Posted on 03/14/2009 9:15:33 PM PDT by Lorianne
Solar cells adorn the roofs of many homes and warehouses across Germany, while the bright white blades of wind turbines are a frequent sight against the sky in Spain.
If one day these machines become as common on the plains and rooftops of the United States as they are abroad, it may be because the financing technique that gave Europe an early lead in renewable energy is starting to cross the Atlantic.
Put simply, the idea is to pay homeowners and businesses top dollar for producing green energy. In Germany, for example, a homeowner with a rooftop solar system may be paid four times more to produce electricity than the rate paid to a coal-fired power plant.
This month Gainesville, Fla., became the first city in the United States to introduce higher payments for solar power, which is otherwise too expensive for many families or businesses to install. City leaders, who control their electric utility, unanimously approved the policy after studying Germany’s solar-power expansion.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Not very good. Less that 10 hours a day of sunshine plus it's at a lower angle to boot. The sunlight looses more energy because it has to pass through more of the atmosphere. Solar water heaters don't work very well either. It's a lot of expense to get maybe an hours worth of warm water. Small windmills would be a much better investment but they aren't very pretty especially in an urban neighborhood, and if everyone had one on a 50 foot tower, the noise would be grating on everyones nerves before long.
Agreed. Wind generators only make sense for solar backup for homes at high elevations in the west, where the wind speed increases every time a cloud drifts overhead. Even with those conditions, the bearings will burn on a generator that’s too cheaply made.
The solar plants with steam turbines can work for greater power needs (manufacturing plants, etc.) in the west, but nuclear power plants are needed in the Midwest and the East.
But you can save a lot of money and just buy one of those $100 1000 watt gas generators and a couple gallons of gas to run the circuit for 24 hours.
If your power still isn't on by then you can siphon some gas out of your car.
You solar panels system would have quit long before that however.
The solar panels would cost you about $1000 for 2 decent 8 amp output ones; $160 for two 1000 amp marine batteries, and $140-$180 for a 1200 watt inverter, another $50-$100 for a charge controller. All for about 4 hours emergency power for a couple lights and a TV, and IF you don't run the microwave or coffee maker for more than a few mins.
Not very cost effective, is it.
Am I supposed to do that? LoL! Not a chance. Anything that burns goes into the wood stove, even plastic bottles, They throw off a lot of heat for a while, especially when you get a good blob of plastic going. Sure, it's not very good for the chimney pipes, but I clean them regularly, so creosote build up isn't a worry.
Anything I'm a bit leary about burning goes into the outside burning barrel. I have very little garbage to take to the garbage pit, maybe a couple bags worth every 2 months or so. In the summer, organic waste goes into the compost pit.
I'm thinking of building a very large organic waste pit to make a methane gas generator that will run a gas stove, and maybe, even a small gas furnace/space heater. I've seen a few good designs that some people claim work pretty good for them as long as you have enough "stuff" to toss into them. If you don't have farm animals, you can bail up some green hay in the fall and use that all winter to feed the digester.
I have a friend in a solar on the grid company. He says it still only makes sense in the expensive Kalifornia markets.
“Europe’s Way” serves the same purpose.
Has it ever occurred to you guys that the greenies’ method of funding solar & wind amounts to the equivalent of pointing a windmill-powered fan at a windmill?
After all, the end user consumer of any goods and/or service pay all taxes related to that good and/or service.
So cut your spending by 15% and let your politicians know why you are cutting the government's revenue.
“the bright white blades of wind turbines are a frequent sight against the sky in Spain.”
Where’s Don Quixote when we need him?
They can't muster the votes for a tax so they will just mandate that the power companies buy the green power at above-market rates. The result will be that we subsidize wind & solar by shifting the higher costs to coal & gas. We're not making wind & solar cheaper, we are increasing the cost of producing electricity. As always, the increased costs are paid by the customers.
Are you saying that the sun causes “Global Warming”? lol
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