:thumbsup:thumbsup

Free solar power with some to spare for the neighbors is coming but many will try to slow the progress because they can't make as much money off it.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Industries

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.n...93368489_n.jpg

This is what I don't get about conspiritards and quacktivists in general.

Half say, climate change is faked to make you pay taxes, the other half say it is real and there is a conspiracy to cover it up.

A BAAAAAD person believes it! Therefore everyone who believes it regardless of how they came to that conclusion is BAAAAAD too!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

You should look into this just a bit on your own. Seriously, it makes you sound dumb.

I've looked into it plenty and I've seen all I need to see with Obama throwing billions at one green company after another and each and every one are bankrupt within years.

My mom has had solar panels for water on her home since the 80's and she never recouped her initial $10,000 investment. In fact it cost about $1000 to have them removed a few years back to put a new roof on and I'd be willing to bet that $1000 was more than she ever saved.

Grant it things have come a long way since then but the cost is still high and maintenance costs are high as well. I'm all for free and green energy solutions but I don't for one second believe the government taxing and spending our way into a greener future is the way to go.

Everyone debates emissions, but nobody talks about what is likely the primary factor in global warming; destruction of natural areas for development. When you replace heat absorbing wooded areas or prairie lands with a four lane highway, parking lots and heat reflecting buildings, things are going to get hotter.

But pointing the finger at this stuff serves no purpose for either side because there is no call to action. You can't raise money to combat parking lots.

That was then. They are a lot better at absorbing energy. Now is the time to buy them. I would say 2-3 years from now would be a good time to buy in.

this is a tangent, but well illustrates the discrepancy between "scientists" environmental predictions & what actually happened...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires

Damn, I was just googling "global warming stopping" and I'm getting all kinds of articles that are saying that nothing has changed in the last ten years and that scientists didn't take some factors into account on their theoretical "models" that they based their predictions on.

Unfortunately I have no way to know if all these sites are funded by oil companies or right wing religious crazies.

Can some of you GFY detectives google that and see if there's anything to it?

I recently saw an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher where he brought out a scientist in the opening segment of the show who said something very similar. That nature and the ocean and grasslands were changing to keep up with CO2 and that scientists who had made predictions based on their models had not seen that coming. And now the models are no longer valid and that nature itself has changed it (explaining why it's been at a standstill for a decade now).

Anyway, THAT is the most recent science on it that I have heard. And the guy on Real Time wasn't a conservative, oil company guy. He was a guy that Maher really liked and it kind of caught Bill by surprise when he said that.

I tried to find it on YouTube, but it's not there. Just tons of videos posted by liberals who are fan boys and have Bill "schooling" his conservative guests on how wrong they are. lol

Anyway, I found it interesting. And after googling a bit I found lots more info about that.

Is this possible?

The ocean and grasslands have started absorbing more CO2 than before and now the models that scientists put together ten years ago are no longer valid?

Just food for thought.

Interesting, haven't look into it. But, here's just a shot in the dark thought of my own on that subject/idea.

We all know trees feed off Co2, perhaps less trees = more food/fuel for the trees that do exist to consume, and perhaps produce fewer, stronger trees?

Like I said, just a shot in the dark (perhaps while blindfolded, it's still early here!)

Actually that's not true and not how it works anyway.

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.

Regardless of how a home would get its own energy, the power wouldn't be given away to the neighbour next door. Instead, it would be sold back to the power grid, meaning the home owner would get credit for the power it gives back.

Things like wind and solar don't provide constant energy so its impractical not to be connected to the normal power grid. Storing the energy in batteries can work but can be expensive too. The cheapest and best way is to sell it back to the power company which is already happening in alot of places around the world.

Climate change / Global Warming is real and the evidence is everywhere.

Name 2.

I'm sure this is true but then again :
- Using solar panels to generate electricity to heat a water tank is very inefficient.
- Solar panels were alot more expensive in the 80's than they are today
- Solar panels are still very expensive today.

