Why is solar power so f*cked up?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was just reading this article in the NY Times. It’s not the first article like this I’ve read. I’ve been reading similar articles like this here in California for awhile now.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been hearing the same damn thing. Solar is the future! Clean, cheap energy! There’s just one problem. It’s a tad bit more expensive than conventional electricity. But no worries! You see, as soon as demand increases, the cost will drop and will be competitive with the utility companies!

Well jackasses, the demand for solar is up, up, up!

So what happens? The price of solar keeps going up, up, up!

Oh, but don’t worry. As soon as the demand drops, the price will come down.

WTF???

They lied. Plain and simple. Solar is never going to be affordable. Let’s just screw it, and build lots and lots and lots of nuclear power plants.

2

Where do we put lots and lots of nuclear waste? (this is where someone provides the Wikipedia link for Yucca Mountain).

I saw a website with a large barge that had a large array of wind fans to generate electricity. Put huge solar panels on it and we just may have a winner. I don’t think solar is getting the attention because we’re starting to look at ethanol and such things. Solar could be the perfect gap between now and fusion power, but I think there is a lot of red tape in the way.

3

What are you talking about? The cost of photovoltaics has decreased nearly an order of magnitude over the past forty years. They’re even a little more efficient than they used to be.

And they’re still not cheap enough.

4

Er, does hanging your laundry to dry outdoors count as using solar energy? I’m not sure how to make this coherent, but I don’t think it’s just a matter of cost.

5

The Marianas Trench.

6

I feel obligated to say it…

…only once?

7

For twenty minutes.

Is it as simple as that? I can’t cite articles I’ve been reading over the last 25 years but they all have said about what this NYT article says. The utilities produce power for 10 cents a kilowatt-hour while solar power costs 20 cents to 40 cents a kilowatt-hour.

Yet every 3-6 months I read yet another article about some new breakthrough which makes photovoltaics even more efficient and/or cheaper to produce. And every damn time some expert from the solar power industry chants, “the only problem is there’s not enough demand, but once demand picks up, solar will be competitive.”

Well, we’ve got the demand, where’s the competitive? Right now they’re saying the reason solar is so expensive is precisely because there’s increased demand.

Something smells fishy. And greedy.

8

It’s getting better, but far outside the reach of your average joe. Now factor in the electric companies monopolies and limitations on what you can actually use on your house then we might be able to have a real conversation about it.

Over on the beaches, there is a pretty steady wind blowing, heck, most of this area gets a good bit from the Gulf, let me assure you, Tampa Electric isn’t letting anyone put up any sort of wind generation.

Now get permitting. Building codes are for the status quo. It’s not just the cost. If you put in a system big enough to supply your house you will probably still be required to tap into the local utility which may or may not buy back your excess. So add that to the cost of making a solar dependent home.

9

Nuclear may not be the way to go either:

10

There’s more uranium in the southwest and Wyoming than you can shake a stick at. The article points out the rather obvious conclusion that there haven’t been many new uranium mines built lately because there haven’t been any new nuclear power plants. If you build them, they will come.

11

The OP has a point. But I think it isn’t just some solar-touting dirtbags lying to us all. The energy industry is a huge one, with various factions working on various efforts. IMHO it’s inevitable that fossil fuelds will give way to others, and it is plausible that solar will be a major power source, even possible it will become the most important. Though I think nuclear has the best potential to be ramped up pretty quickly if we don’t prioritize finding the best replacements until fossil fuels are nearly gone, which is perhaps the OP’s guess too.

12

No real solutions here, but one factor for the high costs and below-predicted reduction in per kilowatt capacity in solar panels has been increasing standards for manufacturing ecological output.

Simply put, while solar panels once made, are very ‘green’ their manufacture isn’t. And so keeping the manufacture clean gets expensive, especially as environmental regulations become more strict.

I don’t mention this to imply that the standards should be kept loose, some of the solvents that are used in solar panel manufacture are very nasty, and need to be controlled carefully. I’m only trying to point out that predictions of per-unit or per-kilowatt capability cost will almost always underestimate these sorts of additional manufacturing costs involved with meeting new regulations, because they aren’t something that can be predicted.

13

I would like to hear more of what you think is going on. Do you think manufacturers are keeping prices high to make more money? Competition usually prevents this from happening for very long; if there is a big difference between the cost of manufacturing and the price the market is willing to pay, eventually another manufacturer steps in and sells it for less. What do you think is happening to prevent his?

14

While greater demand would be a big influence on price, it isn’t the only factor. Manufacturing improvements are constantly being made even without a large demand.

I have been hearing the price reduction mantra for photovoltaics for 40 years now, and every so often I check the prices on small panels to see if a simple system might make sense for my house. Yet they still seem astronomical compared to being on the grid.

If infrastructure prices are truly coming down, there should be a trend line we can extrapolate and plot to intersect with the 10 cent line where solar is directly competitive. Does anyone know what the slope of that line is, and what year the intersection is expected?

