Combine solar with garbage...

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I have thought for some time now that given the usefulness and ubiquitousness of plastics, burning oil for energy is akin to eating the seed corn. It is incredibly short-sighted. The essential problem really does seem to be that it has yet to be figured out how to make longterm profit off of solar energy. Apparently, it is worth the health and lives of rich energy barons to have a forced consumer base.

CAFKIA

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It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
  - William G. McAdoo

Solar cheaper than coal

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I saw that too from the comments in the MEN article, Greg. Your link has a lot more details than Nanosolar's site, though, which basically says they're sold out for at least a year and NDAs are required just to get specs*. Hmmm...

* P.S. OK, there's a lot more info. at the Nanosolar site under the Technology tab. Still, they're keeping close to the vest on specs. Some believe the solar industry needs the big players like Intel and IBM to get involved in order to achieve required breakthroughs. IBM is at least getting involved to some degree. (link...)

I don't think it's so much a technical problem as a political/market problem.

Because solar is best deployed as a distributed solution, the big energy companies can't control it. They aren't thinking forward to changing their business model to get in the PV installation/financing/maintenance business. They aren't researching battery storage or backyard solar hydrogen generator/storage systems. Etc. etc.

Al Gore also talked about an interesting idea for a smarter electrical grid that can switch and route power from a variety of sources to a variety of consumers similar to how the internet routes packets of information.

Our current policy, though, is geared towards protecting a handful of huge corporations that are effectively one large energy monopoly.

I'm wondering how Nanosolar's energy payback is defined. They say theirs is <1 mo., while listing wafer cells as only 3 yrs. That can't mean cost to the end user. They must mean the energy the finished product has to produce (in time) in order to match the energy that was required to produce the same amount of product. Anybody know?

As for the utility conundrum, I don't know how badly the institution is to blame for the lack of progress. But I think it will take some unselfish visionaries outside the traditional sector to liberate the traditional big utility grid mentality. I still think an Apollo-type government push is needed too. Unlike the moonshot, this time it's for our survival. Not just climate change, but national security too. There's also technology gains and jobs. We can't wait for the internet billionaires to save us. It must come from all the people, and that means government. Apollo was the model of success.

Some would prefer government just encourage more consumption and casinos. More sprawl and lower taxes for the "job creators" wealthy.

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Well, solar is kind of free. How the hell can energy companies make money off it? Once you own the cells, you are getting a free resource. Nobody wants to invest to develope it.

Think Diabetes. Nobody wants to cure it, because then they cannot sell insulin to you for the rest of your lives. Same with solar.

BTW, Georgia Republicans were trying to "sell" water rights to companies so they could in turn sell us our water- which is a public commodity. So when water falls from the sky, it becomes owned and sellable.

I agree with you Gttim. As of now, the panels are hard to get and expensive. The cost is on the front end, but the panels are supposed to last 20-30 years, according to my neighbor who has a solar house.

They put about $30K into it and sell power to KUB each month from the excess that they produce after they meet their own energy needs.

I have thought for a long time that anything related to buying and selling and installing solar panels would be the way to go for a startup business person.

My neighbors had to wait a long time for their panels once they made the decision. Had to get on a waiting list.

IMO you should be able to buy those solar panels at Lowe's.

Mr. Burns blocked the sun....

One thing to consider is that biofuels are a way of capturing some of that solar energy.

To debunk a common myth - ethanol from corn has gotten up to an efficiency of 1.8 : 1. Though I still think it's stupid to waste precious petroleum on corn production, I'm holding out hope for switchgrass and the like.
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Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs