Shining the Light on Solar Power

We need to first tighten up the energy consumption end of the spectrum, before we sstart on the alternative energy side. How much energy are we presently wasting???? If we use alternative energy without addressing the waste issue we are not going to solve the countries energy problems.

Personally I'm familiar with a friend's passive solar house near Cooperstown, NY, described in detail at this web site: http://www.solarhouseproject.com/ The engineer was Bruce Brownell (see http://www.green-energy-news.com/arch/nrgs2008/20080003.html) of Adirondack Alternative Energy. I've stayed there for weeks at a time, and can attest that it works!

The house rests on a huge concrete slab, and the mostly southern-facing windows capture solar heat and vent it into the slab, and draw it out during cool or night times. The climate there is similar to New Hampshire's. On the coldest days, the house maintains 70-deg comfort with minimal supplementary heat, and even without electric power, it cannot freeze.

Essentially, the house is double insulated and very air- and humidity-tight. Perhaps all new construction should be mandated to include passive solar features. Read the links above to learn more about it.

I think the skeptical professor's comment was intended to mean that, while people can power themselves OFF the grid via solar and wind, making the grid itself powered solely by these means is impractical.

Last year the US spent $700 Billion on imported foreign oil. This is money out of our economy. If this money were spent on solar panels and windmills, it would make jobs for Americans.

The cost of wind and solar energy itself will not increase and will last until the sun burns out, billions of years from now.

I strongly support the use of solar energy. Last year I installed two solar hotwater systems, one for my regular needs and the other to heat my radiant floor in the winter and my pool in the summer. Two weeks ago I installed a 4.8 kilowatt net metering system,which has already produced more than half of my mounthly electric use. Going Solar can work even in NH and also in Berlin where I live.

Solar can easily supply all of our energy, but since there is a complementary nature between wind and solar it makes more sense to use both. This is the first time I have heard solar described as "erratic". You never heard the line, "as sure as the sun will rise?" If you look at a plot of solar output - pick any site from http://view2.fatspaniel.net/FST/Portal/portal_list.html and you can see that solar and wind are what is known as "intermittent". For a fun "wiki'd" project, take a look at http://www.gobisolar.com/

Getting all of our energy from solar and wind requires either moving power to where it can be used, with transmission lines (I just asked for a quote for building a 10,000 MW HVDC line), or stored for when it can be used, usually with pumped hydro-storage, like the Northfield Mountain facility which uses a ten mile section of the Connecticut River for the lower reservoir and a man-made 300 acre upper reservoir a thousand feet up, on the top of Northfield Mountain. They can store/produce 1,000 MW for 5 hours.

The city of Berkeley, California has come up with the best way of paying for solar for home owners - they add the cost to a special property assessment that you pay back, with interest, from the money you save on your electric bill. It costs you nothing, and it costs the city nothing. For businesses, 90% of solar power is installed by investors under a Power Purchase agreement where the business agrees to pay so much a kWh fro the next 20 years for the power produced. The business provides the land to install the solar panels for free to the investor, and the investor installs the solar panels for free for the business.

Since electricity is so expensive in New England, even though there is less sun here, it is just as cost effective to install solar than it is in California.