Well hell, I get you. By the same reasoning, methane is also free. We all produce it at no cost to ourselves as a natural byproduct of life. Oil is free–it’s just lying around. We don’t have to pay for it, it’s just there. Ditto natural gas. Nuclear power is free, too–fission occurs naturally all the time. Hydro is free–the rivers will run with or without us. I went swimming just the other day. Geothermal is free, as well. Hot baths in Jellystone for all!
Look, the word “energy” is meaningless without applicability. There is energy everywhere, and yes, most of it is completely “free” by your definition.
But unless we can use that energy, it doesn’t matter if it’s “free” or not.
You are leveling no “playing fields” here, whatever that means.
Andros
Wrong.
The coal is underground. The days of finding a chunk of coal laying on the ground are long since past.
Oil is no longer found in pools in penn. or Texas.
Even if it were free for the taking you would have to get it to your furnace some way. Thats a continuing cost. Even if it is your time.
Solar on the other hand is free.
Justwannano
Wrong.
The sun is outside. And is often obscured by clouds, and is only seen in the daytime anyway.
Sunlight is rarely found in many parts of the wprld.
Even if it were free for the taking you would have to convert it into usable form anyway, by sunbathing perhaps, or heating water with it, or convertingit into electricity. Thats a continuing cost. Even if it is your time.
Solar, you see, is not free.
I believe that Mt. Etna is currently demonstrating why this is a Bad Idea.
But, going back to your OP, with the exception of nuclear (fission; call back in a generation or two about fusion), most forms of alternative energy are getting about the amount of attention that they deserve: very little. A wind turbine or a solar collector can, when conditions are optimal, produce and deliver power (in the form of electricity, heat, or mechanical motion) at competitive, even superior, prices. Unfortunatly, seldom are conditions optimal, and sub-optimal conditions very quickly raise prices to the point where the wholesale suppliers of electricity to California seemed to be offering charity.
Read the link on the use of solar power in China that was (somewhat ironically) provided by justwannano. Then figure out what it will take to convince Americans to use an electrical system that “powers two 8-Watt florescent lights and a black and white television for two to three hours per night” (my WAG is that it would take about 25 divisions of mechanized infantry).
Whilst solar (whether in the form of sunlight, wind, or biomass) is free, using it is generally expensive, polluting, and not worth it even if one is a millionaire strip-miner.
andros
I have never said that it is free all the time although it is heating the world even if it is cloudy.
Ever taken a swim in a pool of sun heated water.Try that
with a piece of coal.
Since you brought up converting it to something useable,although I guess you forgot about light,please use that thought in figuring the other energy mediums also.
Solar is free.
Your statement “solar is free” is so ambiguous as to make your argument here seem utterly ludicrious. If solar energy is so “free” for you and yet everybody else is paying for their fossil fuel energy, then why don’t you “enlighten” the rest of humanity and sell it to us cheaper than what we pay for oil or coal energy. I mean, if solar is free, you’ll make out like a bandit!
Surely you recognize there are costs (collection and practical utilization) associated with harnessing any form of energy. Surely you recognize that if solar energy truly had zero cost from sun to socket that everyone would be using it. And if a energy source has a net cost, then, by definition, it can not be free.
“Solar” may be “free” if you use a very loose definition of those words. But in this discussion, who cares!?! Practical solar power, the issue at hand which would address the OP, is most definitely not free with current technology. And if it is, I for one want to see some cites…
justwannano
If something is free it is free all the time.
Ever burned a lump of coal in your fireplace to keep you warm in the winter.Try that
with the sun.
Since I brought up converting it to something useable,and since light, while useful, does not power my car or my blender,please re-read all my posts and tell me where I ever said that I am opposed to solar power, or support any energy source specifically.
Solar is not free.
And that is the only point I contest.
Ambiguous?? I have used no double meanings.My explanation has not been vague.
Solar is free
We don’t have to dig to get it.
We don’t have to drill to get it.
We don’t have to maintain rigs out on the ocean or in pristine places to get it.
We don’t have to build and maintain pipelines or railroads to distribute it.
Nothing ambiguous in that.
Several have mentioned polution.
There is none in the production of solar energy.At least not on earth.But take a look at the other mediums.
Is there pollution in converting the other mediums to heat ??? you damned right there is.
Is there pollution in converting solar to heat???No
Is there pollution in manufacturing the furnaces used to burn fossil fuels? Yes
Is there pollution in manufacturing solar collectors? Yes.
Is there pollution to build batteries for the storage of solar energy/ Yes
Is there pollution to build the batteries used to transport fossil fuel from the oil and coal fields to everywhere they are used? Yes
Is there pollution in burning fuel in the delivery fossil fuel/ Yes.
If that is indeed the case, why is it that so many people (presumably people with a certain degree of intelligence or they wouldn’t be here) have no idea what you’re trying to say?
Look, it’s really simple. Sunlight is free. Sunlight is also not by itself tremendously useful. You can’t take sunlight and turn it into power on demand without intermediate steps. Those intermediate steps cost money. Sunlight is free; solar power is NOT free.
Is this any different from other sources of power? Of course not! Rivers are free; getting hydroelectric power is not. Biomass is free; getting useful power from it isn’t.
Or, to put it your way…
Sunlight is free.
We don’t have to dig/drill/etc. to get it.
We do have to hope that it’s during the daylight hours of a relatively clear day.*
Sunlight is free.
Solar power is NOT free.
We have to collect it.
We have to store it.
We have to be able to provide power on demand.
Solar power is NOT free.
While the ambient temperature on a cloudy day isn’t lowered dramatically, the amount of sunlight that reaches us, of course, is. If it happens to be a cloudy day, we’ll have less sunlight (and hence less solar power) available, won’t we? Today, near where I work in sunny Florida, the peak solar flux was about 1300 W/m^2; in the early morning it was between 300 and 400 W/m^2, and by now, a couple of hours short of sunset, it’s 10 W/m^2. Not an awful lot of free solar power available here at the moment, is there?
I have already been around this track several times with justwannano so I am not going to waste my time. For those others who may have missed them you can check Solar Collectors and in the first post you will find links to the previous threads where we have discussed this.
You can check sailors site if you want to. You’ll find him
unwilling to discuss the actual cost of producing and distributing energy and a thorough hate of his solar hot water heater.I just don’t think he likes to get outside and get dirty.
You’ll also find the opinion firmly entrenched that an energy source cannot supply part of the energy requirements.
Q: Is solar energy free?
A: Why, yes it is. Sagans[sup]1[/sup] of joules strike the Earth every day, with no effort whatsoever required of human beings.
Q: So, solar power is the way to go, then?
A: Get real, sonnie. Actually using solar energy for anything besides low-grade heat is such a filthy, expensive, and inefficient process that burning hundred-dollar bills in a fire pit using is cheap, clean, and high-tech by comparison. If it were otherwise, Hatshepsut’s palace would have had air conditioning.
Q: But the low-grade heat is useful?
A: Don’t make me laugh. A virtual truism in the solar energy biz is “the availability of the energy is inversely proportional to its necessity”. Not only is the low-grade heat almost worthless, but you can’t turn it off (by comparison, a lump of coal can simply not be burned. Try pulling down your solar collectors every time you think that the pool water is getting too warm).
Q: So, in fact, solar energy is completely worthless?
A: Well, I wouldn’t go as far as to say completely worthless, just almost worthless. Solar power is actually worth using when:
[ul]
[li]Your power requirements are very small;[/li][li]You can’t connect to the grid[/li][li]You can’t hike out there every so often with a “D” battery[/li][/ul]
Q: In other words, we’re not seeing the “solar economy” any time soon.
A: The protons will decay first.
yeah, we must be boneheads to be paying for something we can get for free…
[I will now interrupt this thread to recount a childhood memory which may have the weakest relation to this discussion…
When I was about 7 or 8 my uncle was once reading me a story about some polar explorer and his encounter with the eskimos in the early 20th century. (This, of course, was long before people had refrigerators in their homes but there were large, industrial ice-making factories and people would buy blocks of ice from wagons and take them home). So the explorer tells the eskimos how back home people pay good money for a block of ice and the eskimos don’t know if to think the people in his home town are complete idiots to pay money for ice or this guy is a huge liar.
I remember telling my uncle he did not need to explain it to me as I did understand why ice is valuable in a hot country and not in the artic. I was so proud.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread…]
Maybe we are all boneheads paying for something we can get for free… No need to buy a refrigerator or air conditioner, just move to the arctic. No need to buy a heater, just move to Senegal. But don’t demand heat in the arctic or ice in Senegal.
The power companies are paying money to produce energy when they could produce it for free from the Sun. What boneheads! We pay money for oil needlessly as we could get the energy for free. Boneheads! The industrialised countries needlessly pay for oil. What boneheads!
Free is a wonderful word. I am in the process of selling my house and learnt some real estate taxes will be due upon sale. I suggested to my real estate agent that I could avoid paying these taxes easly. If the buyer agreed to buy from me the pen in my hand for the price of $180,000 then i would give her the house for FREE!! (The agent didn’t think it was a good idea but he stopped short of calling me bonehead… maybe he knew I was joking.)
yeah, free is a good price to pay… even for something useless.
I did a Google search using “wind turbines birds”. I checked the first 2 pages of results and saw mention of only one situation to be concerned about. That was at Altamont Pass, California.
Apparently the power lines leading to the turbines are a greater threat than the turbines themselves.
Okay, this is probably pointless, but justwannano, humor me anyway: define “free.” Do you mean solar power pays for itself? If so, I’d like to see that supported. It’s a possibility, I suppose, but something that pays for itself isn’t free. If you truly mean that you can extract meaningful amounts of useful energy from the sunlight at no cost whatsoever, even in initial investment, then any discussion would be, I suspect, utterly pointless.
(I suppose that one way in which solar power IS free is if I eat a plant, but somehow, I don’t think this is what you have in mind.)
>> I suppose that one way in which solar power IS free is if I eat a plant
You gotta be kidding! You wanna know how much I paid for a mango today? And it turned out it wasn’t even ripe! Produce growers are part of the conspiracy, I’m telling ya!
I was searching the Net for free stuff to see what I could find and I came upon what seemed to be an offer for free love but, upon closer inspection was the Communist Manifesto. 150 years ago Chuck Marx was promissing free love for all. 150 years later I still can’t get it for free or for consideration. Still, and come to think about it, free love seems more possible than free energy and with all we would save on hookers we could pay more for energy!
You can’t hike out there every so often with a “D” battery
The center statement interests me.
If you would be so kind please explain the difference betweem "can’t connect to the grid " and disconnecting from the grid. Why must a person be connected to the grid when he isn’t using all that power?Is it possible to have small power reguirements at predetermined times??
Solar is free.
Maybe you’re expecting too much from it.
I might agree with the D battery thing if I new what the hell it meant.