Cheaper Solar Power Coming Soon

[Big_Rig_Stig]

Based on your name, i assume you have a "Haulin' Ass and Suckin Gas" t-shirt? (i have seen this in oklahoma)

I used to drive flatbeds.

And I'd KILL for one of these:
https://www.wrightspeed.com

It's well beyond time we had turbine-electric drivetrains. They've existed on trains and generation stations for ages, Citroën designed a car with a viable turbine-electric drivetrain in the early '90s that got killed by the oil companies, so there's zero excuse NOT to build them.

Besides, I hate the smell of diesel exhaust, and the carcinogens in it.

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

I stopped believing in the bogeyman when I was 9.

Just let the planet burn, God'll take care of it, right?

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

Your house is attached to the grid..... Unless you only use solar on an isolated breaker, it is also attached. It is a legal requirement in my state at least.




Not sure where you live, but you won't get your solar approved here in the republic of Taxifornia, and without that you can't legally turn on the system.

It's electrical code to install an automatic disconnect panel when a solar array and/or automatic backup generator is installed. I live in Texas, but that's in the national electric code.

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

A little out of date. But should provide some context for $.07 kWh

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-price-of-electricity-in-your-state

Solar is already huge in Hawaii but really in south west states particularly and in countries like Australia, I don't see how it cannot be the primary source of electrical generation.

Politics be damned.

Watch out, the oil comapnies will hunt you down...

 

[velusip]

Small, local installations for small business are popular right now (I see loads of panels goin up around here in Ontario), but there's still too much overhead cost for the average home installation. However, that is a side effect of a falling market:

Not many are willing to risk investment into a falling market. e.g. The cost of installing solar infrastructure is dropping fast, so the thinking goes: if you just wait a bit, the return vs initial investment becomes more lucrative. It's very simple. In a falling market, whoever buys first loses.

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

but how good are the batteries? cheap solar = cheap batteries?

Lead-acids still work quite well...

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

Small, local installations for small business are popular right now (I see loads of panels goin up around here in Ontario), but there's still too much overhead cost for the average home installation. However, that is a side effect of a falling market:

Not many are willing to risk investment into a falling market. e.g. The cost of installing solar infrastructure is dropping fast, so the thinking goes: if you just wait a bit, the return vs initial investment becomes more lucrative. It's very simple. In a falling market, whoever buys first loses.

Two years ago there were installation subsidies and rebates that made solar installation very viable; today, those subsidies/rebates have been eliminated.

 

[Joust]

Two years ago there were installation subsidies and rebates that made solar installation very viable; today, those subsidies/rebates have been eliminated.

False.

 

[Joust]

There is a vast under estimation of the complexity of adding more than incidental solar power to a power grid. When you can economically store the power, then you'll have a mature technology.

7c per kwh? That's if you're using the traditional power distribution, transmission, and generation system as your "battery," and thusly ignoring probably 80% of the cost of having electric service to your home.

 

[sfsuphysics]

There are considerably more costs than just a bare panel. Panel cost is probably 1/3 price.

And I am sure these new panels are self installing and directly make AC power too... translation: the 7c per kwh number in the article is just that of a bare panel too

 

[Deleted member 93354]

Shouldn't we be getting 20%+ efficiency by now?

That's really hard to achieve because the photo conductors only respond to certain limited wavelengths. This is due how the electron shells are set up, and you can't go randomly changing the rules of physics. You can try to stokes shift the light by passing it through a secondary to get more UV towards your target light output. Or you can stack the cells each with different response areas. But they lower efficiency of each stage and add to cost.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

Except it doesn't work like that with grid attached systems. If the power grid goes down, there is a breaker the MUST be installed that also shuts down your solar. This is so you don't toast someone feeding power back into the grid when they are repairing/working on the lines.

Same goes for the telsa power pack. None of these systems will power your house when the grid is down.


Most people don't realize this and think they need solar to protect from power outtages.

