Tesla shows off solar roof tiles

[MowCowWhoHow III]

Source: BBC

Roof tiles with built-in solar panels have been unveiled by Tesla chief executive Elon Musk.

The tiles, made from glass, are intended to be a more attractive way to add solar panels to homes, compared with currently-used solar technology.

The launch took place in Universal Studios, Los Angeles, on what used to be the set for the television show Desperate Housewives.

It comes with Tesla due to take over struggling energy firm Solar City.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37809151?ocid=socialflow_twitter

---

[Achilleaze]

1. Stop the pipelines, the coal mining, the fracking, the endless OIL WARS. Now.

[Sherman A1]

2. Super!

I hope they are available soon and at an affordable price.

[still_one]

3. They already have this that acts both as a roof and a solar panels. They are called solar roof

shingles. They used to be very expensive, don't have any idea what they are now.

[yallerdawg]

13. There's our innovation and technology!

We still get a lot of electricity from coal-fired plants.

How magnificent if we replaced it with "roofs"!

[awoke_in_2003]

28. How do they hold up to hail?

We get that here from time to time.

[Zorro]

58. Musk addressed the hail issue in the video

It shows iron weights dropped on both a conventional barrel tile and floor tile -- and they broke, but the same drop didn't even crack the solar shingle.

[UCmeNdc]

4. Okay where do I buy them?

Need a link

[meow2u3]

5. You really can't tell they're solar shingles at first glance

Tesla outdid itself!

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. Makes sense. Most roofs are fiberGLASS already. This is a logical step. Now, if they can melt snow

off, wouldn't that would be icing on the cake!

The spanish tile style roof is particularly nice. Show near the end here:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-solar-roof/

[NNadir]

7. Actually, this is useless. One of the things that people who applaud this stuff...

...lack is an inability to understand energy.

It would take several roof tops full of toxic solar cells to generate the energy equivalent to a gallon of gasoline or two a day.

The Tesla car has been well marketed, very well marketed.

How else can we explain the popularity of a car built by and for billionaires and millionaires generates so much enthusiasm on the left?

The world just spent two trillion dollars in ten years on so called "renewable energy" in the form of solar and wind facilities.

The result is that dangerous fossil fuel waste, carbon dioxide, is accumulating at the fastest rate ever observed, now at more than 3.00 ppm per year.

The so called "renewable energy" industry hasn't worked, isn't working and won't work.

Have a nice weekend.

[Betty]

8. What makes them toxic?

I have older technology solar panels on my roof which generate about half of my electricity, the rest comes off the grid. I'm pretty sure I get more than a few gallons of gasoline worth of energy per day.

[cstanleytech]

10. Best guess? Probably an issue of gathering the varies materials to manufacture the tiles

not to mention the manufacturing of them.

[NNadir]

17. First, using some generalizations, let's do some energy calculations, since I...

...don't know where you live (and you need not tell me.)

The energy content of a gallon of gasoline is, depending on the grade, on the order of 34.5 kWhr according to the Wikipedia page on the topic; other estimates I've seen in the primary scientific and engineering literature are roughly equivalent.

According to the EIA, the average power consumption of a household in the United States is on the order of 900 kWh.

I don't know where you live, how much electricity you use, or what the weather conditions where you live are - whether your solar cells are sometimes covered by snow etc... - but let's assume you're "average." You say half of your electricity is provided by solar cells. This means you produce 450 kWh per month, and at 34.5 kWh per gallon and an average of 30.5 days per month, you're producing about 0.43 gallons per day, gasoline equivalent.

Now the over hyped and highly subsidized Tesla car is somewhat more efficient than a gasoline car, although the environmental impact of the multiple energy conversions involved and the source of electricity has a big bearing on it. For example, in China, Electric cars are worse than gasoline cars in terms of pollution related fatalities. But the calculation shows that a fully solar house cannot be equivalent to a half a gallon per day of gasoline roughly.

