Council installing solar panels

[juuule]

Just read this and I am so jealous

"SOLAR panels which have been installed on every property on a north Manchester estate could save residents £100 each every year."

\link{http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/214/214140_solar_power_to_the_people.html?\Full report here}

wow - I think that's fab. I wish builders were obliged to put them on all new houses

I want one

I want those but they cost a fortune.

It's so obvious that all new builds should had solar power. Why on earth don't they?

The parking ticket machines all have solar panels on top in my neighbourhood. Is that the same all over the country?

It may be obvious to put solar panels on new builds but usually wrong. Certainly there is a case for many to have water heated that way, but electrical solar cells make no sense economically or environmentally, except in relatively rare cirucmstances.

One of circumstances is parking meters. Wiring them up to mains costs quite a bit of money, and the power companies want paying for each one.
There's lots of niche uses for solar electricity, just not mains replacement for homes.

I want sola panels to give me hot water in the summe and my wood burner in the winter

We don't have mains gas and electric is so expensive

Can you tell us why they don't, DC?

I would like them too, we have a large expanse of SE facing roof that would be perfect.

I've got a perfect roof as well, am thinking about water heating.

Current electrical cells are expensive. The BBC/Green position is that the "government" sohuld do something to make them cheaper.
Sadly a big chunk of the cost is energy.
They are relatives of silicon chips, and the way you make silicon that pure is in effect to ,elts sand over and over again. The purest manufactured thing in the world is chip silicon. Thus it is weight for weight one of the most expensive.

Also it requires large amounts of especially bad chemicals to make. The cells are left out in bad weather, and just to add insult to injury solar radiation is bad for them since they are thermodynamically unstable.

All is not lost. This is one of the most researched materials in the world ,and electrical cell prices are drifting down. At the current rate Solar will become about the same price as less BBC-friendly electricity around the turn of the century.
Don't bet on big breakthroughs here, people have looked too hard for too long for this to be likely.

You can make the retail price of large slabs of this exotic marterial as cheap as the government feels necessary to placate the artsgrads in the BBC. But the net effect on the environment is highly negative.
There are dozens and dozens of more cost effective ways to improve the environment and reduce our dependance upon carbon. Alas the BBC doesn't like nuclear and when it finds out about genetically modified plants for bio fuels will throw a fit.

Sorry typos,
I emant to say "melt sand over and over again". It's called "zone refining", highly effective, highly expensive in energy.

Oh (groan) this is sooo depressing :(

So..there is nothing that we can do:(
Somebody tell me there is a way........

Hot Water sola is still good

Just not PV cells

Sory

I'm sorry juuule, but I'm not a green, I tell it like I see it not as I would like it to be.
Actually I am a green, but I can count, so they really don't like me.

You can do all sorts of stuff, insulate, use more efficient bulbs, use washing line not tumble dryer, brush not hoover, and eat more raw vegetables which are good for you anyway.
But for most people home electricity generation is as rational as farming cod in your garden.

you might be able to count, but you do seem to have difficulty in seeing more than 20 years into the future, or in seeing things in an alternative way. who says all the energy to make solar panels comes from fossil fuels? It probably does now, but doesn't have to. also even given that, solar panels do eventually pay for themselves in carbon terms.

But anyway. yes, water heating panels are better usually.

Actually if you read some of other posts, you will see that I look about 80-90 years forward to the point where solar cells will be useful for homes.

Given that peple are talking of building them now, then of course we're talking about fossil fuels, with a little nuclear thrown in.
Also there is the dreadful chemical pollution they cause, which although now better than it was, is hardly good.

Also it simply not quite right to say that solar cells pay for themselves in carbon terms. Some do of course, but given their huge energy in manufacture, low output, and reliability issues, many don't. For mains replacement they border upon the absurd because of the huge losses in battery ineffeicency.

They are in effect a sort of mildly dysfunctional battery.

