re: #671 Bagua (back in the Obama BP speech thread)

[solar is] big because of the subsidies involved. Prove to me that it is economical and I will advocate ramping up deployment. Right now only research and special cases make sense.

Without battery back-up it also destabilises the grid beyond a fractional contribution. Those are Solar Subsidy Panels.

The larger the solar footprint, the less chance that cloudy weather in one state will disrupt the overall supply. Wind power too is subject to interruption, but the risks are complementary. Nice, quiet sunny days alternate with blustery, cloudy, rainy days. Either way, one or the other alternate energy source is working.

Consumption of electric power can to a considerable extent be aligned with supply. It’s exactly when the sun is high and bright that we have the greatest demand for air conditioning. Many electricity uses are not time critical. It doesn’t much matter which hour of the night your electric car is recharged in, for instance, and heating, refrigeration, and air conditioning are not that sensitive to interruptions of a half hour here and there.

The price of coal-fired electricity is higher than the price at the meter, because the utilities and customers now get to treat the side effects of the extra atmospheric CO2 as externalities. Factor that in and solar electricity becomes more nearly competitive.

R&D is still needed, because solar isn’t quite there yet. So agreed, we should not move to full-scale deployment just yet.