Obama’s Solar Energy Fantasy
Obama has now committed $2 billion more of the taxpayers’ money to pursue his solar energy fantasy:
Abound Solar is supposed to create 1,500 “permanent” jobs, while Abengoa Solar is promising just 85 “permanent” jobs, according to the Department of Energy fact sheet, at its plant in Arizona. Add another 3,600 construction jobs, which will disappear after the three plants are built, and the cost per job created still amounts to $386,000 — which is more than seven times the median household income in this country.
Forget for a moment the absurdly high cost of government-created jobs. Forget the boondoggle, the corruption of handing out huge sums to politically connected companies. There are more fundamental problems here.
This is more than a repeat of the 19th century’s error of subsidizing railroad construction. That effort had disastrous results, with huge sums and effort wasted. It led to massive corruption, as congressmen were bribed to continue the subsidies. The roads didn’t pay.
According to Prof. Burton Folsom of Hillsdale College, author of The Myth of the Robber Barons:
The Union Pacific and Central Pacific were poorly built railroads, they went broke, and both cost the nation over $60,000,000 to build – a sum higher than the total national debt just a decade before they were built.
Here, though, the situation is even worse than simple crony capitalism, given its unique 21st century twist. The wrinkle is that at least in the 1860s it was possible to deploy a technology that could conceivably fulfill its purpose. Trains could potentially deliver freight and passengers from point A to B in a cost-effective way. No such claim can be made for large-scale solar power technology, at present.
It would be bad enough for the federal government to subsidize the construction of solar power projects if they worked. It would still be an inefficient use of resources; it would still exceed its constitutionally enumerated powers; it would still be an immoral redistribution of wealth to politically connected companies. But at least in that case American taxpayers — somewhere — might get a Hoover Dam out of the deal. In this instance, that’s simply impossible.
There is no known solar technology that can reliably deliver large-scale power in a cost-effective way. There is nothing even in the research stages that promises that result anytime soon, if we just throw enough R&D money at the right company. This is nothing less than a sheer waste of public funds to create a mere appearance, a chimera to satisfy the vanity of a powerful Green demagogue longing to appear visionary.
In true postmodern fashion, objective facts have vanished in the mist of a progressive wish.
The projects can’t actually improve the environment through the deployment of huge solar panels. Installing large panels takes large tracts of land in sunny areas, usually far from electricity consumers. That means building more roads, stringing longer cable, and handling more cadmium (a heavy metal needed to produce the panels). That’s before even considering liberal shibboleths like producing copious greenhouse gases and disrupting the habitat of native desert species.
No matter. In the manner of applying failed Keynesian economics to energy production, just build them ever bigger and what seems like a drawback magically becomes an advantage. Parallel to the economic error, such projects look only at the immediately visible effects, not the whole picture.
They can’t actually create power economically. Because of clouds and seasonal variations, all solar power plants require backup from other sources, such as coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants. That’s solving the problem twice, increasing the costs. And that doesn’t even count the still woefully low efficiency of current solar technology, technology no one yet knows how to radically improve.
No problem, according to the postmodernist. Just pretend. Pretend hard enough and circumstances will comply. No need to feel constrained any longer by objective reality; there’s no such thing. There are only different perspectives. Just wish upon a star and your dreams can come true.
Spot a contradiction in the plan? Just take a “wider perspective” and all contradictions vanish in the haze of “competing narratives.” Hegel’s philosophy has been Disneyfied by Dewey’s followers and the resultant over-made up hag is ravaging American energy policy.
But reality always has the last word and it’s never soft on self-deluded dreamers. Unfortunately for us, it’s even harder on those forced to go along for the ride and pay the fare besides, especially on a train going nowhere.
Good report but it gets worse. I’m trained in the field of solar and renewable energy. There are ways to make it work but these governments have consistently refused to change the red tape and regulations that block these real solutions. Methanol as a stationary biofuel is not considered and disallowed. Metal air batteries, better than lithium in terms of price and energy density, has been ignored. Solar with integral storage is being ignored. Red tape in most cases plays a part by not including a margin for storage in the way efficiency is calculated. The first oil shock work of the 1980′s has been forgotten or is blocked by people, government, pricing the patents to high.
If this was really about clean green energy it would have been done by now but its not; its about political power not CO2 or Watts.
Stationary methane not allowed? Good lord, that’s the most promising of the lot!
Methanol, not methane. Methanol is a liquid CH3OH. It is, however, quite toxic- 10 mL causes permanent blindness and 30 mL is lethal.
Correct but safe tankage has been available on racing circuits for decades and that’s a mobile application. Double tanking with sensors in the outer tank and other safety technologies have been used in the chemical industry since the 1940′s. Bio-methanol as a stationary technology spliced on a gas turbine or coal power plant would have worked.
To imitate the storage that racing circuits, in their excruciatingly limited numbers employ is not possible for a mass market. In the same vein, aviation fuel has 100 times more “outlets” and is still more than twice as expensive as auto fuel. The link would be that aviation fuel (not jet fuel) is slightly leaded (leading to higher storage and transportation costs), so the costs are similar.
As such, the analogy is not appropriate.
I was talk in about methanol not methane but your correct its the most efficient biofuel. Several companies want to mass produce methane plants at the small scale but the ‘municipal government’ monopoly on sewage system and red tape at getting the factory started plus the bankrupt banking system have all so-far blocked it. The third world and Europe already has mass produced biogas plants but not the USA or Australia.
I can create and store more eletricity than a decent size solar panel with a wood stove, a small steam engine, an alternator, 10 car batteries and 10 pieces of dried wood. So much for progress lol! Jay
Where government might help the solar industry, is in R & D…like a “to the moon” mission to make the industry more efficient and economical long-term.
As of now, as seen in Spain and other countries, large solar farms are just not making economic sense without massive tax breaks and other government intervention. There IS a market that makes sense for individual homeowners with large electic bills, and commercial buildings with roof-top installations…but even then, tax rebates, grants, and other government-sponsored programs are required to get them built and installed.
What this latest giveaway does is use the funds for “manufacturing” jobs, to create the illusion of a growing and thriving industry…where there really is none “yet”…at least for large scale farms. Not to mention your whole “political connection” aspect which is most troubling…
It’s all smoke and mirrors…and there’s ALOT of mirrors to be built!!
Every single “spin off” from NASA, was already under development and many were already being marketed commercially.
The only thing NASA “developed” were bigger rocket engines. The reason why NASA had to develop them was because at the time, there was no commercial use for them. (At the time, it was illegal for anyone other than the govt to launch into space.)
Thank you for this concise article. I like to imagine what would happen if, suddenly, through an unforeseen technological advance, solar became truly efficient and commercially viable. Because such an advance would make energy cheaper, we would all be rushing to buy the new technology! It would just make economic sense. Subsidies? What subsidies, get out of the way – everybody would just have to buy it now. The market would take the whole matter out of the politicians’ control very quickly.
Now, imagine the expressions on the greenie politicians’ faces. Confusion. Shock! Disgust! Anger! Outrage! Wealth creation? That wasn’t what was supposed to happen!!! Yes, they have another goal entirely.
When technology advances, it brings you more value for a lower price (adjusted for inflation). Just look at any manufactured item around you. I like give the example of the handheld calculator, they started out costing hundreds of dollars and now they are much better and cost 5 to 10 dollars.
5 to 10 dollars?
heck, they give them away in cereal boxes now days.
“TWO MILLION GREEN JOBS”
“Because of clouds and seasonal variations, all solar power plants require backup from other sources, such as coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants. That’s solving the problem twice, increasing the costs.”
Actually, it isn’t, or rather it would be if The Messiah and his deep-eco fanatic acolytes (like Stevie Chu and Kenny Salazar) would allow such plants to be built.
But they won’t. The One promised in the campaign to bankrupt anyone who tries to run a coal-fired power plant. He has refused to allow Yucca Flat to open and then essentially declared a moratorium on nuclear power plants on the grounds that “there’s no place to put the used power cores” (a self-generated Catch-22 if there ever was one). And Cap and Trade will put paid to LNG on CO2 emission grounds.
And oh yes, they not only won’t allow new hydroelectric dams, they are continuing the policy of dismantling the ones we have to “make rivers wild again”.
To salve their own peculiar urges, this bunch is determined to starve our civilization of energy at any cost. Including leaving everyone in darkness when the sun goes down.
We’d better hope these “enlightened ones” are right about global warming. Otherwise, a lot of people are going to be freezing to death in that darkness.
Then again, maybe that’s what they are counting on- to “Save Holy Mother Gaia” from all us grotty humans other than their own “perfected” selves.
clear ether
eon
I don’t remember who the dude was, some big whiz in the “environmental” movement. Wrote an article last week proclaiming the virtues of banning air conditioning.
What I never understood about the liberal left and these “solar worshippers” is that they can never point to any example where solar technology has reliably delivered large-scale power in a cost-effective way. Nowhere has this been proven to be the case, even in Europe, where Spain has almost gone bankrupt trying to prove that they could do it, and they still can’t. If this is such a great idea, how come the American southwest isn’t fully solar powered by now? There are lots of places in America where there is lots of sunshine and yet we just can’t seem to make it work. And research has been going on with this since the 1970s and still NOTHING! Billions have been spent on this dream and we still don’t have one major power plant that is powered by solar energy alone.