It's not that Solar is the absolute answer. How you should think about this is that Solar Panels are just one piece of the alternative energy puzzle, and money needs to go into exploring and developing alternative energy solutions.

Ok, but wouldn't you agree then that tax money that is currently going to oil, who already earn billions a year in profit, should be diverted to green energy?

If we did this the cost of green would go down and the planet might begin a trend towards getting some of its health back.

I was pointing out a flaw in the general mindset of conspiracy theorists. Half say it's faked to promote carbon tax, half say it is real, and being covered up.

I haven't looked into the climate change thing in a long time.

My view is this, being greener and cleaner is simply better because of air quality. Recycling or biodegradable products are good, because who wants to see trash anywhere? Stop cutting down too many trees, concrete never has, and never will look appealing. Etc. Etc.

There are logical reasons, minus climate change, why I'd like to be greener and cleaner.

I have to pay carbon tax and don't even believe in it.

Oh, and don't forget acid rain! I hope we don't have any of those damn sub-human Fox-news-watching acid rain denying filth on here!

http://www.foe.co.uk/imgs/008_litmus_billboard_750.jpg

http://newint.org/archive/images/iss...cs_rainpic.gif

http://img.docstoccdn.com/thumb/orig/80142928.png

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications...fig5jpgmed.jpg

:disgust:disgust:disgust

'yearly record profits.. '

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.

yes, but feeble evidence backing up that we have caused any of it.

there has always been climate change, one excruciatingly long cycle.. but most of the minds in here can't look beyond their own life times no less multi generational and you are stuck with alarmists like you acting like we are actually significant when we are not much more than ants when it comes to life forms on this planet.

ITT: Retards :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Spent 2 months recently on the beaches north of Sydney - saw some old photos of a nice surf break in the club rooms.

Ocean hasn't risen an inch in 100 years.

Glaciers in New Zealand (Fox, Franz Joseph, Earnslaw - ones that I've touched in the last 12 months) are growing and the South Poler Ice Caps are growing.

You can pick facts to support any argument.

I just prefer to call it weather.


Dave

Or... We are coming out an "ice age"?

I'm not kidding. We accept our weather as "the norm" when the truth is our planet is changing with or without us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

I don't deny climate change. It's a natural part of how the earth works. I do think it's a tad spurious to blame it on people.
ds

You're even more correct than you think. The power plants that generate the electricity are themselves subsidized, so that would be an additional savings. Also, they have to be built for peak capacity, costing an enormous amount up front, whereas solar can be installed over time.

You might not travel much but the rest of the world takes it seriously. Even the Republican Party is having meetings about how they can change their stance to the right side without coming across bad.

I don't pay carbon taxes that I know of but I am still aware of this issue.

Some simple things to consider. Plants have zones where they can survive because of the average daily temperature. You can now use one zone lower in most areas. So it is hotter then when I was a kid. The gardeners of the world may be on conspiring on this but I doubt it.

You can walk on areas of Greenland that have never been visited by modern man as they were covered in ice.

Russia and China are in talks to open a Northern sea lane through the Arctic for shipping. This was not possible before as the ice was there.

These are some pretty diverse groups who are taking advantage of these changes. I don't think it is a conspiracy as these are pretty diverse groups here. Why is it happening? No idea. CO2 in the atmosphere is at the highest level ever recorded. We know that CO2 has an effect. That is a fact. So maybe this is related to the above facts.

I am sorry that your govt. doesn't feel a need to hold your hand and fix this for you.

uhm... whut??? How do you work that out then?

plenty of options for solar energy for your homes, i've recently received several quotes, the cost the costs have dropped dramatically and there are also tax incentives and such = to thousands of dollars, just do a search for solar energy in your city.

municipalities are also moving on it

With the flip of a switch, Las Vegas city officials today celebrated the powering up of 15,000 new solar panels that will provide energy to a nearby wastewater treatment plant.
The $20 million project will generate 6 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually, enough to provide about 20 percent of the treatment plant’s power.