Incorrect. You just have to disconnect from the mains and auto switch over units automatically do this. In fact it's mandatory state law in many places to have auto disconnects with auto switch overs. It's quite simple, if current is heading out, break the connect. Then monitor the connect for when voltage goes back up, then reconnect. It's completely self driven. Even if it doesn't have power at all, the safety says disconnect from main by default.

 

[sfsuphysics]

It's electrical code to install an automatic disconnect panel when a solar array and/or automatic backup generator is installed. I live in Texas, but that's in the national electric code.

"National" electric code does not mean everyone needs to follow, localities are free to adopt whatever version they want, I think my city goes by 2006 NEC

 

[travisty]

Small, local installations for small business are popular right now (I see loads of panels goin up around here in Ontario), but there's still too much overhead cost for the average home installation. However, that is a side effect of a falling market:

Not many are willing to risk investment into a falling market. e.g. The cost of installing solar infrastructure is dropping fast, so the thinking goes: if you just wait a bit, the return vs initial investment becomes more lucrative. It's very simple. In a falling market, whoever buys first loses.

It's true for any exponential technology that buying at any point will be more costly then if bought later. Based off the 'falling market' paradigm you describe no one would ever buy a computer as there will be a cheaper / better one in a year's time.

In actuality people buy when it reaches a price point they can afford.

 

[Brian_B]

"National" electric code does not mean everyone needs to follow, localities are free to adopt whatever version they want, I think my city goes by 2006 NEC

Most jurisdictions follow NFPA 70 (National Electric Code) of some flavor, but that gets only updated every couple years or so. Rarely do jurisdictions jump onto the latest revision each time, most are a few years back at the least. Solar wasn't really addressed for wide spread residential installations until about ten years ago, battery installations are just now really getting addressed. If your living someplace where they still use an old version of the code, it could be that they require your solar to be installed like a backup generator. Technology changes quickly though, code moves somewhat slower to keep up, and jurisdictions are even slower to adopt code changes.

 

[Brian_B]

Incorrect. You just have to disconnect from the mains and auto switch over units automatically do this. In fact it's mandatory state law in many places to have auto disconnects with auto switch overs. It's quite simple, if current is heading out, break the connect. Then monitor the connect for when voltage goes back up, then reconnect. It's completely self driven. Even if it doesn't have power at all, the safety says disconnect from main by default.

This is fairly correct. You can never, never energize the grid by yourself.

UL1741 inverters have to have what is called anti-islanding. Either they will shut off your solar when the grid goes down (and they have 2 minutes to detect and do this for most utilities), or they have to disconnect themselves from the grid (can be via an external ATS or MTS, but a registered 1741 inverter can do this via solid state or contactors internally as well).

An offgrid 1741 inverter can auto-disconnect and continue to generate power for the home without an external switch. But that's only because it has an internal switch that accomplishes the same thing.

A standard string inverter - what Solar City and most other solar companies will sell you by default (because it's a hell of a lot cheaper) - they will just shut down if the grid is down, and then come back up when they detect the grid is back. This is because they only push current, and they sense voltage. If the line voltage goes away, they drop out and wait for voltage to come back.

 

[YARDofSTUF]

7c per kwh? I'm paying 7.9c now on traditional power. By the time you figure in materials and installation it's unlikely I'd ever ever recoup the costs of it, let alone save anything.

7.9c total, or 7.9c for generation with an additional cost for delivery?

 

[Brian_B]

7.9c total, or 7.9c for generation with an additional cost for delivery?

That is a good distinction.

In Kalifornistan.... solar customers also have to pay for Non-bypassables as well, the same as if they had used the power from the utility, even if they generate the power themselves. It's the "price of having the luxury of being connected to the grid". Or the tax for being able to use the grid as a giant battery and sell your power during the day to buy it back at night, whichever way you choose to look at it.