I can see alternatives, fusion or orbital solar, neither are going to be ready any time soon.

Thinking about it as an engineer (which is hard because I keep laughing), I can see a few uses for solar electricity in the home. I can imagine using it to power solar water heating pumps. Because the pump only needs to run when the sun is shining, no need for batteries which are the big hole in most BBc-friendly forms of energy.

If you have to put a new roof on anyway....what is the additional cost of PV roof tiles?

Although they are water tight individually, you'd still need to seal them together, and they'd weigh a bit of than standard tiles, so you'd pay for both tiles and PVs.

Sorry DC - I thought I'd seen actual roof tiles that were PV cell rather than add on ones - must have been mistaken

I can imagine PV tiles, harder to see how you'd get good seals. Wouldn't be a good idea to have a roof composed entirely of them anyway. Depending upon it's orientation to the Sun, large chunks won't get much direct light.
In SciFi there are such structures, and you could make a roof as layers of single doped silicon crystals. Would be 100% waterproof, would cool you in summer as well as providing power. Rigged properly they will also condense fresh water out of the air with no moving parts or use of fuel, and with a lifetime not only better than tiles but more comparable to a slab of solid stone. (so I can look forward SenoraPostrophe).
Silicon has the entertaining property that if you pass a current the right way through it, one side of the slab cools down. Thus the water condenser/aircon would run directly off generated current. No wires, no moving parts, my guess is that it would work without maintenance other than cleaning for thousands of years.

Sadly I don't think there is a production line capable of making a slab of this silicon more than a fraction of a square metre, and I'd guess even if you did, such a roof would cost millions.

But fabrication costs for silicon are drifting down, and within a century or so it will be viable.
This may accelerate, but the Greens will throw a grade one fit when they see why. Orbital solar power is nearly as mad as letting local councils loose with an "energy policy", but ultra low cost launch vehicles are being funded by Microsoft executives and seem to work. In (about) 20-30 years oribtal solar will be cost effective.
This will drive the cost of terrestial PV down, but of course once we have the skies, the mud will look less attracitve.

\link{http://www.pvsystems.com/pdf/PV24%20Newtec%20Tile.pdf\like this?}

\link{http://www.solarcentury.com/projects/domestic/\or this?}

Interesting links, if they've cracked the leaking issue I'd be impressed. But I note from the pictures that they're smart enough not to try and do the whole roof. According to their links you're talking about 12-14K for a partial roof, guess it would be 50-100 for a whole one. Even then you'd have to do parts with lead flashings, mastic or concrete.
That's expensive.
The 12-14K level is for 2Kw peak, which means on a hot clear summer day (you know the sort we get all the time), you have nearly enough to run your TV, lights etc, but obviously not heating, and of course how many lights do you have on during hot sunny days ?
Oh yes, and this for the part of this sunny day that the sun is shining on that part of your roof.
In Australia they're maginally less irrationally optimistic about PV, and I've seen gear that tracks the sun. It's still not a sensible way to produce electricity, but I have to admit it looks really cool.

I have a watch which is considerably more powerful than my first (or second or third) computers. It is sooo coool, that even people who do really serious security for the government are impressed by the way I can use it to subvert computers and essentially turn off Windows or Unix security on them.
Actually it's not that cool since it can get quite warm doing this stuff.
But it's of no real utility, since I have to get within 3 metres of the computer, and that's hard for any computer you'd really want to brainwash, though the so called "secure" Chip & Pin scheme foisted on us by the banks was first penetrated by a close relation of my watch.

I mostly use it as a convenient way of moving files.
Photo voltaic is like that.
It looks cool. The idea of getting power for free from a slim black device is just so SciFi. I'm a Trekkie, I love this stuff. I may even buy some PV gear as a toy.

Battlestar Galactica is also SciFi, and a Cylon (evil proto-christian robot like thing) might make a damn good security guard. Certainly I'd buy one.

