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Fox News Claims Solar Won't Work in America Because It's Not Sunny Like German


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2013 Feb 7, 10:23pm   16,074 views  66 comments

by marcus   ➕follow (6)   💰tip   ignore  

Fox News Claims Solar Won't Work in America Because It's Not Sunny Like Germany.

Silly Fox News. They crack me up.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/07/fox_news_expert_on_solar_energy_germany_gets_a_lot_more_sun_than_we_do_video.html

Joshi's jaw-dropping response: "They're a smaller country, and they've got lots of sun. Right? They've got a lot more sun than we do." In case that wasn't clear enough for some viewers, Joshi went on: "The problem is it's a cloudy day and it's raining, you're not gonna have it." Sure, California might get sun now and then, Joshi conceded, "but here on the East Coast, it's just not going to work."

Gosh, why hasn't anyone thought of that before? Wouldn't you think that some scientist, somewhere, would have noticed that the East Coast is far less sunny than Central Europe and therefore incapable of producing solar power on the same scale?

#energy

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1   lostand confused   2013 Feb 7, 10:28pm  

That dimwit represents the Fox Business Network??

2   marcus   2013 Feb 7, 10:58pm  

Not that solar isn't even better in desert (or near desert areas).

http://news.discovery.com/tech/alternative-power-sources/solar-power-to-beat-coal-prices-in-new-mexico-130205.htm

But Germany makes it work in a country that is in fact less sunny than our east cast.

3   elliemae   2013 Feb 7, 11:17pm  

I think what he meant to say is that Germany's sun is better. Maybe it's like when you're on vacation in a distant spot - everything is better there, even the drinks you pour in your room.

Just a thought, faux news style.

4   zzyzzx   2013 Feb 7, 11:31pm  

Wind power is a better option in most of the US.

5   marcus   2013 Feb 8, 1:42pm  

zzyzzx says

Wind power is a better option in most of the US.

Right.

Let's not even consider the technology leaps or the rapid rate at which the cost of converting sun in to electricity has been dropping in the past decade.

It's not a matter of better or worse (solar or wind). If you believe in developing clean and renewable energy sources you do both. IT has to be invested in and scale up for the cost to come down.

Assuming we humans will be around for a while, this WILL happen, regardless of how much the fossil fuel people try to slow it down. Even Fox sometimes reports on this.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/05/solar-power-production-in-germany-up-50-percent-on-year-between-january-and/

By the time a young child today grows up, Germany may be getting as much of 50% or more of it's electricity from solar and wind.

I would bet that in 2060, Germany and the US will get far more electricity from solar than from wind.

6   Ceffer   2013 Feb 8, 3:23pm  

Why are you watching Fox News all the time? I'm conservative and I can only take small doses.

7   marcus   2013 Feb 8, 3:28pm  

Ceffer says

Why are you watching Fox News all the time? I'm conservative and I can only take small doses.

I don't watch it at all. But the stupid things they say get a lot of attention, from the sane stream media.

8   thomaswong.1986   2013 Feb 8, 3:35pm  

marcus says

If you believe in developing clean and renewable energy sources you do both.

you do realize the toxic chemicals and gases used to create solar panels. all same toxic chemicals used to create semiconductors. and how do you dispose of broken and defective solar panels laden with toxic substances. NO such thing as CLEAN Solar Energy source...

Modern Nuclear power is far more cleaner than Solar.

Solar panels pose an environmental hazard, claims report

Making solar panels, which are in many ways directly descended from semiconductors, also produces toxic byproducts that could sicken living beings, warns the SVTC. Among these are caustic liquids like silicon tetrachloride, dusts and nanoparticles like kerf (a remnant from cutting silicon ingots), and potent greenhouse gases like sulfur hexafluoride.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/14/solar-panels-pose-an-environmental-hazard-claims-report/#pXyAqUwKTkjJSVGK.99

E-waste looms behind solar-power boom

Without green chemistry practices, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition warns, rapid growth in the solar industry could lead to a legacy of e-waste like in the electronics industry.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10142451-54.html

Imagine a manufacturer that took back its products after 25 years of use.

That's exactly what watchdog group Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition is recommending that the solar industry do in a white paper released on Wednesday. (Click here for PDF.)

Solar is a renewable source of energy, and solar panels don't pollute when they are generating electricity. But the upstream process of making solar panels involves a number of toxic chemicals.

Most solar cells are made out of silicon, the same material embedded in billions of electronic chips. As a result, the burgeoning solar photovoltaics (PV) industry faces an electronic-waste problem.

9   HEY YOU   2013 Feb 8, 3:39pm  

Repeat of a previous comment.

Watch: 42:25-47:50
http://www.youtube.com/embed/wGoEBnLRpss

"Raise your hand if you can't solve this problem."

