About those German solar power plants...

[Playinghardball]

I love seeing solar and wind farms..



I once flew over Germany and was amazed at how much solar I was able to see...

[valerief]

1. America has no sol. nt

[DonRedwood]

2. k r for solar!

[abelenkpe]

3. SoCal should cover every roof top with solar panels

I don't understand why republicans who claim to love self sufficiency aren't all over alternative energy putting solar panels on their roofs, creating their own power. What's up with that?

[truedelphi]

4. + 10,000 n/t

[djean111]

5. Because they don't love self-sufficiency nearly as much as they love money....

from oil and gas and coal.
If they could figure out a way to block access to sunlight so they could charge for it, then yeah, they would be all over solar power.

[Mopar151]

19. Efficency upgrades are the cheapest way to add capacity

And the wingnuts HATE them. For the same reasons you state.

[robinlynne]

6. along the highways.

[justabob]

9. so should Texas

and a number of other regions. It is criminal that we haven't yet.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. The largest impediments in CA are environmental

Some at the sites but often transmission capacity

[XemaSab]

21. Not so much for rooftop

[a geek named Bob]

51. So go for localized microgrids

each roof top has some solar panels, and maybe a little in the yard.

At one corner of the yard, have the connection point to the rest of the local grid.
Power gets pooled at community stations.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

61. That becomes a cost issue, though many more of them would drive that down

Right now I am doing serious solar. I produce much more than I use and have maxed out the utility wiring capacity. However, I have a great cost per watt.

Small installations have fixed costs to the point where there is not that much difference between 6 and 12 panels. Many roofs are not solar suitable and the would be some serious investment needed to create a viable network of microgrids. That said, if we do not make that investment, moving away from centralized plants will never happen.

What pays off better/sooner are large sites in the nearby deserts. Flat, no shade issue. What we do have are desert tortoises and a lack of transmission capacity.
If something is not done, be it microgrids or more large scale programs, those in Socal cites may well serious issues with cost, capacity, or both in the next ten years. If I am still around, I may be tempted to snicker...

[a geek named Bob]

62. I am (slowly) building up a solar furnace, using a combo of steam and thermocouple

it's a LOT cheaper than PV, more adaptable, and more robust.

The issue at hand, from my perspective, is to balance out the cost of small sites versus large sites, with the robustness issue.

As I've a few friends in Socal, I may feel obligated to drive out there with some versions of my toys.

(Having a sense of duty can really suck...)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

63. Advantage of PV is that aside from occasionally rinsing them off, residential installations require

nothing. A very good thing in the long run and the abilities and interests of John Q Public.

The disadvantage are the hucksters. Everyone is selling it, hyping new technologies that are going to set the energy world on its ear etc. Not that they are all snake oil, but they either need time to mature, or are not suitable for long term/no maintenance use. The practical PV technology is evolving vice jumping in leaps and bounds.

Microgrids at some point require home occupants to understand how things work and cooperate. The public has a pretty poor record of doing that. If it is all utility magic, the ongoing support costs will impact savings. For them its as much a culture change as a technology and architecture change. Doable, but certainly not overnight. They also do not address the urban areas where there is insufficient available acreage to support the number of people. All that said, new developments should be structured to be microgrids from the start. Some people will see that approach as racist and classist, but we have to start somewhere.

[a geek named Bob]

64. I prefer the solar thermal, as it is less fragile...

also a lot cheaper.

I'm meting with some folks in my city, to pursue making the whole city off the grid, via DIY tech. (late nights, lots of cheap chinese food...)

Each area is going to need an energy input audit...

This is where it gets fun.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

69. The key issue as I see it is user expectations

Last edited Wed Sep 26, 2012, 12:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Power is always there when they turn the switch and all they ever have to do is pay the bill. Counting on any more interest or involvement on a wide basis is foolish.

Other means are cool, could be more efficient per sqft, but often require more involvement than basic PV, wherein lies the rub with the masses. Also utilities require UL listed components and certified installers to help protect their grids. Harder to do outside of COTS products.

