Crystal Ball
In the days prior to Athens becoming a great Naval Power, there was large vein of Silver found that made Athenians rich. It lead to the question, what to do with that wealth? History tells us what we need to know.
There are countless examples of good and poor decisions since that time, and history has recorded so many of them. So why is it your think you need a crystal ball to predict at least part of your future?
Consulting the Oracle? If you had the opportunity, would you waste it all with a dumb question? Sure, there are plenty of statements to find, but VERY few questions posed in HCPV. It’s all so easy to find what I think are truly deceptive claims, and all so easy to associate them with self-interest, a revenue stream for those who write, a job, a career. But who ever asks a good question? Who challenges the claims? Who asks for the Devil’s details? and why is that?
It’s all so easy to find examples of self-interest, a favorite of mine is the Mantra from the NREL about Multi Junction Cell Efficiency, the ability to make more energy per square foot in the lab. A person with a day in the field might ask, and just how many riddles need be solved before that MJC is of any value under the sun? And if you were to solve those riddles, how would it compete with existing solar PV (Dollars/KWH) including ongoing maintenance?
Perhaps we muse how we form a question for the Oracle? Maybe we even ask how others would form the question? Some examples? Why not join in and help me form the better Question?
Here’s some I would expect to be asked, and from whom:
NREL leadership: “How do we assure future funding, and how can we keep the public’s interest and support in what we do?”
LUX Research: “How do we find new clients, build our brand, and most important of all.. generate revenue?”
The Huffington Post: “Mirror Mirrow on the wall, Don’t you think we’re Greenest of All?”
THe Citizen: “How do I preserve the very limited resources I’ve accumulated when my Government has made worthless my savings, and now like a Thief in the night… they steal what’s left via inflation. What should I do with the few dollars I have left?”
And what is it the impartial man would ask? Perhaps we find him first! Our Founders knew of the problems, and they did put safeguards in place, but we’ve long since abandoned them, it’s why we find ourselves here.
Not only do common voters expect a free lunch, now they want free and painless freedom.. what to do? I guess it’s time to read what happened in the past, and what worked best for men who can still think for themselves.
GB
The quest for ever more efficient Pvs is interesting in the lab but on the street it’s pretty worthless right now. Not too long ago I put in eight more panels. They were sunpower 240 Watt panels made me USA for about a $1.15 a watt. If it never gets cheaper than this that’s still a pretty good deal. And anyone who disagrees better be driving a $1000 car and living homeless. We’re already there.
Spending all this money on weird novel forms of solar power seems about like bushes fascination with the hydrogen economy. Right now it is totally about storage. Storage is what would change everything. If they came up with hundred percent efficient cells right now it would be really interesting and a lot of people enjoy what they could do with the pv space but it wouldn’t solve the problem nearly to the extent that storage would. Is there some kind of conspiracy to blow tax money on not solving the problem deliberately?
Your great solar panel deals likely came out of failures created by Politicians and their meddling in a once stable and growing solar industry. Politicians are only interested in their re-elecion, and they’d destroy heaven and earth for one more term in office.
The money you paid is only the down payment, you’ll be making other payments for the rest of your life to pay for the failures tendered out of the public purse, and we add new failures to the list every month. Where is that other list? If you find it, they’ll present the success in some abstract terms.
GW Bush caved on Hydrogen, how could he not know that’s there’s always a better use for the energy required to manufacture and store hydrogen, and how heavy the losses are? Only a Huffy, or Gang Greenie doesn’t know that Hydrogen research has done nothing more than the same old thing for 30 years or more. It’s nothing more than an excuse to rob the public purse. If researchers we paid for their progress in lowering the cost (dollars/BTU of hydrogen) adjusted for inflation, they’d have zero interest in studying it.
As for storage.. we need remember, the average voter wants a free lunch, and now wants free and painless freedom. He wants storage to be magic as well, and the most efficient systems on earth? He wants to tear them down because there is a price to pay, it’s not free and he knows there is a free lunch. But far more troubling, the Politician is afraid to tell them it isn’t possible, he’ll tell the lie to stay in power one more day..
I don’t think we need a crystal ball to know what’s coming, it seems we need to be visited by a plague or worse to be reminded of what happens when man demands to travel the easy road..
I said sunpower. I meant solarworld. They do seem to have some guilt. They were one of the companies in the us asking for trade protection against the likes of sunpower. That doesn’t please me. I have not been able to find out what the real value of these panels should have been. I have watched their manfacturing videos. They grow the crystals, cut them and assemble them in the us and they have a lot a robotics. I don’t know if $1.15 a watt is sustained without handouts but I do believe the price on these have been coming down the natural way too. But it’s all confused. They are a German owned company. How much of their profit has been had from German taxpayers billed the the pv spending orgy.
Thanks to the Government, who can tell? No one knows why an entity buys a thing today, or why it’s priced the way it is..