I have lived off the grid for 15 years. I use solar and wind along with a generator on cloudy/snowy days. I use industrial lead acid batteries for storage. These batteries are a pain. For grid tied homes with solar the choices are much easier. The Tesla Powerwall is an option. So is using your electric car as a storage device and you can drive it as well. The one simple storage device is already a proven technology. In Nevada they are having railroad cars filled with rocks powered by electric motors go up hills during excess solar production times. At night and peak times the railroad cars are released downhill and the regenerative electric motors produce electricity; just like regenerative braking systems in hybrid/electric cars. This is a very simple system as long as there are hills for the railroad track to be built on (sorry Kansas this won't work for you).

@kieranh2005

7 жыл бұрын

Landwy have a look at Nickel Iron batteries (NiFe, Nickel Ferrous). Much longer lifespan, harder to kill. Some of the 80+ year old Edison cells are still functional if they've been maintained. Do some research...

@TrollonymousFU2

6 жыл бұрын

I imagine if I had an off-grid system, I would prefer above all else a homemade hydropower system. there's a video of a guy who did this and he is generating 1200 watts continually. he has far more power than he can use just from piping water down a steep grade from 100 feet up the side of the hill into a small pump house, which then releases the water right back into the creek. it's very clean, and very powerful. you could also use solar/ wind or a wind pump to fill a reservoir up a hill, then when the wind dies, release the water into the hyrdopower generator. i don't know why more people don't use wind pumps for home use instead of an electric pump. All you need is a storage tank, and the wind pump fills it for free. save a shitload of money on electricity in rural areas, especially windswept prairie type places.

@davidamichaele869

6 жыл бұрын

every "storage ' has big losses involved, every conversion same story.

@telocity

6 жыл бұрын

Pumped hydro is the most developed energy storage technology, with facilities dating from the 1890s in Italy and Switzerland. Currently, there is over 90 GW of pumped storage in operation world wide, which is about 3 % of global generation capacity

Four years ago bought a 2kv solar system and aChevy Volt; best purchases I have ever made!

@k-mar9587

6 жыл бұрын

how much do you drive?

@dcgallaghr1

5 жыл бұрын

K- Mar

@PeterMilanovski

3 жыл бұрын

@@k-mar9587 he can't answer you right now because he's driving...

*Thorium Molten Salt Reactors* and Nuclear fusion need help from innovators like Sarah Chapman. Solar Energy has limitations: *Dilute : need large area* * *Seasonal variations - Need fossil power backup* * *Intermittent on hourly basis - need battery/pumped hydro backup* * *Location specific*

@PeterMilanovski

3 жыл бұрын

Solar has limitations and nuclear has radioactive waste, which problem do you think will be overcome first? We have thousands of years to perfect solar before nuclear isn't radioactive, but if nuclear energy continues, then we have more time... What are you going to do when solar systems get better? You will have no solar experience like the rest of the world! Your country will be stuck in the past with its 1970's reactors... Just wait until it fails, because they all do sooner or later...

@maithreshpalemkota8840

3 жыл бұрын

​@@PeterMilanovski It is very difficult to store so much energy in batteries. Nuclear energy already offers a solution. Plus, new gen reactors are much safer, produce less waste. Nuclear energy is much cheaper than solar once the plant is built. Solar always will have intermittent problems no matter how cheap the panels get. ​

