Trina warranty:
For Polycrystalline Products (as defined in Sec. 1 a): 2.5 % in the first year, thereafter 0.7% per year, ending with 80.7% in the 25th year after the Warranty Start Date,
For Monocrystalline Products (as defined in Sec. 1 b): 3.5 % in the first year, thereafter 0.68% per year, ending with 80.18% in the 25th year after the Warranty Start Date.
That is different limit for each year, not 80% all the time like for most other manufacturers. In practice degradation will be lower than warranty.
Medium PV degradation is about 0.5% year. CdTe panels are no different if done properly. Newer First Solar panels may be event better. Polycrystalline silicon may be slightly worse, but not much.
PV panels don't require any rare elements in general. Some of the common types use rare elements, but not all. And not all these "rare" elements are really rare, it is just their production isn't scaled up commercially. PV panel production can scale and get price reduction just fine, the only question is which PV panel type will prevail.
"In 2008 the World Health Organization and other organizations calculated that coal particulates pollution cause approximately one million deaths annually across the world". How exactly the coal industry is paying for these deaths? Are they providing free cancer treatment at least to somebody or leaving it up to the Government with their Medicare & Medicaid programs?
What year are you from, 2005??? Recent solar plant in Dubai, electricity price 6 cents/kWh, no subsidies. Austin Energy has closed agreement with Recurrent Energy, price is 5 cents/kWh. Texas project probably uses federal tax reduction, but even without reduction it would be on par with natural gas plants. And natural gas producers use their own tax breaks and certainly do not pay all related costs that taxpayers pick up after them.
You can't just end military expenses and you can't stop protecting oil trade in Middle East when you, as part of world oil market, depend on it.. It depends on foreign forces that you don't control. It is not stupid, it just reality that you may not like, but should live with.
Best think about Tesla that you don't need to deal with these new car salesmen again. They are worse than used car salesmen. And no, you don't need to change oil in EV, thank you very much. Maybe GM will catch up some years later but they have exactly zero for fast charging network right now, and it is almost the same for all other competitors.
In other half of the US we have such thing called "Sun", that makes car very hot and uncomfortable. Than we have rain. It feels much better when you don't need to get wet getting in or out of the car. OK you can have covered parking space attached to the house instead of garage. But these look ugly most of the time.
AFAIK they don't provide any warranty for battery capacity. So they don't loose anything if these batteries get to 50% capacity in 5 years for some odd reason.
The funny thing is, you can get lead-acid batteries that last longer (15 years) and cost less than HALF of what Tesla is selling them for on a kWh basis.
Where exactly you can get lead batteries that last 15 years if you discharge them daily? E.g. Crown 6-100-11 Battery - 12 Volts, 625 Amp-hours. Cost around $2000. Warranty: 1500 cycles to 80% DOD for five years. That is 12*625*.8/1000 = 6 kWh for 4 years only. And it weights 500 pounds, get a forklift to handle it and don't forget service it regularly.
Great idea, lets move to chip & pin as it assumes waving CC company liability. If somebody steals your pin and charges your card $30,000, you will be on your own to pay up, including all over-limit fines. And don't tell me it is difficult to steal pin or card.
If you look at Visa Bulletin for May 2015, all countries are "current" for First Preference Employment immigrant visas. There is no extra extra waiting time for them, other than usual processing, that takes many months. China and India do have few years waiting time for Second Preference, but that is how it is supposed to be, it is second preference. There are maybe 4 times as much people in India alone than in the US. You can't move them all to the US or US would become another India. The visa limits serve purpose.
"will an employer really be willing to wait 2-3 years for a new hire to join, however skilled that person is" - there are "O-1 Workers of Extraordinary Ability" temporary work visas. Processing time may be few months, the same or less than H1B. Status can be adjusted to immigrant later in the US. And no, employers are not supposed to bring any workers from around the world to new country, take profit, and than dump them to the society to take care of them. It is reasonable to make exceptions for people with extraordinary ability but it would be destructive to the country to do more than that.
Yes, immigrant visa processing is very slow and embarrassing. If you think it is easier in most other countries, you are mistaken.
