Solar may be clunky and whatever else you dislike, but...well, it's kept my house in Santa Fe from ever using a single kilowatt-hour of grid power, and the payback time on the materials (environmentally, that is) was only about five years, for a system that's been running like a charm for over 20 years.  Solar power for homeowners isn't stupid, unless you happen to live in Seattle (or equivalent).

Disturbing.

grist.org

I agree w biodiversivist. Communicating your values is really important (e.g. by advertising your rejection of coal-generated electricity), but issues like climate change etc. are too important to react to wrongly, i.e. it really matters that what we do is the right thing.

That's why it's really important to work things like life-cycle costs out properly. Prius's may save some gasoline, but their total energy used in manufacture etc. makes them a far less desireable option that small, regular gasoline-powered car.

We've got to get away from being PC to being EC (Ecologically Correct). Things aren't as green as they seem.

Cheers

Whiskerfish

Catalyst--
Our system has neither lost effectiveness over time nor produced little power.  I'm not an electrician--I know how to maintain my own system, but if anything needs to be repaired or replaced I call the company that does installations in our area--but I do know that our three tracker racks of panels have been working completely without complaint since about 1986.  We've replaced the batteries twice, but we started out with used phone-company ones, so that hardly counts, since they were about cashed out when we got them.  Those and a second set of golf-cart batteries both got recycled (since, as we know, the lead-acid battery recycling industry is one of the more efficient recycling industries nationwide), and our current batteries have been fine for over ten years, and seem good to go for quite a while. This system runs everything normal in the house (except the refrigerator, and I think we'll be able to get an electric fridge that will work with this system sometime in the next few years), power tools in the shop, and the pump for a 360' well that provides for the house and the horses (as many as 9 at one time).  If we have weeks of cloudy weather and aren't careful to turn things off, it can get a little low at times, but it supplies more than enough power most of the time.  

Our system produces an average of just under 4kwh/day.  Now that I am temporarily living in a non-solar house in Masschusetts and renting the house in Santa Fe, I can say that we use just over 10kwh/day here, but that's including a standard electric fridge and stove, and not being as careful as we should to unplug battery chargers and things when we're done with them.  So, if we were really careful about unplugging things (as I am at home--it's amazing how fast one can get "un-trained" to be good about that) but still had the electric stove, we'd probably use about twice the power that we use at home, and if we got rid of the electric stove (God willing...I hate that thing), we could easily live on the grid and use the same amount we've always used off it.

I envy your panels. If I lived someplace sunny, I would have some also.

Catalyst,

The numbers came from the link in the article. I can't vouch for the accuracy but since they are trying to sell panels, I suspect the numbers are conservative. My point is that individuals in places like Seattle are going to need help from the big boys if they are going to electrify their world, especially for heat. Wind and solar farms added to our state grid are our only way to do that. Plunking today's PV technology on a house just doesn't cut the mustard in Seattle.

Whiskerfish,

Your point is well taken. I looked into the Prius sustainability issue in detail at one point. The critique woke Toyota up to work harder on that issue. The debate reminds me of the one over ethanol efficiency. The study conflicts with results found by MIT and others. As with the ethanol studies, the results depend on assumptions. For example, they assume a Hummer will be driven twice as long as a Prius. If that one assumption is wrong, the results are dramatically different, and they make many assumptions. Another is that the Prius battery will not be recycled. This link sums up the debate pretty well:

http://hybridblog.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/about_tha...


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

But of course not every roof in every region is worthy of solar PV, even in this more cost effective form.  You are right about that bio-d.

Engineer's information on renewable power programs in your state indicate that you guys have a chance to really build a way into the regulation to encourage those homeowners to put the 160k to better use.  Like investing in offshore wind/wave and ocean current power for instance.

Then install fake pV panels, that still collect heat for hot water, much cheaper, same status!  Hehehey.  Fake PV panels, a new growth industry.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

On criticizing the neighbors: Judging one's neighbors is a grand old American tradition.  It has always made for some very interesting social dynamics in this republic's history, as well as inspiring some great literature and movies.

BioD, why don't you just go up and knock on their door, and say Hello?  Bring a carrot cake, or a strudel, or a basket of muffins.  And, very nicely, ask them what the deal is with their solar panels.  They are potential allies, after all, however poorly informed.  There is no need to be so cynical as to assume that the solar panels are there just for show.

