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Kinda sad situation with the alternative energy source. I did a similar back of the envelope calculation for my dad when he considered putting solar panels ont

Kinda sad situation with the alternative energy source. I did a similar back of the envelope calculation for my dad when he considered putting solar panels onto his house roof when the Australian Govn't was subsidizing it. It would have taken him 17 years to breakeven from the initial installation. This did not even consider the maintenance and insurance cost. We weren't even sure if my parents would have stayed in that house for that long. So we skipped it. The initial costs is just too high for average Joe.

dragontamer 11y ago
Its as if people have forgotten about infrastructure or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... Spend a few billion on a 3 Gigawatt plant (roughly 30-Gigawatt hours of energy storage). Large-scale infrastructure projects are going to be cheaper and more efficient than most direct-to-home solutions. The economies of scale, and the innovative designs that exist at the large level (CAES: Compressed Air Energy Storage. Redox-Flow Batteries, Pumped Hydro, Flywheel Energy Storage) are superior to the designs that exist at a micro-level (Li-Ion Batteries) The new infrastructure projects are occurring all over the place in the US. * http://www.energy.ca.gov/tour/helms/ http://www.energy.ca.gov/tour/helms/ * https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/texas-calls-for-317mw-of-compressed-air-energy-storage2 https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/texas-calls-for... Etc. etc. These infrastructure projects are the future (and past). They're proven, reliable, and there are tons of engineers with decades of experience on these sorts of projects. -------- Tesla needs to try to make a Utility-scale 500 MW plant.
- yellowbkpk 11y ago
  Those infrastructure projects don't sell Tesla batteries at scale, making future Tesla battery packs cheaper, making future Tesla cars cheaper.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Tesla is making utility-scale stuff. Their "Powerpack" product starts at 100kWh and can be chained together to scale as large as you want, and is intended for industrial and utility use. The home version is basically a byproduct of that, for people who want a whole-house UPS, or really want to go off-grid, or whose utilities are slow to get with it.
mhurron 11y ago
> Kinda sad situation with the alternative energy source. I find it kind of sad that the only way people will consider alternative energy sources is if it's significantly cheaper than the existing, embedded, kill the planet options. I find it sad, but I'm not surprised. People in general don't actually give a shit about anything around them.
- escherize 11y ago
  You should cheer up. Rational people (like gp) only care about what's around them. Why should he waste money on solar instead of sending it to charity, etc?
  - Brakenshire 11y ago
    The Rational Man is a economic construct which is dubious as an abstract concept for building economic models, and irrelevant as a justification for individual behaviour. If the limit of morality is the law and the market, we might all just as well give up now.
    - oldmanjay 11y ago
      Apologies for this comment. I dashed off about 30% of my thoughts (the shittiest 30%) and this isn't really what I was trying to express. I'll leave it here to remind myself to think more. ----- If the most convincing case you can make for your morals is "you should because I say so" then you can't be too surprised when it's not 100% convincing to people.
      - Brakenshire 11y ago
        > If the most convincing case you can make for your morals is "you should because I say so" then you can't be too surprised when it's not 100% convincing to people. Yeah, there are all sorts of questions you can discuss about how your values inform the way you spend money above and beyond what's necessary, whether it's about luxury, convenience, status, or how you would want to spend charitable money. What annoyed me was the raising up of an observation ('people don't care about anything beyond their surroundings') into something which is glibly justified because it is Rational. I would say that's a "you should because I say so", or at best a "you should because it is" argument for morality. Edit: Ah, I see your edit, consider the above part of the fossilized argument then!
singingfish 11y ago
I've done some sums too. A 4kw system without storage has a payback time of 10 years for me. I can't see storage making an economic difference at this stage.

dragontamer 11y ago

Its as if people have forgotten about infrastructure or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... Spend a few billion on a 3 Gigawatt plant (roughly 30-Gigawatt hours of energy storage). Large-scale infrastructure projects are going to be cheaper and more efficient than most direct-to-home solutions. The economies of scale, and the innovative designs that exist at the large level (CAES: Compressed Air Energy Storage. Redox-Flow Batteries, Pumped Hydro, Flywheel Energy Storage) are superior to the designs that exist at a micro-level (Li-Ion Batteries) The new infrastructure projects are occurring all over the place in the US. * http://www.energy.ca.gov/tour/helms/ http://www.energy.ca.gov/tour/helms/ * https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/texas-calls-for-317mw-of-compressed-air-energy-storage2 https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/texas-calls-for... Etc. etc. These infrastructure projects are the future (and past). They're proven, reliable, and there are tons of engineers with decades of experience on these sorts of projects. -------- Tesla needs to try to make a Utility-scale 500 MW plant.

yellowbkpk 11y ago
Those infrastructure projects don't sell Tesla batteries at scale, making future Tesla battery packs cheaper, making future Tesla cars cheaper.
mikeash 11y ago
Tesla is making utility-scale stuff. Their "Powerpack" product starts at 100kWh and can be chained together to scale as large as you want, and is intended for industrial and utility use. The home version is basically a byproduct of that, for people who want a whole-house UPS, or really want to go off-grid, or whose utilities are slow to get with it.

mhurron 11y ago

> Kinda sad situation with the alternative energy source. I find it kind of sad that the only way people will consider alternative energy sources is if it's significantly cheaper than the existing, embedded, kill the planet options. I find it sad, but I'm not surprised. People in general don't actually give a shit about anything around them.

escherize 11y ago
You should cheer up. Rational people (like gp) only care about what's around them. Why should he waste money on solar instead of sending it to charity, etc?
- Brakenshire 11y ago
  The Rational Man is a economic construct which is dubious as an abstract concept for building economic models, and irrelevant as a justification for individual behaviour. If the limit of morality is the law and the market, we might all just as well give up now.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    Apologies for this comment. I dashed off about 30% of my thoughts (the shittiest 30%) and this isn't really what I was trying to express. I'll leave it here to remind myself to think more. ----- If the most convincing case you can make for your morals is "you should because I say so" then you can't be too surprised when it's not 100% convincing to people.
    - Brakenshire 11y ago
      > If the most convincing case you can make for your morals is "you should because I say so" then you can't be too surprised when it's not 100% convincing to people. Yeah, there are all sorts of questions you can discuss about how your values inform the way you spend money above and beyond what's necessary, whether it's about luxury, convenience, status, or how you would want to spend charitable money. What annoyed me was the raising up of an observation ('people don't care about anything beyond their surroundings') into something which is glibly justified because it is Rational. I would say that's a "you should because I say so", or at best a "you should because it is" argument for morality. Edit: Ah, I see your edit, consider the above part of the fossilized argument then!

singingfish 11y ago

I've done some sums too. A 4kw system without storage has a payback time of 10 years for me. I can't see storage making an economic difference at this stage.