Comments on: President Obama visits Florida - a trip filled with irony

By: kevin

kevin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:01:18 +0000

Solar works best when it’s “distributed.” That’s when folks like you and I are generating power and selling the excess back to the grid.

By: Maxwells

Maxwells — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:22:55 +0000

Solar and Wind are the future, but this system in Arcadia is not saving money as they claim.

How is charging consumers three times more to use this Solar grid better? That’s not the Future that’s rushing in to be First at any expense and then passing the cost along to the consumer.

For $150M they could’ve equiped 3700 homes with full time Solar Systems (@40k ea), or equip Schools and Government offices and removed that demand from the grid entirely and save Taxpayers some of the costs for operating these facilities as well.

That would be a great start, not exaggerating the benefits to a system that’s costing three times more to operate.

By: Maxwells

Maxwells — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:20:03 +0000

I think Solar is a great way to “reduce” conventional energy demand but this Arcadia Florida system is nowheres near “saving” anybody money. They need to be honest about that.

This system cost $150 million and can supply 3,000 homes, only during the day light hours,
so that actually cut’s the demand to just 1,500 homes full time, divide the $150M by 1,500 users and that’s a cost of $100K per user,
divide that by the 25 year life cycle of these Solar Panels and you’ve got $4,000 a year operating cost per user.

4,000 ÷ 12 months = $333.33 a month electric bill just to break even, not counting costs of their maintenance or billing services. (Right now FPL claims their average users bill is $109 a month.)

This calculation only illustrates that there is no real “savings”, That is why FPL is actually charging “all” their customers for building these Solar grids to hide the true cost/loss ratio.

‘PSC will let FPL pass costs of solar projects to customers’ July 15, 2008

“The Florida Public Service Commission took the first step today in approving three Florida Power & Light Co. solar energy projects estimated to cost $688 million.”

“That means customers who use 1,000 kilowatt-hours would pay about 83 cents more on their monthly bills in 2011 and 31 cents more over the first 25 years the plants are operating.”

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/housekeys/blog/2008/07/psc_will_let_fpl_pass_costs_of.html

By: Dr. Stephen A. Smith

Dr. Stephen A. Smith — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:07:35 +0000

Terry,
Sorry you ran out of gas, sounds like you where trying to use the wrong technology at the wrong time, see I have have solar panels on my house, they sit in the sun all day, and my utility company owes me money, no scam just clean energy.

By: Terry

Terry — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:48:55 +0000

my car ran out of gas, so I parked it in the sun for 3 hours, still wont start. solar power is a scam.

By: Sean Campbell

Sean Campbell — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:28:19 +0000

And to further promote solar over nuclear, there is practility no local small business component to the nuclear industry. Nuclear also propagates the “big plant” mind set that wastes giga watts of electricity for every meter of powerline that the electricity has to travel from the plant to its end use. No nuclear waste, no carbon emmissions, no terrorist threat, and the potential to support an entire industry of solar manufacturers, retailers, and installers. The choice is simple: Go Solar. http://www.solarizon.net

By: Jim Walker

Jim Walker — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:26:32 +0000

Unfortunately, the Florida Public Service Commission, the Florida Senate and the U.S. Congress all consider nuclear energy to be “renewable’ and apparently ‘clean’ without regard to fuel reserve limitations and ‘external’ mining, enrichment, storage and disposal operations. Until government is made to focus on subsidizing and providing consumer incentives for truly clean, safe and renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, tidal with a distribution system that does not favor inefficient, capital-intensive projects that favor large utility corporations, it will remain business as usual in Florida and the rest of the US.

Nuclear energy is about enhancing shareholder value at the expense of the natural environment and ratepayers.

…. and radioactive waste is a millennial legacy that goes well beyond ‘irony’.

And anyone who says solar, wind and tidal cannot be brought online in a short period of time needs to revisit the history of American manufacturing efforts during the years of our involvement in World War II or how President Kennedy’s challenge to put a man on the moon was met in the 1960s.

By: Mike Licht

Mike Licht — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:04:43 +0000

What’s the biggest threat to America’s power grid?

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/terrorists-strike-u-s-infrastructure/

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Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:42:11 +0000

[...] CleanEnergy Footprints » Archive » President Obama visits Florida … [...]

By: kevin

kevin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:31:27 +0000

I’m a big fan for growing the clean energy economy - it’s one of the new economic engines that might pull Florida and the US out of the recession.

Given the sad state of renewable affairs in Florida, is this really the best place to promote clean energy? -k