Re: [asa] $4 gas is here to stay

I agree with Glenn's perspective on photovoltaics. But I recently
heard a talk on solar-thermal plants, which is a more reasonable
approach for utility-scale power (http://www.ausra.com/). It should
be economically viable before photovoltaics are.

Kirk

On Jun 7, 2008, at 8:34 AM, Glenn Morton wrote:

> Solar--I saw a guy claiming that we could put solar cells on
> 400,000 km^2
> and generate the world's energy. Fine, I said, but buddy can you
> spare a
> mere $235 trillion dollars? That is how much it would take at the
> price of a
> square meter and a half panel (a Mitsubishi that I looked up). I
> bought a
> ranch last year and wanted to get a green energy source. To
> generate the
> electricity for what is used in a modern house from wind would cost
> about
> $88,000 (four turbines Sky stream) and for solar, I figured it
> would take
> about $240,000. I could do either but when I spoke with a solar
> guy he told
> me to forget the numbers given by the solar cell maker. Those
> numbers are
> for a cell in a 70 deg F lab with direct orthogonal light. In other
> words,
> the rating is a theoretical number. If you put the cells outside
> in Texas
> with 100 deg F temperature you get a whole lot less electricity. I
> told him
> that I had calculated a 30 year payout. He said forget that. It was
> a 50
> year pay out, but the solar cells have a 30 year life. All is not
> as your
> favorite journalist tells you. And to top it all off. If you want
> to sell
> electricity back to the grid, it is the law that if the grid goes
> down, your
> equipment has to have automatic shut off switches. This means that
> when you
> really really need the power, you don't have it. Why is this?
> Well if your
> equipment continued to work when the rest of the grid was down, you
> could
> electrocute the workers fixing the problem.

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Received on Mon Jun 9 11:47:49 2008