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Clinton Plan To Power Every US Home With Renewables By 2027 Is Achievable
Lucas123 writes: As part of her campaign pledge, Hillary Clinton has said she would make it a priority in her first term to increase the number of solar panels by 500M and U.S. installed solar capacity from 21 gigawatts (GW) today to 140GW by the end of 2020. Her plan, is to increase solar, wind and other renewables so that they'd provide 33% of America's electricity by 2027, enough to power every home. While the plan may sound overly ambitious, experts say, it's not. Today, renewables provide about 15% of America's power. Shayle Kann, senior vice president at GTM Research, said the Clinton's renewable energy goal is doable, but with caveats. In order to achieve the goal, current programs, such as federal tax breaks for solar installations (set to expire next year), must continue and future initiatives, such as Obama's Clean Power Plan that will begin in 2018, must not be curtailed. Considering that if elected, Clinton wouldn't take office until 2017, the her campaign goals could be more bravado than reality. Clinton, however, is not alone. While most candidates have yet to announce their clean energy plans, Clinton's Democratic contender, Martin O'Malley, also came out with strong support for the end of fossil fuel use and a full clean energy economy by 2050, and creating a national goal of doubling energy efficiency within 15 years.
Great Scott!!!!!!!
There is no such thing as "renewable" energy. It's only a goddamn law of thermodynamics.
To put 21 gigawatts in perspective, that's approximately 17 trips through time.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
That is the only explanation for "Failure Machine" Samzenpus posting something that does not trash the democrats or actively spread conservative FUD here. Nevermind that the summary is of such awful grammar that it makes me gnash my teeth, the fact that this article somehow earned his approval may actually be a sign of the end of times (at least, for slashdot).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If Hillarreah! were to tell me it's raining at night, I'd have to go outside to confirm it.
And I'd expect it to be sunny without a cloud in the sky.
How the hell much is this going to cost?
Note that cost has many dimensions here:
* taxes
* personal cost of having to replace bits and bobs to meet these efficiency standards
* increases in the power bill
etc...
It's nice to promise something, but has anyone run the numbers on cost to individuals and to the economy at large?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
headline says:
Clinton Plan To Power Every US Home With Renewables By 2027 Is Achievable
but the summary says
Her plan, is to increase solar, wind and other renewables so that they'd provide 33% of America's electricity by 2027, enough to power every home.
what this means is that the amount of renewable generation would equal residential use, not that each house would be 100% renewable.
In CA Southern California Edison is currently 22% renewable, and they have plans to go to 27%. This doesn't include home generation like rooftop solar panels, which should count for the 33% goal.
Please, enough with your sexist, cis-male, privileged bullshit. Everyone knows that Clinton has always run a clean, transparent operation wherever she goes and isn't one to blame significant swaths of the country for her failures. Next thing you'll be telling us she has a foundation that acts as a pay-for-play slush fund that enables assholes from around the world to get access to her and Bill.
I don't think anyone is against using sources of energy that do not need to be gathered from the middle east and processed at some centralized location. So the only reasons we don't have it is either 1) It is impractical 2) There are political/power games being played.
Ya know, instead of listening to what the politicians *say*, we could look at what the politicians *do*.
The two biggies I can think of are job outsourcing and civil rights. Let's see what Hillary has been doing for the last few years:
Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. (Mar 2006)
Voted YES on establishing a Guest Worker program. (May 2006)
Voted YES on allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security. (May 2006)
Opposes illegal immigration, but doesn’t vote to follow up. (Jun 2007)
Sponsored bill funding social services for noncitizens. (May 2006)
Voted YES on loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping. (Oct 2001)
Rated 60% by the ACLU, indicating a mixed civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)
Overall, a mixed bag of non-caring of our jobs and rights.
Do we want yet another president that doesn't care about the people?
Its not that its achievable its whether its feasible or reasonable.(which it isn't)
I don't want to do a sig now
As Reason pointed out, talk about central planning. Why not let the market decide what the best solution is instead of dictating solar panels. Could be much better solutions. Tax credits for whatever solution the home owner decides is best for their locale would be a start.
Just more hot air by politicians. The utility lobby will kill this; just look at all the roof tops in San Diego or Tuscon....