@PeterMilanovski

3 жыл бұрын

@@maithreshpalemkota8840 I have solar and I don't have intermittent problems! Never have! My roof space generates more energy than I use! My batteries store enough energy to last me a week of pure darkness! If I was careful about how much energy I use then I can get it to last longer! Nuclear energy isn't cheaper nor before it's built, not even after! Had it been true that it was cheap, then you would be only paying for a connection fee, you wouldn't be charged for usage! Then there's the cost for storage of the spent radioactive fuel which no one wants! Solar only seems expensive if you don't have it, but because it's modular, if you really wanted to get it, you can do it bit by bit, adding as you can afford it, each time you add, you replace another thing that used to run off the grid, the less you pay for usage and the more that you save money which then allows you to keep adding until you are totally free from the grid! Solar systems in Australia have become like the car industry, people are currently updating their old 1.5kw system to 6.5kw and selling their old system on eBay and gumtree! For $200Au you can get a 1.5kw grid tie system second hand! And that's including the inverter! This is how a lot of people are getting into solar for the first time! And that's driving the market which is constantly growing! If every single house in your country had a full rooftop of solar panels, you would have so much energy that you wouldn't know what to do with it! The new generation of panels are so good that it's possible to get over 12kw of energy from a single house! You can power two houses with it that both have Electric car's! Sure, a Tesla roof and the Tesla wall is nice but it is expensive! But it's not the only option available and if you have been actually interested in solar, then you would have already seen plenty of videos where people have got solar by doing it themselves for very very cheap! But the fact that you replied to my comment by defending nuclear energy, I somehow don't think that you are even remotely interested, even though you know that I don't pay for electricity and you still want to... Maybe you can't think of anything better to spend your money on? I don't know what your case is, but I do know that I don't understand your logic.

@maithreshpalemkota8840

3 жыл бұрын

@@PeterMilanovski How much energy do you use per day? Also, what about big industries that can't simply install huge battery? Batteries only work well for small loads. What about people who live in apartments in cities?. Not every country has enough light and land area to build solar farms. The soil underneath the solar farms may get damaged due to the lack of light. Also metals like lithum are not very abundant in Earth. The price is decreasing for now, once the demand increases the price may increase. If you look at Germany (world leader in renewables), they burn fossil fuels to account for the fluctuations in the energy generated from solar and wind. The electricity price in France is much lower than the price in Germany. IMO, we must use nuclear, solar and wind together to really solve the energy problem.

@maithreshpalemkota8840

3 жыл бұрын

​@@PeterMilanovski I don not agree with you when you say that nuclear isn't cheap. Sure, building a plant is expensive. But once built, it will last for 80 years and even more when well maintained. The operating cost of nuclear is much lower than that of solar. solar panels must be replaced once every 20 years and there is no proper method to recycle them. The amount of nuclear waste generated is not as large as you think. The total amount of nuclear waste that is ever generated can be put into a standard football field. It is predicted that by 2050, there will be more waste from solar panels, batteries than there is plastic in this world. Renewable energy sources will produce much more waste than nuclear. The half life of the nuclear waste of Thorium based reactors is low and it wont be radio active after few hundred years. The solution is to simply bury the waste. The space required to bury them is much less than a standard solar farm would take. It is absolute stupidity to think that installing solar panels on every house will solve the energy needs. The the energy demand is going to double in few decades. What about 100 years from now? What would be the energy demand then? What do you do then? Add more panels? Good luck with that! If nuclear isn't cheap, why France (75% nuclear) has much lower electricity bill than Germany (world leader in renewables)?

I have 500w of solar and store power in lead acid batteries, not ideal but works for me because I'm frugal with my power use, the most power hungry thing I have is a fridge, my washing machine is filled with water heated by my fire which heats my boat and is 9kg direct drive so two washes a week. in summer I can squander energy, in winter early October to late February I have to be careful but I don't have any problems. I've upgraded to 1kw so winter will be as easy as summer aslong as I'm not moored in shade

@bcmasur

7 жыл бұрын

use a charging regulator to boost amps at the correct volts for the batteries. I'm putting together a modular scalable system out of 18650 li-ion cells.

@trueravan

6 жыл бұрын

+Samantha Kerry - OMG! You are using electricity in a week or a maybe a month, that my house uses in an year!! Poor us!

@tomkelly8827

6 жыл бұрын

Ever look into thermal electric generators to turn winter heat into electricity? It could helps with winter charging

Recommendable documentary about solar ' the 4. Revolution ' by Fechner Media - try to find it...

