Power your house with a leaf

[777 fixer]

Solar is fairly cost prohibitive and quite unenvironmentally friendly,almost to the point of not being worth it, with a very long time to recoup investment.
Windmills were supposed to go on Indian lands but the eco wonks went ballistic with that and solar in the desert....

Is it somehow more unenvironmentally friendly than say coal mining or drilling for oil? Are we not supposed to even try?

Yes, as of right now putting in a solar system to power your house can get a bit pricey. But as we have seen with anything new prices do go down. If you use solar to heat your water you can get a return on you investment much more quickly.

 

[SparrowHawk]

Is it somehow more unenvironmentally friendly than say coal mining or drilling for oil? Are we not supposed to even try?

Yes, as of right now putting in a solar system to power your house can get a bit pricey. But as we have seen with anything new prices do go down. If you use solar to heat your water you can get a return on you investment much more quickly.

Agreed and solar isn't all that new anymore and it has applications where it will be extremely viable. My point is that we need off the foreign oil merry go round and today would be a good time to start. If our dependency is in the 50% range there is no magic bullet that will eliminate our need short term (one election cycle)

However, you pick up 2 or 3 points via conservation initiatives, another 10-15 percent with Nuclear power, 5% from solar, 5% from Hydrogen fuel cells, another 2% from wind, same for geothermal, 3% from building or increasing efficiency of hydro electric. So you increase your energy independence by 33%. The other you pick up through increased domestic production. You do this and you can tell the Saudi's to wrap that towel on their head just a little tighter and kiss our energy independent arse.

 

[Ms Tree]

Is it somehow more unenvironmentally friendly than say coal mining or drilling for oil? Are we not supposed to even try?

Yes, as of right now putting in a solar system to power your house can get a bit pricey. But as we have seen with anything new prices do go down. If you use solar to heat your water you can get a return on you investment much more quickly.

And I think if the Feds would get involved to give out rebates and other incentives to spur production and consumption of solar/wind...etc te prices will come down as production volume increases.

 

[SparrowHawk]

And I think if the Feds would get involved to give out rebates and other incentives to spur production and consumption of solar/wind...etc te prices will come down as production volume increases.

The "Broken Window Fallacy" comes courtesy of economist Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) - Some of his quotes are quite revealing and some 150 years after his death he has lessons that Obama Lama Ding Dong is clearly unaware of.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Frederic Bastiat

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/frederic_bastiat.html#ixzz1IIbzPFKO

 

[delldude]

And I think if the Feds would get involved to give out rebates and other incentives to spur production and consumption of solar/wind...etc te prices will come down as production volume increases.

Government subsidies did just that in Spain, hoping to be the global green weenies.....only it cost too much and government stopped the subsidies, hence the non market in solar energy.

 

[southwind]

And I think if the Feds would get involved to give out rebates and other incentives to spur production and consumption of solar/wind...etc te prices will come down as production volume increases.

And there again, is the biggest problem, rearing it's ugly head................people thinking government has the answer !

 

[signals]

And there again, is the biggest problem, rearing it's ugly head................people thinking government has the answer !

Agreed!

 

[delldude]

You know, solar power is cool but there are so many long term problems.
People have this idea that you pop a panel on the roof and turn on the flat screen....its rather a small technical undertaking to use solar power.
You need storage in batteries and you need CAPACITY.
It would be akin to running a small sub and storing the electricity,which I think would have to be inverted for home use. Or everything would have to be redesigned to run on flatline DC.
Batteries and storage systems need to be tended and checked. Fires,explosions and so on are a real concern.

High capacity storage would be pretty expensive I think.

I can see the average Joe consumer not keeping up on his power system pretty easily.

You need lots of sunlight.
Not all locales are well suited due to weather.
Globally, volcanoes could mess up your sunlight or diminish it if things were highly active.

 

[Ms Tree]

The space program and the interstate highway system were paid for by federal funds. Perhaps not the most efficient but with out fed funding they probably would not have happened. At least not for a longtime.

There are time when the power of the fed is usefull.

 

[delldude]

The space program and the interstate highway system were paid for by federal funds. Perhaps not the most efficient but with out fed funding they probably would not have happened. At least not for a longtime.

There are time when the power of the fed is usefull.

You should research Spain and why it died.

Didn't Lord Obama provide stimulus money for GE to develop solar panel manufacturing, maybe in Ohio and GE shipped it to the Chinese?? :blink: :unsure:

I thought GE got off paying no income tax too....Ain't that a friggin' coincidence?

 

[dapoes]

The space program and the interstate highway system were paid for by federal funds. Perhaps not the most efficient but with out fed funding they probably would not have happened. At least not for a longtime.

There are time when the power of the fed is usefull.

Perhaps not the most efficient buy still usefull? Seriously?

Its not that hard to conclude that if solar energy was so practical it would be a regular part of our lives. But its not. Why is that?

Look at the regular weather patterns across the nation especially in heavily populated areas. North West has heavy overcast and harsh winters. South West has monsoons that will rip apart solar arrays. Midwest has summer storms that will also destroy solar panels via heavy rain, hail, etc. Same as with the south east. North east has harsh simmer and winter seasons that make it impractical as well.

Extreme heat and cold decimate the electrical components as well. Theres also a big difference too between solar panels for electricity and for hot water. Two different types of units altogether.

 

[delldude]

The space program and the interstate highway system were paid for by federal funds. Perhaps not the most efficient but with out fed funding they probably would not have happened. At least not for a longtime.

There are time when the power of the fed is usefull.

The common denominator here was man's efficient need to kill one another.

Ike saw the need for rapid mobility in war which the US didn't have but Germany did....thus the Interstate Highway System.

Sputnik and nuclear bombs motivated the space program.....control of space for military purposes.

No peacetime government investment here..........boat load of spinoff's for mankind though.

Man on the moon was Kennedy flipping off Nikita.

Star Wars was Ronnie's economic war attacking the USSR.