Push Back from Utilities

I don't think any of that is true...

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/3-reasons-hawaii-put-the-brakes-on-solar-and-why-the-same-won-t-happen-in-your-state/

Based on a review of a number of local solar companies, as of August 2020, the average cost for solar panels and their installation is $3.38 per watt in the entire state of Hawaii, meaning the typical 6000 watt (6 kW) solar system would be $20,280.

According to a new study, Hawaii residents are paying an average of $587.79 per month.Nov 13, 2019

Petroleum-Based Energy – According to the Environmental Protection Agency, over 82 percent of Hawaii's electricity is produced through petroleum-fired power plants. This essentially means that as gas prices in areas across the country have skyrocketed, the price of electricity in Hawaii has also skyrocketed.Aug 22, 2012

That is less than a 3 year payback,maybe less,as prices increase.

Not bad at all,and good for the economy and environment, as the islands have to import all of their fossil fuels.

IMHO:

I think it is a viable threat to the utility companies and they will not go quietly into that dark night,and they need time to add more feathers to the executives' nests,and bejewel their golden parachutes.

I think if I were paying $587 per month for electricity, I would be installing my own solar panels!

....and battery backup! $7k a year would be grounds for decoupling...

To All,

This is a copy of a post from a local guy in my area that I thought I would share with you all. It seems pertinent to this discussion. Ratch

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GREEN’S DIRTY SECRET

The “renewable” energy crowd has long gotten away with propagating an image of

the industry as pristine, clean, and nothing but beneficial for the environment.

Not true.

Take the wind industry, which is dominated by massive, and growing, wind

turbines that dot America’s prairie’s and coast lines.

To start, the turbines are an eyesore, which is why so many liberal NIMBY’s

don’t want them in their own backyards.

The vista from the veranda of summer homes on Martha’s Vineyard surely can’t be

sullied, even if in the name of saving the planet from the ravages of global

cooling, er, global warming, er, climate “disruption.”

Moreover, the turbines every year kill and maim increasing numbers of federally

protected birds, including the Bald Eagle.

Most importantly, these turbines are filled with a great deal of metals, much of

it mined from jurisdictions with appalling environmental records.

While different models require different amounts of these metals, the “ballpark”

estimate of one 3 mega-watt turbine is as follows:

335 tons of steel;

4.7 tons of copper;

1,200 tons of concrete;

3 tons of aluminum;

2 tons of rare earth elements, including neodymium and dysprosium.

Much of these elements and their constituent parts must be mined, which is

normally anathema to eco-nut crowd, who spend a lot of time opposing mining.

More troubling, the necessary rare earth metals are mined and processed in

China, a country both hostile to American national security and a country

sporting a reprehensible environmental record.

It is estimated that China controls over 95% of the world’s rare earth deposits,

and has the market cornered in large part because most first world countries

won’t issue permits for such mining.

The U.S. wind industry requires between 5 and 6 million pounds of rare earth

metals each year.

Note that the mining of neodymium and dysprosium produces radioactive waste on a

one to one basis.

For every ton of the mineral mined, it produces a ton of radioactive waste,

according to the Bulletin of Atomic Science.

As one can appreciate, China doesn’t have disposal safeguards in place that even

come close to protecting people and the environment. Horror stories of Chinese

citizens near these mines becoming sick and dying are legion.

Compare that to America, where radioactive waste storage is so thick with

standards and safeguards, we can’t even get a permanent storage site in desolate

Nevada approved.

Solar panels aren’t a whole lot better.

These panels contain materials like cadmium telluride, copper indium selenide,

cadmium gallium (di)selenide, copper indium gallium (di)selenide,

hexafluoroethane, lead, and polyvinyl fluoride. Additionally, silicon

tetrachloride, a byproduct of producing crystalline silicon, is highly toxic.

There are increasing concerns that these chemicals can be washed out of panels

by rainwater. Moreover, they certainly get washed into the ground when panels

are broken during severe weather outbreaks like thunderstorms and hurricanes.

In any case, despite the presence of these chemicals, solar panels are currently

disposed of by chucking them in landfills.

It is estimated that in 2016, 250,000 metric tons of solar panel waste was

produced world-wide.

Moreover, the economics of recycling solar panels don’t turn a profit, meaning

that there is no market incentive to recycle the panels in the absence of

subsidies.

