But cost matters, which is why a $100 Android phone is impressive even if it doesn't quite have the horsepower of a 1980s Cray supercomputer.
I get your point, but you picked a bad example.
A $100 Android phone today has FAR more computing power than a 1980s Cray supercomputer. It will give a 1990s supercomputer a run for its money (early 90s).
Consider 1996, ASIC Red, the Intel Supercomputer first to break a teraflop of compute performance. Desktop video cards today have more performance than that.
This problem was solved in 1991, in terms of the technical implementation and protocol.
You are confusing the technical solution with the practical end-user solution.
The "problem" is that few people care about receiving encrypted email, so they don't publish a key to use for sending them email. Maybe if email clients made it super-easy more people would do it.
That will never, EVER happen. If people have to "publish" a key manually, then you can just forget it.
Personally, I publish my public key on the "Contact Us" page of my web site and on the public key servers.
See above. You completely and totally miss the point. If I have to track down a web site, or Google+ page, or Facebook page, and manually copy or use a key from there, you might as well toss the whole idea in the bin.
If it isn't automatic, then it doesn't exist for 95%+ of computer users.
Windows 10 appears to be doing quite well, it is now installed on 1/3 of the machines as reported by Steam, it runs very well, on a vast array of hardware, with no fuss.
---
Now of course I can read between the lines and assume that you meant "evil M$ released Windoze 10 that you don't like", but that doesn't make it a debacle.
---
I can't help you. *shakes head*
Many of us are shaking our head right back at you.
?? The majority of people, me included, are based outside the US. What was that about?
The NSA is legally able to spy on you. They probably aren't, because they don't care about you, but they can.
Also, every other country is tempted to be just as controlling as the USA. Being outside the USA doesn't help much. (it does help, but not much)
Windows isn't written outside the US, that is the difference.
I currently have 2,750 square feet of office space, Verizon FIOS provides service to my building, the prior tenants had it, the FIOS box was still on the wall inside the unit.
I *STILL* put a condition in my 3 year lease that said that if Verizon did not install FIOS phone and Internet into the office, I could get out of the lease without a break lease fee.
My business depends on Internet, so if at any point in my lease term, FIOS goes away, I can move without penalty. If your business depends on a service, you should insist on such a clause in your lease.
Smile all you like, you're the one who clearly doesn't get it, and since you aren't listening to anything, there is no point in replying to the rest of your post.
The problem with shutting down the zoos is that now you're going to raise an entire generation of children who have never seen a lion or giraffe or orca, etc. and so have never developed that primeval sense of wonder and excitement for nature's creatures. Decades down the road, those children will be adults, and they'll be voting on wildlife preservation laws, and they won't give a shit about nature preserves, or fishing bans, etc. What do they care? Its just a bunch of bugs and fish and crap, pave it over with something useful, like a strip mall.
So the animal rights activists may think they're winning the day, but really, they're just eating their seed corn. A generation or two later and we won't even have animal rights activists, let alone animals for them to activate over.
Well, if you would plaster all of the deserts in Texas with solar and all the coast of Texas with wind, on shore or off shore: you would power the whole two american continents several times over.
At night? During winter?
No one ever has an answer to that issue.
Really? Are you sure about that? So, tell me: how much power do "people" want at 12:00, at noon? How much power do they want at 7:00/9:00AM? How much power do they want at 4:00/7:00PM? Surprisingly that is a complete different amount of power than e.g. 11:00PM or 4:00AM.
Yes, 100% sure, just ask my wife.
I want all the power that I want, whenever I want, any time I want, as much as I want.
If I want to run all my appliances at one time, fine, I want to do that. If I want to turn the AC to super cold in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer, fine, I want to do that.
Everything should work, 100% of the time, whenever I want it to, without any limits or restrictions. Why? Because that is what I have NOW! If your plan requires that I give that up, then you can shove that plan where the sun doesn't shine.
If you honestly tell me that my two choices are my current 24/7/365 anytime I want it power based on coal and natural gas, or a "smart grid" that tells ME when I can run stuff and when I can't, but it is based on wind and solar... Well then you can keep your wind and solar, not only am I not interested, but millions of Americans won't be either.
The total picture (worldwide in fact) for coal is pretty damning.
Unless wind and solar become actually cheaper than coal without government subsidies, then it will continue to be burned *somewhere*.
Maybe not the US or EU, but someone on Earth will burn it.
Frankly, I believe if they ever perfect the residential home battery, solar adoption will just go nuts. We're on the correct trajectory. Change just takes time.
I honestly hope your belief turns out to be true. But I've been around long enough to remember many promises that didn't come true.
As for change, it may well come, but I suspect it won't come nearly as fast as you hope it will, and if it comes in 75 years, it likely won't matter, the point of no return will have been passed.
If the net metering is for power only, ofc it would work. The grid fee would be separate.
Here it isn't... And the only way solar even remotely works here is if you get complete net-metering with all fees included.
If I understand/. right, some people think you can draw X kWh from the utilities and feed back in X and be at zero costs? Of course that would not work. To be at zero, you need to feed more in to compensate for the grid costs you had when you drew the power.