Still, the kind of things you are doing are fun stuff.

[a geek named Bob]

71. some of it is fun, and some os a royal fun in the neck...

The solar thermal stuff is cheap and non-fragile, but lacks the "coolness" factor - and is therefore harder to get some folks interested. (Mind you, if you "sell" the idea as steampunk performance art, you get a better reception.)

I'm hoping to pick up more gear at the upcming Maker Faire NYC, this weekend.

[progressoid]

35. And Northern Cal. And the other 49 states too.

[pampango]

7. Why German industry is thanking the Green party

One of Germany's first senior politicians from an immigrant background describes how environmentalism went mainstream – and celebrates the national football team's ethnic transformation

The key realisation was that we live on a planet with limited resources, on which you can't have unlimited growth. To sum it up in one image: the Greens had a poster at the time which said: "We've only borrowed the Earth from our children." That single sentence still sums up the philosophy of my party for me. We need responsible lifestyles: we need to make sure that we don't use up the resources that belong to other generations, but also that we don't use up the resources of other countries. Fairness shouldn't end on Germany's doorstep.

The Greens are more at ease with German society and its values: this is our country, not an enemy we have to fight against. We want to change and improve this country because we like it. And society as a whole has become greener too. When I joined, I would have never believed that the world's fourth largest economy would eventually agree to phase out nuclear energy...

How would you sell the benefits of wind energy to the Brits? That's easy. It's not about ecology: there are pragmatic economic reasons for taking wind energy seriously. Onshore wind energy is cheaper and faster; offshore is more expensive and takes longer to build. It's that simple. For those who think it spoils their view of the landscape: would you rather have a nuclear power station plonked in the middle of the countryside? I find that logic strange.

In Germany we now have just over 20% of our energy coming from renewable sources. All predictions from the past have turned out not to be true: when I went to school, my teachers used to say that maybe, just maybe we might have 3% of renewable energy one day. Angela Merkel says we'll have 35% by 2020; we at the Green party say it'll be 45%. My guess is: we'll both be wrong, because it'll be even more than that.

In Germany, industry is now starting to thank us for pestering in the past, because it forced them to go through the kind of innovations that the rest of the world is now catching up with.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/20/cem-ozdemir-green-politician-germany

[malaise]

11. Fabulous

The Greens were correct and now everyone is reaping the benefits

[fascisthunter]

8. only the most wasteful, most frivolous Americans would be against this

if you need to be enriched by polluting this country, you should pay for the harm it does. This planet is too small for you to think you can do as you want because of greed.

[wtmusic]

43. Solar is a feelgood myth.

Most people have no concept of how little power it actually contributes to the grid.

In the most sunny areas of the world, solar has a capacity factor of about 20%, meaning on average it can deliver only 1/5 of capacity. In places like Germany it's about half that.

When we (or Germany) adopts solar, we adopt an entire infrastructure of baseload power (mostly coal and natural gas) to support it when it's cloudy or nighttime. Natural gas is a carbon emitter. Coal ash contains large amounts of mercury, and is radioactive.

[fascisthunter]

65. Yeah, Ummmm... What's your point?

[randome]

67. Then how can Germany generate enough energy to replace 20 nuclear reactors?

Or is that statistic misleading?

And can't excess power be stored so that darkness is not an issue?

[wtmusic]

68. Yes - misleading.

Germany can, and did generate enough energy to replace 20 nuclear reactors - for an hour or two. That was enough to briefly provide 30% of Germany's power needs. Unfortunately there's no practical way to store the energy. There are many proposals, including huge batteries in which the salt electrolyte is melted to 750ºF or more, but nothing practical yet. Meaning that that same capacity must be available elsewhere and available at any time of the day or night, whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. For the forseeable future the shift to solar means a dramatic increase in Germany's emissions:

"Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government says RWE AG (RWE)’s new power plant that can supply 3.4 million homes aids her plan to exit nuclear energy and switch to cleaner forms of generation. It’s fired with coal.

