Thursday, May 16, 2013

Overheard in the Office...

RX: "We're getting closer to Miss Bobbi's preferred world, where you could roof the house with solar cells..."

Me: "What, petroleum-based shingles and solar panels are on intersecting price curves?"

RX: "Exactly."

30 comments:

Old NFO said...

Ouch... That is not necessarily a good thing!

LCB said...

The miracle will be when someone designs solar collecting shingles...and paint...and concrete for the sidewalks...and a nuclear power plant that will fit in your basement...and air cars (ala Jetsons)...and...and...

DanH said...

I can honestly say the phrase "intersecting price curves" has never been uttered in my home. And my wife and I are both accountants. ;p

Joel said...

But when will somebody make a 30-year solar panel?

WV= "learn oragoll" How do I sign up?

Matt G said...

I love the concept of the roof covered with power-manufacturing prowess. But I worry about how well those things hold up the regular hail that we get here in north Texas. Golf ball sized hail is not inconsiderable, and not that uncommon. Baseball-sized hail is occasionally encountered. I would want either plexiglass armor, or remote roll-down shutters.

Scott J said...

I wish we could invent Mr. Fusion.

Ed Foster said...

Even without hail, they lose 10% efficiency per year, and the drop in price is due in great part to .gov subsidies. I used to be totally in love with the idea, but if I were out in the boonies, biodiesel would be looking better and better.

Tam said...

Ed,

"Getting closer," not "there yet".

Once upon a time you had to hand-crank cars and planes weren't pressurized. Railroads will happen when it's railroading time.

Geodkyt said...

When they get the longevity up, and a cost effective shield (for hail, tree limbs, etc) that doesn't block too much energy, even after a decade or two in the sun, expect to see PV panels as standard roofing material, at least along the southern exposure arc.

Especially if they can do it with a matte finish. If they can do it with a matte finish and your choice of apparant colors, the introduction of that product line will look like the latest iCrack release.

og said...

Solar panel roof shingles have existed for a while. Materials and construction will improve them but there is a vertical asymptote beyond which they probably cannot improve unless someone can figure a way around those pesky laws of thermodynamics.

Solar will eventually be treated as fluorescent bulbs are treated now; they can last a long time but do eventually have to be replaced. The first company that makes roof panels that are not solar panels, but in fact "Sockets" for solar panels that can be readily and easily replaced, that's the company that gets my cash.

Like cars once looked like carriages, like computers once looked like typewriters, like plastics began imitating leather, each new thing begins by imitating the thing it replaces. We have waited a long time for the adulthood of solar power, but in my opinion too much intervention has kept it from becoming what it needs to eventually become.

Kristophr said...

We can already build SR-90 nuclear batteries.

I want one for my basement.

A Toshiba was going to make one for a town in bush Alaska, but the NRC pukes insisted they pay a full staff of government employees to inspect it full time.

They should have done it, and specified that the feds would have the same accommodations as the Toshiba employees.

Then give them a tent site in mosquito infested scrub next to the completely unattended and automated power unit.

And insist they camp there all year if they want to be paid.

Tam said...

og,

"... too much intervention has kept it from becoming what it needs to eventually become."

Yup. You can't make it be Railroading Time.

BGMiller said...

Solar panel roofs....


Oh it's hi hi he oh the rotor men are we....


LCB said...

Kristophr: Toshiba was going to make one for a town in bush Alaska, but the NRC pukes insisted they pay a full staff of government employees to inspect it full time.

I had wondered what became of that plan. I'd think it would be worth it to Toshiba to pay for it as proof of concept. Once proven, ever little town in America would want one to get away from Duke & AEP's of the world!

staghounds said...

What, there is a Duke of Nuclear Power?

JFP said...

"We have waited a long time for the adulthood of solar power, but in my opinion too much intervention has kept it from becoming what it needs to eventually become."

Yup. Greenies love to cry about the fossil fuel corps blocking alternative energy tech yet who stands to lose the most? The gov regulators who live off that industry. Government in general holds a lot of political/physical power by defining electricity as a "public good" and controlling it as a near monopoly.

If everyone has a Mr Fusion unit, the government might not be able to cut them off so easily from modern life.

Joel said...

vertical asymptote

Og not use words Joel not understand.

Derfel Cadarn said...

Solar cells have one quarter the life expectancy of asphalt singles even generating electricity it is a shitty bargain

Anonymous said...

As long as they can keep the rain on the outside for the same length of time they only need generate enough power long enough to compensate for the additional cost. If the cost gets low enough or power gets expensive enough....

Gewehr98 said...

I've been partially off-grid for a while.

It's a friggin' headache, and I did it on the cheap. (Probably because I did it on the cheap)

My system basically augments the Generac during power outages now, providing an additional 2KW for about 24 hours.

At some point, I'll ditch the AGMs and buy rebuildable batteries, and upgrade to better panels, but we're definitely not there yet...

Micki Mahoney said...

So most places get solar-panels, Alaska gets nuke batteries, Texas gets piezoelectric roof-tiles, (because if you can't harvest power from hail that can break your face, you're obviously doing it wrong). And here in the UK we get Indifference Engines. These are like Stirling engines, but work on the separation between hope and reality whenever you look out the window.

"Cuh! Drizzle again. I thought it was supposed to be sunny."

*Whirrr-tick-tick-tick-tick.*

Tam said...

Deerfield Cadarn,

Automobiles have crank starters and get bogged down on muddy roads. No sane person would choose one over a horse.

Julie said...

Micki you need to blog .. I'ld read it!

Oh and on the topic of solar panels all I know is that my power bills is down to a fifth of what it was before we had them ... I can live with that.

Jim said...

I'm a factory certified Certain-Teed sales rep for their whole line of roofing products which includes Solar Roofing panels.

Yep, they go down on the roof deck in lieu of asphalt shingles, and are made up of modular, interlocking units.

Still, the ROI turn is a dozen years or more. More especially, here in Texas, due to our electric rates which are about 1/2 of the national average.

The panels are rated at a 25 year life span, losing only 30% of generating power at the end of that time.

I'd say that they're still far from being a mature technology, but they're developed enough to be on the market.

So far, they only people buying them are in the uber-rich neighborhoods, and it would appear to be a vanity "green" purchase for them.

I'll know that the units are getting traction when I see the rural market beginning to demand 'em.



Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX

Anonymous said...

I have regular(not roof-mounted) panels that have made it through some pretty intense storms, 17 years so far, some added none replaced - which I have to be more self-reliant, not trying to save the world...

Gewehr98 said...

I'm doing my very best to engineer a solar-powered moonshine still. Cooling the output condenser is my biggest issue, so far...

Roberta X said...

How cold? How humid is it where you are? The various takes on evaporative cooling might be of interest -- and they work after sunset.

G.D. said...

biodiesel would be looking better and better

What for better? Powering your house?

You cannot manufacture it easily.

Wood gasification is better. Also a mite improved since WWII, some US farmer dude tinkered with the gasifier and improved the conversion efficiency..

Gewehr98 said...

Just a smidgen to the north and west of youse guize. Cheeseland, in the vast farmlands between Madison and Milwaukee...

Micki Mahoney said...

@Julie

"Micki you need to blog .. I'ld read it!"

http://mickimahoney.blogspot.co.uk/

Cheers Julie! (I didn't actually realise, until now, that the Google link in my name is useless for finding my somewhat sporadic blog. Part-time blogger/full-time idiot, I'm afraid... Fixed now, anyway.)