The electric car/solar energy fantasy is just that, a fantasy. As a person who has just completed my 30th year of poking through the primary scientific literature on the subject of energy and the environment, I regard this fantasy as pernicious, a form of denial and wishful thinking, on the left that is the equivalent of creationism on the right.

The assholes marketing the useless and expensive Tesla car want you to believe that a solar cell on the roof of their car makes a difference. It's marketing and nothing else, cheap and dishonest marketing.

We in the first world do not pay for the environmental consequences for this solar fantasy. There are many types of solar cells, all require processing that has an outrageous and generally ignored consequence. It's not really "renewable" in the sense it requires the mining of increasingly rare and toxic metals. The world supply of indium, which is also used in touch screen phones and CIGS type solar cells is expected to be exhausted in 10 years. Recycling it has huge health risks for workers, and let's be clear, that recycling will be done in the third world, by human beings that we in the first world couldn't care less about. The other elements in CIGS solar cells are gallium and selenium. Gallium will be depleted in the next 20 years, selenium is a well known toxin. Cadmium selenide and/or telluride solar cells contain only toxic elements. Cadmium mining in China is a grotesque human tragedy. Tellurium is more toxic than selenium and is also subject to depletion in the near term. Polysilicon solar cells require processing with fluorine.

I could go on for weeks.

The solar industry just sucked a trillion dollars out of the world economy in ten years, and doesn't produce even 2 of the 570 exajoules of energy humanity uses each year, this on a planet where roughly 3 billion people lack even basic sanitary facilities.

I understand that people who buy into this scam are desperately trying to do the right thing, as I'm sure you were when you installed the solar cells. But they have been badly mislead. Energy ignorance on the left - where we only hear what we want to hear - is as bad as climate denialism on the right.

The solar and wind industries depend wholly and entirely on redundant systems, generally natural gas. Anyone who believes that they will end fracking - a crime against all future generations - is lying to themselves.

On the left, it is traditional although criminal, to hate nuclear energy, despite the easily demonstrated fact that nuclear energy saves lives.

We, and I include myself, since I was an anti-nuke fool until Chernobyl blew up have been very, very, very, very, wrong.

Nuclear energy need not be perfect to be vastly superior to everything else, in need not be without risk to be risk minimized with respect to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.

Have a nice weekend.

[Yallow]

19. Never Mind The 7 Trillion We Dropped on Iraq Blowing Up Everything

For our precious oil......

Solar and wind.

And tide, and geothermal.

Only non insane/extinction solutions.

Sorry Mr. Koch.

[NNadir]

31. Solar energy is not now and never will be an alternative to dangerous fossil fuels.

In fact, without dangerous fossil fuels, in particular, dangerous natural gas, the solar and wind industry would be useless, since to the surprise of many people who have mindlessly bet the planetary atmosphere on this unsustainable garbage, the sun sometimes doesn't shine and the wind sometimes doesn't blow, and sometimes neither are available.

One of the things that bourgeois brats hawking this crap don't know about and don't care about is the cost of this crap, as well as - lacking any insight whatsoever into engineering or any other technical subject - it's failure to supply significant energy.

On this planet there are 2.4 billion lacking basic sanitation, and yet, at the behest of smug uninformed assholes muttering platitudes about boogeymen named "Koch" we sank one trillion dollars in just the last ten years on solar energy for no result.

Because if, instead of invoking boogeymen, one actually looked at the climate and the accumulations of new carbon dioxide, one would see, with basic literacy, that the rate of accumulation of dangerous fossil fuel waste in the planetary atmosphere is rising faster as we increase the amounts of money thrown down the solar rabbit hole, rather than falling.

That's because the solar fantasy didn't work, isn't working, and won't work.

The graphic speaks for itself:



Speaking of holes, I note that the rote pro-solar rhetoric thrown about, despite it's obvious failure to address climate change, reflects that there are a lot of people with big gaping holes in their thinking, not that they give a shit, or willing to get off their lazy bourgeois asses and find out about the world.

They'd rather mutter "Koch" and go back into their insipid and useless dreamlands.

The future, should it survive their ignorance, will not forgive them, nor should it.