The startup of the 2,200-megawatt station near Cologne last week shows how Europe’s largest economy is relying more on the most-polluting fuel. Coal consumption has risen 4.9 percent since Merkel announced a plan to start shutting the country’s atomic reactors after last year’s Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Germany’s largest utilities RWE and EON AG (EOAN) are shunning cleaner-burning natural gas because it’s more costly, while the collapsing cost of carbon permits means there’s little penalty for burning coal. Wind and solar projects, central to Germany’s plans to reduce nuclear energy and cut the release of heat- trapping gases, can’t produce electricity around the clock."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-19/merkel-s-green-shift-forces-germany-to-burn-more-coal-energy.html

The truth is that well-meaning people are exacerbating the problem of global warming by promoting solar. Will practical electrical storage be available in the future? I believe it could, but it will be too late. The impending catastrophe of global warming demands a solution now.

I believe nuclear energy is the best bet. Ironically, Merkel's decision to phase out nuclear has only changed Germany from an exporter to an importer:

"Germany's decision to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022 has rapidly transformed it from power exporter to importer. Despite Berlin's pledge to move away from nuclear, the country is now merely buying atomic energy from neighbors like the Czech Republic and France."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/greenwashing-after-the-phase-out-german-energy-revolution-depends-on-nuclear-imports-a-786048.html

How dangerous is nuclear? Despite what happened at Fukushima, most casualty estimates are in the <1000 range:

"According to a June 2012 Stanford University study, the radiation released could cause 130 deaths from cancer (the lower bound for the estimater being 15 and the upper bound 1100) and 180 cancer cases (the lower bound being 24 and the upper bound 1800), mostly in Japan."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

This is in contrast to the 25,000 or so annual deaths already attributable to global warming.

We need some fact-based perspective on what's happening to the planet and none too soon.

[Zalatix]

76. You do realize that in Spain, they have a solar power plant that generates electricity AT NIGHT.

And as for the rest of your arguments: the problem isn't solar power, it's the stupid politics around it that's causing problems.

[wtmusic]

77. And I bet there's a huge conspiracy to stop it, too.

You may find this of interest

[nanabugg]

50. Only the greedy oil baron like Koch bros and others would be against this. If they could monopolize

solar energy we would have had it years ago.

[sl8]

10. Gigawatts per hour? n/t

[wtmusic]

42. Do you realize how many volts per minute that is??

Using scientific terms is so much easier when you're unburdened with the knowledge of what they actually mean.

[sl8]

53. Far too many, I can tell you that. Zoom in really close on the fence in the picture ...

[wtmusic]

54. Ach du lieber

Resistance is futile!

[Confusious]

66. I think we can generate

Gigawatts per hour by leveraging our ohms with quantum megapascals, creating a whole new paradigm.

[Cleita]

12. Amazing considering their climate and we have

the whole Southwest desert to work with. Why are we so inept? Oh, because we are allowing global oil and energy interests to rule us. It's time to overthrow the emperors who are destroying our world. How about starting with nationalizing all our resources now being held by BP and other foreign energy interests?

[Victor_c3]

14. I was going to mention their climate too

It's amazing how many houses have solar panels on them given how much rain/overcast days they have. It would be way more efficient here than there yet we don't see any of them here.

Go figure...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. Guess what?

35°32'5.80"N
115°27'6.59"W

[img][/img]

[green for victory]

18. Solar Two tower was demolished

On November 25, 2009, after 10 years of not producing any energy, the Solar Two tower was demolished[1] The mothballed site was leveled and returned to vacant land by Southern California Edison. All heliostats and other hardware were removed.