It isn't a *think*, it is a fact. In MOST of the US (not all, there are rare exceptions) you get complete and pure net-metering.
You get paid full retail price for your fed-in power, including the grid fee.
If my bill is $150 today and I install solar and produce and feed back to the grid during the month as much as I consume, then my bill drops to $10, which is the monthly connection charge.
That's it. I get 100% credit for all power fed to the grid. It works this way today because so few Americans have solar, but the utilities are pushing back as more people get solar and take advantage of this, they want to end net-metering outright. They want to buy your power for wholesale cost with no grid credit.
Right now, I paid 9.5 cents per KWh at home last month, of that, wholesale price is about 3.5 cents per KWh. So without our current net-metering, I would get paid only 3.5 cents per KWh generated. As it stands, I get paid the full 9.5 cents per KWh.
The 6% rate of return on solar that I am *estimated* to get right now, DEPENDS on the net-metering that I can get today. If it drops to 3.5 cents, then my return is cut in half to about 3% (or less)
Net-metering is what I was talking about. Net-metering will never survive, it can't.
As it stands, if I produce 20,000 KWh extra during the year and pump it back to the grid and consume 20,000 KWh off the grid, then I pay nothing (or effectively nothing, there is a $10 connection charge, but that won't run the power companies or power grid).
My pumping all that power during the day onto the grid doesn't help provide power at night. They need power stations for that. Power stations cost money to run. If we all put up solar, they will have no money.
They pay a premium price for utility solar to make it work, raising the price of power for everyone. That is just one program, there are many more like it.
I've looked at investing, the problem I personally run into is that their entire business model really depends on government money to work. The numbers just don't pencil out otherwise.
Just one year of not building new bombers, submarines, aircraft carriers, and other stuff we don't need could fund an infrastructure rebuilding across the nation that would repair neglected bridges and roads
While I understand your point, and it is a fair one to make... There is something to consider that perhaps you haven't thought about.
The skilled workers and tooling required to make the machines of war is hard to make and setup and is lost quickly if you don't use it. We are still building aircraft carriers and submarines for this very reason. We don't really NEED more, the new ones don't do all that much new stuff. (they do, but it is evolutionary in nature) Instead the primary purpose is to keep the ability to do it alive.
Newport News Shipbuilding is the only place in the world that can build a nuclear carrier. There is exactly one dry dock that can do it at Hampton Roads. If you wanted to increase production, it would actually take quite a few years to get anything up to speed.
Now imagine that we say we have enough carriers and we'll take 5 years off from building them, skip the next one and save $10+ billion dollars.
Is Newport News supposed to maintain Hampton Roads for 5 years without work? What about all the people working there with critical skills? You'll never get them all back.
If in 5 years, we say "ok, lets build some new carriers now", you'll spend more money than you saved in getting back up to speed. It doesn't actually save anything.
The same thing is true with tanks and a whole lot of other military stuff. When the decision to shut down C-17 production and F-22 production, I thought that was sad, because it means we will never get another of either. The cost to spin production back up is simply absurd, you're almost better off just designing a new airplane.
If you look at that, you'll see a smaller British JumpJet carrier next to a US Nimitz supercarrier... there is only one place in the world that can build that larger ship, if they don't always have a ship to build, you'll lose that ability and it will take a lot of money and time to get back there.
Back to tanks, there is exactly one plant in the US that can build tanks. It is in Lima, OH:
Yes, to some extent, it is a jobs program, but if you shut that place down, it will be rather expensive to build any new tanks in the future, and you might end up having to design a brand new tank from scratch if you do shut it down.
Quote:
"Congressional backers of the Abrams upgrades view the vast network of companies, many of them small businesses, that manufacture the tanks' materials and parts as a critical asset that has to be preserved. The money, they say, is a modest investment that will keep important tooling and manufacturing skills from being lost if the Abrams line were to be shut down."
I agree, which is why I think residential solar won't see significant adoption until the units are built in as part of the design during initial construction. That would greatly reduce installation costs as well as better integrate the design and functionality of the equipment.
I would tend to agree. If you are a tract builder and have 150 homes to put up, you can contract with someone to install solar on every one of them, your costs of doing it at that time would far, far less, than doing them one at a time.
Do you know of any major home builders that make solar on the roof a standard feature so that all the homes in the neighborhood have them?
Fortunately, there are some folks that have far more data than that, and have done it properly. If you look on pages 13 and 14, they've done some nice maps of the US where they've indicated where the break-even cost on solar is depending on the installed cost per watt, and if time-of-use rates applied. At $3/watt, it's break-even everywhere except the Pacific Northwest, some bits of Appalachia (coal country), and southeast Missouri (on the Mississippi, where all the coal form coal country is shipped).
That all sounds nice, but if you read it, you'll notice that they make some "assumptions" which actually aren't true today.
"We also... assume a carbon policy resulting in an effective cost of carbon equal to $25/ton of CO2"
So they are assuming we'll have a carbon tax. So the entire thing only applies after that happens, which I don't see happening any time soon.
Also: "we increased the base derate factor to 82%, representing anticipated improvement in inverters and other balance of system components."
So they are assuming that the systems will produce more power than they actually do today, because "improvements". Fine, then wait until such things exist before telling people what the break-even cost is.
