Okay, the tiles are made of glass. Does the carbon footprint of the fabrication different much from terracotta tiles?
Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
21–30 of 143 posts
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought you had to be wrong until I read the article. If people found solar panels garish, unsightly, this would sell like hotcakes. But just the oposite: people will put panels towards the street even when that's not the best angle or side. Like buying Prius over Honda's hybrid because the Toyota is distinctive, people want to flaunt their green.
Maybe this will appeal to people who are green-minded, but live in a conservative area and are ashamed about it.
Being conservative has nothing to do with it. The area of NY I live in right now is extremely conservative and there are dozens of solar panel installations from Apex Solar on homes and businesses.
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#23I really love the work that Tesla is doing in this area, and wish them all the luck in the world, but if the estimates in the article are even close ($57K for a Tesla roof, $41K for a tile roof with a small solar panel, $22K for a conventional asphalt roof) it's hard for me to see this being cost effective.
I thought you had to be wrong until I read the article. If people found solar panels garish, unsightly, this would sell like hotcakes. But just the oposite: people will put panels towards the street even when that's not the best angle or side. Like buying Prius over Honda's hybrid because the Toyota is distinctive, people want to flaunt their green.
That means they’ll help to create a new industry, increase competition, drive down prices, but won’t save as much money.
Aren’t we still better off?
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#24I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk, but let's not get political. I do however, want to point out Buffalo .. its troubles with Solar City .. and its troubles with Elon Musk. Key (non-disputed / non-political points) - Tesla did not hire local workers, and did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force - SolarCity received 750$ million in the Billion to Buffalo at a time it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 yea…
> it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 years (I believe) And how much of that is a direct result of the fact they are competing against Chinese-made panels that are directly funded by the Chinese government? There is literally no way you can have a discussion about ANY renewable energy without it being political. Either the US is going to protect US industry from Chinese goods being sold below-cost, or we're goin…
I don't dispute that point - however, investment in a company that can't turn a profit by a magnitude of $750 million of our tax dollars and area doesn't seem to be a wise use of dollars. That's really my overarching concern. There's no real benefit to the local economy, so why do it? That's my business mind, not my political mind on what's good or not for the environment. In the end it's tax dollars (rather high at that) that I'm putting directly into these incentives .. asking for some better investment is all.
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#25I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk, but let's not get political. I do however, want to point out Buffalo .. its troubles with Solar City .. and its troubles with Elon Musk. Key (non-disputed / non-political points) - Tesla did not hire local workers, and did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force - SolarCity received 750$ million in the Billion to Buffalo at a time it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 yea…
> So .. my real question, is why is this not brought to the national level for discussion to what Elon is doing to communities like Buffalo, where I live? That's my question ...
Because Buffalo isn't a place that attracts much attention about anything outside of lake-effect snow and how terrible the Buffalo Bills are.
These silver-bullet projects that promise to bring large number of high-paying jobs rarely pan out. Remember when Yahoo put in that data center in Lockport (just outside of Buffalo for everyone not familiar with the area)? It was touted as a big win...as of two years ago they have a whopping 98 employees (most making less than 6 figures according to Glassdoor.)
https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/science-and-technol...
(I was born in Buffalo and lived there for 35 years before moving south.)
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#26I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk, but let's not get political. I do however, want to point out Buffalo .. its troubles with Solar City .. and its troubles with Elon Musk. Key (non-disputed / non-political points) - Tesla did not hire local workers, and did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force - SolarCity received 750$ million in the Billion to Buffalo at a time it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 yea…
Local governments never benefit from such incentives so this case isn't notable.
... and why is that? why can we ask for benefits? Another irony is the hydro-power we get from the Niagara Falls energy generation, yet we pay the highest energy costs in the country in Erie County .. we sell most of that hydro power to PA and OH. It seems rather upside down, IMHO.
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#27I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk, but let's not get political. I do however, want to point out Buffalo .. its troubles with Solar City .. and its troubles with Elon Musk. Key (non-disputed / non-political points) - Tesla did not hire local workers, and did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force - SolarCity received 750$ million in the Billion to Buffalo at a time it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 yea…
I don't understand your complaint.
Can you explain further? Also would help if you can add links to for further reading.
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#28Just over two years ago solar panels were prohibitively expensive for me. I read a couple of Instructables showing how to make your own panel using solar cells. I ordered the solar cells. The plan was to cover the whole garage roof with solar cells.
The price of solar panels dropped. Now I have a box full of solar cells and it just isn't worth it to go the DIY route. The Solar Roof is out of my price range.
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#29Why do they call them all a "gigafactory"? This is getting ridiculous since the subject "gigafactory" in the article is a million square feet and 500 employees.
Re: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
#30I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk, but let's not get political. I do however, want to point out Buffalo .. its troubles with Solar City .. and its troubles with Elon Musk. Key (non-disputed / non-political points) - Tesla did not hire local workers, and did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force - SolarCity received 750$ million in the Billion to Buffalo at a time it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 yea…
> So .. my real question, is why is this not brought to the national level for discussion to what Elon is doing to communities like Buffalo, where I live? That's my question ... Because Buffalo isn't a place that attracts much attention about anything outside of lake-effect snow and how terrible the Buffalo Bills are. These silver-bullet projects that promise to bring large number of high-paying jobs rarely pan out.…
The Bills comment gave me a chuckle. :)
Oddly enough its not the amount of snow, but rather the severity of it. I was born in Virginia - dad in Florida, mom in Georgia. :) I'm here because pops moved to Syracuse and I lived in Cortland area, before moving here (and a stint for college in AL).
What really WAS the catalyst for downtown was not SolarCity or anything major, but the total opposite.
Chris Collins (R) - despite his negative reputation - started out as our County Executive and in combination with Brian Higgins, balanced our budget and make Buffalo profitable for once after some dark economic times, while Higgins asked Bass Pro its intentions at the for Aud site (previous home of the Sabres). They (after several years of promising to build a mega-store) backed out and we created a ton of smaller projects - not continuing on the path of the "silver-bullet" approach to anchoring the downtown on.
So ... Republican ideas (not dominant liberal thinking) IMHO was the catalyst. Collins comes from the business sector, much like Trump. Mind you, I am not trying to make a political point here - merely a strategic small business / economic en-devour that helped Buffalo get back on its right track.
Mayor Brown is actually a good mayor. Thoughtful even .. but Collins set him up to be - again subjective opinion. I like Byron personally ... and lukewarm on his politics, however ... he has maintained great en-devours here. I just hope he goes into the East Side of Buffalo with as much as we have here as downtown.
I remain optimistic that the leadership we have now, will see the benefits of making our minority populations ... better.