happens with new industries. Look at the early days of radio, for example. RCA radio, anyone? Made by Thomson, not RCA. Just look at the early cell phone companies. How many of them have failed?
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
microloans that were supposed to solve all problems of the poor in Bangladesh are actually very destructive and many have lost their last shirt.
http://lesstoldstories.blogspot.com/2011/03/micro-debt-small-loans-big-problems.html
You're correct that a lot of long haul trucking can be replaced by electrified railroads, but LWATCDR is correct in stating that it would cost billions of dollars and take a number of years. The Southern California Regional Rail Authority held a series of meetings in 1990-92 on a proposal to electrify the freight railroads in Southern California and the estimated cost at that time was 4 billion $. FWIW, I attended several of these meetings.
The high fixed cost problem has been the stumbling block for RR electrification in the US even though the pioneering long distance electrifications were in the US - 1907 for the New Haven and 1916 for the Milwaukee. Since 1940, it has been generally cheaper in the US to generate electricity on board the locomotive than with central power stations. This may change if the current price differential between oil and natural gas holds up.
Electric Railroads require a reliable source of base load power. Neither wind or solar qualifies as reliable base load generation.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Oil is a competitor (let's not say "enemy", OK?) due to the presence of electric cars.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
No- Afganistan was not an oil issue as far as I can see. The primary reason for attacking Afganistan was Alqaeda was based there and the Taliban was protecting it.
If you recall, Bush said he would not distinguish between terrorists and nations that harbored them.
Doesn't matter whether we receive it or not. The question is why were we involved in Iraq. And it was mainly oil.
For a more recent example- How much do you think it is costing us per day to keep the navy (tens of millions) in the Strait of Hormuz. Think they would be there if it wasn't an oil conduit?
How expensive would oil be if the oil companies had to pay the bill for that military protection?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The problem is one of people have just enough understanding of economics to get themselves into a financial black-hole. What more, they also appear to be subscribers to the NASA space program's "Can Do" approach, without anywhere near the scientists / engineers necessary to make it happen.
The people involved seem to understand that "competition can be good" and "economies of scale" without the prerequisite understanding that these are market conditions, not something you can just mandate by law (stone tablets say that man who tries to use law to own market, gets punished by gods). As for the technology they are using, which ties into this whole revenue problem, it is orders of magnitudes away from being cost-effective. You don't just randomly start a solar power company, cross your fingers, and hope your scientists / engineers can find a breakthrough (before the money runs out) in manufacturing that enables you to suddenly become competitive with the players already existing. You need to already have an idea how you are going to pull this off before the business plan leaves the printer. And have a paranoid approach towards your first 5 years of profits, and the likelihood that your competitors will strike back / the market will change. And yet, this appears to be the case.
Really? Your great contribution is a few tweaks on the existing solar cell design? You're shooting for $1 / watt to be competitive with coal? Aren't you forgetting something? Coal is 24 / 7, and on demand. Solar is ~12ish hours / 5 days a week, and demand cannot be readily fulfilled (in a pinch). And the methods you would use to store energy, for on demand applications, drive that cost right back up. How much do you think a reversible turbine, to move water into and out of a reservoir costs? Coal's method of storing energy for later use is a giant coal bin out back.
I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding why we are suddenly attacking our economy, and doing everything in our power to destroy our way of life. I really must be missing why we're wasting hideous amounts of taxpayer money to replace a working, somewhat reliable system, with another one which might be on the blink if the sun chooses not to shine for a week. Like trading in a Rolls-Royce for a Robin Reliant.
Just for the record, I despise coal power. I'm in the pro-nuclear lobby. But every-time I run the numbers, and check for fail-safes, I come up in the red.
Alternative power will be competitive when the costs for the total system are on par with $.75 / watt. Not before.
I am John Hurt.
Maybe when solar ,cells produce more energy over their lifetime than it costs to make them, but as of now, they still are a net negative energy producer.
With current technology, there is no pay back for solar power, and there is no such thing as base load solar power. Instead of spending billions on subsidies to incenti-vize the manufacturing and purchasing of solar panels, money should have been spent 100% on research and development into creating technology that could efficiently convert energy from the sun into electricity.
Even at $1.60 per watt material cost, given power rates in my area, daylight hours, and angle of the sun, it would take a little over ten years to produce $1.60 worth of electricity (22,857 hours at an average of 6 hours per day of peak output). There is no pay back for solar (unless you count grants and tax write offs, but the product cannot pay for itself.) These are rough numbers, but fine tuning them to bring them closer to reality would only shave a few months to a year off at best.
The other problem is capacity (maximum output.) The facility where I work has an average demand of 20MW. It is probably not even possible to construct a solar plant that could power this single facility, or provide base load power. The real estate and technology does not exist.