Going out with a bang
Edison demolishes Daggett solar tower
November 24, 2009 5:29 PM

"...Solar Two, which generated energy from 1996 to 1999, used molten salt to store energy for nighttime hours or when it was cloudy. Solar Two also included upgrades and improvements to the tracking system that moved the mirrors at the plant. At its peak operation, Solar Two put 10 megawatts — enough to power an estimated 7,500 homes — back into the power grid, Phelan said..."

http://www.desertdispatch.com/news/bang-7374-daggett-going.html

Due to the success of Solar Two, a commercial power plant, calledSolar Tres Power Tower, is being built in Spain by Torresol Energy using Solar One and Solar Two's technology for commercial electrical production of 15 MW.[3] Solar Tres will be three times larger than Solar Two with 2,493 heliostats, each with a reflective surface of 96 m². The total reflective area will be 240,000 m² (2.6 million ft²). They will be made of a highly reflective glass with metal back to cut costs by about 45%. A larger molten nitrate salt storage tank will be used giving the plant the ability to store 600 MWh, allowing the plant to run 24x7 during the summer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. Sorry, wrong picture....

I just noticed Solar 2 was near Barstow. The one I saw is right on the Nevada / California border.

I found it. It's called the Ivanpah Solar Generating Project.

From the freeway it looks like this:

[img][/img]

[img][/img]

It's MASSIVE.

[img][/img]

Artist's conception of the multiple towers:

[img][/img]

That's the I-15 to Vegas in the lower right corner.

[green for victory]

26. Ivanpah will be super when it comes online next year!

Interestingly, Wiki doesn't say whether it will use molten salt for offline storage, I'm wondering if there are problems with that method...

--"...The Ivanpah plants would use BrightSource Energy's "Luz Power Tower 550 technology" (LPT 550):

The LPT 550 solar system produces electricity the same way as traditional power plants – by creating high temperature steam to turn a turbine. BrightSource uses thousands of mirrors called heliostats to reflect sunlight onto a receiver, being developed by Riley Power Inc., filled with water that sits atop a tower. When the sunlight hits the receiver, the water inside is heated and creates high temperature steam. The steam is then piped to a conventional turbine which generates electricity.[16]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. I'm gonna get all "scifi" here for a sec. On Star Trek they use ionized gas to store power....

They call it "plasma" on the show and it may indeed be the 4th state of matter. The idea is the supercharged plasma is run through pipes called "conduits" to places that can extract the ions for power. It's possible that we could have storage in this manner.

Picture two chambers each with sets of plates. One set of plates charges the gas into plasma, another set of plates removes the charge. It does seem like an idea to explore.

It's kind of like the giant capacitor idea only the gas, or plasma would be able to be bottled or stored in tanks.

That show predicted a lot of ideas. In the movie "The Return Home" Kirk gets a call in a restaurant. His communicator beeps and the woman he's with says his beeper is going off. Then she asks if he's a doctor. Back then it was impossible to pull out a portable communication device and have a conversation. (Apart from a walkie talkie where you push a button, talk, then release to listen but no way having a phone call,...with a speaker phone no less...)

[DetlefK]

31. It's hard to move plasma around.

The easiest way to get energy out of plasma is the thermoelectric effect: Two wires made from different metals, twisted together on one end. Apply heat to the contact area and you get a voltage between the loose ends.

The problem is: You have to keep the plasma away from the walls of the pipe or it will melt through and/or cool down. This is feasible, but expensive and tricky.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

34. The plasma we are familiar with is high temperature,...

....it may be possible to have plasma at lower temperatures. (I'm not taking about cold fusion either)

Want to see plasma from a weird source?

[DetlefK]

78. We can go even lower in plasma-temperature:

German scientists invented a way to disinfect skin and surgical tools with plasma: It's a box, open at one side. You stick your hands in and every bacteria on the surface of your skin gets killed within seconds.

http://www.gizmag.com/plasma-disinfectant-anti-bacteria/13464/


But this still leaves the two main questions unanswered:
How do you store/transport plasma?
How do you get energy out of it?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

80. Most of the time when we think of putting plasma in a container it's in magnetic suspension,...

....but this is due to it's high heat to prevent it from coming in contact with the walls of the chamber and melting it. A low temp ionized gas does not need this precaution. Extracting the power simply requires it to come in contact with bi-metallic plates and it will transfer it's stored energy. You should be able to recharge the gas after it is drained of ions so there are no emissions.

