Climate Change Report

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Originally Posted by waywardgs

No, it's "See, solyndra was corrupt so the sun must be corrupt."

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"Ya well....at least we tried. Energy from the Sun is a nice dream but it just doesn't work. Good Initiative Kid, bad judgement. Now lets go punch holes in that damn Caribou Preserve"

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Originally Posted by cwolff

You guys are asking Solar to compete with mature industries. I mentioned earlier that we went to the moon and there's no reason for it. We threw cash at it just to do it. We can afford to throw cash at renewables. Hell we subsidize the fossil fuel industry and it's not some fledgling startup that needs the help.

Other countries are doing a lot with solar. Look up Germany's numbers sometime. It's staggering how much power they are generating from solar panels. If we want to make this work for the U.S. we will. If we don't we'll sit around and say "Well Solyndra went bankrupt so it's just not possible"

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One thing.. Germany's economy makes ours look like West Africa.

Just look at their exports to imports ratio.

Hell, their exports are almost as much as ours, and we are over 3x their size.

That being said, we can build more renewable energy systems here in the US. I just don't think the tax payers should be funding it. "Here is 30 billion to build some new plants... which you are then going to charge the people x amount of money for and make a profit on the money we gave you". I don't think ANY company should get money like that. Even Tesla, and I LOVE Tesla.

We are over 17 trillion in debt, we have a deficit of over a trillion a year.

Their are 2 ways you can look at it...

A) The debt and deficit matter, and we need to be fiscally responsible with OUR money.

B) The debt and deficit do not matter, in which case why the fuck do we want to keep raising taxes?

If Company A can make a profit off of a solar farm in WV, they will build a solar farm in WV. Granted, companies always want handouts to do almost anything nowadays. But we HAVE to stop that shit. Across the board.


As for going to the moon, you are 100% wrong. Utterly and Completely wrong. The fact that you even think that just shows how broken your thinking was. There are, and were so many reasons to go to the Moon it isn't funny. Some of them may not have had a "fiscal" return on the investment, but all in all, I would say our "Space Race" returned a very significant profit.

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Originally Posted by cwolff

I mentioned earlier that we went to the moon and there's no reason for it. We threw cash at it just to do it.

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I hope you really don't believe this.

Cwolff just played his trap card. Nice one.

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Originally Posted by Warriorbird

Cwolff just played his trap card. Nice one.

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LOL

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Originally Posted by Johnny Five

I hope you really don't believe this.

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As for going to the moon, you are 100% wrong. Utterly and Completely wrong. The fact that you even think that just shows how broken your thinking was. There are, and were so many reasons to go to the Moon it isn't funny. Some of them may not have had a "fiscal" return on the investment, but all in all, I would say our "Space Race" returned a very significant profit.

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And it's the same thing with renewables. There are good reasons beyond making a profit for the government to invest in it. It's an area where the gov't can do what businesses can't.

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Originally Posted by cwolff

And it's the same thing with renewables. There are good reasons beyond making a profit for the government to invest in it. It's an area where the gov't can do what businesses can't.

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This is true. The government can clearly keep going into debt and stay running. Unlike most businesses. Epic business model.

Do you all think these solar cells are made from tree bark or something?

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Originally Posted by Laviticas

Do you all think these solar cells are made from tree bark or something?

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Nope

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Originally Posted by Laviticas

As soon as they provide me with the "earths operating manual" that they seem to be the only ones to have in their possession, so I am able to see the correct operating earth temps. I will then consider this scam on humanity, until then keep your hippy tree hugging hands out of my wallet!

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You laugh, but there's nothing stopping you from asking a climatologist for those kind of details. It might be easier to go down to your library and electronically search various journal databases, most scientists are in hyper-specific research areas so you'd probably have to talk to a lot of them to get the whole manual.

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Originally Posted by Gelston

I just feel it is very insignificant compared to what our planet does. One volcano can spit out more in one hour then we have done in a century. And this has happened before.

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The problem with this counter-argument is that volcanoes are factored into the models that demonstrate ACC, as is solar activity, El Niño, etc.

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Originally Posted by Jeril

His issue is that solar energy isn't profitable without government help compared to other sources. Didn't we go over this some other place? Or was it earlier in this thread?

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We did, and I cited a source that these concerns are overblown, and demonstrated why mathematically.

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Originally Posted by Jarvan

(while panels may sell as low as .70 per watt in large scale, total cost to build a system greater then 100 Watts is 4.87 per watt.. compared to 2.10 per watt for coal)

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Total cost to build a power plant isn't the only relevant factor to power cost. You also have to operate the plant, and because sunlight is much much cheaper than coal it is much much cheaper to operate a solar plant. It so happens that in the long run these two factors very nearly balance out. That the cost is front-loaded is why government loans are important for solar power, so people will have enough capital to overcome the higher barrier and get into the sweet, sweet long term profits.