How many more years and how much more money are we going to throw down this rat hole? I cringe when I think of how much safer and better our nuclear power could be if we dedicated as much research dollars to that. At least nuclear power works and we have working power plants around the world that produce massive amounts of energy. In fact, there are more nuclear power plants in Europe, home of the “green” jobs, than here in the United States. Even they get the point that solar engergy is going nowhere fast.
But no, this is the holy grail of the liberal left. The leftovers from the “peace-loving” 1960s just can’t let go of this and their followers are just as dedicated as they are in going broke just to prove their point. Which goes to show you that the liberal left would rather go broke than admit that they were wrong.
“What I never understood about the liberal left and these “solar worshippers” is that they can never point to any example where solar technology has reliably delivered large-scale power in a cost-effective way.”
The failure to produce real examples of cost-effective solar power is no different than the failure of Marxists to ever produce a real example showing that their ideology worked. Time and time again, I’ve challenged Marxists to identify even a single VILLAGE, let alone a country, that worked according to Marxist principles WITHOUT massive coercion. Sure, the Soviets had some “Potemkin” villages that they showed tourists and fellow travellers but, behind the scenes, these were basically nothing but movie sets where actors pretended to be living a Marxist life. REAL villages operated with massive coercion by the state: basically, you were killed, jailed or exiled if you didn’t play ball with the authorities.
It has been perhaps our biggest single failure as voters to allow ideologues (of ANY political persuasion) to make massive transformations of whole societies simply on the basis that their theory or ideology was going to solve all of our problems. Whenever a liberal/socialist/leftist (or even a conservative) begs voters for power because he or she has some grand idea that will solve this or that problem – or ALL of our problems – we should DEMAND that they PROVE that this grand idea works with a living example.
Then, whether they were advocating a new entitlement, a harsher enforcement of a policy, or belief that solar energy can work in a cost-effective manner, we could evaluate that living example and see whether it made sense.
Instead, we give these people the benefit of the doubt and they spend billions of dollars trying their scheme. When it doesn’t work, as is so often the case, they make excuses or try to bury their mess so that we don’t notice and then we give the next guy a blank cheque to try his grand idea.
If an idea, whether it is cost-effective solar power or even outright Marxism can work, it can almost inevitably work on a small scale. We should be INSISTING that anyone with such an idea implement it successfully on a small scale and prove that it works and then, only if it does work satisfactorily, think about implementing that idea on a national scale.
Following THAT principle should save us many billions of dollars in tax money – and a great deal of time too! – as we weed out the ideas that sound good on paper from the ones that actual work in the real world.
Continuing on our present course of just giving the politicians the benefit of the doubt no matter how dubious their ideas are is just going to ensure that we waste many many more billions of dollars on foolish ideas that don’t work.
Henry,
There actually is an example of “Marxism” working, though that culture predated Marx. But this is the exception that demonstrates the rule.
The Shaking Quakers, “Shakers”, were full-fledged communists. Industrious, inventive, prosperous communists. Where they differed from Marxist regimes (such as what our governments are becoming) is that there was no force involved. You had to be a communist to remain, but everyone was free to go at any time.
And, of course, they were celibate.
So the next time you jaw with Marxists, acknowledge that their economic model HAS worked. A communistic community can indeed overcome Greed and Sloth…as long as its inhabitants have also conquered Lust.
Let’s see how serious they are about their Utopia.
Many early Christians were the same way, sans the celibacy part. Freedom of movement is all that matters.
I was at a party and this topic came up. I was surrounded by liberals mostly academic types and they could not believe that I was not for solar. I told them that there is no free lunch and the power has to come from somewhere to charge batteries. I was in the process of converting a small car to all electric last year but I soon realized that ONE gallon of gas in a 35/mpg car goes 35 miles but it takes 1200 pounds of batteries to go the same distance. True the batts can be recharged but power is still being used to make that electricity. Throw in the amount of lead, acid and non reusable parts and you have a much worse situation than pure gas. If you want to use solar to charge your batteries then you had better have a lot of land because it takes a huge amount of panels to recharge batteries fast enough to be practicable. In Spain they caught the big solar farms using diesel generators to create electricity to sell to the gov at highly subsidised rates. This is a system who’s time has not come.
I get infuriated discussing electric autos with Californians, who assume that because something is electric, it must ipso facto be clean. Most Californians are absolutely ignorant where their power comes from or how it is generated. All an electrc car does in California is transfer the costs of generating power out of state.
Of course many have noted the great irony that much CA electrical power is produced in Arizona, which has to be boycotted. Well, symbolically boycotted, with much angry rhetoric and waving of signs.
Steve you mean all that free electricity just doesn’t come out of that little plugie thingie in the wall?
Your comment is “spot on”. If it made economic sense, private industry would have done it long ago.
A better use of the money for renewable energy would be a federal grant for homeowners to have a grid tied solar energy system installed on their residence. More jobs created over a larger area, the energy produced reduce the burden on the grid itself, the residents get some relief due to lower energy bills, and the solar industry gets an increase in demand facilitating more jobs in production (assuming the installed systems have to of American manufacture). I mean if we are going to spend it, why not actually do it across the widest area in order to have the broadest affect?
Yeah, let’s just stay with proven, safe oil and coal. It’s worked well in the past, so there is no need to fund new technologies.
Seriously Jeff Perren, I wonder if you get a grant from the American Petroleum Institute. Oil and coal industries already get government subsidies at tax payer expense. From the obscenely low cost of leases, to the cost of cleaning spills of oil and ash which the companies never fully reimburse society for, to the health cost the toxins regularly spewed by their production and consumption. It is all an unreported cost which we all pay for one way or another. These industries have pretty much run the Department of Interior in the past, with the results we now can see, and smell along the gulf coast.
The free market solution to our energy and pollution problems do not account for the cost society pays for the degradation to our air and water that the present extraction oriented energy industries plague our environment with. Who pays for the sickness, and disability brought by oil spills, and the soot and ash from the burning of coal and the storage of the highly toxic ash by products? The oil and coal industries don’t…..the taxpayers pick up that tab.
Over 30 years ago, President Carter attempted to lead our nation away from dependence on oil and coal energy. President Reagan decided to go with the old reliable oil and coal. Where has that gotten us? In addition to the pollution, it has directly led to this present war that saps our nation’s budget in the interest of securing sources of oil. Cost effective? Figure in the real cost and you’ll see that in the long run, Solar thermal energy technology will become cost effective, with a lot less pollution. Just think where our nation would be if we had of followed President Carter’s plan to wean us off of oil and coal. We wouldn’t have had the need to drill two miles deep in a mile of ocean. We wouldn’t need to cut the tops off of so many mountains in West Virginia, and the water wouldn’t run red with pollution from those ruined landscapes.
You present a collection of hyperventilated assertions with not much in the way of rational arguments, as they pretty much fall into the “big oil, big industry, big banks, etc are killing me” school of thought (or more accurate; school of emotion.) Then you sprinkle it with repeated references to all the supposed death, destruction, sickness, disease and overall ickiness that “extraction” industries have wrought (all at the behest of Republican overlords I assume).
Funny how in your world all this willful destruction of our environment, unchecked pollution, and poisoning of the populace is taking place yet, we as a whole are living longer, more disease free lives. How can that be?
The “Jimmy Carter tried to save us” bit at the end was the kicker: the only president who may actually be more arrogant, vain, sanctimonious – and ultimately ineffectual – than the current model occupying the white house.
MisterH,
I suppose you’r OK with American oil and gas industry getting $15 billion and $35 billion a year in subsidies from taxpayers. Maybe you’re down with a bit of oil lapping on our shores….it’s not really that toxic, is it? Like you say, we seem to be living longer.
And you must be OK with Reagan setting us up on this road to oil DEPENDENCE.
“We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.”-President Carter,April 18, 1977
Ultimately ineffectual? I guess you’re right! We are STILL addicted to oil. And the past is now controlling us.
Your comment contains a fallacy. Just because the current energy situation has obvious downsides, this does not mean that the solar plan makes sense. With respect, you need to refute the arguments of the article’s author rather than merely point out that petroleum is not an ideal choice. Fantasy options are not better than imperfect but workable options.
SB…
“With respect, you need to refute the arguments of the article’s author rather than merely point out that petroleum is not an ideal choice.”
The author points out the costs involved in this particular alternative energy source. I point out the costs involved with present energy sources.
“Fantasy options are not better than imperfect but workable options.”
-Workable? Maybe for the short term, but in the long run can we afford to continue to subsidize ONLY oil, gas and coal? Ending present subsidies to make room for a new mix of energy options would strike me as prudent, unless one is heavily invested in oil, gas. or coal.
Fantasy? The fantasy is thinking there is no such thing as “peak oil”, or that we can continue to bulldoze mountains to extract coal in perpetuity.
David-
You did address one point I failed to in my reply: I am not “OK” with the oil and gas subsidies. Just like agriculture I think the gov’t. has no business doling out public dollars to prop up any business. I am not “down” with oil spills, any more than I am with hurricanes, but these things are going to happen once in a while and the truth is, however ever ugly and anger-inducing they may be, one only has to research catastrophic oil sills of the past to know that they do no long term harm- it’s the cost and risk of doing anything in this world.
MisterH
“I am not “OK” with the oil and gas subsidies.”