Great.

"All renewables have the problem of intermittency". This is not correct. . Why repeat the mantra of anti-renewables lobbyists? There are many renewables which are predictable, and NOT intermittent, such as Hydro, biomass, geothermal, tidal flow (OK, intermittent but provide energy for more than 5 hours every 6 hours). There are also many energy end-uses which don't need continuous electricity supply, so these loads could be managed to use electricity when it is available from solar, wind, etc.

@zolikoff

7 жыл бұрын

It is a bit of a double standard. It's true, hydro and biomass in particular are just as reliable as fossil plants, for instance. However, when there's a headline about "renewable energy", almost all readers immediately think wind and solar. So you have headlines like "Town X runs on 100% renewable energy", and the reader is led to think that it's a utopia of solar & wind, while when you look into it, it's in fact something along the lines of 50% hydro, 33% biomass, 16% wind and 1% solar.

@TrollonymousFU2

6 жыл бұрын

they want to keep their sweetheart deals and subsidies. don't worry, nothing can stop market forces, especially with energy production which is vital for life in the modern world. fossil fuels are resource-based energy production, but solar is a free resource they cannot control. so unless they can find a way to suck sunlight out of the sky and sell it by the gallon they are doomed.

@PeterMilanovski

3 жыл бұрын

@@zolikoff solar at 1%, that was three years ago, and three years ago I was experimenting with solar, today I'm totally off grid! Someone else can pay for the grid, I have no use for it anymore. There was a learning curve to going solar and micro wind turbine but it's the best thing that I have ever done... Those who leave it for too long are the ones that are going to find it difficult as more people go off grid, if there's nuclear power plants in your country, they will shut down when they can't run at a decent capacity because there's not enough people using it and they aren't making a profit! Making the switch last minute is going to be expensive. Start small and replace all your lighting to run on solar, the micro wind turbines are amazing, you will be surprised at how much energy they generate, especially over night! Once you are comfortable with the lights, then start adding power points as you add panels or wind turbines and before long you will be getting of the grid and no more electricity bills! Clean quiet natural energy...

Solar panels isn't the issue, it's the price tag of batteries and other storage systems are the problem.........

Global energy system? More like global money income to certain companies.

solar coupled with compressed air energy storage for single home or communal would be cool, would act as a carbon sink to :-)

Because of its intermittent nature, the future of renewable energy depends on having a storage solution that is reliable and cost effective. The only thing I've heard of besides pumped-hydro (which is geographically constrained) is the Liquid Metal Battery developed by MIT professor Don Sadoway (check out the TED talk). Low-cost, powerful, long-lived, grid-scale, in beta-test in the Hawaiian market.

@najeebullah9055

7 жыл бұрын

How about Lithium ion battery. battery packs by BYD and tesla (powerwall & powerpack) are already in operation in Grid and off grid projects

@zolikoff

7 жыл бұрын

+Najeeb Ullah But they're too expensive to be economical in the long term.

@ftbsecret

7 жыл бұрын

+zolikoff they are to expensive now but long term their price will be competative rameznaam.com/2015/10/14/how-cheap-can-energy-storage-get/

The point I am getting at, is that there are very much more complications, than the majority of people spouting on the Internet, appear to understand. . . This is not a simple subject, but so many appear to think it is simple.. . . . . . Ask questions, and some of us can give you some answers.

I'd Put it next to my house but NOT on my roof...If / when the roof goes bad, I see MUCH greater expense in re-roofing with two or three professional trade disciplines sending invoices instead of one roofer.

@hg2.

8 жыл бұрын

EXCELLENT point.

@gphilipc2031

7 жыл бұрын

nicewknd The felt paper underlayment of tile roofs goes bad eventually. Granted they are very durable and can last 40 years if done with the best materials by skilled installers. Still it's best to go 100% new roof and panels simultaneously. Moving into the future we will be seeing aesthetically integrated photovoltaics. Just a matter of how much one has to spend on it.

