Viability of Solar Power

[CPL.Luke]

iNow what more is at stake? also remember that the ipcc estimates global warming to have a net positive effect on the global economy of .75% per year, up through 2075 where the trend turns negative, and it hurts the global economy by 3.5% per year in mind that they also estimate that the world will be 17000% richer.

 

its important to remember that dollars are merely an abstraction used to represent the amount of resources that went into the construction of something, people need dollars to live. IF you make he cost of electricity quadruple in the us it takes away resources from everything else, the economy doesn't grow as fast, as the economy dosn't grow as fast real wages are forced down, now if the entire developed world did this, we would be in a rather deep recession for several years preenting overseas development in places like africa.

 

 

-note I hope that at your company you dont sell products at a net loss just because there is more at stake there than the bottom line.

Edited August 23, 2008 by CPL.Luke

[iNow]

The company I work for is a business with a series of specializations. We manufacture what our customers need, and we have also stepped into a major new market based on demand. That's neither here nor there, though.

 

We as a culture need to look past just economics. My point is that it will matter little how much money we have if we can't feed or hydrate ourselves, or if we continue in our irresponsible actions.

 

What good is having a dollar if there is no where left to spend it?

 

 

Further, a change of the magnitude which is required will actually open more markets than it closes, so it's important to keep some perspective and look past the fact that some things we desperately need are going to be more expensive today (that should not stop us from moving where we know we need to go).

[CPL.Luke]

see my point aove about how the ipcc estimates that gloabl warming while being bad is not something that would stop us fom being able to feed and hydrate ourselves.

[iNow]

When you say "us," are you referring to the people who live on coastlines and will have their cities flooded, or to the people who live in various inland regions and are experiencing severe drought, or to the farmers who can no longer cultivate crops which have been successful for decades, or to the fisheries that cannot catch enough fish due to their dying en masse from ocean acidification, or to the increase in spread of disease from bugs now able to occupy new niches due to the warming (niches previously too cold for their sucessful reproduction), or perhaps to the people dying of cancers and other defects from the toxin ridden air we all breath?

 

Just curious who this "us" is to whom you refer in your post above.

[CPL.Luke]

or how bout the once arid lands that will become cultivatable? or the new shipping lanes that would open up? or the new resoures that would be uncovered as the ice melts, opening up more area to development. Remember that greenland used to be green when the vikings were there.

 

since when was the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere high enough to qualify as a toxin? because our air is much cleaner today than it was 30 years ago, and the US is currently becoming more efficient in terms of CO2 emitted per dollar of GDP at a faster rate than the kyoto protocol nations (mainly because 2 of the major participants are China and India, who are actually getting less efficient as time goes on).

 

Not to mention that its still entirely possible that the global warming models are still a bit off, take for instance the Argo buoy system deployed to study deep ocean warming trends and got a slight cooling result.

 

however thats beyond the scope of this thread.

 

What is in the scope of this thread is the viaility of solar power which at the moment remains completely non-viable in comparison to any sane governments grid power (which excludes Germany, California, Massachusettes, and a few others) expecially when considering that the price is ~3.7 times as high as Grid power only when given a lifetime use of 25 years where every ounce of electricity is consumed, and the grid aternative uses power source that may cost much more to maintain but cost much less to build. you end up seeing that there wouldn't be enough money around t support a government mandate to produce any significant percentage of the countries power requirements through solar.

[iNow]

So, when you exclude countries and states which are being successful with solar in the present, you do realize that this means you are cherry picking your data to support your point, and clearly ignoring examples which prove your point false, right?

 

On top of that, nobody is here arguing that solar is the only answer, so I'm not quite sure what you're on about this time. It is clearly a large part of the puzzle, and it is clearly viable, at least to me and the huge swaths of investors pouring billions of their own dollars into it.

[CPL.Luke]

I excluded those countries because their grid power is considerably higher than other areas where they pursue a sensible energy policy. If a government stops allowing for new construction of other power plants and thus drives up the grid price to the point solar achieves grid parity, then thatis not evidence of solars success but rather a governments failure.

 

solar warrants some use as a power supply for remote locations where the cost of running a power line to a house is more than it costs to install solar panels, however the billions your talkingabout are because the industry xpects the government to pass more renewable energy mandates, and to provide extra subsidies for solar installation.

 

 

however shifting the goal poasts to it being "part of the solution" is an overstatement, the solution involves diversification, but not an unnecessary increase in prices when other technologies have grid parity and can cut emissions today.

[npts2020]

Scientific American claims that the area required for photovoltaic solar panels to produce 50% of our projected energy needs in the year 2050 is about 30,000 square miles of southwestern desert, or about the same amount of land covered by roads in America. Clearly this will not solve all of our problems but it would help tremendously. I have proposed on another thread to automate our transportation system and power it with solar and wind. One thing that is of great interest to me is,how would such a gargantuan project affect the price of solar panels and wind generators? For more discussion of this system I would encourage you to visit my national personal transit blog at npts2020.blogspot.com.

[purepower]

Looking to build a Stirling Cycle engine as a test mule for alternative power production. Need to find out the specifics of optimum engine design such as the best volume ratio for the cold side compared to the hot side. best regenerator volume, etc..

[preciseenergy]

There is no doubt on viability of solar energy..It is totally viable..

[lemur]

Sound economics are a reflection of rational energy allotment to some extent. When money is no object, people produce and sell anything and everything, no matter how wasteful, just to cash in on the big spenders. All that economic activity uses a lot of energy without concern for how much energy is wasted in the process because energy becomes cheap relative to the flows of money being spent on and invested in it.

Edited May 30, 2011 by lemur

[CaptainPanic]

Sound economics are a reflection of rational energy allotment to some extent. When money is no object, people produce and sell anything and everything, no matter how wasteful, just to cash in on the big spenders. All that economic activity uses a lot of energy without concern for how much energy is wasted in the process because energy becomes cheap relative to the flows of money being spent on and invested in it.

Completely agree that we should just let economics deal with sustainable power.

 

But it would be fair to do the economic calculations with reasonable payback times... So, count 15-20 years payback time for solar power, and calculate if you can make any money.

 

What I dislike about the discussion between fossil / nuclear and sustainable energy is that somehow coal and nuclear power plants are allowed to have payback times of 30-50 years, while solar and wind power must payback the investment in 5-10 years. In one case, a high estimate is used for fossil/nuclear, and on the other a low estimate for sustainable energy.

[lemur]

Completely agree that we should just let economics deal with sustainable power.

 

But it would be fair to do the economic calculations with reasonable payback times... So, count 15-20 years payback time for solar power, and calculate if you can make any money.

 

What I dislike about the discussion between fossil / nuclear and sustainable energy is that somehow coal and nuclear power plants are allowed to have payback times of 30-50 years, while solar and wind power must payback the investment in 5-10 years. In one case, a high estimate is used for fossil/nuclear, and on the other a low estimate for sustainable energy.

That's a good point. The competition between energy-sources is skewed by the way they are financed and marketed. If solar panels were guaranteed against failure for a certain number of years by warranty or insurance, then I don't see why banks wouldn't extend loans for the amount of money they would save in electricity costs. The thing is, though, if banks don't start financing the solar-panel industry, they may become even more affordable to attract buyers. What is really keeping the cost of producing solar panels high except for patents and corporate interests in maximizing revenue? Is it really that expensive to produce the crystals and make them into cells?