About the "make your own solar panels" ads pervading the 'net lately

These ads are everywhere, including on DU, Raw Story, Huffington Post.

They are total bullshit.

I spent a couple hours looking into them and they make outrageous claims that are blatant lies.

In a nutshell... even if you could make solar panels for FREE, you can't sell power back to the power company, like they cliam, unless you also spend about $2000 on an inverter, which you can't make yourself, period. Even if you could make an inverter yourself, you still couldn't sell power the power company because the power companies have strict regulations about the inverters you can use, and it has to be UL listed. Good luck getting your homemade inverter UL listed.

I could go on, but I won't waste my time. If you have any specific questions about what you've read in these ads, I'd be happy to respond.

But the ads are complete bullshit. Don't waste your time considering to buy anything, even a book, from these people. I don't understand the term "fraud" in a legal sense but I'd bet that if an prosecutor checked out these folks, the ads would be taken down.

I've tried sending an alert to Google Ads, but they ignored it.

Take care
gary the solar bus driver

matter, and making the inverter and charge controller would probably be beyond the capacity of most people to make.

in partenership with the electric company, you can sell some of the energy back.. I haven't heard of the do-it yourself versions allowing this.. I didn't know they were even advertising a do-it yourself version.

absolutely, you can sell power back to the power company. many people are doing this now. the thing is, there is NO way to do it for $200, like the ads claim.

its has to pass inspection before it can go to the grid. I'd love to put some on my house & garage. Our utility company has high rate and the local school board tacked a 3% surcharge onto our bills.

...BS that malware authors often use to "force" you into agreeeing to install their crap. <ctrl-F4> FTW.

solar industry's ads, including this one (from 1954):



It say's "if this energy could be put to use, there would be enough to light every lamp and turn every wheel that mankind would need."

I've been hearing the same damn thing here year after year after year after year after year after year after year here pretty much every damn day.

It kind of pisses me off, since it furthers, not only furthers, but constitutes denial.

People believe what they want to believe and not necessarily what they see.

If one could actually see, one might be able to tell the difference between http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/renew_energy_consump/table1.html">0.091 and 83.436. If, and I realize this is a big if, 0.091 is not 83.436, then it would seem that the promise made in the 1954 ad was something of a scam, even though it was an ad by one of the largest and most respected companies of its time.

(you know, since the Republicans lost) we will get a chance for that to become reality. No more spending all of our money locking in technologies with energy returns even worse than that where fossil energy has dropped to. No sir, from now on we are actually going to REALIZE the potential that the Republicans have denied us with their insistence on continuing our reliance on fossil and nuclear; that's right! We are going to develop wind and slar, we are going to get rid of internal combustion engines for cars and use electric motors powered by wind and solar energy - we are going to clean up this outhouse..

Isn't that GREAT?

I think it is.

is it going to happen this time?

keep in mind that wind, solar PV, and hydrogen fuel cells, etc,
have been extensively and expensively researched
for years and years and years and year,
both in
and outside of the US

What you've heard is that we have the resource potential to do it. Which we did and still do.

What you are hearing now is more than that. It is that we also have the techno-economic and political windows of opportunity for it to happen - and that hasn't been part of the decision-making landscape before. Since the end of the 70s the Republicans took control of energy policy and locked it up tight with a policy structure designed to ensure that only large-scale thermal generation had any hope of competing in it.

Because of very high external costs the validity of that structure has crumbled and it has been shown for the unsustainable monster that it is. We are now pulling together what will replace it and that will be efficiency and renewables.

just my opinion.
I am all in favor of solar PV and wind,
where it makes economic sense.
.........................
with that said,

wind is a mature technology,
I expect continued deployment
but not any technical miracles.

solar PV has been studied for years,
efficiency, cost, and longevity,
are making incremental improvements,
again, I think breakthrus will be few
and far between

In the first place, there is a growing consciousness of the true
cost of the electricity that comes out of the wall socket and the
impact of "business as usual". This used to be the province of
"eco-nuts" and other derogatory terms applied to the tiny minority
of people who wanted to minimise what is now called their "footprint".
Now, although those terms are still used by some, far more people
recognise the importance of such awareness and are prepared to act
accordingly in order to behave more responsibly.