@Brainbuster

7 жыл бұрын

How often does your roof go bad? lol

@gphilipc2031

7 жыл бұрын

Brainbuster ~ The standard asphalt tile roof lasts about 20 to 25 years but I've seen low quality roofs looking frail after about ten years. A storm can do 'em in prematurely. They get brittle after a while. My current home...roof was installed in 1995 and was history in 2005 due to the winds of Hurricane Katrina. Covered by insurance though. I spent a few extra bucks and upgraded the quality.

@gphilipc2031

7 жыл бұрын

***** ~ Pete my man...Most suburban tract housing just AIN'T built to those standards. I've been in engineering and construction since the early 1970's. Even the custom built homes in my area are asphalt based products mostly with perhaps some but very few 30 to 50 year roofs. Where I live, I'm seeing NEW solar PV being installed on 10+ yo roofs. I say WARNING danger!

Blablabla... Ask the poor people who produce these panels and DIE from the chemicals. And how to recycle?

@PeterMilanovski

3 жыл бұрын

You don't have to recycle, just leave it in the street! It's not like it's radioactive and going to give everyone cancer!

So, Michael Moore?

solar is great n I hope we can make the switch asap. but our food system in the US is a much bigger contributor to climate change than our transportation. we need to fix both for ourselves and the world.

@matthewmacmartin21

5 жыл бұрын

No its not. Not even close.

What about the Harmonic problem that the Solar and Wind Generators cause on Transmission lines. ? ? ?

Your electric bill today is more than what your mortgage was in the 60s,,look how far technology has come with phones and batteries since then and LEDs, ,solar is a good thing

@federico.iglesias.ferrara

6 жыл бұрын

Great point ! ... I´ll quote you since it is a great observation. Regards.

Solar Panels: moore's law is now applicable to the development of solar panels and this makes alot of sense because solar panels alike semi conductors are both children of silicon and like the constant increasing speed and power of our computers so will we see the increased efficency and lower cost applied to solar panels as time goes on.

I think you will see a dramatic change quicker than you think.

the rate of change is not as fast as one may think. In Ontario Canada there is a backlash againts wind. people make money from subsadies alown. pleas see doc. Downwind on youtube

what about a tesla company battery?

@MsSomeonenew

8 жыл бұрын

+Tito Nogueira Well it's a lithium battery like others on the market, meaning expensive but saving in weight and size. Some day the market will have enough of them to be a better choice, but for now people are sticking with lead-acid for larger home systems simply on account of cost.

@7ito1990

7 жыл бұрын

I believe you are mislead. You probably just need the right discharge rate and enough charged stationary batteries. Curious about the POWERWALL though, also by Tesla company

@silverco68

7 жыл бұрын

it's almost 30 year old tech with high embedded costs environmentally and so far no way to recycle. they will be viewed very poorly by historian for producing intergenerational pollution. we need to stop supporting this as it only serves to make a few rich and all of us polluted. Metal Flow batteries like the ones Donald Sadoway is working on are a far better solution.

Aluminium based EESD's will be ready in about 2 years. Efficiency is good, price looks good and aluminium has a higher power density than lithium by a factor of 4. The devices currently in development can be scaled from smalled than household to grid scale. AND a LOT of people are working on aluminium based devices. Companies betting on further lithium polymer for long term are going to lose. As whiz bang as the stuff at Stanford looks some independent researchers are at least a year ahead of them. Still there are other devices and other chemistries coming right now. For household scale people need to look at Aquion. Their tech is cheap clean and robust, but others are coming!

Although traditional solar energy is getting more common, and cheaper, in the long run, fossil fuels were once solar energy that fossilized. Solar is really mostly green rather than anything else. Wind is also fueled by energy from the sun. However, I don't discount solar at all. It's great for the environment, and I wholly support it.