Of course, the REAL dream is a light weight power cell that produces high volumes of electricity directly and it's only byproduct is neutrinos. Then you could have a car that you could drive off the lot that never needs recharging.

[DetlefK]

81. It would loose its electric charge and the plasma would turn into normal gas.

That's why you can't just pump plasma through a pipe.

And the thermoelectric effect is small. Unless you have at least a hundred degrees Celsius, you shouldn't bother.

The only way to "recharge" the gas is by creating new plasma and this costs energy.


"...that never needs recharging." Ah, you are thinking of the self-recharging battery in a light-saber!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

82. "Ah, you are thinking of the self-recharging battery in a light-saber!"

More like a breakthrough in physics where there is an E=MC2 type reaction that produced massive amounts of electricity from a reaction that has a duration measured in centuries.

As far as the plasma storage, unless it's discharged or allowed to react with something else, it should last.

[Cleita]

25. It's a start, but we need so much more like solar panels on every roof throughout the very

sunny western USA. Commercial interests don't care about that. We need govt. to help people put panels on their roofs.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

30. They are saying we need the rooftops to be white too in order to reflect the heat back into space.

My feeling is if aliens arrived they would wonder why we aren't tapping geothermal at Yellowstone. Here we are with a super-volcano in the center of the country and it's a tourist destination to watch Old Faithful.

Tap enough heat and we might even manage to cool the caldera and prevent an eruption. It's not like we don't have the ability to drill.

[2on2u]

32. 39 percent of BP is American owned...

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/just-how-british-is-bp/

With tens of thousands of barrels of oil still gushing into the gulf every day, quibbling over a name might seem petty. Nevertheless, it does seem fair to note that BP is not exactly a foreign corporation running roughshod over American soil. As Fraser Nelson, a columnist for The Spectator, pointed out late last week, 39 percent of the company is owned by American shareholders and six Americans – half the total – sit on its board of directors.

[Cleita]

37. Thirty nine percent? Try again. Any company that is 10% foreign owned should not be

allowed to mine our resources. We need 100% owned by the people of the USA not any private corporation, whether British or American. Also, through various merges in the past BP has ties to the Arab oil states. I want all foreign business interests in our natural resources as well as private to become nationalized. Any resource that can be mined or extracted from within our borders belongs to the people to be used for the benefit of the people. Nationalize it NOW!

[wtmusic]

46. Amazing, but sorely misleading.

Solar has a capacity factor which tops out at about 20%. That means in the most desirable locations (Arizona, for example) it only delivers roughly 1/5 of its rated capacity.

Germany's 28GW of capacity would only deliver, on average, about 5.6GW - if it was in Arizona. Unfortunately in cloudy Germany solar's capacity factor is only 10%, so Germany's total solar average output is only about 3GW, or 5% of Germany's usage. The rest comes mostly from coal, which is a huge source of atmospheric carbon (not to mention mercury, and radioactive ash).

[Cleita]

47. They also use wind, which we also have an abundance of.

Go stand on the prairie in a state there like Kansas in the middle of winter. You will find there is nothing but some barbed wire fences between you and the Arctic Circle. You will know what wind, icy wind feels like and there is plenty of it. btw the Southwest is almost a quarter of the landmass of the USA, not just Arizona.

If you put solar panels on every single family residence in the USA with deep cell batteries storage, you will take care of most of those households' electric needs. When there is excess you can sell it to the power grid. When there isn't enough you can buy it back. The technology is there. Scientists who want to colonize other heavenly bodies in our Solar System know this and their blue prints rely heavily on solar power.

Please we aren't children here. We know it's possible.

[wtmusic]

52. It's possible a young child created the OP graphic

A decent percentage of high school kids would know '22 Gigawatts per hour' makes no sense.