Read more: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013...#ixzz2YYUQhgnE



http://solarpowerrocks.com/files/201...per-capita.png



usa is 2nd in the world for wind powered energy, 60 megawatts.

Hi Robbie,

I agree with you. Solar works, but its too expensive. A company can't open up in the states and make solar panels and expect to sell enough to be profitable, yet. This is why subsidies are needed.

The promise of clean energy is there. It is possible but lots of R&D still needs to be done. Other countries know this and are heavily invested in green energy. Only the United states is falling behind.

You could not tell just by simple observation. Nasa, NOAA, and other agencies do more accurate measurements. But if you want proof you can see yourself, just watch the news - there are more floods causing more damage all over the place.

It's also not just the amount of water, its the temperature of the water. Warmer oceans bring even more problems such as stronger, larger / wider hurricanes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy

Arctic Sea Ice is shrinking. Antarctic land ice is growing.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/fea...rctic-ice.html

Sea ice is frozen ocean water and influences climate around the globe. Sea Ice is nearly white, which reflects more sunlight and absorbs less (Keeping things cool). The more it melts, the less sunlight is reflected and the more light is absorbed, warming things up. In other words, the warmer it gets, the warmer it will get.

Read more about the difference between sea ice and land ice at http://www.helium.com/items/1357583-...ence-explained.

and that, kind sir, is the biggest problem.

Solar panels installed at 29 La Vegas city-owned buildings generate a combined two megawatts of power, bringing the city?s total capacity to five megawatts and hitting a benchmark set by the city council in 2008.
Perrigo said the solar panels and other energy efficiency programs, such as installing LED light bulbs, have helped cut the city?s annual energy bill from $15 million to $10 million over the last three years.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=w5GC528gwj8

oh fuck, i KNEW the religious ppl are the idiots, but you top it with that crap ... yeah, sure, 31,000,000,000 tons of crap the humans blow into the air PER YEAR has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT AT ALL ... how stupid cud ya be to believe that? eh!? in the name of what ever imaginary projection your feeble brain created - START THINKING!!! kill that idiot and then trust in YOURSELF and common sense and NOT LUNATIC idiocracy based on fake info ... damn!!!

http://thelastofthemillenniums.files...h-brothers.jpg

Read how the Koch brothers screwed over the climate even more than you know.

derp derp derp

this is like arguing with Markham about magic join links

:)

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...limate-change/

The glacier was still advancing until 2008, but since then it has entered a very rapid phase of retreat.[8]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10818264

5 years since you touched it eh?

he should know, they were trying to have him killed :2 cents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

There is no argument among scientist whom aren't on big oil's pay role. Overwhelmingly scientists agree on "global climate change".

It's pretty much just lobbyist that disagree. You won see any real scientists that aren't linked to one of the lobbyists whom disagrees with global climate change.

The only mistake that was made by scientists is calling it global warming. They called it global warming because the overall trend is a warming earth.

However while the earth warms there will be extremes of both hotter summers and worse winters. The simpletons can't grasp that aspect, so soon as we have a cold winter they cry as if global warming is a fraud, rather than using their brains to see the the overall global tend which is getting hotter.

Solar prices have been dropping rapidly the last few years. Its getting very close to dropping below $1 a watt on the panel side.

In fact I installed a 300 watt system on my rv. The panels were about $350 bucks with shipping. It was the other stuff that drove the cost up.

Even still it was only about $1,3k total and that was with $400 worth of batteries as well as a high end solar converter.

I can power everything including a small DC refrigerator for 3 days with no sun. Well not the ac of course.

How are we "falling behind"? I already showed you the technology is there and has been for decades.

It's just too damn expensive.

Maybe other countries have rich citizens that can afford to put solar power on their homes? But not here in the U.S. People are barely getting by.

As I said earlier....instead of politicians giving away 2 TRILLION dollars to banks, they COULD have installed solar on every home and business in the United States and instantly created jobs and made the green energy industry profitable by paying them to DO something.

Instead, Obama hands hundreds of millions of tax dollars to "Green" companies that never actually do anything but pay themselves big salaries and then declare bankruptcy.

