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How is that a joke? We have 300+ days of sunshine here. If everyone in Tucson had solar panels by all technicalities we wouldn't need a public electric company. People's homes would provide enough personal energy for their household. And in many cases a surplus, which would be stored. The costs to our energy would come in the form of panel and battery/storage maintenance. Aren't right-wingers all about less government? There is a reason so many people off-the-grid choose solar for their electric needs. There's no reason solar can't work en mass either, not just off the grid folks.
Of course, assuming if solar became more popular and it will once the technology improves some more, what would happen is electricity we don't use for our own homes coming from solar would be stored and a public electric company would store all that electricity to use for a rainy day (literally) and if enough is stored it could be sold off, as an electric company won't have infinite storage systems.
You must not read correctly, I used the term could.
If you really want to live with unclean energy and pollution you should move to Beijing. I think you'll like it there.
You should also try being productive to this thread by giving a good counter argument for your support of coal and O&G over clean energy. You have replied to me a few times on this thread and have not given me one single good counter argument to my posts, rather you try to discredit me instead. Did I hit a soft spot with you? Have you resulted to replies like these because you know you are losing?
Last edited by Prickly Pear; 07-24-2016 at 01:08 AM..
Nonsense. Net metering is a rational way to do it in a whole mess of dimensions. But there are others.
No particular reason you would expect a buyer who uses some occasional energy to pay some premium. So We go around and and work the technology the other way. Basically the solar panel user provides his own energy until he needs more than is available from his system. He then cuts over off the local utility.
Inefficient and cumbersome for some technical reasons but perfectly doable.
And then we require that the local utility transfer power from other sources in to individual customers. That allows the guy with solar array to provide what he can and then buy the rest from the low bidder. And the local utility gets a fee for delivering the power.
The battle here is between the utility and the individual customer. The utility is not remotely interesting in paying a fair fee for power provided. They simply want to buy power from the roof tops dirt cheap. In LA it is clear that the power company claims peak power is worth four or five times as much as off peak. But the utility here proposes to buy it for half the average long term rate. Someone crazy?
The solar panel would have never been installed without the 50% tax break they got which is about what the profit the installer gets.
If net metering was gone tomorrow your system would not be worth installing because the ROI is way too long. The only reason your able to provide extra power for the grid is because you over built a system on tax payer dollars.
Roof top solar will be significantly changed in the next few years in all states as most utility go to the new solar charges.
The solar panel would have never been installed without the 50% tax break they got which is about what the profit the installer gets.
I disagree.
One home in our town went to solar/wind in the 1980s. In a time when there was no 'tax credit'.
Like many other large assets, a solar system can be a depreciable asset. The IRS gives it a 7 year depreciation. So every penny you spend to setup a solar power system, can be deducted over a span of 7 years. Within seven years you deduct every penny you have spent.
Quote:
... If net metering was gone tomorrow your system would not be worth installing because the ROI is way too long. The only reason your able to provide extra power for the grid is because you over built a system on tax payer dollars.
I do not know about that.
Of solar power systems in my town, 1/4 of them do the net-metering gig [it is exactly one-quarter]. If net-metering went away, I am not sure that would have much over-all effect on people still seeing the need for solar power.
I do not net-meter. 3/4 of the solar powered homes in our town do not net-meter.
Quote:
... Roof top solar will be significantly changed in the next few years in all states as most utility go to the new solar charges.
Things are always in flux, changing. Change is not a bad thing.
When you focus on 'roof top' installations you are building a box for yourself to live inside of.
My solar power array is not on my roof. Some do and some do not. What an odd thing to focus on.
How is that a joke? We have 300+ days of sunshine here. If everyone in Tucson had solar panels by all technicalities we wouldn't need a public electric company. People's homes would provide enough personal energy for their household. And in many cases a surplus, which would be stored. The costs to our energy would come in the form of panel and battery/storage maintenance. Aren't right-wingers all about less government? There is a reason so many people off-the-grid choose solar for their electric needs. There's no reason solar can't work en mass either, not just off the grid folks.
The same can be said of most of the USA. Using the example of Tucson works, but Bangor works in that examples as well.
Every solar / wind powered system is different, you design your system to suit your location.
In any rural region, most homes can provide 100% of the energy they need. Currently there is only a small portion of the population interested in net-zero homes. But they exist in every state.
The same can be said of most of the USA. Using the example of Tucson works, but Bangor works in that examples as well.
Every solar / wind powered system is different, you design your system to suit your location.
In any rural region, most homes can provide 100% of the energy they need. Currently there is only a small portion of the population interested in net-zero homes. But they exist in every state.
Most of the solar has been installed in the south west where it's generally very hot in the summer using net metering as a battery to zero out the night time utility usage cost but the problem is big percentage of those systems are based on a lease model zero down. Once the new fees have hit the electric bill it effectively ends that most of the large solar installers will go out of business.
It's already happened to one they filed a lawsuit against the utility I doubt it will go anywhere
The new charges will take effect in April. However, SolarCity claims that it has already seen solar applications plummet, falling by 96 percent in SRP territory since the plan was introduced.
Yep, when the sun goes down, if electricity is important to you, you better hope there is a good old fashioned, polluting power plant nearby. But you are going to be off the grid, so it doesn't matter.
Yah, as if a coal-fired electricity-generating plant were somehow akin to the Western cultural inheritance of the Bible, the alphabet, Arabic numerals & etc.
"Yes my son, from time immemorial, electrical power plants have been with us, ever since that first one fell on Isaac Newton's head while he lolled under the tree ..."