-Glad to hear that. Forgive my previous snarkiness, but the irony of this article and many of the responses referring to waste in this specific case of alternative energy development while ignoring the money tax payers already spend on fossil fuels is astounding. I am sure you are NOT “down” with oil spills, but “these things are going to happen once in a while….” -is certainly true if we do not provide adequate oversight and regulation to a particularly risky business. Oil pipelines in Alaska spring leaks because no one inspected them properly. The blowout preventer didn’t work in the deepwater horizon because of lax attention to detail by both Ken Salazar’s MMS, and the previous administration. MMS seems to be owned by by the extraction industry.
The point is, many pundits scream about money spent developing new technology, yet are silent about how the present industry actually ends up costing the American taxpayer. As for no long term damage from oil spills…..i think you are imbibing in some wishful thinking. “Twenty years after the massive spill, as much as 16,000 gallons of oil linger in Prince William Sound.”
Read more: http://www.adn.com/2009/02/06/682335/debate-persists-about-long-term.html#ixzz0uiUh34IW
Lot’s has been published about adverse health effects to clean up crews as well.
-”it’s the cost and risk of doing anything in this world”
My point being that there ARE alternatives to mineral extraction that doesn’t have this messy price tag affixed to it. We are 30 years behind the curve on the issue of energy.
It would be nice if you could demonstrate that any of these fantasy assertions of yours actually exist.
That’s funny. They subsidize it for $30B and tax us for $65B (mean taxes per gallon in US is $0.45, US consumed 138B gallons in 2008). That’s a strange way to keep the costs down so people will keep buying it. Yeah, yeah. The taxes go for road improvements. Then what did we need the stimulus for? I’m getting dizzy from going in circles…
By all means let’s end all government subsidies to electrical production — the $0.25 per MWh for fossil, the $25 per MWh for wind, and the $40 per MWh for solar.
Note how “green” propagandists pushing useless methods of producing delusional power while devastating landscapes on a scale never before dreamed of love to say “nya, nya, fossil gets subsidies, too” while never mentioning the amount of useful power produced to generate the total subsidy figure.
sure, just try to calculate energy density of your beloved “green” technologies before next time you start posting nonsense.
I am so sick of the liberal lefties laying out such an empassioned plea about energy cost effectiveness that they clearly know nothing about. In order to justify the totally uneconomic solar power they want to use as an excuse to redistribute our tax dollars they bring up vague and mushy estimates of how much our oil and gas economy is costing us in “unseen” costs. The same swarmy tactic they used to try and justify their wildly expensive healthcare reform. The truth of the Progressives is that they are almost congenitally unable to build or create anything and use their empassioned rhetoric to merely obsfucate the truth long enough to gain the power they want to implement their real goal of total control. That is why their loyal base of voters are universally ignorant of the basics of economic or business reality.
nickle….
“…..(impassioned) plea about energy cost effectiveness that they clearly know nothing about.”
-You’re right, i am an idiot. But i do resent picking up the tab for $15 billion and $35 billion a year in subsidies on oil and gas alone from taxpayers, depending on what source you choose. I resent the pollution that is a byproduct of both the extraction and the burning of coal to produce our nations electric needs. But the fact is, that lobbyists working for coal, gas, and oil companies spend a lot of cash on our Capital Hill, and i may be a dummy as you infer, but they wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t a return, am i correct? And who picks up the tab? The U.S. TAXPAYERS.
Our defense budget also reflects this indirect cost, because the power we “project” beyond our own shores helps secure the flow of oil that runs our economy. The way i see it, spending hundreds of billions of dollars on aircraft carriers just to keep the Persian Gulf oil flowing doesn’t strike me as cost effective. Clearly, had we begun 30 years ago to mitigate our dependence on fossil fuels we’d be economically stronger, and the power of oil producing states in the Persian Gulf region would be diminished.
But you’re smarter, you tell me what a cost effective plan for our energy future would entail?
The solution is nuclear power, including reprocessing used fuel and mining it for useful elements. The technology exists for us to deliver electricity at current consumption levels and only slightly elevated costs for the next thousand years.
myth buster-
“The solution is nuclear power, including reprocessing used fuel and mining it for useful elements. The technology exists for us to deliver electricity at current consumption levels and only slightly elevated costs for the next thousand years.”
i’d say nuclear ought to be in the mix, but the idea of several hundred nuclear plants should be pondered. Chernobyl’s legacy also will last for the next thousand years.
Our future will include continued use of fossil fuels for at least the next 50 years. We have already squandered time and money by continuing with these to the exclusion of all others. It will take assistance at the national level to implement an energy policy that includes solar, wind, nuclear. Finland uses heat generated from paper mills to heat steam to run generators. Solar panels installed on every residence that gets all day direct sun would mitigate the power consumed to run air conditioning on a day like today (it’s 100ºF here in Carthage N.C.). But the future doesn’t look so bright for a comprehensive energy policy in our present political climate on capital hill, where politicians on both sides of the aisle are taking so much money from the fossil fuel lobby.
First off, you demonstrate your complete ignorance on the subject by even bringing up Cherynoble. Cherynoble used a technology that was rejected by the west because it is unsafe. The Soviets used it because it was cheap. Then to save even more money, they decided not to build a containment vessel. Beyond that, the accident was caused when local operators decided to run an unsafe experiment without installing proper instrumentation. Beyond that, your claims of 1000s of years is equally ignorant. Local wildlife has already returned to the area, with no signs of ill affect from the slightly higher than before radiation levels.
Secondly, your belief that there is a pollution free source of energy shows you to be an ideologue with no ideas other than hating what we have now.
Places solar makes sense: Outback most of Africa, Australia, interior Alaska, Al Gore’s yacht (just kidding). Better to pump clean water a few hours a day or run electric based motors in remote places. Oh, and add the odd home owner who wants to spend more than they get in return. Anyone with even a Joe Biden brain might be able to comprehend it’s just not worth the effort for any first world nation.
Regarding Obama, he’s one of the few Lefties that actually seems to believe the crazy dreams actually work. The little guy on Fantasy Island must be running around now yelling “the solar, the solar”.
It is apparent that Obama has no Electrical Engineering degree nor vast knowledge of mathematics, just the size and costs of solar panels is mind boggling and this does not take into account how much sun is available nor the fact that photolytic cells produce DC power which then has to be stored somehow (batteries) and then using an inverter to produce AC that most all of us use in our homes (unless you live in a camper). Nope he hasn’t thought this thing through and the author is correct in figuring that Obama is delusional, and the entire country has to pay for it!
Let us not forget for best optimal use we need to wash these panels monthly.Do we divert water to do this? Dry up rivers/lakes. The federal gov,t will not let us even divert water for food crops in Ca. Keep punching 10 at election time for more ( this is an old illinois election term to walk into the voter booth and punch #10 on the ballet and vote a straight democratic ticket).
Jeffery Peon: I really think you are a brainwashed moron who knows zero about solar energy except: you saw a TV special sponsored by BP.
1) Modern solar works thru clouds.
2) You did not add the cost of the “gulf environmental disaster” to your cost of “crude” comparison…or the cost of wars, dead army men, environment, monopoly pricing, balanced trade deficit by reducing imported energy, lack of full employment that we could have building these type public works projects, balanced federal budget brought by full employment from demonstration projects that advances the technology; full employment brings housing demand…
I really think you are an oil industry hack or just of extremely low intellect… This is the dumbest article I ever saw on PJ…
3) Et Al: but you are/will remain in denial…
Can not wait to hear from your mother trying to defend this insulting rubbish…
> Modern solar works thru clouds.
Yes. But it doesn’t work well in heavy clouds. And it doesn’t work at all at night. So on average, half the time (12 hours a day) it doesn’t work at all.
As for the environmental aspect — have you looked at the environmental cost involved in manufacturing solar? And the power storage components? You have to look at the environmental costs of the whole supply chain, not just the point of installation.
Bottom line — until we have high voltage high temperature superconductors, solar will only be economically useful for remote locations.
I find it hilarious that someone who just called someone else a “brainwashed moron” would immediately follow it with the statement that “modern solar works through clouds”. Here is a couple little experiments for you. Try looking directly at the sun, and then while it is behind the clouds. Notice any difference? How much hotter is your car on a sunny day vs. cloudy?
I happen to have both solar electric panels and solar hot water. Both are constantly monitored and I plot the data. Yes, they run under clouds, but at about 10% of capacity. Are you willing to drop your energy usage by 90% on cloudy days?
What happens at night? Maybe, just maybe, you will have to use all that nasty oil and coal to keep your computers and hospitals going.
No way. Just use those toxic batteries and BELIEVE!
At least you didn’t try to convince us about the magical still you have in your back yard.
Yes solar works through clouds. But the efficiency drops rapidly as the cloud thickness increases.
As to the rest of your rant, we’ll just have to consider the source.
Mr. Perrin, their plan doesn’t seem to make sense because you left out the other half – Conservation. If appliances are redesigned (or eliminated e.g. clothes dryers), people curtail traveling (use Ipads instead) or use bicycles, work at home (instead of collecting unemployment) etc. etc.
We could also start living in caves and growing our own food.
MarkTheGreat, i’ll reply here to you’re response to me at the end of #8……..
-”you demonstrate your complete ignorance on the subject by even bringing up Cherynoble…..”
I’m well aware of the poor plan of Cherynoble. However, poor designs are not the only cause for containment failure. Earthquakes, and equipment failure could just as well result in a meltdown which NO containment structure could hold.
