Would lengthy blackouts create new manufacturing opportunities?

[Big B]

Well you have machines. You have machining experience. You seem to have a passion for solar energy. Why not take that shop of yours, use you shop roof and have panels installed, and give us a running account of costs and efficiency. Move from the theoretical part time solar guy to full time real deal solar powered machining guy.

I'm putting a plan together right now to do just that but other things are a priority right now. I'm doing landscaping and underground sprinkling at our cottage first. Back when we bought the cottage most of the places on our lake were cottages but most of them have been razed in favor of year around homes that are selling for over a half million and our poor little place needs a facelift just to fit in. And part of my motivation for going solar at home is to run irrigation to the lawn and possibly a hayfield that I've been having baled lately. My shop won't be needing much power as it is mostly mothballed now. The only jobs that I've done in the last year are for myself.

Well you have machines. You have machining experience. You seem to have a passion for solar energy. Why not take that shop of yours, use you shop roof and have panels installed, and give us a running account of costs and efficiency. Move from the theoretical part time solar guy to full time real deal solar powered machining guy.

 

[Big B]

So here's a guy that actually DID what you are calling for, and you still can't congratulate him on a job well done?

I think it's very impressive to run a decent sized CNC shop and a house with solar.

But if we talk about that, we're not talking about YOU are we?

I was being facetious. Standardparts has been kind of an all or none guy on the solar thing and I was being sarcastic.

 

[Big B]

We were talking about a solar farm, but you knew that, those panels are low to the ground.

A solar farm could be on the roof of a huge building. I worked in a building that was over 40 acres under the roof. Imagine what kind of power that could have produced if the entire place was covered with solar panels.

 

[Big B]

You missed rather a lot.

- A "rebate" is against money spent. That's how it gets the name.

- A tax deduction is not the same as a tax CREDIT.

- Either of a tax deduction .. or even a tax credit ... is worth little - or nothing - unless you had more tax otherwise-due than at least a portion of that figure.

True for tax deductions but last I knew you could collect tax credits even if you didn't have any taxes due. But it's been a while since I have gotten a tax credit.

 

[thermite]

A solar farm could be on the roof of a huge building. I worked in a building that was over 40 acres under the roof. Imagine what kind of power that could have produced if the entire place was covered with solar panels.

After the UAW Local got through milking it on the operation and maintenance and threatening the sun with a kneecaping if it crossed a UAW picket line?

"A dead loss" is what it would have "produced".

 

[latheman78]

I'm putting a plan together right now to do just that but other things are a priority right now. I'm doing landscaping and underground sprinkling at our cottage first. Back when we bought the cottage most of the places on our lake were cottages but most of them have been razed in favor of year around homes that are selling for over a half million and our poor little place needs a facelift just to fit in. And part of my motivation for going solar at home is to run irrigation to the lawn and possibly

I was being facetious. Standardparts has been king of an all or none guy on the solar thing and I was being sarcastic.

I think it's awesome that
a hayfield that I've been having baled lately. My shop won't be needing much power as it is mostly mothballed now. The only jobs that I've done in the last year are for myself.



I'm more green than the person who tows their trailer and then runs a generator to run their 120 volt stuff and charge batteries. And a lot less annoying to others in the area because I don't usually have a noisy generator running.

It doesn't seem like you can understand that it isn't an all or nothing thing. I try to offset the damage that I do to offset damage that I do to the planet like every other human does whenever I can. And solar panels are one way of doing that.

It seems like you think that if you are burning one gallon of gas or diesel and getting all the rest of your energy off of solar you are wasting your time because of that one gallon of gas. That isn't how it works and you probably know that. You're just being difficult.

Pretty sure your "carbon foot print" is a lot higher than the average Joe, but if you want to feel you are green, go ahead. You are constantly reminding us you have a giant travel trailer that is probably in the 1% percentile of camping trailers. With that you need a good size pick up to tow it and I am sure the trailer kills the gas mileage. Once you set up camp I doubt you are sightseeing or running errands on a Honda Trail 90 you put in the back of your truck.

 

[Big B]

~~~~~~~Mod Note~~~~~~~~
Post deleted, personal attack
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[Big B]

~~~~~~~Mod Note~~~~~~~~
Post deleted, personal attack
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[thermite]

I might have known that a guy that thinks he's an expert on everything else is also an expert on the UAW.

No. You would NOT have known.

Too set in your ways. Unable to adapt off the back of too much of yer undershorts wrapped around the driveshaft out of a long legacy of bad habits.

Proof is all OVER PM.

Besides.. being 'done' solving problems before the "problems" even knew I was coming ....is what I got paid for...

 

[kustomizer]

We did what we did as a simple economic advantage, being "green" wasn't too much a thing in 2000 and I imagine if you follow solar from cradle to grave, natural gas is likely "greener" and cheaper but doesn't come with the feel good solar has.

 

[thermite]

We did what we did as a simple economic advantage, being "green" wasn't too much a thing in 2000 and I imagine if you follow solar from cradle to grave, natural gas is likely "greener" and cheaper but doesn't come with the feel good solar has.

