If you can't produce electricity at a reasonable cost that makes a profit for the energy company, then it should be nationalized.
Trump energy policy key to reviving economy — Biden plan destroys jobs, raise costs
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If you can't produce electricity at a reasonable cost that makes a profit for the energy company, then it should be nationalized.
Solar is relatively new, with the new interest in it, it will become more profitable and efficient, like most new technology.
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
Companies can. They just can't do it with solar and wind because these are by their very nature far too inefficient. If you want a zero-carbon or that outcome as close as possible, then the solution is nuclear backed by natural gas. Not only does it give you that outcome, it is far, far more environmentally friendly overall than the stupidity of wind and solar.
The only thing holding back our economy are the morons in the PHONY media and Party of the Jackass. If they would stop promoting mass hysteria and get out of the way, the economy is poised to explode.
In the unlikely event a dementia laden geriatric dumbass like Biden could win an election, the daily bombardment of virus news would basically evaporate much like the PHONY media ignoring the violent protesting mobs in Blue City urban shit holes.
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
Solar power was invented in 1885. It's been around for well over a century and it has never worked well. You cannot change the 1.4 KW / m2 average watt density of sunlight. You cannot get more energy out than you put in and 100% efficiency is also not possible. You cannot get around the FACT the sun doesn't shine on any particular location on the planet 24/7. You can't get around the planet's weather systems. Sometimes the wind isn't going to blow and other times it will blow too hard. You can't get around the fact that PV solar and wind generation by chemistry and their nature produce DC power that then has to be converted to AC power to be dispatchable.
Solar and wind are demonstrable failures and the more they are used the clearer that is becoming.
A lie filled PUFF piece written the Communications Director at Energy Innovation, where he leads all media relations and communications efforts.
You really are an idiot of epic proportions you know that?
How about Ivanpah?
The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:
Evergreen Solar ($24 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($69 million)*
AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.5 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
Abound Solar ($374 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Schneider Electric ($86 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.4 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)*
UniSolar ($100 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($120 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($150 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($10 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
floridafan
Verified User
You just dont care how many people die, how many people are incapacitated by this virus, just so you can re elect trump. Thats just what it boils down to. If we had 1 million deaths, it would just be a cost of doing business, to you.
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
I really like ECOtality as a utterly complete fail. About $120 million of that money they got was government grants. The company was to install charging stations for battery cars here in the Phoenix metro area. The company made a total...TOTAL... of just shy of $5000 in revenue from their operations before going bankrupt.
Most of the stations have been repeatedly vandalized by copper thieves, and of course the usual graffiti as most sit in locations making them easy targets.
BartenderElite
Verified User
The conclusion simply isn't true.
That's like saying in the early '70's that computers had been around since ancient China and that there was clearly no way they could ever be made for widespread personal use.
There is zero doubt: the current struggles with putting wind & solar on a mass scale in a viable & inexpensive way will be overcome, once need demands it. That will include storage of energy to overcome darkness/lack of wind.
You don't put much faith in American ingenuity & drive. We can send people to the moon - but we have to set our minds to it.
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
You'd be wrong. Modern electronic computers started to be made in the 1960's. Mechanical devices that could perform numerical functions have been around for thousands of years. The first gold-selenium photovoltaic cell was invented in 1883 by Charles Fritts. It uses the EXACT same principle of operation that current PV cells use. The "modern" version was invented from that basis by Bell Labs in 1954. Since then, there has been little change in the science other than to improve materials and production methods.
Also, the chemistry is well known and understood. You cannot get more than around 2 VDC out of a single solar cell. The ampacity of each cell is determined by its size and to a lessor extent the quality and purity of the materials used in making it. It is also well understood that these cells, like any other form of battery, lose potency over time. PV solar panels lose between 1 and 2% of their capacity per year. When they get down around 70% it starts being an issue as the voltage produced starts to fall off meaning it can no longer be converted easily to equivalent AC power. Thus PV solar panels have a run life of between 20 and 30 years.
With wind, the biggest issue is aeolian dust that literally sandblasts the turbine blades resulting in a massive increase over expected wear. There are also ongoing issues with off-shore wind and corrosion.
As for storage, this is just and added unnecessary expense if the systems were reliable. For solar the capacity factor is usually between 20 and 25%. That means you need 4 to 5 times the actual output capacity to get one KW day of power out of a solar plant and need to have storage for 4 to 5 times the plant's output. That is utterly insane.
The answer is nuclear and natural gas. It's that simple.
Sure, if they jack up the costs and cut corners....
"inefficient" in this context means "not profitable".
So if an energy company can't make a profit off energy, then it shouldn't be privately run. Period. Full stop.
Nonsense, of course. People can power their homes with solar panels already. The wind farms in MA and NY are actually producing MORE energy than predicted.
The benefit to renewables is that we aren't tied to a global price of a commodity anymore. Because the sun and wind are free. There is no global sun market.
Thank China for that you ignorant partisan hack.
Thank China for Low Gas Prices?
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
So, why should energy companies be forced by government fiat to do what isn't profitable when there are better choices? Why should government do something that isn't profitable when alternatives that are are available?
And they pay for that power in the cost of the system they install. Essentially, they are buying about 20 years of electrical power today and in the end they save nothing over buying it commercially. But they get the joys of ownership in having to maintain their system which will be anything by maintenance and trouble free for those 20 years.
Yes you are. There is a market for the output and that drives the value of the product. As Germany has discovered there are times when the system produces so much power they have to pay people to use more, and other times where there is scarcity so the price rises dramatically. The overall effect is the market is unstable and that uncertainty drives prices up to about 3 to 4 times what they'd be with a stable conventional grid.
Because energy is an essential service. Everyone needs it, everyone can't live without it. If you're telling me that a company cannot produce energy and be profitable, then the only conclusion one can draw from that is that energy companies themselves are useless and pointless. They have ONE JOB; deliver energy. And you're telling me that they cannot do that ONE JOB in a cost effective way.
So if they cannot even do ONE JOB, then what is the point?
You obviously don't know much about solar power. So it's impossible to have a good faith debate with you about this.
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
Yes. That's why we need reliable inexpensive power systems. That means nuclear and natural gas if you want it low / no carbon output. Wind and solar are failures. It's that simple. But energy companies are being mandated--ORDERED--by government to use solar and wind regardless of what losers these are economically. The result is an increasingly unstable grid and rising energy costs.
What I'm telling you is that government mandated solar and wind forced on energy companies makes the later costly and inefficient. That is because they are being told to use what doesn't work and can't be made to work.
What works is nuclear and natural gas.