Posted on 07/03/2010 4:13:41 AM PDT by Zakeet
President Barack Obama announced Saturday the awarding of nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that he said will create thousands of jobs and increase the country's use of renewable energy sources.
Obama disclosed the funding in his weekly radio and online address, saying it is part of his plan to bring new industries to the U.S.
"We're going to keep competing aggressively to make sure the jobs and industries of the future are taking root right here in America," Obama said.
[Snip]
Obama said that while it may take years to bring back all the jobs lost during the recession, the economy is moving in a positive direction. He placed some of the blame for the slow pace of recovery on Republicans, saying GOP lawmakers, "are playing the same old Washington games and using their power to hold this relief hostage."
Obama has said that to bring the nation's economy back from the brink of a depression, it was necessary to add to the country's debt in the short term.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
On the bright side, one of the two solar plants being funded is in ARIZONA! I’m surprised Obama didn’t cancel that one, in light of their immigration law. Odd that the article didn’t point that out. On the other hand, it is AP, so I guess they conveniently ignored that bit of cognitive dissonance.
“If we covered every roof top of every home in America with solar panels we could likely power the lighting needs of our homes, but only during the day when the sun is shining.”
Your detailed analysis doesn’t quite support your conclusion. You dismissed solar without finishing your calculations. There is more surface on a roof than you think. Taking your 400 watts/sqyd for solar irradiance at a middle latitude times your .15 efficiency, times 133 for the number of square yards on my modest 40 by 30 house, divide by 4 to allow for sun angles & cloud shading and nightime and you get an average of about 2kw. That works out to 1400 kwh per month.
Since the average electrical consumption by household is 920kwh per month, total coverage of a typical roof top would do a good job of supplying the electrical needs of a typical house.
With some minor common sense design adjustments the household power consumption can be reduced and with that make a solar installation even more doable. For instance it won’t make a lot sense use solar electricity to heat water. Solar can do that directly for much less. Some other commons sense efficiencies can be brought to bear. For example I like the compact florescents since they last longer and I don’t have to go around changing bulbs all the time.
If someone like Algore enjoys living a lifestyle where he uses 30000 kwh of every month then a solar roof won’t do the job.
Whether solar cells will make sense economically is another issue altogether. If you want to be off grid then you’ll need batteries but most people won’t since grid coupling is easier and cheaper. Even though power plants will still have to be sized for maximum peak load without any help from solar, the presence of grid coupled solar houses would generally tend to level the load on the centralized plants. Solar is most available when businesses are open and the power demand is highest. Enough houses together feeding their surplus to the grid could be a lot of heavy lifting.
The fact that solar energy is diffuse makes huge centralized solar installations less appropriate than a solution like SOLAR SHINGLES. Right now the shingles are hard to justify in terms of simple return on investment. Current solar shingles replace asphalt shingles and are guaranteed for 20 years. The prices are continuously falling and will continue to fall the cost of power plant electricity will continue to rise. Eventually the lines have to cross.
An important point is that that point being reached isn’t a function of time but a function of effort. As the volume of cells goes up, the economies of scale will accelerate the price reductions. I applaud all the people who are spending a fortune going solar because they are helping to make it something that I’ll be able to afford. I don’t want it because I’m worried about saving the earth or nonsense like that, I just think solar is another cool gadget to have.
nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that he said will create thousands of jobs and increase the country's use of renewable energyThe thousands of jobs? In China. Conservation requirements on consumers to avoid the previous patterns of more use after efficiency increases? Zero. How much electricity does the US get from "renewable" sources? Under 2 percent (probably very close to 1 percent, possibly under 1 percent; depends on which numbers are used). Thanks Zakeet.
Have you ever paid a utility bill? There is a list of items under the category of taxes and fees that are imposed by the government on the utilities and utility subscribers.
I promise you that the taxes on each bill are more than $1.59, and I surely don't use a megawatt of energy each month.
Also, I wonder how "subsidized" is redefined. If a utility can write off a common travel expense by one of its employees, does that get calculated in the "subsidy" column? What if that employee who traveled is only there because her role, along with the rest of the department, is there just to satisfy some segment of the massive over regulation of their industry? Still a subsidy?
