- “Critical habitat” where a species doesn’t live and can’t survive is subject of pending SCOTUS case [Ilya Shapiro and Meggan DeWitt on Cato brief in Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service]
- “Lawsuits are a costly — and misguided — approach to fixing climate change” [Josiah Neeley and William Murray on Colorado municipal suits, earlier here, etc.] More about EarthRights International, group assisting that effort [Spencer Walrath, Energy In Depth]
- Unintentional take of migratory fowl: “Interior Department Axes Flighty Bird Regs” [Joshua Hardman, Economics 21]
- Swirling islands of plastics in ocean may have a composition different than you expect [David Mastio, USA Today]
- So mysterious when housing prices escalate: “Every New House In California Will Now Have To Have Solar Panels” [Jim Dalrymple II/BuzzFeed, Amel Ahmed/KQED]
- “The Ecuador Saga Continues: Steven Donziger now owes Chevron more than $800,000” [Michael Krauss, earlier]
14 Comments
Assuming the California government’s estimates of $19,500 savings over 30 years for the newly mandatory solar panels are accurate — which is a big assumption — and assuming that the $9,500 estimated cost of installing the solar panels is accurate — which is another assumption — and assuming the installation is passed on to the homebuyer at no profit — which is not going to happen — and assuming no maintenance or failure of the proposed solar panel systems, and assuming that the grid can absorb any excess power generated perfectly, then the return on investment is a reasonable 6.67%.
Of course, that $19,500 is subsidized. A brief check on the Web didn’t give me a figure for how much a $9,500 solar panel set-up in California is subsidized, so I have no idea what the actual rate of return is. However, it strikes me that there are probably more money-efficient ways of reducing California’s CO2 output, if that’s what the government wants, than a method that probably tops out somewhere below a 2% yield.
Still, it makes everyone feel good, except for people who want to buy a new home, so that’s a big plus!
Bob
Are California’s numbers about right: 10k$ will get you 3kw installed capacity. And even in sunny California the sun sets every day, and government solar maps suggest about 3500 sun hours per year, with half of those hours having the sun significantly off axis for the solar panels. So figure 6000 kwH per year, or about $600 dollars per year. So California government estimate of 19,500 savings over 30 years is about on spec for what a current expenditure of $10,000 can produce.
Additional compromises for a solar grid include that the utility does not want individual homeowners to be at their most efficient. That is, the utility wants some east facing panels, and some west facing panels, in order to generate a flatter power curve for the day, and not max power at solar noon when no one is home to use all that power. Even less return on investment for homeowners who are stuck with less than ideally pointed panels.
Bob’s ROI calculation is generous in that it does not account for compounding on the invested ROI calculation.
If I socked 10,000 away now for 30 years with annual compounding in order to reach 20,000, the ROI would not be 6.67%, but rather 2.2%. [that’s 1.022 raised to the 30th power for annual compounding].
Your figures are current, Gasman, assuming compounded interest. I assumed simple bond-like interest. I thought that here, at least, we tried to be intellectually honest. Sarcastically so.
Does anyone have any statistics on what shape a solar panel array is likely to be in after 30 years?
Bob
Except every watt of rooftop PV capacity has to be matched by *reliable* generators (gas or coal-fired) so the power system doesn’t brown out when a cloud goes overhead.
Or storage capacity offlining a percentage of power to be brought online for flux management. There is also wind and we should all know that the wind increases during storms… But then again, it never rains in southern California or at least so the song says…
The utilities up here are installing mobile panels that track the sun during the day to generate peak power. I think that they announced they expected 1.5 mwh/year from their installation. Couple counties south they have a matching installation. This is Wisconsin, so I hope they have a reliable method for snow removal from the panels. Maybe exhaust heat from when the fuel powered generators have to kick in?
Yes they need to be careful. I don’t see any other downside to converting what power from sun and wind you can to preserve our stocks of fossil fuels for future generations.
“I don’t see any other downside to converting what power from sun and wind you can to preserve our stocks of fossil fuels for future generations.”
How about the fact that the cost is likely to significantly exceed the present value of the value of the preserved fuels to those future generations.
It makes no sense to do it unless it can be done economically. Wind and Solar will never be economical at large scales.
Except, of course, in space where there is no atmosphere to obscure the sun and nearly 24/7 solar visibility.
Solar already is economical for many areas far from the grid and could be economical on a larger scale if sufficiently inexpensive and dense energy storage is developed.
“and could be economical on a larger scale if sufficiently inexpensive”
Solar will never be sufficiently inexpensive for that, and so far, sufficiently dense energy storage that isn’t some form of liquid fuel appears to be a unicorn.
Go and tell the Europeans… Apparently they didn’t get the memo. And my understanding from Mn is that they are using solar to crack h2o into h2 and o then buring that thru turbines once excess capacity, for whatever reason, is needed. About the only thing that can’t be done is raise the efficiency over 33%. And sorry, but how much government money is spent to keep coal, oil and nuclear options on the table as well? Just about everything except maybe natural gas have some price supports. So why separate off solar/wind? I never claimed it was perfect, only an additional option.
“And sorry, but how much government money is spent to keep coal, oil and nuclear options on the table as well?”
In the US? About two orders of magnitude less (on a per unit energy basis) than is being spent to prop up wind and solar.
MattS. How do you come up with that number? There are so many government subsidies of energy it is hard to keep up with. For example, there is the oil depletion allowance, favorable terms for mineral rights holders (above the rights of surface rights holders. Also the environmental impacts of fossil and nuclear fuel may be absorbed by the public.
To be clear, I am not disputing your number per se. It may well be correct. I am just wondering how you came to it.
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/studies/energy-subsidies-study/
Thanks. A quick perusal seems to indicate that they are only talking about relatively direct subsidies. The oil depletion allowance is not counted. The costs pollution is not taken into account. The cost of regulatory agencies is not taken into account. They claim to have used a government agency for the numbers, but I could not the subsidy information on the website.
“The oil depletion allowance is not counted. The costs pollution is not taken into account. The cost of regulatory agencies is not taken into account.”
Of these items, only the oil depletion allowance could in any way be considered a subsidy of the fossil fuels industries, and even that one is debatable.