Commercial Solar Electric Power

Well Imp. You are certainly not making any sense at all for me. Why should we just take over massive areas of land for something that is really not doing what it is supposed to do, and do it in some sort of panic time.

Best we let this change over be tried and proven before we take our money and waste it on something that might be obsolete in a few years.

You posted a lot about Arizona solar systems. I would like to know who is paying for these installations around here. I keep getting mailers or phone calls wanting to put solar on my roof absolutely free. Who is paying for all this. If it is government money it should be stopped immediately as nobody I know ever voted for this to happen. I really hate the way they look too.

Maybe in a few years we will really have some breakthroughs of power generation that will make this stuff look like infancy efforts. Moving for solutions is the way to go as 200 years of coal and oil is not that far away either. No reason to run into this as time seems to correct our mistakes as we take our time to do and learn.
 

Bob, all I try to show is that, contrary to your mention of lack of adequate land area to build solar installations, there appears to be plenty of "place" for it. Sorry if it sounds s though I condone or recommend it, that I cannot, for I, too, do not know what the "down the road" consequences will be. But I DO believe, and cannot see how there can be any way to effectively berate photoelectric generation, as the concept dates back to Albert Einstein, and components which accomplish it have been around for years and years. Why then has it not been done sooner? Easy. Fossil fuel producers have fought solar every step of the way. When silicon cell awareness became widespread, Atlantic Richfield Co. bought existing manufacturing rights, and shelved them. Those patent rights have finally expired, leaving the oil companies no easy way to thwart solar any longer.

"nobody I know ever voted for this to happen" It isn't always the case that popular vote is involved in presentation of new public effort. I suppose it IS true that public money is being used to some extent to promote solar, especially in the "sun states", but the real, commercial efforts, that I see happening now, are backed by Private utility money, such companies being regulated by government, but run privately. Personally, I have no firm opinion one way or the other, regarding residential installations and how/why they are backed or encouraged. I adhere to the thought that the guys who successfully build, operate, and keep running, the machinery which keeps my lights on and PC working, know best what they are doing. imp
 
One important thing to do now is to allow the 'clean coal' operations to continue. If it works as proposed and tested, there will be no poisoned air from the use of 'clean coal' processes. No need to stop using a proven method of generating power if clean. Stop using known and clean methods while trying to develop another means of power generation is not a good idea. Keep on working on newer ways of generating power, in 200 years we will need to have new ways developed and working successfully. But then, in 200 years power generation of any kind may just be memories for the few that do remain.
 

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Solar power is still a "work in progress". There have been huge strides in recent years, and the day will come when it is an economically viable option for coal, etc., power generation. In the interim, we still need coal, nuclear, etc., to avoid brownouts and high electric bills while the technology is being perfected. I kind of like the idea of huge mirrors focusing sunlight on a central tower, to generate high pressure steam...which can be stored to continue power generation during the night, and on cloudy days.

Shutting down coal fired plants without having a source available to replace them is Not a good idea.
 

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