You cannot change variable, but then you are forced to invent all kinds of ugly hacks like "records" in Erlang that perform the same thing in an ugly way.
There are E1 and E2 immigrant visas for your case. I.e.: E1 1: Persons with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics. Applicants in this category must have extensive documentation showing sustained national or international acclaim and recognition in their fields of expertise. E1 2: Outstanding professors and researchers with at least three years experience in teaching or research, who are recognized internationally. E2 1: Professionals holding an advanced degree (beyond a baccalaureate degree), or a baccalaureate degree and at least five years progressive experience in the profession. E2 2: Persons with exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. Exceptional ability means having a degree of expertise significantly above that ordinarily encountered in the sciences, arts, or business.
If you or your employer can't meet E1/E2 requirements, sorry, maybe there is nothing so special about your skills. H1B or L temporary worker visas are fraud and abuse most of the time, that can't be controlled and should end completely. They destroy any incentive for US persons to pursue career in IT or in STEM in general.
What you will learn about such libraries hard way is that they come and go, and when you come later and see the code that is a mess of few half-maintained half-abandoned libraries that were very cool & popular just few years ago, you are lost. And than suddenly you need to adopt to changing client base and your library maintainers didn't released new version and or are not interested in fixing bugs quickly. What is your plan then? Fork your own version? Fine, but the library tries to be super-universal and is super-complex and messy as a result. It may take much more time & money to maintain/debug it all by yourself comparing to custom in-house library that does just what is required, nothing more, doesn't need to cover special cases that you don't use, and is based on standard syntax and well defined logic that everybody knows very well and can read without learning some new or old "Invent The Wheel v4.99" reference manual.
And this is very weird logic. You are punished for consuming more product by hardly usable speed or complete disconnect threat. Any reasonable seller elsewhere would be happy and try to sell you more product at reduced price. All this because of silly "unlimited" advertising claim, which contradicts basic logic. There is no "unlimited" neither in cellular plans nor in web hosting. It makes much more sense to have pay per unit plan when you don't need to gamble how much you will use in the future (and loose most of the time) nor worry about disconnection or reduced speed.
Nanosolar is out, but Stion and few other CIGS panel manufacturers are here and doing fine. And whole system may cost less with more expensive panels sometimes, as panels may be less than half of the cost now..
$1300 per kWh price is also out of whack. It is much higher than current batteries already in use for off-grid systems. Not to mention new technologies.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
This fails basic logic again. 5 GB is not unlimited. It is 5 GB limit. With flexible plan like this Google Fi (it is not unique) you use 1 GB one month and pay $30, 2 GB next month and pay $40. It is unlikely you use all 5 GB every month. And if you do, you better start looking for something else, as your service provide may just drop you service when you need it most for "abuse".
That $10/GB from Google is flexible. You pay what you actually use, and can use more or less at the same $10/GB rate. With plans from most other providers you pay for random limit even if you don't use it, and once you go over, you are doomed.
And did you noticed that $10/GB is world-wide price?
You want to ignore ENERGY part and reduce it to some bank loan logic. This is not about making profit or loss lending money. This about making country independent energy-wise too. Every time you buy gas, your money props up global oil market (the fact that US forbids oil export doesn't matter, global oil market is still closely tied and will be), and it supports regimes that are clearly hostile to the US and his allies. US military budget reaches $786.6 billion for 2016. You get zero (nil) financial return on that, and there is no free market nor "government independent" in the army. Department of Energy loans are pennies comparing to that. Yet they have potential to push things to the right direction geopolitically and make world more secure place.
This is FUD. You may argue that Department of Energy should have acted as venture capitalist and demanded more return, but it is not a loss. It is potential profit that was not received. Congress explicitly required Department lend on low rates and they have good reasons for it. Department is not a venture capitalist and should not act as such, such activity should be left to private business, not Government entity. There is big difference between corporations requiring bailout because of their own mismanagement or fraud while doing usual business and corporations trying to introduce something completely new, that may benefit all taxpayers in the long run. Hence the loan was from Department of ENERGY, not Treasury.
