Report recommends shifting power-line money to solar panels

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/10/19/news/top_stories/20_30_0210_18_07.txt

Last modified Thursday, October 18, 2007 9:58 PM PDT

Report recommends shifting power-line money to solar panels

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer

Engineer says one-third of San Diego's electricity could come from rooftops by 2020

SAN DIEGO ---- For the cost of constructing a controversial 150-mile power line through the backcountry, San Diego County could boost its electricity supply about the same amount by offering incentives to home and business owners to install solar panels on roofs, a new report says.

Utility officials and supporters of the proposed power line immediately criticized the report Thursday, calling it unrealistic. Environmental groups and elected officials who oppose the line commended the study as a forward-thinking, practical blueprint for steering society into a new era of clean electricity generation.

Authored by local engineer Bill Powers, a prominent power-line opponent, the report states that a $700 million incentive program could multiply the local energy supply from solar panels from just under 40 megawatts today to 920 megawatts in 2020. Powers said he was asked to tackle the project by the San Diego Foundation, which was seeking to examine alternatives to the Sunrise Powerlink.

With a 1,000-megawatt capacity, the proposed 500-kilovolt Sunrise transmission line that San Diego Gas & Electric Co. wants to build would run through Ramona, Rancho Penasquitos and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. A megawatt, the standard measuring unit of electricity, is generally enough power to keep the lights on in 750 to 1,000 homes, although more is needed on hot summer days.

...

[spag68]

1. Providing more incentives

probably will not happen, because it makes too much sense. However it is Cal. so maybe there is a chance.

[seriousstan]

2. Drunken mispost

Sorry

[Jackpine Radical]

4. This post gave me two minor problems.

First, I couldn't figure out what the hell you were talking about. Then it dawned on me that "where" probably ="were," which left me with the second problem: How does this have anything to do with the thread topic?

[seriousstan]

5. Have a good evening.

I am.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm still in the dark, though. I didn't see any explicit reference to the head of the MOD here.

[seriousstan]

7. Gin and 2 windows open at the same time. Sorry.

I posted under the wrong thread.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I hoped the explanation was something like that.

I was wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

[seriousstan]

9. No it is me and the Tangueray.

[NNadir]

3. So let me get this straight...

The power lines are supposed to be more destructive than covering a brazillion acres of desert with solar cells?

There have been a brazillion "world's largest" solar cell plants in Southern California since the 1970's, beginning with the Luz stuff that went bankrupt.

At no point in all this "world's largest" talk has solar electricity ever provided more than 1% of California's energy.

Californians have been drinking the Koolaid for a long time. If solar energy worked so well, Governor Hydrogen Hummer's brazillion solar roofs bill would have produced a brazillion solar roofs.

Last I looked, there was still no sign of them. No sign of the brazillion hydrogen stations either. That's pretty funny because when I left San Diego in the early 1990's, the brazillion hydrogen stations were all supposed to be "by 2000."

[Trillo]

10. HydroHuminator apparently decided that to get the incentive

for grid-tie solar systems, the electric meter would need changing to a type that allows charging more for electricity during high peak usage times. If I didn't know better, Huminator probably had a industry stooge whispering in his ear when he came up with that hundred-and-eighty proof demand. I'm sure there's an entire brigade of industry advocates tossing box wrenches toward anything decentralized.

---

BTW, it seems that "brazillion" and 'Brazilian' are homophonic.

[Kolesar]

11. Read the article, it's stated in the 1st sentence -- solar panels on roofs and *no* power lines

& no brazzillion acres of land sacrificed

[Ready4Change]

12. Exactly. Using existing roofs.

No new land used, and you get more power.

It's a completely different mindset from that used when constructing nuclear or coal or natural gas powered plants. Some peoples minds can not think in any other terms. So when they think of solar they can only picture huge plains covered in glass panels, mirrors concentrating onto a glorified boiler.