Hooray for NEM2.0

 

[c3k]

Organic solar cells? Why would there be ANY installation or replacement costs? I mean, don't organic things...you know...grow?

I envision leafy vines covering the houses, leaves, as big as banana or tobacco leaves, opened up to the sky while the roots (which look suspiciously like 14/2 romex, snake their way to the circuit breaker panel.

Or, am I mis-imagining things? Again.

 

[YARDofSTUF]

That is a good distinction.

In Kalifornistan.... solar customers also have to pay for Non-bypassables as well, the same as if they had used the power from the utility, even if they generate the power themselves. It's the "price of having the luxury of being connected to the grid". Or the tax for being able to use the grid as a giant battery and sell your power during the day to buy it back at night, whichever way you choose to look at it.

Hooray for NEM2.0

Oh wow so you pay for distribution either way in CA? Here in CT we pay a "line fee" but its 20 bucks a month so its pretty much nothing. Generate enough power to cover the night use from the grid and the 20 dollar fee is all you end up with.

 

[Joust]

[

Oh wow so you pay for distribution either way in CA? Here in CT we pay a "line fee" but its 20 bucks a month so its pretty much nothing. Generate enough power to cover the night use from the grid and the 20 dollar fee is all you end up with.

Most places have a base facilities charge you cannot meter out.

 

[YARDofSTUF]

Ya but if they have to pay for delivery of the power stored on the grid, that would make the cost much worse.

 

[Brian_B]

Ya but if they have to pay for delivery of the power stored on the grid, that would make the cost much worse.

Yeah it kinda sucks. You get out of paying the generation charge but you still have to pay for about $.02 for every kWh.

Still works out since the peak day rate here can get over $0.40.

However, because paying that $.02 isn’t enough to offset the megawatts of batteries they are having to buy (and the nuke plants they are taking offline), now they are taking about shifting the peak day time period from Noon-6pm to 4pm-9pm, and that will pretty much kill net export solar financial viability. Sure you can still have your solar, but when your exporting at $0.10, and buying back at $0.40 instead of the other way around, it changes the economics.

 

[Joust]

Yeah it kinda sucks. You get out of paying the generation charge but you still have to pay for about $.02 for every kWh.

Still works out since the peak day rate here can get over $0.40.

However, because paying that $.02 isn’t enough to offset the megawatts of batteries they are having to buy (and the nuke plants they are taking offline), now they are taking about shifting the peak day time period from Noon-6pm to 4pm-9pm, and that will pretty much kill net export solar financial viability. Sure you can still have your solar, but when your exporting at $0.10, and buying back at $0.40 instead of the other way around, it changes the economics.

4 - 7 pm summer, 6 - 9 am winter here.

 

[iDShaDoW]

$0.11/kwh here in Northern VA. There aren't many state-level subsidies or tax breaks either. Dominion and Pepco lobbyists have the politicians in their pockets. I think it's slowly changing but not there yet for Virginia.

Would love to get solar but the break even point in this area is like 15-20 years. At this point it's more of just a "feel good" thing to do than a cost-savings. That and supposedly the by-products of solar panel production is some pretty toxic stuff - haven't actually read too much into it. It's like driving a hybrid/electric car. That electricity is most likely generated burning some dirty ass coal. And the battery production isn't exactly clean either. Out of sight, out of mind - in someone else's backyard.

Tesla was supposed to revolutionize it with their solar shingles that are affordable. Fast forward to now, it's like double the price of regular solar panels.

Unless you're rich, you're better off taking that $30-50k solar panel installation and investing in something.

 

[Joust]

$0.11/kwh here in Northern VA. There aren't many state-level subsidies or tax breaks either. Dominion and Pepco lobbyists have the politicians in their pockets. I think it's slowly changing but not there yet for Virginia.

