EPA Puts the Nation's Electricity Supply at Risk

The issue is we are a long way away from a point where we could rely exclusively on solar and wind. What happens if you have a day with low sun and little wind? That may be uncommon but it could happen. Until you have ample battery storage (or other storage) you just can’t rely on it. Being 90% or even 95% reliable is not good enough.

It seems premature to me to be pushing against natural gas. I think moderately tougher regulation on emissions is reasonable but you can’t push too much as companies are not going to invest heavily in something they see as non existent in 15 years.

Whether we as a country go 100% renewable by 2040 or 2050 will make a negligible difference regarding the pace of climate change. I think the whole Ukraine Russia fiasco shows that we have to have some diversity in energy supply.

 

How long ago was it that ice cars would be used forever? One man started one company and the end of fossil fuel cars is inevitable. We don’t live in a static world where there are no advancements.

 

Agreed.
I remodeled a house built in 1961.
When i started the electric bill was about $400/ month.
This was in 2010, I went with a solar (thermal) hot water heater, blew in insulation myself(like you), and swapped the old pool pump for a variable speed pump and switched to a LP gas dryer. Just with those 4 things knocked off 150-200 a month.
Mind you it was a large house 4600sq ft and we had 3 small kids (lots of laundry and showers/baths).
Not all situations will have as much bang for the buck. I eventually added a 3.35kW solar system which lowered the bill a small amount.

My new house is CB with blown in insulation, impact double pane low E windows, solar hot water and LP gas dryer, stove, and one LP furnace(despise heat pumps).
Electric rates have gone up and we still use about 100kW a day on average is AC is being used, that runs us about $300/ month.

 

You still need big battery storage which at this point is a huge cost.

 

Well aren’t you just a bundle of sunshine and rainbows. Your doom and gloom assessment aside I doubt seriously that most people with solar worry about the power company losing money over this, and I seriously doubt by not having solar panels my risk of fire and hurricanes will be reduced. Further there are tax incentives to reduce the cost of the panels, though DeSantis and the Republican led legislature are getting rid of them at the bequest of FPL. Further you must not be a homeowner because everything requires maintenance and care. Finally nothing is forever, we all know that, but in 20 years the panels will have long been paid for with a lot of my money staying in my pocket and not going out to the power company.

 

Nothing in life is free. Tax subsidies payed half though DeSantis is getting rid of those in Florida. Guess free energy from the sun is too Woke for him. My panels were made in the U.S. with the number of companies growing.

My advice is for you to not get panels if reducing your carbon footprint and lower electric bills offends you.

 

This year the world is spending more on solar panels than any other form of energy, almost a billion a day. China is installing 4 times this year on solar projects than the us has in history. Energy storage is still the big bottleneck but Tesla’s big batteries get bigger and cheaper every year.

 

I have 48 panels because I have a big house. With subsidies I paid about $22,000.

 

Any idea what the kW is at peak production?

I knew price per watt had come down quite a bit, in 2011 my 3.35kW system with solar hot water was about 22k pre subsidies. That was 10 panels that were among the best at the time.

 

Okay….that’s not the point but okay.

 

Just over 6,000 square feet, and yes our pool pump uses a lot of electricity.

 

Every little bit helps. Solar panels, solar hot water, etc

These mandates aren’t even mandates. More like suggestions, haha, but can move markets and spur innovation, which is key. Our power grid is starting to resemble bridges, etc.

I am all for more local production rather than a few super centers. Solar can help that. Better management and eliminate the grifters. One could look at last year’s Texas debacles or the Biomass messes as problem children and warning signs.

 

This month my system produced 2.4 MWh which would average I guess 82,758.62 KWh per day.

 

Just wondering, do you still have a warranty on your roof? How about your homeowners’ insurance, did it change at all? What is the life span of the system? And, what is the realized monthly savings when the solar cell bill is paid? I have a friend that lost $40K on the sale of his home due to reluctance of buyers to accept the solar debt ($360K vs. a very reasonable $400K ask for a quick health necessitated sale). I am skeptical, to say the least. Definitely first world problems if you had power bills over $400.

 

You mean like a "cap and trade" system? Yeah... that will never work. lolz

 

Why should the government pay for incentives, just like electric cars, if they are so great let them sell themselves. EV would not work for me due to to much long distance travel. The new technology from Tesla with their electric motors and battery storage could be breakthrough for many families. Possibilities of 3 to 4 times the range and a battery the a quarter of what is used now and much lighter.

 

Fossil fuel plants also don't run 100% of the time, and yet the grid survives. Metrics on outages do not suggest that renewables are less reliable than fossil fuel or nuclear.

Three Myths About Renewable Energy and the Grid, Debunked

In that link, they look at Germany, with it's heavy reliance on renewables, and find much lower rates of interruption than in places less reliant on renewables (such as the US, where we had 5x the interruption time than they did). After phasing out many fossil fuel sources and nuclear, their reliability increased rather than decreasing.