Have a nice Sunday.

[Yallow]

33. Put Down The Crack Pipe

Or learn to swim....

[FarrenH]

47. The growth in greenhouse gas

has nothing to do with the adoption of wind or solar. Other than the fact that substituting wind and solar for fossil fuels generally decreasing it, regardless of other sources that increase it. Even if wind and solar can't meet all needs, more of our energy coming from wind and solar and less from fossil fuels is good. It's not a failure if it can't provide ALL our needs. If a combination of wind, solar, nuclear (fusion is around the corner) and/or fossil fuels to balance the grid uses less fossil fuels and causes less environmental cost than just using fossil fuels, then that's obviously good. I know lots of engineers, including an engineer friend that works for a power utility. I've heard plenty of informed views and you, sir, sound like you've got a bug up your ass that's making you string together an incoherent argument.

[kristopher]

48. They can meet all of our needs.

Mr. CrackPipe is an investor in nuclear power who's watching his world crumble around him as renewables put that industry away. He's been spouting the same false BS for more than 10 years over at the energy and environment group. Truth is not something he considers to be an important part of his message..

[FarrenH]

60. However invested "Mr Crackpipe" is

there's a grain of truth in what he's saying, surrounded by a jumble of confusion. It is not a given that a country can balance its grid on variable energy sources where people can't control that variation. I'm very fond of renewable energy for the reasons I think most people are, but....

Exhibit A: Germany, widely touted for going green, has to balance it's grid using French nuclear power after blanketing the country with renewable generation. To the extent that they've decommissioned nuclear stations, they've essentially just shipped a part of their power generation needs to France, not gotten rid of nuclear. Solar has allowed a reduction, but not the elimination of fossil fuel generation and nuclear generation.

If you don't use energy when you generate it you have to discard it or store it somehow. On the first score, nuclear provides a constant, high return in energy. That's good for constant supply but a problem when nuclear alone is used because discarding or storing the excess is difficult. Which is offset by nuclear being more environmentally friendly - all major nuclear disasters in the 20th and 21st c. factored in, lest anyone raises often wildly overblown fears about the effects of Fukushima and Chernobyl. On this last point, the single most fatal power generation accident was actually a coal plant blowing up in India, killing thousands of people directly. And the coal mining town of Centralia was abandoned after a coal in the mine started burning. Decades later, it's *still burning*, rendering the entire area unfit for human habitation because of poisonous gases from the mine. By the actual record, nuclear is wayyyyy more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels per watt generated.

Coal, on the other hand, allows you to quickly adjust output to demand. Wind and solar are variable and the variation is not under our control. It has the advantage of allowing the grid to respond to changes in demand easily, as dirty as it is.

Wind and solar lack the constancy of nuclear and the controllable variability of coal. This creates a real challenge to engineers trying to balance the grid, and wind and solar ONLY is a massive problem for most countries. The problem is storage. For wind and solar to be used alone you need enough wind and solar for a start, AND you need to store lots and lots of energy at peak output to use when output is low. Energy storage technologies are way behind energy generation technology.

No matter how you meet this need, its enormously expensive. Battery technology isn't up to the task. Relying on chemical reactions, high capacity batteries charge too slowly. Gigantic flywheels to store the energy kinetically are under investigation. One known method is combining wind and solar with hydro. This is enormously inefficient (a lot of energy is lost in the storage process) compared to, say, chemical batteries, but it does allow a large amount of power to be stored. When you have an excess, you pump water uphill, then release it to generate energy using turbines. For this you need enormous dams, which cover a large area and generally involve massive environmental destruction in that area. China's Three Gorges project has displaced 3 million people and destroyed entire ecosystems.

So naive claims that you can just pick a country and with enough investment they can go entirely renewable in the foreseeable future are just false. It's a real challenge and I think most engineer working in power generation, even renewable generation will agree with me.

I argued with the above poster because his post was a jumble of non sequiturs. You can massively reduce reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear. But its wishful thinking to imagine you can just eliminate them tomorrow because renewables.

