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I am sure the next thing Oklahoma will pass is a fuel efficiency penalty, because my 50 mpg car doesn't pay as much in fuel road tax as a car that get 15 mpg. So the higher efficiency car is taking advantage of the roads. And of course, it will cost extra to register a plug-in car too. I could really get them upset. Use Solar to Charge my BEV.
Sarcasm or not, what is already on the way is metered road use fees. It's really the only fair way to pay for public roads, to charge by use. Weight class X efficiency class X miles driven X time of day (congestion) multiplier = charge to your account - it's already do-able, and elements of this are already in use in various parts of the world.
Firstly these systems are no where competitive, that's why the feds subsidize them at 30% and usually a 20% subsidy from the state. Then there is green energy credit on top of that. I defy you to show me any spreadsheet that shows solar being competitive that includes the laundry list of subsidies and incentives.
The reason for this fee is the grid costs money and if you are going to be connected to it you need to pay for it's maintenance and upkeep. Everyone else pays for it in their electric bill.
If you want to drive on the road you have to pay for the road. Fuel taxes paid for the roads and in the past and it was one of the fairer taxes we had to some degree because heavier vehicles that did more damage to the road also consumed more fuel and paid more.
If you're driving a 3000 pound electric car and I'm driving a 3000 pound gasoline powered car why should the cost of the road we are both driving on be paid for entirely by me? Ultimately the best solution is simply tax cars based on their weight and miles driven.
First- you missed the sarcasm part in my post (I think or maybe I am taking your post the wrong way).
Yes I know that Solar/Wind needs subsidies at the moment to work, but obviously OK feels threatened by it. Heck If Florida had solar subsidies I already would have had a system on my house. I can't quite make it work with just the Federal one and the FPL one runs out so fast you don't know if you got it or not. They actually did a lottery (which I didn't win) where your solar credit was guaranteed.
Regarding cars/road use:
In Florida your registration is by weight and of course there are fuel taxes.
I don't disagree that we all should be paying to maintain roads the same. Tolls are the way we do that for the most part now. We would all be paying by the mile - except that the technology to do that is too expensive to implement nationwide.
I do see fuel taxes going up as car efficiency goes up. You didn't really think your cost per mile was going to get better with more efficient cars, did you? Just that the old gas guzzling cars of yesterday will be really really expensive to operate. I already feel that with my diesel truck, when I first started driving diesels - the fuel was cheaper than regular, now it is more expensive than super. And of course it was less than $2/gal and now it is more than $4/gal. Don't take this as a complaint, I know what I got into and I accept it. It is why I offset our fuel bill with our other very efficient car. (Current average is 171 mpg on fuel) And I know one person that has only used 1.2 gal of fuel for 40,000 miles.
the fuel was cheaper than regular, now it is more expensive than super. And of course it was less than $2/gal and now it is more than $4/gal..
Back in the mid nineties it was less than a buck but regular gas was just over a buck. Cheapest gas I ever saw was about 80 cents at a gas station on the Outer Banks during the week of the Fourth of July, think that was the summer of '98. The most expensive I've seen was $4.50 back in the early 90's just outside of Death Valley, probably $10 a gallon there now.
If you want to drive on the road you have to pay for the road. Fuel taxes paid for the roads and in the past and it was one of the fairer taxes we had to some degree because heavier vehicles that did more damage to the road also consumed more fuel and paid more.
Is that truly and directly what all the fuel tax money goes for?
People who claim solar isn't economic make the fallacy of comparing tarrif rates to solar cost. A correct analysis of production costs would show many cases where solar is cost effective today. If one looks at the cost of supplying power at system peak to transmission constrained load pockets, you find locational costs of power in the $150+/MWh.
On this forum let's try to not make naive comparisons.
A correct analysis of production costs would show many cases where solar is cost effective today. If one looks at the cost of supplying power at system peak to transmission constrained load pockets, you find locational costs of power in the $150+/MWh.
The correct way to analyze the cost of anything is the total cost over the lifetime of the unit; installation and construction costs, subsidies, maintenance and fuel costs. If you want to naively cherry pick data like costs during peak production then lets compare just the first year of solar and we won't roll over the installation costs into the next 25 years.
I defy you to show me any analysis that even remotely compares to the cost of coal or natural gas when all costs are included.
If it that much cheaper then why are we even having this discussion? Certainly if the costs for solar were lower these nations would not be increasing their use of coal.
Last edited by thecoalman; 04-20-2014 at 06:01 AM..
Then you need to add the cost to build the coal fired plant in too... Divided by the number of households it serves. If you want to be fair about the cost comparison. In addition, you need to add in the cost to run the transmission lines too.
Of course the cost of the plant needs to be included.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dakster
In addition, you need to add in the cost to run the transmission lines too.
If you are going to go that far then you need to add those costs to solar as well for a grid tied system and since a grid tied system is reliant on base power some kind cost adjustment for the base power from the grid. A coal plant somewhere is producing power to make that a viable alternative. Of course you could just use a system with battery backup but now you've doubled the cost of the solar system.
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