Now, it depends on how you count 'subsidies'. If you go whole greenpeace and count the entire US Military, not charging for carbon emissions, extraction leases for $X instead of $10X all as subsidies, yes, we subsidize oil quite a bit.
If you believe that we aren't actually spending all that much money on ensuring the oil supply - IE Afghanistan doesn't produce significant amounts of it, Iraq was Bush Jr 'finishing' Daddy's work, think a lease for $X is a lease for $X, and discount carbon emissions as a cost(perhaps because you have a different scheme in mind), it's a lot less.
On average though, fossil fuel producers tend to pay lots of tax, and solar companies depend heavily up the subsidies that the government allows - with subsidies often paying for between 50-90% of the cost of a solar install, the subsidization is critical to artificially lower cost to drive demand. Any drop in subsidies and their business plumments.
I don't read AC A human right
I challenge the authors to post even a single source where modules are available for $1.00/watt, or even the $1.60/watt claimed "at the beginning of 2011". Those numbers are just not congruent with retail prices I see.
I do agree. It drives me nut to see a big Walmart distribution center near where I live. it is next to a railroad line but all the cargo comes in by truck!
And I said that you can power trains with electricity but it would take years and billions of dollars to do the conversion. Also rail does not go everywhere.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Actually solar and wind combined with natural gas turbine peaking plants can provide baseload. Combine that with the excess night time baseload and you should be good to go. AKA run the trains mostly at night when power is the cheapest.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
People like to invest in things that don't seem completely like magic
You mean like computers? A few years ago when my nephew was four, he asked my sister how computers work. She just shrugged and said "it's magic". Do you think the average person has a clue how a radio works? Or a TV? Or even an automobile engine? Sorry, but you're going to have to explain why you think people don't like magical devices, because damned near everything is non-understandable and just "magic" to the average person.
Free Martian Whores!
The real numbers for wind turbines are closer to 500MW installed power, to get an average of 100MW. (On-shore, given that you said "all over the country" I assume that's what you meant.) However, if you actually want a reliable supply of energy, then "some wind somewhere" won't do. You'll have to store energy on a mass scale. Using current technology you need about 4 kWh to get 1 kWh back (true for all technologies using electrolysis of water and hydrogen at its core, whether you store it in the form of liquid H2, CH4 or NH3), this may be improved to a 1:3 ratio. In this case you'd still need to install about twice as much to ensure a reliable supply.
All things considered, a reliable supply of 100MW requires almost 1GW of installed power on-shore, somewhat over 500MW off-shore. (All depending on the exact conditions of the location and demand patterns.)
I have several objections.
First, the US does invest in african infrastructure. http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6210FP20100302
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Malawi and Zambia are set to win hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. infrastructure grants in the next two years due to steady improvements in the way they are run, U.S. aid officials said on Tuesday. ...
The MCC [the U.S. government's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) ], which has committed $5.1 billion to Africa over five years -- most of it in infrastructure investment -- has a $10 million project to reduce corruption and help civil society in Uganda, which it regards as a 'threshold' country.
The problem is the rampant anarchy and thievery destroying those investments. Raw materials being stolen in the middle of the night, improper or no maintenance being done. If African dictatorships have trouble dividing up crates of free food among the populace, what makes you think they can handle taking care of a first-world electrical grid and highway system?
Second, the US does invest in African education. http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/initiatives/aei.html
Primary school enrolment in African countries is among the lowest in the world. Limited funds and a lack of adequate teachers, classrooms, and learning materials adversely affect the educational environment throughout most of Africa. The President's Africa Education Initiative (AEI) is a $600-million multi-year initiative that focuses on increasing access to quality basic education in 39 sub-Saharan countries through scholarships, textbooks, and teacher training programs. Eighty million African children will have benefited from AEI by 2010.
[Parent post:] Since rich nations obviously have an interest in keeping the status quo, there is little actual help.
Finally, and this should be easy because it's so "obvious", but [Citation Needed]. What is it that you think rich nations gain by doing this? Cheap blood diamonds?
Longhaul trucking needs to die and let rail take its place. Run electric lines next to the rails. Electric and alternately fueled cars. Electric and alternate fuel car tech will scale up for short haul trucking.
Cowards and quitters said we'd never make it to the moon either.
Because, really, virtually nobody here actually understands what is going on. So I will throw some light on the matter.
There are two big problems with solar energy in the U.S. right now.
The #1 problem is that the U.S. is in the middle of a natural gas bonanza that started about a decade ago but really only started ramping up around 2007ish... and kept ramping up right on through the crash and is still ramping up today, with no end in sight. This has caused domestic NG production to go through the roof and domestic NG prices to fall through the floor.