Would love to get solar but the break even point in this area is like 15-20 years. At this point it's more of just a "feel good" thing to do than a cost-savings. That and supposedly the by-products of solar panel production is some pretty toxic stuff - haven't actually read too much into it. It's like driving a hybrid/electric car. That electricity is most likely generated burning some dirty ass coal. And the battery production isn't exactly clean either. Out of sight, out of mind - in someone else's backyard.

Tesla was supposed to revolutionize it with their solar shingles that are affordable. Fast forward to now, it's like double the price of regular solar panels.

Unless you're rich, you're better off taking that $30-50k solar panel installation and investing in something.

It's not a matter of what's in your pocket. I'd you're doing a financial analysis, it either is or is not beneficial. Opportunity cost is a thing.

 

[velusip]

It's true for any exponential technology that buying at any point will be more costly then if bought later. Based off the 'falling market' paradigm you describe no one would ever buy a computer as there will be a cheaper / better one in a year's time.

In actuality people buy when it reaches a price point they can afford.

I... wat? First off, PV cell tech is not exponential. Also, that is not the point I'm making. I'm talking about the law of accelerating returns as it applies to "cost-efficiency". In this case, the reduction in cost of production verses a relatively static performance. The "falling market" is the expenses. PV cells and batteries have been sufficiently advanced enough to market for literally decades with little annual improvement, but the industry has been sparse and expensive for the same period. We've been waiting.

VCs wait for the point in time at which production of basic requirements for a product become cheap enough to produce -- the industry becomes ripe for the picking. Look at the graph Weirdo posted: the maximum tangent change from 2015 to 2017 is what I'm talking about. That's the point in which the most bang for the buck occurs. Those who invested earlier (in a smaller overall market) had a working model which marketed to high energy consumption businesses, which could take advantage of the small initial gain early on, or wait for long term gains, or take advantage of government grants. Some of those early investors also marketed to boutique businesses which could write off the initial cost with little return for their own reasons ("going-green" marketing, tax breaks, etc). All the while, these expensive initial offerings grew the underlying industry, gradually making production cheaper. And since there was little industry to augment, the drop in expenses was profound -- until very recently. Now the industry is ideal.

Your computer analogy is very different -- the overall cost for a relatively useful product barely changed since the late 1980s (low end PC: $500, high end monster $5000, it's still about the same 30 years later). That's because the PC industry became ripe in the 1980s. Observe the level of VC investment in clone operations of the time. Performance gains continue to scale for another unrelated reason (Moore's law). However, the law of accelerating returns can still be applied to computer "performance-efficiency" in another way. e.g. I left my computers to folding@home for about 10 years. During that time, notable advances in medical science were made... but all that computation can be done in about 3 months with my current computer. Should I have waited? Well, I helped draw attention to distributed computing for good, so I invested in it for mine own reasons. However, these days, with the advent of clean energy production, we are no longer chasing polution-related diseases down a hole with dirty computation. So yes, maybe waiting was the better option.

 

[sleepeeg3]

At 15 percent efficiency and given a 20-year lifetime, researchers estimate organic solar cells could produce electricity at a cost of less than 7 cents per kilowatt-hour. In comparison, the average cost of electricity in the US was 10.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2017, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Yes, no, bullshit.

Take the 15% efficiency, reprocess it to the capacity factor (avg max 20% efficiency over a 24-hr period, due to sunlight). Now you have the actual 3% efficiency. Then compare the lifetime operating cost over 60 years for nuclear power /100 years for a coal plant, where you have to replace the solar panels 3x or 5x and then get back to me on the cost / kWhr.

These are lies.

They must have this book at the University of Michigan library: "How to Lie with Statistics"

 

[sfsuphysics]

Yeah it kinda sucks. You get out of paying the generation charge but you still have to pay for about $.02 for every kWh.

Still works out since the peak day rate here can get over $0.40.

However, because paying that $.02 isn’t enough to offset the megawatts of batteries they are having to buy (and the nuke plants they are taking offline), now they are taking about shifting the peak day time period from Noon-6pm to 4pm-9pm, and that will pretty much kill net export solar financial viability. Sure you can still have your solar, but when your exporting at $0.10, and buying back at $0.40 instead of the other way around, it changes the economics.