[kristopher]

61. Well, that's the nuclear industry's mythology. It's simply false.

I'm not going to go through this item by item because it has been done here many many times in the past, but I assure you it reflects a poorly informed view of the nature of the systemic problems, the capabilities of the technologies involved and the route to a solution.

As an example your exhibit A isn't true. Germany is exporting far more power than it imports. It's coal industry's production is less and less relevant to meeting domestic needs but the strength of the coal producing region's political faction is preserving the industry for now through exports.
As for France, you might not have heard that they just shut down 19 reactors and will be adding 12 more shut downs in the next few days because one of the suppliers has been providing potentially defective, critical components for years.


We can move away from fossil fuels and power the world with distributed energy resources for far less money, far more rapidly, far more safely, far more cleanly, far more reliably, and with far fewer risks overall than with any conceivable strategy built around nuclear power. That is simply a fact.

[FarrenH]

64. Your comment about Germany doesn't inspire confidence

in your understanding of the engineering challenge.

The balance of energy import/export over time is irrelevant. So is France decomissioning stations. The problem is not total power output over time. The problem is the ability to balance the grid at any given moment in time. Germany could produce three times their national requirement on Sunday and still need French nuclear to cover the shortfall on Monday. Whether they're a net exporter for the month doesn't obviate that. And this is what is factually happening. And it's happening for the reasons I gave.

I said that we can move towards more renewables, but most countries can't wave a magic wand and do away with fossil fuels and/or nuclear on a predictable timeline. The technology does not exist for comprehensive elimination of non-renewable power sources in at least 90% of the world's nations. I guess if you're tiny like Iceland its a possibility. But its just not doable for most countries. Every single engineer I have ever spoken to who is qualified to comment has told me this. Some of them huge boosters of renewables. And the challenges have been explained to me in great detail.

What will really change the game is something like high capacity supercapacitors - something with the storage capacity of a battery but the charge rate of a capacitor. Then it will be easy to go completely green. Hell, with high-capacity supercapacitors we can viably catch lightning as an energy source.

[kristopher]

65. Then you are speaking to the wrong engineers.

We don't need any major innovations in supercapacitors.
We don't need any major innovations in storage.
We simply need to proceed with two programs: 1) electrification of the personal transportation sector and it's associated V2G technology, 2) promotion of distributed generation and the creation of microgrids.

PS Your original remarks about Germany and France are not able to be recast, they are straight out of nuclear industry online propaganda. Germany is not reliant on France for anything but an occasional, slight increase in utility profits and a market for their locally mined coal generated electricity.

[kristopher]

66. Development of an Optimal Vehicle-to-Grid Aggregator for Frequency Regulation

Abstract:
For vehicle-to-grid (V2G) frequency regulation services, we propose an aggregator that makes efficient use of the distributed power of electric vehicles to produce the desired grid-scale power. The cost arising from the battery charging and the revenue obtained by providing the regulation are investigated and represented mathematically. Some design considerations of the aggregator are also discussed together with practical constraints such as the energy restriction of the batteries. The cost function with constraints enables us to construct an optimization problem. Based on the developed optimization problem, we apply the dynamic programming algorithm to compute the optimal charging control for each vehicle. Finally, simulations are provided to illustrate the optimality of the proposed charging control strategy with variations of parameters.
Published in: IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid ( Volume: 1, Issue: 1, June 2010 )

Authors
Sekyung Han
Department of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Soohee Han
Department of Electrical Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea
Kaoru Sezaki
Department of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Japan

[liberalmike27]

23. Yet

Electric companies all over the United States, are and have lobbied for onerous "line fees" to be assessed for selling power back to the grid. That would seem to imply that a lot of solar systems are generating EXTRA electricity, or they certainly would not be worried about it.

Here they didn't even bother attaching it to the amount of power sold back, but to the KW/hr, of the system. Each 5KW/hr of generation potential, is an extra $5, which is ridiculous, and far more than the power generated.

Of course they generate for forty years or more, so...that's a lot of electricity not used.