---
Another quote:
" It is important to note that in practice only a fraction of customers in these utility service territories are likely to meet all the criteria (full retail net metering, good solar exposure, and financing) to be at breakeven, and the presence of break-even conditions does not necessarily equate to large consumer adoption. Furthermore, there are budget caps for most current incentive programs and typically limits on the amount of net-metered systems that can be connected to the grid in a specific utility service territory."
So frankly the whole thing sounds really good on the surface "oh look, lots of people at at or near break-even the future is here!" only to discover that really, it isn't.
Are you really trying to tell me that because Solar doesn't pencil out for you, that everyone else that researches this stuff is wrong?
Of course not, I fully understand why so many homes in San Fran have solar. The price of power there is high (along with real estate), and they have tiered power rates, plus incentives in the state to make solar work. If I lived there, I'd probably install it too.
That being said, I suspect a lot of people that think solar makes sense, either don't do the math correctly or make assumptions that won't work out in the long run, but by the time they find out, they can't change their mind. Also, since no one likes to admit they made a mistake, they rationalize it to themselves and move their expectations "saving the earth" rather than "saving money".
And, as has been discussed already, you and I both live in places where grid power is stupidly cheap in comparison to other places.
I would follow that up with "so why exactly are power prices all over the place?" Coal doesn't change in price that much from place to place. It costs about $10, give or take, per ton of coal, to deliver it to your average plant. Some will be less, some more. Then you have running costs, which don't vary THAT much. Then delivery costs which average 3-4 cents per KWh. Why is anyone paying over 12 cents per KWh for power?
If you jack with the market, put silly tiered rates that make bulk purchases go UP in price, tax it heavily, etc. then of course you can make solar look good. But power should not be that expensive and generally if it is, someone is messing with the system.
It is the willingness of so many people to accept 20 cent (or more) KWh rates that is the real problem, or perhaps the unwillingness to challenge the system as to why power is that much. Hell, even wind power doesn't cost that much (if you prefer something besides coal), so do it with wind. Natural gas (where it is local) also costs very little these days.
Now there are special cases, Hawaii for example, due to a lack of local resources and distance, so I totally get solar there. But CA? There is no reason power should cost what it does in CA, other than politics.
If the situation is as described in a recent statement attributed to Tim Cook, then this is a completely fake issue. In summary, that quote said it would only take a few man-months to produce the software that the FBI wants. If so, then it is barely conceivable the FBI lacks the resources to have created it already, and it is dead certain that the NSA (and foreign counterparts) already have it.
The FBI doesn't have the signing keys. Without them, writing new code doesn't help because the phone won't accept it.
They really shouldn't pay top dollar at times when they can produce for less from other sources; which is the utilities argue net against net metering and why net metering returns should not be included in a total cost of ownership calculation.
I agree. But then most of the ROI I see solar do assumes net-metering.
Remove that and for most people, I suspect solar becomes a bad financial choice.
Sure, with battery backup on site and shifting power use across 24 or 48 hours using a battery, may solve the problem in the long run, the cost of that solution makes the problem worse, not better, at least for now.
You are right. The tax incentives were the reason that I could afford to put solar on my house 4 years ago.
I believe that most of the solar in the US, with perhaps a few exceptions on the coasts in expensive areas, are only being done due to tax incentives.
But fair enough, if that is what we want to spend our collective money on, so be it. I just prefer we be honest about it rather than imply that solar by itself is so magical.
Side note: I'm not against solar, I'm against expensive solar. Give me a 50% tax credit and 10 years of guaranteed net-metering and I'll install solar on my roof tomorrow, no question. Wouldn't even have to think about it.
Well, it also makes sense if you live in an area where electricity costs are "high" (for some value of "high"). It looks like your area has extremely low electricity costs. From your own numbers, if your electricity costs were doubled, then your savings would also be doubled and the ecconomics might be more to your liking. It does looks like there are a number of regions with twice your electrical costs.
You of course are correct, if I paid 19 cents per KWh instead of 9.5 cents, then yes, this whole thing might make a ton of sense.
But that misses the point. WHY does power cost that much in some parts of the US?
Coal costs about $45 a ton delivered, more or less, anywhere in the US. Maybe $10 more to remote far away locations. You're looking at between 2.2 cents and 3 cents for cost of fuel for coal. Then you need another penny to run the plant, 1.5 cents if they run it poorly.
That is a wholesale price of power of about 5 cents per KWh on a worst case and that gives the power plant a profit margin to boot. Power delivery costs 3-5 cents per KWh give or take.
Why is ANYONE paying over about 12 cents per KWh anywhere in the lower 48 states? THAT is the question you need to ask.
It is worth noting that coal has been dropping due to the challenge of building new plants and the low wholesale price of power. There isn't much margin in coal power right now, making it hard to keep up with all the government mandates on coal plants.
It is worth noting that much of the drop in coal has been made up for by natural gas.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, in 1980 the world had enough proved gas reserves to last 48 years at the 1980 rate of production. Cumulative world gas production from 1980 through 2011 was greater than the proved gas reserves in 1980. In 2011, world proved gas reserves were enough to last 58 years at 2011 production levels, even though the 2011 production rate was more than double the 1980 rate.