@squiddy2688

2 жыл бұрын

Umm theres no plan for recycling dead solar panels, nuclear is the way to go

Hi, . . Yes Solar is disrupting the global energy systems. . . It is causing big problems, it is erratic, solar does not work at night, wind is up and down like a yo-yo. So they are putting a big strain on existing energy systems. . .. How can Solar and wind compensate for the variable reactive loads. ? . . . The problems of Power Factor on transmission systems, etc. etc. Lets hear some real, proper, practical solutions to the problems Solar and Wind are causing to the energy systems.

@cindytepper8878

6 жыл бұрын

But Elon Musk said ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, And he said we will power 80,000 pound semi trucks with a few solar panels on the canopy over the charging stations. And then the solar roadways. And Stan Meyers. And that stuff that transvestite from Canada invented with 60 year old army surplus stuff in his apartment,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and, and, and,,,,,,,,,,,

You can learn from inplix scripts how to make it yourself.

The graphene batteries are hitting markets now. Those batteries are going to slingshot solar usage everywhere.

@buffalo_chips9538

6 жыл бұрын

You think thats disruptive? Look up sodium glass batteries, the latest invention from the inventor of Lithium ion. Graphene is expensive. Sodium is one of the cheapest and most abundant materials on earth. 3x the energy density, 10x the lifespan, Not affected by temperatures as they are solid state and will not freeze nor explode. No precious metals, no toxic electrolytic compounds and easily manufactured on existing manufacturing lines with minimum retooling. Toyota and BMW are both scheduled to bring this tech to market by 2022

A year on, and its still not really viable for home users. Big scale schemes might be worth the investment but, for home owners, a Solar PV grid-tie system is a 'hobby' or a status symbol, but not too much else.

@RichardKingADI

7 жыл бұрын

We have to hope for a breakthrough in increased efficiency of PV panels. One that is affordable... We're not quite there yet, sadly.

@hg2.

7 жыл бұрын

Bravo! Appropriate for Halloween. This is 21st century SUPERSTITION, complete with witch burning, based on Climate Quackery

@hg2.

7 жыл бұрын

+Peter Crawford The only fairy tale is the Climate Quackery of the Green Lobby.

@hg2.

7 жыл бұрын

+Peter Crawford And everyone knows what gullible fools the climate quack followers are.

@jcjensenllc

7 жыл бұрын

+Neel 2000 really, negative nelly, ever consider that that is a problem that can be solved. look up salt batteries, liquid metal batteries, thermal storage, chemical storage, pumping water into raised resevoir. . . use your fcking imagination.

No Wind, No sun, No trains. Forget renewables!

no mater what anyone says its a good idea YOU as an person gets some sort of way to power the things you really are concerned with. be it a cel phone , ref. micro wave or a sump pump . what's your bigest worry if the grid is down for weeks .can you make your car battery help on that? do you need a few solar panels or a 400 w inverter at the least? could you 'camp' in your yard for 6 months? just what would you do with no power from the grid? these concerns are more inportant to you personally then 'earth warming' frankly. heck no one is going to look out for you like you can , invest in yourself. that may include food, shelter, warm blankets , guns, tools, and electric power.

I can see only a solar beleiver on the podium, she did not spoke anyting about tons of issues with solar...

solar energy,wind energy is better than anything else.Battery also needs resources and chemicals and it increases garbage

This solar energy will f up middle east real bad lol

@SA-lw3xi

5 жыл бұрын

They also have one of the worlds greatest solar and wind resources-AND they are moving towards those sources!

@bennyl7224

3 жыл бұрын

So does gas fracking

This is a screed on climate change totally detached from the economics of world class energy supply for world class economies.

