There has alway been the argument that photovoltaic cells lose out to fossil fuels on the ‘cent per kilowatt argument.’
So what happens when major corporations take the initial uneconomic hit, and invest in solar power?
The cost starts to come down for everyone.
Extract:
Tesco USA Building World's Biggest Solar Roof
Dphotoind_small_1An LA-based manufacturer of solar panels got its dream order this morning: a $13m contract to "empanel" the roof of a grocery chain distribution center in Riverside, Calif., from Tesco USA. It will be the world's largest array of solar panels when completed.
If it's perhaps a little sad, in the big picture, that the photovoltaic roof will only be able to provide a fifth of the depot's power needs, that shouldn't dissuade us from lauding Tesco's pledge to spend a billion dollars on making its operations energy-efficient.
Extract:
Story posted on: December 18, 2006
Google car park filled with solar trees
It is well known that Google loves the environment with its founders driving hybrid cars, and that fact is accentuated by the ambitious solar project located at their Mountain View headquarters. Google has set up approximately 9,000 solar panels to power approximately one third of the complex's power demand, where 3,000 of those solar panels function as a 'solar tree' that line the parking lots. These solar trees not only convert the sun's power into useable electricity, it also shades the vehicles underneath from the scorching heat as well as rain. It is nice to see corporate giants doing their part for the environment.
This could be much like what happened with Cell phones.
Business paid for the initial start-up expense of the Cell Networks.
Eventually as the ‘carriers’ worked to broaden their market, the price of phones and connections was bought down to the point where cell phones was attractive to consumers.
So, Here in Oz, water is a scarce commodity, but the sun beats down regularly all year round.
Why would the government want to stop us collecting rain to ease the water shortages, and to collect the sun light that beats down on us all to ease the release of greenhouse gases?
Because if we collect water and power ourselves, the government and business can't sell it to us.
Desalination plants and Nuclear power stations have nothing to do with logic, protecting the environment, and public safety.
It’s all about protecting the incomes of governments and industry.
Is it true that the salt from the desalination process gets pumped back into the sea? If so, it sounds dangerous to me.
ReplyDelete[this is good] The propaganda being spewed forth by the federal government in favour of nuclear energy as "clean and green" is entirely false. Nuclear is neither clean nor green. In fact it creates far more problems than it solves, and is only a short term fix.
ReplyDeleteScientifically proven is energy generation from solar power collection, as proven in this 7:30 Report article and reiterated in last week's Radio National Science Show. Mills' technology and engineering challenge has been ignored totally by government and the CSIRO, which is telling in itself. Clearly CSIRO knows where the butter for its bread comes from.
Mills' ideas on renewables are not new. In fact he's been putting them forward well before Australia became enamored with non-fossil fuel alternatives. Now, sadly and due entirely to this federal government's reticence to embrace anything which isn't politically acceptable both here at home or in the US - for politically expedient reasons only - Mills and his enterprise have gone off-shore to further their research and expand the possibilities of his solar power generation techniques.
We may be a lucky country, but it's certainly not because we're smarter than most.
I wouldn't go for desalination in the first place. It seems to me that salt is a potentially dangerous by-product that may cause irreparable damage to the ocean.
ReplyDelete[this is good] desalination=bad
ReplyDelete[this is good] You've made a good point: costs are high at the outset, but as more and more people start to come online with an alternative energy source, the costs come down. I applaud companies that are willing to get the ball rolling.
ReplyDelete