On latitudes and cloud cover: Would it not be a splendid thing, if the eager folks at NASA were given as their chief mission, not sending human beings to the Moon, but rather launching a solar-energy-collecting satellite, constantly opened up to receive the sunshine!  Surely there are clever engineers who can figure out how to make that work.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Oh yeah, nobody can accurately predict the future cost of pv, or concentrator pv (CPV).  Current market supply of all pv does not pencil out connected to a grid, and promotes the most expensive and least efficient use of solar energy.

Objective #1 -- Stop all energy subsidies.

Also, assuming the Prius' battery won't be recycled seems kind of ridiculous.  Even if they assumed it would only be recycled half the time, it seems likely that they'd be being unfair to the Prius, given that the kinds of people who are likely to own a Prius are likely to recycle (which wouldn't help if everyone had a Prius, of course, since then the self-selected-recycling-types effect would go away, but anyhow...).

You come up with some real pearls. How about passive solar instead? About 30 times more cost effective for heating and CO2 reduction in Seattle.

Canis,

I just might do that. I also agree with your point of view with NASA.

Sunflower,

You make a hell of a lot of sense.

Willa,

I am going to do a post on that Prius study in the not too distant future. Watch for it.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Thus it took the energy costs of building factories and conducting R&D for hybrids and divided these among total hybrids built to date -w without considering future production. It did the same thing for SUVs, but they have been around much longer. Of course, this is not the way to allocate capital costs; you amortize them.

Even just adding in the hybrids produced through Jan-1-2007 will significantly alter the results of the study.  It is like analyzing the cost of of a $200,000 mortgage after the first two months of living in the new home, and saying "gee, so far you've paid $100,000 per month." Nobody does cost accounting like that -except the "dust to dust" study. I suspect that the "dust to dust" study contains many such "gotchas".

Good, compare the Prius to the plugin versions of the Prius from Calcars and others too, if you will.  Looking forward to it.

Questions in mind.  What ought to be the comparative tax credit for a Prius, a plugin Prius, or simply a very high mileage conventional car?  How much extra will the Prius plugin cost when it's mass produced?  could a tax credit cover that cost?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

So it is interesting to see this thread wander into questioning the net environmental impacts of hybrid gasoline personal vehicle technology.  Personally I'm deeply suspicious of the implicit pressure to consume ourselves out of an over-consumption problem.  I bet we all know folks who have patted themselves on the back for buying a new Energy Star refrigerator, and then consigned the old one to the garage to chill a case or two of beer.  They've just about doubled their energy expenditure on refrigeration - the old refrigerator will actually consume more juice than it used to, running half-empty in an unconditioned space - but boy, do they feel green looking at the sleek new energy-efficient appliance in their kitchen.

So it is with the hybrid discussion: no mention in the various studies that I can see of what really happens to the old vehicles.  The assumption seems to be that the Prius unit replaces the prior-technology unit, and so it would tend to be in a personal sense - but in a global sense however I suspect not so much. As with the refrigerator example, if there's still economic life in the old unit the net effect on energy use is additive.  If we prematurely replace an existing vehicle with a new one we will increase the supply of used vehicles and thus, assuming steady demand, lower their cost. This ultimately brings new purchasers over the financial threshold of personal vehicle ownership: new owners moreover who are less likely to be able to afford the routine maintenance required to keep the older vehicle up to even its previous environmental standard.  Furthermore, the end of the line for many older U.S. cars is to be wholesaled to poorer countries with lower emissions standards.  This may perhaps be to the personal economic advantage of the new owner, but it's hard to see it as a net environmental benefit.

This is not to say that the Prius and the other first-generation hybrids are a bad thing, but perhaps more attention needs to be paid to who should purchase them, and why, if the advertised benefits are actually to be achieved. Prius owners of my acquaintance are without exception careful, frugal folks who try not to drive any more than they have to, carpool when they can, don't routinely upgrade their vehicles for vanity's sake - exactly the wrong people, in fact, to invest in this hopefully transient technology.  There would seem to be a case that they should probably have hung on to their conventional Accords and Civics for the several more years they would normally have owned them instead of dumping them on the resale market.  For hybrids to have any real impact they really need to be purchased by high-milage users who change out vehicles regularly, and whose cast-offs are headed sooner rather than later for the scrapyard.  In other words, by rental companies and corporate fleets.

