Why Solar Power Isn't Taking Over

Why Solar Power Isn't Taking Over

Of all the alternative power sources available, I confess that I am most thrilled with solar power. It's enviromentally pretty clean (unlike geothermal power). There aren't any moving parts to wear out (unlike wind turbines). It provides at least the potential for not just national energy independence, but even individual energy independence, if you have a big enough battery backup. This is a good thing, if you have unreliable power (like we do), or if you are concerned about the social disruptions that seem increasingly likely in the post-War on Terror nation. (Or at least, a nation that pretends to be post-War on Terror.)

But the harsh reality is that until the purchase price of solar panels gets down below $2 per watt produced, they just don't make any sense--even with the new, quite stupendous federal tax credit. Sun Power Corp. has a calculator here for figuring how what that "free" power is going to cost you.

Even if I make assumptions that are unlikely (8% annual inflation in the price of electricity) and optimistic (4% annual financing cost), with a very small system (1000 watts), it will take fifteen years for the net tax credit cost of solar power to get down to the cost of not doing so. I also notice that while 10-15 years out (depending on the size of the system you buy) you will be saving money--they don't seem to have a calculator for figuring out the net cost of the system, probably because they know that no one really knows how much power today's solar panels will be producing in twenty or thirty years. It might be 90% of current power; it might be 70%.

I was working on a project for a while that should increase solar panel output by about 60% annualized yield, and I still think there's some merit to it. But there's no capital available to fund stuff that doesn't have anything patentable to it, and for a variety of reasons, even though some of the ideas are new, they are close enough in form (although not function) to existing patents that there's nothing that can be done there. And even a 60% increase in annualized yield just doesn't make solar power make sense in most of the U.S.

If the environmentalists who run our government really want America to "go green," they would push for a program where the government pays for all the solar panels put on people's homes, and call it an entitlement. Yeah, that's the ticket! We have a human right to green electric power! I'm sure that they could justify by it by saying that we wouldn't need to worry about the Middle East anymore, and spend money fighting al-Qaeda. The problem with this is that the U.S. was fighting Islamic piracy and terrorism back when we relied on whale oil (a renewable resource!)