“Beyond that, your claims of 1000s of years is equally ignorant. Local wildlife has already returned to the area, with no signs of ill affect from the slightly higher than before radiation levels.”
Local wildlife has returned to Bikini Atoll as well, but how many people live there?
Think first before you post! Ignorant?
David, David, David, do you enjoy making yourself look stupid.
As to your extremely ignorant claim regarding earthquakes, do you really believe that engineers have never heard of earthquakes and are incapable of designing structures to withstand them?
As to Bikini Atoll, you are aware that the descendants of the locals have been petitioning the US govt for permission to return for years, but our govt won’t permit it.
Are you capable of creating an honest argument, or do you just come here to embarrass yourself?
“David, David, David, do you enjoy making yourself look stupid.” No, but do you enjoy acting like an ass? Ignorant? Please. With a moniker like yours, you must have a high opinion of yourself. I get the feeling you’re quite the bully.
“As to your extremely ignorant claim regarding earthquakes…..” -What’s the worse that could happen? A meltdown of the reactor core? -Yeah, that’ll never happen! “If it can happen, it will”-Murphy’s Law. Sure, Chernobyl had a poor design, but the point is, when you have large numbers of nuclear reactors, accidents are bound to happen. Tell me, is there any know containment that will hold a runaway meltdown? Prudence dictates taking a disaster in to consideration. But not for you, you don’t need to consider prudence ’cause you’re special!
It’s going to seem like an eternity until November when we can finally start to reverse this trend of having a minority in power. That minority being so-called experts who just coincidentally have no actual experience in the business of energy production nor any other business. What is completely ignored is the fact that solar power has been on the market for a generation and has yet to become cost effective.
We need an effective energy policy based on reality, not rainbows and unicorns. We need to resume the harvesting of our rich supply of natural resources with an eye towards safety at all times. Doing so will free us of many unhealthy “alliances” with countries who happily take our money and then subvert our national interests using our own money (hello, Saudi Arabia). We have the technology, to coin a phrase, but know-nothing politicians who choose to insulate themselves from the real world have allowed themselves to be influenced by radical special interest groups for far too long. These same groups are not interested in ecology as much as political power, as we’re slowly discovering to our dismay.
I agree that the Democrats’ obsession with solar power and wind is irrational; yet this post is information-poor and pretty lame. For example, you assert that: “Because of clouds and seasonal variations, all solar power plants require backup from other sources, such as coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants. That’s solving the problem twice, increasing the costs.” Actually, that is not completely correct: if the solar plants are interconnected over long distances (geographical diversity) it is *not* necessary to back up *all* the power, only some (fairly high) percentage of it. What is that percentage? A better post would have made some effort to find out what it is and cite it. A better post would also have mentioned that solar-thermal plants do have some inherent storage capability.
Also, backup which is needed only infrequently normally takes the form of gas turbines, which are relatively inefficient when running but have low capital costs relative to base-load plants.
Posts on complicated economic and technological topics should be much more number- and fact- intensive than this one is.
So unless an article is a 20 page dissertation, it shouldn’t be posted?
As to your notion of long distance inter-connects. Do you have any idea how big those would have to be to bring in 100% of an areas power needs? Do you have any idea how much energy is lost per mile on those things? Are you just complaining because your favorite fantasy is being challenged?
As to your ideas about nat gas turbines, how much would it cost to have enough turbines to completely power the country when the whole country is covered by clouds? You are aware that even turbines can’t be fired up instantly, but have to be kept idling at all times so that you can ramp them up when they are needed? Do you have any idea how much nat gas that would require?
Of course you don’t.
RRE Austin Solar (a recently formed Texas corporation started by mainly Indian companies) is planning to build a 60 Megawatt solar farm on 600 acres of productive farmland( not desert scrub ) 20 miles northeast of Austin Texas. After receiving numerous incentives and abatements from local governments, RRE Austin Solar stands to get $70 million in federal grants (not loans)to create 4-5 permanent jobs. Many local politicians anticipate being photographed standing in front of an ocean of shiny solar panels in an effort to appear as green progressive forward looking friends of the earth. Ground breaking is expected in January 2011.
Isn’t the power from solar more costtly per unit …like $.40-$.45 per kilowatt hour? I pay around $.12 for a kilowatt hour of fossil fuel generated electricity. There is a hole in the bucket.
Thomas
These projects are capital intensive and where is the government getting that capital. Don’t say debt because debt is not a source of capital but access to available capital. If you don’t have anything no one can borrow it.
That capital has to come from the hated profit companies make doing salable business. The government absconds with that capital by taxation and then wastes it politicking. If that capital had stayed under individual, rather that government, control some of it would be financing solar and other exotic power as it always has. In fact there would be more capital available because the companies would be generating more jobs and capital than they can now do. There is no advantage in what the government is doing but there is a failing to make expected goals. This is inherent in the system so we need to bring the system back into compliance with facts,
Re: “Isn’t the power from solar more costtly per unit …like $.40-$.45 per kilowatt hour? I pay around $.12 for a kilowatt hour of fossil fuel generated electricity. There is a hole in the bucket.” – Thomas
Here is a question I have not heard either side in the debate address: Isn’t solar and wind power mostly about “peak load” power not base load power? In California conventional power sources (gas, imported coal, nuclear) cost something like what: $0.10 to $0.20 per kilowatt hour for base load power?. But during about 20 hot days in August and maybe another 10 to 20 days of cold snap in December-January, expensive peak load power needs to supplement the cheap base load power at a cost of $0.50 and up per kilowatt?. So isn’t the more expensive solar and wind power designed to meet peak power loads?
So “green power” advocates haven’t even stated their best case: that solar and wind power are more expensive but are designed to meet more expensive peak loads?
Of course this begs the question already addressed above: what if the sun isn’t shining or wind blowing during those hot or cold days? You still have to have conventional back-up power and it has to be what is called “spinning reserves,” meaning the conventional power plant has to have turbines spinning in real time to kick-in in the event of a sudden drop in solar or wind power (cloud cover, wind speed drops). You can’t “black start” a conventional power plant.
But what about the possibility of green power creating what are called “stranded assets” in the peak load power industry? If I have financed and operate a gas fired peaker plant that amortizes itself based on, say, only 30 to 40 days of generation during peak hours/days but wind and solar are allowed to trump my power generation then I am out of business. Who is going to pay for my “stranded” asset? Ratepayers? Stock or bond investors?
I served on California Energy Crisis Task Force for large water district in So. Cal during 2001. That crisis wasn’t about Enron gaming the system or a “perfect storm” of energy shortages as much as it was about how to pay for “stranded assets” from the EPA mandating the mothballing of fossil fuel power plants along the coast to clean the air. The problem was that the corporate bond (mortgages) on the plants were not paid off. The Cal Energy Crisis was a game of hot potato over who was going to pay the bonds off.
The first plan to pay off the old debts was deregulation which promised to lower electricity prices, say, 20% by competition but back add-in, say, 10% to pay off the old bonds, resulting in a net 10% savings to consumers. We don’t know if this would have worked because the new Democratic Party controlled state legislature and Governor in 2001 pulled the plug on deregulation to blockade out of state energy from Red States (Texas, Utah, Arizona) from capturing more of the Cal energy market (and thus indirectly enlarging the state budget deficit with lost jobs and taxes).
The second plan to pay off the debts was price controls. The Democratic Party legislature and Governor froze the price of retail power but not wholesale power. This is what Cal experienced as the Energy Crisis with rolling blackouts and monopoly energy companies (Edison, PG&E) becoming insolvent. What price controls were intended to do was induce a “pricing fever” that would pay off the debts. This failed as most price controls and bubbles fail.
What eventually happened is that the old debts were rolled into $40 billion of long-term energy contracts which are set to expire coincidentally in 2012, the year that Cal’s Assembly Bill 32 – Global Warming Solutions Act – kicks in. So green power is trying to capture by government fiat the energy demand from the expensive long-term contracted power (which was loaded with debt costs). So the argument could be made that expensive green power is just replacing expensive long-term contract power – but I haven’t heard anybody make such an argument.
Comments please from both sides please. Thank you.
I am not a green power advocate because I suspect that a shift to green power will result in yet another unintended Cal energy crisis with stranded assets and who knows what other “black swans?” (bond market collapse, high bond interest rates, investment wipeouts, etc)?
Seems to me that investment in nuclear power, coupled with the proven reserves we have of natural gas, and a little more effort to render the energy from coal less environmentally noxious would be effort better spent.
Obama never misses an opportunity to “responsibly lead” on the subject of renewable energy, but he has no clue how to make it work, other than shaking us all down for the money to throw at technology that “sounds” good.
Only a bunch of intellectual elitiest snobs would act in this manner. If alternative energy of any ilk was economically viable, the public would be lining up to purchase it and privately financed companies would be starting up everday to provide it. There are millions of us who would like nothing better than to kiss our utility bills goodbye if there were an economically feasable option. Do these jackasses think we’re happy to surrender ever increasing amounts of our meager salaries to giant monopolies or ‘nonprofit’ cooperatives every month?
We get hit with ever increasing ‘customer costs’, ‘energy adjustments’ and now a 9.5% environmental fee. If there were any alternative to being held hostage to this, we would overwhelmingly jump on it. I have searched for over 20 years for such an alternative and it just does not exist. Every alternative is unreliable, ineffective, and exorbitantly priced.