10   everything   2013 Feb 8, 10:18pm  

One day, people are going to look at the sun in an entirely different light, and say why didn't we think of that before. In 25 years they will gladly take back the old solar panels for recycling. The metal/silver in them will be worth more than what they paid for the panels in the first place. We are only beginning to learn how to recycle if you look at the plastic dumps in the ocean and how quick we built those. The neat thing about plastic is it's solubility, and how the sun breaks it down. We are only beginning to come to a conclusion that plastic not good for you. Problem is big government and big industry have no other alternatives for packaging yet, so until then it's good for you.

11   dregstudios   2013 Feb 8, 10:44pm  

The talking heads guarding the inhabitants of Bullsh*t Mountain from rejoining the world of the sane only serve their own warped ideology. Fox News is a propaganda machine which dumbs down America by the day through disinformation and their slanted agendas. See their anchors spewing forth feces from their mouths in my visual homage to the network on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-fox-news-scylla-guardian-of-bullsht.html

12   marcus   2013 Feb 9, 12:40am  

dregstudios says

Fox News is a propaganda machine which dumbs down America by the day through disinformation and their slanted agendas.

The truly amazing thing is how well it works and the large number of people that want so very badly to believe everything they say.

13   KILLERJANE   2013 Feb 9, 12:43am  

I laugh out loud that you quoted fox.

14   marcus   2013 Feb 9, 12:54am  

thomaswong.1986 says

Solar is a renewable source of energy, and solar panels don't pollute when they are generating electricity.

Yes, we agree then. Excellent.

Point taken, that there is pollution in the making of solar cells, and in the disposing of them.

This is significant maybe, but can be dealt with far easier than burning coal or oil. Unfortunately these are relatively cheap, with huge lobbies behind them.

Renewable will eventually be cheaper than fossil fuels are now, but the thing preventing it from already being far further along is a flaw in capitalism as practiced now in the U.S.. Too much power is obtained by large corporations.

It wasn't meant to be this way.

Hey right wingers. Give an intelligent and real liberal a chance - read this.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14373-noam-chomsky-who-owns-the-world

15   marcus   2013 Feb 9, 1:11am  

marcus says

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14373-noam-chomsky-who-owns-the-world

Actually that link is interesting, but not the one I wanted. I'm looking for one I saw briefly the other day about the shift toward the owners and away from labor and the people.

16   Raw   2013 Feb 9, 1:44am  

The woman is obviously just plain stupid. Why would Fox bring on such stupid people baffles me.

17   Tenpoundbass   2013 Feb 9, 1:59am  

I say we put generators on excercycles and put millions of them in our prison systems. Feed the energy back into the grid.
Kind of gives Con Edision a new meaning.

18   thomaswong.1986   2013 Feb 9, 2:06am  

marcus says

Renewable

there is no such thing as renewable unless your talking about recycling beer cans.
and i mean all beer cans.. its an idiotic term cooked up by environmentalists..

frankly like I said, your better off using Nuclear Power with todays technology rendering
nuke waste and by products harmless and far less in quantity than so called solar power.

19   Raw   2013 Feb 9, 2:38am  

thomaswong.1986 says

frankly like I said, your better off using Nuclear Power with todays technology rendering

nuke waste and by products harmless and far less in quantity than so called solar power.

Anything is better than fossil fuels.

20   marcus   2013 Feb 9, 4:07am  

thomaswong.1986 says

there is no such thing as renewable unless your talking about recycling beer cans.

and i mean all beer cans.. its an idiotic term cooked up by environmentalists..

As you do so often, you are exposing more (or maybe I should say less) than just your bias.

If your actual source of power is infinite (and free) like sun rays or wind, and you aren't using it up (eg a resource like coal or oil),.... and you wanted to put a name on that, a name that emphasizes you aren't using anything up, and that more of what you are utilizing will always be there,...what name would you choose ?

I know, I know, you aren't "an environmentalist" so you have no use for such a word and you think it's really stupid that anyone would want to come up with such a word.

21   New Renter   2013 Feb 9, 4:30am  

thomaswong.1986 says

Modern Nuclear power is far more cleaner than Solar.

Hell YEAH!

It also works 24/7 day or night no matter what the weather is like. Solar OTOH only works at peak efficiency on average only a few hours per day, and that's assuming the panels are kept clean.

22   HEY YOU   2013 Feb 9, 5:02am  

Because of America's Exceptionalism, we will never have a Chernobyl.

23   marcus   2013 Feb 9, 5:11am  

ANyone can have an opinion on this. And if you want, your opinion can be based on the prevailing wisdom 15 years ago.

But the smartest opinion is, "I don't know, this is all changing and improving very fast."

If they ever come up with radically better ways to transport energy, and store it, then all bets are off. But solar innovations are happening all the time.

