What are some positive and negative economic or environmental consequences of solar energy short or long term?

Question

What are some positive and negative economic or environmental consequences of solar energy short or long term?

Answer 1

One of the most important negative issues regarding solar is the lack of public knowledge about the current status of solar. A second negative is that there is a high up front cost for purchase and installation. A third negative is that the main components of the solar panels has been a limiting factor. A fourth negative is that the current producers of electric energy are not eager to give up their big profits. A fifth negative is that solar manufacturers do not yet have large expendable financial resources to buy political clout. The oil industry seems to toy with solar investors, driving oil prices high, teasing investors to buy solar, then drop oil prices, causing solar companies to go broke. Once the investment money is gone, it can take a long time to recover. Once an investor loses on their solar investment, they are much less likely to invest again. Maybe the scariest of the negatives is that so many people have again fallen prey to the belief that nuclear can save us and is clean and safe. Uh huh!

The first positive fact about solar is that a lot of companies are finally starting to see that solar, even without the subsidies that all other energy companies have enjoyed is catching on. Google, for example is really making an extreme effort to use it at their own buildings. The second positive fact is that while the cost of purchase and installation has a higher up front cost, nothing has to be purchased again and after 5-10 years the panels will be paid off and from that time forward, there will be no energy cost increases and any electricity produced will get a refund from the power company. It appears also that photovoltaic solar units are on the verge of a major decrease in costs and may soon be favorably or similarly competetive with current energy sources. A third positive feature of solar is that there is absolutely no waste produced. When panels reach their end of life, they can be safely recycled. There is no soot, no radioactive waste, no carbon dioxide, no fear of oil embargos, just cash in your pocket year after year.

Answer 2

Solar is cheaper than oil if you add the price of war in the mideast, pollution, our dependence on foreign oil and all the ramifications from those problems to the price of a barrel of oil.  Anything else is dishonest.

And solar photovoltaics will be able to produce electricity as cheap as fossil fuels in the near future.  For now we should subsidize solar.  We are subsidizing oil at 10s of billions of dollars a year. Which makes more sense to you?  Exxon just reported over $40billion 2007 profits.

Photovoltaic or PV solar panels are not the only form of solar.  Power plants using concentrating

PV and Solar Thermal power plants that concentrate the sun to boil water and drive a steam powered generator are completely feasable right now.  

As one company, Ausra says at their website:

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

A plan to convert the U.S. electric grid to nearly 100% solar by 2100 and 65% by 2050 is at this link to Scientific American

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

Solar thermal plants totalling up to 2.6 gigawatts are either being built or are proposed for California.  You can read about them at the Green Wombat website