rightwinger
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Don't worry....the Chinese are working on solving the problems with solar energy while we Drill...baby...drill
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There are many new advances in solar energy. Republicans should do a little research. Current panels only use a small percentage of the suns rays and only a small portion of the spectrum. It takes time for these panels to be fully realized, then you have to figure out where to get the materials, what materials to use, how to manufacture it cheaply and so on. That's why it takes years. Today's panels are much better than those from a couple of years ago and a couple of years from now, solar panels we buy from other countries will be much better. Republicans will make sure we won't make any here. They will block research and as a manufacturer, we will be out of the running all together.
Photovoltaic technology has become commoditized, and the market for crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels is growing while prices have fallen dramatically. The efficiencies of single-junction silicon solar cells, however, are currently close to their limit, as shown by the very slow upward trend of the record value for monocrystalline silicon cells over the last decade.
Physics ultimately limits the efficiency of single-junction silicon cells to no higher than 30–33% when irradiated by unconcentrated sunlight, and manufacturing a solar cell that achieves 75% of this in practice is challenging. Multicrystalline solar cells are in a similar position, and their record efficiency of 20.4% has remained unchanged for seven years. Once cells are incorporated into utility-scale systems, their output is reduced further through electrical, optical, and thermal losses.
Gee someone digressing this into political BS, what a surprise, never saw that before on this site. You go wingnut.
This is not about politics, it is about free enterprise. People don't want to use solar power because it is expensive and inefficient. Fox those two things and solar power will be the vogue. Government is not suposed to fix things, it is to provide for the common defense, every thing else it does is mess up. If the gov took over the beer industry a 6 pack would cost $50 in a month.
Gee someone digressing this into political BS, what a surprise, never saw that before on this site. You go wingnut.
you're a braindead hack.
There are many new advances in solar energy. Republicans should do a little research. Current panels only use a small percentage of the suns rays and only a small portion of the spectrum. It takes time for these panels to be fully realized, then you have to figure out where to get the materials, what materials to use, how to manufacture it cheaply and so on. That's why it takes years. Today's panels are much better than those from a couple of years ago and a couple of years from now, solar panels we buy from other countries will be much better. Republicans will make sure we won't make any here. They will block research and as a manufacturer, we will be out of the running all together.
This is not about politics, it is about free enterprise. People don't want to use solar power because it is expensive and inefficient. Fox those two things and solar power will be the vogue. Government is not suposed to fix things, it is to provide for the common defense, every thing else it does is mess up. If the gov took over the beer industry a 6 pack would cost $50 in a month.
it is your "political" opinion that it is about "free enterprise".
if you think it isn't also about politics, then you don't even understand that your post is pure dogma.
oh...and as for your nonsense about what government isn't supposed to do...
i'd suggest you actually learn something. it will do you good. so why don't you actually try reading the cases on the general welfare clause.
who says government isn't "supposed" to fix things. i know randian idiots like saying that, but it's simply a lie. what you mean to say if you want to be honest, is that YOU do not believe, philosophically, that government is supposed to fix things.
it would be an equally wrongminded opinion, but at least you would be honest.
There are many new advances in solar energy. Republicans should do a little research. Current panels only use a small percentage of the suns rays and only a small portion of the spectrum. It takes time for these panels to be fully realized, then you have to figure out where to get the materials, what materials to use, how to manufacture it cheaply and so on. That's why it takes years. Today's panels are much better than those from a couple of years ago and a couple of years from now, solar panels we buy from other countries will be much better. Republicans will make sure we won't make any here. They will block research and as a manufacturer, we will be out of the running all together.
Liberals think if you throw money at a project it all of sudden creates demand. If the plan doesn't work, they blame republicans for their lack of foresight and market intuition claiming a victim status(wasn't so shovel ready as we thought) when in reality markets determine success or failures. Liberals don't understand the concept of low cost producer and that is why solyndra failed. It failed to meet that criteria and lost the race, filing for bankruptcy.
I remember them talking about this and it even getting a little "trendy" in the 70s. 30-40+ yrs later and it's still a fringe source of power at most. What the hell? There's this ENORMOUS source of power for billions of years to come and we haven't figured out how to make this cost-effective yet? ??
Good question.
Perhaps it is not really as cost effective as we'd like to hope?
The most cost effective solar panels known to man are plants.
Sadly turning plant output from solar into energy to run our complex world isn't very efficient either. Not at least in comparison to the plant created solar energy we get from hydrocarbons.
Perhaps we are going at this problem from the wrong direction?
Perhaps what we ought to be doing is trying to find more efficient ways to use the existing residual solar energy (read hydrocarbons) we have?
Every erg of energy we don't waste is an erg of energy we don't need to create or mine out of the ground.
And every energy saving system we invent continues to save energy for as long as that system is in place, too.
Instead what we're counting on, or at least what the DEMS seem to think makes sense is to create a system of indulgences.
Now I understand the theory behind getting the market to force energy savings, I truly do.
But I have my serious doubts about how effective that will really be since it actually rewards the most inefficient systems we use, now, while punishing those who are ALREADY as energy efficient as today's technology can make them.
CAP AND TRADE is a system just waiting to be gamed, folks.
We need to rethink how we can make market forces work to our advantage.
There are many new advances in solar energy. Republicans should do a little research. Current panels only use a small percentage of the suns rays and only a small portion of the spectrum. It takes time for these panels to be fully realized, then you have to figure out where to get the materials, what materials to use, how to manufacture it cheaply and so on. That's why it takes years. Today's panels are much better than those from a couple of years ago and a couple of years from now, solar panels we buy from other countries will be much better. Republicans will make sure we won't make any here. They will block research and as a manufacturer, we will be out of the running all together.
