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Solar Power, now!

daenku32

Master Poster
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I work in an industrial park that has huge warehouse type buildings, and not a lot of pollution. I have no doubt the park uses plenty of electricity though. Most of which is probably made by the coal plant in our city.

While Indiana is not exactly a great place as far as sunlight (compared to pretty much every other place in the states), a nice government subsidied program to build huge solar collectors on all of the over 100,000 square foot buildings.

I believe if the government worked with large manufacturers they could easily agree to build few hundred square miles of solar paneling and it's equipment at relatively low per unit cost, thereby reducing solar energy products to commodity easily afforded by individuals.

Using mass production and vast empty spaces above warehouse type buildings would generate cheap and invisible energy solution, not to mention thousands of jobs.

What better time to get this project going than during the fall, so that by next summer we'll be enjoying it's benefits.

While coal would still need to be used especially during winter, the plants could use the low consumption summers to maintain and upgrade their systems.
 
I am not up to speed on the latest developments in solar power, but from what I read in the past they are inefficent and don't last long before requiring replacement. Has that changed?
 
username said:
I am not up to speed on the latest developments in solar power, but from what I read in the past they are inefficent and don't last long before requiring replacement. Has that changed?
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The quick searching I've done on the life expectancy is up to 20 years.

I figure with solar power innovation still running fast, the dying panels could be replaced with new and improved ones.
 
How does one make a solar electricity, uh, whatever it is. Cell? Generator? Collector?
 
daenku32 said:
I believe if the government worked with large manufacturers they could easily agree to build few hundred square miles of solar paneling and it's equipment at relatively low per unit cost, thereby reducing solar energy products to commodity easily afforded by individuals.

Using mass production and vast empty spaces above warehouse type buildings would generate cheap and invisible energy solution, not to mention thousands of jobs.
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1. If it could be done cheaply, private industry would be doing it NOW. The profit incentive is a strong one.

2. Producing cheap energy AND creating thousands of jobs?? Who's going to pay all those people?
 
Libertarian said:
1. If it could be done cheaply, private industry would be doing it NOW. The profit incentive is a strong one.

2. Producing cheap energy AND creating thousands of jobs?? Who's going to pay all those people?
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#1 makes no sense. Using that argument, there would never be any new technology, because no one is doing it now.
 
Libertarian said:
1. If it could be done cheaply, private industry would be doing it NOW. The profit incentive is a strong one.
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Economy of scale is likely a roadblock to the warehouse owners. Each warehouse owner is likely to only be able to make enough solar power for some small percentage of his needs so the effort is not economic - whereas the power generated by several hundred warehouses might be significant, but again not particularly beneficial to any individual owner.

Power companies are typically sort of not private industry.
 
It doesn't take much searching around to see that solar power is somewhere between 10X to 30X more expensive than existing coal-fired power plants (electricity). Plus there is actually a lot of coal available. So ignoring transportation fuel shortages - we may be ok for electricty for a long time - with one catch. Global Warming. If real, and it's starting to look like it is - burning all of that coal may not be such a good idea.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~mmrc/nsl/Energy_Notes.pdf
 
Mark said:
#1 makes no sense. Using that argument, there would never be any new technology, because no one is doing it now.
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This answer makes no sense! The argument has no such implications at all.
 
In fairness, I can see where Mark is coming from. daenku32 was calling for the government to "work with" large manufacturers to achieve some future goal. "Work with" can include subsidizing otherwise uneconomic activities, including the funding of research to bring costs down.

It should pretty much go without saying that I don't agree with that, but it is a valid point of view and one which can't fairly be contradicted by saying that if it were profitable it would already have happened. The proposition is that the unprofitable part would be funded by me and thee.
 
WildCat said:
This answer makes no sense! The argument has no such implications at all.
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" If it could be done cheaply, private industry would be doing it NOW. The profit incentive is a strong one."

You're correct in a way; the quote doesn't imply anything. It says very directly that if it were possible to do something cheaply, it would already be happening. That is absurd, Libertarian dogma.

Private industry has often required government assistance. I mean, just look at the Bush Administration! They love to kick money to private industry. Too bad the Bushes don't own stock in solar power, though.
 
This is the same old American socialist utopian nonsense. Someone decides that something is beneficial, but for some reason the market is not providing it. What to do? Why, use someone else's money to do it for you. Never mind that the entrepreneurs who know how to get things done have decided that there are better ways to invest resources. Never mind that the capital the government needs to help in this enterprise is taken from taxpayers at the point of a gun.

Ugh. Haven't the last 90 years taught us anything??
 
Libertarian said:
This is the same old American socialist utopian nonsense. Someone decides that something is beneficial, but for some reason the market is not providing it. What to do? Why, use someone else's money to do it for you. Never mind that the entrepreneurs who know how to get things done have decided that there are better ways to invest resources. Never mind that the capital the government needs to help in this enterprise is taken from taxpayers at the point of a gun.

Ugh. Haven't the last 90 years taught us anything??
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You're right if Global Warming is treehugger alarmist B.S. Why spend greater than 10X for electricity that we can get from what appears to be readily available and large resources (coal).

But if global warming is real (as in dire consequences real) - I don't see how capitalism (the free market) will save us?
 
