[SGVLUG] Off-topic - home guerrilla solar systems

[David Lawyer]

On Sun, Feb 25, 2007 at 02:27:25PM -0800, Dustin Laurence wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 24, 2007 at 12:50:43PM -0800, David Lawyer wrote:
> > 
> > content.  I've read that PV will cost more for electricity so if
> > that's the case then it's a loser.
> 
> On general grounds I am not in favor of using cost-return rather than
> energy-return to value solar systems.  On the other hand, the paper you
> linked looks interesting and, at a glance, apparently argues that when
> people count energy-return for PV's they undercount.  If so, then I
> would argue that the message is not to adopt cost-return, but rather fix
> the energy-return calculation.
Except that we don't have either the data nor the methodology to fix
it.  Would be nice if we did.
> 
> One reason is that I've never seen a cost-return calculation that has
> the guts to charge a sizable portion of the defense budget to the cost
> of oil.  Unless a sizable chunk of the taxes I pay each year is counted
> as part of the cost of grid electricity, then that calculation is badly
> undercounting as well.

Look at http://www-cta.ornl.gov/data/chapter1.shtml
Chapter 1 Energy - Transportation Energy Data Book.  See Table 1.8:
"Summary of Military Expenditure for Defending Oil Supplies for the
Middle East".  Using oil consumption per day (from this same chapter)
and estimating it at $60/barrel results in $458B/yr. for oil vs.
perhaps 10% of this amount for "defending oil".  But are we "defending
oil" in Iraq?  Other reasons were given by Bush.

> Just as a back-of-the-envelope thing it's a bit complicated.  The
> annual military budget is ~$5.3*10^9 for FY 2007, and the population
> is about 3*10^6, or about $1700 per person per year.

What?  Just the alleged cost of defending oil was ~40*10^9.  I found a
figure of ~$440*10^9 for FY 2007 and with population at about 300*10^6
it's about 1470 per person per year.

[snip]
> Another good reason 
for using PV
> is that energy is not the only issue.  We live
> in a desert here in SoCal.  I think we get enough hydroelectric
> power to make it independently worthwhile to save water with a solar
> system by releasing less water from the reservoirs (but if someone
> has a better idea on the relationship of drinking water to power
> generation in California, I welcome better information).

I thought that the water released from reservoirs was most all used
for agriculture, residential, and commercial/industrial use.  We don't
dump it into the sea except to attempt to prevent intrusion of salt
water into freshwater wetlands.  So why would we not generate
hydropower with the water since the places where the water is used are
mostly at low elevation.  The water we use from the Sierras has
already passed thru turbines and has already generated hydropower so it
doesn't create more hydropower if we don't use this water.  Add the
Cascades and the Coast Range to the Sierras.  For example, the hydro
plant in Azusa for water from the San Gabriel River.

You would increase hydro generation a little by reducing water
consumption in Owens Valley (more water to LA would result in more
hydropower generated as the water flow down from the high desert)  But
Owens Valley water use has already been reduced by LA buying up most
water rights there in the 1920s.  I guess that if we consumed less
water we would save energy for pumping  water coming from the Colorado or
Sacramento rivers.  But it doesn't really matter whether or not the
pumping uses hydro or fossil fuel electric energy.  It's still
electric energy.  So I don't see how this has any bearing on PV.  

> In other words, if I'm right about the connection between power and
> drinking water, then spending the energy elsewhere to make the PV
> cell is as good as transporting water here, and much cheaper.

> Don't you long for the simple days when good citizenship just meant
> voting, cleaning up after yourself, volunteering for the fire
> department, and serving in the military if there was a war? :-)

It wasn't so simple.  What about evaluating Upton Sinclair's proposed
Epic plan to end poverty in California in 1934 when he ran for
governor?  The plan was to set up cooperatives that might use a
specially printed money good for only products made by them.  Or the
President Kennedy assassination conspiracy?

			David Lawyer