Posted on 07/06/2018 7:44:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A modest proposal:
We've all heard about "shop local" and "get your food from local farmers, not distant corporate farms." Lots of people have apple trees in their backyards. Often they can't begin to eat or give away all the apples. In the meantime, big supermarkets sell corporate apples for one dollar a pound and up. I propose that people with backyard apples be able to take them to the supermarket and sell them to the supermarket for the same price at which the supermarket is selling apples. Furthermore, they should be able to take them at any time and receive payment. If the store gets too many local apples, it can reduce its purchase of corporate apples.
My apple proposal may seem ill advised, but that is exactly how rooftop solar power works. The homeowner gets to displace power from the power company, and if the homeowner has more power than he needs, the power company is obligated to purchase it, often for the same retail price at which it sells electricity. That policy is called net metering. In order to accommodate the homeowner's electric power, the utility has to throttle down some other power plant that produces power at a lower wholesale price.
The exact arrangements for accepting rooftop solar vary by jurisdiction. In some places, net metering is restricted in one way or another.
A large-scale natural gas-generating plant can supply electricity for around 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Rooftop solar electricity costs, without subsidies, around 30 cents per kilowatt-hour, or five times as much. Average retail rates for electricity in most places are between 8 cents and 16 cents per kilowatt-hour. Yet, paradoxically, the homeowner can often reduce this electric bill by installing rooftop solar.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Solar panels take more energy to produce than they will ever produce and they are so polluting to make that they cannot be made in the US, so they are made in China where the government doesn’t care how much pollution is generated or what it does to its people.
In other words...
That apple analogy was a good one.
> “A large-scale natural gas-generating plant can supply electricity for around 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Rooftop solar electricity costs, without subsidies, around 30 cents per kilowatt-hour, or five times as much.”
It’s always good to question things but this article appears a little biased but still good content for discussion.
What I noticed is solar panels generate electricity for much less than 30 cents per kwh and then there is solar water preheating which nets huge savings.
The other point I see missing is that natural gas utilities are as far I know always local monopolies that do as they please. That’s why I booted them off my property. If I need NG for cooking or heating, there are other ways to get it or gas derivatives such as through local tanks.
In Israel, we use something called a Dud Shemesh or Dude Shemesh. It is located on the roof of a building and heats water. It is very efficient, and ubiquitous all over the country. Read more in the obituary of the developer, https://hamodia.com/2015/12/16/dr-zvi-tabor-inventor-of-dood-shemesh-is-niftar/, or search the term.
Not all solar energy is a scam.
Solar panels keep us very busy with roof repairs.
How often do you have to clean the Bird Crap off them ?
This would come very much in handy should an EOTWAWKI event or local major disaster occur (such as a hurricane).
I agree that the government should be out of it but I do have high hopes for solar power in the long term.
Solar panels take more energy to produce than they will ever produce...
...
I’ve read that many times, but what’s the source of the data?
Here’s one article on the subject:
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/solar-panels-now-make-more-electricity-they-use
I saw those all over Greece. They seem like a great idea. Here in Texas, it would work really well.
I’m fine with solar. Make them here.
It’s a scam. Unless they can be used to power your personal home batteries and store power for later use they are a scam.
I remember this same scam thirty years ago using roof top WIND TURBINES!
Rain does it
There are other sources of energy that eliminates most of the real -and manufactured - problems with hydrocarbons, solar, and wind. It is Thorium energy.
Safe, clean, abundant, extremely cheap - and it doesn’t produce weapons-grade plutonium.
There is no legitimate reason why this is not widely available in the USA. If other countries adopt widespread us of Thorium energy (and they’re trying), we will be at an insurmountable disadvantage.
In addition, the solar panels are UGLY and some people have reported leaks in their ceilings from the puncturing of the roofs for the installation.
If I had to guess, I'd say a little less often than having to pick up ground up birds underneath wind turbines, and slightly more than having to scoop up cooked birds underneath solar collectors.
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