Personally, I have no problem with solar power. In fact, I would love to get off the grid and not pay as much in electricity bills. Taxation, however, does not make solar power less expensive, it just makes the other forms more expensive. People are already struggling and we already have too many taxes. Adding another regressive tax scheme to the books that is bad for the poor and middle class, all to maybe reduce the amount of CO2 produced by an amount that will have almost no impact on the global temperature, is an extremely stupid way of dealing with our problems.
Its worse than you think, but keep your eyes & ears open and you may be able to cash in on too.
For example in most states with net metering mandates, the power company's are required to credit the energy coming back out through the meter from solar panels at a significantly higher rate than they charge for the energy going into the individuals house.
You don't have to be a math wizard to see the opportunity here.
Incidentally in actual practice the supposed surplus electricity erratically generated from a few scattered solar equipped homes is often just ran to ground as its such a piddly amount that its easier to dump it than it is to try & synchronize it into the existing standard grid.
With your past experience in the power industry I'm sure you've wondered how its possible to synchronize a bunch of isolated erratic little power sources into a main load standard grid.
The dirty little secret is, they often don't even try! They just give credit as if they did to meet mandated regulations.
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You obviously got the whole story wrong as the article claims this happened in Spain 4 years ago; not in Germany. And it is all based on a single newspaper article published in the rightwing El Mundo paper which did not back up its claims.It couldn't because it simply wasn't true. Heck, the costs of a liter of diesel is still much higher than any possible subsidies obtained from selling as green energy diesel generated power.
<<...how stupid have we become?>>
Stupid enough to totally get the story wrong.
Heard this story several years ago. Lubos Motl did an analysis and concluded the subsidies were so high, you could take regular power and shine a light on your solar generator and sell that back and earn a profit.
Not as stupid as those who even don't ask this question.
Pretty stupid...at least as stupid as supporting these dumb wars overseas.
a New Dark Age has begun. Far too many fools actually think conservative talk show hosts know more than scientists
this was predicted in the book 1984
no such thing
Just heard that solar energy subsidies are so great (in Germany anyway) that one company has bought diesel generators and arc lights, so they can generate at night and make a profit.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/13/its-true.html