Power companies switching from coal are going right to natural gas, which has 30% (or better) lower emissions and low prices for at least the next decade. It will take that long for our LNG export infrastructure to ramp up enough for world markets to relieve the downward pressure on domestic natural gas prices. In anycase, just switching to NG allows power companies to meet EPA requirements for probably the next decade (or longer), and that's without any magic technology to make it even cleaner.
Natural gas used to only be used for peaking plants, except in California where they started to also be used for base load earlier than other parts of the country. Now natural gas is being used for base load across the board (along with nuclear). Nearly all of those coal plants undergoing decommissioning are being replaced with natural gas plants, not solar or anything else.
The #2 problem with solar energy is China's overproduction of solar panels. China has no problem destroying their environment with the chemical leavenings from the production of solar panels. Chinese companies are facing the same problems that U.S. companies are facing with prices plunging, but they have a much lower cost of production. The result is that non-chinese companies basically can't compete (under ANY circumstances).. because we aren't willing to destroy our environment like the Chinese are.
This has created a massive drop in price for the bulk panels that large businesses (like Google for example) can purchase. Consumers cannot get at these prices, we just don't buy enough panels, but even so prices are going down for us too.
This, in turn, has created a huge problem for solar thermal power companies, because the price of bulk panels has dropped below or near par to the cost of constructing a solar thermal (mirror based) energy plant. This makes the ongoing cost of a solar thermal plant, which requires significant maintainence and has parts with limited life spans due to thermal cycling, higher than the near zero running cost of an installed conventional solar panel closer to the buyer (typically on the roof of the business premises).
Numerous other factors are also creating issues. Germany was the single biggest purchaser of solar panels for the last decade due to massive government subsidies. Those subsidies are now winding down, which only makes the market glut worse.
And that's the problem in a nutshell. Even the most environmentally minded person has to realize by now that it is impossible to go from coal to solar in one step. Natural gas is the only thing we have in-country that is even remotely capable of replacing coal at the generation levels required. I will applaud government investment in solar energy but anyone who thinks that solar can actually replace fossil fuel is fooling themselves.
-Matt
Also, before you install solar go after the low-hanging fruit. Most of your home energy costs come from climate control/heating-cooling/HVAC, so the easiest and cheapest step to take is to 'seal the envelope of the house,' ie. max out your insulation, swap out your windows for energy efficient ones, install automatic insulated roll-down shutters that close at night, put on wall sheathing to isolate your wall joists from the siding/exterior to minimize heat transfer, and insulate your floors as well to avoid heat leaching out through the basement.
The next step is to swap your HVAC for an efficient system. A ground-source heat pump is far and away the most proven and efficient system there is; it heats you in the winter and cools you in the summer. Couple a GSHP with a radiant floor heating system, which is the most efficient delivery system there is, and you'll not only save gobs of money but be so comfortable you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner. The determining cost factor is what type of subsoil lies beneath your house; if you're sitting on solid rock you're out of luck, but if you have at least 15 ft. of dirt/clay/gravel you're in business.
The third step is to swap out your appliances for energy star ones. It won't help you much if you bought your stuff in the last 5 years, since chances are they already are energy star, but if you're still rocking a 70's era suite of machines you can see significant savings.
There are all kinds of incentives for the first three steps, much more than for wind/solar right now. And there are far more contractors out there who know how to implement them without any special training or markup. You can get competitive bids. And I would do it now, since 1 in 4 contractors is out of work or underemployed right now. It's a buyer's market.
After you've done all those things, you'll be much savvier about the process and in a stronger position to get a good bid on solar. And you'll need it less. And if you completed the first three steps, you may find that installing solar and micro-wind could put you in the plus-energy column, which means the utility has to send you a check every month. That accelerates your break-even time.
Good luck!
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Some insurance companies give you a break on your homeowner's insurance if you make your home energy efficient. In the same way that having good grades gives you a break on your car insurance having a green home signals you're more responsible and conscientious than the average bear.
Also, according to the real estate industry having a green home can increase the value of your home up to 20% when compared to an identical house without efficiency upgrades.
There are banks who will knock basis points off your mortgage if you retrofit your house. They're called 'green mortgages' and can wind up saving you tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the mortgage.
When it comes to the contractors, play hardball on their quotes. 1 in 4 contractors is out of work or underemployed right now. It's a buyer's market. Worst comes to worst you can install the panels on the roof yourself if you know how to orient them (ie. you can use a protractor, compass, and plumb line). The main thing is to bring in an electrician to marry the panel output to the rest of the house. Sure, you won't get the official rebate that way but if you're getting the panels at firesale prices it could be cheaper anyway.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Your break-even time with solar will vary widely depending on several factors. One is the average price per kwh where you are. If you live in a place where it's $.09/kwh, your break-even time will be much longer. In NYC, the price is about twice that, thus your break-even will be shorter. There are also varying degrees of incentives (federal, state, local) that alter the break-even calculation. Furthermore, many places around the country have net-metering policies. That means if you produce more electricity than you use the utility has to send you a check every month. That also affects the break-even time.
