President Bush Signs Pro-Solar Energy Bill

[Dover]

Against Backdrop of Concentrating Solar Dish System, President Bush Signs Pro-Solar Energy Bill



Aug. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- "The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) applauds President Bush and the Congress for producing the strongest national policy for solar power in two decades," said SEIA President Rhone Resch.

"The President toured the National Solar Thermal Test Facility at Sandia National Laboratories today, underscoring the message that Washington wants solar power to play a significant role in our nation's future energy supply. The solar tax provisions in this Energy Bill will help the U.S. solar industry to meet that challenge.

"For the first time since 1985, homeowners who install solar energy systems will receive a tax credit worth 30 percent of the system cost, capped at $2,000. Businesses that purchase solar equipment will also receive a credit worth 30 percent of the system cost. These tax credits will bring solar power costs over the tipping point in many areas of the country, and the United States has the best solar resources of any country in the industrialized world..>

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=51443

[DrJackson]

1. First time since 1985, hmmmm

Interesting to note that when Jimmy Carter was in the White House he had a solar heating panel installed on the roof. One source reports that this panel provided about 20 percent of the energy used by the White House. Carter also established tax credits for people that installed solar panels on their homes.

One of Reagan's first actions after taking office was the removal of the White House solar panel. This was followed shortly thereafter by the cancellation of the solar panel tax credit.

It should be interesting to note to Bushies that their El Presidente is following Carter's lead and reversing one of Reagan's decisions.

edit: here is a link to a good article about Carter's environmental initiatives as related to the Reagan and W administrations.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0503-22.htm

[Ian David]

5. I was thinking the same thing. n/t

[Ian David]

2. Unless I'm wrong, this makes THREE Bush policies I don't hate

1) CAN-SPAM (deeply flawed, but okay for now)
2) The Do Not Call Registry (flawed, but acceptable)
3) The new Solar Energy program

Too bad he's fucked-up everything else.

How many solar panels could we have built for $187 Billion?

[earthside]

3. Typical Crap

I was at the National Rewewable Energy Labratory for a presntation last Saturday. I was told by one of the scientists that a house would need four kilowatts of photovoltaics to operate 'off the grid'.

Today, that would cost $40,000. So, a $2000 cap is almost meaningless.

This is NOT a "Pro-Solar Energy Bill". This is a pro-petroleum/coal/nuclear corporation energy bill.

[Ian David]

6. I may not be able to go "off the grid," but what I'd like solar power to..

1) Run the pump on my oil-fired heater (so it can run on batteries during a black-out).
2) Keep my burglar alarm functioning if the power is out for more than 48 hours (which is when the back-up battery goes dead).
3) Provide enough power to keep my house functioning "at rest" (when all the appliances are "off" but still drawing power).
4) Charging an electrically powered or hybrid vehicle.

[DrJackson]

8. It's a start

If the majority of homes and businesses could harness solar power for even 25% of their energy needs, it would be a big step toward true "energy independence".

I'm actively lobbying my household to take this step, and preaching this idea to anyone that will listen, but we need to get the prices of decent panels down into a more affordable price range before this can really become a viable movement.

[Ian David]

9. How much energy and resources does it cost to create a solar panel...

and how long does it take to recoup that cost?

How many toxic chemicals and solvents are used in that process?

And how long is the life of a solar panel?

And when the panel is finally worn-out, how recyclable is it?

What we really need are organic chlorophyll-based solar panels made from algae.

[DrJackson]

10. Now that is a good idea

"What we really need are organic chlorophyll-based solar panels made from algae."

I never thought of that -- do you have any links to information about this?

[Ian David]

11. Artificial Photosynthesis

Spinach could power better solar cells
18:33 21 September 2004
NewScientist.com news service
Will Knight

An electronic device that uses spinach to convert light into electrical charge has been developed by US researchers.

Shuguang Zhang at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, and research collaborators integrated a protein complex derived from spinach chloroplasts with organic semiconductors to make a solar cell that could be combined with solid state electronics.

Chloroplasts are structures in plants cells, packed with chlorophyll - the substance that gives leaves their green colour and allows them to photosynthesise.

"Nature has been doing this for billions of years," Zhang told New Scientist. "This is the first time we've been able to harness it."

The resulting cells are much thinner and lighter than existing solar panels and could eventually be used to make much more efficient panels, says Zhang.

More:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6434

[phantom power]

12. Might be a lot more effective to just leverage regular photosynthesis.

Scenarios where we grow algae and process it into biodiesel seem fairly promising, although there are logistical issues with growing algae on the massive industrial scale needed to replace our current oil demand with biodiesel.

[Ian David]

13. Biodiesel = global warming + greenhouse gasses + particulates. n/t

[dcfirefighter]

15. Biodiesel tends to be a carbon sink

rather than a source. Every atom of carbon used by by an algae plant comes from the atmosphere. Some goes to make lipids the oil. Some goes t make protiens and carbohydrates (which would likely be used to make the alcohols used in processing vegetable oil into biodiesel). Some of the carbon used by the plant would be used as a waste product, probably animal feed. The animals would the process the carbs & proteins into animal proteins, lipids, and waste. The waste would then probably return to the soil, and be sequestered there as organic humus.

