From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: SOLAR efficiency
Date: 15 Sep 92 15:46:06 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Sep14.232611.26187@csi.jpl.nasa.gov> eldred@rrunner.jpl.nasa.gov (Dan Eldred) writes:
>
>2.  Solar cells are indeed cost-inefficient to make at present, but
>apparently only due to labor-intensive manufacturing methods.  There
>are no fundamentally expensive processes involved.  In particular, the
>heat required to melt the silicon can be recycled in an efficient
>manufacturing plant.  Mass production has a wonderful way of reducing
>the cost of products to the point where packaging, advertising and
>distribution become the dominent costs.

While better manufacturing methods are no doubt possible, the semiconductor
industry is already highly automated. Most of the labor is in packaging.

>3.  Who cares if solar power is inefficient if it is free?

Inefficiency is never free.

>4.  The country with cheap energy has a competitive advantage in the
>world.  

See Japan or Europe where high energy costs don't make them uncompetitive. 
I agree in spirit with this claim that cheap energy aids competitive
position, but it isn't totally a black and white situation.

>5.  The CCC helped to pull the country out of depression in the 30's.
>In the meanwhile, the country got a terrific network of highways and
>hydroelectric plants which we all still benefit from.

Go study depression era economic data again. The US depression was
deeper in 1940 than in 1932. It was WWII that pulled the US economy
out of the Great Depression. Government programs like CCC may have
actually *retarded* a normal economic recovery. For sure they started
the US down the road to a trillion dollar debt as ponzi schemes like
Social Security have cascaded into the present.

>I propose a similar program to manufacture solar cells and plaster
>every roof in the sun belt with them, both to provide jobs and to promote
>this country's future.  It would require strong government support in
>terms of tax incentives and outright subsidies, because
>industry wouldn't support it (sunlight is free; the technology is public
>domain; so it's impossible to maintain a monopoly).  Indeed, it would
>even take some arm twisting to get government to support it since they
>would lose tax revenue.

Several points. First, the US economy now employs more people than at
any time in US history. Using jobs as a welfare program has never worked.
Only jobs that return an economic benefit higher than their cost are
of benefit to the nation. No government jobs program has ever met this
criteria. Spending government money (IE your money and my money) on an
energy source more expensive than other available alternatives is unwise
and unsound. The loss of capital to the nation means that every other
user of capital will see increased costs. This cascades through the
entire economy costing jobs and competitiveness. Finally, the technology
as monopoly argument is bogus. Name one major manufactured product in
the US that depends on monopoly technology.  Businesses make money by
delivering products to people at a price that is more than the cost
of production. The difference is called profit. Monopoly is not required
to produce a profit. If it were, the oil companies would all be broke
since the technologies for digging wells and refining oil are well known
and mostly in the public domain.

>6.  Plus all the usual benefits of solar energy--reduced pollutants,
>no global warming gasses, etc.

Solar power, at least at the small scales at which it has been tested, 
does indeed reduce some pollutants over the use of fossil energy. 
However, the horseless carriage was hailed at the turn of the century
as the salvation of the city because of reduced pollution versus the
horses then in use. We can't be sure that large areas of solar collectors 
won't have some adverse effect on the environment in the future. (I am not 
seriously proposing that this is true, but it is a possibility that must 
be considered.)

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.energy