FOX News Talking Out Of Their You-Know-What On Solar Energy

FOX News broadcast another one of their ridiculous hit pieces on solar power recently.

The dialogue was the usual mindless banter you can expect from these "fair & balanced" trolls: government spending blah blah = Solyndra yaddi yadda = solar power not feasible hurr durr...



But what made this segment particularly exceptional was the level of straight up ignorant bullsh** they tried to pass off as some sort of matter-of-fact reality. (Reality is of course not a subject Faux is very well adjusted to, but it never ceases to amaze me the crap they get away with when they publicly butcher it anyway).

Basically during their PV poo-poo fest someone must've gone off script, because they made the mistake of asking how Germany has managed to actually be so successful with their solar power generation.

The response was that Germany has "got A LOT more Sun than we do" - which is total utter NONSENSE.

As you can see from the map below, the entire lower 48, even the Pacific Northwest, has a better solar potential than Germany, whose capacity for sunlight is more on par with Alaska.



Source

The reason Germany has been so successful meanwhile is simply because they have way better and more aggressive public policies - setting strict targets and featuring strong feed-in tariffs to get them there.

Here is a good article that sums up Germany's success and unintentionally explains why FOX News is so desperate to derail clean energy in the U.S.

Germany Has Built Clean Energy Economy U.S. Rejected in 80s

This is the paragraph that really tells you all you need to know:

Twenty-five percent of Germany's electricity now comes from solar, wind and biomass. A third of the world's installed solar capacity is found in Germany, a nation that gets roughly the same amount of sunlight as Alaska. A whopping 65 percent of the country's total renewable power capacity is now owned by individuals, cooperatives and communities, leaving Germany's once all-powerful utilities with just a sliver (6.5 percent) of this burgeoning sector.

Yeah - FOX News is all about smaller government + personal liberty and freedom - as long as you still have to buy that freedom from Edison Electric and ExxonMobil.

I fully expect that America has more than enough sun to make solar power successful.

I live in Birmingham in the UK, it's very rarely sunny and even in the summer it's fleeting sun yet my small solar panels on the roof produce enough for almost half the year to power my house and sell some energy back to the electricity companies. Some of the rest of the year I make enough to power part of my home.

The government in the UK were pushing it big time and were offering subsidies before cut-backs.

reply to post by b14warrior


Yup absolutely.

I wrote about it in this ATS post ages ago -

If the U.S. simply covered all their parking lots with 15% efficiency PV panels - they would cover their entire electricity needs. Obviously that's a bit of an idealistic example, but it really tells you just how much potential there is

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c1491c417134.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c0100f208564.jpg[/atsimg]

It is my opinion that that particular segment of Fox & Friends would've been more effective if they had just chanted, "frack, baby, frack" the entire time. Solar and wind are much safer and less expensive, in the long run, than natural gas or "clean" coal.

Perhaps if the two sides of the environmental movement and special interest groups could at least meet half way, among themselves for awhile, the rest of the nation could look at supporting the whole idea. Right now though? Those who mean well (perhaps) are their own worst enemies to ever seeing this happen.

Land conversion for solar plant leads to lawsuit

and another example...

Calif. tosses out solar power plant lawsuit
The Sierra Club sought to delay construction of a solar plant that might harm rare plant and animal species, but the state supreme court threw the suit out.

Source

It's one of those things that has been plain maddening to follow over the years. Even the open deserts where plates on a pole over sand, as it amounts to, would do the least damage? There's a tortoise out there somewhere...or maybe there isn't. The very possibility shuts even that kind of location down.

Wind power? Outstanding idea. Vast swaths of the center of the nation would work well. Wind was the bane of my existence in some states almost year around as a trucker. However, birds fly into them like flies into a house fan or something and they get sued too.

I'm wondering, do companies in Germany get sued at least a few different ways before every getting anything done? Perhaps that's the difference.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


The whole green energy business is going up in flames. There's no real monopoly or money to be made it seems so nobody with any clout is interested in being the pioneer.

Germany does wonderful things with solar, I wish they would export those politics.

Remember that nonsense story from Nevada a few years ago?

They wanted to build a 1 mile solar array that would help power like half the state and would pay for itself in less than a decade and it got turned down.