It can be a bit complicated to figure out on your own. But if you do the math and shop around you could well find implementing solar panels are more than worth your while to do.
And that's from a strict cost basis. Consider the independence it gives you to produce your own power. Blackout takes down the grid, so what? You're still living in a first world country courtesy of your solar panels. If you commute to work less than 100 miles every day and own an EV or plug-in hybrid, you save tons of money on gas too.
Lastly, you can say that not one penny of yours goes to petro dictators or regressive theocracies who use the money to plot our deaths on a daily basis. That, as the commercial goes, is priceless.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Gasland is just an intro to the problems of natural gas. People just don't have the balls to switch over smartly; we have to idiotically transition over time and procrastinate. Only an actual WAR (we've not had one in some time) seems to get people seriously moving. We can fight the Nazis and win in no time but we can't solve our energy problem over decades.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Ouch. I believe your numbers. I really want renewable energy to take the world by storm, but with current technology it's just not feasible.
I've got the most sure fired way for you to make money. I can practically guarantee that if you follow this investment path that you will make more money than you will ever need if your initial investment is big enough.
What is that bet? Bet that Energy prices will go up (more than inflation) over the next 20 years. Fossil fuels are declining in production year over year (there is a small short term spike in gas production currently, but don't judge a long term trend by short term movements) but long term energy prices will continue to go up at rates that exceed inflation significantly. You make a bet that Energy prices will continue to grow and I'm betting ROI exceeds inflation by 10% over a 20 year time frame. The era of cheap energy is over.
what about Lonnie Johnson? http://inhabitat.com/super-soaker-inventor-to-tackle-solar-power/
You are correct!
Stop giving money to the oil companies, and then maybe solar can compete. I'm not surpised at the turmoil at all.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Renewable energy is feasible in a supporting role, even with relatively small storage - I guess something on the order of 10%-20%. This depends a lot on usage patterns - but so does energy efficiency and usually it's a trade-off not a synergy between the two. The most energy efficient way to use energy is usually to use it continuously. But the amount also depends on the technology employed, solar thermal is pretty good in such a supporting role, as it already has a short-term energy storage included. But it is also extremely expensive, despite other claims.
I've written about this at length.
You buy both solar panels and steam engines on watts, not joules. (As you do with automobiles, by the way.)
Of course, they won't last forever, and they'll need some fuel (the PV's one getting for free after an up front payment, the coal getting at a cost, with nearly no up front payment). But most of the money goes into investiment into capacity (on both cases), so watts.
Rethinking email
Smal steam engines are at the $1/W nowadays. The micro engines (less than 1MW) are more expensive than that (new from the factory). I expect the huge ones (more than 1 GW) to be cheaper than that already.
Rethinking email
welcome to the 21st century we now have laminate solar panels that are hail and vibration resistant.
http://www.affordable-solar.com/store/solar-panels/uni-solar-laminate-pvl-Series-136-watt
true they rely on plastics, for that flexible production, but technically this tech has existed for quite a while.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Modern Progressivism & Liberalism: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory.
Even though you make a decent -- though misguided -- point here, your sig is reason enough to pretty much ignore anything you have to say.
hitler wanted his people to be train users, so much so that he took mass transit himself.
It's not as if any of this was foreseen. That is to say, about the time that the politicians and the press were praising green technology to the skies and telling us about the wunnerful green future, new tech careers, blah, blah, blah. It's just irritating when all this money has been spent when it was clear even back then from Europe's misadventures that it was a fantastic waste of taxpayer cash. Well, perhaps it wasn't a total waste of money. I'm sure it made a vocal minority of artists and humanities majors feel better about themselves.
Not really in the US.
You could perhaps get companies to change from the flexibility of trucking to the far-less-flexible nature of rail freight, but the only practical way to do it would be to make trucking obscenely expensive through taxes.
Passenger rail? Sorry, we tore up those tracks. There is almost no passenger rail left in the US - most of the remaining passenger trains are on freight rails and freight has priority. This means your passenger train can sit on a siding for hours while waiting for the freight train to go by. You didn't think passenger rail was extremely unpopular for no reason at all, did you?
So the only way rail would be electrified in the US would be if the freight rail companies thought it was worth spending the money on it. In the US there are tens of thousands of miles of freight rail lines, so it would be very, very expensive to do. Again, about the only way to force this would be to make diesel fuel really, really expensive and electricity free. I don't think anyone is going to do that.
