Yeah this is a big part of why carbon taxes are a good idea. Even 10-20 a ton would completely change the math on a lot of transactions.
When I started doing solar the ranking of solar capacity by country was Germany, Japan, and then the United States. I don’t remember China being anywhere near the top. Now the u.s. is second, but China has almost three times as much solar as the United States.
Heard a podcast last week with the author of the new book about the history of Koch industries. Apparently they saw a carbon tax as an existential threat and went all in to kill it. That’s why it’s no longer a live option.
Your math might be off. Google says Sahara is 9200000 km2 compared to 27000 km2. So: Massachusetts = 3% Sahara
I think your math is off, lol. But I was actually wrong. It’s more like 4x the size of Massachusetts. I did it in my head the first time I posted it.
You‘re right. I messed up. Should be ~0.3%.
I don’t know what Massachusetts really has to do with it. There are 12 Massachusetts worth of corn fields in the United States. MA is a small state. It’s half the size of San Bernardino county. And the 1.2% of the Sahara stat was for the entire world’s electricity production. The US consumes about 1/5th of the world’s electricity.
As someone who works with semiconductors, it strikes me that there’s so much room for solar tech to improve, especially with the new perovskite materials coming out. Who knows how efficient/cheap colar will be ten years from now.
I assume moving to somewhere like Austin is out of the question?
One of the enemies of solar has always been people saying it’ll get so much better. Not saying what you said is wrong or bad. Solar has gotten better. A solar panel today is almost twice as efficient as when I started. But, mostly solar is cheaper. A solar panel costs less than a fifth of what one did when I started.
I’ve heard the max efficiency for silicon based solar cells is about 35% and most panels today are a bit under 20% efficient (hate to even say that number because people think that means they are bad - the efficiency in watts/square meter isn’t nearly as important as cost per kwh generated.
Anyway, I’m sure efficiency will keep improving and I think costs will come down at least by another 50% or so, but there’s a base cost just to build something that will be robust enough to last. And installation costs may not decrease at all. So, anyway, maybe a floor of $.01/kwh or so, which is hella cheap. Maybe different materials can beat the 35% efficiency.
Googling… yeah
Traditional single-junction cells with an optimal band gap for the solar spectrum have a maximum theoretical efficiency of 33.16%, the Shockley-Queisser limit
They send multi-junction cells into space I think that have higher efficiency. They are hella expensive, but maybe they won’t be so expensive in the near future. Still, we don’t want better to be the enemy of already good.
Fair enough. Look given your situation it doesn’t seem like it’s much of a choice does it? The biggest threat to real estate prices in San Fransisco would be zoning reform if my read on the situation is right. It sucks that you’re in this situation. Is there any way to get a loan with a minimal down payment so you can give it back if prices fall and you’re suddenly under water?
Goofyballer,
IMO don’t stretch to the absolute limit.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2066-Sierra-Rd-San-Jose-CA-95131/19564619_zpid/
I’m assuming you’re working somewhere down there and not in SF.
Good god those stairs though. I know it’s just carpet, but I worry about the mind that thought they looked cool lol.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/483-Feldspar-Dr-San-Jose-CA-95111/19738216_zpid/
This one isn’t so ugly on the outside and costs less.
SF and being ready to move in with a nice kitchen does make this hard.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/283-Ramsell-St-San-Francisco-CA-94132/15193599_zpid/
This house is nice looking and you have room to have the kitchen redone.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/993-Dolores-St-San-Francisco-CA-94110/2086204887_zpid/
This place is ready to go for a little under a million, but it probably sells for more.
Super interested in the solar/energy chat.
I work for a large utility with a big part of my job on solar and battery.
Home batteries are okay, but the payback period isnt great. It’s also pretty complicated tech, with a big software element, and you need to get approval from the grid to put energy back.
This is all going to happen, but its gonna take a lot of work and smart people to solve the challenges.
There’s a lot of “it depends” here. You put energy back into the grid when you don’t have batteries and not necessarily, but usually, when you do. And you do need permission where I operate, but it’s essentially a guarantee if you follow whatever rules they have.
In most cases in residential around here there is never any payback on batteries. It’s a luxury item for most cases. With time-of-use energy rates there is some payback, but it’s not something that is really there for residential systems. Industrial customers around here at least often have a big demand charge and batteries can be used to shave peak demand and save a lot of money. Those aren’t really much energy storage though.
This is different for different utilities, states and of course countries. I know a guy who sells a ton of battery backup all over the world in Africa, Pakistan, Russia etc… Many of his customers have some money, but not reliable power for the grid.
Hawaii got so much solar at one point they did some policy change that had the battery market going crazy there. I think they probably stopped giving energy credit for what is sent back to the grid on new systems (net metering) and started buying that power at wholesale rates. That kind of thing results in people wanting to save their energy to consume themselves.
Yup. I deal with 10 different grid companies. They range from great to work with to an absolute shambles.
There’s tech on the horizon that suggest batteries will come down significantly in price. That’s when things really start to take off.
Whether Thats 2 years or 10 years I dont know.
But nuclear plants take 10 years to plan/build damn guess we cant use nuclear
You seem hostile. I know smart people are supposed to like nuclear and stoner hippies are supposed to be against it and for solar, so I understand. But…prices including storage for utility systems are already flirting with $.02/kwh, which is extremely cheap.
The technology is there. Next week I’m going to be installing a 4.8kwh LG battery back up system on a home. All the software and electronics and battery tech is pretty close to plug and play (it’s hard-wired, but it’s not rocket science) The lithium-ion battery system with all the controlling electronics cost $4805.
As far as when will prices come down or tech improve, well, it’s there already, but it’ll improve. There’s not much demand for battery storage right now in California.* The storage we do have is mostly pumped hydro and we use it the opposite direction that solar would require. We pump at night and generate during the day. So, with no demand, how is the storage market going to really take off?
We also don’t have demand for another nuclear power plant.
- that said, it is happening. For example, in Oxnard they were going to install a Natural Gas peaker plant, but they are putting in a big battery storage system instead.