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Solar power now cheaper than coal and oil
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Baltimore, MD
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Nanosolar is now shipping their new solar panels. Cost? 30¢/watt to produce, down from about $3/watt. Cost to buy? 90¢/watt. So no more excuses about how renewables are too expensive.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: FFM
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Professional Poster
Join Date: May 2007
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Can you actually buy them yet?
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Baltimore, MD
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Originally Posted by peeb
Can you actually buy them yet?
I believe they just shipped their first order.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Colorado
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Well, it really shouldn't be hard to make something cheaper than oil.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
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Seriously, I think my damn car is cheaper than oil.
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Chuck
___
"Instead of either 'multi-talented' or 'multitalented' use 'bisexual'."
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Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Polwaristan
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Exciting stuff. However, I only see a couple products, and they look like they're for industry, not individual, residential customers. I'll consider it cheaper than fossil fuels when I can purchase them at a fair price, easily install them on my roof, and feed it simply into my electric grid.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
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Heres a question. The sunlight/heat that strikes the panels and not the planet surface, what is the climate impact?
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: The Rockies
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A plan was published in January's Scientific American on how to use this type of technology to supply most of the US's energy needs within about 50 years. I haven't read it in detail, but the basic idea is to put a bunch of solar panels in the southwestern US, store it, and develop a backbone to supply the rest of the country with it.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Minnesota
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It makes sense to switch to solar, except for those of us in northern climates. When the sun is in the southern hemisphere, the amount of light that actually reaches us is very small. It's useful for maybe only 7-8 hours a day, and even then, only at about 1/4 of what someone on the equator would receive.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Originally Posted by alligator
It makes sense to switch to solar, except for those of us in northern climates. When the sun is in the southern hemisphere, the amount of light that actually reaches us is very small. It's useful for maybe only 7-8 hours a day, and even then, only at about 1/4 of what someone on the equator would receive.
Even this may still be worth while - 7 hours is better than nothing.
As to the effect of striking panels, not the earth, should be no net effect - the energy will be released as heat sooner or later.
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