The slings and arrows of outrageous subsidies...

You may have noticed that the Australian government recently switched to means testing the rebate for solar panels, thereby depriving those Aussies scraping by by a mere $100,000 per year from free electricity. Aussie PV firms are shitting bricks, which is weird because everybody can afford PV, right?

We'll see.

Meanwhile, the German government has "slashed solar subsidies" on the grounds that US$0.74/KWh is a bit steep.

Cue more brick-shitting. Just for reference, I pay US$0.13/KWh for an average 80% renewable power (since it's a windy night in the Wairarapa, I know it's 100% wind at the moment, but at least there's hydro to back it up).

I'm sure all those at E/E against fucking expensive energy subsidies will join me in a big "HOORAY" for not pissing away tax-payers money on expensive power, and offer congratulations to the German and Australian governments for not giving away stupid amounts of cash.

---------------------------

In completely and utterly unrelated news, the CEO of First Solar decided this was a good week to cash up.

Good luck Mike, and we all wish you well with your new yacht.

back in the 70's. If I re-call right the govt. wanted to send up some thing that could pick up power and beam it back to people. Some type of 'thing' that went around the earth and paid for by tax money. But the power co. put a stop to it because they wanted the means to sell it to the people and the govt. did not want a tax payed item to filleted into corp. hands. That was a long time ago and I went to a talk on it but it is a little messed up in my mind now. It just dropped off the thoughts of any one in the govt. I guess. It did not seem like a bad thing to me as a lot of the power grid was under govt. control and put in by the govt. in the first place. I am sure it is all owned by big business now. FDR did a lot of that to bring power to so many people.

need to be shown the door. We don't need old technology.

Well it did for the Soviets, but only up to a point. The main problem is, any mirror thin enough to be launched into orbit will act as a solar sail and leave the solar system at a fair old clip: Much as I like to blame the big corps. for as much as I can, even I can't pin the laws of physics on them. If you ever stumble across the global sunscreen bollocks, rest assured it's subject to the same laws of physics (and failure).

I do re-call the talk about it. Also that business was not for it as they wanted the selling rights if it worked. To many years ago.

Last October, the military sparked a lot of interest with a 75-page report which was very favorable: http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/nsso.htm

You can find more information here:
http://spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/
http://www.wronkiewicz.net/ssp/
http://update.ssi.org/

edit to add:
There's also been some talk of sending up a demonstration unit for Palau:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/tiny-country-of.html

You know we were going to do things in the 70's to get off this oil thing and cutting oil used for power to homes was part of it but every thing done sort of went out the window. Like small cars and lower speeds.

Solar is an emerging industry - tax credits and rebates to homeowners that install solar systems cannot be compared to the backroom crony capitalist nuclear industry giveaway served up by the Cheney Energy Task Force.

Big Diff...

:shrug:

Who knew?

The first use of the N-word in this thread is in the post by .... jpak.

If you think that "taking sides" on any given energy issue will keep your hands clean, think again -- there is HUGE money in energy production, whether they work or not, and it appears that nobody at DU is in line to profit from any of that largesse.

Time was, you had to be peddling a perpetual-motion machine to make some good old-fashioned dirty money. These days, a good slogan (like "Clean Coal" or just-plain "Green") and a friend on the Hill are all that's required.

--p!

* 1839 - Alexandre Edmond Becquerel observes the photoelectric effect via an electrode in a conductive solution exposed to light.
* 1873 - Willoughby Smith finds that selenium is photoconductive.
* 1877 - W.G. Adams and R.E. Day observed the photovoltaic effect in solid selenium, and published a paper on the selenium cell. 'The action of light on selenium,' in "Proceedings of the Royal Society, A25, 113.
* 1883 - Charles Fritts develops a solar cell using selenium on a thin layer of gold to form a device giving less than 1% efficiency.
* 1887 - Heinrich Hertz investigates ultraviolet light photoconductivity.
* 1887 - James Moser reports dye sensitised photoelectrochemical cell.
* 1888 - Edward Weston receives patent US389124, "Solar cell", and US389125, "Solar cell".
* 1894 - Melvin Severy receives patent US527377, "Solar cell", and US527379, "Solar cell".
* 1897 - Harry Reagan receives patent US588177, "Solar cell"..
* 1901 - Nikola Tesla receives the patent US685957, "Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy", and US685958, "Method of Utilizing of Radiant Energy".
* 1902 - Philipp von Lenard observes the variation in electron energy with light frequency.
* 1904 - Albert Einstein publishes a paper on the photoelectric effect. Wilhelm Hallwachs makes a semiconductor-junction solar cell (copper and copper oxide).
* 1913 - William Coblentz receives US1077219, "Solar cell".
* 1914 - Sven Ason Berglund patents "methods of increasing the capacity of photosensitive cells".
* 1916 - Robert Millikan conducts experiments and proves the photoelectric effect.
* 1918 - Jan Czochralski, a Polish scientist, produces a method to grow single crystals of metal. Decades later, the method is adapted to produce single-crystal silicon.
* 1920 - Solar water-heating systems, utilizing "flat collectors" (or "flat-plate collectors"), relied upon in homes and apartment buildings in Florida and southern California.
* 1932 - Audobert and Stora discover the photovoltaic effect in Cadmium selenide (CdSe), a photovoltaic material still used today.
* 1946 - Russell Ohl receives patent US2402662, "Light sensitive device".
* 1948 - Gordon Teal and John Little adapt the Czochralski method of crystal growth to produce single-crystalline germanium and, later, silicon.<2>
* 1950 - Bell Labs produce solar cells for space activities.
* 1951 - Electricity was generated for the first time by a nuclear reactor on December 20.
* 1954 - The New York Times forecasts that solar cells will eventually lead to a source of "limitless energy of the sun".

Edit: Just so we're perfectly clear on this: 120 years after the first patent for a solar panel, it's an "emerging" technology? When you expect it to become a "mature" technology, then?

Hey, Jpak, You don't fancy joining the 21^st century at any point, do you?



Edit: You'll be telling us next that the sun shines 20 hours per day, all day...

I will call you up everyday Saturday night
And we both stayed out 'til the morning light
And we sang, "Here we go again"
And though time goes by
I will always be
In a club with you
In 1973
Singing "Here we go again"

Wheeling power cross country can extend "daylight hours" available for PV power production...

20 hours a day at summer solstice...

:evilgrin:

Interesting, nobody else has managed that sort of load balancing

:evilgrin:

A time-scale more technical than a smiley would be nice.

efficiency and renewables are faster. cheaper, better - in all respects...

Just an attention whore having some sort of emotional melt-down....