So in 1980, we had 48 years of gas left, at 1980 production levels. At that rate, we ran dry in 2028, just 12 years from now.
In 2011, we now have 58 years of gas at 2011 production levels, which are more than DOUBLE the rate of 1980, putting the "end" at 2069.
So for all the doom and gloom of "peak oil" and "peak gas", we added 41 years to the "end" date while doubling production. And it just keeps going up. Now it won't continue forever of course, it has to stop at some time (there is some specific total amount of gas in the ground after all), but it won't be by 2050, and frankly I'll be shocked if it is by 2100.
Current estimates (~November 2015) has coal around 33.6% of US electricity generation (and dropping quickly).
Lets assume that is true. So what replaced the missing 6% of power? It wasn't wind and solar. They went up slightly, maybe half a percent each. So lets say 1% of the missing 6% is wind/solar. Where did the other 5% come from? Natural gas.
Better than coal, but not really a solution if AGW is your concern.
---
Anyway, all of that is beside the point. I pointed out that oil was such a low total number to make the point that we aren't fighting wars overseas to protect oil because we need it to power our homes (it is actually far less than 5%, as noted in the link I provided). It is to power our cars.
Let me guess, you live in Washington or Oregon where your power rates are 5.35 cents a kwh
No, I live in Texas where I pay a flat 9.5 cents for power.
Hell I pay $300 a month for nearly 6 months during the summer and I have a power rate that tiers to three separate prices depending on use.
Two things:
1. $300 a month is nothing, I have $500 bills in the summer. I also work from home, like my house at 72 degrees, and probably have a larger house than you (I'm in Texas, lots of houses here are big) 2. You're being ripped off by your utility and/or government. Power should get cheaper the more you buy, not more expensive. You pay more because of non-power cost reasons, that doesn't make solar good, it makes your situation crap.
Solar in 2015 was 0.95% of total US generation in 2015
When you start from nothing and throw ten billion tax dollars at it, you can do that.
At current growth rates Solar is projected to be 5% of the power grid by 2020 and nearly 15% by 2030.
We shall see, but I think someone is smoking crack. The chances of either number happening are zero in my opinion.
Solar comprises 30% of the power grid in Hawaii right now.
Hawaii is a special case and doesn't carry over to the 48 states. They have extremely stable weather, a ton of sun, and sky-high power prices due to being the most remote islands on Earth. About 32 cents per KWh, compared to less than 12 cents for the lower 48 states.
There are significant portions of Texas where power after 9pm is free due to the excess wind production. With periods of free power there will be lots of companies that spring up and use that power to generate hydrogen that they reconvert to power with a fuel cell to fill in the lows.
Call me when that happens. There are many reasons why the above is happening in Texas, it would be rather hard to build a business depending on it for the next 20 years. You're confusing the issue of something being *technically* possible with it being politically possible and reasonable from an economic point of view.
ROI rates are so high most of the companies investing in solar are turning down investment money because they can't possibly spend it. Last round of construction bonding Solar city went after they turned down over $200 million. You would know this if you followed the market as it's been the talk of the market energy discussions for 4 years now.
That is because there are caps and limits on the Dept of Energy incentive programs to fund and subsidize solar. They don't want to install more than they'll get paid to install. I've looked at investing in solar. It has a nice ROI if you assume the government gravy train will never end, but it falls apart otherwise.
Maybe you should study current rates and market trends.
I have, more than you know. Countries like Denmark and Germany are spending huge sums to accomplish things that look impressive in their own nations, but would never scale to the world. And the changes they make don't actually solve anything, since we all live on the same planet.
Frankly, I find most of the "wind and solar will save us all" people to be rather delusional when it comes to the future of this stuff. You're ignoring a number of non-technical reasons why your numbers won't happen.
That is a perfect case study in why it WON'T happen. First, it assumes that we'll hit the target by cutting our energy consumption in HALF, even after accounting for a growing population. It also assumes that by 2050 we'll replace all cars with EVs. Except, that will be nearly impossible unless people have the money to buy a lot of cars, since we'll have to end all gas car production in the next 5 years otherwise. It would take, at current car production rates, 27 years to replace all the gas cars in the world with EVs.
It then also requires and assumes that all the natural gas used to heat homes, power cooking and cleaning, will all get replaced. So somehow there will be money to replace a billion expensive durable goods that use oil/gas/etc. in the next 25 years.
Allow me to quote:
"Accomplishing all of this will require a major effort, but Ecofys has a number of suggestions how we can start: Introduce minimum efficiency
Slashdot Mirror
A 30% efficiency gain over a plane designed in the 1960s isn't terribly impressive...
Quoted for truth. The state of development in this area is just sad.
That, and the fact is, Concorde was SO far ahead of its time, had development continued, we would be much further along today.
But cost matters, which is why a $100 Android phone is impressive even if it doesn't quite have the horsepower of a 1980s Cray supercomputer.
I get your point, but you picked a bad example.
A $100 Android phone today has FAR more computing power than a 1980s Cray supercomputer. It will give a 1990s supercomputer a run for its money (early 90s).
