> Whether or not solar panel production uses more energy 
> than the panels will
> produce, the panels certainly allow the transfer of 
> industries cheaper
> energy prices over to residential customers who typically 
> get paid for the
> solar generated power at the residential rate. If you 
> where only paid the
> industrial rate for the power you generate would the 
> payback period exceed
> the life span?

When the arguments get down to such fine hair splitting as 
to which energy pricing is being used the argument is lost, 
or muddied to the extent that it will provide endless hours 
of fun without productive outcome.

Possibly useful is to deal in kWh, and that's what people 
generally do in studies. If they get close enough you can 
then fight over realistic energy sources and costs.

If you want to us lowest known power prices to deny the 
arrival of solar as a serious technology then you should use 
the cost of electrical energy to an aluminium smelter as 
your yardstick. I believe that it is in the 1 to 2 cent or 
thereabouts range per kWh but prices are always said to be 
"commercially sensitive" and not disclosed. That's another 
way of saying that the peasants will rise up and lynch the 
government em masse if they find out how much Manapouri 
power station electricity is being sold to furriners for.

Solar is obviously sensible [tm]. ie it is knocking on the 
door now with technology that is simple enough to make and 
leave in the sun for 20 years. What goes wrong is often the 
glue they use to glue the solar cells to the glass. You can 
be sure people are working on improving that. And sheet 
amorphous in football field, or house roof, lengths is 
available now and will become increasingly now.

In Ring-World our heroes laid out black "cloth" and 
connected wires to gather 'solar' energy. I remember 
thinking it was a slight reach even in those circumstances. 
I have long since realised that it was well within the 
expectable capabilities of the situation. They also carried 
full oxygen sets which allowed breathing in any degree of 
contamination. Louis noted that he had brought them only 
because they crumpled (folded?) up in a pocket and took no 
room and weight so he thought he may as well take them. I'll 
be looking for a few of those after they start delivering 
25% roll out solar cloth at $10/kW.




        Russell





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