A robot big enough to do the job of a piece of heavy equipment (like a dozer) would be a piece of heavy equipment itself. And at current tech, could not do the job nearly as well (if at all).
If and when renewables get cheaper they will be used and no one will have to advocate for them. In the meantime Germany has had the most expensive electricity in Europe, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars.How much has global warming been delayed by this sacrifice? From what I can tell, not at all. It looks like they have wasted all this money for no benefit.
Other countries have cheap electricity now, and when and if renewables get cheaper they can swithc and have cheap electricity then.
That is awesome! Here is an example of a solar power company teaming up with mining giant Rio Tinto in Australia to provide power for a bauxite mine. Apparently they generate a lot of their electricity with diesel generators. The plan is to displace some of that with solar power generation. No robots AFAICT, but the point is to take the carbon emissions out of heavy industry.
As for the future, here is an in-depth study on projections for grid-parity worldwide. For the quick take-away, scroll to the charts on page 7. Nearly every country in the world (including Russia and Canada) are projected to be past solar grid parity by 2020.
People will still have to advocate for them because fossil fuel interests will continue to attempt to twist the government into anti-competitive regulations against renewables, see here.
As for Germany, considering they generate up to 60% of their power via renewables, obviously they have displaced a lot of carbon emissions. If every country followed suit, we would all have less to worry about. And while Germany’s electricity may be more expensive today, their leadership on this front is a big part of why renewables have come down in price so quickly for the rest of us.
And the publicist for Xcel is lying. They are doing this because they are required by law to do it. They are putting a brave face on the fact that their non-solar-using consumers will have to subsidize their solar-using consumers. As is happening now.
But German CO2 emissions have tended to drop, see here. It is only after the recent shutdown of the nuclear plants that there has been a small bump upwards. The up to 60% of grid power they’re generating via renewables aren’t being generated via fossil fuel, therefore they are reducing their carbon footprint by that much and still increasing.
That is just swallowing the spin from other companies that do not want to see the development of solar a viable alternative. Even conservative groups and sources are beginning to notice how short-sighted is to side with the big energy companies that do not want to see competition.
Germany has spent 136 billion dollars on increased electricity costs and any benefits to global warming are entirely based if every other country followed suit. Every other country has not followed suit so there has been no benefit. For the same money they could have bought everyone in the country three of the latest iPads.
Quote symbols seem to not exist it seems, they are clearly referring to the idea that beside that subsidy that we already know it exist the ones opposing the solar panels are claiming that there is also an extra “subsidy” that is the solar panels users have vs the ones that do not use it. That is the lie and lets not forget that many conservatives are not seeing those original subsidies as a “sin” or something.
Obtuseness regarding the point noticed, once again that is acknowledged, the point is that even conservatives are realizing the argument, that on top of regular subsidies the non users are subsiding the users once they are making energy, is the nonsensical one. As it is the big lie from the article you cited that users of solar panels are not seeing an economical benefit. As the users that are also conservative are realizing.
Your posts are not very clear, but if you are claiming that it is a lie to say that solar panel users are receiving further subsidies, you are mistaken, as mentioned in an earlier cite -
The point is that what utilities claim is not supposed to be taken as gospel. And once again you are ignoring that what I cited was conservative site, the point stands, even conservative users are not swallowing what the de-facto local monopolies on power are demanding.
Allright, we have changed the subject here a little bit. I quoted Xcel touting the competitiveness of solar vs. natural gas. They are talking about utility scale generation. Here is the follow-up on that story:
There is no feed-in tariff with utility-scale solar. Xcel buys the power from SunPower, then turns around and sells it to their customers at a profit. They say this is cheaper than building a new gas plant. If you want to say they’re just lying, well I dunno, if they are I guess that will be exposed over time. Point is, your cites are in reference to residential solar, whose subsidies don’t apply to utility scale projects.
Residential solar does get incentivized. Public utilities get the privilege of operating as a monopoly because of the nature of their business. As such, they are regulated, and this is no surprise, it has been the case for decades. Crying about public utilities being forced to accomodate residential solar is a little dishonest- they are regulated public utilities, renewable power is in the public interest, they’ll do what they’re told. I’m sorry that political activist fossil fuel interests don’t like it, but they don’t get to decide who the winners and losers are here. The winner has to be the public, even if that is at the expense of the fossil fuel industry. And anyway, residential solar will soon reach grid parity as well- the numbers in your cite are in fact already dated.
There have been comparisons to Germany’s buildout of renewable power, so it might be worth pointing out that (I think) this project is going to end up as part of a yieldco. AFAIK this was never an option under the German system- basically renewable energy projects get bundled together into something like a dividend-paying bond. Investors buy shares in the yieldco and they get a return on their investment as the projects generate revenue. You must admit, this takes the “socialism” out of the whole enterprise.
I don’t know how you can say there has been ‘no benefit’. From the article I cited above:
Germany is getting this effect for up to 60% of their power generation (minus nuclear). And other countries are following suit- wind and solar are the fastest-growing power sources in the world right now. Over the next 30 years, as 75%-90% of demand for fossil fuels is destroyed worldwide, we’ll see ever-larger reductions.