Consider 1996, ASIC Red, the Intel Supercomputer first to break a teraflop of compute performance. Desktop video cards today have more performance than that.
The pace of development has been impressive.
This problem was solved in 1991, in terms of the technical implementation and protocol.
You are confusing the technical solution with the practical end-user solution.
The "problem" is that few people care about receiving encrypted email, so they don't publish a key to use for sending them email. Maybe if email clients made it super-easy more people would do it.
That will never, EVER happen. If people have to "publish" a key manually, then you can just forget it.
Personally, I publish my public key on the "Contact Us" page of my web site and on the public key servers.
See above. You completely and totally miss the point. If I have to track down a web site, or Google+ page, or Facebook page, and manually copy or use a key from there, you might as well toss the whole idea in the bin.
If it isn't automatic, then it doesn't exist for 95%+ of computer users.
Safer for whom? The bank? Meh.
My credit card number being stolen is not a risk factor for me, just my bank. I have no liability for stolen cards.
How do you send email to random people encrypted?
Your solutions work for internal email, but not external. The idea is to make all email secure.
If, in 2016, after the Windows 10 debacle
What "Windows 10 debacle"?
Windows 10 appears to be doing quite well, it is now installed on 1/3 of the machines as reported by Steam, it runs very well, on a vast array of hardware, with no fuss.
---
Now of course I can read between the lines and assume that you meant "evil M$ released Windoze 10 that you don't like", but that doesn't make it a debacle.
---
I can't help you. *shakes head*
Many of us are shaking our head right back at you.
?? The majority of people, me included, are based outside the US. What was that about?
The NSA is legally able to spy on you. They probably aren't, because they don't care about you, but they can.
Also, every other country is tempted to be just as controlling as the USA. Being outside the USA doesn't help much. (it does help, but not much)
Windows isn't written outside the US, that is the difference.
https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU
I currently have 2,750 square feet of office space, Verizon FIOS provides service to my building, the prior tenants had it, the FIOS box was still on the wall inside the unit.
I *STILL* put a condition in my 3 year lease that said that if Verizon did not install FIOS phone and Internet into the office, I could get out of the lease without a break lease fee.
My business depends on Internet, so if at any point in my lease term, FIOS goes away, I can move without penalty. If your business depends on a service, you should insist on such a clause in your lease.
You simply don't try to grasp how grids work :D
Smile all you like, you're the one who clearly doesn't get it, and since you aren't listening to anything, there is no point in replying to the rest of your post.
The problem with shutting down the zoos is that now you're going to raise an entire generation of children who have never seen a lion or giraffe or orca, etc. and so have never developed that primeval sense of wonder and excitement for nature's creatures. Decades down the road, those children will be adults, and they'll be voting on wildlife preservation laws, and they won't give a shit about nature preserves, or fishing bans, etc. What do they care? Its just a bunch of bugs and fish and crap, pave it over with something useful, like a strip mall.
So the animal rights activists may think they're winning the day, but really, they're just eating their seed corn. A generation or two later and we won't even have animal rights activists, let alone animals for them to activate over.
^ Quoted for truth...
Well, if you would plaster all of the deserts in Texas with solar and all the coast of Texas with wind, on shore or off shore: you would power the whole two american continents several times over.
At night? During winter?
No one ever has an answer to that issue.
Really? Are you sure about that? So, tell me: how much power do "people" want at 12:00, at noon? How much power do they want at 7:00/9:00AM? How much power do they want at 4:00/7:00PM? Surprisingly that is a complete different amount of power than e.g. 11:00PM or 4:00AM.
Yes, 100% sure, just ask my wife.
I want all the power that I want, whenever I want, any time I want, as much as I want.
If I want to run all my appliances at one time, fine, I want to do that. If I want to turn the AC to super cold in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer, fine, I want to do that.
Everything should work, 100% of the time, whenever I want it to, without any limits or restrictions. Why? Because that is what I have NOW! If your plan requires that I give that up, then you can shove that plan where the sun doesn't shine.
If you honestly tell me that my two choices are my current 24/7/365 anytime I want it power based on coal and natural gas, or a "smart grid" that tells ME when I can run stuff and when I can't, but it is based on wind and solar... Well then you can keep your wind and solar, not only am I not interested, but millions of Americans won't be either.
The total picture (worldwide in fact) for coal is pretty damning.
Unless wind and solar become actually cheaper than coal without government subsidies, then it will continue to be burned *somewhere*.
Maybe not the US or EU, but someone on Earth will burn it.
Frankly, I believe if they ever perfect the residential home battery, solar adoption will just go nuts. We're on the correct trajectory. Change just takes time.
I honestly hope your belief turns out to be true. But I've been around long enough to remember many promises that didn't come true.
As for change, it may well come, but I suspect it won't come nearly as fast as you hope it will, and if it comes in 75 years, it likely won't matter, the point of no return will have been passed.
If the net metering is for power only, ofc it would work.
The grid fee would be separate.
Here it isn't... And the only way solar even remotely works here is if you get complete net-metering with all fees included.
If I understand /. right, some people think you can draw X kWh from the utilities and feed back in X and be at zero costs? Of course that would not work. To be at zero, you need to feed more in to compensate for the grid costs you had when you drew the power.
