Solar Power: Cheap and Green?

Image via WikipediaMy commute to and from work each day is at least an hour each way.  On Friday and Saturday nights, I deliver pizzas.  On average, I probably spend about 20 hours a week in my car with the radio on.  During that time, I get to hear a lot of radio commercials.

One commercial that I have heard frequently that caught my attention was one from a company called Solar City.  They are a company that offers to install solar panels to your home or business.  The commercial advertises that they will help you save on your electricity bill with as little as zero down with their solar lease.

Let me restate here my position on anthropomorphic global warming.  I believe that the vast majority of climate change occurs as a natural phenomenon.  Any man made contribution to that change is miniscule.  Attempts to try to reverse climate change would be unnecessarily expensive and essentially futile.

That being said, I do believe that conserving our natural resources is a good thing, providing that the effort to do so is not too expensive or overly inconvenient. Take for example CFL light bulbs. Due to the mercury in them they create a potential hazard if thrown in the garbage, however, I would guess that most people do just that.  Plus they are a lot more expensive than incandescent bulbs.

Anyway, back to Solar City.  On their website, they have a solar calculator so you can see how much money you could save on your electric bill by having one of their systems installed.  You input your address and info on your home, and they give you four different scenarios.  Since I am all for saving a little cash, and not averse to conservation, I decided to check them out.

If I went with their zero down option, my monthly bill (combined electric bill and lease) would go up $33 per month and my total expense over 20 years go up nearly $11000.  The next option would be to put a $3600 down payment on a system.  My total monthly bill would still go up in the near term.  Assuming that electricity rates rise according to the scenario of their calculator, I would not start saving on my electric bill five or six years.

They also offer a scenario of putting down $11000 or purchasing a system outright for $24000.  If I purchased a system outright, my electric bill would go down about $70 per month, but it would take nearly 30 years for me to recoup my initial investment.  Since I look at things from a cost vs value perspective, none of their programs would be for me.

Solar energy is often touted as being good for the environment.  Once the panels are installed, that would definitely be the case.  However, the manufacture and disposal of solar panels is another matter entirely.  They are manufactured with toxic heavy metals and gases, some of which are carcinogenic and poisonous.  Their lifespan is usually 20-30 years, and once they are no longer operable would need to be disposed of in special toxic waste dumps.  So much for green.

I actually used the Solar City calculator a couple months ago.  At that time, the calculator said that I would save about $15 per month under the zero down scenario.  I guess that since then, the various tax incentives that were available at that time had expired because the calculator did not show any savings for those incentives as it did the first time I checked them out. 

   

Green M&M's

I have been an opponent of legislative efforts of restricting carbon emissions.  I firmly believe that the vast majority of climate change is naturally occurring.  Efforts to legislate emissions through cap and trade programs will only hurt our economy and raise costs of energy and other goods.  This will negatively impact the vast majority of Americans with the poor and middle classes hurt the most.

That is not to say that I am opposed to the goal of obtaining clean energy like wind and solar power.  I just think that there are better ways to achieve those goals of switching to cleaner energy.  Voluntary efforts should be encouraged and rewarded.  That is why I thought it was pretty cool to read a story about how the Mars corporation has unveiled an 18 acre solar garden to provide energy for their plant in Hackensack, NJ.

I think that Mars should be commended for making this investment.  They should get a lot of corporate goodwill from their actions.  For those folks who make this an important part of their lifestyle, they should reward companies like Mars with their business.

The one negative that I would take from the story though is that the 18 acres of solar panels only provide enough electricity to cover 20% of the plant's power needs.  To me, that just seems like an awful lot of land use to provide a relatively small amount of electricity.  By comparison, I found a document on the US Minerals Management Service website that stated that 1/30th of the power generated by a nuclear power plant on only 12 acres of land would power a city of 100,000 for a year.  Seems like a lot more bang for the buck.

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