Maybe the department of energy should hire some hard scientists instead of so many enviro-weenies and put some of our tax dollars to work on something useful. Or they could just quit opposing further expansion of nuclear plant development.
Great summary of the current policy that gets to the essence of the problem — putting wishes before reality. The consequences are always more pain in the long run.
Solar energy is for toys … like path lights for one’s sidewalk.
“Objective facts have vanished in the mist of progressive wishes” is so true. There is nothing so absurd as the way they rail against oil and coal and nuclear, and they have no sane alternative, and they’ll never create one. The market will create an alternative when the market creates a demand. These ‘progressives’ like Obama are trying to create an artificial market, which in reality amounts to some form of great shakedown. The recent finance bubble fiasco was one such shakedown. Taxpayers and pensioners and homebuyers lost, but others, Washingtonians and Wall Streeters, made a killing.
I wish someone could convince Obama that there is plenty of solar energy on the moon and that we should put our solar collectors there. Here on earth we already have very good solar energy programs; they’re called agriculture, forestry, and fishing.
Solar of course works during the day. Solar doesn’t work well every day.
Solar requires storage for transmission of power at night. storage can be using solar to melt salt and have molten salt make steam at night.
Every form of storage doubles the price of power. Back up power construction doubles the price of the project. It requires 100% back up power supply
Abengoa who Obama is sending the billions has already taken hundreds of millions in subsidies for ethanol from us. They specialize in spending our money. I know of no projects tha Abengo has that didn’t require grants, welfare or donations. Robber Barons are still around.
until it’s truly viable it’s just a pipe dream. with the pipe beating the taxpayer over the head.
Are there any solar panel manufacturers that rely only on solar energy to build their solar panels? Excellent article. and yes this is sheer delusion on the part of a scientifically illiterate president and his cabal of progressive idiots. It makes liberals feel good about themselves. So what if it wastes money and doesn’t work?
Unfortunately, this sort of magical thinking is widespread throughout the political class.
It’s very similar to wanting (somehow) to have cheap high quality immediate “universal” health care by government fiat. Or thinking that banning guns will somehow change the character of the bad guys and stop crime. Or saying, “I’ll kick some ass” and somehow stopping an oil spill.
Most children with such a petulant spoiled mindset fortunately outgrow. But when that “magical thinking” persists into adulthood and is coupled with the power of the gun, you get either a criminal thug (if they work outside the law) — or a statist (if they work inside the law).
Excellent points contained in this article, particularly the parallel drawn between the subsidization of of railroads and solar energy. As James J. Hill illustrated to us, if the technology is useful and economically feasible, the free market will produce it at much higher quality and lower cost, as demonstrated in Folsom’s book. And, in the process, preserve the individuals rights of taxpayers who are NOT forced to pay for it.
Well done.
Obama stopped talking about Spain when that country’s attempts at the “green economy” went seriously belly up.
However, you wouldn’t project that Barack Obama in any way, manner, shape or form amended his ideological stance as a function of Spain’s “green economy” failures.
Only that he ceased to cite Spain as some kind of model or example.
Real world experience means nothing when held up beside the ideology.
It has always been so in the history of idiotology.
Here is a little summary of real world experience in various administrations.
The percentage of each past president’s cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the Cabinet. You know what the private business sector is… a real life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages:
T. Roosevelt …. 38%
Taft …………..40%
Wilson …………52%
Harding ………..49%
Coolidge ……….48%
Hoover …………42%
F. Roosevelt …. 50%
Truman …………50%
Eisenhower………57%
Kennedy ………..30%
Johnson ………. 47%
Nixon ………….53%
Ford …………..42%
Carter………….32%
Reagan …………56%
G H Bush ……….51%
Clinton ………..39%
G W Bush ……….55%
And the winner of the Chicken Dinner is:
Obama …………… 8%
Yep! That’s right! Only Eight Percent ! … The least by far of
the last 19 presidents ! And these people are trying to tell our
big corporations how to run their business? They know what’s
best for GM…Chrysler…Wall Street..and you and me?
How can the president of a major nation and society, the one
with the most successful economic system in world history,
stand and talk about business when he’s never worked for one?
Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And neither
has 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers! They’ve spent
most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit
jobs….or as “community organizers” when they should have been
in an employment line.
Thank you for this important info.
8% …unbelievable !!!!!!!
Do you have a credible source for this revelation?
I’m not doubting you but I would love to be able to share this information with others and a genuine, reputable citation would be enormously helpful in defending the credibility of this information.
Without a citation, it will just degenerate into a “that’s a lie!” – “no it’s not!” – “yes it is!” shouting match that won’t persuade anyone.
I received it in email, without attribution.
I gravitated to it since so much of what goes on in the Obama admin. seems to be an attitude that it knows ever so much better than the business class and that the solution to everything under the sun is more government & more regulation. And my conviction that unproven wonkiness and impractical, ideological thinking in all matters under the sun (including much of foreign policy)drive this administrations.
As best I can find, the origin is this November 2009 article in Forbes magazine. However, the author’s statistics here are higher than 8% for the Obama admin.
Obama’s Business Blind Spot
How about the Atlanta Journal and Constitution?
http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2009/11/30/obamas-cabinet-this-graph-explains-a-lot/
follow the link
The winner of the chicken dinner? “The percentage of each past president’s cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the Cabinet. You know what the private business sector is… a real life business, not a government job.”
55% of Bush’s appointees were from the private sector. Placing former industry officials in federal regulatory agencies is putting the fox in the hen house. There is a conflict of interest many times when industry officials are appointed to federal oversight positions. Profit motive and public safety rarely coincide. To wit, the oil disaster in the gulf. Maybe former industry officials have the interests of their former employers ahead of the public interest. That’s when the American people get a S**t sandwich.
“There is a conflict of interest many times when industry officials are appointed to federal oversight positions. Profit motive and public safety rarely coincide. To wit, the oil disaster in the gulf. ”
Oh Really?
Is that why Bush Cited the rig 5 times for violations but Obama gave them an award for safety?
Or why Obama REFUSED help from the Dutch who have experience in containing the spills?
While BP is responsible for their part in all of this, Obama bears a great brunt of the blame for FAILURE to mitigate the damage. 3 days into the situation he could have accepted foreign help and probably contained most of the mess to a small section of the gulf around where the rig was.
Try reality for a change.
jd….
I’m not sure if you think cronyism is good for MMS or not. You appear to think this is purely a partisan issue. It’s more than that. The oil industry is an equal opportunity corrupter. Both aisles of congress accept oil,gas, and coal industry bribes. I think Ken Salazar should be fired. If Bush cited BP 5 times as you claim, why did the well blow out anyway? It seems little attention was paid to his punishment. They continued to flout regulations. It seems to be an old habit formed long ago.
As for the Dutch, I’m not sure I understand how they’d have stopped the flow of oil that spewed for almost 3 months. Bottom line is this….once the blowout preventer fails, we’re screwed. “Try reality for a change?” If you think the spill in open ocean can be contained, you’re dreaming my friend.
On the other hand, you seem to think that spending anytime in the private sector is a disqualifier for working in the govt.
Do you have any evidence that most f Bush’s appointees were “cronyism”, much less all of them?
I’ll type slowly so you can keep up with me.
The dutch would not have stopped the oil spewing into the gulf.
They would have collected the spewed oil with their skimmer ships, processed it to 10 parts per million (ooops, EPA says you cannot return the water with 10 parts per million into the gulf so it can evaporate, better to leave the sludge in the water and let it spread.) and haul the separated oil back to refineries.
That’s what they did in the North Atlantic keeping the size of the Oil Slick to less than 1 square mile while work was done to cap the well.
That’s called MITIGATION OF DAMAGE. That’s what the President’s Job Was to do.
That’s what the President didn’t do.
No, he had the coast guard hold up skimmers and prevent them from skimming so they could make sure enough life preservers were on the ships.
He had the EPA hold up Bobby Jindal from creating protective barriers in Louisana so that sludge that wasn’t skimmed by the Dutch Skimmer Ships could foul up the Bayous.
Face it, he’s in over his head and it shows.
Can you have identify your source for this info? thanx
Mike G -”Can you have identify your source for this info? thanx”
http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2009/11/30/obamas-cabinet-this-graph-explains-a-lot/
this link was borrowed from JD, to whom i was replying….
It is truly mind bending to attempt to do an in depth review of most of the futuristic, grandiose schemes based on self generated and vigorously promoted lofty premises emanating from “nuanced intellectual group think” at prestigious institutions of higher learning and make common sense out of any of it. And that, we are led to believe, is because we are too stupid and mired in the simplistic Capitalist notions of the free market, competition and what is anathema to the intellectual elite, profit, the root of all that’s evil. Interesting, that last, given their above average benefits, salaries, cushy work rules and tenure, all on absolutely no “bottom line” considerations whatsoever. Bottom line?? Who cares about that piece of proletariat trivia! We’re involved in saving the world don’t you know!
These people all need to be put back in their little ivory towers. We have allowed them to acquire not only far more power than they deserve but enough to make them a serious threat to the Republic. A comeuppance is long overdue.
A total waste of 2 billion Dollars.
Is there a possibility of criminal prosecution here? If not,,, there needs to be.
