Whatever happened to Solar Power?

Factual Questions
61

“Let anthricite (sic) do it?” Oh my, I see I have been remiss. I did not even open the “Vegetable Powered Cars” thread, due to it’s ambiguous title. :frowning:

Well, if we want to start debating that again, I’ll try to contribute next time.

I did post some interesting numbers regarding biomass combustion for electric power generation on the first page, did you notice those? Not relevant to the Veggie Cars thread, but useful “real, verifiable numbers” about biofuels. While this is not what you were talking about specifically, do you have a problem with my numbers thus far? If so, we’d better settle this before moving on for the sake of correctness.

If anyone wants to know my opinion (well, not likely, but here it is) I love different, outside the box, non-traditional, and alternate energy sources and conversion methods - I think they are incredibly cool. But I also do a large amount of technical, economic, and political feasability studies on these, and unfortunately they all fall short - all except conservation, that is.

sailor is quite correct in his view of the feasability of solar in this thread. I won’t speak on the Veggie Cars question since I haven’t read the thread yet, but I would assume that he knows quite a bit about the subject, even if you don’t agree with his views.

I think solar is really, really neat, but I often run afoul myself of a lot of solar advocates. Mainly those that push it using incorrect or made-up data and economics, “looking forward” studies that are pulled out of their respective butts, ignore the tricky issues of storage, and overall do not know that what they are asking is just not that easy.

I spend some time speaking to children from junior high and up about energy topics, and it is typically their teachers that bring up the “Why don’t we just use solar? After all, the sun is free!” sort of comments. Then I look like the evil, ice-bitch “tool of the industry” when I try to explain that solar is great, provided you don’t mind either a reduction in your Standard of Living, or a monthly electric bill of about $600 or so.

A couple solar advocates I know love it for it’s “off grid” use, carbon pollution issues, and aesthetics, while admitting that the economics are not there. How can I argue with personal preference, so long as they are informed about it?

62

Well, the heater helps out the house in other ways, as I mentioned. But I also freely admitted that I myself was certainly no paragon of conservation, and freely admitted in my “energy audit posting” that I was a wasteful person sometimes due to negligence.

If you’re trying to poke at me, well, I beat you to it.

63

Anthracite, contrary to what some people think I also like to “think outside the box” (to use a phrase that is being criticised in another thread) and have taken the time to study the subject and even do some experimenting.

Of course your views here are extremely valuable as your knowledge in this field exceeds that of all the rest of us put together.

With respect to conservation I cannot see how anyone can criticise you. I am by nature very frugal but that is me and I do not think individual conservationism should be taken as an absolute value. I say energy as a whole is like any other commodity: once you pay for it, it is yours to do whatever you want with it. You are not required to make any apologies. You spend your money as you please and if that is lighting the whole house, well, that is your choice. I choose to maintain a sailboat which most people think is not worth the cost, but to me that is what gives me pleasure and it is my money.

If we want to encourage conservation I think we should do it collectively by just raising the taxes on energy but we should all have the freedom to use our money as we choose.

AS a conservation measure, a few years back, I changed most of the lightbulbs and fixtures to fluorescent and, while I have not done any numbers on this, the results are a bit disappointing. Of course, I did all the work myself so i did not have to pay to have it done. The main problem is that the halogen and fluorescent lightbulbs are not lasting anywhere near what they claimed. The halogens all failed pretty soon and I have not purchased any more. The fluorescents have also begun to fail (in fact, I have one on my desk waiting to be disected) and another minor annoyance is that they take time to warm up and give full output. Taking into account most of them are not used for many hours, my guess is that for someone who had to pay to have the whole thing done, the change would not be cost effective. (When I say these things all the tree huggers jump on my back but I did it and they didn’t).

Anyway, Anthracite, your input is much appreciated. You are obviously both knowledgeable and intelligent.

64

I knew that, I was just explaining my views.

Kind words, indeed. But my knowledge is somewhat focused, so perhaps I do not know so much.