To be fair the $.02 is for taking power not pushing it. So you're not double charged for using the power grid as a battery and then taking it back. Luckily the new NEMS2 is for new customers not existing customers, so I still have my older rate plans. My big worry is that PG&E (my "local" provider) is really pushing the less tiers bit, but still the same high prices, and they're going to end up keeping that first tier a tiny little "I don't do anything modern" tier.

 

[RealBeast]

I look forward to the day that I can go off grid, but that's probably quite a few years away due to the battery cost issue.

My other issue is that my wife seems to be competing with Al Gore for energy use.

 

[travisty]

I... wat? First off, PV cell tech is not exponential. Also, that is not the point I'm making. I'm talking about the law of accelerating returns as it applies to "cost-efficiency". In this case, the reduction in cost of production verses a relatively static performance. The "falling market" is the expenses. PV cells and batteries have been sufficiently advanced enough to market for literally decades with little annual improvement, but the industry has been sparse and expensive for the same period. We've been waiting.

VCs wait for the point in time at which production of basic requirements for a product become cheap enough to produce -- the industry becomes ripe for the picking. Look at the graph Weirdo posted: the maximum tangent change from 2015 to 2017 is what I'm talking about. That's the point in which the most bang for the buck occurs. Those who invested earlier (in a smaller overall market) had a working model which marketed to high energy consumption businesses, which could take advantage of the small initial gain early on, or wait for long term gains, or take advantage of government grants. Some of those early investors also marketed to boutique businesses which could write off the initial cost with little return for their own reasons ("going-green" marketing, tax breaks, etc). All the while, these expensive initial offerings grew the underlying industry, gradually making production cheaper. And since there was little industry to augment, the drop in expenses was profound -- until very recently. Now the industry is ideal.

Your computer analogy is very different -- the overall cost for a relatively useful product barely changed since the late 1980s (low end PC: $500, high end monster $5000, it's still about the same 30 years later). That's because the PC industry became ripe in the 1980s. Observe the level of VC investment in clone operations of the time. Performance gains continue to scale for another unrelated reason (Moore's law). However, the law of accelerating returns can still be applied to computer "performance-efficiency" in another way. e.g. I left my computers to folding@home for about 10 years. During that time, notable advances in medical science were made... but all that computation can be done in about 3 months with my current computer. Should I have waited? Well, I helped draw attention to distributed computing for good, so I invested in it for mine own reasons. However, these days, with the advent of clean energy production, we are no longer chasing polution-related diseases down a hole with dirty computation. So yes, maybe waiting was the better option.

Good wall of text which all basically confirm what i said... PV (batteries & wind too) are exponential technologies

 

[Brian_B]

To be fair the $.02 is for taking power not pushing it. So you're not double charged for using the power grid as a battery and then taking it back. Luckily the new NEMS2 is for new customers not existing customers, so I still have my older rate plans. My big worry is that PG&E (my "local" provider) is really pushing the less tiers bit, but still the same high prices, and they're going to end up keeping that first tier a tiny little "I don't do anything modern" tier.

Your right, it's not for pushing power. But it is for ~using~ power, regardless of if you get it from the utility, or you self-generate.

A similar parallel. Right now, there's what, an $0.18/gal federal gas tax that funds the Federal Highway Fund.

Let's just say that lots and lots of people go all electric. They aren't paying that gas tax. That's essentially what solar was able to do originally - you get to ride on the grid, but not pay for the T&D.

Now, with NEM2.0, you pay for that. Say, as if the federal gas tax shifted to a federal mileage tax. All those people who were looking at the financials on fuel savings, now the financials have shifted. Doesn't make the technology any different than it was before, or that it can't still be a good idea (for various reasons), just the economics of it are different than they were before.

