Comment by mnemonicsloth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mnemonicsloth | Hacker News Reader

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Uh, no.

Prices did go down 30%, but it took ten years, not one. http://gigaom.com/cleantech/solar-costs-dropped-30-over-last...

This is my problem with solar energy. It's getting better. It isn't price-competitive with coal yet. There are already lots of niche applications. But people can't maintain a healthy skepticism about it because it's such a feel-good technology.

To wit, the US government loaned $535 million to Solyndra at about the same time LBNL released that report. Now they're broke and the FBI raided their offices a few days ago. Where else could a company borrow half a billion dollars without ever showing a profit?

In comparison, the entire projected cost for the solar updraft tower that the Southern California Public Power Authority is building is under $30 million.

ETA - No replies yet, but plenty of downvotes. I hope to be corrected if I'm wrong, of course. I tried to find credible sources for what I've said here. I can't source my claim that solar power is an issue where people pay more attention to feelings than facts. You can't prove something like that. But people are downvoting, and they aren't answering...

links:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/02/solyndra-...

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fbi-raids-connected-energy-fir...

on the updraft tower (which is an awesome piece of engineering):

http://www.scppa.org/pages/projects/lapaz_solartower.html

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/enviromission-se...

PV panel prices are dropping in price 30% per year at present; your link claims 30% for installed system costs in the decade ending in '08. 2008 is just before PV panel prices took their biggest plunge ever, from about $5 per watt to about $2 per watt at present. First Solar claims under $1 per watt, so the end is not yet in sight.

Nice job picking out-of-date numbers.

Moore's law for solar:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/03/16/sm...

If the 2010 and 2011 data was on the charts it would show an even steeper decline.

citation pls?

ETA:

This?

Averaged over 30 years, the trend is for an annual 7 percent reduction in the dollars per watt of solar photovoltaic cells. While in the earlier part of this decade prices flattened for a few years, the sharp decline in 2009 made up for that and put the price reduction back on track. Data from 2010 (not included above) shows at least a 30 percent further price reduction, putting solar prices ahead of this trend.

An average of seven percent per year for 30 years, then a breakthrough year in 2009 (which is well-documented). Then the author -- whose resume includes Microsoft, a company doing "nanotechnology research," and writing some books about transhumanism -- claims another good year in 2010, and you claim a third in 2011.

In other words, the author wants to extrapolate an exponential trend 10 or 20 years into the future based on (at best) 3 data points, while ignoring another trend that's been operating ten times longer.

And he could be right. Technologies do change growth regimes sometimes. But you don't make that argument by talking about the magic of exponential growth. You make it by talking about why all the rules are changing now.

Instead, he says "manufacturers are learning how to reduce the cost to fabricate solar." He doesn't say how, or how long they can keep it up. Then he throws out a paragraph about increasing efficiency ("in the lab," which could mean anything). Then he goes back to electricity prices in 2030.

Obviously, I hope he's right. But that article doesn't do much to refute my claim that solar power is over-hyped by people people who seem to think hype is OK for a good cause.

"Uh, no" is not a start that puts the receiver in a mood to respond constructively. If he's caught unawares, is in a bad mood or just plain tired, you will reap what you've sown. If you want to be sure you receive constructive responses, you have give constructive responses.

There have been lots of failures not only in the solar industry but in every industry, it doesn't mean we should stop trying. No one answer is the cure-all, but we'll never know its potentials until we fail and build on those lessons learned.

You can't predict how great the 10th generation of a product will be without knowing how the other 9 were

So you are saying solar power isn't reasonable, then point to a project using solar power to generate power from solar energy cheaply? And, fwiw, I wouldn't consider wind turbines to be using solar power (every non-nuclear source would be if I did), but the tower is specifically concentrating the heat from the sun to drive the turbines.

In the linked article, a 200 MW solar updraft installation is projected (by to the company that wants to build it) to cost $700 million.

That works out of $3500/kW, which seems to be on par with construction costs for recent nuclear power plants (according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_...)

Of course, limiting the comparison to construction costs is silly.

My point was that people take an idealized view of solar power that causes them to see it as purely good, rather than as it really is: a mix of good and bad, like any real-world technology.

In response, you call me out for attacking solar power (pointing out bad parts), and being inconsistent about it (pointing out good parts).

So this reply looks like an example of the black-and-white thinking about solar power that I was complaining about above. I say "looks like" because I don't understand your second sentence. I agree with the all the facts you brought up, but I don't see the point of mentioning them. Please correct me if I'm missing something.

Minor point, but tidal sources are also not solar-derived.

And an advantage of tidal compared to most (all?) other renewables is that it is completely predictable.

There are downsides, especially to do with ecological effects/damage during construction and operation.

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