Slashdot Mirror
Trina warranty:
For Polycrystalline Products (as defined in Sec. 1 a): 2.5 % in the first year, thereafter 0.7%
per year, ending with 80.7% in the 25th year after the Warranty Start Date,
For Monocrystalline Products (as defined in Sec. 1 b): 3.5 % in the first year, thereafter 0.68%
per year, ending with 80.18% in the 25th year after the Warranty Start Date.
That is different limit for each year, not 80% all the time like for most other manufacturers. In practice degradation will be lower than warranty.
Medium PV degradation is about 0.5% year. CdTe panels are no different if done properly. Newer First Solar panels may be event better. Polycrystalline silicon may be slightly worse, but not much.
PV panels don't require any rare elements in general. Some of the common types use rare elements, but not all. And not all these "rare" elements are really rare, it is just their production isn't scaled up commercially. PV panel production can scale and get price reduction just fine, the only question is which PV panel type will prevail.
"In 2008 the World Health Organization and other organizations calculated that coal particulates pollution cause approximately one million deaths annually across the world". How exactly the coal industry is paying for these deaths? Are they providing free cancer treatment at least to somebody or leaving it up to the Government with their Medicare & Medicaid programs?
What year are you from, 2005??? Recent solar plant in Dubai, electricity price 6 cents/kWh, no subsidies. Austin Energy has closed agreement with Recurrent Energy, price is 5 cents/kWh. Texas project probably uses federal tax reduction, but even without reduction it would be on par with natural gas plants. And natural gas producers use their own tax breaks and certainly do not pay all related costs that taxpayers pick up after them.
You can't just end military expenses and you can't stop protecting oil trade in Middle East when you, as part of world oil market, depend on it.. It depends on foreign forces that you don't control. It is not stupid, it just reality that you may not like, but should live with.
Best think about Tesla that you don't need to deal with these new car salesmen again. They are worse than used car salesmen. And no, you don't need to change oil in EV, thank you very much. Maybe GM will catch up some years later but they have exactly zero for fast charging network right now, and it is almost the same for all other competitors.
At $35 (if Model 3 is going to cost $35, it is big IF) it is much cheaper than 3 series PLUS fuel cost. No need to beat it performance wise.
In other half of the US we have such thing called "Sun", that makes car very hot and uncomfortable. Than we have rain. It feels much better when you don't need to get wet getting in or out of the car. OK you can have covered parking space attached to the house instead of garage. But these look ugly most of the time.
AFAIK they don't provide any warranty for battery capacity. So they don't loose anything if these batteries get to 50% capacity in 5 years for some odd reason.
The funny thing is, you can get lead-acid batteries that last longer (15 years) and cost less than HALF of what Tesla is selling them for on a kWh basis.
Where exactly you can get lead batteries that last 15 years if you discharge them daily?
E.g. Crown 6-100-11 Battery - 12 Volts, 625 Amp-hours. Cost around $2000. Warranty: 1500 cycles to 80% DOD for five years. That is 12*625*.8/1000 = 6 kWh for 4 years only. And it weights 500 pounds, get a forklift to handle it and don't forget service it regularly.
Great idea, lets move to chip & pin as it assumes waving CC company liability. If somebody steals your pin and charges your card $30,000, you will be on your own to pay up, including all over-limit fines. And don't tell me it is difficult to steal pin or card.
Try open all windows in Florida summer night at 100% humidity ;) I guess your house would be condemned soon for mold infestation.
If you look at Visa Bulletin for May 2015, all countries are "current" for First Preference Employment immigrant visas. There is no extra extra waiting time for them, other than usual processing, that takes many months. China and India do have few years waiting time for Second Preference, but that is how it is supposed to be, it is second preference. There are maybe 4 times as much people in India alone than in the US. You can't move them all to the US or US would become another India. The visa limits serve purpose.
"will an employer really be willing to wait 2-3 years for a new hire to join, however skilled that person is" - there are "O-1 Workers of Extraordinary Ability" temporary work visas. Processing time may be few months, the same or less than H1B. Status can be adjusted to immigrant later in the US. And no, employers are not supposed to bring any workers from around the world to new country, take profit, and than dump them to the society to take care of them. It is reasonable to make exceptions for people with extraordinary ability but it would be destructive to the country to do more than that.