The nat gas "infrastructure", cost, complexity, hazards vs benefits are SURELY much better understood. Even if imperfect, it's ahead of most of the energy sources that actually WORK reliably and well. [1]

FWIW-not-much, there is a MAJOR move in-progress to use more of the nat gas to make plastics, thereby BURNING less.

And that, too, is all about the "greenbacks" running the numbers in the equation for more value out of the same resource, not about the "greenwhacks" running their virtue signalling agenda's.

[1] Disclosure. Vested interest. Fossil fuels have been a significant part of family income for 120 years already. And still are.

 

[IceCzar]

The paradigm shift in energy production and processes has little to do with virtue signaling. And everything to do with the Reinsurance Industry and the Center for Naval Analysis Corporation's findings.

And who gets there first a major economic and geopolitical prize.

 

[standardparts]

A solar farm could be on the roof of a huge building. I worked in a building that was over 40 acres under the roof. Imagine what kind of power that could have produced if the entire place was covered with solar panels.

A solar farm on the roof of a 40 acre GM facility would have been interesting but at this point "what might of have been" has been forever consigned to theory, history, and conjecture due to an epic bankruptcy. Hopefully, since it's been almost 15 years, corporate leaders learned a lesson and will make decisions that actually strengthens business rather than sets it up for failure.

 

[john.k]

On the telly tonight .....guy builds a giant solar farm,cant sell the lekky,cause the transmission lines needed are being opposed by all the landowners under the wires......as anyone knows.....HV powerlines is death to land values......and an expert explains why the grid wont work backwards......10k miles of new transmission lines are needed for net zero by 2035....thats gonna be a lot of courtcases,which take an average of 12 years to sort out.

 

[thermite]

We did what we did as a simple economic advantage, being "green" wasn't too much a thing in 2000 and I imagine if you follow solar from cradle to grave, natural gas is likely "greener" and cheaper but doesn't come with the feel good solar has.

"Simple" is too often overlooked, in general.

Have a recce:

Climate change: 'Sand battery' could solve green energy's big problem

A storage device made from sand may overcome the biggest issue in the transition to renewable energy.

news.yahoo.com

 

[latheman78]

We did what we did as a simple economic advantage, being "green" wasn't too much a thing in 2000 and I imagine if you follow solar from cradle to grave, natural gas is likely "greener" and cheaper but doesn't come with the feel good solar has.

Natural gas isn't green according to the powers in charge in California, they want it phased out. Should be interesting as they demand more and more from an overtaxed grid. I have a feeling the people in charge here can't do simple math.

 

[kustomizer]

Natural gas isn't green according to the powers in charge in California, they want it phased out. Should be interesting as they demand more and more from an overtaxed grid. I have a feeling the people in charge here can't do simple math.

They can't do anything simple, politicians complicate the shit out of everything while they show you they are solving one thing they are really funding 20 other pet projects, some of which will line their pockets somehow.

 

[DDoug]

A solar farm could be on the roof of a huge building. I worked in a building that was over 40 acres under the roof. Imagine what kind of power that could have produced if the entire place was covered with solar panels.

Imagine all the "roof penetrations" all that hardware creates.
40 acres of industrial roofing is a serious investment.
Plant engineers don't like holes in those roofs.

 

[Scottl]

The comment was made that solar panels on the roof of a building wouldn't be wasted space. True, but as I said before, in the case of the steel mill which will largely be solar powered, the building is less than one tenth the size of the solar array required to run it. And the array is on an environmentally sensitive desert where while the array has some impact a massive building would have a HUGE environmental impact even before accounting for the impact of people, vehicles, etc.

If we truly wish to go zero carbon what we need is more nukes and less kooks.

 

[Scottl]

"Simple" is too often overlooked, in general.

Have a recce:

Climate change: 'Sand battery' could solve green energy's big problem

A storage device made from sand may overcome the biggest issue in the transition to renewable energy.

news.yahoo.com

Yes, fine for heating buildings and even processes but of little use for creating electricity. This line from that article says it all:

"The efficiency falls dramatically when the sand is used to just return power to the electricity grid."

And that is exactly why the laws of thermodynamics will keep biting Green Dreams in the ass. Typical commercial solar cells operate at about 30% efficiency in converting sunlight. Fortunately, this is not a problem during peak sunlight as the sun provides an abundant amount. However, as the angle of the sun becomes more oblique the insolation (solar energy) is reduced and the cells produce far less, with zero output during night hours.

Conversion efficiency is what causes the problem with trying to store the energy. Only a percentage of the energy gets stored and there are further losses when recovering the energy as grid-capable electricity. All storage has this problem including batteries, pumped storage, flywheel storage, and more unusual things like sand storage.

What this means in the real world is that you have to have massive overcapacity of solar installations in order to have the energy available 24/7. And the costs, including usually ignored environmental costs are much higher than advocates would have us believe. Tons of earth must be mined for each pound of mineral used to make these devices and the mining equipment very often runs on diesel fuel.