It isn't a *think*, it is a fact. In MOST of the US (not all, there are rare exceptions) you get complete and pure net-metering.
You get paid full retail price for your fed-in power, including the grid fee.
If my bill is $150 today and I install solar and produce and feed back to the grid during the month as much as I consume, then my bill drops to $10, which is the monthly connection charge.
That's it. I get 100% credit for all power fed to the grid. It works this way today because so few Americans have solar, but the utilities are pushing back as more people get solar and take advantage of this, they want to end net-metering outright. They want to buy your power for wholesale cost with no grid credit.
Right now, I paid 9.5 cents per KWh at home last month, of that, wholesale price is about 3.5 cents per KWh. So without our current net-metering, I would get paid only 3.5 cents per KWh generated. As it stands, I get paid the full 9.5 cents per KWh.
The 6% rate of return on solar that I am *estimated* to get right now, DEPENDS on the net-metering that I can get today. If it drops to 3.5 cents, then my return is cut in half to about 3% (or less)
Perhaps you lost track of the thread then...
Net-metering is what I was talking about. Net-metering will never survive, it can't.
As it stands, if I produce 20,000 KWh extra during the year and pump it back to the grid and consume 20,000 KWh off the grid, then I pay nothing (or effectively nothing, there is a $10 connection charge, but that won't run the power companies or power grid).
My pumping all that power during the day onto the grid doesn't help provide power at night. They need power stations for that. Power stations cost money to run. If we all put up solar, they will have no money.
Except that doesn't happen anywhere in the USA.
Except, that it does, if you're a "utility". It just doesn't work for residential installations for personal consumption...
http://energy.gov/savings/ladw...
They pay a premium price for utility solar to make it work, raising the price of power for everyone. That is just one program, there are many more like it.
http://www.absolutelysolar.com...
I've looked at investing, the problem I personally run into is that their entire business model really depends on government money to work. The numbers just don't pencil out otherwise.
Just one year of not building new bombers, submarines, aircraft carriers, and other stuff we don't need could fund an infrastructure rebuilding across the nation that would repair neglected bridges and roads
While I understand your point, and it is a fair one to make... There is something to consider that perhaps you haven't thought about.
The skilled workers and tooling required to make the machines of war is hard to make and setup and is lost quickly if you don't use it. We are still building aircraft carriers and submarines for this very reason. We don't really NEED more, the new ones don't do all that much new stuff. (they do, but it is evolutionary in nature) Instead the primary purpose is to keep the ability to do it alive.
Newport News Shipbuilding is the only place in the world that can build a nuclear carrier. There is exactly one dry dock that can do it at Hampton Roads. If you wanted to increase production, it would actually take quite a few years to get anything up to speed.
Now imagine that we say we have enough carriers and we'll take 5 years off from building them, skip the next one and save $10+ billion dollars.
Is Newport News supposed to maintain Hampton Roads for 5 years without work? What about all the people working there with critical skills? You'll never get them all back.
If in 5 years, we say "ok, lets build some new carriers now", you'll spend more money than you saved in getting back up to speed. It doesn't actually save anything.
The same thing is true with tanks and a whole lot of other military stuff. When the decision to shut down C-17 production and F-22 production, I thought that was sad, because it means we will never get another of either. The cost to spin production back up is simply absurd, you're almost better off just designing a new airplane.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
If you look at that, you'll see a smaller British JumpJet carrier next to a US Nimitz supercarrier... there is only one place in the world that can build that larger ship, if they don't always have a ship to build, you'll lose that ability and it will take a lot of money and time to get back there.
Back to tanks, there is exactly one plant in the US that can build tanks. It is in Lima, OH:
http://www.foxnews.com/politic...
Yes, to some extent, it is a jobs program, but if you shut that place down, it will be rather expensive to build any new tanks in the future, and you might end up having to design a brand new tank from scratch if you do shut it down.
Quote:
"Congressional backers of the Abrams upgrades view the vast network of companies, many of them small businesses, that manufacture the tanks' materials and parts as a critical asset that has to be preserved. The money, they say, is a modest investment that will keep important tooling and manufacturing skills from being lost if the Abrams line were to be shut down."
There is some truth to that...
I agree, which is why I think residential solar won't see significant adoption until the units are built in as part of the design during initial construction. That would greatly reduce installation costs as well as better integrate the design and functionality of the equipment.
I would tend to agree. If you are a tract builder and have 150 homes to put up, you can contract with someone to install solar on every one of them, your costs of doing it at that time would far, far less, than doing them one at a time.
Do you know of any major home builders that make solar on the roof a standard feature so that all the homes in the neighborhood have them?
Fortunately, there are some folks that have far more data than that, and have done it properly. If you look on pages 13 and 14, they've done some nice maps of the US where they've indicated where the break-even cost on solar is depending on the installed cost per watt, and if time-of-use rates applied. At $3/watt, it's break-even everywhere except the Pacific Northwest, some bits of Appalachia (coal country), and southeast Missouri (on the Mississippi, where all the coal form coal country is shipped).
That all sounds nice, but if you read it, you'll notice that they make some "assumptions" which actually aren't true today.
