Re: re: Windmills are rubbish.
"Actually, last time I looked, _no_one had ever succeeded in making a real-world-scale salt solar plant economically viable, even at subsidies high even by renewables' standards. Anyone know offhand if that's changed in the last coupla years?"
I don't know how economocally viable it is, but there's a plant in the US southwest desert that has been making a go at it. And, the eco-nuts are protesting it because they claim that the mirror panels are interfering wih some species of turtle that likely either doesn't care or is happy for the shade. The mirrors are several feet off the ground, and the heat at the mirror likey isn't any hotter than the sand would be.
For further foot shooting, California, who leads the US in panel use, is moving to add a 90 dollar per month fee to anyone using solar panels in a grid tie setup. So, Californians can soon add another almost 22,000 dollars to the payback cost of their install. A typical install there costs 16,000ish, so the monthly cost for panels is about 160 dollars per month. The typical power bill there is 250 a month. Mind you, the solar costs I list here include no maintenance costs, so this would be the minimim cost provided the panels actually last the full 20 years. Oh, and that panel cost included all state and federal rebatea, meaning the solar panel buyer reached into MY pocket to help cover the cost.
Icon, because going from fossil to solar is what those same fools were protesting FOR just a few years ago. Nothing makes them happy.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
