Posted by Robert Baer on June 4, 2010, 7:29 am
Sylvia Else wrote:
> On 2/06/2010 11:03 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>> On 1/06/2010 12:25 AM,Bill Slomanwrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district
>>>>>> spending $20 million to put solar energy in/on schools.
>>>>>> I did a Google search and can't find any info.
>>>>>> The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective,
>>>>>> so I'm curious.
>>>>>> Anybody know more about it?
>>>>>> Mike
>>>
>>>>> I believe they gave $19 million to Al Gore's efforts, and spent the
>>>>> remaining million on publicity.
>>>
>>>> The request was for information about what the California School
>>>> District has done, not an invitation for you to exercise your
>>>> incompetent imagination.
>>>
>>>> Admittedly, anyone asking for information about a political solar
>>>> energy initiative here should expect to get answers drawn from the
>>>> imagination of our resident right-wing nit-wits.
>>>
>>>> A quick google picked upt these initiatives
>>>
>>>> http://solar.coolerplanet.com/News/8110902-fremont-california-school- ...
>>>>
>>>
>>>> http://www.chevronenergy.com/case_studies/sjusd.asp
>>>
>>>> which do seem to involve expenditure of the order of $20M.
>>>
>>>> At the moment solar energy is only cost-effective if you figure in the
>>>> uncosted consequences of the CO2 emissions associated with fossil
>>>> fueled energy generation. Political initiatives that subsidise solar
>>>> energy generation are designed to fill in that gap, and often a bit
>>>> more beside, since increasing the market for solar energy
>>>> installations helps the economies of scale,
>>>
>>> I don't believe in these alleged economies of scale. Solar panels
>>> already represent a large industry. The economies of scale, such as they
>>> are, have already been obtained.
>>
>> The "economies of scale" aren't just the simple stuff, such as when
>> you ship 100,000 units a year it becomes worth your while to put most
>> of the electronics into an ASIC. It covers the sort of developments
>> where people think that the market is big enough to justify developing
>> a completely different way of making solar cells.
>
> Inventing a different technology is not an economy of scale, and there's
> no guarantee that it will materialise.
>
>>
>> This sort of development is highly speculative and costs tens to
>> hundreds of millions of dollars by the time you've turned it into a
>> production line - nobody invests that kind of money until they are
>> pretty confident about the eventual market.
>>
>> Economists don't understand any of the technical details - they just
>> know that as the market for a product expands, the unit cost tends to
>> halve for every ten-fold expansion in production volume.
>>
>> The first computer I ever worked with hands-on was a PDP-8. It cost
>> something like ten times what I was being paid per year at the time.
>> Nowadays there are single chip processors that are moe powerful that
>> sell for about what I'd earn in a minute if I could persuade someone
>> to hime me. Solar panels need area in a way that processors don't, but
>> they are going to get a lot cheaper to make and a lot easier to mount
>> (perhaps as stick-on films).
>>
>> --
>> Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
>
> So why do car bateries still cost so much?
>
> Sylvia.
..because the makers have lead in their pants?
Posted by Bill Sloman on June 4, 2010, 9:50 pm
> On 2/06/2010 11:03 PM,Bill Slomanwrote:
> >> On 1/06/2010 12:25 AM,Bill Slomanwrote:
> >>>>> Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district
> >>>>> spending $20 million to put solar energy in/on schools.
> >>>>> I did a Google search and can't find any info.
> >>>>> The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective,
> >>>>> so I'm curious.
> >>>>> Anybody know more about it?
> >>>>> Mike
> >>>> I believe they gave $19 million to Al Gore's efforts, and spent the
> >>>> remaining million on publicity.
> >>> The request was for information about what the California School
> >>> District has done, not an invitation for you to exercise your
> >>> incompetent imagination.
> >>> Admittedly, anyone asking for information about a political solar
> >>> energy initiative here should expect to get answers drawn from the
> >>> imagination of our resident right-wing nit-wits.