Rail in the US is dead. It died around 1972 and we have been pulling up rails and taking them to the scrapyard ever since.
These arguments on both sides are absurd.
Meet the Apple: Solar panels. (PV) are a consumer product for a very narrow market. They primarily make fiscal sense only in non-grid tied rural homes where the cost of connecting to the said grid approaches that of the panels themselves. And remote low amperage power situations like traffic signals, radio/cellular sites, well pumps, and satellites.
Meet the Orange: Commercial generation (from any source) is mass market only. Lends itself well to the interests of large industry and their supporting industry, and of course their lobbyists and the politicians they support/feed/coddle.
There is no comparison. PV panel subsidies and tax breaks are - as said previously - simply a political stunt. If you must argue about the merits of renewable energy vs fossil fuel (which is the apparent elephant in the room) then it's really down to nuclear, coal, and natural gas VS hydro, wind, and the one technology that actually has the potential to replace our current mass generation system- solar thermal. (yes Virginia, solar thermal works when it's dark too)
What we should be asking is why none of our politicians are working to subsidise a mass generation technology that would work. Not pointing fingers (ok - I am) but the money and lobbyists belong to the current, and disgustingly profitable fossil fuel industry. The solar thermal plants belong to startups, universities and a couple of local governments. Who do you think will win?
"Smile, listen, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you wanted to do anyway." ~Robert Downey Jr.
I started reading the blog. Very nice. Thanks.
Yes, the grid can normally compensate from the loss of a 1GW nuclear plant - but normally you only have to worry about losing the one plant, when there's probably a dozen providing power.
The odds of losing EVERY nuclear plant,not to mention nall the coal stations, with your general ability to schedule downtime, is highly unlikely.
The concern with wind is a nation-wide 'calm', which typically happens for a couple days a year.
I don't read AC A human right
Chances are these "Bankrupt" companies are shutting doors on Monday, and opening doors under a new name on Wednesday. I'm not sure how the schemes work in the U.S. but in AUS the panels are pitched with 20 year warranties/guarantees that claim things like 90% efficiency after 10 years, 80% after 15-20 years. No manufacturer entering this arena in their right mind is going to honour a guarantee like that. Brands with a reputation (I.e. Sharp) will have to honour their guarantees, but it seems that a new panel brand is on the market every couple of months. I'd pretty much put money on the fact that in another 5 years we'll be reading about how tens of thousands of solar panel customers were duped into buying bottom-rate equipment that's producing less than half as much power as when they were installed, (or not working all-together) and all they've got is a guarantee that isn't worth the paper it was printed on.
"If you build it then they will come", is not an economic principal. A lot of people have been burned by green energy, my father put up a wind turbine (on top of windy mountain) that cost him $20k and he saves $20 a month on his power bill.
Solar Panels will need to improve more to a point where their price justifies their cost. Not lower the price where their price justifies their performance, because this method sounds like they are dumping junk on us.
It sounds like I get your statement, but there's a problem - if cost of a square foot of solar panel remains the same, you'd have to bust theoretical efficiency limits before they'd be economical. We're looking at something around a factor of 4 before solar panels make 'stupid sense' even without government subsidization for most of the country. Current panels are around 30% efficient, so they'd need to 'improve' to be 120% efficient to make that price point. Theoretical max for current cells is 37.7%, but for multiple layer(currently $$$), it could be as high as 86%. So if they could improve the process so that multilayer cells became half the cost of current cells, at 60+% efficiency, then it'd be economical. Not to mention you'd need only half the roof space for them. Or you get the extra cells anyways, using the power to charge your EV. Well, more feed it into the grid to power your work, while you use the excess baseload at night to charge your car.
Oh yeah, and we've reached the point that we need to do some serious work on the auxillery equipment like the inverter, it's become a much bigger portion of the expense.
Personally, I'd like to see a 'smart' inverter that doubles as a UPS/backup power supply for the house. Feed locally generated power in one end, grid in the other, and it manages the link to the grid, feeding power to the grid when excess is produced, pulling power when house demand is high(and supply low), and isolating the house and running what circuits it can if the grid is out. Ideally, it'd even be able to handle 'dirty' AC wind power, DC solar, and a 'on demand' stirling engine hooked up to the house heating system.
I don't read AC A human right
putting an end to companies that offer products not for their economic value but for their narcissistic value.
Awful lot of jewelry stores still in business if 'narcissistic value' wasn't worth a lot of green.
I don't read AC A human right
Iran can block the Strait of Hormuz... for about ten minutes, then the entire Iranian "navy" disappears in a burst of American firepower.
And if we take out their refineries, they have no fuel, either. Seriously, those nutballs are about half an hour from returning to Neolithic technology.
Cost of electricity: $.10-.20/kwh, grid.
