Electricity again

[chuckChuck]

Sounds simple enough but the reality is very different. Engineers are engineers so you claim. Great.

If and when you need a surgeon, do you want the surgeon who specializes in heart surgery or knee replacements to do your bypass?

They're both doctors and both surgeons, but their experience and specialist training are very different.

You and I can debate this till the cows come home. It's mostly a waste of time.

I now have a little bit of experience with solar pv on my real world farm. It works! Even in the middle of February. Free fuel! Lower cost electricity for our farm! What is wrong with that?

Many farmers and individuals have already installed solar pv and many more are interested.

I will leave it up to you to analyse and dissect (speculate) on Alberta's, Saskatchewan's, the USA's and Australia's electrical systems and how renewables fit into each system.

But I think I already know what your conclusions are.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Sounds simple enough but the reality is very different. Engineers are engineers so you claim. Great.

If and when you need a surgeon, do you want the surgeon who specializes in heart surgery or knee replacements to do your bypass?

They're both doctors and both surgeons, but their experience and specialist training are very different.

You and I can debate this till the cows come home. It's mostly a waste of time.

I now have a little bit of experience with solar pv on my real world farm. It works! Even in the middle of February. Free fuel! Lower cost electricity for our farm! What is wrong with that?

Many farmers and individuals have already installed solar pv and many more are interested.

I will leave it up to you to analyse and dissect (speculate) on Alberta's, Saskatchewan's, the USA's and Australia's electrical systems and how renewables fit into each system.

But I think I already know what your conclusions are.

If only it were only a waste of time it would be tolerable, but instead it is also a waste of resources, and scarce capital. Such as the debt to GDP you are so concerned about. So we are now adding debt to produce something that in the end subtracts from our GDP, while consuming rare non renewable resources, as well as land in the process.

I only need you to provide one fact for me to come to a different conclusion. Please provide an example of somewhere in the world where the cost of grid electricity has gone down (relatively speaking) due to installing renewable energy. I am very flexible in my conclusions, as new facts become available.

So, after 3? months you have already achieved free fuel? All of your capital costs are covered, all of the maintenance and upgrades? That is impressive.

[chuckChuck]

A farmer should understand that when you buy farmland you don't pay for it in the first year. Same as solar PV. I won't be getting a bill for sunlight. Sunlight powers your farm and mine and my solar PV. Both require capital investment, but the solar energy source is free.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

A farmer should understand that when you buy farmland you don't pay for it in the first year. Same as solar PV. I won't be getting a bill for sunlight. Sunlight powers your farm and mine and my solar PV. Both require capital investment, but the solar energy source is free.

Yes, the solar energy for my crops, and grass and hay is free also. But because I am capable of the most basic of math skills, I don't jump to the conclusion that my COP is therefore 0 before I have even made the first mortgage payment.

It is comments such as your free fuel comment that costs your side so much credibility, amongst those who apply common sense.

[Hamloc]

Chuck2 here is a very simple question. It is 12:28 pm here in Alberta. It is a sunny but cold day. I just looked at the AESO supply and demand report. There is a 15 MW solar farm at Brooks Alberta. Right now it is producing 0 MW. Why is that? You brag up solar, you talk about all these brilliant engineers and how a simple farmer like myself can't be right. Wouldn't today be a perfect day for winter production of solar energy? Where is our electricity going to come from on a day like today in the future when wind and solar are not producing?

[blackpowder]

See, thing is, nobody ever asked me before they forced us in to standing on a mountain of coal and pissing into the wind.

[sumdumguy]

All the proof in the world won’t convince a horse either AF. Some just don’t have the mental capacity but they think they do. Every day I thank the good Lord for coal and natural gas when windchills hover around minus 40 for much of the month.

[grassfarmer]

Chuck2 here is a very simple question. It is 12:28 pm here in Alberta. It is a sunny but cold day. I just looked at the AESO supply and demand report. There is a 15 MW solar farm at Brooks Alberta. Right now it is producing 0 MW. Why is that? You brag up solar, you talk about all these brilliant engineers and how a simple farmer like myself can't be right. Wouldn't today be a perfect day for winter production of solar energy? Where is our electricity going to come from on a day like today in the future when wind and solar are not producing?

That makes no sense Hamloc - how can it not be producing unless it is offline for a maintenance issue? If there is sunlight it will be producing - i'd question the reporting accuracy - sure that it wasn't 12:28am?

edit - I looked at the AESO report and some of the coal and gas generators are also indicating zero production. Shut down? being serviced? who knows but clearly it's not true to say that solar doesn't produce on a day when there is sun - it must be in the way this is reported.

[malleefarmer]

I dont disagree with the comments on each side of argument.

Presume chuck you guys have 3 phase power lines we only have single phase and are limited because of it.

Limited to size of solar i mean.

Think most for straight solar i can have is 6.6kw and with battery a tad over 12.

Read last night our coal exports first in world and gas about 4th and uranium 3rd alas all goes into mpower generation in other countries but thats the way it is.

I can jump up and down all i like but in australia renewables are here to stay end of story unless there is some momentous shift in Govt thinking and voter thinking.

Only real change thatv MAY happen down the track is nuclear power generation and correct me if im wrong its clean and green and cheap just the actual mining process thats "dirty"

[malleefarmer]

Oh and ps the mach 2015 statement i personally think thats wrong.