"We also ... assume a carbon policy resulting in an effective cost of carbon equal to $25/ton of CO2"
So they are assuming we'll have a carbon tax. So the entire thing only applies after that happens, which I don't see happening any time soon.
Also: "we increased the base derate factor to 82%, representing anticipated improvement in inverters and other balance of system components."
So they are assuming that the systems will produce more power than they actually do today, because "improvements". Fine, then wait until such things exist before telling people what the break-even cost is.
---
Another quote:
" It is important to note that in practice only a fraction of customers in these utility service territories are likely to meet all the criteria (full retail net metering, good solar exposure, and financing) to be at breakeven, and the presence of break-even conditions does not necessarily equate to large consumer adoption. Furthermore, there are budget caps for most current incentive programs and typically limits on the amount of net-metered systems that can be connected to the grid in a specific utility service territory."
So frankly the whole thing sounds really good on the surface "oh look, lots of people at at or near break-even the future is here!" only to discover that really, it isn't.
Are you really trying to tell me that because Solar doesn't pencil out for you, that everyone else that researches this stuff is wrong?
Of course not, I fully understand why so many homes in San Fran have solar. The price of power there is high (along with real estate), and they have tiered power rates, plus incentives in the state to make solar work. If I lived there, I'd probably install it too.
That being said, I suspect a lot of people that think solar makes sense, either don't do the math correctly or make assumptions that won't work out in the long run, but by the time they find out, they can't change their mind. Also, since no one likes to admit they made a mistake, they rationalize it to themselves and move their expectations "saving the earth" rather than "saving money".
And, as has been discussed already, you and I both live in places where grid power is stupidly cheap in comparison to other places.
I would follow that up with "so why exactly are power prices all over the place?" Coal doesn't change in price that much from place to place. It costs about $10, give or take, per ton of coal, to deliver it to your average plant. Some will be less, some more. Then you have running costs, which don't vary THAT much. Then delivery costs which average 3-4 cents per KWh. Why is anyone paying over 12 cents per KWh for power?
If you jack with the market, put silly tiered rates that make bulk purchases go UP in price, tax it heavily, etc. then of course you can make solar look good. But power should not be that expensive and generally if it is, someone is messing with the system.
It is the willingness of so many people to accept 20 cent (or more) KWh rates that is the real problem, or perhaps the unwillingness to challenge the system as to why power is that much. Hell, even wind power doesn't cost that much (if you prefer something besides coal), so do it with wind. Natural gas (where it is local) also costs very little these days.
Now there are special cases, Hawaii for example, due to a lack of local resources and distance, so I totally get solar there. But CA? There is no reason power should cost what it does in CA, other than politics.
If the situation is as described in a recent statement attributed to Tim Cook, then this is a completely fake issue. In summary, that quote said it would only take a few man-months to produce the software that the FBI wants. If so, then it is barely conceivable the FBI lacks the resources to have created it already, and it is dead certain that the NSA (and foreign counterparts) already have it.
The FBI doesn't have the signing keys. Without them, writing new code doesn't help because the phone won't accept it.
They really shouldn't pay top dollar at times when they can produce for less from other sources; which is the utilities argue net against net metering and why net metering returns should not be included in a total cost of ownership calculation.
I agree. But then most of the ROI I see solar do assumes net-metering.
Remove that and for most people, I suspect solar becomes a bad financial choice.
Sure, with battery backup on site and shifting power use across 24 or 48 hours using a battery, may solve the problem in the long run, the cost of that solution makes the problem worse, not better, at least for now.
You are right. The tax incentives were the reason that I could afford to put solar on my house 4 years ago.
I believe that most of the solar in the US, with perhaps a few exceptions on the coasts in expensive areas, are only being done due to tax incentives.
But fair enough, if that is what we want to spend our collective money on, so be it. I just prefer we be honest about it rather than imply that solar by itself is so magical.
Side note: I'm not against solar, I'm against expensive solar. Give me a 50% tax credit and 10 years of guaranteed net-metering and I'll install solar on my roof tomorrow, no question. Wouldn't even have to think about it.
My complaint is all about the cost.
Well, it also makes sense if you live in an area where electricity costs are "high" (for some value of "high"). It looks like your area has extremely low electricity costs. From your own numbers, if your electricity costs were doubled, then your savings would also be doubled and the ecconomics might be more to your liking. It does looks like there are a number of regions with twice your electrical costs.
You of course are correct, if I paid 19 cents per KWh instead of 9.5 cents, then yes, this whole thing might make a ton of sense.
But that misses the point. WHY does power cost that much in some parts of the US?
Coal costs about $45 a ton delivered, more or less, anywhere in the US. Maybe $10 more to remote far away locations. You're looking at between 2.2 cents and 3 cents for cost of fuel for coal. Then you need another penny to run the plant, 1.5 cents if they run it poorly.
That is a wholesale price of power of about 5 cents per KWh on a worst case and that gives the power plant a profit margin to boot. Power delivery costs 3-5 cents per KWh give or take.
Why is ANYONE paying over about 12 cents per KWh anywhere in the lower 48 states? THAT is the question you need to ask.
39% is close enough to 40% for most people.
In 2014, the last year we have numbers for, it was 39%
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs...