In the second place, the "incremental improvements" have combined
with the above to break down the economic barriers that tend to
stop ordinary people (or even rich ones) from doing the right thing.
There is no need for "technical miracles" (even though any that come
come along would be appreciated) as even the "ordinary" technological
progress is making things happen.


In one sense, the technological side is digging into one side of the
barrier (via cost and publicity) whilst in another, the consciousness
side is digging into the other side (via responsibility, impact and
awareness of the problems for future generations). At the same time,
those political & financial interests dedicated to keeping BAU as the
only game in town are busy pouring concrete and shoring up the barrier
(often in clandestine ways) as they know that once the breach gets
large enough, the flood will wash them away forever.

Here's hoping that the breach arrives before the bill for past abuses
of the planet does.

comparing it to the fraudulent ads now circulating on solar energy is a farce and only reveals your bias. have you seen the ads? they don't compare at all. The solar ads today claim you can make your own solar panels and sell power back to the power company for $200. That is categorically false.

the Bell ad does not make any outrageous claims about cost. In fact no claims about cost at all. There is nothing in the ad that is false. It is merely announcing a breakthrough in technology.

I am amazed that you point to the ad... as an advocate of nuclear energy you should clearly remember the incredibly false claims that nuclear energy was going to be "too cheap to meter." No one ever said that about solar energy. Do you realize how hypocritical you sound?

Your 0.091 vs 83.436 point is pretty silly, and in fact I'm tired of arguing the same thing over and over again with you. One more time, and now listen closely children, the numbers you present are for NOW, not the future. You want to say we can't do something simply because we're not doing it now. That is a flawed argument. OK? Get it? I guess not because for years you've been making the same flawed, incorrect, wrong argument. If your argument made any sense at all, then we wouldn't have radios, TVs, computers, or blenders, because for each of these there was a time BEFORE they existed in everyone's home. Would you have been standing on your soapbox 75 years ago saying "we can't have TVs. We will never have TVs. the reason why we will never have TVs is because we don't have them today. Here look, here's a chart showing only one in every 500 houses in the US has a TV. So we will never have TVs in every house. OK, so let's just not have TVs, OK?"

Do you understand that is the exact same illogical argument you have been making here on DU for years now? Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?

Just because we're not doing it now doesn't mean we can't do it.

The facts remain - it takes 10 times longer to make a nuclear power plant than it does to make a solar energy plant.... the same DOE that produced that web page you linked to also says that every 10 minutes the sun sends enough energy to the earth to power the entire planet for a YEAR. And a square roughly 90 miles on each side covered with today's technology solar panels would produce all the energy our country uses. So don't tell me it isn't feasible. And don't tell me we can't do it just because we're not doing it today. That argument makes absolutely no sense. And stop wasting our time making your same irrelevant points about why solar energy isn't feasible.

note... if you're going to say the same thing again, don't expect a response. if you're going to beat your head against the wall screaming "solar energy isn't feasible because we're not doing it today!" you might as well go beat your head against the wall somewhere else, because I'm not going to waste my time watching you do it.

That ad says, "Holy shit, we've invented a way to gather power from sunlight and can use it to power telephone equipment! Isn't that awesome!"

You turn that, through the power of your magical Bullshit-o-tron, into "Earth will be powered entirely by solar by today, 9/25/09!"

I know that you have this lunatic hard-on for nuclear power, but for God's sake give it a rest for ten seconds.

At $699 for a PDF of the UL Standard for Grid Intertie Inverters. Not to metion the cost of flying in a Field Services Engineer, schematic reviews etc. Tha $2000 Inverter is way cheaper than anything on e is going to build and get Listed.