Grid Tie Solar kit(NOT INSTALLED!): $8,239.97
Assumptions: Cost of Capital 5%, Capacity Factor: 30%, lifespan 40
*Crunches Numbers*... Welp, wasn't expecting this. Last time it didn't work out...
Okay, at $.10/kwh utility rate - I came up with it producing an estimated $604.44 worth of electricity a year. If it's expected to last 40 years, the annual cost should only be $480.21. At that rate, it should pay for itself in 23.5 years(assuming no repairs needed). Not the greatest of investments, but sound for places like business. The duration imposes a large amount of risk, in my mind.
It makes sense at the cheaper rate? What about if you're stuck with expensive electricity, at $.20 a kwh? Well, now it's displacing $1,208.88 worth of electricity, still only 'costs' you $480/year for the loan payment/opportunity cost, and pays for itself in 8.5 years.
Now, this is just a kit, what if you have to pay money to have it propery installed? Let's say, $1/watt. That raises the cost to $10,540, raises the annual cost for the system to $614, but only saves you $604. No longer worth it. Payoff rises to 11.7 years for the expensive electricity option, so still worth it. Now if only I didn't live in an area where I'd be lucky to get .2 with the system... 22 year payoff = tough decision. Still, at this price point I'd expect to see them popping up all over down south.
Disclaimer: This is a off the cuff estimate. Please do the calcs for your specific situation before spending $10-20k on alternative power.
I don't read AC A human right
When you do that, you realize that fossil fuels are hugely net taxed, while solar is hugely net subsdized, on a watt-hour for watt-hour basis.
That's before we even get into the climate change nonsense, which is another giant tax, levied on the basis of some very shoddy doomsday science, which was done even though it would have little to no effect even if the climate models were right, which any fool can already see they aren't by comparing Hansen 1988 to the satellite temperature records.
Americans spend $430 billion on new cars alone each year, so billions for an electrification project is not a big number in context.
So buy stock in BP, Shell and any other owners of proven energy reserves.
Good plan.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Not just solar panels.
It's all about the exchange rate. Our counter move to their rate peg is to print money, causing inflation in China.
Eventually China's leadership will realize that setting their exchange rate to bring 100% factory utilization is simplistic and ignores many other factors. On that day the world changes. I expect it will involve a change of Chinese leadership.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The current mortgage balance is greater than the value of the property => negative net worth.
But, since the decrease in value hasn't been "realized" by a sale, it's a speculative negative net worth.
However, it also means that nobody is going to loan you the money to buy solar panels.
It is not "Crony Capitalism". The thing that is often referred to as "Crony Capitalism" is just the inevitable result of a centrally planned economy (whether that centrally planned economy is called fascism, socialism, communism, or something else is irrelevant). When you give certain people the power to plan the economy, the end result is that sooner or later, and usually sooner, those people will start to manipulate things to favor their friends and associates. I just came across an article this morning that talked about this and reviewed a book on the subject [americanthinker.com] titled "Throw Them All Out".
No argument here. We agree.
I use the "Crony Capitalism" term because it pretty much describes just what you defined (at least in the definitions of Crony Capitalism I'm familiar with) and communicates the idea in a short forum post with fewer words, and tends to attract less vitriol from the un- and ill-informed than calling it straight-out Fascism, Communism, or Socialism.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I had missed the sarcasm in your sig. However, I think it probably still makes a good one two punch for someone (you, in this case) to make the "Crony Capitalism" argument (which is basically true, except for the capitalism part) and the for someone else (me, in this case) to point out that what is called "Crony Capitalism" is a product of a centrally planned economy (of which fascism, socialism, and communism are the most widely known forms) and involves no form a capitalism at all.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I still hear the most inverters are good for only about 5 years before their electrolytics dry up and you have to replace them. Still a fragile part of the whole system. Plan B would be to put route 3-phase to new construction to allow inverters that did not have to store power at the zero crossings (i.e. Biphase has power ripple, 3-phase does not).
My guess is that due to this that most systems will not actually pay for themselves, as after a few years when the inverter craps out most folks will shrug their shoulders and let the system rot.
LMAO! Look at the correlation between rising oil prices and rising natural gas/coal prices. It's a case of substitution but there is a strong correlation. So the price of oil does effect the price of the other two.
> Prospects Darken For United States Solar Energy Companies
FTFY.
The reason is that the US is VERY LATE TO THE MARKET that is already crowded by Asian and European companies. And like so much other US business, they are half-assed, myopic and clueless about the situation and how you have to approach it.
It's always possible to mess something up, especially when greed can come into play. From what I recall one of the main problems with the micro loans was the lack of regulation and oversight.
