Comment by pstack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pstack | Hacker News Reader

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I'm a fan of the idea of solar panels, but I'm skeptical.

First, I'd like to see numbers that show solar panels are less damaging to the environment. I suspect that they require significant energy to manufacture as well as cause pollution in the process. Let's see some numbers that show it saves far more than it costs, energy/pollution-wise.

I'd also like to see this supposed day (as soon as a year and a half from now, according to the article), when solar power suddenly becomes affordable. It sure wasn't one year ago and I'm pretty sure it's not, today. In fact, if you calculate the cost of materials and installation, you will often find that you don't start saving a dime until the warranty on the product has expired (around 20-25 years). Not to mention, the efficiency degrades over time, so I'm not sure what kind of performance you can expect when the warranty expires and it starts finally saving you cash.

I want it to happen. Trust me. I seriously considered it (although I don't think it's allowed in my city and I know that panels on your house are forbidden by many cities and many HOAs). When I realized that the tens of thousands of dollars I'd have to invest up front in it wouldn't start to pay off until I was almost retirement age, I decided I'd just stick with what I've already got. If things change drastically in a few years, I'll revisit the idea. Until then, I'm not going to let my bank account get caught up in the hype that only benefits the solar panel installer industry. I don't see how it's going to mature significantly in a whole two years.

Why is it that people, in the age of Google, say things like "I'd like to see numbers that show..." or "I suspect that..."?

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es071763q

So there you go. Not sure about the credibility of the source but reading this - or the myriad of other easily found sources on this matter - might be an improvement on this snarky "huh huh, I'd like to see this stuff that probably no-one before me has ever thought about" approach to the problem.

While you are honing your reading skills by actually finding out something, you could revisit TFA to see this:

"But the solar industry is moving so fast that those costs will be equal--at least for utilities--by 2013."

... so they're not talking about rooftop solar, which you decide to start talking about almost immediately, because you once priced up a solar panel and are thus an expert.

Feel better about yourself, now?

Do you seriously think that your local utility is going to have massive solar fields that are going to provide the kind of power demands they have or even a chunk of it? The only long-term option is for existing space to be used - power generation on the space used by the house it generates. Until that is affordable, I doubt it's going to make the impact we're hoping for.

Plus, come on. We all know how utility companies behave. They'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the type of investment necessary to roll these out, even if they're cheaper in the longer term.

Also, yeah, I wouldn't have had a clue what to google for the type of information you pulled up. Good for you. You get +1 google points for today, sport.

I feel fine, thanks; roughly the same as before.

For the record, the Google string to find out about the environmental costs of solar panel construction was "environmental costs solar panel construction". There's a mountain of information and conflicting viewpoints to sort through, naturally.

As for the business about there being no place to put solar, face it, you're just making things up. You could easily look up where solar power boosters figure they're going to put these facilities (for example, ask Google "where will utilities put solar panels" - literally). Then you could form an informed opinion pro/con but once again that's too much work.

Do I get another Google point?

That's why a government can help here. For example, Germany bets on solar energy. You can see solar panels on many houses there, because the government subsidizes them, until it breaks even (in 2013, said above). So at this point the infrastructure and the market is already in place and no kicking and screaming is heard. Effectively, tax money solves the chicken and egg problem.

Whom cares what your local utility is up to. Convince your landlord, or your wife to allow you to install said units on the roof. Problem solved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Mojav...

Two things will bring this about, the ever growing efficiencies of the panels and the economies of scale, these companies are going to be buying a crap load of these things.

The energy cost of a panel isn't a concern if the power comes from a renewable. Cannot speak to the damage to the environment mining and production does but I would be surprised if it surpassed coal's damage.

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