It won't do. Technology - whether stirrups or waterwheels or internal combustion engines - moves along. It evolves, if you will - to go faster, further, cheaper, more efficiently & so on. Coal-fired plants are an indirect use of very old sunshine - coal is a fossil fuel. Natural gas burns cleaner, & so is preferred for some applications.
The ultimate goal would be to control fusion (the ultimate source of solar power) directly, & do without all the intermediate steps of working fluid, heating, condensing, cooling, pumping & on & on - the 1001+ steps that make nuclear power plants today tangles of pipes & sensors & liquids & water & cooling towers. & with all those controls & potential points of failure, the risks of a malfunction in the control systems are fairly high. Design & redundancy & constant training can control & minimize the risks to some extent, as long as you don't get cascading errors.
How is that a joke? We have 300+ days of sunshine here. If everyone in Tucson had solar panels by all technicalities we wouldn't need a public electric company. People's homes would provide enough personal energy for their household. And in many cases a surplus, which would be stored. The costs to our energy would come in the form of panel and battery/storage maintenance. Aren't right-wingers all about less government? There is a reason so many people off-the-grid choose solar for their electric needs. There's no reason solar can't work en mass either, not just off the grid folks.
Of course, assuming if solar became more popular and it will once the technology improves some more, what would happen is electricity we don't use for our own homes coming from solar would be stored and a public electric company would store all that electricity to use for a rainy day (literally) and if enough is stored it could be sold off, as an electric company won't have infinite storage systems.
You must not read correctly, I used the term could.
If you really want to live with unclean energy and pollution you should move to Beijing. I think you'll like it there.
You should also try being productive to this thread by giving a good counter argument for your support of coal and O&G over clean energy. You have replied to me a few times on this thread and have not given me one single good counter argument to my posts, rather you try to discredit me instead. Did I hit a soft spot with you? Have you resulted to replies like these because you know you are losing?
Your argument comes down to some conspiracy that big oil is stopping solar from being utilized. I heard the same argument from the "run your car on water" crowd.
Let me ask you about your setup. How many tons is your AC system. What wattage of solar do you have that runs it?
Government in this nation was not formed to tax others, to provide for those that cannot provide for themselves. This nation was formed by the laws and liberties of nature. Not laws of men.
This nation got strong quick, because only the strong survived.
Yah. But until such time as the Lord deigns to return & establish His reign forever & ever, it will be precisely men & women who together interpret the laws & liberties of nature, & transform them into the government & laws of the World. If government makes expenditures, that money has to come from somewhere. In the West, the source is typically taxation, either upon individuals or businesses, sometimes both, sometimes differentially (to encourage business, usually).
& yes, this being the US, a country of the West, we have elected to have government help those who are helpless, usually temporarily, sometimes permanently, based upon need. We are not the Roman Empire, for instance, which simply exposed infants with visible physical issues, or who were simply surplus to the population.
Intangible drilling costs, tax deduction, Oil and Gas industries, revenue cost to government: $1,495 million
Depletion of oil and gas wells on private property, tax deduction, O&G, revenue cost to government: $1,343 million
Domestic manufacturing for fossil fuels, tax deduction, Oil/Gas/Coal/Lignite/Oil Shale industries, revenue cost to government: $1,250 million
Two year amortization period for geological & geophysical expenditures, tax deduction, O&G, revenue cost to government: $305 million
Percentage depletion for hard mineral fossil fuels, tax deduction, Coal/Lignite/Oil Shale industries, revenue cost to government: $205 million
Expensing of exploration and development costs for hard mineral fuels, tax deduction, Coal/Lignite/Oil Shale industries, revenue cost to government: $68 million
Capital gains treatment for royalties of coal, tax deduction, Coal/Lignite industries, revenue cost to government: $53 million
Deduction for tertiary injectants, tax deduction, Oil industries, revenue cost to government: $10 million
Exception to passive loss limitation for working interests in oil and natural gas properties, tax deduction, O&G, revenue cost to government: $8 million
Also I should note there are many more subsidies I didn't list because this is the federal government only, not including state-level or other local-level subsidies.
The federal government has been subsidizing the oil and gas industry through the tax code for nearly 100 years, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars to support a mature and highly profitable industry. The industry argues that the subsidies themselves are no different than those that exist for other industries receiving taxpayer support (e.g. agriculture). These organizations and companies have spent millions of dollars in lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions to ensure that their industry continues to benefit from outdated tax write-offs at taxpayer expense.
From 2009 through 2013, large U.S.-based oil and gas companies paid far less in federal income taxes than the statutory rate of 35 percent. Thanks to a variety of special tax provisions, these companies were also able to defer payment of a significant portion of the federal taxes they accrued during this period.
The federal income tax is dramatically less than the income taxes they paid to foreign governments during the same period. Foreign income taxes totaled roughly 46.2 percent of their total foreign pre-tax income. And because the tax codes of foreign governments generally do not allow the deferral of tax payments the way the U.S. code does, these companies paid out 99 percent of the entire amount of accrued tax liabilities to foreign governments.
The oil and gas industry boasts an impressive roster of hired guns. Among the lobbyists working for the industry, 23 lobbyists were former Members of Congress, including 15 who had served on a relevant Committee (e.g. the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee).
(all of the above from taxpayer.net, a nonpartisan budget watchdog that serves as an independent voice for American taxpayers).
Doesn't it seem strange, that those complaining about the government not choosing winners and losers, tend to support those that are already receiving favorable considerations from government and politicians of both parties, including the current administration who benefit greatly from ties to those already getting most of the favorable tax breaks and subsidies.
Last edited by plannine; 07-24-2016 at 12:42 PM..
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Right next to the buggy whip
