This is a serious quiz Holtz. If you're really serious about the use solar, these elementary facts are critical in determining the energy efficiency and economic sense of the proposal.
O.K. Ill bite, but I never said that hydrogen is free or could be produced for free. In fact, I believe that to produce hydrogen and use it in your car will be more expensive. But if everyone used it, the scale of economic would bring the cost down greatly. Maybe then, after considering all the cost involved in producing gas, would the two be comparable.
Time for the quiz teacher!
1. & 2. You picked the most expensive energy source used in America in order to justify your reluctance to listen to any new ideas. Although Im sure that if we choose to only use solar panels to fuel our cars the price would drop drastically. It is certainly high; it is not so high that the idea should be dismissed entirely. Remember that in 1970, the cost of PV was $100 per watt (in 1970 dollars), compared to less than $5 today. In inflation adjusted dollars, a decline of a factor of over 100. Cost of the technology continues to decline.
It is quite reasonable to expect that, especially if PV enters extremely large-scale production, cost will drop dramatically. Even after considering this I would still think if we were to switch to hydrogen cars, we would use- coal, nuclear, solar, wind
etc to produce it.
Think about the huge cost of anything mass produced today. Im sure you have a lot in common with the buggy makers of the late 1800s. I can hear them saying how much money will these roads, fuel stations, blah, blah, blah.
Screw them and screw the nay sayers, ITS CALLED PROGESS!
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
No, actually you and the author did that, first when you posted the article and then again when you repeated his extravagant claims several times. And then when faced with two simple questions (post #185) about just how much you really know about the basics of solar power, you degenerated into ad hominems about "screw the nay sayers".
Come on JRC, give that little quiz your best shot, it's only two questions and would only take a few seconds to complete. No shame in not knowing the answers, but there is shame in ducking it.
--Boot Hill
"the cost of PV...[is] less than $5 today."
Very incorrect, the cost of PV currently hovers between $25-30 per delivered watt. The figure you refer to is a mythical and unobtainable "peak" watt that is based upon testing under contrived conditions that uses a solar irradiance that is not found anywhere in the United States. And it uses artificially cooled solar cells in order to boost the test results. The only results that matter are average daily deliverable watts. Anything else is just hype.
"Cost of the technology continues to decline."
NO IT DOESN'T!!! It has remained essentially flat for the past 20-25 years. See the table below from the DOE (who promotes the solar scam on our tax dollars).
Bob Lazar's(!) crazy scheme makes no economic sense, it makes no fuel efficiency sense and it does not lessen our dependence on foreign imports of fossil fuels.
--Boot Hill