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His genius lies in his talent for leeching on taxpayers.
It's the taxpayer and the ratepayer. The systems they are installing may be generating what is is called a renewable energy credit (REC). Those can be sold to power distributors to meet renewable energy mandates imposed by the state, the cost of that is passed onto the ratepayer. If you live in a state with net metering where the homeowner wtith solar is paying little or nothing to be connected to the grid those costs are also passed onto the other ratepayers.
To add insult to injury most of these panels are Chinese made, the US taxpayer and US ratepayer are effectively subsidizing Chinese manufacturers.
... To add insult to injury most of these panels are Chinese made, the US taxpayer and US ratepayer are effectively subsidizing Chinese manufacturers.
If a person wants to, they can source photovoltaic panels from the USA. I got mine from Germany, along with my Solar-Thermal collector panels. Home | Stiebel Eltron USA
If a person wants to, they can source photovoltaic panels from the USA. I got mine from Germany, along with my Solar-Thermal collector panels. Home | Stiebel Eltron USA
If we are going to be subsidizing an industry with US tax dollars and jacking the rates up on US ratepayers at the very least it should be limited to benefiting US industries.
If we are going to be subsidizing an industry with US tax dollars and jacking the rates up on US ratepayers at the very least it should be limited to benefiting US industries.
That is a good sounding theory.
I am a farmer, I can't throw a dead cat without hitting a tax depreciation. Some people will insist that tax depreciations are subsidies, to me that is shady logic.
There are things that do get actual subsidies and that is wrong.
Industry lobbyists in my state have been trying to make ratepayers to be taxed extra to pay for net-metering installers. I did not think that all states had done that, yet.
So I guess solar has its drawbacks. Maybe it can still reduce CO2 emissions though.
Elon Musk says on that one video going around that all we need is a hundred square miles of solar panels in Texas to power the whole United States.
If that's what he said, he's wrong. We would have to cover the whole state of Washington to do that. (reference is on this board somewhere)
BTW- half the fossil fuel EVER burned on this planet was burned in the past 20 yrs. co2 levels have gone from 380ppm to 410ppm-- and temps have been stable. Reducing co2 emissions will have ZERO effect on the climate.
The effect of co2 as a GHG declines as its level rises: 90% of the effect is accomplished as levels go from 0 -150ppm. Almost all of the remaining 10% of effect is seen as levels go from 150-450ppm, and there is virtually no increase in effect above 450ppm. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/...concentration/
It is far cheaper to buy batteries than it is to pay regulators.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ErikJac
For the widespread use of solar energy, first of all, we need batteries whose energy density is comparable to the energy density of fossil fuels.
Yes, the key is being off grid with good batteries. Connecting solar to the grid makes no sense, because the costs are way too high, and the benefits not enough. In my case, I would love to go full solar off grid with batteries, but there is so little electric use in my house (< 2.5kwh per day), that the time, trouble and return of using solar would not make doing this worth it to me yet. If there was an easy way for this to be feasible, for example connecting only my computer (and a few minor things) to off grid solar, I would do it.
The financial return to grid connected solar with net metering is substantially higher than off grid connection.
You can not make electricity from solar as cheap as you can buy electricity from the grid.
As a farmer, I can depreciate my solar power system. This is the primary factor that drives my ROI being as short as it is.
In my state, the utility company does not pay for the power put onto the grid from photovoltaic installations.
Without any money from the utility company, and without any tax-payer subsidies, it is very hard for there to be any 'financial return' from photovoltaic technology.
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