Maybe if Solyndra had been paid to WORK...by putting solar up on homes and businesses then we would have gotten something for our money.

That's why I keep saying that all signs point to this being a money scam. The govt. just doesn't seem to be serious about it at all.

And I keep hearing about how other govt.'s take it so seriously. Really? Then what have they DONE. Nothing. Nothing that changes anything. Just talk, and ways to siphon off more money.

As for China, and their big advancements in "Green Energy". Well, they are one of the worst polluting countries on the freakin' planet. If they are so far ahead of us on it and "Green Energy" works so good...then why don't they use it???

But how can this be if it is not real??? Didn't you say it doesn't exist. So nature is conspiring against the Republicans???

Or we can all agree it is real but it might or might not be as big of a deal as some people are saying. At least we should finally get on the same page and say yeah something is happening.

Germany,Spain, Czech Republic have all made extensive solar programs. "China plans to increase its goal for solar-power installations in 2015 by 67 percent to reduce reliance on fossil fuels blamed for greenhouse"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...s-beijing.html

The world is all over this. It is not cost effective in most ares so they are subsidizing it. The hope is that with mass production savings combined with inovation, we will see lower costs. Yes, we had it in the 70's but it wasn't easy to produce.

It is certainly real. The only debate is if man is speeding up the process or not.

or if the process will spiral out of control with 'non natural' activity

guess we'll find out

Ignore it, it'll go away on it's own :thumbsup

No, I didn't say "it doesn't exist". I said that if it were real, that it seems to me that the world would mobilize and do SOMETHING. I've pointed out over and over and over that the U.S. Govt. talks about it, but does nothing.

The science I'm pointing out is that nature is adapting to whatever we do and NEGATING it so it pretty much doesn't exist anymore. And my post was a question. I'm no more of an expert or scientist than you are. Which means we are both ignorant except for the information we read.

I'm not really sure what an "extensive solar program" is. Sounds like bullshit.

IF they REALLY wanted to do something they would simply put solar, wind, and other "green energy" on every business and residence out there. End of story. No need for "extensive programs". Just fucking DO IT.

As you should know, China and India are burning coal like it's going out of style. And talk of "extensive solar programs" sounds like bureaucratic-speak for funneling money and not really accomplishing what is being claimed is so desperately needed.

The "world is all over this"...that's great news! Let me know which country goes all green first and doesn't use any fossil fuels. And which of their govt. officials stops riding private jets and limousines.

It's all about percentages. The best solar panels still have just under %50 absorption rates but even at that it's worth it to start installing them. As time goes buy they will get better.

Soon if you cover just the roof of your house you will power everything and have a little left over to put in your electric car.

Panels over the garage will then take care of the car and you'll have some left over energy. I believe this will happen in about 10 years.

Personally I would wait just a few more years before installing this as new batteries are going to be much cheaper and will store a week or more worth of juice to power the home.

That technology has existed here in the U.S. for decades. Not 10 years in the future.

Just google up "Complete Home Solar Systems"

We aren't "behind" anybody. NASA was making kick ass solar panels for our lunar modules in the 1960's.

My point was that it's so expensive to put them on your house that hardly anyone does. It would literally take you decades to break even on the investment in money you would save on your power bill.

And also...I asked WHY didn't Bush or Obama take those respective ONE TRILLION DOLLAR BAILOUTS EACH and instead of funneling money to banks and all the companies that are owned by their campaign contributors, why didn't they simply have every home and business outfitted with complete solar systems for every building in the U.S.?

If global warming is being caused by mankind that sure would have seemed like it would have been job number one. And it would have stimulated the economy, made Green Energy Companies viable (giant govt. contracts to install millions of buildings with solar panels), ended the recession, and the stock market would have soared and the banks would have been solvent because the housing market would have rebounded from all the people getting jobs with solar.

That is my point.
The govt. isn't taking it very seriously at all.

They make a few speeches. That's it. And nothing changes.