Quote:
Originally Posted by **********
There is a ton of money to be made in Solar Power, but incentives for development were late in coming by the US Government thanks to oil lobbyists. For this reason, China got the upper hand and are now producing tons of Solar panels, cheap. The US could have been the leader here but again you were screwed over.
|
I've been hearing that said by Bill Maher over and over on "Real Time". (love that show)
But you know what? When I was in highschool in the 1970's we were told that Solar Power was already here. We already were making solar panels decades before the Chinese ever thought about it.
Hell, Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the White House during his presidency (Reagan had them taken down lol)
Not sure if "lobbyists" stopped our country from using solar panels since the freakin' 1970's.
And if solar power is viable...it shouldn't need govt. subsidies.
Just open a company and sell the goddamned solar panels at a price people can afford.
I wanted to put a system on my last home in South Carolina in 2007. I wanted the full home system so that my entire house ran off of solar energy. It would have the panel array sitting in my back yard and it moved with the sun.
Sounds great! And we DO have the technology and have had it for decades (not China).
But guess what?
The cost for that system was $57,000!!!!!!!!
So if I had bought it....let's see...my power bill in South Carolina averaged $300 a month or $3,600 per year.
So it would have taken me 16 years to just break even!!!
THAT is what the problem is. Not lobbyists, not conservatives...but price.
Now, 6 years later...they have newer panels that don't need to be on the "follow the sun" mechanical device. But fit on your roof like the old style ones did.
For a big house like mine, I'd need the biggest one they have. Looks to be $28,000 or $33,000 according to which type of panel you use.
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/produc...ridwithGridtie
That is just the cost of the system by the way.
You still need to get someone to install it and get it wired into the power of the home and have the power company come out and install the piece that takes you "off the grid" etc.
So add another 10 grand.
That is just WAY too expensive for the average American family trying to get by in this world of a bad economy, taxes everywhere (local, state, fed, property, and now ObamaCare)
So don't believe all the horseshit that you may hear.
Solar energy is already available and has been since the late 60's / early 1970's.
It's just too goddamned expensive for the average person to afford.
And as I said earlier...instead of handing out a couple of TRILLION dollars to banks to "save" the economy, the U.S. govt. COULD have instead used that money to put solar power on every home and business in the U.S.
That would have put millions of people to work as installers, pumped all that money into the economy and singlehandedly jumpstarted the "green energy" industry as well as reduced the "carbon footprint" of the U.S. substantially.
Wonder why they didn't do that?
Answer: Because they wanted to funnel all that money to their cronies. They are politicians and don't really believe in man-made climate change either. It's all about money.