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Post by will on Jun 18, 2012 11:46:14 GMT -5
Not completely on the usual peak oil topic, but interesting anyway. Solar power is currently exploding in use. As the article points out, it is at the expense of nuclear. For the time being. Never mind what it's currently chewing into, the point is that it is becoming more and more viable as a source of power. I don't think it will ever satisfy our needs entirely, but putting a dent in consumption of other kinds of power can't be a bad thing at all. ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/06/18/1048871/the-exponential-growth-in-solar-consumption/ |
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Post by ty454 on Jun 18, 2012 19:34:59 GMT -5
I hope it continues to grow. Unfortunately I'm not holding my breath for the US. Seems like most conservatives are against it just because it's associated with Democrats for some reason. I don't really expect it to catch on in the US on a large scale until electricity costs actually become realistic. I believe the bulk of that growth was in Europe, and now they're broke anyway so we'll see. We looked at adding a system to our house in 2010 that would offset much of our electric usage but the cost was around $70k installed. Cut that down to $20k and maybe we can talk. The other thing is that it can be really difficult to get everything straight with the electric company. Between all the permits it's almost impossible for the DIY to install, and paying a company to handle the permitting for you is expensive. It's probably quite a bit cheaper now than when I priced it out in 2010, but with electric at $0.09/kwh I can find much better RoI for my money (like refinancing). I'm also wary of extrapolating an exponential function to predict the future.
Finally, it's not really a player with regards to peak oil because we've never really had an energy problem, but we have a liquid fuels problem, which electricity doesn't do that much to solve. Maybe if we all start driving electrics then I'd get excited, but looking around here it seems like people are going in the exact opposite direction and back to buying big SUVs.
Still, I often daydream about a solar installation combined with a solar hot water system piggybacked onto a thermal mass storage system in my basement. If I was sure I was going to stay here through retirement I'd already be working on it, but for now I'm just not sure.
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Post by will on Jun 18, 2012 19:44:44 GMT -5
I think about the same way you do, except I would like to figure out some form of wind power to go along with the solar. There's a kind of smallish wind turbine that can make power from low speed, swirling winds, but it's not cost effective just yet.
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Post by kitkat on Jun 19, 2012 9:42:09 GMT -5
Yup...  Case and projections for Germany per kw/hr. (10cents eu =12 cents us.) |
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Post by kitkat on Jun 19, 2012 9:43:13 GMT -5
Yup... Case and projections for Germany per kw/hr. (10cents eu =12 cents us.) 2020 projection is still about double the hydroelectric power price. |
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Post by will on Jun 19, 2012 10:00:22 GMT -5
Some places don't have hydroelectric power, so they need to use something.
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