For the enlightened consumer of transportation functionality, it may be better to insist on a Prius or Hybrid Civic next time you rent, lobby corporate owners as much as you can, and set up a hybrid carshare coop, rather than go buy your own.  

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

People's situations are complicated, you know?

It is true that, very occasionally, having two vehicles means we are both driving at the same time--it happens maybe once every month or two--but in general, yes, the truck hauls a trailer to the feed store fifteen minutes away and then hauls the full trailer back to the barn.  

However environmentally sound it might be, it's going to be a long while before I'm willing to give up my horses....so I guess I should get off my, er, high horse about people having kids, but regarding the Prius, I think I can continue to be smug. :)

Are solar panels cost effective in the Pacific Northwest?  Nope.  Does buying a Prius count as an 'indulgence' to offset a wasteful home? Nope.

But, cost effective or not, people who would not normally consider energy OR cost effectiveness are now doing so.  What I like about any type of net metering installation is the fact that when people reach the point of looking into generating their own power, most of the time they actually start looking into how much electricity their equipment consumes and begin taking steps towards trying to reduce their consumption.

Depending on the electric load of the home in the photo, I doubt the solar panels will generate enough output to actually run the meter backwards.  Yet, how recently would someone trying to put PV's on their roof have meant a complaint to the zoning folks?  Now, the comment from most neighbors is probably 'cool!'

I see these things as a positive sign that, at least as far as appearances go, the underlying mindset is changing.  Things that used to be considered the province of the 'dirty hippie' are going mainstream.  So, these panels in and of themselves may not change much.  But it does signal that they care enough to try and do something.

People actively taking positive steps to reduce energy use?

Priceless!

Common sense is an oxymoron...

I am building a small barn (out of the trees I had to cut down to build it--and yeah, I felt horribly guilty, but I went through the options and decided it was for the best in every way, and will plant more trees in the parts of the property where the barn isn't, and in any case some of the trees we cut were starting to get hollow anyway, so they weren't going to live much longer regardless).  The number of hoops I have had to jump through to put in a lousy 20'x20' barn--a shed, really, with a hay-storage lean-to in back--with a water line and an electric light on one side...the mind boggles.  When I go to put solar panels on the roof of that sucker next year, the town is going to have a FIT.  I guarantee it.  Hell, yesterday the excavator who's putting the gravel in for the driveway started his machine at 6:55, and later discovered he'd received a message from my neighbor (who didn't identify herself on the message, but I know who it was) saying that if he started the machine before 7 AM again, she'd call the police (noise ordinance).

The building inspector has tried repeatedly to tell me I don't understand New England weather, and that I don't know how much the snow will weigh, etc--mind you, at the house where I grew up in Santa Fe we currently have a foot of snow, whereas here in MA we have none--so I'm sure the solar panels, in his mind, will prevent the roof from shedding snow and therefore be out of the question.

I wonder how many green projects we'd have if we had ever really made an effort to encourage them rather than discourage them with the regulatory stuff.

All that said, this is far from a done deal.

The CARBOTHERMIC REDUCTION PROCESS is used to make metallic grade Silicon from silicon-dioxide. This is, or has been, the dominant purification initial process.

A Seattle-location example used in the article calls for 5 kilowatts of PV electrical production.

64% of all PV is polycrystal silicon, so typically that would be used, having a sun-to-plug-power efficiency of 13%. That equates to 12 watts per square foot of panels. The silicon in 5 kilowatts is divided (5,000 watts/12 = 417 sq.ft. = 39 meters square).

The 39 meters square business-card-thick PV silicon weighs 47 kilograms. The sand, silicon-dioxide, it came from weighed (Si + O2 = (atomic weight 14 + 16 + 16 = 46)) 147 kilograms, of which 100 kilograms was O2.

This 100 kilograms of O2 was carbonized, hence the name CARBOTHERMIC, to CO2 (C + O2 (atomic weight 6 + 16 + 16 = 38)) = 116 kilograms of CO2 = 255 pounds of CO2. At 20 pounds of CO2 released per gallon of gas in likewise chemical processes, we find the equivalent of 13 gallons of gasoline produced purifying out the O2 in SiO2 in the carbothermic process.