The US will probably reach that goal by 2027 without Clinton interventions based purely on economics of cheap solar. Of course had she, like other politicians, acted when it was actually important, the few hundred billions of dollars required for this transition would have supported American manufacturing. Instead these dollars will be funding development of the Chinese economy via their increasingly global renewable energy operations.
Solar is currently the most expensive renewable by far. I know the dream is to power everything in your house with solar panels on the roof, but the technology just isn't there yet (at least without tremendous expense).
The latest complete electrical production stats (2013) put renewables at 12.8%. 6.6% of that is hydro, 4.1% is wind, 1% is burning wood (yes it's a renewable), 0.5% is "other biomass" - mostly natural gas captured from landfills, 0.4% is geothermal, and only 0.22% is solar (thermal and photovoltaic). Solar isn't last because of some grand conspiracy. It's last because it's the most expensive.
Why would you want to put the most expensive technology on the fast track for widescale adoption? Because it taps into the wishes and dreams of those who don't know better? The whole point of being an elected official is that your sole job is to learn this stuff so you can make better decisions about it than the voters who elected you who don't have the time (or sometimes the capability) to learn this stuff. A more well-reasoned approach would be to encourage wider adoption of wind (hydro is pretty much tapped out in the U.S., and wind is just a hair's breadth more expensive than coal), while continuing subsidies into solar R&D. Encouraging wide-scale adoption of PV solar at current levels of technology and cost is wasteful and foolish when better alternatives exist.
...every house was powered by renewable energy. They heated with wood. They lit with acetylene created by throwing calcium carbide into water.
But I prefer natural gas, or my woodstove. Talk about renewable! Are you leftists serious about this old lady?
It's always about the money, and where it can be funneled. State paid out $6 billion without anything even close to adequate contracts just while she was Secretary of State. Think of the opportunities for redirection with a massive government led redo of the electrical grid.. http://www.washingtontimes.com...
The economics don't work and the physics don't work. Solar can't provide power at night. Wind can't produce when there's no wind. That's a big problem. Plus the constant up/down status changes of the power sources will put a huge strain on our grid. We need *reliable* power.
If the solar panels that are opined are to be installed are on the consumers' houses, how will the power distribution grid need to be changed?
If solar panels are in the desert somewhere, will a new distribution system need to be built (along what right of way?) to carry the electricity from the desert to the consumers?
In other words, don't just look at the power generation source, also look at getting that generated power to the consumer.
From your link:
This isn't really true, all we see is a correlation. What if instead of a line we chose to use a different function, then that 84% number would change right? So saying that amount is "explained" makes no sense. Also, correlation is not causation. For example, renewable capacity and high electricity cost could both be caused by increased government meddling.
I believe the 'reasoning' for many is quite simplistic.
"Dirty energy is good. Pollution is good. Whatever causes climate change, it's good."
"Because the pundit I hear says so. Because the politicians I voted for told them to. Because the oil lobby paid them to."
Nah. Just "because dirty is good."
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
She was basically expected to fail. For various political reasons within the DNC she needed to be given the presumption of a chance but there was an understanding from the start that she'd not go anywhere.
Sort of like the republicans running John McCain or something... the know he's not going to win. They might even nominate him... but if they do... they know he's not going anywhere.
Hillary is the same thing and so is Bernie or Trump. the political forces that know anything know that these people are the opening circus attraction.
Behind Hillary there are a lot of people in the Dem ranks that can stand up and be more credible than her. And they will especially since Hillary appears to be self destructing faster than anything believed possible. This email thing is getting increasingly serious. I doubt she's going to jail over it but... it is looking like something nasty could come out of it. The sweater is getting unraveled.
On the other political side you have Trump... who also will not be president. Its not going to happen. Even if he got the nomination and he won't... but even if he did... he'd still lose.
So who cares what these people say they would do. I might as well stand up and say what I would do if I were president. Or anyone else on slashdot... Stand up and tell us what you'd do if you were president.
Whatever you said matters about as much as Hillary's various schemes to get enough votes to get her party's nomination.