When I talk to kids, who will be my age in the 2050s, about what will be different, in technology or government, we all know that it's anybody's guess.

MY guess, and it is totally a guess, is that some of the biggest breakthroughs and changes between now and then may have to do with energy.

24   New Renter   2013 Feb 9, 5:16am  

everything says

One day, people are going to look at the sun in an entirely different light, and say why didn't we think of that before.

Yes, people will finally see the sun as the massive, unshielded, radiation spewing, yet benign nuclear fireball it is and has always been.

25   New Renter   2013 Feb 9, 5:19am  

marcus says

But solar innovations are happening all the time.

Not in Germany it seems:

Photovoltaics are threatening to become the costliest mistake in the history of German energy policy. Photovoltaic power plant operators and homeowners with solar panels on their rooftops are expected to pocket around €9 billion ($11.3 billion) this year, yet they contribute barely 4 percent of the country's power supply, and only erratically at that.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-solar-subsidies-to-remain-high-with-consumers-paying-the-price-a-842595.html

I agree there are innovations happening. Solar panels ARE indeed getting cheaper. A HUGE innovation was announced late last year in the ability to transmit solar power:

http://www.abb.com/cawp/seitp202/65df338284e41b3dc1257aae0045b7de.aspx

Efficiency of the panels themselves is NOT improving much.

Still solar will NEVER solve the problems of night, weather, and bird poop.

26   Reality   2013 Feb 9, 6:52am  

Germans bought/installed solar panels in their own country due to government policy subsidies . . . i.e. another boondoggle.

Recently, they have come around to a much more feasible solar energy solution: German companies installing solar panels in Saudi Arabia, in exchange for oil shipped back to Germany. Heck, in Saudi Arabia, it might even make sense for those solar panels to generate heat and electricity to synthesize fuel.

27   New Renter   2013 Feb 9, 6:58am  

Reality says

Germans buy/install solar panels due to government policy subsidies . . . i.e. another boondoggle. Recently, they have come around to a much more feasible solar energy solution: German companies installing solar panels in Saudi Arabia, in exchange for oil shipped back to Germany. Heck, in Saudi Arabia, it might even make sense for those solar panels to generate heat and electricity to synthesize fuel.

That its might, at least more so than cloudy, snowy Germany.

28   Reality   2013 Feb 9, 7:13am  

marcus says

If they ever come up with radically better ways to transport energy, and store it, then all bets are off.

That's called liquid fuel, as in gasoline, diesel, and their future sythetic versions. The recent spectacular Karma electric car burn-downs and 787 fire due to lithium batteries may well mark a turning point. Gasoline and diesel are incredibly energy-dense "batteries" because they do not have to carry 70+% of the reactant by weight (Oxygen from air) and do not have to carry the result of reaction back home (water vapor and CO2)

The CO2 (and water) can be "recycled" via fuel synthesis by nuclear energy and solar/wind/geotherm etc. sources. In fact that's probably how most hydrocarbon on this planet is produced to begin with. The ultimate energy source being the radioactive elements' decay inside the earth, and the earth-moon tidal interaction generating heat inside the earth's crust.

29   marcus   2013 Feb 9, 7:16am  

New Renter says

Still solar will NEVER solve the problems of night, weather, and bird poop

I don't even know whether solar panels on a roof can't solve those problems, but that's not nearly all solar is about.

If far better ways to store and transport electricity are developed, then you can have solar receptors in space and the deserts collecting all the electricity we need.

30   Reality   2013 Feb 9, 7:18am  

marcus says

you can have solar receptors in space and the deserts collecting all the electricity we need.

sounds like some really scary technology that the military will take advantage of first: orbitally based earthling zapper / death ray.

31   New Renter   2013 Feb 9, 12:38pm  

marcus says

New Renter says

Still solar will NEVER solve the problems of night, weather, and bird poop

I don't even know whether solar panels on a roof can't solve those problems, but that's not nearly all solar is about.

If far better ways to store and transport electricity are developed, then you can have solar receptors in space and the deserts collecting all the electricity we need.

Only if you have a magic roof that is always sunny, upon which shadows never fall and the birds never poop?

You'd have to factor in the >$15k/lb cost of placing an object in even a low earth orbit. For your scheme to work the object would have to be in a geosynchronous orbit above its receiving station. Moving a satellite to such an orbit would add quite a bit more cost. This scheme also does not inherently overcome the issue of clouds.

Converting the solar radiation to radar waves might help penetrate clouds but that would dramatically increase the cost and complexity of the satellite and yes, such a device could viably seen as a weapon.

It would be far simpler and cheaper to build nuclear reactors.

32   New Renter   2013 Feb 9, 12:41pm  

Reality says

marcus says

you can have solar receptors in space and the deserts collecting all the electricity we need.

sounds like some really scary technology that the military will take advantage of first: orbitally based earthling zapper / death ray.