I can understand a mix of solar/wind/hydro/geo technologies for people miles from the grid, where the cost of running power lines to the nearest transformer costs more than the panels, converters and battery racks. I can almost understand the poseur value of it too where one can wear their religious devotion to earth worship for all to see.
OTOH, I can see the jobs up-side on solar. The ratings for solar panels (not yet standardized) assume perfect conditions, many as mentioned in a previous post on this thread. Another assumption is that the panels are in 100% form, that is, no dirt or oils on the panels to interfere with their ability to process the available light. To keep these panels in form, we will need armies of people to manually wash the panels. Given the abilities and accomplishments of today's high school and college graduates, they, after a few years of additional training, might be sufficiently trained to squeegie a solar panel until retirement.
bm
$24.34 X 920KWH X # of homes = A Big Subsidy!
Clean and green, the energy system we aspire to, is subsidized like no other energy source in history. By whom? Us, and our progeny. All energy has historically received some type of public support to even out the volatility of high and low price cycles. The Energy Information Agency of the U.S. government's Department of Energy reports that, for 2008, natural gas was subsidized 25 cents per megawatt hour of electricity produced, coal received 44 cents per megawatt hour, nuclear $1.59. Oil was not reported in these numbers since oil is hardly a factor in electricity production. However, oil benefits from a variety of tax subsidies for dry well expenses and royalty holidays dating from the $10-a-barrel oil days of the late 1990s, which the administration promises to rescind. At the same time in the same year, wind energy received public subsidy of $23.37 per megawatt hour; solar energy received $24.34. These numbers do not include the additional subsidies we taxpayers have been compelled to pay for wind, solar and biofuels through the stimulus plan, the 2010 budget and the 2011 framework budget. These subsidies help support 2 percent of today's energy system. Their proponents promise to double and double again the amounts of subsidized supply from clean and green with no commitment to ending subsidies. That's not a new energy system.
Everybody knows pyramid power is the way to go /s
Given the abilities and accomplishments of today’s high school and college graduates, they, after a few years of additional training, might be sufficiently trained to squeegie a solar panel until retirement.
There’s always graduate school!
I seem to recall a solar panel co. in California that wanted to expand their manufacturing by building a new plant. Where did they put their new plant. Not in California, not in Ohio, or Michigan, but in Germany. Isn’t that a slap in the face. We tax payer subsidized their business for now many years at the tune of millions of dollars and they build a new solar manufacturing plant in Germany.
“$24.34 X 920KWH X # of homes = A Big Subsidy!”
Not that I’m in favor of subsidies ever but it seems that it’s not as bad as you say. According to your post, the 23.34 is per megawatt hour and above you plugged it in as applied to kilowatt hours. That’s 1/1000th of the subsidy that your equation shows.
CHINA! his broadband 5000 jobs = 100 per state. LOL
Kick out the 12+ million ILLEGALS and you open up 12+ million jobs for AMERICANS.
Look into solar pre-heat for domestic hotwater, SDHW. If you DIY it, you can see a 2-3 years payback. Solar air space heat can pay off in as little as a year, These are both viable now without government subsidies, photovaltaics have quite a way to go. Yahoo groups has 2 excellent groups, SimplySolar and Solarheat. I have a hotair panel ready to go up and am designing a SDHW system way to big for my hot water needs, the remained will flow thru a subfloor radiant heat system. Combined they will provide over 50% of my winter heat load. PV’s are several years out.
I remember walking through museums and ‘science centers’ as a schoolkid. Those were the 70s and all the flower-power bunch had abandoned science in favor of ‘you are killing the Earth’ propaganda - displays, films, voiceovers, the lot.
Gee-whiz displays of a solar panel powering a diminutive light bulb were (apparently) intended to sell the public on solar. Solar panels went up on houses in many places with the owners soon realizing they had created a white elephant that couldn’t sell on the market.
A strong RES/RPS (renewable portfolio standard) is all the industry needs. No more cash, no more subsidies, no Cap-n-Tax.
Interesting that The One’s solar “solution” is to implement solar power in a grid-dependent centrally controlled model - instead of by empowering citizens to become more INdependent...
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