I will say this... IF Hillary got nominated... she might win. She'd have a D after her name and that is a very powerful thing in an election. But... I don't think she's going to get nominated.
She's kind of a female Al Gore in a lot of ways. Neither Gore nor her wants to associate with Bill Clinton but neither of them would even be considered for high office without that association. I don't know why they distance themselves from Bill. If I were either of them I'd walk around on stage as Bill Clinton gave me piggybacks. As much as possible, I'd try to make people think they were voting for Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton could actually win again... I mean... legality and term limits aside... people like him. No one likes Hillary. Even her supporters don't like her. They feel comfortable with her maybe or they think her politics are right or whatever. But they don't like her. Who wants to have a beer with Hillary? or a glass of wine or anything? No one likes her. Bill is funny. He's got stories. He's charming. You'd have a good time and he projects that in his politics and personality.
Hillary projects... Agnes from accounting... The woman in the office that does something boring and repetitive that no one cares about... she goes home every day at 5pm and people assume she has a lot of cats because of the pictures of cats all over her cubicle...
I mean seriously... imagine if Hillary were not a politican but just some person. Would you want to know her or spend any time with her?
Exactly. I mean... I'd rather spend time with Trump then her... and Trump is insane. But Trump is at least amusing. I'd likely deck him every so often... and doubtless he'd call the cops on me because I assume he's a whiny bitch on the subject. But... people you want to spend time with versus not is relevant in politics. Likability.
And that's a problem for old Hill. She isn't getting the nomination. I don't see it. And if she does... she's one of the weaker presidential candidates the dems could field.
I'd actually fear Bernie more in this election if I were the republicans more than Hillary. I mean... bernie is a frizzy haired crack pot. But he's at least sincere. He actually believes the shit that comes out of his mouth. Hillary doesn't believe anything. Those are just animal sounds she makes to lull the peasants. Everything is focus groups, talking points, lobbying scripts... she licks her finger, holds it up to the wind, and that's her position.
And I think THAT perception is going to be very hard for her to overcome.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Let me be clear, the True West alone will produce that much clean energy in WA OR ID NV CA UT.
We're not the problem. We grow our economies and our population while emitting fewer GHG emissions.
It's the rest of America that's the problem.
And 2027 is far too late for you to get your act together.
Climate Change is Now.
Something I said back in 2008. Which is when we needed to end grandfather exemptions for old inefficient fossil fuel plants.
We took action in the True West.
You didn't. Even the other states who did only stopped emissions growth, while we reduced ours and grew our economy ten times faster than you did.
Actions. Now.
Not words.
Not then. Now.
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I wonder how much energy is released by forest fires, which consume millions of acres per year.
renewables don't cost more, fossil fuels are just heavily subsidized - as in they should cost more right now.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Clinton Plan To Power Every US Home With Renewables By 2027 Is Achievable
Many things are achievable but still not worth doing:
Dude 1: "So I got wasted, hooked up with that skanky 60-year old fat chick from the bar, lost my car keys and walked home in the rain, slipped and fell in a pile of dogshit."
Dude 2: "That's...achievable!"
Anyway, the kind of people who work for a living and pay taxes might ask, "so how much is this going to cost me?"
Well it might not be as bad as Obama's plan which, in his own words, would cause electricity prices to "necessarily skyrocket."
Though if we emulate Denmark or Germany then our electric bills will be about 2.5x what they are now. Over at Watts Up With That, Willis Eschenbach plots renewable energy adoption of nations vs. their respective consumer electric price. As he explains, he derives the plot from two graphs first presented together here by Paul Homewood.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Wrong. Wind and solar are both cheaper. Pay attention. It's 2015, not 1975.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
World peace is also achievable, but like Clinton's "plan", it's just not going to happen.
Since not every house is in the sunbelt and hot every dwelling is single-family with a large roof area, what she's talking about is having enough total renewables nationwide to supply all dwellings through the grid. That would mean implementing Smart Grid, the extensions to the current baseload grid to integrate small renewables (daytime excess from every house fed back into the grid) and medium renewables (wind and solar fields). The first step in implementing Smart Grid would be to install smart meters, which electronically report many times a day on each user's power flowing in either direction, so that a future Smart Grid can keep adjusting the fluctuating output of renewables to the fluctuating load.
