On 5/11/2017 6:33 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 5/11/2017 8:37 AM, Frank wrote:
On 5/10/2017 10:08 PM, Roger Blake wrote:
On 2017-05-11, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
I'd not call it a farce, but it says we have to do things in a
different
manner. It will take many more years to become economically a winner.
They laughed at the horseless carriage too.

Solar should be permitted to succeed or fail on its own merits. If it is
any good it does not need to be subsidized.

Exactly right. Mandating it will not make it so. You cannot
legislate science to make it do what you want. Too many decisions are
made today by politicians. Does not bother me if investors lose money
off bad decisions but bad public decisions loose taxpayers money.

You have to consider the long term benefit and will it help everyone and
at what cost. The government does subsidize medical research, for
instance. Should cures for all diseases stand on their own merits too?

I'm not against some help, but it should not be just a freebie for
everyone either. Solar will be a big deal in the future and help
everyone eventually. If nothing else, it powers some highway signs
already.

Solar is great when there are no cheaper alternatives.

Just down the street, there's a solar powered traffic radar speed sign.
The cost of the solar panel is high, but it's way cheaper than
digging up the street to run a line to the power grid across the street.
It's cheaper than adding an agenda item to the city engineer's
todo list. It's a no-brainer.

The power requirement is low.
There are no CHEAPER alternative power sources available. Even tho
the grid is 100 feet away, accessing it is still more expensive than
solar.
Great solar application.

50 years ago, that sign would have been a rack full of vacuum tubes
and required many times the power of current systems.
We got here not by making a bigger solar panel.
We got here by REDUCING power consumption by orders of magnitude.

The same thing is happening in rooftop solar.
Thru artificial means and regulations,
the homeowner is presented with a scenario that makes him think
that installing solar, for him, is cheaper than not installing solar.
To him, the cost is lower. To society, the installed cost of
solar powering his home is HIGHER than not doing it.

How can this be? Adding up losses does not equal a gain.
You fix that by scaring people into believing that we're all doomed
if we don't and we hide/ignore the math.
We riot in the streets. We have sit-ins at
a pipeline project. We want to save the planet as long as
it's done by other people's sacrifice.

Al Gore cures CO2 emissions by flying his private jet
between his mansions.
Protesters drive their SUV 200 miles back home from the rally
and turn up the heat, and turn on the big-screen TV and pop
some K-cups in the Keurig. It's easy
to tell others how bad they are for the environment.

Let's apply some 'put your money where your mouth is' to the
voting process. Your vote on climate-related issues gets
weighted inversely to your
past sacrifice in reducing your personal carbon footprint.
You don't get to vote if you've participated
in any demonstration that required police presence. Sacrifice
personally to peacefully achieve the goal you seek.

What we're doing thru regulation and sanctions is to try to make
existing power sources so expensive that solar looks like a better
option. The homeowner doesn't see the total cost on his power bill.
He doesn't see that his big screen TV cost more because the trucking
company had to pay higher regulatory fees. He doesn't know that his
company is moving overseas and he will lose his job next year.

He does wonder why the government can't balance the budget, but he has
nothing specific to protest about unless he admits that he's evil
and killing the planet.

Legislating fossil fuel consumption would be great if there were a
viable alternative.
Well, there is...nuclear...but that's the topic of a different rant.

Forcing the 'system' to use more solar power does nothing to make
the sun shine when it's night or cloudy or winter. All the expensive
technology in the world won't make the sun shine any brighter on
a cloudy day.

Solar just doesn't work by itself. It requires SIGNIFICANT
EXPENSIVE storage and backup for the 50-100% of the time you can't
see the sun, depending on your location.

Ask the man on the street, "would you care if the power went out every
night?" "Would you care if your air conditioner didn't work during the
hottest part of the day?" "Would you care if you had to choose between
a hot bath at noon on sunny days or a cold bath at a time and weather
of your choosing?"
If you answered no to all of those, you're a candidate for solar
power with current technology. Disconnect yourself from the grid.
Leaves more power for me.

Do you believe in catastrophic climate change based on human dependence
on fossil fuel? I'm not so sure. I think humans will find ways
to let their selfishness destroy themselves and the planet whether
we have rooftop solar or not. We're screwed either way.

If you believe the gloom and doom, it's a problem that can't be fixed
after the tipping point. And that tipping point happens before
the problem inconveniences us to the point of action.
Our only hope is a dramatic reduction in population. Turns out that
nuclear is a solution to that too.

Individuals will always choose instant personal gratification.
Those same individuals aggregate in the streets to demand others
sacrifice for the greater good. We're screwed, no matter what we do
about rooftop solar. The same investment in population reduction
would be much better for the environment.