|
Arguments against solar panels primarily center on the fact that they require more energy and fossil fuel-burning equipment to mine, manufacture, and transport than they save. Another argument is that the production method uses hazardous chemicals, which are more detrimental than beneficial. Then there is the problem of end-of-life disposal. When compared to nuclear energy, solar energy generates 300 times more waste. When it is feasible, recycling is not cost-effective, is energy intense, and has a negative environmental footprint. Gerardo E. Martínez-Solanas |
Earlier this year the New York Times published an opinion piece, “What Will We Do With Our Free Power?,” written by David Wallace Wells. The sheer optimism of the piece was a breath of fresh air. Rather than emphasizing the existential terror of a climate crisis that renewable energy may help us avert, the author focused on the plummeting costs of photovoltaic electricity, with facts to back up his assertions.
When evaluating California’s energy policy, the scale of the transformation the state has embarked upon could use a bit more optimism. Ratepayers who are exhausted by the current runup in electricity prices compared to other states would be encouraged if they understood the path we’re on is likely, within just a few more years, to compel providers to compete on price to serve electricity in abundance.
To test this theory, consider the return on investment for a solar power producer even at today’s prices. The installed cost for utility-scale photovoltaics is now down to under $1.50 per watt. This means that via a 25 year, 6 percent per year construction loan, the break-even cost for sold electricity is only $.05 per kilowatt-hour. That’s an annual average, but even in winter, break-even productivity sufficient to cover the construction loan payment would only be around $.08 per kilowatt-hour. At that rate, solar capacity can be profitably overbuilt to deliver energy even in winter.
- Hits: 70
Doug Casey: Well, before we get into what happened in the Soviet Union, and what seems to now be happening in the US, we really have to address the validity of psychiatry as a science to start with, and mental illness as being a real illness.
Occupied territories 
KGB soviética, pone como condiciones para cesar su "acción militar", que 1) Ucrania enmiende su Constitución declarándose neutral y desmilitarizada; 2) reconozca la anexión a Rusia de Crimea, Donetsk y Lugansk (casi una quinta parte del territorio de Ucrania); 3) renuncie a ingresar a la Unión Europea.