In my sun-drenched community, a few wealthy Republican early adopters have rooftop solar installations that supply all their needs. What do you think our Democrats are doing - waiting for subsidies to come through so they can install solar for themselves? No, they're out in the streets and packing public meetings, protesting against the smart meters because they believe that they emit "radiation" (the Democrat equivalent to "sin") of some kind. They even want Arizona Public Service to implement a special procedure to exempt them - the very people who are supposed to be supporting renewables - from the smart meter installation cycle.
Hillary, you're going to have to find a way of getting through these meter-thick skulls before you can nave your nationwide renewable power generation.
in return for an expensive way of taking their oil. Its the American way baby !! USA #1
Maybe Hillary could conduct a pilot project in her own home. Throw a few panels on the roof. It might even generate enough to power an email server.
Umm...it appears that the email server has been disconnected. Well, never mind. It's the thought that counts :-)
Clinton also announced a new initiative to replace the warplanes of the American air force with modern and environmentally sound flying pigs. "It is an achievable goal," she is quoted as saying. Whether or nor this meant it was a desirable one to achieve was not addressed by the candidate.
The Glorious East will crush you True West infidels. We will grind your bones to burn in our smoky power factories of victory. Our lights will burn bright and the smoke will blow to the west, bringing darkness across your sodden landscape of depravity and shame.Your Grandfather will not be an exception. Your misguided smugness will be your downfall.
All hail the Glorious East! For it is the east and it is glorious. The True West shall be vanquished.
The cost of solar has fallen dramatically, so lots of people will build solar even if the government doesn't do anything.
The government could best encourage solar by streamlining regulations, and possibly with some sort of low-interest loan program to help people get past the initial cost. If solar makes sense, people could save enough money on their electricity to pay back the loans.
My big fear though is that if the government tries to force this, it will turn out like the similar program in Germany. Because of the lack of practical grid-scale energy storage, Germany has simultaneously managed to produce huge amounts of free renewable power while making the German citizens pay far more than ever for power and while burning more coal than ever. (Germany is shutting down nuclear power plants; solar and wind aren't dependable enough; result, more coal burned.)
President Obama's administration has implemented new rules to reduce coal burning, but the example of Germany shows that this shall really cause a dramatic increase in prices so it will not be politically possible for that plan to be fully implemented. It's easy to talk about it now, but it will be hard for politicians to say "your electricity cost will necessarily skyrocket and you just need to deal with it, and vote for me." (The plan contains "escape hatches" that will allow the utilities to keep producing power with coal if the plan doesn't work out.)
I think that all we really need is practical grid-level energy storage, and the "green energy" solution will take off like a rocket with no government intervention needed. I have hopes for liquid metal batteries but any high-density storage solution would solve the problem.
If we get grid-level storage in the near future, solar and wind power will become much more economically attractive and we will get more of it. Then politicians will claim the credit and the coal-burning reductions will actually happen. If solar and wind power remain economically problematic and government forces us to use more, we will all pay more for power, and politicians will say there is nothing they can do.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
If that were the only reason, then Europe should off the petrol habit entirely.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The ComputerWorld article says renewables are 15% currently. Clinton wants to increase that to 33%. Most of the article is about solar panels, increasing them 7X from current. But they are only 0.4% of current, so 7X that goes to 2.8%. A big 2.4% of the total. Does that mean the other renewables will increase about 15% of the total? Doesn't seem possible, isn't hydroelectric maxed out (possibly even dropping with droughts out West)? Are wind turbines supposed to go from today's 4.4% to 15%?
I guess I need to go look at the Youtube. It just takes too dang long to try to be an informed citizen.
(I guess the other option is US electrical use drops by half. Half the middle class gets kicked down to poverty level. Seems more likely than renewables going to 33% of current use...)
No, not the current breed of dangerous water-cooled reactors. ...or even better, run the world on nuclear waste for the next 50+ years.
LFTR FTW!
/tb
All the article does is project capacity growth rates by assuming same rate as now with continued subsidies, higher rate required to meet target, or reduced rate without subsidies. It does not address things like storage, grid balance, distribution, etc.