NEM2 doesn't kill solar by any means, it takes what could be a 5-6 year payout and shifts it to 7-9 years. The shift in TOU periods though, much, much larger economic effect. Combine the two.... and you've pretty much stalled out the solar industry for a while.

As far as grandfathering, yes, most people under NEM1 were grandfathered in, for 20 years (which is the typical life expectancy for solar).

 

[LZ_Xray]

Except it doesn't work like that with grid attached systems. If the power grid goes down, there is a breaker the MUST be installed that also shuts down your solar. This is so you don't toast someone feeding power back into the grid when they are repairing/working on the lines.

Same goes for the telsa power pack. None of these systems will power your house when the grid is down.


Most people don't realize this and think they need solar to protect from power outtages.

I work for a federal oversight organization performing grid reliability and event analysis studies, and while this is speaking to distribution rather than transmission, it's the first post that showed any inkling of how the bulk power system actually works on any level. Renewables of any stripe are great and no sane person will dispute that, but they are not self sustaining generation. They do not have the ability to power the grid by themselves and rely on conventional generation resources to maintain grid frequency.

For residential rather than utility scale applications they can be run off-grid, however the prices you see assume a grid-attached deployment. The cost for a truly off-grid deployment with grid-equivalent availability is astronomically higher.

 

[Stoly]

I'll just wait for cold fusion.

 

[DirusCanis]

"National" electric code does not mean everyone needs to follow, localities are free to adopt whatever version they want, I think my city goes by 2006 NEC

California doesn't allow localities to choose their own anymore, and haven't for a while now (at least 4yrs). As of Jan 1st 2018 Cali uses the 2016 CEC which is based off the 2014 NEC.

My Blue Card certification exam earlier this year was done using NFPA 70 (NEC) 2014 and NFPA 72 2016. These are the statewide minimum code requirements.

 

[DirusCanis]

Except it doesn't work like that with grid attached systems. If the power grid goes down, there is a breaker the MUST be installed that also shuts down your solar. This is so you don't toast someone feeding power back into the grid when they are repairing/working on the lines.

Same goes for the telsa power pack

My inverter shuts down when it doesn't detect line voltage, which has made me think, instead why isn't their a solution between your panel and the line that kills voltage if there's no line current detected? Seems like a win-win situation in that case. Besides it should be SOP for power guys to test the line before handling it.

Because if it fails, you now have a hot line outside that the linesman think is shut off. If I ever put solar, I will add some kind of manual switch to disconnect from the grid so I can power back up if needed. After the final inspection of course.

That's not entirely true. The isolator panel just trips breakers that isolate the house's power from the grid (they use these with automatic backup generators all the time); the panel system can still power the house in a limited fashion, depending on the amount of panels & their output.

Of course, none of that works at night.

This is fairly correct. You can never, never energize the grid by yourself.

UL1741 inverters have to have what is called anti-islanding. Either they will shut off your solar when the grid goes down (and they have 2 minutes to detect and do this for most utilities), or they have to disconnect themselves from the grid (can be via an external ATS or MTS, but a registered 1741 inverter can do this via solid state or contactors internally as well).

An offgrid 1741 inverter can auto-disconnect and continue to generate power for the home without an external switch. But that's only because it has an internal switch that accomplishes the same thing.

A standard string inverter - what Solar City and most other solar companies will sell you by default (because it's a hell of a lot cheaper) - they will just shut down if the grid is down, and then come back up when they detect the grid is back. This is because they only push current, and they sense voltage. If the line voltage goes away, they drop out and wait for voltage to come back.

Feeding power back into the grid and protecting linemen isn't the issue. Its in the regulations but from a safety stand point its not a concern at all. Anyone who works with electrical systems knows you never ever assume there is no power unless you personally verify it. There is other reasons as well (see below on excess power draw) but protecting linemen is an easy out.

As stated backup generators have either an ATS or MTS and can power a home during a blackout.