[LanternWaste]

39. Your pro-nuclear, anti-solar and anti-sustainable narrative is consistent.

Your pro-nuclear, anti-solar and anti-sustainable narrative is consistent.

Have a nice week!

[NNadir]

44. I would suggest you don't know very much about sustainability. It's rather tiresome...

...to hear about car CULTists trying to pretend that little band-aids will allow them to avoid any sacrifices for future generations.

The car CULTure is not sustainable, nor will it ever be sustainable, but like the famous broken clock, you are correct: I am consistent.

I have more than 20,000 PDF's of scientific papers on my hard drive as I learned during my most recent back up.

What's on yours? Car pictures?

In most of my arguments here, I point to what our myopia is doing to future generations, generations that will be justified in refusing to forgive us.

Here's an example: Nature: "Current models of climate economics assume that lives in the future are less important...

The difference between me and many of the people who wish to lecture me about what is and what is not "sustainable" is that I know what I'm talking about. I've spent 30 years looking into the matter, and clearly the vast majority of them will not do the same in lieu of worshiping cheap marketing about the ever more tortured approaches to their consumerist values.

History will not forgive our generation, nor should it.

Enjoy the rest of the week. Be sure to do some more marketing for the billionaire fool Musk, since that, apparently is what you enjoy.

I'm not enjoying very much. I have to look into the eyes of young people, knowing what I know.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

14. Creating them may cause some pollution.

After they are created they quickly make up for it since they don't require burning fossil fuels to generate power.

Are you trying to say that over the course of 10 years they don't make up for what the environmental cost was to build them?

From what I have read, rooftop solar can fully power a house. That must be more than 2 gallons of gas a day. Even if that was accurate, that is over 7,000 gallons over 10 years.

[mahina]

21. No single technology is 'the" answer. Wind, solar, and ocean current or tidal energy are certainly

Able to replace fossil fuel energy.

I remember this discussion with you years ago. I recall you think that nuclear is the only way forward.

I accept nuclear as a transitional technology.

We disagree.

[liberalmike27]

22. Let's not forget

The government subsidizes the gas, oil, and natural gas, and coal industries, as well.

Moving us into the future, while driving prices down on solar roofs, and wind, is a desirable means to an end.

They didn't want to run power lines either--but the government began the REA, Rural Electrification Association.

[harun]

67. Nothing works until it works.

Meaning you have to start somewhere. Then you refine and engineer your way to efficiency.

It may not make sense today but it might with future commodity prices.

[Fritz Walter]

9. Not to throw shade onto this wonderful news...

...but, the monopoly utility companies and other fossil fuel interests -- most especially the Koch Bros -- are fighting back.

Why?
Because a whopping 0.1% of their customers are generating electricity via photovoltaic solar panels, and that's cutting into their profit margins. (Most solar homes are "on the grid" and have a net-billing agreement with the utility company; the electricity generated that is not immediately consumed in the house is sold to the utility at the same rate that the same utility charges customers. So the monthly bill could show a credit if the amount sold is greater than the amount purchased).

Case in point: On the ballot in Florida is Amendment 1, misleadingly labeled as Rights of Electricity Consumers Regarding Solar Energy Choice. The body of the amendment further states:

...and to ensure that customers who do not choose to install solar are not required to subsidize the cost of backup power and electric grid access to those that do.

That premise -- that other customers are subsidizing those with solar -- was been disproven in a Brookings Institute study earlier this year:

Net metering — contra the Nevada decision — frequently benefits all ratepayers when all costs and benefits are accounted for, which is a finding state public utility commissions, or PUCs, need to take seriously as the fight over net metering rages in states like Arizona, California, and Nevada. Regulators everywhere need to put in place processes that fairly consider the full range of benefits (as well as costs) of net metering as well as other policies as they set and update the policies, regulations, and tariffs that will play a critical role in determining the extent to which the distributed solar industry continues to grow.

Why would the Sunshine State even consider amending the state constitution to cover this? Because the utilities and fossil fuel interests feel threatened and have poured over $21 million into getting this referendum passed.

