Posted on 08/17/2019 7:13:58 AM PDT by george76
That's the point that is often missed. The money spent on R&D (materials) has paid back many times over with better technology. In fact it was the evil Bell monopoly that invented semiconductors and semiconductor photocells. If we didn't have that history (capitalism), the global warming alarmists would be telling us to cover the country completely in selenium photocells (1% efficiency) right now.
Liberals have a way of forgetting costs involved in creating and maintaining so-called green energy.
The price of food at the grocery store would be cheap IF the prices on the shelves ONLY reflected farmer's costs - and not transportation, processing and packaging... You'd walk to the cash register with $30 worth of food - then have the store add on the other costs at checkout - walking out paying $90 bucks for your thirty dollars worth of food.
That's how liberals run the green energy scam.
The full hydro cycle....solar energy evaporates water from the ocean. Water condenses and falls as rain somewhere in the "watershed" that feeds the river that feeds the dam.
The sun is the energy source. The watershed and river are the collectors. The turbine is only what converts the weight of falling water into electricity.
Actually they do use Hydro as a storage device by pumping water into a storage basin usually called a pump back station. They pump into storage when demand is low and electric is cheap then release it back when the demand is high. Technically that makes it a storage device but it costs more to pump the basin full than it gains back when it is released. The only thing that makes it possible is the hydro damn produces power whether it is used or not.
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Which is where we would probably be right now had we gone with Tesla and his DC current rather than Edison and his AC current.
This is idiocy
I install and fix 2-3 solar systems a week
The PV industry is 150-160 billion $ a year and growing at 20% per year
A 300 w solar panel now costs 150$
Solar capacity in California is 29000MW. There’s 2900 MW in New Jersey where my parents live and I’ve installed over 200 kw
I have systems out there since the 1990s
So all the LOSERS who try to say otherwise I say
OBEY YOUR UTILITY MASTERS
It all depends on how long your energy requirement is. We have plenty of energy in the form of LNG and after we run out of that, there is plenty left on the east and west coast in the form of methane hydrates.
Which is where we would probably be right now had we gone withI have come to believe that the future in America is the develpoment of small and relative simple power genetating units rather than a few humongous widely spaced units. - bert
Oops.
Big energy and big government will never allow that energy independence any time soon.the future in America is the development of small and relative simple power generating units - bert
You are forgetting fusion power. That’s only ten years away (and has been, for five or six decades now).
I stand corrected. Thank you! This has prompted me to read a little more on the subject. LOL.
This is a short but informative piece on it at the Dept of Energy web site:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/war-currents-ac-vs-dc-power
Concur. The AGW Big Lie needs to constantly ridiculed!
What about "Thorium salt" reactors?
It is depressing living in NM. I hope to leave when my kids are grown. I vote every election, but it does no good.
Been a long time since I thought I knew anything much about nuclear power tech.Did know a little something about it - but haven’t kept up much in the past half-century . . .
When rereading my post, I realized I omitted “nuclear”
It is interesting that it can be interpreted as consideration for direct current, not my intention
The nucs would be easily integrated into the existing AC grid
Our capitalist system will find it because the money is right.”
Yes, that is true. However...as long as it is “profitable” now with subsidies, there is no urgency to develop the solution(s).
Seems to me in this context, subsidies are directly hindering the thing it is supposed to help.....
got it, I understand that now.
A bit of semantics for sure. Hydro does generate electricity; but so long as the water is not flowing, it is “storing” electricity as it were......
I’m so sorry to hear that. I love NM, so many things about it to love. But the nutty environmentalists is not one of them. :(
Does anyone think those giant wind farms are attractive?
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