31–40 of 42 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think more investment / subsidies weren't possible over the last few decades?
They were and Germany was actually going in that direction, but it took the manufacturing scale of China to create an incentive to introduce the hundreds of minor changes necessary to get costs down.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2021/02/18/chinas-cheap-electric...
The only negative thing I feel about all of this is that we're doing now. Once the glaciers are farked, the snow is going and the mass die offs are started. Better late than never they say, but why the hell didn't we just invest in this in the 1990s?
Lobby from the other people selling energy: the not green type. They have the money, the lawyers, the ads, everything. Balcony solar power is only allowed now due to energy shortage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think more investment / subsidies weren't possible over the last few decades?
They were and Germany was actually going in that direction, but it took the manufacturing scale of China to create an incentive to introduce the hundreds of minor changes necessary to get costs down.
All to deny the fact that new deal is incompatible with dense cities. Sorry but do the math and you realize that the future is homes and sheds, not condos.
The only negative thing I feel about all of this is that we're doing now. Once the glaciers are farked, the snow is going and the mass die offs are started. Better late than never they say, but why the hell didn't we just invest in this in the 1990s?
The social problem is that fossil fuel usage was very profitable and employed enough people that polluters were allowed not to pay for externalities and a lot of climate change denial funded by the oil companies proved effective at getting politicians and the public to downplay the risk. Even today, even on HN, you can find people who’ll say it’s no big deal, the earth has been this warm in the past, that it’ll cost too much, that they can never drive an EV because their daily commute is 11 hours each way without stopping, etc.
Because fossil fuel lobbyists so successfully captured most right-wing parties, millions of people added that to their self identity and thus will struggle to admit they were wrong because that more or less means admitting that the same people who lied to them about the climate also lied about other things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were and Germany was actually going in that direction, but it took the manufacturing scale of China to create an incentive to introduce the hundreds of minor changes necessary to get costs down.
Don't discount the importance of cheap Chinese (mostly coal) electricity. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2021/02/18/chinas-cheap-electric...
I really hope these become legal in Canada. Right now it seems Utah is the only jurisdiction in North America where they are
Where I live, in the US, National Grid is okay with balcony solar as long as it's a zero-export balcony solar. Your power utility may take a similar approach. They might also take a "if it doesn't cross the meter, and we can't tell what you're doing, then we can't tell you not to do it"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were and Germany was actually going in that direction, but it took the manufacturing scale of China to create an incentive to introduce the hundreds of minor changes necessary to get costs down.
germany stoped the investment and killed the solar industry. Not saying that China helped too, but we don't know if germany would have pushed through it without China.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:5_Largest_Producers_...
Right around that time Germany's solar boom started in earnest:
https://www.statista.com/chart/2397/solar-power-made-massive...
Which was powered largely by Chinese panels. Since we can't have nice things, tariffs were imposed:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_13_...
I really hope these become legal in Canada. Right now it seems Utah is the only jurisdiction in North America where they are
There are two types of balcony solar. One is bidirectional power flow, i.e., classical balcony solar, and the other is called "zero export", in which a current flow direction sensor on your mains throttles back your inverter if you start to reverse the current flow and export power. Where I live, in the US, National Grid is okay with balcony solar as long as it's a zero-export balcony solar. Your power utility may ta…
Further, the utility's safety concerns do not require any shut off on the mains. Their safty concern is not a new backflow of current; but a backflow of current into an otherwise non-energized grid. Grid-tied inverters will not do this. If the grid goes down, they shut themselves down without any need for an upstream shutoff.
The utility's may have a reasonable business object to back-flow if their meters are such that backflow forces net-metering. Around here, that is a non-issue because net-metering is the law for residential connections anyway. Even in juristictions where net-metering is not the law, I don't find this convincing. The limited capacity of balcony solar means that it won't actually happen in any significant amount, and if it does become a problem, they can shoulder the cost of upgrading their metering equipment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't discount the importance of cheap Chinese (mostly coal) electricity. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2021/02/18/chinas-cheap-electric...
If it is so cheap why does your source say it was subsidized?
