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Originally Posted by rob13572468
Secondly the solar issue which is where all the hippie science and speculation comes in. As rich and I have mentioned numerous times there is no easy way to deliver solar power economically (e.g. competitive with coal/natural gas) nor to do so reliably.
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Not cheaper than coal (at least not today) is granted. Reliably is another matter. Small scale (a few kW) home solar has no moving parts and all solid state components (aside from the big disconnect switch out by the meter). Failures are most probably caused by bad installs, which means comparable to electrical house fires, which is not a huge issue (though it is non-zero). And your failures take down one house, not all of them. If someobdy has numbers on reliability for this stuff, please post the URL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rob13572468
... Thats fine I guess if the numbers work (im still not 100% that they do but lets assume that they work out); the problem is that (again) the average american is having trouble paying *this* month's electric bill and *this* month's car payment so how are they going to buy an expensive EV and solar setup?.
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They won't. Not at today's prices. The cars are clearly too expensive, even if the fuel is cheaper. Those of us with a few extra dollars and/or a serious view at cutting pollution are the early adopters fueling demand which is needed before any economy of scale will kick in. This changes if fuel prices or coal prices climb.
We all pay for catalytic converters, airbags, and ABS even though all the car companies said they would price cars out of everyone's reach. Solar isn't *that* cheap, yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rob13572468
Again, assuming the logistics can be worked out at some point and we can reliably do solar at home and charge your vehicle, we need to be able to do this cheap, dirt cheap so that the prospect of using oil and then finally even coal and natural gas become the expensive and undesirable route. One really promising technology is thin film solar which if it eventually fufills its promise of ten cents/sq ft would be a highly disruptive change in the way we generate power. At that price, even poor people can just roll the stuff out on their roofs and start generating power very cheaply. Again you still have to figure out how to build a cheap car that can use that electricity but at least we would be 1 step in the right direction.
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The folks at nano-solar are ramping up production. Right now, they will price at or just under the price of conventional cells and make huge profits doing so since their production costs are radically lower (if you believe what they say). Prices won't drop until they produce enough that there is unsold inventory somewhere or their patents run out and the market forces begin to work.