> >>> A quick google picked upt these initiatives
> >>>http://solar.coolerplanet.com/News/8110902-fremont-california-school- ...
> >>>http://www.chevronenergy.com/case_studies/sjusd.asp
> >>> which do seem to involve expenditure of the order of $20M.
> >>> At the moment solar energy is only cost-effective if you figure in the
> >>> uncosted consequences of the CO2 emissions associated with fossil
> >>> fueled energy generation. Political initiatives that subsidise solar
> >>> energy generation are designed to fill in that gap, and often a bit
> >>> more beside, since increasing the market for solar energy
> >>> installations helps the economies of scale,
> >> I don't believe in these alleged economies of scale. Solar panels
> >> already represent a large industry. The economies of scale, such as they
> >> are, have already been obtained.
> > The "economies of scale" aren't just the simple stuff, such as when
> > you ship 100,000 units a year it becomes worth your while to put most
> > of the electronics into an ASIC. It covers the sort of developments
> > where people think that the market is big enough to justify developing
> > a completely different way of making solar cells.
> Inventing a different technology is not an economy of scale, and there's
> no guarantee that it will materialise.
There's certainly no guarantee that it will materialise, but
experience does suggest that there is reason to be hopeful.
And "inventing a different technology" is making an artificial
distinction between the small incremental improvements which we know
about and expect and the slightly larger improvements that look less
obvious in highsight. Improving technology always involves changing
sonething, and some of the changes are more obvious than others.
> > This sort of development is highly speculative and costs tens to
> > hundreds of millions of dollars by the time you've turned it into a
> > production line - nobody invests that kind of money until they are
> > pretty confident about the eventual market.
> > Economists don't understand any of the technical details - they just
> > know that as the market for a product expands, the unit cost tends to
> > halve for every ten-fold expansion in production volume.
> > The first computer I ever worked with hands-on was a PDP-8. It cost
> > something like ten times what I was being paid per year at the time.
> > Nowadays there are single chip processors that are moe powerful that
> > sell for about what I'd earn in a minute if I could persuade someone
> > to hime me. Solar panels need area in a way that processors don't, but
> > they are going to get a lot cheaper to make and a lot easier to mount
> > (perhaps as stick-on films).
> > --
> >Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
> So why do car bateries still cost so much?
They certainly look cheaper to me than they did when I was a graduate
student. Battery technology certainly hasn't improved dramatically
over the last fifty years - the inventors who were busy in that area
around the nineteenth century do seem to have picked off all the low-
hanging fruit, but the inventors did lose interest once the internal
combustion engine put paid to the electric car (whose popularity
peaked in 1912).
Perhaps the current market is just too small?
--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
Posted by Don Lancaster on June 14, 2010, 4:52 pm
On 5/31/2010 6:58 PM, Sylvia Else wrote:
> I don't believe in these alleged economies of scale. Solar panels
> already represent a large industry. The economies of scale, such as they
> are, have already been obtained.
> Sylvia.
NONE of the subsidies address the economies of scale of emerging solutions.
Instead, they REWARD ripper offers for business as usual, paying people
to put known defective gasoline destroying net energy sinks on
inappropriate rooftops.
And SETTING BACK eventual net pv breakeven by many DECADES!
<http://www.tinaja.com/glib/pvlect2.pdf>
<http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu09.asp#d06-16-09>
--
Many thanks,
Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: don@tinaja.com
Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
Posted by MooseFET on May 31, 2010, 2:33 pm
> Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district
> spending $20 million to put solar energy in/on schools.
> I did a Google search and can't find any info.
> The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective,
> so I'm curious.
> Anybody know more about it?
> Mike
California is a very sunny place. In a lot of it, just a little gain
from
some solar heat can save you from having to turn on the furnace.
Since
schools are generally large buildings, the volume to surface area is
large
so the solar heating system doesn't have to be all that big per
student.
Solar electric can make sense if you sell the excess power into the
grid.
Storage makes it not make sense. It takes about 12 years for a solar
power
system to pay for its self assuming you get a mortgage to buy it. If
you
have cash today, it makes a good way to invest for the future because
after
the system has paid its self off, you will get several year of use
before it
needs to be replaced.
Posted by miso@sushi.com on June 1, 2010, 6:51 pm
> > Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district
> > spending $20 million to put solar energy in/on schools.
> > I did a Google search and can't find any info.
> > The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective,
> > so I'm curious.
> > Anybody know more about it?
> > Mike
> California is a very sunny place. In a lot of it, just a little gain
> from
> some solar heat can save you from having to turn on the furnace.
> Since
> schools are generally large buildings, the volume to surface area is
> large
> so the solar heating system doesn't have to be all that big per
> student.
> Solar electric can make sense if you sell the excess power into the
> grid.
> Storage makes it not make sense. It takes about 12 years for a solar
> power
> system to pay for its self assuming you get a mortgage to buy it. If
> you
> have cash today, it makes a good way to invest for the future because
> after
> the system has paid its self off, you will get several year of use
> before it
> needs to be replaced.
The school day is poorly scheduled to take advantage of any solar
energy. They start way too early in the day.
>>> On 1/06/2010 12:25 AM,Bill Slomanwrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district
>>>>>> spending $20 million to put solar energy in/on schools.
>>>>>> I did a Google search and can't find any info.
>>>>>> The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective,
>>>>>> so I'm curious.
>>>>>> Anybody know more about it?
>>>>>> Mike
>>>
>>>>> I believe they gave $19 million to Al Gore's efforts, and spent the
>>>>> remaining million on publicity.
>>>
>>>> The request was for information about what the California School
>>>> District has done, not an invitation for you to exercise your
>>>> incompetent imagination.
>>>
>>>> Admittedly, anyone asking for information about a political solar
>>>> energy initiative here should expect to get answers drawn from the
>>>> imagination of our resident right-wing nit-wits.
>>>
>>>> A quick google picked upt these initiatives
>>>
>>>> http://solar.coolerplanet.com/News/8110902-fremont-california-school- ...
>>>>
>>>
>>>> http://www.chevronenergy.com/case_studies/sjusd.asp
>>>
>>>> which do seem to involve expenditure of the order of $20M.
>>>
>>>> At the moment solar energy is only cost-effective if you figure in the
>>>> uncosted consequences of the CO2 emissions associated with fossil
>>>> fueled energy generation. Political initiatives that subsidise solar
>>>> energy generation are designed to fill in that gap, and often a bit
>>>> more beside, since increasing the market for solar energy
>>>> installations helps the economies of scale,
>>>
>>> I don't believe in these alleged economies of scale. Solar panels
>>> already represent a large industry. The economies of scale, such as they
>>> are, have already been obtained.
>>
>> The "economies of scale" aren't just the simple stuff, such as when
>> you ship 100,000 units a year it becomes worth your while to put most
>> of the electronics into an ASIC. It covers the sort of developments
>> where people think that the market is big enough to justify developing
>> a completely different way of making solar cells.
>
> Inventing a different technology is not an economy of scale, and there's
> no guarantee that it will materialise.
>
>>
>> This sort of development is highly speculative and costs tens to
>> hundreds of millions of dollars by the time you've turned it into a
>> production line - nobody invests that kind of money until they are
>> pretty confident about the eventual market.
>>
>> Economists don't understand any of the technical details - they just
>> know that as the market for a product expands, the unit cost tends to
>> halve for every ten-fold expansion in production volume.
>>
>> The first computer I ever worked with hands-on was a PDP-8. It cost
>> something like ten times what I was being paid per year at the time.
>> Nowadays there are single chip processors that are moe powerful that
>> sell for about what I'd earn in a minute if I could persuade someone
>> to hime me. Solar panels need area in a way that processors don't, but
>> they are going to get a lot cheaper to make and a lot easier to mount
>> (perhaps as stick-on films).
>>
>> --
>> Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
>
> So why do car bateries still cost so much?
>
> Sylvia.