Posted on 10/19/2014 6:48:24 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
“founding member of the national Tea Party”
There is no “Tea Party” just a lot of opportunists who tried to either quickly amass money or political power when they saw a movement.
TEA is basically leaderless, and revolves around stopping runaway government and its spending.
Unsubsidized solar makes sense to a lot of us. Given the responses I’d say there is a difference of opinion. Then again, when the automobile industry was just starting people objected ‘cause buggys and the buggy whip industry would be harmed.
The problem is that while there is daylight, we are going to school or working. Solar requires us to sell our power back to the government on pennies on the dollar. We can’t save the energy, the technology just isn’t there yet.
But this article may help http://www.tweaktown.com/news/40554/next-gen-lithium-ion-battery-charges-20x-faster-lasts-20x-longer/index.html
If we can charge a battery 20 times faster and have it last 20 times longer, that may be a game changer.
The only forms of energy that should be considered are those that are unsubsidized and economically feasible. Everything else is a drain on our money.
I believe if you have a grid connected system the utility not the state buys your excess power.
Given Dooley does not have solar panels or wind turbines on her rented home, she loses some credibility with me.
Solar panels are not yet economical for the homeowner. The payback period is NEVER after you pay for installation & maintenance.
I’d like to get her opinion after she spent a year on the roof cleaning the panels. Dirty or snow/leaves/bird crap covered panels don’t produce much electricity. Going up on a snow covered, steep, slick roof to remove this stuff from the panels is not for the faint of heart. Now, do that every other day forever. Is it really worth risking your life? How do you factor that into the cost/benefit comparison?
Safely maintaining a bank of batteries is no picnic, either. Battery fumes are both explosive & poisonous. Keeping them in the house is dangerous, so you will need a well ventilated outbuilding. Batteries don’t do well in the cold, so some heating will be needed to keep them in optimal working order. All this will take some considerable wiring by a qualified electrician. Your insurance company could increase your premiums to cover this potential hazard, or they may not cover you at all.
So, if you’re thinking of installing solar panels, then sitting back & watching the money flow from the sun, I hope you have previous experience at high rise window washing & serious electrical skills. Otherwise, any money saved from “free” energy will be spent on the electrician & panel cleaner.
Well you are right there is nothing wrong with the alternative energy sources and we should have been doing more to incorporate them into individual homes all along.
I have long been an advocate of incorporating solar into all new homes that are built as a standard feature. At least in states that have a lot of sun.
In Georgia where we are I believe you are required to be hooked to the grid if its available so you can have a grid tie solar system but you cannot have an off grid system and uncouple from GA Power. We are putting in an off grid system in our mountain retreat and keeping it for backup as we are pretty certain the grid is going down somewhere along the line and it will be a moot point anyway.
But back to the point even a grid tie system in every new home would save untold amounts of money and the need to build new power plants. There is nothing wrong with these kinds of ideas.
“Coal and oil are under attack; jobs and the U.S. economy are being squeezed and this “Tea Party” person is getting in bed with the green environmental movement?”
I’m on your side, and admittedly I don’t know what her exact position is, but in my view it is definitely a good idea to keep working on developing viable alternative energy strategies.That doesn’t mean we shut down coal and oil at this point, or any point in the near future, but eventually someone will find workable alternative solutions (e.g. - if we ever get fusion to work in a practical way). I hope that someone is us.
Eventually workable alternatives will be found
Ditto. Solar power is a good thing. Just because Leftists advocate something doesn’t mean it’s utterly evil. Renewable energy is good, not relying on others once configured. Self sufficiency is a worthy goal. I low having an EV and would like to have ability to charge it off the grid.
Cronyism isn’t a left / right thing, it’s an abuse of power.
The twist is the govt subsidies
Either Debbie Dooley has not done ALL her homework and left herself with some half truths on energy issues, or she is knowingly exploiting some half-truths to support her own position.
On subsidies:
(1) The statements that harp on what are called the high “subsidies” for nuclear energy or fossil fuels - in attempts to promote subsidies for solar energy, focus on whole dollars. That makes for a huge factual error. If I gave Jack a $1million discount for traveling one million miles, and only a $100 dollar discount to Jill for traveling ten miles, have I cheated Jill? No. In fact, Jill got $10 dollars for every mile, but Jack only got only $1 dollar for every mile. If you consider energy equivalents in the various modes of energy produced, solar is one of the most highly subsidized forms of energy produced, on a unit of energy equivalent basis.
(2) The advocates of “solar is not as subsidized as nuclear or fossil fuels” also use the “green energy” advocates’ own methods of what a “subsidy” is, and many of the so called subsidies they include for nuclear and fossil fuels are their own projections of what something about nuclear or fossil fuels “indirectly costs society”, yet most solar subsidies are not theoretical at all but direct either to the solar energy, or solar equipment producer or the consumer.
Ms Dooley also appears to think it O.K. that a grid-energy producer that WANTS to buy more energy than they are producer can go into the wholesale energy distribution market to get it, at wholesale, but, under many state laws, whether the grid producer wants or needs your rooftop solar panels’ electricity, they are required to buy it, and they are required to pay retail. The difference between the wholesale cost and the retail cost amounts to (a) a solar subsidy paid by the power company to the home owner and (b) lowers the revenue and the ROI of the power company, which, as state after state has seen, raises the likelihood their state utility will grant them a rate increase to keep ahead of their costs.
A factual misunderstanding about an electric grid energy producer is the myth that if you “save” electricity in how you manage your home, the power company’s power plant will produce less electricity and the cost of operating the plant will be less too. It doesn’t work that way. An electric power plant runs 24/7 producing what it is capable or producing, sending it into the grid, whether or not many of you turn out your lights. The power is there in the power-line network (regardless of how much of it is “used”), and the operating costs for the plant have not changed. This fact makes it very difficult for lower rates to automatically follow consumption efficiencies of the electricity consumer. Yes, on the margins - not in the main - a power company may buy less extra power on the grid produced by others, if conditions allow permit. But for a supplier-producer with their own power plants, those adjustments are a minor part of their annual costs compared to the power plant costs they have, and the power plant costs - their main costs - are not affected by retail consumer’s household efficiencies.
Frankly, I am all for “the end of the grid” and “energy self-sufficiency” AS SCIENCE AND THE ECONOMICS OF PRACTICAL ENERGY ENGINEERING PERMITS. But, subsidizing solar at this point in time, by many methods and particularly by forcing power plant producers to pay retail for energy they can buy wholesale, is not the right way to go.
There are situations when intermittent power is OK like running desalinization plants or pumping water.
Absolutely. I would love to use solar products, but all the money is in “big solutions” funded by yours truly. When will they come out with an affordable solar lamp or fan that works, and when the sun ISN’T shining (duh, at night when you NEED them!) - simple things that people would actually use, save money using, and then demand more products? But no one wants to fiddle with the little stuff. There’s no milking the taxpayers, so it’s not worth it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.