On a related topic, I understand that wind generators are now competitive with grid sources. There are hundreds of large (and generators keep getting larger) wind farms scheduled to be built in the next few years in Wisconsin alone, feeding into the grid by profit-making businesses.

A lighthearted note…Al Franken, when asked why Minnesota was such a good place for wind farms, said, “Because the Dakotas blow and Wisconsin sucks.” :slight_smile:

15

There are other ways to use solar energy that can certainly help out. Like this person said earlier:

That’s a good example. We in the US a while ago got hooked on tumble-dryers as the sole source of clothes drying, something that various other countries have not bought into yet (excepting rainy days, winter, if your house is surrounded by mulberry trees and birds that eat them, etc.). But see this handy chart:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/enduse2001/enduse2001.html

We can see that clothes dryers only consume 5.8% of all our electrical power at the household. What are the largest users?

  • Air conditioning (16.0%)
  • Refrigerators (13.7%)
  • Heating (10.1%)
  • Water heating (9.1%)
  • Lights (8.8%)

So the low-hanging fruit here is cooling and heating for a total of 26.1%, then refrigerators, then water heating and lights. Obviously, if you use gas for heat then this doesn’t apply, and the percentage devoted to the balance increases proportionately.

Programmable thermostats can provide a huge savings on that heating and cooling cost, as much as 18% with a 10F setback (http://www.energystar.gov/ia/new_homes/features/ProgThermostats1-17-01.pdf), but I’ve also seen studies that show some people getting 30% or more savings. However, for all that benefit, less than 1 out of 4 homes have one. (http://www.gotoemerson.com/jsp/news/drelease.jsp?ReleaseID=3029) Since the thermostat pays for itself within a few months sometimes, and in nearly all cases less than a year, it seems like a no-brainer to put them in. So what’s holding you back, the 77% of you who don’t have them? I held back for too long out of fear that it wouldn’t work with the antiquated control system of my house, and that it might cost a fortune to customize it. Instead, I installed it within 15 minutes, and it’s already made a dramatic improvement in comfort and energy use.

New water heaters can save a large amount of energy. My new water heater, replacing a 12-year old one, has a larger tank, faster heat-up, and uses 40% of the energy of the old one. I reckon the $800 for heater + installation pays for itself in 30 months. After that, it saves about $27 a month net.

And let’s note the old refrigerator on there - more than 13% of electrical use by those silent sentinels of food. Shopping for a more efficient refrigerator could result in a significant payback over time. (Note that deep freezes consume about 3.5%).

A study of the EIA’s records on what uses electricity in the house can give a good example of how personal demand-side management can greatly reduce consumption. If personal solar is to work, it generally has to work in conjunction with a reduction of consumption as well.

The utilities do not produce electricity at 10 cents per kWh, that’s what it might be sold for. Production costs are far, far lower. The coal plant I went to 2 weeks ago produces electricity at about 2.5 cents per kWh (busbar cost), and I’ve been to several which are below 2 cents. This includes the payback cost of the plant construction as well (usually paid back decades ago), and all O&M costs. Now, if you’re comparing installed solar at your house in terms of cost, then you have to compare the sale price, sure. But also compare the cost of installation, the lifespan of the solar cells, the reduction in efficiency over their lifespan, the maintenance and cleaning, repair of damage due to such things as hailstorms, etc. and the cost almost never works out.

Plus, there is the environmental and energy impact of manufacturing the cells and panels themselves. I don’t know the true Straight Dope on the claim that solar panels take more energy to manufacture than they ever produce, as I can find analyses by reputable people that go both ways.

16

These guys seem to think solar has a bright :smiley: future. Battery Materials | BASF Catalysts

17

But it is reasonable for a homeowner to compare 10 cents/KWH, assuming that is his to-the-door cost thru the grid with 10 cents from a rooftop solar array, assuming all costs of that array have been factored in. Certainly if I could buy and install such a unit, using an amortization of 10-15 years, I would seriously consider it.

I would also imagine that a small solar array suitable for a single house might be less efficient than one for, say a neighborhood or city, and larger arrays would produce juice for less using the same sophistication of technology.

Una, you might have better access to the figures I hungered for earlier. Can you project when solar voltaic power might be available to homeowners at a 10 cent/KWH cost?

18

Basically, here’s the problem. Solar power will take off once it’s cheaper than other options. Duh, right? But those options are going to be cheaper for a long time because oil and coal are like “free” energy you just pump and dig out of the ground, and we’re going to have some left for awhile. The trouble is the environmental impact, which isn’t figured into the cost.

19

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could dismantle our nuclear weapons and get fuel out of the warheads? Beating one’s swords into plowshares, and all that…

The article says indicates that we have not been mining enough fuel ('20 years of underinvestment in the production capacity '). For some reason I thought about a '50s TV show (I Love Lucy, perhaps) where someone’s get-rich-quick scheme involved going out with a Geiger counter in search of uranium.

20

That’s what I meant when I said “Now, if you’re comparing installed solar at your house in terms of cost, then you have to compare the sale price, sure.”

No, because AFAIK people really don’t know, or so my solar experts tell me.