It is worth noting that coal has been dropping due to the challenge of building new plants and the low wholesale price of power. There isn't much margin in coal power right now, making it hard to keep up with all the government mandates on coal plants.
It is worth noting that much of the drop in coal has been made up for by natural gas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
According to the US Energy Information Administration, in 1980 the world had enough proved gas reserves to last 48 years at the 1980 rate of production. Cumulative world gas production from 1980 through 2011 was greater than the proved gas reserves in 1980. In 2011, world proved gas reserves were enough to last 58 years at 2011 production levels, even though the 2011 production rate was more than double the 1980 rate.
So in 1980, we had 48 years of gas left, at 1980 production levels. At that rate, we ran dry in 2028, just 12 years from now.
In 2011, we now have 58 years of gas at 2011 production levels, which are more than DOUBLE the rate of 1980, putting the "end" at 2069.
So for all the doom and gloom of "peak oil" and "peak gas", we added 41 years to the "end" date while doubling production. And it just keeps going up. Now it won't continue forever of course, it has to stop at some time (there is some specific total amount of gas in the ground after all), but it won't be by 2050, and frankly I'll be shocked if it is by 2100.
Current estimates (~November 2015) has coal around 33.6% of US electricity generation (and dropping quickly).
Lets assume that is true. So what replaced the missing 6% of power? It wasn't wind and solar. They went up slightly, maybe half a percent each. So lets say 1% of the missing 6% is wind/solar. Where did the other 5% come from? Natural gas.
Better than coal, but not really a solution if AGW is your concern.
---
Anyway, all of that is beside the point. I pointed out that oil was such a low total number to make the point that we aren't fighting wars overseas to protect oil because we need it to power our homes (it is actually far less than 5%, as noted in the link I provided). It is to power our cars.
Let me guess, you live in Washington or Oregon where your power rates are 5.35 cents a kwh
No, I live in Texas where I pay a flat 9.5 cents for power.
Hell I pay $300 a month for nearly 6 months during the summer and I have a power rate that tiers to three separate prices depending on use.
Two things:
1. $300 a month is nothing, I have $500 bills in the summer. I also work from home, like my house at 72 degrees, and probably have a larger house than you (I'm in Texas, lots of houses here are big)
2. You're being ripped off by your utility and/or government. Power should get cheaper the more you buy, not more expensive. You pay more because of non-power cost reasons, that doesn't make solar good, it makes your situation crap.
Solar in 2015 was 0.95% of total US generation in 2015
When you start from nothing and throw ten billion tax dollars at it, you can do that.
At current growth rates Solar is projected to be 5% of the power grid by 2020 and nearly 15% by 2030.
We shall see, but I think someone is smoking crack. The chances of either number happening are zero in my opinion.
Solar comprises 30% of the power grid in Hawaii right now.
Hawaii is a special case and doesn't carry over to the 48 states. They have extremely stable weather, a ton of sun, and sky-high power prices due to being the most remote islands on Earth. About 32 cents per KWh, compared to less than 12 cents for the lower 48 states.
And it isn't as good as you think:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...
There are significant portions of Texas where power after 9pm is free due to the excess wind production. With periods of free power there will be lots of companies that spring up and use that power to generate hydrogen that they reconvert to power with a fuel cell to fill in the lows.
Call me when that happens. There are many reasons why the above is happening in Texas, it would be rather hard to build a business depending on it for the next 20 years. You're confusing the issue of something being *technically* possible with it being politically possible and reasonable from an economic point of view.
ROI rates are so high most of the companies investing in solar are turning down investment money because they can't possibly spend it. Last round of construction bonding Solar city went after they turned down over $200 million. You would know this if you followed the market as it's been the talk of the market energy discussions for 4 years now.
That is because there are caps and limits on the Dept of Energy incentive programs to fund and subsidize solar. They don't want to install more than they'll get paid to install. I've looked at investing in solar. It has a nice ROI if you assume the government gravy train will never end, but it falls apart otherwise.
Maybe you should study current rates and market trends.
I have, more than you know. Countries like Denmark and Germany are spending huge sums to accomplish things that look impressive in their own nations, but would never scale to the world. And the changes they make don't actually solve anything, since we all live on the same planet.
Frankly, I find most of the "wind and solar will save us all" people to be rather delusional when it comes to the future of this stuff. You're ignoring a number of non-technical reasons why your numbers won't happen.
Example:
http://www.skepticalscience.co...
That is a perfect case study in why it WON'T happen. First, it assumes that we'll hit the target by cutting our energy consumption in HALF, even after accounting for a growing population. It also assumes that by 2050 we'll replace all cars with EVs. Except, that will be nearly impossible unless people have the money to buy a lot of cars, since we'll have to end all gas car production in the next 5 years otherwise. It would take, at current car production rates, 27 years to replace all the gas cars in the world with EVs.
It then also requires and assumes that all the natural gas used to heat homes, power cooking and cleaning, will all get replaced. So somehow there will be money to replace a billion expensive durable goods that use oil/gas/etc. in the next 25 years.
Allow me to quote:
"Accomplishing all of this will require a major effort, but Ecofys has a number of suggestions how we can start:
Introduce minimum efficiency