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Speaking as someone who lives off grid: solar technology today is more than good enough to solve this problem, but people will have to adjust their lifestyle to

by 33a 8y ago

Speaking as someone who lives off grid: solar technology today is more than good enough to solve this problem, but people will have to adjust their lifestyle to consume less energy. Switching to a finite off grid battery bank it's remarkable how quickly you adapt to just doing less energy intensive stuff.

monochromatic 8y ago
It’s more than good enough to solve the problem, as long as you redefine the problem sufficiently?
- adrianN 8y ago
  The problem is becoming carbon neutral without turning the clock back to before we discovered coal.
killjoywashere 8y ago
how do you cook?
bluthru 8y ago
What were your biggest lifestyle changes?
AmericanChopper 8y ago
Personal solar installations are the least efficient and least reliable form of renewable energy. It’s great for people like you who are really motivated to do it, but telling people to demand less energy is not a solution to the worlds energy demands. I highly question how responsible it is to promote such a patently unviable solution as being a realistic way to meet global energy demands.
- hakfoo 8y ago
  It does have two appeals though: 1. Decentralized generation may be good for the network. Even if we have large utility-owned solar plants, it would be better if you can put a few hundred square metres in each neighbourhood, rather than 500 square kilometres together in the middle of nowhere. Reduced waste of energy from transmission-wire resistance, and less load on old/fragile parts of the grid if most of the current is being drawn from a nearby solar farm. 2. A way for consumers to hedge on electricity prices. From a financial perspective, there's not a big difference between "You get this 20-year lease/financing for a 5kW solar setup for $80 per month" and "You're contracting for 900 kilowatthours per month for the next 20 years, at a fixed rate of about 9 cents per kilowatthour, regardless of inflation or rate hikes."
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    It’s appealing for lots of reasons. Consuming clean energy that the sun freely deposits on your roof is a remarkably appealing idea. But sadly it does not appeal as a realistic solution to energy demands.
  - votepaunchy 8y ago
    > A way for consumers to hedge on electricity prices. From a financial perspective, there's not a big difference between "You get this 20-year lease/financing for a 5kW solar setup for $80 per month" and "You're contracting for 900 kilowatthours per month for the next 20 years, at a fixed rate of about 9 cents per kilowatthour, regardless of inflation or rate hikes." This is a hedge against improvements in energy production as likewise you may be locked into a higher rate.
- natch 8y ago
  I don’t think they meant it was the only solution for everybody on the planet.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    >Speaking as someone who lives off grid: solar technology today is more than good enough to solve this problem Their opening sentence tells a different story to be honest. Anybody who goes out and does this for themselves is only going to be doing good, but the argument is fallacious at best, and dangerous at worst. People hear this often enough, and it will end up changing their behaviour. They’ll end up voting for politicians who want to subsidize personal solar installations (which has to be the least efficient form of public investment in renewables), and taking stands against things like nuclear (or even wind) for environmental reasons. The opportunity cost is very real, and it’s entirelt reasonable to see how an argument like this can end up doing more harm than good.
    - natch 8y ago