Yes, immigrant visa processing is very slow and embarrassing. If you think it is easier in most other countries, you are mistaken.
You cannot change variable, but then you are forced to invent all kinds of ugly hacks like "records" in Erlang that perform the same thing in an ugly way.
There are E1 and E2 immigrant visas for your case. I.e.:
E1 1: Persons with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics. Applicants in this category must have extensive documentation showing sustained national or international acclaim and recognition in their fields of expertise.
E1 2: Outstanding professors and researchers with at least three years experience in teaching or research, who are recognized internationally.
E2 1: Professionals holding an advanced degree (beyond a baccalaureate degree), or a baccalaureate degree and at least five years progressive experience in the profession.
E2 2: Persons with exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. Exceptional ability means having a degree of expertise significantly above that ordinarily encountered in the sciences, arts, or business.
If you or your employer can't meet E1/E2 requirements, sorry, maybe there is nothing so special about your skills.
H1B or L temporary worker visas are fraud and abuse most of the time, that can't be controlled and should end completely. They destroy any incentive for US persons to pursue career in IT or in STEM in general.
What you will learn about such libraries hard way is that they come and go, and when you come later and see the code that is a mess of few half-maintained half-abandoned libraries that were very cool & popular just few years ago, you are lost. And than suddenly you need to adopt to changing client base and your library maintainers didn't released new version and or are not interested in fixing bugs quickly. What is your plan then? Fork your own version? Fine, but the library tries to be super-universal and is super-complex and messy as a result. It may take much more time & money to maintain/debug it all by yourself comparing to custom in-house library that does just what is required, nothing more, doesn't need to cover special cases that you don't use, and is based on standard syntax and well defined logic that everybody knows very well and can read without learning some new or old "Invent The Wheel v4.99" reference manual.
And this is very weird logic. You are punished for consuming more product by hardly usable speed or complete disconnect threat. Any reasonable seller elsewhere would be happy and try to sell you more product at reduced price. All this because of silly "unlimited" advertising claim, which contradicts basic logic. There is no "unlimited" neither in cellular plans nor in web hosting. It makes much more sense to have pay per unit plan when you don't need to gamble how much you will use in the future (and loose most of the time) nor worry about disconnection or reduced speed.
Nanosolar is out, but Stion and few other CIGS panel manufacturers are here and doing fine. And whole system may cost less with more expensive panels sometimes, as panels may be less than half of the cost now..
$1300 per kWh price is also out of whack. It is much higher than current batteries already in use for off-grid systems. Not to mention new technologies. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
This fails basic logic again. 5 GB is not unlimited. It is 5 GB limit. With flexible plan like this Google Fi (it is not unique) you use 1 GB one month and pay $30, 2 GB next month and pay $40. It is unlikely you use all 5 GB every month. And if you do, you better start looking for something else, as your service provide may just drop you service when you need it most for "abuse".
That $10/GB from Google is flexible. You pay what you actually use, and can use more or less at the same $10/GB rate. With plans from most other providers you pay for random limit even if you don't use it, and once you go over, you are doomed. And did you noticed that $10/GB is world-wide price?
You want to ignore ENERGY part and reduce it to some bank loan logic. This is not about making profit or loss lending money. This about making country independent energy-wise too. Every time you buy gas, your money props up global oil market (the fact that US forbids oil export doesn't matter, global oil market is still closely tied and will be), and it supports regimes that are clearly hostile to the US and his allies. US military budget reaches $786.6 billion for 2016. You get zero (nil) financial return on that, and there is no free market nor "government independent" in the army. Department of Energy loans are pennies comparing to that. Yet they have potential to push things to the right direction geopolitically and make world more secure place.
This is FUD. You may argue that Department of Energy should have acted as venture capitalist and demanded more return, but it is not a loss. It is potential profit that was not received. Congress explicitly required Department lend on low rates and they have good reasons for it. Department is not a venture capitalist and should not act as such, such activity should be left to private business, not Government entity. There is big difference between corporations requiring bailout because of their own mismanagement or fraud while doing usual business and corporations trying to introduce something completely new, that may benefit all taxpayers in the long run. Hence the loan was from Department of ENERGY, not Treasury.