Actually, the ironic thing is that solar power can be a viable energy source – if it’s space-based. Beamed power satellites, where the solar cells or collectors are in orbit and the energy beamed to earth via microwave transmission, are technically viable and preliminary tests have demonstrated the feasibility of the concept. But, Obama just shut down the U.S. space program. Sigh.
“Obama just shut down the U.S. space program.”
I’m afraid you’re mistaken about that. He didn’t shut it down, he just “repurposed” it so that it has different priorities. Priority number 1, apparently, is making Muslims feel good about their contributions to math and science. When and if that’s done, NASA may be able to devote some of its remaining resources to space. Maybe.
A beautiful pipe dream but there is no way that power could safely be beamed to earth. Technically I think it could be done but not safely and it would not be practical. Tesla tried to broadcast power and that is also done but not practical. There are physical reasons for this. Besides that, we are able to live with the power sources we do have. Why not just be thankful for the supply of power and enjoy the benefits. During my lifetime we have moved from muscle power to mechanical power. Industrial power was not able to diversify till we developed our electric power grid and most of that has happened during my lifespan and mostly by privte initiative.
What do you mean not safe? We stick a satellite into geosynchronous orbit directly above the collecting station and just point and shoot. We include some maneuvering thrusters to compensate for solar wind, and you have endless power coming from the collection station. Microwaves are not dangerous, just hot.
The collecting station you propose would have to be on the equator. However, another argument opposing your pipedream is the path loss. It is a lot of dB. You do understand transmission loss, doen’t you?
Earth is far away from Mars. The only things that seem to work with solar energy are space probes and the apparently indestructible Mars rovers (although one has developed wheel problems and is now stuck in the Martian equivalent of a sand trap). But there are no people on Mars, no cities, no energy consumption. I’ve always been amazed by one point that Mr. Perren points out, that to install all the panels necessary to produce a negligible percent of power, the Greens must advocate that large tracts of “natural” land be covered with the things. Wouldn’t that violate the Green manifesto, to leave no rock upturned, no bush or tree or weed bothered, no critter obstructed, leave no carbon footprint? Yes, those actions would contradict the Green manifesto and baffle anyone who tried to make sense of it, unless one realized that the core manifesto of the Greens is for man to just disappear and leave the earth unscathed. That’s their hidden, disguised, and logical motive.
Sparrowhawk, I agree with you about the greens. My question is why have we put the enemy in charge of our government?
Whit: You ask: “My question is why have we put the enemy in charge of our government?” What’s this “we” business?
The enemy is charge of our government because too many starry-eyed, unthinking Americans put him there. They, too, “hoped for change.” Only now more of them are realizing that the “change” Obama and company had in mind is going to cost them plenty, too, and not just the “rich” and the “wealthy.” Of course, when socialists and other looters “soak” the rich, that redounds on everyone else, as well.
I live in an area where the wind industry is powerful. The politicians fall all over themselves to accommodate the wind energy companies (but not the companies that build massive solar plants — those companies early on negotiated their way out of paying property tax, so who cares?).
Nobody minds that to build the monster turbines, entire hills and hillsides must be carved up with roads and huge concrete pads and underground wires.
In 20-30 years, the turbines will be junk.
I wish we could bypass this stage and get right to pocket nuclear plants.
The private utility that is paying $2 billion to build a renewable energy transmission line to the city can just as easily transport electricity generated by fusion — and the line will be ready and waiting!
First off, let’s get rid of this foolish idea of “renewable” energy. Energy is not renewable, there are laws. Ones that no fool politician can change, or apparently understand. Once energy is used, it cannot be renewed. Once light hits a photovoltaic (PV), is converted to electricity, which is then used to light a bulb, the energy is gone. We cannot use the light from the bulb to cause the PV to create electricity which then powers the bulb.
Outside of nuclear, geothermal, and I suppose to an extent tidal, all energy on earth comes from the sun. The years biomass that went into producing oil was created by the sun’s energy. Wind is created by uneven warming of the earth’s surface by solar radiation. Solar PV is simply an attempt to capture that radiation early in the cycle before other processes concentrate the energy. It will always be the least energy dense. Although energy extraction methods and conversion losses will impact the useable energy from each source.
One other thing. All that solar energy they now hope to capture upon impingement, wasn’t just sitting around smoking cigarettes, it was being used for some purpose by the earth. It was used to grow crops, to warm the surface for animal life, to power chemical and biologic changes in the soil, etc. We capture enough of the impinging radiation and the disruptions will be noticed.
I think a lot you are missing the big picture. Obama is not serious about solving any problems. It all makes sense when you realize the money is going to cronies, constituent groups, and to influence the votes of millions of useful idiots. That’s all he cares about.
tanstaafl:
Yes, the one actual frightening link to the Vietnam era: the world being run by a bunch of suits from Harvard, sitting in their offices in the beltway, making decisions for us in the real world…
tanstaafl:
The one *actual^ frightening link between now and the Vietnam era: the world being run by a bunch of suits from Harvard, sitting in their offices in the beltway, making decisions for us in the real world, of which they have little understanding and even less sympathy…
Boy, that didn’t work out too well the last time, did it…?
the major problems of most of these “progressive” dreams is that they are constructed with several alloys of fantasium, unobtainium and handwaveium, with generous helpings of “other people’s money” a.k.a taxes looted from the real world economy of profit making businesses and working citizens. even sci-fi writers have given up on images of mega acres of “sunpower screens” powering civilization, though it was a favoured concept fifty or sixty years ago, but our technologically illiterate “progressive elite” liberal arts majors still cling to their dreams.
So we should just be unimaginative and do nothing, and create some more oil slicks? I’m sure you did a lot of calculations and have it all figured out.
1) Nature is creating oil slicks all of the time.
2) Man made oil slicks are few and far between.
3) Since when is criticizing wind and solar as being unworkable the same as saying we should never try anything else?
David Walters..”Yeah, let’s just stay with proven, safe oil and coal”
Oil is not used to any significant extent for electricity generation in the United States.
-and coal isn’t?
Measured against megawatts generated, more people are killed in the wind industry than in the coal industry.
“The Union Pacific and Central Pacific were poorly built railroads, they went broke, and both cost the nation over $60,000,000 to build – a sum higher than the total national debt just a decade before they were built.”
Utter rubbish, both those railroads made a fortune and paid back the US Government 100%. Yes, the original lines were poorly constructed, which made sense since it was so difficult to get even good ties and gravel there. But once the lines were completed, later trains could bring more workers and better material, including new steel rails, in to remote places so they could rebuild the lines. It makes sense to build the original lines cheaply cause transportation, especially by horse teams, was the number one expense.
Also, the Transcontinental Rail Line was a good unifying plan to help rebuild a war torn nation and keep recently discharged soldiers employed. As well as it connected the most important cities of the midwest, Chicago et al, to the most important city on the Pacific, San Fransisco, which the later northern and southern routes didn’t.
Once again, PJ Media unfailingly takes the most neo-con line. Nobody expects solar energy to pull the whole load, but it can sure make a difference in remote places far from the grid, as well as replace low intensity electrical power for mundane tasks like heating; lighting or pumping. All this is is the usual PJ dreck, take they take the most extreme visionary prediction and pretend that was the concrete goal. I had to laugh when one of the engineers here talked about pocket nuclear reactors, as if that was going to happen soon or there will be no hazards.
1) There are very few places that are far enough from the grid to make solar viable.
2) Heating etc, can be done much more cheaply and more efficiently with existing technologies. If solar could cut it, we would be seeing solar heaters on most rooftops already.
I didn’t sea any mention in the article the number of workers required to ‘dust’ the solar panels almost daily. Their efficiency declines expoentially as the dust covering grows linearly. Who will be washing thousands of acres of solar panels and where will the water come from?
My blog post on this subject from 2008:
There has been a lot of discussion in the last few years about “alternative” energy, which, in most cases means wind and solar as alternatives to coal, natural gas, and nuclear. The problems with wind and solar are well known to anyone with thirty minutes to spare to do a modicum of research. Unfortunately, far too many Americans are too intellectually lazy to become informed and have outsourced their thinking to radical, agenda driven environmentalists and their enablers in media, academia, and politics. They have substituted saving the earth platitudes for real world analysis of even the basics of our available energy sources.
Below is a simple analysis of solar energy that I hope even the most stubborn and ignorant Liberal can understand. I will follow up this post with one on wind energy.
According to the New American the maximum, which is far more than what is actually recoverable, amount of solar power available per acre in Albuquerque, a region of the country blessed with a lot of sunshine, is 970 kW/acre.
The largest nuclear power plant in the is the Palo Verde plant near Phoenix, AZ.