This is the basic finance sector assumption of linear growth grates of market shares, when the actual dynamics depend on the market share already achieved. In short, the article tells us nothing at all.
Please explain how ~30-80 cents/gallon** taxation becomes "subsidized".
**depending on state and local excise taxation.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Then when she gets in, same bullshit as the last 8 years, and the 16 years before that.
In my sun-drenched community, a few wealthy Republican early adopters have rooftop solar installations that supply all their needs.
I'm curious about your methodology. Can you elaborate on how you determined their affiliation? Do you personally know all the people in your community with rooftop solar or did you determine their party affiliation in some other manner?
Can you also clarify whether you merely mean that they are registered to vote in republican primaries, or do you have solid evidence that they vote a strict republican hard line in all elections regardless of candidates or issues?
There are a scattering of houses with rooftop solar in some of the neighborhoods where I run (on foot for exercise, not for political office) but it would never have occurred to me to research the political party affiliation of the homeowners.
33% is not enough, plus HRC will never give an honest answer about much more just that will cost. Remember Obama in 2008 said under his plan to kill coal, "electricity costs will skyrocket."
Or it's not enough yet. What does it cost to pull a metric ton of CO2 out of the air?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
There reasoning is such: The gas tax brings in money. It then becomes the governments money. When they spend it on roads it becomes an oil subsidy.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Please calculate how much it costs to remove a ton(lbs) of CO2 out of the air. You'll then have your answer in terms of the subsidy.
Being allowed to pollute the environment *should* come at a cost.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There's my daily propaganda piece! I thought for a second I'd overlooked it!
The roots of progressive democracy are in human religion, as espoused by Herbert Croly, and to a lessor extent, Auguste Comte.
The idea that social evolution can only be accomplished by a core group of wealthy playboy elites, an all-powerful state, and a herd of worker primates feminized towards docile behavior, has been debunked by the social sciences in recent years. Hillary, Obama, Sanders are all deep believers.
Wilson, FDR, and other atheist elites around the globe thought it was a fine plan to cull the herd with two WWs and 80 M. people turned into pink slime.
Still, the average atheist blames a religion that, for quite some time, has said ... "love one another as thyself" and "thou shalt not kill".
With the five states closest to bankruptcy being "free everything", grecian formula, deep blue, progressive democrat strongholds (ref. George Mason Mercatus report), with a combined unfunded entitlement debt of $ 1.2 T (4x Greece), and no "Germany" to bail them out, Hillary Clinton and the Progressive Democrats are the last people anyone should listen to.
We need to move towards the ideals of Jefferson -- a smaller government, with largely Republican ideas. If something can be done to focus less on the cancer of the moral majority, and more on the spirit of business and economy, the GOTP and Libertarians might be able to accomplish many good things.
Clinton? Only if We the People think education can ever be "free", or grecian formula defaults are a good idea.
When invading other countries to, umm ... combat tairsum and impose demorcacy, costs 40-90 cents per gallon.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's the people with the "can do" attitude that lead us to the future.
A can-do attitude is useful when you have an idea about how to do something new and nay-sayers then argue against that idea ever working. What we have here is a political goal with no clue about how to achieve it which is not the same thing. The problem with a 100 % 'renewable' energy solution is that the power is very variable. Show me a plan to deal with that and I'll be interested. Until then this appears nothing more than political hot air.
... to the low information voters who elected Obama and will vote for Hillary. If they believe this drivel, they're as dumb as rocks.
I would really like to see Government v2.0 where candidates are held accountable for lying to the public when they fail to follow through on the promises that got them elected in the first place :|
Doesn't Mitsubishi or someone make a pebble bed reactor you can fit on the back of a 18 wheeler for about $10 Million? Thought I read that somewhere. I would totally put a Mitsubishi reactor in my back yard if I could sell the excess electricity on the local grid. I'm sure the neighbors would have no objections to Clean! Atomic! Energy! and neither should Hillary. Reallly! It's just like fire! The handbook says so! All that hysterical handwaving is just hippies stuck in the 70's!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Actually it's not bad, it is GOOD.
You'd have to be crazy to think this woman deserves a seat in the Oval Office after she
used insecure email to send and receive secret government documents.