The particulate problem would still exist, though that tends to be a global cooling thing, rather than a global warming thing. Also, new diesel motors and biodiesel tend to produce much less particulate matter than old diesel motors and petrodiesel.

[phantom power]

16. I disagree on all three counts.

For every mole of CO2 you produce by burning biodiesel, we extract a mole out of the atmosphere, to produce more. It's a carbon-neutral cycle. Because it's carbon-neutral, there is no contribution to global warming. Regarding particulates, biodiesel is much cleaner than fossil-diesel, and any remaining particulate emissions can be addressed by good engine technology.

[Ian David]

18. I reject your science and substitute my own irrational conspiracy theories

I don't know about you, but I have yet to see any moles floating around in the air.



Seriously though:

What you're telling me sounds counter-intuitive (to me, at least) but if you'll dumb it down a little please, I might understand it.

Thanks!

If I understand correctly, what you're saying is that we can't put back into the atmosphere more CO2 than the plants pull out of it in the first place.

I'm guessing that this also means that you can't put more heat into the atmosphere than what the plant absorbed in the first place?

But I'm wondering if we wouldn't be better off putting that carbon into the foodchain rather than back into the air.

It seems like a good idea to stop burning stuff, no matter where it comes from.

[phantom power]

21. Exactly: we would remove the same amount we released.

The algae themselves would do at least part of this job for us, since photosynthesis uses CO2. Maybe all of the job? If we needed more carbon than that, we could either extract it directly from the air, or take it from other plants, which amounts to the same thing.

Conservation is always good. The less fuel we burn, the fewer algae-factories, refineries, etc, that we need.

But the cycle is essentially neutral, no matter what rate we burn the fuel. As long as all that fuel is being produced from biomass.

Regarding heat released from burning, I don't think that is a big problem. The heat energy we get from the sun makes all other sources insignificant by comparison.

[dcfirefighter]

23. not all CO2 taken by plants goes to lipid production n/t

[DrJackson]

14. Thanks for the info

This sounds very intriguing...

[hunter]

20. Some things on your list may not be good applications for solar.

1) It is much less expensive to buy some sort of non-electric oil, gas, or wood fired auxilliary heater than it is to convert an existing furnace to solar.

2) Solar powered burglar alarm systems are available off-the-shelf. So are small battery charging systems. The folks at realgoods.com or almost any other solar place can set you up with the right equipment.

3) Reduce the "at rest" use of power in your house. I did a survey of our own house a few years ago, and our off-the-shelf jacuzzi was by far the largest "at rest" energy hog. I installed a gas heater so I no longer have to keep the water hot all the time, and reconfigured the controls and chemistry so that it didn't use any energy when we weren't using it. The reduction in our electric bill was immediately apparent.

The second biggest "at rest" energy hogs in my house were the computers that run my networks, especially the CRT monitors, which I tended to leave on. I replaced these computers with small dedicated routers and laptops that I bought used.

If you haven't done it yet, replace your incandescent lights with compact fluorescents. It may be a Northern California thing, but our Home Depot stocks sixpacks of 60 watt equivalent and fourpacks of 100 watt equivalent compact fluorescents for about ten dollars a pack. I converted our house to compact fluorescents 1n 1998, back when these bulbs cost at least fifteen dollars each. Most of these bulbs are still working.

Only now am I thinking about installing a solar power system to run our household's electronics -- the phones, the computers, the cellphone chargers, etc.

A solar powered electric car is so far beyond our means I don't even think about it. A biodiesel fueled car, a bicycle, or even a solar powered scooter would be reasonable alternatives to a solar electric car.

[Massacure]

26. Are you familiar with phantom loads?

A lot of electronics are drawing a few watts of power even when turned off to maintain an instant-on feature or a clock. Power bars are cheap and will disable phantom loads.

[hunter]

28. Yes.

Our microwave oven, stove, one of our televisions, doorbell transformer, furnace controller, a clock radio, an electric toothbrush, and I think that's about it. I'd be willing to skip the clocks on our oven and stove, but my wife isn't. I do have a switch on the furnace controller.

The phones and my network are not really phantom loads, since they are always doing something. We also have a few small fountains and aquariums.

I could save a whole lot of electricity if I didn't use a refrigerator, a dishwasher, and a clothes washer and dryer, but I don't want to do that. Solar panels big enough to power those things would be very expensive.

[skids]

27. 4 is a bit rough.

Hybrids eat a *huge* amount of electricity. You could easily do 1, 2, and 3 on a $6,500 budget (which is the figure you ask below), though for the heater I'd just buy a separate small battery pack (enough for 15 minutes runtime), thermoelectric panel, and invertor (or dc replacement pump if you can find it). It can charge itself up with it's own heat that way, the same way the control electronics inside of it already do but on a bigger scale. Best to keep that unit self-contained.