The bottom line is that “clean” energy isn’t so clean and comes with its own

trade-offs.

It isn’t just coal, nuclear, and natural gas that comes with a downside.

Copyright © 2019 Harold Hamilton at The Minnesota Watchdog & Anoka County

Watchdog, All rights reserved.

The Minnesota Watchdog and the Anoka County Watchdog thanks you for your

support. Sincerely, Harold Hamilton.

Our mailing address is:

Harold Hamilton at The Minnesota Watchdog & Anoka County Watchdog

C/O K Solutions LLC

3083 Victoria Street

Roseville, MN 55113

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Less than 5% of the planet's humans live in <...America...>, though.

The main sticking point on solar for homes is the battery storage system.Most batteries are good for 5 years,max.

The most durable,long life battery is the Edison Iron battery.They last from 20 to 30 years,can tolerates deep discharge,low electrolyte,and many of the things that kill regular lead/acid batteries.

However,they are not energy-dense.

They are large and require a lot of room.

They would not be suitable in transportation.

Companies selling solar panel\wind power systems do not factor the battery replacement costs into the ROI.

Still,it will eventually pay for itself if you are handy in fixing things yourself.

The world wide grid is what I have been advocating for some time now. It will come to past. Insofar as every home or factory having their own power source, that's possible, too. However, the cramped cities will still have their power brought in from outside the city. The stand alone home is here now. There's a lot of homes in the Houston area that have geothermal heating and cooling and there's a lot of companies there that are selling and installing geothermal heating and cooling systems. Geothermal heating and cooling, solar and wind power, and a water well is close to a stand alone system. The one process missing is sewage removal. If that isn't considered, the subdivision will be a stinking mess.

I don't see why Hawaii don't use their volcanos to produce steam for generators. It's a very economical source of power.

Trying to harness the heating power of the existing volcanoes has a lot of promise, but can be a little tricky, especially when the lava (mis-behaves...), but should still be ''worth'' a ''try''... Iceland seems to be coping rather well...

Any alternative there will have to operate against the back-drop of the fact that, percentage-wise, Hawaii is the most unionized of all 50 of the (united?...) States...

HiTekRedNek,

To make it more obvious why paying customers full retail for their feed-in to the electric system is unfair and unsustainable just take it to the extreme:.

If enough residential customers with solar panels on their roofs and/or wind turbines on their property, were attached to the grid that they supplied all the power to the rest of the customers then who gets to pay for the upkeep of the grid?

The electric company would be taking in exactly what they were paying out with no overage for paying anyone. And raising rates for equipment that went bad or needed to be replaced ? well that wouldn't do any good as it would be paid right back out to the residential solar panel and wind turbine owners for feed-in.

Anything short of that exaggeration is just some fraction of that problem.

.

Also...

We don't treat other business this way: no one is complaining that they cannot bring their homegrown tomatoes to the grociery store and expect the store to purchase those tomatoes at full retail they expect to sell tomatoes for, regardless of whether or not they need any tomatoes at that time.

No matter how you parcel it out,the consumer pays for everything in one way or another.TANSTAAFL.

Money has to move to have any value.Money buried in a hole in the ground is worthless.Once the money is in motion,it is the perceived value that it has,not the intrinsic value of the paper or metal.

If every stockholder had the exact portfolio that he/she wanted,and never trade it the market would collapse.

What will happen if all manufacturing and service jobs are automated?How will people pay for the goods that are manufactured?

Taxing the manufacturers is the only option I can think of.

As long as everyone does not want the exact same thing all the time,the value will keep flowing.

Then the manufacturers will,by proxy, via the government taxes, be paying other manufacturers so they can keep going.

The government will be paying the people to do nothing.

There will always be some niche that is not profitable to automate,and some people skilled in that particular craft will get extra money.Eventually,as progress proceeds,these jobs will be eliminated.

People will still barter,but with the internet of things, all items will be traceable and taxable when they change possession.

Some countries are experimenting with a guaranteed basic income for everyone even if they don't work.

It is enough to prevent starvation,but not enough for luxury items.

There will have to be a revolution in economics to accompany the revolution in manufacturing,such as 3D manufacturing,and AI.

That is just how I see it working out.

