How can we make solar energy and other sources of renewable energy cheaper to make and maintain?

Question

How can we make solar energy and other sources of renewable energy cheaper to make and maintain?

Answer 1

I believe that solar energy will go the way of the computer, vcr, plasma t.v.s and other inventions.  All of these components were expensive in the beginning, but with mass production prices came down.

Answer 2

one of the main reasons fossil fuels are 'cheap' is because the government uses tax dollars collected from workers to subsidize the oil industry.  

while most corporations pay taxes at a 17% bracket, oil companies pay at 11% - that's a huge savings when you're talking about billions of dollars in sales of oil and oil-related products (gasoline, pesticides, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc).

also the federal department of energy - also funded by tax dollars - does a lot of the research that is then provided to the public - including the oil companies - without charge; again a tremendous savings.

finally, the u.s.army corps of engineers - again with the tax dollars! - designs and oversees construction of a lot of the design and construction of the ports, pipelines and other access and supply infrastructures that the oil companies use to bring their products to the marketplace for sale.

if you want to see cheaper alternative sources like solar, wind or tidal, it would help for them to be able to compete on an equal basis with the oil industry and that would mean shifting some of the existing government subsidies to them.

the other way is for investors to realize the potential of alternatives and for consumers to start supporting them by purchasing products that do not rely on so heavily fossil fuels for manufacture and operation.

Answer 3

There are a lot of people working on that problem right now. I live near the Silicon Valley and there are a bunch of new companies that have started in the last few years to bring to market new solar technologies that will be cheaper that our current products.

One very important type of solar power that is not as widely used as it could be is Passive Solar Heating. This means that a house is designed to get most of its heating from sunlight. To work well the house must be facing the right direction to catch sunlight and must be shaped and have windows in the right places. Insulation is also very important to it working well. Clearly with a preexisting house it may not be practical to make these kinds of changes.

However if a new house is designed and built to use passive solar heating it can add little or no cost to the house and yet you can have a house that will largely heat it self using just the sun. Passive solar heating takes a little extra effort in the design stage and requires that houses be oriented correctly with respect to the sun and most builders and architects do not know much about this.

It might be a good idea to have building regulations that require new construction to make use of passive solar heating. Those requirements would encourage builders to learn about passive solar and to use it. That would allow us to greatly reduce the amount of new heating energy demand for new houses and would cost almost nothing.

Answer 4

The cheaper and u will be right back to fossil fuel . I would teach u that the fossil fuel is not from fossil but from trees and other plants. They have found some of the most beautiful fossils in COAL . All the fossil fuels are being renewed continuously.