I wasn't specifically singling out the US. In fact in Africa, the US isn't nearly as bad as some European nations, such as France and England, which still haven't gotten over the idea that these countries are their colonies. The US has been much worse in its treatment of South American nations, however.
Furthermore, I'm not denying that rich nations don't provide money for infrastructure or education, or provide funding to NGOs that provide these things. But the money quite often gets in the hands of corrupted governments, which are helped or put in power by the West. There are a few genuinely helpful programs, but these seem to be exception.
Some citations for the West plundering the resources of poor countries, aided by corrupt governments they support and/or put in power, while the people starve (or worse) :
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686774,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8126353.stm
http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2011/10/03/new-report-exposes-shell-complicity-in-nigerian-human-rights-abuses/
http://www.examiner.com/public-safety-in-national/blood-diamonds-zimbabwe-torture-camp-discovered-by-bbc
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/french-president-jacques-chirac-corruption_n_958043.html
http://foodwhistleblower.org/blog/22-2011/240-united-nations-report-contract-farmer-exploitation-imperils-food-integrity
You may say, well, these are almost all examples of corporations exploiting people, not governments. But let's not forget that these corporations are based in Western countries and have an enormous influence on their politics, the whole "revolving door" thing.
1. The whole renewables scam is a marketing lie.
2. If Obarmy and Clinton let Terhan thin they can block Hormuz they are even dumber that I thought.
The Regan doctrine, "Do that and Quom is glass" is what is needed, before things get out of hand.
Even though you have some selfcriticism please remember that 1MW of Solar PV is not equal to 1MW of Coal. A Coal fired Power station will easily be able to run > 5,000 hours a year (out of 8,760) while a Solar PV installation only works 800-1,000 hours per year in Central Europe (eg Germany), 1,500 hours in Spain and > 1,500 in sunny regions in the Middle East and parts of the US (eg California). Furthermore PV is intermittent and requires extra investments to the electricity distribution and transmission grid, and also back-up power (eg gas CCGT) or batteries (non existent yet). So even at US$ 1,000 /kW for both installations you need to take into account the operating hours. US$ 1,000/kW will also be the full capex of a coal fired stations, while for PV Solar this is the module cost. Retail projects will easily go to US$ 4,000 kW and larger installations should be able to move to US$ 2,000-3,000 per kW.
And yes you need to take into account fuel costs, labor, higher financial costs, higher requred returns, O&M, price for CO2 (in Europe) .... but the operating hours are still more than compenstating for that. I would even propose to make a comparison with a CCGT (gas) plant since in the US shale gas fracking results in very cheap gas prices (US$ 3-4/MMBTU) while the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has put in stricter rules for mercury, which will effect the competitiveness of coal plants (extra capex for those running).
http://energiek.wordpress.com/
Exactly. -- Oil products have the highest energy output per unit cost, and always will in a level market because there is nothing known to humankind which can equal the incredible amount of potential energy that exists in oil products. --- And equally as important is 'dependability'. If you have a tank of propane and you turn on your central heater, it will produce heat - immediately - and will continue to produce heat until the tank is empty. -- You don't have to wait for the wind to blow or for the sun to shine. And, if the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine - you freeze. With oil products - it's always ready when you need it. This example can be applied to every particular use of energy that exists. Then, in digging deeper into the particular energy application systems, there is nothing more powerful per unit of energy consumed than the internal combustion engine. -- To illustrate the point; to produce the torque and horsepower necessary to haul a semi-trailer load of steel pipe from zero to sixty and then maintain that speed for the long haul, you'd first need an electric engine the size of the semi-trailer itself to produce the necessary torque and horsepower, (it's a matter of size of the windings in the electric motor necessary to produce the needed output of torque and horsepower), and you'd need yet another semi-trailer full of the highest-technology lithium batteries to get the rig down the road a reasonable distance. With the weight of the electric motor and the weight of the batteries necessary to equal that of a diesel engine which has done the job for decades, all effectiveness of the electric system is wiped out - meaning the internal combustion engine cannot be equaled in torque and horsepower by an eletric motor used in the same application. -- And, there is no "future" electric motor than can be invented "someday" which will replace the internal combustion engine. The physics involved explains that fact quite well. --- All electric vehicles produced today and will ever be produced - like golf carts have been forever - are extreme-light-duty versions of the gas engine counterpart it attempts to replace. -- Put an entire family and all their luggage in an electric SUV for a vacation - and you'll immediately see the "physics" invloved. And when you add up the time consumed to have to stop and recharge the lithiums, you'll need another vacation just for that. -- On top of all this; if you happen to be driving your electic vehicle in a situation of high heat - you need to remember you are sitting on a literal bomb when the lithiums overheat., --- It's time for the world to get real and put the research $$$ in perfectly the efficiency of oil product consumption, and save the literal trillions of wasted dollars chasing illusive windmills.