Your at-rest appliances probably include a fridge, and that will be
the big draw. But on $6,500 you could do the first 3 and dump whatever is left into the hybrid.

Before doing any of that, though, put money into efficiency improvements. They can be much more cost effective. After that, and before PV panels, look into solar water heating.

[skids]

25. $40,000 for 4k?!??! Those are some expensive panels.

http://kingsolar.com/catalog/mfg/matrixsolar/pw1650175.html

You can get panels at $4.50 per watt, that's a whole lot cheaper than $10. True, you need a battery system, but how big it needs to be is entirely dependent on what you intend to run after dark. Plus, if all you do with the panels is run supplemental air conditioning you don't even need a grid tie-in. If you have a tie-in, then you can shave your daytime use down pretty well without a battery bank. Not off the grid, sure, but reducing your demand signifigantly, and helping to kill the justification for using tax revenue to build centralized facilities that will just end up being privatized. Oh wait, I forgot. We don't even pretend to do that anymore, we just *give* the energy company that donated to the right political campaigns money straight out.

As far as the old "you have to put more energy in than you get out" canard, when it comes down to dollars, and pollution, you are comparing apples (heat energy) to oranges (electrical energy.) Needless to say, the factories have the option of getting that energy from a variety of sources much more efficient than the miles of wire that lead to our houses.

That said, at today's cost the option is only open to the well-off. Payback, if prices stayed stable, is on the order of 5-10 years
climate depending -- as energy prices climb, though...

Keep your eye on prices for various power generation technologies. They are going to start coming down fast in the next few years.

The moral of this story is -- be skeptical of skeptics, too.

[slor]

4. Funny, this follows something...

I read last week, about the family putting money into solar energy. Anyone have the link? I am glad he did, and it is good for our future, but always keep in mind, it is not about anyone but him and those around him.

[Ian David]

7. So, if I'm not mistaken, you need to spend about $6,500 to get the...

$2,000 tax credit.

So, how much power does $6,500 worth of solar panels get you?

And how much work can that amount of power do?

Would it be enough, for example, to do what I suggested in Post #5?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x28543#28550

[dcfirefighter]

17. For PV, probably $10 a watt, installed

So 650 watts, peak. For most of the country this is 2 - 2.5 kw-h / day, or 730 - 900 kw-h / year. This is vs. 6000 - 13000 kw-h / yr average usage, or 6 - 15%, not insignificant, especially since the real benefit of the bill would not so much be direct replacement of energy sources, but continued development of solar energy. Also, if you're the kind of person who would put solar on their house, you should also be the kind of person who would get their annual usage below 6000 kw-h / yr. It's typically cheaper to buy near-custom efficient appliances than it is to install additional PV to run conventional appliances.

I pay ~$0.11 an hour for power in the mid-atlantic. Assuming I use 10,000 kw-h a year, generate 800 kw-h/yr, value money at a 4% discount rate, a 25% marginal income tax rate, and a 3% annual increase in energy costs, an investment of $6,500 worth of PV would not pay for itself in 50 years.

However, if I could save 800 kw-h/yr, it would be worth a $3,400 investment, or $4.25 per kw-h saved, and there are alot of things that cost less than $4.25 installed:
Compact Flourescent Lights are cheap, Clotheslines are cheap, changing the thermostat is cheap.
Insulating the house, replacing the airconditioner(s), replacing the refrigerator are more expensive, but still cheaper than PV.

[Ian David]

19. Thanks for the extensive and thorough breakdown

I've got a whole bunch of compact fluorescents in my home already.

For some things though, I really need conventional bulbs or halogen.

In my kitchen track lighting, I have two fluorescents and one incandescent, for example. Compact fluorescents in the bathroom. An incandescent reading lamp on the headboard. Halogen lamps in the livingroom. Fluorescents in the garage. Fluorescent computer desklamp.

I spent a shitload of money on Newwpro windows and doors.

Installed one of the most efficient oil heaters.

I used to have a hallway light that automatically turned itself off if it was left on for more than five minutes. Unfortunately, it's stopped turning itself off.

A ceiling fan in the bedroom really cuts down on the need for air conditioning.

I'm thinking of adding more insulation to my attic, but I'm wondering if I actually have to remove the old insulation first, or if I can just add more layers.

I also desperately need to replace this air conditioner that looks like it was made around 1980 at the latest.

[Massacure]

24. 1.5 kilowatts peak assuming $5 a peak watt.

It's probably about 120 kilowatts per month. Assuming half the days are sunny.

[NNadir]

22. This is a pretty typical Repuke bill; sounds good, does nothing or worse

than nothing.

There is nothing here for the development of alternate energy, just a bone for using it yourself, if you are rich enough to pay for it, and few people are that rich, and as our impoverishment proceeds, that few will become even fewer.

The danger of bills like these is that it makes people complacent in the (erroneous) belief that something is being done..

Nothing is being done.

In a soon to be impoverished nation, there will be no resources to dawdle with the solar dream..

I am less and less optimistic that we will have the time to develop the only realistic safe energy choice, nuclear energy.