SPYDERLK
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2006
- Messages
- 10,354
- Location
- VA
- Tractor
- JD2010, Kubota3450,2550, Mahindra 7520 w FEL w Skid Steer QC w/Tilt Tatch, & BH, BX1500
Far from empty promises in many cases. ... Regardless of failures, do you realize that sunlight delivers 1100 watts per square meter on earths surface ... ~1.5 MegaWatts per acre? We can electrically harvest about 10% of that with current tech -- 150KW. Thats 600KW-Hrs just from the 4hrs of high sun on a single sunny day. My entire farm uses about 150 KW-Hrs per day in peak season. ... So, regardless of failures, the conservative [efficiencies are rising due technology] potential is huge, and the benefit awaits application of credible known science. Change is almost always initially expensive. Even so, proactive change will ultimately turn out to be cheap in comparison to reactive change. Well directed subsidies are the best bet to get this going. The bad ones will fall out. Solar isnt one of them.
...The problem is not that it wont work - its that our system is not set up to use it. And that is a tremendous hurdle. Subsidies in selected areas are needed to catalyze the advance in infrastucture and technology. No single company can afford it. Both research and grunt work is needed. The engines of research have lost funding. Research is what got us from the $400+ HewlettPackard twenty something calculator of the '60s, to todays more capable $20 calculator that runs on ambient light. ... Solar is expensive now. -- Trouble is , ignoring it will keep it that way.
...larry
This is where I get confused. Nobody is saying that you shouldn't look for other sources of power. That is both misleading and dishonest. I'm all for solar, wind and alge. But I'm not for giving away hundreds of millions of tax payer money to companies to see if they can make it work. I'm especially not for giving them money when they already have a history of failure and a product that does not work and is available from other sources for less money.
At what point do you say it's time to stop throwing away money at something that isn't even a problem. There is no oil shortage. The energy crisis is self created by our governments refusal to allow big oil to do what they do best. Why do you want to blame the company that is supplying you with oil for creating the shortage when their only purpose in existing is to make a profit by selling oil and oil products?
Who is making it harder to get oil? Why are they making it more difficult to get oil? And the biggest mystery is why do you defend Obama when he has done so much to cause the energy crisis and absolutely nothing to fix it?
We are in debt so far that our lifestyle is now being affected by goverenment spending. Super Inflation is the next step. The answer Obama has is to spend more and raise taxes. Next year, Jan 1st, all our taxes are going up big time. It's designed to happen after the election and it's going to hurt. What will happen with the additional income? Will they just spend more money or will we find more ways to not pay taxes? Loop Holes or just not working as much?
If Solar is a good thing, then let those selling it put their money into it. Let them develop it and make it happen. Give them tax breaks and tax insentives, but do not give them CASH!!!!!
Government is not here to gamble with tax dollars on pet projects.
Eddie
I really thot I had covered these things. There is no way people are going to unite privately to the extent needed to finance and coordinate the changes necessary to the public/govt/private system. Research has been squeezed in this country. This was short sighted and will ultimately kill us. Everything made overseas is a warning. Behavior of the petroleum market is another. Our huge deficit is the wars. Hopefully that will phase out and the streamline of the military will save money too. Included in that is an initiative to push the limits of technology for battlefield and soldier equipment. Inherent in this initiative is a huge subsidy for progress. There are many things being done that have a good chance of coming together fruitfully. The ability to blend natural varying power sources with efficiently controllable cogeneration is being done effectively and will continue to improve. Altho catalyzed by it, this development is a benefit to power plant efficiency even if there is not an unpredictable variable source that requires adaptive supplementation. Since this hasnt failed it is not noteworthy. There will surely be other failures/setbacks on the way, but ultimately things will self sustain and everyone will benefit from the advances. Hard to know the degree, but considering the huge source of solar energy, it alone is worth it without even considering the technological advances along the way.Larry you are free to invest all you want. I have a problem with government getting involved because of the cronnie capitalism that has been there for years. Waste and fraud abound everyone promises to fix it and no one does. If we task the government with more we just invite it to be bigger with more waste and fraud.
If you really want to see more investment in Solar organize a group so you can more money to invest as the group sees fit. No doubt you will get far more result than Uncle Sam:thumbsup:
...larry