Solar power is certainly on the increase in the U.K which in theory is not an ideal part of the world for its use but it does work, there are several companies that will install a roof full of panels either free of charge or at a very low cost and who wil negotiate a reduced electrictiy cost from the home owner from the electricity provider. All the excese electricirt is feed into the grid and the panel company receive payment from the electricity supplier, the panel company are in effect hiring the use of your south facing roof to make themselves money but to also save the homeowner around 30-40% on their annual bill.
Due to the current high cost of the panels wind turbines are much more affordable but do work better as independant stand alone units not connected to the grid imo.
We know how to approach the theoretical max efficiencies for solar PV design. We knew that YEARS ago. A panel built from Gallium Arsenide vs silicon crystal would get us to within 20% or so of the physics. But that would mean TONS of arsenic and a doubling of cost versus growing silicon crystal. Sometimes -- the theoretical limit doesn't yield a product.
The issue of inefficiency is more difficult to overcome. Even with panel efficiencies climbing (slowly now compared with 10 years ago), the installation math for a daytime peaking only system has to be rated almost twice as neccessary to guarantee a minimum power requirement. That gets you thru weather related difficulties such as clouds, preciptn, and sun angle thru-out the year and efficiencies related to converting DC power from the panels to AC for the home wiring and selling back to the grid.
So you BUY more panel than you end up using.. And "off-grid" installations are a whole 'nother animal, requiring tons of battery storage and the eco implications of that. A "off-grid" supermarket would require a tractor trailer full of battery storage to make it thru the night and an installation "overdesign" by a factor of almost three.
The grid load in California at 10PM in the summer is 80% of the load at 1PM. That means that PV solar could provide a MAX of 20% of daytime peaks. That's why you see the mandates for 20% renewables by 2020 and all that nonsense. You cannot turn off nat gas, coal, nuclear plants like a light switch. So there is duplication of spending for the MAIN sources of power. Would we reach 20%? Not likely because of geography, grid design, ect...
So you're right. It's time to put up or STFU.. Government should NEVER be subsidizing run of the mill stuff that's already designed. It actually stifles the perfection of tech, because the subsidy warps price to prefer larger markets at the bottom price. If they want to play market makers, they should only fund R&D for increased performance, or new technology. And the solar market NOW is anything but new technology.
There are many new advances in solar energy. Republicans should do a little research. Current panels only use a small percentage of the suns rays and only a small portion of the spectrum. It takes time for these panels to be fully realized, then you have to figure out where to get the materials, what materials to use, how to manufacture it cheaply and so on. That's why it takes years. Today's panels are much better than those from a couple of years ago and a couple of years from now, solar panels we buy from other countries will be much better. Republicans will make sure we won't make any here. They will block research and as a manufacturer, we will be out of the running all together.
Liberals think if you throw money at a project it all of sudden creates demand. If the plan doesn't work, they blame republicans for their lack of foresight and market intuition claiming a victim status(wasn't so shovel ready as we thought) when in reality markets determine success or failures. Liberals don't understand the concept of low cost producer and that is why solyndra failed. It failed to meet that criteria and lost the race, filing for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, other countries with government support, will develop the latest and greatest in solar and other energy technologies
But who cares? We got drill, baby, drill
Then republicans will complain about technology jobs going overseas
Even the most efficient solar cells available today, are very inefficient.
I remember them talking about this and it even getting a little "trendy" in the 70s. 30-40+ yrs later and it's still a fringe source of power at most. What the hell? There's this ENORMOUS source of power for billions of years to come and we haven't figured out how to make this cost-effective yet? ??
oil and coal is still too cheap to make us use more solar.
There are many new advances in solar energy. Republicans should do a little research. Current panels only use a small percentage of the suns rays and only a small portion of the spectrum. It takes time for these panels to be fully realized, then you have to figure out where to get the materials, what materials to use, how to manufacture it cheaply and so on. That's why it takes years. Today's panels are much better than those from a couple of years ago and a couple of years from now, solar panels we buy from other countries will be much better. Republicans will make sure we won't make any here. They will block research and as a manufacturer, we will be out of the running all together.
Liberals think if you throw money at a project it all of sudden creates demand. If the plan doesn't work, they blame republicans for their lack of foresight and market intuition claiming a victim status(wasn't so shovel ready as we thought) when in reality markets determine success or failures. Liberals don't understand the concept of low cost producer and that is why solyndra failed. It failed to meet that criteria and lost the race, filing for bankruptcy.
There are many new advances in solar energy. Republicans should do a little research. Current panels only use a small percentage of the suns rays and only a small portion of the spectrum. It takes time for these panels to be fully realized, then you have to figure out where to get the materials, what materials to use, how to manufacture it cheaply and so on. That's why it takes years. Today's panels are much better than those from a couple of years ago and a couple of years from now, solar panels we buy from other countries will be much better. Republicans will make sure we won't make any here. They will block research and as a manufacturer, we will be out of the running all together.
Liberals think if you throw money at a project it all of sudden creates demand. If the plan doesn't work, they blame republicans for their lack of foresight and market intuition claiming a victim status(wasn't so shovel ready as we thought) when in reality markets determine success or failures. Liberals don't understand the concept of low cost producer and that is why solyndra failed. It failed to meet that criteria and lost the race, filing for bankruptcy.
Hmmm...... We threw a whole bunch of money at some big dams prior to WW2. Bet there was major opposition to this from the shellbacks of that period. Complaints about the waste of money, ect. At least until that electricity started making the aluminium for the planes of WW2.