[green for victory]

15. pics

(the OP pic is from Spain)

The PS10 Solar Power Plant (Spanish: Planta Solar 10), is the world's first commercial concentrating solar power tower operating near Seville, in Andalucia, Spain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_tower

German Solar examples:

[IMG][/IMG]

Solarpark Lieberose

[IMG][/IMG]

Solarpark Waldpolenz

[IMG][/IMG]

Solarpark Alt Daber

[IMG][/IMG]

Solarpark Kothen


Many Many more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany

How did Germany come to lead the US in Solar Energy?

If the United States really wanted Energy Independence "we" would have had it now,
or at least "we" would be trying...

BTW: When was the last time anyone heard the Mainstream Media mention Fukushima?

[XemaSab]

22. Welcome to DU!

And be sure to check out the environment/energy forum!

[green for victory]

24. Thanks!

And I will!

Here's a Canadian Solar plant in Ontario of all places (known for sun)

[IMG][/IMG]

Sarnia Photovoltaic Power Plant near Sarnia, Ontario in Canada, in September 2010 was the world's largest photovoltaic plant with an installed capacity of 97 MWp.

In 2009, Ontario introduced a Feed-in tariff renewable energy payments program paying up to CDN 44.3 cents per kW·h for large ground arrays such as the Sarnia plant.[5] This makes Ontario's one of the top feed in tariff programs in the world.

Phase I (20 MWp) was completed in December 2009.[6] Phase II (60 MWp) was completed in September 2010 at a cost of C$300 million. The project was developed by Enbridge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarnia_Photovoltaic_Power_Plant

Here's what the US Builds:
[IMG][/IMG]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Bondsteel

[Art_from_Ark]

27. SoftBank Solar Park, Kyoto, Japan

[1StrongBlackMan]

16. So, why ...

is there so much talk around here that solar is so inefficient as to be unworkable.

I don't know about engineering stuff, but have always wonder why South Arizona, with it's 362 day per year sunshine and vast empty spaces between metropolitan areas, is not powering the entire U.S.

I know we don't have the transmission infrastructure; but I wonder why about that too.

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. Corporate welfare.

Anything that hurts a campaign contributor's market share and/or profit margin cannot be allowed to stand. It's pretty basic and imminently blatant.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

28. Obama mentioned building a smart grid in the 2008 run. If he gets majorities it'll happen....

If he doesn't we get climate change deniers spending the next four years talking about prosecuting scientists for saying it's real.

[SoCalDem]

33. Power company/coal/rail/gas lobbyists

Solar does not need to be mined/shipped by rail, and once "too many" people are off the grid, the money train is permanently derailed..

[wtmusic]

48. The natural gas industry adores solar

because every time a cloud moves in front of the sun, a CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Turbine) kicks in somewhere to keep the grid from going down.

And when the earth moves in front of the sun (nighttime) CCGTs are churning away, spouting CO2 into the atmosphere all night long while enriching investors.

Since clouds and nighttime are here to stay, adopting solar means guaranteeing natural gas a place as its invisible, polluting handmaiden.

[Confusious]

49. Sorry, but

You need rare earth elements to make the solar panel, sand they have to be mined.

The panels need to be shipped, and they need to be replaced.

So you'll be connected to a grid, in a different way.

[1StrongBlackMan]

72. So are you saying ...

that DU has been infiltrated by Power company/coal/rail/gas lobbyists?

Heck ... I get less resistance on my daily rag's comment section than here DU, as of late.

[XemaSab]

73. There have been rumors swirling to that effect for years

Most of the people to have pointed a finger have three pointing right back at them, IMHO, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happens.

(And no, I don't mean SoCalDem. )

[Confusious]

39. Because it would take a quarter of Arizona

To power the entire US.

Of course, some would, and have said, "no big loss."

except Arizona isn't as empty as some would think.

That quarter includes the saguaro cactus and a whole ecosystem.

(You also need state permission to cut down or move a saguaro.)

[wtmusic]

44. Not to mention roughly a quadrillion dollars in solar panels

That's about a hundred years of national budgets - just to make and install the panels.

Now if only we could harness the energy behind all this frothy optimism...

[1StrongBlackMan]

74. Frothy optimism ...

or forward thinking?