Harry Reid said it would ruin the look of the desert and that was his primary reason for shutting down the project.

Can you believe that?!

~Tenth

reply to post by BishopNGreen


Let me add to my previous post. The recent advances in nanotech that are being applied to solar technology will effectively double the efficiency of p.v. cells. This will make solar "farms" less invasive and keep Congressman Reid's desert from being overrun by money-saving, environmentally friendly energy sources. How much campaign contributions does he receive from the oil industry, btw?

Well if it's on Fox most viewers won't know where Germany is anyway, so that little nonsense comment would've flown over the heads of many.

FOX news.
Yep,enough said there.
And the rest of them .
Solar is the way to go and all those that make money off of the rest of us poor souls don't like it one bit.

Fun little place to go play.........

cleantechnica.com...

Originally posted by BishopNGreen
reply to post by BishopNGreen

 

Let me add to my previous post. The recent advances in nanotech that are being applied to solar technology will effectively double the efficiency of p.v. cells. This will make solar "farms" less invasive and keep Congressman Reid's desert from being overrun by money-saving, environmentally friendly energy sources. How much campaign contributions does he receive from the oil industry, btw?

edit on 2/7/2013 by BishopNGreen because: completed my thought...

great we'll be waiting. until then, who cares!
the last thing i want to pay for right now, is someones solar array 2000 miles away.

and germany is successful with solar only through coercion, and taxation.

is that how you democrats plan to stimulate the economy? coercion,and taxation?
oh, wait.
tried and failed.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I don't believe Germany has the same sort of lawsuits, no. Wind turbines kill hundreds of thousands of birds a year, but apparently house cats kill hundreds of MILLIONS of them. Meanwhile you won't be endangering any turtles if you just put up panels over parking lots as I suggest above. But suing everyone and everything seems to be the nature of the U.S. - you probably know yourself from being a trucker - I've traveled a fair bit of America's highways myself and all I ever see are towering billboards for fireworks, porn, and lawyers. (yeeehaw!)


Anyway, being a conspiracy theorist, and a cynic, I think the obvious problem is that there is a very calculated and deliberate campaign to keep renewable energy from taking a hold.

The technology is here, but the infrastructure isn't. It's a bit of a Catch-22 as well: Nobody with the money to invest in it really wants to because without the infrastructure it just can't compete. Meanwhile the old infrastructure is part of the establishment that makes all it's money keeping America addicted to coal and gas.

They'd obviously much rather prefer to keep their OILgarchy going than invest in our freedom from it.

And...........
This is were they get you.
Imagine ,leasing out solar tech for a small monthly fee.LOL

The new program will provide financing for $100 million of residential systems, expanding leasing options in nine states. Both SunPower and U.S. Bancorp invested in the program, their first renewable energy partnership. "The SunPower Lease program offers homeowners an unprecedented level of assurance that is vitally important when a homeowner enters into a long-term lease agreement," said SunPower CFO Chuck Boynton. "We are proud to partner with U.S. Bancorp and applaud its commitment to promoting the use of solar power." The SunPower Lease is now available in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont. In addition to low monthly payments with zero down, the program includes the only direct-from-manufacturer performance guarantee. "SunPower is the leading manufacturer of rooftop solar power systems in the U.S. because our customers know they can rely on high-efficiency SunPower technology to maximize the power generated on their roof - and their monthly savings," said Howard Wenger, SunPower president, regions. "Our popular lease program allows customers to have the best solar for zero down."

The best solar for zero down.

www.solardaily.com...

reply to post by tothetenthpower
Yeah, it is insane. I'm among those who really does think Solar could be a good % of National power generation and fairly quickly in terms of years too. After all, there are such vast western desert areas that are entirely un-populated and barren. Nevada is a primary example but so are large areas of Utah and Arizona.

California is just made for success if they'd just get something done. They sit on an ocean to make the Saudi's look weak in a world class desalination system, if only anyone could realistically build one there. The deserts could hold dozens of solar plants to really give the Western grid a support level of production and shut down some of the older tech, over time and in a sane way.