Q1: who produces solar panel? what kind of industrial process to make solar panel, ie does the process harm for environment or what kind of degree to harm environment compare to fossil fuel in quantitative way, what materials needed to make solar panels, how much energy cost and what kind of energy sources to get those materials. Q 2: who produces battery in any kind? and....similar questions like Q1, ask your self first, research on your own. In addition, ask your self a question, why these days solar panel are so cheap. Its easy to buy solar panels and install, but its not easy to produce them without harming environment.

how solar power intrupt energy sytem ,its better for environment

india is going to to be top 3 In solar by 2022 currently it produces 12 GW aiming for 175 GW out of which 100 wouldbe solar

China is massively subsidizing solar.....their dumping their over production in the US.....our solar companies can't compete so instead of subsidizing our solar industry we put a tariff on China's solar panels and give ExxonMobil 65 billion in subsidies we're going to start seeing national wide bankruptcies in oil, coal, and auto related industries

I bought 10 Solar Panels 3 years ago and now my farts don't smell.

loved it ,until she mention the climate change argument.

The BENEFITS are for those with no power now , the choice is no power or some.....affordably.

There might be a power shift, but someone has to maintain the smart grid.

solar will not generate process heat or move most of the traffic any time soon

@bennyl7224

3 жыл бұрын

Can solar build solar yet?

"Solar is not disrupting the global energy system" There, fixed it for you.

@leerman22

7 жыл бұрын

Except when it overloads the global energy system, like in Germany.

@leerman22

7 жыл бұрын

steve b Do the utilities have the ability to control when they buy solar from the inverters? No. The inverters I've installed certainly don't give grid control authority unless it comes to safety systems like anti-islanding.

You lost me comparing Guatemala to China.

6:30 it's already cheaper than fossil fuels

@michazajac5881

4 жыл бұрын

no, it isn't. And that was exactly what she said. panels alone might be cheap - but to use them you need energy storage system, which adds to the price, and then it's no longer cheaper than fossil fuels.

What she said is actually a fairy tale. Batteries, or any other energy storage system, would add to the price of solar. No battery innovations would ever solve the problem with solar being unreliable - because you might provide power at night when you charged these batteries during a day, but what if your day wasn't very sunny either? You will always need to have another power source, kept on as a backup. Which effectively adds even more to the price of solar. There is and always will be an issue with your inability to predict how much energy you're going to produce. If you produce not enough it's an obvious problem. But if you happen to have a sunny and windy day you might end up producing too much - which is a problem as well because if you overload a grid you're going to damage it. that's why California or Australia keeps having blackouts. And there comes a need to rebuild your infrastructure to make it more resistant to these unpredictable fluctuations coming from renewables - which again, adds to the price even more. Not to say no one in the world has any idea what to do with old solar panels. They are getting cheap, yes. And that's a problem - because to manufacture a new one is going to be way cheaper then recycle the old one. Which means it won't have the economic sense to recycle them - it would cost more money than you get back from doing it. Which means you would need to have companies that would have to be paid to recycle old panels - which would add even more to their price. And in the end, you got devastation of the environment. To reliably produce as much power as a single nuclear power plant you need like 400 square kilometres turned into a solar farm - which means you turn all this area into a wasteland. That's how you get Germany - a world leader when it comes to solar power. 580 billion € spent on renewable energy. Should they spend this money on modern nuclear reactors instead they would have 100% of their energy coming from no carbon emission sources. Instead, they got CO2 emissions going up every year - despite all those billions being spent on solar and other renewables. And this 580 billion is just the beginning. The thing is until renewables are just a couple of per cent your energy mix you don't really need to worry too much about their intermittency, as you still have plenty of other power sources to step up and cover the deficit if needed. Once you start relying on renewables entirely - this becomes an absolutely critical issue as you no longer have any other choice than to somehow turn this utterly unreliable system into one you can depend on. That's why the total cost of switching the German industry to 100% renewables is estimated at about 4 trillion dollars by the year 2050. Which is a brilliant example renewables may look great on paper - but in reality, it simply doesn't work. And that's why fossil fuels are cheaper. And will be cheaper still for quite some time. Probably always. It's high time to face the truth - the only way to get anywhere close to zero net emissions is to go back to nuclear.

