Yay for Shawn! We are so lucky to have guys like him in our community to educate the rest of us! thanks!!
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:28 PM, Shawn Reeves <[email protected]>wrote: > Nov 24, Eric Banford wrote: > >> The book I am almost done with "The Long Descent" by John Michael Greer >> mentioned that some studies showed that solar panels and wind mills took >> more energy to make than they produced over their life. Maybe that was true >> and isn't anymore? I know advancements are being made, hopefully a >> breakthrough will bring the cost of production way down. >> > Sigh...Time for a reply from someone who asks the rude questions on > pv-plant tours, someone who walks around with a light meter: > ON SOLAR PV > Those little PV cells in your calculator and watch *do* take more energy to > produce than they produce in their lifetime, because they are usually > indoors. > ...But... > Monocrystalline modules like Schott and Evergreen Solar now use about 15% > (best in the industry) of the energy they'll produce in their warrantied > lifetime to be manufactured, including mining, glazing, aluminum production, > etc. Unless you have neighbors who throw rocks for sport, your modules will > last much much much longer than the warranty. After 50 years they may > require re-glazing (diddly-squat in the scheme of things). After 100 years, > our granchildren will be laughing at how their grandparents were scared of > progress, how tiny little itty bitty energy it took to make the panels on > Grandma's house. Get a tracking system and you'll contradict Greer's > citations even faster. > If you install a panel facing north, then yes, it won't produce as much > energy as it takes to make, unless it's working for about 150 years. > I have an Evergreen Solar module that is not recouping the energy it took > to manufacture, but only because it is sitting in my hallway. (I use it for > education). Its disuse, compared to its potential, symbolizes the fact that > nay-sayers are the reason solar (and other awesome technologies) are not > doing the heavy lifting yet in our economy; speculative capitalism is always > a lesson in self-fulfilling prophecy. Decades of missed opportunities. > It's very important to consider the unbalance, though, between solar energy > availability and prices: With less sun but higher electric rates here in > CNY, Solar PV pays for itself money-wise more quickly than in the South, but > produces less energy. So, economics are forcing us to install them not in > the place where they'd do the most work. We need a mechanism that would take > Northern capital and invest in Southern PV exposure. Hmmm, interstate > commerce...Congress? > ON WIND > The idea that a properly sited modern wind turbine couldn't generate as > much energy as it takes to produce is off the mark.The cost of a turbine > installation is mostly spent on fancy labor, fancy materials, fancy > electronics, and fancy, fancy construction equipment, not the energy bill. > This is the same silliness that people suffered when believing those kooky > myths that Prius hybrid drive systems took more energy to produce than > they'd save. As in the wind turbine case, the cost of the drive system was > less than the savings, therefore the energy used to produce the drive > system, which must have been less than 100% of the cost of the drive system > (gotta leave dough to buy the materials and labor), was less than the energy > saved. > Properly sited, megawatt scale wind turbines are money machines as much as > energy machines. 150 ton money machines, they take between one and three > million dollars of labor/materials/transportation/equipment/etc. and sixty > thousand dollars worth of energy and turn that capital into a fifth of a > million dollars of energy per year. They pay for themselves in energy in > less than a year, and in money in 5-15 years. About half of the embedded > energy of a large turbine is in the materials, half in the logistics. > -- > -Shawn Reeves > not necessarily the opinion of EnergyTeachers.org > [email protected] > http://energyteachers.org > > _______________________________________________ > For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, > please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > > RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: > [email protected] > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins > Questions about the list? ask > [email protected] > free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org > -- ---------------------------------------------------- Gay Nicholson, Ph.D. President Sustainable Tompkins 109 S. Albany St. Ithaca, NY 14850 www.sustainabletompkins.org 607-533-7312 (home office) 607-220-8991 (cell) 607-216-1552 (ST office) 607-216-1553 (ST fax) [email protected] _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
