PV Gap

Karen Said:

shall we tax heavily on cloth dryers? because they violate energy conservation the most?

We Answered:

I’m in one of those cold, dark, damp places that you mentioned, namely England (technically I’m not because I’m in Switzerland at the minute but England is where I live).

It always amazes me how much washing there is to be done, we’ve got a washing line that I couldn’t fill even if I hung every item of clothing I own on it, and yet it always seems to be full.

Come the winter months then we’d be lost without the use of a tumble drier, particularly when an errant daughter appears at 8PM and NEEDS to have something washed and ready for school the next day. So I can appreciate the need for some people to have a tumble drier.

I can also see that if such an item were to be taxed, then it would hit poorer families the hardest. An extra $20 or $50 for some people would be nothing but for those on a tight budget, and those who need a tumble drier, it would be yet another thing they would have to pay for, which would be to the detriment of something else.

I’ve never favoured the option of taxing people as a means to reduce our impact on the climate and would much prefer that people voluntarily adapt their lifestyles wherever practical. To this end I favour educating people to get them to do something, rather than forcing them to do it.

People are waking up to the realisation that we need to conserve energy, not just from an environmental perspective but also for economic reasons and the preservation of finite resources. As a consequence, the amount of greenhouse gases that each person produces has levelled off over the past 15 to 20 years, prior to that there was an inexorable rise.

Juan Said:

Why is there an energy crisis when the world is blessed with Solar and Geothermal energy?

We Answered:

Simple. A 130 watt solar panel cost $770 each. It is totally useless unless you have a solar charger ($200) connected to a battery bank ($600 to $3,000) and an inverter ($600 to $3500) to convert it from DC to useful AC current. This does not include the labor to install it or all the expensive copper battery wire that is about as thick as a finger.

A typical home computer's power supply draws 500 watts and the monitor an additional 75. To operate this computer by solar you would need all the above - plus - an additional 4 more panels to power the computer. Even if you do all the work yourself and use economy parts - the least it would cost you is $6,000 up front.

You are probably paying $.04 cents a kw in your town. That $6,000 solar panel system won't pay for itslef until perhaps 35 years have passed - since you will always need to replace the batteries every 5 years - you are looking at about 40 years for it to pay for itself.

Even if you are totally in love with alternate energy - nobody is going to pony up $6,000 to $13,000 to run something that can easily be operated at 5 cents an hour.

Solar panels only start to make economical sense in places where the cost of energy is very expensive - like $.50kw or more.

As for geothermal - where ever it is - that is where it must be used. However, most geothermal wells and not located near big cities. You cannot truck steam. And these wells would not produce enough power to operate much other than homes in the local area.

Hope this helps.

Jay Said:

If solar energy is so free why it is not widely used??

We Answered:

Solar energy is widely used by nature and has long been used by man for drying and heating. However, I suspect you're speaking of electricity from solar energy. The short answer is that the equipment is rather expensive from a capital cost point of view.

Most photovoltaic (PV) systems cost on the order $7 to $12 per Watt of capacity. By the time you divide that installation cost over the actual electricity produced by the system in the 20 to 30 years of its life, you end up paying $.35 to $1.00 per kWh vs the $.10 to $.30 your electric company charges you.

These systems are getting cheaper though, and there are other technologies, such as concentrating solar power, that in the long term will be as cheap as coal or natural gas plants. In the meantime, there are a variety of federal and state programs that will help individuals and corporations pay for solar energy equipment.

Jerome Said:

if sunlight is free, why isn't solar energy the cheapest source of energy available?

We Answered:

When you think of all of the components needed to power a modern home with Photo Voltaic power, it is very expensive. The batteries alone are about $350 each and to run a home to modern standards, you would need a bank of at least 8. That is in addition to the cost of the panels, inverters, regulators, wiring, frames for the panels, tracking motors, etc.

Batteries will eventually not charge efficiently after a few years and have to be replaced.

So the cost of solar energy is more than the cost of the fuel used to create the electricity. Even though the cost of the panels is dropping, it can still take 15-20 years to recover the initial investment in energy savings.