Innovations that improve productivity as well as shifts in modes of consumption create imbalances in the allocation of assets and labor. The shifts necessary to rebalance and therefore reduce emergent inefficiencies, especially those in labor, can be disruptive for large numbers of people. to individuals affected by large shifts I can be very threatening and for some, even catastrophic.

in the bigger picture though in a longer view, because the adoption of the innovations that caused disruption are gradual and not abrupt single day events, and also because the disruptions tend to be limited to certain sectors at a time, It doesn't represent an insurmountable existential threat to the system.... until...

... such time as the productivity of the average worker is so high that they can produce more in there average career than they and the average number of people depending on them can consume during that period. that would seem to require a loss of the ability to innovate. I certainly don't see any slow down in innovation and I can't imagine that there will be one anytime soon for anything short of the extinction of our species.

Even if there does come a day in some future period (close enough that we might still be able to grasp generally what's going on) when productivity has risen sufficiently that the average worker has the ability to produce more and they're working life then they and the ones that depend on them can consume in that time, then we might need to look back to other systems. Maybe people will be sufficiently different that communism could work that time around. or maybe the work week could just be shortened.

.

.

all of that is a long way off.

none of that has anything to do with solar / wind feedback rates for residential electric customers. regardless of how well economic systems in the future might handle inevitable increases in productivity, it really still isn't reasonable now for retail customers with wind or solar to expect to sell back their power to the power company at retail rates without respect to demand and without having to pay for any of the infrastructure.

Some of the issues utilities are having integrating variable solar inputs could be reduced by promoting demand side management at a residential level.

My fridge, boiler, well pump, air compressor, etc. could be set to run up to setpoint at off peak or solar peak times without having to give the utility control of my home.

Make bi-directional time-of-use rates work for the ratepayer and we could all have a more resilient grid. An easy first step could be letting the ratepayer access the real time data from the smart meter they were forced to buy.

On demand metering and information of power has been available since the 1980's,at least to industry.A few keystrokes,and your current demand would be printed out on green-line printer paper.This was used to monitor and minimize peak usage.Industry is charged with three different meters:

KWH,KVAR and DEMAND.Once a demand peak has reached certain level,the rate increases dramatically for ll power used,and never goes back down.

Insofar as the smart meters,the usage is available in must areas on demand.

If you think that is bad, try Sydney Australia where a French company won the contract to supply water to the city. Then residents who dared to collect their rainwater were billed for doing so, despite there being a water crisis.

There will always be resistance to change. Its one of the characteristics of humans. People who are comfortable will die rather than change. Change is scary. Change melts snowflakes.

Then we add greed to the mix.

Just because its good for the planet doesnt mean I am going to let you take away my cash cow. I don't have money enough yet. Bill Gates is still richer.

The lamenting of the rich suffering from affluenza.

And the rich will go to extreme means to keep the wealth in the family. They go so far to make tax breaks so their heirs and assigns won't pay the same tax rate as the rest of the tax paying population. They are able to convince people to fight for them to keep their wealth without paying fair taxes. It's unbelievable what people can be convinced of.

Inheritance taxes were exactly what was destroying family farms. When Mom and Pop passed away, the heirs to the farm could not pony up the cash to pay the inheritance taxes and they had to sell the farm.

Is that fair?

Yes, that's fair. If they can't work the farm profitably, then give someone else the chance to work the land. To purchase land and pay for it with the crops or livestock raised on it is nearly impossible. There's a lot of people that would like to be farmers but no way they can do it because the landowners hand it down to their progeny generation after generation with out paying the same tax that everyone else pays. The inheritance is free money. I pay taxes on money I worked for and they should pay the same rate. The de facto aristocracy should pay at the same rate as me and countless others. If dna money was taxed at the same rate as everyone else, there may be more land available for others to become farmers.

So what you are saying is that all inheritances should be treated like ordinary income?

Well no one said the system wasn't manipulated BSR. Originally the farm would pass from father to son. It wasn't considered an inheritance since its value was in its being worked, and that income was taxed, not the Totally contrived value the bank put on the land. So there was nothing to tax. The rich hated to see that so they changed the law. Made you pay tax on the supposed value of the property which of course they controlled.

It pretty much always comes back to this. Greed, Avarice and a humans willingness to be inhuman for money.

I believe it's getting better. The young can see the selfishness and unfairness a lot better than the old.

I did my best to raise world citizens with an understanding and compassion for justice.

Here's Hoping!

Fair and just are not the same.