I too tried the compact fluorescent replacements. IMO, they last about 25-50% of their advertised life, and I even had one die after maybe 500 hours - and this is a $10 light bulb, mind you. And the light quality is so poor I found I was turning on incandescent lamps to be able to read. Ah well…

65

I too, sailor, used to read your portions of these threads with interest. I got turned off by your negitivity.

Your take on big buisness is ridiculus. You don’t think that they buy portions of alterntitve power companies to try to keep them small so they are not a threat?Don’t you know the concept of competition?Can you see the CEO of mobil calling together his board and announcing that they have just isolated the gene that will produce fifteen foot tall bean pods just oozing with oil and taking their fertilizer from coal smoke?Can you see the hands being raised hoping they can be the one to tell the world?

You have never ,at least in the threads I’ve read, addressed the feasibilits of hybrid home heating units.Oh Gee maybe there is another use for your solar water heater.How about preheating the air from your return air duct.
You’re having problems with too much hot water in the summer? How does a heat pump work? Can they be used to cool?

Your threads always look at the total change over from oil.They don’t look at what we can do now.

Gosh a scientific project conducted by a school that wasn’t sucessful from the onset.How awful.
Your threads never address the fact that alternate energy sources may produce jobs.
OK I’m done for now. This isn’t the place for this kind of post.

66

justwanno, your post is just generalities which I cannot disprove since you do not prove them. In my earlier posts I have done concrete analysis with precise numbers but you do not care to read them. Then you say big business buy small companies so they are not a threat. Can you give me some examples? Or did you make that up? What you are expressing is just your feelings (to which you are entitled) not facts. Your feeling is that there must be a way to use solar power profitably and so, since it has not been found, it must be due to big business blocking the way.

But look at everybody in this thread who is knowledgeable about this, even a guy who works for one of those companies big business is (supposedly and according to you) trying to crush. Look at what they are saying. Do you think they are all part of the conspiracy?

Let us assume for a moment, it was true big business would buy a small company to silence it. Do you know what this means? Have you heard of suppluy and demand? Suppose I start up a company that could provide cheap solar power. So some big power company wants to buy it from me. Ok, the price would be HUGE since the potential earnings for my company would also be huge. So I sell my company to them for a HUGE price. And what do I do next? I start another company so that I can sell it again! And many other people would start similar companies here and abroad. So now the big power company is spending more than it earns just buying small startup companies so they do not become threats. Not only here but everywhere in the world.

If solar power were so easy to find, don’t you think other countries would have done it? Russia? China? Europe? And yet, nobody has got there yet.

Sorry, it just makes no sense to me.

We have provided plenty of evidence in this thread. I have provided case studies and links to companies in this field. Other knowledgeable people have done the same.

Only you and Ukelele Ike choose to take the other side but you do not provide anything except very vague things about big business being bad. That is not sufficient.

Again, I would like to see your concrete analysis of the cases that have been mentioned, your concrete input of examples that support your views. Indeed I would find them very interesting to talk about in this thread.

But if all you provide are general assertions that big business is evil, then, what can I say? That is your opinion and all I can say is my own opinion that you are wrong.

Once again, if you have some facts and figures which may support your view that solar energy is more viable than we think, then I and all the rest of the posters would be very interested in seeing them. That is what this thread is about. Not about me.

67

It seems like we come into two camps here:

“Prove it won’t work!”
“Prove it will work!”

By in general, I have to place myself in the camp that says “prove it will work”. Why? Because in the engineering and business worlds, you do not undertake projects based on the fact that no one has proven it won’t work - you undertake them based on the fact that someone has proven it will work.

I have to side with sailor - I think the burden is on the solar advocates to prove their case. Just like the burden is on me to prove my case of what energy sources will work when I consult for client.

68

In engineering you undertake tasks when you can “prove it will work.”

In science and research you undertake tasks where you cannot “prove it won’t work.”

Two different areas, two different goals, two different standards.