      Really though solar is not being used anywhere near its potential. And I don’t think there is any serious-omg-danger being posed by someone pointing that out on an internet discussion board. It seems to me they were just opining that a great solution already exists. For there to be an actual opportunity cost, the entire world would have to take that one comment as gospel. There’s really no danger of that. The marketplace will ensure that plenty of solutions compete, including some bogus ones with real problems alongside the good ones.
      - AmericanChopper 8y ago
        It’s potential isn’t really relevant at all, because there’s better ROI in just about any other form of renewable. The argument put forth in the parent comment already has been very damaging, and can’t simply be dismissed. It’s a fact that many governments around the world have wasted a lot of money on subsidising personal solar installations, money that could have been better spend on just about any other renewable initiative. It’s another fact that many environmentalists are against, and some lobby very firmly against, nuclear energy (there are even those environmentalists who are against wind), a position very strongly bolstered by ideas like solar is “more than enough”. If you put your energy into promoting a bad solution, the best case outcome is that you get a bad solution. You also can’t rely on market forces here because of how regulated energy markets are, and how much politics plays into it. There’s plenty of political will behind solar, and plenty against nuclear. Market forces aren’t going to influence that.
- xbmcuser 8y ago
  The current rate of electricity use in the western is not viable. The choice is keeping the lifestyle for the next few decades and excepting the fact that future generations are fucked. Reality is that in the next decade or so even if the developed world brings down it's carbon output. The devolping countries which are 80% of the world population will be increasing theirs as they keep developing. Nuclear might be an option for the developed world but unless something drastically changes in world politics the majority of where the carbon use going to come from are not going to have access to it.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    >The current rate of electricity use in the western is not viable. This simply isn’t true. Nuclear and even hydro are fantastic renewable sources. Wind and large scale solar isn’t bad in many places either. The problem is that environmentalists (and others, especially NIMBYs) strongly oppose most of those options, especially nuclear and hydro. Any proposed solution that relies on mass lifestyle overhauls is a non-starter, and isn’t even required for renewables to be leveraged properly. At that point it just becomes idealism, and any idealist view of society that requires significant changes in behaviours and motivations, on mass, is really just navel gazing.
    - mimixco 8y ago
      Nuclear is hardly renewable. Every uranium pellet has to be mined (a carbon-intensive and highly polluting process) and none of the reprocessing methods we've tried so far are viable (which is why we don't try it anymore.) Hydro? We gave up on that in the US a long time ago because of the environmental impact of screwing with the water flow. I did see something a few years ago about a new type of hydro that worked in-line with the water flow using small turbines alongside a river. It put the water back into the river after spinning the turbines so as to minimize the environmental impact.
      - AmericanChopper 8y ago
        >and none of the reprocessing methods we've tried so far are viable (which is why we don't try it anymore.) This is an outright lie. Fast reactors which produce negligible waste (and which can be fueled by existing stored waste) are proven to be viable, have been used in the past, and are currently in use now in some places. The reason they are not being widely developed is entirely political.