Although the entire Palo Verde facility occupies 4,000 acres, the reactor buildings, cooling towers, cooling ponds, and support facilities only cover approximately 500 acres. Palo Verde produces 3.2 GW from its three reactors that run 24/7 and only shut down for maintenance and periodic refueling.Now, to get that same 3.2 GW from a solar array operating at 100% efficiency (remember, this is a physical impossibility) the solar plant would require a little less than the same 4,000 acres, ~3,300. This sounds like a great deal but in reality the physical maximum efficiency of modern solar cells only allows a conversion rate of about 10%. The problem of maximizing power from sunlight has been known for at least 30 years, and is primarily one of physical limitations, not engineering technology.” So this 3,300 acres in reality would require 33,000 acres to produce the same 3.2 GW as a nuclear power plant. That also assumes the entire 33,000 acres is covered by solar arrays, which, again is impossible. There needs to be spacing for panel movement, personnel and vehicle traffic, and support facilities. So lets conservatively say that to generate 3.2 GW during the peak sunshine hours would require 35,000 acres. That’s a lot of acreage for a plant that would only be able to produce electricity for 8-10 hours on a good sunny summer day. What then to do at night when the sun isn’t shining or in the winter months where the available hours falls significantly? What are the options for areas of the country that don’t have the available number of sunny days Albuquerque has? What options are available for the vast majority of the country that doesn’t have land for solar farms? What are the environmental impacts to wildlife and plant species of tens of thousands of acres being hidden from the sun under vast arrays of solar panels? Due to the area required, the inefficiency, and limited availability of solar energy, solar energy can never be more than a supplement to more traditional and reliable sources of energy.
If the panels are moveable, as implied by your post, then the panels will start to shade each other as the sun moves away from vertical, so the amount of power generated by them will decrease rapidly as you get further away from noon. If the panels aren’t moveable, then the amount of energy generated by them will drop rapidly as the sun approaches the horizon.
Additionally, as the sun gets away from noon, it has to travel through more of the atmosphere, which will mean, even on the clearest of days, the amount of energy available at the surface is going to decrease just from atmospheric absorbtion.
Thought of another couple of points just after posting.
The efficiency of the cells drops as soon as they are exposed to sunlight. A cell that gets 10% brand new, may only be getting 6 or 7 percent after 5 years.
When you clean the panels, be very carefull not to scratch the glass, that will also dramatically decrease the panels efficiency.
In reality, when you consider the brackets needed to support the panels, the glass needed to cover them and the solar cells themselves. When you add in the energy needed to keep them clean. You will never recover enough energy from a solar cell to replace the energy needed to make them in the first place.
You need reliable backup/storage in a solar system. When the sun does not shine [remember - it is night time 1/2 of the time] you need to be able to provide power. Geographic diversity does not solve the problem unless we are in some utopia with solar cells networked around the world. Not happening.
If this idea is so great, I have an even better idea. Let’s use gerbils. Put the little critters on treadmills connected to little generators. Think of the jobs. People would feed them, clean up the poop, maintain the generator, an so forth. Farmers would be happy as they would provide the food. Think of the steel production for the cages, wheels, etc. Vast government subsidies would stand behind this. As a result, society would become wildly rich. What could go wrong?
There are ways to store energy. If nothing else you can make Hydrogen and Oxygen by electrolysis, DC is perfect for that, store the gas and burn it later. Once again, no sane person is going to claim we can do it all with renewables, but they sure can make a dent.
Dent is the right word.
Last year, I began to write some things for a guy who claimed to have essentially reinvented Tesla’s ideas on renewable electricity, if that is the correct summary phrase. Anyhow, he claimed to have designed coils that were actually in use in certain places that maximized electrical productivity. He believes that the failure to adopt what ‘should be’ widely-used technology is driven by business monopolies, etc.
This person also claims to have invented a unique number system that he says explains the functioning/properties of all dark matter in the universe. Here his ideas become really stretched and hard to accept.
Well, in any case, it would be interesting if the scientists posting here would comment on how much of Tesla’s ideas could have been implemented, were there business and gov’t support.
Having said that, it’s my impression that EMP weaponry does use Tesla’s concepts, and have been adopted in the implementation of super-weapons by at least six different nations. Col. Bearden – I believe that’s the name – ex-US army – claims that the Russians have used these weapons on more than one occasion to change weather patterns. I guess this may relate to HAARP, but am not sure.
Urban legend to the contrary, Tesla didn’t have a perpetual motion machine. He was working on long-distance wireless energy transport, but the perpetual motion one is pure urban legend.
Solar power has been nibbling around the edges of the discussion of alternate source of energy for a long time. If it was a viable source of renewable energy you would think that it be, by now, a main source of energy for the county. In fact it is not nor is it likely ever to be. I was having a discussion with a co-worker over the idea of alternate sources of energy. She is under the impression that once we develop solar or wind or something “else” then we can completely do away with evil old oil. I causally asked her if she knew of any other uses for oil then powering our vehicles. She was completely ignorant of the fact that oil is a component of hundreds if not thousands of common items from perfume to plastic. Oh well.
I figured sooner or later some folks would catch up w/ the meme that solar & wind are the end all be all of ‘green energy’. Over the years I was astounded to hear the talk about how great solar farms would be, with no one talking about the many thousands of acres of land needed fro the farms. How could the ‘greenies’ buy into all that precious land spoiled by such farms? Especially when one realizes the production is simply, not there. The sun does not shine often enough for solar to produce the volumes of energy the nation needs. Winds do not blow long, hard, & often enough to produce those great volumes of energy either. In fact, together the two of them just will not provide more than about 15% of the needs.
Can lefty’s really want so many people dead? Do they really want so many living in poverty? One thing is certain, Obama’s crony capitalist buddies will be living well. Al Gore might even buy a few more houses & more limo’s for his fleet!
It begins to look like Obama & company plan to ‘redistribute’ wealth alright. However, it ain’t gonna go to those who seem to think he’s their Saviour! The ideologue known as Obama really wants a new socialist state where he can pretend he is doing good for minorities, while he is screwing them as average citizens have always been screwed by the greedy & power hungry! Race is an issue to Obama only when it serves his purposes to obtain wealth & power. Otherwise, skin color means nothing to him.
“The sun does not shine often enough for solar to produce the volumes of energy the nation needs.” -#43
http://www.aora-solar.com/
-and there was not a booster large enough to put a man on the moon in 1960 either. But with the application of money, energy, and intellect we accomplished it. We already support the oil and gas industries with anywhere between $15 billion and $35 billion a year in subsidies from taxpayers. We should have begun to investigate alternatives to fossil fuels 30 years ago, so we are way behind the curve. It’s time to catch up and enter the 21st century.
-and there was not a booster large enough to put a man on the moon in 1960 either. But with the application of money, energy, and intellect we accomplished it.
Not everything is analogous to “putting a man on the moon”. Just because the country was able to do one doesn’t mean it will be able to do the other.
“Just because the country was able to do one doesn’t mean it will be able to do the other.”
The greatest difficulty with my analogy is that it wasn’t absolutely necessary for us to go to the moon, but we did through perseverance. It is incumbent upon us to find other means to fuel our nation and its economy! Aside from the environmental damage to burning fossil fuels, our nation must end its dependency on oil. The money we send to the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Iraqis, and Iranians weakens our republic more with each barrel we use.
re: foreign oil, glad to see you’re in favor of sensible domestic drilling and tar sands
It doesn’t even matter if it is “incumbent upon us”. If it can’t be done according to the laws of physics, it can’t be done any more than me growing wings and being able to fly is possible, even if I’m falling off a skyscraper and it’s “incumbent upon me” to do so. No one ever said that going to the moon was against the laws of physics, which is why the analogy, and the reliance on sheer national will to accomplish the goal, is potentially-flawed.
As for “foreign oil”, the only way that’s going to matter is if oil becomes useless or if supply increases to the point where it drives down profitability. While I agree that putting money in the pockets of Middle Eastern scum is something I hate to do, if dollars don’t flow there, Euros or Yuan or whatever other currency you can name will. Since Saudi oil is the lowest-cost to produce, the Saudis will be in the game till the end. So, the best way to decrease the revenues flowing to those oil-producing nations who don’t have America’s best interests at heart is to produce oil here, drive up supply and drive down price, all things being equal.
There’s no doubt it’s a complex set of issues, but I think the main point of this article is that it’s not made any easier by people peddling simple solutions that are always “just over the horizon”, all the while knowing that those solutions are based on junk science. My own layman’s opinion, the more I look at the evidence, is that nuclear is the way to go.
It is incumbent upon us to find other means to fuel our nation and its economy!
no it isn’t.
What about the pollution caused by the solar and wind industries?
The booster did not exist, but we already knew how to build boosters, the technology just had to be scaled up.
On the other hand, we’ve been trying to make solar power work for 50 years, and are no closer to doing so than at the beginning.
“It is incumbent upon us to find other means to fuel our nation and its economy!
no it isn’t.”
-ever heard of “Peak Oil”, or is that just another liberal fantasy?
“What about the pollution caused by the solar and wind industries?”
-I suppose you’d want me to say there is none. Sure, there is pollution involved in production, but over the life of the design, the pollution is negligible. I enjoy how you follow me around. As a marked man, it shows i’m doing something right!
Yes I’ve heard of the scam called peak oil. Only the truely ignorant believe that it will occurr in less than 500 years. Which explains why you keep bringing it up.
If you truely believe that the pollution from wind and solar are so small, then once again you demonstrate your willingness to abandon intellect in order to advance your ideology.
As to following you around, just when did visiting this site on a regular basis and reading all the articles in it become “following you around”. I could just as easily accuse you of following me around because you responded to my posts.
Please try to get used to the fact that not only are you ignorant, nobody cares about you either.
The closest thing I’ve heard of to “efficient” mass produced solar energy was Solar One/Two here in Barstow. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project#Solar_One Yes I know it’s a Wiki entry but it covers the basics.) The big beasty has been there all my life. It’s an interesting and simple take on solar energy. Instead of translating the solar energy directly into energy, it just reflects and focuses light on to a tower full of an heat absorbing oily substance that boils to do the usual steam turbine deal. (Yes I’ve oversimplified it)
Yeah it worked, heck with the molten salt it even worked overnight a bit. So yeah a cool idea that I haven’t seen work WELL, it just works. Plus I recall the oils/salts/etc were a bit of a toxic spill for a while there.
