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4 Responses to What action should I take to streamline the tons of “soft costs” needed to install solar in the US?

1. Germany is not a good example for your cause. It is now considering going back to coal, since it cannot meet the demands of the whole of Germany.

   

   Sagebrush
   October 2, 2013 at 5:29 pm
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2. Solar is not the answer, wind power is. The US cannot be self sufficient on solar power, by a long shot.

   Wind power is everywhere, all the time and much simpler. Solar power, is perhaps the most expensive and real estate consuming technology, right now.

   .Germany swore off nuclear power when they realized it was an unworkable technology. They expect to be nuclear free by 2015 and fossil free by 2025..

   Solar mirror technology might work in the Sahara desert to generate steam and transport electric energy back to Europe.

   .

   

   mariskalen kampf Strudl v.Wurst!
   October 2, 2013 at 5:30 pm
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3. You don’t seem to understand the fundamental basics of fossil fuel and solar.

   Fossil fuel is solar energy that has been chemically stored, it was collected by nature over hundreds of millions to billions of years through photosynthesis. Photosynthesis of modern plants are only about 0.5% to 1% efficient and the process of photosynthesis has a maximum efficiency of 6.6% plus only a small fraction of the plants were entombed geologically to become the fossil reserves of today but over the hundreds of millions of years that it has been happening for, the reserves are truly huge.

   Even though some of the fossil reserves may be difficult to collect, it would be very difficult to compete with the solar energy collected by nature with solar energy collected now. For the foreseeable future, the costs of solar will always exceed that of fossil fuels. Indeed, as of 2007, the effective cost of solar power was 38 cents a kwh while that of coal was 0.6 cents a kwh, not just one magnitude difference but two magnitudes of difference.

   Of course the problem with fossil fuels are that it’s use releases the carbon that has been sequestered for hundreds of millions of years back into the environment at a rate far in excess of it’s collection by nature. There are reasons to abandon fossil fuels but the costs involved is huge and would be realized on a larger scale than just capital expenditures, or “soft” costs as you put it, the costs would be realized in economic growth, in competitiveness, in jobs and employment. The consequences of these costs can be disastrous, A loss of competitiveness means your businesses are replaced by your competitors and you get nothing, a loss of a job means no food or shelter for a family. With current clean energy, you can have a transition but the costs to people are high.

   What is needed is a source of energy that is a lower cost than the fossil reserves of solar energy and we actually have one. It would be possible for Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors to cost less than coal as Thorium are orders of magnitude more common than Uranium, easily refined and easily detected from orbit. The technology also can not melt down, can not leak, can not explode, shuts down safely without power, stays safely shutdown without power, and consumes our existing nuclear wastes leaving only a small amount that only needs to be stored for 300 years instead of the 10,000 or more required of existing nuclear wastes. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors were only abandoned as it produced inferior weapons grade material and without solid core fuel rods, the manufacturers had no way to steer the profits to themselves much as inkjet printer manufacturers steer the profits through inkjet cartridges.

   Eventually, our power should come from solar but it’s really the wrong tree to climb because of the fundamental basic of solar energy collected now versus solar energy collected over millions of years, fundamentally, solar can’t overthrow itself that has already been collected.

   Germany subsidized solar in hopes that mass production would cut prices and it did. Consequently many companies expanded their operations to meet the increase in demand and borrowed to do so. Governments like the US offered loans to the solar companies to expand and some took them up on the offer. The result was that the 2008 economic crisis led to the subsidies being cut, the market dropped dramatically but the companies had already taken the risk of expanding and many had leveraged this risk beyond the income levels they could obtain therefore they went out of business. Germany did reduce the cost of solar production through 2007 but the subsidies also resulted in many bankruptcies and loss of technology in 2008. Germany’s efforts has done as much to harm the progress of solar as it has to promote it, perhaps more harm, this has been the story behind subsidies for all of recorded history. Subsidization is a dangerous game to advocate without an appreciation of financial risks. Very few civic protesters have the calculus background and education to understand the risks of what they are so ardently arguing for. Would you really risk destroying perhaps recessing the progress of solar for short term gains?

   

   John W
   October 2, 2013 at 5:34 pm
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4. The soft costs are not so high, if you ask me. The paperwork needed to install our rooftop system was the same as any relatively minor construction project – a trip to city hall, and a permit for $ 200. I would not want to do away with that, because it includes an inspection. The reason things are inspected is to make sure they are safe. If someone puts in an extra room on their house, I would hope that they get a permit and inspection. There was also a permission to connect required from the power company. That took 5 minutes online to do. I found out later that I could have gotten the city permit online, too.

   In fact, prices of solar panels have fallen dramatically. They are about 1/4 the price that they were 7 years ago.

   

   roderick_young
   October 2, 2013 at 6:12 pm
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