69

Joe, that is true but it does not contradict (as far as I can see) what we are saying here.

The original question is “what happened to solar power?” and cites a couple of articles that pretty much state it has not been developed due to “special interests” (to use another stereotype).

Some of us believe solar power just is not as easy as some would like to think and still has some way to go in development before it becomes competitive. We believe reasonable research and development efforts are being done. Examples with concrete numbers have been offered. Of course this R&D is directed in directions that look most promising for those conducting it.

The problem, as I see it, is this: Ukelele Ike and Justwannano start out from a different premise which is that solar power R&D is being repressed by powerful interests.

So, with respect to these two posters, the technical and objective feasibility possibilities of solar power are not the focus. They focus on their perceived conspiracy to suppress solar power.

I am not trying to be confrontational with them but it is very difficult to discuss the issue when they cannot offer any concrete evidence that I can look at. All they offer is their feelings that big corporations are bad. Not a single concrete case we can discuss.

I really have no interest in a confrontation with them or in “winning” any argument. I really would welcome a constructive exchange with them. I just find it very difficult to argue with vague affirmations that big corporations are bad and we must accept that as a given. Then there is nothing to discuss as the conclusion has been reached beforehand.

I have stated that I do not believe in such conspiracy and I have presented many arguments and questions to support my views but I cannot get any constructive dialogue on this either. It just seems they take this personally as if their honor was riding on it.

I have no personal interest in this. I have changed my views in other threads when the evidence showed I was mistaken. I would have no problem changing my position in this if the evidence showed otherwise. I just ask for the evidence, don’t just ask me to believe a blank statement that “big corporations are bad”.

I am still interested in any information relevant to solar power that anyone has to contribute.

70

Anthracite
Did you know that due to deregulation most of the small coal fired generating plants will be taken over by larger buisnesses.
Our local REC, tried to buy the towns generating plant.The aqusition was voted down by an amazing number of votes. The REC manager said it will probably be taken over in an unfriendly takeover.
Sailors buddys at work.

71

Hm. Some experiments are being done on vaporising micrometeorites that might threaten the ISS. Same might be used for these. After all, they have lots of power.
Electronics wear out? That’s kind of vague. In what sense? There are a lot of things that can cause failures, and presumably a lot of ways to reduce the chances of those failures (or provide backups, or fly up a shuttle mission every 10 years).
As for maintaining an orbit - reaction mass? No longer needed! Run some current through a teather, power provided once again by the panels.

I’m not saying that it would last forever, but what about lasting long enough to do repairs from time to time? Hubble’s been up there for a while, and it was definitely cheaper to correct lens problems/replace gyroscopes then build and launch a new one.

72

What makes you think they are his buddies? Just because he thinks the free-market system we live under is better than some other systems, does that mean that he worships big corporations? Please.

Did you know that there are other countries other than the US? Like, say, Japan? Japan has NO FOSSIL FUELS of any kind. Every drop of oil, every gram of coal is imported. Don’t you think that Japanese engineers would be very very interested in a power source that frees them from buying foreign materials?

Just because AMERICAN energy companies might have no interest in alternative fuels, what about Japan, or all the other countries that don’t have fossil fuels? And really, WHY would even American corporations suppress solar power? Sure, they have enormous capital investments in fossil fuels. But if they could introduce solar, they could undercut their competitors. If GE had the technology for cheap solar power, how do they gain by keeping it secret? They can sell, license, etc the solar technology. The profit would be immense. Sure, you’d render your existing capital equipment obsolete, but you’d also render your competitors capital obsolete, and you’d have the new technology. They’d go bankrupt, leaving you to rule the world!