All technology starts slow and inefficient ... but with investment we no longer have to settle for eating raw meat.

[wtmusic]

75. Forward thinking...

or wishful thinking?

We're approaching the physical limits of what can be squeezed from the utility solar, and we're not even close to making it practical (residential solar is another matter). I've done the math on solar panels in Arizona, and even if I'm off by a factor of one hundred we haven't begun to account for storage or transmission losses. A non-starter.

On the other hand, we're very close to reaching a tipping point with terrestrial climate change that will likely be irreversible. Do we wish on a star, or run with the best information we have?

[Berlum]

36. Republicans block every thing that might help America

to enrich themselves and their oil-fouling cabal of 1% cronies.

[DCKit]

38. I had a candid conversation with our real estate agent yesterday.

She told me that, because we're 100% solar, she doesn't believe she can sell the property.

Suits me just fine. I didn't find it just to sell it thirteen years later, and for sure, not for the kind of profit the rest of the family is looking for.

For those who say it doesn't work, we had 100% charge on the batteries every day last week before 11 a.m. while running lights and the radio until later than I care to admit, and it's only a 1.2KW system. During the day, we use the microwave, induction cooktop and Vita-Mix as much as we want/need without any deprecation.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

70. Grid tie is a sales plus, stand alone rarely is unless you are truely remote

I have a large installation but its grid tie. I made a battery based system off of older cells as a backup. I live out int the twigs.

[DCKit]

79. We're remote enough that we could afford to quadruple the size of the system....

for what it would cost to run the electric back there. Last I heard, it would cost about $23K.

Given that we were one of two or three houses in the county that had electricity (for the week) after the June 29th Derecho, I think it's kind of funny to be experiencing solar racism.

We may or may not end up owning the property, but I'm not going to sweat it. I know the capabilities and limitations.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

40. I just came across this quote which sums up right campaign strategies in a nutshell

and many right wingers are anxious to be fooled...

[wtmusic]

41. Um, producing "22 gigawatts per hour" makes no sense whatsoever

and this (linkless) post is completely bullshit.

Without its own nuclear Germany is almost entirely reliant on coal and nuclear from Poland/Austria.

Sorry to intrude with facts.

[aandegoons]

55. Watt hours are used by electric utilities.

It is the measurement they use to determine what your electric bill should be.

And here is a link for ya.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-climate-germany-solar-idUSBRE84P0FI20120526

The article also comments on the German nuclear industry so it will help you update your facts a little.

[wtmusic]

56. Well I'll be damned.

Reuters fucked up too (part of the reason this kind of nonsense is perpetuated).

Gigawatt hours (GWh) is a measurement of energy.

Gigawatts (GW) is a measurement of power - the rate at which energy is produced.

Gigawatts per hour makes no sense, and is equivalent to saying my car goes 50 miles an hour per hour.

[aandegoons]

60. You are right

It is just a measurement of energy over an amount of time. 22 Gigawatts of use for 1 hour would be 22 (GWh) and 11 Gigawatts over 2 hours would also be 22 (GWh).

And if you think that is confusing wait until someone ask you to determine if a 10 KVA transfomer is overloaded from a house that uses 2600 kwh a month.

[sl8]

57. Reuters corrected their article:

http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL5E8GQ1LQ20120528

[jackbnimble]

45. they would really use the word demon here in hazard ky

everyone here is what they call friends of coal, you know poor and stupid, my god they don't want renewable energy because everyone works in the coal mines, truth is only about 12% of the people here work in the coal mines but they make most of the money here, so instead of trying to use the mountain tops for wind turbines which they would be very good for or solar panels they 'demonize' any resource that isn't coal

again i would like to invite everyone to wsgs.com and click message board and see how backwoods these people are, how they push for fossil fuel usage instead of clean energy, its like i am surrounded by these people every day and its suffocating

[Comrade_McKenzie]

58. Paintsville here. I know the feeling. nt

[wtmusic]

59. welcome to DU jackbnimble