Instead, I swear NIMBY has become BANANA. Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

Nice to see the fox bashing continue, typical low information liberal blabber... what these people are unsucessfully trying to get across to the single sided CDs of this planet is the complete and utter FAILURE of the solar business in the US. Yes, really, the BILLIONS of wasted and pocketed taxpayer dollars that were fronted to these special interest crooks by the government theives, solyndra( if spelled correctly) hemlock, with tons of government subsities, and others were closed, and where is the outcry from the public? Are you foolish enough to think that is the end of it?, All of the unaccounted for TARP funds and the second program that we were fooled into thinking was for the economy and what are the results? we are in the same if not worse shape after these re-elected crooks spent upwards of a few Trillion of money we do NOT have, and you call Fox the fools? get a clue, drop the kool-aid and open your eyes, you are being played a perfect fool and you seem fine with that. Now the Chinese are in hyper drive on solar panel manufacturing, sure we could use the panels everywhere in the US, with the jobs that go along with that, but our taxpayer Billions went for nothing but padding special peoples pockets and the chicoms are taking the market and running with it. thanks green lobbyist, your program worked well for america. Get this, Republicans are not anti- green, just anti- wrong way to do this. Put it this way, If solar energy is so great and marketable, EVERY large company would be fighting for the making and marketing of these panels, PRIVATE companies, not forced special interest taxpayer billions.

Solar is a joke its provides like 0.1% of all our energy needs but it does take 3/4 of ounce of Silver to produce 1 Solar panel which I am a big fan of.

Where are we going to get all that Silver - simple answer is we are not ! There is not enough Silver in the world to get this puppy off the ground - just lip service. It would crash the paper Silver market to ramp up Solar as some people dream of - never going to happen.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Can't disagree.

The good side of geothermal energy is also very high load factor. Load factor refers to the difference between how much the generator is designed to produce and how much it actually produces. The smaller the difference, the higher the load factor. The load factor of conventional power plants is in average around 50%, while wind farms have the load factor of around 30-40%. Geothermal power plants, on the other hand, have load factor close to 90% because harnessing geothermal energy is impervious to weather conditions.

There was a report a few years ago that I'm having trouble finding at the moment, but it discussed how a few geothermal generators at yellow stone could help provide 30 to 40 percent of America's energy requirement.

There's so much in terms of viability studies and advanced technologies, that it's insane that we haven't yet taken a serious look at renewable.

~Tenth

Desalination no panacea for Calif. water woes

MARINA, Calif. (AP) — In the Central California coastal town of Marina, a $7 million desalination plant that can turn salty ocean waves into fresh drinking water sits idle behind rusty, locked doors, shuttered by water officials because rising energy costs made the plant too expensive. Far to the north in well-heeled Marin County, plans were scrapped for a desalination facility despite two decades of planning and millions of dollars spent on a pilot plant.

So much for salt-water.

As for solar, what type of panels are you suggesting OP? You never said which type just the generic PV.
Cadmium?
Copper Indium?
Gallium Arsenide?
Polymer?

Put these over EVERY parking lot? In Arizona alone we average 600,000 lightning strikes PER YEAR, Care to take a guess to what happens to those solar panels when they are struck by lightning? You might not want to be down wind when one of these is burning, just sayin.

By the way, where are we going to get all the rare earth elements that these solar panels are made of, it has to be mined from somewhere? Not to mention that the best rated panels start to lose 10% or more productivity in the first 10 years. There is a reason for solar not being used on a large scale, it's too expensive. Maybe in 100 years someone will invent a better way but right now, no.

If you really want to see some hilarious stuff we could show some clips of what Al Sharpton does on MSNBC.

Or would that kind of derail your rant against FOX?

Wow, I can't believe they actually said that.
That's a new low in stupidity from Fox News, or any news network for that matter.
The bar has been set.

reply to post by Carreau


Innovation at work! Here is a link discussing the new products on the horizon: Cheaper solar panels on the way, say scientists. That article discusses the replacement of rare earth elements with common, cheap ones.

This article link discusses innovation also but from a slightly different angle: 5 breakthroughs that will make solar power cheaper than coal

Some of us are hopeful that within a decade, we can be on par with Germany and their astounding 25% rate.