A similar process goes into purification of the Alumina to Aluminum purification. (2.Al2O3 = 2.Al + 3.O2) with similar findings.

The actual energies involved in making PV are corporate trade secrets and unlikely to be known to the writer but can be deduced by person not needing to rely on "solar calculators" and actually able to punch numbers in real calculators.

A real-world estimate of of the sum of the processes combined I find to be equivalent in carbon production to about 80 gallons of gasoline burning.

The DOE estimates average vehicle use at 10,000 miles per year, 25 mpg average vehicle mpg. That computes to 400 gallons of gasoline per year.

PV with 25 year warranty production consumes the energy of 10 weeks of normal driving.

Bear in mind additional factors:

(1) PV reduces in cost by 19% every time the installed base increases. This means buying PV maked it cheaper for others to buy PV. This reduction in price has been straight-line since 1979.

(2) As PV becomes cheaper, more of it will be installed, reducing the doubling time, currently 3 years.

(3) As PV becomes more ubiquitous, the power used in making PV is more likely to be produced by PV, thereby reducing the carbon-energy component in PV.

(4)There are non-carbothermic pathways to purification of Silicon and/or Aluminum, which require more cheap abundant power than dirty carbon-energy. Those alternatives are barred by the economics of the present PV pricing, which is very much under the manipulation of price-fixing cartels.

(5) F.U.D., Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, plays a roll in delaying the doublings in pV installations which bring down the prices and make it more ubiquitous. False and fraudulent statements are regularly inserted in websites and news media by a campaign established decades ago and periodically exposed over 30 years with no prosecutions.

http://ScienceCop.info/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=TheSunBet...
http://sciencecop.info/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=TheCarbon...
http://sciencecop.info/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Cartel+So...

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-Globa...
Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil's Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science -- Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion

(6) Chevron Executives bragged in public two years ago that they made PV panels at $1/watt retail-ready. Prices of $9/watt on the website calculator are plain evidence of price-fixing cartel.

(7) NREL has projected the price decreases since 1979 to result in $1/watt costs by 2012-2015 time period, and 3 cents/kWh retail electric price to the consumers of that power. This is only delayed by false statements which encourage complacency and inaction through FUD.

(8) PV is made out of the same stuff as beer cans and beer bottles, and it has the same price as beer cans and beer bottles whenever it is made in the same volumes as beer cans and beer bottles.

The natural price of PV is 2.5 cents per watt installed. That price will be reached in ten years.

(9) There are 75,000,000 detached homes in the USA averaging 2,000 sq.ft roofs. Covered in 13% polycrystal cheap-as-dirt PV, these homes can produce every single watt of electricity now produced by all sources of electricity production without one single inch of special PV farm reservation lands.

(10) The technology to do this is not the "Energy of the Future", but is so old that the patents have expired. Like generic drugs, when the patents expire the prices crash. Key patents expired in the past year, enabling everyone in the world to use this public-domain technology without licence or royalty payments. The rules of the game have now changed. Get used to it.

http://H2-PV.US/wiki for more specific details.

(11) One acre of polycrystal PV "mines" the equal to coal of 1 ton every 11.7 peak sunny hours, 182 tons per year, 4,550 tons of coal per 25-year warranty service life if placed in the 9 southwest sunbelt states.

Justify your statements that PV does not displace substantial carbon dioxide in the face of these facts, or publish a retraction.


http:ecosyn.us PALACES for the People, H2-PV, PV-Breeders acres of PV, tons of Hydrogen

(1) Today 1700 MW PV
(2) Doubling installed reduces the price 19%
(3) Growth rate 25%/yr - 3 yrs to double

The date that the entire consumption of electricity from PV occurs can be projected to exact month in the future.

Download spreadsheet
http://www.hydrogenfreedom.info/scenario_1.xls

Tex...

Thirty-two years and six months, July 2039, 1,851,556,663 kW PV, cost will then be $1.01/watt

A double capacity is figured, which is accomplished in thirty-five years, and the cost will be 85 cents per watt.

Hydrogen Economy fourfold increase in PV, accomplished in 41 years, in 2058, cost of PV 60 cents per watt installed.

Three years later the production will have increased to double all the energy of every form currently used, costs will be 50 cents.


http:ecosyn.us PALACES for the People, H2-PV, PV-Breeders acres of PV, tons of Hydrogen