That's OK. Neither my post nor my sig were meant for closed-minded partisan ideologues.
Carry on.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I agree that you should subsidize research, not production. But the fact is that coal is also subsidized, and therefore it is only fair to subsidize the competition too - to level the playing field. They compete on the electricity market.
Coal subsidy references:
Europe: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/10/us-eu-coal-idUSTRE6B93D420101210
USA: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Federal_coal_subsidies
Australia: http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/11/01/nsws-great-big-coal-subsidy-scandal/
China (no source, as you don't need to subsidize something that is already state owned)
There is one wind turbine from Honeywell that claims to activate at .5mph. It might work for your situation.
Also, since you sound like an enthusiast there are instructables that have projects to use compost to produce methane for cooking/heat/electricity.
You have done a lot of work already, so it might be worth checking into refinancing with a green mortgage/energy efficient mortgage to knock a couple basis points off or to finance additional improvements. Some insurance companies give you a discount on homeowner's insurance if you have a green home, too.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
If you have those skills it sounds like it might be worth starting a side business to undercut those rates. The demand for solar is there, but the process is so confusing and paperwork so byzantine most people give up before they get started.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Actually, there's loads of rail lines that are only just incomplete. Some of them are viable, some not. For example, it's not really economically realistic to expect a train to go over the route Highway 17 takes, because the highway now occupies some of the route the train now uses.
I actually think PRT has more viability than actual trains. It's only really useful for shipping people, and for loads up to about the size of two or three pallets, but that's not unuseful. It has the potential to really replace almost anything. With a little more care for modularity, so that larger items can be assembled on-site easily, it could replace essentially all transportation save for intercontinental. And the really slick thing about PRT is that it can be integrated with existing transportation networks because its footprint is so slight.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not once electric cars become more common.
It will be interesting to see how governments react to EVs in terms of taxation. Currently petrol has quite a lot of tax on it in most countries, particularly the UK and a couple of other EU nations. They can't just lump that level of tax on electricity because it would make almost everyone unable to afford to turn on the lights at home, so they will have to find another way to extract it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Apparently my earlier response was eaten by the system.
Anyways - Geothermal is going to be ramped up, but right now it's .4% of power generation. So even an OOM larger(which would be huge) would still place it as a minor player. I've seen some 'geothermal power' proposals that weren't for electrical generation - it was for things like climate control in buildings(geothermal heat pumps, essentially). I don't count those for electrical production, but it's certainly 'enhanced geothermal'.
I agree on reprocessing - as for terrorists, NK, Pakistan, or Libya is probably a better source than Russia.
I don't read AC A human right
The economics simply make it clear that direct solar to electric conversion is not a technology that can be used today. Not unlike the increased (and unrecoverable) cost (economic and environmental) of electric cars, the cost of solar electric systems simple do not pay for themselves. Some people in my neighborhood have home systems with installed costs approaching $100K. If they are paying $500 per month for electricity and reduce their bill year-round by 100% (that is, they are on net "off the grid") they face a 20 year recovery period.
Systems simply need to cost MUCH LESS to buy, install, and operate than they do today. Please give me a call when technology is far enough along that solar panels can be used economically on things other than $100M satellites.
We should focus on yanking gas out of the ground and making coal more environmentally friendly in the mean time.
Note that I said 'significant producer', nothing about reserves. Second, we wouldn't need to invade Iraq at all for the oil - Saddam was perfectly willing to exploit the supplies, it would have been far cheaper and easier to leave him in power and encourage him to sell oil. After all, oil is a global market, and even if he doesn't sell to the USA, his selling to the rest of the world would displace oil that would have gone there to the USA. Or even direct - see Chinese honey.
If we needed to invade 'for the oil', we could have done it far differently - simply securing the southern portion of Iraq where the oil fields actually are, which were mostly Shiite areas, leaving the Sunnis(Saddam's faction) and Kurds(mostly north) out to dry.
I don't read AC A human right
I just did a quick calculation, each new pv panel (~23kg) on a trip of 10,000 km costs $1.3, $1.9, and $12.6. for rail, ship, and truck, respectively.
I realize this is a very late post, but who in the world is giving you shipping quotes like that? I've bought small orders of electronic parts direct from mainland China and the best I've gotten is somewhere around 50 times your truck cost. Admittedly for mostly-air not truck. Ground literal slow boat from China was only about 1/3 price so thats even worse as we're now comparing something like my $30 or so estimate vs your $1.9 estimate. My packages were sub-one-Kg range so I'm sure there is a strong constant term where just shipping an empty box would cost a certain amount of handling fees, I'm sure a full sized shipping container would be cheaper, but...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2603836&cid=38589290