Tesla's invention is wonderful news, but this is going to stay out-of-reach for most residential customers if they cannot recover their investment in sustainable energy over time.

Not only "No," but "HELL, NO!"

[mahina]

24. The company that provides electricity there tried to buy our electric utility here.

We got a peek into how much money they donated to Rick Scott's election efforts. Staggering, disproportionate to every other donor. They've made it really hard to instal solar in the Sunshine State. Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Thankfully our Public Utilities Commission wouldn't approve the purchase, and they were under immense pressure to do so.

[kristopher]

49. This is a solar plus storage system where...

... the eventual end goal is going off grid with both home and transportation needs met.

[cstanleytech]

11. They can make them but is it worth it?

In other words do they generate enough electricity to justify paying for them and can they hold up to things like heavy hail and other extremes of weather?

[metalbot]

12. It's pretty marginal from a break-even perspective

Solar panels only make sense economically in the context of the tax credits and rebates available. They are generally robust enough to hold up in extreme weather on average (see further explanation below). Typical warrantied life span is on the order of 20 years for the panels, and sometimes less for the inverters.

But here's how you make money in the solar industry:

Don't sell solar panels. Instead, go to homeowners who would like to have solar panels and make them the following proposition:

"We'll install solar panels on your roof for free. In exchange, you'll buy most of your electricity from us (generated by the panels on your roof) for a 20 year period, at a rate that is lower than what you would pay from your utility company."

It's not a bad deal for a homeowner - you get some modest savings, and your power is probably cleaner (it isn't really clear what environmental damage was done in the manufacturing of your likely Chinese manufactured panels).

The way that the companies that do this make money is by securitizing bundles of 100-1000 homes that have leases into a fund, which they sell to a tax equity investor. The tax equity investor immediately gets a 35% tax credit on their purchase of the security, and they can depreciate the investment over 5 years. The value of the security in present dollars is anywhere from $2000 - $10000 more than what it costs to install the system and to do maintenance (and replacement in case of extreme weather). Solar companies make their money on the gap. Note that the actual investment vehicle is more complicated, and usually involves two investors (one who wants the tax equity and one who wants the revenue stream), so the two investors generally form another company that has a flip in ownership over the depreciation period.

That being said, as a whole, the solar industry is hemorrhaging money, because even though the securitization of power agreements is profitable, it's very marginally profitable, and it can be hard to estimate actual install costs. For example, let's assume a homeowner signs a lease for power, you install panels on the roof, and the city inspector who comes to do the building inspection discovers that the pool in the back of the house was constructed without a permit. At this point, the city refuses to sign off on the solar until the pool is properly permitted. The solar company generally eats the cost of this, because they've already installed the panels,

It's a rough, rough industry.

[KittyWampus]

16. the only reason our current "extract-refine-distribute" model is profitable is because the costs

are spread out and externalized through society.

the only reason, gas/oil/nuclear are profitable is because government has invested so heavily in them via subsidies, infrastructure and both large amounts of legal and regulatory freedom.

[mahina]

25. Great info, thank you.

I've had quotes for installing solar and am about to call Solar City for a lease arrangement. I'm leaning that direction just because of the assurance they will replace the system in the event of major damage from storms, etc.

Mahalo for the insights.

[kristopher]

52. Your homeowner's insurance will cover damage to solar panels from storms etc.

You should consult at least 3 installers and definitely look at making it a purchase, not a lease.

[mahina]

55. I don't have and can't get hurricane insurance

Homeowners doesn't cover the only cause that would result in much damage. Sucks.

Do you or does anyone else in this thread have a cost comparison spreadsheet they care to share? If no, what variables would be needed in addition to:
Purchase price
Interest rate
Current electricity consumption in KwH
Current price per KwH
Price per KwH peak in the last 10 years
Anticipated rate of increase of a trusted source is available
Amount of CO2 avoided in 20 years

Are there any other fields, formulas or other data points that would be helpful to someone making this decision?