by 33a 8y ago

monochromatic 8y ago

It’s more than good enough to solve the problem, as long as you redefine the problem sufficiently?

adrianN 8y ago
The problem is becoming carbon neutral without turning the clock back to before we discovered coal.

killjoywashere 8y ago

how do you cook?

bluthru 8y ago

What were your biggest lifestyle changes?

AmericanChopper 8y ago

Personal solar installations are the least efficient and least reliable form of renewable energy. It’s great for people like you who are really motivated to do it, but telling people to demand less energy is not a solution to the worlds energy demands. I highly question how responsible it is to promote such a patently unviable solution as being a realistic way to meet global energy demands.

hakfoo 8y ago
It does have two appeals though: 1. Decentralized generation may be good for the network. Even if we have large utility-owned solar plants, it would be better if you can put a few hundred square metres in each neighbourhood, rather than 500 square kilometres together in the middle of nowhere. Reduced waste of energy from transmission-wire resistance, and less load on old/fragile parts of the grid if most of the current is being drawn from a nearby solar farm. 2. A way for consumers to hedge on electricity prices. From a financial perspective, there's not a big difference between "You get this 20-year lease/financing for a 5kW solar setup for $80 per month" and "You're contracting for 900 kilowatthours per month for the next 20 years, at a fixed rate of about 9 cents per kilowatthour, regardless of inflation or rate hikes."
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  It’s appealing for lots of reasons. Consuming clean energy that the sun freely deposits on your roof is a remarkably appealing idea. But sadly it does not appeal as a realistic solution to energy demands.
- votepaunchy 8y ago
  > A way for consumers to hedge on electricity prices. From a financial perspective, there's not a big difference between "You get this 20-year lease/financing for a 5kW solar setup for $80 per month" and "You're contracting for 900 kilowatthours per month for the next 20 years, at a fixed rate of about 9 cents per kilowatthour, regardless of inflation or rate hikes." This is a hedge against improvements in energy production as likewise you may be locked into a higher rate.
natch 8y ago
I don’t think they meant it was the only solution for everybody on the planet.
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  >Speaking as someone who lives off grid: solar technology today is more than good enough to solve this problem Their opening sentence tells a different story to be honest. Anybody who goes out and does this for themselves is only going to be doing good, but the argument is fallacious at best, and dangerous at worst. People hear this often enough, and it will end up changing their behaviour. They’ll end up voting for politicians who want to subsidize personal solar installations (which has to be the least efficient form of public investment in renewables), and taking stands against things like nuclear (or even wind) for environmental reasons. The opportunity cost is very real, and it’s entirelt reasonable to see how an argument like this can end up doing more harm than good.
  - natch 8y ago
    Really though solar is not being used anywhere near its potential. And I don’t think there is any serious-omg-danger being posed by someone pointing that out on an internet discussion board. It seems to me they were just opining that a great solution already exists. For there to be an actual opportunity cost, the entire world would have to take that one comment as gospel. There’s really no danger of that. The marketplace will ensure that plenty of solutions compete, including some bogus ones with real problems alongside the good ones.
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      It’s potential isn’t really relevant at all, because there’s better ROI in just about any other form of renewable. The argument put forth in the parent comment already has been very damaging, and can’t simply be dismissed. It’s a fact that many governments around the world have wasted a lot of money on subsidising personal solar installations, money that could have been better spend on just about any other renewable initiative. It’s another fact that many environmentalists are against, and some lobby very firmly against, nuclear energy (there are even those environmentalists who are against wind), a position very strongly bolstered by ideas like solar is “more than enough”. If you put your energy into promoting a bad solution, the best case outcome is that you get a bad solution. You also can’t rely on market forces here because of how regulated energy markets are, and how much politics plays into it. There’s plenty of political will behind solar, and plenty against nuclear. Market forces aren’t going to influence that.
xbmcuser 8y ago
The current rate of electricity use in the western is not viable. The choice is keeping the lifestyle for the next few decades and excepting the fact that future generations are fucked. Reality is that in the next decade or so even if the developed world brings down it's carbon output. The devolping countries which are 80% of the world population will be increasing theirs as they keep developing. Nuclear might be an option for the developed world but unless something drastically changes in world politics the majority of where the carbon use going to come from are not going to have access to it.
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  >The current rate of electricity use in the western is not viable. This simply isn’t true. Nuclear and even hydro are fantastic renewable sources. Wind and large scale solar isn’t bad in many places either. The problem is that environmentalists (and others, especially NIMBYs) strongly oppose most of those options, especially nuclear and hydro. Any proposed solution that relies on mass lifestyle overhauls is a non-starter, and isn’t even required for renewables to be leveraged properly. At that point it just becomes idealism, and any idealist view of society that requires significant changes in behaviours and motivations, on mass, is really just navel gazing.
  - mimixco 8y ago
    Nuclear is hardly renewable. Every uranium pellet has to be mined (a carbon-intensive and highly polluting process) and none of the reprocessing methods we've tried so far are viable (which is why we don't try it anymore.) Hydro? We gave up on that in the US a long time ago because of the environmental impact of screwing with the water flow. I did see something a few years ago about a new type of hydro that worked in-line with the water flow using small turbines alongside a river. It put the water back into the river after spinning the turbines so as to minimize the environmental impact.
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      >and none of the reprocessing methods we've tried so far are viable (which is why we don't try it anymore.) This is an outright lie. Fast reactors which produce negligible waste (and which can be fueled by existing stored waste) are proven to be viable, have been used in the past, and are currently in use now in some places. The reason they are not being widely developed is entirely political.