When I look at suburbia and all of it's asphalt shingled roofs, I see tremendous energy generation potential. Others only see to see hot roofs needing AC power from some large plant 100 miles away.

[Kolesar]

14. And *zero* energy loss in transmission! ... eom

[NNadir]

16. Bullshit. The "world's largest solar stations" deliver power to users how?

Oh, I forgot. In California, everybody lives off grid, right? In a 500 acre horse farm fed by natural spring water.

The bankrupt Luz plants delivered energy how? By Federal Express? UPS? US Postal Service?

Can you dangerous fossil fuel apologists get any more ridiculous? Probably not...

The fucking water for these off grid paradises comes from where?

While you're fiddling and Rome is burning, did you ever fucking bother to look up how much of California's grand renewable energy profile comes from solar energy?

No?

You couldn't care fucking less, because climate change is all about you waving your hand and holding your breath until your face turns blue.

Well, though shit: I believe in something called numbers. After 50 years of big fucking creationist talk, the grand solar result in California is readily known:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/prelim_trends/table5.xls

There you have it. After 50 years of big talk, solar is the least significant of the renewable portion of California's energy supply. In fact, if one eliminates hydroelectric and geothermal (from the declining Geyers fields) one eliminates 83% of California's renewables. If one eliminates landfills and wood from California's lumber operations (in the North) one has eliminated 92% of California's renewables.

And let's be clear on this, renewables have NEVER equaled the dangerous fossil fuel natural gas in California, going back to 1960:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/states/sep_use/total/use_tot_ca.html

If you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about, make stuff up.

And's let's be clear. The illiterate anti-nuke industry couldn't care less about how much natural gas is burned in California. That's why the NRDC's lawyer - Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who spent years fighting Cape Wind - was writing letters trying to get a natural gas terminal built off the coast in Southern California.

The entire anti-nuke industry is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by dangerous fossil fuel companies.

The "solar will save us" fantasy in California is 500 billion tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste old. Heckuva fig leaf guys! Heckuva fig leaf!

When I lived in Hermosa Beach the first time - at a time one could rent a beach apartment for $200 bucks a month (and complain about high rents) - this kind of fantasy talk about the grand solar future was all the rage. That was 1974.

[Kolesar]

19. Per the article you posted,this is PVs on rooftops that eliminate power from centralized power plant

Your credibility in writing about energy is about zero if you cannot even pick up on a simple detail like that--in the subtitle of an article you got all excited about.

What the activist is trying to do here is to create an alternative to new powerline construction. We already wrung this out in the story about Colorado a few weeks ago. The better alternative is to locate hundreds of megawatts of distributed PV production at the points of use.

Last modified Thursday, October 18, 2007 9:58 PM PDT
Report recommends shifting power-line money to solar panels
By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer
Engineer says one-third of San Diego's electricity could come from rooftops by 2020
SAN DIEGO ---- For the cost of constructing a controversial 150-mile power line through the backcountry, San Diego County could boost its electricity supply about the same amount by offering incentives to home and business owners to install solar panels on roofs, a new report says.

[kestrel91316]

15. You're slipping. You forgot to mention "dangerous fossil fuels" in your post.

[losthills]

18. But he used the word, "fucking" 5 times...

That's true to form....

[suziedemocrat]

13. Thanks! I hate power lines.

They're ugly and so much energy is lost in transmission. I distributed systems are the way to go.

[losthills]

17. No new power lines.

That should be a line in the sand.

The power line era is over. All state building codes should require all new buildings to supply their own power. Then we can start dealing with the mess we already have....

[XemaSab]

20. We need new power lines

If you're building a big wind farm in an area that doesn't already have power lines, how is the power to get to town? :shrug:

[losthills]

21. Don't build big wind farms.

The beauty of wind and solar power is that you can have lots of small installations right in the communities they are to serve.

We need to break with the model of building giant power plants with miles of power lines cutting up our remaining wildlands. That model is antiquated, and no longer necesary...