I think you aren't including sufficient battery backup. But they aren't much more expensive.
The real problem is the the stability of the US dollar is subsidized by petroleum only being sold in dollars. It's my belief that that's why there's such a US military presence in the middle east. (IIRC, the invasion of Iran coincidentally happened after the prior government agreed to sell oil in euros. Then there were these WMDs discovered (which turned out to be faked). Just coincidentally.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The last thing Clinton wants is wood
You mean the 'morning' version?
I'm sorry, but Wind and Solar just aren't viable for the entire country, not to mention the amount of land that they would take up. I believe these technologies are just taking us down another path we shouldn't be taking. If you want to talk about energy production then you have to look at nuclear, it's the only clean safe solution that can meet and exceed our demands.. before you start writing all the hate rhetoric there are more ways to do nuclear than just the light water reactors that are run today, my bet is on liquid fluoride thorium reactors. Don't know what that is? Head on over to youtube and look up Kirk Sorensen, he has been advocating for LFTR's for some time and I believe he's on the right track. The fuel efficiency is well over 90% and the amount of waste is negligible, plus if they are installed near a body of water (such as California coastline) it can be desalinated as a byproduct.
You can pretend a lot of things. The bottom line is that if the consumer has to shell out more money, it costs them more. All your wrangling to justify that doesn't change this at all.
Solar can't provide power at night. Wind can't produce when there's no wind.
And your laptop can't run when it's not plugged in.
You never heard of batteries, did you?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The government could best encourage solar by streamlining regulations,
The biggest thing they could do is change the regulations on their subsidies, tax breaks, and the like to replace the requirement "installed by a licensed contractor" to "installed in conformance with the applicable electrical code, permitted and inspected where applicable". This would allow do-it-yourself installations, where done properly, to receive the same benefits as professional installations.
The price difference between a homeowner-installed and a contractor-installed system is typically larger than the subsidies. So the current programs amount to welfare for the government-approved contractors rather than the homeowners.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Snow is a damn good insulator. So heating will be a very small problem unless you leave the doors open.
Look, let me be crystal here:
Solar prices have plummetted. Both passive and active.
Wind price have plummetted.
Battery prices have plummetted.
It's obvious you're stuck in the 70s Reagan myths.
It's 2015. Not 1975. The world - and energy capital costs - have changed dramatically.
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The damn lies are simply pesky details.
In other, unrelated news, experts confirm they are not politically motivated whatsoever but that all candidates with a D next to their name are infallible.
Also that dropping large sums of money on these researchers will increase scientific knowledge and economic growth a hundred fold!
Because electric cars don't use tires and roads made of asphalt; made of refined crude oil. When are we getting quiet roads and 80,000 mile rated tires made out of solar and wind energy? Never may not be soon enough.
LFTR is the way to go, stop screwing around with solar and wind.
You're living in a world devoid from reality if you believe what politicians are SAYING instead of finding out what they're really DOING;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Casteism
Try 2000, as that's the year when I was actively pricing solar panels. Battery backup was then grossly unaffordable, if you could get a decent grid connection.
Now maybe battery prices have plummeted, but if so I haven't noticed, except for things intended for cell phones, etc. Lithium and other high end batteries have, indeed, dropped in price, but that's not what you want for a backup to a "grid replacement" power system.
OTOH, yes, solar panel prices, and the prices on the associated electronics have plummeted. But you need sufficient battery backup, and that can double the price of your system. (Or it could in 2000. Given the way prices have been changing I'd expect it to be closer to tripling the cost. For a home user. As you get larger there are better options up to the scale of a small town. Once you get above that level, backup becomes more expensive again unless you use the grid.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
2000? That's ages. Solar is cheaper than oil, and even cheaper than coal now.
Are you still running Windows 95? Or have you upgraded to Win2K yet?
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Personally I won't have anything to do with MSWind after reading the EULA on the 2000 edition. There's still one computer in the house with MSWind95 on it, and an old Mac (10.3...the edition where *they* started using an unacceptable EULA). The Mac hasn't even been powered up in the last year or so, but has some files I'd rather not lose, but which are in proprietary formats. The active computers are Linux.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.