The biggest joke is that when the climate change scare is dead and gone, I’d give the IPCC another 4 months max, that’s when the subsidies for dud solar and wind die too. At that point we will see the 4th generation technology come out of the labs. The subsidies are blocking some very good technology that is stuck in various labs.
There will be an amazing energy boom because we will have it all. Fossil fuel energy, nuclear, the best of the solar and wind less the subsidies. They wont be scraped. I even know of a fusion project that may get up an running this year and its not the one the governments been backing for half a century. http://focusfusion.org/
Those pushing greenhouse don’t want a technological solution, capitalism is not allowed to solve this problem. It could if allowed. The freemarket does not care if a problem is real or not. If the fool wants his UFO kitsch or quack cures the market supplies the demand. Greenhouse will be in that category soon.
Though I am an advocate of solar energy, the only viable option is dedicated systems – paired directly with the building(s) that will utilize the energy. Centralized systems in the middle of the desert are pipe dreams. The energy storage and transfer technology needed to accompany the solar energy systems, quite simply, sucks something awful. Maybe if Mr. Obama bothered to talk with field experts with experience, he might know these simple facts.
The guy and his minions are so far out of their league, it is nauseating.
“We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.”-President Carter,April 18, 1977
Carter who was he again and he accomplished what?
“Carter who was he again and he accomplished what?”
Buffalobob, Had we begun a comprehensive policy back in 1980, we probably wouldn’t have HAD to invade Iraq, nor would we spend Billions of dollars each propping up Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and all the rest of the gulf ststes that depend on us for protection. The future Carter spoke of IS controlling us. Each gallon of gas we put in our vehicles is getting some Arab richer, and from the sound of it, most of y’all have no problem with that. However, it does cause me some concern.
David is still convinced that if only enough public money were directed to his company, that even the physically impossible would eventually become common place.
venividivici,
So the laws of physics make alternative energy sources impossible. Hummm… Wind will not turn a blade? The sun’s rays will not power a cell? “Reliance on sheer national will to accomplish the goal, is potentially-flawed” This notion that solar power generation is useless is the flawed concept. A solar plant coupled with traditional sources of power generation is no freak of physics. The use of tradition sources of energy are CONSERVED using Abenogoa’s plan, something a good conservative should be able to understand.
As we enter into Peak Oil, conserving will become ever more important since oil’s cost will rise, particularly since China and India will be tapping into the market ever more. This is simple economics. Shall we wait until oil is $500 per barrel?
Yeah, to bad we didn’t at least try to conserve 30 years ago. But our wise leaders at the time had other ideas, and now we pay the price.
“My own layman’s opinion, the more I look at the evidence, is that nuclear is the way to go.” Somewhere in your brain you must understand that fossil fuels are finite, or you wouldn’t consider nuclear. Maybe it could be in the mix, but we all know how bad that can be when Murphy’s Law comes to bear(chernobyl). I sure as hell don’t want nuclear plant in my neighborhood.
Are you getting so desperate to keep your company on the public teat that you must now start lying about what other people have said.
The point was not that power could not be made from solar or wind, the point was that it was physically impossible for such power to ever be economic. Heck, neither technology is capable of being energy neutral. It takes more energy to build a solar panel array or a wind generator, than either will generate over it’s life time.
“that you must now start lying about what other people have said.”
-When they start the name calling, to be sure you’re doing your job!
“the point was that it was physically impossible for such power to ever be economic. Heck, neither technology is capable of being energy neutral. It takes more energy to build a solar panel array or a wind generator, than either will generate over it’s life time.”
http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/06/15/worlds-first-hybrid-solar-plant-almost-complete/
http://www.aora-solar.com/
-The Israelis are not ones to waste time or energy on useless technology.
Keep trying my friend.
Man, you do believe in wishfull thinking, don’t you.
You honestly believe that this propaganda piece constitutes evidence that solar is cost effective????????
master of the stupid, I love it…..But you’re so smart Mark tell me,
exactly how long can we expect oil reserves to last, given that the U.S. military is already planning for a scenario of oil shortages by 2015. And “Peak Oil” is a fantasy? I linked to the aora-solar site, just to show how serious the Israelis seem to take alternative energy sources. I never got the impression that the Israelis were ones to waste much time or energy on “wishful thinking”.
Mr. Waters, your understanding of free market forces is nil, zero, nada. Long before oil reaches $500/bbl the free markets will be investing in and investigating alternative sources of energy. Let the free markets decide what source of energy will be the least expensive and most efficient. Versus $500/bbl oil, maybe today’s inefficient solar and wind power could be competitive. But, so you don’t forget, it’s because we’ve had such low cost energy from oil, gas and coal that we have such a high standard of living, why computers and cell phones are a dime a dozen, everyone owns a car, lives in good housing, etc.; and why we have had such advances in medicine, communications, why you are well fed, you name it. The free markets have given you everything that you now take for granted. Legislation cannot invent technology, only control it. Let the free markets decide what is viable and what isn’t. Right now solar and wind power on a massive scale are pipe dreams, as they should for now.
“Let the free markets decide what source of energy will be the least expensive and most efficient.”
-Is that before or after the tax breaks and other subsidies American tax payers shower on this industry?
“…..it’s because we’ve had such low cost energy from oil, gas and coal that we have such a high standard of living, why computers and cell phones are a dime a dozen, everyone owns a car, lives in good housing, etc.; and why we have had such advances in medicine, communications, why you are well fed, you name it. The free markets have given you everything that you now take for granted….”
-Bingo…..You said it! “…..it’s because we’ve had such low cost energy….”
Your use of the past tense is so appropriate. Low cost energy DID fuel our high standard of living. Particularly when we had (again past tense) domestic supplies of cheap energy. But now we depend mostly on imported oil, and you like to obfuscate the issue of “domestic supplies” as if the potential were actually there. It isn’t.
http://www.peakoil.net/
The U.S. has just 3% of the world’s know oil reserves. And what we do have is like the Deepwater Horizon, very difficult and costly to tap into. In other words, ALL the easy to get at oil in the United States has been tapped out. Yes, there is SOME, but not nearly enough to maintain that high standard of living you mentioned. So how do we maintain this high standard? Drilling our way out isn’t an option. Yeah, there are industry hacks that want to drill into all these potential reserves, but these reserves are only a fraction of the world’s total. Add to this the emergence of India and China as oil consumers and you can start to get the picture. Increasing world demand coupled with worldwide decreasing production is a simple supply and demand issue. It’s the econ 101 thing I keep hearing about from many pundits. And don’t think because we drill the oil in American that we get to keep that for ourselves. Oh no, it ALL goes on the WORLD market, just as the North Slope Oil in Alaska did. Answer this question. How much of Alaska’s North Slope Oil went to foreign countries?
We are 30 years behind the curve on the question of energy, due mostly to the fossil fuels efforts to stifle all other sources of production. It has been to their advantage maintain this setup, but the oil industries bottom line and this nation’s public interest are two things that do not coincide.
More ignorance from the master of the stupid.
I won’t bother bringing up all of the accurate sources regarding oil reserves and how proven reserves is a meaningless yardstick, because David doesn’t care.
As to why we are drilling 5000 feet below the gulf, that’s because David’s beloved govt has banned drilling in shallower waters. David’s beloved govt has all but banned new drilling on land. David’s beloved govt has placed off limits all new sources of petroleum.
But he wants us to believe that it’s because we are running out of oil, because that’s the only way to con us all into spending millions of dollars keeping the company he runs from going out of business.
MarkTheGreat,
When you start the name calling, it sure proves you are running out of facts. “But he wants us to believe that it’s because we are running out of oil, because that’s the only way to con us all into spending millions of dollars keeping the company he runs from going out of business.”
-I run a company? Wow! No one even told me. We don’t drill in the waters directly adjacent to Louisiana? That sure is news to me. The entire Mississippi River delta region is dotted with producing wells, so I guess they have tapped those fields. You’re just making stuff up now.
FYI….i live on a modest pension.
I would much rather have a nice quite, small-footprint nuclear plant next door than looming 500-foot monsters that disturb the serenity of the universe.
It’s time to stop being afraid.
We just formed an organization to try to stop one in our rural valley. It is planned to be 300 acres, right up against residential property, on prime ag. land. Called the Weldon Solar Project, in unincorporated Weldon, Kern County, California. In a flood plain, immediately adjacent to the largest remaining riparian forest in the Southwest, full of endangered species. They seem to have got past that, and we humans don’t count for much any more.
It is very difficult – we have found some organizational advice, but we are not expert in the field, and as you know it’s hard to assess credibility in today’s information sources. I’m a musician, but got elected president. They make claims, we try to counter them, the best PR wins, I guess.
Great work! This is the kind of info that are supposed to be shared around the web. Shame on the seek engines for now not positioning this publish higher! Come on over and consult with my site . Thank you =)
I agree, but we all need to understand that adding Solar to their house is an purchase which could increase the future valuation of their home if / when they make a choice to sell. With the environment the way it is going we are unable to disregard any item that supplies totally free power at no cost to both the client and more importantly the earth!