There are 3 main reason why solar only systems are killed when the grid is down.

1) Most solar systems installed are designed to provide 100% of their available power at all times and rely on the grid to soak up the excess.

2) Solar only systems suck at handling in-rush current. The majority of microinverters have 0 surge capability. A fridge for example that consumes 800w of power while running can have a 2kw in-rush current need to start it's compressor. Solar when pushed passed it's max drops it's output to 0, 1w of power over is enough to collapse it. 99% of the grid tied systems out there are designed and installed to rely on the grid to handle these surges. This is another reason why these systems shut off with no grid power, as trying to power a large portion of the grid will instantly over draw the system and collapse it's output.

3) A.C. operates at 60hz in the USA. The output from the solar panels needs to be synced to the grid. If you hook up 2 systems that are running out of phase with each other then bad stuff happens.. 99.9% of the systems out their rely on the grid to provide this sync. Offgrid inverters can generate their own sync clock to run off of. A solar install with the equipment to use a battery bank in the event the grid dies is also equipped with the proper equipment to resync with the A.C. phase of the grid when it comes back online.

 

[Joust]

I work for a federal oversight organization performing grid reliability and event analysis studies, and while this is speaking to distribution rather than transmission, it's the first post that showed any inkling of how the bulk power system actually works on any level. Renewables of any stripe are great and no sane person will dispute that, but they are not self sustaining generation. They do not have the ability to power the grid by themselves and rely on conventional generation resources to maintain grid frequency.

For residential rather than utility scale applications they can be run off-grid, however the prices you see assume a grid-attached deployment. The cost for a truly off-grid deployment with grid-equivalent availability is astronomically higher.

I have an intimate understanding. However, in this forum, the participants are equally concerned with how things "should" be or "will be soon" as opposed to how they are. There are many reasons why large amounts of solar penetration is disruptive, rather than supportive, of both grid reliability and cost.

Frequency regulation achieved by conventional generation is a drop in the bucket. Yes, you have to have spinning reserves for frequency regulation and extremely short term load changes, but that's usually what? A few CT's? Needing 100% backup for solar during times it isn't generating, or can't generate - that's a large impact.

 

[velusip]

Good wall of text which all basically confirm what i said... PV (batteries & wind too) are exponential technologies

Okay, I'll try to help. Quoting your video: "This is an exponential technology that has seen an incredible plunge in prices." The context is exponential pricing, not exponential technology. He's just being a salesman and paraphrasing out of order. The tech is not the exponential factor. Wind turbines and PV cells yield linear returns relative to scale and have not improved in relative performance in many decades. However, the cost _is_ dropping at an exponential rate. That's what my wall of text was about. The distinction is important. It's also why your comparison to computing tech is not the appropirate comparison, which I also explained in my wall of text.

Battery tech still has lots of development potential, and demonstrates exponential performance gains over time. So that I can agree with.

"Basically."

 

[Joust]

However, the cost _is_ dropping at an exponential rate.

Was. Or, to be less succint, it experienced a period of significant growth with many new market participants. Some of which implemented aggressive pricing to secure market share. Not withstanding that, when speaking of "cost," we need to be clear about what we are talking about. Cost to consumer? Cost to manufacture?

Fact is, I think without a serious change, the cost to manufacture is as low (or near enough) as it will get. The Germans are already folding because they cannot compete with the Chinese panels. The rules of economics are only tangentially relevent in China, mind you.

Cost to consumer is another deal. If one removes the federal and state subsidies, and any cross-subsidy between retail electric customer classes, solar power is insanely expensive.

 

[seanreisk]

Good God, someone says the word, "solar" and the discussion falls into politics. In particular, it falls into politics that are unsubstantiated by fact. Power generation versus cost versus risk versus pollution versus grid versus human considerations is an engineering problem, not a political problem. The fact that it has become a political problem indicates that someone is using politicians and shady public relations to protect their income stream. And that is a criminal problem, not a political or engineering problem.