I'd like to figure out if I would save much money in the end without our net metering program as that is now over here at least for now. We still have state and federal tax credits at the moment though.





Mahalo!

[kristopher]

57. From the internet

https://solarpowerrocks.com/hawaii/

That sounds like what you're looking for.

As for insurance, hail, lightning and fire are all potential problems with all homes. The solar installation should be covered like the rest of your home. Some insurance companies will hit you with a rate increase because of added value, but I'd shop it if they do cuz there are other companies that see the profile of people who purchase solar as low risk and they actually give a discount for solar purchases.

[kristopher]

51. What a crock.

Since when did a warranty define a useful lifespan? You'd laugh in the face of anyone that say the useful life of a new Ford was 36 months or 36000 miles.
Your anti solar screed is filled with that kind of tripe.

[metalbot]

62. Could you elaborate on the tripe?

My post isn't anti-solar at all, and I would welcome more examples of what you consider "tripe". I'm explaining how the solar industry actually works today, based on actual experience on the financial side of such companies.

I reread my post, and I'm quite sure I did not say or imply that warranty = useful lifespan, and in fact specifically used the phrase "warrantied lifespan" in the context of someone asking how robust they are. Do you have some non-industry created documentation on how long they will remain efficient that you can share?

[KittyWampus]

15. Awesome. Make It So! I also recall hearing about "Solar House Paint"

so much potential.

[kimbutgar]

18. I always said if Carter had won in 1980 and carried out his energy policy

Cars would have had solar roof tiles 20 years ago. I remember thinking that cars in places like Arizona should have solar panels to fuel cars and air conditioning in homes.

[Yallow]

20. Gasoline Costs $20 A Gallon Without Figuring In Climate Change

Solar, and wind and more advanced renewables are the only non extinction solutions.

You don't see Exxon paying for the Iraq war now do you?

[mahina]

26. Interesting! How is gas 20$ a gallon without factoring in climate impact?

I wonder what the calculation would be to load the externalized cost of climate disruption on. When Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute spoke here, he said that we have to price in the externalities. I would love to see that happen.

[Yallow]

35. Counting Pollution Sicknesses, War

Subsidies, and god knows what else.

Got figure from Thom Hartmann.

[mahina]

36. Thanks man. More than one way to figure

Things out I'm sure. Mahalo.

[Auggie]

27. I'll offer my house as the next test site ...

perfect southern exposure. Big roof. Lots of California sun. Please?

[Adrahil]

32. I want those!!! NT

[jmowreader]

37. Glass roof tiles? No, thank you.

Also, what provisions have they made to make these things quit generating electricity in case of fire? I really wouldn't want to install these things to save the planet, only to lose my house if it catches fire because the fire department thinks it's too dangerous to use water around panels that are generating electricity.

[Vinca]

42. That makes so much sense. Think of all the rooftops pointed at the sun.

[NobodyHere]

45. I swore off slrpnls after watching Birdemic

[JonathanRackham]

53. Aesthetically these are really pleasing.

I hope they're cost effective and take off.

[mahina]

56. I asked about solar tiles when I got quotes

in May 16. At that time, (long before this Tesla news) the companies I asked said that each tile would require an electrical connection which would render it fragile and inefficient. I'd love to know if this news makes that information wrong.

[hunter]

63. Yep, electrical connections in outdoor environments are problematic.

These will be subject to great thermal swings, moisture, and air pollution.

Near the ocean there's salt spray to worry about. Once upon a time I lived near the ocean. A friend of mine bought a Chevy Vega and the ocean breezes ate it. My dad had a little fishing boat and the ocean was always chewing on it. There was always some electrical thing that wasn't working, every time you took it out.

The more electrical connectors you have, the greater the odds some will fail.

I don't think larger monolithic solar panels are ugly, especially in new construction or refurbishments where an architect has accounted for them.

In any case, a society powered by "renewable" energy would look nothing like the high energy fossil fueled society we now enjoy.

Solar, wind, even nuclear power, none of them are drop-in replacements for fossil fuels.