This is just like the only story about how Pharmaceutical companies know how to cure cancer but they keep it secret so we’ll have to keep buying palliatives. That’s just silly. Sure, the big corporations don’t seem to be doing much research into solar power. Does that mean they are suppressing solar power? No, just that they aren’t interested. But perhaps it is short sighted, like buggy whip manufacturers assuring themselves that this horseless carriage stuff is just a fad. As has been pointed out, there are lots of companies selling solar power technology TODAY. If you think that these companies are the wave of the future, it might be a great investment opportunity. You can get solar power for your house TODAY. It’s just that it’s more expensive than the grid. If you have a way to get solar power cheaper than the grid, then talk to me about it and I might send you some investment capital.

But I don’t think you have any technical breakthroughs, just a feeling that solar power OUGHT to work, and therefore the people who say it’s too expensive are jerks. I don’t think the “nay-sayers” are jerks for thinking solar is too expensive, they are being truthful. I’m sure nothing would make sailor happier than if solar power generation could be made to work economically. (OK, I bet I can think of some other things that might make him happier if I tried harder…) But thats the key…economically. How many people, even solar power advocates actually have a working solar power system?

73

Sailor, your point is well taken. Certainly large corporations are hardly altruistic, but being unaltruistic is a far cry from criminal conspiracy.

Color me a pessimist, but I don’t have a high enough opinion of the general level of intelligence of corporate executives to believe without direct evidence that they are intelligent enough to plan and execute such a massive cover-up, much less keep it a secret. The same goes for government.

As to why neither corporations nor government have invested a lot of money in research in the last 20 years or so, I think the energy experts here speak very persuasively: it isn’t sufficiently cost-effective in the short term to even do the research. Coal and oil are cheap. You dig them up, you burn them, end of story. The technology is mature and about as cheap as it’s ever going to be.

If you believe Scientific American, the economics of energy production (and mostly transportation energy, not electrical power generation) are predicted to begin to change dramatically in the near term. I think you will see the changing economics driving increased R&D as we hit the back side of the supply curve.

74

Look folks,the big corporations are there to make money.If you show them a way for the solar panel to be made cheaply and not show them a way to make money by doing so do you think anything will come of it?Oil is big buisness.They make a lot of money. They will never cut off their own money supply just to produce cheaper energy.

75

Lemur, the problem with prejudice is that it blinds people to all evidence. They do not want to see anything that might shake the foundation of their beliefs.

I know a guy who is very prejudiced against blacks and jews and, after long conversations with him I know that no amount of reasoning or arguing is going to change his mind because that prejudice is his starting point through which he sees everything else. The best I can do with him is show him with my actions and words that I have friends in those groups and they are good friends of mine. Maybe a little will rub off on him.

Many people have similar prejudice against big business (or America in other countries) or other concepts. Others have prejudice founded on religious ideas. The problem is that if you have already reached a conclusion then any discussion is a waste of time at best and a threat to your identity at worst.

On top of that, you tend to see people who think differently as evil, not as honest people who have a different view of things. Big companies are no longer people who have their own legitimate view of things, they are evil in their intentions and actions.

I have realized prejudiced people do not respond to reasoning well and tend to get defensive. Since I have no interest in crunching anybody with arguments I try to avoid confrontations. For me, being on good terms with people is more important than being right.

I have not come here to pick arguments with anybody or to prove I am right. If I can learn something I will be glad. If I can provide useful information to others I will do it gladly. Other than that I would like to be on good terms with everybody and I hope everybody will respect my right to my own opinions. None of my posts here are meant as a personal attack on anybody. I try to be objective and factual in my contributions and I am always glad if I can learn something new from anybody.

So, to state my humble opinion again, I do not think we should accept as a given the idea that big corporations are generically evil in their intentions and in their acts. If the facts lead to that conclusion then we should accept it but we should not start out analysis from there. So far in this thread, I have not seen any evidence that would make me change my mind.

76

Actually, some portion of my work is in feasability studies for takeovers of these smaller plants from local control. And the studies done after the takeover on how to improve the plant performance.

In most cases, I gotta hand it to “sailor’s buddys” though. The first thing every client I have ever worked with who has taken over a smaller plant or utility due to deregulation does is the following:

  • Conduct an efficiency study of how the plant output can be increased, while using less coal.

