Utility-scale solar plants have come under fire for their costs – [Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station] costs about four times as much as a conventional natural gas-fired plant but will produce far less electricity–and also for the amount of land they require.
That makes for expensive power. Experts have estimated that electricity from giant solar projects will cost at least twice as much as electricity from conventional sources. But neither the utilities that have contracted to buy the power nor state regulators have disclosed what the price will be, only that it will be passed on to electricity customers.
But they make one heckuva frying pan.
h/t Ed S.
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/02/14/tesla-catches-fire-while-sitting-in-a-toronto-garage/
“that can light up about 140,000 homes a year.”
My goodness. Even the Wall Street Journal does not have editors who understand energy.
While parking on a side street in Oakville on Monday, I drove my truck up the snowbank and parked it as far in as one normally would in summer. Two foot snowbank, nothing spectacular.
A lady who parked a Tesla sticking halfway out into the road behind me turned to her child and said “See? If we had a pickup truck we could park right too!” Apparently hubby was the one in love with the battery powered wonder, not her.
Solar not making much juice today, given the overcast and sprinkling of snow. Funny how snow lies on a big flat plate that faces the sky, eh?
So what does solar-cooked bald eagle taste like?
I’m just thankful that this isn’t in Ontario, I’ll be paying for the McGuilty/Wynne green energy failures for the rest of my life as it is.
These solar panel monstrosities are all over the landscape here in Ontario. McGuinty Green Shaft policy. Not one of them making a bit of juice today.
Anyone who comes to Lambton County should take drive along Hwy. 40
through Sarnia. On your right you will see the formerly largest
array of solar panels in North America. Proudly brought to you by Suncor.
In Dixie Lee Ray’s Trashing The Planet, she covers solar energy
by saying that it will never be more than a tiny fraction of
power generated because sunlight is “Too diffuse.” They are
hideously expensive like bird shredders and Tesla’s which also
would not exist without massive government subsidies.
Forget the law of inverse squares, 50 percent of the time (Night)
they generate nothing. The same goes for any day that is over-
cast. The periods of peak output even on sunny days is measured
in a few hours.
Give me billions of dollars of taxpayer money and I will milk one of
these scams til the cows come home!
Google threw money at this absolutely stupid idea.
Like so many on the left, the nouveau rich at Google are some of the *biggest* hypocrites on the entire planet. They push this green energy nonsense while they use multiple private jets, parked just a few miles from Google headquarters, to go around the world and party in exotic places.
I don’t know how seemingly intelligent people can be such hypocrites. I think it stems from their sense that they are superior to everyone else, and are thus above the charge of hypocrisy.
Funny how snow lies on a big flat plate that faces the sky, eh?
Posted by: The Phantom
Any idiot can screw up something by doing it incorrectly. Smart people don’t discard a technology because idiots can’t make it work.
Around here the well designed PV systems are free of snow and producing energy on a sunny day with deep snow on the ground reflecting enough energy onto the panels to produce more energy than the tilted ones even if they were clear of snow.
We can lead people to knowledge, but we can’t make them think.
The problem isn’t any specific technology. The problem is government meddling in the market by giving money to corporations who funnel significant amounts of it into the coffers of the political party of that government. It doesn’t matter if it’s solar, wind, electric cars, nuclear, hydro or fossil fuels, that’s irrelevant.
The government should be fostering innovation and development by giving tax incentives to successful enterprises to diversify and improve. Let the market decide what technologies get funding for development. If people want something, it will be provided whether it’s illegal or not. The advantage of it being legal is usually much better quality.