SomewhatReasonable: “American taxpayers spent an average of $39 billion a year over the past five years financing grants, subsidizing tax credits, guaranteeing loans, bailing out failed solar energy boondoggles and otherwise underwriting every idea under the sun to make solar energy cheaper and more popular. But none of it has worked.”
In the United States, by mid-2016, the Big Three politically correct renewable energy sources wind power surpassed 75 Gigawatts, solar power surpassed 27 Gigawatts, and biofuels surpassed 16 billion gallons per year (mostly ethanol from corn).
In the article “Obama Legacy Will Be Power Blackouts” June 6, 2016, Professor Larry Bell wrote:
If you have heard some really exciting news that the Obama administration has already doubled the amount of total U.S. energy derived from ‘renewable alternative’ sources (solar, wind and biofuels), that would be true. Thanks largely to $150 billion in generous federal subsidies, combined total renewables grew from supplying slightly more than 2 percent of our ‘primary fuel’ (including electricity) to a whopping 4 percent today.
Solar Energy: Subsidies Required
There are many disadvantages to solar energy because it is unavailable most of the day—availability is expressed as capacity factor defined as the fraction of total annual solar energy produced compared to a facility operating 24-hours daily, 365 days per year. Capacity factors of solar plants in Southwest desert areas are 0.19 compared to capacity factors of 0.9 or greater for nuclear and fossil-fueled electricity plants.
Other disadvantages are solar plants require vast land areas when used for utility-scale power generation (6 acres per Megawatt) and have limited useful plant lifespans of about 25 years. Nuclear and fossil-fueled power plants have small land requirements (less than one square mile for 1000 Megawatts) and lifespans of 60 years or more.
but just look at all the political cronies who stole BILLIONS and then declared Bankruptcy? They surely gave…errr kicked back at least 10% back to the Democratic National Committee right?
Let’s see:
Panels last nine years
Silver in them is more expensive to remove that its value nixing recycling
It has to be subsidized to the eyeballs
Complicated tax and regulatory issues abound
Lets throw some more money at it!
In nine years the hyperinflation caused by a $20 trillion deficit will make recycling the silver profitable; if you can keep the zombie hoards of former welfare recipients away
I would argue that solar subsidies are retarding the development of solar energy. Solar energy is desireable only if the cost of solar is less than the cost of conventional electricity. The cost of solar energy will only decrease if the lifespan and efficiency of solar panels increases, the cost of installing solar decreases, and perhaps as better battery technology is developed. For example, it would have cost $20,000 to install solar panels on my house, and the estimated energy savings would have been about $2,000 per year. I need to plan on staying in my house for 8 to 10 years to break even, and even then I would have had to replace the panels a few years later. Yes, there may have been a savings, but the high initial capital outlay combined with the uncertainty of any savings did not make solar attractive.
If solar energy is subsidized, there is no incentive to invent cheaper and more efficient solar panels and systems. The market is very efficient, and if someone can invent a solar system that costs $10,000 to install and results in $5,000 in decreased energy costs per year, then installing solar is a no-brainer. The subsidies provide no incentive to invest in the research and development necessary to make solar more efficient.
There is a reason virtually all game changing technologies have been invented by the private sector rather than the public sector. It may sound counter-inituitive to claim that subsidies retard development, but historical analysis indicates that this is in fact true.
Ware can I git one of them cabells?
It really doesn’t matter how much the panels or installation costs.
There is no viable method of storing electricity. As a result there have to be exactly the same number of conventional power plants if solar and wind produce 0% or 90%. During the times when neither of them are working another option has to be available.
Essentially, all solar and wind installations that connect to the grid are only a waste of capital and resources, and nothing more.
What process is used to make those panels JohnS the electrician. The answer on how to employ them rests in your solution.
I agree that in order for solar to be effective, efficient storage needs to be developed. However, I guess my primary point was that there is no war on solar. Solar is not a really viable solution (except partially in the Southwest), and this is the reason it isn’t catching on. But even in southern California, where we have sun virtually every day, solar is a supplement and not a replacement.
Liberals like Thomm Hartmann need a bogeyman like the Koch brothers upon which to blame the failure of their ideas. However, if solar was workable, the Koch brothers would figure out a way to profit from it and be all over solar like white on rice.
The only thing in your house that needs to stay 120 volt AC are items with AC motors (washing machine, refrigerators) or heat coils (kitchen range, clothes dryer, water heater). The appliances that need consistent energy use (TV, radio, some computers or device with a chip) should be on lower voltage DC, plugged into the house system. Until the NEC is changed to encourage (allow) a standard for low volt household DC, no alternative energy scheme will be successful.