4:50 Brainfreeze

Solar energy is free. Like Obama healthcare!

@buffalo_chips9538

6 жыл бұрын

The panels and equipment cost money yes, but the sun will never send you an invoice for using it.

first ted session which is really disliked..

more like " I wanna " be famous.

Sarah makes a good cheerleader but a lousy engineer. Study up on EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) if you are interested in the unvarnished truth. Then ask Sarah how many steel mills are powered by wind energy or how many cement kilns are run on sloar power. Then try to build a modern society without steel or concrete.

@hg2.

8 жыл бұрын

Absolutely! Solar is a boondoggle and a Kids Lemonade Stand business.

@johnbenton4488

7 жыл бұрын

That's why we need to do the R&D now; before it becomes our only choice.

@johnbenton4488

7 жыл бұрын

It certainly reduces transmission losses.

@johnbenton4488

7 жыл бұрын

I've said often in the past that oil is far to important a material to merely burn.

@telocity

6 жыл бұрын

Scotland provided 39,545 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity to the National Grid for 24 hours in 2016 providing all power needed for Scotland on that Sunday. True it was a low usage day, but the goal of 50% renewable power by 2030 for all UK is likely doable. EROEI for solar panels from a study done from 2000-2013 shows only a 4 to 1 power return on energy to make solar and how much you get out. This study is used a lot to show how bad solar is. However if you used only the 2013 estimate from that study, you would find an EROI of around 25. today with better manufacturing techniques and materials the ratio is even higher. Now specific industries that require enormous energy may require a generator powered from coal, gas or whatever. But that is what is so great about this, you don't have to have all of one or the other, but can progress toward using less power plants that use nonrenewable resources for most of our daily needs. We need this because we need oil in particular for food and not wasting in on visiting Grandma for hour every week in another city. It is ridiculous what we use our precious oil for. Population is only getting bigger FAST! We need everything to last and use less power/resources per individual. I know as a American I am speaking treason, but it is the bald truth. The future is scary, we need to prepare.

I have been interested in solar energy for more than 50 years and have anticipated cheap unlimited electricity. However, the way it has been implement is expensive and harmful. Countries like Spain, Germany and the U.S. forced power companies to purchase electricity from so-called entrepreneurs at too high of a price, often well above of what it cost the power companies to produce electricity plus the electrical companies had to install and maintain their power lines without proper reimbursement. European electricity is very expensive and too many low income people cannot afford to pay the power bills. As for China and India, you talk of them producing these few big solar power installations without telling us how many more coal power plants are under construction and planned over the next two decades. I am all fore solar panels and led lighting in remote areas of each country around the world, but they are not being produced quickly and cheaply enough, even where the government is against them because they do not want any competition for their expensive unreliable electricity. Pakistan is an example is some areas. Give a more complete picture. I do NOT invest in power plants but do own some shares of gas and petroleum companies since their dividends are higher than what I would receive from a bank deposit or CD on my meager savings in my old age.

@davidkeenan5642

6 жыл бұрын

The UK still burns a lot of coal, mainly imported now. But as the generation capacity for renewable energy increases, things will change. This year saw a day when Britain went a full day without using coal power to generate electricity for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. There's a place for solar in the UK, but wind is something we have a lot of. And in places further north, we're just starting to develop tidal power generators. You can't predict sunshine or wind, but you can predict the tides. I look to Scotland to lead the rest of the UK.

@theman7955

6 жыл бұрын

India and China are investing in solar energy to reduce their dependence on those coal power grids. They have ambitious project to decrease the use of coal as much possible .

Another bogus Ted narrative. Pass.

