solar power economics

es are

y thing.

nly

t.

It won't last. Paper mills have wood-fired generators to use up the trash wood that they can't turn into paper pulp. If they aren't making paper there any more, there isn't going to be any wood coming in to burn in the wood-fired generator.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

lly

sses.

Yep, as demonstrated here. If you don't allocate scarce funds carefully, the people who could benefit most are lost.

So far Germany's blown billions to create dislocation in Germany, and jobs in China. That's good for China, I guess. C'est la vie.

James Arthur

e:

t.

et

silly

masses.

What James Arthur ignores is that Germany didn't "blow" it's billions

- they created exactly the effect intended, for a while. The fact that China is now copying the approach, on a larger scale, backed by a bigger domestic market, has now taken the wind out of the sails of German renewable energy generator business, which will now have to fall back onto the traditional German strengths of good engineering and high quality production (which makes them second only to China as an exporting nation, and it's a pretty close second considering that they've only got 6% of the population).

It's noticeable that the US, which has a large domestic market than Germany and equally good engineers, didn't choose to get into the business, perhaps because people with money in the US are often as short-sighted and blinkered as James Arthur.

Some of them are spending a whole lot of money persuading the US public that anthropogenic global warming isn't actually happening, and that the scientists who are telling us that it is are conspiring to mislead us to bump up their grants. In terms of misusing scarce resources, that has to be way ahead of any mistakes that the German government might have made. There's rather less money involved at the moment, but the long term costs of delaying the campaign to reduce our CO2 emissions is likely to be very much higher.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

You have a keen sense of the obvious.

Dan

There are three rooftop solar systems within 50 meters of my house. They are there for the same reason the German systems are there: heavy government subsidies. They don't make sense for the same reason the German systems don't make sense: not enough sun, too much clouds and fog, not a lot of air conditioning (actually, none around here.)

My daughter has a house further inland, out of the fog belt, and does have a/c, and she has $50K worth of PV panels on her roof. Also heavily subsidized, and also probably doesn't make sense. The theoretical payout is about 20 years, and I didn't point out the obvious fact the the roof will need replacing before then, so all that stuff will have to come down and go back up again, at great expense.

You certainly have solar panels on your own roof. Tell us about them.

My father was research manager at a pulp paper mill in Tasmania, and I spent my formative years listening to stories about what was going on at the pulp and paper mill. I also heard quite a bit about what had been going on at the mill after he retired. He died fourteen year ago, but my youngest brother brought it all back a few months ago by giving me a copy of a book that purports to be a history of the mill

=93The Pulp: the birth, life and death of an industry=94

It's not - in fact - a history, but rather a sequence of personal reminiscences strung together into a book, without too much of an eye for their inconsistencies. I did recognise a lot of the names and the anecdotes.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

silly

masses.

In the mid 1990s we made solar grid tie inverters that were used, for one example, on houses and buildings in Sacramento (SMUD) where the inverter was tied in on the utility side of their meter so they didn't get any financial advantage from the system at all. The famiilies or businesses paid the bill for these systems too. Not SMUD. They didn't do it for the payback.

Sort of analogous to why people buy big expensive gas guzzling 4 wheel drive SUV's for city driving..... They drive them (for one reason) because it makes them feel good... Not because they get good gas mileage and for payback.

boB

silly

masses.

So, as usual, you're all talk.

hare it.

imilar

us -

=A0You

, we get

der

to

their silly

f the masses.

nd

Would my owning some solar panels make my opinions on anthropogenic global warming any more palatable to you? Am I supposed to organise my accommodation in a way that lets me look "sincere" to your bizarre perceptions?

You do post a great deal of fatuous nonsense.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

it.

similar

get

their silly

masses.

Sure.

And your opinions about electronic design would be more respectable if you actually did it.

And your opinions about economics would be more respectable if you actually created anything.

Some people don't drive that much, and when they do they need to be able to haul things. I tried to find a smaller vehicle I could drive, but my knees hit the dash in all of them, even with the seat all the way back. So, I ended up with a Dodge Dakota, which barely has enough leg room. You midgets can drive almost anything. :(

e share it.

n similar

us

of us -

. =A0You

hat, we get

nsider

lse to

of their silly

M of the masses.

, and

ons

that

as

at

avy

es

hat

m.

Liar.

I did it for long enough, and well enough, that I've got a certain amount of credit built up amongst more perceptive auditors.

I created stuff. I didn't do it inside my own company, so it's a little harder to point to the particular bits of value I created, but they exist. Since I don't have a financial interest in getting potential customers to think of them as the best things since sliced bread, I'm not in the habit of describing every last one of them as insanely good.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Why? The only reason for installing domestic solar PV in the UK is to exploit the governments insanely priced feed-in-tariff. We are too far north and cloudy for it to make sense to install this kit. It is a waste of refined silicon to use it in the UK. Installed in the right place the lifetime power return for PV is 7x in the UK it is under 4x.

I do own some solar panels but they are for off grid uses in summer.

At least wind turbines give a decent multiplier of around 80x and the UK is pretty windy most of the time. Solar requires sunshine.

We have solar powered radar triggered "slow bend" signs on dangerous bends round here. At this time of year they are all dead in the water as the batteries have died during the long grey winter. Shame really the time when they are needed is when it is frosty and icy...