Every time I try to trace an argument about energy generation back to factual reality it always comes down two factors: corporate money or the environment. I can understand and even respect environmental concerns, especially since I think that all environmental concerns are engineering problems waiting to be conquered. If you are against wind generated electricity because it's an eyesore I can understand that, too. However, if you support gas or coal generated electricity over renewable power sources but can't provide a valid reason why, and have no monetary stake in those systems (that is, you don't receive an income or have investments in coal or gas energy, and do not have family members with income or investments in coal or gas energy), then you should realize you don't have a good basis to defend them over newer, renewable ideas.

Why would you care? It's illogical. If you have an emotional reaction that compels you to support the coal industry I urge you to seek counseling. I think if you soul search enough you'll find it's rooted in political (or religious) reasons, and that also means that you're a sap. You're a sucker. You're a patsy. You're a fool. You believe in the biggest fairy tale of all. You actually allowed someone to convince you that a poisonous, dirty, outdated method of generating electricity is both righteous and proper and should be encouraged, probably because your hated enemy (in this case, Democrats) said they're against it. How energy generation became a democrat vs. republican issue is beyond me, but when the 'liberals' announced they wanted to lower CO2 levels, corporate money immediately started to flow to the 'conservatives', and all this bullshit came alive. And I'm saying this as a true Republican, not some teabagger or conservative. And it shows that 'Murica is the land of sheep where freedom means that we're allowed a choice about which side gets to sheer us.

You are a failure at critical thinking. Your logic license should be taken away. As long as affordable and dependable electricity comes to your house you shouldn't care if people have ethical reasons for preferring one source over the other, and you should be glad that we have new methods to stop the unnecessary outgassing of CO2. If you think CO2 isn't a real problem you need to be locked in a cage on an ice flow in the arctic.

1. Don't tell me about subsidies to renewable energy. Both gas and coal get comparable or greater subsidies. Google it, and then weed out the PR fairy tales from the gas and coal industry.

2. Don't tell me that electric cars powered by coal power plants create as much pollution as ICE cars. Firstly, one of the goals of people making electric cars is to get rid of coal power plants, so the statement has a roundabout silliness to it, and secondly, the pollution created by extracting, shipping, refining, and shipping again creates as much as 40% of the pollution of actually burning the gasoline in an ICE engine, which, btw, still makes an equivalent pollution to an electric car running on power from a coal plant.

3. Don't tell me about the reliability of coal-fired plants, they're dirty, grossly mechanical and they require lots of maintenance. Caveat: The most dependable source of electricity is gas-fired steam plants.

Do I think wind and solar are the solution? No. And fusion isn't happening any time soon, and nuclear is risky and the waste is difficult to store. For myself, after sitting down and thinking and reading about it, it is my personal OPINION (just an opinion) that we should end all power subsidies, convert all coal plants to natural gas, and redirect the subsidy money into a doable five-year Apollo-style project - an automated, underground (below water table) thorium salt reactor. This would be simpler and more cost-effective than nuclear, it would be magnitudes safer, and the technology could be used on our nuclear vessels and for future space programs. Is it perfect? NO, but it's a good, manageable solution that solves a lot of problems, and we could do right now.

But that's just my opinion. And my opinion is based on the knowledge that I have collected, not on a bunch of windy bullshit from politicians, priests and big money PR agents.

P.S. I'm not an environmentalist. My hobby is restoring old cars, and I prefer both horsepower and old-school nasty paints. After I finish the '67 International Scout I'm working on now, I'm gonna do a 600HP '68 Coronet 500.

Even though I like muscle cars I'm still logical. I don't always admit it, but I recycle. I don't pour oil or paint down the drain. When I don't have to drive my parents around I use a small four-cylinder S-10 pickup. I'm not an environmentalist, but I'm not stupid, and I try to do what is logical and sensible.