This woman is detached from reality. So called renewables still only represent 1% of energy production for a reason. On any given day it might be raining and not windy. The only thing renewable about solar is the sun. Solar panels require vast amounts of energy intensive mining to extract the metals and chemicals that are needed to manufacture them. They require maintenance, repairs and regular replacement. There are absolutely no provisions for decommissioning them or recycling or disposing of their content safely. They require vast land costs if there is to be any scaling. To match a 3 Gigawatt nuclear power plant requires 180 square miles of solar panels. Land does not come cheap. It’s actually cheaper to buy a brand new nuclear submarine for 2 billion dollars than to provide the same amount of power with solar panels. In London near where I live there is a new railway line opening called Crossrail. A model 345 Bombardier Aventra train which carries up to 1500 people will pass along that line every 2 minutes at peak times. This requires vast amounts of electricity. There are literally thousands of train journeys across London every day and many thousands more across the rest of the country. Solar power, if you think about it, can never supply all this electricity, especially on a foggy winters morning. And this is only a small part of the country’s infrastructure. Nor will batteries help. As an example an electric car requires a battery that costs $10,000 plus. There isn’t enough money in the world to buy enough batteries to back up the whole country. You still need to have the fossil fuel system as back up which makes the solar system really a pointless inefficiency especially when you think about the costs involved and energy expended installing such a vast infrastructure. The other problem is that when you get to a certain point with home solar installations the grid operators who make everything work find it harder to make a profit when they accept feed in energy from customers. For this reason they have to pay less for it and raise their service charges or just stop accepting it. If you are connected to the grid they can force you to shut the system off because of overloads as has happened in various places in the USA and around the world. There is a certain point where a grid operator would go out of business when there are too many home solar panels. Their only option is to make it financially unviable for the homeowner to install them. Saudi Arabia has spent trillions of dollars on their oil producing infrastructure. Solar is a much more dilute energy form than oil so it follows that a solar infrastructure that produces an equivalent amount of energy to Saudi would cost a large multiple of the Saudi infrastructure cost. The worlds total fossil fuel use is equivalent to 23.5 x Saudia Arabia’s oil production. Solar is never going to be viable. Wind is much worse. Basically leaves nuclear as the only viable carbon free replacement. France gets 80% of its energy from nuclear. No problems with safety or waste. Statistically the safest form of energy production ever devised.

Isn't solar a tax subsidized boondoggle for yuppies who don't want a real job?

@neddyladdy

7 жыл бұрын

I thought solar referred to stuff connected with the Sun, not taxation policy.

@johnbenton4488

7 жыл бұрын

No; you're thinking of fossil-fueled power stations, and the fossil fuels themselves. And when the planet has used up all its fossil fuels, what then?

@hg2.

7 жыл бұрын

+neddy laddy You're full lof crap.

@neddyladdy

7 жыл бұрын

hettygreene If the words you write are true, would you please stop shoving it up there .

@johnbenton4488

7 жыл бұрын

Solar power is subsidised to counteract the folly of low oil prices. Quite soon, all subsidies will be redundant, as electricity will become expensive, and petrochemicals unobtainable. You'll see.

Solar and wind, 30% of the time they work all the time.

So you build solar and wind turbines that only produce energy 10% to 30% of the time? Sounds like a great deal for fossil fuel companies. No wonder they are helping push it. What if your total annual fuel cost for all your energy needs including space and water heating, air conditioning, car charging and lighting only cost $1 per month for the fuel? What if habitats didn't need to be destroyed to install square miles of solar panels? What if you didn't need wind turbines that are killing endangered birds and wiping out entire colonies of migrating tree bats? Sounds impossible? It's not. Check out what is happening with molten salt reactors fueled with thorium and even nuclear waste from legacy nuclear reactors. If the amount of money being "invested" on solar and wind was being put into Small Modular Reactors (SMR) using Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) technology that we perfected and then abandoned 50 years ago, we could have cheap, reliable, unlimited power, that produces less carbon over it's lifetime than solar.

Scrap the lot and start fracking these useless 18%efficient things are a total waste of money scrap the lot and start Fracking