California schools $120M solar project
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From: amdx on 31 May 2010 07:02 Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district spending $120 million to put solar energy in/on schools. I did a Google search and can't find any info. The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective, so I'm curious. Anybody know more about it? Mike
From: PeterD on 31 May 2010 07:38 On Mon, 31 May 2010 06:02:23 -0500, "amdx" <amdx(a)knology.net> wrote: >Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district >spending $120 million to put solar energy in/on schools. >I did a Google search and can't find any info. >The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective, >so I'm curious. > Anybody know more about it? > Mike > I believe they gave $119 million to Al Gore's efforts, and spent the remaining million on publicity.
From: Bill on 31 May 2010 10:12 Actually quite "cost effective" for a school! Many schools are "building rich" and "operating budget" poor. That is they can easily find millions and millions of dollars to build new buildings - and this money can only be spent on that. Yet they can't find enough money to pay day to day expenses. They might have trouble coming up with an extra $5 for blackboard chalk. Seriously! So quite smart of them to use that construction money for something like solar which would reduce their day to day expenses. Perhaps they will be able to buy chalk in the future? "amdx" wrote in message > Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district > spending $120 million to put solar energy in/on schools. > I did a Google search and can't find any info. > The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective, > so I'm curious. > Anybody know more about it? > Mike
From: Bill Sloman on 31 May 2010 10:25 On May 31, 1:38 pm, PeterD <pet...(a)hipson.net> wrote: > On Mon, 31 May 2010 06:02:23 -0500, "amdx" <a...(a)knology.net> wrote: > >Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district > >spending $120 million to put solar energy in/on schools. > >I did a Google search and can't find any info. > >The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective, > >so I'm curious. > > Anybody know more about it? > > Mike > > I believe they gave $119 million to Al Gore's efforts, and spent the > remaining million on publicity. The request was for information about what the California School District has done, not an invitation for you to exercise your incompetent imagination. Admittedly, anyone asking for information about a political solar energy initiative here should expect to get answers drawn from the imagination of our resident right-wing nit-wits. A quick google picked upt these initiatives http://solar.coolerplanet.com/News/8110902-fremont-california-school-district-eyes-solar-panels.aspx http://www.chevronenergy.com/case_studies/sjusd.asp which do seem to involve expenditure of the order of $120M. At the moment solar energy is only cost-effective if you figure in the uncosted consequences of the CO2 emissions associated with fossil fueled energy generation. Political initiatives that subsidise solar energy generation are designed to fill in that gap, and often a bit more beside, since increasing the market for solar energy installations helps the economies of scale, which are currently expected to make solar power competitive with fossil-fuel generation around 2015, though this rather depends on the way the demand for oil and natural gas influences fossil-fuel prices over the next few years http://www.wikinvest.com/industry/Solar_Power The German government subsidised solar gneration in ?Germany a few years ago - with success - and is now ramping down subsidies originally designed to encourage the purchase of solar generating plant produced on a much smaller scale (and rather more expensively) than it is at the moment. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: MooseFET on 31 May 2010 10:33
On May 31, 4:02 am, "amdx" <a...(a)knology.net> wrote: > Yesterday I heard a radio story about the California School district > spending $120 million to put solar energy in/on schools. > I did a Google search and can't find any info. > The numbers I heard didn't seem cost effective, > so I'm curious. > Anybody know more about it? > Mike California is a very sunny place. In a lot of it, just a little gain from some solar heat can save you from having to turn on the furnace. Since schools are generally large buildings, the volume to surface area is large so the solar heating system doesn't have to be all that big per student. Solar electric can make sense if you sell the excess power into the grid. Storage makes it not make sense. It takes about 12 years for a solar power system to pay for its self assuming you get a mortgage to buy it. If you have cash today, it makes a good way to invest for the future because after the system has paid its self off, you will get several year of use before it needs to be replaced. |