But I don't kid myself that this is real.
One of my early computers was a Sinclair Spectrum.
On some benchmarks it outran million quid computers, but you wouldn't want to run your business on it. (People did, wasn't pretty)

You want a nice 15K toy ?
Lots to be found. An acquaintance of mine was quick and managed to get one of the original Captain Kirk's chairs from the Enterprise for about that.

DC - have you ever heard about a chinese village who were having a party?

They were all supposed to bring a bottle of rice wine to pour into a vat and a bowl of vegetables/meat to go into the rice pot

Chang was very poor he said to himself "It won't matter if I bring a bottle of water, my little bit of selfishness won't affect the whole vat of wine" then he said " I'll just take a bowl of rice, my little bit of selfishness won't affect the taste of the rice"

"and anyway everyone elses will mean it will all taste alright"

so on the day of the party he took along his water and plain boiled rice and added them to the pot

That evening the whole village dined on water and boiled rice as eveyone had thought "my little bit of selfishness won't matter"

There are more reasons than cost to do something

I will make a small bet with you. Find just one sentence in this thread where you can reasonably interpret my motives as putting self about society, and i'll ship you a bottle of champagne.
Else you can withdraw that remark.

Did the soup idea in economics way back, it's called the tragedy of the commons. Intelligent self interest usually works ,but this shows how some sort of government might actually be optimal in the form of taxation.

Certainly I'm sceptical, and quite possibly wrong headed and maybe simply wrong, but you won't find selfishnes aside from the fact that I find certain types of marginal energy source such as solar and wind aesthetically pleasing.

Just because I think current PVs are dumb ways of generating home power, doesn't mean I think nothing should be done.
Conservation through improved use of existing viable technologies is good, it may help us buy time for fission, fusion and maybe even orbital solar to come on line.

Thus to your story I propose a counter, being the people on the Titanic who legend says started rearranging the deck chairs. Or in the case of PV cells it's like exacting revenge upon the iceberg by being cruel to the ice in your drink.

Just because you are doing something doesn't mean it works, or in the case of PV that it isn't actually making things worse.

You got 15K to improve the environment ?
In bulk you could buy about 15,000 low energy bulbs.
They are also have much longer lives than the old fashioned type. So you could install them in the homes of old & disabled people. Changing bulbs is a risky thing if you're not steady on your feet, you'd save them money and you'd save more than the total carbon that you've spent in your life.
No reliance upon BBC/Green wishful thinking, no risk to the structure of your house, just work.

You up for that ?

Hang on didn't you see the wink?

All I was saying was that if someone wants to do something - it may have less cost implications than emotional

ie when I'm 103 and my great grand daughter is berating me for the state her world was in, I can say well I tried this this & this rather than - well it was all so expensive and it didn't work anyway

For me as & when I can afford any greener bits I will buy (whether or not they actually represent a financial saving for me)

The stuff I want currently are
Solar Hot Water (I like the idea - it appeals to me)& I really love that my wood burner makes my winter hot water
Grey water & rainwater recycling (I don't think that reducing my water usage will have any effect on the water usage of the country - but I need to do it)

Sorry I really didn't mean to offend you - just explain that somethings aren't income driven to some people

Sorry, for over reacting, I do get called selfish because I want to see the numbers behind this sort of decision.
To be sure, many environmental calculations mean that you pay more, though of course cost is a rough approximation to the amount of resources used to make something.

I've been looking at upgrading our grey water, but in this case I'm not convinced that this is not selfish of me.

Water in London is recycled reasonably efficiently, and typically goest through several use cycles. I'm as cynical about the water companies as anyone, but I don't think they spend money on energy doing this unless they have to.

Thus if I put water from the dishwasher & washing machine onto my garden, I am in effect taking it out of the system, just as if I used it straight from the tap.

Of cours that may not apply to you since outside Lonodon water is much less reused.

Bugs me, that my grey water usage may not actually be doing anything useful.

That obviously may not apply yto