  • Conduct an environmental audit, to see how emissions can be reduced such that the purchaser does not have to start buying allowances or employing extreme measures for SO2, NOx, and particulate controls.

  • Leverage their existing rail contracts to allow delivery of cleaner, lower-sulfur coal more easily to the plant, at a lower tariff.

And so forth. All of these are due to economies of scale. I’ve been to these plants - plants where no one has done a boiler efficiency test in 40 freaking years, where they know they have a serious emissions problem and very poor efficiency, but don’t have the money to study or fix it. Where there is so much unburnt carbon (from the coal) in the ash that you can reburn the ash itself! And in every case I have worked with, the result of a takeover has been cleaner, cheaper, more efficient power.

I thought the point you were trying to make was that “Big Oil” was buying up solar and other new tech companies to protect their profits by supressing technology, not that small power plants in general were being bought up. More power to them - coal plants only benfit from economies of scale, and so do we all - in cleaner, cheaper, more efficient power.

But that’s a sidebar, is it not?

77

Well, if they’re my buddies I wish they’d show it… like a check every now and then… maybe they’re reading and they’ll get the hint. he he :slight_smile:

78

If we really want to save electricity we should have a program to:

Scrap old refridgerators
Replace incandecent bulbs with new flourecent bulbs.

Put solar panels on every roof. Invest heavily in research to develop photovoltaic roofing materials. No batteries necessary; you stay on the grid. The grid is the battery.

This requires subsidies, but, what the hell, all kinds of activity is subsidized in the US. It is simply a matter of policy. We can spend a quarter trillion each year on an unnecessary military establishment and another quarter trillion on interest on the debt and another quarter trillion on advertising. We can do this if we want to and we will all be better off for it.

79

Jeez, Robbespiere. How many times do we have to say this? Photovoltaic cells simply don’t work. They need at least another generation of research before we can start talking about them being a viable energy source for anything larger than a pocket calculator. The problem isn’t that research into solar cells hasn’t been sufficiently funded; it’s that everyone was expecting phenominal breakthroughs in technology to occur, but they didn’t. In hindsight, it was a bit naive to plan on an unexpected breakthrough, but that’s life, I guess.

Another thing that I feel I must address is fluorescent lights. They may use a little less electricity while in use, but in my experience they don’t last as long as a regular lightbulb of similar luminocity. What this means is that you must make more fluorescent lights than you would normal incandescent ones. You must also factor in the energy consumed in manufacturing the tubes. And don’t even get me started about halogen bulbs. They have the lifespan of a mayfly.

80

Are old refrigerators the primary consumers and/or wasters of electricity in the US? Or is it air conditioning? All those extra lights on? I think better building design, insulation, tree placement, and most importantly simple change in attitude from keeping the house a nice 68 F in the Summer and 80 F in the Winter would do a lot more good. How about returning to 10 or 12-foot ceilings, as opposed to our current 8 foot travesties? Houses with actual design for ventillation? Opening the blinds in the Winter and closing them in the Summer? People act in very stupid ways w.r.t. conservation, myself included.

Well, this will help, but only over time. And like I said, the claims for bulb life on these appear to be fraudulent at best.

I’m just curious - have you read the rest of this thread?

I really don’t know what to say…is it your contention that we can spend another “quarter tillion” on subsidies for solar energy? Even given all the problems and issues discussed here? Is it your contention that somehow the people paying for “advertising” in the US should pay for this? I don’t understand the comparison of advertising with government programs.

And as the comment of “we’ll all be better off” - where do you think the “quarter trillion” in solar subsidies will come from? It will be a transfer tax, from your taxes to the manufacturers of the solar equipment, maintenance personnel, replacement parts, the electric companies, etc. You think this will come from some “peace dividend”? We’ve already seen the best we’re going to get out of that, IMO. Or from when the debt is wiped out perhaps? At one time I thought that might happen, but I think neither Gore nor Bush will allow the debt to go away.