Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/14/green-keynes.html
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$0.03.3/kWh
What?
In any case, is that the cost to produce it or the retail cost to the consumer?
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I came to say that, but about the two decimals in that “number” that are making my left eye twitch.
However, on a positive note, I’d like to say that this is awesome. I wish we had something like this here in the Houston area, especially since my suburb is primarily powered by a coal-fired power plant about three miles away *cough, cough*.
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Right? They need to switch those things to frack gas.
This is what kills coal. Renewable energy with storage is now available at prices that make it impossible to turn the clock bask. And just in time,too.
However I’d also point out that
Is completely false. What he said was:
“If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well tried principles of Laissez Faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.”
This is a quote that has been disingenuously taken out of context ever since it was published.It’s actually a multi-layered idea, that gets a few points about economics across in a package of snark. He’s saying:
- Productive public works create value that the market would otherwise not have created, and are therefore a net benefit to society.
- In a depressed economy, it’s possible for even completely non-productive economic activity to re-start the flow of money around society. It’s better to do productive work, but at a push even non-productive work will do (see also- World War 2). This is essentially the Keynesian criticism of the response to the 2008 recession. The world should have spent money on the GND, but failing that , general public spending would have been OK, but politics was broken so fine, QE then.
- It’s also a subtle slam against the gold standard. If we were suddenly to discover a new gold deposit in the middle of the country, there would be a great deal of unproductive activity - digging of holes to unearth some lumps of yellow metal, that we would then refine and rebury in bank vaults. If a gold rush could stimulate the economy, then so could the “note bearing territory” plan.
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As much wind and sun as we get and as much open land as there is I’d rather for wind and solar, personally.
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These will become popular, then we will discover that covering deserts in solar panels will destroy the local ecosystem. And that’s when conservatives will finally embrace the technology.
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Implore dRumpf to force the plant owner to invest in ‘Clean Coal’ technology and you won’t have a problem! /s
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Me too. I was just thinking in baby steps. Long range: reduce our need for as much power and then get it as cleanly/low impact to the planet as possible.
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The craziest thing about Republican energy policy is that renewables represent a genuine example of American engineering ingenuity, employment growth, energy independence and economic success and the GOP is responding by doing everything they can to kill renewables.
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Because despite what they keep saying, and what their image is, the Republican party is not actually especially pro-business. It’s for maintaining the status quo, enriching the already rich, and rejecting changes that would hurt the existing interests, even if they would be hugely beneficial to the country in general.
(Also racism, nativism, homophobia and other assorted bigotries, but that’s not part of the business side.)
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That’s only crazy if you take their sloganeering as their actual policy position.
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I can just hear the Trumposphere, “#fakenews! Wake up sheeple! Solar Panels don’t work at night!”
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I wonder if replacing light bulbs with LEDs would significantly decrease the amount of night storage needed. I’ve changed all my light bulbs (in the UK) to LED and the reduction in electricity bills is noticeable.
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Short-term profit over long range stability. I.e.
metaphorically from the fables: grasshopper not ant, rabbit not tortoise, and kill the golden goose. Their style of thinking IS what will eventually be our undoing as the dominant species.
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Yes I suppose so but air conditioners and other heavy uses of power (public lighting, public transport, water pumping come to mind) may be the limiting factor here.
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The third one there is hugely significant. The energy required to move water around is amazingly large, because water is heavy.
I used to work with a guy who used to work at one of the water companies, and for them, being able to time-shift water pumping to times of low electricity demand (and hence, lower prices) was a huge deal.
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I heard recently that Iowa is getting 1/3 of its power from wind. And I see reason why we can’t triple the number of turbines. There’s a lot there but not like a ridiculous number of them.
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Well, we already know that desert solar-panel farms are rough on the underlying ecology – and there is a very complex and fragile ecosystem there, contrary to common stereotypes of “empty desert wasteland.”
The best habitat for solar panels is rooftops (esp. commercial-building rooftops) and parking-lot shade canopies. (LA has also been sprouting a lot of those lately, thanks to generous LADWP commercial feed-in tariffs for utility-scale solar generation.)
There’s also some very interesting work being done on placing solar panels over small-livestock grazing meadows, esp. for sheep. The sheep love the alternating sun/shade stripes, and the panels make alternating wet/dry bands from rain runoff, which hugely increases meadow diversity and wildlife habitat. Happy sheep, happy meadow, happy wildlife. (-:
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