Drones are cheaper, more reliable and far less complicated.

There's also soldiers with guns who are really, really good at what they do.

33   HeadSet   2013 Feb 10, 12:19pm  

Solar is viable. I have seen over a dozen installs where people here in VA have working "net zero" or near net zero systems.

Ford even offers to coordinate a roof-top solar system for buyers of the all electric version of the Focus:

34   marcus   2013 Feb 10, 12:44pm  

Reality says

Gasoline and diesel are incredibly energy-dense "batteries" because they do not have to carry 70+% of the reactant by weight (Oxygen from air) and do not have to carry the result of reaction back home (water vapor and CO2)

Yes, and they are relatively cheap.

But burning them pollutes our atmosphere and they are very limited in supply.

It's not a question of whether these will be replaced.

The question is, are we so short sighted that we insist on using them all up and polluting our world worse than we have to, just because there is so much profit potential there in the short run.

35   New Renter   2013 Feb 10, 4:17pm  

HeadSet says

Solar is viable. I have seen over a dozen installs where people here in VA have working "net zero" or near net zero systems.

Ford even offers to coordinate a roof-top solar system for buyers of the all electric version of the Focus:

Yes thanks to MASSIVE subsidies paid by everyone else. That's like saying the banks bad loans are viable because they can get a bailout.

36   New Renter   2013 Feb 10, 4:25pm  

marcus says

Reality says

Gasoline and diesel are incredibly energy-dense "batteries" because they do not have to carry 70+% of the reactant by weight (Oxygen from air) and do not have to carry the result of reaction back home (water vapor and CO2)

Yes, and they are relatively cheap.

But burning them pollutes our atmosphere and they are very limited in supply.

It's not a question of whether these will be replaced.

The question is, are we so short sighted that we insist on using them all up and polluting our world worse than we have to, just because there is so much profit potential there in the short run.

The point was that liquid fuels are excellent for the storage of energy, no matter what the ultimate source.

I would however argue that the combustion of said fuels negates much of these advantages as only 10-15% of the energy makes it to the pavement.

37   New Renter   2013 Feb 15, 2:12pm  

John Bailo says

God that's almost as stupid as Obama-Chu-Immelt cutting all funding for hydrogen fuel cells!

Good! That money is better spent developing methane fuel cells.

38   Reality   2013 Feb 15, 9:11pm  

marcus says

Yes, and they are relatively cheap.

But burning them pollutes our atmosphere and they are very limited in supply.

It's not a question of whether these will be replaced.

The question is, are we so short sighted that we insist on using them all up and polluting our world worse than we have to, just because there is so much profit potential there in the short run.

What I wrote earlier must have gone over your head:

The CO2 (and water) can be "recycled" via fuel synthesis by nuclear energy and solar/wind/geotherm etc. sources. In fact that's probably how most hydrocarbon on this planet is produced to begin with: the ultimate energy source being the radioactive elements' decay inside the earth, and the earth-moon tidal interaction generating heat inside the earth's crust.

39   Bap33   2013 Feb 16, 7:14am  

let me help ... Gates did not need any gov help to sell his product. When solar is a great idea is when Gates (or some other enterprizing fellow) designs, markets, and sells it at a profit. And, if the gov, and the left, follow their normal process, they will attack the producer of the profitable solar product and demand that their company be reduced and demand that a gov backed psudo-competitor be made up so people have a "choice" (yes, that is what was done for crApple). Anyways, when solar is a good idea it wont have to be gov supported or mandated. (insert Obamacare here too)

40   marcus   2013 Feb 16, 8:18am  

Bap33 says

Anyways, when solar is a good idea it wont have to be gov supported or mandated. (insert Obamacare here too)

Really ?

Consider this as a sort of analogy. Remember when Flat panel TVs were first being sold ? I think it cost about $4000 to buy a 42 inch (or so).

There were rich people that bought these in the early years. It took a good dozen years or so for them to scale up production and to lower costs to where a similar TV is what now ? $800 ? (dollars that are worth less than the ones for the $4000 price)

IF there had been no market whatsoever for the expensive ones, how would they have scaled it up to where they could make a profit selling them for $800 ?

Not that great an analogy, but consider energy related products.

WE have old technologies (burning oil and coal) which are still very profitable, but bad for the envirenment. We have 2 choices.

choice 1) Use up most of this fuel and only then develop competitively priced options. And maybe the consumer gets fucked over with what is charged for those then, with no competition in utility companies, which may dominate even our car fuels at that time.

choice 2) Have government serve a very basic function of subsidizing and backing development (via tax breaks etc), to help scale production up to where the technologies and the economies of scale make the pricing competitive with fossil fuels.

When it comes to energy, there is no consumer like the rich folks who were early adopters of flat panel TVs. That is unless you include government subsidized early adopters.

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