Mark said:
" If it could be done cheaply, private industry would be doing it NOW. The profit incentive is a strong one."

You're correct in a way; the quote doesn't imply anything. It says very directly that if it were possible to do something cheaply, it would already be happening. That is absurd, Libertarian dogma.

Private industry has often required government assistance. I mean, just look at the Bush Administration! They love to kick money to private industry. Too bad the Bushes don't own stock in solar power, though.
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Don't you think that private industry would love to find a way to make cheap, efficient solar cells? That market would be worth billions of $$. No doubt, big money has already been spent looking for a way. Hasn't happened yet, obviously.

Perhaps you're just being picky, would you feel better if the statement was "If it were currently possible to do something cheaply, it would already be happening"?

But I'm against making it "cheaper" by subsidizing it w/ tax dollars. That would likely stifle R&D efforts by private industry, and siphon off money from more useful andeavors.
 
WildCat said:
Don't you think that private industry would love to find a way to make cheap, efficient solar cells? That market would be worth billions of $$. No doubt, big money has already been spent looking for a way. Hasn't happened yet, obviously.

Perhaps you're just being picky, would you feel better if the statement was "If it were currently possible to do something cheaply, it would already be happening"?

But I'm against making it "cheaper" by subsidizing it w/ tax dollars. That would likely stifle R&D efforts by private industry, and siphon off money from more useful andeavors.
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More useful than being energy independent?!?!?!?!

Whether fans of the status quo like it or not, our energy future---long term---cannot rely on oil; it is a finite resource. Plus, when prediciting technological advances, it is nearly always the people who think we are at the peak of any possible development who are wrong. It's close to being a law of nature.
 
WildCat said:
Don't you think that private industry would love to find a way to make cheap, efficient solar cells? That market would be worth billions of $$. No doubt, big money has already been spent looking for a way. Hasn't happened yet, obviously.

Perhaps you're just being picky, would you feel better if the statement was "If it were currently possible to do something cheaply, it would already be happening"?

But I'm against making it "cheaper" by subsidizing it w/ tax dollars. That would likely stifle R&D efforts by private industry, and siphon off money from more useful andeavors.
Click to expand...


Hopefully you're correct and we will not need non-polluting (greenhouse gas) solar energy until the coal runs out (100+ years). But as I mentioned earlier - if global warming is a real threat to our (american) way of life (say by 2050) - then the US Government is criminally irresponsible for not starting a Manhattan style project to develop "clean" energy and/or finding an efficient way to sequester carbon. Obviously this (global warming) is an extremely controversial issue that doesn't seem to have a straight unambiguous answer yet. I certainly don't begin to understand it. However, it seems that discussing the pure economics of alternative energy (cost only) may be missing the real issue (global warming). Here's a few university links on the topic that may be of interest.

http://smalley.rice.edu/

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~mmrc/nsl/Energy_Notes.pdf

If you're interested in the lasted Deparment of Energy "thinking" on Solar Energy - the following link may be of interest. The report is obviously very long - but the first few pages are packed with some interesting information.

http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/reports/files/SEU_rpt.pdf
 
Libertarian said:
1. If it could be done cheaply, private industry would be doing it NOW. The profit incentive is a strong one.

2. Producing cheap energy AND creating thousands of jobs?? Who's going to pay all those people?
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1. This is a massive scale proposition, involving large manufacturers setting everything up from almost nothing. It would require huge investment that under normal private industry standards would be a large high risk investment with low minimal net profits.

2. Instead of buying coal, oil, uranium and paying for enviromental clean up and storage, that money would be used to employ people.

For libertarians: Current energy production is already subsidiced. If you plan to use numbers, consider that and the cost reduction high volume mass production would provide compared to current solar cost.

Clean air is not a very tradable commodity, yet. (Scientific American talks about this). And until it becomes, private businesses are not going to invest in it. Air pollution is a tragedy of commons currently fixable only with government interference (ie. regulation and programs).
 
Efficiency of the cells means more than higher cost.

Has anyone run the math to see what the surface area of solar collectors/cells would have to be in order to generate even 10% of our national energy needs?

I'll try to do some looking later, but my memory was that current technology would require the panels to cover the entire surface of a small-to-medium state in its entirety. I don't trust my memory on that item, but I do question the practicality -- at the current level of efficiency.
 
Do those industrial buildings have skylights? There might be some low lying fruit there to pick if they don't.

Thanks to Libertarian for nicely explaining why getting the government involved is unlikely to make things better.

If the goverment decided at some point that global warming caused by human created activity was a significant threat it could simply raise taxes of hydrocarbons to discourage their use. From this stand point coal is one of the worst fuels I believe as it has one of the highest percentages of CO2 created for the energy generated. Other fuels like oil get a significant portion of their energy content from hydrogen which creates water when it is burned.

I probably am not quite as opposed to all government involvement as Libertarian, but I would restrict it to goverment subsidies of alternative fuel research. If the energy source is economically beneficial the market will use it. The situation with biodiesel comes to mind. The proponents say it makes economic sense and the opponents say it doesn't. The only way to know is to stop subsidising it and see if people continue to make it.
 
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