The concept of investing money in ‘alternative energy sources’ is wise but the devil may be in the details and there are opportunities for a lot of mischief.
The practitioners of the politics of envy (and some self-styled environmentalists) would like to blame oil companies for the problem and there are some elitists who would like to limit the use of private cars so that they will have more fuel for their limousines and private jets.
Supplies of fossil fuels are not inexhaustible but gasoline remains as the most efficient (kW/hr per kg) fuel for automobiles. As for electric vehicles, secondary cells (storage batteries) have to be recharged from an external energy source.
Nuclear power is cheap and clean but has been crippled domestically to a point where the industrial infrastructure has been exported.
Energy companies could adopt one of several business plans. One would be to sell less and less fuel at higher and higher prices until the last gallon of gasoline is offered at a price greater than its weight in gold.
This bitter day could be pushed out through more exploration but the day would come.
The other approach would be to invest some of the profits from current sales into research in alternative energy sources. No Federal mandate is needed for this. It just makes good business sense. Wartime Germany made synthetic fuel from coal in their hydrogenation plant. Besides coal, the other key ingredient was electricity from hydroelectric facilities. Cheap electric power from new nuclear power plants and our abundant coal could keep fuel and heating oil tanks filled at a reasonable cost.
We should also investigate and exploit other energy sources but not as exclusive power sources. Feeding electricity from windmills into the power grid would reduce the amount of fuel that would need to be burned when the wind power is available.
Yet should we trust the allocation of resources (and tax money) to bureaucrats or elected pork-mongers? How many oil wells has the Department of Energy drilled?
Some investors are putting up windmills for electricity production on the mountains outside of Hazleton. It gets annoying when the windmill sections have to be transported, because US 209 and PA 93 are narrow roads, and the sections are very much oversized loads. However, I have no objection to wind power.
Another group wants to set up a solar farm outside of Nesquehoning, the next town up US 209. That’s fine with me, too. The key is that these are private investments, made by companies which plan to make money on their investments — and can lose money if things don’t work out right. I have little tolerance, and no love, for government directed investment or government-run projects along these lines.
The so-called “invisible hand” is nothing more than the actions of private investors seeking to maximize return on investment. This is why private investment, though individual efforts may fail, is generally successful; when government is the business owner and manager, the goal is not profit but some other Good Motive, and it is inevitable that those other considerations will take the place of making money when it comes to business decisions, and that ruins efficiency.
I am on the architectual review committee for our community and one of the items on the agenda last Friday was a request for approval to install a large photovoltaic array on a roof. The system will cost $40,000 but the state will pick up half of the cost. Considering the interest either paid or lost, it could pay for itself in five years or less.
The DC output of the cells will charge batteries that will feed a static inverter that will be phase locked to the power line and there is a provision for payback for any excess power,
I encouraged approval and am interested in seeing the performance.
$40,000 for a solar electric system. I pay about $125 per month (averaged over the year) to Idaho Power. That’s $1800 per year. It would take about 15 years (assuming a modest increase in electric rates every other year or so, and never getting a penny for “selling” power back to the utility) for that system to pay for itself. By that time, I am sure the batteries will have to be replaced a couple of times and the solar cells themselves may have reached the end of their service life. Even if you did sell some power back to the utility, that 15 years may drop to 10. And you still will have replaced the batteries at least once at whatever cost that incurs. Plus, at night, where there is no charging going on, depending on where you live, there might not be enough battery to run the air conditioner, range and clothes drier at the same time for very long, so you will be pulling some power from the grid.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for people doing it if they want to, but personally I don’t see the point with current solar and battery technology. It’s an awful lot of money to spend for that long of an ROI, if you will ever see an ROI. Sure, there is not really an ROI on the electric utility unless you own stock in the company. But for expenses like this, I really try to look and see if it is worth it in the long run.
I suppose you can also view it this way: you will have your electricity for some time even if the grid is down. That’s worth some thought as well, considering the current energy debacle that is going on right now. Electric isn’t in quite the same state that oil is, but they are intertwined some and it could be affected.
John – if you hook it up to the grid, you don’t need the batteries since the grid basically acts as a huge battery. You can have the batteries to act as a hedge against grid failure, but that’s really the only reason to have them if you’re grid-tied.
That having been said, you’re right that in most places, it doesn’t make economic sense to put an array on your house. It depends on the tax credits (good here in NC and in a few other states, I think) and the energy prices (in high-cost places like CA, for example). I think in CA your ROI time is generally in the ballpark of 7-8 years – to my knowledge, CA, NJ, NY, and CT are about the only places where it’s economically reasonable.
Your array, though, will last for 25 years and your inverter will last for 20. And remember that you’ll be adding value to your house when you put the array up (depending on the appraiser)…
Battry power is essential to any form of alternative energy that relies on a varying source.
Many of these solar systems include the ability to sell the the excess to the electric company. This co-generation can further reduce the cost of the energy.
Without the batteries, the system would only generate power during the brighter daylight hours.